“Call Me Maybe”: Like on the phone?

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:30:00 +0000

What’s most remarkable about “Call Me Maybe,” this year’s summer anthem, isn’t that a vapid song with a relentless, catchy hook was inescapable. That happens every summer. It’s been a long time, though, since there was a summer jam about getting a phone call.

Nobody calls anybody anymore, at least according to The New York Times. Text messages, IMs, Facebook and, for Luddites, e-mail now dominate how we communicate. “Phone calls are rude,” the Times tells us, and an intrusion, especially for a generation that barely remembers when telephones had cords.

And yet Carly Rae Jepsen wasn’t the only pop singer looking to reach out and touch someone.

In Justin Bieber’s new video for “As Long As You Love Me,” just before he gets a thrashing from the disapproving father of his girlfriend, Bieber is shown calling his jailbait sweetie from a bank of payphones. Talk about an anachronism: Bieber, 18, has grown up in the age of cellphones. In fact, it’s entirely possible that he had never actually used a payphone before shooting that video. After all, their number has declined so precipitously in the United States – from 2 million in 2000 to fewer than 500,000 now, according to an industry trade group – that it’s getting harder to even find one outside of, say, the airport or bus station.

Let’s take Adam Levine seriously

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:11:00 +0000

Of the four judges or celebrity contestants or coaches -- or whatever you call them -- on “The Voice,” Adam Levine is the worst vocalist. Blake Shelton’s voice is sturdy and dependable like an old pickup truck. Christina Aguilera has strong, ostentatious pipes. And Cee Lo Green has proved his vocal chops on solo albums like “Cee Lo Green… Is the Soul Machine” and even the weirdly overlooked “The Lady Killer.”

But Levine, who also fronts Maroon 5 -- so he represents “rock” on "The Voice," which returns tonight on NBC -- doesn’t possess a whole lot of physical or interpretive range. He tends to linger in the mid-range, although on slower songs he does try to hit higher notes, which only reveals his limitations. Lately, he has been favoring AutoTune, but to his credit, that’s more an interesting aesthetic device than a shortcut corrective measure.

Salon.com > Maroon 5

“Call Me Maybe”: Like on the phone?

Let’s take Adam Levine seriously