Mother’s Day Gift Idea: 101 Housework Songs – A Soundtrack For Suburban Hell

101 Housework Songs.

At my local K-Mart, a very depressing place where the shelves are almost bare and the cut-price easter eggs are plentiful, they seem to have ordered about 4000 copies of 101 Housework Songs. The “101″ compilation series is actually pretty good, especially their decade-centric sets. 5CDs full of actual hits for about twenty dollars. Barg.

However, this may be one step too far. Even the cover, depicting a washing machine, is annoying. The full tracklisting can be found here (and I suppose you could buy it there if you want), and it contains a few curiosities. I think the songs can be split into these categories:

Songs About Actual Housework Or Work In General:

Dolly Parton – ’9 To 5′
Donna Summer – ‘She Works Hard For The Money’
Rose Royce – ‘Car Wash’
Sheena Easton – ‘Morning Train (Nine To Five)’
John Farnham – ‘Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)’

So none of those are actually about housework but they are really the only songs out of 101 that would fit on a compilation specifically about work or menial stuff or cleaning or whatever.

Songs Of Female Empowerment:

Pussycat Dolls – ‘I Don’t Need A Man’
Kelly Clarkson – ‘Miss Independent’
Alicia Keys – ‘Superwoman’
Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin – ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves’

Unfortunately these songs are placed alongside…

Songs About Being A Slave:

Britney Spears – ‘I’m A Slave 4 U’

Oh lord.

Songs About Sex That Happen To Reference Working So They Got Thrown In:

Kelly Rowland – ‘Work’

Songs From “Chick Flicks”:

LeAnn Rimes – ‘Can’t Fight The Moonlight’
Cher – ‘The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)’

Presumably included so the lady (and let’s face it, this compilation assumes every single person doing housework is a lady) can think about how much more fun she’d be having watching a film rather than doing this fucking washing up.

Weird:

Marvin Gaye – ‘Sexual Healing’

“Gosh I’d much rather be having sex on this bed that I’m making.”

Another Inappropriate Song To Include Alongside ‘I Don’t Need A Man’:

Tammy Wynette – ‘Stand By Your Man’

“This compilation of housework songs sure does send out mixed messages about feminism.”

Songs That Have Nothing To Do With Housework At All, Not Even A Little Bit:

Pink – ‘So What’
Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé – ‘Telephone’
Katy Perry – ‘Hot N Cold’
Almost every other song

“I’m so glad I paid twenty dollars for this collection of songs I could hear over and over if I just switched on my radio!”

Songs About Desperately Wanting To Do Something Else Other Than Housework:

Cyndi Lauper – ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’

“This song reminds me of how fun scrubbing the toilet is!”

Songs About Desperately Wanting To Take Control Of Your Destiny:

Talk Talk – ‘It’s My Life’

“Why does this housework CD keep reminding me how unfulfilled I am?”

Songs About Relationships On The Rocks:

Pat Benatar – ‘Love is A Battlefield’

“I hate my husband, I really do.”

Songs About Those Awful Men:

TLC – ‘No Scrubs’

“I don’t know what a scrub is but I don’t like it either, T-Boz! I’m throwing this fucking vaccuum and these fucking rubber gloves out the fucking window!”

Songs About How Great It Would Be To Have A Different Existence:

The Beach Boys – ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’

“IT WOULD BE NICE, BEACH BOYS. IT WOULD. I HATE MY LIFE.”

Songs About Roaring:

Helen Reddy – ‘I Am Woman’

“I’M TAKING THE KIDS AND GOING FAR FAR AWAY”

The Final Straw:

Bobby McFerrin – ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH!!!”

Single Review: Katy Perry ft. Kanye West – ‘E.T.’

And the official list of Katy Perry songs I love expands to a grand total of three! ‘Hot N Cold’ and ‘Teenage Dream’ have some company because the hype surrounding the ‘E.T.’ video made me watch it and discover what the fuss was about. Plus, I wanted to hear the song that has made Teenage Dream only the ninth album in Billboard history to spawn four number one singles.

Why didn’t anybody tell me it was so good?! It does sound a lot like ‘All The Things She Said’ by t.A.T.u but that was such an amazing song in the first place that it doesn’t detract from how great this turned out to be. This is what the power ballad sounds like “in this day and age” and it sounds pretty fantastic. The chorus is a highlight – as choruses should be – and the melody of it is really outstanding. Katy’s vocals are the strongest and most interesting that I’ve heard from her, although it should be stated that I am very much a casual listener and no expert.

I will have to eventually buy Teenage Dream, now that I’ve loved two singles and not completely hated the other two. There has been a huge progression between albums and at this rate I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with the next Katy Perry record.

7.5/10

The End Of Year ARIA Charts Are Here! Let’s All Look Interested

In boring news, ARIA have released their end of years charts for 2010, and there are few surprises to be had. Eminem and Rihanna had the biggest single of the year, and Pink took the number one album with Greatest Hits… So Far!!!, which I suppose is a bit surprising at first considering it hasn’t been out that long.

The top ten singles of the year:

1. EMINEM ft. RIHANNA – ‘Love The Way You Lie’
2. USHER ft. WILL.I.AM – ‘OMG’
3. TAIO CRUZ – ‘Dynamite’
4. TRAIN – ‘Hey, Soul Sister’
5. KATY PERRY ft. SNOOP DOGG – ‘California Gurls’
6. OWL CITY – ‘Fireflies’
7. RIHANNA – ‘Only Girl (In The World)’
8. BRUNO MARS – ‘Just The Way You Are’
9. KATY PERRY – ‘Teenage Dream’
10. USHER ft. PITBULL – ‘DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love’

Full top 100

I like maybe four or five of those songs, which is a pretty good result, I reckon. You’re never going to love every mega-popular song so I can console myself that I haven’t fallen completely out of touch with the record buying public.

The top ten albums of the year:

1. PINK – Greatest Hits… So Far!!!
2. SUSAN BOYLE – I Dreamed A Dream
3. EMINEM – Recovery
4. BON JOVI – Greatest Hits
5. SUSAN BOYLE – The Gift
6. LADY GAGA – The Fame Monster
7. ANGUS & JULIA STONE – Down The Way
8. MUMFORD & SONS – Sigh No More
9. MICHAEL BUBLÉ – Crazy Love
10. KATY PERRY – Teenage Dream

Full top 100

Pink has been in the top two albums of the year for five years running. Think about that for a second. Five years.

I only own three of these (Pink, Eminem, Gaga) and I might buy Teenage Dream if/when it gets a re-release, and one day I’ll buy the SuBo albums, so I’m counting this as an acceptable top ten. There are a few interesting placements a bit lower – Kylie at 55, Beyoncé’s two-year-old album at 61, The Essential Michael Jackson at 63 (and at number one on the catalogue chart), about twenty positions above Michael, which I’m surprised made it in at all after only a few weeks of muted sales. Pink had the biggest DVD of the year, Annie Lennox’s Christmas album is on the Jazz & Blues chart for some reason, and the Digital Chart track continues to be pointless considering physical singles haven’t made an impact on the proper chart for ages. There is no physical singles end of year chart because they probably struggled to find 40 physical singles that were bought in order to make up a chart.

And there we go.

The 100 Best Songs Of 2010: #70-61

PETER WALL & TONY ANSELL

‘ABC News Theme (Remixed By Pendulum)’

Who doesn’t love a good news theme? Dramatic, professional, and ready to lead into some man or woman in nice clothes telling us everything about everything. This particular theme will mean basically nothing to anyone outside of Australia, but if you’re like me then it recalls many a night when I had to sit through this instead of whatever much more interesting show was playing at the same time on a commercial station. But now, I get the last laugh, because Pendulum have stepped in and turned the ABC news theme – always a great piece of music for the intended purpose, but ultimately representing boredom – and turned it into this storming club “banger”. Brilliant result.

EMINEM ft. RIHANNA

‘Love The Way You Lie’

from the album Recovery

This song goes in a lot of different directions. It starts with a gentle piano and pained vocals from Rihanna, but then moves onto the first verse from Eminem, which is slightly angry but mostly disappointed and distressed. As the song continues, that anger is revisited and intensified, Rihanna shows a maturity that many thought she never had, and what could have been a bland relationship “drama” song becomes an affecting and extremely effective ballad that sees both of the artists growing and changing with the development of the track.

NICKI MINAJ

‘Right Thru Me’

from the album Pink Friday

A lot of people have a negative reaction to Nicki The R&B Star, but I like this incarnation almost as much as I like the Nicki Who Will Eat Your Face. On ‘Right Thru Me’ she aims for vulnerable, and she gets there, but she also shows us that ‘Your Love’ wasn’t a fluke, she can really do this as an artist if she wants to. We haven’t had a major female rapper since Missy Elliott and Missy did the same thing Nicki does here – puts aside her tough persona for a single or two here and there so we can see a new depth to the whole package. That ‘Right Thru Me’ also happens to be just a plain brilliant song is a bonus for everyone concerned.

SADE

‘Soldier Of Love’

from the album Soldier Of Love

Sade seems like the type of music I should love, but I’ve never gone back into their discography properly – I’m familiar with ‘Smooth Operator’, of course, but that is really the only Sade song I know well, apart from this single from their 2010 comeback. You can almost tell what ‘Soldier Of Love’ will sound like before you hear it, and that isn’t a bad thing for a band as established as this one is. What you see in the artwork and in the visuals of the video is what you get here – deserts, night skies, birds, generally pretty landscapes that have a hint of sinister to them, just a little bit of darkness. In front of rolling drums and slow moving but strong melody, Sade pulls you in with ‘Soldier Of Love’ and demands your attention.

KATY PERRY

‘Teenage Dream’

from the album Teenage Dream

Katy Perry’s second absolute classic single (the first was ‘Hot N Cold’), ‘Teenage Dream’ seems to capture something from the culture of decades past – if it wasn’t for the modern production this could be a song from the fifites. It reminds me of ‘Be My Baby’ or ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ – while not being quite as great as those songs – or even that ‘Freddy My Love’ song that Cindy Bullens did for the Grease soundtrack. Maybe back then they wouldn’t have been so upfront about their skintight jeans, but the spirit of young love and all the myths surrounding it are here. You don’t care if the characters in this song will end up like the couple at the end of Meat Loaf’s ‘Paradise By The Dashboard Light’, hating each other for all eternity, what matters in ‘Teenage Dream’ is the here and now, and nothing else.

RIHANNA

‘S&M’

from the album Loud

The filthy cousin of ‘Only Girl (In The World)’, ‘S&M’ opens Loud with a set of lyrics that are obviously adult but almost defiantly immature. “Sticks and stones may break my bones/But chains and whips excite me”, Rihanna sings, and while she tries to muster all the venom in her voice, there’s still a childish playfulness in there, a little nod to how the lyrics sound like a playground chant. This is basically a ‘Rude Boy’ prequel, on that song she was the hardened bitch in leather, but on ‘S&M’ she is just beginning to explore sex beyond the missionary position.

KELIS

‘Flesh Tone Intro’

from the album Flesh Tone

Now this is how you open an album. Over a melody that comes straight from the golden age of video game music, Kelis slowly weaves her voice in and out of the beats and electronics, inviting us into the world of Flesh Tone and all the ups and downs that come with it. “Yoooooou draaaw meeee iiiiin” she sings, slowly but surely, before becoming strong and desperate. As the layers stack up, the voice intensifies, “every time I think I’m free you win”. Just when you think she might collapse under the weight, the music drops out and a confident Kelis steps in: “we. control. the dance. floor.” – and we’re off.

MICHAEL JACKSON

‘Behind The Mask’

from the album Michael

‘Behind The Mask’ shares many elements with ‘Is It Scary?’, the underrated almost-single from 1997′s Blood On The Dance Floor, most notably the fact that they share a bit where Michael sings “Let’s talk about it/I don’t wanna talk about it” repeatedly, perhaps playing out one of his internal conversations, putting it out there for all to see. But ‘Is It Scary?’ was Michael defending himself, while here he is the aggressive one. He whoops and hollers over a frantic mid-to-late nineties style production, recalling those paranoid, angry songs he made when his public persona was shattered. It all builds up with crowd noise, saxophone, vocals upon vocals and the kitchen sink – which feels quite close to the vibe given by the records made while Michael was alive.

NICKI MINAJ

‘Your Love’

from the album Pink Friday

How can something so out of character sound so brilliant? Nicki Minaj singing lines like “shawty, I’m-a only tell you this once, you the illest” over a sample from Annie Lennox’s ‘No More I Love You’s'? Why does this work? But the important thing is that it does work, and it sounds wonderful, a nice big R&B ballad in an age where we don’t get too many of them – at least not as interesting as this one. It may get a reputation as a guilty pleasure but ‘Your Love’ fights for attention over the louder moments on Pink Friday - and emerges as one of the best songs Nicki has done.

JOHNNY CASH

‘Ain’t No Grave’

from the album American VI: Ain’t No Grave

Laughing in the face of such an impossible subject, ‘Ain’t No Grave’ is one of Johnny Cash’s all-time great performances, and the best from American VI. He sounds so strong and so weak at the same time, commanding the song forward and pouring everything he can into the lyrics, yet there is that vulnerability, that little bit of unease that gives a spark of brilliance to so many Cash classics. ‘Ain’t No Grave’ is simply the last in a long line of stunning performances like this.