Music Sep 4, 2013 at 4:00 am

America's Top 10 Songs Don't Rock—at All

Comments

1
The Robin Thicke video where they play the tune on kids toys is pretty cool though... :)
2
I hate to say it, but I agree with this article.

Except for Applause.
3
Everybody listen up! The DJ is telling us what music is all about.
4
"Applause" and "Holy Grail" are not the best Gaga or Jay-Z can do, but that's no reason to be such a condescending hipster about their whole EXISTENCE.
5
It's just sad that most major pop musicians choose to burn out than fade away. You don't have to suck really bad in your later years. You can just stop. Please. Pop music sucks, it doesn't need to be worse.
And congratulations #4, I think you're the first person on the internet to use the word hipster appropriately.
6
This too shall pass.
7
I agree other than the bit about not getting sick of Get Lucky. It happened to me this morning. I still loving the memory of Stephen Colbert and Brian Cranston roller-dancing to it though (brought to by Hyundai). Imagine Dragons - wtf listens to that? Nice to know the charts can still be manipulated with some coke from a record company flunky.
8
Anna Kendrick is also a Tony-nominated actress with a long history of professional musical theater performances. Do not let a trained singer who can affect different styles be confused with a mediocre singer who can only do one thing.
11
Here is Postmodern Jukebox's cover of "We Can't Stop":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXYWDtXbB…

Still a dumb song, but better singing and arrangement.
12
Get Lucky isn't even the best track on the new album. I prefer "Lose Yourself To Dance". Or perhaps "Doin' It Right".
13

Although I own a thousand vinyl LPs, a few thousand CD's, boxes of cassettes, and terabyte hard drives full of music files, I am happy to say I have never heard a single one of these songs, and, hopefully, never will.
Well, maybe the daft punk, if my kid brings it home.

There is way too much great new music released every month to waste time on shit like this.
14
@3: Oh look, it's someone who pretends to be subversive by "sticking up for top 40". Hipsters who embrace the mainstream, so so edgy.
15
Ah another hispter snob, bur he is right about Perry, Gaga, and Cyrus at least.
16
We must save rock to save the country.
17
Welcome to driving in a car Dave. A car with your 10 year-old. In that car your kid runs the stereo, not you.

You can complain Dave, but you aren't in control. And by now you know all the lyrics, and they haunt your dreams.
18
"baby's first EDM tune" nailed it. I heard this song for the first time just yesterday when my five year old played a minecraft themed parody music video of it for us. He was loving it. I had no idea it was a top ten hit.
19
Looking and sounding like Alan Thicke has got to be pretty humiliating already.
20
I just rewired my brain to say, this isn't music, as say a classic rock person understands it, to be listened to for itself.

These are like soundtracks used as background to a greater conceptual work that includes visuals, dance, personality showcases, and cultural meme manipulation as well as a type of crowd participation through social media (copying, parodying, reporting).

The current technology is Miley. No one is near her and she rusts out Gaga and Perry. That is because her taboos are au courant.

Few get that some of what Cyrus does is in your face satire. Her get up at VMA made her look like...a blow up doll (check the make up, hair and facial expressions)! What was seen by dreary and uncomprehending feminists as submission was in fact a critique of male fantasy. She was not dancing with Thicke...but rebutting (pun intended) him!

21
AH HA! I just figured out the cast-in-stone formula for the modern female vocal style, indie edition. At the end of every line of melody, the singer hits the front end of the note hard, then drops the volume suddenly and hits it with a heavy vibrato. This is the iron law of all female indie singers.
22
Cranky pants alert!
23
Now THIS is a way to play cups...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQoCEvVL…
24
@17 So funny and true, but hang in there. My now-11-year-old no longer has the patience for Movin' 92.5 / Kiss 106.1 / Cube. So long, suckas! You actually play too much crap for an 11yo, lol! A nice dose of Kpop might be just what the doctor ordered.
25
Get Lucky : You will probably never get sick of this track.

I already am. Trust me, you will, too.
26
I get the Thicke seems to have lifted that rif from Gaye, who most likely lifted it from a whole bunch of people who developed it, but Thicke has turned it into part of a more musically complex and interesting song. I enjoy listening to it, but like others above, I have been subjected to years of bad hip hop and top 40, so Thicke's song is a serious breath of fresh air.

BTW, Is there any worse lyric in the history of song than "killing that pussy softly"? Just askin'.
27
Weird that someone can write about that Robin Thicke song without mentioning that it's about glorifying rape.
28
TI makes a Pharcyde reference in Blurred Lines. I don't even know why he bothered doing that, but it's a wee nugget in that turd.
29
@26: "[Gaye] most likely lifted it from a whole bunch of people who developed it"? Sacrilege. "'Got to Give It Up' is a funk/disco song by American recording artist Marvin Gaye. Written by the singer and produced by Art Stewart, it was recorded in three studio dates in 1976 with a final mixing in early 1977. Gaye performed the lead vocal track, instrumentation (which included Gaye, Fernando Harkness, Johnny McGhee, Frankie Beverly and Bugsy Wilcox and Funk Brother member Jack Ashford) and background vocals. In the song, Gaye added background vocals from his brother and his girlfriend. During the second half of the song, the song introduces vocal layered doo-wop styled scatting from Gaye and produced a funk-influenced vamp...All the background vocals on the second part of the song were from Gaye himself. Gaye also plays percussion, RMI synthesizer bass and keyboards on the song. In the second half, he can be heard playing on a glass bottle halfway filled with grapefruit juice." (Wiki)

And to answer your last question, "Let the small head rock her" by Great White strikes me as worse by a hair (metal band).

@27: There's a difference between "Douchey Up-In-Da-Club Playa Anthem" and "Rapist's Delight". Rick Ross' verse on "U.O.E.N.O.” is unequivocally a promotion of date rape, and it rightfully got him dropped by Reebok. "Blurred Lines" is just kind of sleazy.
30
Since the early days of Og the rock-flute player's small but dedicated following hating on Thog's much more popular rock-drum beats, I have just really not given a shit.
31
@20 You're giving Ms Cyrus FAR too much intellectual credit.

You might have a point if her music showed a hint of the satire you claim she shows on stage, but it's no more than bland manufactured pop. And if there's any truth to your contention that her music is "background to a greater conceptual work," well, that would make her the laziest satirist I've ever seen.
32
I agree w Segal especially regarding Thicke.. Seems odd to me too, doesn't he have a video out w Lil Wayne? Who I like. Seems a strange combo for some reason. Especially after seeing Ill give it to u. Anyway, I can't talk, I've become a Kpop fan this year. Ga In's Bloom is my fav video in any language. For one thing it shows a young man Can have a career in backup dance! And Lee Hi rocks R&B style in 1234. I double dog dare ya to listen and not toe tap. But I degress, I'm no longer anyone's target audience being all oldish and white....ah the 60's when it all sounded neW.
33
@20: "Few get that some of what Cyrus does is in your face satire. Her get up at VMA made her look like...a blow up doll (check the make up, hair and facial expressions)! What was seen by dreary and uncomprehending feminists as submission was in fact a critique of male fantasy. She was not dancing with Thicke...but rebutting (pun intended) him!"

Good god are you dumb.
34
I can seriously say that I haven't heard any of these songs even once.
35
SROTU is the only person in America who is still intrigued by Miley Cyrus' bizarre butt.
36
Agree about K-pop. That's where the real professionalism and unabashed weirdness are. G-Dragon's new stuff, Lee Hi's voice, even the girl group juggernauts. Check it out.
37
#29: Thank you.
38
Nobody likes classic rock anymore?

Please wait...

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