Definitely the best song on her album, should have at least cracked the top 40 even if it only had an Army style run.

I'd forgotten about SITWYM :o It was actually a great song!

I agree that For Free is certainly DJ Khaled's best song. Drake's solid and Khaled's ad-libs are iconic as ever.

Middle is brilliant. I think Turn Down For What is my favourite by DJ Snake but Middle is so different, great to see he has such versatility.

Jumpman is pretty goos too.

 

The format of presenting you use is really cool :D

Elle King - "America's Sweetheart"

I actually like this song but I never really listened to it a lot which is weird lol. I remember hearing it on SNL (I think) and thinking "damn this is good" but I never really bothered to look the song up lmao until I heard it on the radio one day. I added it on Spotify but it faded quickly for some reason. Maybe it's because of what you said: she was just a lil bit too late to the Avicii/M&S party?

 

Ellie Goulding - "Something In The Way You Move"

This is one of my absolute favorite Ellie Goulding songs of all time and I'm so bummed it never got the recognition it deserved around the world. THANKFULLY it smashed here in Iceland which made me happy so I hear it on the radio all the time even today. This was one of my cherry picks from Delirium before it was announced as a single and that's why for me it peaked in 2015 but I'm happy to see it included here!

Something In The Way You Move would have been a great single here :heart: :(

Definitely the best song on her album, should have at least cracked the top 40 even if it only had an Army style run.

Ooh, it's not quite my favorite but I would've been more than happy with it doing just as well as Army!

 

I'd forgotten about SITWYM :o It was actually a great song!

Yay Pete, I was hoping this might remind people of one or two songs they liked but forgot about.

 

I agree that For Free is certainly DJ Khaled's best song. Drake's solid and Khaled's ad-libs are iconic as ever.

Middle is brilliant. I think Turn Down For What is my favourite by DJ Snake but Middle is so different, great to see he has such versatility.

Jumpman is pretty goos too.

 

The format of presenting you use is really cool :D

Turn Down For What is still my favorite too, although Let Me Love You's giving it a run for its money. Thanks for the compliment Lewis! :D

 

Elle King - "America's Sweetheart"

I actually like this song but I never really listened to it a lot which is weird lol. I remember hearing it on SNL (I think) and thinking "damn this is good" but I never really bothered to look the song up lmao until I heard it on the radio one day. I added it on Spotify but it faded quickly for some reason. Maybe it's because of what you said: she was just a lil bit too late to the Avicii/M&S party?

 

Ellie Goulding - "Something In The Way You Move"

This is one of my absolute favorite Ellie Goulding songs of all time and I'm so bummed it never got the recognition it deserved around the world. THANKFULLY it smashed here in Iceland which made me happy so I hear it on the radio all the time even today. This was one of my cherry picks from Delirium before it was announced as a single and that's why for me it peaked in 2015 but I'm happy to see it included here!

Ahhh yes, I'm so glad it smashed somewhere!! :o I wonder where you heard "America's Sweetheart", she never did perform on SNL though that would've been cool.

 

Something In The Way You Move would have been a great single here :heart: :(

I know right? They were really silly to skip over it.

 

Florida Georgia Line "H.O.L.Y."

http://daily.plaympe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2729781_20160425174156_995081629.jpg

As much as I don't actually mind Florida Georgia Line, they quickly got to a point where each song sounded more or less the same, so I pretty much ignored their second album. Well, they came back and changed things up just enough with this one, showing off a serious, gospel-esque side and somehow it wasn't terrible! I could really do without the acronym song title ("H.O.L.Y." means "high on loving you"), but at least it fits in the chorus without sounding out of place.

To be fair I was only about 20% impressed with the song itself and 80% impressed with how well it did. It spent three whole months in the top 10 on US iTunes, incredibly rare for any country song. It even became another crossover pop hit for FGL, although nowhere near to the extent of "Cruise". Even though they've since gone right back to their signature sound, it was enough to renew my interest and I reckon plenty more casual fans would say the same.

 

Flume featuring Kai "Never Be Like You"

Wikipedia tells me that "Never Be Like You" is "future bass", which I've not yet been able to distinguish from other dance subgenres. The bass doesn't sound any different from present bass to me (:kink:), but the track certainly stands out for an Australian chart #1, which was a wonderful feat for Flume. It absolutely stood out on the radio here as well! Even so, it took several listens for me to appreciate the song, but when it hit, man did it HIT. Even the line "please just look me in my face" isn't as annoying as it should be, a likely credit to Kai and her wonderful voice.

I'm sure this is another song that would've done well in the UK if only it wasn't pushed until after its US success. But who could have predicted top 20 in America? I can't say I ever pegged Flume as someone who would find success outside Australia, and he did so with a song that totally deserves it. Just a reminder that good things did happen in music this year!

 

Frenship featuring Emily Warren "Capsize"

I might end up repeating this question throughout this thread. Where did "Capsize" come from? Some playlist on Spotify, apparently. How did this unknown song by an unknown artist get there in the first place? Actually, maybe not knowing is part of the fun. I'm all for these random Spotify hits, especially when they're as good as this and I may not have ever heard it otherwise. It's a trend we'll have to get used to, along with the oddity that sometimes high streaming doesn't translate into download sales at all. I'd like to think it shows some demand for radio to start playing it, but in this case the UK didn't bother and the US stations were only lukewarm to it.

What a song, though! It’s uptempo yet very bleak, with beauty behind the painful lyrics. I find it's a perfect song to listen to when you're just a little bit down on life, as opposed to feeling totally miserable. I remember being in just the right mood and having this on repeat. :wub: I'm disappointed it didn't take off completely, but certainly glad to have seen this seemingly random gem get its chance to shine.

Never Be Like You is really fantastic, was so pleased when I saw it rising up the US charts and it's a shame the same never happened in the UK as you said :( The production is absolutely glorious, shame he doesn't produce more chart friendly tracks as some of his other tracks are a bit too out there for me :lol:

 

Enjoying these commentaries loads :)

I'm really surprised they didn't push Something In the Way You Move in the UK really, it was an obvious smash to my ears, could've outpeaked Army for sure!

 

Capsize is great, it totally passed me by in BJSC, so much so that I listened to it out of curiosity after its Spotify impact and it was genuinely like a new song to my ears! :lol: Emily Warren's chorus totally makes it for me, I love her voice, she's one to watch next year I think :wub:

Gnash featuring Olivia O'Brien "I Hate U I Love U"

Here's another song where I still have no clue where it came from. It seemed to first become a hit in Australia, so for the longest time I assumed Gnash was Australian. And I thought we'd have another "Somebody That I Used To Know" on our hands, although "I Hate U I Love U" isn't quite as good of a duet as the Gotye and Kimbra classic. It ended up not being as big of a hit either, to the relief of many on here I'm sure.

All year I've been going back and forth from not liking this song to liking it. I can hardly blame anyone who finds it boring. Gnash's verses sound totally lifeless so I'm not in a hurry to hear any other songs of his (fun fact: I'm nine days older than Gnash, and yes I'm capitalizing his name because that's what you're supposed to do). Olivia, on the other hand, just uploaded the "original" version with just her on it, and it's worthy of a listen! It actually builds up as it goes on instead of staying quiet the whole time, and Olivia sounds quite different on it too. Now I'm even more surprised that enough people like the version that's actually a hit, but I can't see anyone being as fond of it 10 or 20 years from now.

 

Ahhh yes, I'm so glad it smashed somewhere!! :o I wonder where you heard "America's Sweetheart", she never did perform on SNL though that would've been cool.

Ohh wait I think I heard it on Jimmy Fallon!

Ooh I much prefer that version of i hate u, i love u actually! Olivia definitely sounds different on it and the production works so much better. I must admit, I thought it would be even bigger than it was (in the UK at least), it came on while we were waiting for Shawn Mendes on his tour in May and everyone knew it already, this was before it had properly blown up :o I still don't really know what to make of the original, it's nice but like you say, can't really argue with those who call it boring.

If anything was going to rival "Sex" for having the highest burn rate this year it would have to be I Hate U I Love U.

 

I somehow came across "H.O.L.Y" on Radio Disney and it was actually... decent? I was even surprised because I give them a ton of crap for bro country and they've easily made my least favorite songs EVER (see: "Cruise"/"This Is How We Roll") and then they come out with this and it's not total shit.

Capsize is amazing :music: took a while for me to get into it, but it is really catchy!

Jason Derulo "If It Ain’t Love"

I’ve already done three EOY threads here, and every time I’ve included a Jason Derulo song and said something like, "Did you ever think Jason would still be around and having chart hits for this many years?" Last year "Want To Want Me" was one of his biggest yet, if not *the* biggest, so I thought that would buy him another few years. But everything since then has randomly underperformed or completely flopped!

So I can't really listen to "If It Ain't Love" without the context of Derulo's desperation to have another hit. Or maybe I can, because I do like it, but it's very lacking in personality and basically a non-event in Jason's discography. He went from this straight to an equally-rushed greatest hits album with an even worse single. It was too much at once, and I think he should've just taken a break since there's so little demand for him right now. It's just a matter of whether there's still a place for Derulo in the pop world or if his luck has finally run out.

 

Jeremih "Oui"

Come to think of it, Jeremih is another artist who emerged in 2009 that I'm also very surprised is still around. He's had the opposite trajectory of Jason Derulo, his hits have been very few and far between until these past few years where he's finally found his stride. "Oui" is actually Jeremih's first solo hit since his debut single seven years ago, so I'd say that was long overdue for him. Plus, it's one of his best!

The track itself is interesting, from the piano loop to the strings in the chorus. Jeremih adds a couple good hooks including the play on words in the title ("there's no oui (we) without u and i (you and i)", why am I bothering to explain~). This was the final single from his Late Nights album and, especially after the glorious "Planes", I'm now more than ever looking forward to what he releases next, as long as it's not another long wait.

 

Jon Bellion "All Time Low"

I'm glad Cody started reading my thread just in time for me to post this, since idk if anyone else would know it. I only know of Jon Bellion from his featuring on Zedd's "Beautiful Now" which I really like, and this year he dropped his album with a lot of praise from what I've seen. So I was curious to hear the eventual lead single "All Time Low", and I must admit I was skeptical before I heard it on the radio.

Sadly I don't like how his voice sounds on it, which makes it difficult to enjoy the song. It barely sounds like the same vocalist as "Beautiful Now". Otherwise I do like the organ and the drum loop, and overall it reminds me of "Worry" by Jack Garratt, which is enough to make me willing to hear more from Jon...or maybe just listen to Jack Garratt instead.

 

I liked "oui" but it ended up getting pretty overplayed where I was.

 

OMG @ Jon Bellion, I thought "All Time Low" had a weird structure but then it grew on me exponentially up to this point. It doesn't seem overplayed by how it's doing but it's beginning to suffer from it.

Katy Perry "Rise"

It wasn't a banner year for Katy at all, mostly from being the main celebrity face of Hillary's losing presidential campaign as well as this failed attempt at a comeback. At this point I expect to be underwhelmed by Katy's singles for the first few weeks, as it happens nearly every time, but they always grow on me and usually become massive fave. Not so with "Rise", one of the biggest disappointments of the year for me. It's just kind of...tuneless? For all its effort to be this big and powerful song, I couldn't feel it at all.

I'm a little bit torn, because it's not up to her usual standard but I still would have liked to see it do better than it did. This was a #1 single in Australia and we can just ignore that it dropped to #12 the following week. Of course "Rise" is just a standalone single so hopefully it doesn't matter in the long run, but now I have doubts about the next proper era and I really hate to feel this discouraged about it. I'm curious either way, though, so hopefully she's back again soon.

 

Kiiara "Gold"

I'm not very familiar with Kiiara, aside from knowing that she's popular on ~the blogs~. I know people on Buzzjack wanted her to be big but weren't you still kind of surprised to see it happen? Surely "Gold" was quite an unlikely hit this year, if only for the fact that like 90% of the chorus is undecipherable. The general public proved me wrong by taking to it in a big way, including a #13 peak in the US and a #5 peak in Australia.

It was one of my favorites this year, too. With little more than a bassline it manages to be hypnotically catchy and not tuneless (and "Rise" is the opposite, go figure that one out). I can't imagine Kiiara thought her song would get played a hundred times an hour when she wrote it, which makes it even sweeter. It was certainly amazing to hear on the radio and I hope she'll at least attempt to push one more single. If she does end up a one-hit wonder, at least she'd be a really awesome one.

Hi Jordan

 

100% agree that Rise was a huge disappointment for Katy. It sounded alright and she sounds good on it but I've pretty much forgotten how it goes at this point and the whole package of song/video/lyrics etc. were so dull, especially disappointing as at least her videos are usually amazing. Hope she comes back with a Roar-type banger!

 

Gold is incredibly catchy for a song that is basically undecipherable as you say, I just sort of 'sing' along when in reality I'm just making random noises because idk what she's saying :lol: I wish it was as big in the UK as it was in the US, definitely deserved a bigger hit status over here :(

 

:D

Never Be Like You should have been a big hit :( I didn't mind 'Gold' for a while but it wasn't really what it was cracked up to be imo! 'Rise' is bland too, can't wait for new material from Katy though!

'Gold' is so underrated and I do not get the hate for it its superb although I do not listen to it as much but it still made number one in my chart :o

 

Rise is good too but FAR from Katy's best :D