And now we're in 2012, the year the Mayan calendar supposedly ran out. The world didn't end, but back when we still weren't sure if our days were numbered, this is what people listened to.
40 - "Someone Like You," Adele
39 - "Breathing," Jason Derulo
38 - "Talk That Talk," Rihanna featuring Jay-Z
37 - "Somebody That I Used to Know," Gotye featuring Kimbra
36 - "Rumour Has It," Adele
35 - "Princess of China," Coldplay featuring Rihanna
34 - "A Thousand Years," Christina Perri
33 - "Give Me Everything," Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer
32 - "Stereo Love," Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine
31 - "You Make Me Feel..." Cobra Starship featuing Sabi
We start with solo artists that don't feature anybody on their singles. And here is where we have our first encounter with one Adele Adkins, the British singer who I would say is undisputably the biggest music act in the world today by far. I mean, in today's music industry, going diamond in the U.S. and selling 27 million copies of an album worldwide seems practically impossible, but that's exactly what Adele has accomplished with her 2011 disc 21, from which her two entries in this section are taken. First, she bares her soul on a powerful piano ballad about coming to terms with the fact that an ex has found the happiness he couldn't find with her wih someone else. Then, she delivers an old-school soul raveup about how friends talk about her romantic life behind her. Both are dynamic in their own way, powered by her strong, versatile voice. She just has such personality and authenticity that no one can deny that her place at the top of pop has been well-earned. Jason Derulo is here with more R&B stuff about how he misses his ex constantly. It's pretty good. And Christina Perri returns with another Alanis-lite ballad from one of the Twilight movies. Watered-down angst for watered-down vampires. Sounds about right.
The rest are "featuring" songs. Half are by solo acts, the other half by groups. Rihanna teams up with Jay-Z on yet another sexy dance track. Her usual, enlivened by Jay's verse. She's a brand, and as such, you generally know what you're getting when her name is on the label. Belgian-born Australian Wouter "Gotye" de Backer made his American breakthrough with this weirdly catchy indie-pop ballad about a breakup, which features counterpoint vocals by New Zealander Kimbra Lee Johnson. It probably wouldn't have gotten noticed beyond his homeland without the animated video that went viral, but it was the strange power of the song that pushed it beyond just a mere YouTube senstation. It was so much different from everything else on the charts, so shockingly, it's this week's Uneasy Rider. And Pitbull teamed up with a Dutch DJ and two American singers for his first pop #1, a dance song about getting laid and such. Only significant thing to me is the line "I'm an American idol, getting money like Seacrest," which made me wonder if Casey ever got a shoutout in a Top 40 hit he played back in the day. I don't believe so, but you are all free to correct me if I'm wrong.
This section finishes with groups that employed assistance. In the decade since their debut, British band Coldplay had racked up multiple multiplatinum albums, toured the world multiple times, and had their share of hits. But still, they decided they needed to hook up with a pop diva to assure radio success in 2012, and so they enlisted the ubiquitous Rihanna on this bit of synth-heavy noise that sounds nothing like "Yellow" or "Clocks" or any of the other songs the band built their success on. In fact, Rihanna sings more on it than the band's singer, and if you'd told me that this was a Swedish-made Rihanna track "featuring Chris Martin." I'd have had no trouble believing it. Not a fan. Gym Class Heroes get Adam Levine to sing the hook on a rap that compares romance to a CD or an LP. I don't care. And dance-poppers Cobra Starship picked up a Top Ten with this noisy dance song featuring Rihanna soundalike Sabi. It just sounds like so many other songs these days. I'm not trying to be a grumpy old man here, but I have to be honest, some of these recent charts are getting to be a slog to get through, and songs like this are why.
30 - "So Good," B.o.B.
29 -"Love You Like a Love Song," Selena Gomez and the Scene
28 - "Party Rock Anthem," LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett and GoonRock
27 - "Without You," David Guetta featuring Usher
26 - "The One That Got Away," Katy Perry
25 - "Moves Like Jagger," Maroon 5 featuing Christina Aguilera
24 - "Drive By," Train
23 - "Brokenhearted," Karmin
22 - "What Makes You Beautiful," One Direction
21 - "Not Over You," Gavin DeGraw
This section is bookended by solo men. B.o.B offers to take his special lady on a world tour. More literate and less misogynistic that most popular rap, so a refreshing change. And Gavin DeGraw had his most recent hit with this song about romantic regret that has a cool little late-70s pop vibe to these ears. Ryan Tedder was involved in its creation, but I won't hold that against it.
Then we have a solo woman and a female-fronted group. Selena Gomez and her anonymous backup are her with a slickly funky bit of electropop. I'm not sure if it's studio effects, or if her voice sounds naturally more mature. Either way, I like it. Unfortunately, I don't think the title sentiment applies to the Bieb anymore. Poor kid. Katy Perry scored a sixth hit from her Teenage Dream album with this beat-heavy reminiscence of a past love that went wrong. She references Radiohead and June and Johnny Cash, but those allusions don't feel at all forced. To me, she's just interesting enough as a singer and songwriter to put her above the current pop diva crowd. And Boston duo Karmin had their biggest hit to date with this meh dance-popper dragged down by singer Amy Heidemann's Ke$ha-esque rapping. One Ke$ha is quite enough, thank you.
Only three "featurers" this time. LMFAO, a duo consisting of one of Berry Gordy's sons and his nephew, topped the charts with this now-ubiquitous bit of dancefloor idiocy. I don't know what Lauren Bennett and GoonRock do on this song exactly, and I don't care. Just brain-dead rapping, squggly keyboards, and other crap. It makes "I Gotta Feeling" sound like Mozart. David Guetta had another hit when Usher agreed to croon over some of his by-numbers beats. Really, with all the talent in French electronic music, it's a shame that this guy has become the superstar of the bunch. And Maroon 5 revived their flagging chart fortunes with this monster hit about having similar kissing abilities to a Rolling Stone ("Take me by the tongue and I'll know you") bolstered by the appearance of one of Adam Levine's then-co-judges on The Voice. I generally just turn it off as soon as I hear that opening whistle part, but I sat down and listened to the whole thing, and it's actually not too bad. They've done much, much worse.
Rounding out the first half are two groups. I didn't think Train could get any worse, but they did on this one. The song sounds more like generic pop than anything they'd put out before, and Patrick Monahan makes the mistake of attempting to rap. And even the lyrics hit new lows of forced currency ("My love for you went viral.") If they're not careful, I might start hating them even more than I do Matchbox Twenty. And One Direction, a boyband formed during a season of the British version of The X Factor, had their breakthrough U.S. hit with this catchy guitar-based pop song about a girl whose ignorance of her own attractiveness makes her even more alluring. Nothing world-changing, but as this kind of thing goes, well above average.
Next time: the rest of this thing.
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