040 / Paula Seling & Ovi – Playing With Fire

 

 

(Both videos embedded as they're both fantastically ridiculous in their own way. Creative use of translucent piano as contraception in the former, ridiculous superfluous CGI in the latter.)

 

There's a long and rather wonderful tradition of man-woman piano duets at Eurovision, of which Playing With Fire was fully in keeping with and yet still completely up to date - it wouldn't sound at all out of place on most radio playlists at the moment for example, despite not sounding a million miles away from what was on the radio about eight years ago. Still, bizarre anachronisms that aren't actually anachronisms aside, Playing With Fire was as barnstorming as pop got this year (due emphasis in the performance with pyrotechnics occurring from the very start - THAT'S how you do a stage show Denmark, and why they finished third and you didn't.) at the Eurovision Song Contest, and simply impossible to forget. The highlight, is, of course, the fabulous Paula Seling money note middle eight, but it's that chorus that's simply inescapable.

 

039 / Wiley; Emeli Sande – Never Be Your Woman (Shy FX Radio Edit)

 

It was a tough year to be a British rap star on Buzzjack. If you did badly, you were landfill urban that was dominating the charts. If you did well, you were landfill urban that was dominating the charts and stopping the pop princess du jour from getting to number one, thereby ensuring you were the scourge of every gay overweight sexually frustrated and socially awkward 16 year old in the country. Redundant small-minded criticisms of pop music done by black males aside, this in particular came in for a tough time for having the nerve to cover a classic as well as be 'landfill urban $h!te', but good god people needed to take off the loon glasses for this is a classic of the genre. Emeli Sande's world-weary sigh of a singing voice did absolute justice to the original, whilst Wiley's rap was a perfect crystallisation of jadedness with an inner city lifestyle. Spectacular, if you paid any attention.

 

 

The sweeping, intentionally epic production on this scooped me up straight off - very 2008 it may be, but frankly the current music scene could learn a lot from what NME was obsessed with in 2008 (although I will be entirely upfront in that this observation comes solely from my frustration at the eventual lack of success accrued by many of the good acts NME was obsessed with at the time). Joyous, summery, and constantly shimmering, I'm incredibly glad I managed to hear this before the inevitable Skins feature in the coming months as I can see myself hating this group (or rather, the inevitable overhyping they'll get from the target audience) before the year is out.

 

 

Dear god I hate the British public. All too willing to gobble up some of the worst music of the last decade (cf. The Hoosiers prior to this album; fucking LOVE TODAY), yet the second the act in question actually starts being GOOD, they don't want anything to do with it. Mika is a key case in point (although I loved most of the first album, Love Today's success baffles me to this day - although I can't help but feel the backlash did come in part from songs of its ilk), and I feel coming back with We Are Golden has inflicted irreparable damage on him if stuff like Rain and Kick Ass can't do anything for him. I've heard it said that this sounds exactly what you'd expect a collaboration between Mika and RedOne to sound like, but that doesn't quite do it justice I feel - RedOne actually brings out the best in Mika. The falsetto here is apppropriate, wracked with defiance rather than overly saccharine and happy clappy as it normally is, and there's a passion here to Mika's voice that I don't think he ever revealed at any point prior to now.

 

Unfortunately, despite being attached to one of the biggest films of the year Kick Ass flopped in at #84 and it's quickly beginning to look like Everybody Hurts will be the last thing Mika ever has anything to do with in the charts again.

 

 

I LOVE KILLERS REHASHES. However, this is much more than that. Far more Scandinavian in outlook, drenched in 80s synth flourishes, and with a massive longing to it all that's simply irresistible, I fell immediately for Dance Tonight on first hearing - a track where the restraint of the verses is just as important as the final refrain, where Chau Phan tears loose and screams her desires as an imperative over the luscious, sparkling production backdrop. Glorious.

 

 

I'm still astounded that the European dance hit of the year was so unrelentingly...depressive. A track about the futility of life, the dull humdrum of the daily rat race, the resigned depression over a failed love life, and the acknowledgement that getting pissed and dancing in the evenings is the only thing you can do short of topping yourself. Pop's rarely been so brutally honest and transcendent (when not done by Robyn) - and, thankfully, it backs up that stark message with a beat and production chunky enough to almost make you forget the message. Which you can't really do anyway, as you tend to be living it out at that precise moment.

 

034 / Wynter Gordon – Dirty Talk

 

This bitch needs to HURRY UP and be successful so I can make this my summer jam, as everyone I've played this to has fallen in love in a big way. Hella feel-good synths combined with Wynter deliriously squealing a roll call of pretty much every fetish going (short of pissplay), made this the sauce anthem of oh ten, and nobody's yet managed to quite pull off anything similar in a more spectacular manner.

 

 

I realise any Crystal Castles comparisons I make in the near future are likely to be treated with a pinch or seventy three of salt, but the downbeat, haunting foreboding of this was definitely v reminiscent of the duo at their more morose moments - although this had the benefit of far beefier production. Those clanging bass chords coupled with Eleanore Everdell's divorced, senseless delivery made for something truly exquisite - particularly on the wearied 'I don't know why you don't just fly away' refrain at the end.

 

 

YES, it's generic, YES, it's pretty much torn straight out of several pop songs you could count on two hands in the next five seconds, but good GOD you can't argue with the hooks on offer in that chorus as Sky gets her full bunny boiling over-attentive teenager act on and plays it for all she's got.

 

TOP FIVE OBSESSION BITS RANKING

 

1. 'WANT MAH NAME ON THE MARQUEE! WHOA-OH'

2. 'So here's my CONFESSION, THIS TIME!'

3. 'I! WANT! YOU! To want ME-EEE!'

4. 'Ain't nothin' wrong with OCD, long as it's for me!' (TERRIBLE LYRIC, FABULOUS POP MOMENT)

5. 'AIN'T TALKIN' 'BOUT THE NARCISSISM THAT'S IN HO-LLY-WOOD'

 

Amazing.

 

031 / Lissie – Bad Romance

 

My sphincter instinctively clenches whenever I hear that somebody's about to cover Bad Romance, as, by and large (ABOUT 99% OF THE TIME) it ends up being FUCKING TERRIBLE - the vocalists try to emulate an amazing pop moment as an amazing pop moment, rather than as what made it an amazing pop moment. So I was very pleasantly surprised when Lissie got it so right, capturing the primal urgency and self-damaging scuzz of the original so perfectly with those dirty South guitars and her tribal roar of a voice. Lady Gaga's original track is pretty damned impossible to better (on its own terms as well - I doubt I'll ever hear as perfect a pop moment again in my life), but Lissie did an incredibly good job of doing it justice.

The top 30 MUST be revealed :o

The top 30 MUST be revealed :o

 

Didn't you get the memo? :o Tyron got all the positions wrong and instead posted his top 170 essential tracks instead. Realising his mistake, he swiftly left it at #31. Sadly, Lissie is his essential #1 of 2010. :( Gutted Sia never made the final 170. :cry:

I have a word file with some of the write-ups for the top thirty done depending on what was on my Blackberry whilst I was travelling, which in conjunction with the term restarting made me a little too casual towards this. This SHALL BE CONCLUDED by the end of the month.

 

(Until then:)

 

030 / Kelis – Home

 

Make no mistake: Home is the crowning moment of Kelis's transformation into the modern day Donna Summer with a darkened edge. Whether it be crooning atop a relentless, terrified rush of high-pitched electronic stabs, ruing over a downward bass scale, or singing with a bizarre mixture of paranoia and regret ('Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself?') Kelis's every utterance commands attention in a track that feels like an insight into the mind of a mental patient driven insane by the crippling defeats of life. Albeit one where the schizophrenia is more a cue for a blissful synth interlude than one for pills.

 

029 / Alicia Keys – Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart

 

Alicia Keys is one of those artists that I don't appreciate anywhere near as much as I should do, given her fairly reliable output of at least one life-changingly good track per era (Fallin', If I Ain't Got You, No One and this, for the record.). However, despite the calibre of her output to date I will throw this out there - I don't think she's ever going to top Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart. Gorgeously lush, with fleeting and mysterious synths and an entrancing drum beat backing Alicia's virtuoso performance as the steely, defiant ex with velveteen breathy coos and whispers and welcoming scats, this is the greatest faux-ballad that Prince never recorded.

 

(But seriously, falling into a purple sea in the video? What a LESBIAN.)

 

 

This track eludes proper critical review from me, as I am entirely unable to justify why I like it so much being fully aware of all its faults. It's a track that commits the cardinal sin of sampling and is entirely dependent on its source material for its big selling point and, well, main appeal. Without the genius of the cooing 'oh's and the electronic piano riff, this track would be nothing. It features will.i.am being, well, will.i.am. And, as if that all wasn't enough, it's a track that spills its load within the first verse, the best moment of course being the frank yet spectacular 'haters, you can kill yourself'.

 

Yet somehow despite all of that, Nicki and will.i.am bring something to this track – a certain je ne sais quoi which takes me over the second I hear the first line. It's not particularly the lines ('we on the radio, hotter than a skillet, we in the club makin' party people holla'/'you a chihuahua, I'm a rottweiler' – really?) by any means whatsoever, the delivery is good but nowhere near as good as the on-paper far, far superior Monster, and the concept behind it all epitomises laziness. This isn't even a Bedrock situation where the track in itself is a fairly inoffensive one – this by rights ought to be something I hate and dismiss as a low point in Nicki's career, and yet for some entirely mysterious and unexplainable reason I consider it one of her best. Feel free to pillory me for this inclusion – it is likely deserved.

 

 

And so we come to Part 1 of the Anthemic Gay Holy Trinity (parts 2 and 3 come much, much later) – the irresistibly gaymazing S&M. Punctuated by the Weather Girls-esque hook 'NA NA NA COME ON, I LIKE IT COME ON' at blissfully frequent intervals over an instrumental sounding like Sexy Bitch plus the chord progression of Disturbia multiplied to the power of gay, on its own that would've been enough to make this of note. However, Rihanna decided at some point during the recording sessions that she hadn't smutted up things quite enough the first time around with Rude Boy and decided to push the boat out even further, with audacious lines such as the gloriously sweat-soaked 'sex in the air; I don't care, I love the smell of it'. Rarely has a track been as ready-made to soundtrack all the vices of a big gay night out like this.

 

026 / Sun Ho – Fancy Free [Dave Aude Club Mix]

 

What a name! The original version of this track by noted Singaporean warbler and Billboard #1 (Dance Club Play) artist Sun Ho seemed to make a point of its mediocrity, over a repetitive and dull guitar riff with an all too rushed delivery. That is, however, until Sun decided to get Dave Aude in the room with a night's supply of amyl nitrate and VK bottles to fix things up a bit – and FIX THEM UP HE DID http://www.moopy.org.uk/forums/images/smilies/disco.gif Slowing the vocal track down just enough to emphasise the self-confident command Sun was intended to portray in this, along with all the glorious kiss-offs within, and throwing in a few throbbing hands-in-the-air drop outs and build-ups, this seven minute spectacle of a track sounds like the greatest club track Gwen Stefani never recorded - and has to be Dave Aude's crowning achievement for turning such a dull original track into one of the club essentials of the year.

025 / Sia – Clap Your Hands

 

 

I don't think a turn for the poptastic has ever been more welcome. I love me a bit of Sia anyway at the best of times, but hearing her effortlessly meld disco and indie in a deliciously Alphabeat-esque pop package was by far one of the most refreshing pop moments of the whole year – especially when she threw that fantastically cryptic, insane voice over the top. I had no idea what the f*** this song was about, but I didn't give a $h!t – one doesn't argue with that sort of chorus, or, indeed, a lyric that could just as easily pass for 'shag me out of my misery' as the far more boring likely reality thanks to THAT voice.

 

 

Sod Lady Gaga – if pop ever needed saving, Robyn's emotion-saturated voice and glorious pop sensibilities would be the saviour before Gaga had even starting sewing the first of five thousand sequins into her forehead. However, for all her many strengths, Robyn hasn't really touched out-and-out pop since her late-90s heyday: which is, of course, where the spectacular Time Machine comes in. Bearing witness to the inspired remarriage of Robyn and Max Martin, Time Machine (accompanied by those classic Some Girls 'hey!'s) explodes with shimmering power into a chorus that sees Robyn deliver the classic pop red herring – the wistful track of poignant masked with a veil of barnstorming pop production (see also: Margaret Berger – Will You Remember Tomorrow?) - with sheer gusto, showing that Robyn can still smash a pop classic out of the park even after twelve years in the game.

 

023 / Gabriella Cilmi – On A Mission

 

 

Flash back to January 2010. Just a few days in, all the signs were there that the year was going to be $h!t for music – all that was worth listening to so far was f***ing KE$HA, for crying out loud.

 

AND THEN GABRIELLA CILMI DESCENDED TO EARTH, AND BESTOWED UPON US THE SECOND PART OF THE ANTHEMIC GAY HOLY TRINITY http://www.moopy.org.uk/forums/images/smilies/disco.gif

 

There were thick-ass Jump synths. There were choruses seemingly DESIGNED to soundtrack amyl nitrate consumption. And then there was THAT middle eight, at once $h!t yet amazing on a level as yet unrealised by anything else. And let's face it – who HASN'T had the urge at some point in their working life, perhaps whilst on the way to do a bit of photocopying or file a form or seven, to stamp their feet and bellow 'STAND ASIDE COS I'M ON A MISSION'? http://www.moopy.org.uk/forums/images/smilies/disco.gifhttp://www.moopy.org.uk/forums/images/smilies/disco.gifhttp://www.moopy.org.uk/forums/images/smilies/disco.gif One part perfect workout anthem, one part the new I Will Survive in terms of gay anthemicity, one part world-destroying pop anthem, all parts fabulous.

 

(Shame it relatively flopped really.)

 

 

Although Kelly Rowland may have something to say about all of the above. The Mary Magdalene to the Anthemic Gay Holy Trinity, K-Ro used up her final Guetta credits to deliver a sizzling dancefloor epic (I am, of course, referring to the opulent 8 minute extended mix) with an appropriately soaring and empowering chorus despite not REALLY being about anything proper to be soaring and empowering about (but aren't all the greatest empowerment tracks that way?*) - and full of wonderfully $h!t lyrics about being 'bout to act a fool and having champagne spilling from the walls (bitch been overdoing the opium!). But really, it all just comes back to that chorus – call this whatever the hell you like, call it generic, call it meaningless, call it soulless, but resist that chorus's IMPERATIVE to dance and you're quite clearly not human.

 

*No.

 

 

There isn't enough haunting menace in pop nowadays, and Taylor Momsen is one lucky ho for stumbling upon the perfect formula for angry pop that doesn't come off unhinged. Perfectly calculated with a sneer and a fantastically crafted droning growl that sounds at once half-caring yet vengeful, Make Me Wanna Die shows that even the most bratty little ho going can somehow create one of the greatest kiss off tracks this side of the millennium, regardless of how unappealing the personality shell is. More spectacular threatening pop from otherwise horrid wretches in 2011 please.

 

(Yes, I am FULLY AWARE that Robyn is possibly featuring excessively in this countdown. I do not care.)

 

Ornate isn't something done often or normally done well in pop, with such tracks tending to collapse under the weight of their own pretension and only the special few standing on their own feet. This is one of the latter, pulling it off through the opt-out clause of an acoustic track (could you imagine any other pop act even ATTEMPTING a track that's essentially classical music done as pop?) taking clear influences from the likes of Brahms and Mozart. And yet it's done so earnestly that it goes down as a complete success, the strings complementing Robyn's pleading, quivering sugared coos perfectly. Not that the pleas are all: rarely has classical music done in the mindset of a club track worked as well as it has done during the beginning of the second verse – 'hands up in the air, like you don't care' to a violin backing?

BEST BIT: The resigned yet clearly hurt: 'And I never was smart with love – I let the bad ones in and the good ones go.'

 

 

A track of blissful contrasts – the smoky, brooding verses seguing in perfectly into the 'OH SHIT' moment when the synth stabs crash into the track with the subtlety of a brick in a bull's face in a china shop (or something), decorated with Rihanna's lusty bellows for her one desire – fidelity, and fidelity done WELL. The middle eight sounds like the ecstatic, drugged result perfectly backed with the slowly building instrumental, before the whole track floods once more with those wonderful synth stabs that I want soundtracking every dramatic moment in my life. Amazing.

 

 

This is not the greatest track Lady Gaga has done, nor her crowning moment in pop culture (which, for the record, is either still to come or was Bad Romance by a country mile), tainted ever so slightly by the very obvious calculated nature of it – there's something slightly off-putting about self-aware iconic moments that set out to be pop culture milestones. Not that I'm going to hold that against Lady Gaga – one of the two artists going at the moment in pop who are interesting in everything they do, even in their mis-steps, and despite the purposeful nature of this it does come incredibly close to it, possibly held back by the fact it is the most generic thing she's put her name to to date. It's a track that would've been successful without the video (which is of course a complete triumph despite self-awareness, with at least four lines having found their way into my day-to-day discourse), if not as successful, and one of the key elements to it all is, of course, Beyonce's interlude which defines (sasha) fierce on a level up there with the likes of Diva and Single Ladies – not to mention that superlatively frantic chorus, a last-resort freak out against a complete prat who just won't leave you the fuck alone when you're trying to break it down to some good old shit pop on the dancefloor. Clearly amazing – and lord knows I'm salivating given she's very, very capable of putting out better than this.

 

 

The Scissor Sisters are by far one of my favourite acts of all time, if not my favourite act of all time when I'm in the right mood, and Fire With Fire was precisely what I wanted to hear from them after the mild fiasco that was Ta-Dah - although it was not at all representative of the album as a whole and sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the likes of Sex and Violence and Invisible Light. Still, as pretty much the only proper full-out commercial cut on the album, it made full sense as the lead single, and brought everything I wanted from an early summer Scissor Sisters single - a warm, rousing Stuart Price-penned and Elton-inspired anthem that was the perfect sonic counterpart to All The Lovers, which was my other track de jour, and made me want to run outside, fling off all my clothes and become one with the fields. It's got a real charm that hasn't at all faded with the winter, and it's one of those tracks that will forever be associated, along with All The Lovers and Feldberg - Dreamin', with hazy memories of the gloriously warm May and June last year, which were the last months I spent with some of my best friends before university. As such it's become a track already tinged with a wistful nostalgia for me - and a tinge which it fully well lives up to sonically and lyrically. The odd nostalgic tear has been leaked to this track.

 

 

 

(3:46 VERSION (as linked in the title), I'm NOT claiming that cut-off fuckery that actually got entered - though the perf video has been embedded for posterity and that RIDICULOUS choreography and trotting run.)

 

And this, gentlemen (possibly ladies as well, we love everybody in here), is the best track from the year of the contest which even surpassed '08 for me in the ambivalence stakes - a year that was, on the face of things, fucking terrible, but which actually pulled it together in the end to be ALRIGHT I guess. Anyway, I should probably start talking about the track itself. Azerbaijan suddenly decided at some point in 2009 that 2010 ought to be THEIR YEAR for the contest, and then proceeded to throw the entire wealth of the nation behind their entry for Oslo. And thus, Drip Drop was conceived - the greatest Ryan Tedder track that Jordin Sparks never took to underwhelming success and a top 20 position in the UK and the US - and an until-then anonymous 17 year old, Safura, the Azeri equivalent of Gabriella Cilmi except with more vocal histrionics and, actually, about similar proficiency on the dance floor (check out the immortal Drip Drop SHOULDER DANCE - fuck ME Beyonce's choreographer must have phoned that one in), was drafted in to bring the contest to Baku for oh eleven ONCE AND 4 ALL.

 

Except they got the anti-pimp slot and kiss of death of going on first with a downbeat song and finished FIFTH, continuing the PROPHECY whereby the greatest song of an even-yeared contest will be destined to finish 5th (MAY OR MAY NOT BE WITH 170 POINTS http://members.lycos.co.uk/jodylei/Smilies/swedish.gif). This was most unjust, considering the sheer CALIBRE of this track - let the record show that there was no greater http://www.moopy.org.uk/forums/images/smilies/grin.gif moment lyrically in this contest than the iconic 'YOU SMELL LIKE LIPSTICK AGAIN!', unrivalled for sheer RETARDED DRAMA. Spectacular. Let's have a round-up of the top five moments within Drip Drop:

 

TOP FIVE MOMENTS IN DRIP DROP

 

05: 'Can I LOOOOOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR?' (Preferably sung with as much emotion as possible, indicating that your life WILL be ended at 17 if the answer is anything less than an instant yes. The lover has been warned.)

04: 'These TEAR-DRO-O-OPS, that DRIP DROP DRIP DROP' (studio version preferred for a less mangled take on the English language, and the STRINGS :disco:)

03: 'Tell me where have you been? Why are you late? YOU SMELL LIKE LIPSTICK AGAIN.' (although one tends to see, rather than smell lipstick, the sheer synesthetic chutzpah of this lyric cannot be ignored for spectacularity. Also, why the fuck is Safura taking on the role of 40-something housewife? Has she been forced into an arranged marriage ALREADY?)

02: 'I don't know how to start, how to start...' (Shit's about to GO DOWN GIRL.)

01: 'WHOA NO NO' (HIGH DRAMA. It would seem the lover said NO (and this track finished 5th) and Safura is about to jump off the HIGHEST BUILDING IN BAKU with ex-lover in tow in commemoration to this mistake. Azerbaijan's Eurovision fortunes will NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN.)

 

Amazing.

I don't think going on last or nearer to the end would have helped Drip Drop to a much better position, maybe 3rd or 4th at best, Lena clearly had Europe wrapped round her little finger, and Turkey, well, they always do :lol: But you're quite right about 5th place on even yeared contests, I was going to try and argue against you but It Hurts, Invincible and Hold On Be Strong - not much to go against your theory there :o

 

5th was a most spectacular flop for Safura though considering the money Azerbaijan pumped into the entry! It was very satisfying to see that the contest can't be bought, no matter how much I enjoyed Drip Drop.

Onwards towards the top ten! This has been going FAR too long.

 

 

If you'll excuse me, I'm just going to spend the first half of this write-up talking about an act that, on the face of things, have NOTHING to do with this placing (don't worry, it'll become obvious in a bit). The Sound of Arrows are an act that frustrate me immensely: in 2009, they came out with two of the most perfect slices of dream pop possible in M.A.G.I.C. and the sublime Into The Clouds, which was my second favourite track of that year and would've almost certainly been my favourite in any other year - stopped only by the imperious power of Bad Romance, and barely so at that - and then, having done that, proceeded to disappear completely. They haven't done a thing since (although an album was rumoured to be on the way) but either way they've been silent since August 2009 and the Into The Clouds release. Anyway, the thing that immediately strikes you when listening to The Sound of Arrows is the sheer wonder that both

and Into The Clouds are utterly drenched in (watch the video for Into The Clouds; it conveys this sense far better than I can put into words) which boils down to simple expressions of unflawed joy.

 

Anyway, why have I chosen to spend the first half of a review of a track by a completely unrelated act wittering on about The Sound of Arrows? For the simple reason that they conjured the exact same sensations with this track - warmth and happiness condensed down into that fantastic backing track, paired off with a fantastically hypnotic refrain that grows in pace as the track goes on. It's the same bliss that The Sound of Arrows brought to the table for me - all technicolour inviting instruments that sound familiar but are difficult to place, thick, soft beats, and the overwhelming sense of a fuzzy, welcoming haze in the whole package. Like being falling into a mountain of pillows.

 

014 / Kylie Minogue – Cupid Boy

 

Sodding Kylie. All The Lovers was a pop moment of sheer genius, but can we really say the same for Better Than Today? As it is, Aphrodite has left Kylie consigned to the same position she always is at the end of every campaign post-Fever - an act 'for the gays' who comes out with a big universal radio hit for the lead single but ends up peddling tat that falls just short of novelty for the rest of the campaign, meaning that the wider public has realised by now that all it needs to do is just stop paying attention after the lead and let the gays do the rest - with predictable results for album sales, given the pink pound funded the majority of those opening week sales anyway. Cupid Boy represents how things could've been different: a throbbing, brooding, shimmering backing track penned by Luciana and Sebastian Ingrosso of Swedish House Mafia that plays like the updated sonic daughter of I Can't Get You Out Of My Head. Are any of you familiar with the phenomena of synesthesia? Essentially, seeing tracks as colours - something I notice sometimes. Better Than Today was a sickeningly in-your-face pink, whereas this is a deep, collected purple which explodes into red in the bridge and chorus to correlate with the sheer clubby rush of it all as Kylie coos with ecstacy.

 

'Cupid boy, when we touch, I'm in heaven in your arms,

Fire, the way you love feels like heaven in your arms,

Skyrocket to Mars, straight through to your heart,

Everytime we touch, I'm shooting the stars'

 

Metaphors for mindblowing orgasms have rarely been so blatant yet so appropriate.

 

 

Flo Rida version ONLY please: take all appreciation for the Una middle eight elsewhere please, for the dazzlingly shit roll-call intro and utterly nonsensical middle eight MORE than make up for it. Anyway, that intro actually injects a bit of vigour into the proceedings; a feeling that SOMETHING worth listening to is happening as the first verse begins, that things are about to build up to something big. And they are, as the first verse wonderfully builds before plunging straight into the greatest traditional pure pop chorus of the year, an arms aloft shout-out-loud moment in a track which follows in the greatest Saturdays tradition and doesn't really make sense - but since when did THAT stop Up - or this - from being utterly fabulous?

BEST BITS:

 

- The intro

- The triumphant 'WHOA-OH-OH!' punctuating the chorus

- "So when I SPEAK! LISTEN! This is MY! DE! CISION! and you KEEP! ON! MISSING OUT THE WORDS!" - RIDICULOUS when analysed, but who can help but get caught up in it all?

- And, of course, "I'm gonna LIFT IT! LIFT IT! HI-GHER"

 

Yeah, amazing.

 

 

It was a tough time being a Scissor Sisters fan from the end of the Ta-Dah! campaign until Invisible Light dropped - mainly because of those horrid rumours which thankfully turned out to be untrue that the Scissors were planning a reggae-influenced album. Thankfully, as this went on to show, such rumours were PURE SHIT and all that time Jake et al were planning an 80s extravaganza that put aside all fears that the group were doomed to forever continue under the shadow of the debut album and I Don't Feel Like Dancin'. Now, reframe this track through another fan's medium: that of being a music fan in early 2010. Eurovision NFs and the odd album aside, the year up until April had been f***ing terrible for pop music. So when this and Robyn - Dancing On My Own dropped within about a week of each other, it was as an epiphany from music Jesus himself that we needn't fear - things were on the up like a demo even Kylie wasn't claiming. And despite its framing on the album, Invisible Light delivered on its own terms (though of course its nature as the epic closer meant it worked far better in the context of the album) - an astounding, charging disco track replete with lyrical references to Biblical redemption as metaphor for sex, drugs, and the dancefloor as a sanctuary for the jaded disappointment of day to day life, as perfectly illustrated by Ian McKellan's dramatic, God-like narration of painted whores and sexual gladiators over the middle eight. In terms of literal relations, Invisible Light is the more optimistic, epic cousin of Alors On Danse - the 'invisible light' that is dance or sex being the cure to the daily struggles, rather than the confirmation of them through their dour repetition and their being all on offer. Yet the imperious middle eight isn't even the high point of the track, which comes through the sonic explosion after the narration as the track builds in pace and intensity before dropping into the Invisible Light manifest: a joy only expressed through Shears' unrestrained cries, a metaphor either for orgasm or relief. And so it is: no other track in 2010 as perfectly encapsulated the sensation of release as much as Invisible Light did.

 

 

Ellie Goulding's a girl who (Your Song aside) all too often isn't the one behind the magic of her music - in my opinion that accolade, as should be painfully obvious by now to anybody who's been paying attention to this countdown, goes to Starsmith, who has a real knack for crafting and weaving lush, rich electronic backdrops to perfectly complement Ellie's delicate girlish warble. This Love, however, represents a shift in the relative strength between the vocal performance and production towards Ellie at the same time as Starsmith brings his greatest production to date - an elegant, heartbroken piece that conjurs up images of a frozen, ice-covered forest that clicks perfectly with Ellie's self-awarely despondent and wistful performance as the lover who has to come to terms with and make the other partner realise the fact that the relationship just isn't going to work for the either of them. The result is the most mature and anguished thing Ellie's likely to ever put her name to.

BEST MOMENT: The intro is fantastic, but this is no contest - the beginning of the bridge before the second chorus, with the underlying thick piano chords making a foreboding, tearful harmony line to accompany Ellie's reveal that the only solution is to break up.

How shameful that this went unfinished! I may as well quickly announce the top 10 (+1 which I'd overlooked in the compilation of this!)

 

10: Marina and the Diamonds - Oh No!

09: Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

08: Salem al Fakir - Keep On Walking

07a: A1 - Don't Wanna Lose You Again

07: Timoteij - Kom

06: Scissor Sisters - Sex and Violence

05: Tinashe - Come On Over (This Could Be Love)

04: Rihanna - Rude Boy

03: Kylie Minogue - All The Lovers (DirtyHandsX Extended Mix)

02: Nicole Scherzinger - Poison (DirtyHandsX Extended Mix)

01: Robyn - Dancing On My Own

 

HUZZAH

How shameful that this went unfinished! I may as well quickly announce the top 10 (+1 which I'd overlooked in the compilation of this!)

 

10: Marina and the Diamonds - Oh No!

09: Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

08: Salem al Fakir - Keep On Walking

07: A1 - Don't Wanna Lose You Again

07: Timoteij - Kom

06: Scissor Sisters - Sex and Violence

05: Tinashe - Come On Over (This Could Be Love)

04: Rihanna - Rude Boy

03: Kylie Minogue - All The Lovers (DirtyHandsX Extended Mix)

02: Nicole Scherzinger - Poison (DirtyHandsX Extended Mix)

01: Robyn - Dancing On My Own

 

HUZZAH

 

Don't know Sex and Violence and I've never overly championed Teenage Dream or Rude Boy, but the rest of that top ten is sensational. Nice to see A1/Salem in there, I'd have liked to have seen your commentary for the top ten! :(

If I get time before the end of the year I may do so - I've got an essay on Dancing On My Own just waiting to be written!

I can imagine, and I assume you feel the same way as me about wanting to hunt down people who regard All The Lovers as 'bland, boring and nothingy' as I kept noticing on this forum last year :ph34r:

 

What a misguided opinion on such a perfect and euphoric song, it's the only song I'm ever genuinely happy to hear on Heart! Despite the fact that they still play it twice an hour.

I genuinely cannot understand how anyone can call that explosive synth post-middle eight 'nothingy'.

 

ANYWAY, complete countdown!

 

 

200 / Jay Sean; Nicki Minaj – 2012 (It Ain't The End) (Jump Smokers Remix)

199 / Girlicious – 2 In The Morning

198 / Glee Cast – Teenage Dream

197 / Amanda Jenssen – I Choose You

196 / Ana Diaz – New Way

195 / Marina and the Diamonds – Girls

194 / Aggro Santos – Candy

193 / James Blunt – Stay the Night

192 / Kristina Pelakova – Horehronie

191 / Nadine – Lullaby

190 / Alex Gaudino – I'm In Love

189 / BC Jean – Just A Guy

188 / The Hoosiers – Choices

187 / Antoine Dodson & The Gregory Brothers – Bed Intruder Song

186 / Groove Armada – I Won't Kneel

185 / Labrinth – Let The Sun Shine

184 / Juliana Pasha – It's All About You

183 / Lail Arad – Captcha

182 / Sabrina Washington – OMG

181 / The Dream – Yamaha

180 / Travie McCoy; Bruno Mars – Billionaire

179 / Florence and the Machine – Cosmic Love [short Club Remix]

178 / Alex Gardner – I'm Not Mad

177 / Cristal Snow – Surrender

176 / Cocknbullkid – Cocknbullkid

175 / Ellie Goulding – Your Song

174 / Plan B – She Said

173 / I Blame Coco – Quicker

172 / Usher; will.i.am. – OMG

171 / Sheelah – Psycho

170 / Gyptian; Nicki Minaj – Hold Yuh

169 / I Blame Coco – Selfmachine

168 / Kylie Minogue – Get Outta My Way

167 / Justin Bieber – Love Me

166 / Spark – Revolving

165 / Cheryl Cole – The Flood

164 / Yolanda Be Cool; Dcup – We No Speak Americano

163 / Dandy Andy – My Lonely Valentine

162 / Ellie Goulding – Starry Eyed

161 / Gabriella Cilmi – Love Me Cos You Want To

160 / Nerina Pallot – Real Late Starter

159 / Mndr – I Go Away

158 / Preeya – Dirty Kissin'

157 / Katy Perry – California Gurls

156 / Velile; Safri Duo – Helele

155 / Katy Perry – Hummingbird Heartbeat

154 / Duck Sauce – Barbra Streisand

153 / Linda Sundblad – Let's Dance

152 / Nicki Minaj, Sean Garrett – Massive Attack

151 / Viktorious – When We Were Ten

150 / Milan Stankovic – Ovo je Balkan

149 / Simon Curtis – Beat Drop

148 / Delphic – Halcyon

147 / B.o.B. - Airplanes

146 / Christina Aguilera; Nicki Minaj – Woohoo

145 / Feminnem – Lako Je Sve

144 / Gabriella Cilmi – Robots

143 / Joe McElderry – Ambitions

142 / M.I.A. - XXXO

141 / Keri Hilson – I Like

140 / Linda Bengtzing; Velvet – Victorious

139 / Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Bittersweet

138 / Taio Cruz – Dynamite

137 / NS 윤지 - 춤을 춰

136 / Robyn – Hang With Me (Acoustic)

135 / The Mission District – Just Don't Feel The Same

134 / Timbaland; Katy Perry – If We Ever Meet Again

133 / K'naan – Wavin' Flag

132 / Pernilla Wahlgren – Jag vill om du vågar

131 / Alesha Dixon – Drummer Boy

130 / Anna Bergendahl – This Is My Life

129 / Cheryl Cole – Parachute

128 / Amanda Jenssen – The Rebounder

127 / Joe McElderry – Fahrenheit

126 / Maria Haukaas Storeng – Precious To Me

125 / Ellie Goulding – Guns and Horses

124 / Justin Bieber – Baby

123 / Michael von der Heide – Il Pleut de l'Or

122 / Rihanna – Man Down

121 / Marina and the Diamonds – Hollywood

120 / The Ting Tings – Hands

119 / Nabiha – You

118 / Diana Vickers – Once

117 / Nelly – Just A Dream

116 / Scissor Sisters – Something Like This

115 / Shakira; Freshlyground – Waka Waka

114 / Alexandra Burke – All Night Long

113 / Tinie Tempah – Written In The Stars

112 / Rosanna – Waterfall

111 / Kelis - 22nd Century

110 / Inna – Hot

109 / Nadine – Insatiable

108 / Mike Posner – Cooler Than Me

107 / Roll Deep – Green Light

106 / Roll Deep – Good Times

105 / Sugababes – Wear My Kiss

104 / Swedish House Mafia; Tinie Tempah – Miami 2 Ibiza

103 / The Golden Filter – Hide Me

102 / HEALTH – USA Boys

101 / Alien Beat Club – Oxygen

100 / Angus & Julia Stone – Walk It Off

099 / Diamond Rings – Wait and See

098 / Edward Maya; Vika Jigulina – Stereo Love

097 / Willow Smith – Whip My Hair

096 / Mmadcatz – Puppets

095 / Kelis - 4th of July

094 / Eminem; Rihanna – Love The Way You Lie

093 / Example – Last Ones Standing

092 / Ke$ha – Animal

091 / HURTS – Wonderful Life

090 / Kate Nash – Do Wah Doo

089 / Love Generation – Love Generation

088 / Alexandra Burke – Start Without You

087 / Slagsmalsklubben – Sponsored By Destiny

086 / Katie Melua – The Flood

085 / Cee-Lo Green – f*** You

084 / Eric Saade – Manboy

083 / Ellie Goulding – Wish I Stayed

082 / Example – Won't Go Quietly

081 / Kanye West; Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Bon Iver – Monster

080 / Lena – Satellite

079 / Rihanna – Complicated

078 / Leighton Meester – Your Love's A Drug

077 / Japayork – Teenagers

076 / Ke$ha – Your Love Is My Drug

075 / Robyn – Indestructible

074 / I Blame Coco; Robyn – Caesar

073 / Miami Horror – Moon Theory

072 / Kelis – Acapella

071 / Ellie Goulding – I'll Hold My Breath

070 / Molly Sanden – Mitt liv ar mitt

069 / Example – Kickstarts

068 / Robyn – Hang With Me

067 / Selena Gomez & The Scene – Naturally

066 / Tinie Tempah – Pass Out

065 / Chanee & N'evergreen – In A Moment Like This

064 / Delerium; Kreesha Turner – Dust In Gravity

063 / Crystal Castles – Baptism

062 / Diamond Rings – All Yr Songs

061 / Fallulah – Bridges

060 / Sky Ferreira – One

059 / Christina Aguilera – You Lost Me

058 / Tove Styrke – White Light Moment

057 / Crystal Castles – Celestica

056 / Eric Saade – It's Gonna Rain

055 / Hera Bjork – Je Ne Sais Quoi

054 / Serebro – Sladko [Harchenko Remix]

053 / Diamond Rings – Show Me Your Stuff

052 / Shy'm – Je Sais

051 / Young Money – BedRock

050 / Joe McElderry – Someone Wake Me Up

049 / Darin – Lovekiller

048 / Girlicious – Maniac

047 / Johnny Flynn; Laura Marling – The Water

046 / Staygold – Backseat

045 / Far East Movement – Like A G6

044 / Tinie Tempah – Frisky

043 / HURTS – Stay

042 / Feldberg – Dreamin'

041 / Florrie – Left Too Late

040 / Paula Seling & Ovi – Playing With Fire

039 / Wiley; Emeli Sande – Never Be Your Woman (Shy FX Radio Edit)

038 / The Naked & Famous – Young Blood

037 / Mika – Kick Ass

036 / KillaBITE – Dance Tonight

035 / Stromae – Alors On Danse

034 / Wynter Gordon – Dirty Talk

033 / The Hundred In The Hands – Pigeons

032 / Sky Ferreira – Obsession

031 / Lissie – Bad Romance

030 / Kelis – Home

029 / Alicia Keys – Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart

028 / Nicki Minaj, will.i.am – Check It Out

027 / Rihanna – S&M

026 / Sun – Fancy Free (Dave Aude Club Mix)

025 / Sia – Clap Your Hands

024 / Robyn – Time Machine

023 / Gabriella Cilmi – On A Mission

022 / Kelly Rowland – Commander

021 / The Pretty Reckless – Make Me Wanna Die

020 / Robyn – Indestructible (Acoustic)

019 / Rihanna – Only Girl (In The World)

018 / Lady Gaga; Beyonce – Telephone

017 / Scissor Sisters – Fire With Fire

016 / Safura – Drip Drop

015 / Lo-Fi-Fnk – Marchin' In

014 / Kylie Minogue – Cupid Boy

013 / The Saturdays; Flo Rida – Higher

012 / Scissor Sisters – Invisible Light

011 / Ellie Goulding – This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)

010 / Marina and the Diamonds – Oh No!

009 / Katy Perry – Teenage Dream

008 / Salem al Fakir – Keep On Walking

007a / A1 – Don't Wanna Lose You Again

007 / Timoteij – Kom

006 / Scissor Sisters – Sex and Violence

005 / Tinashe – Come On Over (This Could Be Love)

004 / Rihanna – Rude Boy

003 / Kylie Minogue – All The Lovers (DirtyHandsX Extended Mix)

002 / Nicole Scherzinger – Poison (DirtyHandsX Extended Mix)

001 / Robyn – Dancing On My Own

I'd missed the fact that you had two #7's! Inseperable? Funnily enough, I think they finished right next to each other in my EOY top 20, despite being completely different songs...

I'd forgotten A1 (I know, blasphemy!) to begin with, although the position is also fairly suited in that I couldn't quite decide which was superior out of Kom and DWLYA...