Jay-Z the pimp

From Nov. 20, voice recording #108:
Black Eyed Peas, "Pump It", 2000. I think that was the year, and not the score. I don't really know this song, but I doubt I would have given it a score that high. I'll have to hear it again to assign a number.
Matt Nathanson, "Come on Get Higher", '08. 4,750. That seems to be a score I often give to songs that aren't very good.
Jay-Z/UGK (pretty much initials), "Big Pimpin" from 2000. I really rating this one low, and that's partly hindsight. To look at Jay-Z now, he's about the farthest thing from a pimp or a gangsta, and he probably wasn't much closer at the time he was doing this music. It comes across as really disingenuous, hollow and exploitative of African Americans, glorifying the pimp/ho lifestyle. It seems insincere. Jay-Z probably has a career as a politician ahead of him. 4,999. There might be something worse.
Cobra Starship/Leighton Meester, "Good Girls Go Bad". I believe it's from '09. I need to know more about Cobra Starship to know what this is about. It might be one of those where they're both trying to cross over; Cobra Starship to get some white hip-hop fans -- if they are a hip hop group -- and Leighton Meester to get some African American fans by crossing over from white girl land. I checked this and found that the Starship has been flying under my radar for 7 years. It's a dance-pop band with Anglo and Latino members, and on the fringes of a number of music genres, including music for "Snakes on a Plane," covers and parodies. 4,700.
Franz Ferdinand, something from '04. I quickly lost interest in it. 4,725.
Avril Lavigne, "I'm with You", '03. 4,550, not one of her best.
Somebody I forget, Ludacris and Lil Jon, I forget the name even. It just got so repetitive at the end. I think I rated it the other night, and I'm guessing it was somewhere around 4,500, maybe a little higher. It is better than the rest of the crap I've been listening to tonight.
Christina Aguilera, "I Turn to You", I think 2000. 4,600, pretty standard ballad
Jennifer Lopez/ Ja Rule, not sure of the name -- something about real? -- and the year wasn't included on the display. 4,475. I think "real" might be in the title because I recorded this comment: "At least one of them is real and spectacular." Or should I have said at least two of them?
All-American Rejects, "Dirty Little Secret", '05. 4,400. A lot of these are within the same range. I reserve the right to go back and move one ahead of another as I finalize my list.
Justin Timberlake, "Senorita", '03, I believe. This is a case where maybe he's trying to expand his market to Latinos. One clever, but simple, thing he did was to have the boys sing, and then the girls sing. You don't see that much. That probably raises it up to 4,600.
Ashlee Simpson, "Pieces of Me". It's sung like "Pie-ces, pie-ces, pie-ces of me." '04. I don't believe she's lip-synching in this one. I do believe that Ashlee was more talented than her sister Jessica, but Ashlee's career came crashing down because of lip-synching. 4,350. It seemed in this that she was trying to channel someone like Sheryl Crow or Liz Phair, which isn't a bad thing.
Nelly, "Hot in Here", '02. It seems that his seduction technique is turning up the thermostat. 4,600.
Bon Jovi, "It's My Life, I think '01. 3,850.
Britney Spears, "Circus", '08, 4,150. It was definitely better than that Ashlee Simpson song.
Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg, "Next Episode" from 2000. Nothing great about it, but I do believe Snoop is a showman and entertainer. He gets some extra points for that, so 4,400. This is probably the kind of music those in Ray Rice's generation listened to. I'm not saying that Dr. Dre is responsible for anything Rice might have done, but things we see in movies and hear on the radio do influence us. When I was a kid, you would see in movies that every time a guy made a pass at a woman, she would slap him, and on occasion he'd slap her back. We saw smoking in those old movies. Hey, we saw smoking from our parents. So it's not that the movies caused everything, but they are influences. My understanding of how to be with a girl came from movies and TV. You'd see some kissing, holding hands and cuddling, and that was about it. So I never thought to go any farther than that until finally I came to a time and a place for everything, and it's called college. (credit to Chef/the late Isaac Hayes)
Our Lady Peace, "Somewhere Out There", '02. 4,550.
Dido, "Thank You", I think it was '01. She sings well; there was a beat in the song. So I'll go 4,500.
Linkin Park, "What I've Done", '07. 4,350.
Natasha Bedingfield, "Pocket Full of Sunshine", '08. She has a strong voice and she sang a lot of notes in this one. 4,000.