1. BRITNEY SPEARS – ‘Till The World Ends’
Wow. When I first heard this song, I had to pinch myself to make sure it wasn’t a dream. Thank you Dr. Luke, thank you Max Martin, thank you Ke$ha, thank you Britney, for this earth-shattering piece of music. There is something about ‘Till The World Ends’ unlocks a part of me labelled “pure heaven” and makes me feel all sorts of things that only the most elite pop songs have triggered before.
And it’s so simple. The wordless “woah-oh-oh-oh-oh”-ing sprinkled around the song is brain-infecting pop brilliance, Britney’s vocals are the most energetic and least robotic she’s sounded in ages, and it feels like everybody involved knows that this is big, big, big. On the chorus, Britney goes hard, and as the song goes on she only goes harder. The remix with Ke$ha (who also co-wrote the song) and Nicki Minaj is a great complement to the head-exploding original, with Nicki delivering the classic diss “you was hot when? Ricki Lake”.
“See the sunlight
We ain’t stoppin’
Keep on dancin’ till the world ends
If you feel it
Let it happen
Keep on dancin’ till the world ends”
In a year when the overarching theme was that everybody should be themselves because they were born this way, in a year when songs about being up in the club ruled the airwaves, in a year where we inched closer to marriage equality and where we took more and more steps to live in a society where we’re free to be true to ourselves and each other, “if you feel it, let it happen” seems like the perfect line to sum up 2011. A song about letting go, having fun and doing what makes you feel good, ‘Till The World Ends’ is the kind of song I want to live inside, and it made my year, and the year in pop, so much better.
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2. DARREN HAYES ‘Black Out The Sun’
Let’s just get it out there: the 7th Heaven Club Remix of ‘Black Out The Sun’ is life changing. The original version of the song is merely life shifting. The original version is a symphony of beautiful noise with one of Darren’s most heartbreaking and moving set of lyrics. ‘Black Out The Sun’ is about the intense feeling that nothing is worth it without the one you love – a sentiment echoed in Lana Del Rey’s ‘Video Games’, now that I think of it – and the vocals are just beyond gorgeous. As one of my favourite male vocalists of all time, Darren continues to surprise me again and again with just how versatile and emotional his voice can be.
The 7th Heaven mix takes that voice and sets it to a relentless, unforgiving club beat, sending this song into a new stratosphere of quality and easily becoming the remix of the year. There is a moment in the remix where the beat drops out and Darren is left alone, only for it to return as his voice rises higher and higher like the flock of birds in that image above. And it might sound cheesy and ridiculous but I swear to god my soul rises with them. I could have a cry about it right now. I LOVE MUSIC.
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3. LADY GAGA ‘Judas’
The lukewarm reception to ‘Judas’ has proven to me once and for all that I will just never understand other pop fans. That’s it guys, I’m done trying to figure out what y’all are thinking. How could this, the sound of ABBA discovering the Bible and Marilyn Manson in the same day, be anything less than 10/10? Despite the fact that there are two songs to go I think I’m going to have to award Chorus of the Year to this monster (pardon the pun). The vocals are almost as good as the lyrics, which are almost as good as the melody, which is almost as good as the production… this is the sound of too much pop brilliance collapsing in on itself to cause an avalanche of amazing. This song is so great and it affects my mind so much that I just considered putting some sort “I don’t need an ear condom I want this song to fuck me bareback” comment in here. I just… I just really love this track, okay? I need a lie down.
OH GOD I’M LISTENING NOW AND THE “I CLING TO” BIT JUST HAPPENED OH MY GOD
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4. KELLY ROWLAND ft. LIL’ WAYNE ‘Motivation’
In the style of Janice from Friends: Oh. My. God. I get sweaty every time I hear this song. I start eyefucking people on the train. I start involuntarily writhing around on the bus. God help me if I ever hear this in a restaurant or at a family occasion. To invoke one of songs of 2010, Kelly Rowland has reupholstered her… self (let’s go with that) and ‘Motivation’ is the uncensored, dripping, oozing, gushing proof. “Don’t you dare slow down”, “go longer”, “push harder”, “make mama proud” – this is an instructional video on how to pleasure Kelendria Trene and it feels at once completely inappropriate and so wrong its right. Lil’ Wayne shows up to give his male perspective, including some classic lines – “I turn that thing into a rainforest/Rain on my head, I call that brainstorming” and “When I’m done she hold me like a conversation, Weezy baby” being the two stand-outs. But, even without the lyrics making it super obvious, it is clear that this beat is the official Sound of Sex, and it is the real lead artist here. God bless this beat, God bless Lil’ Wayne and his way with words, and most of all God bless Kelly Rowland’s rampant vagina.
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5. NICOLA ROBERTS ‘Beat Of My Drum’
EL. OH. VEE. EE. I’ve heard those shouted letters in the chorus of this song countless times this year, and they never get less fun. A giant ball of energy, ‘Beat Of My Drum’ is sound of joy, the sound of newfound confidence and the sound of an under-appreciated girl group member stepping into the light of a career to call her own. It’s not just Nicola that makes this song so great, though, the production is mindblowing, and I’m so tempted to call it the best production of the year. Then I remember that four songs this year were actually better. That’s right, there were songs better than this in 2011. Unbelievable! While ‘Beat Of My Drum’ is playing, it seems impossible that anything else could ever be as blissful and as uninhibited as this incredible, incredible song.
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6. THE SATURDAYS ‘All Fired Up’
I consider ‘All Fired Up’ to be the defining club track of 2011. The ultimate combination of faceless vocals, nonsense lyrics, loose structure and gargantuan chorus, this is the summation of every popular dance music cliché of modern times, and it could not possibly sound more thrilling. And the fact that it is sung by perpetual underdogs The Saturdays only adds to its charms. From “we’re all animal” to “keep me on your rayyyyyydaaaaarrrr”, ‘All Fired Up’ is one awesome moment after another, a collection of beautiful meaningless gibberish filtered through a processor and served via the means of strobing lights. The shot of Mollie flicking her hair in the video is amazing too, I could watch it on repeat all day.
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7. KATE BUSH & ELTON JOHN ‘Snowed In At Wheeler Street’
As I’ve written about all other six tracks on 50 Words For Snow, I keep coming back to the notion of Kate creating a world inside this album, one where all the songs exist and intertwine. She’s done the same for albums in the past, and it works so brilliantly here. ‘Snowed In At Wheeler Street’ is the best song on the record, as it takes two characters from her world and transplants them into ours. The two are immortals who have been “in love forever”, and they take the listener through some of the times they’ve met in history, from Ancient Rome to World War II to 9/11, right through to when they presumably find a way to stay together, in a warm, happy ending. Kate and Elton, two of the greatest artists in British world history, play the lovers, and the sheer thrill of hearing these two artists on record together is enough to make this a must-listen. It is just a bonus that the song they’re on is so, so beautiful. Remember when Madonna and Prince did ‘Love Song’ and it was kinda… not that great? No such problem here: two icons + one stunningly written and performed song from the best album of 2011 = masterpiece.
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8. LANA DEL REY ‘Video Games’
When I saw the people on my Twitter feed and the blogs I trust going nutso over Lana Del Rey and a song called ‘Video Games’, I assumed it would be an electro track not unlike something Robyn or Nicola Roberts might put out. Imagine my shock when I finally got around to giving it a go and found this waiting for me. I haven’t heard a ballad like this in forever. This just feels completely out of place in 2011, but I can’t pinpoint another era it would feel more suited to. It just exists on its own, out of any context. Lana herself is an amazing vocalist, but the real star here is the lyrics, so full of vulnerability, young, inexperienced sexuality and naïve charm. Like a dream, ‘Video Games’ is surreal, strange and you, the listener, are completely at its mercy.
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9. BEYONCÉ ‘Run The World (Girls)’
When I first heard ‘Run The World (Girls)’ I was with my friends Adem and Ben in Geelong. I don’t remember exactly what my feelings were, but the general consensus was that the song was okay and that that warped-carnival noise was awesome. The heavy sample of ‘Pon De Floor’ divided listeners, but I still thought this would be huge. It wasn’t, despite being given every big promotional push short of being beamed directly into the heads of every human on the planet. I guess it goes to show that you just can’t make people like a song if they don’t no matter how much money you throw at it. But for me, ‘Run The World’ revealed itself to be an utter beast of a song, an assault on the senses from every angle, and it would be a track I came back to again and again. Misunderstood, bullied and hated by many pop fans this year, ‘Run The World (Girls)’ is like Kelly Rowland: one day everyone will realise just how special it is. But it will be too late.
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10. ADELE ‘Someone Like You’
Boy am I glad I had a generally good year with regards to relationships. If I had been going through some sort of heartbreak and everywhere I went was this song, they would have called me “that awful crying man” and I would have been committed. The most depressing song of the year, Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ is, all jokes aside, also among the most beautiful. The first US number one in history to be constructed from just voice and piano, ‘Someone Like You’ is the defeated version of Alanis Morissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’, the version of Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ where the protagonist has come to accept what has happened, and the hopeful version of Robyn’s ‘Be Mine!’. Shoving so many emotions into her vocal, Adele proves her worth as a megastar with this song alone. The most overplayed, soul-crushing and adored five minutes of 2011.
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