Saturday, September 26, 2020

 



My latest Western Blot release, the Casi-O EP, is now on Spotify, Apple, and all the other usual streaming platforms. I also put the new songs at the top of my Featuring Al Shipley playlist of all my music that's on Spotify. 

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 205: Public Enemy

Friday, September 25, 2020




Public Enemy's new album What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is out today. It's their first album for Def Jam in over 20 years, with a million big name guests. And it caps a weird year when the group pretended to fire Flavor Flav as a publicity stunt, which was just embarrassing. But it feels like Public Enemy's legacy has reverberated in a lot of different ways of late -- the phrase 'Sister Souljah Moment' came back into use in the latest election, Nick Cannon had a Professor Griff moment with Professor Griff, and just a general political atmosphere that otherwise makes PE's old records feel as timely as ever. 


Public Enemy deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Miuzi Weighs A Ton
2. Yo! Bum Rush The Show
3. Too Much Posse
4. Raise The Roof
5. Show 'Em Whatcha Got
6. Prophets Of Rage
7. Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic
8. She Watch Channel Zero?!
9. Party For Your Right To Fight
10. Security Of The First World
11. Power To The People
12. Burn Hollywood Burn (featuring Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane)
13. Fear Of A Black Planet
14. B Side Wins Again
15. Who Stole The Soul?
16. Move! 
17. How To Kill A Radio Consultant
18. More News At 11
19. Tie Goes To The Runner
20. Race Against Time
21. Whole Lotta Love Goin On In The Middle Of Hell
22. Unstoppable (featuring KRS-One)

Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Yo! Bum Rush The Show (1987)
Tracks 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 from It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Me Back (1988)
Tracks 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 from Fear Of A Black Planet (1990)
Tracks 16, 17 and 18 from Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Back (1991)
Track 19 from Greatest Misses (1992)
Tracks 20 and 21 from Muse Sick-n-Hour Message (1994)
Track 22 from He Got Game (1998)

My earliest memory of Public Enemy was I think my brother borrowed a cassette of Fear Of A Black Planet from a friend. I couldn't believe how long the album seemed to be, I'd never seen an album with 20 songs before (this was a couple years before I got into They Might Be Giants). So I remember a little of PE in their prime, which seems more and more like a remarkable and unique moment in hip hop history as time goes by. But mostly, I remember their decline, the endless procession of independent albums with bad production and awkward titles like New Whirl Odor and How You Sell Soul To A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul? So I wanted to focus on their prime early era here. 

What The Bomb Squad did is still really impressive to me, there's just so much going on in there. Even today in the time of Kanye West and Travis Scott songs with a small army of producers making songs with multiple beat switches and tons of samples, it doesn't feel like many people in recent decades have really risen to the challenge of making rap beats as layered and detailed as the PE classics. Yo! Bum Rush The Show is one of those debuts that I think was probably great at the time but sounds a little dated because of how big a growth spurt the group had on the next record, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back is still just crazy from front to back. 

Notably, Chuck D says "it takes a nation of millions to hold me back" on "Raise The Roof," a year before that became (sort of) the title of their greatest album. And of course Chuck later named another one of his groups after "Prophets Of Rage." But there's also the seeds for a lot of songs by other artists in these tracks. Madonna sampled "Security Of The First World" on "Justify My Love," Jay-Z sampled "Show 'Em Whatcha Got" for "Show Me What You Got" and used Chuck's "Prophets Of Rage" flow on "Some People Hate." 

The odd thing about Sister Souljah's name becoming this huge symbolic thing in national politics is how low profile her role in Public Enemy was. She only released one solo album that had one Chuck D verse, and during her tenure as a member of Public Enemy, her musical input on Apocalypse 91 was pretty minor -- she has a feature credit on "Move!" which I can't even identify her role in (the female vocal on the chorus that sounds like a sample?) and an audible cameo on the preceding track "By The Time I Get To Arizona" (which makes me wonder if her credit on "Move!" was a misprint that was meant to appear next to "Arizona"). 

My weird personal run-in with PE was when Chuck D tweeted my name along with a bunch of other writers who contributed to a Rolling Stone year-end list of hip hop albums. I thought it was kind of funny because it was a really diverse list that had plenty of veterans, independent artists, and socially conscious rappers, but it didn't look that way to him I guess. He should probably be more offended by one of my first Pitchfork reviews, of his band Confrontation Camp

Public Enemy released a Greatest Misses compilation of rare material (half outtakes and half remixes) over a decade before they released a Greatest Hits collection, and it went gold and had a charting single, so I wanted to include a deep cut from that. And I kept going on to the end of their original Def Jam run, I remember being 12 and seeing Muse Sick-n-Hour Message in a CD store and shaking my head at the title/cover, but "Race Against Time" is pretty awesome. And their reunion with Spike Lee to soundtrack He Got Game was kind of the group's last hurrah as a mainstream act, it's a spotty album but has some moments. 

TV Diary

Thursday, September 24, 2020





a) "Raised By Wolves" 
My wife saw the trailer for Ridley Scott's new space epic "Raised By Wolves" and got excited about it, so I decided to finally look into how to get HBO Max. On the upside, it comes free with the HBO subscription in my cable package, but on the downside, Xfinity's cable box doesn't support HBO Max yet, so I have to watch their shows on a computer. Still, it's been kind of nice to lay in bed on Thursdays watching "Raised By Wolves" on my laptop. It's a very strange show -- a hundred years in the future, Earth is destroyed in a war between atheists and members of a religion that doesn't exist yet, and two androids are sent in a spaceship to another planet to birth and raise a bunch of human embryos. Ridley Scott has always had a particular way of depicting human-like androids played by actors, and the ones here, played by Amanda Collin and Abubakar Salim, give great eerie performances. There's a lot of strange twists and turns to the story, 70% into the season I'm still kind of undecided on whether I love it or find it to be just a very odd little show. 

b) "Pure" 
The British series "Pure" was already canceled by the British channel that produced it before its only season was released in the US by HBO Max, but it's pretty good, a quick 6 episodes worth checking out. Charly Clive plays a woman with OCD who has a constant stream of intrusive sexual thoughts, sometimes obviously it's played for awkward laughs but mostly it's a pretty empathetic character study. Irish actress Niamh Algar is one of the leads on both "Raised By Wolves" and "Pure," so I feel like she should have some weird title like 'the queen of HBO Max.' 

c) "Frayed" 
"Frayed" is another British import on HBO Max, about an Aussie woman in the 1980s who'd started a posh new life in England and then has to move back to Australia with her family after her husband dies. The whole premise feels very "Schitt's Creek" but tonally it doesn't really cohere that much for me. Ben Mingay's scenes are really funny but a lot of the rest of the show drags.

d) "Search Party" 
By the time the second season of "Search Party" finished airing on TBS almost 3 years ago, I had really started to feel like the show had run out of steam and its comedic tone had soured a little with the increasingly dark plot. But then the show moved to HBO Max for its third season and seemed to attract a bigger and more enthusiastic audience, so I'm giving it another chance and enjoying it, although it feels weird to go so long between seasons, and is unfortunately something we'll deal with a lot because of these long Covid hiatuses. It still feels a little like the hilarious scenes with John Early and Meredith Hagner clash with the murders driving the storyline, but the show is walking that tightrope better now than before, and the lawyer characters played by Shalita Grant and Louie Anderson are hysterical. 

My 5-year-old's favorite author besides Dr. Seuss is Mo Willems, he's just obsessed with the Pigeon and Elephant & Piggie books. So I was pretty thrilled to see HBO Max put up a bunch of Mo Willems stuff last week: "Don't Let The Pigeon Do Storytime," a live special directed by Bobcat Goldthwait of Willems and a bunch of comedians performing his work at the Kennedy Center, and over a dozen animated shorts based on his books that I guess were released elsewhere online years ago. It's funny to hear Willems voice the Pigeon after I've read the books to my son hundreds of time and come up with my own voice and style of delivering the lines. 

My family loved the first 2 seasons of "Infinity Train" on Cartoon Network, it kind of has that smart, sensitive, highly serialized vibe of "Steven Universe" but I got into it more because I found it funnier and the seasons are much shorter and more digestible. It moved to HBO Max for the 3rd season, so my kid watched the whole thing a couple times this week, and it was as sweet and funny and moving as the previous seasons. 

g) "Woke"
Lamorne Morris was so consistently great for 7 seasons of "New Girl" that I was really rooting for his new Hulu vehicle. But it really feels like "Woke," about a black cartoonist who gets more socially conscious after being profiled and assaulted by police, would not have played very well in 2019 and it plays much worse in 2020. The cast has chemistry and there's good moments sprinkled throughout the show, but it mishandles the big stuff so much, particularly when his social awakening is represented by him beginning to hear black markers and bottles of malt liquor speak to him about pro-black politics, it's just really stupid. 

h) "Ratched"
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is a great movie and all but I don't really get the idea of basing a whole series around one of its supporting characters, especially with the marketing that calls Nurse Ratched "one of the world's most iconic characters," I mean, c'mon. Ryan Murphy has done a lot to make Sarah Paulson into a bona fide star, but at this point I want someone else to make vehicles for her, it's getting so boring and she has a wider range than he does. 

i) "Away" 
Every time I watch the new Netflix series "Away," where Hilary Swank leads the first manned mission to Mars while her family goes through crises on Earth, I think about Hulu's 2018 series "The First," where Sean Penn leads the first manned mission to Mars while his family goes through crises on Earth. "Away" isn't bad, and I hate to give Sean Penn credit for anything, but "The First" was a much better, more compelling show. 

j) "The Duchess"
This Netflix show is a raunchy comedy about a Canadian woman raising a kid in England, it's funny here and there but feels kind of broad and obvious. 

This British import on Peacock imagines a modern world where Africa (here called 'the Aprican Empire' for some reason) colonized Europe hundreds of year ago, and black people are the historical oppressors of white people. I'm kind of amused that Roc Nation co-produced this show and tried to promote it along the lines of being kind of an uplifting show for black viewers because it hasn't really been received that way at all. A lot of the show is just kind of a 'star crossed lovers' soap opera about an interracial romance, but even when it does deal with larger themes, it really doesn't feel like they've gotten across whatever they were trying to say here. 

One of the millions little ways that this year is different from every previous year of our lives is that instead of a flood of new network shows debuting in September, there's a small trickle, most of them international productions acquired to air in the US. So pretty much the only new scripted series on NBC this month is "Transplant," which started airing in Canada back in February. The stupid/clever title refers to the main character being a Syrian doctor who starts working in a Toronto hospital after coming to Canada as a refugee, but it's a good show, definitely one of the better medical dramas I've seen in recent years. 

m) "Coroner" 
"Coroner" is another Canadian show, picked up by The CW to fill their schedule. An okay show, but a little dry, and I think Serinda Swan just lacks screen presence or something, she can't really carry a show. 

n) "Van der Valk"
Apparently the original "Van der Valk" series, about a British detective solving crimes in Amsterdam, ran in the UK back in the '70s and '90s, and this is just a modern reboot with a new actor. I have no frame of reference for the original, but I like this, Marc Warren is kind of a charmingly terse, reserved screen presence. 

o) "Julie And The Phantoms"
This Netflix series is an odd little show where a teenage musician plays a song that conjures the ghosts of the 3 members of the band who died 25 years ago after eating some spoiled hot dogs (like, seriously, I have no idea what this show's opening scene is about other than trying to scare kids out of buying food from street vendors). It's kind of cartoony and silly in some moments but really earnest in others, I don't know if tweens or whoever the target audience is would actually like this show, but it's kind of charming for what it is. 

p) "Record Of Youth"  
Another South Korean show that wears me out with these 70-minute episodes. Kind of a nice relatable romance story, would watch it more if the episodes were shorter. 

q) "The Boys" 
There's something very fitting about Aya Cash from "You're The Worst" joining the cast of "The Boys" for its second season, since they're both kind of by definition about characters who are huge assholes. The main difference is that "You're The Worst" gave its characters some occasional redemption, while "The Boys" just gives them lethal superpowers. Antony Starr really deserves awards, Homelander is one of the most charismatically, horrifyingly awful characters on TV right now and he plays it so well, and the show has kept supplying these big creepy gorey moments like his scenes with the shapeshifter, but things like the Hughie/Starlight relationship still kind of ground the story and give you someone to root for. 

r) "A.P. Bio" 
I thought "A.P. Bio" had really hit its stride in the second season, especially with the addition of Elizabeth Alderfer, the show kind of needed someone Glenn Howerton's character liked and got along with so it wasn't just him condescending to and deceiving everyone all the time. So I was disappointed and then relieved when NBC canceled the show last year, and then decided a month later to do the 3rd season on Peacock. I kind of think of "A.P. Bio" as being the show "Community" would've been if the whole series was more like the pilot, and it was just Jeff Winger being miserable in flyover country (also, both shows have running gags about people being mean to David Neher). "A.P. Bio" did do one "Community"-style meta episode this season, however -- the ostensible episode was only a few minutes long, with many many 'previously on A.P. bio' and 'on the next A.P. Bio' segments before and after it. I also really enjoy the music choices on this show -- The Ramones as the theme song, The Specials and Tom Waits in recent episodes, etc. 

s) "Enslaved" 
This EPIX docuseries is pretty interesting, Samuel L. Jackson hosts and he gets together with historians to research the African slave trade and find out about his own ancestors, and they take scuba divers to discover sunken slave ships. I think it's cool that a big Hollywood star did a project like this that's very research-based instead of just making another violent period piece slavery movie. 

t) "The Vow" 
"The Vow" is an HBO miniseries about the NXIVM cult that made headlines a few years ago when "Smallville" actress Allison Mack was arrested for sex trafficking connected to her role in the cult. I'm not up to date with all the episodes that have aired so far but it's pretty weird, sometimes unintentionally funny stuff. 

u) "Sing On!"
This Netflix show is a very goofy singing competition hosted by Titus Burgess where the aim is to sing pop songs as accurately (i.e. as close to the original singer's performance) as possible -- not imitate then, just nail the notes and the timing, which is measured semi-scientifically like video games like "Rock Band." So it's really just competitive karaoke, but I like the way the rules and the eliminations work, it's fun to watch. 

v) "The American Barbecue Showdown" 
I only watched this Netflix show this week because I had a coupon for a local bbq restaurant and knew I'd be able to satisfy the cravings I got from watching it. I was kind of amused at how tough the judges were on the competitors, though, I guess I just expected barbecue people to be more laid back than other cooking competition shows. 

w) "Outrageous Pumpkins" 
I haven't seen much of Alyson Hannigan in the half decade since "How I Met Your Mother" went off the air, and if I was a famous redhead I probably wouldn't host a show about pumpkins, but this pumpkin carving competition on the Food Network is kind of fun, I'm always really interested in food-based sculpture. 

x) "The Soup"
E!'s latest reboot of "The Soup" only did 5 shaky episodes with new host Jade Catta-Preta before they had to shut down production like everyone else in March, and they didn't come back until July. But it feels like they're finally starting to find their groove a little bit, the show made my wife laugh really hard for the first time the other day. I just like seeing them dig through terrible reality shows I've never even heard of for clips. 

y) "Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous"
As a childhood dinosaur nerd, I was always slightly snooty about the fact that Jurassic Park wasn't strictly about dinosaurs from the Jurassic period. So I'm irritated and amused that the latest animated spinoff for Netflix simply puts both Jurassic and Cretaceous in the title, when those are two mutually exclusive periods of time. But it's also just a crappy show, boring with mediocre computer animation and more focus on the stock teenager characters than the dinosaurs. 

z) "Leo & Tig"
An animated show on Netflix that was made in Russia about a leopard cub and a tiger cub, my 5-year-old has watched it a bit, I think the animation is really cute. 

Monday, September 21, 2020




My interview with Brian D'Addario of The Lemon Twigs is up on Spin along with the premiere of their "Moon" video. 

The 2020 Remix Report Card, Vol. 3

Friday, September 18, 2020







Here's Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of this year's Remix Report Card, and here's the Spotify playlist of all the remixes I've written about so far this year. 

"B.S. (Remix)" by Jhene Aiko featuring Kehlani
The recent deluxe edition of Jhene Aiko's latest album features a remix of the current single that swaps out the H.E.R. feature for a Kehlani feature, which seemed like a kind of pointlessly minor change of guest to me on paper. But Kehlani does kind of fit the attitude of the song better, and she kind of approaches it like a rap feature and goes off, and Jhene adds some new lyrics too. The deluxe Chilombo oddly also has "On The Way," essentially a full-length remix with Mila J of the little snippet from the beginning of the hit "P*$$Y Fairy (OTW)." 
Best Verse: Kehlani
Overall Grade: B

"Do It (Remix)" by Chloe x Halle featuring Doja Cat, City Girls and Mulatto
"Do It" is one of my favorite songs of the last few minutes and it was pretty cool to hear a big event remix with several other women who've been thriving in 2020, this might really end up leaving an impact that rivals the original track. That Yung Miami verse is as bad as everyone says, but everyone else goes in, I hope JT starts doing solo features at some point. Even Choe and Halle add some new vocals, Chloe's outro is brief but one of the best parts of the remix. 
Best Verse: JT
Overall Grade: A-

"Don't Be Mad At Me (Remix)" by Problem featuring Freddie Gibbs and Snoop Dogg
Problem from Compton is a pretty talented also ran kind of rapper, always feels like he's kind of on the margins of the mainstream doing good work without really breaking through, and I feel bad because I keep getting him mixed up with the rapper named Trouble. "Don't Be Mad At Me" is a good song, though, Problem has written for Snoop for and it almost sounds like a song he could have done, so Snoop slides in there and sounds really natural where Gibbs raps well but doesn't seem to really fit into the track that well. 
Best Verse: Snoop Dogg
Overall Grade: B-

"Falling (Remix)" by Trevor Daniel featuring Summer Walker
I don't think I've ever stumbled upon anybody acknowledging the existence of "Falling," but it's dominated pop radio for most of the year and has passed 1 billion streams, and it's just awful, the kind of whiny white singer on a trap beat shit that we'll probably suffer through for this entire Post Malone decade. There's one remix with another annoying white trap beat dude, Blackbear, but this more recent remix at least sounds like a decent Summer Walker song when she's singing. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: C+

"Fuck The World (Summer In London) (Remix)" by Brent Faiyaz featuring 2 Chainz
The title track from Brent Faiyaz's 2019 project Fuck The World is a good song, I always root for him and would love if this remix was what put it over the top and made it a real hit. But if not, I still got a good new 2 Chainz verse out of it, I really enjoy hearing him give a little too much energy over these kind of relaxed minimal R&B beats, it's a great dynamic. 
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade: B+ 

"Lockdown (Remix)" by Anderson .Paak featuring Jay Rock, JID and Noname
Anderson .Paak released "Lockdown" on Juneteenth right around the height of the initial wave of George Floyd protests, other than Lil Baby's "The Bigger Picture" it felt like one of the few songs that came out in that moment that had a little staying power and didn't feel just rushed out to be timely. And the remix is executed as well as the original, really kind of cool to see him gather 3 other sort of mid-level stars who are a good fit for these song and they all rise to the occasion. 
Best Verse: JID
Overall Grade: B+

"Perfect (Remix)" by Cousin Stizz featuring Doja Cat and BIA
Oddly, another chance to unfavorably compare Yung Miami, who had a terrible verse on the original "Perfect," to Doja Cat, who appears on the remix. But I particularly like BIA, who has a couple good songs out but is mostly known for a song with that terrible Russ guy, and she really just sounds more suited to this beat than anyone else on the song. 
Best Verse: BIA
Overall Grade: B

"Tap In (Remix)" by Saweetie featuring Post Malone, DaBaby and Jack Harlow
There are probably more popular rappers who are black women right now that ever before, and same goes for white men, but you don't necessarily hear them on the same tracks very often (except G-Eazy, G-Eazy has a million songs with women rappers for some reason). So I was kind of surprised to see both Post and Jack Harlow on this remix. The original "Tap In" is a pretty terrible song -- somehow they got Dr. Luke, Lunchmoney Lewis, and half of R. City together and came out with a track that has less going on than the Lil Jon track it samples. So it's kind of funny that Post Malone brought along another big time hitmaker, his go-to producer Louis Bell, and added a whole dramatic synth fanfare to to his stupid like 30-second cameo, because it doesn't really land or fit the rest of the track. And I just cringe when Jack Harlow goes "when they asked me to do this verse, you know I got horny." 
Best Verse: DaBaby
Overall Grade: C-

"Whoa (Remix)" by Snoh Aalegra featuring Pharrell Williams
Snoh Aalegra is one of a dozen Soundcloud Sade wannabes crowding the R&B scene right now, I'm not really that into her stuff, but "Whoa" is an alright song. I don't know why anyone thought this song needed a Pharrell rap verse, though, I expected him to sing a little falsetto on it and that probably would have been fine. There are so many goofy head-scratching Pharrell moments in this verse, but I think the one where he talks about his synesthesia but tries to be vaguely sexual about it takes the cake.  
Best Verse: n/a
Overall Grade:

Wednesday, September 16, 2020




I wrote a list of the 10 best albums produced by Shooter Jennings for Spin, as a companion piece to Daniel Kohn's cover story about Jennings. 

Tuesday, September 15, 2020



I just put 3 new Western Blot songs up on Bandcamp. My latest full-length album 5/4 came out in May, and my other band Woodfir released an EP in March. 

Friday, September 11, 2020




Today is Ted Leo's 50th birthday, so I counted down his 50 best songs for Spin

Monthly Report: September 2020 Singles

Thursday, September 10, 2020




















1. Drake f/ Lil Durk - "Laugh Now Cry Later"
Even if I like a couple Drake hits every year, that still means there are a dozen I don't like, and I was particularly indifferent to "God's Plan" and kind of baffled that it became Drake's first diamond-certified single. So I didn't think I would dig another midtempo lead single produced by a couple of the same guys (Cardo and Yung Exclusive), but "Laugh Now Cry Later" hooked me instantly, love that muffled synth horn riff and the way Drake leans into every "baby" ad lib in the chorus and accentuates them in the video. I've never been a big Lil Durk fan but he fits into the song well, it seemed kind of stingy to give him only a 25-second cameo in a 4-minute song. Other people don't seem to love this song as much as I do, it definitely won't go diamond, probably only quadruple platinum. Here's the 2020 singles playlist I update every month. 

2. Jazmine Sullivan - "Lost One" 
5 years passed between Jazmine Sullivan's last 2 albums, so we're right on schedule to get new music from her, but I was still pleasantly surprised to actually hear something. And "Lost One" is gorgeous and understated, just a murky guitar line and Jazmine harmonizing with herself, really highlights what an elite vocalist she is.  

3. Blackpink f/ Selena Gomez - "Ice Cream" 
I've tried to keep an open mind to K-Pop stuff, but usually what I hear kind of sounds like 2000s pop rap, and even the more straightforward melodic pop stuff can be hit and miss. But it isn't going anywhere, and seems to be finally breaking some barriers that it's been stuck behind in the U.S. for the last few years. BTS's "Dynamite" is the big one, the first K-Pop #1 in America, but it feels a little like a lightweight approximation of Bruno Mars to me. Blackpink's biggest U.S. single, however, was written by Ariana Grande and Victoria Monet, and has kind of the same fun sleazy vibe of Monet's recent solo record, it's really catchy. 

4. J. Brown - "Moon"
This has been a sleeper hit on R&B radio the last few months, glad to see it taking off lately. It's kind of refreshing how there's nothing especially current about it, but it's not retro either, it sounds like it could've been a hit at any point in the last 30 years. 

5. Phony Ppl f/ Megan Thee Stallion - "Fkn Around" 
I didn't know I wanted to hear Megan rap on an earthy neo soul song with a live band but she sounds so good on this, the Tiny Desk Concert performance is really fun too. 

6. Maroon 5 - "Nobody's Love"
In my recent 2010s pop list, I likened Maroon 5 to the Chicago of their generation, and they're currently in their '80s David Foster ballad phase -- this, "Memories," and even "Girls Like You" minus the Cardi verse are some of the most easy listening stuff they've ever done, and I'm wondering if they're kind of permanently headed in this direction. But "Nobody's Love" is really good, kind of rooting for it since it hasn't taken off very big yet, I feel like a lot of other artists would've gotten a lot more praise if they released this, but it suits Adam Levine's voice well. 

7. K Camp f/ Jacquees - "What's On Your Mind" 
I'm a big fan of any song where one of the drums sounds like a baseball player hitting a home run. 

8. Moneybagg Yo - "Said Sum"
"1 2 3" is one of my favorite rap singles of the year, but Blac Youngsta really stole the spotlight a little on that one, good to hear a solid Moneybagg Yo solo track to carry the momentum from that. 

9. Kane Brown f/ Swae Lee and Khalid - "Be Like That" 
It always seemed inevitable to me that Kane Brown would really branch out beyond country, and this is his first real play for pop radio, and it's cool to hear him alongside a couple other guys who kind of straddle different genres in interesting ways, I think Swae Lee's verse is really the highlight of the song. It's kind of funny that Kane Brown's other current single, the country radio hit "Cool Again," is the one that has some vocoder on it. 

10. The Head And The Heart - "Honeybee" 
This has already gone to #1 on alternative radio but I'm kind of surprised it hasn't crossed over to pop radio yet, it pretty much sounds like a Top 40 song to begin with. Like, if this song was by James Bay featuring Julia Michaels or something, I wouldn't blink. 

The Worst Single of the Month: AJR - "Bang!" 
I kind of hoped for the best with these kids when they showed up on the charts a few years ago, but they just get more irritating with each new single. 

Movie Diary

Wednesday, September 09, 2020




a) I'm Thinking Of Ending Things
As far as Charlie Kaufman goes, I prefer the movies that embrace the inherent silliness of his premises (MalkovichAdaptationDangerous Mind) over the ones that use the high concept tomfoolery to wallow in soggy sentimentality that more straightforward writers wouldn't be able to get away with (SynecdocheEternal Sunshine). So I'm not really an ideal audience for I'm Thinking Of Ending Things, but I was still kind of surprised by how much it wasted the best efforts of Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, and Toni Collette, how far up his own ass Kaufman went this time, and how in the end it was just a less imaginative Jacob's Ladder. The 40 minutes where you're just watching 2 people on a long car ride through snow falling over a windshield are probably the best parts of the movie, and they still contained some interminable attempts at zeitgeisty arguments about "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and David Foster Wallace. 

b) Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
I really think Quentin Tarantino falling down this rabbit hole of prestige exploitation movies where charismatic fictional characters kill historical villains (Hitler, slave owners, the Manson Family) is suffering from diminishing returns. Inglourious Basterds is my favorie thing he's done since Jackie Brown, but I really hope his next movie isn't, like, Brad and Leo kicking John Wayne Gacy's ass. I will forgive a lot for filmmakers with a great ear for dialogue, so I enjoyed a lot of Once Upon A Time's tangents, especially DiCaprio's scenes with Julia Butters. But I feel like this movie would've been so much better without the real life Tate/Manson events crammed into it, which just made the big finale at the pool feel totally asinine. 

This was pulled off pretty well, but I think I would've enjoyed more if I hadn't seen the animated "Harley Quinn" series first, which is just so much funnier and more well written. The long stretch in the second half that was just Margot Robbie, Jurnee Smollett, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is silly comic book getups beating up hundreds of guys was pretty great. 

d) An American Pickle
This seemed on the surface to be an incredibly unappealing movie, but the good reviews and Seth Rogen's track record made me want to give it a chance. But shit, I think this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen? It had the potential to maybe be about something or just be a silly high concept comedy, but instead it turned into a movie about social media that posited that even if someone awoke from 100 years of suspended animation and everyone knew they were born in the 1800s, it would be the world's biggest scandal if they tweeted something racist. Also, Seth Rogen's accent was terrible and the movie totally underused Sarah Snook. 

e) Buffaloed
Zoey Deutch is really becoming one of my favorite comic actresses, and she really gets to go over-the-top in Buffaloed, it's a middling movie that's carried by the sheer force of her performance. It's kind of a smart satire about the cruelty of debt and debt collection, but it's not afraid to go broad and cartoony. I thought the depiction of Buffalo, New York as a place where people just eat buffalo wings constantly, even a judge in the middle of a trial, was pretty corny eye-rolling, though. 

f) Fearless
My son enjoyed this Netflix animated movie, and I was endless amused that the Buzz Lightyear-style outer space superhero character was voiced by Jadakiss. 

g) Brightburn
At this point we've gotten a good number of shows and movies exploring the dark side of people or especially kids having superhuman powers, but Brightburn is just kind of unremmittingly bleak, as gorey as "The Boys" without any levity or character-driven moments, or even a halfway compelling villain arc like the somewhat similar Chronicle had. 

h) Jumanji: The Next Level
The first Jumanji reboot movie was unexpectedly entertaining, and the sequel did a decent job of putting some new twists on the premise, but it was very much a sequel by numbers, not really worth seeing. 

Deep Album Cuts Vol. 204: R.E.M.

Tuesday, September 08, 2020























This year marked the 40th anniversary of R.E.M.'s first show, I've been meaning to do this playlist for a long time, so here goes. 

R.E.M. deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Moral Kiosk
2. 7 Chinese Bros.
3. Pretty Persuasion
4. Feeling Gravitys Pull
5. I Believe
6. Disturbance At The Heron House
7. Welcome To The Occupation
8. You Are The Everything
9. Belong
10. Country Feedback
11. New Orleans Instrumental No. 1
12. Sweetness Follows
13. I Don't Sleep, I Dream
14. Leave
15. Low Desert
16. Hope
17. The Lifting
18. Around The Sun
19. Horse To Water
20. Walk It Back

Track 1 from Murmur (1983)
Tracks 2 and 3 from Reckoning (1984)
Track 4 from Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985)
Track 5 from Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Tracks 6 and 7 from Document (1987)
Track 8 from Green (1988)
Tracks 9 and 10 from Out Of Time (1991)
Tracks 11 and 12 from Automatic For The People (1992)
Track 13 from Monster (1994)
Tracks 14 and 15 from New Adventures In Hi-Fi (1996)
Track 16 from Up (1998)
Track 17 from Reveal (2001)
Track 18 from Around The Sun (2004)
Track 19 from Accelerate (2008)
Track 20 from Collapse Into Now (2011)

I came of age in the '90s when R.E.M. were at their commercial peak, and I just remember seeing the "Losing My Religion" video and not really thinking much of it, just thinking they seemed like this very staid serious older band, and being a little surprised that all these cool long-haired younger alternative bands I liked really respected them and considered them an influence. But then I was on board with Automatic For The People, one of the few albums that both I and my dad owned a copy of when I was a kid, and kinda grew up on R.E.M.

Even though I had all of R.E.M.'s '90s album on CD, I was kind of spotty on the '80s stuff for a long time, the only proper albums I bought were Document and Reckoning -- between my dad's copy of Eponymous, the weird rarities comp In The Attic - Alternative Recordings 1985-1989, a cassette of Dead Letter Office, and a mixtape of '80s R.E.M. that a friend made for me, I know most of the band's early songs pretty well, but now and again I'll realize there's some song every R.E.M. fan loves that I wouldn't be able to hum or quote any lyrics from. I kind of like that a lot Fables and Pageant are still fresh for me, that I might someday love them as much as I love Reckoning. "I Believe" and "Feeling Gravitys Pull" were always favorites from that mixtape, though, I love the weird stilted guitar sound of the latter. And "7 Chinese Bros." will always be a candidate for my favorite R.E.M. song, it always seemed so cryptic, and then in 2008 Michael Stipe explained that it was "about me breaking up a couple - and dating both of them, a man and a woman."

R.E.M.'s big multi-platinum albums from their first decade on Warner Bros. are an odd mixed bag, so many great songs in vastly different styles. I think Out Of Time has aged a little poorly (although weirdly I have no problem with "Radio Song" or "Shiny Happy People" like most people), in a way I like Green's "You Are The Everything" more than almost any of the '90s R.E.M. acoustic songs it was a precursor to. But I think Automatic's classic status and Monster's divisive used bin staple status are both pretty well earned. And I'm a member of the New Adventures In Hi-Fi cult, I adore that album, there are so many songs I wanted to include on the playlist but "Leave" was the 7-minute behemoth I needed to make room for. And I love when Mike Mills plays a little slap bass, especially on "Low Desert" (I was very amused to learn that they had an early version of "Radio Song" where the demo was titled "Larry Graham"). 

It would've been easier to simply end the playlist when Bill Berry left the band and have room for more of the '80s and '90s songs that people love. But I wanted to cover all their albums and try to pick standouts on the later records when R.E.M.'s reputation kind of took a nosedive. I always thought Up was a really interesting record with some great songs, I played it a lot when it came out -- the only time I saw the band live was at the '98 Tibetan Freedom Concert, when they played an odd but enjoyable set of New Adventures and Up stuff (including "Be Mine" and "E-Bow The Letter" with Thom Yorke) and a couple early '90s hits thrown in. 

Reveal really disappointed me, though, I loved the opener "The Lifting" and then thought the rest of it sounded pretty bad. And this was back when following a band meant spending $12 on a CD every time they released something new, so I kind of tuned out, only buying one of their last 3 albums, the back-to-basics Accelerate. It was fun to revisit those albums and hear a couple for the first time, though, there's some pretty garish production choices that really demystify Michael Stipe's writing and vocal style, but there are some gems too. I've seen a lot of lamentations about how R.E.M.'s cultural stock has dropped in the last couple decades, but I think that was inevitable -- they were one of the coolest, most acclaimed bands in the world for almost 20 years, and their sales climbed for 8 or 9 albums in a row, you just can't keep up that kind of thing forever. If they ever reunited, it'd be gigantic (especially if Bill played drums and they focused on old stuff), but I don't know if that will ever happen, or if they'll ever get the kind of millennial/zoomer cachet that some other '80s alternative bands have in spades these days, and that's fine really, their legacy is secure. 

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden
Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band
Vol. 94: Mobb Deep
Vol. 95: Linkin Park
Vol. 96: Shania Twain
Vol. 97: Squeeze
Vol. 98: Taylor Swift
Vol. 99: INXS
Vol. 100: Stevie Wonder
Vol. 101: The Cranberries
Vol. 102: Def Leppard
Vol. 103: Bon Jovi
Vol. 104: Dire Straits
Vol. 105: The Police
Vol. 106: Sloan
Vol. 107: Peter Gabriel
Vol. 108: Led Zeppelin
Vol. 109: Dave Matthews Band
Vol. 110: Nine Inch Nails
Vol. 111: Talking Heads
Vol. 112: Smashing Pumpkins
Vol. 113: System Of A Down
Vol. 114: Aretha Franklin
Vol. 115: Michael Jackson
Vol. 116: Alice In Chains
Vol. 117: Paul Simon
Vol. 118: Lil Wayne
Vol. 119: Nirvana
Vol. 120: Kix
Vol. 121: Phil Collins
Vol. 122: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Vol. 123: Sonic Youth
Vol. 124: Bob Seger
Vol. 125: Radiohead
Vol. 126: Eric Church
Vol. 127: Neil Young
Vol. 128: Future
Vol. 129: Say Anything
Vol. 130: Maroon 5
Vol. 131: Kiss
Vol. 132: Dinosaur Jr.
Vol. 133: Stevie Nicks
Vol. 134: Talk Talk
Vol. 135: Ariana Grande
Vol. 136: Roxy Music
Vol. 137: The Cure
Vol. 138: 2 Chainz
Vol. 139: Kelis
Vol. 140: Ben Folds Five
Vol. 141: DJ Khaled
Vol. 142: Little Feat
Vol. 143: Brendan Benson
Vol. 144: Chance The Rapper
Vol. 145: Miguel
Vol. 146: The Geto Boys
Vol. 147: Meek Mill
Vol. 148: Tool
Vol. 149: Jeezy
Vol. 150: Lady Gaga
Vol. 151: Eddie Money
Vol. 152: LL Cool J
Vol. 153: Cream
Vol. 154: Pavement
Vol. 155: Miranda Lambert
Vol. 156: Gang Starr
Vol. 157: Little Big Town
Vol. 158: Thin Lizzy
Vol. 159: Pat Benatar
Vol. 160: Depeche Mode
Vol. 161: Rush
Vol. 162: Three 6 Mafia
Vol. 163: Jennifer Lopez
Vol. 164: Rage Against The Machine
Vol. 165: Huey Lewis and the News
Vol. 166: Dru Hill
Vol. 167: The Strokes
Vol. 168: The Notorious B.I.G.
Vol. 169: Sparklehorse
Vol. 170: Kendrick Lamar
Vol. 171: Mazzy Star
Vol. 172: Erykah Badu
Vol. 173: The Smiths
Vol. 174: Kenny Rogers & The First Edition
Vol. 175: Fountains Of Wayne
Vol. 176: Joe Diffie
Vol. 177: Morphine
Vol. 178: Dr. Dre
Vol. 179: The Rolling Stones
Vol. 180: Superchunk
Vol. 181: The Replacements
Vol. 200: Jimi Hendrix
Vol. 201: Solange
Vol. 202: The 1975
Vol. 203: T. Rex

Monthly Report: August 2020 Albums

Wednesday, September 02, 2020






1. The Lemon Twigs - Songs For The General Public
I won't go into this record at length too much because I have a piece about it running later this month, watch this space for that. But I was a big fan of The Lemon Twigs' last album, 2018's Go To School, which was kind of a funny self-recorded concept album about a chimp raised by humans, but it's cool to hear them go into proper studios and make these kind of thoughtful, insightful songs about love and relationships sound as lush and beautiful as possible. And there's still this playful aspect where "Hell On Wheels" sounds like they went 'OK, I've sung most of this song like Iggy Pop but now I'm gonna sing a few lines like Bob Dylan.' Here's my 2020 albums Spotify playlist that has every new record I've listened to this year in it, including all of these. 

2. Amine - Limbo
I feel like Amine is at a specific and exciting stage in an artist's career when their biggest hit, in his case "Caroline," is more than a couple years in the rearview but the buzz around them as an artist is still really building, I think people are still finding out how talented he is. I really thought Good For You was an excellent album and Limbo is even better, has a good balance of funky goofy stuff and things with a little more gravity. After the album came out, there was a day or two of mild Twitter controversy over the fact that there's a song about dating a white girl, which I thought was funny since a) you listened to a rapper from Oregon and was surprised by this? and b) "Becky" is not remotely a celebratory song about interracial relationships. 

3. Lindsay Ell - Heart Theory
Canadian country singer Lindsay Ell is a seriously talented guitarist and songwriter who's had a run of hits on Canadian radio but hasn't really had the same success in America outside of last year's #1 Brantley Gilbert duet "What Happens In A Small Town." And Ell worked with A-list Nashville producer Dann Huff and wrote with some big names on Heart Theory (Brandy Clark on "How Good," Kane Brown on current single "Want Me Back"), so it feels like a confident play to establish her in the U.S. But more importantly, it's just a great album, 12 songs tracing the 7 stages of grief after a relationship in a way that really plays well as a cathartic journey. 

4. Young Dolph - Rich Slave
I've enjoyed plenty of Young Dolph's music over the years, but he's someone I kind of take for granted as consistent but not always essential -- I might take a week or two to check out a new album instead of listening on the first weekend it's out, as I did with Rich Slave. But this album is really hitting me, I don't know if it's best yet or I'm just in the right mood for it, but the first track "Hold Up Hold Up Hold Up" is a killer opener and almost everything else is up to that standard, great production from Bandplay, Sosa 808, and Juicy J. 

5. Victoria Monet - Jaguar
Victoria Monet co-wrote a lot of Ariana Grande's best songs of the last few years, and she has a great voice in her own right and I'm glad she's gotten a shot at her own solo career. Jaguar is only 25 minutes and has been pitched as the first of 3 installments of her debut album, but it feels pretty substantial unto itself, the production on "Moment" and "Dive" and "Jaguar" is just so sumptuous and luxurious. Even the compulsory Khalid duet that every young pop/R&B starlet gets these days is pretty good and feels more like he's stepping into her aesthetic than vice versa. 

6. Redveil - Niagara
Redveil is a 16-year-old rapper/producer from somewhere in Prince George's County, Maryland, which is where I live, and this album has gotten a lot of buzz online, so I'm happy to see a high school kid from aroud here show some serious potential. He has a dry sense of humor and matter-of-fact way of talking about things, and he chops some cool samples on here, interested to see where he goes from here. 

7. Nas - King's Disease
I feel like people are so polarized about post-Illmatic Nas, I think most of his albums are roughly in the same class of pretty good, but there's always a narrative swinging in one direction or another -- Street's Disciple is better than people say it is and Life Is Good isn't as good as people say it is, they're all closer than their reputations suggest. But Nasir genuinely was his worst album, so the narrative is swinging towards people overrating the good but flawed King's Disease. But Hit-Boy is a good fit for Nas right now and sounds like he's actually trying unlike Kanye, so it is kind of a breath of fresh air. I love how often you just hear Charlie Wilson's voice pop up on rap albums now, he's on the Nas album as well as the Amine album. 

8. Reforester - Perpetuity
Reforester is a newish Baltimore trio that includes my friend Austin Stahl, former frontman of Private Eleanor. A few years ago I played a show with Austin's band Mink Hollow, which featured multiple members taking turns on lead vocals, and Reforester is a little similar in that respect, all three members sing lead on the 6-song Perpetuity and the 3-song self-titled EP they released last year. I'm a big fan of bands having multiple lead singer/songwriters sharing the spotlight, but it's obviously easier said than done and you have to have a certain musical chemistry that makes a coherent whole, and Reforester has that, Austin and Steve Hefter and Chris Laun's songs sound good together. Perpetuity has this very crisp soft rock sound, smooth vocal harmonies, and I love Laun's basslines, produced by Chris Freeland and mastered by my friend Mat Leffler-Schulman. Check it out on Bandcamp

9. The Killers - Imploding The Mirage
A lot of bands start to have some lineup changes after being around for 15+ years, but The Killers are kind of an odd case because the original quartet is officially intact, but half the band has been on hiatus for the last few years while frontman Brandon Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci have continued to tour and record without them. It seems vaguely dysfunctional but also kind of nice that they seem to really want the original guitarist and bassist to get involved again and just work with other people on a temporary basis. And it actually works, as I said when I did my Killers deep cuts playlist, Vannucci's drumming is one of my favorite things about the band, so in a weird way this one of the rare rock bands where the guitarist and bassist are maybe the most easily replaced members. Jonathan Rado of Foxygen co-produced both the new Lemon Twigs album and Imploding The Mirage, and was one of the people playing a lot of the guitar on this album. And "Dying Breed" in particular has that Sam's Town vibe that I love, though it actually interpolates NEU! and Can. And "Fire And Bone" is weirdly funky in a way that works for them. 

10. Toni Braxton - Spell My Name
Spell My Name follows in the mold of 2018's Sex & Cigarettes, another short but consistent album that sounds like Toni Braxton has really figured out her sound and can do it in a modern context without sounding like she's trying too hard to stay current, as best illustrated by "Gotta Move On," featuring H.E.R. and co-written by Jeremih. And the two versions of the single "Do It" are distinct enough that it actually works to have both on the album. 

The Worst Album of the Month: Blackbear - Everything Means Nothing
Blackbear is kind of the definitive douchey C-list millennial white rapper/singer. He's worked with MGK, G-Eazy, Mike Posner, Justin Bieber, and Riff Raff, and his biggest hit, Everything Means Nothing's horrible lead single "Hot Girl Bummer," equaled and arguably eclipsed the popularity of the song it was inspired by, Megan Thee Stallion's "Hot Girl Summer." He's definitely leaning more towards being a singer now, sort of like Post Malone is, but he doesn't even have the knack for hooks that Post has, it's just a bunch of grumbly monotonous breakup songs. 

The Top 100 Pop Singles of the 2010s

Tuesday, September 01, 2020





One of the things I enjoy about putting genres in little silos when I write about singles is seeing what's left as simply 'pop' once you remove things that aren't primarily identified as another major genre. There are plenty of songs on here that are at least to some degree R&B or rap or country or rock songs, or are nominally EDM songs, but they're all songs that wound up part of the churn of big shiny Top 40 market as a world unto itself. And in the 2010s, pop kind of became where the action was, to an extent that it wasn't in the '90s and 2000s, in terms of acts like Lady Gaga bringing some veneer of artistic vanguard back to the genre, and stan armies helping propel pop divas back to the commercial forefront. 

Here's the playlist of all 100 songs. And here's my previous 2010s lists of albums, TV shows, rap singles, country singles, and R&B singles. Now the rock list is the only one left for me to do. 

1. Adele - "Rolling In The Deep" (2011)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
It feels perhaps a little too on-the-nose to put the lead single from the top selling album of the decade at the #1 spot. But I always felt like this song pretty well justified the phenomenon that 21 became, and the way it patiently builds to Adele unleashing the full power of her voice hasn't been diminished by years of ubiquity. 

2. Paramore - "Ain't It Fun" (2014)
#2 Pop Songs, #10 Hot 100
Paramore is my favorite rock album of the 2010s, but alternative radio turned its nose up at 2 of its 3 singles, leaving Top 40 radio to give "Ain't It Fun" and "Still Into You" the love they deserved. 2013 and 2014 were a rough time for me, just struggling with adulthood and parenthood and 'the real world,' and "Ain't It Fun" was the perfect song for that moment, sympathizing with what I was going through but not letting me off the hook, pushing me to grow up and deal with it. 
 
3. Katy Perry - “Teenage Dream” (2010)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
15% of this list was co-produced and/or co-written by Max Martin, who spent the 2010s tightening the grip he's had on the Hot 100 since 1999. A few of those songs, including "Teenage Dream," were also co-produced and co-written by Dr. Luke, who became a pariah in the second half of the decade. Katy Perry's still here, releasing an album just the other day, but she'll always live in the shadow of the record-breaking run Teenage Dream had -- the title track is by any metric only the 4th or 5th biggest hit from the album, but it's got a smoldering, understated charm the others lack, letting Perry sing in a more relaxed style than her usual bleat, while still containing an absurd number of hooks.

4. Niall Horan - "Slow Hands" (2017)
#1 Pop Songs, #11 Hot 100
Although Harry Styles' second album was released in the last month of the 2010s and has dominated pop radio in 2020, his indifference to making his singles on his debut cleared the way for Niall Horan to unexpectedly notch the best hit of the first round of One Direction solo albums, a weird groovy little bass-driven track with some really cool, unique gated effects on the vocals. 
 
5. Jason Derulo - "Want To Want Me" (2015)
#1 Pop Songs, #5 Hot 100
Jason Derulo is the biggest black pop singer of his generation who's just a pop singer, not a crossover R&B star or someone with a foot planted in hip hop or dancehall or something else. That's another way of saying he's not considered very cool, although his recent resurgence came via his videos on Tik Tok, which are so dorky that they kind of circled back around to making him more likable. His best hit, co-written by Baltimore rock journeyman Mitch Allan (SR-71's "Right Now," Bowling For Soup's "1985"), is a slick little old-fashioned pop song that jumps right into the first line so quickly that Jason Derulo only has time to whisper his name for a second at the top of the song, instead of melismatically singing it like he usually does. 

6. Ariana Grande f/ Mac Miller - "The Way" (2013)
#12 Pop Songs, #9 Hot 100
Ariana Grande has had one of the most consistently enjoyable careers of any 2010s pop star, and in a way she defined the decade, even though it was already 1/3rd over when she released her first hit. But there's something about that first hit, even as it looked backwards, sampling '70s R&B (Brenda Russell) via '90s rap (Big Punisher), that still just works perfectly for me, and crystallizes her appeal better than the sometimes clubbier hits that followed. And given Grande and Mac Miller's relationship years after "The Way," and Miller's tragic death after that, their chemistry on this song is really bittersweet to hear now. 
 
7. Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe" (2012)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
Robyn's trajectory from mainstream hitmaker to boutique pop star for cool kids took a decade, and Carly Rae Jepsen completed that process in less than half the time. I don't really care that much about her more recent work, well made as it is, it just lacks that lapel-grabbing urgency of "Call Me Maybe," which ramps up so perfectly to the chorus with an arguably even catchier chorus. I think it's possible that Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez's most lasting contribution to pop music will have been the role they played in rescuing "Call Me Maybe" from Canadian semi-obscurity. 

8. Bruno Mars - "Locked Out Of Heaven" (2012)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
My R&B decade roundup included all 3 hits from 24K Magic, the album where Bruno Mars focused all his gifts for nostalgic mimicry on retro funk and soul. But up to that point, his magpie talent went all over the map, and one of his gutsiest and most specific stylistic homages was of The Police circa 1979, right down to nerdy details like the Stewart Copeland-style quarter notes on the dome the ride cymbal in the bridge. And yet the little modern touches, like the stuttering vocal samples and the EDM rush of the chorus, totally fit in and help make the song something unto itself. 

9. Taylor Swift - "Style" (2015)
#1 Pop Songs, #6 Hot 100
A big chunk of the songs Taylor Swift has made with Max Martin and other pop power players since 2012 are complete junk, far worse than her weakest songs as a straight-up country artist. But there were plenty of brilliant redeeming moments to balance them out, including this surprisingly funky jewel that sadly missed the top 5 in the middle of the trio of #1s from 1989 that ranged from good to awful.

10. Dua Lipa - "New Rules" (2017)
#1 Pop Songs, #6 Hot 100
"Don't Start Now" was on my 2019 year-end list, but it's become such a huge year-defining hit in 2020 that I'll stash it away as a lock for my next decade wrap-up in 10 years. But Dua Lipa's 5th big hit in the UK, which became her US breakthrough, is aging really well in its own right, a perfect example of a well choreographed video elevating a song that was great to begin with. 



















11. Zedd f/ Foxes - "Clarity" (2013)
#2 Pop Songs, #8 Hot 100
14% of this list is songs where the primary artist credit, or one of them, is a producer or production team, something that wouldn't be true of a notable number of pop hits in any other decade. Although David Guetta and Calvin Harris paved the way for EDM producers to actually regularly get artist credits when they team up with pop singers for huge chart hits, and The Chainsmokers became the bratty poster boys of the scene, I'd like to suggest Zedd as the most consistent MVP of 2010s crossover EDM. I definitely felt like I'd been fooled a little when I found out that "Clarity" was written by Shady Records rap power ballad maestro Skylar Grey, but underrated British singer Foxes really brings a level of pouty drama to the vocal that I don't think the song's author would have been able to pull off. 

12. Lady Gaga - "The Edge of Glory" (2011)
#3 Pop Songs, #3 Hot 100
Lady Gaga had pop music in the palm of her hand at the beginning of the 2010s, and she ended the decade with an Oscar and probably more respect than ever. But I think she spent most of the years in between kind of losing the plot and kind of breaking the spell she had cast over the world a lot quicker than I thought was possible. I still really like Born This Way, though, particularly the way she leveraged her fame to bring her dad rock influences to the forefront and bring Clarence Clemons back to the pop charts one last time shortly before the Springsteen sideman's death.  

13. Pitbull f/ Ne-Yo, AfroJack and Nayer - "Give Me Everything" (2011)
 #1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
When the EDM wave showed up at the turn of the decade and pushed hip hop and R&B further away from the top of the charts, a lot of artists jumped on the bandwagon to survive, and made some of the worst music of their careers. But some artists were in a pretty good position to adapt: Pitbull always had a gift for being able to rap over any uptempo track from any genre, and Ne-Yo became a star singing on polished tracks by Europop hitmakers Stargate, and his voice sounds great belting out over a big booming dance beat. 

14. Daft Punk f/ Pharrell Williams - "Get Lucky" (2013)
#2 Pop Songs, #2 Hot 100
I'm not surprised that the "a rising tide lifts all boats" power of EDM's commercial ascendance benefited Daft Punk, but it's still a little remarkable to me that they were able to team up with Nile Rodgers and put a Chic-style disco jam on the charts at a time when dubstep drops were in vogue. Even Pharrell had been about as cold as he'd ever been for a few years before "Get Lucky." 

15. Demi Lovato - "Cool For The Summer" (2015)
#3 Pop Songs, #11 Hot 100
I really enjoyed Demi Lovato's pop punk-y early albums and rooted for her as her career gradually grew, and it was cool to see her finally get the platinum LP with the big Max Martin single on album #5 and level up, while still kind of having a little bit of a rock bombast to it. 

16. One Direction - "What Makes You Beautiful" (2012)
#3 Pop Songs, #4 Hot 100 
At a time everybody, including their early rivals The Wanted, was doing sleek, modern dance pop, I really respected the way One Direction stuck to their guns and did floppy bubblegum pop/rock. And "What Makes You Beautiful" is about as unapologetically old-fashioned as "That Thing You Do!" right down to the slightly iffy lyrical sentiment. One Direction was one of five British acts that notched its first U.S. top 10 in 2012, setting the tone for how America imported UK pop much more steadily in the 2010s than it did in the previous decade. 

 17. Justin Bieber - "Sorry" (2015)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
I never really bought Bieber as a singer or even as a pop star, there's just such a rote air of role playing and obligation to his entire career. So even when he reached his peak on Purpose and was scoring one #1 after another, I kept my arms folded and continued rooting for One Direction. But shit, "Sorry" really goes off, I'm still kind of impressed that making Skrillex do cod dancehall worked out so well. 

18. Rihanna f/ Mikky Ekko - "Stay" (2013)
#1 Pop Songs, #3 Hot 100
Back when Rihanna was scoring one great uptempo hit after another but I thought "Unfaithful" was a disaster, I never would've imagined that one of my favorite Rihanna songs would one day be a piano ballad. But "Stay" has a real understated beauty to it that shows her growth as a vocalist. Rihanna is represented much more prominently on my 2010s R&B list, but out of her songs that mainly got played on pop radio, I far preferred "Stay" to the big four-on-the-floor anthems like "We Found Love." 

19. Chainsmokers f/ Daya - "Don't Let Me Down" (2016)
#1 Pop Songs, #3 Hot 100
Since Rihanna has only released one album in the last 7 years, the cottage industry that used to supply her with enough songs for yearly albums has largely continued to churn out tracks that the writers hoped would be recorded by Rihanna but ultimately went to other artists. The term I coined for this genre is Rihjects, and the second top 10 song from The Chainsmokers' divisive run as ubiquitous hitmakers is probably my favorite Rihject. 

20. Fifth Harmony f/ Kid Ink - "Worth It" (2015)
#4 Pop Songs, #12 Hot 100
Pop radio became briefly infatuated with specific sounds throughout the 2010s -- at one point whistling were ubiquitous, and then honking horn loops were everywhere, from Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" and Ariana Grande's "Problem." And the second-biggest hit by the decade's most popular girl group was, I think, the best sax riff out of that fad, as well as the best overall song. 



















21. Ariana Grande - "Into You" (2016)
#7 Pop Songs, #13 Hot 100
"Into You" is, by Ariana Grande standards, not a big record, especially when the songs that directly preceded and followed it were top 10 hits. But I feel like it's emerged as kind of a cult favorite in her fanbase, and I think it's aged better than any of her other big budget Max Martin-produced singles, and really pulled a great vocal performance out of her instead of overpowering her. 

22. DNCE - "Cake By The Ocean" (2016)
#2 Pop Songs, #9 Hot 100
The Jonas Brothers entered the 2010s as teen idols, and then broke up twice in the past decade to focus on solo endeavors, before coming back bigger than ever at the end of the decade. Nick Jonas's pretty good "Jealous" was the biggest hit of the fractured Jonas era, but my favorite was Joe Jonas's goofy surf rock hit with his short-lived band DNCE. 

23. Ed Sheeran - "Castle On The Hill" (2017)
#7 Pop Songs, #6 Hot 100
The streaming era brought the double A-side back in style, as big name artists got into the habit or releasing 2 contrasting lead singles simultaneously and leaving it to the public to sort out which sound people wanted from them at the moment. I was disappointed if not surprised when the cornball Rihject "Shape Of You" became the people's choice from the first 2 songs Ed Sheeran released from his third album, over the surging U2-style guitar-driven grandeur of the more sentimental "Castle On The Hill." But that song, surprisingly produced by Benny Blanco (best known for co-production synth pop blockbusters like "California Gurls" and "Moves Like Jagger"), leaned on the kick drum enough to give the song something of a four-on-the-floor pulse, and the song ultimately became a pretty good-sized hit in its own right after "Shape Of You" went 10 times platinum. 

24. Shawn Mendes - "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back" (2017)
#1 Pop Songs, #6 Hot 100
Shawn Mendes, a teenage Vine star from Canada, emerged in the last few years as the biggest guitar-slinging pop star besides Ed Sheeran. And like Sheeran, my favorite single from Mendes managed to marry a good riff to a propulsive beat that helped it fit in on Top 40 radio. I have fond memories of taking my kids to Chuck E. Cheese and hearing this song with the "just picture everybody naked" line awkwardly edited out. 

25. Tove Lo - "Talking Body" (2015)
#4 Pop Songs, #12 Hot 100
One of Swedish singer Tove Lo's later, less commercially successful albums, 2017's Blue Lips, was one of my favorite pop albums of the decade. But out of the big hits from her platinum debut Queen of the Clouds, my favorite was "Talking Body," which had an edgy yet strangely wholesome chorus ("if you love me right/ we fuck for life") that made it the rare pop song that draws a link between good sex and long term monogamy. 

26. Sam Smith - "Too Good At Goodbyes" (2017)
#9 Pop Songs, #4 Hot 100
I never really cared for Sam Smith's big career-defining hit "Stay With Me" -- the "I Won't Back Down" parallel bugged me too much well before Smith settled out of court with Tom Petty, and I don't think the song had much going for it besides that familiar melody. The lead single from Smith's follow-up album really captured the same lovelorn sensibility with a slightly more lively tune, though.  

27. Katy Perry f/ Juicy J - "Dark Horse" (2014)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
Katy Perry's 9th Hot 100 chart-topper and first crossover to R&B radio knowingly mimics the Fairlight vocal samples of Art Of Noise's "Moments In Love," another track by a white act that was well received on black radio 3 decades earlier. And "Dark Horse" also provided another weird chapter in Three 6 Mafia founder Juicy J's unlikely late career renaissance that also made him an Oscar winner. 

28. Kelly Clarkson - "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" (2012)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
"Since U Been Gone" was my #1 song of the 2000s, and while Kelly Clarkson had a pretty good run of hits well after that, it definitely felt like Max/Luke team moved on to continue mining that sound for less talented but perhaps more marketable singers like Katy Perry (although it doesn't really matter anymore I guess, they're both primarily TV personalities now). But Clarkson did experience a nice career resurgence with her last #1, which was also the first #1 for ascendant super-producer Greg Kurstin, who cut his teeth as a skilled multi-instrumentalist in alt-pop duos Geggy Tah and The Bird And The Bee for over a decade before rising up to the level of regularly producing singles for artists like Adele and Kendrick Lamar. 

29. MNEK & Zara Larsson - "Never Forget You" (2016)
#5 Pop Songs, #13 Hot 100
This song by a Brit and a Swede was a top 10 in most of the English speaking world but didn't quite pierce the top 10 in the U.S. And I suspect it would've done better here if it was just a tad slower, but that insistent pulse is a big part of what I love about it. 

30. Flume f/ Kai - "Never Be Like You" (2016)
#11 Mainstream Top 40, #20 Hot 100
The silly thing about EDM going mainstream is that most of the hits credited to big name electronic producers just sound like synth pop songs where the backing track remains static throughout the song save for a drop here or there. But "Never Be Like You" is both a gorgeous pop ballad and a fidgety, ornate production showcase, with Flume throwing in all sorts of outlandish textures and flourishes in almost every bar of the song, like a a drummer who just can't stop playing flashy fills, and it works way better than it probably has a right to. 



















31. PSY - "Gangnam Style" (2012)
#10 Pop Songs, #2 Hot 100
One of the most bewildering and entertaining visual feasts in a music video since "Bad Romance" is a big part of the American success of "Gangnam Style," but song is pretty fun too, and I prefer it to the LMFAO hits that PSY mimicked in order to break America. 
 
32. Ylvis – “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” (2013)
#6 Hot 100
 Like "Gangnam Style," this is kind of a readymade meme song made by people who usually don't perform in English, although the Norwegian brothers who made "The Fox" for their comedy show did sing it in English (the parts that weren't screaming imaginary animal noises, at least). What made "The Fox" a surprisingly durable pop song worthy of scaling the charts, however, was that Norway's biggest international production team, Stargate, provided Ylvis's silly track with a monster dance pop track that could've been a smash for any of their usual clients. 

33. Taylor Swift - "I Knew You Were Trouble" (2013)
#1 Pop Songs, #2 Hot 100
"I Knew You Were Trouble" was only the 2nd Max Martin-produced song released by Taylor Swift, who had just begun to transition away from country with "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (which still had an alternate mix with fiddle and steel guitar that got played on country radio). And the dubstep-style drop was pretty dramatic at the time, although now this song sounds more or less like half of her catalog, and is easily one of the best tracks from that half. The goat meme will always be funny, though. 

34. Calvin Harris f/ Florence Welch - "Sweet Nothing" (2013)
#5 Pop Songs, #10 Hot 100
Florence And The Machine have really grown on me in the last few years from my wife playing them around the house a lot, and that was one of the last great concerts we saw before The End Of Concerts, Florence Welch is an incredibly powerful vocalist. But the first time I was really impressed with her voice was on "Sweet Nothing," and I'm glad she got out of the comfort zone of her usual sound just once to show off how she could kill a dance track like this. 

35. Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey - "The Middle" (2018)
#1 Pop Songs, #5 Hot 100
Another good example of a great singer from outside the Top 40 realm just destroying an EDM pop song seemingly just to prove that they could. Famously, 13 different singers took a pass at singing "The Middle," several of whom are more famous than Morris, but I feel like once she hit that big "baby" ad lib toward the end, she locked it down. 

36. Britney Spears – “Work Bitch” (2013)
#14 Pop Songs, #12 Hot 100
Britney Spears kicked off the 2010s with a big comeback, scoring 3 big hits off Femme Fatale. But I have to be honest, by far my favorite Britney track of the last decade is this wonderfully ridiculous lead single from her next album, Britney Jean, which probably could've been huge in another year but maybe people just weren't ready. 

37. Tegan And Sara - "Closer" (2013)
#20 Pop Songs, #90 Hot 100
After Greg Kurstin's alt-rock journeyman career turned him into a major hitmaker, helped a Canadian indie duo who'd been around for almost as long pull off a surprisingly good synth pop overhaul of their sound. This song was pretty big by Tegan And Sara's standards, but I think it should have been huge. That moment where the first half chorus hits hard and then the second half somehow takes it up a notch, just fantastic. 

38. James Bay - "Let It Go" (2016)
#8 Mainstream Top 40, #16 Hot 100
James Bay never quite got to the sensitive-guy-with-a-guitar pop star level of Ed Sheeran and Shawn Mendes, but I think he makes much better and more interesting music than he gets credit for. His sophomore slump album Electric Light was a brilliant overlooked gem, and the big single from his first album, "Let It Go," still sounds pretty great to me. 

39. The Weeknd - "Can't Feel My Face" (2015)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
Inarguably, The Weeknd's early work was hugely influential on 2010s R&B, but I really just don't care for that stuff. As far as I'm concerned, The Weeknd is the rare guy who I think got a lot more bearable once he sold out and got with big producers like Max Martin and made his music broader and brighter, I'll take this over his early mixtapes any day. 
 
40. Demi Lovato - "Give Your Heart A Break" (2012)
#1 Pop Songs, #16 Hot 100
Billy Steinberg co-wrote some of the biggest pop songs of the '80s, including "Like A Virgin," "True Colors," and "Eternal Flame," and has continued to notch occasional hits in the decades since, with "Give Your Heart A Break" standing as probably the last top 20 hit of his long career. It kind of has that feeling like it could've been a hit in any year with slightly different production, and it really became the song that bridged Demi Lovato's early music that primarily got played on Radio Disney and her graduation to the big tent of Top 40 radio. 



















41. Sam Smith and Normani - "Dancing With A Stranger" (2019)    
#2 Pop Songs, #7 Hot 100
One of the biggest and worst developments of 2010s pop was how the surge of big pop divas making updated Eurodance tracks really pushed R&B, especially R&B by women, out of Top 40, to the point that even Beyonce can't get played without dueting with Ed Sheeran. And when Normani, by some distance the most talented member of Fifth Harmony, went solo after the group's split, it became clearer just how bad the Top 40 climate is even for black women singing pop music. It's been about a year since the last time a Normani single got a big push, so I'm worried that her label has already given up, but they had a pretty good run of putting her on songs with Khalid and Sam Smith that provided a context for her to thrive on pop radio, even if she really shouldn't need Sam Smith's help to do that. 

42. Maroon 5 - "Sugar" (2015)
#1 Pop Songs, #2 Hot 100
Maroon 5 are kind of the Chicago of their generation: they were never exactly cool in the "Sunday Morning" era (or "25 Or 6 To 4" era), but the smoother and more anonymous sound they adapted in their second decade of ubiquity post-"Moves Like Jagger" (or circa David Foster-penned ballads like "You're The Inspiration") made people feel a lot more nostalgic for their early stuff. But by the beginning of the 2010s, Maroon 5 were missing the top 10 blatantly rewriting "This Love" as "Misery" and it was clearly time for a change, and for better or worse, turning to outside writers and producers made them bigger than ever. Out of their later hits, it's oddly "Sugar," an outtake offered to them from C-list funky white dude Mike Posner, became the one that best evokes the breezy retro charm of Songs About Jane Maroon 5. 

43. Flo Rida f/ Sia - "Wild Ones" (2012)
#2 Pop Songs, #5 Hot 100 
For a few years there, it felt like Pitbull and Flo Rida had successfully taken over the 'pop rap' mantle that had been looked down upon since the days of MC Hammer and reimagined it in the mold of an opportunistic mutation of southern strip club rap. It wouldn't last for a variety of reasons, perhaps primarily because the streaming era completed the process of making rap music into pop music, but for a few years there Flo Rida had a nice run of shameless crossover hits. And "Wild Ones" unexpectedly became the launching pad for Sia, a cult Australian singer who by then was nearly 40, becoming one of the biggest songwriters in the music industry and a chart-topping artist in her own right. 

44. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Eric Nally, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Caz - "Downtown" (2015)
#9 Pop Songs, #12 Hot 100
The white Seattle backpacker rap duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis became a pop phenomenon with 2012's The Heist and a pair of chart-topping singles, the less said about the better. But the song that I actually had a weakness for was the over-the-top underperforming lead single from their follow-up album. "Downtown" is clearly modeled after The Heist's hits, with the "Thrift Shop"-style celebration of affordability over luxury -- in this case mopeds over sports cars -- and the big melodic hook by a relatively unknown singer -- in this case Eric Nally of the low level major label rock band Foxy Shazam. But Nally delivered the giant campy chorus to the cheap seats, and the call-and-response raps by the trio of '80s hip hop trailblazers that Macklemore assembled to bolster his real hip hop cred is really catchy. I'm glad Macklemore's superstar era was short-lived, but I wish it had pushed this absurd and entertaining song to greater heights. 

45. Post Malone f/ Swae Lee - "Sunflower" (2019)   
#4 R&B/Hip-Hop Aiplay, #1 Hot 100
There's a case to be made for Swae Lee as one of the best hook writers of the 2010s -- "No Flex Zone," "Formation," "Black Beatles," "Unforgettable," the guy just has an incredible ear. And "Sunflower" is very clearly Swae Lee's baby, but since it was for a soundtrack and he wasn't the biggest name on the song, Post Malone got top billing, which is fine since his half of the song is the most tolerable Posty has ever been. 

46. Taylor Swift - "Shake It Off" (2014)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
I spent a lot of the last decade working at corporate events and conferences and conventions where a generic mix of pop hits was always piped into the room, and only a few of the biggest uptempo songs stayed in rotation for more than a year. And out of those songs, I actually got less sick of "Shake It Off" than, say, "Uptown Funk." That clunky beat that was transparently patterned after Pharrell's "Happy" and the spoken bridge has aged terribly, but some how the whole cringe-inducing song has aged pretty well for me. 

47. LMFAO - "Shots" (2010)
#68 Hot 100
"Shots," like V.I.C.'s "Wobble," was a normie sleeper hit around the turn of the decade, somehow becoming quietly ubiquitous and going double platinum with negligible radio play simply because people loved hearing it at parties. It's stupid like all LMAO songs are, but it's stupid in a way that I enjoy more than the later chart-topping singles that it helped set the stage for, and it clearly also made Lil Jon's "Turn Down For What"-era EDM career revival possible too. 

48. Avicii - "Wake Me Up" (2013)
#1 Pop Songs, #4 Hot 100
It's possibly the strangest collection of talent that's ever made a monster hit together, rivaled only by "Old Town Road": Swedish EDM producer Avicii, Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger, and Stones Throw rapper Aloe Blacc, who'd recently made the transition to singing retro soul, somehow got together and made a country song with a dance beat. And the world went absolutely apeshit for it. 

49. Pitbull f/ Ke$ha - "Timber" (2014)
#1 Pop Songs, #1 Hot 100
And of course, long before "Old Town Road," Pitbull and Kesha topped the charts with their own weird campy country rap song. This is another track that was pitched to Rihanna, but I think Kesha was absolutely a better fit for this absurd song. 

50. Bruno Mars - "It Will Rain" (2011)
#1 Pop Songs, #3 Hot 100
I could tell that Bruno Mars was inarguably talented based on his first album, but I didn't actually like anything on it. "It Will Rain," the power ballad he did for one of the Twilight soundtracks in between albums, was the first thing I heard that made me think I really might like this guy after all. And it kinda makes me wish he did more pure pop stuff like this amidst all the genre exercises. 



































51. Clean Bandit f/ Jess Glynne - "Rather Be" (2014)
52. Ariana Grande - "No Tears Left To Cry" (2018)
53. Pink - "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" (2012)
54. One Direction - "Perfect" (2015)
55. Paramore - "Still Into You" (2013)
56. Train - “Hey, Soul Sister” (2010)
57. Lady Gaga - “Alejandro” (2010)
58. Katy Perry f/ Snoop Dogg - “California Gurls” (2010)
59. Cher Lloyd - "Want U Back" (2012)
60. The Weeknd f/ Daft Punk - "I Feel It Coming" (2017)
61. Cheat Codes f/ Demi Lovato - "No Promises" (2017)
62. Disclosure f/ Sam Smith - "Latch" (2014)
63. Idina Menzel - "Let It Go" (2013)
64. Ellie Goulding - "On My Mind" (2015)
65. Zedd f/ Alessia Cara - "Stay" (2017)
66. Fergie - "M.I.L.F. $" (2016)
67. Charli XCX - "Boom Clap" (2014)
68. Bruno Mars - "Treasure" (2013)
69. Jason Derulo f/ 2 Chainz - "Talk Dirty" (2014)
70. Ariana Grande f/ The Weeknd - "Love Me Harder" (2014)
71. Demi Lovato - "Sorry Not Sorry" (2017)
72. Shawn Mendes - "If I Can't Have You" (2019)   
73. Norah Jones - "Happy Pills" (2012)
74. Bebe Rexha f/ Florida Georgia Line - "Meant To Be" (2018) 
75. Khalid & Normani - "Love Lies" (2018) 
76. Katy Perry – “Roar” (2013)
77. Ellie Goulding - "Anything Could Happen" (2012)
78. Paramore - “The Only Exception” (2010)
79. Sara Bareilles - “King Of Anything” (2010)
80. Hailee Steinfeld & Grey f/ Zedd "Starving" (2016)
81. Charlie Puth - "Attention" (2017)
82. Ariana Grande - "Dangerous Woman" (2016)
83. Ella Henderson - "Ghost" (2015)
84. Nick Jonas - "Jealous" (2014)
85. Ed Sheeran - "Sing" (2014)
86. Flo Rida - "My House" (2016)
87. DJ Snake and Lil Jon - "Turn Down For What" (2014)
88. Pink – “Raise Your Glass” (2010)
89. Adele - "Someone Like You" (2011)
90. Demi Lovato f/ Cher Lloyd - "Really Don't Care" (2014)
91. Ellie Goulding - "Lights" (2012)
92. Troye Sivan - "Youth" (2016)
93. One Direction - "Steal My Girl" (2014) 
94. Ariana Grande - "Baby I" (2013)
95. Lady Gaga f/ R. Kelly - "Do What U Want" (2013)
96. Ne-Yo - "Let Me Love You (Until You Learn To Love Yourself)" (2012)
97. Demi Lovato - "Heart Attack" (2013)
98. Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa - "One Kiss" (2018)  
99. Adele - "Hello" (2015)
100. Zendaya - "Replay" (2013)