4. Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell and T.I.
As fun as it is to have a catchy bit of bass and to shout 'Hey Hey Hey' at the end of every line, for me it's not enough to save this cut from the bawdy, poor man's Justin Timberlake that is Robin Thicke. I can't tell you why Pharrell Williams keeps showing up in things as if it's 2003, particularly seeing as he doesn't contribute anything substantial to the song and only seems to be there because the name power of Robin Thicke and T.I. isn't good enough. As for Robin himself, he comes across as a complete and total jerk (takes one to know one eh?), largely because of the video. Not only for slapping hashtags cheaply over the top of the video but also having an array of balloons spelling out that a certain part of his body is sizeable. And then there's having the creepy refrain of 'You're a good girl, I know you want it' as women wearing very little indeed dance around him in the MV. Now I'm not going to rant on feminism, misogyny or daterape as there's people far more qualified on the subject who have already written way more eloquently than I could. Not much of a denouement but I hope we don't have a song so pervasive with such a seedy theme.
3. Started From The Bottom - Drake
This is a song I still struggle to believe anyone actually likes, it has no retaining features whatsoever! The beat isn't catchy at all and is matched by Drake lackadaisically repeating the utterance 'Started from the bottom now we're here.' In spite of this some of the lyrics are really evocative, I personally have utmost sympathy for him having arguments with his parents, encountering traffic on the way home from work and having an uncle who'd lend him his car (which turns out to be a Lexus by the way), why it was so bad he wears his chains even when he's at home so he can remind himself he's rich. In fact, in case you didn't know, Drake has a great deal of money and has good friends and dislikes his haters, but if you've heard anything else from his back catalogue you already know that. At this rate if this is your only reason for rapping, should I be expecting Bill Gates to turn up on this list next year?
2. Heatwave - Wiley
I seem to remember 'Heatwave' escaped last years list by only a few days so here it is this year. What really gets on my nerves about Wiley is he has such a limited ability to rhyme: Case in point: in the first three lines he rhymes the word 'day' three times, which is about as lazy as when Chris Brown rhymed 'dick' three times in 'Look at me Now' or when our beloved Pitbull memorably rhymed 'Kodak' with 'Kodak' in 'Give Me Everything.' But what can you rhyme Kodak with? Kojak? Prozac? It's somewhat understandable with a word like Kodak but are you going to tell me Wiley couldn't think of anything to rhyme with 'day'? And it's the same throughout the song rhyming 'them' with 'then' with 'heatwave' with 'them' and 'road' with 'road' with 'flavours' with 'zone'. Not to sound cynical but is Wiley just trying to write an annoying phrase repeated over a partyish beat in hope that it'll stick in the heads of slow people for a short while?
1. Walks Like Rihanna - The Wanted
Now I could criticize this song for its video which is a mix of amateurish shooting and acting and ripping off 90s boybands or for its insipid, generic music or the asinine verses and that's as well as may be, but as is the growing theme on this half of the list, the lyrics are what will condemn this song. And all it takes is the chorus for me which has to go down as one of the most ill-thought utterances anyone has made for a long time:
'She can't sing'
Well that's not the most polite thing you could say of someone, I mean even if she's tone deaf you couldn't protect her feelings could you?
'She can't dance'
I don't profess to be an expert on how the fairer sex thinks, but how can saying such a thing be taken well? You're ostensibly saying this woman is a bumbling oaf.
'But who cares?'
Ah! So there's something positive...
'She walks like Rihanna'
Of every conceivable compliment you could give to someone, I struggle to imagine a less effectual one. For a start how many times have you heard a guy say his favourite thing about his best gal is her walk? There's been many a romantic ballad talking about eyes, lips, hair or clothes, and if we must there's plenty of stuff out there about understandable yet more visceral body parts which you can imagine for yourself. As well, of all people that you could reference, does Rihanna even merit a cultural reference such as this? Does she even have that distinctive a walk as opposed to anyone else in the public eye? And is that what anyone thinks of as characteristic of her? Could this be a backhanded compliment given that Rihanna is meant to have serious alcohol/drugs problems? Are we back to using this song as a vehicle for calling a woman a buffoon? Notwithstanding all of these things, this is what sums up the song for The Wanted or whoever their handlers are. That's what makes it the worst song of the year and #1 on this year's list.
So there you have it, my hostility towards music assuaged another year.
