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Song of the Day #1,106: ‘Run the World (Girls)’ – Beyoncé

You might have been wondering why I crowned a winner yesterday instead of waiting for the last day of my two-week summer song series.

Well, the final day (as it was last summer) is dedicated to Beyoncé. But her new single, ‘Run the World (Girls),’ is not strong enough to capture the title. So I dealt with that bit of housekeeping yesterday so I could end on the sweetest of all notes.

As for the song, I have to say it pretty much sucks. I haven’t liked what I’ve heard of Beyoncé’s new album, 4 — either the ballads or the dance tracks. Truth is, there are only four or five songs in her whole discography that I find worthy of repeat listens.

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Song of the Day #1,105: ‘Party Rock Anthem’ – LMFAO (featuring Lauren Bennett, GoonRock)

I suppose it will be necessary, at the end of these two weeks of summer singles, for me to declare my pick for the official song of the summer.

The early favorites were Bruno Mars, whose ‘The Lazy Song’ perfectly captures the summer spirit in both sound and theme, and Katy Perry, who was seemingly genetically engineered to produce summer hits.

Lady GaGa had a good showing with her anthemic ‘Edge of Glory,’ a song I suspect we’ll hear all over NFL and NBA ads this year if those leagues get their act together and actually have seasons. And I have a soft spot for Nicki Minaj’s addictively twisted ‘Super Bass.’

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Song of the Day #1,104: ‘I’m On One’ – DJ Khaled (featuring Drake, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne)

Here’s one of those all-star rap collaborations that crop up all over the place. It’s interesting how rap is the one genre where it’s expected that everybody shows up on everybody else’s records.

Certainly there are guest stars and collaborations on albums of all sorts (the new Brad Paisley features duets with Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton and Don Henley) but in rap, it’s an expectation.

First you have the apprenticeship phase, where a rapper makes guest appearances on other people’s albums before releasing his own. Eminem made his splash rapping alongside Dr. Dre before he dropped his first solo album. Nicki Minaj had done about a dozen celebrated guest turns before her album came out. It’s an effective way to introduce an artist to the fans and build excitement so that even a debut album can be a smash hit upon release.

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Song of the Day #1,103: ‘For the First Time’ – The Script

The Script is one of those bands whose songs are the equivalent of movies with legs. Their singles don’t race up the charts, they crawl. They slowly work their way into the back of your mind until you know you’ve heard them somewhere before but you’re just not quite sure where or when.

That’s how ‘For the First Time,’ which was released at the end of the summer of 2010, is showing up as one of the big hits of the summer of 2011. It took that long to make a splash.

I don’t think it’s a particularly good song (certainly not as good as their biggest hit, ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’) but it’s pleasant enough. It reminds me of the alterna-pop that was big in the 90s.

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Song of the Day #1,102: ‘The Edge of Glory’ – Lady Gaga

Note: This is the second week of my series of summer singles.

I haven’t gotten around to reviewing the new Lady GaGa album, Born This Way, but that’s not because it isn’t a worthy effort. On the contrary, it takes her music in some interesting new directions.

Actually, I should say some interesting old directions because GaGa, after all the techno dance pop of her first two discs, has remodeled herself as a cross between Pat Benatar and Bruce Springsteen. ‘Born This Way’ (the song) was a straight-up rewrite of Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’ but the rest of the album channels the 80s rock bombast of those other MTV heroes.

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