fun. (3) - Week of November 24th, 2012

I hope that everyone had a happy holiday!  Spyder Harrison had the weekend off, and it was none other than Ke$ha herself hosting the Thanksgiving weekend countdown.  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.

• Taio Cruz - Fast Car
• BoysLikeGirls - Be Your Everything
• Karmin - Hello

The Countdown:

1. fun. - Some Nights (#4) [Third Week at #1]

2. Ke$ha - Die Young (#3)

3. Maroon 5 - One More Night (#2)

4. Owl City Ft. Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time (#1)

5. Imagine Dragons - It's Time (#6)

6. Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss) (#8)

7. PSY - Gangnam Style (#34)

8. Ellie Goulding- Lights (#10)

9. Flo Rida - I Cry (#7)

10. Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (#5)

11. Enrique Iglesias Ft. Sammy Adams - Finally Found You (#9)

12. Bridgit Mendler - Ready or Not (#24)

13. Bruno Mars - Locked Out of Heaven (#11)

14. OneRepublic - Feel Again (#15)

15. Pitbull - Don't Stop The Party (#31)

16. One Direction - Kiss You (#40)

17. Nicki Minaj - Va Va Voom (#18)

18. JTX - Seven Day Weekend (#35)

19. Timomatic - Set It Off (#23)

20. Maroon 5 feat. Wiz Khalifa- Payphone (#19)

21. Sam and the Womp - Bom Bom (#16)

22. Lumineers - Ho Hey (#21)

23. Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You (#13)

24. Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G - Oath (#22)

25. Alex Clare - Too Close (#12)

26. Rihanna - Diamonds (#20)

27. Karmin- Brokenhearted (#28)

28. Rudimental Ft. John Newman - Feel the Love (#27)

29. fun. feat. Janelle Monáe- We Are Young (#26)

30. Megan & Liz - Bad for Me (#32)

31. Emeli Sande - Next to Me (#39)

32. Carly Rae Jepsen- Call Me Maybe (#30)

33. Neon Trees- Everybody Talks (#17)

34. Rita Ora - R.I.P. (#25)

35. Maroon 5 - Daylight (#33)

36. Cher Lloyd - Want U Back (#36)

37. Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks (DEBUT)

38. Josh Baze - She's Gold (DEBUT)

39. Rolling Stones - Doom and Gloom (DEBUT)

40. One Direction - Live While We're Young (#14)

41. Ellie Goulding - Anything Could Happen (#41)

42. Usher - Numb (#38)

43. Ed Sheeran - The A Team (#45)

44. Martin Solveig - The Night Out (#44)

45. Adele - Skyfall (#37)

Biggest DDDDDDRRRROOOOPPP!!!!!!....of the week: One Direction – Live While We’re Young (-26)

Biggest Jump of the Week: PSY – Gangnam Style (+27)

Our new music this week kicks off with the Rolling Stones.  No joke.  The Rolling freakin’ Stones.  Far be it from me to bad mouth the Rolling Stones, but your daddy’s Rolling Stones, these are not.  Their song, Doom and Gloom, is just so out of place on a Top 45 countdown in the year 2012 that I don’t even know what to make of it.  I like it OK, but let’s be honest…..it has to be one of the best songs ever put out there with a 69-year-old vocalist.  The very fact that Doom and Gloom is something a large amount of people want to hear is impressive.  Rock on, Mick Jagger.  Rock on.

The countdown debut of Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks was long overdue.  Little Talks is a fantastic song that blends a catchy melody with a story of a widow’s struggles after the death of her husband.  It’s the rare countdown song in which there’s much more to it than meets the eye (ear?).  Josh Baze doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page (what a loser!!!).  The lyrics to his song, She’s Gold, can’t even be found easily online (I’ve been trying to find them most of this week, so if anyone has them, step right up).  I heard of him for the first time this past weekend, and I have to say that I’m impressed thus far.  Usually I am not a fan of relative unknown hip hop artists that burst onto the countdown out of nowhere, but this one is doing it for me.  From reading I’ve been doing, MTV seems to think Josh Baze is due for some sort of huge breakout, so maybe this isn’t the last we’ll hear of him either.

Blurbnostics

- The countdown voters echoed my disappointment in Taio Cruz – Fast Car.  It didn’t have the longest of tenures and never really made any waves above the high teens / low twenties.  The next time we hear from Taio Cruz, I hope he has better for us.

- PSY – Gangnam Style has gone schizophrenic on us, being the Biggest Jump of the Week following last week’s titleholder of the Biggest DDDDDRRRROOOPPP!!!!!.....of the week.

- Signs point to Ke$ha – Die Young at #1 at some point in the near future, since everything else in the Top 8 is either stale by now or doesn’t really have that mass appeal “it” factor.

- Hey!  A new high watermark for Imagine Dragons – It’s Time!  The countdown’s “#6 Glass Ceiling” is soooooooo 2010, anyway.

- Three of last week’s four new entrants jumped into the teens this week.  Shockingly, Maroon 5 – Daylight was the straggler.  My money would have been on JTX – Seven Day Weekend.

- Seriously, is Ellie Goulding – Anything Could Happen planning on breaking out of the bottom 10 slots of the countdown anytime?  I’m growing fearful of this one’s underratedness.  It’s a good thing that Hits-1 gave me sole control of the REAL “Top 45 of the Year” rankings*, else songs like this would never get the recognition they deserve.

- No sleep lost over the DTHNOBbing of Karmin – Hello.  That one turned out to be pretty awful.  I was far too lenient on it when it first debuted.

Editor’s Picks – Top 5 Songs

1) Ke$ha – Die Young

2) Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks

3) Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G. – Oath

4) Ellie Goulding – Anything Could Happen

5) Josh Baze – She’s Gold

*This is pretty much mostly fake

Owl City (5) - Week of November 17, 2012

Not a ton of moving and shaking going on within the countdown this week, but at least we’ve got a crop of new stuff to attend to.  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.

• Katy Perry - Wide Awake
• The Cab - Intoxicated
• Linkin Park - Burn It Down
• Train - 50 Ways to Say Goodbye

The Countdown:

1. Owl City Ft. Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time (#1) [Fifth Week at #1]

2. Maroon 5 - One More Night (#2)

3. Ke$ha - Die Young (#3)

4. fun. - Some Nights (#4)

5. Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (#7)

6. Imagine Dragons - It's Time (#13)

7. Flo Rida - I Cry (#6)

8. Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss) (#5)

9. Enrique Iglesias Ft. Sammy Adams - Finally Found You (#8)

10. Ellie Goulding- Lights (#9)

11. Bruno Mars - Locked Out of Heaven (#20)

12. Alex Clare - Too Close (#15)

13. Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You (#22)

14. One Direction - Live While We're Young (#12)

15. OneRepublic - Feel Again (#17)

16. Sam and the Womp - Bom Bom (#27)

17. Neon Trees- Everybody Talks (#11)

18. Nicki Minaj - Va Va Voom (#29)

19. Maroon 5 feat. Wiz Khalifa- Payphone (#26)

20. Rihanna - Diamonds (#10)

21. Lumineers - Ho Hey (#23)

22. Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G - Oath (#19)

23. Timomatic - Set It Off (#18)

24. Bridgit Mendler - Ready or Not (#21)

25. Rita Ora - R.I.P. (#32)

26. fun. feat. Janelle Monáe- We Are Young (#37)

27. Rudimental Ft. John Newman - Feel the Love (#25)

28. Karmin- Brokenhearted (#24)

29. Taio Cruz - Fast Car (#16)

30. Carly Rae Jepsen- Call Me Maybe (#36)

31. Pitbull - Don't Stop The Party (DEBUT)

32. Megan & Liz - Bad for Me (#40)

33. Maroon 5 - Daylight (DEBUT)

34. PSY - Gangnam Style (#14)

35. JTX - Seven Day Weekend (DEBUT)

36. Cher Lloyd - Want U Back (#38)

37. Adele - Skyfall (#28)

38. Usher - Numb (#34)

39. Emeli Sande - Next to Me (#35)

40. One Direction - Kiss You (DEBUT)

41. Ellie Goulding - Anything Could Happen (#39)

42. Karmin - Hello (#42)

43. BoysLikeGirls - Be Your Everything (#30)

44. Martin Solveig - The Night Out (#44)

45. Ed Sheeran - The A Team (#45)

Biggest DDDDDDRRRROOOPPPP!!!!...of the week: PSY – Gangnam Style (-20)

Biggest Jump of the Week: Yikes….tie between Sam and the Womp – Bom Bom, Nicki Minaj – Va Va Voom, and fun. feat Janelle Monae – We Are Young (+11)

We’ll kick off the new entrants with Pitbull – Don’t Stop the Party.  This song made waves for its music video that has been deemed too risqué for the U.K., and has been banned in said nation.  The only redeeming quality of this song is that it’s reasonably catchy the first couple of times you hear it.  Aside from that, it’s unmitigated crap that doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the other new entrants.  Long-time HitBound veteran JTX – Seven Day Weekend hopped onto the countdown this week.  Fans expecting another Love in America are going to be disappointed, but Seven Day Weekend is generally of the same energetic and fun vein.  I expect it’ll be widely liked, provided you can tolerate lyrics like “Life’s a radio, turn it up to ten”.  That said, I’m nowhere near as much of a fan of it now as when I first heard it on HitBound.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my history with Maroon 5, it’s that most of their songs don’t withstand the test of a large number of repeated listens.  There are, of course, exceptions, but generally Maroon 5’s inner mediocrity will generally shine through after one of their songs has been given airtime for a couple months.  It makes their music particularly difficult to review at the start, because admittedly, I can’t remember reacting too negatively initially to most of their music.  It’s gotten even more complex as they’ve ostensibly changed their style a bit over the past year (Moves Like Jagger and Payphone come to mind…with One More Night being more of a lookback to the “old” Maroon 5 sound).  Their new entrant, Daylight, muddles the picture even further.  Like Moves Like Jagger and Payphone, it represents a significant (and positive) divergence from the “hits” that they put out there back in the early-mid aughties.  Recently, Adam Levine’s voice has been used significantly more effectively, and Daylight is no exception.  I’m cautiously stating that I’m a fan of this one for now, with caution stemming from the all-too-possible scenario in which I look back on these words two months from now and say “what the hell was I thinking?”

And finally, we come to One Direction’s fourth countdown song, Kiss You.  After three follow-ups to What Makes You Beautiful, I’m not sure that they’ll ever achieve that height again.  That doesn’t mean that Kiss You isn’t good…in fact my first instinct is that it’s right around the same quality as Live While We’re Young.  It’s likely (but not certain) to get shut out of this year’s Top 45, but fortunately, unlike 2011, we are in the midst of a year where a song on this station can still have its merits while not making that list.

Blurbet Points

- Check out the list of countdown songs.  Anything missing?  You sure?  There’s a certain artist missing whom we haven’t had a countdown without for a long time.  This marks the first week since early May of 2010 that we haven’t had a song by Katy Perry on the countdown.  What a run.

- Imagine Dragons – It’s Time has a new high water mark at #6.  I don’t think we’ll see it ascend any higher, but considering it was off the countdown completely, this is a pleasant development.

- The top 4 songs all stayed the same for the first time in who-knows-how-long.

- A month ago, Train – 50 Ways to Say Goodbye was ranked #6, and I let out a plea for that song to get the hell out of here, fast.  4 weeks later, it’s gone completely as its stock fell faster than Facebook’s after its IPO (topical!).

- I don’t think Adele – Skyfall will be on the countdown very much longer.  I saw the movie last night and was, as expected, perfectly happy with the opening credits video.

Editor’s Picks – Top 5 Songs

1) Ke$ha – Die Young

2) Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G – Oath

3) Ellie Goulding – Anything Could Happen

4) Maroon 5 – Daylight

5) Imagine Dragons – It’s Time

Owl City (4) - Week of November 10, 2012

Just in the nick of time…….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.

• Allstar Weekend - Life As We Know It
• Kelly Clarkson - Dark Side
• Flo Rida - Let It Roll
• Matchbox Twenty - She's So Mean

The Countdown:

1. Owl City Ft. Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time (#1) [Fourth Week at #1]

2. Maroon 5 - One More Night (#2) 

3. Ke$ha - Die Young (#14)

4. fun. - Some Nights (#4)

5. Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss) (#7)

6. Flo Rida - I Cry (#8)

7. Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (#5)

8. Enrique Iglesias Ft. Sammy Adams - Finally Found You (#10)

9. Ellie Goulding- Lights (#9)

10. Rihanna - Diamonds (#16)

11. Neon Trees- Everybody Talks (#6)

12. One Direction - Live While We're Young (#11)

13. Imagine Dragons - It's Time (#17)

14. PSY - Gangnam Style (#3)

15. Alex Clare - Too Close (#13)

16. Taio Cruz - Fast Car (#18)

17. OneRepublic - Feel Again (#15)

18. Timomatic - Set It Off (#20)

19. Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G - Oath (#23)

20. Bruno Mars - Locked Out of Heaven (#24)

21. Bridgit Mendler - Ready or Not (#19)

22. Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You (#22)

23. Lumineers - Ho Hey (#30)

24. Karmin- Brokenhearted (#24)

25. Rudimental Ft. John Newman - Feel the Love (#26)

26. Maroon 5 feat. Wiz Khalifa- Payphone (#33)

27. Sam and the Womp - Bom Bom (#35)

28. Adele - Skyfall (#27)

29. Nicki Minaj - Va Va Voom (DEBUT)

30. BoysLikeGirls - Be Your Everything (#32)

31. Katy Perry- Wide Awake (#31)

32. Rita Ora - R.I.P. (DEBUT)

33. The Cab - Intoxicated (#21)

34. Usher - Numb (#12)

35. Emeli Sande - Next to Me (#34)

36. Carly Rae Jepsen- Call Me Maybe (#29)

37. fun. feat. Janelle Monáe- We Are Young (#41)

38. Cher Lloyd - Want U Back (#38)

39. Ellie Goulding - Anything Could Happen (DEBUT)

40. Megan & Liz - Bad for Me (DEBUT)

41. Linkin Park- Burn It Down (#37)

42. Karmin - Hello (#42)

43. Train - 50 Ways to Say Goodbye (#39)

44. Martin Solveig - The Night Out (#40)

45. Ed Sheeran - The A Team (#43)

Biggest DDDDDRRRRROOOOPPPP!!!...of the week: Usher – Numb (-22)

Biggest Jump of the Week: Ke$ha – Die Young (+11)

Sometimes this job can be really difficult (woe is me) in that I have to review songs with less than a week’s notice.  A lot of songs wind up bunched in the middle because I haven’t given them enough spins for Judgement Day to really take place.  This week was particularly tough, as four female artists debuted with a song this week, and at first they were really close in quality….I couldn’t separate them.  The fortunate thing about not getting this recap together until Friday is that I’ve had a lot of time to mash the repeat button to fully form my opinions.  So, I present this countdown’s much-needed new blood that it hasn’t seen in a couple weeks now in ascending order of quality.

Think what you will about Nicki Minaj, she has the ability to produce some songs that are truly infectious.  My favorite, of course, is Super Bass.  However, when she falls short of greatness, it’s typically easy to move on from, and that’s what Va Va Voom is.  It’s interesting enough at first, but there’s not enough there to keep you wanting to hear it for months.  We’ll lump this one into the Starships category and move on.  Cool?  Cool.

I had never heard of Rita Ora before this summer, but I was truly delighted when she came out with the incredibly stupid How We Do.  The fun thing about spending this much time recapping pop music is that you are allowed to love songs that are hysterically terribly written, and that’s exactly my feelings on How We Do.  R.I.P., Rita Ora’s new single, kept the terrible lyrics but isn’t anywhere near as hooking.  That said, I don’t really dislike listening to it that much.  There’s worse stuff out there.

Long-time Hit-Bound veteran Megan & Liz – Bad For Me finally made its countdown debut.  Bad for Me furthers the theme of most countdown songs that I like in the 2^nd half of 2012 being guilty-pleasure types.  It’s a delightful little melody that doesn’t wow anyone, but has a good enough chorus to stick as an above-average countdown song.

The more I listened to these four songs, however, the more I realized that the clear flag-carrier was Ellie Goulding – Anything Could Happen.  Maybe it’s because the other three songs are completely terribly written, maybe it’s because my wife and I agree on a song we like for a change, or maybe it’s just because this tune is best at withstanding the tests of time of repetition (which I assure you I have put it through), but I’m calling it the best debut of the week, and superior to the infinitely more popular Lights

Bluuuuuuuuuuuuurbs

- Apparently HitBound just wasn’t able to let Megan & Liz – Bad for Me go.  Despite its countdown debut, it aired on Hit-Bound anyway (and not during one of the three moments in which Hit-Bound STOPS!....to play this moment’s most wutchuwanted song).  As far as I can tell, this is a first.

- Ke$ha – Die Young finally made its big move this week, jumping up to #3 after waiting in the weeds in the teens for about a month.

- Interestingly, Die Young swapped places with the song I thought would hit #1 this week, PSY – Gangnam Style.  Gangnam Style is out of the Top 10, down to #14.

- Owl City Ft. Carly Rae Jepsen – Good Time is doing a fantastic job of illustrating the countdown’s propensity to keep songs at #1 long after I’m done with them.  But don’t get me wrong, I’m not going back on my assessment of Good Time, like I did on One More Night.

- Rihanna – Diamonds in the top 10?  Already?  For realz?

- Sam and the Womp – Bom Bom ascended into the Top 30 for the first time, which will surely piss off a lot of people.

Editor’s Picks – Top 5 Songs

1) Ke$ha – Die Young

2) Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G – Oath

3) Imagine Dragons – It’s Time

4) Ellie Goulding – Anything Could Happen

5) BoysLikeGirls – Be Your Everything

Owl City (3) - Week of November 3, 2012

Last week’s countdown must have drawn rave reviews from all sides, because this past weekend, they just decided to spit the same 45 songs back at us.  No songs leavin’ the countdown this week.

The Countdown:

1. Owl City Ft. Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time (#2) [Third Week at #1]

2. Maroon 5 - One More Night (#1)

3. PSY - Gangnam Style (#6)

4. fun. - Some Nights (#3)

5. Taylor Swift - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (#4)

6. Neon Trees- Everybody Talks (#7)

7. Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss) (#9)

8. Flo Rida - I Cry (#8)

9. Ellie Goulding- Lights (#5)

10. Enrique Iglesias Ft. Sammy Adams - Finally Found You (#10)

11. One Direction - Live While We're Young (#13)

12. Usher - Numb (#12)

13. Alex Clare - Too Close (#33)

14. Ke$ha - Die Young (#15)

15. OneRepublic - Feel Again (#21)

16. Rihanna - Diamonds (#14)

17. Imagine Dragons - It's Time (#11)

18. Taio Cruz - Fast Car (#18)

19. Bridgit Mendler - Ready or Not (#17)

20. Timomatic - Set It Off (#26)

21. The Cab - Intoxicated (#23)

22. Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You (#20)

23. Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G - Oath (#28)

24. Bruno Mars - Locked Out of Heaven (#16)

25. Karmin- Brokenhearted (#24)

26. Rudimental Ft. John Newman - Feel the Love (#22)

27. Adele - Skyfall (#27)

28. Allstar Weekend - Life As We Know It (#35)

29. Carly Rae Jepsen- Call Me Maybe (#32)

30. Lumineers - Ho Hey (#31)

31. Katy Perry- Wide Awake (#39)

32. BoysLikeGirls - Be Your Everything (#25)

33. Maroon 5 feat. Wiz Khalifa- Payphone (#32)

34. Emeli Sande - Next to Me (#38)

35. Sam and the Womp - Bom Bom (#37)

36. Kelly Clarkson - Dark Side (#36)

37. Linkin Park- Burn It Down (#29)

38. Cher Lloyd - Want U Back (#41)

39. Train - 50 Ways to Say Goodbye (#19)

40. Martin Solveig - The Night Out (#30)

41. fun. feat. Janelle Monáe- We Are Young (#40)

42. Karmin - Hello (#45)

43. Ed Sheeran - The A Team (#44)

44. Flo Rida - Let It Roll (#43)

45. Matchbox Twenty - She's So Mean (#42)

Biggest DDDDRRRRROOOOOPPPP!!!!....of the week:  Train – 50 Ways to Say Goodbye (-20)

Biggest Jump of the Week: Alex Clare – Too Close (+20)

In the absence of new stuff, this is going to be a little more short and sweet.

8|U|285

- 50 Ways to Say Goodbye has tanked 33 spots in 2 weeks. Ask and ye shall receive!

- Alex Clare – Too Close continues the truly bizarre recent success run of the resurrected.

- Oooh ooh ooh!!!  I decided that I made up my mind on Bruno Mars – Locked Out of Heaven!  I don’t like it!  Hooray for consistency!

- There is a very high chance that next week becomes PSY – Gangnam Style’s first week at the top spot.

- One of the more interesting lead-ins that Spyder Harrison had to offer this week: apparently Pink smoked her first cigarette at age 9 and was at a pack a day by age 13.

- Can we be real here for a second?  It’s November 3^rd.  All songs that debuted in February should be firmly out of the Top 10 by now.  You hear me, Everybody Talks?  Oh well, at least songs make their exit quicker here than they do over in Ryan-Seacrest-American-Top-40-Land.  Almost 25% of the songs on the AT-40 have already been kicked off of this countdown….some of them have been gone for months.

Editor’s Picks – Top 5 Songs

1) Ke$ha – Die Young

2) Cher Lloyd Ft. Becky G – Oath

3) Adele – Skyfall

4) Imagine Dragons – It’s Time

5) BoysLikeGirls – Be Your Everything