Sean Kingston - "Beautiful Girl"
Went up to the Bay Area about a month ago, and drove home my aunt's El Camino. Well, my El Camino, now. Anyhoo... AM/FM radio, no AC, and I'm on 5 south in the middle of an 85-degree day. I listened to Central Valley pop radio for about four hours, and heard this song about three times. And I liked it every time. Ben E. King and the vocoder (or maybe just heavy pitch correction) on the assist with this one. All hit songs should be this pleasant and charming.
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posted by Jesse Thorn at Thursday, June 28, 2007
6 Comments:
"Stand By Me" for the assist!
Really nice use of it, though.
Catchy, pleasant and charming with that infectious beat, and a topic that everyone can relate to, what else could you ask from a hit song? I like the song as well I wonder what it might sound like without all the “heavy pitch correction” and a great voice belting out the tunes.
I kind of hate the idea of the pitch correction shit - I believe it's called Auto-Tune. However, when it's used heavily enough to notice it, it's actually pleasant. (Vocalists use Auto-Tune much more than I like to think about.) Also, I was dubious when I heard the sample of "Stand by Me" but somehow it all works. Nice summertime tune!
The Auto-tune, if that's what it is (it could be a different effect), is clearly used on purpose here. It's certainly a lot more pleasant than on those T-Pain records.
The "auto-tune" or quantizing effect kind of bugs me in songs like this, as opposed to something more expressly electronic (say, the Cher song that made it popular), because this song falls somewhere in the realm of the "soul" category (partially because of the sample that it's built on, but also because of the tone of the song that was built up and the content within).
The human voice, and all it's flaws, is, in music, a fairly direct link to the emotions of the person using it. It seems to me that the best performers use their voice in spite of their limitations, forcing their vocal ability to overcome, showing their dedication, their soul. "I'm gonna keep on raising my voice until I'm at my limit! I'm gonna be real hoarse later on! That's how much I care! You know it baby! You know it!" When you use a quantization method to strip out those limitations, it's more like: "Hey baby! I love you so much that I got a machine to express my feelings instead! I can kick back and not try as hard. I'm gonna sit on this couch and get a massage. Ain't that great, baby?"
That being said, it's a cool effect that has it's place, and it's not as bad here as it's been in other songs (as Jesse said, it's being used in an obvious way and not sneakily), but I'd still rather hear the dude's voice clean. As it is, I'm just not sure I believe that he reaaaally thinks these girls are all that pretty.
I just watched the TRL live performance of this song and WTF!!! what a dissapointment. Kid was off key, has zero stage presence and sounded like an 8 y/o... thank goodness he's got a nice rich family member who can fix him up in the records and still allows him to make money. Sad sad sad. (TueJul3112.25PM Central)
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