December 23, 2008
singles of the year countdown, 20 to 11
20) “Chicken Fried,” Zac Brown Band
19) “Change,” Taylor Swift. This is the least “country” sounding song on the solid front-to-back album, and hence finds itself stuck in last-track-ville. It’ll be a hit single anyway, in part because it declares young Taylor’s willingness to be the next Shania Twain (which is not the worst idea, given the immensity of her charm and the timbre of her voice), and in part because it does an excellent job with the minigenre of the perfectly contentless rebel song, geared to the vast audience that knows it’s supposed to to be rebelling against something but isn’t quite sure what: “…because these things will change” she says, “can you feel it now? These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down. It’s a revolution, the time will come for us to finally win.” It’s never once stated what things are at stake, or who the us and the them are; rather it hails its audience unerringly by not specifying anything further than “They might be bigger but we’re faster and we’re never scared.” Tweens, and Democrats: it’s really an ideal song for the Inauguration. You know: change, revolution. In the video, when she hits the chorus and throws an almost-fist in the air, she looks far from small and agile: a skinny white radio tower.
18) “A Milli,” Lil Wayne. See comment on Number One (forthcoming).
17) “Discipline,” Nine Inch Nails. This band has now been making good songs, albeit few and far between, for 19 years. By way of comparison, the Beatles made good songs for 8 years, and the Rolling Stones for 16 if one includes Tattoo You.
16) “No Air,” Jordin Sparks feat. Chris Brown. Yeah, but where’s Kelly Clarkson? No, seriously, is she in Simon Cowell’s basement or something?
15) “Go Hard Or Go Home,” E-40 feat. The Federation. Plucked from one of ‘06’s top albums and dropped onto an ’07 soundtrack to become a single in ’08 and make the case for the lesser-know DJ Wes as heir to Rick Rock’s hyphy throne, it was all we had in advance of the new 40 Water album which was due out in November and just…vanished.
12-14) “Sorry,” Buckcherry; “Love Remains The Same,” Gavin Rossdale; “We Don't Have To Look Back Now,” Puddle Of Mudd. As we have argued elsewhere, all rock genres end in the power ballad. What we missed is that, after the power ballad, there is the just-plain-ballad, all that’s left of the great white hope of the Nineties, glam, grunge, modrock. There is no aesthetic distance between these songs and, say, Xtina’s “Beautiful,” except they’re not quite as good. But what is?
11) “What Kind of Gone,” Chris Cagle. If the bridge really began “is it the kind of gone where she’s atom bombs, coolin’ down she’ll come around,” as we believed for about a week, it woulda cracked the Top Ten.