Monthly Report: January 2013 Singles
1. Calvin Harris f/ Florence Welch - "Sweet Nothing"
First off, I should point out that I started a Spotify playlist of favorite 2013 singles, which I will update with new songs every time I do one of these lists (although one of these songs is not on Spotify). I was resistant to Welch's voice before "Shake It Off," but I can't front now, and this song is a pretty great use of it. Even the big pyrotechnic instrumental section following the chorus in all these big dance pop hits feels well earned here with the catharsis of her voice setting it up. Also one of the only big top 40 dance songs that, without really trying to, has a bit of the feel of '80s pop -- something about an earnest vocal performance with a British accent, I guess. Just an awesome song. Or at the very least, my favorite song to sing "muffins" in place of the word "nothing."
2. Rihanna f/ Future - "Loveeeeeee Song"
Even though by that point he'd already had Pluto and several hits out at that point, the release of "Turn On The Lights" as a single has become this really pivotal in Future's career in the last 6-8 months, where it kind of opened the floodgates and now he's on everybody's single (3 Future songs just in the urban radio top 10 right now, several more lower in the chart). There was a Future joint in the December list, and there'll probably one in the next couple lists, too, maybe for the rest of 2013 if he keeps up this pace. "Loveeeeeee Song" will be hard to beat, though, that hook is just tremendous, great combination of Future's truly ridiculous vocal performance and something really heartfelt and undeniable.
3. Meek Mill - "Dreams & Nightmares"
This was maybe my favorite rap song of 2012, and I always wanted more people to hear it and realize that maybe Meek's album has been a little underrated. But the fact that it doesn't have a chorus and only has any drums for a few bars in the middle of the song had me resigned to the fact that it could never be a single. So I was pretty overjoyed when they shot a video for the song and serviced it to DJs, obviously won't be a big club hit but it works surprisingly well in that context. I hate when people call this an 'intro,' I just call it the title track of Dreams & Nightmares, it's a 4-minute song after all.
4. Kelly Clarkson f/ Vince Gill - "Don't Rush"
The main single from Kelly's Greatest Hits package "Catch My Breath" was just OK but this song was a real standout among the new tracks. These two both have such beautiful voices that intertwine so well here. Still think Kelly needs to just break down and do a whole country album, but if she keeps parceling out country tracks here and there I can at least piece together a playlist.
5. The Wanted - "I Found You"
To the extent that I can feign any participation in the new school boy band wars, I've been a One Direction partisan just because they have at least one song I like. But now The Wanted have one, which isn't really that much different than the terribly annoying "Glad You Came" but in the huge falsetto harmony chorus, which almost has a bit of a Bee Gees vibe.
6. Destiny's Child - "Nuclear"
When all is said and done, I don't really understand what the point of this whole Destiny's Child reunion business was all about -- was this song an excuse for the Love Songs compilation to exist, or was the Super Bowl performance an excuse for the song and the comp to exist? Why did all this stuff happen around the same time if they weren't even going to perform "Nuclear" in the halftime show? It sounded from interviews like they recorded this song very quickly recently, so it's not like they just had it sitting around. Weird. In any event, I really dig this, after all these years of Pharrell paying lip service to loving Baltimore club music but not using that influence in any particular worthwhile way, he finally made a really dope track with the "Think" break.
7. Keyshia Cole - "Trust And Believe"
DJ Camper is really double dipping, he has two songs on the radio right now that sound pretty much exactly the same, this and Tamar Braxton's "Love And War." Both are dope, though. The whole thing with Keyshia hating on Michelle Williams on Twitter is pretty hilarious and stupid.
8. Watch The Duck - "Poppin' Off"
I feel like at this point popular music is just becoming a contest to see how many different kinds of songs can have lurching dubstep beats, from teen pop (Justin Bieber's "As Long As You Love Me") to alt-rock (Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive") to pop country (Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble") to beardy singer-songwriter music (Alex Clare's "Too Close") and on and on. Still, hearing that stuff a little bit on rap radio is still a mild shock, and I'm still not really sure what the deal is with these guys. It feels a little like one of those weird techno crossover songs on rock radio from the late '90s. Maybe it's the raspy Tom Waits vocals.
9. Juicy J f/ Young Jeezy and Big Sean - "Show Out"
The whole Juicy J solo project is interesting to me, the album being exec produced by Wiz Khalifa and frigging Dr. Luke could go really badly but I'm leaning towards being optimistic (partly because of the great production choices on Wiz's last album). Of course, after this song started to get some buzz, they recently released a newer single that's basically a The Weeknd single with 30 seconds of Juicy J, so fuck that, this song is way better. In the age of everybody shamelessly biting each other, though, I like how this song feels like an accidental subliminal "Mercy" retread -- like Mike Will Made It stumbled on a vaguely similar synth loop without meaning to, and then Jeezy did a hook with the same cadence, and then they put Big Sean on the track and he did the same basic flow he did on "Mercy" just because he only has a couple flows to begin with. I remember about 5 years ago I used the phrase "show out" in front of my brother, who'd never heard it before, and for the longest time he acted like that was just some weird slang I invented.
10. Brad Paisley - "Southern Comfort Zone"
When I did my year-end wrap up of the 20 best and 10 worst country hits of 2012, I put "Southern Comfort Zone" in the latter list, and I'd like to apologize to Brad Paisley for that, he's a talented dude and I should've given him the benefit of the doubt that the song would grow on me. The sound clips of "The Andy Griffith Show" and other stuff in the beginning of the song still make me want to shut it off every time, but the song itself just has a great rousing quality to it that gets to me.
Worst Single of the Month: Trinidad James - "All Gold Everything"
Since I did kind of enjoy having those 'worst' bits in my year-end lists recently, I thought I'd try it in this space too, although generally I'd rather focus on the stuff I actually enjoy. Seriously, though, this song is terrible. It's not fun, the production doesn't carry it, it's not a guilty pleasure, it's just garbage. Sometimes the humorless people that hate on all goofy Southern rap one hit wonders are actually right.
When all is said and done, I don't really understand what the point of this whole Destiny's Child reunion business was all about -- was this song an excuse for the Love Songs compilation to exist, or was the Super Bowl performance an excuse for the song and the comp to exist? Why did all this stuff happen around the same time if they weren't even going to perform "Nuclear" in the halftime show? It sounded from interviews like they recorded this song very quickly recently, so it's not like they just had it sitting around. Weird. In any event, I really dig this, after all these years of Pharrell paying lip service to loving Baltimore club music but not using that influence in any particular worthwhile way, he finally made a really dope track with the "Think" break.
7. Keyshia Cole - "Trust And Believe"
DJ Camper is really double dipping, he has two songs on the radio right now that sound pretty much exactly the same, this and Tamar Braxton's "Love And War." Both are dope, though. The whole thing with Keyshia hating on Michelle Williams on Twitter is pretty hilarious and stupid.
8. Watch The Duck - "Poppin' Off"
I feel like at this point popular music is just becoming a contest to see how many different kinds of songs can have lurching dubstep beats, from teen pop (Justin Bieber's "As Long As You Love Me") to alt-rock (Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive") to pop country (Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble") to beardy singer-songwriter music (Alex Clare's "Too Close") and on and on. Still, hearing that stuff a little bit on rap radio is still a mild shock, and I'm still not really sure what the deal is with these guys. It feels a little like one of those weird techno crossover songs on rock radio from the late '90s. Maybe it's the raspy Tom Waits vocals.
9. Juicy J f/ Young Jeezy and Big Sean - "Show Out"
The whole Juicy J solo project is interesting to me, the album being exec produced by Wiz Khalifa and frigging Dr. Luke could go really badly but I'm leaning towards being optimistic (partly because of the great production choices on Wiz's last album). Of course, after this song started to get some buzz, they recently released a newer single that's basically a The Weeknd single with 30 seconds of Juicy J, so fuck that, this song is way better. In the age of everybody shamelessly biting each other, though, I like how this song feels like an accidental subliminal "Mercy" retread -- like Mike Will Made It stumbled on a vaguely similar synth loop without meaning to, and then Jeezy did a hook with the same cadence, and then they put Big Sean on the track and he did the same basic flow he did on "Mercy" just because he only has a couple flows to begin with. I remember about 5 years ago I used the phrase "show out" in front of my brother, who'd never heard it before, and for the longest time he acted like that was just some weird slang I invented.
10. Brad Paisley - "Southern Comfort Zone"
When I did my year-end wrap up of the 20 best and 10 worst country hits of 2012, I put "Southern Comfort Zone" in the latter list, and I'd like to apologize to Brad Paisley for that, he's a talented dude and I should've given him the benefit of the doubt that the song would grow on me. The sound clips of "The Andy Griffith Show" and other stuff in the beginning of the song still make me want to shut it off every time, but the song itself just has a great rousing quality to it that gets to me.
Worst Single of the Month: Trinidad James - "All Gold Everything"
Since I did kind of enjoy having those 'worst' bits in my year-end lists recently, I thought I'd try it in this space too, although generally I'd rather focus on the stuff I actually enjoy. Seriously, though, this song is terrible. It's not fun, the production doesn't carry it, it's not a guilty pleasure, it's just garbage. Sometimes the humorless people that hate on all goofy Southern rap one hit wonders are actually right.
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