You'd think this would be an easy list to do, but no. Because, as you read in my last list... I actually secretly like some appalling shite. No, I had to really think about songs that became big when they REALLY didn't deserve it. I'm not talking irritating here, I'm not talking cheesy, I'm talking uninteresting, derivative, money grabbing C-R-A-P.
Of COURSE, this is subjective, and some of you may disagree with some of my choices (there are some widely loved songs on here, that I have failed many times to warm to), but as always... I have to get it out of my system.
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#10
"Where Them Girls At?" (feat. Flo Rida & Nicki Minaj)
David Guetta
Nicki Minaj's verse saves this from being higher on my hate list, although it's sloppy for her standards . David Guetta and I have had a love/hate relationship all year, but Flo Rida and I have pretty much had a hate/HATE relationship all my life. David Guetta basically rehashes his previous abomination "Sexy Chick" (Bitch, whatever) with an even more wooden and cringey rapper featuring.
#9
"Higher" (feat. Kylie Minogue)
Taio Cruz
I was never entirely sure who this song actually featured, because there's a version with Travis McCoy, and I swear I've heard a version with both Travis and Kylie. Well, it doesn't really matter, nothing could improve this blander than bland, meaningless dance track.
Just seen the video was posted in 2010, it feels like a 2011 track to me though. Besides, I've written my list, I've done enough reminding myself of bad music for one year.
#8
"Lightning"
The Wanted
I don't actually think The Wanted are a bad boy band. I just fail to see how "playing with Lightning" was ever actually a thing. As with "Glad You Came", "Lightning" is essentially another song about precisely fuck all, with even clumsier metaphors than before. "Gold Forever" wasn't bad, what happened to those songwriters?
#7
"Don't Wanna Go Home"
Jason Derulo
Now, every time I hear that brilliant house bassline, a voice in the back of my head squeals "Jason Derulo!". He's a douche.
#6
"Run For Your Life"
Matt Cardle
The poor bastard never really stood a chance. "Run For Your Life" sounds so tepid that even Leona Lewis would turn her nose up at it. For an X Factor winner, his music is distinctly lacking in every factor. Dull, soulless, irritating.
#5
"I Need A Dollar"
Aloe Blacc
Why was this so popular!? For a song so desperate to become a "song of the people", it had the most uncreative lyrics. Like a guy at the job centre moaning about his "boss man" letting him go and scrounging off people on the street, begging "does anyone have a dollar I can borrow?" People might think they love this, but they don't.
#4
"Black and Yellow"
Wiz Khalifa
A horrible mix of colours and an irritating song. There really is nothing else to say about this song, it's very popular, but that chorus hook just grinds into my head like a clamp.
#3
"She Makes Me Wanna" (feat. Dev)
JLS
"It's Dev... and JLS" Oh fuck off. This dreary clichéd urban dance is to be expected of JLS, but to add insult to injury, adding some recycled toss about 'London to Jamaica' in there, and having Dev inexplicably turn up at the wrong party. the whole song is just a shambles.
#2
"Stereo Hearts" (feat. Adam Levine)
Gym Class Heroes
I'm not a massive fan of GCH or Maroon 5, but the two of them together makes for a travesty of mediocrity. The lyric "My heart's a stereo" is bad enough, and it just escalates from there.
#1
"Stay Awake"
Example
What exactly does Example bring to the music industry? We have Calvin Harris, and no one needs a rewrite/ripoff of 2009's brilliant "Flashback", and we need even LESS for it to feature Example's trademark awful rapping and a fucking pointless watered down dubstep breakdown. Everything that could be good about "Stay Awake" he stole from other people, and everything that is TERRIBLE is just the essence of Example himself.
The main reason this is number 1 though? "Stick around, yeah, like elastoplast" ...and his smug face in the video when he says it.
"QUAAAT VAAATOOL" is another pet hate.
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RIGHT. No more bad music, I promise. Next week, my top 50 songs of 2011 countdown in 5, small, 10 track chunks, all the way up to new year.
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.
