(Single from album, "Strange Clouds")
This is unbeatably (if not the, then one of) the worst song(s) of the year just passed...
Maybe it's understandable that an 'artist' with a repertoire such as B.o.B's might release a boring, unsophisticated, excruciatingly badly written, awfully pronounced and terribly overly-attitudinal rap song. But how onGod's Earth did Taylor Swift managed to get roped into this, and then not run screaming from the very prospect of musical involvement with the infamously crappy and mainstream Bobby Rae? This is the very reason that "Both Of Us" hits this year's #1 spot on my list of shoddy efforts and appalling musical outputs; it's one thing hearing a dumbed down pop song desecrated all over with a bad rap, but to then, to ruin a perfect piece of guitar composition, and juxtapose a country singer's voice with fat beats and synthesisers...well, its truly unforgivable...
So, just for the benefit of the doubt, lets break this down.
The song opens with a beautiful, and exquisitely intricate guitar picking section from Swift, whose classic double vocal layering production trait, carries her voice perfectly, amplifying the atmosphere of tragedy and regret as instigated by the jaundiced lyrical refrain, no doubt, her own. Then, out of nowhere, like the sound of a million screams, the tone drops out and there is a sonic dip as the wave of electronic sound hits the listener, and B.o.B's vocal makes a grand entrance following his first sound, a chauvinistic and overtly sexual moan - 'ugh'.
The electronic sounds themselves aren't that bad, but you can't help escaping the notion that in the background, that beautiful guitar melody is being drowned out against its own will. This becomes evident when, at 1:24, the opening refrain returns, shrouded in atmospheric synthetic glisten, but with the original, solo instrumentation just audible. As Swift's sounds are totally strangled once again upon return to the verse section, this intensely annoying 'ooh-ooh' backing vocal resonates every other second, and, though it is presumably Swift's voice with added effects, it sounds of tune and just horrid. By the time we hear from the co-pilot again, she's completely backed by keyboards and the vocal extension of the chorus is marred horribly by the addition of more electronic layers as the seconds pass.
Ok, so we can see the injustice against Swift here, but what is it exactly about Rae's vocals which kill the song so completely? Well, in case you're wondering, especially given the past songs reviewed on this blog, it isn't my anti-rap bias talking here, but my hatred of commercial music without any positive aspects or intelligent delivery, which, sadly, is a majority of it. Most of the time, you can let it slip, because, hey - if the kids like it, what the hell...but this time, no. B.o.B's rap is suitably moronic; it's not like the hip-hop electro funk of the Bronx in 1983, or the ventures in melodic rap as frequently demonstrated by Grandmaster Flash and the Knights of the Turntables in the later 1980s - no, it's just brainless. The rhyming structure is tremendously bad, and the phrasing is terrible, sometimes squeezing in words in a totally changed tone of voice or, instead, unjustified use of unintelligible slang in a rushed effort to squeeze all the letters into one line. The genius of British pop artists like Dave Gahan of Deoeche Mode, Morrissey and even Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, is the chosen style of vocal phrasing, so when a simply fast-talking American makes a record like this, a lack of talent is an easy thing to spot...
So there you have it, the worst song of this year; can you think of a more extreme one? Then post it in the comments section below - I defy you, the reader, to find something this bad floating around out there unnoticed. Let's just hope B.o.B reads this, has an epiphany, goes to rap rehab, gets treated by indie musicians, and becomes sane, and that on her arrival at Texas musicians' heaven, Taylor Swift is forgiven her sins for this horrible, and best forgotten musical moment from earlier this year...ugh...
★
Versions of “Both Of Us”
Album/Single Version - 3:36