I think for an artist to be 'desperate for a number 1', they'd most likely need to be in career decline and need a smash, that definitely doesn't apply to someone like Ed Sheeran, I think he would've got to number 1 whatever he'd released as Bré said.

 

Not neccesarily in decline, for example the whole Saturdays career has been a desperate scramble for a hit!!! Often, a debut hit is a desperate push for a hit and recognition (e.g. Krishane at the moment).

Ellie Goulding - Burn

Katy Perry - Roar

Magic - Rude

Jessie J - Bang Bang

Pitbull - Wild Wild Love

One Direction - Steal My Girl

The Wanted - Walks Like Rihanna

 

(all of these songs felt desperate to me but my opinion aside, they're all top 10 hits so I guess it worked)

 

also I'm a saturdays fan myself and can understand how their music comes off as desperate which is shame because they have some solid pop songs.

Pitbull - Wild Wild Love

 

Timber was far more desperate than this IMO.

Edited October 17, 201410 yr by Dobbo

Katy Perry - Roar

I don't think Katy Perry would be DESPERATE for a hit when she just came off the back of an absolute huge Teenage Dream era cementing her as one of the biggest pop stars in the business. Sure, it sounded like it was pretty much designed for radio but that's pretty much always been Katy Perry's sound, definitively Katy but very much suited down to the ground for various different radio stations. But, to come under the category of desperate for a hit? Desperation certainly wouldn't have been in the minds of her or her label. I'd argue the same applies to One Direction, although even to me, Steal My Girl doesn't sound like an obvious 1D lead single so I wouldn't call that desperate by any barometer, although that is subjective.

 

I feel like people are really missing the point of this thread, as Chez Wombat has said, Ed Sheeran and Katy Perry with this era would not have been desperate by any means.

I think people are really getting confused, there are some really bad suggestions.

 

Lead singles are designed to be a hit. That is their purpose. Bang Bang is a good suggestion because Jessie J's last era flopped so hard after her first album, and it was obvious she needed those support credits to get her name back out there, and to get radio playing it again. But Sing? Steal My Girl? Roar? Timber? Jesus some awful suggestions. Desperation for me is when something has performed badly and they need a hit/feature to save the album/artist.

 

Walks Like Rihanna and The Wanted's last era is the best shout. Another one was Chris Brown in 2013. X was constantly delayed, and his label really wanted to launch the album off of a hit single, but everything they released really did not perform that well. Probably just as well he spent time in jail and the album was properly delayed!

Magic - Rude

 

How? It sounded like nothing else in the charts when it was released, if I hadn't seen it's US success prior to it's release here, I would've been surprised at it reaching number 1!

 

I don't think Katy Perry would be DESPERATE for a hit when she just came off the back of an absolute huge Teenage Dream era cementing her as one of the biggest pop stars in the business. Sure, it sounded like it was pretty much designed for radio but that's pretty much always been Katy Perry's sound, definitively Katy but very much suited down to the ground for various different radio stations. But, to come under the category of desperate for a hit? Desperation certainly wouldn't have been in the minds of her or her label. I'd argue the same applies to One Direction, although even to me, Steal My Girl doesn't sound like an obvious 1D lead single so I wouldn't call that desperate by any barometer, although that is subjective.

 

I feel like people are really missing the point of this thread, as Chez Wombat has said, Ed Sheeran and Katy Perry with this era would not have been desperate by any means.

 

Music is subjective, I just find these songs desperate and the fact they manage/d to be successful shows how shitty the state of music is. Katy Perry is simply more talented than 'Roar' and she probably knows this but it looks good if she has a no.1 in 20 countries with 500 million views on youtube, it's desperation in my eyes, she didn't excel herself or progress from her past events and she could of elevated her music if she picked up the pen and didn't rely on Dr Luke to make her a star. Katy songs like Not Like The Movies, The One That Got Away, E.T and Firework are all better efforts than Roar and were all (along with a lot of her music) of a way higher standard so to comeback with a typical predictable overly radio friendly song like Roar is lazy in my eyes and I'm not missing the point if you consider music subjective? :rolleyes: Katy and One Direction are both better than Roar and Steal My Girl.

 

How? It sounded like nothing else in the charts when it was released, if I hadn't seen it's US success prior to it's release here, I would've been surprised at it reaching number 1!

 

I just find it desperate, just because it's different doesn't mean it's any less desperate and to be honest it's not even that different, it's exactly what I'd expect to find in the Top 10, Top 40? It's pretty run of the mill. the song is irritating, the video is soul-decaying and the lyrics are stale.

Edited October 17, 201410 yr by Sociopath

I think people are really getting confused, there are some really bad suggestions.

 

Lead singles are designed to be a hit. That is their purpose. Bang Bang is a good suggestion because Jessie J's last era flopped so hard after her first album, and it was obvious she needed those support credits to get her name back out there, and to get radio playing it again. But Sing? Steal My Girl? Roar? Timber? Jesus some awful suggestions. Desperation for me is when something has performed badly and they need a hit/feature to save the album/artist.

 

Walks Like Rihanna and The Wanted's last era is the best shout. Another one was Chris Brown in 2013. X was constantly delayed, and his label really wanted to launch the album off of a hit single, but everything they released really did not perform that well. Probably just as well he spent time in jail and the album was properly delayed!

 

Your definition of 'desperate' is different to my perception of the meaning. To me it doesn't matter if it's a hit or not, if it sounds like it could be any other artists' track and has no emotion or intellect to it, then it is desperate to me. Artists should be taking risks, evolving their talents and creating music which encapsulates their growth as an artist from their previous efforts and not releasing the most radio-friendly song in the world which they are 99% sure will gain them top 10's, huge sales and countless online views. The song may be number 1 for a week and then a week later no one cares? That's desperate to me, as artists they should want to be remembered for their distinctive style and individuality but instead artist after artist want to stick to the status quo and release boring songs. Constantly latching onto common connotations and representations within the industry and only signifying that the music industry is a money-driven, swine infested abyss of desperation.

 

As entertainers artists/singers should entertain me, I want to be entertained! It's pretty self-explanatory so when I'm fed the same regurgitated song 6 times over I'm bored and it's desperate in my eyes. Each artist has the potential to progress in some aspect with their music and if they can't, then they're probably in the wrong business and they're not true artists (imo) they're most likely just another source of money label executives can exploit for their own greed. Unlike a lot of the members who have posted, I don't like to be brainwashed and bored with the same predictable hit ten times over. I want to be pleasantly surprised, wowed, amazed, perplexed and inspired so when artists like Katy Perry and One Direction release the same old same old when they are evidently capable of much better it's simply lazy. They're desperate for a chart hit and therefore they are taking the art out of art-ist. :teresa:

Edited October 17, 201410 yr by Sociopath

Its telling in America that rappers can produce more "hip-hop" sounding songs and still chart whereas here you normally get nowhere near the top of the chart without a pop chorus/safe production- only real exceptions to this are Traktor, ill Manors and German Whip/That's Not Me. Its a shame as our rappers are talented and have the advantage of relatable lyrics (for us in the UK).

 

The recent decline in rap in the UK charts has not exactly been unwelcome from my pov - which will surprise no-one here who knows me. :heehee:

 

Unlike a lot of the members who have posted, I don't like to be brainwashed and bored with the same predictable hit ten times over. I want to be pleasantly surprised, wowed, amazed, perplexed and inspired so when artists like Katy Perry and One Direction release the same old same old when they are evidently capable of much better it's simply lazy. They're desperate for a chart hit and therefore they are taking the art out of art-ist. :teresa:

 

Wow, how patronising.

 

Weren't you just saying that music is subjective?

There's surely a difference between making Katy Perry continuing to make hits (Roar isn't dissimilar to what she did before, she might be "better" than that in your opinion but that's a totally difference case, Roar is my personal favourite Katy track) and The Wanted, for example, shoehorning Rihanna into a song just to get people talking about them again after they were on a downward slope? It's not desperation for Katy, having no emotion/intellect/etc. doesn't mean it's desperate. You're acting as if every song released should challenge musical barriers and change the music industry forever.

 

Steal My Girl is definitely not desperate either. Live While We're Young is more of a shout, as much as I love it it's essentially a What Makes You Beautiful clone. Steal My Girl is very different for a 1D track so how is it desperate??

Yeah I definitely think a lot of people are confusing the theme of this thread with "songs I don't like by artists I may or may not like".

 

"Roar" was not by any merits a desperate attempt at a hit song as Katy Perry has been releasing songs like that for a while and, as people have stated before in this thread, was not in a decline of any sort and desperation would be surprising after coming off a multi-plat album with 6 number one hits in the US, lol.

 

"Steal My Girl" also does not come off as desperate as it is rather unlike what they've released so far (as it resembles more rock than pop) so if anything that sort of a release would be more likely to alienate their fanbase than enhance it, so I think they actually took a pretty big risk by releasing that, and I actually like the song.

 

Desperate hits are, like people have named here in this thread, songs like:

 

"Walks Like Rihanna" which is desperately name-dropping a huge superstar even though the lyrics make no sense at all (like I said earlier - when did Rihanna develop a signature walk?!).

 

"Give Me All Your Luvin" which seemed to be cashing on some of the pop trends going on there, sounded like a 50 year old woman trying to look and sound way younger than she is and recruited two big names that had almost no impact on the song itself but added attention to the song just by being there

 

..and "Booty" which, even though it may have been made prior to the current butt-fetish the public is having, was obviously only released as a single due to that. The song is very boring on its own and brings nothing new to the table, and the video is just awkward as hell. Then there's the fact that she, just like Madge, recruits a fresh young face just for the sake of grabbing people's attention.

Just for the record I actually like a lot of songs by The Wanted, J. Lo and especially love most of what Madonna's done recently. But I'm not blind.

"Steal My Girl" also does not come off as desperate as it is rather unlike what they've released so far (as it resembles more rock than pop) so if anything that sort of a release would be more likely to alienate their fanbase than enhance it, so I think they actually took a pretty big risk by releasing that, and I actually like the song.

 

Not quite, Midnight Memories (the song) was their first attempt at a "rocky" track.

'Steal My Girl' to me sounds more like an 80s pop track as opposed to most of their previous pop-rock?

 

I think it was a smart move for them though, especially now acts like The Vamps and 5SOS have their previous sound cornered in the market.

Elyar Fox - 'A Billion Girls'

 

Thankfully a very misguided attempt at a hit but the desperation was reeking from this, and that's without even taking into account that obnoxious release strategy :drama:

Nicki Minaj - Starships, Pound The Alarm, Anaconda

 

As much as I love her, they are desperate attempts to get hits. I don't mind because she produces less generic, amazing songs on her albums too.

Taylor Swift - Shake It Off

I would say 'Radioactive' by Marina & The Diamonds was certainly a moment of desperation.

I think How To Be A Heartbreaker was more desperate than Radioactive.