10. Power - Kanye West
Not too bad a song, so why does it appear here? Someone as good at sampling as Kanye, completely wasting the use of one of the best songs ever in King Crimson's '21st Century Schizoid Man' is a crime that cannot go unpunished.
9. Five Years' Time - Noah and the Whale
An insipid, flat track which I hold somewhat responsible for allowing ukeleles to get a foot back into the door of modern music; they belong with George Formby, in Hawaii and nowhere else in my book.
8. Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
It has a lot of asinine whistling, it has an ill-thought-out, generic, country-sounding opening line, it's been played relentlessly on an advert. Alabama and Arkansas aren't even next to each other, and Arkansas rhyming with 'Ma and Pa' is just gorky. Never stood a chance with me really.
7. One More Night - Maroon 5
The Adam Levine Experience have never really matched the quality of their debut 'Songs About Jane' and now the other 4 members of the band seem like they're going along for the ride and as well they might given the chart success of releases like 'Moves Like Jagger.' With there being nothing to this song but some unenthusiastic oohing and lyrics about reluctantly getting back with an ex I'm not sure what you could do to make it more bland and anonymous. What's even more perplexing is that such a song kept a song as fun as Gangnam Style off the top off the Billboard Charts. Yet another reason we're better than the US, we sure didn't make that mistake. At any rate, it's a real shame we didn't get more of this from Maroon 5:
6. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift
And now, from the completely passive to the actively irritating. There's the awkward phone call in the middle of the song, there's the horrid sounding high-pitched 'Weeee!' in the chorus, there's the chunky, unmelodic endings to each line of the verses and there's the cranky, juvenile and somewhat spiteful register of Swift herself. All this does is undermine the effectiveness of what a breakup song is trying to achieve, can you really see whoever it's directed to saying to themselves 'Well damn, that sure put me in my place, such a shame she's so reluctant to take me back'?
5. Scream and Shout - will.i.am
It really is surprising how many grating sounds and choruses will.i.am has been able to fashion over the past few years, from the horrific sounds of 'The Time' which won it a place on this list two years ago, to his butchering of The Buggles 'Video Killed the Radio Star' on 'Check It Out' and the trying repetition of the words 'Tell me where'd you get your body from' in 'I Got It From My Mama'. Moreover, in that last song he dragged Gwen Stefani down to his 'stars that couldn't help will.i.am to a hit club' which lamentably boasts Mick Jagger as a member. 'Scream and Shout' is perhaps the worst offender yet: a mess featuring a dull bassline, too much autotune and an uncharacteristic performance from Britney Spears. Aside from the logistical problem of turning up a song in the club, the lyrics are a hodgepodge of used pop music clichés, most noticeably to me 'Shout' by Tears for Fears and 'All Eyez on Me' by 2pac. The other thing that bothers me about will.i.am (and plenty other pop artists by the way) is how much he says he rocks (and rolls) when he's nowhere near either. Unfortunately I doubt there's the slightest bit of self-awareness when he sings 'It goes on and on and on' but then again can a machine experience self-awareness or comprehend irony? I'll leave you to ponder that while I write up my top 4 least favourite songs for this year.
