Nice video though, but it’s no “Trading Places” by Usher!

So after weeks of hearing ABOUT this song, and seeing that a number of artists had done remixes for it, I finally caught the song on the radio on the way to work one day. Granted, it was playing on a rock station that doesn’t play R&B, and it was during the station’s morning show, and they only play music as a transition back into the talk show. The chorus had to kick in for me to realize that it was the song I had heard about, but then I hear the talk show’s uber-white host comically mimicking the chorus, and I’m laughing so hard, I almost hit a pick-up truck in front of me! Even without the benefit of such informal commentary, I’d have found the song remarkably hysterical. Long story short, I think Jeremih’s “Birthday Sex” is one of the worst R&B songs I’ve heard this year. The production is thin, and the all too familiar subject matter is made that much more intolerable by that fact that Jeremih’s vocals are severely lacking. Who are you offering birthday sex to when you sound (and kinda look) like you haven’t even gone through puberty yet. And going back to that stuttery chorus, it’s that final push to send the barrel over Niagara Falls.  I can’t believe I’m even admitting to this, but “Boyfriend No. 2″ by Pleasure P, formerly of Pretty Ricky, is actually halfway decent by comparison. How anything good could come from the abomination that is Pretty Ricky is beyond me, but I guess the sun’s gotta shine on a dog’s ass every once in a while.

But overall, I’m just very bored at the moment with the R&B on the radio. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy more of the pop-oriented stuff (the Ushers, the Ne-Yos, The Rihannas, etc.) , but it wasn’t really that long ago when you had actual R&B BANDS getting major radio play. That’s what I want to see more of, six or seven dudes taking on every possible instrument they can, and just making good-ass music! Is there really no market in today’s mainstream landscape for an Earth, Wind, and Fire type of band? Parliament? Even on the hip-hop side of things, what about something comparable to Digital Underground? Or is it still just about that one star amongst a handful of glorified back-up dancers? Are we ever going to see someone as versatile and prolific as Prince rise to the levels of fame the Purple One reached throughout the 80s and early 90s? Shoot, can Terrence Trent D’Arby finally be forgiven for his arrogance when he first came out, now that we’ve been living in the “Age Of Kanye” for the better part of a decade?