A Special Hits-1 Post - 2013: A Year In Review

First, a shameless plug.  At some point today, I expect to cross the 200,000 pageview threshold.  Thank you all.  You are truly wonderful.  Or bored.

This is my second annual installment of a (not-so) quick recap of all the activity we've seen during this past year on the Sirius XM Hits-1 Weekend Countdown.  In a short while, I'll be back with another post with the Top 45 Songs of 2013.  I've had a full staff working 12 hour days with no bathroom breaks analyzing all of the candidates to death so you can be assured that when the rankings are published, they're as accurate as they can possibly be.

Once again, the current year marked a notable contrast in quality from its predecessor.  I'm more than a little relieved that 2013 is coming to a close because quite frankly, I can't figure out whether it or 2011 was the worst year to endure since I became a Hits-1 listener in 2009.  A few of 2011's great songs (there since hasn't been any countdown songs as good as the Top 3 from that year) might give it the slight edge, but then again, 2011 had some true disasters that dominated the top of the countdown and were spun to death by Hits-1.  The quality of the #1's in 2013 was certainly a notch higher.

Speaking of those #1 songs, this is the time to honor those songs that, for better or for worse, spent at least 1 week at the top of the Sirius XM Hits-1 Weekend Countdown.  Here is 2013's #1 Parade:

• Imagine Dragons - Radioactive (x8)
• Katy Perry - Roar (x7)
• Fall Out Boy - My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up) (x6)
• Ke$ha - Die Young (x4)
• Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble (x4)
• Macklemore Ft. Ryan Lewis - Thrift Shop (x4)
• Avicii Ft. Aloe Blacc - Wake Me Up (x4)
• Pink Ft. Nate Reuss - Just Give Me A Reason (x3)
• Macklemore Ft. Ryan Lewis - Can't Hold Us (x3)
• Maroon 5 - Daylight
• Maroon 5 - Love Somebody
• Olly Murs - Troublemaker
• Lorde - Royals
• Fall Out Boy - Alone Together
• Olly Murs - Dance With Me Tonight
• Imagine Dragons - Demons
• OneRepublic - Counting Stars
• Pitbull Ft. Ke$ha - Timber

I'd like to keep as much negativity as possible out of my Top 45 Songs of 2013 post, but at the same time, what year would be complete without recognizing the worst of the worst?  Pop music pumps out plenty of duds almost by default, and 2013 was certainly no exception.  I started a tradition last year to rank the Bottom 5 songs of the year and despite my current desire to expand that to 10, I'm a sucker for consistency.  Due to the absurd amount of garbage music in 2013, disasters such as will.i.am Ft. Britney Spears - Scream and Shout, Pitbull Ft. Christina Aguilera - Feel This Moment, Milan and Phoenix - Istanbul (Not Constantinople), and Ariana Grande - The Way are getting something of a free pass.  Any one of those songs would have been the 3rd worst of 2012 had it been released a year earlier.  But enough about that, onward with the pit of despair, with #1 being the worst.  I don't accompany these rankings with comments because it should be pretty obvious why they're here.

Bottom 5 Songs of 2013
5) Enrique Iglesias - Turn the Night Up
4) PSY - Gentleman
3) will.i.am Ft. Justin Bieber - #thatPOWER
2) Serebro - Mi Mi Mi
1) Kelsi Luck - That's What I Like

Unlike in 2012, there were actually some quality songs that spent awhile on Hit-Bound, but never made the jump to the countdown.  For the unfamiliar, Hit-Bound is Sirius XM Hits-1's new music show during which they air songs that have (usually!) not made their weekly Top 45 rankings yet, but are up for consideration to join the countdown in the near future.  The majority of songs that appear on the countdown (at a given time) were once on Hit-Bound.  In this space I like to honor the best song that aired on Hit-Bound during the year with the Lights Over Paris Hit-Bound Hero Award, given to the best song to air on Hit-Bound that for one reason or another never received the distinct honor of being announced by Spyder Harrison on the weekend.

2013 Lights Over Paris Hit-Bound Hero Award Winner: Youngblood Hawke - We Come Running

SiriusXM Hits-1 has something of a reputation for omission of certain songs from their countdown that "make it big" and are otherwise widely accepted as being among the most popular in (at the very least) the United States at a given time.  Justin Timberlake and Drake are probably the artists that get pointed to the most (even though the former does get some Hits-1 airplay) in this argument, but there are others as well.  Likewise, Hits-1 does give exposure to some songs and artists that aren't heard all that often elsewhere, and even if this does sort of cloud the concept that this truly is a list of the 45 biggest songs on the continent, it does make me appreciate the station a lot more for introducing me to music I might not hear elsewhere.  Anyhoo, before I jam any more arguably misplaced parentheticals into my writing, I'll go ahead and introduce a new award that I'll hand out annually to the "biggest" song that Hits-1 failed to put on the countdown, the Biggest Whiff of the Year.  There were plenty of good candidates for this (Rihanna - Stay and Justin Timberlake - Mirrors come to mind), but the following song took the cake for having a somewhat notorious music video and topping the American Top 40 chart for three straight weeks.

Biggest Whiff of 2013 - Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

Finally, we come to our tenure trophies, handed out to the songs with longest and shortest stints on the countdown during 2013.  There were a number of songs that lasted three weeks this year, but only one that lasted just two....

Shortest Tenured Song of 2013: Rihanna Ft. David Guetta - Right Now

The longest tenured song of 2013 is still hanging around, but made its countdown debut all the way back on February 9th.

Longest Tenured Song of 2013: Fall Out Boy - My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up) 

I sincerely hope that things get better in 2014....it's a lot more fun to do something like this when you can muster some semblance of enthusiasm for the music itself.  Those moments were unfortunately few and far between in 2013.  Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the Top 45 songs of the year.