This song is big, farty and stupid sounding, which under the right circumstances can be an amazing thing. A big white noisey woosh up, a big white noisey sweep down, the heavy hit of a over compressed kick drum, a bwamp-bwamp-bwamp-bwamp bwamp-bwamp-bwamp bwabwabwabwa bassline, repetitious lyrics of a very juvenile nature, this is all very structurally similar to something the Black Eyed Peas would **** out, yet the Peas have never had a production that sounds this full and satisfying (though it has been mastered at too loud a level) and that will serve as my justification for being able to sing the praises of this track and badmouth everything that will.i.am and crew do in the very next breath. The presence of a certain popstar with a few dirty pics of her own doesn’t hurt this song at all. I’m quite fond of the desperate nature of Taio and Ke$ha’s pleas. “Take a dirty picture for me, take a dirty picture. Just send a dirty picture to me, send a dirty picture. Send a dirty picture to me, send a dirty piccccccttttttuuuuurrrre.” There’s no beating around the bush. This isn’t a question of “Will you please take a dirty picture?”, these two are horny as **** and they want that smut NOW. A short passing-by reference to taking a dirty picture might fly in other songs by other artists, but it’s a really bold statement to make potentially reputation ruining pictures that can easily be forwarded to other the center of a song, one that can only be pulled off by certain artists. I like to imagine Taio and Jay Sean have a thing going on and they send each other dick pics when they’re apart because of touring or other obligations, and while this scenario is perhaps not entirely realistic or believable (see not realistic or believable at all) if there was anyone you could potentially expect this sort of behavior from, it’s Ke$ha. Ultimately, it’s the fact that this doesn’t seem like disingenuous behavior for Ke$ha that saves this song.
The Best Bit: The expanded effect that’s applied to “send a dirty piiiiiiiicccccttttuuuurrre” from 2:10-2:13 is amazing. I’m also here for the click-click-snaps.
44. Pitbull Hey Baby (Drop it to the Floor)
This is yet another song that I would describe as big, farty and stupid sounding, and when I say stupid sounding I really mean it this time; Pitbull sounds like a slow child (or one specific slow child I remember from my childhood) on when he says “Ooh, baby baby!”. I feel like T-Pain’s brand of autotune (it’s a more full-frontal assault on the voice than say the more tolerable effect given to Ke$ha and others) went out of style sometime in 2008 and I wouldn’t have expected to enjoy hearing it on a track released in 2010, but it seems to mesh perfectly into this track. I love it, I love every second of it. I’m here for the production in all of its siren whoring glory, I’m here for the chorus, I’m even here for Pitbull’s verses. I’m here for it all. As uninspired and of-the-moment as this song is, it’s too much fun not to turn this on and fist pump to the beat when you’re stuck in traffic. (Don’t do it. People laugh when they see you, almost as much as they did that time they saw you at that stoplight blasting Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” and singing your heart out. )
The Best Bit: Every. ****ing. Second.
43. Ke$ha Take It Off
Today’s entries have read like a playlist you’d hear at that club you go to with the DJ who doesn’t actually have any real dance music in his arsenal. “Take It Off” is such a nice little pop-goes-club number, and I bet you thought that Patrick, being the ardent Ke$ha supporter that he is would have ranked it a little bit higher in his countdown of the 50 best singles of 2010, but you were wrong. It’s an all-around enjoyable track, but I do feel as though Ke$ha’s debut album was loaded with other songs that I would have rather seen become singles. Given general preferences in pop music at the time of its release, it’s perhaps one of the most on-point singles in terms of sounding like 5 other popular songs that were on the radio at the same time, and thus it probably seemed like a good idea to select this as a single, but that’s ultimately why this will be the lowest charting Ke$ha single to appear on this list. It’s not a distinctive enough song to serve as a single for this very distinctive girl. Still, I do like the track a great deal and there are a few moments that put Ke$ha’s cleverness and great personality on display, just not as many as there are in other singles that will appear later in this countdown.
The Best Bit: The chorus. Taking a well-known melody from a song that nobody really knows the words to or knows the name of (“The Streets of Cairo”) and making it a raunchy chorus about undressing? Brilliant.
42. B.o.B. Magic (feat. Rivers Cuomo)
Did anyone release a single this year that was as undeniably feel good as B.o.B. and Rivers Cuomo’s “Magic”? I didn’t think so. It’s such a perfectly uplifting and self-empowering track if you’re willing to pretend that every time Rivers says the word “I” he’s actually saying your name and when he says “me” he’s inserting the proper him/her objective personal pronoun. I should know, this song got me through many a bummed out days this summer. I had an internship, and I was just absolutely incompetent and all-around horrible intern. I mean, I suppose I tried, but it was quite obvious that nothing I did was up to snuff and they essentially thought of me as a clueless induvidual. At the end of each day after speaking with my supervisor during which he would usually critique me and point out the fact that I was indeed not ready to intern for he or his company, I’d always feel this lump building up in my throat and as soon as he would dismiss me I’d pack up my stuff as quickly as possible and dash to the exit. I couldn’t wait to get out to my car so I could blast this song and let the tears flow. My first reaction to criticism of any sort is to cry, and it was always difficult holding it in until I could get out of the parking lot so I didn’t appear as a more pitiful person than I already did. “Patrick has the magic in him. Every time he touches that report it turns into gold.” It was always nice to sing it, even if it wasn’t true. (This didn’t happen every day, but probably something like once a week).
The Best Bit: That super-positive chorus and the beautifully crisp production work courtesy of Dr. Luke.
41. Trey Songz Say Aah (feat. Fabolous)
I’m racking my brain trying to come up with some story about why this song played an important role in my year or think of some clever jokes to make (not that any of mine are), but I can’t think of a damn thing. I like the track, and I guess that’s all I can really say about it. Also, Trey Songz is not nearly as hot as most people give him credit for being.
The Best Bit: The production. I’d expect something cheery sounding given the fun content of this song, but this track has an unexpected dark tone to it with that beautiful minor melody. I love it.
The Wiggles turned down “Eenie Meenie” and thank god they did, because if it hadn’t landed in the hands (delicate lady fingers in Justin’s case and giant ham hocks in Sean’s) of Justin Beiber and Sean Kingston we wouldn’t have the #40 entry on this chart. I have no real problem admitting my affections for songs and artists that are frequently met with eye rolls and muffled laughter. The fact that these songs are eye roll and laughter worthy are half of the reasons I love them so much, and here’s why I laugh and roll my eyes to this song when I’m not busy jamming the **** out to it. Here we have The Beibs and Sean Kingofnothingston singing about a girl who can’t make up her mind about the boys she’s affectionate towards, yet the nursery school nature of the words “eenie” and “meenie” gives me the impression that this song must be dedicated to a girl who can’t be more than 6 years old. In which case, she’s just about the right age to be dating Justin, but if she wants to date Mr. Kingston she had better be careful that Sean does not roll on top of her and crush her whenever they’re in bed. Anyway, these two are all up in arms cause their little girl has had more playground romances than that girl from Maury who slept with more than 300 guys, but she’s ****ing 6 years old, she’s bound not to be able to make up her mind about anything, including boys. Deciding between a grilled cheese sandwich and peanut butter and jelly for lunch is difficult enough for this kid and then these two expect her to be able to make the decision to commit to a stable, sticking-to-one-man, sort of relationship? It’s not happening, and they know it, as is evidenced when they tell us that the girl in question is “indecisive, she’ can’t decide”. Having just learned the work indecisive from his Word of the Day calendar, Justin was immediately struck by how aptly it fit with the theme of his upcoming song, but he knew that if he were to use such a word, for the sake of not entirely confusing the young girl whom the song is about, he would need to consult with Merriam Webster. So thank you Sean and Justin for being so very clear as to what you meant by the word indecisive.
The Best Bit: The schoolyard chant from about 2:15-2:30 which evolves into this robotic stuttering explosion before the next chorus is utterly brilliant. “If she hollers-ollers-ollers-ollers-let-let-her-her-go-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g.”
39. Drake Find Your Love
The amount of rap music I listen to is minimal at best. It’s nothing against the genre, but as a general rule of thumb it normally doesn’t appeal to me and as I result I don’t tend to seek it out. It’s perhaps limiting to listen primarily to pop music, but on some rare occasions artists from other genres will dabble in my area of expertise (I’m not an expert at all) and create a song so undeniably pop oriented that I can’t resist it, Drake’s “Find Your Love” is one such track. Drake has a surprisingly pleasant singing voice which only adds to a certain smoothness that I love about this track. With an accompanying piano melody that plays very sweetly and gentle synths that glide slowly between notes, the song is on a whole, just excellent and a definite pleasure for the ears.
The Best Bit: The bridge is so lush, melodic and beautiful.
38. Natalia Kills Mirrors
I would have expected a song so utterly derivative of something Gaga would have done to get more flack from the Lady’s stans, but surprisingly this didn’t happen. (Emphasis on the “would have done” bit. This is someone’s best attempt to recreate RedOne from The Fame era, not even the much improved RedOne circa The Fame Monster.) I’m half expecting to be massacred for making such a statement, after all Natalia Kills has been doing her own unique thing for years under like 27 different aliases… How dare I compare her to Gaga or try and insinuate that following the success of a certain thinker's-man-popstar someone thought they might be able to cash in on a craze of electro-dance-pop centric artists with a sort of odd sense of style and flashy lyricism with only a few subtle changes to their shtick?! Right? Perhaps you are. To her benefit Natalia is prettier than Gaga could ever dream of being, but that’s the only major upperhand I’m seeing and I am somewhat skeptical of her. Still, I must say that “Mirrors” is a decent enough single to release and I’ve listened to it plenty. I actually love the song, but has it been enough to win my heart completely and think positively about Natalia? No.
The Best Bit: “Sex, love, control, vanity, sex, love, control, vanity, sex, love, control, vanity…” which coincidentally is perhaps the most Gaga-esque thing about this track.
37. The Saturdays Ego
If there’s a British girl group with any sort of potential for American crossover success in a post-Sugababes releasing good material world it’s The Saturdays, and yet nobody has been savvy enough to promote them stateside so they can get a hit ala Mis-Teeq’s “Scandalous”. (A moderate hit that may not have been an actual hit since nobody else over here remembers. I remember Mis-Teeq, I remember!) Here the Saturdays are at #37 with their somewhat successful UK single “Ego”. It’s super poppy, it’s commercial, it’s RedOne-esque in terms of the percussive elements during the chorus, it’s a 3:01 long, it doesn’t feature Flo-Rida like their other perfect-for-American-ears single, “Higher”, but it probably could support one of his verses, it’s got a snappy little chorus and verses with cute little quips from cute little girls, it’s tailor made for American ears. Really, the chorus is quite brilliant. It’s catchy and easy to sing along with. It’s the sort of thing you won’t mind having stuck in your head and you won’t hate yourself for walking around saying “Don’t tell me that you’re done as far as we go. You need to have a sit-down with your ego,” weeks after you last heard the song. Plus, Frankie, Mollie, Una, Rochelle, and that other one who probably has the best voice of the bunch but her name escapes me are like really pretty and cute and funny girls. Don’t you want to see pretty, cute, funny girls dominating the global charts? You have absolutely no reason not to love this track and support the hell out of it. None.
The Best Bit: The chorus.
36. Example Last Ones Standing
Making his second appearance on my countdown of the year’s best singles is Example with the standout track, “Last Ones Standing”. With those harsh jabs repeating the “bam-bam-bam-bam, bam-bam-bam-bam” throughout the song, this track offers up one of the most simplistic, yet totally undeniable and catchy melodies of the year. Nothing else released this year was quite like it, and yet I don’t feel that this song got the attention it deserved in Example’s native UK. This is stronger than any of his previous singles. Fact.
The Best Bit: Everything from 2:35 through 2:49 is orgasm worthy.
I would not dare put "Eenie Meenie" on my iPod but it's definitely a good song that I admit to listening to on repeat on Youtube at one point. I'm surprised you like "Find Your Love", I didn't think you listen to that kind of music. The beginning of the music video reminds me of when Rafiki was talking to Simba in the Lion King. Idk why. So many members here seem to like "Mirrors" but I've never heard it before. I was never interested enough to check her out. Never in my life have I ever heard of the other two songs.
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but if she wants to date Mr. Kingston she had better be careful that Sean does not roll on top of her and crush her whenever they’re in bed