Tagged: favoritesingles2008

Shake shake Shake shake uh-Shake it I'm pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that Metro Station came up with the chorus for "Shake It," got all excited, showed it to their label, and then were told, "Well, but you still need to write verses, too." One of the many great things about this faux-emo pop-rock-goes-electro single is that you can absolutely hear that, hear that this song was originally nothing more than a chorus, and yet the verses still manage to be more than filler. Of course, it's [...]

All you gotta do is watch me Look what I can do with my feet You know those annoying people who are always shouting "OH MY GOSH this is my song!" and then turn up the radio volume/knock everyone over on the way to the dance floor/bob along while shopping (chose as applicable) every time that song comes on? Yeah, that's me with "Forever." I think everyone who knows me is sick of it, but I can't help myself--"Forever" is Chris Brown actually [...]

I got nothing left to prove And it's all because of you (Yes, it got radio airplay in some countries in 2007 and I loved it then , but with no proper promotion of it, I decided not to count it as a single; in 2008, with a music video --which I'm choosing not to embed because it includes the inferior single mix--and single cover art released for it [and some consultation ], it counts as an actual "single" [...]

Hitokage no nai ofisugai mayonaka Birudingu no mado garasu miraa ni shite Can you have a controlled rave? That's what Japanese singer Namie Amuro's dance-pop reworking of the famous Flashdance song feels like. For those of us with no understanding of Japanese, the vocal part becomes just another element of the synth-washed backing track, interweaving its way in and out of the alternately spiky and euphoric synths as if it's only of slightly higher priority than its instrumental [...]

What am I supposed to do When the best part of me was always you? And what am I supposed to say When I'm all choked up but you're OK? American radio, are you listening? OK, here goes: I need "Breakeven" to be the next "She Will Be Loved." It could do it, it really could--how could Americans resist singing along with this Irish-penned song, one of those ballads with a gorgeous soaring [...]

I wanna spend My nights And days Between your arms Every day breathing your love "Breathing Your Love" is, heaven help me, sexy. It's a term I usually avoid applying to songs at all costs, try to work around and explain their appeal in any other way possible--maybe a result of defensiveness from years of "you're a [...]

Nii palju on asju millest sa veel ei tea "Liiga Noor" is probably the living incarnation of a "stomper." I can't tell you the number of times I've turned the volume up just about as high as it can go and, hands over my head, jumped along to this song in my room. I'm still suspicious that it might be a cover (and if anyone knows that it is, please let me know!), but otherwise, why on Earth was this not submitted for Eurovision? With that heavy [...]

Russian roulette is not the same without a gun And baby when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun "Poker Face" has many things in it that could make my attitude toward elements of Lady GaGa songs seem inconsistent. How can I criticize the middle 8 of "Just Dance" for losing all sense of melody and then rank higher a song with verses like this? How can I hate the way "let's have some fun, this beat is [...]

If you take me away All the pain will change into a memory Of when we were amazing There are so many things I could praise about this song. I could rave about the gorgeous synth backing. I could (try to) wax eloquent about the emotion in it. I could focus on the strings that bring a touch of class and poignancy to a song that already has both of those traits but can only be enhanced by the fleshing out of its musical skeleton with the [...]

I should know That you're no good for me As I said back when I first wrote about this song last March , after her still-refuse-to-name-it first single, it was going to take something amazing to get me to like Katy Perry's music. And "Hot 'n Cold" was that something. The sound of Max Martin and Dr. Luke setting aside their straightforward pop-rock formula for a moment to create a song that bounced along with a fizzy [...]

I've been chased by angels I've been drunk out of my mind Part one of the two part feature "singers who said stupid offensive things about homosexuality and yet still made this list" begins with former Westlife member Brian McFadden. The single version of "Twisted" took a somewhat more conventional pop-with-guitars track, albeit still a quirky one, and, courtesy of the Potbelleez, gave it a dance feel, but luckily not an excessive one. "Twisted" was my ultimate "coming back in" track this year, which [...]

Why do I keep runnin' from the truth? All I ever think about is you I liked little David A. on American Idol, but never as a love interest. It's pretty remarkable, then, that as his first single, a produced mid-tempo ballad playing on a piano riff for emotion and with a chorus that takes one step towards blowout but goes no further, he released a song so utterly capable of pushing me into swooning mode. Many the ballad, [...]

If you don't know my name You can call me baby NOT "Call Me Baby (If You Don't Know My Name)," the remixed heavy beat version released as a single in France (and the version that plays in the music video in most cases, though the one above plays the proper original PG-approved version)--I'm still furious over what they did to this song. I've been waiting for Spanish singer David Tavaré's debut album since 2006, when he released his debut single, "Summerlove" (a cover [...]

The way you walk, The rhythm when you're dancin' Every inch of you spells out desire If "The One" was Kylie singing from a (lonely) pedestal, some sort of divine untouchable electronic pop goddess, "Wow" is her dropping the seriousness for fun on the dancefloor. "Fun on the dancefloor" doesn't read incredibly impressively, but it should; the joy that comes through "Wow" is infectious, all-encompassing, and inescapable. "Wow" may be a younger sister of what may be Kylie's best moment, "Love At First Sight," and with an overachieving [...]

Se mig! Hör mig! Rör mig! Hur svårt kan det va? Linda Bengtzing returned to the world of schlager in her typical full-bore style. The Mika-styled verses of "Hur svårt kan det va?" might have taken a few listens to get used to, so obvious was the backing music's inspiration, but with time they've revealed themselves to be a perfect showcase for Linda and her always-trouble-with-the-boys subject matter. Here, though, she gets to be [...]

What about us, What about love, What about saying that we'll never give up? This is all Gary Barlow's fault. Well, not really--John's voice works for this song (or at least doesn't hurt it at all), so at least some of the credit has to go to him, too. The big dramatic swoops of the chorus, though, are classic modern Barlow. If I'm going to fall in love with a ballad, chances are it's one that demands I sing [...]

Hey boys, here we are *** I'm reborn at the discotheque ...and another cheat, but I really can't decide which of Elin's singles from this year I prefer. Is it the slinky electronic "Speak 'n Spell," written by Linda Sundblad and Johan Bobäck, or the camper uplifting celebration of disco, "Discotheque," written by Tony Nilsson and Henrik Jansson (and produced by Bassflow)? Both are intoxicating, albeit in different ways, and both came complete with fantastic videos full of potentially iconic [...]

This is my life I don't wanna change a thing Iceland, in the past ten years or so, has racked up a pretty good number of fantastic Eurovision entries, but its results rarely seem to have been in line with the quality of its entries. That's why I was particularly praying that "This Is My Life," a Eurodance song performed the male-female duo Eurobandið and composed by Örlygur "Öggi" Smári (fresh off of having revitalized Páll Óskar's music career), would make it through to the finals. "This Is [...]

You had your photograph in a magazine Such a pretty boy at only nineteen But now you're twenty-three and it's all gone now You ain't all that you wanna be somehow In the biggest cheat of this entire countdown, I'm including all three singles Frankmusik released this year as one entry. As I said earlier this year, I've basically lost all ability to write anything coherent about Frankmusik's music, so you all will just have to [...]

Aunque no puedas volver No es fácil para mí Vivir sin ti "Paso el tiempo" was my instant favorite on Mexican group Belanova's third album, 2007's Fantasía pop , and in no small part because I saw it as spiritually the musical and lyrical follow-up to "Niño," my favorite track from their second album. Although it's not quite a perfect match, I like to imagine the story of a girl missing a boy after a wrong decision is part two of "Niño"'s narrative of [...]