Found this article from The New Yorker about the move in pop music away from the swing groove of hip-hop to a more European style of dance music – a more straight beat.  Jen and I were just last night listening to the Jay-Z track featuring Rihanna mentioned in the article, “Run This Town”.

Sasha Frere-Jones notes that “Rihanna has to tackle a dreary and aimless melody that could be saved only by someone with a surplus of persona. (Mary J. Blige and Nina Simone come to mind.)”  The track certainly is a testament to the quality of Rihanna’s voice and the comparison is interesting.

I love hip-hop but I like this new stuff, too.  I’m thinking of tunes like Teddy Riley’s remix of John Legend’s “It’s Over” and Timbaland’s “The Way I Are”.  That semiquaver-semiquaver-quaver ostinato, that’s what I think of.  Me likey.