Top 90 Singles, 2011

1. Britney Spears "Hold It Against Me"
2. 2NE1 "I Am The Best"
3. Fat Cat "My Love Bad Boy"
4. GD&TOP "High High"
5. Jeremih "Down On Me"
6. IU "The Story Only I Didn't Know"
7. Bobby Brackins ft. Dev "A1"
8. Galaxy Dream ft. Turbotronic "Ready 4 Romance"
9. Big Bang "Tonight"
10. Dia Frampton "Heartless" (live on The Voice) [webrip]
11. SNSD "Bad Girl"
12. Britney Spears "Criminal"
13. Rihanna "S&M"
14. 4minute "Mirror Mirror"
15. Far East Movement ft. Lil Jon & Colette Carr "Go Ape." Dance phenoms add caterwauling and hollabacking to the palette. Jon's had his entrepreneurial eye on Korea for a while; U.S. West Coast is the closest he's gotten so far.

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16. Nine Muses "Figaro"
17. GD&TOP "Knock Out"
18. MBLAQ "I Don’t Know"
19. New Boyz ft. Dev & The Cataracs "Backseat." Got a blank response on the Jukebox despite being to my ears far catchier and clearer than the mass of floundering fish that joined it in this year's dance-r&b-hip-hop-amalgam mess. Dev walks in and walks away with the song, of course, friendly, scrappy little clubrat casually exuding oceans of sexiness while just zipping through.

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20. Rihanna "Man Down"
( Nicola Roberts through Miss A )

( Florence + The Machine through Blady )

( Orange Caramel through Nero )

( Feist through Eric Church )

My rankings were by sound and feeling and how good I thought something was, so proximity and juxtapositions are accidental, e.g. 50 and 51, and 89 and 90. But I like Rittz rubbing up against Eric Church at the end. Rittz is from the outer suburbs of Atlanta, but it's fun to think of him as the kid brother Church is singing to, the wigga who left the farm for hip-hop's dirty streets. The whomp of pain and incomprehension in "Homeboy" is Church's as much as the narrator's, Eric and cowriter Casey Beathard never giving voice to why a little brother might feel no home for himself in the place he grew up. The words are mostly about what the little brother supposedly lost. But the loss in the song is much deeper, the last verse giving us a view that the writers don't necessarily have themselves, the sense of something vital having left when the kid brother did and the abandoned relatives wishing it back rather than developing it in themselves.

Returning home with an empty heart...

Unfootnoted text that I hope is never deleted from Wikipedia:

Soyeon fostered her dreams of becoming a star even before she could stand in front of a mirror. After getting into an arts high school, she became a trainee at a top name agency in her senior year. Every single day, she rehearsed to the point of sweating through three different t-shirts.

Six months before she was to debut with SNSD, she withdrew from the final line-up. After returning home with an empty heart, she spent the next year and a half in what she personally declared was the hardest moment of her life.

Her hardships didn't end there, though, as her grandmother and uncle — both avid supporters of her dream to become a star — met with a health crisis that eventually led to their deaths a year later.

Soyeon expressed, "Up until my life right now, the year and a half I spent after leaving Girls' Generation was the hardest point in my life. Not only my parents, but my entire family supported my dreams, especially my grandmother and uncle. But right after I had to give up my trainee life, they passed away in the same year. Both told me one thing: 'Become a singer.'"

She continued, "After the funerals, I dusted myself off and tried to find my determination to reach my dreams again. I clenched my jaw and said to myself, 'Let's try this one more time.'"

Coincidentally, Mnet Media released an article declaring that they were looking for one more member to complete their upcoming five member girl group. To Soyeon, it was a chance that she couldn't pass up. After overcoming her obstacles, she's not only shining in the music industry, but in broadcasting as well. She's headlined countless times for her witty remarks on variety shows like "100 Points out of 100".
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_So_Yeon

Soyeon is the one who starts singing at 0:28, and the song belongs to her more than to any other T-aran:

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( Crying better than dancing, being slavishly Britney better than either )