Another Year In America December 31, 2009

Miley's "Party In The USA" jumps back into the top ten and Justin Bieber's "One Time" jumps back into the Top 40, possibly for some current-events reasons I'm not up on. And while poptimists ignored the UK charts this week (which was all re-entries anyway), Another Year In America keeps on shovelin'.

( Orianthi )

( Selena Gomez & The Scene )

Top 35 Country Singles, 2009

Facing the worst slump since the Great Depression, country responded with hard-eyed realism, producing great track after great track about booty, transvestites, and Saturday night blowouts. This is my best country list since I started doing them in '03. Lotsa dance beats.

Top 35 Country Singles, 2009

1. Love And Theft "Runaway"
2. Jamey Johnson "High Cost Of Living"
3. Taylor Swift "You Belong With Me"
4. Sarah Buxton "Space"
5. Lady Antebellum "Need You Now"
6. Taylor Swift "White Horse"
7. Sarah Borges And The Broken Singles "Do It For Free"
8. Caitlin & Will "Even Now"
9. Miranda Lambert "White Liar"
10. Brad Paisley "Welcome To The Future"
11. Taylor Swift "Fifteen"
12. Jack Ingram "Barefoot And Crazy (Double Dog Dare Ya Mix)"
13. Brooks & Dunn ft. Reba McEntire "Cowgirls Don't Cry"
14. Rascal Flatts "Summer Nights"
15. Kenny Chesney ft. Dave Matthews "I'm Alive"
16. Randy Houser "Boots On"
17. John Rich "Shuttin' Detroit Down"
18. Jamie O'Neal "Like A Woman"
19. Kenny Chesney "Out Last Night"
20. Billy Currington "People Are Crazy"
( 21 through 35 )

Nonsingles '00s

"What is a nonsingle?" I hear you ask. A nonsingle is an album cut that never becomes a single and never acts like a single (so, doesn't get a lot of airplay or get talked about by more than one set of friends and doesn't chart for more than a couple of weeks), or it's a leaked track that wasn't leaked by the artist and doesn't act like a single (see previous parenthesis). So, for example, Jay-Z's "Takeover" was an album cut that was never pushed as a single, but it's not eligible in the nonsingles category, the reason being that it was chatted about and responded to all over the place, was the subject of an answer song, etc.

Top Five Nonsingles Of The '00s

1. t.A.T.u. "Kosmos" [English-language version is "Cosmos (Outer Space)"]
2. María Daniela Y Su Sonido Lasser "Duri Duri"
3. Margaret Berger "Robot Song"
4. Fannypack "Smack It Up"
5. Lindsay Lohan "Nobody 'Til You"

(Didn't do a 6 through 10, but if you want a top ten, just insert your five favorite Cassie leaks.)

"Kosmos" is the standard t.A.T.u. exploitation of their supposedly forbidden supposed love, and in all its transparent obviousness it is just utterly, exquisitely, beautifully moving. "Robot Song" does the same trick, forbidden romance as a gag, "I'm in love with a robot," and then fakes out the gag with its own exquisite beauty, is as intense for me as Murnau's Tabu or Ophuls' Earrings Of Madame de...; I like to program "Robot Song" and "Cosmos (Outer Space)" back-to-back: come to get me when the stars die, another time, another place, another world, you're the only one who makes me feel a thing, guilt for the second best, feel no more, feel no less, our home forever is outer space, black stars and endless seas, outer space, new hope, new destinies, outer space, forever we'll be in outer space.

"Smack It Up" is a bratsmack, and "Duri Duri" is a Mexican Italodisco '80s classic given it's own '00s smackiness. "Nobody 'Til You" is - what? - the second most beautiful John Shanks song, a gorgeous flood of guitar chords.

Singles '00s

Singles (as opposed to nonsingles). OK, here's where the decade barrier gets in the way: for me the arc of modern music starts in approximately '97 when Timbaland begins hitting with Missy and when Max Martin scores in the U.S. with the Backstreet Boys, and the Dirty South is bubbling up nationally, though I didn't connect to most of this other than Missy until '99 when Chuck enticed me back into the public eye. '99 is one node, with "...Baby One More Time" and "Back That Azz Up" and "Nann Nigga" and the flowering of the Ruff Ryders sound. Incredible year. '03 is another node — the top three on my list! — among other things for the dominance by the Dirty South, crunk coming to the fore. Then '04 and '05 are the peak of the rock confessional, what we've been calling "teenpop" but it's really young-woman pop that teens and tweens were lucky enough to be the prime consumers of, shepherded by men and women like John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi and the Matrix etc.; it brought my heart back into the business in a way that no one earlier in the decade except Eminem had done. I really needed Ashlee et al.'s lyrics, 'cause there's only so far I can care about whether someone gets low or not. The end of the decade doesn't have a node, exactly; country bumps in and out of the other stories, dallying with hip-hop in '04 and then Taylor Swift leaps into the rock confessional gap with her Taylorness, which is pretty much its own genre. Despite having written what I think was one of the significant bits about Destiny's Child, and liking Mya etc., I didn't start really clicking with — or on — r&b until '06, reaching back into the late '90s from there and then Lex has been a big help in my feeling it now.

Top Ten Singles Of The '00s

1. Panjabi MC ft. Jay-Z "Beware Of The Boys"
2. Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz ft. Ying Yang Twins "Get Low"
3. 50 Cent "In Da Club"
4. Hilary Duff "Come Clean"
5. Missy Elliott "Get Ur Freak On"
6. Jay-Z ft. UGK "Big Pimpin'"
7. Eminem "The Real Slim Shady"
8. Kelly Clarkson "Since U Been Gone"
9. ATC "Around The World"
10. Kelly Clarkson "Because Of You"

Top 100 Singles, 2009

A few quick comments: Asher talks slow with ace timing on "College" and he does something different with a party track by giving it a 3 AM and spent feel, and these people don't bother me. It's music, it's art. Speaking of art, my favorite of this year's GaGa tracks has some guy on it telling us that his name has a second syllable pronounced "AY," and "Till I got a buzz like that nigga Chris Mullin" is hilarious; of course, I know who Chris Mullin is. "Welcome To The Future" has a much richer sense of color than I'd ever heard from Brad Paisley, feels like something new in country; thick, bright paint.

Top 100 Singles, 2009

( 1 through 10, which you've seen already )

11. Jim Jones f. Ryan Leslie "Precious"
12. Nicki Minaj "Beam Me Up Scotty"
13. Jamey Johnson "High Cost Of Living"
14. Hilary Duff "Any Other Day"
15. Jim Jones "Na Na Nana Na Na"
16. MC Hammer Vs. Britney Spears "Can't Touch 3 (Bedbug Mix)"
17. Depeche Mode "Wrong"
18. Champion DJ "Baako"
19. Asher Roth "I Love College"
20. 3OH!3 "Don't Trust Me"
21. Taylor Swift "You Belong With Me"
22. Britney Spears "3"
23. Lily Allen "The Fear"
24. Paleface f. Kyla "Do You Mind (Crazy Cousinz Remix)"
25. Ne-Yo "Part Of The List"
26. Demi Lovato "Don't Forget"
27. Busy Signal "Tic Toc (GreenMoney Liquid Re-Rub)"
28. Scooter "J'adore Hardcore"
29. K'naan f. Chubb Rock "ABC's"
30. Jeremih "I'mma Star"
( 31 through 100 )

( Chris Mullin )