A Special Hits-1 Post - 2012: A Year in Review

This is my first annual installment of a high-level recap of a year of exciting Sirius XM Hits-1 Weekend Countdown activity.  It won't be long before I reveal the Top 45 Songs of 2012, which will be posted here in the not-too distant future.  I'm pretty sure I heard Spyder Harrison say that Hits-1 will be reinstating their own Top-45 list of the year (which is flawed for reasons that I will explain when I post the list here), so you'll get two such rankings here in the coming weeks.  I trust everyone will know which of the two rankings to believe.

2012 was much, much different than 2011 in terms of quality of music.  For one thing, there were far fewer truly awful awful songs, due in no small part because artists like Bruno Mars, LMFAO, and Bad Rihanna made themselves much more scarce.  On the other hand, we had a bit of a drought of out-of-the-park fantastic songs.  My #1 song of the year would not have cracked last year's Top 3.  So, music quality was a lot less polarized in 2012 than 2011.  However, the average quality of the countdown was significantly better this year.  Last year, I struggled to come up with 45 songs that I liked enough to rank.  This year, a whopping 70 songs were up for consideration, and I had to painfully eliminate plenty of tunes that I enjoyed.

The year wasn't without its problems.  January was mired in the same pile of feces as October -> December 2011.  Things didn't really pick up until February and March, which spawned a wave of good music that made the countdown (through early May) as good as it's ever been.  The second half of the year was not as strong, as my #1 "Editor's Pick" of the week was Owl City Ft Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time and Ke$ha - Die Young for far too many weeks (despite both being pretty excellent tunes in their own right), simply because no new songs popped up to bounce them.

As I mentioned above, the bottom-of-the-barrel songs in 2012 could not touch the immeasurable suckitude of 2011's nadir.  However, there were several that were pretty damn bad, and I'd like to give them recognition as such.  Without further ado, here's a list of songs that should be swallowed up by the earth, never to be heard from again: the Bottom 5 Songs of 2012 (#1 being the worst, naturally)

Bottom 5 Songs of 2012*

5) will.i.am - This Is Love

4) B.O.B. Ft. Taylor Swift - Both of Us

3) Mac Miller - Knock Knock

2) Justin Bieber - Boyfriend

1) Marina & the Diamonds - Primadonna

*will.i.am Ft. Britney Spears - Scream and Shout was not considered for this list because it debuted very late in the year and will be deferred for consideration in 2013.

Next, I'd like to honor the songs that were able to grab the #1 spot on the countdown during one of the 52 weeks of 2012, for better or for worse.  Here is your #1 Parade for the year:

• Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe (9) (All-time record)
• Owl City Ft. Carly Rae Jepsen - Good Time (6)
• fun. - Some Nights (6) 
• One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful (5)
• fun. Ft. Janelle Monae - We Are Young (5)
• Katy Perry - Wide Awake (4)
• David Guetta Ft. Usher - Without You (3)
• Kelly Clarkson - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) (3)
• Maroon 5 - Payphone (3)
• Maroon 5 - One More Night (3)
• Flo Rida - Good Feeling (2)
• Selena Gomez & the Scene - Love You Like a Love Song (1)
• Gym Class Heroes Ft. Adam Levine - Stereo Hearts (1) (7 total)
• Adele - Set Fire to the Rain (1)

We were further fortunate in 2012 in that there was a dearth of good songs that made it to Hit-Bound, but were not allowed to graduate to the countdown.  Pretty much all songs worth listening to from Hit-Bound graced the Top 45.  However, I'd like to honor the best song played on Hits-1 during 2012 that did NOT have the honor of being called out by Spyder Harrison on Saturday.  I'm naming this award the Lights Over Paris Hit-Bound Hero award, in honor of Lights Over Paris, a truly awful band that came out with a truly awful song called Turn Off the Lights a couple years ago.  The song made it to Hit-Bound and strangely (I suspect ballot-stuffing) was miles and miles ahead of other Hit-Bound songs in the polls on the Hits-1 homepage each week.  Despite that ostensible (and possibly robotic) support, it never graduated.  So without further ado.......

2012 Lights Over Paris Hit-Bound Hero Award Winner: Goldhouse - The Moment

Tenure Trophies

Two songs tied the record this year for Most Hysterically Short Countdown Tenure Ever, at (obviously) one week.

• KDrew - Body & Soul (She Got Control)
• Olly Murs - Dance With Me Tonight

The more honorable "trophy" in this category is that for the longest tenure.  Honestly, before I looked it up, I thought for sure that the song that was on the countdown for the most weeks during 2012 was Neon Trees - Everybody Talks.  However, I was wrong, as that song lost out by two weeks to.....

2012 Longest Tenured Song: fun. Ft. Janelle Monae - We Are Young (debut on Feb 11, still on the countdown)

It was an enjoyable year of music, to be sure.  Thanks to all for reading.  Hopefully we will have a similarly successful year in 2013!