Chill Bill's Countdown |2012| TOP TEN WORST HIT SONGS: #1
Alllllllllllllrighty then!
Man, 2012 was a hell of a year, wasn't it? 2Pac came back from the dead, a goofy Korean in a tux almost made it to #1, Nicki Minaj got in an epic catfight with Mariah Carey, and Adele continued to rule the charts with an iron fist. Crazy stuff.
We had a hell of a lot of fascinating hit songs this year, too. Honestly, I looked over Billboard's Year-End Hot 100 of 2012, and there were very, very few songs that I disliked. This was, overall, a very good year for the pop charts in my humble opinion. But for this list, I'm going to be counting down the ten that I considered to be the very best.
When making the list, I only gave myself two guidelines to follow:
1. Only one song per artist. I want this list to be as diverse as possible, and I wanted to avoid the temptation of just putting everything by Kanye on here :-P
2. Every song must be on Billboard's Year-End Hot 100 in order to qualify. It's not that I don't think there was any worthwhile music outside of the pop charts... it's just that I wanted this list to specifically be an examination of what got popular this year. I want to look at how the public's tastes have changed since last year, and the year before.
And that's pretty much all there is to it! #10 is coming up tomorrow afternoon; be there or be square!
Oh, by the way, after I'm done, I'm going to make another list... of the top 10 WORST hit songs of the year!
I always sort of suspected that B.o.B. had a sophisticated side, and he definitely confirmed it with 'So Good'. Over a light, breezy piano riff, our good friend Bobby Ray puts his appreciation for fine art on full display, name- dropping Michelangelo, Picasso and even George Gershwin in a single verse. I don't know for sure if he's a legitimate art connoisseur, but his delivery on this song is so irresistibly charming that it's hard for me not to believe him. His flow here is bouncy, playful and effortless, gracefully weaving around the track like a vocal Fred Astaire.
Am I really the only one who sees how unfairly overlooked this guy is? He definitely needs more love. Lord knows he's got a lot to give.
I think I enjoy country music a lot more than I'm willing to admit. I have a particularly soft spot for country rock, and this song hits it as hard as it possibly can. It opens with a beefy guitar riff that AC/DC would be proud of, backed by a steady, infectious chorus of handclaps. Then Carrie hops on the mic and totally hams it up, belting out a vocal performance that sounds more impassioned than almost anything else I've heard this year.
I never thought I'd be able to forgive Carrie for the ugly abomination known as 'Before He Cheats', but she definitely proved me wrong. You know what, Carrie? You and I are cool now.
Young, Wild and Free" by Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa ft. Bruno Mars
Year-End Position: #32
The more I listen to this song, the more I feel like this was the kind of song that Wiz was made for. Every time he tries to brag about how awesome he is (like on 'Black and Yellow'), he just comes off as boring and slightly annoying. But here, on a song that's just about chilling with your friends and having a good time, he seems a hell of a lot more comfortable. He even manages to hold his own against hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg (now Snoop Lion), and that's no small feat.
Of course, I have to give some credit to The Smeezingtons, who to this day have failed to produce a single song that I didn't like. The chilled, mellow piano melody, combined with a sing-along chorus that borders on anthemic, make this a truly memorable slacker's anthem that's unlikely to go away anytime soon.
Yes, I'm putting Gangnam Style on the list. Go ahead and try to stop me.
Honestly, what's not to like? The synth hook is infectious as all hell, PSY comes off as confident and charismatic without taking himself too seriously, and I love the way the prechorus just builds itself higher and higher and higher until its energy reaches saturation point and it just... collapses right into the chorus. Weird description, I know, but Gangnam Style is an experience that I find difficult to put into words. It just fills me with life.
And yeah, it does kind of remind me of LMFAO, but it reminds me of everything I like about LMFAO's music. The energy and catchiness is still there, but we don't have SkyBlu and RedFoo's repugnant personalities to deal with. It's pure, unadulterated pop perfection. HEEEEEYYY SEXY LADY!!!