Enough with the shade (
Billiejoe), and on with the list! SPOILER ALERT: It's Poptastic!
63. Phoenix - Rome
Phoenix's first appearance, with their most sweeping single. Verges on beauty multiple times. Settles for gorgeous.
62. Shakira (featuring Lil' Wayne) - Give It Up to Me
Shakira's had a pretty ... trying year as a pop star, wouldn't you say? Give It Up to Me finds Shakira swathing herself in a Timbaland beat, and the results would be assumed to be off-putting, to say the least. But Shaki's in on the joke - "Tim are you on it/Tim are you on it?/Is this what you wanted? Is this what you wanted?) She uses her trademark wit and unusually succinct take on gender relations to sublimate all the cliches that other, lesser popstars would fall victim to. Add a rhyme from Weezy at his most fun yet respectful, and you have a winner.
61. Alicia Keys - Try Sleeping with a Single Man Broken Heart
I never anticipated loving another Alicia Keys single; after the jiving and shucking of her last album, I had completely written her off. That's why I was stunned, excited and irritated by TSWABH's general presence - how precise it was, how the contrast between the coldness of the computer-driver tableau (seriously, how hot is this beat?) and the yearning of Alicia's vocals works so perfectly. For once, her ham-fisted lyrical "skills" didn't detract from a song! Nobody ever shut it down like you, indeed.
60. Grizzly Bear - While You Wait for the Others
While You Wait for the Others, the third single from Vectatimest, is arguably the most ... interesting. Apparently it's a cover (thanks Ben!) but it sounds fully original, and Grizzly Bear make it in their own image. Everything about it is slinky; from the way the drums hit to the way the bass grapples onto the song. The best part is the vocal, the most fully engaged on the album. A real winner.
59. Volcano Choir - Island, IS
A side project between Justin Vernon (Bon Iver, the best male of our generation, etc and so forth) and Collections of Colonies of Bees (I know, I've never heard of them either),
Island IS finds the "group" combining what works best about both - the sea of voices that CoCoB brings, and the implacable loneliness that Vernon carries around with him where ever he goes. Instead of strings, however, the song revolves around a set of looped samples that somehow gives warmth to the airy surroundings. More soulful than most of the pablum being played on RnB radio.
58. Miley Cyrus - The Climb
This year's X-Factor competition was a lame duck. All of the talented contestants were booted off in the first half, and the winner is a guy who's ... not destined to go further than the West End. But the competition did put one thing into perspective - how terrific Miley Cyrus's version of
The Climb really is. It's a tricky thing to balance personal sincerity with consumerist twaddle, and Destiny Hope pulls it off beautifully - both in
The Climb, and ...
57. Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA
... of course, in
Party in the USA! It becomes totally irrelevant that she's never really had to go up against any walls "that might knock [her] down" (c'mon, how many 15 year olds get invited to the Oscars?) or that she professes to be completely ignorant of all things Shawn Knowles-Carter. What matters is how she (and, let's be fair, her songwriters and produces) sell the conceits - and they sell them like pros. Both songs are completely surface, but feel unmistakeably authentic. Job well done, Ms. Cyrus.
56. The Drums - Let's Go Surfing
In a year wherein the indie scene was flushed with songs detailing and romanticizing any and every aspect of "summer life,"
Let's Go Surfing stood out by being purposefully vague. The Drums cover this track in layers of filters that recall 60s psychedelia at it's best, and the lyrics are so indecipherable they fit the hazy, lazy days the song recalls. One can't even tell if they are entreating "O mama" or "Obama" to go surfing, and therein lies the magic.
55. Tinchy Stryder featuring Amelle - Never Leave You
The 2009 UK answer to Live Your Life - but it someways more grounded. Although it's awash in vocodered ****ery, there's a grit here that can't be scrubbed here. No wonder so many "chavs" related to it; it's made for anyone who's ever had to struggle - and rise above.
P.S. This is the best thing any Sugababe's been associated with since approximately March 2008.
Quote:
Ayo I dive in, and now I’m swimming in the deep end
And I’ve been gone since the weekend
So how’s your week been
Without me how you keeping
Well this is comeback season...
Well this is comeback season
|
