Darn you VH1. I told myself I would not watch I Love the Millennium because it is too soon (not to mention I have March 2010 in the office pool as to when they would roll out the series. Then a massive thunder storm hit so I was flipping through the channels during it, stopping on the show. I said to myself I would only watch a segment and then do something productive, six hours later I finished off the marathon and felt dirty (crazy astronaut lady: too soon, man, too soon). Alas I didn't write anything for today so instead you can take an hour or so and check out the widget I mad of the best songs of last year. Because not all the songs are on Amazon MP3,where you can buy the songs DRM free, check out the 100 Best Songs of 2007 for the complete list.
And yes I realize the irony of railing against holding a nostalgia fest for stuff that happened as soon as last year only for me to roll out something from last year.
Here we are a week into the New Year, but I want to take one last look at 2007 (for full Best and Worst of the year, be sure to click on the Best of 2007 label at the bottom of the post). First my annual list of artists that had the most impact on be over the past twelve months:
Top Artists of the Year
1. Lily Allen (Best Song: 1, 8, 12, 18, 66; Best Album: 3; Best Video: 5, 11, 15, 23; Best Performance: 25): Just to show how much impact Lily Allen had on me this year, in twelve years of making Best Songs of the Year list, no artist has had more than two songs in the top twenty let alone four. And it looks like many of you liked her too because as you can see below, her album review was the third most viewed post of the year.
2. Kanye West (Best Song: 3, 6, 53, 72, 87; Best Album: 5; Best Mash Up: 21; Best Video: 1, 4, 18; Reader’s Poll: 2; Best Performance: 15): Even though not nearly as good as his first two albums, Graduation still ranks in the top ten best rap albums this decade. And no other artist had a better viral year thanks to his internet only videos for Can’t Tell Me Nothin’ and his remix for Throw Some D’s.
3. Amy Winehouse (Best Song: 4, 29, 50, 92; Best Album: 6; Best Mash Up: 9; Reader’s Poll: 3; Best Performance: 23): Yeah she went neck and neck with Britney Spears for most clinically insane celebrity of the year, but unlike Spears, Winhouse managed to put out a great album this year.
4. Alicia Keys (Best Song: 10, 24; Best Album: 1; Best Mash Up: 15; Best Live Performance: 1, 9, 14, 20): As I Am may not lived up to expectations, but it was good enough to land her the best album of the year. Also she ripped off some great performances to promote it.
5. Ryan Adams (Best Song: 5, 21, 42, 90; Best Album: 4; Best Video: 10): A year and a half was the longest hiatus of his career and the extra time paid off with East Tiger being his best album in a while. Of course then Adams promptly released an EP not that long after. We will have to wait to see if he goes back to three albums in 2008.
Next some self congratulatory some with the most read posts and such here on the 9th Green. I was going to have the most popular searches, but nine of the top ten were some sore of play on “Best Songs of 2006” with the only other being Megan Hauserman in the nine spot, so that seemed silly to post. But here are the other best of the best. First a note between Most Read Feeds and Most Viewed Posts, the Feeds are based on who is accessing my feed, most likely through a feed reader (but some pirated) where Posts are people who actually came to the 9th Green, and if there are on the top, it is most likely because of Google.
Lastly, for those interested in the Best Songs of 2007 (click here to download the songs) to fit on a single CD, here would be the tracklist which would come in at 78:18 (note: the songs are in reverse order as if counting down the tracks).
1. Everybody Knows - Ryan Adams 2. Dumb it Down - Lupe Fiasco 3. Love Song - Sara Bareilles 4. LDN - Lily Allen 5. Look After You - The Fray 6. Brianstorm - Arctic Monkeys 7. The Game - Common 8. The Underdog - Spoon 9. Our Song - Taylor Swift 10. Alfie - Lily Allen 11. Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen 12. No One - Alicia Keys 13. Read My Mind - The Killers 14. Oh My God - Mark Ronson featuring Lily Allen 15. Tennessee - The Wreckers 16. Stronger - Kanye West 17. Two - Ryan Adams 18. Rehab - Amy Winehouse 19. Can’t Tell Me Nothing - Kanye West 20. Dreaming with a Broken Heart - John Mayer 21. Drivin’ Me Wild - Common featuring Lily Allen
This being the Most Mediocre Year Ever, there is no band that sums that up better than Paramore. The bad got a big push from MTV and their record label thanks to being one of the first bands to sign a 360 degree deal. Yet with all the marketing muscle behind their three singles this year, the band wasn’t good enough to show up on this list nor were bad enough to land of the Worst Songs of 2007 list. So congratulations Paramore, with all the mediocre music put out by bland artists such as OneRepublic, Lifehouse, and Sean Kingston, you managed to be the most mediocre of them all. Although the problem with the most mediocre of them all, even though this is the Most Mediocre Year Ever, you will most likely be forgotten by 2009. Sorry.
Onto the songs that did make the list, the reason this is the Most Mediocre Year Ever is the great songs were really thin at the top this year. Most of these songs wouldn’t have cracked the top ten in other years. With that said, even though there was a lacking of great songs, there was an overabundance of good songs this year to the point that there were ten to twenty songs this year that deserved to make the top one hundred when most years ninety through one hundred are an afterthought most years. But here are the ones that made the cut for this, the last post of 2007. Hopefully I will see you all back here in 2008.
In a story I broke last week, 2007 is the most mediocre year ever. Case in point, last year’s Best Albums of the Year list had fifty albums on it, this year it was hard to scrape thirty this year. Yeah there were a couple albums that could have gotten on this list but I never got around to listening to the whole thing and thus never reviewed (Linkin Park, Jay-Z), but for the most part I got hold of most everything I wanted to review, it was just not that much music this year and of those that I did review there really wasn’t anything great.
Two albums you definitely won’t be seeing on this list are Konvicted by Akon and T.I. vs. T.I.P. even though I got both for Christmas. Should I be offended that someone thought about me, “Now there is someone who would like listening to Akon”? But anyways. If you are interested in reading my original review of these albums, check out the link below the album and if you are interested in buying them on iTunes, click on the album link. If you want to buy the physical CD, head over to Scooter McGavin’s Amazon Store where you can order them there:
One of the coolest musical innovations in recent memory is the mash-up. For those that may not be familiar with the term, it can best be described when you take the vocals from one song and place them over the instrumental from a different song. The artform may have not gotten as much press this year as it has in past years but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some great new mash-ups floating around the internet. I tried to give credit to the creator of the mash-up, but due to some poor labeling, some have gotten lost and I even had to create a name for a few mash-ups that I discovered nameless. Also some of these songs may have been created earlier than 2007 but this is a list of songs I’ve found this year.
Please do not ask for me to send you any of these songs because for legal reasons I cannot confirm or deny that any of these songs actually exist (but I will point out there is a Google search box on the sidebar as well as other helpful links). You know, because I would not illegally download copyrighted material even though that material has been altered from any version that could be bought anywhere. If you want the unaltered album version of the songs, on the second line I will list the main songs that make up the mash-up (note some have more songs than I’ve listed):
1. Dip it Joe - Pheugoo
Christina Milian (Dip It Low) vs. Jimi Hendrix Experience (Hey Joe)
10. Mercy for the Scientist - Bobby Martini
Peter Gabriel (Mercy Street) vs. Coldplay (The Scientist)
11. Drop it Like it’s a Whole LottLed Snooppelin - Party Ben
Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell Williams (Drop it Like it’s Hot) vs. Led Zeppelin (Whole Lotta Love)
It is really hard to complain about MTV and VH1 no longer showing videos anymore because who these days wants to wade through videos that they hand pick when you have almost every video ever made at your disposal whenever you want on sites like YouTube? And here are the best of the best of from the past twelve months. I have embedded the first couple videos, the rest you can click the link to follow to YouTube and if you are interested in buying the videos, click the iTunes links. Now I should mention some of these videos are not safe for work but really nothing on YouTube is all the safe for work because I’m sure you boss wouldn’t be thrilled even if your watching a video of a cat playing with a ball of yarn. But anyways:
1. Can't Tell Me Nothing - Kanye West
2. Trapped in the Closet Chapter 1-12 Recap - R. Kelly
Before I get to your favorite songs of the year I first want to mention that just before Christmas I had ordered a gift for someone through Amazon and among the usual spam advertising slips that they stuff into their boxes there was an envelope where you can place old cell phones to send to the troops. So if you got a new cell phone for Christmas or are just like me and is a pack rat who keeps everything for no reason and had three just lying around collecting dust, please check out this website: Cell Phones for Soldiers to see where you can send any of your unused cell phones. They say the phone can be in any condition and don’t even need to still have a battery.
Last year was the first time I ever let you my readers influences the 9th Green (aside from the occasional pandering for comments) and this year I got four times more responses than last. Thanks to each and everyone who took time to compile your favorite songs of the year to make this list possible. With the more responses I think this ended up being a better list for the most part than last year. This year Rihanna was as close to consensus as it got this year being the only artist appearing on more than half of the lists I received. Keep in mind this list is solely your opinions and I in no way influenced it as I will be unveiling my favorite 100 songs of the year coming this Sunday. But here are your favorites:
It seems as the years go by the music on the radio gets worse and worse thanks in part this year to karaokers, mom rockers, pseudo-punk rockers, and ringtone rappers that polluted the air worse than any Hummer. And can we please stop inviting Akon to sing on every song? In honor of the top 40 radio stations that have ruined radio here are the forty worst songs of the year even though I bet playlists are down to 25-30 songs these day.
Before I get into the worst of this year, I would like to make a special mention of Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya) by Ahslee Simpson which is too new to make this list but has certainly set the bar pretty high (or low depending how you look at it) for the Worst Songs of 2008. But anyways. Feel free to leave the songs that really irritated you this year in the comment section and of course if you disagree with any of my selections, you have the power to influence the 9th Green Reader’s Favorite Songs of 2007 Poll:
- Jay-Z