I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan
Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.
2009 : Party In The U.S.A. - Miley Cyrus
Yup, my initial thoughts are that this is a perfectly fine choice - it's not exactly my cup of tea but both daughters still play it pretty regularly. I don't remember the video though because it's not "Wrecking Ball" and that kinda pushes all other videos aside...
Funnily enough, the video pretty much celebrates partying in the USA - it's not going to win awards for the plot, but it's pretty much what the tracks needs (a labyrinthian Dostoevskyesque affair would have felt somewhat unnecessary). There are two facts of interest though - the video has had 999 million views on Youtube (I was disappointed not to be the one to click it over) and, somewhat bizarrely, it has a different vocal track to the version that I knew - I probably wouldn't have noticed, except that it's obviously not quite as good. Weird.
Wikipedia has a massive amount on the track (327 milliPeppers) - a lot of which involves people saying that whilst they liked it, it wasn't really their kind of thing. Including both Miley and "aspiring British singer" Jessie J, who had a co-writing credit along with Dr Luke, who's a man who's somewhat controversial these days (but we really don't have time to get into all that!). The critics were pretty nice about it, with most people agreeing it was pretty damn catchy - but I don't think anyone really understood quite how catchy the public would find it. It "only" peaked at #2 in the US, but managed to sell (not stream) over six million copies there alone. Unsurprisingly it didn't do quite so well over here, getting to #11 but, for no obvious reason, it appeared in Australia's year-end chart in '22 and '23 - I'm sure there is a reason for it, but I've no clue what that might me.
I'm perfectly happy this has taken the year, but I'm interested to see what this side of the Atlantic offered up in this year. Top of the year-end chart was - ooooh, there's some good tracks here, so buckle in. Sorry, getting back to business, top of the year-end chart was Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" - no-one would have argued with that winning, surely? The rest of the top five were The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling", Lady Gaga's "Let's Dance", Cheryl Cole's "Fight For This Love" (I won't hear a word against this) and Joe McElderry's "The Climb" (OK, all good things had to come to an end, I guess).
The rest of the top ten isn't quite so great, but there are two tracks of interest - La Roux's "In For The Kill" (#6) which is a great track but only peaked at #2 and Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name" which is a track from '92, but this was obviously its year as an anti X Factor vote (so it only really started getting votes in November). There are also two more Black Eyed Peas tracks in there - they really were incredibly popular, especially considering how rubbish they were by now. Looking further down the chart, there's more quality there than I was expecting with Lily Allen's "The Fear", Dizzee Rascal's "Bonkers", Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and "Paparazzi", Kings Of Leon's "Sex On Fire", La Roux's "Bulletproof" and Beyoncé's "Halo" and "Single Ladies".
Looking across the pond, the best selling track of the year was "Boom Boom Pow" by The Black Eyes Peas, which I don't know and I will not be checking out - the rest of the top five are Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" and "Just Dance", The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" and Taylor Swift's "Love Story" (which I had no idea got to #2 over here). There are lot of multiple entries from the ladies in the top 100 - Beyoncé (5), Lady Gaga (4), Britney (4), Kelly Clarkson (3), Rihanna (3), Pink (3), Taylor (3), Miley (2) and Katy Perry (2)! The only tracks I'd consider worthy of commenting on though were UK imports from previous years - things used to take time to get over there back then.
I think La Roux or Lady Gaga's efforts are probably my favourite tracks of the year, but there was a surprising amount of quality on show in this year - I'm also quite happy for Miley to take the year because it's a catchy load of fun.
Comments
Post a Comment