Batson's Blog

How the mighty have fallen. Lady Gaga has always been unusual, but when she first took the world by storm a few years ago, she at least made good music. “Just Dance,” “Poker Face,” “Bad Romance,” “Alejandro,” “Paparazzi,” and even “You and I” were all great, catchy songs. They were different than what anyone else in pop or rock music were doing at the time. Her latest album – ARTPOP – proves that she’s run out of tricks. With Gaga essentially making claims of being a large part of pop culture in “Applause,” I was hoping she’d innovate on this album. Instead she’s settling for the techno, ‘futuristic’ sound that Christina Aguilera bombed with on Bionic . There are incredible vocal abilities put to use on Gaga’s fourth studio album, but it’s painfully obvious that she has nothing meaningful left to write or sing about. The ruling theme on ARTPOP is about sex and drugs. Considering Miley Cyrus has already owned that market this year, I’m not sure where Gaga is hoping to fit...

Lets start out with the awesome news that I read recently: Daughtry is coming out with a new album -- Baptized – on November 19. I’m very excited about that since Break The Spell is, by far, the most played album on my iTunes. The lead single for that album is different than Daughtry’s last go around, which had a very rock n’ roll vibe to it. “Waiting for Superman” is more mellow, but still seems like something you’d expect from Daughtry. It's about a woman waiting for her Superman to come along and love her. I'm not sure what inspired the Superman-themed song (or why they didn't release this before the Man of Steel movie was released), but it's a stellar song. I read that the band was hoping to do a more radio-friendly album this time around, steering away from the hard rock they utilized on Break The Spell . Wikipedia’s page on Baptized says the band changed directions with this album, “hoping to fit into the radio generation at the moment.” Apparently...