Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Gym Class Heroes -- Week of October 22, 2011

I fought myself very hard to make the title above "Adam Levine", who is having some kind of a success run between Maroon 5's rise to the top and his various successful "featuring" roles.  Before we get on to this week's Fresh 45, here's a list of all the songs we're saying good-bye to this week.
  • Matt Nathanson - Faster
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
The countdown: (Source: Wikipedia)
Biggest DDRRRRRROOOOOPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!...........of the week: LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem
Biggest Jump of the week: Tie between Lady Gaga - You and I and OneRepublic - Good Life


It was a VERY exciting weekend on the countdown. The suspense was incredible. With only the top 2 songs left to be played, last week's top 10 had already been accounted for. So we knew that there was going to be a couple of big jumps into the top two spots. One of them was fairly predictable, Adele - Someone Like You. I felt like this was overdue because of it's prominence on the iTunes Most Downloaded rankings, and certainly NOT because it is a good song of any kind. Unfortunately, it will probably hit #1 on this countdown in the near future. Gym Class Heroes Ft. Adam Levine - Stereo Hearts feels a little bit like a long shot to hold on to the top spot for a 2nd week in a row. I was pretty shocked that it topped the list, but unlike Someone Like You, it is a pretty solid song, and at least deserved to crack the top 5 at some point.

Lots of purging of former top-10 mainstays this week. In addition to Party Rock Anthem dropping, we also saw Pitbull Ft. Ne-Yo - Give Me Everything take a big dive, and Hot Chelle Rae - Tonight Tonight continue to fade. Welcome was the ascension of The Script - Nothing into the Top 5. I don't think that song has a great chance at #1, but it's the best song on the countdown right now that hasn't already been #1 seven times.

The new entrants this week came in at #43 (Britney Spears - Criminal) and #42 Nickelback - When We Stand Together. Criminal seems average-ish, but in any case, Britney Spears's newest album has been a pretty big disappointment, churning out this as well as two mediocrities (Hold it Against Me, Till The World Ends) and the sub-par I Wanna Go. When We Stand Together is another solid tune from Nickelback, whose talents are neither representative of the millions of fans they have, nor the billions of people who think it's a huge hilarious joke to hate on them. Particularly in the past 3 years, they have churned out a few pretty solid tunes. I feel like the Black Eyed Peas should probably be absorbing a lot of that hatred instead, as they've become entrenched in the recent spotlight and are unquestionably far less talented than Nickelback.


Next week we'll see if One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful and Sean Kingston - Party All Night can make the leap from Hit-Bound to the countdown, as they're the two best songs looking to graduate.

Editor's picks -- Top 5
Katy Perry - Last Friday Night
The Script - Nothing
Jessie J - Domino
Nickelback - When We Stand Together
T-Pain Ft. Wiz Khalifa - 5 O'Clock

Introduction

I am creating this blog for two reasons.  The first is that I am an avid follower of the Sirius XM Hits-1 Weekend Countdown and there are no current online databases of historical countdown rankings.  The second is because for some reason, I am obsessed with rankings and love debating them / talking about them pretty much regardless of the subject matter.  Ever since I've owned XM radio, I have listened to Spyder Harrison's weekly countdown show and have been completely hooked on it, to the amusement and often annoyance of those around me.

I hope to write weekly recaps of the countdown on this blog as well as my personal opinions of the songs that appear on it.  Obviously I'm going to write my opinions like they're absolute truth, so before I get into arguments with people, I'm going to put a general disclaimer in this here first post: "TO EACH HIS OR HER OWN!"  That should let me off the hook if anyone thinks I'm slamming their opinion, right?