Why am I so out of the loop with popular music?
November 27, 2009 10:01 AM   Subscribe

Two part question: 1) What modern pop/hip-hop song has a very danceable beat and the word "melody" in it? It reminds me of "Down" by Jay Sean, but I don't think that's it. 2) How can I keep up to date on all these guilty-pleasure hip-hop singles?

For part one, I think it's a pretty popular song? I have no idea. I hear it all the time at a shop near the college campus I live on. It's a guy singing (pretty sure, again), and has a real happy beat to it.

For part two: I'm quite the indie-hipster kid, and TV On The Radio and Sonic Youth get regular plays on my iPod. But I hear songs like "Down" by Jay Sean and other similar songs and rather enjoy listening to them when doing work late at night. Are there any blogs that keep up with this stuff? Like, upbeat, danceable, hip-hop music that's not too dirty? Doesn't need to be "clean", just needs to not distract me from working. My usual channels for finding new music are the usual indie-kid sources.

Yeah, I have no shame.
posted by Precision to Media & Arts (15 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Part 1:
Sean Kingston - Replay
The first line of the chorus is "Shawty's like a melody in my head".
posted by rancidchickn at 10:22 AM on November 27, 2009


Best answer: IYAZ Replay

As for finding new pop music, look up the websites of your local radio stations - they'll have playlists and links to videos. It can't be too explicit if it's getting airplay.
posted by desjardins at 10:26 AM on November 27, 2009


2. This is how we used to do it in the old days:
a) Find a radio station that plays the kind of music you like.
b) Listen to it.
posted by yawper at 10:27 AM on November 27, 2009 [1 favorite]


Here are some suggestions in a similar thread.
posted by desjardins at 10:29 AM on November 27, 2009


I look at the hype machine (a music blog aggregator) every few days. People can "heart" songs, and the link above is to a list of recently popular songs. It's an interesting mix of indie and dance stuff.

When I'm trying to ID a song I've heard on the radio, my first stop is the Itunes Store. Click "see all" next to the top ten singles list, and you can hear snippets of the top 100 songs. That usually solves the mystery, and it's a good way to find new pop music.
posted by acidic at 10:29 AM on November 27, 2009


(for example, IYAZ - Replay is #5 on the Itunes chart right now. easier than dealing with radio station websites which are often ad-heavy).
posted by acidic at 10:32 AM on November 27, 2009


You should be able to find pretty much every guilty pleasure hip hop song on iTunes top downloads list. That's how I do it when I hear a new song.
posted by kylej at 11:37 AM on November 27, 2009


Response by poster: You guys are beasts. Or I'm just *really* out of it.

@yawper: The old methods just won't cut it anymore. Between recommendations from friends and other trusted sources, usually I own the music before I've listened to it first (because I trust those sources so much, not necessarily because I steal the music).

@others regarding radio play: It's a really crowded/popular area for students to hang out, and I can rarely hear more than one word of the song, and I've never been able to hear a call number for whatever station they listen to at the time (and it's not always the radio, sometimes it's an employee's ipod--I've heard "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" before).

@Leenie: The music I consider "my scene" is nothing like what you describe. I love seeing local talent, and the "Singer-Songwriter" genre on my iPod is so large it's worthless to find someone.
posted by Precision at 11:37 AM on November 27, 2009


Mod note: Comment removed, save the rants about Popular Music Today for somewhere else.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:49 AM on November 27, 2009 [1 favorite]


Hype Machine seconded.

I, for one, think it's great when someone can enjoy music from outside their normal comfort zone.
posted by tantrumthecat at 1:23 PM on November 27, 2009


Even if the shop where you hear the music is not conducive to finding out if it's the radio, you may want to check out your city's mainstream hip-hop/r&b and maybe top 40 stations to see if you hear anything you like. You can also usually go to their websites and see their recently played tracks. I was a college radio DJ for several years up to my ears in underground/indie/alternative music, and so in the car I regularly listened to the hip-hop station. That's where I found the tracks I liked. Personally, I've found mainstream hip-hop to have very slim pickins these days, but there are always some stand-outs.
Hip-hop is way more singles-based than indie music, so you may find yourself just downloading tracks off iTunes (or your preferred source) than actually getting entire albums like you might with the more indie/rock stuff.

And don't you people know? Hipsters are expected to be aware of the latest mainstream hip-hop trends. It's part of the whole irony thing. ;) (Kidding, I hate it when people assume that if an "indie" person (read: young with glasses or funny hair) likes hip-hip it's as a joke because hip-hop has been part of mainstream culture for the entire lives of anyone born since the early 80s, so many of us have grown up loving hip-hop).
posted by ishotjr at 6:05 PM on November 27, 2009


Response by poster: It's totally that song, but I didn't want people to gloss over an "answered" problem when it's a two part question.

Seriously. Chill.

Are the iTunes singles lists posted? I don't run any non-free OS's.
posted by Precision at 11:39 PM on November 27, 2009


They're posted here, but they don't give you a 30 second sampling option. Here's amazon's top 100 list, which will probably have most of the same, and includes 30 second clips.
posted by kylej at 7:47 AM on November 28, 2009


I have a Pandora station called Trashy Pop for just this reason. It'll keep you supplied with Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Cascada, Sean Kingston, etc (ignore the occasional death metal or electronica - not sure how those crept in).
posted by djb at 2:41 PM on November 28, 2009


I'm a self-described indie kid too. I like BillboardGoddess's Youtube channel for keeping up with pop. Each week, she posts a couple seconds of the top 50 songs. Very useful for when you've got the chorus of a song stuck in your head, but you can't figure out enough words to Google it.
posted by estlin at 8:16 PM on November 28, 2009


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