The 100 Best Songs Of 2011: 100-91

100. VANESSA AMOROSI ‘Gossip’

I just had to put this in my top 100. ‘Gossip’ was a huge failure for Vanessa, who was previously in the midst of her unlikely comeback. It was a non-charting misfire in every way, from the ridiculous video to the cringe-worthy “can’t find my phone” at the start of the song. So why is it here? Because it’s so fun! The chorus is catchy and lines like “Facebook bitches that you hate” and “I’ve got Facebook and Twitter/we could link up” are so bad they’re good. Queen V’s crazed adlibs over the final choruses (“GO AND CHECK OUT MY PAGE! JUST WRITE, JUST JUST JUST TYPE, WRITE! EVERYBODY CHECK MY PAGE!”) are the best thing to happen to Australian pop since Dannii debuted on Young Talent Time. Love the new face, too!

99. JAMIE WOON ‘Lady Luck’

If ‘Night Air’ hadn’t annoyingly been released in 2010 it would be high on this list, but the follow-up single ‘Lady Luck’ is also brilliant, with twisting beats and layered vocals mixing to become a sped-up Massive Attack homage. Jamie is a vocalist who knows his strengths: not unique (if you told me this was Daniel Merriweather I could believe it) but perfect for this style. Whether this is R&B/trip-hop/alt-dance/whatever you want to call it, ‘Lady Luck’, like the parent album Mirrorwriting, feels like a journey into the endless night sky.

98. KATE BUSH ‘Among Angels’

Like ‘A Coral Room’, the song that closed the 7-track first disc of Aerial, ‘Among Angels’ is a voice-and-piano ballad that showcases Kate’s almighty voice at its most subdued. Simple, and without structure or chorus, this is the perfect closer for 50 Words For Snow, an album which takes the listener in many different directions. Like a lie down at the end of a long day, ‘Among Angels’ will lull you to sleep (in a good way) and like the mother that stands for comfort, it’ll tell you everything will be alright.

97. AMY WINEHOUSE ‘Our Day Will Come’

This has nothing on classics like ‘You Know I’m No Good’ or ‘Love Is A Losing Game’, of course. But the brightness of the vocal came as a surprise to me after I assumed they’d lead the posthumous Amy Winehouse with a mournful ballad, and this quickly became a favourite. More Frank than Back To Black, ‘Our Day Will Come’ is summery and suitably retro, with Spectoresque backing vocals and a bounce to it that makes me almost forget all about the troubled life Amy led. Almost, though. ‘Our Day Will Come’ has another layer of meaning, an underlying sadness in that while Amy might have seen her day come with regards to money and success, it was clear there was something missing for her. This mixture of emotions and contexts makes this much more interesting than I expected.

96. KATE BUSH ‘Lake Tahoe’

If ‘Among Angels’ was reminiscent of ‘A Coral Room’, ‘Lake Tahoe’, in a way, takes me back to ‘Rockets Tail’ from A Sensual World. The choral backing vocals give this tale of a ghost endlessly searching for her old dog an extra level of creepiness. Over eleven minutes, Kate unravels this story, taking us through the “cold mountain water” where the lady “rises, as if out of nowhere” and eventually through to the ghost touring around the house where she and her pet used to live. Bargain bin horror or classic tale from yesteryear, passed down through generations? That’s for you to decide – but this song of dead lake women and very old dogs gives me chills in the middle of summer.

95. BEYONCÉ ’1+1′

Stunning. Beyoncé is the best singer of this generation and ’1+1′ is a love song whose intensity requires a vocalist of her calibre. Stretching itself out and shunning such notions as structure and melody, this is instead an extended vocal workout, a declaration of love that doesn’t need to prove itself to anyone but the two people mentioned in the title. This isn’t a hit single, it’s not for radio or Rage, and the intimacy contained within is something that Beyoncé has never – not genuinely, anyway – shown us before.

94. RUPAUL ‘Superstar’

As great as it is, I can’t deny that ‘Superstar’ is a bit of a rehash of 2009′s ‘Champion’ – but that song was so awesome that I don’t mind hearing it done again. I think Ru often surprises people with her strong voice, and she can carry a tune better than 75% of the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play charts. ‘Superstar’ has a huge, sing-along chorus and inspirational lyrics that tie into RuPaul’s Drag Race: this is eleganza on the dance floor.

93. TORI AMOS ‘Snowblind’

Presented as a gorgeous duet between Tori and her daughter Natashya, ‘Snowblind’ is a piano piece intertwined with beautiful lyrics and a melody that pops into the song every now and then before slipping out again as quickly as it came. ‘Snowblind’ (Natashya’s vocals aside, as she wouldn’t have been born) wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Tori’s nineties masterpieces, but the clarity of the instrumentation signal that this more mature and professional. While that wildness from her early recordings is missed, this is still very, very good, and is one of the few Tori tracks to actually sound like it was inspired by the lady she gets compared to most – Kate Bush.

92. SUGABABES ‘Freedom’

Poor old Sugababes. Just when I was ready to give them another go after Keishagate, they collapsed in on themselves with the non-release of ‘Freedom’, their best single since ‘Get Sexy’. Pulled from release a few days before it was set to go on sale, ‘Freedom’ doesn’t have a big radio-ready chorus, and its charms are more subtle that the huge pop people have come to expect from this brand. From the shimmering chorus to the dubstep breakdown, ‘Freedom’ is a number one from a parallel universe, and I hope they at least stick it on an album so it gets a day in the sun.

91. GEORGE MICHAEL ‘True Faith’

When ‘True Faith’ first came out, I thought it was awful. I thought the vocal effects on this cover of New Order’s best song had taken one of the greatest voices of all time and smothered it in something unnecessary. Then, because I buy everything George does regardless of how I feel about it, I bought the CD single. Then I started playing more and more often, and before I knew it, I was loving this version much more than I expected. I still would rather the vocoder wasn’t there, however I can’t deny that the instrumentation is gorgeous and that the effects do produce some interesting sounds here and there. You can’t ruin a song this good, and George Michael’s ‘True Faith’ proved itself to be a song that simply takes a while – a long while – to grow on you.

Single Review: George Michael – ‘True Faith’

At least it wasn’t predictable. When it was announced that one of my favourite singers was covering one of my favourite songs for Comic Relief, I was expecting an uptempo version, like ‘Freeek!’ meets the original ‘True Faith’. But George took New Order’s classic and turned it into a lounge ballad. Okay, that isn’t so out of the ordinary, especially when you consider that a huge chunk of George’s work from 1990 onwards can be considered “lounge balladry”.

But then he smothers the entire song in autotune. I like autotune, from Cher to Kanye and back again, but only when it is used well. It is not used particularly well here. Perhaps a few syllables here and there would’ve been a nice effect – think Girls Aloud’s ‘Untouchable’ single mix – but the whole song? As a ballad? An autotune ballad? A George Michael autotune ballad? The best male vocalist I’ve ever heard who isn’t Michael Jackson doesn’t have their performance enhanced by this effect, they get buried.

At first listen I was horrified, but after listening on repeat for a while it sounds a little bit better, though it still makes no sense. There are good bits here and there and I still think the ballad treatment is a nice touch, so I pray we get an acoustic version or something so we can experience what could have been a great, very different interpretation. Maybe I’ll come around to it – maybe it is the ultimate “grower” – but for now I can’t class this as anything but a disappointment.

4/10

I Didn’t Feel The Danger, Now I Feel The Heat: George Michael’s Faith, Remastered And Revisited

The boldness of Faith cannot be overstated, yet in the wake of everything we know about what came next, it seems tame and almost slight when compared to other George Michael albums. I remember that Faith was the third George Michael studio album that I owned, after first buying Patience, then the hits collection 25, then Listen Without Prejudice. I was slightly underwhelmed by it, especially when I’d been so used to the sourfaced seriousness of the other two records. The songs here seemed too light and fluffy. The man who sang those slow-moving ballads on later albums was yelling “HAVE. SEX. WITH. ME. C-C-C-C-C’MON!!”, and it just didn’t feel as satisfying. When I completed my collection and fully explored the Wham! years, Faith took on new meaning, and I now see it for what it really is: a work of towering brilliance that all but a couple of men in pop history would have killed for.

As opposed to self-contained masterpieces like 1996′s Older, Faith works in the same way that Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best Of George Michael and 25 do. As hits collections, they are powerhouses, overwhelming the listener with amazing song after amazing song. Faith is just a greatest hits disguised as a single album. Straight out of the gate we have ‘Faith’, ‘Father Figure’, ‘I Want Your Sex’, ‘One More Try’ and ‘Hard Day’. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. We take a breather with the two brilliant but understated non-singles ‘Hand To Mouth’ and ‘Look At Your Hands’, and then we’re back to the hits. ‘Monkey’, ‘Kissing A Fool’, ‘A Last Request’. And none of these songs sound similar to each other. The joyous big beats and powerful chorus of ‘Monkey’ don’t sound like the growling predator on ‘I Want Your Sex’, and that harshness doesn’t correspond to the cautious horniness of ‘Faith’, or the knowing seduction going on in ‘Father Figure’. And yet, somehow, it all sounds like the same album, the one vision.

Remastered and expanded, Faith sounds and feels more amazing than ever before. Given a deluxe treatment that puts the original CD issue to shame, the 2CD/DVD edition is housed in a nice little box and includes an interesting booklet which puts the album into a historical context rather than dryly recounting achievements as so many boring reissue essays have done in the past, albeit without any information on where the B-sides and remixes on the second disc came from (perhaps this was done to disguise the fact that two of the B-sides are not from the Faith era at all, which was an odd decision indeed).

Those bonus tracks are the big draw for hardcore fans, and while the selection and the fact that there is only nine of them (to add insult to injury, the ‘Hard Day’ remix has been available in a slightly different form on regular editions of Faith for years, and two of the other bonuses are instrumentals, which are generally seen as a bit of a cop-out) mean that the tracklist is slightly disappointing, the quality of the recordings are still very high. The ‘Faith’ instrumental highlights just how stunningly simple that song is, and the deconstructions of ‘Hard Day’ and ‘Monkey’ are well worth repeated listens. The live tracks, both Stevie Wonder covers, are more vocal showcases than strong individual songs, and they do not stand up to George’s other Stevie covers, ‘They Won’t Go When I Go’ and ‘As’, both of which managed to outshine the originals.

All in all, this reissue reinforces that Faith is a classic, and will most likely remain the widely agreed upon highpoint of George Michael’s career. I personally think he did better work elsewhere, but that doesn’t detract from how amazing this album is, it just means that the others are really, really good. Almost every pop album by a male star since 1987 has wished and hoped so hard that they could be Faith, but nobody so far has achieved such an incredible union of quality music, worldwide commercial success, critical respect and complete cohesion with the visuals and music videos. Many major albums by male pop stars in the years since, from Dangerous to FutureSex/LoveSounds to Confessions, have tried to replicate it’s across-the-board success, the fusion of pop and R&B attempting to elevate the music (and in the case of the latter two, the artist) to iconic status, but none of them really came close, even if, as in the case of Dangerous, the album was actually better than Faith. But simply being better is not enough, and what we have presented to us in this deluxe reissue is a prime example of the planets aligning and everything coming together to turn a simple pop album into a touchstone of pop culture.

Classic Album: George Michael – Older

Released May 13, 1996

1. Jesus To A Child
2. Fastlove
3. Older
4. Spinning The Wheel
5. It Doesn’t Really Matter
6. The Strangest Thing
7. To Be Forgiven
8. Move On
9. Star People
10. You Have Been Loved
11. Free

Each of the four George Michael studio albums is a classic to me in a different way, and each one holds up so well both as a collection of songs and as an individual work of art. Faith was a collection of pop singles designed as a statement of commercial independence, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 mixed that formula with a statement of creative independence. The next two, Older and Patience, both dealt with maturity and growing up but approached them from different angles. The former was about looking forward, the latter about looking back.

Older is probably the most cohesive of the four, which doesn’t automatically make it the best, but it does perhaps have the most impressive run of singles, both in terms of quality and UK chart positions:

• ‘Jesus To A Child’ #1
• ‘Fastlove’ #1
• ‘Spinning The Wheel’ #2
• ‘Older’ (double A-side with non-album track ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’) #3
• ‘Star People ’97′ #2
• ‘You Have Been Loved’/'The Strangest Thing ’97′ (double A-side) #2

The album opens with the first single, ‘Jesus To A Child’, which is a quiet epic that slowly unfolds over seven minutes, eventually revealing itself to be a frontrunner for George’s finest ever ballad. It seems to set the tone for an album full of ballads, but we are taken in a different direction by the follow-up, ‘Fastlove’, which is the one song here that could sit comfortably with his earlier, more up-tempo hits. Even if it does have a catchy chorus and danceable beat, it is still very slinky and restrained, a theme that would characterise much of George’s late nineties output.

The next few tracks make the first clear statements about the nature of this record. The title track is a jazzy ballad that slows down the tempo even further, and ‘Spinning The Wheel’ is a complete masterpiece that takes the opposite tone to ‘Fastlove’: monogamy is the way to go. Much like ‘Jesus To A Child’, the extended length allows the song to really find a groove and develop, which is a joy to listen to. Of course the voice on all these tracks is perfect, and even if we don’t get a stunning vocal showcase like ‘They Won’t Go When I Go’ on Listen Without Prejudice, George is on top form throughout.

One of the things that make Older such a great album is that it has several songs that feel more like “mood pieces”, there for atmospheric purposes and to push the overall feel of the album forward, rather than to engage the listener completely as a song specifically designed to be a single would. ‘It Doesn’t Really Matter’ is one of these, and it gives us time to prepare for ‘The Strangest Thing’, a Middle Eastern influenced half-dance track which feels like a spiritual father to Madonna’s ‘Frozen’ and a child of Kylie Minogue’s ‘Confide In Me’.

The last half of the album is mostly given over to exploring the jazz aspect of the album that would be utilised well for the full length follow-up, Songs From The Last Century. ‘To Be Forgiven’ and ‘Move On’ are enjoyable but not integral parts of Older, and as with ‘It Doesn’t Really Matter’, they work more as proof of artistic intent rather than as songs you need to put on repeat. ‘Star People’ is quite different, an attack on the concept of celebrity (complete with the line “I do not count myself among you”) and the entitled, inappropriate behaviour of George’s fellow icons. Along with ‘The Strangest Thing’ it was improved and remixed for single release, but the more laidback album versions are still very good indeed.

We start winding down (although we barely ever wound up, Older is that subdued) with ‘You Have Been Loved’, a song that would eventually reach number two behind Elton John’s ‘Candle In The Wind 1997′ in the wake of Princess Diana’s death. The song itself would be stunning even without this historical context, an extremely serious and beautiful examination of lonelieness and the fragile nature of life. An instrumental piece called ‘Free’ brings Older to a satisfying conclusion.

As amazing as the actual music on this album is, it feels even more important due to the extensive promotional campaign that surrounded it: all those beautiful singles with fantastic, cohesive artwork and a whole host of B-sides, live tracks and remixes, released over time and presented in such a way that you can’t help but feel like this is a classic album regardless of quality (lucky it turned out to be so good). It is the highest selling George Michael studio album in the UK, and spent a ridiculous 147 weeks inside the top 200 chart. Though my rankings of his albums constantly changes, I am absolutely certain that Older deserved that success.