"This is just a fun type thread and you don't have to think real hard, follow any specific rules to the letter, or get involved in a debate if you don't want to.
The idea: try to nominate the most memorable songs that either defined a spirit of the time it was made, were the best example of that kind of music, became an anthem for you or maybe your parents if they're older (like mine), or that you love a lot that really speak to you.
The only real rule: try to narrow down the amount of songs for one artist or band. Try to pick their best and try not to pick more than 2 songs from the same album.
Any and every kind of music is welcome."
Previous Threads:
1960's
1970's
1980's
1990's
2000-2009
Of course we're all aware that we're only beginning to close on the 2nd year with 8 still left to go. But your list(s) can develop as music progresses.
My list is extraordinarily small for now (in fact, it's so small... I can even bother to explain a few):
1. Goldfrapp - "Alive"
This is just your average cool, sunny cruising anthem. Then comes that chorus and it's a full-force blast of orgasmic 80's... well, I don't know instruments but if they make electric organs... 80's pop really blurred emotions (something a lot of those stupid 80's "nostalgia" flicks just can't comprehend and thus they think, for example, "China Girl" was an upbeat song) and so does Goldfrapp and that chorus hit me like a wave of darkness (the likes of which Lady Gaga taps into fairly infrequently these days) so potent that I wasn't surprised that the music video actually had a bodycount and the final shot ends on a coffin. Has there been a better pop song in the last 2 years?
2. Rihanna - "Man Down"
I still haven't figured out the subject matter of the song exactly nor was I paying attention when the supposed controversy was floating over the music video, but this is just one killer vocal performance from a singer who is at times underrated. This is one of those times. as are most of her rap tracks ("Hard," "Rockstar 101," the incredible "Wait Your Turn"). In an interview, Rihanna actually said this album was the most tailor-made for her natural singing abilities and most of the songs spend their time showcasing how loud she can scream. So it seems this album was where she kept the promise she made on 2009's "Mad House." Dark subject matter suits her.
3. Rihanna - "S&M"
Who on Earth would have expected it? Not only given her history with Chris Brown but also her reputation following it of getting downright mad, no-nonsense, dropping so many curses that now all her albums come with a Parental Advisory option, and refusing to allow anyone to portray her as a victim. Now she's professing that she wants to be taken into the bedroom and made to wail in pain... Of course, the music video made it crystal clear that the song was really about her relationship with the media rather than her lovers. Pity. Why shouldn't a strong black woman be able to sing about liking kinky sex? Surprisingly catchier and more soulful than "Only Girl (in the World)." With songs like these and "Skin" on one album... I can't WAIT for her next release (rumored to come out next month!!!).
4. Ke$ha - "Your Love is My Drug"
Admittedly, her first album (Animal) sucked. And The Nostalgia Chick was right, if she honestly believed the material on that album was progressive for women, she really doesn't have a clue. And, yet, she has emerged as perhaps my single favorite new artist of the last year. That's right, she's been around for 2 years now but there isn't a single "artist" out there who has progressed so much musically in as few months. Lady Gaga? Not exactly. In her quest to fully become Madonna, she's trying to push herself in less than 3 years to somewhere between Like a Prayer (6 years into her career) and Ray of Light (15 years). Unlike Gaga, Ke$ha's EP follow-up (Cannibal) was not an attempt to evolve, it was to perfect all in her style that was too rough Animal. Or, in some cases ("Grow a Pear," "Cannibal"), make it rougher. But, unless you take your music so seriously that it borders on anal, you simply can't deny "Your Love is My Drug" is the one moment of pure new-millennium pop perfection on the album. It's also the only song on the album not pushing one of her trademark themes (no glitter, no drinking, no puking, no vindictive relationships). Here she only flirts with drug use, making it clear that the object of her addiction isn't a substance.
5. Ke$ha - "Sleazy"
Like it or not, there is a language of the youth in the party-rap subgenre of pop. Go ahead and scoff, be cynical, turn up your nose- I won't judge you as ageist. When I was a teenager in the 90's (when the color lines in rap started really blurring- Massive Attack, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez, Cypress Hill, Roisin Murphy), my friends and I knew every word to "Shoop" and proceeded to sing-talk them along with the revolving vocalists. People bonded over moments like that (much in the same way the characters in Jaws bonded over drinks, scars, and sailor songs). And there were no pretentions about it: there simply were moments where it was literally appropriate to use phrases like "talk to the hand," etc. And, yes, songs similar to "Baby Got Back" in trashy excess were valid at times. Not every thought can be expressed in a "dignified" manner of articulation. While many lyrics Ke$ha, Fergie, and Gwen Stefani have sung have been criticized as "nonsensical," some listeners just get it. Anyway; Ke$ha's "Dinosaur" was good (especially the extremely hard to find rock remix where you can barely recognize her voice- she completely loses all sense of composure). Mostly because you can't quite believe what you're hearing. But if it isn't great because Ke$ha has an attitude against someone who might not have deserved it, "Sleazy" fixes that. Other than the fact that this is as tribal as she'll ever get, the entire thing explodes with her truly magnetic persona. Best thing about it, it's almost impossible to pinpoint by her delivery where she really comes from. Is she from LA? New York? Chicago? Hawaii? The south? The north? Is she a valley girl? Would you know by listening to her?
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6. Ke$ha - "Blow"
Probably the most amazing thing about Ke$ha is how freaking fast she became influential. Not only are acts actually patterning themselves after her (Kreayshawn, if you ask me), but Britney Spears (for a long damn time the most famous thing in pop) was desperate to catch a little of her lightning (the "Blow" ripping-off in "Til the World Ends" is obvious, but did anyone catch the "Dinosaur" ripping-off in "I Wanna Go"?). "TiK ToK" was always too lite for me. "Blow" fixes this. It's the club anthem actually about taking no prisoners. And I believe a song whose video might have been better suited for what "We R Who We R" ended up getting: Ke$ha dressed as a "glitter soldier" on a nightly rampage with her group of followers complete with stuntwork. Meanwhile, "Blow" is a video about people with animal heads and rainbow beams flying all about. Methinks the concepts for the 2 vids were switched somehow. Anyway, musically- this song soars and escalates vocally to match the dire sounding pounding beats.
7. Ke$ha - "Fuck Him, He's a DJ"
This was the moment when I realized I liked Ke$ha. Only 2 songs stuck to me right away and this was one of them. Not only that, this was the first time I thought Ke$ha had surpassed Lady Gaga (as this, a latter track on a remix EP, was released shortly after "Born This Way"). As though she could have risen higher in my estimation after Cannibal, this continues her true musical evolution and catapults her into another sphere of wow. She's still, as CollegeHumor put it, "a bitchy robot" but like the creature of Lords of Acid's "Robot Love," she strives to find a way to come to life in moments like the insanely beautiful and catchy "I I I I am losing time" / "know what I've got on my mind." It's the first track where you can feel the effects of her self-imposed "crazy beautiful life" and visual effects like the rainbow laser beams from "Blow," transitional bodysand from "Take It Off," and gleaming glitter from "We R Who We R" in the musical interim. Her ideas of artistic expression may not have quite struck a chord yet with the mainstream (it's merely her beats that everyone on the scene want) but, musically, she's at least found a way to perfect her original formula. She cared enough to keep trying to get it right. She's bested Lady Gaga in one respect: she's moving forward naturally without trying to push it too far to the point where she can't keep up. I can't wait to see what she'll do next and if there'll be a point to it.
8. Lady Gaga - "Scheiße"
9. Lady Gaga - "Judas"
10. St. Vincent - "Cruel"