NOW UPDATED WITH “LOST BALLOT” RESULTS! Second instalment of the readers poll – now we’re into the Top 50 proper I’ll be linking the tracks to their YouTube vids, and I’ve put what’s on Spotify into the playlist.
54. JUSTIN BIEBER ft LUDACRIS – “Baby”: This video is closing in on half a billion YouTube views, and with three million comments must be in with a shout as the most commented on thing on the Internet. Underneath the online ubiquity is a sweet little song, worth it if only to see Ludacris on his very best behaviour around the little ones.
53. THE-DREAM – “Yamaha”: Standout from his Love King album which doubles as an excellent Prince pastiche (though Prince was rarely as needy as The-Dream) – this video preserves the album lead-in to “Nikki Part 2”, the one on the Spotify playlist ends very jarringly.
52. MARK RONSON AND THE BUSINESS INT’L – “Bang Bang Bang”: Always a pleasure to hear Q-Tip!
51. DUCK SAUCE – “Barbara Streisand”: The video mix was specified, and rightly so I think.
50. HURTS – “Better Than Love”: Hurts obviously want to be really big, or someone really wants them to be big – I admit I’d rather lost track of whether they’d managed it yet? This is a lot better than “Wonderful Life” in my opinion. You will have to wait and see whether that is praise or indictment of the voters’ tastes.
49. KELIS – “Song For The Baby”: Delighted to see this place – wasn’t a single and was tucked away at the tail-end of her album as a lovely little coda – but that whole record is supposedly about motherhood and the repetitive euphoria of hands-in-the-air house music turns out to be the perfect musical metaphor for parenting. Well, I think so. Perhaps the first song about how awesome having kids is that I’ve ever loved.
48. WILLOW SMITH – “Whip My Hair”: Speaking of kids… also very pleased to see this here. Love how the video is Willow Smith disrupting the corny drabness of grown-up life, this is exactly what a 10 year old should think an office canteen is like! And the bubblecrunk song is great too. Even people with short hair can whip it back and forth, she says, though it will look like they are simply nodding vigorously. Full marks to whoever unearths a metal cover of this first.
47. STROMAE – “Alors En Danse”: Lugubrious Eurodisco gentleman exhorts us to dance, or not, it sounds like it’s all the same to him TBH. More office life angst in the video: the whole thing is a desk jockey version of “Day’N’Nite” I reckon.
46. JENNI VARTIAINEN – “En Hallu Kuolla Tana Yona”: Surely top of everyone’s prediction list, it’s a Finnish former reality show winner with a bit of massive no-frills arena pop. Lighters aloft!
45. OWL CITY – “Fireflies”: Since I have to discuss this for Popular I feel it best that I say nothing right now. Will I extend this courtesy to other number ones? We will see.
44. THE ARCADE FIRE – “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”: Lighters aloft here too, except “Sprawl II” isn’t yr usual Arcade Fire song, it’s “the disco one” (it’s too lumpy to be disco really, but by their standards…) which only yesterday topped the Pitchfork readers poll to that site’s surprise. I love this record comfortably more than anything else this band has done, and confidently expected it to do rather better than #41 in this ranking, but no!
In the next chunk…. plenty of sensitive electronic folks, and a tradition from the Poptimists poll is proudly carried over.