The Week's Billboard Hot 100 #1

Again, it wouldn't hurt to get another 2012, when acts ranging from Katy Perry to Taylor Swift to fun. to Alex Clare to The Lumineers had hits.

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

Not all good hits, mind.

BUT I COULD WRITE A SAAAAWNG

Not a big fan of "Bad Blood" or "See You Again", but if the former is to dethrone the latter from #1 spot, so be it. The video might just give it the boost it needs.

I agree with the singed Italian plumber.

Er, not to be a pedant, but the song is called "I'll Be Missing You". "Every Step You Take" is the song by The Police which that one (extremely lazily) samples.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I had to look up what "singed" means.

I think it's an interesting case of Sampled Up for me, because although both songs are well-known enough, if not on the same level of remembrance, I was exposed to "the Puff Daddy version of the song" not too long before I was "that Sting piece of shit." As such, I didn't get the sampling song's title wrong, but for some time I thought the sampled song was entitled "I'll Be Watching You," a mistake that's covered in the Refrain from Assuming page.

"Pretty Girls" is #30 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, stepping down a spot. As I said before, I'm expecting this song to do as well as Shakira and Rihanna's "Can't Remember to Forget You" in that more people will be interested in the video more than the song itself in the long run.

edited 21st May '15 5:52:46 PM by BurntMario

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

I realized that on a basic level, "Bad Blood" and "See You Again" are both about coping with a relationship's death. It's just that they approach that in different ways:

• "See You Again": A bittersweet acceptance of a friend's (literal) death.
• "Bad Blood": A resentful condemnation of a friend's (metaphorical) death...of her integrity.

And of course, you can go with my dad's semi-tongue-in-cheek theory that all pop music is about love and sex, and not necessarily the former. Maybe I'll bring "SYA" up and see how he interprets it.

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On a side note, I wish that "Trap Queen" has one more chorus. It ends with the producer yelling out stuff instead of repeating the song's best moment. But it's one of the Top 40's hardest bangers this quarter.

One more side note: I'm satisfied with our current crop of Top 40 hits. Even during the early days of when I first got into it, I wasn't as equipped to find hits I loved. In the Spotify era, I can sit down at my laptop with good headphones, go to a Spotify top charting list, and with the skip button listen to some songs I want to listen to.

That said, I don't do that most of the time, since I prefer listening to either my own playlists or entire albums from various genres and popularity levels. From *my* perspective, I like today's music more than in 2008, because I'm more able to find what I *do* like.

edited 21st May '15 5:05:48 PM by chihuahua0

I don't think I can precisely articulate why, but 2005 is by far my favorite year of pop music in the new millennium. You had your pop divas like Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey making hits, plenty of hip-hop and R&B, the rise of emo-pop with bands such as Fall Out Boy, and acts like Green Day, The Killers, and Weezer on the charts. The pop scene was so diverse that there was pretty much something for everyone that year. Sure, it might have given us gems like "Hollaback Girl" and "My Humps," but I don't know. I guess I just have some nostalgia for '05 in general.

"This Summer's Gonna Hurt" is #67, if anyone cares.

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

http://www.avclub.com/article/popular-songs-are-dumb-and-only-getting-dumber-acc-219669

Thoughts on this article? I have my own opinions, but I'd like to hear what you guys think without my influence here.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I think it has some point; I've always thought that popularity at least partially stems from the simplicity of the music. After all, it is much easier to dance to 4-to-the-floor beat than to something that has the time signature of a Fibonacci sequence, and to sing along to "Oh Yeah" than "Mildewed and smoldering, Fundamental differing, Pure intention juxtaposed..."

Not to say that you have to make dumb music to be popular, or that you're stupid if you listen to popular music. But when it comes to the former, it certainly helps.

Also, I don't care what that study says, any song with a title "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')" automatically surpasses anything else in terms of stupidity.

I slightly preferred 2006, but any year where "Let Me Love You" spends 9 weeks at #1 is good enough for me.

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

I'm really bad at naming any specific years of pop music chart-wise, as I'm much more of an album person, and I didn't start paying closer attention to charts until around 2010.

Did anyone else really like 2007?

edited 22nd May '15 8:24:38 AM by Spinosegnosaurus77

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

From a quick look...at least at the time, I liked Rihanna, Pink, Fergie, and Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend"

I'm not sure how many of my 2007 favs survived the (minuscule) test of time, but from my narrow tastes at the time, I liked the period. On the other hand, I was in 5th or so.

x4 It was written by Ne-Yo, of whom I know you're a fan. That, I know much about.

I can't really recollect that much pop songs from 2006 and 2007 off the top of my head, aside from the fact that Timbaland absolutely dominated those years. But on one hand, '06 gave us Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" (which unfortunately spent seven weeks at #2 behind Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" and, of all songs, Fergie's "London Bridge") while '07 gave us Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right." On the other hand, '06 had "Lips of an Angel" while '07 had "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," so they're about on the same level for me.

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

Hey, "Promiscuous" was actually a pretty good song.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

His Shock Value singles weren't half bad either, Give It To Me and The Way I Are were both fun enough. Scream too, but that didn't bother the charts too much, iirc.
Though on a more contentious note he did also bring us Apologize and subsequently made One Republic a thing -~-

2007 was also the time Kanye was having his Graduation reign (Stronger, Good Life, Flashing Lights), I think that was his highest commercial peak?

So was Daughtry, right?

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

I did say "Say It Right" was a good song. It's not the fact that "Promiscuous" blocked "Crazy" from #1 that baffles me, since that was an even bigger hit than "Hips Don't Lie" during their initial chart runs. It's the fact that "London Bridge" blocked "Crazy" from #1 in all three weeks of its run at the top spot. I don't even remember hearing that song on the radio when it was apparently big. Nowadays I associate Fergie's solo career with "Fergalicious" and "Big Girls Don't Cry."

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

I remember doing a duo hip-hop routine to "London Bridge" at my elementary school talent show. My family was worried about the language even in the clean version, but no one cared.

Is "Hey Mama" a pro-feminist song, or is it sexist? I'm having trouble figuring out whether Nicki Minaj is being ironic or not. As in, assuming the role as the empowered submissive.

I addressed this some pages back. Feminists have really jumped on her for the lyrics of the song, which I don't find sexist, merely a different narrative from the usual Nicki song. So what she wants to be submissive? Doesn't mean it's anti-feminist.

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

Makes sense. It's just that she seems to rap purposely contradicting lyrics like "you *will always have* it" and "I'mma *let you have* it". Both dominance and submission can be interpreted from those slightly different phrases. It's the kind of lyrics that make you wonder if it's really profond or not.

Let's see if Nicki has talked about it in an interview yet.

Hmm...not yet, from a quick online search.

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I'm still listening to Jason Derulo's "Broke". It's one of those strange genre mixes that works because of clean production and the right people (Stevie Wonder...).

I just remembered that Taylor Hicks's "Do I Make You Proud" was at #1 before "Promiscuous" and spent seven more weeks before dropping off the chart and presumably the face of the planet.

Remember when American Idol had a huge influence on the Hot 100?

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

Cover songs from The Voice still appear on the chart, but they almost never last more than a week.

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Welp, I created a reference document that will link every online article on Florence + the Machine's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.

Whenever anyone mentions "Hey Mama", I immediately think of the Kanye West song.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.