1)Flo Rida featuring T-Pain, “Low”
SONG: Has the lyric “folded her like a pornography poster/she showed her…” That got my attention, at any rate. An inoffensive but completely unremarkable hip-hop hit that I think I heard two or three times 18 (!!!) years ago, based on staccato synth-taps that, as usual, remind me of ZZ Top’s ungainly “TV Dinners.” The “low low low low low low low low low” hook isn’t anything special and the song just sort of ends.
VIDEO: Just people dancing in a club. Some of them are wet some of the time and some of them aren’t.

2)Leona Lewis, “Bleeding Love”
SONG: “My heart’s crippled by the vein that I keep on closing.” Is that a good lyric or a boringly plain one? The mind wonders. Average four-chord pop diva ballad. I…_think_I’ve heard it? Or maybe I’m thinking of one of about ten thousand other songs with this chord progression.
VIDEO: Your average “people in Time Square” video. Wonder how many of these I’ve seen over the years. Ms. Leona’s face is one inch away from being in the uncanny valley–her mouth looks like it was computer generated and the expression in her eyes is more “sleeping pills” than “sultry.”

3)Alicia Keys, “No One”
SONG: The fat synth-fart arpeggios that interrupt this song a couple of times are kind of funny. They get my attention most of anything out of this plain vanilla R&B ballad which is a bit less annoying than some of her other songs, but also way more generic. Geez, I’m really hard on Alicia Keys for some reason? She can’t seem to win with me no matter what she does. I mean, she’s probably a lot more talented than typical R&B divas because she at least plays an instrument, right?
VIDEO: She wears a sexy dress in this one. Seemed like new territory for her. Her facial expressions are a bit less obnoxious than her older videos, I know that much. She seems to be overemoting in terms of how she plays those keyboards though, like she’s really pushing the keys like her life depends on it. PUNCH the keys for God’s sake!

4)Lil Wayne featuring Static Major, “Lollipop”
SONG: Lil Wayne does his slurred Down’s syndrome vocals over some more synth taps that sound like a little kid hammering a scale on a Casio keyboard with one finger. I’m very grateful for the chorus to this song, which isn’t anything great but it takes my mind off the verses, probably because it has some guitar soloing buried in the background.
VIDEO: Rollin’ down the streets of Las Vegas. Typical hip hop video fare. Nothing much to report. Except for a shot near the four minute mark of the goateed, baseball cap wearing white guy playing the keyboard that made me laugh, and grisly close-ups of Lil Wayne’s grill, which looks like he’s got a bunch of silver-coated candy-corn pieces in his mouth.

5)OneRepublic, “Apologize”
SONG: Boring four-chord orchestral swirls and oogy piano over a modern beat. I guess the chorus lifts this one up a bit, otherwise it’d be a piece of music that could have been written by any given Music Babbler (no really!) I’ve heard this before to be sure, either this or the Timbaland version, but it’s nothing I can get nostalgic for.
VIDEO: Sepia-toned footage of the dude at his piano. ZZZZ

6)Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown, “No Air”
SONG: Musically, this one’s a bit odd–the piano/synth arrangement has a curiously airy, almost late-80s feel. The chord sequence feels a little odd the first time you hear the song, and the entire song features a discordant bass note loudly thoonking away all high in the mix. Around the 3 minute mark is a synth solo that also feels like it’s coming from a different decade. The song doesn’t have a very nice chorus though.
VIDEO: The girl wears a dark red dress, the guy wears a hoodie of the same color and looks real emotional in some shots. What would FREUD say? I can’t think of anything else to say about this video.

7)Sara Bareilles, “Love Song”
SONG: HEY!!!!! This starts off sounding like “Cold As Ice” by Foreigner!!! Then it gets to a chorus we’ve all heard in public 200 times sung by a girl with a generic voice that sounds like 200 other girls…though I will state that that chorus is enough to put this eons ahead of Vanessa Carlton or some other godawful white-girl-piano song like that.
VIDEO: Bad computer-generated backgrounds made of clock gears and some story involving the singer and some ginger boyfriend with glasses. Should we be grateful that Ms. Bareilles is not ridiculously photogenic? She’s very plain looking. I guess that’s kind of refreshing actually.

8)Usher featuring Young Jeezy, “Love In This Club”
SONG: Again, the synth arrangement in this song is very odd–sawing synths and big bright Tony Banks chords place this song as being influenced by 1986 in some way shape or form. Also again: paying attention to this stuff is all I can use to get any material for these posts.
VIDEO: Usher tries for a “plot” in this video, which stretches it out to 6 minutes. First minute and a half or so are him and this evil woman trying to trick him. Then it’s mostly just people in a club as usual. With lens flare. Loads of it. Like, worse than JJ Abrams. LLLLLEEENNNNSSSS FFFFLLLLAAAARRRREEE!!!!!

9)Chris Brown, “With You”
SONG: Whoa holy shit, acoustic guitar prominently featured in a bland R&B ballad! The rest of it, bleh.
VIDEO: Breakdancing in the streets. It’s dark out. Then Chris Brown gets on a bus and looks longingly out the window. Features one the most overused visual motifs in modern photography, a person standing static in the middle of a road while bright lights blast past him on both sides.

10)Chris Brown, “Forever”
SONG: Utter kiddie POP. The background music to this song is candy colored clown sugar for little kids! Ick, ick!
VIDEO: Why was Rihanna even attracted to this twerp, let alone let him beat her. He looks like a little kid. Was I supposed to expect huge muscles and a wifebeater from one of the most infamous wife-beaters in recent years? Dance line, lens flare and bad chroma key effects. Chris and a girl who isn’t Rihanna fall off a building together and embrace in mid air. Durrpp!!!

SONGS FROM THE REST OF THE TOP 100 THAT I’M GLAD I’M NOT GOING TO BE LISTENING TO:

Coldplay - “Viva La Vida”
Pink - “So What”
Fergie - “Clumsy”
Miley Cyrus - “See You Again”
Taylor Swift (THERE she is!!) - “Our Song”
Pussycat Dolls - “When I Grow Up”
3 Doors Down (HOW IN GOD’S NAME WAS THIS SHITTY BAND STILL CHARTING AS LATE AS 2008?!?) - “It’s Not My Time”
Taylor Swift - “Love Story”
Santana & Chad Kroeger - “Into The Night”
Britney Spears - “Piece Of Me”

STUFF I LIKED FROM THE REST OF THE TOP 100:

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Rrrrrrrrrrrawwwwwwwwwwkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!