Apart from your unnecessarily harsh attack on the social intelligence of guinea fowl, that was perfect!

 

It struck me the other day when I read her saying that she loves to sing that Jessie is literally just a (technically very good) singer. There's no artistry, no real passion behind her music. It's like she treats the recording process as an inconvenience that gets in the way of her ability to get on a stage and scream her face off as part of promo/touring and so there's no quality control or even any vision in what she actually produces.

all of her songs have the feel that they've been brainstormed onto a mood board and reflect everything and therefore nothing. it's all so cold on record, live and in person but projecting her own insecurities and being wholly dislikable as i'm sure even her fans will agree. it appears universal up her budget each record with fewer sales in the process. surely there will come a stage where people become bored of another self-congratulatory song for another year and she will fade into the background. Forever, eternally forgotten by the zeitgeist.

 

it really is shocking the standard of british solo female popstars has been of such a low caliber for so many years. Most of them seem to exist as a famous person and the music comes strictly second. What defines Rita Ora and what will Pixie Lott be remembered for, certainly not the three #01 singles that you never anywhere.

 

Apart from your unnecessarily harsh attack on the social intelligence of guinea fowl, that was perfect!

 

it's a very apt comparison. when a single guinea fowl panics at a twig falling from a tree the entire flock run and squabble and don't stop for hours sometimes.

 

i do though for these reasons have a soft spot for them.

SAM SMITH 'MONEY ON MY MIND'

 

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Kp2ygXpc--/q0oc8kd2rw7bkyb9vshm.jpg

 

on the basis of sam smith's features one could be mistaken for thinking sam smith was going to be an edgy popstar making the most of a beautiful voice. what transpired was what has become synonomous with big money record deals is that to sell the record you have to make it as boring as possible to please the many. and he really is blessed with a beautiful voice, because let's face it he looks like a ropey character out of heartbeat with the charisma of a pickled egg. Also when you push young, fledling artists down the singer-songwriter path to banality they alas don't have much to say of any experiences life brings through the passage of time. being an artist beyond you years isn't easy and with the lack of inspiration to draw from sam's album was launched with 'money on the mind'.

 

what a stark contrast from his features the year before, gone was the smooth, edgy, current star and here you essentially have a novelty song. Your first great statement of intent as an artist; a song about how you aren't singing for the money. There are many issues with this, it sounds utterly ridiculous, even more so when you take into account the fact he is on a big money contract and therefore is doing it for the money. it's just not a very good song lyrically either. choice quotes include: "please can you make this work for me, 'cause i'm not a puppet i will work against your strings", i don't even think i have to explain that one. "when i signed my deal i felt pressure, don't want to see the numbers" / "you say can you write a song for me, i say no not happily". Did Smith not think when looking at the lyrics on paper how shoddy they are. he also takes his best attribute and turns it against him with a horrid faletto that brings nothing to the song other than appearing to be some nonexistent example of some thought process to the tune.

 

not everything sam is bad, i have to say well done for writing candidly about your sexuality but then don't turn round and protest about not being a gay rights spokesman. you can't use a high profile platform to talk about your sexuality through lyrics and then not expect to champion something inherent within you. wouldn't any proud gay high profile figure champion gay rights? well yes they do. maybe it is age. by the time he reaches his third record i imagine the music will be appealing to strictly the infirm and incontinent.

 

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/3d/b0/eb/3db0eb9f86b26c6cd7374cbfd601d4c1.jpg

As much as I hate 'Money On My Mind', I do find it pretty cool that it's a song about being told to write a smash hit, essentially, which then became that debut hit.

 

it really is shocking the standard of british solo female popstars has been of such a low caliber for so many years. Most of them seem to exist as a famous person and the music comes strictly second. What defines Rita Ora and what will Pixie Lott be remembered for, certainly not the three #01 singles that you never anywhere.

 

Yep, I'm really interested to see what Ellie comes up with next, being someone who's achieved the next level of success and A-list celebrity status (arguably) more so because of a faceless hit and Calvin Harris features as opposed to the inspired music she's capable of producing. I really hope she's allowed have the creative control she had for 'Halcyon' in its original form and she can justify through her music why she's as big as she is (cos she's drifted a bit too far from that for me).

 

And thanks for the guinea fowl education - I didn't know that.

WAVE AFTER WAVE WAVE AFTER WAVE WAVE AFTER WAVE, SLOWLY DRIFTING

 

http://jp3.r0tt.com/l_9ca71aa0-b3d6-11e1-8720-93da4aa00003.jpg

 

i've never been a fan of the seaside, inundated with the grandparents waiting to die, tacky slot machines and social degredation or if you go abroad, something at least partially nicer. wherever you go you get sand on your testicles, sunburnt and bored of it after an hour. so an acoustic-dance track built around such a environment was never going to inspire much in me.

 

no genre can escape the clutches of the dulification taking over music. even that you'd imagine to be amongst the most resilient have been casualities themselves, and this included the genre of 'dance' and a particularly potent is the rmr probz / obin schulz million selling 'waves'. the theme of the open ocean runs as a current throughout the song and well that's that, what more is there to say, after all waves just drift on by. to me this is one of the most boring songs i have heard all year and people describing it as "so chilled out" and a "total summer anthem". this sort of "dance" music leaves me stressed out.

 

there could be some cartesian reading behind it that i might be missing but i am not and that isn't the case

 

http://xtremesport4u.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/re-sized-flat-sea.jpg

 

 

 

Yep, I'm really interested to see what Ellie comes up with next, being someone who's achieved the next level of success and A-list celebrity status (arguably) more so because of a faceless hit and Calvin Harris features as opposed to the inspired music she's capable of producing. I really hope she's allowed have the creative control she had for 'Halcyon' in its original form and she can justify through her music why she's as big as she is (cos she's drifted a bit too far from that for me).

 

And thanks for the guinea fowl education - I didn't know that.

the music ellie started out making / listens to is so far removed from her most recent output. 'burn' sealed the deal that she is a sell out and wants to be a famous popstar as opposed to creating the music she loves. polydor are also notorious for controlling the creative of their acts but we shall see. either way i fully expect an obligatory ed sheeran-penned ballid.

ellie goulding's 'burn' is insulting

Waves is awful so great to see it on the worst list

I agree with 2/3 of the songs so far. 'Bang Bang' while sort of enjoyable under the right circamstances is a gigantic hot mess looking back.

 

'Money On My Mind' would easily rank in my top 5 worst singles of the year. Absolutely abhorent. The fact i went on to really appreciate the album and the singles that follows but still despite that is most confusing for me.

 

I look forward to more cutting remarks towards the worst of the year and hope none of my favourites feel your wrath ^_^ supporting Sia to do well in the LOVE section !!

excuse me no. The commentary is spot-on (I'll give you that much) but your hate chart is SO good, all of these feature on my year-end :o

'Bang Bang' isn't Jessie's best by any means, but can we just appreciate how much of a hot mess / f***ing AMAZING the XF performance was :kink:

 

totally in agreement re. 'Money on My Mind' though. hideous song and the falsetto is just rly painful.

THE GWEN STEFANI 'COMEBACK' POSSIBLY 'BUZZ' 'TRACKS'

 

http://www.wotyougot.com/pictures//2011/10/happy-42nd-birthday-gwen-stefani.gif

 

i think we all have fond memories of what gwen did for pop back in the day. out of nowhere 'what you waiting for?' appeared, shooting her into to popular culture mainstream and setting a better precident of what international pop could and should be. yes you can gender-bend but keep a coherent album campaign going and do it to f***ing fabulousness. where does one go from that. you could have been forgiven for for weighing your expectations highly instead its been a total descent into mediocrity and self-pardody. the highly anticipated follow-up was essentially the other side of 'L.A.M.B' the same ubiquitous genre journeys but feeling like 'L.A.M.B's other half, the other half we didn't get and did not get for good reason; they deserved to stay in bin or serve as a future pixie lott charity single. and then the gap, when the gays had to feign some interest in no doubt (other than 'don't speak' and then if pushed further recounting the campy 'it's my life', a song truly any casual gay can wish to follow but never will) and then suddenly gwen is back in 2014, sort of out of nowhere, sort of who is left to care? should we care? on the basis of the as of yet certain-to-be-unfinished-searching-for-a-hit-someone-anybody-a-hit-for-me third album tracks 'baby don't lie' and 'spark the fire' highlight gwen at her worst and career-lows but for totally different reasons.

 

i think first you have to consider context. context explains a lot, especially with the american major label record world. when records don't sell, put your artist out to do something on tv, people these days are more than happy to buy something a judge on a banal-karaoke-pretender type show like 'the voice' because it is all about people and not very much about music and this helps gwen. just take a look at 'baby don't lie' the out of nowhere 'lead' single. gwen gone for years and what do you get? a romp? a song of her career no, you get a bog standard, very current, very uninteresting and most of all anonymous pop-song. where once gwen would have taken reggae-lite influences and taken them to their fullest potential here as an older, voice-mentoring media personality sort of treats this backing as an after-thought, remaining pretty flatline throughout, there isn't a peak, a crescendo or a gwenism, no real stamp on the song. hell if rita had ryan tedder in her aura this song would be the new first single for album two! it achieves nothing, no great emotion, feeling, it's sort of perfect for a voice mentor. she just isn't bothered and 'baby don't lie' just proves it. the video needs no comment as it was evidently created without the intention of garnering.

 

with 'baby don't lie' doing nothing very much at all out appears 'spark the fire', working with obscure and under-exposed producer pharrell williams, she creates a 'tune' (invented commas never more essential or important) which simply is unlistenable. heaven whom, wrote, produced went on a journey and believed it was a worthy second single. it feels like gwen at her worst self-parody at 45 attempting the experiemental flair often seen on 'L.A.M.B' but coming off abraisive, nauseating and most of all self-involved. here gwen has gone full circle without realising it and is a mentor on tv now and here buy this if you might seen it on my tv appearance?

 

http://img.izifunny.com/pics/2013/20130709/original/gwen-stefani-has-bread-hair-9-gifs_1.gif

agree with a lot of your points about Money On My Mind (that grating falsetto hook :/), even all flaws aside it's just a pretty boring song, quite disappointing coming off his appearances on Latch and La La La

 

right let's take a turn to the positive. the top 50 will be numbered but 50 to 100 will not as ultimately what is the difference between between #67 and 82? they are all good songs that i'd put on pretty much an even keel. i thought 2014 was quite a terrible year for music as whole but i love everything in this top 100 so maybe i wasn't quite right. i will probably do a few more stinkers of the year and a few other bits and bobs in between depending on how arsed i am. but 2014 will be my first ytd in history (i.e. 8 years on buzzjack) that gets finished. rejoice.

 

this is ultimately a celebration of everything i love, pop in all it's forms from the gay and popper's o'clock *.* to the electronic to the genre bending, colourful cacophonies with a few others bits in between.

100-051

 

 

Moxiie ‘Anyway’

Allie X ‘Catch’

SNBRN & Mossberg Pump 'Cool Beans’

iLoveMakonnen feat. Drake ‘Club Goin' Up on a Tuesday’

The Night VI ‘Heroine’

 

well here we go. first five and quite the mix of genres. moxiie is very much the sign of a post-charli xcx world with the wonderful 'anyway', hoping to see much more of her next year. rumbling goth pop. allie x made a massive splash earlier this year with the sugary pop of 'catch', a shoe-in for somewhere in the top 30 earlier this year, sadly 'catch' burnt out after a lot of over-play on initial release but it is utterly wonderful to see somebody so unapologetically pop being so wonderfully COOL. i expect to see her do big things in 2015 and can see her being very popular in the buzzjack world. SNBRN & Mossberg Pump gave the world one of this year's best deep house song, a big afterparty song for me and pre-drinks and well for anytime i was off my bloody tits *.* drake's remix of ilovemakonnen's 'tuesday' is up next a colourful tune which would undoubtedly have been much higher had i had more time with it. alas always the way with releases towards the end of the year. finally is indie band the night vi and 'heroine' easily their best single to date. loving their revival of fleetwood mac type instrumentation and melody. another one i hope can get somewhere next year as they show such potential.

 

I love Bang Bang but the other two worst tracks are spot on! Waves has to be possibly the most boring and uneventful "megahit" (for want of a better word) ever.

 

Sam Smith is just awful in general as I think I've stated a good few times over the last few weeks, he's a bit too whiny and self indulgent for me. Give me Taylor Swift crying into her guitar anyday :lol:

 

Paperwhite ‘Gold’

Worshyper ‘Calm & Haunt’

Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars ‘Uptown Funk’


Calvin Harris feat. Haim ‘Pray to God’

Invader Girl ‘Starting Fires’

Jones ‘Deep’

MiAmigo ‘Opinions’

Lowell ‘Cloud 69’

Manou ‘We Are’

Powers ‘Money’

 

i'm tired and need to hurry up with this so going to post a few without much commentary. the real standout here is Jones and 'deep', very post-solange but a wonderful tune and another one had i had for longer would be much higher. Invader Girl is very good also, one of my favourite videos of the year I think. high hopes for her next year but somehow I don't see the record making the light of day.

 

given the qolity of the write ups thus far i v much hope this doesn't follow the standard precedent of ur countdowns and DOES get finished

given the qolity of the write ups thus far i v much hope this doesn't follow the standard precedent of ur countdowns and DOES get finished

yes hen, this one is definitely getting done. for once i actually have the entire thing sorted and ordered already :o

 

are you doing any sort of countdown this year?

i have toyed with the prospect of doing a 'ten songs you missed this yr' countdown as i have v few tracks i can say i adored this year, and most are the predictable (chandelier, crying 4 no reason) lot

 

unfortunately i'm not sure if i can manage ten songs people HAVE missed this yr without infringing on qassandravision retrospective write-ups

 

i haven't really done a proper countdown since 2010 tho so it is much of a muchness 4 me to not do one. i'm also pretty jaded on the idea of setting down solid numbered lists for a year given the eternal struggle of accurately placing q4 tracks in context and how wildly ordering tends to vary in retrospect