74. Ellie Goulding - "Your Biggest Mistake" - This past spring, I managed to expose myself to Ellie Goulding and I must say I am dissappointed that her song "Lights" never got more attention. She definitely has her own sound. Not only is the singing great in this song, but just the sound and instrumental to this song gives me life.
73. Jay-Z and Kanye West featuring Mr. Hudson - "Why I Love You" - Well of course, I have found myself becoming a huge Kanye fan in the past two or three years and now with the release of Watch The Throne, I am now becoming more familiar with Jay-Z. Mr. Hudson sounds great in the chorus, but I have to say the part that I live for in the song is when Jay-Z raps: "And they want me dead but I’m so sorry but I just can’t die for you".
72. Janelle Monae - "Cold War" - Janelle gave an awesome performance of this at the Grammy Awards early this year and I fell in love with the song. The next morning I immediately had to buy it off of iTunes and have it on repeat on my iPod. Usually I don't fall in love with songs based on a first listen from a performance, so that really says something to me about Janelle.
71. Joe Jonas - "Just in Love" - I am not, by no means, a fan of ANY of the Jonas Brothers. But I can't help myself, this song is such a guilty pleasure. This makes me almost want to check out his solo debut.
70. Natalia Kills - "Broke" - Natalia deserves to break onto the scene. Not only does she have great uptempos, but she also has these incredible midtempos and ballads. I love the lyrics and her voice sounds rich and full despite singing a song about being broke.
69. Dev - "In My Trunk" - Dev is certainly an interesting artist. People are quick to judge as a "Ke$ha Clone", but those are the people that fail to look at how different her songs are from Ke$ha's. "In My Trunk" is definitely one of the more generic songs on Dev's album, but it's undeniably catchy and shows off Dev's style.
68. Marina and the Diamonds - "Radioactive" - I am a HUGE fan of Marina, as shown by my list from last year. So naturally, I was oober excited when I heard she had new music coming. Well when I heard this song, I was slightly disappointing, but the song grew on my significantly. While it doesn't top most of the gems on The Family Jewels (pun intended), the song is good enough to hype me up for her next CD (which will hopefully come out before I graduation High School).
67. Britney Spears (feat. will.i..am) - "Big Fat Bass" - Like every other Britney stan on ATRL, I was ready to commit suicide when I heard she was collaborating will will.i.am. For some reason, I really did not like him. When Will posted the snippet to this masterpiece, my soul was slayed into a million pieces. This song is generic, but it's a smash that is waiting to happen and NEEDS to happen. This song really opened the door for me into liking will.i.am. This year alone, I have bought the two latest Black Eyed Peas CD's and have been jamming out to Will's solo work.
66. Will.i.am (feat. Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger) - "T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)" - Speaking of will.i.am, I have really gotten into this song that deserves to be a smash. The beat is honestly sick. And I don't ever really say that about songs. The only downside is the dying cat at the end of the song-- I mean Mick Jagger.
65. Pitbull (feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack, and Nayer) - "Give Me Everything" - So I had decided sometime in the past couple years that I hated Pitbull. I tried to avoid this song at all costs, but it preyed on me and became one of my summer jams. I now regret trying to run away from it and it certainly deserved to smash.
64. Katy Perry - "The One That Got Away" - So I am really weird about my lists. This really deserves to be high on a list, but I usually only put songs generally released in a particular year in that list. For some reason I forgot to include this in last year's list. This song is a gem and one of the top three best Katy Perry songs ever. I really hope this hits number one on the Hot 100.
63. Lady Gaga - "The Queen" - At first, I thought nothing of this bonus track from Born This Way. I warmed up to it quickly. There's just something that catches me each time. It just gives me a vibe that kind of pushes me to keep going through a day, especially in the pre-chorus. Strangely, it's nothing in the lyrics that does that though. I suppose Gaga got her wish in trying to be the voice of this generation.
62. Beyonce - "Start Over" - I will get personal about this. I heard this song at the beginning of summer when '4' was released and it became kind of tune for me. I really hated my job and the intro to this song would just replay over and over in my head each day. So, I have to say that I fell in love with this song and thought about it all the time. Thank you to Beyonce for creating a song to get me through that miserable job.,
61. Kelly Clarkson - "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)" - This song really reminds me of why I love Kelly. Kelly sounds strong in the song and delivers a strong hook. Unfortunately, RCA seems to have ****ed up the chance of making this a hit single.
60. Britney Spears - "Trouble For Me" - I really really like this song for some reason. Britney is more robotic than ever, but it's so addicting. I like the lyrics. The song gives off this feeling of a ****ty party anthem, but the lyrics actually sound like they are trying to get away from this party. I love the conflict in it. More importantly, I live for autotune croon during the bridge ("danceflooooooooooor").
In One Hour: thegmangrant's 10th favorite album and music video of the year.
I've had my ups and downs with Beyonce on this forum, but I give credit where it's due. This album really blew me away. Before this I had about a dozen songs from I Am... Sasha Fierce plus "Irreplaceable". After her extremely disappointing first single, I did not expect to like this album. Truth is, I really really like it. It was oddly a summer album for me even though it's full of mostly midtempos and ballads. It contains a wide variety of gems from "Countdown" to "I Miss You" to "Start Over" to "End of Time" to "I Was Here". In general, Beyonce may not be in the spotlight this era, but she brought a good, consistent album to the table.
thegmangrant's best music videos of the year
10. Rihanna - "Man Down"
I really did like the Loud era, but the music pretty much sucked except for "Only Girl (In The World)" and this one. It was a return to Rihanna's dark image that she adapted in the Rated R era and I was happy to welcome it back. Although it wasn't her video, I loved the darkness to it and the personal island touch to it as well. The video is different for a pop video, but it works for Rihanna. This song really deserved the video too.