The Week's Billboard Hot 100 #1

Not only that, but the good ones were better. And possibly the bad weren't quite as terrible.

BTW, are you thinking of a specific time period? I'm thinking of 2012 & 2013.

edited 30th Mar '15 2:56:13 PM by Spinosegnosaurus77

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

I'm mainly thinking the early 2013, since that was the time when I was working with a car and more prominently exposed to radio.

There is that sinking feeling that it is somehow getting worse every year, isn't it ?

Not music in general mind you, just what's high on the charts. Though I've heard about twenty seconds of that uptown funk thing and I was surprised at how not terrible it sounded. Bland as hell, but tolerable.

I wasn't even aware that Toxic had been used in a Doctor Who episode to be honest, but that's maybe because I don't really like Doctor Who all that much. I don't mind it but I don't watch it either. I just like that song but nothing else from her discography.

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

Personally, I don't think I'm qualified enough to say whether Top 40 music was better in 2013 than in 2014. I'm still only a few years into music, and I don't know ho one is even supposed to make that call. My own perception is tainted by how my exposure to music has changed over the years.

By my self, I'm satisfied with the current lineup of music.

2013 was a TRAGIC year for pop music, especially compared with the slayage that was 2010-12. However, despite the decline in EDM, and the rise in retro-baiting, I think top 40 music has improved greatly in the last year. - Also, if you hate top 40, stay away from this thread. Like, what does being here even accomplish for you?

I'm your jazz singer, and you're my cult leader.

I feel like the increasing stagnation of the pop charts is a big contributor to the growing sentiments of top 40 music getting progressively worse. The biggest reason why 2010 is considered to be such a bad year for pop music is because it had bad song after bad song after bad song, and we weren't always fixated on just one piece of crap. At that time (five years ago, holy crap), the charts seemed much more dynamic than they are now.

Nowadays, having a terrible song in the top 40 is considered an even more severe sin; like, if you're not too fond of, say, "Thinking Out Loud," you're going to count that as a big strike against 2015, and it doesn't help that it's already one of the biggest hits of the year. We only have a few songs to choose from after three months into the year, so only a handful of songs is enough to make or break the year for you, especially thus far. 2014 noticeably had less hits than 2013, but it's generally considered to be worse because it appeared to contain more suck from what it did have to offer. A song like "Fancy" seems more horrible than something like "Wrecking Ball" because the year of the former's heyday seemed to be less rich in hits than that of the latter.

If you have even a tiny problem with "Uptown Funk," then 2015 probably isn't going to look good for you as a whole.

Call me Willy Whistle 'cause I can't speak, baby. Something in TV Tropes really drove me crazy.

Can I just say that I want current artists to start copying classic rock like how they did disco earlier?

It's kinda the whole reason why I like some of One Direction's songs. Plus I'm tired of disco.

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I think the current top 10/top 20 is miles better than any top 10 or top 20 from any point in 2014. I absolutely love Uptown Funk, Sugar is Maroon 5's best in years (but still not good at all, don't get me wrong. It's just that if there has to be an M5 song in the top 10, better Sugar than anything else for the past 4-ish years), I like Thinking Out Loud, love Four Five Seconds, like the 50 Shades (ugh) songs a lot, and Style is my favorite Taylor Swift song by a mile (I like it a lot, but I don't think I've liked anything else she's done). There are a couple decent songs in the remainder, then a big pile of meh and/or things I haven't heard.

For me, liking that many of the top 20 is a big improvement over 2014.

You trying to fight snobbery with further snobbery here?

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Any songs in particular? I liked 2010, but that's probably because I focused on the minor hits. Same for 2013, except that the first two-thirds of 2013 were much better than the final third. That's just me, though.

edited 31st Mar '15 3:47:48 AM by Spinosegnosaurus77

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Let me go off-topic for a while so I can make an opinion on certain radio stations in general.

The tendency of many radio stations to overplay the same set of songs makes all the songs sound stale in later listens. These stations hold onto a set-up format in which tracks in the database are played in heavy rotation. If critically lauded indie pop songs were played on aforementioned stations, I don't think the re-experiences of those songs would be as pleasant as expected due to being overplayed. Not even songs such as St. Vincent's "Birth in Reverse", Kendrick Lamar's "i" and Future Islands' "Seasons (Waiting on You)" would be safe from this.

(Edited AGAIN for clarity and the much-needed grammar correction)

edited 31st Mar '15 6:00:34 AM by tropeslave

I've never heard any of those on the radio, but mainly because we don't have any kind of alternative channel here.

Yeah. I just edited my previous post. It's supposed to be a hypothetical situation. Sorry for not editing it earlier.

My point is, radio stations' practice of overplaying can make the best songs in the pop genre sound not as good as the first listen at the point of release. I find some previously overplayed songs a lot better long after radio decided to stop playing them.

Oh. Right.

But yeah, I feel that way too. As much as I like "Uptown Funk" (or a while back, "Get Lucky"), hearing it coming up on radio now has less positive reaction in me than it used to.

@2011 (not exactly the year I'm going to talk about):

It's just that 2010 was awfully homogenized in sound—you had your usual club songs like "OMG," "I Like It," and "Sexy Bitch Chick," which won't do much for you if you're not usually into dancing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having upbeat songs in the top 40, but these kinds of songs seemed to be everywhere at the time, and they all sounded the same. I thank/blame Lady Gaga's breakout and re-popularization of dance pop in the previous year, along with the absurd popularity of "I Gotta Feeling," for that.

At the very least, 2011 tried to fix that by introducing Adele to the masses, as well as by having one notable indie crossover hit (namely, "Pumped Up Kicks"), which certainly helped to make the pop sound more diverse. Oh, and there was a brief saxophone revival smaller yet akin to the disco trend in '13 with songs like "The Edge of Glory," "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)," and "Mr. Saxobeat."

edited 31st Mar '15 7:02:11 AM by BurntMario

Call me Willy Whistle 'cause I can't speak, baby. Something in TV Tropes really drove me crazy.

Heh, I'd forgotten about Mr. Saxobeat. Made me laugh every time I heard it back when it got radio play.

Yeah, "Mr. Saxobeat" was a minor hit in '11. After typing that I suddenly remembered Dev's "In the Dark" as well, another song that used the saxophone.

Call me Willy Whistle 'cause I can't speak, baby. Something in TV Tropes really drove me crazy.

I remember Dev solely from "Like A G6", which still is one of the most obnoxious songs I've ever heard, and I have a roommate who regularly listens to Nicki Minaj.

Yeah, that and "In the Dark" were pretty obnoxious. 2011 in general was a pretty average year for music IMO.

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Oh the peak years of generic club shit...

(not that generic club shit has gone away completely, though...)

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I actually kinda liked "Like a G6". Kinda dumb, but kinda fun.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 (April 11, 2015):

1. "Uptown Funk" (13 weeks)
2. "Sugar"
3. "Thinking Out Loud"
4. "Love Me Like You Do"
5. "Earned It"
6. "Trap Queen"
7. "Style"
8. "FourFiveSeconds"
9. "G.D.F.R."
10. "Somebody" (new entry)

"Uptown Funk" continues its slayage. I still don't know what "Trap Queen" is. And remember when people thought Jeremih would go away after "Birthday Sex," and then again after "Down on Me," and then again after "Don't Tell 'Em"?

I don't remember a lot of "Like a G6." I only really know the hook.

edited 1st Apr '15 1:08:13 PM by BurntMario

Call me Willy Whistle 'cause I can't speak, baby. Something in TV Tropes really drove me crazy.

Apparently, Jeremih is getting like an actual respectable reputation.

Also, if "Uptown Funk" breaks the record, I will be totally fine with that.

You see, a fair amount of pop acts from 2010 proceeded to fade into total obscurity after their hit(s). Like, who knows what the Far East Movement, Taio Cruz, and Mike Posner are up to nowadays? Jeremih is lucky to have evaded that trap by having his first big hit in 2009.

This also applies to Jason Derulo, for the record—"Want to Want Me" is #17. Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance" is #12, and Rihanna's new single "Bitch Better Have My Money" debuts at #23.

Call me Willy Whistle 'cause I can't speak, baby. Something in TV Tropes really drove me crazy.