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THE CHRONICLER RICH APPEL
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Some For Whom Summer May Be A Bummer
Lana Del Rey may have “Summertime Sadness,” but seeing as that’s become her breakthrough song at top 40, she’s got little to pout about. For many of the format’s recurring artists, though, this summer could have been happier. These are acts whose recent hits—some of which were timed to be the perfect summer soundtrack—made less of a splash than most of us probably expected. Inspired by “Questions Answered” guest and new radio countdown host on the block Carson Daly (see page 4), here’s The CHRonicler’s countdown of these songs, ranked from unlikely to even more unlikely to be on the ultimate summer 2013 playlist/mixtape/classic hits station of the future, followed by a countdown extra where the jury’s still out.
7. Avril Lavigne, “Here’s to Never Growing Up”: Like most acts here, Lavigne’s breakout happened during the summer (2002’s “Complicated”), so she knows the turf. While this topped out at No. 19 on Billboard’s Nielsen BDSbased Mainstream Top 40 chart before summer began, clearly it was meant to be both a graduation and summer anthem. What happened? I guess she grew up.
6. Britney Spears, “Ooh La La”: For WBLI Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., PD Jeremy Rice, who points out that “soundtrack songs are often throwaways,” I have two words: It’s Britney. It’s fascinating how we’ve reached a point where there are lower expectations for songs from movies, which at one time dominated the summer landscape.
5. Karmin, “Acapella”: What a difference a year makes: Last summer this pair ruled rotations with its first major hit, “Brokenhearted.” Did this tip the scales too far to the rap side, or was Amy Heidemann’s “falsetta” the downfall of “Acapella”?
4. David Guetta featuring Ne-Yo & Akon, “Play Hard”: Last summer Guetta was as strong as “Titanium,” the No. 3 song featuring Sia. This summer’s more typical dance jam with bigger star power didn’t make it past 31.
3. Ke$ha, “Crazy Kids”: The song that asked the question, Is this whistling thing finally over?
2. Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull, “Live It Up”: Every summer in recent memory has had at least one dance anthem like this, tailor-made for radio and clubs. At least one of those was from J. Lo’s partner in crime Pitbull. Has EDM taken the place of party dance pop this summer?
1. Kelly Clarkson, “People Like Us: A year ago, this song that’s squarely in P!nk territory could quite likely have been No. 1. This summer, while it reached No. 7 at adult top 40, at mainstream it stopped at No. 28. Should this and not “Catch My Breath” have been the lead track from Clarkson’s greatest-hits collection?
Extra: Rihanna featuring David Guetta, “Right Now”: Another intended summer anthem from someone who knows how it’s done, beginning with her first from summer 2005, “Pon De Replay.” While not at the level of a typical Rihanna smash, um, right now, it’s top 10 at nearly 30 stations and could still make its way into mainstream’s top 10 by summer’s end female lean (60%).
