Yes, it's a belated return to blogging, but it's not too belated since it allows me a chance to post my favourite 20 songs of 2010. I'll probably go back in to "proper" blogging sooner or later but, yes, this gives me a chance to be all music journalist-y or something of that ilk. There's no real rules here, other than "it has to have been released in 2010", at least as a single if not as part of an album. Let's get straight in to it then, shall we?
20. Satellite by Lena
Ah yes, Lena, 2010's winner of Eurovision. Anyone who knows me will probably know that I'm a massive Eurovision nerd (I'm thinking 2011 is finally the year that I host my massive ass Eurovision party. I have a house for it now, at least...) and this was one of my favourite songs during the competition, which means it was a nice change for it to win. Anyway, Lena's voice is a bit...different, mainly thanks to the fact she has the weirdest faux-British accent I've ever heard. I actually like it though, even though it wasn't universally loved. "Satellite" is a good little pop song and in terms of the recent Eurovision winners is pretty damn awesome, to be fair. It'll be fun to see her defend her crown in 2011 to say the least, depending on what she comes out with.
19. Pass Out by Tinie Tempah
See, I like music that isn't strictly pop music! Anyway, Pass Out is actually a pretty damn good song even if I don't usually like rap music, mainly due to the fact that I love the lyrics to this song. Anyone who can include The Hills, Scunthorpe and Uncle Fester in the same song and make it go to Number One in the charts sort of deserves to be ranked high in any ranking I'd have thought. I'm not a massive fan of the rest of Tinie's songs that I've heard so far, but as far as a mainstream debut goes, this is as good as it's going to get for the guy.
18. Toxic by the Glee Cast
Ah, Glee, how I love you. A lot of the time they get criticism for just doing straight covers of pop songs and never really making them sound a lot different - apart from throwing a whole hunk of auto tune which can often be completely unnecessary. But then came this AMAZING version of my favourite Britney song and they sort of blew it out of the water. The fact that in the episode itself the song sort of got butchered by the acting going on around it was a damn shame, because the entire cast sound great and it's a really good arrangement of the song. Heather Morris also sounds amazing, further cementing my theory that she is indeed the most talented member of the cast (sorry Chris Colfer, you know I love you deeply but it's true. She's that fucking awesome.)
17. Love The Way You Lie, Part II by Rihanna & Eminem
After the rumours of a sequel to "Stan" and then the actual sequel of "Empire State of Mind (Part 2)" (and, if you really want to count it, California Gurls), it sort of made sense that we would get a sequel to Love the Way You Lie. Unlike ESoM 2, though, Rihanna actually keeps a lot of the original heart of the song and simply reverses it: instead of the majority being Eminem's rap, it becomes Rihanna's pop and he simply has his own smaller rap solo later on in the song. If anything though, this is the perfect sequel song; whatever the relationship between the two characters portrayed in these songs really is, the way it's so beautifully told in both songs works so well. The only reason this ranks lower than it's predecessor in my mind is because without the original, this just wouldn't work quite so well.
16. Only Girl in the World by Rihanna
On the whole, Rated R was a bit of a disaster. Sure, Rude Boy was pretty good, but it was a bit of a nothing song in reality. And Te Amo was alright but it wasn't exactly going to set the world alight. All in all, it was just...not what we expected from Rihanna. So what did she do to fix this? Release this pounding dance song (the Europop influences in particular shining through) and wrap it up with some frankly amazing live performances of it. This is the natural progression that should have come from Good Girl Gone Bad; Rude Boy was the starter that led in to this main course.
Yeah, I'm using food analogies. Go me!
15. Commander by Kelly Rowland
I sort of feel sorry for Kelly Rowland (I'm saying this knowing that she's probably loaded and hasn't got a care in the world, but work with me here). "Work" was a damn good song, while "When Love Takes Over" was probably the song of Summer 2009. Yet she's never really managed to establish a solo career that's kept strong on its own, and Commander was unfortunately a prime example of this, only managing a top position of number 9 when it really could have done so much better. It's a huge tune with a damn good vocal performance by Rowland and it was probably one of my favourite songs of the summer, even if solely for the chorus (which is by far the highlight of the song).
So, yes. That's the first six, I'll put the next batch up tomorrow hopefully. In other news, I'm in a sort of very "bleh" mood since I'm bored out of my mind and stuck at home thanks to the inability of the Manchester buses to run at a reasonable service half the time. Plus, it needs to be New Year now please. Just so things start happening I guess. Ja.
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