Flo Rida - 'Elevator'
NOTE TO TIMBALAND: Dude, you're working too hard. This is the backing track to several of your other songs - specifically 'Give It To Me' - and you've totally done that "fricka-fricka" sound to death on the Madonna song. And let's be clear, the Madonna song was rubbish, and the "fricka-fricka" sound did not help improve matters. You're just lucky Justin Timberlake had an attack of the hiccups when he had to say Madonna's name, or your position as a super-producer could've been under threat.
What's slightly frustrating is that even though this is a total auto-pilot production from Mr 'Land, it's actually an improvement on a worldwide smash hit for Mr 'Rida. Or sort of, at any rate. The chorus isn't as good, in that it really is just a typical Timbaland chorus, and Flo's charming metaphor about lifts is spoiled by his stammering.
Not that I have anything against stammering, in real life or in pop. The problem is, Flo singing "ella, ella" comes very soon after Rihanna singing "ella ella", and both songs describe ordinary things as a metaphor for some kind of relationship situation.
Although you can bet if Flo Rida did a song about an umbrella it would be all about popping the straps, putting it up, flapping it around, and then eventually shaking it to get the drips off.
(Sorry. I'm really sorry. That was uncalled for. I saw the line, but did not stop, and now it is behind me. I am bad, and should be punished.)
Anyway, it's the verses in which all the improvement is shown. The pell-mell vocal delivery and smart little vocal hooks and swoops are much more deft and impressive than last time around, which does go some way towards saving the song.
That and the lack of anyone saying Flo Rida's name like they're also attempting to swallow a goldfish, of course.
Download: Out now
CD Released: May 26th
(Fraser McAlpine)
PS: I won't go into details as to why (I have my pride!), but I did originally ask ChartBlog Hazel to write this review, and she came back with one for Flo's previous hit 'Low'. I include the opening two paragraphs here, because they made me laugh. Take it, Haze!
"The hip hop convention is that the fewer clothes ladies are wearing, the better, so it's exciting to hear a song in the contemporary 'crunk' style that instead celebrates girls wearing, from the description, a whole lot of clothes. Seriously, I'm the first person to be wildly overdressed all summer but even I'd stop short of this lot: according to the first verse, shorty is wearing "apple bottom jeans," "boots with the fur," "baggy sweat pants" and "Reeboks with the straps". Now, it is possible that these are two different women but it's hard to tell. If not, girl has a lot of legs.
It'd come as no surprise frankly, in this heat, if someone wearing all that lot "got low," I'd definitely need a lie-down if I was that close to a core meltdown but I suspect that Mr Rida may not necessarily be referring to a nice sit down and a cup of tea. They don't serve tea in most clubs, for a start and it just doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd eulogise about unless you had a particular fetish for cups and saucers, anyway. Even then you'd probably be off down the pottery store or watching Disney's version of 'Beauty and the Beast' not praying and hoping that someone in a club wanted a cup of Earl Grey to round off the evening."
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