1) Sean Kingston - Fire Burning

A fat faux-reggae kid singing to a sample to “Stand By Me.” Can you believe it? On paper, Sean Kingston didn’t seem like a big candidate to be a hit. I mean Sean Paul had sexy lyrics and Shaggy had that muffled voice. Nonetheless, he’s succeeded and kudos. He’s made number one on my list.

I think RedOne had a great few years with Kat Deluna’s “Whine Up,” both Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face” and “Just Dance,” and “Fire Burning.” And he’s not that bad looking either…ahem where was I?

A lot of times I think that the music video can make an “okay” song. I think that in this case, Sean Kingston didn’t need to even have a music video. I can think of several summer jams that I can’t remember the music video to (Gold Digger, Anything by Cascada, anything by Kat DeLuna). So I’ll admit that I only recently had the chance to watch the music video. I have no clue what the multi-decade dancers had to do with anything. It was almost as if someone created an invite that said, “Wear clothes from your favorite decade! But make sure you can dance battle wearing these clothes!” I don’t get what what it has to do with the song (I guess different styles can be like fire on the dance floor if it’s that good), but I also laugh that only four (White) people came to represent west coast swing/jive/jitterbug.

The music video really didn’t matter though, this was one of those songs that had an amazing run on the radio. It gained club play and just kept going.

My biggest problem with Sean Kingston is his lack of consistancy with his music. I liked “Beautiful Girls” and “Me Love,” and “Face Drop” was okay. The rest of his songs never made much of an impact on me. He needs to either work with better producers for a more consistant sound or ennergy. I like his style and some of his products but when someone like Iyaz can sing “Replay” and it sounds basically like the same pop/reggae/reggaeton hybrid, Sean Kingston is losing ground.

Either way, Sean Kingston was my biggest song for 2009. It made it to my car back in like May, and it never left until November. That’s 7 months of the same song, and I wasn’t tired of it.