Under the Scalpel 12.04.08: Lady Gaga, Kardinal Offishall, Jason Mraz

Posted by Mark Ingoldsby on 12.04.2008

Lady Gaga is a few cards short of a full deck, Kardinal Offishall busts his boxspring and Jason Mraz paddles into the top 20 with a ukulele.

"Under the Scalpel: Dissecting Pop Culture One Song at a Time" is a weekly column written by Mark Ingoldsby, songwriter and guitarist for the hard rock band A Simple Complex. For three free tracks that will rock your panties off, check out www.asimplecomplex.com

Lady Gaga - Poker Face
Puh-Puh-Puh-Pathetic

Lady Gaga, pop's latest floozy, told the New York Post recently that the intention of her debut album, "The Fame," is to "make pop music that's a little bit left of center and a little edgy, that has something new and fresh to say." As it turns out, a better stage name for her would be Christina Two.

Gaga's second single, "Poker Face," antes up with a monotone melody made with synthesizers stolen from early Eurythmics recordings, a mumbled lyric taken from an obscure disco song ("muh-muh-muh-muh"), a beat that couldn't possibly be less interesting, and a bland chorus hook consisting of four notes, each played for one full measure.

How exactly is this new and fresh?

The lyrics are pure rubbish, downright trashy as a matter of fact, with the majority being terribly unclever double-entendres like "I wanna hold'm like they do in Texas plays, fold'm, let'm hit me, raise it baby, stay with me" and "I wanna roll with him, a hard pair we will be."

The attempt to make gambling terms work in a sexual nature only goes from bad to worse: "I won't tell you that I love you, kiss or hug you, 'cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin."

So you're going to hide the fact that you're in love with me – by having sex with me? Yeah, um, okay baby, have it your way. You're in control…. and a few cards short of a full deck.

Additional attempts to come up with ingenious rhymes for radio-friendly innuendo come off as just plain stupid, as evidenced in the lyric, "I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunnin'."

Martha Stewart had no comment.

The track is most annoying at the end of each chorus where Gaga is heard stammering the words "poker face," which come out as "puh-puh-puh-poker face, puh-puh-pucker face," for whatever reason.

Though it has already hit number one on charts in Australia and New Zealand and broken the top 10 in Canada and Sweden, it has yet to land on the US Billboard Hot 100. But give it time – mainstream American pop culture will inevitably gobble this crap up like a Baconator at a trailer park association meeting. Quality be damned.

Kardinal Offishall Featuring Keri Hilson - Numba 1 (Tide Is High)
Thumping Club Jam Rocks With Some Flavor From The Islands

Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall admitted that the music video for his latest album's lead single, "Dangerous," was the most important video of his career. He explained to Rhapsody.com, "If this video does not turn out to be one of the best videos that I've ever made, and it doesn't penetrate as much ground as we need it to, I might have to rethink what my future career is gonna be."

Fortunately "Dangerous" did penetrate, peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, and pushed this Canadian rapper into the limelight.

His second single, a much modernized version of the 1967 Jamaican rocksteady song "The Tide is High" re-titled as "Numba 1," aims to follow in its footsteps.

Kardinal is not the first person to cover this song. It's been done more than a dozen times – most notably by the new wave band Blondie who took it to number one in three countries in 1980, and the pop trio Atomic Kitten who did the same in 2002.

What makes Kardinal's version different is that he has replaced the original verses with an entirely new storyline. Whereas the original version is told from the point of view of someone holding out for the one they love, Kardinal turns the song into a duet and assigns those emotions to his booty call.

"She's just my part time lover, pretty little thing, nothin' I would ever think about giving a ring... Someone I would use to bust my boxspring," offers the song's protagonist, who then explains that he is far too famous to be in a full-time relationship. "She's a good chick, yo, but I'm married to the game, married to the fame."

With a commanding voice like KRS-One and Ludacris, Kardinal raps with unbridled intensity. He also adds a Caribbean flavor to his delivery, sounding a bit like Shaggy in "Boombastic" or "It Wasn't Me" in lines like, "She woulda been numba one not the bada bing, but man not gonna bother with the wife-wife thing."

In the single/video version of the song, Keri Hilson's excellent vocals handle the song's familiar hook, "The tide is high but I'm holding on. I'm gonna be your number one." However, be aware that Rhianna sings the hook on the album cut and there is a third version featuring Nicole Scherzinger. A fourth version also exists featuring both Rhianna and Nicole Scherzinger.

The song's beat is a busy arrangement of thumping percussion that feels a bit like a sped-up reinterpretation of the Jungle Brothers' song "Jimbrowski," which is itself a sped-up loop from Funkadelic's "Good Ole Music." Two orchestral stabs serve as accents in the same spots DNA placed them in their 1990 remix of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner."

If you're up for a pounding club jam with a slick Jamaican vibe and a passionate rapper who effortlessly lets an avalanche of words roll off his tongue, get this song and play it loud.

Jason Mraz – I'm Yours
Clever Pop Song Paddles Its Way Up The Charts With A Ukulele

If the cold weather has you longing for the feel of warm sand between your toes, take a virtual trip to the islands with singer-songwriter Jason Mraz's playful sleeper hit "I'm Yours". The song rowed its way onto the Billboard Hot 100 last May, debuting at number 93, and has since docked in the top 20 for 13 weeks.

The song opens with an up-tempo ukulele lick that instantly inspires visions of palm trees, coconuts and bikinis. The ghosts of Don Ho and Tiny Tim can be pictured nodding in approval.

Mraz proves the effectiveness of simplicity when his dulcet vocals begin drifting over the ukulele, and for half of the song's duration no other instrumentation is necessary. The other half adds some lively bass guitar and drums that fill in nicely.

He tells the tale of a man adrift in life trying to get back to shore and into the arms of the girl who "done done" him wrong. "I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted," he explains, "I fell right through the cracks. Now I'm trying to get back... It cannot wait; I'm yours."

Like Barenaked Ladies, Mraz is also well known for his clever wordplay. This song is no exception.

"I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror and bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer," he admits colorfully, "but my breath fogged up the glass and so I drew a new face and I laughed."

This liberating epiphany proves to be a landmark event, inciting a new attitude that's all about letting go of vanity and senseless worry.

He implores his ex to have the same revelation, pleading, "open up your mind and see like me" that "there's no need to complicate" matters since "our time is short" and being together "is our fate."

Mraz has fun with his words and it is rather contagious. While singing along, it's easy to enjoy bending the rules of grammar in lines like, "Before the cool done run out I'll be giving it my bestest," as well as scatting along with extra "dos" and "yas" before singing, "Do you want to come on, scooch on over closer dear? And I will nibble your ear."

"I'm Yours" is a delightfully sunny song with an inspirational story – and chock full of fun lyrics telling it – that will get any partygoer swaying, singing along and smiling. Have it on hand for your next luau.