1)Beyoncé, “Irreplaceable”
SONG: The biggest hit of the year. As with last year’s biggest hit, I don’t remember the damn thing. I seriously do not think I have ever heard this song before in my life. Some of her high pitched vocal mannerisms make the song stand out ever so slightly, otherwise it’d be a completely generic pop/R&B ballad.
VIDEO: She breaks up with her boyfriend. Then we see her with giant curlers in her head, sort of like a 1940s pinup. Later we see her band performing in a kitchen, which seems to make the claim that like 12 guitar/keyboard/percussion/vocal people were needed to perform this unbelievably basic pop/R&B ballad. Seems legit.

2)Rihanna featuring Jay-Z, “Umbrella”
SONG: Oh right, the song with the girl pronouncing “umbrella” so that it ends with “ella, ella, ella, A, A, A.” That part is really annoying!!! Jay-Z does not seem to help things.
VIDEO: Showgirls in tight black shorts. The camera shakes obnoxiously, reminding me of the godawful video for Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” Then she’s slathered in silver paint or a bodysuit or something else to give the impression of fake nudity.

3)Gwen Stefani featuring Akon, “The Sweet Escape”
SONG: I guess the silly wee-hoo vocal parts in the back, and Gwen doing her fast-talking thingy, make this a mildly catchy song. At least I don’t feel the annoyance I do with ella ella ella, A A A. God help me, Gwen actually has a decent track record within these posts! How in the hell?
VIDEO: She looks really dumb with that big 1920s curl thingy in her hair. Later she wears a dress with big jailbird stripes on it which furthers the bizarre “1920s” theme in this video. Did she take her cameo appearance in The Aviator to heart, or something?

4)Fergie, “Big Girls Don’t Cry”
SONG: Generic ballad with acoustic guitars....oh wait, I’ve heard this damn thing in grocery stores a zillion times. Should I give her credit for writing a chorus that you can at least remember? Because I can remember the Rihanna song, too. I don’t like that she ripped off a classic song title for it, I know that much, and it’s not like I’m really some big defender of Frankie Valli. The song also feels like it’s way too long. At least while I can’t quite say I hate this song, this will likely be the only time I ever go out of my way to look it up and listen to it.
VIDEO: Some nice shots of her lounging around in her green underwear. Didn’t she turn into a huge plastic surgery disaster later?

5)T-Pain featuring Yung Joc, “Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin’)”
SONG: Dull mainstream hip hop fodder with minimal synth-tap musical backing. Someone in the video comments section quipped, “Kids today will never know what it’s like trying to sound like T-Pain by singing into a fan”
VIDEO: People in a club doing their thing. It’s a hip hop video from 2006, you know what you’re in for. Or most other years, really.

6)Carrie Underwood, “Before He Cheats”
SONG: The hateful revenge-on-the-boyfriend lyrics in this song are kind of funny actually, more interesting than the musical backing. At one point she uses the phrase “some white-trash version of Shania karaoke,” which really made me laugh. I swear to God the melody to this song is stolen, though–I can’t remember where, but I could swear some old classic rock has a painfully similar verse melody. So I guess I’m not really into the song, just the lyrics.
VIDEO: She actually looks kinda scary carrying that baseball bat. Is the part where she walks down the street blowing up glass windows with her mind an homage to the other Carrie, the telekinetic one?

7)Plain White Ts, “Hey There Delilah”
SONG: Goonie goo, it’s a ROCK BAND song!!! It’s not very good, I can recall hearing the chorus before, but that doesn’t make me like the song very much, a twerpy little post-emo acoustic guitar mess. It also has lyrics that sound like they could have been written in thirty seconds.
VIDEO: If you have closed captioning turned on, there are a bunch of texts at the beginning of the video explaining the lyrics to the song. Huh. Don’t know where else I’ve seen that. Maybe Neutral Milk Hotel should have made a video for “The King Of Carrot Flowers, Parts Two And Three” and included captions repeating his explanation for the use of Jesus in that song’s lyrics that he put in tiny little font in the liner notes, because that’s what that reminds me of. Thank you, Plain White Ts, for reminding me of Neutral Milk Hotel. (The actual video is just closeups of the dude playing guitar in one frame while some sad girl waits for a bus in another frame.)

8)Akon featuring Snoop Dogg, “I Wanna Love You”
SONG: Way to work on those song titles, bro. Didn’t know this person had his own recording career, but I shouldn’t be surprised they’d fork over a truckload of money and a contract to the “yee-hoo” guy from that Gwen Stefani song earlier. This feels like it should be Snoop Dogg feat. Akon, not the other way around–I swear to God there’s more of Mr. Dogg than Mr. Akon in the four minutes of this hip hop song that I don’t remember and will probably never listen to ever the fuck again (musical backing: Casio-handclaps drum machine, tinkly synth, mildly airy synth).
VIDEO: Lots of comments about Willy Wonka, and I don’t want to know why. The video is mostly shots of this girl (maybe more than one) with huge bajongas in her underwear in front of a bunch of mirrors, and four girls dancing on chairs and spread-eagling a lot.

9)Nelly Furtado, “Say It Right”
SONG: Could a more interesting song have been made out of the verses of this one? With the airy ethereal 80s synth and the dude going “hey” over and over, but it’s way way way drowned behind the big beat? I don’t remember hearing this song in 2007, the chorus seems like I SHOULD remember it, but I really don’t.
VIDEO: Why is her name done in a psychedelic 1960s album cover font? Who knows. She looks like a 19 year old version of the older Demi Moore and she keeps whispering into the “hey!” guy’s ear. This is reminding me of just how unmemorable most music videos really are.

10)Fergie featuring Ludacris, “Glamorous”
SONG: Seems like it should get somewhere good, I like the “if you don’t got no money take yo broke ass home!” stuff at the beginning because it’s good for a laugh, then Fergie shows up and blows any good will she had (which wasn’t much) with that other song. The melody to this song is a fucking mess, reminding me of George Starostin complaining about how he couldn’t remember “Born To Run.”
VIDEO: Again, it starts off promising–“1994 East Los Angeles Backyard Kegger” sort of got my attention, but then it turns into some ridiculous 1940s gangster thing with Ludacris dressed up like a pachuco and Fergie dolled up in a manner that suggests she was already getting sick of music and wanted to go do movies. Should I be grateful for the originality, like this would be preferable to yet another hip hop video that’s just people partying and dancing?

SONGS FROM THE REST OF THE TOP 100 THAT I’M GRATEFUL NOT TO HAVE TO RELISTEN TO:

Shop Boyz - “Party Like A Rockstar”
Daughtry - “It’s Not Over”
Fergie - “Fergalicious”
Kanye West - “Stronger”
Nickelback - “Rockstar”
John Mayer - “Waiting On The World To Change”
Amy Winehouse - “Rehab”
Gwen Stefani - “Wind It Up”
Lifehouse - “First Time”

SONGS FROM THE REST OF THE TOP 100 THAT I LIKE:

I wouldn’t say I like Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” but I would have rather listened to it than most of this shit…this is really depressing to think about. Have you heard “Cross The Street” by Junior Varsity? If I wanted to listen to a rock song with a “cheerleader” theme I’d pick that one.

FINAL COMMENTS:

These posts are getting emptier and emptier. I wonder how long I’m gonna hold out.

NP: Simple Minds - “League Of Nations”