James Silkstone

Week Ending: 18th December 2010 Willow Smith - Whip My Hair ymKLymvwD2U There will be a few instances in this thread where we’ll end up with songs that are only making an appearance because they were popular on the internet or were ‘novelty’ in some way; Gangnam Style and Harlem Shake being two examples. Luckily Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ misses out Of those novelty tunes, I have to admit that Whip My Hair is probably one of the best. Not a song to be taken too seriously, after all it is about whipping ones hair, it was just a fun track to have around Christmas time. Willow annoys me though, especially her smug grins to the camera in the video which seem to read ‘Yeah, I’m 9 and now I never have to work another day in my life’. Still, she’s more tolerable than her brother but I won’t pretend I’m upset she didn’t really pan out for a legitimate career.

Adore this track, Alice Deejay's first two singles are absolutely amazing

Nearly done with 2010 now, hopefully should complete it by Sunday

Week Ending: 11th December 2010 Nichole Scherzinger - Poison 9joqPp3peLg This is just so utterly boring and forgettable – does anyone remember this? I certainly don’t and its bizarre that it managed to go Top Three in December during one of the biggest sale periods in chart history. It’s just boring, and fades incredibly quickly. David Guetta feat Rihanna - Who's That Chick? EAc4zHEDd7o I have to admit that as much as I loved Rihanna back in late 2010, and I did ‘Loud’ is a fantastic album, even I had to admit that the period where she had no less than three songs in the top ten at the same time was overkill. ‘Who’s That Chick’ is typically the worst of the three of them, and very much generic Guetta as well. That’s not to say I don’t like it, it’s alright as far as generic dance music circa late 2010 goes

You know what was really scary? My school was front and center because we produced Louis Tomlinson of One Direction so towards the final there was an increase in attention given to our school, the day they visited was rather exciting but very surreal having to cross over paparazzi and TV camera's just to get to Maths :D

I've never ever been able to stand 'That's Not My Name', way too repetitive and irritating for me

Week Ending: 4th December 2010 The X Factor Finalists 2010 - Heroes dHsCGoZst-w Bog standard talent show singers cover track for worthy charity. Nice intentions, nice original song, not too great a cover Olly Murs - Thinking Of Me X5w4N3pKnQw ‘Please Don’t Let Me Go’ was good, but it was this that truly converted me into a proper Olly Murs fan. It’s just such a fun, upbeat and catchy pop tune that shows off Murs’ charisma and charm very well Rihanna feat Drake - What's My Name? U0CGsw6h60k In many ways, Rihanna is an icon to my generation. 2010/2011 was easily her most popular period and she seemed to be everywhere, every boy wanted her and every girl seemed to want to be here judging by the amount of girls in my school who dyed their hair red after the video for this or Only Girl In The World. The unfortunate thing about this is that music can often be forgotten when an artist transcends popularity just in that field. The Spice Girls, Justin Bieber hell even One Direction at times are proof enough of this – luckily by this point that hadn’t happened with Rihanna yet (that would all come next album) and ‘Loud’ actually remains one of my favourite albums from her, and ‘What’s My Name’ a favourite from it It’s fun, catchy and is one of those Rihanna songs that should be utterly generic but are made somewhat special or stand out because of her. Surprising as she’s no world class vocalist, but there’s something about even her most generic of songs that still scream ‘Rihanna’. I love What’s My Name, I wasn’t too fond of it at the time but 4 years down the line I’ve grown to like it rather a lot

Hey guys, I started a blog here. Every Top Ten hit of the 00's (and 10's when I get to them) reviewed in chronological order. If you're interested check it out!!

The whole Robbie re-joining thing actually came across as very awkward and rather staged to me. I seemed to be the only one of that thinking at this point in time, everyone else was stoked

W/E: 27th November 2010 JLS - Love You More GAjLo_guTKs ‘Love You More’ was one of those annoying songs that you just knew was going to be a sure fire number one, despite the fact its bland as hell. It’s a love song sung by the most popular band around at the time, and was being released in aid of Children In Need. I would have no issue with this if, you know, the song in question was actually good. Not even good, just slightly interesting would do ‘Love You More’ is not interesting at all. Just a boring, clichéd boyband love song that you forget two minutes after listening too it. The three or so minutes it takes to listen to it aren’t torture or anything, though the ‘Day One’ exct bit is grating, but what’s the point when it leaves you with nothing after it? Sounds like a bad Savage Garden track. Not a fan. Ellie Goulding - Your Song D9AFMVMl9qE I was against this song majorly at the time for a variety of reasons; the two main ones being a lot of people I knew at the time seemed to be under the impression this was an original song and the second was that I felt Goulding, one of my favourite new artists of the year, was selling out a little for the sake of a big hit around Christmas time and commercial advertisement. I think I was entering my ‘hate the man’ phase. However, her version of ‘Your Song’ almost four years on is quite pleasing to my ears. She sounds sweet here and it’s just a nice listen and makes me nostalgic for late 2010 as well. All in all, not bad, but she’ll be back (not for a while) and she’ll be better than ever when it comes around Far East Movement - Like a G6 w4s6H4ku6ZY This song makes me want to float off into space, alone, and die. Never understood the appeal of this at all The Black Eyed Peas - The Time JwQZQygg3Lk As does this one. WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? JEEZ. This isn’t music... It’s just noise, set to an overly auto tuned chorus of a song I detest from a movie that I detest. They used to be so good, what the hell happened here? Who thought this sounded good? IT'S PAINFUL Westlife - Safe eNUTlexj7cU I don’t know if Westlife had stepped up their game by late 2010, or if the other entries this particular week were just that bad – because of all of them ‘Safe’ is probably my favourite!! No, but, I legitimately like it. I’m not even joking, its heartfelt but not in the normal ‘I want to punch all of them’ Westlife way. Or maybe it just sounds really good after ‘The Time’ and ‘Like a G6’ back to back. Like it not, Westlife were a very big part of my childhood due in essence to just the fact they would seemingly never go away so it’s quite nice, for me, that they went out on a high with their third best song The top two, for me, are ‘When You’re Looking Like That’ and ‘Amazing’ in case anyone’s bothered; with ‘Us Against The World’ and, controversially, ‘Bop-Bop Baby’ rounding out the top five.

The Saturdays seemed to have suffered from the number one curse. Not much has gone right for them since 'What About Us' hit the top spot, it is a tune though that said I'd have prefered 'Higher' or 'Ego' to reach number one I only recently discovered 'You Don't Know Me' and I bloody love it

W/E: 20/11/2010 Take That - The Flood aCHg5r6rFoI This is one of the best songs of the year. By far, it probably ranks in the top five songs of 2010 for me and after ‘Patience’ I’d go as far as saying that ‘The Flood’ is my favourite Take That song of all time. Robbie is back, yes, but it’s Gary Barlow who truly shines through on this magnificent piece of a pop song I’m almost embarrassed to talk about it I like it that much, the best Take That record in years and without a doubt the best top two single of the year as well. McFly feat Taio Cruz - Shine a Light r6GzjAPSut4 ‘Shine a Light’ is an interesting one to be honest, because it’s actually a really good song but the sound of this McFly album was so different to their last ones that it’s all a bit jarring. Luckily, the move to a more electronic sound actually succeeds with this song – the vocals aren’t too auto-tuned and there is a still an element of ‘McFly-ness’ in the song too I’ve never been head over heels for this, but it’s decent enough though I prefer their older and original sound any day

W/E: 13/11/2010 Alexis Jordan - Happiness 26jKtELitQE Literally the only thing I remember about this was the fact I found her insanely attractive at the time. Because, as nice a little love song as it is ‘Happiness’ really just isn’t all that interesting or memorable at all; I much preferred follow up single ‘Good Girl’ and the criminally ignored ‘Hush Hush’ which came out in 2011 ‘Happiness’ is a nice song, don’t get me wrong and I don’t hate it but it’s just very vapid and slightly uninteresting. The Saturdays feat Flo Rida - Higher 35LA3Rb6VOQ It is still unbelievable to me that ‘Higher’ only just managed to sneak into the top ten for one week, because this is The Saturdays at their peak for me. They will most likely never top that glory of a pop song that is ‘Higher’ – my favourite pop song of 2010 – and I even prefer it to quite a lot of Girls Aloud songs It’s just great pop and that’s really not much else that can be said about it; it does its job and it does it incredibly well. It’s just a joy to listen too, and try as they might the Sats will never top this. Their crowning moment of glory and it stalls at #10 – this should have been massive!

Never liked 'Beautiful' all that much if I'm being honest. Probably my least favourite single from the whole 'Stripped' era now I think about it

FYI, once 2010 is done this thread will go on a break for a while as there's a 00's thread/countdown thing I really want to do. I may even start a brand new thread for 2011 in the interests of not having one obscenely long one

W/E: 06/11/2010 Cheryl Cole - Promise This 8F1q0Vn4u4g ‘Promise This’ seems to have picked up something of a negative reputation over the last four years or so, and I really don’t understand why as I bloody love it. It’s a great little pop song, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of ‘Parachute’ but its certainly her best song to reach number one. I always found ‘Fight For This Love’ is a good song wasn’t great for her voice, and ‘Call My Name’ is literally 85% instrumental, though I do have to admit I’ve actually been enjoying ‘Crazy Stupid Love’ quite a bit recently. Rihanna - Only Girl (In The World) pa14VNsdSYM In my lifetime I cannot recall a time when an artist has been so big, omnipresent and invasive as Rihanna was in late 2010/early 2011 (Gaga in 2009 maybe), and with good reason as well as she really stepped up her efforts with the ‘Loud’ era – well, her writers did as Rihanna doesn’t have one writing credit on that album. She was EVERYWHERE at this point in time, particularly with people around my age and I knew so many girls who copied her red hairstyle at the time ‘Only Girl’ is a very good song, and I certainly don’t think Rihanna would be where she is now without it however I do feel it has been overshadowed now by ‘We Found Love’. She may not have written a word, but she sells what she’s singing very well and by the end you kind of want her to be the only girl in the world, she makes a very good case for it. Nelly - Just a Dream N6O2ncUKvlg Nelly had long since fallen into obscurity for me before ‘Just a Dream’ came around. The last I remembered of him before this was some god awful collaboration with Fergie in late 2007, and to be honest I had all but forgotten that he existed by this point and to see him back in the top ten was a bit jarring and odd Especially seen as though ‘Just a Dream’ was the best thing I’d heard from him since ‘Work It’ in 2003. I loved Nelly’s first two albums, they hold many childhood classics such as ‘Ride With Me’, ‘Dilemma’ and of course ‘Hot in Here’. But in the mid 00’s he seemed to just release bad song after bad song, the low point being ‘Flap Your Wings’, so this was a very welcome return to form.

Day & Night and it's follow up Something Deep Inside are two of the best pop songs of the whole decade IMO.

I was crazy about 'In Your Head' for so long when I first heard it, sounds a little dated now but still quite good

W/E: 30/10/2010 Katy Perry - Firework QGJuMBdaqIw Now, don’t get me wrong I like ‘Firework’ as a song, its good pop and I’m all for the intended message behind it but the act of telling people they’re a ‘firework’ has always kind of stopped me from loving it. I’m sure Perry and her 16 writers mean to say that by being a ‘firework’ the person in question is something that lights up and is beautiful and appreciated. Nice. However, I’ve never been able to look past the fact that fireworks light up for about four seconds, are appreciated for those 4 seconds and then everyone forgets they ever saw it and moves on with their life. So, to me, this song is more a depressing commentary on life than anything else But, cynicism withstanding, thats no to mean I dislike Firework; it’s perfectly pleasant sounding and I think it’s probably the best she’s ever sounded. I do have a soft spot for the ‘Boom-Boom-Boom, even brighter than the Moon’ parts even if they are a bit over the top and cheesy. I’m fairly sure I would love this if I could just see beyond the flaw in the whole firework metaphor, still as Katy Perry songs about self help go this is certainly better than ‘Roar’ Jay Sean feat Nicki Minaj - 2012 (End of the World) 4uFalk1y38I God, I had completely forgotten that this ever existed! Not surprising too, this isn’t all that memorable really and its sad that this is probably the last we’ll ever see of Jay Sean too. A once promising British RnB star taken over by the glamour of dance-RnB fusion ‘2012’ is just boring as a song, Minaj lifts it slightly but ultimately I’ve forgotten how the song started before its end. I like the whole ‘make the most of life’ message, but there are much better songs that get that message across and ‘2012’ is just boring for me. N-Dubz - Best Behaviour 9n85vK5Ozns So, after being (un)pleasantly surprised by their previous top ten ‘We Dance On’ earlier in 2010, Dappy and co return to the normality of mediocrity with ‘Best Behaviour’ which to be fair is more listenable than the likes of ‘Papa Can You Hear Me’ or ‘Ouch’. The last top ten single from them, and I’m not sorry to see them go one bit

W/E: 23/10/2010 Duck Sauce - Barbra Streisand uu_zwdmz0hE The most relevant Barbra had ever been to my generation, and she wasn’t even featured! Unlike ‘Riverside’ I actually appreciated the novelty and fun of this track for a while until it became annoying, and looking at its chart run I am surprised to see it wasn’t really THAT massive at all There’s not much you can say about this, it just repeats the ‘ooo-woo-ooo’ sound over and over again before randomly saying ‘Barbra Streisand’ on a loop for 3 minutes. In 2014, this seems old, dated and almost unbelievable that it was actually a thing and popular but back in 2010? Turning your head dramatically and saying ‘Barbra Streisand’ was pretty darn funny. And none of us even really knew who she was, which makes it all the more amusing in my head. Joe McElderry - Ambitions _J-ZzSKNW_8 Back with yet another happy go lucky cover about overcoming struggles, Glee are back! Wait? What? This is an X Factor winner? Oh look at that it is. Joe, Joe, Joe I liked you for about one performance, his excellent rendition of Robbie’s “No Regrets”, before I moved onto to Olly. There was potential for Joe to have become the biggest male X-Factor star to date, he had the voice and the looks for sure but some kind of musical disaster happened between December 2009 and this point. I’m also pretty sure this isn’t even his song, I’m sure I read it’s a cover. This is NOT a song to start a career on, it actually should have been used as his winners single as it is better than listening to him drone out ‘The Climb’. But still, with this he was kind of doomed from the start. Mike Posner - Cooler Than Me mqWq_48LxWQ A song for anyone who has ever felt like someone is looking down at them, a song to shame all the people who feel they are better than you – for me, Cooler Than Me was one of the more relatable songs of the year. High School can be a jungle, and people often do think they’re a cut above and this is just a big ‘F You’ anthem for those people It may not seem as it would be, but this song is very quotable and weirdly meaningful for me in a way. I love the ‘Behind your makeup, nobody even knows who you are’ line, and Posner’s lyrics have a confidence that convince you that the person being sung about is the one in the wrong. All in all, just a really cool song with a lot of good memories attached as well as a surprisingly strong moral point. You’re not better than anyone else, kids, remember that. Mike Posner said so.

W/E: 16/10/2010 Cee Lo Green - Forget You bKxodgpyGec A while back I said that I was pleased when Jason DeRulo’s single “Ridin Solo” finally gave men a don’t give an F break up anthem, well five months down the line and we have another although the two vastly differ. ‘Forget You’ (as I will be calling it here) is simply a fantastic break up and burn song that you can’t help but imagine yourself singing to an ex who’d messed you about a bit It’s poppy, fun and light demeanour masks the bitterness and anger very well here and ‘Forget You’ is all the better for it. It’s quite possibly the nicest screw you song ever written. This was SO insanely popular around my parts at the time, and I think it’s probably because the message here is so universal. We’ve all had the partner who’s not treated us well, or taken advantage of our good nature and for three and a half minutes our frustrated feelings are vocalised perfectly. One of my favourite songs of the decade. Robbie Williams & Gary Barlow - Shame tv49bC5xGVY Now, I like Robbie as much as the next guy and I like a little bit of Take That as well but Barlow and Williams had never seemed more out of date and old news as they did here. Sure, for me this was probably due to the fact I was born in July 1995 so completely missed Take That’s initial era so the novelty and nostalgia factors of seeing Robbie and Gary on the same record together is totally lost And that’s what the matter with ‘Shame’ – it is lyrically honest at least, but music is coming second to the fact that Barlow & Williams are in the same song for the firs time in 16 years and it’s like someone forgot to put in a good melody. Lyrically the song alludes to the years that the two weren’t exactly best friend but it’s just too nice to be interesting – they could’ve made an awesome song about their adversity and subsequent make up but ‘Shame’ is not awesome, it’s dull. To think, we could have had a ‘No Regrets Part II’ or something but instead we got this. A shame. Swedish House Mafia - Miami 2 Ibiza LCH1AsUydSc Eugh, this was so annoyingly everywhere amongst my friends at the time. There was probably a time when I found this at least somewhat bearable but I heard it way too many times in late 2010 for me to ever enjoy it again – and that’s not even an exaggeration. Every party, every bus rise, it was seemingly constantly played on the TV into my schools cafeteria and some girls danced to it at our schools talent contest It became white noise to me, utterly annoying and I’ll take pleasure in never hearing it for about 30 more years. Kings Of Leon - Radioactive wPBbMbKSZrQ Kings of Leon fans hate me. Well, I assume so as I gladly admit that I was one of those glory fans who latched on at the end of 2008 when ‘Sex on Fire’ and ‘Use Somebody’ were both absolutely massive and hadn’t been overplayed yet. Those two songs are utter anthems, and much bigger than the band itself really. They had crossover appeal, but digging a bit deeper into Kings of Leon’s back catalogue shows that they were changes from the usual sound ‘Radioactive’ seems to be more in tune with what they’d done before, but to us idiot glory fans it was dull and boring compared to the two songs we knew. I went off them quickly, and to this day I maintain and admit I was a glory fan into a band for a year because they’d done two good songs and were deemed the cool thing. ‘Radioactive’ does just bore me in comparison unfortunately

W/E: 09/10/2010 Tinie Tempah feat Eric Turner - Written In The Stars YgFyi74DVjc Best Tinie Tempah song ever!!! I seriously loved this and must have played it on a loop about 50 times after I’d heard it for the first time. Rappers talking about the ‘struggle’ and what not is not a new concept at all, but what makes this for me is Eric Turner and his beautifully sung chorus – and I gather it’s the same for a lot of other people too. Tinie’s good here and everything but he just can’t hold a candle to what Eric Turner does here If we were subjected to about 4,000 different versions of “Read All About It” a year later – could we at least have an Eric Turner solo version of this? I could listen to this chorus for days, in fact I should probably change my opening statement from “Best Tinie Tempah song ever” to “Best Tinie Tempah chorus ever”. Labrinth - Let The Sun Shine u98kNNtofFs And here’s yet another ‘so happy sounding I can’t in all good conscience hate this’ song. Let The Sun Shine is nice and all that, but it does bore me a little especially when you think that ‘Earthquake’ was probably waiting in the wings at this time Like I said, this is all very nice and I do like it for the positive sound its host too but it’s all just a bit dull for me – and clearly filler for Labrinth too with his album not even reaching stores until early 2012. Adele - Make You Feel My Love 0put0_a--Ng Surging into the top ten after a no doubt run of the mill wannabe diva performance on X Factor, Adele’s version of ‘Make You Feel My Love’ marks her first top ten in a decade where she would go on to astronomical success. Of course, in October 2010 we hadn’t yet heard ‘Rolling In The Deep’ and that level of success could never have been predicted Her version is nice enough, but I’ve always found the song on the boring side no matter who the singer was. The lyrics are beautiful, but the whole affair is always a little too slow and sad for me. Enrique Iglesias feat Nicole Scherzinger - Heartbeat NVk4vENObiI If it wasn’t for the fact Nicole Scherzinger is present in the video, I probably would have forgotten about ‘Heartbeat’ all together by now. It was a very ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ kind of top ten hit but I will concede that this is A LOT better than Enrique’s previous outing with “I Like It” and almost seems like a masterpiece when compared to some of Scherzinger’s solo output. Iglesias & Scherzinger were one of those duet partners that you wouldn't think would ever work together, but no one was too shocked when they did either. ‘Heartbeat’ is a nice listen, the two actually have chemistry and it’s nice hear them both sing about something a little heartfelt for a change.

'Hallelujah' is one of those rare songs that has multiple versions, and I like all of them. I like the undersated Cohen & Buckley versions but also appreciate what Alexandra does with it. Best X-Factor winners single by a mile.

W/E: 02/10/2010 Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are LjhCEhWiKXk His ‘official’ debut single now, Bruno Mars was probably one of my favourite things about music in late 2010. ‘Just The Way You Are’ was insanely big at back then, and though I think its become overplayed now I did love this quite a lot at the time – and so did many people at school I seem to recall. It’s just kind of hard to hate a song that’s so positive about a woman and her beauty in a way that was refreshingly not outright objectification. In all honesty, this is probably the first song we’ve come across that has become a classic and I am quite pleased about that. Because it is rather lovely, and actually puts across a far healthier message to both girls and boys than songs about money, hoes and swag. Sometimes, we just need a damn good honest love song. Emma's Imagination - Focus m5wkGPiLMhg Last top ten single as a result of Sky1’s “Must Be The Music” and now and the second top ten in three weeks for Emma’s Imagination. Of the three tracks I’ve had to review, this one is by far and away my favourite. It’s do moody, and dark and quite a way away from her previous hit “This Day”. I’m not saying I’m a fan of Emma’s Imagination, but if an album was to appear I think I might have to check it out. Because I really like this Alex Gaudino - I'm In Love (I Wanna Do It) 8rTMB74hbwc And we’ve reached yet another track that I have absolutely no recollection of. It’s alright in all honesty, but I find it a wee bit repetitive and there’s nothing really special about this to make it stand out. Probably why I’d forgotten it. To give it something, whoever the girl is singing on this has a good voice and her parts are what make this The chorus is vaguely coming back to me, but this is just forgettable dance fodder as far as I’m concerned and the chorus does kill what is built up in the verses, which are really quite good

W/E: 25/09/2010 Usher feat Pitbull - DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love C-dvTjK_07c Now, considering as I was so vitriolic about Usher’s foray into dance-pop with ‘OMG’ I risk making myself look like a massive hypocrite when I state that I frankly love ‘DJ Got Us Falling In Love’. It’s just such a good dance song, and the most I’d enjoyed an Usher song in a good five years. I shouldn’t like it but I do, I’m not even sure why I like it so much when its not a million miles away from songs I utterly despise. I will say that Pitbull slows it down a little, but other than that I have no complaints here. Shontelle - Impossible NWdrO4BoCu8 I like this a lot, and I was more than surprised when it became a second top ten hit for Shontelle as her previous top ten single ‘T-Shirt’ the year before seemed to scream one hit wonder. ‘Impossible’ will now predominantly be remembered as James Arthur song, and thats fine with me as his cover was one of the more decent winners tracks, but for me this original version will always be the more superior Arthur’s is a bit too shouty for me, and Shontelle’s restraint really makes this what it is. She’s all but disappeared now, a two hit wonder so to say, but then again it aint easy being the second biggest star from Barbados.