16th April 2011 - Mann feat 50 Cent - "Buzzing"

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bzxO404V3Mc/TQMwhCgY6zI/AAAAAAAAAKI/veiIpBQcSdA/s1600/Mann-Buzzin-500x500.jpg

 

Peak: 6

Weeks in Top 10: 4

US Peak: 53

 

I don’t know if it will ever happen, but if I was to ever review top ten hits between 2007 and 2009, it would be full of records that I know on an objective level are terrible but I hold a soft spot for them regardless such as ‘Heartbroken’ or ‘What’s It Gonna Be?’ plus about half of Cascada’s output. Around late 2009, the dirty, dirty appeal of tracks like that utterly disappeared for me and the ‘bad’ tracks in the chart throughout 2010 were one’s that were bad and I took no pleasure in. I can’t really think of song from that year that I knew was rubbish but liked anyway because I just found myself smiling when it came on, so for that, I was pleased when ‘Buzzing’ came along because it brought that dirty guilty pleasure song back.

 

Many of my friends actually expressed surprise when I revealed that I actually thought this was actually a really bad song; one that is lazy in every sense of the word and offers the listener no real merit for sitting through it. But, my god, do I love listening to this. Take it as a contrast to ‘Black & Yellow’ which we’ve just had, and the difference between that and this for me, is that Khalifa was trying to come across all hard and street tough and it didn’t work whereas Mann comes across as never having had a serious thought in his life. ‘Buzzing’ is played totally straight, it wouldn’t be so charming to me if it was tongue in cheek to be honest, but it’s just put across in such a lazy and generic way that I actually warm to it. It’s stupid, it’s shallow and it’s sure as hell going to be forgotten by the masses (if not already) but god do I love nothing more than having a shameless jam session to this and others like it.

 

I LOVED that Mann track. The version without 50 Cent, mind, but was one of my many jams c. summer 2011 :dance:

16th April 2011 - Snoop Dogg vs. David Guetta - "Sweat"

 

 

....And we're back! Apologies for the three month silence but I really didn't want to make myself worry about this thread during my first semester back at University and as of 10 minutes ago, my final essay has been submitted and I feel free enough to kickstart this - for a while. It's a shame really that we come back with a song as generic and baseless as "Sweat" which for me was the very low point of the whole dance-pop invasion that occurred in the early parts of the decade - a gross crass song in its original form is not particularly well hidden by some generic Guetta beats and I've always hated the duck like sounding repeats of Snoop's voice after he utters the word 'sweat'.

 

Sorry for the negativity, but at least the thread is back!

 

23rd April 2011 - Chris Brown feat Benny Benassi - "Beautiful People"

 

 

I've already made my thoughts on Chris Brown and his continued success following his blatant assault on his girlfriend so I won't bore you with them again, and instead, I am going to focus fully on the music. Here's the thing - even before he was the Rihanna bashing anti-christ we know him as today - I was never all that taken with Chris Brown. He came out around the same time as Ne-Yo; who is way more talented, has a much better voice, writes his own music and doesn't behave in a way I find morally deplorable. Ne-Yo's music, for the most part, is sexy and smooth whilst Brown's can be guilty of coming off as either needy, aggressive or completely soulless none of which are particularly enticing things for me when it comes to music.

 

Without a shadow of a doubt, 'Beautiful People' remains the most generic thing Chris Brown has ever done, and that's saying something. I know the song got a lot of love when it first came out for being "an absolutely massive tune" or whatever but for me it's always been grossly repetitive and generic, plus I am incredibly cynical towards its success. Of course this was going be a huge hit in 2011 - it fit the mold of what music was both mainstream and acclaimed at the time, as well as the fact that the song is so anonymous that even if you were morally opposed to listening to Brown's music you wouldn't even know it was him.

 

Just a waste of three perfectly good minutes

 

30th April 2011 - Wretch 32 feat Example - "Unorthodox"

 

 

On top of the mountain of University work that was bogging me down, I think a major factor in this thread having such a long sabbatical was a little to do with procrastination on my point. As much work as I had to do since September, there probably was enough time for me to carry on this thread to a reasonable degree however the point we're at now - April 2011 - is a point in chart history where there's really not much music around that I like or find interesting enough to really talk about. I actually disagree with those who say that the 2010's has been crap for mainstream chart music, because for the most part, I've enjoyed a lot of the music that each year has had to offer, and even if I don't like it - I can at least find something in it to warrant discussion, but there have been periods which for me on the review front, have been pretty dry and we're in the middle of one now. The last few entries for me have consisted of pretty boring, generic, mainstream at it's worst type music which I don't find very compelling to write about - but, I'm giving it a shot, as 2011 soon turns a corner and I just need to work through this blip.

 

So, 'Unorthodox' for what it's worth is a big step up from Wretch 32's last hit in that I can actually stand to listen to it and it's fairly catchy.

 

....And that's why I had the big long winded explanation paragraph before because I have nothing else to say about this.

 

30th April 2011 - Lady Gaga - "Judas"

 

 

Just a quick FYI, I've decided not to include Tracy Chapman's 'Fast Car' in this thread as it already hit the top ten in the 80's. However, songs from other decades that hit the top ten for the first time in this decade will be getting full reviews - and I do really like 'Fast Car' if anyone was wondering

 

Onto Gaga, and for me, this was where I was kind of sold on the 'Born This Way' era. The title track really hadn't done much for me and I was a little relieved when 'Judas' came out as I'd been so disappointed by the overhyped comeback single and I wanted from Gaga what I was expecting to get. Back in May 2011, I was still a massive Gaga fan and I wanted her to come back stronger and more bizzarre than ever but 'Born This Way' just felt like trying too hard - 'Judas', to me, was a step in the right direction. Yes, the concept is way over the top and probably deeply offensive to anyone that is religious of any kind (atheism coming in handy once again for me here) but god do I love this.

 

This is the Gaga I love, absurd but brilliant. Invoking religious imagery and folklore in order to tell a story of conflict and love is a fascinating move and no matter what Gaga's critics were saying back then, I could always defend her by saying that there was really nobody around in music at the time who was willing to push things in such a way. For me, 'Judas' is just a very enjoyable and fun pop record and maybe I should be getting more bogged down in the theology of it all but I experience what I experience - a very fun, pretty different topic wise pop song that really pulled me back onto the Gaga bandwagon after I briefly almost stumbled off.

 

Agree with you on Sweat and Beautiful People- both awful songs :puke2: Unorthodox is quite good and pretty catchy!

Adore Judas :heart: :heart: One of my favourites from Gaga's 2nd era :wub:

I adore 'Judas'. I was never a huge GaGa fan but this is up there with her best. I definitely prefer it to the overrated 'Bad Romance' and 'Poker Face'.

'The Lazy Song'. Bruno Mars. 07/05/2011. #1

 

 

I take periodic breaks from this now and then to allow some time to pass because I don’t want to get too close to modern day, and a lot of me just totally forgot I was even doing this during the latest hiatus which was mainly because of Uni work and then six months went by without me updating (oops!). So, anyway, I hope people are still interested in reading these because I’m very interested in starting them up again over the summer

 

It’s a shame, however, that we have to come back on a song I dislike so much. I was pretty indifferent to Bruno at this point, I could have gone one way or the other, but this made me hate for quite some time. ‘The Lazy Song’ might be real or whatever, but he’s really douchie in this song. It’s not so much “haha Bruno, you’re so funny and relatable” as it is “get off the couch and stop being a dick”.

 

Bruno will redeem himself in time, but May 2011 me was done. Done.

 

'Guilt'. Nero. 07/05/2011. #8.

 

 

It’s strange to see just how much the charts have changed in the last five years, a song like this probably wouldn’t reach the top ten now. Not because of anything in the song itself – but more because it was a one-week #8 hit on rather low sales and would probably get to about #22 now. Essentially, the nature of the charts and one gets a hit has changed now and it’s a shame these fan-based or one/two hit dance acts are going to struggle for top ten hits in the future

 

Anyway, on to ‘Guilt’ itself. I’d forgotten how much I liked this! I was pretty EDM’d out at the time but the stuff Nero were putting out was a cut above the rest and ‘Guilt’ is easily their best song. Some early dubstep inspired stuff going on in here as well, a genre I was always cold towards but Nero did some good stuff with it and I’m always a sucker for a dance track with lyrical output more profound than ‘yeah, we up in the club’ so points there too.

 

'Where Them Girls At'. David Guetta feat Nicki Minaj & Flo Rida. 14/05/2011. #3.

 

 

Oh god, I hated this one at the time! I don’t know if it was just because I was 15 and in my desperate to appear cool and indie stage (I bought The Vaccines album, as if that proved anything) or if I just genuinely found the song bad but I absolutely detested this. I thought it annoying and I didn’t appreciate Nicki then nearly as much as I do now, very much buying into the general opinion that she was cheap, slutty and the death of all things good on the Earth.

 

I don’t know when it was that I started to think this was an absolute jam, but five years on, and I could bop to this all day. I think it comes from the fact that at 15 I was very much under the belief that music needed to mean something, whilst now I’m 21 as of Wednesday, I just want a bit of fun from my music and ‘Where Them Girls At’ is nothing if not bags of fun.

 

Nicki’s verse is arguably the best, she’s always at her best when she’s able to get on some quick flow but that’s not to take any credit away from Flo Rida who also serves the track very well. Despite what I’ve said, I can see why someone would hate this and it probably does get annoying if played on a loop, but I’ve grown very fond of this one.

 

Oops. I had a plan to do a similar countdown to this but owell I'll still do it.

 

Nero :wub:

'Nobody's Perfect'. Jessie J. 14/05/2011. #9.

 

 

You know, for someone who really wants to be seen as interesting and quirky, Jessie J hasn’t half released some dull music. We’ll meet a lot of them in due course but this one almost suffers from the opposite problem – if one watches the video – with Jessie pushing the weirdness factor to 11 probably to compensate for the nothing of a song she’s drudging her way through.

 

I’ve never really been able to put my finger on why I find this so dull, it’s just so…boring. Jessie succeeds best when she’s a little strange or verging on quirky, I don’t think she believes in this song and as a result is on auto-pilot for most of it. I am not a fan of her whatsoever, but all of her other singles at least have some kind of gusto behind them whereas this is coma inducing.

 

'I Need a Dollar'. Aloe Blacc. 14/05/2011. #2.

 

 

A one-hit wonder turned two-hit wonder, I was always sad that after this Aloe Blacc disappeared because this was the first song for an age that really spoke to me as some kind of commentary and reflection on the ills and troubles of modern society. Whether it was meant to be or not I don’t know, but it really spoke to me more than say ‘Price Tag’ which on the surface it seems to have a lot in common with. When you look a bit closer, ‘Price Tag’ is essentially an idealistic notion of tearing down the system whereas Blacc’s ‘Dollar’ is more about trying to get by within the system. It’s a subtle, but I think important, difference.

 

‘Dollar’ also sounds great, Blacc has a lovely soulful voice and whilst the production is maybe a bit too chirpy vs. the subject matter, it does a great job of making the song catchy which will help Aloe get his hands on the dollar more quickly. Everyone seemed to be humming this for weeks on end when it was at its most popular. He’s popped back once or twice since but to me, he’s still really just this one hit because it’s the only one I’ve managed to connect with.

 

 

Great countdown, really enjoying it. And I completely agree with your views on Jessie J and Gaga. The latter really needs to shape up and get some structure for her next album campaign, her choice of singles and single order for the last 2 has been atrocious.