Before I post my main list of 50 incredible songs from 2011, I like to pay homage to the songs that, every year, give me immense drunken/privately sober pleasure, despite it being social suicide to admitting to dancing around my room/the tube miming to them. However, I do like to exorcise the odd demon on this blog, so here's a few satanic little chart eating numbers that actually rocked my boat.
Reading over the list now, perhaps I should've jumped overboard. God.
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#10
"Loca People"
Sak Noel
According to Wikipedia, the last song by a Spanish artist to get to number 1 in the UK was 9 years ago, in 2002... and that was "Asereje" by Las Ketchup. You may have blocked that particular gem out of your memory over time, so forgive me for reminding you.
But, y'know, times have changed... if you're a foreign artist wanting to get into the charts in the UK, pure novelty alone just won't cut it. You need to make us want to dance (look at Inna). And, say what you like about "Loca People", it's whooping cough synth hook and punchy beat are irresistible on the dancefloor.
#9
"Without You" (feat. Usher)
David Guetta
David Guetta plus 'maturing' R&B artist, what a shocker (!) but for all the sickly pitch-corrected vocal acrobatics of Usher and awful lyrics... there is that drop that makes us all jump like idiots and grin like morons. What is it about those two chords that's so damn appealing?
#8
"Party Rock Anthem" (feat. a fuckload of morons)
LMFAO
Obnoxious beyond obnoxious this band are, truly, the stupid image, the sub-Saturday Night Live sense of humour, they're like an unfunny sketch from said show. But "Party Rock Anthem"... its brutally cheesy chords and painfully catchy chorus are just drunken dancefloor gold.
325 million views on YouTube. It's terrifying how music this dumb is seen and heard by people all over the world so easily.
#7
"Give Me Everything" (feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack and some girl... Nayer)
Pitbull
Pitbull is talentless, thoroughly dislikeable and it pains me to see his name get put on a list of songs I find any pleasure in at all. I assure you, every time he appears on "his" song, is a travesty of wordplay and teeth-grittingly dumb rhythm, but that chorus... Afrojack's blunt flailing synth and Ne-Yo's soaring vocal hook makes for one of the most irritatingly addictive chart music missiles of the year.
#6
"Cockiness (I Love It)"
Rihanna
God this is dreadful. A horrible, about-nothing chav anthem featuring too-many-Rihannas singing too near the front of mix. But that Bangladesh produced beat is frankly thunderous. Shame it's not louder, covering the AWFUL AWFUL wordplay. Saying that, hear this "song" once... you won't forget it in a hurry.
#5
"Moves Like Jagger" (feat. Christina Aguilera)
Maroon 5
Somehow, Christina Aguilera turns a catchy Maroon 5 song into something widely heralded as one of the best pop songs of the year. The track is out and out cheesy dancepop by Adam Levine and crew, who'd been leaning that way anyway of late. But admittedly, Ms Aguilera's presence is the REAL guilty pleasure before she's even sung a note. Goodness me... that "yeah-yeah-eee-yeah!" at 3.11... Christina is in the building, and the excitement I feel when this happens is shameful. WHY?!
#4
"Right There"
Nicole Scherzinger
Could do with 50 Cent in the radio edit but there we are. Nicole Scherzinger, a maturer woman, at 32, and somehow she gets away with dumb pop like this, and ever dumber lyrics like, well, the whole first verse, "Me like the way that he push up on me". I always thought of the track as something of a rehash of Samantha Fox's 80s disaster "Touch Me", but hell, I love "Right There", it's just hook after hook over a killer beat. Who cares if it's shit? It's danceable shit.
#3
"Super Bass"
Nicki Minaj
NOT A 2011 TRACK... technically, was a bonus track, now has become probably her biggest hit when it was released as a single this year. From schizo rap on "Roman's Revenge" to barbie girl bubblegum pop... and for it to still work!? "Super Bass" is as girly and infectious as any Katy Perry track, whilst still having enough bizarre lyrics and speedy, crafty raps to maintain her reputation. I'm not sure if this was a risk or a sure fire cash in, but hell... against my better tastes, I love this track, and I think most people gave in over the course of the year as well.
#2
"With Ur Love" (feat. Mike Posner)
Cher Lloyd
What Mike Posner's doing here is confusing. Cher Lloyd nearly lost everyone with "Swagger Jagger", being a bit TOO cringe for comfort, but "With Ur Love" suddenly sounded like it was made for Cher (Lloyd, haha)... a little bit of cutesy R&B attitude, but not too much, concentrating more on the teeny-pop aspect of Little Ms Swag's persona. And hell, it was a good move, the song's a good song. I'd even go as far to say it's feel good, maybe even uplifting. Say what you like about Cher Lloyd... she pulled it back, and maybe in a couple of years, it'll be ok to say you like her. Maybe "Swagger Jagger" will be hailed as an underrated-at-the-time classic? Well... 'maybe'.
#1
"On The Floor" (feat. Pitbull)
Jennifer Lopez
Pitbull is on a number one slot of a list of mine. Kill me now. BUT, I would like to focus on why I even considered putting this track in my main list (until I felt dreadfully guilty). Basically, ask anyone what their favourite Jennifer Lopez song before this year was... there's only really one answer: "Waiting For Tonight", that was a fucking AMAZING dancepop song, 1999 didn't know what hit it, it was Euphoric, latin-flavoured, and I was even go as far as to call Lopez's voice 'passionate but elegant' (y'know, in context).
"On The Floor", with it's 90s organ bass, swarm of warm pads (also v. 90s) and thumping eurobeat courtesy of RedOne (who else), takes us straight back to 1999 in that tropical rainforest on NYE. Maybe this song will soundtrack a fair few New Years this NYE? Either way, I am proud (trying to be at any rate) to admit that this is my ULTIMATE guilty pleasure song for 2011.
Oh and 2012? Please leave us all alone Pitbull, you keep popping up on what could be that bit better without you. Or as Usher would say... "withaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuoouuuttt yoooooooooooouuuuu!!!!" You weren't on THAT hit were you?!
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Next up, GENUINELY bad songs of this year. I hold no candle for any of these.
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