Lorde - Week of November 9, 2013

Those big changes that were on the horizon?  They’re here.  Lorde sits atop the countdown for the very first 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.

• Daft Punk - Get Lucky (DTHx2)
• Macklemore Ft. Ryan Lewis - Same Love
• Britney Spears - Work B**ch
• Robin Thicke - Give It 2 U
• Krewella - Live For The Night

The Countdown:

1. Lorde – Royals (#3) [First Week at #1]

2. Avicii Ft. Aloe Blacc – Wake Me Up (#2)

3. Imagine Dragons – Demons (#40)

4. Katy Perry – Roar (#1)

5. Paramore – Still Into You (#7)

6. MKTO – Classic (#10)

7. Fall Out Boy – My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'em Up) (#11)

8. Olly Murs – Dance With Me Tonight (#8)

9. Lady Gaga – Applause (#4)

10. Linkin Park Ft. Steve Aoki – A Light That Never Comes (#14)

11. Selena Gomez – Slow Down (#12)

12. Neighbourhood – Sweater Weather (#20)

13. Calvin Harris Ft. Ellie Goulding – I Need Your Love (#6)

14. Imagine Dragons – Radioactive (#9)

15. Katy Perry – Unconditionally (#17)

16. Capital Cities – Safe and Sound (#5)

17. Lana Del Rey Ft. Cedric Gervais – Summertime Sadness (#25)

18. Fall Out Boy – Alone Together (#24)

19. John Newman – Love Me Again (#13)

20. Hunter Hayes – I Want Crazy (#36)

21. Icona Pop – All Night (#15)

22. The Mowgli's – Say It, Just Say It (#16)

23. Wax – Rosana (#18)

24. Cher Lloyd – I Wish (#22)

25. Serebro - Mi Mi MI (DEBUT)

26. One Direction - Story Of My Life (#33)

27. Zedd Ft. Foxes – Clarity (#35)

28. New Politics – Harlem (#34)

29. Enrique Iglesias – Heart Attack (#29)

30. Labrinth Ft. Emeli Sande – Beneath Your Beautiful (#31)

31. Travie McCoy Ft. Jason Mraz – Rough Water (#23)

32. Taylor Swift Ft. Ed Sheeran – Everything Has Changed (#28)

33. Eminem Ft. Rihanna - The Monster (DEBUT)

34. Maroon 5 – Love Somebody (#38)

35. Lady Gaga Ft. R. Kelly - Do What U Want (DEBUT)

36. Pink – True Love (#42)

37. Robin Thicke Ft. Pharrell & T.I. – Blurred Lines (#32)

38. The 1975 – Chocolate (#44)

39. Armin van Buuren Ft. Trevor Guthrie - This Is What It Feels Like (DEBUT)

40. Jesse McCartney – Back Together (#30)

41. Macklemore Ft. Ryan Lewis – Can't Hold Us (#39)

42. Bruno Mars – Gorilla (#26)

43. Zedd Ft. Hayley Williams - Stay the Night (DEBUT)

44. Avril Lavigne – Rock N Roll (#19)

45. Tegan & Sara – Closer (#41)

Biggest DDDDRRRRROOOOPPPPP!!!!....of the week: Avril Lavigne – Rock and Roll (-25)

Biggest Jump of the Week: Imagine Dragons – Demons (+37) (not a typo)

There are bad songs that enter the countdown, like Enrique Iglesias – Turn the Night Up, and then there are songs that truly make me weep for the future of mankind, like Serebro – Mi Mi Mi.  No, that isn’t the device that Professor X uses to locate other mutants, it’s a girl group from Russia that’s showing up here….to increase noise pollution, I guess?  Mi Mi Mi has some explicit lyrics, but a sing-songy melody that's tailor-made for children who like obnoxious music.  There's a great combination.

Last time Eminem and Rihanna teamed up, we got one of the best songs of 2010 in Love the Way You Lie.  Their latest, The Monster, doesn’t quite hit that height, but it’s good, and it’s a welcome relief after the disaster that was Berzerk.  Apparently Eminem feels he has a lot in common with Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson.  Who knew?  For the moment, anyway, I’m not over the top in love with Lady Gaga Ft. R. Kelly – Do What U Want (heh….this whole “you” = “U” thing sure is fascinating to today’s pop artists), but it does put the classic, addictive Gaga singing voice and pacing back on display, something we haven’t seen in quite some time.  And hey, R. Kelly is alive!  So there’s that.  Unfortunately, his contribution to Do What U Want is the worst part of the song, except for that last bit that makes for an excellent transition to a chorus.  Thanks for The World’s Greatest, though.  That was a cool thing to give to the planet.

Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren debuted this week with This Is What It Feels Like, featuring Trevor Guthrie.  There’s nothing really objectionable about it….lively beat, pretty melodious on the whole, but I have trouble seeing it hold value long-term, because it really lacks any semblance of a “high point”.  The same piano-esque line is played throughout the song, and it switches off accompanying it with an underlying beat, but there’s not a lot of room for variety.  By the time the song ends, it feels repetitive even though you’ve only heard it once.  I’ve dismissively called songs “repetitive” here before, but usually they don’t sound quite as good as This Is What It Feels Like.  For that reason, judgment really needs to be withheld on this one for the time being.

Those who are over-the-top sick of Clarity might find themselves pretty disappointed to find out that Zedd has parlayed his breakout hit into another countdown entry, Stay the Night, featuring Hayley Williams of Paramore.  As mentioned on HitBound, the lyrics were literally written in a day by Hayley Williams, and it was the day before the song was recorded.  This is how easy it is for these people to make music that winds up on the charts.  Yikes.  Stay the Night is somewhat staccato in places, and I’m not sure that really works all that well.  However, much like he did with the relatively unknown Foxes, Zedd did a pretty good job with the voice of the star-keeps-rising Williams.  Any sort of apples-to-apples comparison to Clarity is pretty much impossible at this point since Stay the Night is new and I’ve heard Clarity like 200 times, but we’ll do our best in a month and a half when it’s time to decide on such things.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Blurbs

- So my words last week about big changes were true.  But look!  Tegan and Sara – Closer is still here!  

- The big news this week is clearly the out-of-nowhere ascent of Imagine Dragons – Demons all the way to the Top 3.  At this point it should be clear that I find this to be a very welcome development.

- Demons moving into the Top 3, of course, necessitated Radioactive being bumped out of the Top 10, because we all know how the countdown doesn't allow songs by the same artists to be anywhere close to each other on the countdown.  You can sort of see the same thing happening with Fall Out Boy right now.

- Sometimes Hits-1 seems to either be far ahead of, or far behind the more mainstream charts, but this time they seem to be right on target with Lorde – Royals, which hit #1 for the first time the very same week that it did so on the American Top 40.

- Despite my generally positive thoughts on 4 of the 5 new entrants, none of them have really grabbed my attention enough to merit a spot on my personal Editor’s Picks.  For the time being.

Editor’s Picks – Top 5 Songs

1) Hunter Hayes – I Want Crazy

2) Imagine Dragons – Demons

3) Avril Lavigne – Rock and Roll

4) New Politics – Harlem

5) Jesse McCartney – Back Together