This Is How My Blog Got Its Name

The Charts. Two all-important words in the music world. If you’re not on them, you’re trying to get there. If you’re already on them, you’re trying to make it higher. If you’re at  the top of them, you’re trying to stay there. The Charts = public opinion = fame and fortune (presumably). Therefore, it makes sense that a wanna-be music journo who intends to be well acquainted with the creme de la creme of popular music should become well acquainted with these charts, so as to familiarise herself with the music that makes the world go round.

Despite my previous laziness with listening to new music, I have some previous experience with the charts – in fact, it was the lack of quality in the charts that turned me off finding new bands. So today I hit the ARIA website to examine the Top 10 Singles of the Week and discover whether public opinion is still as misguided as ever. A word of warning: if your favourite song is in the Top 10 Singles this week, beware, this ain’t gonna be pretty…

1. Dirty Talk – Wynter Gordon
Reading the top ARIA entry was enough to smash my hopes into the ground – and that was just because it’s sung by someone who spells ‘Winter’ with a ‘Y’. It is a rule of thumb that when the music is forgettable, the creativity lies in the lyric. Unfortunately for creativity, it seems Ms. Gordon has been completely sexually repressed and felt the need to say every crude thing in the sluts’ dictionary in a cheap, laughably distasteful 3’18” vocal spew. And about as much musical variety as Willow’s “I Whip My Hair” refrain. What a start.


2. Tonight (I’m lovin’ you) – Enrique Iglesias
I have a problem with this guy’s name – if you have to look at a name more than 5 times in order to spell it, GET A STAGE NAME. At least Justin Bieber adheres to the “I before E” rule… Anyway, the gist of it is, sleezy guy perving on a girl, imagining she is actually attracted to him and wants to make out against a wall in a creepy hallway. He does try to be nice about it though, “Please excuse, I don’t mean to be rude, but tonight I’m lovin’ you”. Aww. Except we’ve all heard the other version, which substitutes a slightly different word for “loving”. Cover blown Enrique. A big ego sung to a boring beat = fail.

Enrique Iglesias with the current love of his life.

3. Grenade – Bruno Mars
The day Bruno Mars offered to take a grenade (among many other forms of pain/destruction) for his girlfriend AND sing about it to everyone else was a sad day for the male sex – girls’ expectations soared outta sight. Mars can only hope grenade sales don’t go up too…doesn’t sound like this girl is worth the pain. Angsty you-broke-my-heart-you-evil-slut lyrics that take musical analogy to a whole new level up from “You’re The Cream In My Coffee”, a catchy chorus and chilled RnB beats make this rather worthy of a chart-topper I guess. Though personally I wouldn’t take a grenade for a guy who can’t be bothered to pronounce “you” properly.

Bruno Mars: Still in one piece.

4. Who’s That Girl – Guy Sebastian Feat. Eve
Aside from the fact that about 8 other songs have this title, this song is CREEPY. Girl walks into the club, Guy becomes obsessed and sings a startling litany of smothering lyrics bordering on stalker/temporarily non-existent brain function. Having said that, the lyric is nicely phrased, fits well with the fast-moving verse and erupts into a catchy chorus that embeds itself into my brain before I have a chance to say no. How inconvenient.
Ps. And it’s unrealistic – Eve sings that she “glide”s into the room with “5-inch heels”. Yep. We believe you Eve.

5-inch heels + “glide” = I don’t think so Eve.

5. Yeah 3x – Chris Brown
That’s 3 ‘yeah’s too many. It is a widely used singers’ trick - “When in doubt, ‘yeah’”…and don’t get me wrong, ‘yeah’s make good fillers that everyone can sing. But in the middle of a relationship proposal? “Girl I wanna yeah yeah yeah”?? Romantic, that. But I’m sure she won’t mind, coz he doesn’t even have the balls to say he likes her – he’s just ‘in love with this feeling’. That’s okay then, because “You like to drink, so do we”. Brown, if you want to write a drinking song, don’t try to pretend it’s romantic…and next time, record somewhere that doesn’t have an annoying echo.


6. Happiness – Alexis Jordan
Again with the innovative titles! Today’s artists need a thesaurus…what about: beatitude, blessedness, bliss, cheer, cheerfulness, cheeriness, contentment, delectation, delight, ecstasy, elation, enchantment, enjoyment, euphoria, exhilaration, exuberance, felicity, gaiety, geniality, gladness, glee, good cheer, good humour, hilarity, joviality, joy, jubilation, merriment, mirth, pleasure, prosperity, rejoicing, sanctity…personally, I think ‘Cheeriness’ would be a definite chart-topper. And it has the same number of syllables as ‘happiness’, WIN!
Title aside though, I actually think this is one of the more musically creative chart entries. Sure, it has a pretty conventional beat, but Jordan plays around with melody, lyrical repetition and verse/bridge lengths to nice effect, creating a catchy refrain of “quick, quick, quick” that ventures further away from convention than most club singers will dare these days. It’s also nice to have a genuinely talented, soaring vocal – even if Jordan equates happiness with her boyfriend.

The problem with your boyfriend being your happiness is that he’s not always around…

7. Who’s That Chick – David Guetta Feat. Rhianna
Erm, David, ‘that chick’ is the same one who wrote Guy Sebastian’s chart entry. You’ve been had! That aside, let’s try and salvage some good points. Promising start, looks like a song about music addiction…that’s okay, most of us can relate to that…oh wait, no, it’s about sex again! How surprising. And I swear I’ve heard that melody before, in about 5 other recent airwave pollutants.


8. The Time (Dirty Bit) – The Black Eyed Peas
Thank you Black Eyed Peas for forcing us to associate a perfectly gorgeous song with your crap. Truly.


9. Firework – Katy Perry
After listening to eight very poor excuses for music, I am feeling slightly fonder of this little piece of uplifting pop than I might otherwise be. Nice little tune, good dance beat, catchy chorus that won’t drive you to insanity as soon as most and Perry (unlike Guy Sebastian of late and Lady GaGa) seems unafraid to actually use her voice like a singer. I must admit I am a little concerned about Perry’s positive portrayal of a heart attack: “Like a lightening bolt your heart will blow/ And when it’s time you’ll know”. Comforting, that. But apart from that, it’s a very nice collection of self-love cliches, right from not being a waste of space, to “you’re original, cannot be replaced”, the doors opening/closing adage and the chubby girl baring herself in a bikini in the music video. Inspiration just got a little shallower, but the charts just got a little more bearable.

 Katy Perry: making that chubby girl feel crap.

10. Hold It Against Me – Britney Spears
I do, Britney, I really, really do. For using the same beat as every other song I’ve heard today, for using the ‘you feel like paradise’ cliche, for being so chicken as to phrase the whole thing hypothetically, for doing the angsty/sexy spoken verse thing AND for trying to rhyme ‘deny’ with ‘crazy’ and ‘hazy’. Ahhhhh and let us not forget the terrible pun of a title: “If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me?” – two meanings, double the lameness. Kudos for the nice pop chorus, but THAT’S WHERE IT ENDS.
So now, ladies and gentlemen, you know why my blog received its title. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to some MUSIC.