Kelly Rowland ft. David Guetta - 'Commander'
There's a fine and noble tradition, for people who create music - songwriters, producers, whatever you want to call them - to elevate their own job, within their own job.
It might be a song about a tambourine man, or thanking some unknown entity for The Music, or one of those eternally awkward songs bands do about life on the road, and how grateful they are to you, the fans, but the message is the same. It's a song about how brilliant it is to be able to write songs, which is not unlike a baker creating a loaf with the words "this one goes out to all the ladies, signed Bakey" written on the crust.
Of course, with the advent of the DJ/producer who writes songs with professional songwriters for famous people to sing for him, things get a little stranger.
What we've basically got here is a song written by Rico Love, for David, a DJ, to be sung by Kelly, a very famous singer, about how brilliant DJs like David are, and how she is like the boss of you, JUST LIKE DAVID IS THE BOSS OF KELLY, EVEN THOUGH SHE IS FAMOUSER THAN HE IS.
Srsly, I have NEVER felt that cocky.
(. It's leathery.)
Of course, if your job is to create a thing which makes people go crazybonkers, get dead sweaty, start making goo-goo eyes at each other, fall into each other's arms, fall in love, fall over, on a nightly basis, you probably do end up thinking of the situation from quite an arrogant perspective. Pink said you were God anyway, so why should you argue?
Kelly won't mind anyway, cos she can tell herself the song is from her perspective as a singer. Singers always like to sing about how brilliantly attractive and astonishing (and bossy) they are. Even if the words have a double meaning, which hints that they are merely mouthing the self-regard of a rampant egomaniac, who is laughing and rubbing his hands every time they start to sing, they don't mind. Why would they? The song mentions hair, and being better than the other ladies. That's what singers live for.
Awarded one extra star for the stoopid grammar switcheroo where Kelly first sings "there's no other who do it like I do it", which is a gushing fountain of linguistic wrongery, and then changes it to "you won't find no lady who does it like I does it", just to KILL pedants in the corrective cortex. And because of the chorus, which rules.
Oh, and for "champagne spilling from the wall" too. Can you imagine a club which is so swanky it literally BLEEDS champagne? That's what life is like (inside David Guetta's brain).
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(Fraser McAlpine)
"While I'm not exactly crazy over the song itself the video did draw some attention to it more."
"It quite simply asks its listeners to dance, but they should probably save their energy for a better song."
"Vocally Kelly delivers a performance that marries Guetta's production perfectly."
Comment number 1.
At 23rd Jun 2010, OddOne wrote:I do like this song. Very much.
One thing I'm not so keen on is the production, or rather, the over-production.
This line in which this Guetta-induced flaw is (the pretty spectacular) "I'll provide the answer", where Kelly strikes the highest note in the song, and all i can hear when she does it is a horrible auto-tune over Kelly dominating vocals.
I heard her perform this Live on 'The Graham Norton Show' (the very same episode which started my fascination with the unbelievably funny 'PhatGayKiD' on YouTube (you must see)), and I honestly could not believe the pipes on this woman. So it makes me upset that Guetta felt the need to edit her vocals, especially seeing as she was almost pitch perfect Live; really breathy one moment, then all HUGE-like for the chorus.
It's a shame, an otherwise five star song has been ruined by Guetta's production, and I LOVED 'When Love Takes Over'.
But still, 4 stars.
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Comment number 2.
At 23rd Jun 2010, RandomEnigma wrote:This is a SMASH!
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Comment number 3.
At 24th Jun 2010, kutox wrote:I'm not entirely convinced. The funky intro is great and really draws you in, and I loved it on the first few plays, but after then I just feel it's a bit average, a fairly typical dance song for the masses. The usual lyrics - 'yeah the dj is playing music really loud, let's all go and dance' etc wrapped up in military-style metaphors, and there's nothing really remarkable or memorable about it. Still, it serves it's job in terms of being catchy, and Kelly does give a good vocal.
Also, I don't like the way they've tagged 'ft. David Guetta' on it. If anything it's the other way round - he produced the damn song. But it's just a blatant case of 'hey look everyone I've collaborated with super cool dj David Guetta again!' Did Kelis need to do it? No. So why does Kelly? I suppose there's an element of returning the favour for When Love Takes Over, but it's undoubtedly a bit of a cynical move.
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Comment number 4.
At 24th Jun 2010, kingshleppy wrote:Absolutely LOVE it!!!!!!!!! Amazing, and yes Kelly has got some set of pipes on her!!!
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