4 out of 5

Label: Geffen Records

Produced by: BitCrusher

I know just today you were thinking: if I were to isolate fan_3’s song ‘Digits’ from the Shark Tale soundtrack, and give it a ranking, what would that ranking be?

I’m here to save you that mental effort, Charles – ye of fan_3-Shark-Tale-rating fame – and square the circle of that ordeal with a sound and respectable 4 out of 5.

Allison Lurie’s super brief stint under her high-school hip-hop moniker was incredibly promising, if also limited by its targeting – PG raps about cute boys – and the fact that she was only around for about 5 Hollywood minutes, if not less. Credit where its due to this song in particular, as the Shark Tale soundtrack is, ahem, not a bad mix of poppy pop and boppy R & B and the most ear-wormy, radio-friendly hip-hop – we had to listen to this quite a bit at the music store where I worked, and a good sign was that I didn’t mind doing so – and Ms. 3’s song always stood out to me as having a bit more bite than what else was on display.

BitCrusher’s production is a lot of fun, very squiggly and bouncy but giving the singer’s snarky style a good grounding, and though Lurie is basically just mapping some simple rhymes together, she finds fun variations on that theme beyond what was probably needed – so it’s an already fun song that feels a bit denser than the norm. That said, it’s ridiculously simple at the same time, with a bit of cut-and-paste to that same production in order to pad us out to single territory, and, again, we’re just talking about boys-best-come-correct, so that only goes so far.

Charles, man, I got you.