The 100 Best Songs Of 2011: 70-61

70. BAD MEETS EVIL ft. BRUNO MARS ‘Lighters’

Credit where credit is due: the usually okay-at-best-but-not-The-Lazy-Song-that’s-just-horrific Bruno Mars is great here, as the nearly anonymous chorus-vocalist in this, the big hit single from Bad Meets Evil’s 2011 mini-album/EP/whatever. Eminem and Royce Da 5’9″ reunited this year for Hell: The Sequel, which just missed out on being in my top albums of the year, and ‘Lighters’ is a big cry-along melodrama which reminds me of past Eminem classics like ‘Sing For The Moment’ and ‘Like Toy Soldiers’. The glory of ‘Lighters’ is in the anxiety of the verses giving way to the chorus, and producers The Smeezingtons (which means Bruno again) bring the pop sensibility they brought to past triumphs ‘Fuck You’ and ‘Grenade’.

69. JAY-Z & KANYE WEST ‘H•A•M’

Another one of those apparent “disappointments” I cannot fathom – ‘H•A•M’ is fucking awesome, was the perfect lead-in for Watch The Throne, and deserved to be on the main tracklist. That cascading choir during the chorus (all this alliteration, I feel like Courtney Stodden) makes this feel like some ancient epic sent to us through the power of time travel, and while Kanye is weaker than usual, Jay-Z is at his best here. That “really half a milli” section is one of my favourite bits of any song released this year.

68. COLDPLAY ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’

I love the lyrics in this, which copped a bit of flack for being “cheesy”. Cheesy is fine by me when it sounds this good, and lines like “cathedrals in my heart” are so beautiful and ridiculous that I can’t help but fall in love. ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’ is, yes, built for stadiums and crowd participation, but it’s also a song about having a personal, one-on-one relationship with music. Sound sugary and saccharine? You bet, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

67. FLORENCE + THE MACHINE ‘Shake It Out’

I don’t think Flo is that much like Kate Bush, they’re just both English and have red hair, but ‘Shake It Out’ feels like her ‘Running Up That Hill’. It’s a shout-it-from-the-mountain anthem that feels like a bomb dropping in slow motion, and now that I’m listening to it again I feel like it is the female version of the Coldplay epics we’ve been discussing previously. With some of the best lyrics of the year, this is a summation of everything Florence is about, and it very nearly tops her best song, ‘Rabbit Heart’. Nearly.

66. LADY GAGA ‘Yoü And I’

Shania lives! Like ‘Marry The Night’, ‘Yoü And I’ is not the right choice for a single and the video was boring but it is a great track in its own right. It has already proven itself as a rousing live anthem and whether you’re a fan of ballad Gaga or not, it’s hard to deny that ‘Yoü And I’ has some great lyrics and a surprisingly authentic classic rock feel. “Muscle cars drove a truck right through my heart” is one of my favourite lines on Born This Way, and while the video and the drag king stupidity left a bad taste in my mouth, it still didn’t ruin this excellent song.

65. ALEXANDRA STAN ‘Mr. Saxobeat’

I’m so happy The Cheeky Girls are still influencing pop all these years later. This piece of European trash gloriousness is straight from the nineties and I couldn’t be more pleased. It even cracked America! Alexandra Stan rides this 1995 beat with her nonsensical ode to the titular Mr. Saxobeat, who could really be anyone or anything – who cares. The melody and the throwback vibe is the star here, and I hope Alexandra continues to revive Alice Deejay and doesn’t become a one-hit wonder.

64. KATE BUSH ‘Snowflake’

The opening track on 50 Words For Snow is one of the slowest and most atmospheric Kate songs ever. With lead vocal taken by Kate’s son Bertie, who sounds almost creepily like the choirboy on 1982′s ‘All The Love’, ‘Snowflake’ drifts along very gently, with Kate dropping in every now and then. Of course, she is playing the beautifully simply piano during the song, and the mix of voices and sounds are deceptively straightforward. This uncomplicated track is the important introduction into the world Kate has built for this remarkable album.

63. RUPAUL ‘Glamazon’

The extravaganza of this song! ‘Glamazon’ is a monstrous werqout that sashays and shantés all over the place. With OTT lyrics like “SASHAY! SHANTÉ! PANTHER ON THE RUNWAY!” and a huge, catchy chorus, this is simply a boatload of fun. Keeping in with Ru’s key theme of being yourself and being fabulous, this tale of a “female phenomenon” is presented as being about one person, but it’s really about anybody who has confidence in themselves and isn’t afraid to show a bit of realness in the way they carry themselves.

62. BRITNEY SPEARS ‘I Wanna Go’

‘I Wanna Go’ is one of my most played songs of the year but I’m putting it a little bit low on this list because it really does sound a lot like the single that directly preceded it, ‘Till The World Ends’. But the track has its own unique charms, including Britney’s not entirely convincing claim that she hasn’t already shown us all the dirt she’s got running through her mind. We remember ‘Touch Of My Hand’, girl! Such filth. But the pure pop rush of the chorus and the awesome video made sure ‘I Wanna Go’ was a huge hit (in America at least) and one of the clear standouts on the defining Femme Fatale.

61. BEYONCÉ ft. ANDRE 3000 ‘Party’

This is so old school (old school for me = late nineties). I feel like TLC are about to pop up on guest vocals, or at least Missy Elliott. And we do get a star from yesteryear as a guest in Andre 3000 – when Outkast get another album out I’ll call him current again – whose precise, laid-back flow fits this beat perfectly. Meanwhile, Beyoncé gets her swagu (I don’t know what that is) on and rolls around in the four-poster-bed that is the ‘Party’ instrumental. The “we like to partayyy” hook is infectious and this trip back in time is a centrepiece of the uneven 4.

The 100 Best Songs Of 2011: 80-71

80. COLDPLAY ‘Paradise’

Coldplay are known for their epics – ‘Clocks’, ‘Speed Of Sound’, ‘Viva La Vida’, and now ‘Paradise’, the biggest hit so far from their excellent album Mylo Xyloto. Riding along an infectious “para-para-paradise” hook and some truly massive instrumental work, this is at once self-aware and completely innocent. As the backing vocals sail through the speakers and Chris Martin’s voice climbs higher and higher, ‘Paradise’ really feels like it lives up to its title.

79. LADY GAGA ‘Marry The Night’

‘Marry The Night’ is not a good single and the video put me to sleep. But it is a great song, and a great album opener for Born This Way, representing a lot of the sounds and styles to be found within. I like the verses much more than the chorus, although the “M-M-M-MARRY, M-M-M-MARRY” is a fantastic singalong bit and I expect that will be amazing in concert. This is the sort of thing Gaga does best, and I’m quite happy to pump my fist along with it and sing like a fool.

78. JAY-Z & KANYE WEST ft. FRANK OCEAN ‘No Church In The Wild’

This sinister, drug-soaked track opens Watch The Throne with the same weight and sense of grandeur that ‘Dark Fantasy’ invoked on Kanye’s last masterpiece. The two rappers are at their creepy best, playing selfish, awful characters (or are they playing themselves?) who go on benders and treat people badly and just don’t give a fuck. “What’s a God to a non-believer?”, the chorus asks, and I feel like these two could answer that question quite accurately. The high-flying mafia fantasy comes to life on ‘No Church In The Wild’, and it is a thriller.

77. KATE BUSH ’50 Words For Snow’

It sounds ridonkulous – Stephen Fry recites fifty words that all mean snow while Kate Bush counts for him and then occasionally eggs him on with a rousing chorus. And it all go for eight and a half minutes. And it is completely ludicrous, but it works because Kate manages to put this crazed feeling into it, like reaching number 50 is going to save the world from a catastrophe. Slinking and sliding around for ages but never feeling like an extra-long song, ’50 Words For Snow’ is not a track you’d listen to on repeat, or even very often. But it is further proof that Kate can take a strange idea (remember ‘Pi’ from Aerial?) and turn it into something awesome.

76. BLINK-182 ‘Up All Night’

It’s amazing how much this sounds like it’s from 2003. That is definitely a good thing, by the way. 2003 was awesome. ‘Up All Night’ is classic Blink-182, reuniting these voices and these band members for the first time in years, and everything falls directly back into place where they were before. That’s not to say there hasn’t been progression – this feels more polished than a lot of their earlier material – but their knack for an amazing chorus and a great melody are present and accounted for.

75. MELANIE C ‘Think About It’

So the guitars sound like Kelly Clarkson and she looks like Clare Maguire’s twin in the video, but this voice could only belong to one person – Melanie C, and this is the catchiest thing she’s released since ‘I Turn To You’. Melanie’s comeback album The Sea had lots of great songs but ‘Think About It’ was a clear standout, a slice of power pop that blasts itself into your ears and organises to stay there on a permanent visa. It was a shame that it didn’t do very well, but that’s just the reality of it for most nineties stars these days, and a low chart position doesn’t detract from the highs to be found within this song.

74. DUCK SAUCE ‘Big Bad Wolf’

The genius is in the simplicity. Last time it was two words – “Barbra Streisand” – this time four, with “the big bad wolf” accompanied by a rolling beat and a glorious “AWOOOOOOOO” from a Crazy Clark’s sound effects compilation CD. There’s not that much more to say about the song, it’s just excellent and annoying and amazing all at once. And the video is truly something else, an Aphex-Twin-style freakout that needs to be seen to be believed.

73. TAKE THAT ‘Love Love’

Take That had the song of the year in 2010 with ‘The Flood’, which stills leaves me for dead with its brilliance. While ‘Love Love’ isn’t quite as good as that gift from heaven it stills boasts a massive chorus and as the lead-in for the re-release of Progress, it tweaks their sound ever so slightly (this is a liiiittle bit heavier sounding than their other recent singles) while staying familiar and making sure that the two people in Britain who haven’t already bought the album do so quickly and in an orderly fashion. From the thumping intro to the we-flicked-through-the-Bible-and-found-some-phrases-we-liked lyrics, ‘Love Love’ is Take That via Coldplay, U2 and Gary Barlow’s ego.

72. SNEAKY SOUND SYSTEM ‘We Love’

Basically everybody else preferred ‘Big’, but I thought ‘We Love’ was actually, if not technically the better song, more fun. A bouncy eighties beat and Miss Connie doing something funny with her voice that I can’t describe make this stand out from the crowd, and it just makes you generally feel good. The weird (“would you like to buy a shiny banana?”) and gross (“gosh, you’ve got me covered”) lyrics don’t make any sense and the video is crap but sometimes you just have to go with what you feel – and ‘We Love’ puts a smile on my face.

71. ALEX GAUDINO ft. KELLY ROWLAND ‘What A Feeling’

Kelly Rowland is much better suited to R&B than dance (for example, ‘Down For Whatever’ is fucking diabolical and ‘Motivation’ is a masterpiece) but sometimes while doing music for her gays she really gets it right and ‘What A Feeling’ is one of her best-ever songs. Teaming with Alex Gaudino, who previously helmed the defining ‘Destination Calabria’, this is an old fashioned belter, with cheesy lyrics (“Favourite star I used to stare at every night”? Gurl…), a simple beat that anyone can dance to and a chorus just begging to be screamed out by every drunk bitch on the floor.

16 Great Songs That Didn’t Make My Top 100 Songs Of The Year

Poor Havana Brown.

116. HAVANA BROWN ’We Run The Night’

115. R.E.M. ‘We All Go Back To Where We Belong’

114. NICOLA ROBERTS ‘Sticks + Stones’

113. MEAT LOAF ‘All Of Me’

112. KE$HA ‘Fuck Him He’s A DJ’

111. SHAKIRA ft. PITBULL ‘Rabiosa’

110. ALEXIS JORDAN ‘Hush Hush’

109. RIHANNA ft. JAY-Z ‘Talk That Talk’

108. TORI AMOS ‘Shattering Sea’

107. NICOLA ROBERTS ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime’

106. JAY-Z & KANYE WEST ‘Niggas In Paris’

105. COLDPLAY & RIHANNA ‘Princess Of China’

104. THE SATURDAYS ‘Notorious’

103. NICOLE SCHERZINGER ft. 50 CENT ‘Right There’

102. CEE LO GREEN ‘Anyway’

101. BJÖRK ‘Cosmogony’

The 23 Best Albums Of 2011: #15-#11

15. JENNIFER LOPEZ Love?

Jennifer Lopez has never been a major artist for me, although you don’t really remember how many amazing singles she’s had until you’re faced with her discography. 2011 saw her add three great new songs to that list – ‘On The Floor’, ‘I’m Into You’, ‘Papi’ – and her fun new album Love? also boasted massive album tracks like ‘Hypnotico’, ‘Invading My Mind’ and ‘Good Hit’. There’s not that much personality or individuality here, but that’s to be expected, and Love? turned out to be a feel-good, don’t-think-too-much smash hit.

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14. DOLLY PARTON Better Day

I saw Dolly Parton in the flesh. She was there, on a stage just metres away from me, singing the songs that have defined my life since I was a baby. Dolly. Parton. As the kids say these days, “OMG”. The Better Day Tour was the highlight of my existence and the album was a winner too. Life-affirming first single ‘Together You And I’ was pure and honest joyful noise, while ‘The Sacrifice’ and the title track showed of Dolly’s unbelievable voice and lyrical skills. The tour revealed ‘Holding Everything’ to be one of her most underrated recent songs, and all in all 2011 was one of the most triumphant years of Queen Dolly’s 200-year career.

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13. COLDPLAY Mylo Xyloto

One of my favourite pop bands, Coldplay sure do get a lot of hate that I struggle to understand. Their hooks are glorious, their songwriting at times fantastic and at times fantastically ridiculous, and they have a sense of grandeur that is sorely missing from many of their contemporaries. That massiveness goes into overdrive on Mylo Xyloto, their fifth album. ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’ and ‘Paradise’ have been the big hits so far, and they are some of the best singles released by anyone this year. ‘Princess Of China’, their colossal Rihanna duet, was a genre-defying slice of pure bliss. While it was no Viva La Vida, Mylo Xyloto proved the biggest band in the world aren’t running out of steam just yet.

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12. BEYONCÉ 4

Usually Beyoncé is immediate – ‘Crazy In Love’, ‘Single Ladies’, ‘Irreplaceable’, these are all songs which grab you on first listen. Perhaps to its detriment, 4 is very much an album that grows on you, and the lead single ‘Run The World (Girls)’ also takes a while to reveal itself as a little work of genius. ‘Countdown’, ‘Love On Top’ and ‘Party’ were all classic-sounding R&B numbers, while the flawless ballads ’1+1′ and ‘I Was Here’ made sure we never forget that Beyoncé can sing the wig off every other woman in the charts. While it’s not 4lawless, it’s not the 4lop many would have you believe.

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11. FRENZAL RHOMB Smoko At The Pet Food Factory

Since their 2003 masterpiece Sans Souci, Frenzal Rhomb have released music very sporadically, with 2006′s Forever Malcolm Young arriving as a slight disappointment with some truly great songs hidden in the mix. Smoko At The Pet Food Factory is a return to form, kicking off with the hilarious ‘Bird Attack’ and continuing with a blitz of quality material like ‘Cockroach Light Switch’, ‘Hungry Jacks Carpark’ and ‘Back To The Suburbs’. The blistering and melodic ‘Knuckleheads’ is one of my songs of the year and is the best representation of this record – the second best Australian album of 2011.

Songs Of The Week: 18/09/11

1. DARREN HAYES Bloodstained Heart (LW: 2, WI: 2, HP: 1)

2. THE SATURDAYS All Fired Up (LW: 1, WI: 2, HP: 1)

3. LEONA LEWIS & AVICII Collide (LW: 3, WI: 2, HP: 3)

4. ADELE Set Fire To The Rain (LW: 5, WI: 2, HP: 4)

5. MELANIE C Think About It (LW: 9, WI: 2, HP: 5)

6. DEMI LOVATO Skyscraper (LW: 6, WI: 2, HP: 6)

7. FLORENCE + THE MACHINE Shake It Out (NEW, WI: 1, HP: 7)

8. KELLY ROWLAND ft. LIL’ WAYNE Motivation (LW: 4, WI: 2, HP: 4)

9. COLDPLAY Paradise (NEW, WI: 1, HP: 9)

10. YOKO ONO Talking To The Universe (LW: 10, WI: 2, HP: 10)

LW: last week
WI: weeks in
HP: highest position

Single Review: Coldplay – ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’

Coldplay are one of those acts who get a lot of shit but I can never understand why – their music sounds frequently amazing to me, and their last record was one of my favourites of 2008. ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’, their new single, doesn’t quite live up to the greatness of previous epics ‘Speed Of Sound’ or ‘Viva La Vida’, but it is a sign that they might be trying to move their signature sound into new directions.

It is currently unknown whether ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’ will be the lead single or simply a “buzz” track, and the latter might make more sense as it represents a continuation of the classic Coldplay sound while edging into more upbeat territory that you might even call “dance rock” if it were bit faster. Perhaps the next song we hear will be a complete sound reinvention, but on this track Coldplay sound comofortable doing what they do best – not an instant masterpiece but a welcome return from one of the most consistently brilliant bands to emerge in the last decade.

6.5/10