The Year In Songs!
Joshua's Super-Duper Pre-Official Mega-Sapphire You-Will-Listen-And-Love Top 10 Songs Of The Year Chart Rundown
1. Mariah Carey
Without The Emancipation of Mimi, gay men and their followers everywhere would never have had the chance to use such witty throw-it-in-your-faces as "Them chickens is ash and I'm lotion," "I just gotta shake, shake, shake yer off," and the fairyest of them all: "She'll never be MC!" Thanks to Mariah, every time I saw an awkward person in one of the many County Fairs I attended this past summer, I was able to emancipatingly proclamate how that person was "feeling all out of their element!" Amen!
As Mariah frolicks in the park with her cyrogenic dog, Jack, looking like Dolly Parton Cum What Mae while eating giant cakes in the shape of, among other things, herself and the # 17, and then washing it down with the same Cristal she uses in her 14 humidifiers, haters and naysayers everywhere choke on her award-winning trail of dust and glitter.
Highlight: In literally the last week of this year, her album becomes the best selling album of 2005. Flan-tastic!
Anna Nalick - Breathe (2 AM)
Oh man, I love this song SO MUCH. I absolutely cannot relate to anything she's talking about in the song, (it's just all too white female issues for me) but to quote her, "My god it's so beautiful." For reals.
The subtle plaintiveness in her voice is exactly right for this song, a phenomenon that really needs to happen more often (Adam Levine nasaling through She Will Be Loved, anyone?). That voice, the depressingly hopeful lyrics, and the cure-all of simply breathing is just all together perfect.
Highlight: "We walk through the doors. So accusing their eyes, like they have any right at all to criticize. Hypocrites! You're all here for the very same reason!!" You tell them, Anna!!!
Brooke Valentine - Covergirl
She went from knocking pigeons out in Girlfight to beautifully lamenting society's propensity to perpetuate the pressure inflicted upon females to maintain an inconceivable ideal often resulting in physical and emotional damage to oneself in a cute little Country-meets-R&B number.
This is like TLC's Unpretty in that it is listening to beautiful women singing about how they look ugly. Precious, don't you think?
Highlight: "Mascara and lipstick, I would be so preh-tty" and "I know I'm not 'Holly' Berry."
Patti LaBelle - I'll Stand By You
Previously made re-popular by the aforementioned Girls Aloud (but like only in Europe), Patti turned this song out like she done injected crystal-laced steroids straight into her lungs then surgically attached hawk wings on them to make them soar somewhere over the rainbow!
I can see her knees knock together as her legs quiver from just feeling the song in ways it ain't never been felted before as she digs deep down for those notes. Patti makes standing seem like a marathon and a half.
Highlight: I was seriously drenched in sweat from merely watching her performance at the World Music Awards. I had drops rolling down my armpits like the pounds off Star Jones.
Trina f Kelly Rowland - Here We Go
Kelly wore a bulletproof vest as she recorded this song with Trina. Just in case! Could you blame her? This unusual pairing is almost as arbitrary as, say, Da Brat featuring Vanessa L. Williams, but by golly, it works!
I think what really gets me the most about this song is the tender vulnerability conveyed by Trina. Don't let the double-backed high-pitched rapid-fire missives of the "glamorest" (?!!?) Queen of Miami fool you, inside she is naught but a quivering jilted ex-girlfriend, lashing out in the only way she sees fit.
Highlight: "Who let you hit it from the back anyway that you liked?" Who, indeed.
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
This song was so insistent, even hip-hop clubs had it on their playlists. There's no other way to dance to this song but jumping up and down, yelling the words the way this American Idol did at the MTV VMAs this past summer, hoarse off-key-ness and all. And that's the most appropriate way to convey it's carefree celebratory nature.
The only drawback is how angry I get every time I see the grammatically incorrect title. I just want to further AOLize it by writing "Since U've Been Gone", but it's not as catchy! :(
Highlight: "Prete-end!"
Alanis Morissette - Your House (Acoustic Version)
Too bad virtually no one cared about Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, not even the zombie drone coffee drinkers at Starbucks! It was a beautiful, peaceful and lush (albeit unnecessary and sort of frivolous and too-self-indulging) album, and JLP's re-release of sorts made me nostalgic for the days in high school when I first broadened my horizons from strict Hip-Hop and R&B to tiny steps towards listening to the genres of Alternative, Rock, Dance, etc. Alanis Morissette bringing out the angry grrrrl inside of me certainly helped in treading these new waters.
This update on a classic stalker song makes us feel for Alanis; instead of being creeped out by her unhealthy obsession with her gay ex-boyfriend, we want to invite her into our homes to play our Joni.
Highlight: Going to her Acoustic concert this summer with cutie-pie Jason Mraz as opening act. Ahhh...
Tori Alamaze - Don't Cha
A BUNCH OF LAS VEGAS GENDER IMPERSONATING DRAG QUEEN REALITY-TV HAS-BEENS CAN'T TOUCH THE ORIGINAL. THE END.
This original version was just plain nasty. Tori With The Last Name was so fierce that instead of 14 showgirls, it only took just one of her to sing this song. Shame her version never blew up the way the remake did. :( This version, unlike the other version, just makes me want to slide my neck from side to side while singing in a really deep voice, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raaawww like me???"
Highlight: The bongos, apparently and inadequately replaced by Busta Rhymes and a bunch of horns in the other version, are straight up tribalicious!
Gwen Stefani - Cool
Barring all factors involving Japxploitation, the fourth song to be released from an album full of hits was, though essentially overshadowed by louder and potentially more obnoxious big sister Hollaback Girl, probably my favorite. It's just so darn pretty and as soothing as running a cotton pad with relaxing toner on your (my :() acne-ravaged face.
Aside from its aesthetic values, the lyrical content is like a spring of hope for anyone who has ever broken up with anyone. Though there may have been "circles and triangles" you will make up and attend each other's respective weddings, and even spend a holiday or two together with your respective beaus!
Highlight: "Coo-cool"
Girls Aloud - Biology
If you had even half an ounce of flamboyance in you, you'd find yourself helplessly standing up with hands on hips, shifting in time to the beat like you were wearing sparkly stilletos and a really really cute short skirt. 'Nuff said.
Highlight: "I got one Alabama return that'll take me far away from you. Cuz when you take me in your arms I turn to slave-uh, I cant be saved-uh." It must be a very British sentence, because it barely makes sense to me!
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
What starts out as an almost sloppy drum-and-guitar song sung by an awkward white girl quickly escalates into pure poppy heaven by the first chorus, and only climbs into Candyland from there. (What? You didn't know the next level above heaven was Candyland? Well now you do!)
I love how she used her own voice to create the choir featured in the 2nd half of the song, but in the video, they pretend it's a choir of fat black women who are crowded inside an elevator with Natasha, the skinny blonde chick.
Highlight: The simple ascending melody in "Staring at the blank page, before you open up the dirty window, let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find, reaching for something in the distance..." It's like taking a musical escalator up!
Other Songs I Totally Dug in 05:
James Blunt - You're Beautiful
So sad, this song.
Missy Elliot f/ Ciara & Fatman Scoop - Lose Control
I can't help but do The Robot every time this song comes on.
Faith Evans - Mesmerized (Freemasons Club Mix)
I. LOVE. THIS. Faith has always been a 8+ on the FH-o-meter.
Britney Spears - Someday (I Will Understand)
I am such a sucker for Britney ballads. She really can't go wrong when she "sings" them.
John Legend - So High
I am strangely attracted to this man and I am not sure why. This song is very romantic in that it compares loving someone with getting high off of weed.
David Morales f/ Lea-Lorien - How Would You Feel?
One of the few original dance tracks I actually like.
Marcus J. Blige f/ U2 - One
The second verse when Mary goes all weave-crazy and starts going beyond her limited range is, surprisingly, quite breathtaking. This better be a hit in 2006.
Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again
Along the same veins as Girls Aloud's Biology, this former S Club 7er is striving to become some sort of Pop Queen and is convincing with this fizzy froth of a song.
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
Anything that drips with a melodical desperation that I just can't help but eat up is okay in my book.
Madonna - Jump
The sole highlight on an otherwise dreary dance album. :(
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
The overly dramatic lyrics! The non-traditional love song! The multitude of dance remixes! The faux-british accent! Who do they think they are? Madonna??? Please! You almost fooled me with this great track though!
R. Kelly - Trapped In The Closet
Excepting Usher, every time a song has Part 1, 2, etc., I become extremely giddy. This one has 12!
Anthony Callea - Rain
He is Clay Aiken if Clay was shorter, cuter, Australian, sang catchier hooks, and did not overenunciate every syllable when he sang.
Charlotte Church - Crazy Chick
Darling little Charlotte proves that just because you've been classically trained vocally does not mean you always have to sing like you got a somber bejeweled stick up your butt.
Tweet - Sports, Sex and Food
A fun, catchy song that could have been a hit if it were meant to be. But alas, Clive Davis is to Deborah Cox as Missy Elliot is to Tweet.
Howie Day - Collide
This is Paula Cole's I Don't Wanna Wait if Paula was a less hairy guy. Hearing this song is like watching Felicity as a freshman in college and wishing I had a reason to move halfway across the world.
Kelly Osbourne - One Word
LOL I actually like something this ugly brat is involved with. What a year!
In conclusion, I am gay.
Who needs the gay-o-meter that is the Kinsey Scale when you could just look at a person's music collection to figure it out? <3
Also, I am curious what your guys' favorite songs were. Tell me 1)What songs you loved from this year and 2) What you think of my selections. :P
1. Mariah Carey
Without The Emancipation of Mimi, gay men and their followers everywhere would never have had the chance to use such witty throw-it-in-your-faces as "Them chickens is ash and I'm lotion," "I just gotta shake, shake, shake yer off," and the fairyest of them all: "She'll never be MC!" Thanks to Mariah, every time I saw an awkward person in one of the many County Fairs I attended this past summer, I was able to emancipatingly proclamate how that person was "feeling all out of their element!" Amen!
As Mariah frolicks in the park with her cyrogenic dog, Jack, looking like Dolly Parton Cum What Mae while eating giant cakes in the shape of, among other things, herself and the # 17, and then washing it down with the same Cristal she uses in her 14 humidifiers, haters and naysayers everywhere choke on her award-winning trail of dust and glitter.
Highlight: In literally the last week of this year, her album becomes the best selling album of 2005. Flan-tastic!
Anna Nalick - Breathe (2 AM)
Oh man, I love this song SO MUCH. I absolutely cannot relate to anything she's talking about in the song, (it's just all too white female issues for me) but to quote her, "My god it's so beautiful." For reals.
The subtle plaintiveness in her voice is exactly right for this song, a phenomenon that really needs to happen more often (Adam Levine nasaling through She Will Be Loved, anyone?). That voice, the depressingly hopeful lyrics, and the cure-all of simply breathing is just all together perfect.
Highlight: "We walk through the doors. So accusing their eyes, like they have any right at all to criticize. Hypocrites! You're all here for the very same reason!!" You tell them, Anna!!!
Brooke Valentine - Covergirl
She went from knocking pigeons out in Girlfight to beautifully lamenting society's propensity to perpetuate the pressure inflicted upon females to maintain an inconceivable ideal often resulting in physical and emotional damage to oneself in a cute little Country-meets-R&B number.
This is like TLC's Unpretty in that it is listening to beautiful women singing about how they look ugly. Precious, don't you think?
Highlight: "Mascara and lipstick, I would be so preh-tty" and "I know I'm not 'Holly' Berry."
Patti LaBelle - I'll Stand By You
Previously made re-popular by the aforementioned Girls Aloud (but like only in Europe), Patti turned this song out like she done injected crystal-laced steroids straight into her lungs then surgically attached hawk wings on them to make them soar somewhere over the rainbow!
I can see her knees knock together as her legs quiver from just feeling the song in ways it ain't never been felted before as she digs deep down for those notes. Patti makes standing seem like a marathon and a half.
Highlight: I was seriously drenched in sweat from merely watching her performance at the World Music Awards. I had drops rolling down my armpits like the pounds off Star Jones.
Trina f Kelly Rowland - Here We Go
Kelly wore a bulletproof vest as she recorded this song with Trina. Just in case! Could you blame her? This unusual pairing is almost as arbitrary as, say, Da Brat featuring Vanessa L. Williams, but by golly, it works!
I think what really gets me the most about this song is the tender vulnerability conveyed by Trina. Don't let the double-backed high-pitched rapid-fire missives of the "glamorest" (?!!?) Queen of Miami fool you, inside she is naught but a quivering jilted ex-girlfriend, lashing out in the only way she sees fit.
Highlight: "Who let you hit it from the back anyway that you liked?" Who, indeed.
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
This song was so insistent, even hip-hop clubs had it on their playlists. There's no other way to dance to this song but jumping up and down, yelling the words the way this American Idol did at the MTV VMAs this past summer, hoarse off-key-ness and all. And that's the most appropriate way to convey it's carefree celebratory nature.
The only drawback is how angry I get every time I see the grammatically incorrect title. I just want to further AOLize it by writing "Since U've Been Gone", but it's not as catchy! :(
Highlight: "Prete-end!"
Alanis Morissette - Your House (Acoustic Version)
Too bad virtually no one cared about Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, not even the zombie drone coffee drinkers at Starbucks! It was a beautiful, peaceful and lush (albeit unnecessary and sort of frivolous and too-self-indulging) album, and JLP's re-release of sorts made me nostalgic for the days in high school when I first broadened my horizons from strict Hip-Hop and R&B to tiny steps towards listening to the genres of Alternative, Rock, Dance, etc. Alanis Morissette bringing out the angry grrrrl inside of me certainly helped in treading these new waters.
This update on a classic stalker song makes us feel for Alanis; instead of being creeped out by her unhealthy obsession with her gay ex-boyfriend, we want to invite her into our homes to play our Joni.
Highlight: Going to her Acoustic concert this summer with cutie-pie Jason Mraz as opening act. Ahhh...
Tori Alamaze - Don't Cha
A BUNCH OF LAS VEGAS GENDER IMPERSONATING DRAG QUEEN REALITY-TV HAS-BEENS CAN'T TOUCH THE ORIGINAL. THE END.
This original version was just plain nasty. Tori With The Last Name was so fierce that instead of 14 showgirls, it only took just one of her to sing this song. Shame her version never blew up the way the remake did. :( This version, unlike the other version, just makes me want to slide my neck from side to side while singing in a really deep voice, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raaawww like me???"
Highlight: The bongos, apparently and inadequately replaced by Busta Rhymes and a bunch of horns in the other version, are straight up tribalicious!
Gwen Stefani - Cool
Barring all factors involving Japxploitation, the fourth song to be released from an album full of hits was, though essentially overshadowed by louder and potentially more obnoxious big sister Hollaback Girl, probably my favorite. It's just so darn pretty and as soothing as running a cotton pad with relaxing toner on your (my :() acne-ravaged face.
Aside from its aesthetic values, the lyrical content is like a spring of hope for anyone who has ever broken up with anyone. Though there may have been "circles and triangles" you will make up and attend each other's respective weddings, and even spend a holiday or two together with your respective beaus!
Highlight: "Coo-cool"
Girls Aloud - Biology
If you had even half an ounce of flamboyance in you, you'd find yourself helplessly standing up with hands on hips, shifting in time to the beat like you were wearing sparkly stilletos and a really really cute short skirt. 'Nuff said.
Highlight: "I got one Alabama return that'll take me far away from you. Cuz when you take me in your arms I turn to slave-uh, I cant be saved-uh." It must be a very British sentence, because it barely makes sense to me!
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
What starts out as an almost sloppy drum-and-guitar song sung by an awkward white girl quickly escalates into pure poppy heaven by the first chorus, and only climbs into Candyland from there. (What? You didn't know the next level above heaven was Candyland? Well now you do!)
I love how she used her own voice to create the choir featured in the 2nd half of the song, but in the video, they pretend it's a choir of fat black women who are crowded inside an elevator with Natasha, the skinny blonde chick.
Highlight: The simple ascending melody in "Staring at the blank page, before you open up the dirty window, let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find, reaching for something in the distance..." It's like taking a musical escalator up!
Other Songs I Totally Dug in 05:
James Blunt - You're Beautiful
So sad, this song.
Missy Elliot f/ Ciara & Fatman Scoop - Lose Control
I can't help but do The Robot every time this song comes on.
Faith Evans - Mesmerized (Freemasons Club Mix)
I. LOVE. THIS. Faith has always been a 8+ on the FH-o-meter.
Britney Spears - Someday (I Will Understand)
I am such a sucker for Britney ballads. She really can't go wrong when she "sings" them.
John Legend - So High
I am strangely attracted to this man and I am not sure why. This song is very romantic in that it compares loving someone with getting high off of weed.
David Morales f/ Lea-Lorien - How Would You Feel?
One of the few original dance tracks I actually like.
Marcus J. Blige f/ U2 - One
The second verse when Mary goes all weave-crazy and starts going beyond her limited range is, surprisingly, quite breathtaking. This better be a hit in 2006.
Rachel Stevens - I Said Never Again
Along the same veins as Girls Aloud's Biology, this former S Club 7er is striving to become some sort of Pop Queen and is convincing with this fizzy froth of a song.
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
Anything that drips with a melodical desperation that I just can't help but eat up is okay in my book.
Madonna - Jump
The sole highlight on an otherwise dreary dance album. :(
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
The overly dramatic lyrics! The non-traditional love song! The multitude of dance remixes! The faux-british accent! Who do they think they are? Madonna??? Please! You almost fooled me with this great track though!
R. Kelly - Trapped In The Closet
Excepting Usher, every time a song has Part 1, 2, etc., I become extremely giddy. This one has 12!
Anthony Callea - Rain
He is Clay Aiken if Clay was shorter, cuter, Australian, sang catchier hooks, and did not overenunciate every syllable when he sang.
Charlotte Church - Crazy Chick
Darling little Charlotte proves that just because you've been classically trained vocally does not mean you always have to sing like you got a somber bejeweled stick up your butt.
Tweet - Sports, Sex and Food
A fun, catchy song that could have been a hit if it were meant to be. But alas, Clive Davis is to Deborah Cox as Missy Elliot is to Tweet.
Howie Day - Collide
This is Paula Cole's I Don't Wanna Wait if Paula was a less hairy guy. Hearing this song is like watching Felicity as a freshman in college and wishing I had a reason to move halfway across the world.
Kelly Osbourne - One Word
LOL I actually like something this ugly brat is involved with. What a year!
In conclusion, I am gay.
Who needs the gay-o-meter that is the Kinsey Scale when you could just look at a person's music collection to figure it out? <3
Also, I am curious what your guys' favorite songs were. Tell me 1)What songs you loved from this year and 2) What you think of my selections. :P