I was hooked to the "Top Metal". It's just that genre wasn't being counted on the lists you're drawing from.General Havoc wrote: And Tev, I would not, if I were you, lose any sleep over not being connected to the top 10 during the '00s. It was a dark time.
A (half) Century of Music
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#226 Re: A (half) Century of Music
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#227 Re: A (half) Century of Music
2010
Yearly GPA: 1.365
Ouch. This I was not expecting, but 2010 marks a definitive end to the unexpected rally in quality that we saw in the latter half of the 00s. I don't believe it represents a sustained trend, but time will tell as it we get there. 2010 however is notable for how many bad new artists showed up, and how much garbage topped the charts from ones that I thought I liked. Call it a collective intake of breath before something new. Or just call it modern crap. Either way...
Ke$ha - TiK ToK
Number 1 song from January 2nd-March 5th, 2010 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I wanted to like TiK ToK, I really really did, with it's dance-club chorus and video game beats. But Ke$ha's noxious personality (adopted, I know, but still), shines through on this song more than anything I think I've ever heard, and I just couldn't stand it. This song makes me want to take a shower.
The Black Eyed Peas - Imma Be
Number 1 song from March 6th-19th, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Conversely, I didn't find that I hated Imma Be as much as I expected, but its collection of eclectic madness replete with sudden tempo and tonal shifts really didn't leave much of an impression beyond confusion. My understanding is that this is par for the course when it comes to The Black Eyed Peas, though I expect we'll find out.
Taio Cruz, featuring Ludacris - Break Your Heart
Number 1 song from March 20th-26th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
An utterly generic song, completely without redeeming features or any interest. It existed and is gone.
Rhianna - Rude Boy
Number 1 song from March 27th-April 30th, 2010 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I research all of these songs before assigning them a grade, and my research on Rude Boy indicates that there's a hell of a lot going on in this song that I don't know anything about. It's apparently a style called, I'm not making this up, "ragamuffin". I don't have the first idea what that's supposed to be (some kind of west indies-electronic dancehall fusion), but none of that makes the song any more listenable. This is an utterly generic Rhianna song. You don't need to do a lot of research to know what that is.
B.o.B, featuring Bruno Mars - Nothin' on You
Number 1 song from May 1st-14th, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Nothin' on You introduces us to another artist who will be with us to the present day, Portuguese-Hawaiian Pop-R&B singer Bruno Mars, whose work I am actually quite a fan of, especially in the retro-throwback phase that he is in the middle of at time of writing. This is hardly his best song, but it's not terrible either, an old-style hip hop song with a nice crooning sound running above it. Nothing to get excited about necessarily, but pretty damn decent, all things considered.
Usher, featuring will.i.am - OMG
Number 1 song from May 15th-21st, May 29th-June 18th, 2010 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
OMG! This sucks! It's a generic will.i.am production that sounds like every other damn thing he made after I Gotta Feeling. My favorite comment on this song is actually from Edna Gundersen of USA Today, claimed that will.i.am "bludgeoned" the song with auto-tune, and said that it is "as annoying as the tech-speak it mimics".
I concur.
Eminem - I'm Not Afraid
Number 1 song from May 22nd-28th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
I've never really known what to make of I'm Not Afraid, a big sweeping hip-hop ballad that purports to be about bgi sweeping things like responsibilitiy, overcoming addiction, and truth. I do kind of appreciate the notion of it, and I like that Eminem allows himself to be rather explicitly honest in it, denigrating his last couple CDs as "meh" productions, and promising to do better. I don't really love the song, but it's one I can appreciate and respect, and that alone is worth something.
Katy Perry, featuring Snoop Dogg - California Gurls
Number 1 song from June 19th-July 30th, 2010 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I really dislike California Gurls. It's a stupid, vapid, empty song, but as those words also describe a number of Katy Perry songs I love, I''m not sure what the problem is here. Supposedly, the song was written as a response to Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind, which is a far superior song, so perhaps that's it. I'm a proud Californian, and I love most of the touchpoints that Perry puts into the song to praise the Golden State. I just really dislike the vibe of this song I guess, which in my mind is a perfectly valid reason to rate it low.
Eminem, featuring Rhianna - Love the Way You Lie
Number 1 song from July 31st-September 17th, 2010 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Eminem and Rhianna to the rescue. Love the Way You Lie is a really good song, a soaring, orchestral hip-hop-pop ballad that involves some of the best work that either artist had done in years. It's a raw, violent, dysfunctional song about a raw, violent, dysfunctional relationship. The sentiment is not particularly healthy, but the production, lyricism, and general sound are extremely well-polished, the sort of song that reminds you why you liked the artists in question in the first place.
Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Number 1 song from September 18th-October 1st, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
An utterly boring "summer single" that has not one real idea in it. I don't care how musically complicated it is, or how much the critics may gush over it, this song has simply nothing to offer, a monotonous piece of semi-tripe, which we shall no longer consider.
Bruno Mars - Just the Way You Are
Number 1 song from October 2nd-29th, 2010 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Just the Way You Are is almost a definitional C-grade song, a song that has no real defining features of excellence, but that I still kinda like for whatever reason. It may just be that I like Bruno Mars, which I do, but I really like the feel of this one, the simplicity of it, the genuine feel. It's no great masterpiece, but it's a highly listenable song. I'll take it.
Far East Movement, featuring The Cataracs and Dev - Like a G6
Number 1 song from October 30th-November 12th, November 27-December 3rd, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Like a G6 was a milestone song in a number of ways. Not only was it the very first number one hit by an Asian-American ever, and the first by anyone of Asian descent since 1963's Sukiyaki, it was also the song that convinced everyone of something previously known only to aficionados of the Wu Tang Clan, that dance-hip-hop club songs made by Asians can be every bit as boring and stupid as ones made by whites or blacks. Truly, we live in modern times.
Ke$ha - We R Who We R
Number 1 song from November 13th-19th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
Supposedly, Ke$ha wanted to inspire people with this song, some notion of getting gay kids to stand up to bullying or some such. A fine sentiment, and one that had absolutely no chance of happening with this song, which is a dirty, drunken, ugly thing, as is most of Ke$ha's first album, one that vomits all over your shoes before borrowing sixty bucks and flipping you off as it drives off for the night. Despite my vitriol, I actually don't hate all of Ke$ha's stuff, but this noxious persona needed to be burnt off before I would have anything to do with her.
Rihanna, featuring Drake - What's My Name
Number 1 song from November 20th-26th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I shall some day discover what Drake's appeal is, and achieve enlightenment. Until that day, I have What's My Name, which is a dull electro-R&B song with a medium tempo and nothing else of note to be spoken of about it. Some people call this song island-pop, some call it ska, some call it reggae. I call it boring.
Rihanna - Only Girl (In The World)
Number 1 song from December 4th-10th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
Great... more HI-NRG Dance-pop (I made none of that up). The music critics who reviewed this song highlighted the "pneumatic hiss" at the heart of the song, which does not sound like a complement to me, but then I have some difficulty figuring out nice things to say about it. It's a harsh, over-long song that doesn't vary from its shrieking vocals, and winds up just a big mess.
P!nk - Raise Your Glass
Number 1 song from December 11th-17th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
I like P!nk's big stompy pop-rock number, but it's a stupid song that isn't really about anything, and has nothing more than her customary high-energy beat to really recommend it. That said, there's nothing really wrong with the song, it just doesn't hit me the way the rest of her work has.
Katy Perry - Firework
Number 1 song from December 18th, 2010-January 7th, 2011 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Firework is exactly as stupid as a Katy Perry song about self-empowerment was destined to be, with openly-nonsensical lyrics, totally confused imagery, and a hefty coating of cheese. And I'll be goddamned if I don't kind of love it anyway. It's manifestly not a good song at all, but it's got a lovely sound to it, with a great arrangement and use of orchestration, a solid dance-pop beat, and a sentiment to the thing that shines through regardless. Guilty pleasure certainly, but I almost scored this one higher. To me, it's like a big stupid puppy that may not be able to run straight, but is still happy to see you. Still a better image than Firework.
Supplemental Songs
Surely SOMETHING good was to be found on the charts to greet the new decade?
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 8
Havoc's Grade: A
Fifty+ years of music and more songs than I can reliably count, and it all comes down to this. Bad Romance is one of the strangest things I've ever heard, a relentless, dark, pulsating song derived from the bowels of German Haus music and neo-New Wave. And yet is there anyone who doesn't recognize this song as great? I certainly do. It's gothic and twisted, depraved, full-throated, grand, and elemental. One music critic called it a "Teutonic Chant", another compared it to Erasure, and described it as "The Essence of Gagaism", and I even found one who called it "Nightmarishly Jabberwockian". It's the sort of song that basically defies description, and while I've never had much of a personal connection to the thing, unlike certain other songs of Gaga's that we will soon come to, it earns every one of the points it extorts from me. We live in Lady Gaga's world, ladies and gentlemen, and Bad Romance is her prophet. Pray.
Jason Derulo - In My Head
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 14
Havoc's Grade: B
I know that a lot of people hate In My Head, but I've always liked it, as it's probably the best thing that Jason Derulo ever did, autotune or no autotune. Yes, the chorus is a bit lackluster, and the song kind of peters out, but I enjoy the setup for it enough that I can overlook those faults and squeak it in. It's no great song, but I do like it.
Usher, featuring Pitbull - DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 22
Havoc's Grade: B
At long last, I get to praise Usher. DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love is an excellent club song, a high-energy dance-pop song that has just the right feel for what it's trying to be, with a backing gothic chorus and a dark, desperate sound. The less said about Pitbull's rap bridge the better, but the song is still pretty damn awesome, and I have really liked it ever since it first came out.
Lady Gaga - Alejandro
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 33
Havoc's Grade: B
Lady Gaga gets accused of ripping off Madonna a lot, but this is the song where you can really hear it. It sounds like she stole a song from Madonna who in turn stole it from Ace of Base. And yet, I really like the result, a lush synthpop paean of a song that sounds like Madonna at her best combined with Shakira or ABBA at theirs. It's not a world-beater or anything, but Alejandro is one of the better offerings from Gaga's second album.
Flo Rida, featuring David Guetta - Club Can't Handle Me
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 40
Havoc's Grade: B
Energy will forgive a lot, even for someone as congenitally stupid as Flo Rida, especially if he combines with French producer David Guetta. I'm not the biggest club mix fan, but this one just hits all the right notes, with a strong beat, a catchy chorus, and lots of energy. Escalating songs like this are a favorite of mine, and while I maintain no illusions that this song is great, I do enjoy it too much to leave it off the list.
OneRepublic - Secrets
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 76
Havoc's Grade: B
I don't love everything OneRepublic's ever done, but there's a fair number of songs of theirs that I like, and this is one of them, a genuine-sounding plea layered over a cello-rock backing that just sounds clever together. It's nothing earthshattering, but it's one of the better songs off of OneRepublic's first album, and one takes what one can get when it comes to bands even approximating rock in the '10s.
Other noted songs from 2010:
Lady Antebellum - Need You Now <---- Boring and woebegone, even by country standards.
Train - Hey Soul Sister
Taio Cruz - Dynamite
Enrique Iglesias, ft. Pitbull - I Like It
Young Money, ft. Lloyd - BedRock <---- Maybe the stupidest thing ever written.
Lady Gaga, ft. Beyonce - Telephone
Mike Posner - Cooler than Me
Travie McCoy, ft. Bruno Mars - Billionaire
David Guetta, ft. Akon - Sexy Bitch <---- I don't hate this anywhere near as much as I should.
The Script - Breakeven
Ke$ha - Your Love is my Drug
Jason Derulo - Ridin' Solo
Justin Bieber, ft. Ludacris - Baby
Adam Lambert - Whataya Want from Me
Ke$ha, ft. 3OH!3 - Blah Blah Blah <----
OneRepublic - All the Right Moves
Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me
The Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway
Maroon 5 - Misery
B.o.B, ft. Rivers Cuomo - Magic
Miley Cyrus - Party in the U.S.A.
Kings of Leon - Use Somebody <---- Close call on this one.
Chris Brown, ft. Tyga and Kevin McCall - Deuces
3OH!3 featuring Ke$ha - My First Kiss <----
Kelly Clarkson - Already Gone
Sean Kingston and Justin Bieber - Eenie Meenie <----
The Band Perry - If I Die Young
Paramore - The Only Exception
Sara Bareilles - King of Anything
Uncle Kracker - Smile <---- I thought this was from fifteen years ago.
Cali Swag District - Teach Me How To Dougie
Justin Bieber - One Time
Willow - Whip My Hair
Yearly GPA: 1.365
Ouch. This I was not expecting, but 2010 marks a definitive end to the unexpected rally in quality that we saw in the latter half of the 00s. I don't believe it represents a sustained trend, but time will tell as it we get there. 2010 however is notable for how many bad new artists showed up, and how much garbage topped the charts from ones that I thought I liked. Call it a collective intake of breath before something new. Or just call it modern crap. Either way...
Ke$ha - TiK ToK
Number 1 song from January 2nd-March 5th, 2010 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I wanted to like TiK ToK, I really really did, with it's dance-club chorus and video game beats. But Ke$ha's noxious personality (adopted, I know, but still), shines through on this song more than anything I think I've ever heard, and I just couldn't stand it. This song makes me want to take a shower.
The Black Eyed Peas - Imma Be
Number 1 song from March 6th-19th, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Conversely, I didn't find that I hated Imma Be as much as I expected, but its collection of eclectic madness replete with sudden tempo and tonal shifts really didn't leave much of an impression beyond confusion. My understanding is that this is par for the course when it comes to The Black Eyed Peas, though I expect we'll find out.
Taio Cruz, featuring Ludacris - Break Your Heart
Number 1 song from March 20th-26th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
An utterly generic song, completely without redeeming features or any interest. It existed and is gone.
Rhianna - Rude Boy
Number 1 song from March 27th-April 30th, 2010 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I research all of these songs before assigning them a grade, and my research on Rude Boy indicates that there's a hell of a lot going on in this song that I don't know anything about. It's apparently a style called, I'm not making this up, "ragamuffin". I don't have the first idea what that's supposed to be (some kind of west indies-electronic dancehall fusion), but none of that makes the song any more listenable. This is an utterly generic Rhianna song. You don't need to do a lot of research to know what that is.
B.o.B, featuring Bruno Mars - Nothin' on You
Number 1 song from May 1st-14th, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Nothin' on You introduces us to another artist who will be with us to the present day, Portuguese-Hawaiian Pop-R&B singer Bruno Mars, whose work I am actually quite a fan of, especially in the retro-throwback phase that he is in the middle of at time of writing. This is hardly his best song, but it's not terrible either, an old-style hip hop song with a nice crooning sound running above it. Nothing to get excited about necessarily, but pretty damn decent, all things considered.
Usher, featuring will.i.am - OMG
Number 1 song from May 15th-21st, May 29th-June 18th, 2010 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
OMG! This sucks! It's a generic will.i.am production that sounds like every other damn thing he made after I Gotta Feeling. My favorite comment on this song is actually from Edna Gundersen of USA Today, claimed that will.i.am "bludgeoned" the song with auto-tune, and said that it is "as annoying as the tech-speak it mimics".
I concur.
Eminem - I'm Not Afraid
Number 1 song from May 22nd-28th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
I've never really known what to make of I'm Not Afraid, a big sweeping hip-hop ballad that purports to be about bgi sweeping things like responsibilitiy, overcoming addiction, and truth. I do kind of appreciate the notion of it, and I like that Eminem allows himself to be rather explicitly honest in it, denigrating his last couple CDs as "meh" productions, and promising to do better. I don't really love the song, but it's one I can appreciate and respect, and that alone is worth something.
Katy Perry, featuring Snoop Dogg - California Gurls
Number 1 song from June 19th-July 30th, 2010 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I really dislike California Gurls. It's a stupid, vapid, empty song, but as those words also describe a number of Katy Perry songs I love, I''m not sure what the problem is here. Supposedly, the song was written as a response to Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind, which is a far superior song, so perhaps that's it. I'm a proud Californian, and I love most of the touchpoints that Perry puts into the song to praise the Golden State. I just really dislike the vibe of this song I guess, which in my mind is a perfectly valid reason to rate it low.
Eminem, featuring Rhianna - Love the Way You Lie
Number 1 song from July 31st-September 17th, 2010 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Eminem and Rhianna to the rescue. Love the Way You Lie is a really good song, a soaring, orchestral hip-hop-pop ballad that involves some of the best work that either artist had done in years. It's a raw, violent, dysfunctional song about a raw, violent, dysfunctional relationship. The sentiment is not particularly healthy, but the production, lyricism, and general sound are extremely well-polished, the sort of song that reminds you why you liked the artists in question in the first place.
Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Number 1 song from September 18th-October 1st, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
An utterly boring "summer single" that has not one real idea in it. I don't care how musically complicated it is, or how much the critics may gush over it, this song has simply nothing to offer, a monotonous piece of semi-tripe, which we shall no longer consider.
Bruno Mars - Just the Way You Are
Number 1 song from October 2nd-29th, 2010 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Just the Way You Are is almost a definitional C-grade song, a song that has no real defining features of excellence, but that I still kinda like for whatever reason. It may just be that I like Bruno Mars, which I do, but I really like the feel of this one, the simplicity of it, the genuine feel. It's no great masterpiece, but it's a highly listenable song. I'll take it.
Far East Movement, featuring The Cataracs and Dev - Like a G6
Number 1 song from October 30th-November 12th, November 27-December 3rd, 2010 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Like a G6 was a milestone song in a number of ways. Not only was it the very first number one hit by an Asian-American ever, and the first by anyone of Asian descent since 1963's Sukiyaki, it was also the song that convinced everyone of something previously known only to aficionados of the Wu Tang Clan, that dance-hip-hop club songs made by Asians can be every bit as boring and stupid as ones made by whites or blacks. Truly, we live in modern times.
Ke$ha - We R Who We R
Number 1 song from November 13th-19th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
Supposedly, Ke$ha wanted to inspire people with this song, some notion of getting gay kids to stand up to bullying or some such. A fine sentiment, and one that had absolutely no chance of happening with this song, which is a dirty, drunken, ugly thing, as is most of Ke$ha's first album, one that vomits all over your shoes before borrowing sixty bucks and flipping you off as it drives off for the night. Despite my vitriol, I actually don't hate all of Ke$ha's stuff, but this noxious persona needed to be burnt off before I would have anything to do with her.
Rihanna, featuring Drake - What's My Name
Number 1 song from November 20th-26th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I shall some day discover what Drake's appeal is, and achieve enlightenment. Until that day, I have What's My Name, which is a dull electro-R&B song with a medium tempo and nothing else of note to be spoken of about it. Some people call this song island-pop, some call it ska, some call it reggae. I call it boring.
Rihanna - Only Girl (In The World)
Number 1 song from December 4th-10th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
Great... more HI-NRG Dance-pop (I made none of that up). The music critics who reviewed this song highlighted the "pneumatic hiss" at the heart of the song, which does not sound like a complement to me, but then I have some difficulty figuring out nice things to say about it. It's a harsh, over-long song that doesn't vary from its shrieking vocals, and winds up just a big mess.
P!nk - Raise Your Glass
Number 1 song from December 11th-17th, 2010 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
I like P!nk's big stompy pop-rock number, but it's a stupid song that isn't really about anything, and has nothing more than her customary high-energy beat to really recommend it. That said, there's nothing really wrong with the song, it just doesn't hit me the way the rest of her work has.
Katy Perry - Firework
Number 1 song from December 18th, 2010-January 7th, 2011 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Firework is exactly as stupid as a Katy Perry song about self-empowerment was destined to be, with openly-nonsensical lyrics, totally confused imagery, and a hefty coating of cheese. And I'll be goddamned if I don't kind of love it anyway. It's manifestly not a good song at all, but it's got a lovely sound to it, with a great arrangement and use of orchestration, a solid dance-pop beat, and a sentiment to the thing that shines through regardless. Guilty pleasure certainly, but I almost scored this one higher. To me, it's like a big stupid puppy that may not be able to run straight, but is still happy to see you. Still a better image than Firework.
Supplemental Songs
Surely SOMETHING good was to be found on the charts to greet the new decade?
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 8
Havoc's Grade: A
Fifty+ years of music and more songs than I can reliably count, and it all comes down to this. Bad Romance is one of the strangest things I've ever heard, a relentless, dark, pulsating song derived from the bowels of German Haus music and neo-New Wave. And yet is there anyone who doesn't recognize this song as great? I certainly do. It's gothic and twisted, depraved, full-throated, grand, and elemental. One music critic called it a "Teutonic Chant", another compared it to Erasure, and described it as "The Essence of Gagaism", and I even found one who called it "Nightmarishly Jabberwockian". It's the sort of song that basically defies description, and while I've never had much of a personal connection to the thing, unlike certain other songs of Gaga's that we will soon come to, it earns every one of the points it extorts from me. We live in Lady Gaga's world, ladies and gentlemen, and Bad Romance is her prophet. Pray.
Jason Derulo - In My Head
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 14
Havoc's Grade: B
I know that a lot of people hate In My Head, but I've always liked it, as it's probably the best thing that Jason Derulo ever did, autotune or no autotune. Yes, the chorus is a bit lackluster, and the song kind of peters out, but I enjoy the setup for it enough that I can overlook those faults and squeak it in. It's no great song, but I do like it.
Usher, featuring Pitbull - DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 22
Havoc's Grade: B
At long last, I get to praise Usher. DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love is an excellent club song, a high-energy dance-pop song that has just the right feel for what it's trying to be, with a backing gothic chorus and a dark, desperate sound. The less said about Pitbull's rap bridge the better, but the song is still pretty damn awesome, and I have really liked it ever since it first came out.
Lady Gaga - Alejandro
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 33
Havoc's Grade: B
Lady Gaga gets accused of ripping off Madonna a lot, but this is the song where you can really hear it. It sounds like she stole a song from Madonna who in turn stole it from Ace of Base. And yet, I really like the result, a lush synthpop paean of a song that sounds like Madonna at her best combined with Shakira or ABBA at theirs. It's not a world-beater or anything, but Alejandro is one of the better offerings from Gaga's second album.
Flo Rida, featuring David Guetta - Club Can't Handle Me
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 40
Havoc's Grade: B
Energy will forgive a lot, even for someone as congenitally stupid as Flo Rida, especially if he combines with French producer David Guetta. I'm not the biggest club mix fan, but this one just hits all the right notes, with a strong beat, a catchy chorus, and lots of energy. Escalating songs like this are a favorite of mine, and while I maintain no illusions that this song is great, I do enjoy it too much to leave it off the list.
OneRepublic - Secrets
2010 Billboard Top 100 position: 76
Havoc's Grade: B
I don't love everything OneRepublic's ever done, but there's a fair number of songs of theirs that I like, and this is one of them, a genuine-sounding plea layered over a cello-rock backing that just sounds clever together. It's nothing earthshattering, but it's one of the better songs off of OneRepublic's first album, and one takes what one can get when it comes to bands even approximating rock in the '10s.
Other noted songs from 2010:
Lady Antebellum - Need You Now <---- Boring and woebegone, even by country standards.
Train - Hey Soul Sister
Taio Cruz - Dynamite
Enrique Iglesias, ft. Pitbull - I Like It
Young Money, ft. Lloyd - BedRock <---- Maybe the stupidest thing ever written.
Lady Gaga, ft. Beyonce - Telephone
Mike Posner - Cooler than Me
Travie McCoy, ft. Bruno Mars - Billionaire
David Guetta, ft. Akon - Sexy Bitch <---- I don't hate this anywhere near as much as I should.
The Script - Breakeven
Ke$ha - Your Love is my Drug
Jason Derulo - Ridin' Solo
Justin Bieber, ft. Ludacris - Baby
Adam Lambert - Whataya Want from Me
Ke$ha, ft. 3OH!3 - Blah Blah Blah <----
OneRepublic - All the Right Moves
Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me
The Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway
Maroon 5 - Misery
B.o.B, ft. Rivers Cuomo - Magic
Miley Cyrus - Party in the U.S.A.
Kings of Leon - Use Somebody <---- Close call on this one.
Chris Brown, ft. Tyga and Kevin McCall - Deuces
3OH!3 featuring Ke$ha - My First Kiss <----
Kelly Clarkson - Already Gone
Sean Kingston and Justin Bieber - Eenie Meenie <----
The Band Perry - If I Die Young
Paramore - The Only Exception
Sara Bareilles - King of Anything
Uncle Kracker - Smile <---- I thought this was from fifteen years ago.
Cali Swag District - Teach Me How To Dougie
Justin Bieber - One Time
Willow - Whip My Hair
Last edited by General Havoc on Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
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LadyTevar
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#228 Re: A (half) Century of Music
Was there no Hard Rock on there at all?!?!? SERIOUSLY????
Dogs are Man's Best Friend
Cats are Man's Adorable Little Serial Killers
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General Havoc
- Mr. Party-Killbot
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#229 Re: A (half) Century of Music
Go right ahead and find me some hard rock on any of the charts from 2010. It's just not there.LadyTevar wrote:Was there no Hard Rock on there at all?!?!? SERIOUSLY????
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
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General Havoc
- Mr. Party-Killbot
- Posts: 5245
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#230 Re: A (half) Century of Music
2011
Yearly GPA: 1.961
2011 starts out with a bang, as the charts mutated quite distinctly away from the stupid club mixes that dominated the previous year, and into more soulful, more interesting singer-songwriter fare. Not universally of course, but the trend seems to have been set that way, and the result is a strong year, one where even the remaining club stuff sounded better. I won't claim this is a new renaissance in music or anything, but it's a very good showing for the first year of the 10s, and I will take what I can get in that regard.
Bruno Mars - Grenade
Number 1 song from January 8th-14th, 22nd-28th, February 5th-18th, 2011 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
I know this song doesn't have a great reputation, but the fact is that with that beat and that backing vocal arrangement, there was basically no chance I wasn't going to like Grenade. I've always had a thing for desperate-sounding pop, and Grenade's dark, twisted, plaintive style is just what I mean by that. I know this song's not going to appeal to most of the people looking at this, but so be it.
Britney Spears - Hold it Against Me
Number 1 song from January 29th-February 4th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
Of all the things I expected to hear from Britney Spears, Dubstep was not among them. And yet, honestly, this song isn't so bad. Not good enough to get a better score obviously, but most of that is due to a fairly uninspired dance-beat production. The underlying idea, of placing Britney into a ravey-dubstep breakdown, isn't such a bad thing, at least not as long as will.i.am isn't producing the song.
Hold that thought.
Wiz Khalifa - Black and Yellow
Number 1 song from February 19th-25th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I went back and forth on Wiz Khalifa's first big hit here, because the base fact is that he sucks on this song, with no flow, no wit, no lyricism, nothing but boring lackadaisical rapping that I could do without. But the production on Black and Yellow is actually pretty good, with a strange tinkling-triangle song underlying everything. Ultimately, the tipping point for me was the song's subject matter, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are an abomination unto the Lord, and must be cleansed in holy fire.
My list. My rules.
Lady Gaga - Born This Way
Number 1 song from February 26th-April 8th, 2011 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Well she certainly doesn't do anything by halves...
Lady Gaga supposedly wanted to make a pro-LGBT anthem to thank all her many fans from that community, and publically stated that she wanted it to be a powered-up, direct anthem, one that would not pussyfoot around and say directly what it meant. So of course she created an 8-minute overproduced nightmare-song complete with Salvador Dali imagery and a three-minute spoken-word intro that seems to want to be an excerpt from a Nietzsche tract. It doesn't work at all. Born This Way is a garbled mess, a mass of discordant sounds and build up that leads nowhere whatsoever, a cacophony that barely sounds like music. I can hear the Madonna club-dance piece that the song wants to be buried in there somewhere, but it is never allowed to break free of its confines and become an actual song. This probably represents the apex of Lady Gaga's raving madness period, and she would produce more... accessible music from here on out, but while I can only applaud the sentiment of this song, the reality of it is a big fat NO from me.
God may not make mistakes, but it's clear Gaga did.
Katy Perry, featuring Kanye West - E. T.
Number 1 song from April 9th-29th, May 7th-20th, 2011 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Jesus, Dubstep was big this year.
Katy Perry's contribution to this all-too-weird year was this, a strange, harsh song, best described to me as being "as if HR Geiger tried to make a Katy Perry song". Complete with a weird music video that features imagery I am at pains to describe, this song isn't anything THAT special, but certainly leaves a memory behind, and if I'm being honest, I kinda like it. I certainly like it more than I like similar-sentiment songs generally. There's a sense of weird, alien, freakiness to this song, an aural uncanny-valley effect that's hard to quantify. It'll do.
Rihanna, featuring Britney Spears - S&M
Number 1 song from April 30th-May 6th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
JESUS, Dubstep was really big this year.
Another song whose subject matter was expected to do all the heavy lifting, S&M is a waste of time. It's not bad enough to warrant a dreaded F or anything, but it's as generic as you please, and has no actual value to it as a song. Pass on this thing entirely, and you'll have missed little-to-nothing.
Adele - Rolling in the Deep
Number 1 song from May 21st-July 8th, 2011 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I just don't really "get" Adele, to be honest. Not that there should be much to get. She's a soulful, deep blues and gospel-inspired singer, and that should be enough, and yet Rolling in the Deep, well made as it is, does absolutely nothing for me. I respect the artistry it represents, the throwback aspect, the genuineness of the sentiment and anger, but there's just nothing there emotionally for me, not with the sound, not with the lyrics, nothing at all. Consider this a concession to my own biases then.
Pitbull, featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack, and Nayer - Give Me Everything
Number 1 song from July 9th-15th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
Entirely buildup, with no actual payoff, I almost had some mercy for this song, but the blatant and gratuitous product placement that Pitbull, king of the lazy rappers, force-fed into this song just ruins it for me. Bypass this thing as a useless club intro and be done with it.
LMFAO, featuring Lauren Bennett and GoonRock - Party Rock Anthem
Number 1 song from July 16th-August 26th, 2011 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
It's impossible to hate Party Rock Anthem, of this I am convinced. The song is an infectious little EDM number that inspired infinite memes, and is just fun to listen to. Call this a B- if it makes you feel better, I like Party Rock, even if the less said about the rest of LMFAO's catalog, the better.
Katy Perry - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)
Number 1 song from August 27th-September 9th, 2011 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
This might be the quintessential Katy Perry song, an overproduced monster of a pop song that involves a video derived from the bowels of someone's personal hell, which I paradoxically wind up liking a fair amount. The song is just catchy, involves the best use of Kenny G... well ever... and involves a needlessly elaborate music video starring Rebeca Black and Corey Haim. My opinion is almost irrelevant to something like this. Take it for the glorious trainwreck it is.
Maroon 5, featuring Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger
Number 1 song from September 10th-16th, September 24th-October 14th, 2011 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I thought this song would be a shoe-in for the dreaded F, but it turns out I don't hate it quite as much as I thought I did. I do, however, hate it, for the best reason of all, it's a stupid-sounding throwback song that relies on Adam Levine's simpering vocals and a dance-pop beat that is as boring as anything you'll hear. I may not despise this song, but it's not worth spending any time considering.
Adele - Someone Like You
Number 1 song from September 17th-23rd, October 15th-November 11th, 2011 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Someone Like You is a song I wish I liked more than I do. It has all the right elements, a beautifully-understated piano backing, effortlessly-evocative singing, a deep, personal tone that most songs wish they could acquire, and a haunting subject matter and lyrics that speak to the songwriter's deepest fears and vulnerabilities, and yet... I really don't love this song at all. I don't hate it, certainly, but there's just nothing here for me, as with the rest of Adele's work. Still, I wish to layer no criticism upon this song or this artist, as Adele simply kills it here, and drives home the bitterness that comes with being the person that has been moved-on-from.
Rihanna, featuring Calvin Harris - We Found Love
Number 1 song from November 12th, 2011-January 6th, 2012 (8 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Over the course of this project, I have discovered that there are artists I thought I liked that I did not (Mariah Carey), and that there are artists I did not think I liked that it turns out I really do. Rihanna is one such artist. This song, a club-electrohouse piece from Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, has a mediocre rating solely because it doesn't have more Rihanna in it, focusing instead on generic techno beats instead of on her vocals. If the song had focused more on her part, it would likely have become a surprise favorite of mine alongside songs like Umbrella
Supplemental Songs
Though there was a better class of song on the number 1 list this year, there weren't many real earthshaking standouts. Let's see what didn't make the grade:
CeeLo Green - Fuck You
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 7
Havoc's Grade: B
I still can't quite believe that Fuck You exists. It's like a beautiful gift given to all of us by Gnarls Barkley himself. A wonderfully poppy soul-doowop sendup, Fuck You is a song that is almost genius in its simplicity, throwing Eminem-level profanity into a sunny 60s Motown song. I almost gave this song an A, I like it so much, but ultimately, my need for something beyond a great concept kept it off the top spot. But still, I have no objections to Fuck You, and will tolerate none from anyone else.
Lady Gaga - The Edge of Glory
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 29
Havoc's Grade: A
Some songs take time to build to greatness, consideration brought on after listening to them over and over again, but some songs do not, and The Edge of Glory is a song that I absolutely fell in love with the instant I first heard it, and have openly adored ever since. A throbbing, pounding, sax-and-drum electro-rock opus, done rather openly in the style of Bruce Springsteen, whose E-Street Band's saxophonist, Clarence Clemons, lent his skills to this song before he died in mid-2011. Everything about this song is amazing, the organ work, the tingling production, the bass, the singing, everything. It's the sort of song that you remember the first time you ever heard it, or at least you do if you're me. If Lady Gaga never makes anything to top The Edge of Glory, then so be it, because this song is a flat masterpiece, and I'm just glad to have it for all time.
Bad Meets Evil, featuring Bruno Mars - Lighters
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 34
Havoc's Grade: B
I don't pretend that Lighters is a great song, but it's the production and the sound that earns it a spot on my list. Eminem and Royce's flow, Bruno Mars' soulful singing, the orchestral production of the entire thing, it's all irresistible to me, and while the lyrical content of the song isn't much beyond the usual "fuck the haters" stuff, I just adore the way this song sounds. It reminds me of another Eminem collaboration we may be seeing in a year or two, but one thing at a time...
Christina Perry - Jar of Hearts
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 55
Havoc's Grade: B
It's not one of these lists if I don't embarrass myself with music everyone else hates. Jar of Hearts is a very, very strange song, with a dour string accompaniment and creepy, borderline disturbing imagery to it, something not helped by a music video that seems comprised of half-interpretive dance, half Vampire the Masquerade. But it's the tone and feel of this song that I quite like, a song that's Bitter with a capital B, describing a serial dater has having ice inside their soul. I don't pretend this song is some transcendent act of sublime perfection, but I do like it quite a bit, and it has a classical richness that most ballads do not.
Usher - More
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 61
Havoc's Grade: B
More fucking rocks. No subtleties, no lyrical deconstruction, no production notes, it's just a badass HI-NRG club track of the sort that Usher turned his hand to around the turn of the decade to tremendous effect. I don't have much to say otherwise. Don't front, this song is awesome.
Lady Gaga - Yoü and I
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 71
Havoc's Grade: B
Lady Gaga does country-rock, eh? Well hell, I'm game, especially when the result is something like this. Yoü and I is a big, stomping electro-rock piece done in the style of Shania Twain or some other mid-90s country artist, save with considerably more skill and production value. Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen, was brought into this song to compose the underlying track, and it shows, as the result was a bass-heavy arena rock foot-stomping anthem that inexplicably manages to work pretty damn well. Go figure.
Other noted songs from 2011:
Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks <---- I have no idea what to make of this.
Enrique Iglesias, ft. Ludacris and DJ Frank E - Tonight (I'm Fuckin' You)
Pink - Fuckin' Perfect <---- Another "almost" from Pink.
Chris Brown, ft. Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes - Look At Me Now
OneRepublic - Good Life
Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song
Hot Chelle Rae - Tonight Tonight
Ke$ha - Blow
The Black Eyed Peas - The Time (Dirty Bit)
Diddy – Dirty Money, ft. Skylar Grey - Coming Home
Taio Cruz - Dynamite
Nicki Minaj, ft. Drake - Moment 4 Life
Dr. Dre, ft. Eminem and Skylar Grey - I Need a Doctor
Kanye West, ft. Rihanna - All of the Lights
Avril Lavigne - What the Hell <---- Nowhere near as bad as it should have been.
Taylor Swift - Back to December
Beyoncé - Best Thing I Never Had
Lady Gaga - Judas
Kelly Clarkson - Mr. Know-it-all
Yearly GPA: 1.961
2011 starts out with a bang, as the charts mutated quite distinctly away from the stupid club mixes that dominated the previous year, and into more soulful, more interesting singer-songwriter fare. Not universally of course, but the trend seems to have been set that way, and the result is a strong year, one where even the remaining club stuff sounded better. I won't claim this is a new renaissance in music or anything, but it's a very good showing for the first year of the 10s, and I will take what I can get in that regard.
Bruno Mars - Grenade
Number 1 song from January 8th-14th, 22nd-28th, February 5th-18th, 2011 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
I know this song doesn't have a great reputation, but the fact is that with that beat and that backing vocal arrangement, there was basically no chance I wasn't going to like Grenade. I've always had a thing for desperate-sounding pop, and Grenade's dark, twisted, plaintive style is just what I mean by that. I know this song's not going to appeal to most of the people looking at this, but so be it.
Britney Spears - Hold it Against Me
Number 1 song from January 29th-February 4th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
Of all the things I expected to hear from Britney Spears, Dubstep was not among them. And yet, honestly, this song isn't so bad. Not good enough to get a better score obviously, but most of that is due to a fairly uninspired dance-beat production. The underlying idea, of placing Britney into a ravey-dubstep breakdown, isn't such a bad thing, at least not as long as will.i.am isn't producing the song.
Hold that thought.
Wiz Khalifa - Black and Yellow
Number 1 song from February 19th-25th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I went back and forth on Wiz Khalifa's first big hit here, because the base fact is that he sucks on this song, with no flow, no wit, no lyricism, nothing but boring lackadaisical rapping that I could do without. But the production on Black and Yellow is actually pretty good, with a strange tinkling-triangle song underlying everything. Ultimately, the tipping point for me was the song's subject matter, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are an abomination unto the Lord, and must be cleansed in holy fire.
My list. My rules.
Lady Gaga - Born This Way
Number 1 song from February 26th-April 8th, 2011 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Well she certainly doesn't do anything by halves...
Lady Gaga supposedly wanted to make a pro-LGBT anthem to thank all her many fans from that community, and publically stated that she wanted it to be a powered-up, direct anthem, one that would not pussyfoot around and say directly what it meant. So of course she created an 8-minute overproduced nightmare-song complete with Salvador Dali imagery and a three-minute spoken-word intro that seems to want to be an excerpt from a Nietzsche tract. It doesn't work at all. Born This Way is a garbled mess, a mass of discordant sounds and build up that leads nowhere whatsoever, a cacophony that barely sounds like music. I can hear the Madonna club-dance piece that the song wants to be buried in there somewhere, but it is never allowed to break free of its confines and become an actual song. This probably represents the apex of Lady Gaga's raving madness period, and she would produce more... accessible music from here on out, but while I can only applaud the sentiment of this song, the reality of it is a big fat NO from me.
God may not make mistakes, but it's clear Gaga did.
Katy Perry, featuring Kanye West - E. T.
Number 1 song from April 9th-29th, May 7th-20th, 2011 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Jesus, Dubstep was big this year.
Katy Perry's contribution to this all-too-weird year was this, a strange, harsh song, best described to me as being "as if HR Geiger tried to make a Katy Perry song". Complete with a weird music video that features imagery I am at pains to describe, this song isn't anything THAT special, but certainly leaves a memory behind, and if I'm being honest, I kinda like it. I certainly like it more than I like similar-sentiment songs generally. There's a sense of weird, alien, freakiness to this song, an aural uncanny-valley effect that's hard to quantify. It'll do.
Rihanna, featuring Britney Spears - S&M
Number 1 song from April 30th-May 6th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
JESUS, Dubstep was really big this year.
Another song whose subject matter was expected to do all the heavy lifting, S&M is a waste of time. It's not bad enough to warrant a dreaded F or anything, but it's as generic as you please, and has no actual value to it as a song. Pass on this thing entirely, and you'll have missed little-to-nothing.
Adele - Rolling in the Deep
Number 1 song from May 21st-July 8th, 2011 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I just don't really "get" Adele, to be honest. Not that there should be much to get. She's a soulful, deep blues and gospel-inspired singer, and that should be enough, and yet Rolling in the Deep, well made as it is, does absolutely nothing for me. I respect the artistry it represents, the throwback aspect, the genuineness of the sentiment and anger, but there's just nothing there emotionally for me, not with the sound, not with the lyrics, nothing at all. Consider this a concession to my own biases then.
Pitbull, featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack, and Nayer - Give Me Everything
Number 1 song from July 9th-15th, 2011 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
Entirely buildup, with no actual payoff, I almost had some mercy for this song, but the blatant and gratuitous product placement that Pitbull, king of the lazy rappers, force-fed into this song just ruins it for me. Bypass this thing as a useless club intro and be done with it.
LMFAO, featuring Lauren Bennett and GoonRock - Party Rock Anthem
Number 1 song from July 16th-August 26th, 2011 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
It's impossible to hate Party Rock Anthem, of this I am convinced. The song is an infectious little EDM number that inspired infinite memes, and is just fun to listen to. Call this a B- if it makes you feel better, I like Party Rock, even if the less said about the rest of LMFAO's catalog, the better.
Katy Perry - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)
Number 1 song from August 27th-September 9th, 2011 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
This might be the quintessential Katy Perry song, an overproduced monster of a pop song that involves a video derived from the bowels of someone's personal hell, which I paradoxically wind up liking a fair amount. The song is just catchy, involves the best use of Kenny G... well ever... and involves a needlessly elaborate music video starring Rebeca Black and Corey Haim. My opinion is almost irrelevant to something like this. Take it for the glorious trainwreck it is.
Maroon 5, featuring Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger
Number 1 song from September 10th-16th, September 24th-October 14th, 2011 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I thought this song would be a shoe-in for the dreaded F, but it turns out I don't hate it quite as much as I thought I did. I do, however, hate it, for the best reason of all, it's a stupid-sounding throwback song that relies on Adam Levine's simpering vocals and a dance-pop beat that is as boring as anything you'll hear. I may not despise this song, but it's not worth spending any time considering.
Adele - Someone Like You
Number 1 song from September 17th-23rd, October 15th-November 11th, 2011 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Someone Like You is a song I wish I liked more than I do. It has all the right elements, a beautifully-understated piano backing, effortlessly-evocative singing, a deep, personal tone that most songs wish they could acquire, and a haunting subject matter and lyrics that speak to the songwriter's deepest fears and vulnerabilities, and yet... I really don't love this song at all. I don't hate it, certainly, but there's just nothing here for me, as with the rest of Adele's work. Still, I wish to layer no criticism upon this song or this artist, as Adele simply kills it here, and drives home the bitterness that comes with being the person that has been moved-on-from.
Rihanna, featuring Calvin Harris - We Found Love
Number 1 song from November 12th, 2011-January 6th, 2012 (8 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Over the course of this project, I have discovered that there are artists I thought I liked that I did not (Mariah Carey), and that there are artists I did not think I liked that it turns out I really do. Rihanna is one such artist. This song, a club-electrohouse piece from Scottish DJ Calvin Harris, has a mediocre rating solely because it doesn't have more Rihanna in it, focusing instead on generic techno beats instead of on her vocals. If the song had focused more on her part, it would likely have become a surprise favorite of mine alongside songs like Umbrella
Supplemental Songs
Though there was a better class of song on the number 1 list this year, there weren't many real earthshaking standouts. Let's see what didn't make the grade:
CeeLo Green - Fuck You
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 7
Havoc's Grade: B
I still can't quite believe that Fuck You exists. It's like a beautiful gift given to all of us by Gnarls Barkley himself. A wonderfully poppy soul-doowop sendup, Fuck You is a song that is almost genius in its simplicity, throwing Eminem-level profanity into a sunny 60s Motown song. I almost gave this song an A, I like it so much, but ultimately, my need for something beyond a great concept kept it off the top spot. But still, I have no objections to Fuck You, and will tolerate none from anyone else.
Lady Gaga - The Edge of Glory
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 29
Havoc's Grade: A
Some songs take time to build to greatness, consideration brought on after listening to them over and over again, but some songs do not, and The Edge of Glory is a song that I absolutely fell in love with the instant I first heard it, and have openly adored ever since. A throbbing, pounding, sax-and-drum electro-rock opus, done rather openly in the style of Bruce Springsteen, whose E-Street Band's saxophonist, Clarence Clemons, lent his skills to this song before he died in mid-2011. Everything about this song is amazing, the organ work, the tingling production, the bass, the singing, everything. It's the sort of song that you remember the first time you ever heard it, or at least you do if you're me. If Lady Gaga never makes anything to top The Edge of Glory, then so be it, because this song is a flat masterpiece, and I'm just glad to have it for all time.
Bad Meets Evil, featuring Bruno Mars - Lighters
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 34
Havoc's Grade: B
I don't pretend that Lighters is a great song, but it's the production and the sound that earns it a spot on my list. Eminem and Royce's flow, Bruno Mars' soulful singing, the orchestral production of the entire thing, it's all irresistible to me, and while the lyrical content of the song isn't much beyond the usual "fuck the haters" stuff, I just adore the way this song sounds. It reminds me of another Eminem collaboration we may be seeing in a year or two, but one thing at a time...
Christina Perry - Jar of Hearts
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 55
Havoc's Grade: B
It's not one of these lists if I don't embarrass myself with music everyone else hates. Jar of Hearts is a very, very strange song, with a dour string accompaniment and creepy, borderline disturbing imagery to it, something not helped by a music video that seems comprised of half-interpretive dance, half Vampire the Masquerade. But it's the tone and feel of this song that I quite like, a song that's Bitter with a capital B, describing a serial dater has having ice inside their soul. I don't pretend this song is some transcendent act of sublime perfection, but I do like it quite a bit, and it has a classical richness that most ballads do not.
Usher - More
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 61
Havoc's Grade: B
More fucking rocks. No subtleties, no lyrical deconstruction, no production notes, it's just a badass HI-NRG club track of the sort that Usher turned his hand to around the turn of the decade to tremendous effect. I don't have much to say otherwise. Don't front, this song is awesome.
Lady Gaga - Yoü and I
2011 Billboard Top 100 position: 71
Havoc's Grade: B
Lady Gaga does country-rock, eh? Well hell, I'm game, especially when the result is something like this. Yoü and I is a big, stomping electro-rock piece done in the style of Shania Twain or some other mid-90s country artist, save with considerably more skill and production value. Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen, was brought into this song to compose the underlying track, and it shows, as the result was a bass-heavy arena rock foot-stomping anthem that inexplicably manages to work pretty damn well. Go figure.
Other noted songs from 2011:
Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks <---- I have no idea what to make of this.
Enrique Iglesias, ft. Ludacris and DJ Frank E - Tonight (I'm Fuckin' You)
Pink - Fuckin' Perfect <---- Another "almost" from Pink.
Chris Brown, ft. Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes - Look At Me Now
OneRepublic - Good Life
Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song
Hot Chelle Rae - Tonight Tonight
Ke$ha - Blow
The Black Eyed Peas - The Time (Dirty Bit)
Diddy – Dirty Money, ft. Skylar Grey - Coming Home
Taio Cruz - Dynamite
Nicki Minaj, ft. Drake - Moment 4 Life
Dr. Dre, ft. Eminem and Skylar Grey - I Need a Doctor
Kanye West, ft. Rihanna - All of the Lights
Avril Lavigne - What the Hell <---- Nowhere near as bad as it should have been.
Taylor Swift - Back to December
Beyoncé - Best Thing I Never Had
Lady Gaga - Judas
Kelly Clarkson - Mr. Know-it-all
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
-
LadyTevar
- Pleasure Kitten Foreman
- Posts: 13197
- Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2006 8:25 pm
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- Contact:
#231 Re: A (half) Century of Music
And not ONE of the songs I was jamming to that year charted. WTF???
Billboard Charts Archive
It's not like the songs weren't there! We can see they did chart on their Genre, so why aren't they represented on whatever chart you're using, Havoc?
Billboard Charts Archive
It's not like the songs weren't there! We can see they did chart on their Genre, so why aren't they represented on whatever chart you're using, Havoc?
Dogs are Man's Best Friend
Cats are Man's Adorable Little Serial Killers
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General Havoc
- Mr. Party-Killbot
- Posts: 5245
- Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:12 pm
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- Location: The City that is not Frisco
- Contact:
#232 Re: A (half) Century of Music
Because I am, as I have always been, using the Billboard Hot 100 list, which has had a dearth of good rock songs on it since the beginning of the millennium. That is simply the way things are.
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
-
LadyTevar
- Pleasure Kitten Foreman
- Posts: 13197
- Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2006 8:25 pm
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- Location: In your lap, purring
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#233 Re: A (half) Century of Music
*sigh* Yeah, rock doesn't hit the Top 100, does it.
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General Havoc
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#234 Re: A (half) Century of Music
2012
Yearly GPA: 1.827
Though it wound up scoring slightly lower than 2011, 2012 was actually something of a better year for music than its predecessor, mostly because the musical landscape mutated and began throwing strange indie hits onto the charts that bore little resemblance to what came before it. It wasn't a full-borne musical revolution like 1964 or 1992 was, but it was something new, and after the awful drought of the mid-00s, that's something worth valuing.
LMFAO - Sexy and I Know It
Number 1 song from January 7th-20th, 2012 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I almost admire Sexy and I Know It, it's so unashamedly awful, and it plainly knows it. It has a beat like a pulsating dentist's drill, a video that makes me nauseous, a conceit that is utterly laughably stupid, and EDM-based club "music" that barely merits the term. It is one of the worst things ever made. I kind of love it.
Adele - Set Fire to the Rain
Number 1 song from February 4th-17th, 2012 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Set Fire to the Rain is probably Adele's best song, in my opinion, but it still possesses some of the myriad flaws that I've always identified with Adele. Her songs aim for great, epic sweeps, but never really cut loose at the right moments. Everything in Set Fire promises a big, overture of a chorus, and while there's an attempt in that direction, it doesn't really get there, far as I'm concerned. It's still a decent song, but I just wish it hit the target it was aiming for.
Kelly Clarkson - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)
Number 1 song from February 18th-March 2nd, March 10th-16th, 2012 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I'm usually a music-over-lyrics kind of guy, but the lyrics in Stronger are so stupid that I have a hard time pushing past them. It's a thoughtless collection of cliches about overcoming one of Clarkson's patented abusive-monster-exes, filled with platitudes about how the Snidely-Whiplash cartoon she was dating must have thought she was doomed and dead, but no!. The beat and sound of the song is fine, but goddamn, the thing is just too stupid for me.
Katy Perry - Part of Me
Number 1 song from March 3rd-9th, 2012 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
There must have been something going around in the first half of 2012, because this is yet another song about the worst breakup imaginable, involving soul-breaking and bombs. I actually like this one a bit more than the Clarkson song, as it seems perhaps a bit more real, and the beat is a little more interesting. It's still not a great song, but it'll do.
Fun, featuring Janelle Monáe - We Are Young
Number 1 song from March 17th-April 27th, 2012 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
I'm actually a pretty big fan of Indie band Fun, a group who clearly wants to be Queen, as will become aparent eventually. I don't really adore We Are Young as much as I'd like to, but it has a fun indie-rock/pop sensibility that admire, one that would continue to be prevelant for the rest of the year. Most years have a fluke indie hit on their charts somewhere, but only in 2012 did it not feel like a fluke.
Gotye, featuring Kimbra - Somebody That I Used to Know
Number 1 song from April 28th-June 22nd, 2012 (8 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
If you want any indication of how weird 2012 got, bear in mind that this song, the strange indie pop ballad with minor chords and a Luiz Bonfa sample, this was the biggest song of the year. 2012 made no sense then or now.
And yet I'm not complaining at all, because Somebody That I Used to Know is a fascinating, almost hypnotic song, one of the most restrained pop songs I've ever heard. Gotye apparently found co-star Kimbra because she sounded like "a sad Katy Perry", which I can definitely hear if I listen carefully enough. I wouldn't quite claim that I love this song, but it's one of those songs you're unlikely to forget any time soon, and the blending of its disparate elements are almost seamless, even if the result they add up to makes no sense.
Carly Rae Jepson - Call Me Maybe
Number 1 song from June 23rd-August 24th, 2012 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Not that everything was weird indie flukes this year.
Call Me Maybe is a song that's hard to speak rationally about. It's not... bad really. Indeed in some ways it's pretty good. It has a decent beat, good energy, a nice opening verse. But that damn chorus, which is obviously intended to be as catchy as humanly possible, hits all the "annoying as hell" buttons for me, rendering the entire project borderline insufferable. I don't hate Carly Rae Jepson or her first song, but I'd really appreciate it if it would just leave me alone.
Flo Rida - Whistle
Number 1 song from August 25th-31st September 15th-21st, 2012 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Oh good, a Flo Rida ripoff of Moves Like Jagger with the least subtle oral sex metaphor in the history of time. Just what I always wanted.
Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
Number 1 song from September 1st-14th, 22nd-28th, 2012 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
The song that cemented Taylor Swift's place as the Lord of All Music for our age, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together is, if I'm being brutally honest, actually a really well-made pop song, a breakup song that sounds both entirely real, and strangely enough, defies the tendency towards mopeyness for such songs, instead involving a big, stompy, sing-along chorus full of energy. I don't really love it, certainly, and I wouldn't call it great, but it's a far better song than I expected it to be. Taylor's done much worse than this, and we will get to see quite a few of those mistakes coming up. Take what you get.
Maroon 5 - One More Night
Number 1 song from September 29th-November 30th, 2012 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Maroon 5 just aren't a very good band, and never have been, and Adam Levine simply can't sing in anything but that ridiculous castrati tone. There are songs where that matters less, but this one, which claims to be electro-reggae but never sounds like it, is not among them. The song is just boring, a flat, grating noodle of a song that has no real hook and no flavor to it. No thank you.
Rihanna - Diamonds
Number 1 song from December 1st-21st, 2012 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Written by the mysterious Australian experimentalist trip-soul singer-songwriter Sia (who we will be hearing more about in the remaining years of this list), Diamonds... isn't very good. There's something to the song certainly, with the sort of strange off-kilter orchestral styling that Sia would later bring to several songs I quite like, but this one... no, I'm sorry. The song has nothing to it beyond some off-key singing, and I need more than that from my operatic pop.
Bruno Mars - Locked Out of Heaven
Number 1 song from December 22nd, 2012-February 1st, 2013 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Locked Out of Heaven represents something of a milestone for Bruno Mars, who thereby began a new retro phase of his career, wherein he successively took on the guise of other performers and groups of yesteryear, in this case the late-70s-era Police, in their best reggae-rock style. This phase would eventually lead to wonderful things, though I only sort of half-like Locked Out of Heaven itself. Dubstep-breakdown at the end aside, the song is very much an early Police song, but the base fact is that I could only tolerate so much of the early Police, and imitating them really just generates the same problems. All that said though, the song certainly isn't bad, just not as good as some we'll come to...
Supplemental Songs
Though there was a better class of song on the number 1 list this year, there weren't many real earthshaking standouts. Let's see what didn't make the grade:
Fun - Some Nights
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 14
Havoc's Grade: A
Some Nights was the song that sold me on Fun. Hell it was the song that sold me on 2012 in general. A huge, stomping symphonic-rock anthem done explicitly in the style of the Lords of Symphony-Pop themselves, Queen, Some Nights is a sledgehammer of a song, one of the very few that I can remember the first moment I heard. Using Auto-tune as an instrument in and of itself, layered on top of a military march and an elaborate, many-piece orchestra of pianos, guitars, and march drums. I kind of wish it wasn't as fragmented as it is, but any criticism I do have of Some Nights is ill-placed. I love this song, and love the band that gave it to me.
Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss)
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 37
Havoc's Grade: B
Blow Me came very close to earning a top score from me, a high-energy, uptempo dance-pop-rock song that apparently draws most of its musical inspiration from Modest Mouse, not that I could have told you that ahead of time. The song is excellent, if a little bit simplistic for my tastes, like if Pink decided to cover Kelly Clarkson all of a sudden. I do really like it, and it's worth an honorable mention for the year, if perhaps not the heights of the previous work.
Psy - Gangam Style
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 47
Havoc's Grade: B
What?! Screw you. You like it too!
Pitbull, ft. Chris Brown - International Love
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 48
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, this is not a combination I would have expected to see gracing one of my supplemental lists, but to my surprise, I like International Love a lot, and the reason for that is that goddamn electric dance-beat it has. Chris Brown is a great singer, whatever other faults he might have as a human being, and Pitbull's rapping doesn't sound stupid for once. Maybe it's just the uses I've seen this song put to, or maybe (probably) I just have bad taste, but I really enjoy this song, even on repeat. YMMV.
Imagine Dragons - It's Time
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 91
Havoc's Grade: B
As always, it's the sound of the song that does it for me here. It's Time is a strange alt-rock piece built on a Banjo riff of all things, with incomprehensible lyrics and a music video that seems to involve post-apocalyptic San Francisco. I don't really love this song, but I do keep coming back to it for some reason. This was a year for the indie circuit, and this song a worthy addition thereto.
30 Seconds to Mars - Vox Populi
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: A
Written in 2009 by frontman Jared Leto (yes, that one), and finally released as a single at the beginning of 2012, Vox Populi is a whole smorgasbord of rock stylings, as is the album it was taken from, by a band that precious few have anything good to say about. And yet, if I'm being honest, I absolutely love this song, from its echoed introduction to its prog-rock-overture of a climax. I've complained before about songs that are all buildup and no payoff, but this song pays off, several different times, a foot-stomping anthemic overture about war and loss and all manner of other things, a song I doubt anyone else will appreciate, but that I simply adore. I didn't actually know this was released as a single, but thankfully I have the chance to praise it now. Do with it what you will.
Other noted songs from 2012:
Maroon 5, ft. Wiz Khalifa - Payphone <---- Not half-bad if I'm being honest, though Khalifa adds nothing.
The Wanted - Glad You Came <---- The least subtle song in the universe.
Ellie Goulding - Lights
Nicki Minaj - Starships <---- Awful.
One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful
Katy Perry - Wide Awake
Train - Drive By <---- Just awful.
Drake, ft. Lil Wayne - The Motto <---- Even worse.
Rihanna - Where Have You Been
Jason Mraz - I Won't Give Up
Bruno Mars - It Will Rain
Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa, ft. Bruno Mars - Young, Wild, & Free
Jay-Z & Kanye West - Niggas in Paris
Katy Perry - The One That Got Away
Adele - Someone Like You
Jessie J - Domino
Cher Lloyd - Want You Back <---- *Shudder*
Pitbull - Back in Time
Adele - Rumor Has It
Wiz Khalifa - Work Hard, Play Hard
Rihanna, ft. Chris Brown - Birthday Cake
Train - 50 Ways To Say Goodbye <---- Train is not good enough to rip off Paul Simon and get away with it.
Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup <---- I kind of love this song.
Ke$ha - Die Young <---- The closest Ke$ha ever got to a good song.
Christina Perry - A Thousand Years
Adele - Skyfall
Yearly GPA: 1.827
Though it wound up scoring slightly lower than 2011, 2012 was actually something of a better year for music than its predecessor, mostly because the musical landscape mutated and began throwing strange indie hits onto the charts that bore little resemblance to what came before it. It wasn't a full-borne musical revolution like 1964 or 1992 was, but it was something new, and after the awful drought of the mid-00s, that's something worth valuing.
LMFAO - Sexy and I Know It
Number 1 song from January 7th-20th, 2012 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I almost admire Sexy and I Know It, it's so unashamedly awful, and it plainly knows it. It has a beat like a pulsating dentist's drill, a video that makes me nauseous, a conceit that is utterly laughably stupid, and EDM-based club "music" that barely merits the term. It is one of the worst things ever made. I kind of love it.
Adele - Set Fire to the Rain
Number 1 song from February 4th-17th, 2012 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Set Fire to the Rain is probably Adele's best song, in my opinion, but it still possesses some of the myriad flaws that I've always identified with Adele. Her songs aim for great, epic sweeps, but never really cut loose at the right moments. Everything in Set Fire promises a big, overture of a chorus, and while there's an attempt in that direction, it doesn't really get there, far as I'm concerned. It's still a decent song, but I just wish it hit the target it was aiming for.
Kelly Clarkson - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)
Number 1 song from February 18th-March 2nd, March 10th-16th, 2012 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I'm usually a music-over-lyrics kind of guy, but the lyrics in Stronger are so stupid that I have a hard time pushing past them. It's a thoughtless collection of cliches about overcoming one of Clarkson's patented abusive-monster-exes, filled with platitudes about how the Snidely-Whiplash cartoon she was dating must have thought she was doomed and dead, but no!. The beat and sound of the song is fine, but goddamn, the thing is just too stupid for me.
Katy Perry - Part of Me
Number 1 song from March 3rd-9th, 2012 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: C
There must have been something going around in the first half of 2012, because this is yet another song about the worst breakup imaginable, involving soul-breaking and bombs. I actually like this one a bit more than the Clarkson song, as it seems perhaps a bit more real, and the beat is a little more interesting. It's still not a great song, but it'll do.
Fun, featuring Janelle Monáe - We Are Young
Number 1 song from March 17th-April 27th, 2012 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
I'm actually a pretty big fan of Indie band Fun, a group who clearly wants to be Queen, as will become aparent eventually. I don't really adore We Are Young as much as I'd like to, but it has a fun indie-rock/pop sensibility that admire, one that would continue to be prevelant for the rest of the year. Most years have a fluke indie hit on their charts somewhere, but only in 2012 did it not feel like a fluke.
Gotye, featuring Kimbra - Somebody That I Used to Know
Number 1 song from April 28th-June 22nd, 2012 (8 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
If you want any indication of how weird 2012 got, bear in mind that this song, the strange indie pop ballad with minor chords and a Luiz Bonfa sample, this was the biggest song of the year. 2012 made no sense then or now.
And yet I'm not complaining at all, because Somebody That I Used to Know is a fascinating, almost hypnotic song, one of the most restrained pop songs I've ever heard. Gotye apparently found co-star Kimbra because she sounded like "a sad Katy Perry", which I can definitely hear if I listen carefully enough. I wouldn't quite claim that I love this song, but it's one of those songs you're unlikely to forget any time soon, and the blending of its disparate elements are almost seamless, even if the result they add up to makes no sense.
Carly Rae Jepson - Call Me Maybe
Number 1 song from June 23rd-August 24th, 2012 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Not that everything was weird indie flukes this year.
Call Me Maybe is a song that's hard to speak rationally about. It's not... bad really. Indeed in some ways it's pretty good. It has a decent beat, good energy, a nice opening verse. But that damn chorus, which is obviously intended to be as catchy as humanly possible, hits all the "annoying as hell" buttons for me, rendering the entire project borderline insufferable. I don't hate Carly Rae Jepson or her first song, but I'd really appreciate it if it would just leave me alone.
Flo Rida - Whistle
Number 1 song from August 25th-31st September 15th-21st, 2012 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Oh good, a Flo Rida ripoff of Moves Like Jagger with the least subtle oral sex metaphor in the history of time. Just what I always wanted.
Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
Number 1 song from September 1st-14th, 22nd-28th, 2012 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
The song that cemented Taylor Swift's place as the Lord of All Music for our age, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together is, if I'm being brutally honest, actually a really well-made pop song, a breakup song that sounds both entirely real, and strangely enough, defies the tendency towards mopeyness for such songs, instead involving a big, stompy, sing-along chorus full of energy. I don't really love it, certainly, and I wouldn't call it great, but it's a far better song than I expected it to be. Taylor's done much worse than this, and we will get to see quite a few of those mistakes coming up. Take what you get.
Maroon 5 - One More Night
Number 1 song from September 29th-November 30th, 2012 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Maroon 5 just aren't a very good band, and never have been, and Adam Levine simply can't sing in anything but that ridiculous castrati tone. There are songs where that matters less, but this one, which claims to be electro-reggae but never sounds like it, is not among them. The song is just boring, a flat, grating noodle of a song that has no real hook and no flavor to it. No thank you.
Rihanna - Diamonds
Number 1 song from December 1st-21st, 2012 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Written by the mysterious Australian experimentalist trip-soul singer-songwriter Sia (who we will be hearing more about in the remaining years of this list), Diamonds... isn't very good. There's something to the song certainly, with the sort of strange off-kilter orchestral styling that Sia would later bring to several songs I quite like, but this one... no, I'm sorry. The song has nothing to it beyond some off-key singing, and I need more than that from my operatic pop.
Bruno Mars - Locked Out of Heaven
Number 1 song from December 22nd, 2012-February 1st, 2013 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Locked Out of Heaven represents something of a milestone for Bruno Mars, who thereby began a new retro phase of his career, wherein he successively took on the guise of other performers and groups of yesteryear, in this case the late-70s-era Police, in their best reggae-rock style. This phase would eventually lead to wonderful things, though I only sort of half-like Locked Out of Heaven itself. Dubstep-breakdown at the end aside, the song is very much an early Police song, but the base fact is that I could only tolerate so much of the early Police, and imitating them really just generates the same problems. All that said though, the song certainly isn't bad, just not as good as some we'll come to...
Supplemental Songs
Though there was a better class of song on the number 1 list this year, there weren't many real earthshaking standouts. Let's see what didn't make the grade:
Fun - Some Nights
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 14
Havoc's Grade: A
Some Nights was the song that sold me on Fun. Hell it was the song that sold me on 2012 in general. A huge, stomping symphonic-rock anthem done explicitly in the style of the Lords of Symphony-Pop themselves, Queen, Some Nights is a sledgehammer of a song, one of the very few that I can remember the first moment I heard. Using Auto-tune as an instrument in and of itself, layered on top of a military march and an elaborate, many-piece orchestra of pianos, guitars, and march drums. I kind of wish it wasn't as fragmented as it is, but any criticism I do have of Some Nights is ill-placed. I love this song, and love the band that gave it to me.
Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss)
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 37
Havoc's Grade: B
Blow Me came very close to earning a top score from me, a high-energy, uptempo dance-pop-rock song that apparently draws most of its musical inspiration from Modest Mouse, not that I could have told you that ahead of time. The song is excellent, if a little bit simplistic for my tastes, like if Pink decided to cover Kelly Clarkson all of a sudden. I do really like it, and it's worth an honorable mention for the year, if perhaps not the heights of the previous work.
Psy - Gangam Style
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 47
Havoc's Grade: B
What?! Screw you. You like it too!
Pitbull, ft. Chris Brown - International Love
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 48
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, this is not a combination I would have expected to see gracing one of my supplemental lists, but to my surprise, I like International Love a lot, and the reason for that is that goddamn electric dance-beat it has. Chris Brown is a great singer, whatever other faults he might have as a human being, and Pitbull's rapping doesn't sound stupid for once. Maybe it's just the uses I've seen this song put to, or maybe (probably) I just have bad taste, but I really enjoy this song, even on repeat. YMMV.
Imagine Dragons - It's Time
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: 91
Havoc's Grade: B
As always, it's the sound of the song that does it for me here. It's Time is a strange alt-rock piece built on a Banjo riff of all things, with incomprehensible lyrics and a music video that seems to involve post-apocalyptic San Francisco. I don't really love this song, but I do keep coming back to it for some reason. This was a year for the indie circuit, and this song a worthy addition thereto.
30 Seconds to Mars - Vox Populi
2012 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: A
Written in 2009 by frontman Jared Leto (yes, that one), and finally released as a single at the beginning of 2012, Vox Populi is a whole smorgasbord of rock stylings, as is the album it was taken from, by a band that precious few have anything good to say about. And yet, if I'm being honest, I absolutely love this song, from its echoed introduction to its prog-rock-overture of a climax. I've complained before about songs that are all buildup and no payoff, but this song pays off, several different times, a foot-stomping anthemic overture about war and loss and all manner of other things, a song I doubt anyone else will appreciate, but that I simply adore. I didn't actually know this was released as a single, but thankfully I have the chance to praise it now. Do with it what you will.
Other noted songs from 2012:
Maroon 5, ft. Wiz Khalifa - Payphone <---- Not half-bad if I'm being honest, though Khalifa adds nothing.
The Wanted - Glad You Came <---- The least subtle song in the universe.
Ellie Goulding - Lights
Nicki Minaj - Starships <---- Awful.
One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful
Katy Perry - Wide Awake
Train - Drive By <---- Just awful.
Drake, ft. Lil Wayne - The Motto <---- Even worse.
Rihanna - Where Have You Been
Jason Mraz - I Won't Give Up
Bruno Mars - It Will Rain
Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa, ft. Bruno Mars - Young, Wild, & Free
Jay-Z & Kanye West - Niggas in Paris
Katy Perry - The One That Got Away
Adele - Someone Like You
Jessie J - Domino
Cher Lloyd - Want You Back <---- *Shudder*
Pitbull - Back in Time
Adele - Rumor Has It
Wiz Khalifa - Work Hard, Play Hard
Rihanna, ft. Chris Brown - Birthday Cake
Train - 50 Ways To Say Goodbye <---- Train is not good enough to rip off Paul Simon and get away with it.
Toby Keith - Red Solo Cup <---- I kind of love this song.
Ke$ha - Die Young <---- The closest Ke$ha ever got to a good song.
Christina Perry - A Thousand Years
Adele - Skyfall
Last edited by General Havoc on Mon Dec 28, 2015 1:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
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Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
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Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
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LadyTevar
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#235 Re: A (half) Century of Music
"Red Solo Cup" is a damn fun song, catchy, kitschy, and totally relatable. Seriously, what party *doesn't* have red solo cups? (even if it's not booze in it?)
Gundam Style was another song that was catchy and kitschy, and the dance moves are still seen everywhere.
But... FINALLY .... Imagine Dragons brings the rock back to the Top 100s! I'm a fan, love the way they mix things up musically. They also have good videos. :)
Gundam Style was another song that was catchy and kitschy, and the dance moves are still seen everywhere.
But... FINALLY .... Imagine Dragons brings the rock back to the Top 100s! I'm a fan, love the way they mix things up musically. They also have good videos. :)
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frigidmagi
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#236 Re: A (half) Century of Music
You know what? I did. I honestly did. It was a fun song.What?! Screw you. You like it too!
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
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General Havoc
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#237 Re: A (half) Century of Music
2013
Yearly GPA: 2.019
Defying my expectations, 2013 actually turned out to be a pretty damn good year for the charts, the highest-scoring year since 1987, mostly due to a number of new(ish) artists who dropped excellent tracks all over it and the final death of a whole slew of trends that were still annoying me from the decade of the 00s. The quality level of the new-rap and pop material can't last, but it's worth enjoying for the time we have it.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, featuring Wanz - Thrift Shop
Number 1 song from February 2nd-March 1st, April 6th-19th, 2013 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
"This is fucking awesome..."
Thrift Shop is indeed fucking awesome, a winking, nodding parody of Hip Hop's obsession with all things materialistic with a killer saxophone riff and a great choral chant-line from Wanz to back it all up. The concept is what sells this song more than the song itself, but I'm hardly going to complain about that. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' ode to cheapness and frugality is what introduced me to them, almost universally to good effect in the years that followed, and while it's not my favorite Macklemore song (that one we'll have to wait on a bit), it's a good enough one to qualify for a high score here.
Baauer - Harlem Shake
Number 1 song from March 1st-April 5th, 2013 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
This isn't a song. It's an internet meme. And if you don't believe me, try listening to the damn thing without any video accompaniment. A lazy, boring house bass line over which samples of 2001 songs and lion growls are artlessly laid atop. The memes associated with it weren't even funny. I'm quite glad this thing has been utterly forgotten.
Bruno Mars - When I was Your Man
Number 1 song from April 20th-26th, 2013 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I won't deny that Bruno Mars sings this song well, a simple piano ballad about regret and love lost. But the damn thing is so leaden that I just can't get into it at all. I don't hate all dark songs by any means, but there's just nothing else here but drudgery.
Pink, featuring Nate Ruess - Just Give Me a Reason
Number 1 song from April 27th-May 17th, 2013 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Just Give Me a Reason was a far better song than I remember it being, which should not be that surprising, coming as it does from two of the better artists of the previous couple of years, Pink and the lead singer of Fun. It's nothing that spectacular overall, but it's got a nice bit of Fun-style harmonizing and real-feeling emotion in it. One can do worse.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, featuring Ray Dalton - Can't Hold Us
Number 1 song from May 18th-June 21st, 2013 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I wasn't enthusiastically fond of Can't Hold Us when I first heard it, but it grew on me, and I agree with the reviewer who described it as the sort of song will.i.am would make if he had actual talent. Macklemore remains one of my favorite modern rappers, and not even the association with the infamous Seattle Seahawks could really dampen this song for me. Honestly, the only reason I didn't promote this one to a B grade was that, while I can respect the obvious skill that went into the song, it just doesn't strike a good personal chord. There are worse sins.
Robin Thicke, featuring T.I. and Pharell - Blurred Lines
Number 1 song from June 22nd-September 13th, 2013 (12 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
You know... try as I might, I just can't find it within me to abhor Blurred Lines the way that everyone seems to want me to. It's got nothing to do with the explicit video laden with nudity, nor the (apparently) objectionable lyrics, many of which I can't even make out. It's just got a nice catchy beat to it, minimalist perhaps, but pretty decent overall. I don't love the song or anything, and T.I.'s verse is garbled noise to me, but the song isn't, as I see it, worth all the hoopla that rolled around it. And at risk of sounding gross, I've heard a lot worse than this, and from these artists.
Katy Perry - Roar
Number 1 song from September 14th-27th, 2013 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I know a number of people who regard Roar as one of the worst songs ever written, and I understand why. But while the lyrics are indeed a mealy-mouthed pack of platitudes and cliches, I actually rather like the sound of the thing, ephemeral power-pop though it is. Accusations were made that this song ripped off Sara Bareilles' Brave, which is also regarded as one of the worst things of all time and for similar reasons. I have no opinion thereon, but the song's all right in my book.
Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball
Number 1 song from September 28th-October 11th, December 14th-20th, 2013 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, it's stupid. Yeah, it's intentionally provocative. Yeah, it's probably an objectively terrible song, but I just can't help it, guys. I really really like Wrecking Ball. It's a really solid instrumental pop-ballad with a memorable sound, and that's all I've ever really wanted from pop music in general. I expect to get no end of shit for this, but I do like the song. Sue me.
Lorde - Royals
Number 1 song from October 12th-December 13th, 2013 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I respect Royals considerably more than I like it. It's a vivid denunciation of the hyper-materialism of Hip Hop, something that desperately needed to be said, and was rewarded with a smash run at the top, the first song by a New Zealander to reach the number 1 spot. Like Thrift Shop before it, this song traded on people's exhaustion with the bragging of millionaires, and like Thrift Shop before it, it was immediately lambasted for being an unconscionable crime against minorities and the poor by people whom I can do without. Honestly though, the only reason this gets a lower grade than the aforementioned Macklemore song is that it's a bit of a slog. Thrift Shop was funny and upbeat, while this song feels drained of all emotion. I still respect it, but it's not something I'm going to listen to daily.
Eminem, featuring Rihanna - The Monster
Number 1 song from December 21st, 2013-January 16th, 2014 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I absolutely adore Rihanna's chorus on this song, but Eminem's verses themselves are merely okay. It's one of those songs that keeps flirting with becoming something great, but finally settles for simply being decent. Still, it's not a bad offering for either Rihanna or Eminem, two artists one takes what one can get from.
Supplemental Songs
So, shall we see if anything else managed to be worthy of comment in a year with generally high quality songs on top of the charts?
AWOLNation - Sail
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 25
Havoc's Grade: B
Now this was a song I did not expect to see anywhere near the charts. A strange, semi-atonal electronic rock piece dripping with Indie influences, Sail is a song I really don't know what to do with, but I really like despite. It has a wonderful, dark, almost choral sound to it, with snarling guitars and grinding synths that produce a dour sound you don't generally see on the charts. It does lose steam in the second half, but it's still good enough to warrant inclusion.
Imagine Dragons - It's Time
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 47
Havoc's Grade: B
It's Time is a song I keep going back and forth on. The song makes no damn sense, alternating between lyrics that are far too simple and others that are way too opaque. And yet, as always, it comes down to the sound of the damn thing. I like the noodling piano/xylophone thing going on in the background, the solid indie-rock fundamentals, largely everything about the underlying music. I've always been music-over-lyrics, and this is a prime example.
Alicia Keys - Girl on Fire
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 49
Havoc's Grade: B
And if you needed any more proof, just consider my utterly inexplicable affection for Girl on Fire, Alicia Keys' best song, despite being comprised of roughly eight words repeated constantly, half of which are "Fire", "Flame" or the like. A simple R&B song showcasing volume and singing power more than lyrical dexterity, Girl on Fire just resonates with me somehow, probably due to the potent bass and drum beat and soaring vocals, a combination I will forgive quite a lot for. I know a lot of people who regard this song as insipid, but I really do enjoy it a good deal. YMMV.
Pink - Try
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 53
Havoc's Grade: B
I keep coming back to Pink, it seems, no matter how much I try not to. Try is yet another Pink song that I simply love, a solid pop rock song that only barely misses the treasured A-grade. Written as an intentional throwback to 80s FM rock, this song showcases Pink's chops as a singer, chops that are consistently underrated by those who prefer nothing but sopranos in their female vocals. I really, really like this song, and I really like the singer. I think that much is clear by now.
Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 65
Havoc's Grade: B
Little Talks is a song that came out of nowhere, and that I basically fell in love with as soon as I heard it. A huge, galloping indie-folk-rock-pop monstrocity, written by Icelandic duo Ragnar Þórhallsson (who is a shortlist candidate for the manliest name of all time) and Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, the song is supposedly about a conversation between a ghost and their living loved one, though which one is which is somewhat hard to determine. It scarcely matters however, as this song is a whole lot of fun, from its horn section to its infectious crescendo-bridge. This song is awesome. I don't care how overplayed it got.
fun - Carry On
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 76
Havoc's Grade: B
A typically baroque ode for fun, this time to the classic Irish drinking song of lament and perseverance, one that comes equipped both with bagpipes, and a classic-Guns-n-Roses-style guitar solo midway through, this indie pop overture isn't quite the ridiculous masterpiece that was Some Nights, but it's an excellent Celtic-pop-style song, one I've found honestly helps in darker times. It might not set the world on fire or burn brighter than the sun, but Carry On has a warmth and soul to it that is rare to find on the charts in any year.
Fall Out Boy, featuring Elton John - Save Rock and Roll
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Save Rock and Roll is one of the less defensible picks that I have put on these lists, as it is an overwrought exercise in pure arrogance, or in other words, a quintessential Fall Out Boy Song. And yet I really love it regardless, probably because of its pretensions rather than in spite of them. Adding in Elton John, whom I'm on record as being a fan of, only helps, but it's really just the sound and the orchestral faux-grandeur that do it for me here. I doubt many will agree, but I take my victories where I can find them.
Other noted songs from 2013:
Florida Georgia Line, ft. Nelly - Cruise <---- Utter crap.
Imagine Dragons - Radioactive <---- Not bad.
Daft Punk, ft. Pharrell - Get Lucky
Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble
Justin Timberlake, ft. Jay-Z - Suit & Tie
will.i.am, ft. Brittany Spears - Scream & Shout <---- An excellent description of my reaction to this song.
Capital Cities - Safe and Sound <---- I thought this was a commercial jingle when I first heard it.
Bruno Mars - Treasure
Drake - Started From The Bottom
Maroon 5 - Daylight <---- The closest thing to a listenable Maroon 5 song. Not that close.
Pitbull, ft. Christina Aguillera - Feel This Moment
Lady Gaga - Applause
Fall Out Boy - My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up) <---- I don't hate this near as much as I should.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, ft. Mary Lambert - Same Love
Phillip Phillips - Home
Mumford & Sons - I Will Wait
Imagine Dragons - Demons
OneRepublic - Counting Stars <---- Almost made the list.
Flo Rida - I Cry <----
Kelly Clarkson - Catch My Breath
Taylor Swift - 22
Ylvis - The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) <---- It says that this song is a pile of ass
One Direction - Best Song Ever <---- Hardly, but not half bad
Kendrick Lamar - Swimming Pools (Drank)
Mariah Carey, ft. Miguel - #Beautiful
Hunter Hayes - Wanted <---- Godawful
will.i.am, ft. Justin Bieber - #thatPower <---- This hashtag bullshit is stupid. So is this song.
Sarah Bareilles - Brave <---- I cannot, for the life of me, figure out if I like this song or not.
Passenger - Let Her Go
Yearly GPA: 2.019
Defying my expectations, 2013 actually turned out to be a pretty damn good year for the charts, the highest-scoring year since 1987, mostly due to a number of new(ish) artists who dropped excellent tracks all over it and the final death of a whole slew of trends that were still annoying me from the decade of the 00s. The quality level of the new-rap and pop material can't last, but it's worth enjoying for the time we have it.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, featuring Wanz - Thrift Shop
Number 1 song from February 2nd-March 1st, April 6th-19th, 2013 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
"This is fucking awesome..."
Thrift Shop is indeed fucking awesome, a winking, nodding parody of Hip Hop's obsession with all things materialistic with a killer saxophone riff and a great choral chant-line from Wanz to back it all up. The concept is what sells this song more than the song itself, but I'm hardly going to complain about that. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' ode to cheapness and frugality is what introduced me to them, almost universally to good effect in the years that followed, and while it's not my favorite Macklemore song (that one we'll have to wait on a bit), it's a good enough one to qualify for a high score here.
Baauer - Harlem Shake
Number 1 song from March 1st-April 5th, 2013 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
This isn't a song. It's an internet meme. And if you don't believe me, try listening to the damn thing without any video accompaniment. A lazy, boring house bass line over which samples of 2001 songs and lion growls are artlessly laid atop. The memes associated with it weren't even funny. I'm quite glad this thing has been utterly forgotten.
Bruno Mars - When I was Your Man
Number 1 song from April 20th-26th, 2013 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I won't deny that Bruno Mars sings this song well, a simple piano ballad about regret and love lost. But the damn thing is so leaden that I just can't get into it at all. I don't hate all dark songs by any means, but there's just nothing else here but drudgery.
Pink, featuring Nate Ruess - Just Give Me a Reason
Number 1 song from April 27th-May 17th, 2013 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Just Give Me a Reason was a far better song than I remember it being, which should not be that surprising, coming as it does from two of the better artists of the previous couple of years, Pink and the lead singer of Fun. It's nothing that spectacular overall, but it's got a nice bit of Fun-style harmonizing and real-feeling emotion in it. One can do worse.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, featuring Ray Dalton - Can't Hold Us
Number 1 song from May 18th-June 21st, 2013 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I wasn't enthusiastically fond of Can't Hold Us when I first heard it, but it grew on me, and I agree with the reviewer who described it as the sort of song will.i.am would make if he had actual talent. Macklemore remains one of my favorite modern rappers, and not even the association with the infamous Seattle Seahawks could really dampen this song for me. Honestly, the only reason I didn't promote this one to a B grade was that, while I can respect the obvious skill that went into the song, it just doesn't strike a good personal chord. There are worse sins.
Robin Thicke, featuring T.I. and Pharell - Blurred Lines
Number 1 song from June 22nd-September 13th, 2013 (12 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
You know... try as I might, I just can't find it within me to abhor Blurred Lines the way that everyone seems to want me to. It's got nothing to do with the explicit video laden with nudity, nor the (apparently) objectionable lyrics, many of which I can't even make out. It's just got a nice catchy beat to it, minimalist perhaps, but pretty decent overall. I don't love the song or anything, and T.I.'s verse is garbled noise to me, but the song isn't, as I see it, worth all the hoopla that rolled around it. And at risk of sounding gross, I've heard a lot worse than this, and from these artists.
Katy Perry - Roar
Number 1 song from September 14th-27th, 2013 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I know a number of people who regard Roar as one of the worst songs ever written, and I understand why. But while the lyrics are indeed a mealy-mouthed pack of platitudes and cliches, I actually rather like the sound of the thing, ephemeral power-pop though it is. Accusations were made that this song ripped off Sara Bareilles' Brave, which is also regarded as one of the worst things of all time and for similar reasons. I have no opinion thereon, but the song's all right in my book.
Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball
Number 1 song from September 28th-October 11th, December 14th-20th, 2013 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, it's stupid. Yeah, it's intentionally provocative. Yeah, it's probably an objectively terrible song, but I just can't help it, guys. I really really like Wrecking Ball. It's a really solid instrumental pop-ballad with a memorable sound, and that's all I've ever really wanted from pop music in general. I expect to get no end of shit for this, but I do like the song. Sue me.
Lorde - Royals
Number 1 song from October 12th-December 13th, 2013 (9 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I respect Royals considerably more than I like it. It's a vivid denunciation of the hyper-materialism of Hip Hop, something that desperately needed to be said, and was rewarded with a smash run at the top, the first song by a New Zealander to reach the number 1 spot. Like Thrift Shop before it, this song traded on people's exhaustion with the bragging of millionaires, and like Thrift Shop before it, it was immediately lambasted for being an unconscionable crime against minorities and the poor by people whom I can do without. Honestly though, the only reason this gets a lower grade than the aforementioned Macklemore song is that it's a bit of a slog. Thrift Shop was funny and upbeat, while this song feels drained of all emotion. I still respect it, but it's not something I'm going to listen to daily.
Eminem, featuring Rihanna - The Monster
Number 1 song from December 21st, 2013-January 16th, 2014 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I absolutely adore Rihanna's chorus on this song, but Eminem's verses themselves are merely okay. It's one of those songs that keeps flirting with becoming something great, but finally settles for simply being decent. Still, it's not a bad offering for either Rihanna or Eminem, two artists one takes what one can get from.
Supplemental Songs
So, shall we see if anything else managed to be worthy of comment in a year with generally high quality songs on top of the charts?
AWOLNation - Sail
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 25
Havoc's Grade: B
Now this was a song I did not expect to see anywhere near the charts. A strange, semi-atonal electronic rock piece dripping with Indie influences, Sail is a song I really don't know what to do with, but I really like despite. It has a wonderful, dark, almost choral sound to it, with snarling guitars and grinding synths that produce a dour sound you don't generally see on the charts. It does lose steam in the second half, but it's still good enough to warrant inclusion.
Imagine Dragons - It's Time
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 47
Havoc's Grade: B
It's Time is a song I keep going back and forth on. The song makes no damn sense, alternating between lyrics that are far too simple and others that are way too opaque. And yet, as always, it comes down to the sound of the damn thing. I like the noodling piano/xylophone thing going on in the background, the solid indie-rock fundamentals, largely everything about the underlying music. I've always been music-over-lyrics, and this is a prime example.
Alicia Keys - Girl on Fire
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 49
Havoc's Grade: B
And if you needed any more proof, just consider my utterly inexplicable affection for Girl on Fire, Alicia Keys' best song, despite being comprised of roughly eight words repeated constantly, half of which are "Fire", "Flame" or the like. A simple R&B song showcasing volume and singing power more than lyrical dexterity, Girl on Fire just resonates with me somehow, probably due to the potent bass and drum beat and soaring vocals, a combination I will forgive quite a lot for. I know a lot of people who regard this song as insipid, but I really do enjoy it a good deal. YMMV.
Pink - Try
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 53
Havoc's Grade: B
I keep coming back to Pink, it seems, no matter how much I try not to. Try is yet another Pink song that I simply love, a solid pop rock song that only barely misses the treasured A-grade. Written as an intentional throwback to 80s FM rock, this song showcases Pink's chops as a singer, chops that are consistently underrated by those who prefer nothing but sopranos in their female vocals. I really, really like this song, and I really like the singer. I think that much is clear by now.
Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 65
Havoc's Grade: B
Little Talks is a song that came out of nowhere, and that I basically fell in love with as soon as I heard it. A huge, galloping indie-folk-rock-pop monstrocity, written by Icelandic duo Ragnar Þórhallsson (who is a shortlist candidate for the manliest name of all time) and Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, the song is supposedly about a conversation between a ghost and their living loved one, though which one is which is somewhat hard to determine. It scarcely matters however, as this song is a whole lot of fun, from its horn section to its infectious crescendo-bridge. This song is awesome. I don't care how overplayed it got.
fun - Carry On
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: 76
Havoc's Grade: B
A typically baroque ode for fun, this time to the classic Irish drinking song of lament and perseverance, one that comes equipped both with bagpipes, and a classic-Guns-n-Roses-style guitar solo midway through, this indie pop overture isn't quite the ridiculous masterpiece that was Some Nights, but it's an excellent Celtic-pop-style song, one I've found honestly helps in darker times. It might not set the world on fire or burn brighter than the sun, but Carry On has a warmth and soul to it that is rare to find on the charts in any year.
Fall Out Boy, featuring Elton John - Save Rock and Roll
2013 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Save Rock and Roll is one of the less defensible picks that I have put on these lists, as it is an overwrought exercise in pure arrogance, or in other words, a quintessential Fall Out Boy Song. And yet I really love it regardless, probably because of its pretensions rather than in spite of them. Adding in Elton John, whom I'm on record as being a fan of, only helps, but it's really just the sound and the orchestral faux-grandeur that do it for me here. I doubt many will agree, but I take my victories where I can find them.
Other noted songs from 2013:
Florida Georgia Line, ft. Nelly - Cruise <---- Utter crap.
Imagine Dragons - Radioactive <---- Not bad.
Daft Punk, ft. Pharrell - Get Lucky
Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble
Justin Timberlake, ft. Jay-Z - Suit & Tie
will.i.am, ft. Brittany Spears - Scream & Shout <---- An excellent description of my reaction to this song.
Capital Cities - Safe and Sound <---- I thought this was a commercial jingle when I first heard it.
Bruno Mars - Treasure
Drake - Started From The Bottom
Maroon 5 - Daylight <---- The closest thing to a listenable Maroon 5 song. Not that close.
Pitbull, ft. Christina Aguillera - Feel This Moment
Lady Gaga - Applause
Fall Out Boy - My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up) <---- I don't hate this near as much as I should.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, ft. Mary Lambert - Same Love
Phillip Phillips - Home
Mumford & Sons - I Will Wait
Imagine Dragons - Demons
OneRepublic - Counting Stars <---- Almost made the list.
Flo Rida - I Cry <----
Kelly Clarkson - Catch My Breath
Taylor Swift - 22
Ylvis - The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) <---- It says that this song is a pile of ass
One Direction - Best Song Ever <---- Hardly, but not half bad
Kendrick Lamar - Swimming Pools (Drank)
Mariah Carey, ft. Miguel - #Beautiful
Hunter Hayes - Wanted <---- Godawful
will.i.am, ft. Justin Bieber - #thatPower <---- This hashtag bullshit is stupid. So is this song.
Sarah Bareilles - Brave <---- I cannot, for the life of me, figure out if I like this song or not.
Passenger - Let Her Go
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
#238 Re: A (half) Century of Music
You linked to the official video for Sail? No, wrong, error, fail. That video is mediocre uninspired garbage, you do not link to it, you link to Nanalew's vastly superior fan video. Also, for some reason Sail incredibly popular among base jumpers, a large number of their videos on YouTube feature it.
Lys is lily, or lilium.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
-
White Haven
- Disciple
- Posts: 752
- Joined: Sat May 20, 2006 10:45 am
- 18
- Location: Richmond Virginia, the Capitol of Treason
- Contact:
#239 Re: A (half) Century of Music
I've always really liked Demons, not necessarily on its own merits but because it collided with with a few other ideas in my head when I first heard it and snowballed into something I really need to get around to writing one of these days.
Out of Context Theatre, this week starring rhoenix
-'I need to hit the can, but if you wouldn't mind joining me for number two, I'd be grateful.'
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General Havoc
- Mr. Party-Killbot
- Posts: 5245
- Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:12 pm
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- Location: The City that is not Frisco
- Contact:
#240 Re: A (half) Century of Music
I fail completely to understand how a random woman lip synching while being sprayed with a garden hose is somehow a better video than the original, which while no masterpiece, actually features the artist in question. I have linked to official videos for every song I have posted here and see no reason to stop now.Lys wrote:You linked to the official video for Sail? No, wrong, error, fail. That video is mediocre uninspired garbage, you do not link to it, you link to Nanalew's vastly superior fan video. Also, for some reason Sail incredibly popular among base jumpers, a large number of their videos on YouTube feature it.
I... can't hate Demons, despite being an objectively rather boring song. It's got a nice sound and sentiment to it.White Haven wrote:I've always really liked Demons, not necessarily on its own merits but because it collided with with a few other ideas in my head when I first heard it and snowballed into something I really need to get around to writing one of these days.
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
#241 Re: A (half) Century of Music
Because it's hilarious, that's why. It's both a great parody of a certain type of pretentious music video and it involves someone being comically garrotted to death with a garden hose.General Havoc wrote:I fail completely to understand how a random woman lip synching while being sprayed with a garden hose is somehow a better video than the original, which while no masterpiece, actually features the artist in question. I have linked to official videos for every song I have posted here and see no reason to stop now.
Lys is lily, or lilium.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
-
General Havoc
- Mr. Party-Killbot
- Posts: 5245
- Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:12 pm
- 19
- Location: The City that is not Frisco
- Contact:
#242 Re: A (half) Century of Music
2014
Yearly GPA: 1.269
Ignoring the patently-unsustainable spike that was 1983, 2014 represents the single greatest year-over-year drop in quality on top of the charts since their inception, and does so despite several songs that I'd regard as pretty good overall. Why? Because of a tremendous inconsistency in quality levels across the year, where good songs and bad ones, sometimes from the same artists, were forced to sit side by side. Get ready, everyone. This one is gonna hurt...
Pitbull, featuring Ke$ha - Timber
Number 1 song from January 18th-February 7th, 2014 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
This song introduced me to the term "folktronica", which is apparently the genre that it officially falls into. I prefer to put it in the genre of "generic", myself. It's a basic, boring country/rap song from an artist who generally doesn't have much to offer beyond generic party-club crap, and another one who generally only contributes mocking annoyance. I don't hate Timber, but it does not enrich my life.
This is, incidentally, the first song on our lists to come out after I began this project. We're almost there, guys...
Katy Perry, featuring Juicy J - Dark Horse
Number 1 song from February 8th-March 7th, 2014 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I... really don't think that Katy Perry knows what a 'dark horse' is. Or... you know... much else. This leaden trap/hip-hop song is just not interesting enough to warrant much interest, despite the best efforts of producer Dr. Luke (presumably in-between sessions of abusing Ke$ha). It's not a crime against music or anything, but I've just got no use for this song overall.
Pharrell Williams - Happy
Number 1 song from March 8th-May 16th, 2014 (10 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I still have no idea what a "room without a roof" is supposed to feel like, nor have I ever determined what there is to distinguish this song from "If you're happy and you know it". And yet... I actually kinda like Happy, if only because it's just so... well happy. It's no musical masterpiece, and it really has no staying power, but I'll be damned if it's neo-soul funk, in clear imitation of Curtis Mayfield, isn't just a little infectious. Song of the year? I don't know about that. But it's a charming little number. We can do a lot worse.
John Legend - All of Me
Number 1 song from May 17th-June 6th, 2014 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
A quiet, simple piano ballad sung by a man everyone nowadays regards as the most boring man in music. And yet...
*Sigh* Yeah, okay, I actually kinda like this song. It's not great, certainly, nor necessarily that exciting, but it's a simple song sung well, one that has a significantly weaker second half than first, but one that I can't help but admire despite. I don't expect that anyone else likes this song, but I do, and that's that.
Iggy Azalia, featuring Charlie XCX - Fancy
Number 1 song from June 7th-July 25th, 2014 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
God, this song sucks. It's an ugly, vile, nauseating-sounding electro-hop mess, mired in awful-sounding beat and lyrics. I cannot fathom for the life of me who bought this thing enough to make it number 1, let alone number 1 for 7 weeks. It sounds like it belongs in the bad parts of 2005.
Magic! - Rude
Number 1 song from July 26th-September 5th, 2014 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Ultra-sanitized Reggae-fusion at its finest, this song is simply too watered-down and generic to offend me. This song tried to play its critics off as racists, due to the song's subject matter of inter-racial relationships. Bullshit. A poor song is a poor song no matter what it's about, as Ebony & Ivory or We Are the World can attest to. This one doesn't quite reach those levels of terrible, but it's not a good song, and it's particularly not a good Reggae song, being bland and sanitized to the point of uselessness.
Taylor Swift - Shake it Off
Number 1 song from September 6th-19th, November 15th-28th, 2014 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
Shake it Off is an awful song, one that I almost had some mercy on until that goddamn bridge happened with its recitations of stupid thing after stupid thing. It's like if Taylor Swift decided to remake Hollaback Girl, only replacing the incomprehensibility with utter lies. I suspect that the song's insistence that Swift is entirely not interested in the "haters" out there might be a bit disingenuous given that she made a gargantuan pop song about how little she cares. Regardless, this song sucks, and I wish to hear it no longer.
Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass
Number 1 song from September 20th-November 14th, 2014 (8 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I really feel like I should have a stronger opinion about Meghan Trainor, but I don't. Her retro-soul doo-wop style should make me want to strangle her or praise her, but it doesn't. I should have an angry reaction to the politics dredged up by this song, but frankly I couldn't care less. For all the energy that Trainor's bubblegum barrage of retro-pop has, the song is just not that interesting, and is cored around a self-important vibe that I just don't appreciate. Things will not get better with Trainor going forward, but I take these songs as I get them.
Taylor Swift - Blank Space
Number 1 song from November 29th, 2014-January 16th, 2015 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Blank Space is an almost hypnotic song, a song that came seemingly out of nowhere, and succeeded in all the ways that Shake It Off did not. It's a twisted, bitter song about jealousy and insanity and it is, entirely believable. The sudden shift that Swift underwent here from Girl Next Door to glamorous, raving starlet, is one that would continue on throughout the rest of her career as of this writing, and while I'm not really certain which version of Swift I prefer, this song is probably the best lunacy piece that she has produced to date.
Supplemental Songs
With the charts having suffered such a terrifying loss in quality, are there any compensating virtues that we can find?
Bastille - Pompeii
2014 Billboard Top 100 position: 12
Havoc's Grade: B
A song so strange, I translated it into Latin, Pompeii is a weird little indie-synthpop number that is less artifice-laden than it might sound. It is, rather explicitly about the town of Pompeii, which was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, and is an allegory of the same thing happening to Los Angeles, for which we must all devoutly pray. It's the bass and backing lines that really sell this song, with the weird world-musicy "Eh-oh-eh" chanting behind everything. I don't really know what to do with Pompeii, but I do like it. Call it a fluke indie hit if you want, I'll take what I can get.
Idina Menzel - Let it Go
2014 Billboard Top 100 position: 21
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, it charted. And yeah, I added it to my list. Because fuck you all.
The last, great Disney villain song (to date), Let it Go was the centerpiece of Disney's Frozen, a soaring power ballad whose creation engendered a re-write of the entire film it was written for. This song, in addition to being pretty goddamn good, also triggered one of the last moral panics that Disney ever triggered (again, to date). Both the Boston Globe and various papers in the UK wrote articles investigating a phenomenon wherein this song would send kids into "crack-addicted, altered states", apparently due to the sub-aural mind-control rhythms of the thing. Right wing lunatics took this cause up and declared that Disney was attempting to warp children's minds into becoming homosexuals thanks to this song. Elle-UK called the song "the harbinger of an evil cult".
So... yeah... there's that.
Sia - Chandelier
2014 Billboard Top 100 position: 25
Havoc's Grade: A
Some songs take a while to grow on me, but Chandelier was one of those that I knew, instantaneously and without hesitation, would be one of my favorite songs ever. A soaring, blasting, eruptive electropop-ballad, it is a tribute to raw power and operatic force, a Whitney Houston monster of a song that just explodes out of your speakers. The award-winning video, featuring then-11-year-old dancer Maddie Ziegler fits its melancholic and violent tone in a strange way, and while I had never heard of Sia before hearing this song, I've certainly kept her in mind ever since. Most of her work is too experimental, too atonal, for my taste, but Chandelier is a triumph that few artists attain. Whatever you may think of my general taste, this song is flat out amazing, the best song of the year, in my mind.
Other noted songs from 2014:
Jason Derulo, ft. 2 Chainz - Talk Dirty
Sam Smith - Stay With Me <---- So overwrought you get worried
Nico & Vinz - Am I Wrong
DJ Snake & Lil John - Turn Down for What <---- Not much of a song, but the greatest video ever made
A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera - Say Something <---- FUCK this song
Lorde - Team <---- Not bad actually
Passenger - Let Her Go
Imagine Dragons - Demons
One Direction - Story of My Life <---- I gotta admit, this almost made my list
Iggy Izalea, ft. Rita Ora - Black Widow
Chris Brown, ft. Lil Wayne and French Montana, Too Short, &Tyga - Loyal <---- So many people to make such a shitty song
Charli XCX - Boom Clap
Nicki Minaj - Anaconda
Enrique Iglesias, ft. Descemer Bueno & Gente de Zona - Bailando
Elle Goulding - Burn <---- Pretty good, but never takes off
Jason Derulo, ft. Snoop Dogg - Wiggle
Justin Timberlake - Not a Bad Thing
Paramore - Ain't It Fun
Florida Georgia Line, ft. Luke Bryan - This is How We Roll
Coldplay - A Sky Full of Stars
Ed Sheeran - Don't <---- Decent
Ed Sheeran - Sing <---- Less decent
Echosmith - Cool Kids
Jason Derulo - Trumpets
Maroon 5 - Animals
Rixton - Me and My Broken Heart
The Neighborhood - Sweater Weather
Katy Perry - Birthday
Lady Gaga, ft. R Kelly - Do What U Want
Zedd, ft. Haley Williams - Stay the Night <---- Got close to making the list
Hozier - Take me to Church <---- Got really close to making the list
Ariana Grande & The Weeknd - Love Me Harder
The Chainsmokers - #SELFIE <---- Stupid
Yearly GPA: 1.269
Ignoring the patently-unsustainable spike that was 1983, 2014 represents the single greatest year-over-year drop in quality on top of the charts since their inception, and does so despite several songs that I'd regard as pretty good overall. Why? Because of a tremendous inconsistency in quality levels across the year, where good songs and bad ones, sometimes from the same artists, were forced to sit side by side. Get ready, everyone. This one is gonna hurt...
Pitbull, featuring Ke$ha - Timber
Number 1 song from January 18th-February 7th, 2014 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
This song introduced me to the term "folktronica", which is apparently the genre that it officially falls into. I prefer to put it in the genre of "generic", myself. It's a basic, boring country/rap song from an artist who generally doesn't have much to offer beyond generic party-club crap, and another one who generally only contributes mocking annoyance. I don't hate Timber, but it does not enrich my life.
This is, incidentally, the first song on our lists to come out after I began this project. We're almost there, guys...
Katy Perry, featuring Juicy J - Dark Horse
Number 1 song from February 8th-March 7th, 2014 (4 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I... really don't think that Katy Perry knows what a 'dark horse' is. Or... you know... much else. This leaden trap/hip-hop song is just not interesting enough to warrant much interest, despite the best efforts of producer Dr. Luke (presumably in-between sessions of abusing Ke$ha). It's not a crime against music or anything, but I've just got no use for this song overall.
Pharrell Williams - Happy
Number 1 song from March 8th-May 16th, 2014 (10 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I still have no idea what a "room without a roof" is supposed to feel like, nor have I ever determined what there is to distinguish this song from "If you're happy and you know it". And yet... I actually kinda like Happy, if only because it's just so... well happy. It's no musical masterpiece, and it really has no staying power, but I'll be damned if it's neo-soul funk, in clear imitation of Curtis Mayfield, isn't just a little infectious. Song of the year? I don't know about that. But it's a charming little number. We can do a lot worse.
John Legend - All of Me
Number 1 song from May 17th-June 6th, 2014 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
A quiet, simple piano ballad sung by a man everyone nowadays regards as the most boring man in music. And yet...
*Sigh* Yeah, okay, I actually kinda like this song. It's not great, certainly, nor necessarily that exciting, but it's a simple song sung well, one that has a significantly weaker second half than first, but one that I can't help but admire despite. I don't expect that anyone else likes this song, but I do, and that's that.
Iggy Azalia, featuring Charlie XCX - Fancy
Number 1 song from June 7th-July 25th, 2014 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
God, this song sucks. It's an ugly, vile, nauseating-sounding electro-hop mess, mired in awful-sounding beat and lyrics. I cannot fathom for the life of me who bought this thing enough to make it number 1, let alone number 1 for 7 weeks. It sounds like it belongs in the bad parts of 2005.
Magic! - Rude
Number 1 song from July 26th-September 5th, 2014 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Ultra-sanitized Reggae-fusion at its finest, this song is simply too watered-down and generic to offend me. This song tried to play its critics off as racists, due to the song's subject matter of inter-racial relationships. Bullshit. A poor song is a poor song no matter what it's about, as Ebony & Ivory or We Are the World can attest to. This one doesn't quite reach those levels of terrible, but it's not a good song, and it's particularly not a good Reggae song, being bland and sanitized to the point of uselessness.
Taylor Swift - Shake it Off
Number 1 song from September 6th-19th, November 15th-28th, 2014 (2 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: F
Shake it Off is an awful song, one that I almost had some mercy on until that goddamn bridge happened with its recitations of stupid thing after stupid thing. It's like if Taylor Swift decided to remake Hollaback Girl, only replacing the incomprehensibility with utter lies. I suspect that the song's insistence that Swift is entirely not interested in the "haters" out there might be a bit disingenuous given that she made a gargantuan pop song about how little she cares. Regardless, this song sucks, and I wish to hear it no longer.
Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass
Number 1 song from September 20th-November 14th, 2014 (8 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
I really feel like I should have a stronger opinion about Meghan Trainor, but I don't. Her retro-soul doo-wop style should make me want to strangle her or praise her, but it doesn't. I should have an angry reaction to the politics dredged up by this song, but frankly I couldn't care less. For all the energy that Trainor's bubblegum barrage of retro-pop has, the song is just not that interesting, and is cored around a self-important vibe that I just don't appreciate. Things will not get better with Trainor going forward, but I take these songs as I get them.
Taylor Swift - Blank Space
Number 1 song from November 29th, 2014-January 16th, 2015 (7 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: B
Blank Space is an almost hypnotic song, a song that came seemingly out of nowhere, and succeeded in all the ways that Shake It Off did not. It's a twisted, bitter song about jealousy and insanity and it is, entirely believable. The sudden shift that Swift underwent here from Girl Next Door to glamorous, raving starlet, is one that would continue on throughout the rest of her career as of this writing, and while I'm not really certain which version of Swift I prefer, this song is probably the best lunacy piece that she has produced to date.
Supplemental Songs
With the charts having suffered such a terrifying loss in quality, are there any compensating virtues that we can find?
Bastille - Pompeii
2014 Billboard Top 100 position: 12
Havoc's Grade: B
A song so strange, I translated it into Latin, Pompeii is a weird little indie-synthpop number that is less artifice-laden than it might sound. It is, rather explicitly about the town of Pompeii, which was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, and is an allegory of the same thing happening to Los Angeles, for which we must all devoutly pray. It's the bass and backing lines that really sell this song, with the weird world-musicy "Eh-oh-eh" chanting behind everything. I don't really know what to do with Pompeii, but I do like it. Call it a fluke indie hit if you want, I'll take what I can get.
Idina Menzel - Let it Go
2014 Billboard Top 100 position: 21
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, it charted. And yeah, I added it to my list. Because fuck you all.
The last, great Disney villain song (to date), Let it Go was the centerpiece of Disney's Frozen, a soaring power ballad whose creation engendered a re-write of the entire film it was written for. This song, in addition to being pretty goddamn good, also triggered one of the last moral panics that Disney ever triggered (again, to date). Both the Boston Globe and various papers in the UK wrote articles investigating a phenomenon wherein this song would send kids into "crack-addicted, altered states", apparently due to the sub-aural mind-control rhythms of the thing. Right wing lunatics took this cause up and declared that Disney was attempting to warp children's minds into becoming homosexuals thanks to this song. Elle-UK called the song "the harbinger of an evil cult".
So... yeah... there's that.
Sia - Chandelier
2014 Billboard Top 100 position: 25
Havoc's Grade: A
Some songs take a while to grow on me, but Chandelier was one of those that I knew, instantaneously and without hesitation, would be one of my favorite songs ever. A soaring, blasting, eruptive electropop-ballad, it is a tribute to raw power and operatic force, a Whitney Houston monster of a song that just explodes out of your speakers. The award-winning video, featuring then-11-year-old dancer Maddie Ziegler fits its melancholic and violent tone in a strange way, and while I had never heard of Sia before hearing this song, I've certainly kept her in mind ever since. Most of her work is too experimental, too atonal, for my taste, but Chandelier is a triumph that few artists attain. Whatever you may think of my general taste, this song is flat out amazing, the best song of the year, in my mind.
Other noted songs from 2014:
Jason Derulo, ft. 2 Chainz - Talk Dirty
Sam Smith - Stay With Me <---- So overwrought you get worried
Nico & Vinz - Am I Wrong
DJ Snake & Lil John - Turn Down for What <---- Not much of a song, but the greatest video ever made
A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera - Say Something <---- FUCK this song
Lorde - Team <---- Not bad actually
Passenger - Let Her Go
Imagine Dragons - Demons
One Direction - Story of My Life <---- I gotta admit, this almost made my list
Iggy Izalea, ft. Rita Ora - Black Widow
Chris Brown, ft. Lil Wayne and French Montana, Too Short, &Tyga - Loyal <---- So many people to make such a shitty song
Charli XCX - Boom Clap
Nicki Minaj - Anaconda
Enrique Iglesias, ft. Descemer Bueno & Gente de Zona - Bailando
Elle Goulding - Burn <---- Pretty good, but never takes off
Jason Derulo, ft. Snoop Dogg - Wiggle
Justin Timberlake - Not a Bad Thing
Paramore - Ain't It Fun
Florida Georgia Line, ft. Luke Bryan - This is How We Roll
Coldplay - A Sky Full of Stars
Ed Sheeran - Don't <---- Decent
Ed Sheeran - Sing <---- Less decent
Echosmith - Cool Kids
Jason Derulo - Trumpets
Maroon 5 - Animals
Rixton - Me and My Broken Heart
The Neighborhood - Sweater Weather
Katy Perry - Birthday
Lady Gaga, ft. R Kelly - Do What U Want
Zedd, ft. Haley Williams - Stay the Night <---- Got close to making the list
Hozier - Take me to Church <---- Got really close to making the list
Ariana Grande & The Weeknd - Love Me Harder
The Chainsmokers - #SELFIE <---- Stupid
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
#243 Re: A (half) Century of Music
This one should go in either the 2014 or 2015 supplemental song list:
Abu Yaseer's Salil as-Sawarim (Clashing of Swords)
[youtube][/youtube]
Released March 17, 2014 on Twitter as part of one of Daesh's atrocity filled propaganda/music videos, Salil as-Sawarim may very well be the most popular and recognizable of the Islamic State's various theme songs. However it did not really hit the 'charts' Stateside until a year later, thanks to the rise of the Unexpected Jihad meme. Because there's damn near nothing so offensive the internet won't go ahead and make hilarious YouTube videos about it.
Salil as-Sawarim is also legitimately a very good song. It's a nasheed, an Arabic chant sung either a cappella or with the accompaniment of simple percussion instruments, as all other sorts of instruments are apparently banned in Islam because the Prophet hates fun. It's an interesting song in that it's very melodic and soothing, almost trance-inducing, but also has this energetic undercurrent of getting up and marching forth to glory. Said undercurrent is fitting, given the song is about overthrowing tyranny in the name of God. Generally i don't like to give things actual ratings, but i'd say it deserves a solid B. Really, it's a pity that it was produced by a band of mass murdering mass rapists, but fortunately one can invoke death of the author and allow the song to stand on its own.
Also, i'm rather fond this remix, because adding techno makes everything better.
Abu Yaseer's Salil as-Sawarim (Clashing of Swords)
[youtube][/youtube]
Released March 17, 2014 on Twitter as part of one of Daesh's atrocity filled propaganda/music videos, Salil as-Sawarim may very well be the most popular and recognizable of the Islamic State's various theme songs. However it did not really hit the 'charts' Stateside until a year later, thanks to the rise of the Unexpected Jihad meme. Because there's damn near nothing so offensive the internet won't go ahead and make hilarious YouTube videos about it.
Salil as-Sawarim is also legitimately a very good song. It's a nasheed, an Arabic chant sung either a cappella or with the accompaniment of simple percussion instruments, as all other sorts of instruments are apparently banned in Islam because the Prophet hates fun. It's an interesting song in that it's very melodic and soothing, almost trance-inducing, but also has this energetic undercurrent of getting up and marching forth to glory. Said undercurrent is fitting, given the song is about overthrowing tyranny in the name of God. Generally i don't like to give things actual ratings, but i'd say it deserves a solid B. Really, it's a pity that it was produced by a band of mass murdering mass rapists, but fortunately one can invoke death of the author and allow the song to stand on its own.
Also, i'm rather fond this remix, because adding techno makes everything better.
Lys is lily, or lilium.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
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General Havoc
- Mr. Party-Killbot
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#244 Re: A (half) Century of Music
2015
Yearly GPA: 2.269
2015 is a banner year if you look at the score, a full GPA point better than 2014 and the third-highest-scoring year in the history of the charts, and the credit for that is due entirely to two people, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, who singlehandedly catapulted this year into legendary status with one single earth-shattering song. Otherwise, the year is... decent I suppose, with a mixture of decent and less decent songs, but nothing really worth getting excised about either way.
Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk
Number 1 song from January 17th-April 24th, 2015 (14 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: A
It's like a choir of angels...
Uptown Funk is the first A-rated number 1 hit we've had since Gangsta's Paradise, all the way back in 1995, but wow, was it worth the wait. Everything about this song is amazing, from the James Brown/Morris Day & The Time, Minneapolis-sounding Retro-funk styling of it, to a video that matches the cool look and feel of the song absolutely perfectly. Credited to British producer Mark Ronson, a long-time collaborator with the late Amy Winehouse, this is a masterpiece of a song, one that just exploded onto the charts at the beginning of 2015 and left devastation and ruin in its wake. I know that not everyone is as obsessed with retro-soul as I am, and I know this makes me an old man, but I could not care less. Uptown Funk is an amazing song, and if it required that we slog through the ruins that was the 00s to get to it, then it was a journey worth taking.
Wiz Khalifa, featuring Charlie Puth - See You Again
Number 1 song from April 25th-June 5th, June 13th-July 24th, 2015 (12 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I didn't really care for See You Again when it first came out, but I have to admit that it grew on me as time went on. Written for the Fast and Furious 7 soundtrack as a eulogy for long-time series-regular Paul Walker, who died at the age of 40 in a car crash, the song took off with the general public as a general mediation on loss and mourning, and I can see why. A pop and hip-hop ballad of mixed provenance, the song has the right reverential tone and sound, and works on a fundamental level, even if it holds little personal appeal to me.
Incidentally, the fact that the radio edits for this song omitted Wiz Khalifa entirely, despite his verses involving nothing objectionable and the fact that it's his fucking song, was quite rightly called out for racism. The radio edits of songs usually suck (there are exceptions), but this one's particularly bad.
Taylor Swift, featuring Kendrick Lamar - Bad Blood
Number 1 song from June 6th-12th, 2015 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Bad Blood is an uncharacteristically ugly song, one that is not improved by the addition of Kendrick freaking Lamar of all people. Written as a hatchet piece about an "unnamed female musician" with whom Taylor Swift was beefing (what a shock), the song tried to generate mystery in terms of who it was about (Katy Perry), but no amount of mystery could salvage a bad trap-beat pop song. Skip.
OMI - Cheerleader
Number 1 song from July 25th-August 21st, August 29th-September 11th, 2015 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Cheerleader is a strange little song, and I do kind of like it, so strange and kind of weirdly off-kilter is it from everything nearby. Based on a Jamaican nursery rhyme, this song exploded when German DJ Felix Jaehn tore out the original instrumentation and produced a stripped down, minimalist samba beat with trumpets and bongos accompanying. Critics labeled it as a "Deep House" song, whatever that means, but I have to admit that there's something compelling in the weird, vaguely reggae-robotic sound of the thing. Thumbs up, OMI, you're all right in my book.
The Weeknd - Can't Feel My Face
Number 1 song from August 22nd-28th, September 12th-18th, September 26th-October 2nd, 2015 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I really don't know what to make of Ethiopian-Canadian singer Abęl Makkonen Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd. There's a craft behind his Michael-Jackson-style songs that goes deeper than most retro-disco-funk that you hear on the airwaves. Can't Feel My Face isn't really my favorite song of his, but it's not bad, honestly, a sort of strange fusion of two different genres, both a bit darker than you typically see. I don't really love the song, but it's worth a listen, certainly.
Justin Bieber - What Do You Mean
Number 1 song from September 19th-25th, 2015 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I'm man enough to admit that Justin Bieber has gotten more musically skilled as he's gotten older, even if that change has also coincided with becoming something of a gigantic douchebag personally. Nevertheless, I have basically no use for this song, for all the staccato beats and weird atonality of it. The song is just not that interesting to me, and the best anectdote I could find for it, was that the main writer for the song is long-time Beiber-collaborater Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd.
Somehow that's appropriate.
The Weeknd - The Hills
Number 1 song from October 3rd-November 13th, 2015 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
The more I listen to the Weeknd, the more I respect him as an artist, but respect does not always translate into liking his work. The Hills is a song that belongs on the soundtrack to a horror movie (indeed, the hook comes from a Wes Craven film from the 70s), and while I respect its production and heavy minor chords, I just don't like it. It's got nothing to do with being dark, I just find the whole affair quite leaden. I see why critics praised this song, but I listen to music to enjoy myself, not marvel at how SUPRDARKLOL we can get with themes and tones. If I wanted that, I'd listen to Black Metal.
Adele - Hello
Number 1 song from November 14th, 2015-January 22nd, 2016 (10 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Adele just isn't for me, that much is clear. Where everyone else heard a romantic, soaring ballad, all I hear is an overwrought miasma drenched in generic sorrow with highly simplistic lyrics. I just have no time for a song like this, one that isn't heartfelt so much as just brooding and mopey. I'm sure that lots of people (obviously) liked it, but it's not something I would ever listen to voluntarily.
Though admittedly, the remixes that try and turn it into a club dance track are... strange.
Supplemental Songs
So what else did I enjoy listening to in the year that ended not six months ago? Well here we go...
Walk the Moon - Shut Up and Dance
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: 6
Havoc's Grade: B
Shut Up and Dance is just awesome. A wonderful little new-wave-style power pop song that works in all the right ways. Nicholas Petricca, vocalist for the band, claimed that the melody was based on Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, another Supplemental List song whose influence I hear immediately. I enjoy this song a hell of a lot, and the only thing keeping it off the A-list is that its buildup actually doesn't quite match its payoff, big as it is. But enough negativity, Shut Up and Dance is a really fun song, and I enjoy it tremendously. Rock on you crazy kids.
Rachel Platten - Fight Song
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: 20
Havoc's Grade: B
I've made a lot of embarrassing revelations on these lists, but this might be one of the worst, because not only do I like Rachel Platten's Fight Song, it's not even the only Rachel Platten song I like. Yes, I know I have terrible taste, but I can't help it. Power pop of this style just gets to me, no matter how generic the lyrics or subject matter, and Fight Song is damn good power pop. I'm sure this song's of no use to anybody else, but I'm calling them as I see them.
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, featuring Eric Nally, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster Caz - Downtown
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: 84
Havoc's Grade: B
Of all the many strange things that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have done, this might be the weirdest. It's also my favorite, a soaring, operatic Queen-style Power anthem crossed with Macklemore's more customary retro-hip-hop style. The song is just a ton of fun, with clever lyrics, ridiculous sendups to hip hop trends, and a video weirder than (almost) anything else this year. Time Magazine called it one of the worst songs of the year, but what Time knows about music would fit in a thimble. This is my favorite Macklemore song to date. And I think I shall now listen to it again.
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats - S.O.B.
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Blue-eyed Soul at its finest. S.O.B. is a song that seemingly came out of nowhere, and boy am I glad it did. From its a capela verse structure to its Blues-Brothers-inspired video, I just love this song to bits. And who can really hate a soul song whose chorus involves the lead singer cursing and demanding a drink. This is the way modern blues should sound, and I'm glad that Nate Rateliff and his band of lunatics was around to make sure we knew.
The Weeknd - In The Night
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Though I was not tremendously complementary towards his efforts on top of the charts this year, I do respect the craft involved in his work, particularly here, in an 80s-style electro-pop song that could easily have come from one of Michael Jackson's best albums. This song was supposedly an attempt to remake Dirty Diana with a harder lyrical edge, and I can hear it. Frankly though, I think this is a better song than Dirty Diana ever was, particularly for the desperation that infuses the chorus. It's not a particularly strong grade, admittedly, but desperate dance music appeals to me. Sue me.
Rachel Platten - Stand By You
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, that's right, two Rachel Platten songs on my list for 2015. And there's not a goddamn thing that any of you can do about it.
Seriously though, of the two Platten songs that got serious airtime last year, this was my favorite, a thumping power-pop ballad with an excellent hook and a relentless energy to it. I know the hipsters among you will criticize letting this song onto my list, let alone as the very last song upon it (in its original form), but if I cared for what hipsters thought, I would not present my opinions on music throughout the ages for all to see and laugh at.
Other noted songs from 2015:
Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud
Maroon 5 - Sugar <---- Even less tolerable than usual
Silento - Watch Me
Ellie Goulding - Love Me Like You Do <---- I keep wanting to like Goulding but never quite do
Major Lazer & DJ Snake, ft. MØ - Lean On
Jason Derulo - Want to Want Me
Meghan Trainor - Lips are Movin'
Fifth Harmony, ft. Kid Ink - Worth It <---- Annoying
Sam Smith - I'm Not The Only One <---- Overwrought as all hell
Taylor Swift - Style
Drake - Hotline Bling
Ed Sheeran - Photograph <---- A Hell of a lot better than the Nickelback song of the same name
Shawn Mendes - Stitches <---- Awful
Nick Jonas - Jealous
R. City, ft. Adam Levine - Locked Away <---- The closest that Adam Levine has ever gotten to my Supplemental List
Rihanna, Kanye West, & Paul McCartney - FourFive Seconds
Fall Out Boy - Centuries
Big Sean, ft. E-40 - Fuck With You
Sia - Elastic Heart
Demi Lovato - Cool for the Summer
X Ambassadors - Renegades <---- Every line of this song is dumber than the previous.
Taylor Swift - Wildest Dreams
Sam Smith - Stay With Me
Fall Out Boy - Uma Thurman
Little Big Town - Girl Crush
Elle King - Exes and Ohs <---- Pretty damn good.
Meghan Trainor - Dear Future Husband
Charlie Puth, ft. Meghan Trainor - Marvin Gaye <---- Pretty damn stupid.
Meghan Trainor, ft. John Legend - Like I'm Gonna Lose You
Tove Lo - Habits (Stay High) <---- Pretty damn weird
George Ezra - Budapest <---- Not bad, actually
Kelly Clarkson - Heartbeat Song
Selina Gomez - Same Old Love
Yearly GPA: 2.269
2015 is a banner year if you look at the score, a full GPA point better than 2014 and the third-highest-scoring year in the history of the charts, and the credit for that is due entirely to two people, Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars, who singlehandedly catapulted this year into legendary status with one single earth-shattering song. Otherwise, the year is... decent I suppose, with a mixture of decent and less decent songs, but nothing really worth getting excised about either way.
Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk
Number 1 song from January 17th-April 24th, 2015 (14 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: A
It's like a choir of angels...
Uptown Funk is the first A-rated number 1 hit we've had since Gangsta's Paradise, all the way back in 1995, but wow, was it worth the wait. Everything about this song is amazing, from the James Brown/Morris Day & The Time, Minneapolis-sounding Retro-funk styling of it, to a video that matches the cool look and feel of the song absolutely perfectly. Credited to British producer Mark Ronson, a long-time collaborator with the late Amy Winehouse, this is a masterpiece of a song, one that just exploded onto the charts at the beginning of 2015 and left devastation and ruin in its wake. I know that not everyone is as obsessed with retro-soul as I am, and I know this makes me an old man, but I could not care less. Uptown Funk is an amazing song, and if it required that we slog through the ruins that was the 00s to get to it, then it was a journey worth taking.
Wiz Khalifa, featuring Charlie Puth - See You Again
Number 1 song from April 25th-June 5th, June 13th-July 24th, 2015 (12 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I didn't really care for See You Again when it first came out, but I have to admit that it grew on me as time went on. Written for the Fast and Furious 7 soundtrack as a eulogy for long-time series-regular Paul Walker, who died at the age of 40 in a car crash, the song took off with the general public as a general mediation on loss and mourning, and I can see why. A pop and hip-hop ballad of mixed provenance, the song has the right reverential tone and sound, and works on a fundamental level, even if it holds little personal appeal to me.
Incidentally, the fact that the radio edits for this song omitted Wiz Khalifa entirely, despite his verses involving nothing objectionable and the fact that it's his fucking song, was quite rightly called out for racism. The radio edits of songs usually suck (there are exceptions), but this one's particularly bad.
Taylor Swift, featuring Kendrick Lamar - Bad Blood
Number 1 song from June 6th-12th, 2015 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Bad Blood is an uncharacteristically ugly song, one that is not improved by the addition of Kendrick freaking Lamar of all people. Written as a hatchet piece about an "unnamed female musician" with whom Taylor Swift was beefing (what a shock), the song tried to generate mystery in terms of who it was about (Katy Perry), but no amount of mystery could salvage a bad trap-beat pop song. Skip.
OMI - Cheerleader
Number 1 song from July 25th-August 21st, August 29th-September 11th, 2015 (6 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
Cheerleader is a strange little song, and I do kind of like it, so strange and kind of weirdly off-kilter is it from everything nearby. Based on a Jamaican nursery rhyme, this song exploded when German DJ Felix Jaehn tore out the original instrumentation and produced a stripped down, minimalist samba beat with trumpets and bongos accompanying. Critics labeled it as a "Deep House" song, whatever that means, but I have to admit that there's something compelling in the weird, vaguely reggae-robotic sound of the thing. Thumbs up, OMI, you're all right in my book.
The Weeknd - Can't Feel My Face
Number 1 song from August 22nd-28th, September 12th-18th, September 26th-October 2nd, 2015 (3 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: C
I really don't know what to make of Ethiopian-Canadian singer Abęl Makkonen Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd. There's a craft behind his Michael-Jackson-style songs that goes deeper than most retro-disco-funk that you hear on the airwaves. Can't Feel My Face isn't really my favorite song of his, but it's not bad, honestly, a sort of strange fusion of two different genres, both a bit darker than you typically see. I don't really love the song, but it's worth a listen, certainly.
Justin Bieber - What Do You Mean
Number 1 song from September 19th-25th, 2015 (1 week)
Havoc's Grade: D
I'm man enough to admit that Justin Bieber has gotten more musically skilled as he's gotten older, even if that change has also coincided with becoming something of a gigantic douchebag personally. Nevertheless, I have basically no use for this song, for all the staccato beats and weird atonality of it. The song is just not that interesting to me, and the best anectdote I could find for it, was that the main writer for the song is long-time Beiber-collaborater Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd.
Somehow that's appropriate.
The Weeknd - The Hills
Number 1 song from October 3rd-November 13th, 2015 (5 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
The more I listen to the Weeknd, the more I respect him as an artist, but respect does not always translate into liking his work. The Hills is a song that belongs on the soundtrack to a horror movie (indeed, the hook comes from a Wes Craven film from the 70s), and while I respect its production and heavy minor chords, I just don't like it. It's got nothing to do with being dark, I just find the whole affair quite leaden. I see why critics praised this song, but I listen to music to enjoy myself, not marvel at how SUPRDARKLOL we can get with themes and tones. If I wanted that, I'd listen to Black Metal.
Adele - Hello
Number 1 song from November 14th, 2015-January 22nd, 2016 (10 weeks)
Havoc's Grade: D
Adele just isn't for me, that much is clear. Where everyone else heard a romantic, soaring ballad, all I hear is an overwrought miasma drenched in generic sorrow with highly simplistic lyrics. I just have no time for a song like this, one that isn't heartfelt so much as just brooding and mopey. I'm sure that lots of people (obviously) liked it, but it's not something I would ever listen to voluntarily.
Though admittedly, the remixes that try and turn it into a club dance track are... strange.
Supplemental Songs
So what else did I enjoy listening to in the year that ended not six months ago? Well here we go...
Walk the Moon - Shut Up and Dance
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: 6
Havoc's Grade: B
Shut Up and Dance is just awesome. A wonderful little new-wave-style power pop song that works in all the right ways. Nicholas Petricca, vocalist for the band, claimed that the melody was based on Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, another Supplemental List song whose influence I hear immediately. I enjoy this song a hell of a lot, and the only thing keeping it off the A-list is that its buildup actually doesn't quite match its payoff, big as it is. But enough negativity, Shut Up and Dance is a really fun song, and I enjoy it tremendously. Rock on you crazy kids.
Rachel Platten - Fight Song
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: 20
Havoc's Grade: B
I've made a lot of embarrassing revelations on these lists, but this might be one of the worst, because not only do I like Rachel Platten's Fight Song, it's not even the only Rachel Platten song I like. Yes, I know I have terrible taste, but I can't help it. Power pop of this style just gets to me, no matter how generic the lyrics or subject matter, and Fight Song is damn good power pop. I'm sure this song's of no use to anybody else, but I'm calling them as I see them.
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, featuring Eric Nally, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster Caz - Downtown
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: 84
Havoc's Grade: B
Of all the many strange things that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have done, this might be the weirdest. It's also my favorite, a soaring, operatic Queen-style Power anthem crossed with Macklemore's more customary retro-hip-hop style. The song is just a ton of fun, with clever lyrics, ridiculous sendups to hip hop trends, and a video weirder than (almost) anything else this year. Time Magazine called it one of the worst songs of the year, but what Time knows about music would fit in a thimble. This is my favorite Macklemore song to date. And I think I shall now listen to it again.
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats - S.O.B.
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Blue-eyed Soul at its finest. S.O.B. is a song that seemingly came out of nowhere, and boy am I glad it did. From its a capela verse structure to its Blues-Brothers-inspired video, I just love this song to bits. And who can really hate a soul song whose chorus involves the lead singer cursing and demanding a drink. This is the way modern blues should sound, and I'm glad that Nate Rateliff and his band of lunatics was around to make sure we knew.
The Weeknd - In The Night
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Though I was not tremendously complementary towards his efforts on top of the charts this year, I do respect the craft involved in his work, particularly here, in an 80s-style electro-pop song that could easily have come from one of Michael Jackson's best albums. This song was supposedly an attempt to remake Dirty Diana with a harder lyrical edge, and I can hear it. Frankly though, I think this is a better song than Dirty Diana ever was, particularly for the desperation that infuses the chorus. It's not a particularly strong grade, admittedly, but desperate dance music appeals to me. Sue me.
Rachel Platten - Stand By You
2015 Billboard Top 100 position: N/A
Havoc's Grade: B
Yeah, that's right, two Rachel Platten songs on my list for 2015. And there's not a goddamn thing that any of you can do about it.
Seriously though, of the two Platten songs that got serious airtime last year, this was my favorite, a thumping power-pop ballad with an excellent hook and a relentless energy to it. I know the hipsters among you will criticize letting this song onto my list, let alone as the very last song upon it (in its original form), but if I cared for what hipsters thought, I would not present my opinions on music throughout the ages for all to see and laugh at.
Other noted songs from 2015:
Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud
Maroon 5 - Sugar <---- Even less tolerable than usual
Silento - Watch Me
Ellie Goulding - Love Me Like You Do <---- I keep wanting to like Goulding but never quite do
Major Lazer & DJ Snake, ft. MØ - Lean On
Jason Derulo - Want to Want Me
Meghan Trainor - Lips are Movin'
Fifth Harmony, ft. Kid Ink - Worth It <---- Annoying
Sam Smith - I'm Not The Only One <---- Overwrought as all hell
Taylor Swift - Style
Drake - Hotline Bling
Ed Sheeran - Photograph <---- A Hell of a lot better than the Nickelback song of the same name
Shawn Mendes - Stitches <---- Awful
Nick Jonas - Jealous
R. City, ft. Adam Levine - Locked Away <---- The closest that Adam Levine has ever gotten to my Supplemental List
Rihanna, Kanye West, & Paul McCartney - FourFive Seconds
Fall Out Boy - Centuries
Big Sean, ft. E-40 - Fuck With You
Sia - Elastic Heart
Demi Lovato - Cool for the Summer
X Ambassadors - Renegades <---- Every line of this song is dumber than the previous.
Taylor Swift - Wildest Dreams
Sam Smith - Stay With Me
Fall Out Boy - Uma Thurman
Little Big Town - Girl Crush
Elle King - Exes and Ohs <---- Pretty damn good.
Meghan Trainor - Dear Future Husband
Charlie Puth, ft. Meghan Trainor - Marvin Gaye <---- Pretty damn stupid.
Meghan Trainor, ft. John Legend - Like I'm Gonna Lose You
Tove Lo - Habits (Stay High) <---- Pretty damn weird
George Ezra - Budapest <---- Not bad, actually
Kelly Clarkson - Heartbeat Song
Selina Gomez - Same Old Love
Last edited by General Havoc on Tue Jun 07, 2016 11:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
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LadyTevar
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#245 Re: A (half) Century of Music
Exes and Oohs is one of those great little songs that hits all the right notes. I adore it.
Dogs are Man's Best Friend
Cats are Man's Adorable Little Serial Killers
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General Havoc
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#246 Re: A (half) Century of Music
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.
For three years, we have plumbed the depths and scraped the heights that popular music has had to offer since the inception of the Billboard Charts all the way back in 1958. We have seen years good and bad, songs terrible and amazing. Over the course of 57 years of pop hits, we have seen 30 songs that merited an A-grade from me, all but one from the 20th century, all but four from before 1990, plus 61 more songs from the supplemental lists that hit such lofty heights. This represents my own personal taste primarily of course, but hopefully, through the explanations I have given and the reasoning I have invoked, you have all discovered the highs and lows of music from yesteryear and yestercentury, and maybe even found a song or two that you didn't know about, and came to love. For three years, we have heaped ruinous hate upon such songs as merit it, and fought endlessly over such songs as did not. I hope it has been to your benefit. It has certainly been to mine...
And so, with the final chart complete, through to the present day, I'd like to leave you all with something dear to my heart...
Keep on listening, ladies and gentlemen. And to the music of 2016 and years to come...
For three years, we have plumbed the depths and scraped the heights that popular music has had to offer since the inception of the Billboard Charts all the way back in 1958. We have seen years good and bad, songs terrible and amazing. Over the course of 57 years of pop hits, we have seen 30 songs that merited an A-grade from me, all but one from the 20th century, all but four from before 1990, plus 61 more songs from the supplemental lists that hit such lofty heights. This represents my own personal taste primarily of course, but hopefully, through the explanations I have given and the reasoning I have invoked, you have all discovered the highs and lows of music from yesteryear and yestercentury, and maybe even found a song or two that you didn't know about, and came to love. For three years, we have heaped ruinous hate upon such songs as merit it, and fought endlessly over such songs as did not. I hope it has been to your benefit. It has certainly been to mine...
And so, with the final chart complete, through to the present day, I'd like to leave you all with something dear to my heart...
Keep on listening, ladies and gentlemen. And to the music of 2016 and years to come...
Last edited by General Havoc on Mon Jun 06, 2016 6:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gaze upon my works, ye mighty, and despair...
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
Havoc: "So basically if you side against him, he summons Cthulu."
Hotfoot: "Yes, which is reasonable."
#247 Re: A (half) Century of Music
Man 2015 should have been a pretty good year. Both I Can't Feel My Face and The Hills deserve a solid A, and What Do You Mean merits a C what with its only real flaw being how utterly generic it sounds (I'm Sorry is in the same boat). Though i'm not sure what to do with Adele's Hello, a part of me feels that it should be rated a B, but i don't really like it, since it sounds to me less like an Adele song and more like a screeching parody of one. Still i think it might be a good song despite my dislike for it, so it gets a good song grade. So yeah, 2015 should have been a better year score-wise.
Lys is lily, or lilium.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
The pretty flowers remind me of a song of elves.
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frigidmagi
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#248 Re: A (half) Century of Music
I almost want to have you both do music reviews together just to see how often you fight...
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
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White Haven
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#249 Re: A (half) Century of Music
I'm sorry, Lys; sometimes you've got a point, but not with those two 'A-rank' pieces, particularly the anthem of disengaged boredom that is The Hills. I Can't Feel My Face at least has a pulse, but The Hills...the only thing that saves it from F-rank is the fact that there has to be a category for actual abominations to avoid cheapening the lowest rating available.
Out of Context Theatre, this week starring rhoenix
-'I need to hit the can, but if you wouldn't mind joining me for number two, I'd be grateful.'
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LadyTevar
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#250 Re: A (half) Century of Music
NOW will you go back to the 80s and start rating Rock/Metal Music? It's been sadly lacking
Dogs are Man's Best Friend
Cats are Man's Adorable Little Serial Killers