Idolator
A reader inquired yesterday as to why Idolator publishes its "Year-End Analysis" series, collecting and scrutinizing "Best Of 2007" lists from various music publications. There are many reasons, really, but the biggest is that, judging by the reaction to the handful we've written so far, you all really like them. (Well, maybe "like them" isn't quite right, considering the tone of your comments. But you definitely feel something.) But occasionally we do yearn to let you know what were our favorite songs of 2007. Which is why we sat down with iTunes, hemmed and hawed for a while, shot a bunch of e-mails back and forth, poked fun at each other at least once, and made a list.
Every day, for the rest of December, we'll be posting two entries counting down Idolator's 40 favorite songs of 2007. No, it's really that simple. The list is my 20 favorite songs smooshed together with Maura's 20 favorite songs. (Guess which ones each of us will be writing about?) After each entry is posted, it will be added to the master list below, and you can use this post as both a running tally and an easy way to check out the indvidual entries. The countdown itself ranges from the most inescapable Billboard hits of the year to tunes that we hadn't even heard of until the other one pointed them out to us.
Which is kind of the point: These are the 40 songs from 2007 that we most want to share with other people, the songs that made us laugh, cry, dance (badly), do bedroom (or otherwise) karaoke, and hit "repeat" until we had annoyed everyone within earshot. People almost always misread the word "best" when it's usually just a gussied up way of saying "favorite," but especially in blogville, "best" has taken on rather cynical marketing-style connotations for most people when coupled with the words "new" and "music." So forget "best" for a minute, and think of this simply as a playlist of awesome songs that defined the year for Idolator, at least a few of which we hope you might love as well, styled as a Top 40 countdown because we're still obsessed with Shadoe Stevens and Casey Kasem after all these years. Plus, you know, how fair would it be to all those folks covered in "Year-End Analysis" if we didn't give them the opportunity to pick and prod at our own year-end list?
Idolator's 2007 Top 40 List Of Awesomeness
40. Ne-Yo, "Addicted"
39. Melt Banana, "Blank Page Of The Blind"
38. Spoon, "The Underdog"
37. Lloyd, "Get It Shawty"
36. Sugababes, "About You Now"
35. Big Business, "Just As The Day Was Dawning"
34. Kylie Minogue, "2 Hearts"
33. Eve, "Tambourine"
32. Tiffany Evans, "Girl Gone Wild"
31. Kanye West, "Flashing Lights"
30. YACHT, "See A Penny (Pick It Up)"
29. Marnie Stern, "Every Single Line Means Something"
28. Bat For Lashes, "What's A Girl To Do?"
27. Charlotte Hatherley, "Very Young"
26. Tegan and Sara, "Back In Your Head"
25. T.I., "You Know What It Is"
24. Carrie Underwood, "Before He Cheats"
23. LCD Soundsystem, "Us V. Them"
22. Amerie, "Gotta Work"
21. Swizz Beatz, "It's Me Bitches"
20. Rihanna, "Umbrella"
19. Battles, "Atlas"
18. Tracey Thorn, "Raise The Roof"
17. Lil Wayne, "I Feel Like Dying"
16. Nelly Furtado, "Say It Right"
15. T-Pain, "Calm The Fuck Down"
14. M.I.A., "Paper Planes"
13. Bobby Valentino, "Anonymous"
12. Wye Oak, "Warning"
11. Rihanna and Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You"
10. Lloyd, "You"
09. Lil Mama, "Lip Gloss"
08. Sissy Wish, "Float"
07. Rich Boy feat. Polow Da Don, "Throw Some D's"
06. Siobhan Donaghy, "Don't Give It Up"
05. UGK featuring OutKast, "International Players' Anthem"
04. Fall Out Boy, ""The Take Over, The Break's Over""
03. R. Kelly featuring T.I. and T-Pain - "I'm A Flirt (Remix)"
01b. Grinderman, "No Pussy Blues"
01a. Violet Vector And The Lovely Lovelies, "Can You Dig It"
Comments
at first i didn't read all the text (because i don't like to read) and when i saw the blank list i thought you guys were making a really ironic and bad-ass statement about how silly top 10 lists are.
but nope. you're just like the rest of us.
Casey: "To give you an idea of how fresh a year [1991] was, six of the Top 10 were by brand-new acts!"
...most of whom were never heard from again after 1993.
@jambajim: Except that would be some lame "the person of the year is YOU" bullshit and not at all bad-ass.
@GovernmentNames: great, now you've spoiled the twist ending where the greatest song of the year is whatever you truly want it to be in your hearts.
Lists: You are part of the problem.
So I'm assuming the top ten songs will the tracklist for In Rainbows, right? Right?
*will be*
Love the video Jess! A 'kurt' (eh?) reminder of just how mind-blowing Nirvana were at the time! I just bought the Descendents 'Sour Grapes' on iTunes, and Henry Rollins' spoken word atrocity 'Family Man'. Neither of those songs are relevant to your prospective list. Go team!
@SomeSound-MostlyFury: phail!
Anyway, I fotgot that Amy Grant was actually really cute back in the day. Can we revisit "Baby, Baby," or is that not open for any critical appreciation?
Heart In Motion by Amy Grant was my first CD. Kind of accidentally, because I wasn't allowed to touch my parents' CD player and I had asked for the tape and my grandmother didn't notice the difference between tapes and CDs. Still, I, um, haven't gotten rid of it yet. There it sits, on my CD rack, right in-between Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Green Day*. Because it's kind of not that bad. Baby Baby and Every Heartbeat are kind of.... well, good, frankly.
(*I'm not at home right now so I'm not really sure if that's what it's in-between, but it's something like that.)
Also, aren't there like 27 days left in December? 27 times 2 isn't 40.
@bcapirigi: There are 19 publishing days (including today) left in December. (Weekends not included, obv, and we get the day off on Christmas.) We're going to have 8-7-6 run on Thursday, Dec. 27, and 5-4-3 run on Dec. 28. The countdown will finish up on New Year's Eve.
Did anyone else spot the Pitchfork slam?
I know I'm regarded as the big pop apologist 'round these parts, but I have always hated "Baby, Baby," mostly for its overuse (drowning, really) in the kind of keening turn-of-the-'90s synths that suffused such other pop "classics" as "Wind Beneath My Wings." I don't think you have to be a pop grouch to hate this song.
Out of the Top 10 of '91 that Casey counts down in that video (segments two and three are available if you follow the link to YouTube), the ones that I remain fond of are EMF's "Unbelieveable," Extreme's "More Than Words" and (if you ignore the ooky lyrics and don't watch the dated video) Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You Up" (I know, but it was an original sound back then). The Hi-Five tune is a little better than I remembered it, too. I did enjoy C+C's "Gonna Make You Sweat" back in the day, but the video has aged poorly (the skinny model lip-synching to Martha Wash is now stomach-turning) and...oy, Freedom Williams, were we ever that naïve? I also still can't stand the Bryan Adams and Paula Abdul songs, and that Timmy T joint is some seriously forgotten ballady schlockiness.
27 times 2 isn't 40? Aw, crap.
@maura:
oops. i'm a big dope. forget i said that.
I swear 'Baby, Baby' was played before every single Indians game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in '91, along with Michael Jackson's 'Jam' and Shanice's 'I Love Your Smile'. I think those were the only 3 songs they had.
kudos to jess for figuring out how to pimp Gawker's new "Pay by Page Views" thing.
@bcapirigi: "Heart In Motion" was the first tape I ever bought for myself. Usually I just listened to the oldies my parents listened to on the radio. My first CD was Matthew Sweet's "100% Love," which I bought when it came out. Still have it to this day. Can't say the same for Amy Grant, though.
Comment on this post
Reply by EmailLogin with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?