Frank Kogan

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.



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.



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.

Latest column.

The Rules Of The Game #25: Country Music WTF?

I write a lot about Eric Church and a little about Miley and Taylor and Kix and Ronnie and Jason and Brad and John and Johns (I discuss her fingers).

What do you guys think of these performers? For those of you who foolishly believe that the Miley song being so disco-pop makes it not country (this was Chris Willman's opinion over on the rolling country thread), just listen to the melody when Miley sings "I can't wait to see you again" and notice the similarities to Jace Everett's "I wanna do bad things with you." Both melodies come from template number six in How To Write Rockabilly Songs.

( Links to my other Rules Of The Game columns )

( Hannah Montana )

( Hiatus )