Top 10 singles of the year (1 Viewer)

[Grant B]

Aidin Vaziri of the SF Chronicle is the best music writer this side of Jack Briggs
He makes bands I don't even like seem interesting.
Here are his top 10 with his comments. I don't know most but I want to now!


-- "Move Your Feet": Junior Senior Disco + garage rock + digital squirrels = best song EVER.

"Rock Your Body," Justin Timberlake: Just like Michael Jackson. When he still wore sparkly socks.

"I Believe in a Thing Called Love," the Darkness: Spandex? Good. Air guitar? Good. Pyrotechnics? Good. What's not to like?

"Dangerously in Love," Beyonce, featuring Jay-Z: Most of it is on loan from the Chi-Lites, but it still sounds like a wet dream.

"Clocks," Coldplay: Before Chris met Gwyneth, heart still dangling from sleeve.

"Danger! High Voltage," Electric Six: Imagine AC/DC covering the Bee Gees, in a tub filled with Jell-O.

"Hardest Button to Button," The White Stripes: Like getting punched in the head seven times by Jack White.

"So Alive," Ryan Adams: The most ridiculous homage to U2 since the Alarm.

"Pass That Dutch," Missy Elliott: More hair-raising hip-hop lunacy. Which is always appreciated.

"Maps," Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Shouty young Brooklynites caught in a rare pretension-free moment.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I have to nominate OutKast's "Hey Ya" as the best single of the year. It's incredibly catchy, fun at both clubs and at home listening, excellent as a stand-alone single and as part of the album, and put the premier hip-hop act in the country at the forefront of popular music.

 

[Chris Brunner]

I'm absolutely addicted to "Hey Ya". I love the song and am mesmerized by the video.

It's just too bad that I'm pretty confident that I would not like any other song from their album as I can't stand rap/hip hop (not that there's anything wrong with it, of course).

I wish I could just walk in to Sam Goody's and buy the 45 like in the old'n days.

C

 

[Craig: Mclaren]

Room 5 featuring Oliver Cheatham - Make Luv.

Great single. Catchy, great in clubs. A bit of old skool soul mixed with modern beats works a treat if done right. Great little number.

 

[Sean Cauley]

Their "album" is actually two solo albums in one package. The Big Boi album, Speakerboxx, is more traditionally hip-hop (i.e. it sounds like an OutKast album), but the Andre album, The Love Below (which features "Hey Ya") is kind of all over the board. A lot of people have compared it to Prince or Stevie Wonder, and there's not much better way to describe it (though I don't think either is exactly accurate). It's not much rap at all, though, mostly a mix of R&B/soul and funk. There are some hard-to-categorize moments of inspired weirdness, like a jazz-saxophone "My Favorite Things" backed with an insanely up-tempo electronic beat, and some monologues/skits like "Good Day Good Sir," which features the immortal line, "It's the fiddler on the f*cking roof."

I don't know if that helps you decide what you'd think of it, but if you ever get a chance to listen to The Love Below somewhere, give it a spin and decide for yourself. The two-CD set sells for about the price of one CD, so it's not too heinous to buy them both if you like at least one of them.

I will also second the insane catchiness of the Junior Senior song, and proclaim my absolute love for "Clocks" as one of the best singles in the past five years (though it was technically released in 2002, I think). I'm not really a Coldplay fan, but "Clocks" wins me over big-time.