1. Lady Gaga - "The Edge of Glory"
This has been one of my favorite songs of the year since the moment I heard it, and I think I only held back from putting this at the top spot of the last list was because it was the same month I had Gaga as the #1 album and felt kind of redundant. But now it feels all the more huge and poignant because of the heartbreaking passing of Clarence Clemons, who's a huge part of why this song is just perfect to me. I made a remark a couple weeks ago on Twitter about how I want to start a campaign to have Gaga perform the song with Bruce and the E Street Band at next year's Grammys or something, and I would still really love to see that, but obviously no E Street performance will really be complete from now on.

2. Katy Perry - "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"
As far as leftfield sax solos on hits by current pop stars go, this is a distant 2nd to "Edge of Glory," but it's still a really fun song, and nice to have a tolerable song from the behemoth Teenage Dream singles campaign after songs as horrible as "Firework" and "E.T." topping the charts.

3. Lloyd f/ Awesome Jones - "Cupid"
I have a weird experience with this song because I liked it a lot when it first dropped and I listened to it on YouTube, and since then I've watched it climb up the charts but still haven't heard it on the radio or gotten a chance to really appreciate it as a 'single' the way I usually do with hit songs. Like seriously, it peaked at #13 on the R&B charts, but somehow I hadn't heard it once on any of the three urban stations in Baltimore and D.C. that I listen to in the car every day until I finally heard it on Friday, after the song had started to drop down the chart. Why did radio never pick up on the song here?

4. Sade - "Still In Love With You"
As much as I loved "Soldier of Love" and the album of the same name last year, I wasn't really in a rush to hear the single from Sade's new best-of until I heard that it was a Thin Lizzy cover, because that's just kind of badass. Turns out, the song is believed to be (although not officially credited as) written by Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore, who just passed away in February, so this beautiful recording of the song is kind of a nice if unintentional tribute.

5. Alter Bridge - "Ghost of Days Gone By"
As much cheesy commercial rock as I am known for defending, I will generally not go to bat for Creed, although I halfheartedly enjoy a couple of their singles. And I've definitely never given much thought to Alter Bridge, the band the non-Scott Stapp members of the band formed after they broke up, which is bizarrely still going even since the Creed reunion. But the singer, a guy who spells the name Myles with a Y, has always had a pretty impressive voice and even played with the members of Led Zeppelin a few years ago when they were thinking of forming a new band after Robert Plant opted out of a reunion tour. And now there's an Alter Bridge single I've found myself really liking, my favorite post-grunge power ballad since Shinedown's "Second Chance."

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 9:19 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.