Billboard Top 100

I get paranoid about my iPod.  I heard that if you charge an iPod and keep it plugged in well after it’s finished charging, that drains the battery life.  I always have one eye on the battery life.

One of the perks of working at the backstock of a retail store is that there’s an awful lot of downtime.  To help pass the time, the management (or whoever) gave the backstock employees an iHome type thing.

Like this, but much cheaper. If you like your treble up to the max and your bass below zero, this is for you.

Popping in your iPod (see what I did there) while working always makes whatever you’re doing more bearable.  But, the iPod player thing also charges your iPod while you’re playing it.  Like I said, I get paranoid about that.  So a lot of times, I just turn on the radio.  NPR is good.  But sometimes they play that Prairie Home Companion show, and that show is the worst.  So I scan the radio stations, looking for the latest in what’s new and popular.  Because the way that the internet and 1000+ cable channels have forever changed the dissemination of information, we have lost mass, homogenous culture forever.  Good or bad, I must say I kinda miss it.  Groups like NSYNC selling more than two million records in one week will never happen again.  Like how many views would Ricky Martin’s “Livin La Vida Loca” video have gotten on YouTube if that site was around back then?  I’m betting way more than Lady GaGa and Justin Bieber combined right now.

Quite possibly the most necessary "Best Of" ever.

There are way too many bands for me to pay attention to right now to notice the big pop stars anymore.  There are too many television shows i’m trying to keep track of.  You just can’t get all of us as a whole to care about one thing that much anymore.  A number one song back in the day would literally have been inescapable.  The Macarena?  Who Let The Dogs Out?  Even fucking Mambo Number Five?  I can’t envision anything dominating the whole country so completely and making us its bitch again.  If Lady Gaga is the shit right now, how come I don’t know what her latest single was?  And that’s probably a good thing, now that I think about it.  But in an attempt to get connected with the zeitgeist again, I’m going to listen to what most of the public is listening to.  Populism has its charms.

Billboard Top 100 Pop

I’m not doing number one because despite its chart position, I haven’t heard it on the radio at work yet. So we’ll skip to number 2.
Chart position #2: Katy Perry – Teenage Dream

Eh.  Number two in the country?  For real?  This is the least catchy pop song i’ve heard in a long time.  Wouldn’t even crack the top 40 back in the 90s.  It starts slow, tries to build up in the prechorus to the staggered and dramatic delivery in the chorus, but I never really got into it.  Totally has to be a case of a subpar single that gets to coast on the goodwill of the artist’s previous hits.  I’m guessing this is like the 3rd single off Katy Perry’s album, because this is just weak.  Why do popstars like Katy Perry even release albums anymore?  If popstars are disposable by nature, then they are only as good as their singles.  Who listens to the buried eighth track off of a Katy Perry album?  They should only release digital singles or EPs or something. No one cares about Katy Perry’s “artistic vision” and the “concepts and themes that tie the album together.”  It’s not like people are buying Katy Perry and Justin Bieber vinyl records or anything.  I will say this song is miles better than that “California Girls” song.  Fuck that song, that vocal riff she does at the end of every chorus is just awful.  It just might be the most accurate sonic representation of the word “obnoxious” out there.

Billboard Top 100 Hip-Hop and R&B
Chart position #15: Eminem ft. Rihanna – Love The Way You Lie

Out of all the Billboard Top 100 songs i’ve heard recently, i’ve heard this one the most.  The irony of Rihanna singing the chorus to a song about domestic abuse has been pointed out many many times, but still.  Did Eminem seek out Rihanna for this, thinking “who should I get to sing the chorus?  Rihanna’s perfect for it!”  Or did she hear it and go “I need to get on this track, I am perfect for it!”  Either way is kinda fucked up.  Anyways, this is a very dramatic song, about some heavy shit.  But there’s this one line that cracks me up – and this probably says more about me than anything else – but at the end of the second verse I think, Eminem raps “But you lied again/Now you get to watch her leave/Out the window/Guess that’s why they call it window pane”  I just picture Eminem heaving his girlfriend out of a fucking window, looking out the window he just threw a person out of, taking a dramatic pause, stroking his chin, and then saying “I guess that’s why they call it window pane.”  What?  Why?  How did Eminem come to the conclusion that because he hurled Rihanna out a window, that’s why people call it window pane?  He needs to add another verse to this song explaining himself.  Or the alternative is, she left on her own accord, but chose to exit through the window instead of the front door.  Or any door, really.  Still, how or why Eminem would deduce the etymology of window pane by watching someone (obviously struggle to) leave through a window baffles me.

Billboard Top 100 Country
Chart position #5: Kenny Chesney – The Boys of Fall

God knows we need more things glorifying the under-appreciated high school football player demographic.   Those poor fellas can’t catch a break, getting picked on at school all the time and being ignored by all the gals down at the malt shop.  Not that i’m anti-football players or anything, but if I was, this song would only fuel the fire.  This song is very specific, kinda weirdly so.  It really sounds like only people who play football would or could get into this song at all.  I mean, the lyrics are so specific that even a football fan couldn’t relate to it.  It has this whole “if you haven’t played, you’ll never know” vibe going on.  I starts out with “When I feel that chill, smell that fresh cut grass I’m back in my helmet, cleats, and shoulder pads.”  And the chorus lyrics read like the dialogue of a player at a game: “It’s call it in the air/alright yes sir we want the ball/I got your number/I got your back/When your back’s against the wall.”  Even if I was a football player, why or when would I ever listen to this song?  Before games to get pumped up?  Except this song is more like a romantic ballad to football players, so no one could ever get pumped to this song.  Maybe football dudes play this song to set the mood before they circle jerk.

Billboard Top 100 Rock
Chart position #5: Mumford & Sons – Little Lion Man

Uh God, modern rock is so damn boring.  As far as Billboard Top 100 goes, the pop and hip-hop and r&b and even country is just so much more interesting.  Radio rock is all just so plodding and the production is just so saturated and blaaaaand.  Every distorted guitar has that sterilized grunge tone, the drums are so rote and routine, the bass just plays root notes, all the singers are trying to sell some pseudo-rebellious swill, etc.  Either that or it’s Coldplay or something.  No wonder all of the Now That’s What I Call Music compilations just tack all of the rock tracks at the end of the disc as an afterthought.  At least pop and hip-hop give me some snappy synths and whizzing keyboards and drum machines to distract me from the routine songwriting.  Oh wait, this is a folk song!  Sung by an obviously English band.  I like it more than it deserves to be liked just because it’s not the same buttrock.  But I don’t reaaally like it.  Also, the “I really fucked it up this time” reeks of the pseudo-rebellion mentioned earlier.  Just seems like a calculated attempt to say “That’s right, we’re going to say ‘fuck’ in the chorus.  What do you think of that!  HMMMMM?”  Whatever, it’s fine.  And this post was a waste in hindsight.  But I already typed it out, so it’s going up.  Story of this blog.