Summary pop

Heat beats

by Alex Pappademas

Christina Aguilera

If you turned on MTV during the past three months looking for summery pop, chances are you got nothing but summary pop -- Will Smith and LL Cool J both got mad play behind dumb, synergistic singles that rehashed the "plots" of Wild Wild West (Smith's "Wild Wild West") and Deep Blue Sea (LL's "Deepest Bluest"). It's the Chris Farley Show school of rap lyricism: "Remember . . . when the shark ate Kenneth Branagh? Uhh -- that was awesome!" But forget that prefab MTV junk. Here's some other pre-fab MTV junk from this summer that, when the mood was right, had me singing, like Blink 182, "What's my age, again?"

That inside-out synth lick on Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" is stress-easing sandalwood incense for women on the verge of a nervous breakthrough. But Christina's debut album suggests that she's comfy in that bottle, thanks, and more hung up than a Backstreet Boys calendar. Meanwhile, on "What a Girl Wants," another cut from the former Mouseketeer's homonymous RCA debut, she's looking forward to the day when she and her understanding love interest will be "Holding hands/Making plans." In other words, she's planning to make plans -- is she sure about that? Also, major offsides penalty for busting out the obligatory Diane Warren-penned ballad too early (track #3) -- TLC held off on Fan Mail (LaFace) until track #12.

Christina just talks about "hormones racing at the speed of light"; Basement Jaxx's jolting, unwashed, somewhat slightly dazed hyper-disco delivers. The Jaxx's beguiling early-'99 teaser "Rendez-Vu" swirled with aching digitized flamenco, like a computer virus with a love hangover. Their bangin' follow-up, "Red Alert," goes golf-carting drunk through funk's house of styles, misremembering George Clinton as a studio gangsta who pilfered his best squeegee-synth tricks from Snoop Dogg. Oh, and the album (Remedy, on Astralwerks) is off the proverbial hook, like some lost score from They Came To Rob Las Vegas (Of Its Slot-Machine Sounds).

Enrique Iglesias -- who's officially unseated Coolio as my favorite Iglesias -- sighs "There's no tomorrow," bares his wrists, and leaves his life in some girl's hands in "Bailamos," because he's never gonna spotlight-dance again. As kitschy as Madonna's "La Isla Bonita," no question, but with the pill-popping despondency of "Hotel California." The saddest song on MTV's Total Request Live this year, even when kids call in and pronounce the title as if it rhymed with "Paramus."

The last time the funkier side of Eastern Canada blew up this large, Steve Martin still had an arrow through his head. On the made-for-summer hit "Steal My Sunshine," Len's semi-rapper D-Rock borrows his affable burnt-toast flow from Perry Farrell. And the beat is born to segue into Frankie Valli's "December '63 (Oh What a Night)." Then bashful girl vocalist Shar skates in to break some hearts and race some bumper cars, and the whole project becomes as charming as a nest of baby chicks chirping, "Where my peeps at?"

Bif Naked's "Moment of Weakness" is Alanis meets No Doubt meets we-can-make-a-rock-star-out-of-any-flake-in-this-Denny's.

Despite his perennially impressive mouth-fulla-record-crate, Roots human beatbox Rahzel's solo debut, Make the Music 2000 (MCA), is what Chris Rock skits sound like before they put the jokes in. But the exception is the Erykah Badu collaboration "Southern Gul," fortunately available as a Badu single. Erykah gives a shout to the "home of the burnin' church" and picks fried tofu out of her gold fronts; Rahzel spits the kind of beats Dallas-bounce maestro Eightball would burp up if he'd swallowed Doug E. Fresh.

Rhymewise, the talent at New Orleans's Cash Money label apparently hope to Donald-trump No Limit in the nouveau riche department. But staff producer Mannie Fresh has this year's flash-inatin'-est rhythmic signature. His hypnotic crossfires of sweeps and bleeps, if you gotta peg 'em, are essentially post-Timbaland in design but more unhinged, the product of an approach to beats as extravagantly deranged as the MCs' lyrical shopping lists (dope, a platinum-plated helicopter!). The radio-friendlier edit of Juvenile's Fresh-made "Back That Azz Up" is no match for the "clean" album version (from 400 Degreez, on Cash Money/Universal), which contained so many back-spun curse words, Juvie was practically rapping in pig Latin. B.G.'s more infectious "Bling Bling" (off the less-indelible-overall Cash Money album Chopper City in da Ghetto) is named for the sound of jewels sparkling, which has to be some kind of a landmark in visual onomatopoeia.

And Vitamin C's "Smile" treats crunchy guitar like some neat retro sound effect from back in the day, a kitschy bumper sticker, comic relief. Which if you're Vitamin C's late-of-Eve's-Plum frontperson Colleen Fitzpatrick, and the Pop Witness Protection Program gives you a chance to relive rock as "rock," and you haven't lost your sense of humor, is precisely what it is.