Atlantic
Pop, 2016
Oh god, this one is vile. Okay, Charlie Puth can carry a tune, I guess, but then again, if you are going to put out music to sell to people, “carrying a tune” should be the bare requirement, not something to get one to stand on a chair and wave lighters at. He’s like, I don’t know, Ed Sheeran‘s less talented brother – the one who is always tagging along in the hot brother’s shadow and trying twice as hard to catch the attention of the girls in the room. And since Mr Sheeran and “hot” cannot exist in the same context in this world without destroying all logic in existence, that makes Charlie Puth the uglier version of “not hot”. And all of this is because he tries so hard to be soulful when his vapid songwriting and musical composition are some of the most soulless things I’ve come across in ages.
In Dangerously, he wheezes:
I loved you dangerously
More than the air that I breathe
Knew we would crash at the speed that we were going
Didn’t care if the explosion ruined me
Baby I loved you dangerously
Yes, I can tell. He’s so hot and dangerous, it’s like someone has pushed an ice-cold can of 7-Up between my thighs. How can there be anything more dangerous than “the air that I breathe”? Is he breathing in carbon monoxide?
And then there’s the horror called Marvin Gaye, which sees him and the bullfrog-voiced Meghan Trainor trying to act like they are going to make hot love. I suppose there are people out there who would get in the mood to get down and busy with two reedy voices in the background wheezing lines like:
You got to give it up to me
I’m screaming mercy, mercy please
Just like they say it in the song
Until the dawn, let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on
It’s like accidentally stumbling upon two pasty little kids fumbling to have sex for the first time and I can’t look away because they are in clown suits.
The best song here is See You Again, but let’s face it, if Paul Walker hadn’t gotten into that car and ended up on a fiery one-way trip to that acting class in heaven, it would leave a far less emotional impact. And Mr Puth ruined the music video anyway by giving these creepy “I know you find me sexy, and I know you want to have sex with me on top of Paul Walker’s coffin” looks to the camera, so he still sucks so much.
So, Nine Track Mind, nine layers of hell.
