[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

On 12/24/2019 at 10:06 PM, Christmas Kat said:

Great work as always, Claps. Some fire picks on this list.

  Hide contents

That fakeout before the real #1 was genius

 

2019.  The year of the bops.

[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

2019 was a really weird year….and you know what?  I liked it a lot.

To put it simply, 2019 will go down as one of the best years of the 2010s.  Was it stagnant?  Yes.  Did the unlikeliest of people get major hits?  Yes.  Is the new number one song of all time a ridiculous song?  Absolutely.  Would I have 2019 any other way?  No.  The unpredictable nature of this year was absolutely fascinating.  And you know what the best part of it all was?  The music of this year kicked ass.

I said last year 2018 had one of the best best lists of this decade.  And I do stand by that.  But 2019’s best list dwarfs 2018’s best list because the quality is that much stronger.  I had a hard time doing this top ten because of an overabundance of great candidates.  If 2018 was basically telling 2017 that times aren’t going to change and let the worst of the worst artists get huge hits, then 2019 was a giant fuck you to 2018 and moved forward with the idea that change is a good thing.

And a large part of that is the changing of the guard of up and coming superstars.  I’m not saying all the more relevant names of the decade like Taylor, Sheeran, Bieber, and Drake are on their way out.  Not even close.  But you can tell that the youth that predominantly makes up a large part of the streaming crowd is giving their streams to newer and honestly interesting new stars like Billie Eilish, Lil Nas X, Khalid, and Lizzo to name a few.  Will all these new names stick around?  Honestly I don’t know.  But I hope most of them do.  Because even at my advanced old age, where I should be in the retirement home when it comes to understanding the young people, I can see the appeal.

So let’s not waste any more time.  Because I’m really excited to share with you all why this year was so great.  But first some honorable mentions that would make the best list proper in lesser years.

 

Spoiler

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

“Suge” – DaBaby

This song is fucking hilarious.  I’ve been waiting for the trap rap fad to find their Ludacris and this is the closest we will probably ever get.  DaBaby has a ton of personality and the production on all his songs bang.  And despite how much I think Suge Knight is a prime example of scum of the Earth, having the audacity to compare yourself to a young Suge Knight takes a lot of balls.  Because Suge ruled the rap scene of the 90s.  I doubt DaBaby will have that sort of pull, but I don’t mind him becoming a big name.  I would applaud it.

 

“Sweet But Pyscho” – Ava Max

Best chorus of the year.  Lord knows how many times this chorus got stuck in my head throughout the year.  Song in general reminds me of 2009-2011 Lady Gaga.  Which damn, do I miss that era of Gaga.  When pop stars had such humungous personalities that they felt like legitimate superstars.  I just wish this no name had some sort of personality that stuck out more in her music because I checked out more of her music and I can’t get any vibes as to who she is as a person.  Either way though, damn what an insanely catchy chorus.  Makes my honorable mentions for just that chorus alone.

 

“Hot Girl Summer” – Megan Thee Stallion (featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla Sign)

2019.  The year of the female rapper.  A lot of female MCs started to emerge on the scene with Megan Thee Stallion being my personal favorite of the bunch.  There is no shying around this.  This song is a fucking bop.  It’s a song about strong female empowerment and having both Megan and Nicki trading bars about how awesome they are just makes the song all the more of a statement.  Really wish this charted during the actual summer instead of September because this could have been a late summer smash and safely secured its spot on the year-end list instead of just barely making it.  But if I had one major problem with this song, it’s that Ty Dolla Sign hook.  It’s okay, but was his part really that necessary?  It clashes with the vibe of a song called Hot GIRL Summer, shocker.  Does anyone really care that you consider yourself “five star dick”?  Really wish Megan recruited someone else to do that hook.  I mean the City Girls were right there!  You sampled “Act Up”!  Come on!

 

“Beautiful People” – Ed Sheeran (featuring Khalid)

Ed Sheeran has done nothing but frustrate me for the last three years with his output.  I’ve even gone as far to admit that despite all my annoyance with him, he’s still very much talented.  “Beautiful People” is by far the best single he’s had in the last three years.  Ed and Khalid surprisingly work off each other incredibly well.  This was close to the best list but one thing kept it off.  Despite being two of the biggest names in the music industry, I do believe Khalid is unfazed by the pizazz of being famous.  Ed, on the other hand, is full of shit.  If this was five years ago, it would have been a different story.  But Ed has done nothing but embrace wanting to be a full-pledged popstar for the last five years.

 

“If I Can’t Have You” – Shawn Mendes

What can I say?  The guy is getting a hell of a lot better.  Honestly really captures a real angst about being young and in love better than most songs as of late.  And the up tempo vibes really do make it stand out more so than the rest of Shawn Mendes’ singles about the same topic.  Keep it up Mendes because you are seriously inching closer and closer to getting off my shit list for that one/two punch of awful that was your first two huge hits.

 

“Circles” – Post Malone

What can I say?  This guy is also getting a hell of a lot better.  It’s becoming apparent now more than ever that Post Malone is growing tired of being classified as solely a rapper.  And if Hollywood’s Bleeding wasn’t telling enough, Post Malone is definitely willing to push the boundaries of genre blending.  Hence we got Post Malone tackling the psychedelic pop of the 1970s with his usual sad boy shtick.  And honestly, it works here more than it has on his past couple songs he’s had tackling this topic.  That interloping guitar melody is calming enough to really focus on the lyrics of Post’s latest heartbreak and the story he tells becomes more center stage.  Now let’s let Post Malone make that rock album he so badly wants to make.  Dude, it is becoming increasingly obvious.  Just do it.

 

“I Like It” – Cardi B, Bad Bunny, & J Balvin

Super close to making the best list for the second straight year.  But Cardi B fatigue really affected me this year and while I still love this song, I just can’t relisten to this anymore.  That being said, if there was ever a song that really emphasizes how awesome Cardi B is, I’ll always go back to this being one of her all-time best.

 

“Dancing With a Stranger” – Sam Smith & Normani

And the seasonal rankings curse continues.  This is still an excellent song, but honestly the best list was very competitive this year.  That’s what is keeping so many excellent choices off this best list.  Also, overplay really killed the vibe this once had going for it.  Yeah everything I mentioned about this song with my personal memory really still stands true, but honestly as the year went on, it became just that.  A memory.  Because I don’t love that girl anymore.  I’m a happily married man to the love of my life.  Maybe this was life’s way of telling me that this song will forever be associated with the past and to push forward.  If so, then thank you song.

 

“High Hopes” – Panic! At the Disco

A little over a year ago I thought this would be sure fire lock for this list too.  But yeah the radio killed this song’s chances of making it higher ranked on here.  It just would not go the fuck away.  A problem a lot of the songs this year had.  They would just be locked into the top ten and twenty for months upon months.  And because of the fact that this song would not go away, I finally found a part of this song that annoyed me.  The sound mixing is annoying.  Especially around the bridge with the trap hi-hats and the trumpets.  I love me some trumpets, but god all of that mixed together just made me immediately change the station after I heard it.

But god does the song still make me happy to be alive in a pop music climate that just doesn’t have much use for joyful music.  I’ll take Brendon Urie telling me to have high hopes for a living over a bunch of low vibe drones that we have on the radio right now.  It may have annoyed damn near 95% of the users on this site all year long, but I still love it.

 

“Sunflower” – Post Malone & Swae Lee

Should be on the list proper and if I ever look back at this list wondering which of these honorable mentions should have actually made this list, guarantee it will be this one.  I have no one to blame but myself for listening to this far too often.  So yeah, overplay killed this for me.  All that being said though, I do have one new thought about this.  This is Swae Lee’s song featuring Post Malone.  Because the overplay killed Post Malone’s part for me.  It’s the same old sadboy shit Post always does with more upbeat tempos.  Overplay has only made me love Swae Lee’s part even more than I already did and he has far more of the song’s runtime than Post.  All that being said, I still love this song a lot.

 

Alright, party's over.  Time to pop out the best list proper.

 

CLAPPY'S TOP TEN BEST HIT SONGS OF 2019

 

Spoiler

Quote

Look, I still like him and I’m glad he’s become so successful, but he really needed to slow down a bit and become more selective with his projects.  And then he did.  And he picked up the biggest hit of his career.

Well.  This is awkward. 

 

Umm yeah, about that statement from last year’s list season thread.  Khalid did not slow down.  He released an EP and an album since then.  He’s practically lost nearly everything I’ve found interesting about him due to the fact that RCA is hammering him down our throats so hard.  I’m honestly getting sick of him.  He still makes his fair share of music I like, but like Drake, he just won’t go away.  Now that I got all that out of the way, this made the year end list again.

 

10. “Love Lies” – Khalid & Normani

 

And it fell a tad from this time last year due to the how exhausted I am of Khalid being all over the damn place.  That being said, there’s just something about this song that’s great.  The chemistry between Khalid and Normani is still excellent.  Khalid’s vibe is perfect here.  I don’t think he will ever catch a vibe this great ever again.  Normani is only further proving that she is the most talented Fifth Harmony member (“Motivation” deserved better).  And when these two just sing with each other, it sounds phenomenal.

Seriously, that’s all you’re getting out of me with this entry this year.  Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I talked about this plenty last year.  That’s what happens when the charts move at a snail’s pace and we keep getting leftovers from last year re-charting.  Fuck Billboard's tracking system.  Next.

 

Spoiler

Okay we can’t talk about how damn weird this year was without talking about the weirdest artist of the bunch…and I don’t mean that in a bad way.

For the past year, I didn’t know what to think of Billie Eilish.  My initial thoughts was that she was just another Lorde rip-off that borrows trap elements.  But the hype kept building and building for her so I checked out that debut album…and it all clicked for me.  Billie just really knows how to capture something genuine about being a teenager in 2019.  Or at least the malevolence or naive of being one based off how her big hits turned out.  There have been plenty of teenage pop stars in my life time, but it’s a rarity that we get one who comes off as genuine about it and not heavily polished by studio hacks who think they know how teenagers act.  I still don’t consider myself the biggest Billie Eilish fan out there, but honestly she is a refreshing presence in a stale pop scene and I will admit to eating crow on my initial thoughts about her.  To the point that one of her songs made my best list.

 

9. “bury a friend” – Billie Eilish

 

I’ll just cut straight to point.  Songs like this just don’t get popular.  Ever.  It’s amazing that this caught on in 2019, a year where the oddest of songs became smash hits.  This might be the oddest hit of the year for me.  I mentioned previously in discussions about her that part of what makes Billie Eilish stand out is that she challenges our perceptions of pop music.  And here, she is pushing the structure of pop music into darker, more twisted directions of subtlety.  “bad guy” did the same thing but all of it was treated as a joke.  Here?  When Billie implies there is a monster, it intrigues the hell out of me.  I kept trying to think of some sort of sub context about whether the monster is the horrors of the real world or if it is Billie fighting some sort of inner demons. 

But the more I listened to this song, that monster is the uncertainty of everything in life.  And as someone who constantly worries about the uncertainty of what my future holds, I approve of everything this song stands for.  It is so relieving to hear this coming from someone who is over ten years younger than me.  It’s also a refreshing approach to tackling this subject matter in such a dark twisted manner.  I’m glad she went for an unsettling approach because honestly, no one else would have done this in such a way.  And that’s what makes Billie such a unique artist.  She may come off as a weirdo to outsiders, but that’s part of the appeal.  This song is a devilish masterpiece and I can’t wait to see what sort of concoctions Billie stirs up next.

 

Spoiler

You guys remember 2018 ending with this utterly bizarre display of embarrassment, right?  Honestly, why stop there?  Let’s share the complete timeline of bizarre stories about these two:

https://www.capitalxtra.com/features/lists/cardi-b-offset-complete-relationship-history/

Remember when Offset and Cardi B were once compared to the new Jay-Z/Beyonce?  Well they sure skipped many years of happily being married and went straight to the cheating scandal.  Yeah, I don’t know what else to say but this marriage has been a rocky one.  Things seem to be good now, but I saw plenty of articles online popping up questioning whether the cheating scandal was staged and done for personal publicity.  All I have to say about that is DID YOU WATCH OFFSET CRASHING THE CARDI CONCERT BEGGING FOR HER TO TAKE HIM BACK?  WHY WOULD YOU STAGE SOMETHING TO COMPLETELY EMBARRASS YOURSELF?!

Offset and Cardi must have seen the tabloids questioning the authenticity of the cheating scandal.  They made a song about it.

 

8. “Clout” – Offset (featuring Cardi B)

 

 

Before I go any further, I’m reading the comments section now for the video and I see one of the most liked comments was about their cheating scandal being used as clout for this song.  And to that I say, DID YOU WATCH OFFSET BEGGING CARDI FOR FORGIVE…okay I’ve got to stop bringing that humiliating act up otherwise that will be the entire entry and I’ll completely forget to talk about the song, which I do love.

This song is addressed towards those who use others for personal fame or using social media to become huge.  And I for one agree.  Those sorts of people are fake (cough THE PAUL BROTHERS).  But you can’t hear this song and not ignore the giant elephant in the room that this song was about the media obsessing over the turmoil of Offset and Cardi for a good six months.  Both of them do address it in the song for the record to mixed results. 

Offset takes a while to get there.  He has to go through his usual flexing first and it’s the reason this song isn’t any higher.  But when he gets to the second verse, his part is a major improvement.  I like how he points out how he doesn’t bite the bait and sip on the toxic waste of sites like TMZ reporting about his personal life.  Seriously, fuck TMZ.  And then he talks about making sure his kids will have money for their financial future.  That’s a good retrospective showing that he has his head on straight.

And then we get to Cardi and my god.  I know I’ve talked about how bored I’ve been by her this year, but her verse here is straight fire.  This is the sort of stuff that reminds me why I love her.  She doesn’t shy back about anything.  She addresses everything head on from the scandal, to her beef with Nicki Minaj, to people using her for clickbait, to some incredibly clever Brandy and Destiny’s Child wordplay, god I can go on and on as to how much Cardi fucking nails this song.  Hell even the music video isn’t subtle about how pissed off Cardi is about clout chasing.  She spends a chunk of the video surrounded by lemons, which that fruit will never be associated without reminding people of Beyonce ever again.  Remember what I said earlier about the Cardi/Offset and Jay/B comparisons?  Cardi is well aware.

One last thing, that piano line kills.  Every time I hear it, that melody doesn’t escape my head for the rest of the day.  It only makes the song all the more addictive.  If this song was made for clout, then it is one hell of way to do so.  Great stuff.

 

Spoiler

I’ve talked a lot about memes making songs bigger hits than they have any right to be A LOT over these last couple years.  And while I still have my fair share of problems with memes becoming a part of chart success these days, I’ve started to finally learn to accept that memes aren’t necessarily a bad thing towards how successful a song is.  Hell, it could be argued that “Old Town Road” being on top for as long as it was was due to the meme culture of it.  But you know which song in particular I’m especially grateful for becoming a smash hit due to a meme?

What a pretty little song it is.

 

7. “Truth Hurts” – Lizzo

 

And what a rising superstar Lizzo is on her way to becoming.  Honestly, if all three of her charting hits made this year end list, all three would be on this best list.  That’s how good Lizzo is.  This woman has all the potential in the world to be one of the defining artists of the next ten years.  Only one song made this list and my god what a hit “Truth Hurts” was.

Not only did it become the longest reigning rap song by a woman, but it also represented some much  needed superstar personality that a lot of the new popstars on the scene lack.  I mean I look around at the pop scene and most of the names out there, they are just ordinary people performing music.  A lot of the popstars of today don’t have the humongous personalities the popstars of ten years ago had.  Lizzo is the closest we’ve had to bringing that back in quite some time.

And that’s what carries this song up the echelon of great pop songs this year.  I can’t imagine anyone else but Lizzo singing this song.  Her personality shines throughout all of “Truth Hurts”.  Line after line.  Burn after burn.  Only Lizzo could make lines like these stand out.  I already went over the lines a few months ago about how genuinely happy she is that the guy she is roasting is back with his ex, while equally not giving a fuck that he went back to her.  It’s very refreshing to hear that.  But you know what is equally as great of a line?

Why are men great til they got to be great?

That’s a legitimately fantastic line and it is highlighted throughout the song for a reason.  I can speak as a man and point out that most men are pieces of shit.  I’ve met plenty of guys who only put on the persona of a nice guy just to get something more.  So hearing Lizzo callout this guy’s bullshit of being “great” is just so refreshing to hear.

And this is only the beginning of Lizzo’s rise to dominance.  I expect nothing but great things to come from her.  And thats the truth.    

 

Spoiler

So I’ve been talking a lot about how weird and bizarre this year was for hit music.  One of the more bizarre stories of the year was rap lyrics being used as circumstantial evidence for arrest warrants.  The more prime example of such was YNW Melly getting arrested and charged for a double murder that could possibly sentence him to either life in prison or put on death row due to previous legal troubles.  And what was one of the biggest claims of evidence against him?  His breakout hit single “Murder On My Mind”.  Now me personally, I find that song incredibly well detailed and well performed, but I can’t listen to it without feeling deeply uncomfortable due to the real life implications.  It’s like listening to a murderer confessing to his crimes in gruesome detail.

The other?  Well…

 

Yeah, that was this year.  How many memes were made off of this?  A Lot.

 

6. “a lot” – 21 Savage

 

So before we go any further, what lyrics were the cause of 21 Savage’s ICE detainment?

Been through some things but I couldn’t imagine my kids stuck at the border.

Really?  That was the dead giveaway?  Anyone could have pointed out that the Trump administration’s family separation policy is fucking cruel and inhumane.  Can’t believe that was the reason it pissed off ICE so badly that they had to search for a reason to detain 21 Savage.  This is the darkest timeline.

Okay back to the song before I get more of my own political commentary in.  This song is excellent.  21 Savage’s monotone delivery excels perfectly here.  It adds another layer to this song entirely.  The way 21 brags about everything going on in his life, there is an added layer of how tired he is from his journey.  The roads that he took to get where he is.  I often criticize how most rap music doesn’t detail how someone started from the bottom and got to the top.  That first verse of 21’s may be short, but he goes over all the key points that led him to where he is.  And that is very much appreciated by yours truly.  Hell, his monotone delivery about being on top also adds another other layer to this song that he’s bored of being rich and successful when there is still so much wrong with the world.

But for as much as I enjoy 21’s verse, it’s not the main reason this song is so high on this list.  It’s because of him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNHp_flJKE

J. Cole didn’t release a new album in 2019, unless you want to count that Dreamville collaborate album which I honestly don’t.  But with how many guest verses he did this year and how many songs he completely stole because of it, his presence was always a huge blessing in my eye.  His next album is going to be even bigger because of it.

But he completely steals 21’s song with how much straight fire he spits.  Honestly there are so many awesome points that I’m just going to make a checklist of everything awesome he states:

-He points out how some of these artists aren’t as big as they seem because they utilize payola to fake their streams.

-Some people make memes to become bigger than they seem.

-He’s been playing the back from a lack of promotion.  Honestly, it feels true despite how many streams his albums over the last few years had.

-He was hoping his music would speak for itself, but his handlers wanted more from him.  So he’s going to show up on other people’s albums and steal their songs.  Case in point.

-It’s got to the point that rappers don’t like rapping with him.  Very true.  I think you all know some of them. *cough DRAKE cough*

-Praying for Markelle Fultz and Dennis Smith Jr.  As a die hard NBA fan, I get these references.  Fultz’s shot still looks fucked up nearly a year later after he got traded out of the 76ers.  I hope he gets whatever mental and physical problems fixed because he looked so talented coming out of college.  And Dennis Smith Jr. is fighting through depression.  He needs all the prayers he can get.

-Pray for Tekashi and how people want him to rot.  Which he follows with that he can picture him inside his cell doing some reflecting on how he made it to the top was worth it or not.  I mention that because just merely mentioning how he prayed for 6ix9ine did cause some shock and befuddlement at first by others.  But that’s never how I interpreted that line.  My interpretation is that he hopes that Tekashi is realizing that how he became big off of controversy, memes, and how he handled his fame was really worth it in hindsight.  And honestly, it’s fucking great that he points that out.  Because I don’t think I ever saw someone handle fame as poorly as 6ix9ine.  He kept using his shock value and controversy to highlight his fame.  When in all honesty, it only highlighted how untalented he is.  It was his own stupidity that led to his arrest and possibly spending the rest of his life in either prison or witness protection.  I do wonder if years and years from now if he will do some self-reflection and realize that being a terrible person and doing nothing to change that was worth it or not for him.  Damn J. Cole.  Talk about being woke.

But yeah, an awesome guest verse that single handedly carries this song from good to great.  Can’t wait for that next album and just goes to show that 21 Savage is improving.  And that’s all I ask for from artists.  I don’t ask for A LOT. I’ll see myself out

 

Spoiler

Well we can’t talk about this year without talking about the biggest number one of all time.  So let’s talk about the greatness that is…

 

5. “Old Town Road” – Lil Nas X (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus)

 

 

The history that will forever be attached to this song is one of the most fascinating things that has ever occurred during my years of following the charts.  From its original meme status to Lil Nas X riding the Billboard chart controversy, to multiple think pieces about what defines a genre, to keeping the interest in this song artificially high with at least five remixes.  But at the end of the day, it was number one for five months.  Novelty can only carry you so far if your popularity never wanes.  I’ve never seen any song encapsulate what it is like to be alive at this point in time in pop culture: memes, social justice, genre blending, social media awareness, playing off nostalgia, and met-awareness.

People can question whether Lil Nas X played the system or not.  It wouldn’t have worked if the American public didn’t want it to.  Anybody could have completely rejected all those remixes and chose not to stream the song entirely by their own choosing if there wasn’t others genuinely interested in any form of the song.  Let’s call a spade a spade.  Old Town Road stopped being a meme nearly a month after its inception with the Billy Ray Cyrus remix.  Which is the version that will always be tied to my association with this song.  Old Town Road became a song that people can genuinely enjoy unironically at that point.  It is country music and rap finally meeting at a crossroads and not sucking.

That is the biggest appeal of this song to me.  As a fan of both genres, I’ve been longing for the two to finally meet at a crossroad and make me feel more than indifference or embarrassment.  And all it took to get there was a nineteen year old kid futzing around with a Nine Inch Nails sample and recruiting the dad from Hannah Montana to hop on for a remix that finally made the original demo of a song sound complete.  What an utterly bizarre journey for the longest reigning number one song of all time, but you know what?  I don’t care.  I absolutely love this song.  It never ceases to amaze me every time I hear it. 

The simplistic nature of having a rapper with a deep country voice rapping about country tropes was a song that I didn’t know I needed in my life.  Thank you Lil Nas X.  Keep riding the waves of positive momentum you made until you can’t no more.

 

Spoiler

Okay you all got me.

This should have made the best list last year.  My bad.

 

4. “SICKO MODE” – Travis Scott

 

What the hell do I know?  Why do you guys listen to my opinions?  Middle-tier song from ASTROWORLD?  Did I really say that?  It’s one of the best.  Top five…hell top three honestly. 

Yeah this should have made my top ten last year.  Looking back at that list, it would probably place around number 6.  It’s a great song.  I always thought it was great.  I was worried that overplay would affect my thoughts on this song.  But you know what?  It hasn’t.  Honestly, overplay has only made me find more and more things to love about this song.  That’s why it is above Love Lies now.

And you know what the weird thing about this song is?  It hit number one in 2018, but it honestly feels bigger in 2019 than it ever did in 2018.  And I repeat, it hit number one song last year.  But this song has helped change trap music for the better in 2019.  We are getting more and more fusions with other genres and I place all of that solely on the success of “Sicko Mode”.

You can definitely tell that Travis Scott is a protégé of Kanye.  Not just in terms of making each of his albums into experiences.  And just like Kanye use to do (and still does, except not good), he knows how to grab your attention.  It’s an ambitious piece of art that molds three separate songs into this progressive trap song we badly needed when the genre was starting to become overdone with the same clichés.

Oh and I don’t care how sick we as a society are collectively of Drake.  His parts fucking kill.  If you can make taking a Xanax nap sound cool, you’ve still got something to bring to the table.

It takes a big man to admit he was wrong about a song.  And while I’ve always loved this song, I was dead wrong to leave it off my best list last year.  Call it what you want, but this song is absolutely excellent.

 

Spoiler

Hey guess who made the best list this year…to the surprise of no one.

 

As I’ve previously mentioned throughout the year, this is the Ariana Grande era for pop music.  She made shock waves throughout the industry as she pulled a Drake and released a second new album over the course of six months.  And while I did enjoy both albums a lot, it’s still a damn shame that the Sweetener era was cut so short.  Because while I have been hit or miss with the thank u next singles, every Sweetener single just hit and they hit hard.

 

3. “breathin” – Ariana Grande

 

 

Throughout the many singles Ariana has released over the past two years, it’s easy to see why this probably performed the least successful of the bunch.  Ariana has no tears left to cry.  Ariana can have sex with you so hard that she can change your religious ideology.  She can take each failed relationship and overcome it with grace and poise.  She is better than all of us and can afford the finest luxuries because she’s rich and we’re poor.  She wants you to break up with your girlfriend because she’s bored.  She doesn’t want you to call her angel.

It’s easy to play off all these traits, but at the end of the day, they are just a mirage.  One lyric from another 2019 song “Boyfriend” showed Ariana’s thoughts on her life.  “I’m a motherfucking trainwreck.”  The real Ariana Grande often showed up in her social media where her real life problems were front and center.  And while I’ve commended her for years on overcoming all the tragedies and still pushing forth doing what she loves, I still hope she is okay underneath it all.

Getting straight to the point, this song is the realest song Ariana Grande has ever composed.  As someone who has a history of high blood pressure due to his anxiety, I can relate to this song hardcore.  When my anxiety kicks in and I can feel my blood pressure rising, one of my recommended techniques from my doctors to help me is just to pause and take deep breathes.  It’s a simple, yet effective technique that helps me.  And that’s what this simple pop song was for a lot of people.  A reminder to keep breathing when you’re suffering from any sort of anxiety.

But I’ll be honest, even if I remove any sort of personal thoughts from this song, that beat drop in the chorus gets me every time.  Like our Shadow based senpai once pointed out, it’s a world shattering drop that just hits super hard.  And tie that in with one of Ariana’s best vocal performances to date and “Breathin’” would still be one of the best songs of the year just on that alone.  But it’s one of my top three songs of the year because it is personally useful for me.

 

Spoiler

So in this year’s edition of Clappy’s Hypocrisy Post, it’s time for make repentance with a sub category of music that I’ve been a bit cruel to over the years.  WEDDING SONGS!

 

Which you know, it is fitting.  I got married this year.  I’ve never really hated these sorts of songs.  It’s just that a lot of the time you come across a bunch of uninspired three to four minute pieces of shlock that could have been written in their sleep.  It’s easily the biggest sellout single a performer can release…ahem:

 

But in 2018, my wife and I came across a song that just made us feel this defined our relationship and our love for each other.  And it was a fair sized hit on the Hot 100 at the time too…but then it fell off the charts after twenty weeks…and then it came back again and made it safely onto the year end list as the biggest pure country song of the year.  Weird how things work out, but that’s what 2019 was.  Weird occurrence after weird occurrence and you know what, I’ll take it.

 

2. “Speechless” – Dan + Shay

 

 

What can I say?  Country music crossovers are becoming the norm now.  And honestly, I’ve always liked Dan + Shay.  Granted, they’ve always felt a tad more pop than your traditional country, but they just harmonize off each other so well.  And honestly, now more than ever, they are starting to definitely trend towards contemporary pop.  With this being their biggest pop hit to date.  And I’ll be honest, this feels like a boy band song more than a country song.  Close your eyes and tell me that this doesn’t sound like a Backstreet Boys wedding song.  That’s not a complaint by the way.  Backstreet for life.

And honestly, this song will forever associate with my wedding day.  Not just that first dance.  Just the day in general.  Seeing my wife walk down the aisle, looking like a million bucks to me, it just epitomized my thoughts for her.  Every time she walks into the room all prettied up for dates, weddings, hell just any occasion I’m speechless with how beautiful she is inside and out. 

But hell even removing my own personal thoughts and associations it has for my love for my wife, this song works.  Any sort of clichéd lines about how it will take her five minutes to get ready or how he will be a mess no matter what become obsolete when that chorus hits.  When they wail how he is speechless, it hits every fucking time.  Dan and Shay just sell the hell out of that line and that drop leading to the word speechless following with the rest of the chorus is fucking perfect.  I am completely invested that they are speechless with their loved ones beauty. 

Dan and Shay made one of the best wedding songs I’ve ever come across and unfortunately lightning did not strike twice with that new wedding song single with Justin Bieber that is fucking terrible.  But I will forever be grateful for them making a wedding song that leaves me speechless every time I walk into a room.

 

Spoiler

To understand why I picked what I picked to be my number one for this year, we will have to go back a whole year to truly understand it all in context.

Writing the 2018 year end lists felt like a chore.  Even the best list, which I declared to be one of the upper best lists of this decade.  Because while I do love all the songs on my best list, 2018 as a whole was not a good year.  At least ten percent of that year end list had hits from toxic awful people.  At least ten percent of that year end list was Drake flooding the charts with his overlong bore of an album.  Album bombs were flooding the charts to the point that so many songs got pushed off that the real hit songs of the year all basically sounded the same to me.  It felt like pop music was either barely there or basically nonexistent.  I honestly started to question the bad direction music was heading.  But towards the end of the year, one pop song emerged from the rubble.  Started to become viral.  Became the humongous smash that we sorely needed amongst all the dreary dreck.  And led 2019 into one of the most interesting years I’ve ever covered on this site. 

 

1. “Baby Shark” – Pinkfong

 

 

Yep, let’s talk about the cultural impact this slice of pop perfection had on the glorious year that was 2019.  This song for toddlers that became such a significant meme to the point that it started to chart on the Hot 100 and stuck around the late 20s/early 30s for fifteen weeks just racking up points amongst the heavyweights of the charts.  Pinkfong outcharted BTS, Katy Perry, even DJ Khaled.   That’s the sort of impact this simple, yet amazing song had on the cultural zeitgeist in the year of 2019.  It’s so culturally significant that Washington Nationals outfielder Gerardo Parra used it as his warm up song and it became significant for the run this team had to winning the World Series.  It is also getting its own toy line, television series, hell it would be an absolute mistake to not make it a theatrical movie.  Society is a sucker for shark movies.  Why else do we keep getting them?  Give one to the kiddos and it will make hundreds of millions, fuck it maybe even billions.  I can’t think of a single reason why this shouldn’t be everyone’s best hit song of 2019 DO DO DO DO DO DO DO.  Take it away James Corden:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

….okay you got me.  This only ended up in the late 20s/early 30s of my full chart rankings.  Baby Shark is not the real number one.  This is:

 

1. “thank u next” – Ariana Grande

 

 

It took some real nerve from me to have this top my own best list of songs from this year.  Especially with my wedding song right fucking there as a safe choice.  And who knows, maybe this will top other people’s best lists as well.  It’s that fucking great.  Well I don’t care what other people think.  It’s my best song of the year because it made me fall back in love with pop music at a time where I thought it was at its weakest.

You know what my main problem with pop music has been over the past couple years?  Most of the songs that have gotten popular could have been made by anybody.  Even the songs I like.  Like I said earlier, I miss when pop songs use to have real personality behind them and looking back at all these songs for the decade end list really reminded me of that.

As we all know, no popstar has had a more rough personal life in the last three years than Ariana with the bombings, the failed relationships, the death of a long time love, the engagement falling through, etc.  Ariana could have just fell off the face of the Earth for years after going through such tragedy and no one would have blamed her.

And that’s where this song shines the most.  Ariana letting us dive in to the context that is her personal life and discussing it with such poise and grace.  Every single choice Ariana makes in this song is perfect.  She handles everything so thoughtfully and gracefully.  Handling each past relationship as a life lesson and giving a moving tribute to her ex Mac Miller in the process.

All year long, I kept telling you guys we’re living in the Ariana Grande era of pop music.  I’ve always liked her and while her album in 2018 did plenty well and I liked every single hit she had off that album, the “thank u next” era made her a bonfide superstar.  And to me, this will be the definitive song that defines what made Ariana Grande into the megastar she is today.

I’m so fucking grateful for this slice of pop perfection.  Thank u Ariana.  Thank u for reminding me why I loved pop music when I needed it the most.  Thank u for spinning your public drama into gold.  Now give yourself a much needed break.  U honestly deserve one.

 

 

 

 

Full Rankings:

Spoiler

1. “thank u next” – Ariana Grande

2. “Speechless” – Dan + Shay

3. “Breathin’” – Ariana Grande

4. “SICKO MODE” – Travis Scott

5. “Old Town Road” – Lil Nas X (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus)

6. “a lot” – 21 Savage

7. “Truth Hurts” – Lizzo

8. “Clout” – Offset (featuring Cardi B) 

9. “bury a friend” – Billie Eilish

10. “Love Lies” – Khalid & Normani

11. “Sunflower” – Post Malone & Swae Lee

12. “High Hopes” – Panic! At the Disco

13. “Dancing With a Stranger” – Sam Smith & Normani

14. “Circles” – Post Malone

15. “I Like It” – Cardi B, Bad Bunny, & J Balvin

16. “If I Can’t Have You” – Shawn Mendes

17. “Hot Girl Summer” – Megan Thee Stallion (featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla Sign)

18. “Suge” – DaBaby

19. “Sweet But Psycho” – Ava Max

20. “Beautiful People” – Ed Sheeran (featuring Khalid)

21. “Shallow” – Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper

22. “MIDDLE CHILD” – J. Cole

23. “Going Bad” – Meek Mill (featuring Drake)

24. “Robbery” – Juice WRLD

25. “Cash Shit” – Megan Thee Stallion (featuring DaBaby)

26. “God’s Country” – Blake Shelton

27. “The London” – Young Thug, J. Cole, & Travis Scott

28. “Pop Out” – Polo G (featuring Lil Tjay)

29. “Tequila” – Dan & Shay

30. “Panini” – Lil Nas X

31. “Baby Shark” – Pinkfong

32. “Pure Water” – Mustard & Migos

33. “Beer Never Broke My Heart” – Luke Combs

34. “Boyfriend” – Ariana Grande & Social House

35. “Thotiana” – Blueface

36. “when the party’s over” – Billie Eilish

37. “bad guy” – Billie Eilish

38. “Act Up" - City Girls

39. “Wake Up In The Sky” – Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black

40. “Rumor” – Lee Brice

41. "Better Now" - Post Malone

42. “Taki Taki” – DJ Snake (featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna, & Cardi B)

43. “Trip” – Ella Mai

44. “My Type” – Saweetie

45. “All To Myself” – Dan & Shay

46. “Worth It” – YK Osiris

47. “Con Calma” – Daddy Yankee & Katy Perry (featuring Snow)

48. “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” – Ariana Grande

49. “Only Human" - Jonas Brothers

50. “Drip Too Hard” – Lil Baby & Gunna

51. “Money In The Grave” – Drake (featuring Rick Ross)

52. “Beautiful Crazy” – Luke Combs

53. “Senorita” – Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello

54. “Eastside” – benny blanco, Halsey & Khalid

55. “Youngblood” – 5 Seconds of Summer

56. “Good As You” – Kane Brown

57. “Wow” – Post Malone

58. “Talk” – Khalid

59. “You Need to Calm Down” – Taylor Swift

60. “Hey Look Ma, I Made It” – Panic! At the Disco

61. “Talk You Out Of It” – Florida Georgia Line

62. “Look What God Gave Her” – Thomas Rhett

63. “Happier” – Marshmello & Bastille

64. “Mo Bamba” – Sheck Wes

65. “MIA” – Bad Bunny (featuring Drake)

66. “Better” – Khalid

67. “Walk Me Home” – Pink

68. “Murder on My Mind” – YNW Melly

69. “ZEZE” – Kodak Black (featuring Travis Scott & Offset)

70. “No Guidance” – Chris Brown (featuring Drake)

71. “Shotta Flow” – NLE Choppa

72. “How Do You Sleep?” – Sam Smith

73. “Goodbyes” – Post Malone (featuring Young Thug)

74. “Look Back At It” – A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie

75. “The Git Up” – Blanco Brown

76. “Close Friends” – Lil Baby

77. “7 rings” – Ariana Grande

78. “Leave Me Alone” – Flipp Dinero

79. “Lucid Dreams” – Juice WRLD

80. “Please Me” – Cardi B & Bruno Mars

81. “Beautiful” – Bazzi (featuring Camila Cabello)

82. “Envy Me” – Calboy

83. “Trampoline” - SHAED

84. “Baby” – Lil Baby & DaBaby

85. “Money” – Cardi B

86. “Knockin’ Boots” – Luke Bryan

87. “One Thing Right” – Marshmello & Kane Brown

88. “Be Alright” – Dean Lewis

 89. “Without Me” – Halsey

90. “Swervin’” – A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie (featuring 6ix9ine)

91. “Sucker” – Jonas Brothers

92. “ME!” – Taylor Swift (featuring Brendon Urie)

93. “Whiskey Glasses” – Morgan Wallen

94. “Ransom” – Lil Tecca

95. “Close to Me” – Ellie Goulding, Diplo & Swae Lee

96. “Eyes On You” – Chase Rice

97. “Someone You Loved” – Lewis Capaldi

98. “I Don’t Care” – Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber

99. “Girls Like You” – Maroon 5 (featuring Cardi B)

100. “You Say” – Lauren Daigle

 

[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

Go Nationals!

[Clappy Was Here]

1 hour ago, Old Man Jenkins said:

I hope to see an SBCinema release of Knives Out one of these days?

Oh boy that would be lulzy as fuck.  Fully plan to do that after I start working on my "Joker" parody.  Starring Todd Phillips and directed by the other Todd Phillips.

[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

41 minutes ago, Katniss said:

Great list, Clap. I don’t agree with your #10 (I was never a huge fan of them but this is like candy to me, what can I say) and a certain one of your dishonorable mentions, but everything else is fairly unimpeachable

Fortunately  I haven’t heard #2 but it sounds like peak bland whiteness. 
 

can’t wait for your best list! This was a weird year for sure but there were quite a few gems.

You haven't heard of "Girls Like You"?  Man aren't you lucky for avoiding it for two whole years.

[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

So this is the part where I talk about my general thoughts on the charts.  And for the first time in a couple years…I actually have a lot of thoughts about the hit music landscape as a whole.

 

 

2019 was a really weird year.  It didn’t start off that way.  A lot of the huge hits from last year lingered through the winter and a good portion of the spring this year and I made that abundantly clear during my spring chart rankings.  But then something amazing happened.  We got a large abundance of new stuff from the least likely of people.  If you told me at the beginning of the year that some of the biggest hits of this year had Billy Ray Cyrus, Snow, and Bradley Cooper of all people, I would have thought that you were messing with me.  And then we had major career revivals for Lady Gaga, The Jonas Brothers coming back together, and one of the biggest names of this year was Brendon Urie of Panic! At the Disco.  Let me make that clear.  The lead singer of a fourteen year old band became one of the go to guys for chart success.  But the icing that really topped the cake for unnatural behavior?  Taylor Swift, Brendon Urie, Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Shawn Mendes, Ariana Grande, and many more would be blocked from the number one spot for nineteen weeks on the Hot 100 by a then nobody named Lil Nas X and an absolute joke in Billy Ray Cyrus.  Only to end up being dethroned by Billie Eilish, who is also a major newcomer in 2019, singing a song about trying to seduce your dad.

 

 

And that is part of the reason why 2019 will go down as one of the best years of the 2010s.  Because of the unpredictability of it all.  This was a fascinating year to follow the charts.  After how dour and depressing 2018 was, I’ll gladly take the weird and wonderful that was 2019 any day of the week.  Especially if the quality was there.  Which it definitely was in droves.  2019 has one of the strongest and most competitive best lists I’ve had in years.  And we’ll get to that soon enough.

But you know where we have to start, as always when it comes to these lists for me.  With all the praising I just gave for this year in general, the year-end list doesn’t really convey that.  Honestly, it’s the back half of the year end list that confuses me in particular.  I can’t help but look at this list and think, this was a hit?  And, this song somehow had enough points to make it over others that better represent the year in a whole?  Billboard’s tracking needs to change whether it be the time allocated or the points allocated because this is a broken system.

Back to the worst list though…and I’ll be honest.  While there was plenty of bad music from this year, a lot of it is not your run of the mill bad.  I think one of the biggest things I’m looking forward to from this list season is what people consider their worst of the year that is 2019.  Because I’ll be honest, I can’t think of what many consider to be easy candidates.  I have a lot of choices for my worst list and dishonorable mentions especially that you are about to see that not many people will consider your usual “easy targets”.  Sure there are bound to be some that you all will think are, let’s not be coy.  But I think this year in particular, you’ll see a lot of differing opinions as to what people will view as what they think is bad this year.  Definitely an improvement in my eyes because I like varying opinions.  So with that being said, let’s see what varying opinions I have amongst the rest of you.  Starting off with some dishonorable mentions in no particular order.

 

Spoiler

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

 

“Money” – Cardi B

This is honestly the most interchangeable song Cardi B has ever done.  And she had A LOT of interchangeable songs this year.  This is a rough draft of an unfinished song that has been done to death by this genre.  Did you guys know that rappers brag about how much money they make?  This only proves that it doesn’t matter what gender you are.  Going through the most basic of clichés still makes your song suck.

 

“Knockin Boots” – Luke Bryan

I swear Luke Bryan has gotten so lazy that this song right here is simply a list of all country music tropes and it somehow became a huge hit.  At least it’s an improvement over his three huge hits from this decade.  Which are still some of the worst country music of the 2010s.  Progress I guess.

 

“Be Alright” – Dean Lewis

This year’s winner of the Ed Sheeran rip-off award who we will collectively forget about by the time this post is over.  Hope you enjoyed your fifteen minutes of fame because it’s over, mate.

 

“Trampoline” – SHAED

So this was a number one hit on the alternative charts this year (and was featured in Apple commercials for the new MacBook Pro buy one today).  And I honestly don’t understand why anyone anywhere would seek this song out.  It’s not like there aren’t other “alternative”/indie pop acts out there right now with this exact same sound.  It’s like sitting and watching paint dry.  Not the exact mood bouncing on a trampoline gets out of people. 

What an awfully dull song and that was before the ZAYN remix.  Guess his career is over if that is what it takes to get him a hit now.  Almost feel bad for the guy since his latest album failed commercially in spectacular fashion.  I wonder if and when that One Direction reunion happens if he’ll get down on his knees and beg for them to save him from irrelevancy.

 

“Envy Me” – Calboy

This was one of the biggest non crossover rap hits on the year-end list.  And I completely forget about it every time I see it. And I’m not just talking about the song.  I’m talking about the guy who performs it.  Say what you want about how old the modern rap scene makes me feel, but at least I remember some of these guys when they pop up, even if it is only with one hit.  Who the actual fuck is Calboy?  How can I envy you when I don’t even know who the hell you are, guy? 

 

“Please Me” – Cardi B & Bruno Mars

It’s been a long time since a song soured on me as fast as this did.  I can’t listen to this song anymore without hearing studio execs meddling and giving this song a shit ton of payola to make this a hit.  Also not helping is Bruno Mars sounding absolutely god awful on this.  It was only a matter of time until Bruno Mars went through all his retro phases and eventually got to the 2010s.  Because this is basically a 2010’s Bruno Mars song disguised as a 90s R&B song.  And Cardi B just sounds flat out bored.  Where is the intensity that made “Finesse” sound so great?  Fuck this song.

 

“One Thing Right” – Marshmello & Kane Brown

Marshmello is a fitting name for this guy.  Because his songs are produced by absolute fluff.  The production on this song is absolute garbage.  Kane Brown sounds like a manipulative asshole.  For all the problems I had with “Happier”, at least it had good lyrical content and told a good story.  I don’t understand why the woman in this song would be with this douchebag.  Such a trainwreck of a song in general that I can’t believe got as popular as it did.

 

“Beautiful” – Bazzi (featuring Camila Cabello)

I don’t fucking get the appeal of this guy whatsoever.  He’s awful in all the ways all these other one name stage names are awful like Lauv, MAX, Gnash, and anyone else I’m forgetting.  But here he is with two hits to his name so I guess he’s going to be the one sticking around.  That’s probably due to the fact that this dull turd got popular off a remix with Camila Cabello.  My apologies to Senorita.  This is the most staged romantic song of the year.  I don’t buy the chemistry between these two whatsoever and it makes this song dull audio white noise.  Which means the radio loved it.  Go figure.

 

“Baby” – Lil Baby & DaBaby

This song should be funny with that clickbait title and the artists unironically involved.  The hacks at Quality Control knew what they were doing when coming up with this.  But good lord, this battle for best baby isn’t even a contest.  DaBaby is fucking killing it here.  Why does he only get like 20% of the song?  Lil Baby is left with the other 80% and he’s getting left in the dust.  He’s the reason why this song is a colossal disappointment and just further proves that he is still dull as dirt.

 

“Without Me” - Halsey

Some of you assumed this was going to be on the worst list proper.  I honestly considered it for the longest time.  It’s just not a pleasant song to listen to.  It sounds like ass.  And it still does.  “New Americana” will forever be the worst Halsey song unless she releases something absolutely unbearable.  And this is a safe second.

So what spared it at honestly the last second?  The writing.  It finally clicked with me.  She really put it all out there and it made her a huge star.  Like some of these lines actually hit me finally.  It’s a damn shame that the chorus still comes off like an obnoxious teenager who is experiencing heartbreak for the first time.  But these verses are finally resonating more.

All that being said, stream “Graveyard”.  Aka the good version of “Without Me”.

 

 

Spoiler

11. “Swervin’” – A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie (featuring 6ix9ine)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk9YcoZCuzA

Yeah I know this is a Top Ten List and honestly the main reason this song is just outside the top ten list proper is that I like this beat a lot.  It deserves better.  But I’ve got to make an exception to talk about something that has been on mind all year long.  Why are we still giving Tekashi 6ix9ine a platform in 2019? 

From all the memes that are still being made specifically about him to the fact that his guest verse is the main reason this song became a hit.  Why aren’t we letting him rot in prison for the rest of his life or go into witness protection program so we never have to see his stupid fucking face ever again?  He is one of the worst performers I’ve ever covered doing these lists and yeah that really is a bold statement on my end.  And in a year where we had a lot of good hits and most of the toxic hit makers of last year faded out, here is this stupid shit with a guest verse about shooting up people and it really isn’t making his case in his pending lawsuit.  Fuck you 6ix9ine.  You suck so bad that you completely missed the point of this song.

…oh and fuck that other guy with the awful stage name who used Rainbow Pedo Man’s name for clickbait.  He is so uninteresting that the comments section to his own music video barely even talks about his part of the song.  Getting upstaged by the rejected Skittles mascot.  That’s really saying something about A Boogie’s longevity.

 

Now that I got all that out of the way, let's get to the main list proper.  Let's give a swift GOODBYE GOODBYE GOODBYE to...

 

CLAPPY'S TOP TEN WORST HIT SONGS OF 2019

 

Spoiler

So with the decade end project in the works, it is amazing to see how so many of these acts from the start of the decade have evolved over time. 

https://www.billboard.com/charts/decade-end/hot-100

That’s one of the many reasons I enjoy writing these sorts of reviews.  To see how artists change their style or sound over time.  Let’s face it, for better or worse, artistic growth is a good thing.  Because if you don’t change it up, well you might as well just be the Jonas Brothers.

 

10. “Sucker” – Jonas Brothers

 

And speaking of changing with the times, I went from not even remotely caring about this song to hating this to questioning why this was one of the biggest hits of this year.  I already stated that the Jonas Brothers were never meant to be my cup of tea.  This song wasn’t mean to be for me.  None of their songs from this year were meant for me.  I’m a guy who is married to a woman who worships the ground they walk on and also has a sister who would probably marry Joe Jonas if she ever had the opportunity to.

But the more I heard this song in particular, the more it just became obvious to me that this giant return single that skyrocketed its way to number one is the most half-assed song of the year.  It rips off the melody from “Feel It Still” by Portugal. The Man.  That whistle drop might as well be any whistle drop from any song, it’s that uninspired.  But it’s the lyrics that really give away how little thought was actually put into this song more than their others.  I’ll give “Only Human” and “Cool” this.  Both at least had something distinctly lame enough to stick out and actually make me kind of like both of them.

Like I mentioned earlier in the year, it’s pretty much every other song they’ve ever made about how they subliminally want to get in their fangirls pants.  But god, some of these lines are so basic that any hack could have used these:

We go together
Better than birds of a feather

This lyric is so old that the Jonas Brothers must have gotten this one delivered by carrier pigeon.

You're the medicine and the pain
The tattoo inside my brain

Of course it was going to be the latter.  What else could it have been?  I’ve lost count over how many times songs have used this rhyme scheme.  Shoot, Hall and Oates literally had a song titled “No Brain, No Pain” where they beat that rhyme into submission that I never want to hear it again.

But let’s go back to the preamble.  Over the past ten years, we’ve gone from Ke$ha to Kesha.  We’ve gone from twerking Miley to adult contemporary Miley.  Jason DeRulo has gone from my walking punching bag to being somewhat tolerable.  Taylor Swift has gone from the sweet innocent teenager to a premadonna.  I could go on all day about how artists change to stick with the times.  The Jonas Brothers from 2019 still sound like the Jonas Brothers from 2006.  That’s thirteen years of basically making the same damn music.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw04QD1LaB0

Hell looking back at their few years of solo work doesn’t sound like artistic growth either.  Nick Jonas was practically the poor man’s version of other artists doing that sound like before he did (and that goes for the songs I did like by him).  DNCE wasn’t really pushing the envelope of originality either. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrUJyKsLQeU

These guys are just perfectly fine being stagnant.  And why shouldn’t they be?  It brought them success together and apart.  Well to be quite honest, being complacent artistically is really starting to be problematic for me.  Even with artists I love like Bruno Mars.  There’s only so much cashing in on what continues to work before it really starts to piss me off.  And that is especially true for acts that I never liked to begin with.

Look I get 2000s kids are ready for their nostalgia boom, but at least give it to a group that will sound radically different with the times than making the same cheap cash-ins.  Who’s the sucker now?  Still me for being the only person to hate this.  Next.

 

Spoiler

Wow.  What a polarizing song, right?  How dare Taylor Swift compare the amount of hate she gets to the amount of hate towards the LGBT community; who does she think she is?

…I don’t know how polarizing of an opinion this is outside of Wumbo, but I don’t think this song is all that bad.  It’s a fucking mess, but god bless is it a train wreck I can’t stare away from.  And despite how misguided the message is, I approve of Taylor standing for something in her music for the first time ever.

She may not be the biggest pop star on the planet anymore, but Taylor proved this year that she is still capable of holding the attention of the general public by being her.  And thank goodness “You Need To Calm Down” proved that because if you asked me the same question two months prior to that single’s debut, I would have told you that I thought her days of being a megastar were on their last legs.

 

9. “ME!” – Taylor Swift (featuring Brendon Urie)

 

The only reason this song ended up making the year end list is simply due to being the leadoff single from the biggest pop star of the last five years.  Because god forbid there was any other reason this karaoke version of itself was as big as it was.  For a song entitled “ME!”, this was supposed to be a culmination of all things Taylor Swift.  We’re supposed to be excited that the old Taylor is back and that the vengeful goddess of two years ago is dead and gone.  What we got was the old Taylor saying, she’s back…I guess.

Plain and simple, this pisses me off for being absent of anything worth talking about.  It sounds pleasant, but it’s a hollow song.  I was surprised to find out that there wasn’t a commercial or a product of any sort attached to this song when I first heard it.  Anyone could have done this song.  I shouldn’t be mistaking a Taylor Swift leadoff single as a possible commercial jingle.  This song has none of Taylor’s personality, none of her distinct songwriting, not a damn thing.  Hell the “spelling is fun” bit is Taylor trying to force a meme that was never going to happen to begin with and then you know what she does?  She completely removes it from her album.  What a cop out.  AT LEAST OWN UP TO YOUR OWN FORCED MEMES.  You can’t spell AWESOME without ME?  Well you can’t spell LAME without ME either.

Oh and Brendon Urie is on here.  I don’t know why.  He doesn’t have any chemistry with Taylor.  He doesn’t add anything really.  For a song called ME, did we really need to include anybody else but Taylor?  It just felt like a record exec told her that Brendon Urie’s starpower was on the rise, so let’s add him to the song.  Brendon Urie may have had a BIG 2019, but this was easily the most disposable guest verse he had this year.  And that includes him saying HE’S A FAT FUCKING PIG.

Taylor may still command attention by just existing, but this is easily the most disposable song she has ever done.  I’d rather watch grass grow than listen to this.  Next.

 

Spoiler

So yeah, I’m looking down this year end list and Jesus what a year country music had.

This is definitely the largest amount of country music I’ve ever seen on a year-end list.  Is country music really making this large a dent in the music zeitgeist?  Is this what will replace trap as the hot new trend everyone will ride on…oh god, I can’t finish this statement without laughing.

Let’s be honest here.  Country music is still lame.  I will admit it has made huge strides on streaming over the past two years, but my theory is that the hardcore conservatives that mostly make up country’s core fan base want something safer to listen to because rap is too provoking.  Even though two of the biggest country hits from this year were rap-country fusions, but hey what do I know?

Either way, I’ll give them good ole boys out in Nashville this.  This is the most relevant country music has been in a while.  And I’ll be damned if I can’t find at least one song to mention on this list that I couldn’t stand the slightest bit.

 

8. “Whiskey Glasses” – Morgan Wallen

 

Now I’ll go ahead and give the song this.  This is a prime example of the type of country music songs I love.  A guy drinking to mend his heartbreak.  And that’s the only compliment I’ll give this song because who the actual hell wants to listen to this?

Seriously.  The distortion on this song is fucking grating.  And it plays throughout the entire song.  It is one thing if it was just a fragment, then this would just make my dishonorable mentions list.  But nearly four minutes of this is headache inducing.  I’d rather listen to a car alarm go off nonstop for four minutes than just hear the instrumental version of this song.  It is that bad.

Then you have the singer, does he even matter?  Google tells me that he was actually on The Voice for three rounds or so…and now it makes more sense.  He was on Team Usher to only switch to Team Adam. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ7bg0MqUPk

Makes sense as to why he switched sides.  His singing is ear bleeding, while lacking any sort of emotional tone or depth.  Let me emphasize that again because why the fuck is he singing a song about pain and misery, so happily?  This is so stupidly happy that it becomes insufferably smug when he does that rap breakdown on his second verse.  The lyrics don’t convey the mood its going for.  They convey total despair.  How could you misinterpret your own song this badly? 

But remove Morgan Wallen’s reality television contest history, I don’t understand why Nashville leached onto this guy and this song.  He’s not a CGI Ken doll like his Voice mentor.  He can’t sing worth a damn.  The production is utter dog shit.  Hell, he’s now collaborating with Diplo.  Are we really going to make this nobody into the next big country crossover star?  If so, might as well make him the next judge on The Voice.  They need a replacement for Adam Levine anyway.  Why not one of his proteges?  Next.

 

Spoiler

I don’t have a proper preamble for this.  I give up.  I’m getting too old for this shit.

 

7. “Ransom” – Lil Tecca

 

I need to stop trying to get modern day rap music.  Because no matter how hard I’ve tried the last couple years to get it, some new guy blows up out of nowhere, gets major backing from studio hacks for playlist payola, and I don’t understand the appeal at all.  Enter 2019’s big young rapper.  This kid is practically half my age and he officially has a smash hit to his name and once again, I don’t see why.  You know how embarrassing it has gotten?  I asked a coworker who is at least ten years younger than me what the appeal of this song is.  I’ve gotten that desperate trying to figure out what anyone could possibly get out of this song.

Even though I’ve said before if I don’t get it, I can’t hate it; I’m just so bored and tired of this same sounding shit.  Is that the appeal of this?  Because if so, it fucking sucks.  I don’t care if he is sixteen.  He could have fooled me with how boring, uninspired, and lazily put together this is.  There’s no beat, no hook, no original lyrics, barely a chorus, and no flow…which ironically this song about how he will take someone for ransom if they steal his flow.  Good luck with that kid.  There is nothing special about it to begin with.  Why would someone bother to steal something that you’ve stolen from the hundreds of other trap MCs out there?

 

 

And I know I’ve bagged on myself a bit with this entry in particular; not understanding today’s rap scene.  But there are genuinely talented new guys and girls that popped up on the charts this year from DaBaby, Ski Mask the Slump God, Meghan Thee Stallion, City Girls, and Polo G to name a few.  They at least showed signs that they care enough to try and give themselves distinct first impressions.  And then you have this twerp pop out of nowhere, go through all the rap clichés like a checklist, not even try to do anything distinct, barely gets above the two minute mark by letting this limp beat linger on for an additional thirty seconds, and gets himself a smash hit.  This infuriates me.  If this is what it takes to get a smash hit, well time for me to quit my job and become the next SoundCloud sensation.  Now all I need to do is get a Twitter stan following that will say stream this or that and I’m golden…

…oh wait, TikTok is replacing SoundCloud in terms of getting recognized now?  I’m late to the latest trends again.  Time for me to retire.

 

Spoiler

I touched upon this last year, but as each year passes, it’s getting all the more apparent and even harder to ignore.  Radio stations are completely out of touch with what’s popular right now.  And it especially sucks if radio was once your main format for figuring out what the people of today are listening to.

“Sunflower” was one of the biggest hits of the year and you know how many times I heard it on the radio?  Once.  Thank god streaming has become all the more central for figuring out the hits of today and what America is listening to.  Because if I was still listening to the radio primarily, I would have assumed this was one of the biggest hits of the year.

 

6. “Close To Me” – Ellie Goulding, Diplo & Swae Lee

 

Seriously, whenever I tuned in to radio stations in 2019, I would hear this awfully dull song all the damn time.  Color me surprised to figure out this peaked at #24 and was not even in the Top 50 for this year end chart.  I can’t emphasize how relieving that was for me to figure out this wasn’t nearly as big as radio wanted to perceive it was because for the life of me, I can’t even begin to imagine who the hell would voluntarily listen to this song.

I like/used to like all three of these artists separately.  But together?  It’s a twenty-two car pileup on a busy intersection.  What the hell happened here?  I think the radio is latching on to Ellie Goulding still being a huge star since she had multiple hits the last time radio was really in tune with what was popular back in 2015.  But coming back from that multiple year hiatus has really shown that Ellie Goulding has zero personality.  Not a single part of her song sounds remotely convincing.  Her trying to convince everyone that she is a terrible person and an animal is a huge stretch when she tries to sing the song in her usual siren-like soft vocals.  Not helping is that Diplo basically sounded like he had no idea what to do with the production for this song.  Especially those squawking synths on the bridge which was a bafflingly bad idea.

And since the song was clearly not going to take off based off its own merits, let’s add Swae Lee to it.  I really do miss when most pop songs had a featured guest rapper and Swae Lee is the best hook artist rap music has right now.  But even Swae Lee sounds completely disconnected from what’s going on except being awful people.  If he and Ellie Goulding are singing about each other, it doesn’t work since they both sound like they are trying to outdo each other in terms of treating the other like shit.  Is it possible to have less than zero chemistry?

Ellie has released multiple songs this year to desperately push her comeback and not a single one of them is remotely good.  They go in one ear and out the other, just like this song.  Talk about selling what’s left of your artistic integrity to try and rack up hits.  Next.

 

Spoiler

Did I say only one country song is making this list?  I lied.  Make that two.

 

5. “Eyes On You” – Chase Rice

 

There has to be something else to the major strides country music has made over the last two years.  Well I’ve got another theory in mind to go along with the one I previously listed.  Due to how predominantly male most of the genre has become, I’ve noticed a small subgenre forming under the surface. 

Most of the big country hits over the last few years are all straight forward love songs.  I’ve been trying to figure out a proper name for this trend.  And as I watched an episode of Billboard Breakdown (check it out fellow chart watchers), Mark coined the term “boyfriend country”, and boy is that a fitting name.  Straight forward simple love songs from self-impressed “country boys” that might as well be “white guy with acoustic guitar” songs.  No wonder more country music is getting more pop because these guys are basically becoming WGWAGs.

And while I’m not saying all these acts are bad per say, I can tell the genuine of these performers from the artificial.  And you can’t get more artificial than former Survivor: Nicaragua runner-up turned country singer, Chase Rice.  The poor man’s Sam Hunt.  Hell I mistook him as the actual Sam Hunt the first few times I heard this song.  He’s got the same talk and sing vocal delivery as him. 

 

This guy is a fucking hack who is willing to trend hop to stay relevant.  I knew how fake he was from nearly ten years ago when he was able to manipulate people on one of the worst seasons of my favorite reality show.  And not much has changed since then.  He hopped all over the bro-country fad when it was starting to trickle out and now boyfriend country is the new big subgenre and he’s hopping on that while it is white hot.

This song is just flat out garbage.  This is without a doubt one of the lamest set of “I love you girl” lyrics I’ve ever come across.  Not a single original thought.  Not a single distinguishing trait that makes this stand out in any remote fashion.  Hell I don’t believe Chase Rice is even remotely interested in his generic love interest.  I can tell by just watching this music video where if you watch it with close eyes, he’s not even looking at the girl eye to eye.  For all I know, he was just pulling an Adam Sandler and making this music video to take a vacation.

I fully believe Chase Rice is a total con and this song only further proves how fake he is.  Chase Rice is just doing this to get laid girls.  Don’t buy it.

 

Spoiler

And in this episode of nepotism gave this man a career.  Ever wondered what one of the cousins of Doctor Who sounded like as a singer?

https://ytcropper.com/cropped/zA5df02458f02b1

If you guessed like a diseased ostrich, congratulations.  You too can get a number one hit.

 

4. “Someone You Loved” – Lewis Capaldi

 

Look, it was inevitable.  The UK sends over a plethora of their smash singles.  But why this one?  Why this ear bleedingly bad X Factor reject?  Did the former Doctor Peter Capaldi really have that much of an influence over this catching on not just here, but worldwide?  This might as well be one of the biggest hits of 2019 on this planet with how many top tens it cracked.  This song from such a punchable jackass.  Not only because he sounds like he got punched in the throat before singing, but I’ve seen his Twitter.  He comes off as the most arrogant entitled prick.  Offering anyone who matches with him on Tinder free tickets to his shows.  Constantly tweeting back at everybody or anybody that even slightly mentions any distaste towards him.  I seriously hope he gets delegated to one hit wonder-dom because I never so badly wanted to see a douche flame out after his first number one hit.

The song itself isn’t even worth mentioning about.  It’s another standard four chord piano ballad about a guy who sounds like he is experiencing heartbreak for the first time.  Lewis himself even mentioned that this song came to him sitting at a piano, bashing his head against a brick wall for months trying to find a good melody.  Yeah it definitely sounds like that.  And this is the part where it seems like his brain suffered some sort of aneurism from all the damage:

https://ytcropper.com/cropped/zA5df02458f02b1

Worst pop music moment of 2019.  I can’t believe there is an actual market for this slog of a song.  An imported hit hasn’t pissed me off this badly since Passenger in 2013.  And just like Passenger, I hope we send this divinely uninspired piece of shit away after his fifteen minutes are up.  Next.

 

Spoiler

So this is what we get when the two biggest male popstars alive collaborate together?  If that’s the case then I…am not all that interested.

 

3. “I Don’t Care” – Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber

 

No seriously.  What sort of weak ass shit is this?  And this limp turd of a song was produced by Max Martin of all people?  Jesus, not caring sure sounds right.

A few years ago, I said that I would never give Ed Sheeran shit ever again.  And I’ve eaten my words ever since placing him on my worst list last year and again this year.  My standing with Ed Sheeran’s music has taken an absolute roller coaster ride this decade, but now I can’t stand him.  His constant self-depreciating shtick is really starting to piss me off.  He’s one of the biggest worldwide acts of all-time and he wants us to think that he’s a nobody?  Kiss my ass.  You have made enough money over the years to afford your own country.  Humbleness does not fit him well.

As for Justin Bieber…well for one thing, his part is probably the better of the two.  But that’s like saying light tuna is better for you than regular tuna.  There is still mayonnaise in your sandwich.  I do believe Justin Bieber has anxiety problems.  It explains his erratic behavior over the years a lot.  But Justin Bieber is such a flavorless singer and can’t convey any emotions at all.  That’s why so many people ask him to do guest verses because he’s a recognizable name who adds nothing of actual substance to your music.  And it’s especially fitting here in this nothing of a song.  It actually detracts from it since the production is fucking terrible and can’t distract me from actually trying to listen to this.

This is a team up that should have never seen the light of day.  Some team ups make sense, but this is the biggest example in recent memory of bringing the worst out of each other.  This song strips everything that was remotely interesting about Ed Sheeran to accommodate to Justin Bieber’s lack of personality and leaves us with boring white noise.  And that’s why it stuck around as long as it did this year.  Not because people actually liked it.  Because it was so inoffensive and bland enough that people didn’t care to tune out. 

Ed recently announced that he is going to take a couple years off to recharge after his latest tour is finished.  Well if this is any lasting recent impression of what he is going to send himself off with then…

 

Spoiler

And speaking of not caring, I wasn’t going to originally place this song on my worst list for 2019.  Because who the fuck still cares about this song this year.

But then the end of the decade list came out.  And then I got unbelievably frustrated.  Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to talk about actively not caring, you can’t sink any lower than Maroon 5.

This should have been on the worst list proper last year.  My bad.

 

2. “Girls Like You” – Maroon 5 (featuring Cardi B)

 

Consider me all in on the “Girls Like You” hate train.  I can understand it becoming a number one hit.  I can understand why people like this music video.  I can understand a lot of people not changing the station when it comes on the radio because it is such audio white noise that it fits into the background since it is so inoffensive.

But god damn, the fifth biggest song of the 2010’s?  One of the biggest hits of all time?  Let’s put this in perspective here.  Here is what Billboard is telling me this nothing of a song is more influential than from this decade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw

Bigger than “Rolling in the Deep”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY

Bigger than Gotye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQP7kiw5Fk

Bigger than “Despacito”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Ov5jzm3j8

Bigger than “Old Town Road”.

 

Regardless of my personal opinion on some of these; these are all songs that people will point back at it saying these were some of the greatest hits of the 2010s.  Not fucking “Girls Like You”.  This meaningless song that got huge because nobody cared enough to not let it linger in the collective conscious as long as it did.

The one thing I always defended about this song not being “that bad” in the past was the Cardi B guest verse.  But after nearly two years later, it finally hit me.  Her verse adds nothing to this song.  Because the song itself already conveys nothing.  It’s the same formula that Maroon 5 has successfully ridden this past decade.  Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Guest Rapper-Chorus.  It’s why the radio loves them so much and refuses to let Maroon 5 die out when nobody else likes them.

I couldn’t have been more dead wrong about Maroon 5 in 2019.  I thought that awful halftime show would have ended them.  It didn’t.  I thought Adam Levine quitting The Voice amidst a ton of backstage drama would have ended him.  It didn’t.  I thought this nothing of a song would have been the last of Maroon 5’s success on the Hot 100.  Good lord was I wrong there.

But there is one more thing I would like to course correct about Maroon 5.  “Wait” is the worst song of their career.  It wasn’t.  This is.  Even with that new awful song they have out now that I always forget after every time I hear it, it’s not worse than this.  And it’s unfortunately, the biggest song of their careers.  Which means Maroon 5 is just going to keep forcing out half-witted uninspired dogshit until radio payola finally ceases to exist.

And that can’t come soon enough.

 

Spoiler

Picking my worst hit song of this year was…complicated, to say it best.

I tend to usually go back and forth as to which songs frustrate me the most as you all can probably tell by reading these lists annually.  Most years, it’s easy.  Not this year.  Probably because most of the hit makers of this year weren’t nearly as obnoxious as years past and we got mostly flavorless and uninspired levels of awful outside of a few exceptions.  But when it came down to it, I picked my number one the easiest way I know how.  By going to work.

https://www.racked.com/2018/4/25/17271928/retail-music-staffers

As practically all of you may now, I work in retail.  Which means I have to hear the same easy listening pop songs at least twice a day.  Every week.  Every month.  So on and so forth.  Hearing the same generic white bread pop playlist at work every day does take its toll on me.  And when I see plenty of these songs make the year end lists, I try to be objective and not let my personal bias affect whether they make my year end lists.  But I’m going to be real with you guys.  The more I hear some of these songs, the worse they end up becoming; sometimes becoming outright insufferable.  And I can’t think of a bigger example this year of being insufferably bland and flavorless than this.

 

1. “You Say” – Lauren Daigle

 

 

Lauren Daigle has been an absolute bore to my ears with this song for practically the past year and a half.  This constant, dull-throbbing snooze of a song somehow managed to be popular enough to chart for nearly a whole year.  I guess we were in that big of a need for inoffensive easy listening garbage to stick around amongst all the trap bangers and album bombs.

And it’s quite clear to me who Lauren Daigle is trying to emulate here.  Honestly, fooled me at first because I sure thought this was Adele at first listen.  Why haven’t more people tried emulating Adele’s sound given the plethora of Grammys, number one hits, multiple diamond selling albums, and changing the pop music landscape as we know it?  But then it hit me.  Comparing Lauren Daigle to Adele is an insult to Adele.  Adele is distinct with her voice and is able to make you feel her emotions through her storytelling.  Lauren Daigle brings no fresh edge to this already established sound.  Right down to those all too familiar pop song chords.  Which of course they are.  God forbid empowerment anthems try any different chord progression.

As for the religious undertones, I don’t care.  It’s quite obvious that God is in brackets throughout the entire song.  I don’t hate it for its Christian morals.  As you all know, I’m religious.  I don’t want to force my viewpoints onto my readers because I am one who thinks that everyone is entitled to their own religious interpretations and believe what they want to believe.  

What I do hate it for is that WHO ACTUALLY FINDS THIS EMPOWERING!?  Is God supposed to be the empowering force throughout this song?  Because if so, whoever does find this empowering must really hate themselves.  Because if you look at the lyrics, all she does is beat herself up:

-She keeps falling short
-She is weak
-She’s not enough
-She can’t measure up
-She doesn’t know who she is
-She doesn’t belong
-She has no identity

That last one really strikes a nerve with me because outside of believing in God, she is basically saying she is nothing.  Even I feel insulted by this because life has more purpose than just your religious beliefs.  Life is what you make it to be.  You can forge your own path in life and only you can tell your own story.  You are whatever you identify yourself to be.  Don’t let Lauren Daigle and her tediously dull lack of self-esteem make you think otherwise. 

I can’t believe this was as big as it was.  I may hate self-empowerment anthems for being clichéd ridden piles of pandering but at least they had some sense of identity towards them.  I would rather hear artists being up their own asses than someone purposely try to force their religious beliefs to cover up their lack of identity.  This is banal-fueled drivel with all the depth of a Yogurt commercial.  It’s a formless blob of nothing and it’s also my worst hit song of 2019.

 

Thank you all for taking the time to read these lists as always.  The best list is in the works and should be up within a week or so depending on how work goes.  Hope you all enjoy that too!

[Wonder Woman 1984]

Very curious as to how they’re going to pull off bringing Steve back from the dead and why.

Also isn’t The Cheetah supposed to be the villain of this movie?  That’s what I heard from pre-production updates for the movie.  Wonder how they’re going to tie that in with Maxwell Lord.

Regardless of above, that teaser is absolutely gorgeous to look at.  Love the visual tone and aesthetics they are going for with this movie from the looks of it.  Definitely can’t wait to see this.

[Clappy Was Here]

On 11/5/2019 at 2:19 PM, Katniss said:

Holy shit, art really does imitate life

seen any good shows/films lately that you’d recommend? 

Shows - The Mandalorian, The World According to Jeff Goldblum, and Atypical Season 3 (just goes to show that a bad first season can be made up by an okay Season 2 and a pretty good third season)

Films - Knives Out and Ford v Ferrari

[RIP Juice WRLD]

https://www.tmz.com/2019/12/08/juice-wrld-dead-dies-seizure-chicago-midway-airport-hospital/

What an upsetting story to wake up to this morning.  I wasn’t a fan of the guy but 21 is way too young of an age to die.  This is one of the saddest ways to die as well.  Not getting to say goodbye to loved ones or even know what’s happening.  RIP Jarad Higgins.

[Wumbo Ranks Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Charts! (Ahhh, the deed is done.)]

Can’t wait to see “One Time” top the Best List.

[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

2017

For the record, this is the last of these I'll be doing.  I'm going to let my thoughts on 2018 simmer a little longer so I can really see how well that list will last the test of time.

TV:

Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing except switching up my writing style.  My television lists will always be the most self-critical just because I always feel like what I write isn't good enough.  That's another reason why I don't do yearly television write ups.  Just because I know I'll nitpick them to hell even if everyone else enjoys them.  That being said, doing these decade end retrospectives really made me realize I only want to write about shows that have had enough seasons to really judge it as a whole instead of doing season by season.  That's why binge-watching is really the right way to go about doing television write-ups.  Just because analyzing episode by episode leaves you knowing at least half the picture.

Music:

Honestly, my worst list is good.  For the longest time, I thought to myself that "Strip That Down" would be the one song I'd place on there in hindsight.  But now that hindsight is long enough, I wouldn't.  "Strip That Down" is the new number eleven though.  But as for the list itself, I would just make a couple changes:

10. Look At Me!

9. Look What You Made Me Do

8. Body Like a Back Road

7. Mi Gente

6. Rake It Up

5. I Don't Wanna Live Forever

4. Believer

3. Tunnel Vision

2. Treat You Better

1. Issues

So yeah, for starters, I'm starting to soften a tad on Look What You Made Me Do and Body Like a Back Road.  Two of the biggest punching bags for everybody from this year.  I'm starting to get a slight admiration for LWYMMD because Taylor really put herself out there with this trainwreck.  And Body Like a Back Road is the sort of mind numbing awful levels of stupidity that I'm really starting to miss in a music climate where a lot of the songs are starting to sound the same.  Both songs are still terrible enough to make my worst list, but god bless they at least stuck out.

Meanwhile, that ZAYN song has only gotten worse in two years to leapfrog four songs.  Didn't expect it to be a career killer for him as his career has practically flopped.  And that Kodak Black song has also leapfroged a couple songs because seriously fuck this guy.  I can only hope that his career sputters out real soon because he is toxic garbage.

 

As for the best list, that's where I would easily make the most changes.  Not like it's all bad or anything, but a lot of the hits from this year have just aged better.  So here's my updated best list.

1. Bounce Back

2. DNA

3. Starboy

4. 24K Magic

5. Sign of the Times

6. Closer

7. Water Under the Bridge

8. Caroline

9. Congratulations

10. Something Just Like This

So where do I start with these changes?  My thoughts on Starboy and Closer aging as greatly as they have are well documented.  Nothing against Water Under the Bridge, which doesn't hold up as a top level Adele song like I once called it.  But I do stand with me still liking 25 better than 21.  Caroline really is a great song that I still appreciate two years later.  And then we have the two new entries to this list.  Congratulations is the song that made me finally get Post Malone.  I love it.  One of the best songs of his career.  And then there is the third great Chainsmokers song that I mentioned previously.  Yes it rips off the drop from Roses.  So what?  I like ripoffs depending on the circumstances.   Yes Chris Martin's lyrics don't make any damn sense. So what?  I love the utter ridiculousness of Batman and his fists and Spider-Man's control.  But Jesus does the whole song come together towards the end with that drop and guitar solo.  Seriously one of the most underrated moments in a pop song this decade.  It's one of the weirdest collaborations of this decade and yet somehow they bring out the best in each other.

 

Movies:

And the last round of major changes I would make.  Like I said last post with doing a rankdown for music years, I'm doing the same with movies.  But early spoiler, I was way too hard on this year.  Mostly with the best list.  That best list I wouldn't change a damn thing except pointing out that this is one of the better best lists of this decade.  So no need to redo it.  However, that worst list though.  It's beautifully written yes, I'm quite proud of how much hard work I put into it and how great my points were.  But there is some re-ranking that must be done.

1. Flatliners

2. The Emoji Movie

3. The Snowman

4. The Dark Tower

5. The Mummy

6. Death Note

7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

8. The Greatest Showman

9. Justice League

10. Fifty Shades Darker

 

So yeah, the top five isn't changing.  But the more I recollect my thoughts, Death Note deserves to be on this list proper.  What a god awful adaptation of my favorite anime.  Fuck you Netflix.  And fuck you again for still going forward with a sequel.  You've already hurt me enough with the terrible original.  Pirates 5 sucks hard.  Move it up another spot.  Fifty Shades Darker still deserves to be on this list because it's a part of probably the worst trilogy of the 2010s.

The Greatest Showman is a weird pick for this list, but the huger it becomes, the more I can't ignore it any longer.  It's a terrible piece of manipulative cinema that paints one of the lowkey scum entertainers of the world as a great person, even though that same guy highlights people with abnormalities for money.  The songs are overrated more so than Frozen.  Hugh Jackman isn't as good as people make him out to be.  The only slight positive is that Zac Efron and Zendaya have lowkey good chemistry together, but they both deserve better than this movie.

And Justice League makes this list because I rewatched it a few months ago and it really doesn't hold up.  At all.  I remember @Dr. WhoBob saying not too long after I posted that 2017 worst list that he was happy to see Justice League not mentioned on there because it wasn't all that bad.  And to that I say, rewatch it again like I did.  The production problems that this movie went through really stand out harder.  There are two polar opposite direction styles that clash with each other terribly.  What we end up getting is DC trying to make a Marvel movie and it becomes all the more apparent after rewatching.  The comedy is bad.  The Flash is annoying.  Superman is not as interesting as this movie so badly wants to make him out to be.  Steppenwolf is one of the worst/most forgettable villains in any superhero movie ever.  I'm glad DC has turned the corner these last two years (and with Wonder Woman the year prior), but seriously rewatch Justice League again. I think we were trying way too hard to paint a positive picture for a movie that honestly deserves to be scorned more than Batman v Superman (not more than Suicide Squad, which is the worst DCEU movie.  Period.).

 

And that puts an end to my revisits of 2016 and 2017.  I'll see you all in a few weeks with the Worst Hit Songs of 2019; whenever Billboard gets around to posting that year end list will play the key factor as to when that list goes up.  So until then, thanks for reading and I'll see you guys soon.

[Green Eggs and Ham (Netflix)]

So Season 1 was actually really good.  Was the plot was a little contrived?  Yes.  But it’s an adaptation of a seemingly unadaptable Dr. Seuss property.  I didn’t have high expectations for it to begin with.  But the series makes up for it by being quite imaginative.  I think Seuss would be quite proud of how the team behind this (Ellen DeGeneres was one of the many involved as producer) made the final product.  It has his sense of creativity and vision.  And yeah there are pop culture references, but unlike basically every Seuss movie adaptation, the ones here are really damn clever.  
 

Also Negi’s comment about it being basically an animated version of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is 100% correct.  But add that in with really imaginative locations, incredibly clever writing, great voice actors, and beautiful animation (they really put those millions to great use, this is some of the best hand drawn animation I’ve seen in years).  Highly recommend.

["Someone You Loved" by Lewis Capaldi Discussion]

Yeah I’m with Wumbo on this one.  I really enjoy Todd’s new reviewing style as well.  This review wouldn’t even make Todd’s top five best videos from this year.  Potentially top ten if we are including OHW and Trainwreckords too.  It’s been that strong of a year to me in terms of Todd content.

That being said, I absolutely enjoyed this review too.  Despite changing his style up a bit, it’s still good to see Todd make angry reviews of very bad pop song.  Along with the side by side of the “Dumb and Dumber” clip, my favorite part was Todd pointing out “That motherfucker is scared of the dark.” as the reason Lewis Capaldi is sad about her being gone at night.

[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

So I've been thinking about doing one of these again since its been three years since I last retrospected my previous year end lists.  What better time than now to go ahead and get a head start on that:

2016

 

Movies:

Jesus.  What a worst list.  Honestly, wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole because everything on that list is practically perfect rankwise, although Suicide Squad would definitely be a super close number eleven.  Even Norm at number one.  Which has become a recurring meme from yours truly.  It's still the worst animated movie of the 2010s.  Yes, even worse than The Emoji Movie.

The best list on the other hand.  I know one change I would absolutely make.  Moana was at #10.  I still love Moana, don't get me wrong.  But one of my honorable mentions should have taken that spot instead.  And honestly, it should have been very high on my best list.  Like #4 if I could rerank it.  Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.  What an amazing movie and honestly I like it more than This Is Spinal Tap in regards to music industry mockumentaries.  Check it out if you haven't yet.

 

TV:

Wouldn't change a thing about the rankings themselves, but note to self.  Never do a ranking with all GIFS ever again.  What an eye sore.

 

 

Music:

Saving the biggest thing I would redo for last.  Because good lord was I overly negative about 2016 in regards to hit music.  Like don't get me wrong.  This was a bad year.  But it was not nearly as bad as I made it out to be.  I'm not going to reveal where I would rank it in regards to the decade because I'm saving a decade end rankdown for movies and music for my decade end project.  But if you want what 2016 was in hindsight quality wise, except worse?  Well that was 2018 in a nutshell.  2016 didn't deserve the scathing torching demolition I gave it.  A 30 something long dishonorable mention list?  How over the top.

It was still one of the lower years of this decade quality wise though.  And honestly, the worst list needs a little revision:

10. One Call Away

9. Hide Away

8. Sit Still, Look Pretty

7. Just Like Fire

6. Pop Style

5. Unsteady

4. Lost Boy

3. i hate u i love u

2. Treat You Better

1. PILLOWTALK

So as you can see, number one and number two are still locked in place.  Honestly, those are two of the worst songs of this decade to me.  But everything else?  Absolutely different.  i hate u i love u is supremely insufferable.  Lost Boy has become more of a joke.  Unsteady and Just Like Fire still suck big fat ones.  And clearly, my thoughts on Daya's Hide Away are still bad, but Sit Still Look Pretty is the even more vapid song.  Hearing it at work more has done it no favors.  Such an obnoxiously insufferable song.

But man did I undersell how much I hated Pop Style in that thread.  My hatred goes far beyond that Chaining Tatum line.  It's just a monotonous bore of a song.  And Jay is barely given a damn thing to do and Kanye's guest verse SSSSUUUCCCCKKKKSSS.  And One Call Away is such an utter bore.  2016 may have been the year that Batman v Superman killed Superman's character, but at least he has character.  Unlike the joke that was Charlie Puth in 2016.  Such a hack of a song.

 

As for the best list?  Honestly, most of those rankings are still the same.  Maybe shuffle around a spot or two.  Although with one noticeable change, so here is that updated:

1. I Took a Pill in Ibiza

2. Stressed Out

3. Roses

4. Into You

5. Starboy

6. Can't Feel My Face

7. Closer

8. In the Night

9. Sorry (Beyonce)

10. Wildest Dreams

You read that right.  I've finally come fully around to embracing Closer.  All I needed was a few years away from the song to really embrace it for the slightly hacky, yet millenial anthem that it truly is.  Love the song.  The Chainsmokers fifteen seconds of fame may finally be over with all of their underperforming songs on the charts as of late, but they have undeniably three great songs to their names.

Not even going to go over how so many of my honorable mentions don’t hold up three years later.  For example, “Can’t Stop the Feeling” and “Side to Side” were on there in 2016.  Wouldn’t even come close if I completely redid it now.

 

Coming up next?  2017.  Stay tuned for that.

[Wumbo Ranks Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Charts! (Ahhh, the deed is done.)]

13 hours ago, 4EverGreen said:

Unpopular opinion time, but I actually like SOME of Nickelback's output (from 2001-2009), and they are NOT the worst excuse for music in HISTORY!  I'd say WHAT it is, but every time I do, some INTERNET troll inevitably comes around and gets 'Butthurt' about my opinion, SOMEHOW making it wrong!  In any case, I think "Someday" is a good song, but I can respect why it's not to your liking. Outkast's "Hey Ya" is probably going to top the charts this year, or at least be on the top ten. Enough said, true believers! 

Maybe if you didn’t post the same vapid comment over and over and over and over and over again, people would stop speaking out about it?  Just a thought.

Great list as always Wumbo.  Can’t wait to see what’s on the best list for this supremely nostalgic year to me.

[Best and Worst of Entertainment 2019 Edition: The List Jedi]

I hope that pun subverted your expectations.

As the end of the year draws near, thought I’d go ahead and make the topic ten days early since I’ll be fairly busy over the next week.

You all should know the drill by now as to what this yearly topic is about.  But in case you don’t, this topic is a group project where you all write your best and worst of the year lists for any format of entertainment.  Whether it be movies, music, television, video games, albums, commercials...anything you want.  Hell its going to be a much busier list season than normal with the decade end one coinciding with the annual one. But juggling both will give me all the more to write about this year.

And just like last year, I’m just sticking to movies and music.  I was able to watch a little more television this year due to streaming becoming that much larger this year, but in all honesty, I just don’t want to go overboard with too many lists to write.  Hell I still need to finish my Best 2010s Television List.  Might make an abbreviated list with no descriptions for 2019, but we’ll see.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing you all participating as always.  See you all soon with lists, lists, and even more lists.

[Pokemon, bitch]

In the middle of the Champions Cup.  Here’s my team all at Level 60:

Corviknight

Bewear

Flygon

Barraskewda

Grimmsnarl

Chandelure

 

You read that right.  No starters.  First time I’ve ever done a Pokémon game without one.  Tried to challenge myself and for the most part, I feel I’ve succeeded. 

[Best and Worst of Entertainment: The 2010’s Decade End Lists]

Still working on my television best list because I don’t want to miss out on some of the great shows of this decade.

But for my music lists, well...

https://www.billboard.com/charts/decade-end/hot-100

The 2010s decade end list is officially out.  Time to work on that too!

[The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 3: Sponge on the Run News]

As great as the CGI looks and for as much as I got a chuckle out of Patrick betting on what he thought was a L.  I’m sorry guys.  This movie does not look good.  At all.

Serious question.  Is it possible for Nickelodeon to make a SpongeBob movie that’s not about him losing something?  First, Neptune’s Crown.  Then, the formula.  Now, Gary.  And I just felt a lot of rehashing going on all around from the previous two movies. Reusing the burger mobile from the first movie to SpongeBob and Patrick going on another road trip to the two of them experiencing a sugar high on cotton candy.  Hell even the Keanu Reeves cameo doesn’t surprise me in all honesty.  It felt like having David Hasselhoff playing an important role in the first movie all over again, except for the fact that Keanu Reeves is a thousand times more like likeable.  Add onto the fact that they are ditching their own canon for how SpongeBob met Gary, just so they can inter promote that brand new spinoff in the works that nobody is looking forward to.  I just disagree with a lot of the decisions that are being made in this movie.

I’m probably still going to see it regardless thanks to being on AMC’s A-List, but in all honesty, I’m looking forward to that other animated movie coming out in May 2020 from one of my other favorite childhood cartoon properties (SCOOB!) at least ten times more than this.

[SCOOB!]

Jinkies!  They let Scooby talk in this trailer ten times more than Fred, Daphne, and Velma combined.

As such a huge Scooby-Doo fan, I’m more than willing to give this a shot.  After all, it already looks so much better than all the live action adaptations already. 

[Soul]

Onward looks fine and all, but after one minute of that teaser, this movie had me sold.  What gorgeous animation and Jamie Fox’s voice telling the audience “Don’t waste your time on the junk of life.” and “We only got a short time on this planet.”....I felt that.

That being said, I still need to see more about the whole “out of body soul” plot because that part of the animation feels a little too “Inside Out” for my taste.  Not helping is that Pete Docter is involved with this too.

But still, I’m game.

[Clappy Was Here]

On 10/23/2019 at 7:20 PM, Katniss said:

Oh yeah, I loved the actress who played Kate. She was great and I enjoyed that her character was funny while also having emotional depth.

  Reveal hidden contents

That ending though...there’s gotta he a second season, right?? Also the Tom Brady cameo killed me lmao

 

Yeah that was one hell of a cliffhanger to end the season.  I think it was definitely not the clone’s, but it will be interesting to see what happens next season since I genuinely can’t picture where the series will go from here.

And yeah that Tom Brady cameo was hilarious.  Especially with how awkward it was that the Patriots owner got busted at a “happy ending” spa earlier this year.

[Kev vs. Lady Gaga's ARTPOP (The R. Kelly Version)]

Oh boy.  Part 2.  Where Kevin tackles one of his old favorites that he used to torture me back in 2013.

 

 

[Unpopular opinions you have]

Don't know if I've stated this unpopular opinion yet or not, but Pokemon Go is still a great mobile game three years after the fad died out.  I re-downloaded it about a year ago and it's even more addicting now than it was then.  Plus the game not completely crashing as often as it did three years ago is another huge plus.

[Music contest!!!!]

Sounds like I'm the winner.  Terminoob picked my song after all, which is one more vote than everyone else got.

 

What a relic of a thread though, for real.