What a wonderful time period to live in, when a rapper can be labeled a sellout by the very blogs that made him a signable entity, sell under 90,000 copies of his debut, and still turn up at the top of the charts. Those facts say a lot about the state of the music industry in the spring of 2010. B.o.B.’s The Adventures of Bobby Ray is the album in question, and in many ways it deserves its chart-topping fate by sheer virtue of having the balls to be a rap album openly courting a non-hip-hop audience.

The aim is apparent just by looking at the guest list: heavy hitters include Lupe Fiasco, T.I. and Eminem, names recognizable to anybody who has paid any attention to mainstream rap in the last ten years. More curious, though, is the inclusion of Paramore singer (and Assault’s consensus choice for “Best Frontwoman Ever!!!!”) Hayley Williams on the chorus on two versions of lead single “Aeroplanes.” Tucked in among the album tracks is “Magic,” with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer. Topping off this power pop cocktail: “Kids,” heavily featuring a Vampire Weekend sample.

Fellow rap blog hero Wale had a similar reliance on guest stars, but with the exception of a pre-”Bad Romance” Lady Gaga, they weren’t such heavy-hitters in crossover areas. B.o.B. is lucky his voice – a flexible, elastic flow and some better-than-autotune singing – doesn’t get drowned out. (He should spend every day until he starts on his follow-up thanking God that Eminem doesn’t “Renegade” him.) Even if he sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, you’ll remember who he is.

The beats stray towards melodic – perfect for a pop-leaning album like this one. In its own terms, it’s pretty successful, but it’s never transcendant. The choruses are memorable, but not necessarily much more than that. I remember B.o.B. more for the sound of his flow rather than the things he says with it,
but I will say that it’s refreshing that his attitude is positive and uplifting. This is a damned good album for summer afternoon car rides to the next party.

But these are all such generic details. What of the specific songs, you ask? Well, they certainly play it safe. That’s not to say they’re boring, but they don’t add many points to the “ambition” column. On their own terms, though, they’re especially engaging pump-up songs. They’re hopeful and human, especially on the two “Airplanes” tracks. “Don’t Let Me Fall” opens the album on a a similarly unsure note (emotionally; musically, it knows what’s up). Rap, a genre as indebted to its performers’ self-cultivawted mythology as country, has been moving for years into a more nakedky emotional realm (see the book of Kanye, chapter 808s & Heartbreak). It’s still refreshomg to see someone bridging that gap, though, bragging and pumping himself up without being completely sure that this will go as well as hoped.

There are moments of self-assuredness, though, as on the T.I. and Playboy Tre-featuring “Bet I.” but the default emotion is determination mixed with doubt. The triumph of this album is that B.o.B. finds so many different shades of it. Its failure is that it never overcomes thr suspicion that it might have been constructed by a committee and called-in favors.

B.o.B.:

• Official Site
• MySpace

The suave English pop-punk bastards You Me At Six are threatening to unleash their nuclear brand of bouncy emo on American shores March 9th. Hold Me Down, their first record for Virgin, is a sick and sleek marriage of jerky lyrics and machine-tooled hooks. People still mourning the (apparent) death of Fall Out Boy should take notice. The band recently released a video for their new single “Underdog,” and you are able to watch it, right now, on your computer screen. Here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3INoafnTHJ0

You Me At Six:

• MySpace
• Official Site
• LastFM

We love The Swellers. We think Ups & Downsizing, their 2009 disc for Fueled By Ramen, was one of the best records released last year; we still listen to it every day while we punch each other in the nuts and make poo poo jokes at the office. And lead Swelldog Nick Diener was kind enough to let us interview him earlier this year, in probably the coolest thing that’s happened to us since we got into this blogging game. So we are contractually obligated to share any and all Swellers-related tidbits with you. Here’s a good one: it’s a video of the dudes rocking their massive, butt-bangingly crazy single “Fire Away” live on the recent Motion City Soundtrack Dino Initiative tour. I think you’re gonna like it – and when I say “think, ” I mean “know.” (Also: “like” means “lose your shit and dance around like you just scored tickets to the N*Sync reunion tour.”) Check it:

There’s also a quick interview with the guys about being more like truck drivers than musicians with all the touring they do.

The Swellers:

• MySpace
• Official Site
• Last FM
• iTunes

Hey, did you know that we’re grown-ass men who LOVE Paramore? Well, we are! We received their latest album, Brand New Eyes, quite enthusastically, and we’ve been impatiently waiting for some strong new video sauce from them. Now it’s here! Their new video for “The Only Exception” should be absolute manna to thirteen year-old girls and their pervy uncles alike, plus pop-punk lifers like us. I personally would not have chosen this for the next single (“Looking Up” and “The Only Exception” both shine brighter and bang harder), but I guess they gotta appease the wussies every now and then. Anyways — watch the shit now:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI2HjQSCTrc

More steamy pop-punk action:

• Official site

• MySpace

• LastFM

• Fan site

Pop-punk is one of the easiest genres to get wrong; the ingredients are simple enough that anyone can give it a shot, and fan expectations are famously low. That’s what makes the new Swellers record, Ups And Downsizing, so refreshing: these guys absolutely nail it. The songs are catchy, the riffs are chunky, and there’s enough wit present in the lyrics to satisfy the discriminating pop-punk fan. After undergoing numerous lineup changes and the usual amount of toil and trouble, The Swellers seem to be on the cusp of breaking out and getting the recognition they deserve.

The Swellers – Fire Away Video

Ups and Downsizing in Flint, Michigan

The Swellers prove they have the essential down pat right away; opener “2009″ finds singer/guitarist Nick Diener wallowing in the kind of new year’s misery that’s fueled great tracks in the past from Alkaline Trio and Motion City Soundtrack, although the tone here never slips into negativity or ugliness. And, though the riffs may be familiar enough, they keep circling around in interesting ways, dropping out and then coming back harder. This is the formula for most of Ups And Downsizing, and when it works, The Swellers make a case for themselves as a more masculine Paramore; this is friendly mall punk you can blast in your car without feeling like a teenage girl.

The Swellers consistently go deeper than the average pop-punk concerns; the title track features smart lyrics about the recession (the band is from Flint, Michigan, so they know a thing or two about economic downturn) and closer “Dirt” is an enjoyably vinegary missive aimed at anyone attending Dienen’s funeral. “Feet First” and “Stars” switch up the tempo; the former is a pretty standard ballad entry, but the latter runs six minutes and features a Slash-worthy guitar solo as it reaches its super-cathartic climax.

Ups And Downsizing is a big step forward for the Swellers; their previous full-length, My Everest, traffics in much of the same thematic and musical territory, but the delivery is more pungent and forceful this time around. The rest of the band is almost impossibly tight . Think Fall Out Boy’s Take This To Your Grave: Standard elements recombined in an interesting way, with some studio sheen to help the medicine go down but enough rawness to keep the energy popping. And the flawless rhythmic interplay on these songs showcases a precision that probably is only possible when it’s your brother on drums (Jonathan Diener handles the skins).

If you’re a fan of the typical pop-punk sound, Ups And Downsizing is worth more than just a listen. It’s worth memorizing as a textbook example of exactly how this stuff sounds when it’s done right. I’d place it in the mighty pantheon right alongside Alkaline Trio’s Goddamnit and Green Day’s Kerplunk, and that’s about as high of praise as you’re likely to hear around these parts. And, just like those records, telling your friends about Ups And Downsizing amounts to sharing a wonderful gift. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in twenty years, up-and-coming punk bands instructed their producers to “make it sound like the Swellers.” That’s how fine their command of pop-punk principles truly is.

The Swellers are opening for Less Than Jake at Metro on Tuesday, November 24; if you’re in the Chicago area, I highly advise you check these guys out. (Both myself and “Third World” Timmy will be at the show.) This is real, no-bullshit rock ‘n’ roll, and that’s a rare commodity these days. Buy tickets now!

More from the Swellers

• The Swellers Myspace
• The Swellers Twitter
• Nick Diener’s Twitter
• The Swellers on iTunes

With 2007’s Riot! Paramore rode a jangly and simple pop-punk sound to platinum crossover glory, and they keep the edges safely beveled with their new album Brand New Eyes. There’s plenty of punchy, sugary goodness for the band’s die hard excitable-teenage-girl fan base to latch on to here, but study the grooves closely and you’ll find enough substance to enchant even those over the legal drinking age.

Produced by Rob Cavallo (who mastered capturing this particular art form 15 years ago with Green Day’s Dookie), Brand New Eyes is factory fresh and ready for radio. Lead single “Ignorance” taps into the same well of girlish indignation and churning guitars that propelled their breakthrough hit “Misery Business” to Alternative Nation (Jr. Division) dominance. It’s not a new sound, but their SoundScan numbers indicate the formula ain’t broken. The band succeeds most, though, when they keep the tone bright with late album standouts “Feeling Sorry,” “Looking Up,” and “Where The Lines Overlap,” a trifecta of perfect pop that makes a decent (and somewhat shocking) case for Brand New Eyes as a coherent album rather than a singles collection padded with filler. “Where The Lines Overlap” is the most winning, with it’s joyful chorus refrain of “No one’s as lucky as us!” and sweetly melodic riffage.

“The Only Exception” and “Misguided Ghosts” fulfill the obligatory “sensitive” portion of the record with varying success. The former track has the boring acoustic guitars and fey twinkling of reheated mid-90’s AOR rock (think an even lamer Dishwalla) but “Misguided Ghosts” travels most of the distance towards being genuinely affecting via unadorned guitar strums and wistful vocals.

Those vocals are, more than likely, what you’re here for, and Hayley Williams is in fine form throughout. Her spunky personality and Hot Topic good looks are obviously key to the band’s success but it’s still easy to underestimate the genuine talent she possesses for pushing hooks into interesting new directions and imbuing every utterance with absolute sincerity. She lets it rip on the relatively epic “Brick By Boring Brick,” salvaging  a clumsy chorus with forceful verses and some old-fashioned gang vocals at the end, and her performance on album closer “All I Wanted” is nothing short of stunning – by the time Brand New Eyes fades out on a short wave of guitar distortion, there’s no real excuse to be dissatisfied.

Paramore has delivered, again, an album much better than was necessary. Brand New Eyes may be familiar at every turn, but it’s the good kind of familiar – this record makes me wish I was still in high school so I could play it loud in my car without attracting odd looks from fellow motorists. Paramore don’t do avant-garde; they do indestructible and spit-shined.  Brand New Eyes is unabashedly lightweight; that doesn’t make its pleasures any easier to resist.  When Williams sings “I’ve got a feeling that if I sang this loud enough, you would sing it back to me,” it’s difficult to contradict her.

Choice jams:

• “Careful”
• “Brick By Boring Brick”
• “Feeling Sorry”
• “Where The Lines Overlap”
• “All I Wanted”

Here at Assault we’re always trying to stay up to date with the music scene, and I thought it was time to share with you my most recent rocker chick lead singer crush. Paramore is by no means small/underground as they’ve been just about everywhere lately, but I’m fairly sure most people don’t know how talented they really are outside of normal studio rock.

I highly recommend downloading some of Paramore‘s music off of iTunes. They’re some of the most talented rockers around right now. (Plus they’re all in and around 20 years old!) Check out a few of their other videos at the links below the video.

Here’s a video of Hayley Williams of Paramore singing “Misery Business” acoustically at 97X in Tampa, Florida.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiR838VOCrA

Paramore Related Links

• Paramore -- Hayley Williams sings Misery Business on acoustic guitar
• Paramore -- Videos of acoustic songs from the album Riot!
• Tim’s email in case Hayley Williams would like to go out sometime