It is probably not a good sign for the music business that the biggest song of the year was released back in 1969. But for some reason, three artists all used Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye by Steam in their songs. Wale started out ’09 sampling it for Chillin’. Then Kristinia DeBarge used it as the chorus for her debut song, the aptly titled Goodbye. Then Jay-Z tried to kill off Auto-Tune with the help of the famous cadence. Despite the overuse of cheesy sports anthems, 2009 was actually a great year for good music (on the flip side, it wasn’t much of a good year for great music) as this was the largest pool of songs, 250 (shoot me an e-mail if you want the full list, I'll send you my speadsheet), which I had to cut down for my Top 100. And here they are and I hope to see everyone back in 2010 (check the bottom of the post for samples of the songs on the Amazon MP3 widget):
1. Use Somebody - Kings of Leon
2. Make Her Say - Kid Cudi, Kanye West, and Common
3. I and Love and You - The Avett Brothers
4. Run This Town - Jay-Z featuring Rihanna & Kanye West
5. You And Me - Dave Matthews Band
6. Sugarfoot - Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears
7. Grapevine Fires - Death Cab for Cutie
8. Funny The Way It Is - Dave Matthews Band
9. Cowboy Casanova - Carrie Underwood
10. Magick - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
11. Nothing but a Miracle - Diane Birch
12. Pony (It's OK) - Erin McCarley
13. Too Many Rappers - Beastie Boys featuring Nas
14. Who Says - John Mayer
15. You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift
16. Staying in Love - Raphael Saadiq
17. Geraldine - Glasvegas
18. A Dustland Fairytale - The Killers
19. Mykonos - Fleet Foxes
20. Even If It Breaks Your Heart - Will Hoge
21. People C'mon - Delta Spirit
22. Notion - Kings of Leon
23. Chillin' - Wale featuring Lady Gaga
24. Melody - Kate Earl
25. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - U2
26. Fugitive - David Gray
27. Percussion Gun - White Rabbits
28. Chasing Pirates - Norah Jones
29. Under My Bed - Meiko
30. Red Light - David Nail
31. (If You're Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To - Weezer
32. The Fixer - Pearl Jam
33. Fitz and the Dizzyspells - Andrew Bird
34. Wild at Heart - Gloriana
35. 100 Yard Dash - Raphael Saadiq
36. Heartless - The Fray
37. I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week - Mandy Moore
38. Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart - Alicia Keys
39. Just Breathe - Pearl Jam
40. Doesn't Mean Anything - Alicia Keys
41. Gravity - Sara Bareilles
42. Love, Save the Empty - Erin McCarley
43. I Love College - Asher Roth
44. Fire Escape - Diane Birch
45. People Got a Lotta Nerve - Neko Case
46. I Like You so Much Better When You're Naked - Ida Maria
47. Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys
48. The One - Slaughterhouse
49. Furr - Blitzen Trapper
50. The Fear - Lily Allen
51. A Whole Lot Better - Brendan Benson
52. Everybody Knows - John Legend
53. Laughing With - Regina Spektor
54. Beyond Here Lies Nothin' - Bob Dylan
55. Just Ain't Gonna Work Out - Mayer Hawthorne
56. Little Bribes - Death Cab for Cutie
57. Sometime Around Midnight - The Airborne Toxic Event
58. New in Town - Little Boots
59. Goodnight, Travel Well - The Killers
60. Brick by Boring Brick - Paramore
61. Sky - Joshua Radin featuring Meiko
62. I Wanna Rock - Snoop Dogg
63. Hometown Glory - Adele
64. Shining Down - Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthews Santos
65. Bang Bang - K'naan featuring Adam Levine
66. 1901 - Phoenix
67. Chocolate Box - Prince featuring Q-Tip
68. If Rap Gets Jealous - K'naan featuring Kirk Hammett
69. Kinda Like a Big Deal - Clipse featuring Kanye West
70. White Horse - Taylor Swift
71. Radio Radio - Brooke White
72. The Man Who Can't Be Moved - The Script
73. Oscar Wilde - Company of Thieves
74. Swim - Jack's Mannequin
75. Nothing to Worry About - Peter Bjorn and John
76. Show Me What I'm Looking For - Carolina Liar
77. Who'd Have Known - Lily Allen
78. A-Yo - Method Man & Redman featuring Saukrates
79. Wavin' Flag - K'naan
80. Life Is Better - Q-Tip featuring Norah Jones
81. Barely in Love - Q-Tip
82. Fly One Time - Ben Harper and Relentless7
83. Why I Am - Dave Matthews Band
84. Daddy's Gone - Glasvegas
85. Crawl - Kings of Leon
86. Uprising - Muse
87. Don't Forget - Demi Lovato
88. Bulletproof - La Roux
89. On Vacation - Aimee Allen
90. Fireflies - Owl City
91. Just Say Yes - Snow Patrol
92. East Jesus Nowhere - Green Day
93. How I Got Over - The Roots
94. I'm Broke - Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
95. Wonderful - Gary Go
96. D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune) - Jay-Z
97. That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings
98. Love Letter to Japan - The Bird and the Bee
99. Get On Your Boots - U2
100. Let's Take a Walk - Raphael Saadiq
I can't believe I never even heard about that Beastie Boys song.
ReplyDeleteAnd for some reason, I thought Peter Bjorn & John was from 2008. If I had remembered correctly, I would have put one of their songs on the top 10 I sent you...No big deal.
I swear I mentioned the Beastie Boys song on Facebook, but MCA announced his cancer a week or two after the song came out putting a hault to any promotion for the album.
ReplyDeleteThe PB&J (I wonder if they sequenced their names for that specific acronym) album the song came from was released in late March of this year.
Supernova is realy an amazing song. What do u think about it?
ReplyDeleteI am assuming you are refering to the Mr. Hudson song, if so, it is a decent enough song that just missed the top 100 and may have made it if I didn't have to put up with Kanye West singing.
ReplyDeleteKanye may be a ass but he's not a bad artist!
ReplyDeleteHey Scoot what did you think of "knock you down"
ReplyDeleteKanye is a great rapper, horrible singer.
ReplyDeleteKnock You Down is a decent enough song and was considered for this list but the syth heavy beat was most likely what kept it just outside the top 100.
You have a point but most songs on 808's and heartbreaks were actually decent songs ( and he sang most of them )
ReplyDeleteBut I'm shocked really that a song like Replay (iyaz) fared better than Russian Roulette by Rihanna?! Her album may not be her best work yet, but Russian Roulette was a damn decent song.What's going on over there in America?
Have you heard any of the songs by a band called the Parlotones? Terence from S.A
Some of the individual songs on 808 are tolerable, but it is hard to get through the album as a whole. Anyway, Kanye should stick to rapping.
ReplyDeleteReplay didn't fare better than Russian Roulette, Replay was on the Worst Songs of the Year list and Rihanna wasn't. And Russian Roulette really didn't make a big enough impression on me to make it on this list. Maybe next year.
Economic turmoil.
Never heard of Parlotones. I'll try to hunt them down on YouTube soon.
I never really got what make her say was about it's goes all over the place...& I even saw him in concert...I mean I get the make her say part but then it skips around to "whatever you like"& it's just using different songs..& I don't get what was special about demi lovato don't forget
ReplyDeleteI don't think you really need to understand a song to make it a good song, and raps songs have been using other songs and hooks for decades now. For me it just took a horrible song and flipped it into something listenable with Kanye laying down his best rap since his debute album.
ReplyDeleteAs for Don't Forget, I can understand why people wouldn't like it or not see what is so special about it, but for me it is just cheesy goodness. And there is just something profoundly brilliant about the line, "Love is like a song; you can't forget it."
I was actually talking about the billboard charts.(It's Terence)I know that you don't really care about what the billboard charts say.Lets face it, all those charts are based on popularity to be quite honest. Replay is currently sitting at #2 and Russian Roulette after peaking at #9 and spending 1 week in the top 10.How is that possible. That's why I asked what's going on there. Tha's actually injustice. I just hope the grammys don't snub her next year.
ReplyDeleteThe Parlotones are a South African band (I'm also from South Africa). Probably the best band in the country! Their really good and have international potential. When people hear South Africa poverty, crime capital of the world, people rideing on elephants, a small unknown country where the 2010 FIFA worldcup is going to be and held and where District 9 was shot. I really want people to change their views. Do yourself a favour and go check out "Push me to the floor" by The Parlotones on Youtube. ( Sorry for all my grammer mistakes. English is my 3rd language )
Terence from S.A
The Billboard Hot 100 is worthless, it is based too much on radio airplay and there is too much payola going on (where record companies pay radio stations to play song to pad things like the Hot 100) as well as other shady activities as having interns who soley spend their days calling radio stations requesting songs. To truely see what is legitimately popular, charts based on sales (Billboard's album charts, Amazon, iTunes) is what you want to look at. That is how crap like Replay can get high on on the Hot 100 because legitimately good music can get enough promotion by word of mouth.
ReplyDeleteSo did you check put The Parlotones?
ReplyDeleteI meant out
ReplyDeleteYeah, hunted down a few tracks on YouTube, pretty decent and could fit in well in the current indie scene her in the US.
ReplyDelete... You just let my sister win this round of John Mayer vs. Taylor Swift. By ONE slot. Damn.
ReplyDeleteLove the list, though, it's pretty representative of the last year and reflects the variety of music you usually talk about.
Not only that , but Taylor beat John by two spots last year. Though round one in 2007 Mayer topped Swift by 9 spots. Even though he may have lost the last two rounds, Mayer is easily winning the overall fight so far, although the next round may be a draw with their duet will probably make the Best of 2010 list.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the Parlotens!!! Their a awesom band. I think their from the UK
ReplyDeleteYou have horrible taste in music.
ReplyDeletehmmm....no slayer or lamb of god= no taste in rock this year, kings of leon are aweful and completely overrated
ReplyDeleteWow, you suck in 100 levels...
ReplyDelete