Thursday, November 19, 2009

End of Decade Blowout pt 7: Leftovers

I decided that doing a movies post is pointless, because any cute/family movie that I would want to post about would be something I've posted about many times before. For posterity, the top 10 are as follows:

1. Enchanted
2. Down With Love
3. Spy Kids
4. Bridget Jones' Diary
5. Sky High
6. Just Like Heaven
7. Spy Kids 2
8. Keeping the Faith
9. Love Actually
10. Music & Lyrics

That's a great list, it's 10 movies I unreservedly love. Anyways, with any list comes regrets, and the Top 60 singles list has already generated several. Here's some that I regret leaving off. Of course, there's 6 songs on this list and I'm not sure which 6 I'd cut to make room, but that doesn't mean I can't have regret anyways!

Life Without Buildings - "The Leanover" (2000)
Youtube:
"The Leanover"
Commentary: It never even occurred to me to check if this had been released as an official single, but it turns out it had, and thus would have been eligible for my list. Whoops. Because it definitely deserves a slot in the top 60, thanks to it's totally original structure and melody, plus great vocals. In its own weird way it's one of the catchiest singles of the year and, as a total original, it does deserve some sort of recognition.

Everclear - "Wonderful" (2000)
Youtube:
"Wonderful"
Commentary: No real excuse here, I just forgot how much I love this song, and it probably does deserve inclusion somewhere towards the bottom of the top 60. Compared to a song like "The Best of Jill Hives", it has better singing, better lyrics, and a catchier melody, so there's no real reason to leave it out. It's the best Everclear song, in my opinion, thanks to the incredibly catchy melody and surprisingly affecting lyrics. My parents are happily married, but this song still gets me choked up for some reason.

Taylor Swift - "You Belong With Me" (2009)
Youtube:
"You Belong With Me"
Commentary: For a variety of reasons, I decided not to include any 2009 songs on the list (I haven't listened to much music this year, it's been a pretty weak year from what I've heard, not enough time to process, etc.). I decided pretty early on that there wouldn't be any from this year on there, and I wish I had re-evaluated that later on, because "You Belong With Me" is probably going to be my single of the year at this point, and there's no reason at all it shouldn't be in the top 25 or so. Taylor is a good singer, and the lyrics and melody to this song are so sweet. This is like the sweetest song of the year, it's like the song version of Enchanted.

Sean Paul - "Get Busy" (2003)
Youtube:
"Get Busy"
Commentary: For some boring reasons I won't get in to, this song was in my top 60 the whole time and I just accidentally screwed up and forgot to include it in the list when I actually posted it. That's a shame, because it has just about the catchiest R&B melody of the decade and is extremely danceable. Not to mention that Sean Paul is one of the very best singles artists of the decade and he surely deserves an entry.


Kelly Clarkson - "Because Of You" (2005)
Youtube:
"Because of You"
Commentary: The only reason I didn't include this song was because I wanted to spread the love and have only one Breakaway song on the list. For personal and historical reasons that ended up being "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and not "Because of You" which, on a purely musical level, I may actually prefer thanks to its amazing lyrics and vocals and gorgeous mid tempo ballad melody. I guess I don't regret spreading the love because I've talked about how much I love Breakaway so many times before, but to be perfectly accurate, this one probably would be top 30

Outkast - "Hey Ya" (2003)
Youtube:
"Hey Ya"
Commentary: The reason I didn't include this song was because I, like everybody else, got sick of it and never listen to it anymore. But all that considered, I think there's actually a better argument for this song to be in the top 10 than for it to be left off entirely. Logically, it's probably the most widely beloved song of the decade, and that alone probably makes it deserve top 60, especially when you consider the hundreds of times I enjoyably listened to it in 2003/2004. Yes it got massively overplayed, but that's not the song's fault. And, honestly, while writing this post I listened to this song again for the first time in years and it sounded much fresher and better than I remembered. When I compare to "The Real Slim Shady" at number 10, the songs have much the same strengths and weaknesses: catchy beats, funny and ridiculously quotable, charismatic lead vocalist, innovative and incredibly widely beloved, but massively overplayed and tough to listen to today. OK, this one was a bad goof.

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