I've always enjoyed writing about singles and the singles chart, but this year more than any other I feel like that's been the biggest and most rewarding category of my music writing. Between the Singles Jukebox, my new Radio Hits One column, and the Monthly Report here in which I pick my five favorite singles every month, I've gotten to keep track of what I like and how it's doing pretty closely throughout the year. The interesting thing, though, is only about half of this top 50 was featured in that Monthly Report -- a lot of songs I was excited about when they were new kind of dropped off the charts quickly and I didn't have a chance to really appreciate how they'd hear on a daily basis like the best pop singles. Meanwhile, a lot of songs that I hated at first and gave low marks on the Singles Jukebox or just didn't think were anything special slowly wormed their way into my heart. So I feel like the end of the year is a good time to just admit which songs I really liked, whether I wanted to or not.

As per my tradition here, I'll be posting each of the 50 entries in the list one at a time throughout this week, 10 a day, and you can follow me on Twitter as I unveil each choice:



50. Jennifer Hudson - "No One Gonna Love You"
From 2002 to 2005, Rich Harrison was one of the most exciting ascendant producers in R&B, mixing the sample-driven funk bombast of hip hop with subtle songwriting and a sumptuous sense of texture. And then, for some reason, the hits dried up, and even the occasional megastars that still worked with him didn't pick his tracks as singles, while his girl group brainchild RichGirl was a bust. 2011 finally offered a little bit of hope, as Harrison scored a couple of great minor urban radio hits, "No One Gonna Love You" and Marsha Ambrosius's "Late Nights & Early Mornings," that retained his strengths as a songwriter and producer without clinging to his over-the-top signature sound.

49. Lil Wayne f/ Rick Ross - "John"
Rick Ross has been a part of a lot of great songs, but is so rarely the best thing about them. I can count on one hand the solo tracks he's done that I actually consider really good and memorable, and "I'm Not A Star" is one of them. So as odd as it was for Lil Wayne to invite Ross onto a remake of a year-old album track as one of the advance singles for Tha Carter IV, I enjoyed that he breathed new life into a good, kinda slept on song, and that Polow Da Don brought a little something new to his version of the original J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League beat. Shame about the title, though, seems just stupid to name the song so awkwardly after that stupid Lennon namecheck.

48. Britney Spears - "Till The World Ends"
I'm on record as hating pretty much every Britney single besides "Crazy" and "Toxic," but this one gradually got past my defenses bit by bit after the local Top 40 station played the remix with Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha into the ground. Still a pretty overrated song, but not bad.

47. Rihanna - "S&M"
Another song that I warmed to after a remix involving Britney, but in this case it was because Britney sounded so incredibly timid and wrong trying to sing that chorus that it made me realize how great Rihanna sounded ripping into it. It's pretty pathetic that this was the best of the SIX singles from Loud, though.

46. Sick Puppies - "Riptide"
Last year's "Odd One" was the Sick Puppies song I really like, but this one has a pretty nice triplet-heavy hook, and a prominent bassline for no other apparent reason than to give the hot chick bass player lots of face time in the video. It just cracks me up that there's a band with a name like Sick Puppies whose frontman basically sings like Jamie Walters that co-writes all their songs with Rock Mafia (who produced most of Miley Cyrus's hits).

45. New Boyz f/ The Cataracts & Dev - "Backseat"
Rap history is full of opportunists who stumble onto the charts via a buzzing regional scene, and then jump any bandwagon they can to stay in the national spotlight, but few have done it faster or more shamelessly than New Boyz, who are featured on the current Hot fucking Chelle Rae single. But I gotta say, I like this song better than "Like A G6," it's just some catchy, cool-sounding garbage.

44. Taylor Swift - "The Story Of Us"
I don't begrudge Taylor Swift her success but I really do wonder what the critics I know who worship her hear that I don't, because I feel like everything she does well as a songwriter is equalled by Sara Bareilles or any other garden variety VH1 adult contempo type. But now and again she comes up with something that actually has a pulse and I do get hooked in.

43. Sara Bareilles - "Gonna Get Over You"
As I alluded to above, Sara Bareilles is my Taylor Swift, I just adore her and almost every song and video she does for some reason. There are some singers where I just kind of have a crush on their voice and get all daydreamy whenever I hear it (see also: Kelly Clarkson, Keri Hilson, Eleni Mandell, Kelly Rowland).

42. Jason Aldean f/ Kelly Clarkson - "Don't You Wanna Stay"
Unfortunately, nothing on Clarkson's latest album made me swoon like this song. Man she needs to do a country album.

41. The Red Hot Chili Peppers - "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie"
At first I hated this as much as most other recent RHCP hits, especially once I realized how much that stupid "hey now, we've got to make it rain somehow" chorus resembled their last hit, "Snow (Hey Oh)." But something about the groove of the song and the way it kind of stretches out and builds this nice relaxed atmosphere eventually grew on me, against all my better instincts. And these lists are about being honest about what I enjoy above maintaining my dignity, for better or worse.



40. Three Days Grace - "Lost In You"
Three Days Grace is one of those post-grunge bands bands that you're absolutely sick of if you listen to rock radio, but have barely even heard of if you don't (alongside Seether, Theory Of A Deadman, Shinedown, etc.). But trust me, these guys are pretty awful and you'd hate them more than Nickelback if they were as visible. But this, the fourth single off their 2011 album, turned out to be a rare moment of tasteful restraint with a great guitar tone, and was somewhat predictably their second-least successful single ever.

39. Nicki Minaj - "Super Bass"
I don't really like most of this song all that much, and kind of feel like people have overrated it since it's so much closer to what a good Nicki Minaj solo single should be than earlier efforts like "Your Love" and "Right Thru Me." But the bridge has a strangely strong emotional effect on me, it wa really one of the best middle eights in pop music all year.

38. Rebecca Black - "Friday"
The whole Rebecca Black thing ceased to be any fun about as quickly as any other meme, but this was still one of the funniest, strangest, most accidental novelty hits the internet era has given us, and every moment of the song and the video is tattooed on my brain forever.

37. Katy Perry - "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"
I thought it was weirdly sweet of Katy Perry to kind of take Rebecca Black under her wing (particularly for one of the actual good singles from the neverending Teenage Dream campaign), because I think if everyone's really honest about it there's really not much of a talent gap between them.

36. Michelle Branch - "Loud Music"
I'm bummed that this song didn't really pop off, it sounded like such a hit to me. Would've been huge if Katy did it, obviously.

35. Maroon 5 f/ Christina Aguilera - "Moves Like Jagger"
This song seemed like the most garish desperate mistake on first blush, but as it quickly dominated the charts and pop radio I realized that I really like the vocal melody and Adam Levine's performance, and don't really mind the rest of it either. At any rate, it's an improvement on the uninspired initial three singles from Hands All Over before this bonus track swooped in and saved the project from being a total flop.

34. Diddy-Dirty Money f/ Trey Songz - "Your Love"
For most of Last Train To Paris, Dawn Richard and Kalenna Harper basically act as the Greek chorus of Diddy's oddyssey of heartbreak, tenderly singing out the emotions he can't quite express with his own voice. So it's kind of jarring, in a great way, when "Your Love" shows up with filthy come-ons like "want me to be your little slut?" or "LET YOUR TONGUE WALK ON THIS PUSS-AY!" In the context of the album it feels like one of the less adventurous cuts, but when it popped up on the radio it stuck out as one of Polow Da Don's most dramatic and thunderous productions yet, with all that subsonic bass and gorgeous vocoded backing vocals.

33. My Chemical Romance - "SING"
As much as I can't stand "Glee" and think the shower of shitty covers it fills the Hot 100 with these days is abhorrent, and kind of respect the rock bands like the Foo Fighters and Kings of Leon who refuse to have their songs featured in the show, I like what it says about My Chemical Romance that they didn't give a shit and were fine with it, especially for a song like this that actually makes sense on "Glee."

32. Lady Gaga - "Judas"
It's a testament to the enormity of Gaga's success that this is the lowest charting of her first 11 singles and widely considered a flop but still cracked the top 10. I kind of get why people think this is annoying or too similar to her other RedOne collaborations, but I still think it sounds really kinetic and inventive, and over time I've slowly come to prefer it to the bigger hit it was supposed to be the follow-up to, "Born This Way."

31. Miguel - "Quickie"
This song could so easily be too smugly obnoxious to stand, but the unexpected richness of Miguel's harmonies on that "I don't wanna be loved" hook and the creeping, swinging pace of the Fisticuffs beat make it just sound too damn good to dismiss.



30. Black Eyed Peas - "Just Can't Get Enough"
No matter how ridiculous and cartoonish BEP get, I can't help but appreciate that will.i.am still buries all this rap nerd detail in their songs, like the "Jam Master Jay" drums in "Just Can't Get Enough" that are so deep in the mix on "Just Can't Get Enough" that virtually nobody talks about it.

29. Melanie Fiona - "Gone & Never Coming Back"
Melanie Fiona's 2009 single "It Kills Me" went #1 on the R&B charts and left me could. This huge-sounding stadium soul banger stalled at #37, and she issued the relatively subdued "4 AM" as a follow-up that did even worse at radio. Hopefully that album will drop in 2012, though.

28. Nicki Minaj f/ Drake - "Moment 4 Life"
This is really one of the best beats of the year and I'm not sure why there weren't a billion freestyles over it. Nicki's singing on this is awful and her rapping isn't much better but Drake steps up for possibly the one and only time when he's the best MC on a collaborative track.

27. Young The Giant - "My Body"
A totally moronic, ridiculously anthemic song of which there just aren't enough on rock radio these days. According to the band they just threw it together one day in practice as a way to blow off steam, and then it became their first hit that they, for some strange reason, got invited to play at the VMA's. Not a promising band by any means, but the singer's voice is really unique and appealing so they've probably got a future.

26. R. Kelly - "Love Letter"
R.'s gradual commercial decline in the last few years has been a real bummer, especially because he clearly still knows how to write a great song but has lost his 'touch' in other, more intangible ways. When the Love Letter album was preceded by the nightmarishly desperate retro of "When a Woman Loves," I kinda gave up hope on the whole project, but then the album turned out to be pretty good and the title track was a great little sleeper hit that seemed to stay on the radio all year.

25. Chris Brown - “Yeah 3X”
I never really felt any kind of guilt or conflict about continuing to enjoy R. Kelly's music after he was revealed to have done some morally questionable things in his life, but I kind of strongly disliked Chris Brown's whole personality and voice and everything even before he turned out to be an abusive shithead. But the frustrating thing is that his music actually kinda got better after what should have been a career-ending ordeal, and so it became increasingly hard not to grudgingly enjoy at least one of his dozen or so post-comeback hits. For most people the track they made exceptions for was Chris's tribute to the rap stylings of Jermaine Dupri, "Look At Me Now," but personally I thought the cheesy Europop single he had out at the same time was, well, one of the best cheesy Europop R&B songs of the year. It says a lot about Chris's state of mind, though, that one of the most upbeat songs he's ever done still tells haters to "shut the fuck up" (while his biggest seductive slow jam of the year repeatedly berates a woman, "don't you be on that bullshit").

24. Pink - "Fuckin' Perfect"
By the time Pink released a greatest hits collection, I felt like a full blown fan of her singles and especially her last album, Funhouse, so I was happy that she threw a couple new songs out there and kept her hit parade running a little longer before having a baby and taking a well-deserved break. "Raise Your Glass" was nice but felt kind of short-lived, while "Fuckin' Perfect" seemed to hang around much longer and took a while to really grow on me, but it did. I still think the post-Cee Lo "look what kind of song title we can get on the pop charts" name of the song is kind of lame though.

23. Lupe Fiasco - "Show Goes On"
I'm fine with artists selling out if I have no real respect for their true artistic vision. The advance singles like "I'm Beamin'" that Lupe Fiasco released for his third album were horrible and after the album was (justifiably) shelved, fans protested and, according to Lupe, Atlantic Records basically gave him this song, told him not to say anything too deep or political on it, and that they'd use it as his lead single and release the album. It worked, his career's on a huge upswing, and he owes it all to making this stupid, catchy song (which I already really liked by the time I even had any idea about that damn Modest Mouse interpolation).

22. Incubus - "Adolescents"
"Adolescents" hit rock radio as Incubus's 'weird' new single, midtempo and brooding but also not quite one of their heartthrob power ballads. Then the album If Not Now, When? revealed that that was the closest thing to a radio single they'd written, and the song kind of started to sound huge and anthemic in the context of the album, which made me appreciate it more on the radio.

21. Meek Mill f/ Rick Ross - "Ima Boss"
E-40 has a song called "Rick Ross Horns" but I feel like horn loops have been sorely missed in mainstream rap lately, including in Ross's music and especially the kind of cheap synth horns that make "Ima Boss" sound like such a great hard plastic banger.



20. Coldplay - "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall"
Coldplay are forever teetering between major backlash and widespread "OK, they're not that bad" resignation, and I've been personally firmly in the latter camp ever since Viva La Vida, so I was happy to embrace a song with a title as designed to ignite the former sentiment as "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall," especially since it was so beautifully assembled and produced.

19. Lloyd f/ Awesome Jones!!!! - "Cupid"
There were murmerings of Polow Da Don doing a solo album after he upstaged his own artist, Rich Boy, on his biggest hit, "Throw Some D's," but it never seemed like something he was actually interested in pursuing. So Polow's odd relationship with the spotlight took a new turn when he started doing basically mixtape shouts on R&B songs, screaming "NEW LLOYD!" and "NEW SHIT" at the top of verses all over Lloyd's King Of Hearts and for some reason giving himself a featuring credit as 'Awesome Jones!!!!' on the album's best single.

18. Death Cab For Cutie - "You Are A Tourist"
It's weird to realize that two of the biggest indie rock success stories on mainstream radio over the past decade are bands that I still kind of think of as "Built To Spill wannabes but more mellow and songwritery" (Death Cab) and "Built To Spill wannabes but more rough and eccentric" (Modest Mouse). And it remains that the Death Cab singles I like the most are the ones that make me think "why is Built To Spill on the radio?" the first couple times I hear it, between "Cath..." and especially "You Are A Tourist," which actually has some BTS-y guitar leads.

17. Trey Songz f/ Drake - "Unusual"
In a year when both of these guys were badly overexposed, it was nice that they had the decency to occasionally grab a really hot beat.

16. The Joy Formidable - "Whirring"
It's interesting how when this song was released on an indie EP as they were an up-and-coming band, it was a 3-minute pop song, but by the time it became a major label radio hit, it was a 6-minute monster with a long noisy instrumental outro (although a lot of stations still played a shorter edit). In either incarnation, though, a great great song.



15. Travis Porter - "Bring It Back"
I didn't much care for their breakthrough hit "Make It Rain" (partly because what is even the point of having a song with that title after there was a much bigger hit with a much catchier Lil Wayne hook by that name not long ago), but this one was really just a blast, especially when the drums drop out for the chorus and that weird synth that sounds like a woman singing comes in.

14. Waka Flocka Flame f/ Kebo Gotti - "Grove St. Party"
Even though Flockaveli was one of my top 10 albums last year, I was never really that big on any of its first three hit singles. So I was happy when one of my favorite tracks became the late-breaking fourth single, as well as one of the first Lex Luger tracks on the radio that didn't sound like all the others people were used to from him.

13. Avril Lavigne - "What The Hell"
I feel kind of bad for Avril, her singles were surprisingly good this year but she kind of fell by the wayside of all the other girls with lesser Dr. Luke tracks crowding up the charts.

12. Marsha Ambrosius - "Far Away"
After sinking most of his post-Roc-A-Fella career into the supposedly important careers of Saigon and Jay Electronica, it's nice to occasionally hear Just Blaze remind us that he can actually make great left field radio hits. The times when I'd hear the full 7-minute album version on the radio were really special.

11. Adele - "Rolling In The Deep"
Every once in a while a song seems to just steamroll over the world with such a massive sense of ubiquity and consensus praise that I feel like whatever I have to say about it good or bad matters even less than usual. And while I would still occasionally throw my pointless, powerless dissenting opinion at a song like "Hey Ya," this is one of those times where I'll just say yeah, "Rolling In The Deep" is pretty fucking good, but you knew that already.



10. Kelly Rowland f/ Lil Wayne - "Motivation"
I never thought I'd see a year in which Kelly Rowland had a bigger hit than Beyonce (the biggest hit from 4, best thing I never had, peaked one spot higher on the Hot 100 than "Motivation," but only went gold where "Motivation" went platinum). I also never thought Destiny's Child's resident nice girl beta female would pull of such an ominously sexy femme fatale slow jam. I was happy to be proven wrong. I wish I could just wipe Lil Wayne's whole presence off of the song, though.

9. Cee-Lo Green f/ Melanie Fiona and Philip Bailey - "Fool For You"
A year after every cornball who doesn't really listen to R&B lost their shit for the horrible Bruno Mars-penned retro novelty "Fuck You," Cee-Lo finally got the biggest urban radio hit of his long career with an actual gorgeous soul song, dueting with one of my favorite new female voices in R&B over lush harmonies by a member of Earth, Wind & Fire.

8. Brianna - "Marilyn Monroe"
With most new female rappers following Nicki's wacky lead and crisply overenunciating in goofy fake accents, it was refreshing to hear Miami's Brianna casually knock out all these punchlines in such a loose drawl. This song still hasn't really hit big but every time I hear it on the radio it just feels so perfect and destined to be huge.

7. AWOLNATION - "Sail"
An electronic side project by the singer of post-grunge one hit wonders Home Town Hero, AWOLNATION provided rock radio with its most arresting and unlikely hit of 2011. In the year of shitty electro alternative like Foster The People, "Sail" was the perfect dark tangled flipside to the braindead hooks of "Pumped Up Kicks." And now it's in its 44th week on the Alternative Songs chart, and is still in the top 10.

6. Pitbull f/ Ne-Yo, AfroJack and Nayer - "Give Me Everything"
Early in his career, Pitbull seemed poised to become a major star, a fun, charismatic rapper who was at the center of several movements just then peaking in popularity (Miami rap, Lil Jon's crunk empire, and the new wave of Latin rap and reggaeton), with each single from his debut album hitting bigger than the last and some great guest verses raising his profile. Then, his momentum stalled and a half decade after everyone kind of forgot about Pit, he emerged as pop radio's rapper of choice at the exact moment when the clubby dance rap he excels at became the sound of popular music. I don't like most of his new music as much as 2004's M.I.A.M.I. (Money Is A Major Issue), but "Give Me Everything" was a pretty perfectly little encapsulation of what he does well intersecting with what's popping right now, and remains superior in every way to the song that supplanted it at #1 and ultimately became a bigger hit, LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem."



5. The Foo Fighters - "Rope"
Once a band has a greatest hits collection as packed with hits as the Foo Fighters and then keeps on releasing radio singles as good as "Rope," they're basically just showing off, going into overtime. The fact that they finally broke with the "All My Life"/"The Pretender" formula for a different kind of taut, brooding lead single with a more spacious groove and a buttrock cowbell jam section and a more unique, unpredictable melody just makes it even better.



4. Meek Mill f/ Young Chris - "House Party"
Instead of Kid N Play nostalgia or a more calculated club banger, the most fun single from 2011 rap's grimiest new star is an appropriately ugly, twisted jam detailing one fucked up party over creepier bells and synths than most of the year's street rap anthems.



3. Lady Gaga - "The Edge of Glory"
Clarence Clemons playing a solo on a huge top 10 hit for the first time in decades weeks before his death was both one of the most exhilarating highs and heartbreaking lows of 2011 pop music. I'm still really pulling for some kind of Clarence tribute, maybe at next year's Grammys, where Gaga and Springsteen sing a medley of this and "Hair" and some E Street classics.



2. Beyonce - "Countdown"
Every week that "Party" sits higher on the Hot 100 and R&B charts than "Countdown" just kills me. Why is this song not joining the pantheon occupied by "Crazy In Love" and "Single Ladies," or even just reaching the heights of a sleeper Beyonce classic like "Get Me Bodied"? Like my Gaga/Springsteen fantasy, I like to imagine this being refashioned as a New Year's Eve anthem and rocketing to #1 in the last week of 2011.



1. Miguel - "Sure Thing"
This was such a sleeper hit, slowly crawling both into heavy rotation and the deepest recesses of my consciousness, that I didn't even expect after "All I Want Is You" left me cold, that even when I first wrote about liking it, I ranked it lower than Rebecca fucking Black. But gradually this strange, offbeat track full of hamfisted metaphors revealed itself to be both an amazing production and a perfect vocal performance, and I drank in every second of it every single time it came on the radio, often singing it to my son in the backseat, because it's the kind of love song that's really easy to alter the lyrics to so it's not necessarily a romantic sentiment but just a song of total commitment and devotion to anyone you care about.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 05, 2011 at 7:06 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.