Bottom 10 of 2014

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

A few surprises as to who DIDN’T make my bottom 10, but there were also a couple of perennials. As I mentioned a couple days ago, there’s a couple on my bottom 10 that made several critics’ TOP 10’s, which made me think I missed something, then listened to those suspect tunes again, and stuck to my guns. Two acts that usually make my bottom 10 lists surprised me this year, Katy Perry with “This Is How We Do,” and One Direction with “Steal My Girl,” a good effort by them, but was it good enough to make critics’ top 10’s? Apparently so, along with their album “Four.” (It’s already been THAT many!) Most of my 10 were popular on both sides of the Atlantic, so let’s cringe along together:

10. LOYAL – CHRIS BROWN feat. LIL WAYNE & TYGA (Peak positions: #10 UK, #9 US) The Most Horrible Man in Show Business almost got a pass from me this year, but after hearing this on the radio, my curiosity was aroused by all the words omitted from airplay. Consulting one of the many lyrics websites, I found the most often omitted word was the N-one. Why? Maybe because Mr. Brown has decided that since he’s got such a bad-ass reputation, he might as well talk/sing like the bad-ass he’s expected to be. The only music is a repetitious 8-note riff, a common feature of several of the tunes to follow….

9. TURN DOWN FOR WHAT – DJ SNAKE feat. LIL JON (#23 UK, #4 US) … Like, for example THIS one! Not a big hit in UK, but I was out in US when the “song” was at its peak, and every time I’d hear it, I’d regret the 3:34 I’d wasted expecting something further to develop. Plus that title: While it’s a grammatically correct sentence, could it ever be actually said in response to anything?

8. FANCY – IGGY AZALEA feat. CHARLI XCX (#5 UK, #1 US) First line is “First things first, I’m a realist,” well, no you’re not, because if you were, you’d be calling yourself Amethyst Amelia Kelly, the name you were born with, and be talking with your native Australian accent instead of trying to sound like some African-American hard-ass bitch. White people trying to sound black? Like it’s something NEW?

7. SAY SOMETHING – A GREAT BIG WORLD & CHRISTINA AGUILERA (#4 UK, #4 US) I could have said “feat. Christina Aguilera” just for consistency’s sake, but whatever. A better title for this could be “DO something!” It starts at a crawl, ambles to a bit of a crescendo, then spends the last half ending on way too many repeats of the same line, each getting a little softer, thus prompting this listener to go, “Hey, you made your point about 2 minutes ago!”

6. STAY HIGH – TOVE LO feat. HIPPIE SABOTAGE (#6 UK, #3 US) But that last one was downright DYNAMIC compared to this one, which starts and ends with this Swedish songstress going “Oh… Oh Oh” at snail’s pace. It takes a 4 1/2 minute journey to nowhere, the only actual verse gets repeated, plus her voice whines like someone stole her lunch money. The video just shows Ms. Lo in various poses of anguish.

5. ANACONDA – NICKI MINAJ (#3 UK, #2 US) Seeing as how the two most memorable parts of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” are multi-sampled, and are really the most interesting part of the song, wouldn’t it have made more sense to just re-issue the original? No, Ms. Minaj has to put her “I’m so Na-a-a-sty” spin on it. Two better bets: The clip of Mix-a-Lot performing his tune with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, or the “Fart Mix” of Minaj’s video.

4. WIGGLE – JASON DERULO feat. SNOOP DOGG (#8 UK, #5 US) The only thing that kept Australian Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” out of this ten was that with this one and the Minaj tune, we already have two songs exhorting the “booty” issue, which thanks to Kim Kardashian, is actual headline news. This song poses the question, “Are there any girls who would feel it’s a compliment for someone to say ‘You know what to do with that big fat butt?'” Apparently Mr. Derulo & Mr. Dogg think there are.

3. DIBBY DIBBY SOUND – DJ FRESH VS. JAY FAY feat. MS. DYNAMITE (#3 UK) It’s hard to listen to a song where of the first 52 words, 48 are “Dibby.” Also hard to watch a video of about the 3,587th time where someone thought it might be funny to have an elderly person lip-synching all those “dibbys.” Congrats, Mr. Fresh, you made it back into my bottom 10 in fine style.

2. LET IT GO – IDINA MENZEL (#11 UK, #5 US) Woops, now I’ll be unfriended by all the pre-teen girls on my Facebook page. Oh, I don’t have any? Then carry on. One of my FB friends put it succinctly that the movie “Frozen,” while a remake of Disney’s early 60’s feature “The Snow Queen,” based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, it’s mostly a 102-minute commercial for the soundtrack album. I had 10 hours on a flight to California, I tried to tough it out. Nope, couldn’t do it. This tune seems to be the standard for Disney films. “Stand tall in the face of adversity,” or something like that. Wasn’t pretty much every song in “High School Musical” bearing that message? Plus there’s Menzel’s over-dramatic voice inspiring the would-be diva in countless future Broadway auditioners. It beat out Pharrell Williams’ “Happy,” an infinitely more likeable tune, for the Oscar for best song. No justice in the world sometimes. And this tune, despite never reaching the UK top ten, absolutely REFUSES to leave the top 40, where it’s stayed nearly every week since January.

1. CHANDELIER – SIA (#6 UK, #8 US) And THIS one won’t leave either, after about 25 weeks. It also made several critics’ top 10’s. Was the message really that poignant of a woman claiming that to relieve her broken heart, she’s going to get fucked up and carry on with reckless abandon? All made the worse by a vocal which makes me think the producers were having a laugh. They said to her, “Yeah, we’ll cut your backing track, then you can add your vocals,” and decided to pitch it so high that before she attempts to hit those stratospheric notes in the chorus, she already has a pretty clear rasp. It was Rock & Roll 50 years ago, when John Lennon sang about the 85th take of “Twist & Shout” with little voice left. With Sia’s (yet ANOTHER Australian) vocal, it’s just torture.

December 31st, 2014



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