Image via ABC

For Week One of Dancing with the Stars, Celebrities are always given the Cha-Cha as the Latin dance and usually given the choices of Waltz/Foxtrot/Viennese Waltz as their Ballroom dance. Season 12 will be having the Foxtrot as the ballroom. There was an obvious trend that one could look at, the latter season winners were not given the Cha-Cha during week one. Season 1 is an odd outlier and I will explain Season 7. First let’s look at what the winners have:

Season 1 – Kelly Monaco – Waltz
Season 2 – Drew Lachey – Cha-Cha
Season 3 – Emmitt Smith – Cha-Cha
Season 4 – Apolo Ohno – Cha-Cha
Season 5 – Hélio Castroneves – Foxtrot
Season 6 – Kristi Yamaguchi – Foxtrot
Season 7 – Brooke Burke – Cha-Cha
Season 8 – Shawn Johnson – Waltz
Season 9 – Donny Osmond – Foxtrot
Season 10 – Nicole Scherzinger – Viennese Waltz
Season 11 – Jennifer Grey – Viennese Waltz

I’m convinced that Brooke was not what ‘American Idol’ forum posters called ‘The Chosen One.’ I’m convinced that Misty May & Maks were the front-runners and they had the Foxtrot, since they had to bow out, the votes got dispersed to all the other people and Derek’s following and Brooke’s competency helped Brooke.

Why would someone want to delay the Cha-Cha? Although it can be considered the easiest of the Latin Dances, a good Cha-Cha can be visually stunning. Let’s take a look at Erin Andrews of Season 10. She performed a Cha-Cha in Week 1…

Sure, I thought the song didn’t fully help the cause, but Erin had a bit of wildness in her performance and didn’t have the refinement that you would have in the latter weeks. Erin got an opportunity to do the Cha-Cha in Week 10…

After weeks of practicing, and with things like the Jive and Samba out of the way Erin looked amazing especially after the fact that she just lost…hmm…well probably not the best comparison

So who has the Foxtrot first this season? Psycho Mike, Chelsea, Sugar Ray, Ralph, and Petra. Of the five Ralph has the best chance of winning.

On the other hand, all the drama-laden characters and more interesting types were given the cha-cha: Kendra, Kirstie, Wendy, Hines, Chris, and Romeo.

On a pure physicality level Kendra, Romeo, Chris, Hines, Chelsea, and Petra all seem more physically fit than the others. Kirstie and Wendy have more to love, Sugar Ray and Ralph are older than the rest of the contestants, and I wonder how much exercise a guy who sits behind a radio mic actually has.

From there, I’m taking a stab and thinking that two of the final three are Ralph and Kendra, both on opposing dance schedules for better visuals near the end. The third is a toss up between Romeo, Chris, and Petra. After the first dance, I will gauge potential.

Still not exactly sure how it works, but I’m going with it.

“Jar of Hearts” is 2010′s little engine that could. The song was plucked from obscurity by choreographer Stacey Tookey for a performance on ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’ Out of nowhere, the song started to be downloaded on Amazon and iTunes and whoosh, Christina Perri was signed to Atlantic records. I doubt that without the push from a summer reality show, Christina Perri would never have hit 25 on the Billboard chart, let alone be signed to a real record label.

The performance was one of those dances that proved that the “All-Star” format worked as well. Someone like Billy, who arguably danced a bit too feminine, managed to shine.

The song has very haunting lyrics and there is a raw nature to it that has a strong connectivity. Did I mention how much I lyrics?

La Roux
Total Points: 83
Charted Songs: “Bulletproof” – #18

La Roux kind of popped up with a really catchy techno-pop sound. “Bulletproof” fit right into that Lady GaGa, Ke$ha sound and one thing that was wonderful was the music video. I only got to see it a few times on Fuse, but I watched it several times on youtube. It’s always nice to see that a newer generation of artists understand the usefulness of a good music video.

The song is horribly catchy. It’s synthesized background matched perfectly with the slightly whiney vocal execution. I think without the background synth sounds that were very 80s-video game, I would have found Eleanor Kate Jackson’s vocals to be a bit annoying. It’s not say…reality competition vocals, but it fits perfectly in that techno/pop sound. The occasional auto-tune warble does make me a bit nervous, what does she really sound like?

The song regained a bit more momentum when I heard the song again on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ when Evan & Anna performed a “futuristic” (read: ‘The Fifth Element’) Cha-Cha. It saved Evan because he still danced a bit…well, robotic, so it benefitted him to stay kind of rusty.

36. Jason Derulo – (71 Points) Jason had more of an impact early into 2010, thus leading him to be a bit forgotten in the second half of 2010. He also showed up on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ to promote an already dead song, which was really odd as well.

Charted Songs:
“In My Head” – #52
“Ridin’ Solo” – #79

35. Cee Lo Green – (74 Points) - “Fuck You” is an amazing song and it was horribly catchy. Then the song got cleaned up… and then used on ‘Glee.’ I still love the original version tons more. It has an old school Motown feeling to it, yet with really modern day references. You don’t know how utterly happy I am to see that the song got nominated for a Grammy, see a catchy hook and the abuse of the word “Fuck” is a good thing sometimes.

Charted Songs:
“F**k You” – #27

34. 2PM – (76 Points) The Korean boy band got a big boost because I saw them in concert with the Wonder Girls. Yeah, they are as attractive as their music videos showed them as. That and their songs are really catchy, even when I don’t know the words. One of my favorite covers this year on YouTube was this really good medley/mash-up:

Charted Songs:

“Without U” – #41
“Heartbeat” – #85

33. Wonder Girls – (78 Points) I didn’t plan that the Wonder Girls and 2PM would have charted so close. It was all about the scoring system since they only had one song, but it was more impactive (Op, I used that word again! MS Word is going to hate me!) in my head than two 2PM songs. It was cool to see them in concert and I’ve gotten used to having Lim in the group. Having the number 23 song would have landed the Wonder Girls in the top last year, but they didn’t release anything after “Two Different Tears,” instead focusing on world domination with the one song and constantly singing “Nobody.”

Charted Songs:

“Two Different Tears” – #23

With a tied score, two artists had 80 points: Enrique Iglesias and Natasha Bedingfield. As I mentioned in my video, I ranked Natasha higher based off of her best placement.

32. Enrique Iglesias – (80 Points) Enrique really was part of a whole ton of late 90s artists that surprised me and made a big impact on the 2010 music scene, unfortunately for him, it wasn’t enough for him to crack the top 30. His song, “I Like It” was horribly overplayed, so I may have been a bit sour about the whole song, but this actually benefitted Pitbull since I decided to allow full points to anyone in the song.

Charted Songs:
“I Like It (ft. Pitbull)” – #31
“Heartbeat (ft. Nicole Scherzinger)” – #91

31. Natasha Bedingfield – (80 Points) – Here is an artist that I really liked one song this year that seems like no one else liked. I believe that “Touch” is a very underrated song and it has a catchy beat. The song also shows a very wide vocal range for Beddingfield and a creative storytelling manner in the song. It’s like everything is magically connected.

Charted Songs:

“Touch” – #21

Just as a quick scoring chart, the number 30 artist has 83 points, and two artists had 68 points, putting them at 37/38. The songs and artists that made the top 30 had songs that were just heavily promoted and advertised or overplayed on my iPod.

And yes, that’s how i normally dress…

A video explaining my scoring system will be up soon.

Read the full review only on BlogCritics.Org

Either way, I found that compiling this list of songs actually gelled really easily. I’ll post a video on how quickly I put together the list (probably on the 1st or 2nd of January). Insert story of backwards E here.

Of course there were tons and tons of songs that were catchy that didn’t make the list. All the artists only show up once on this list so songs like “Halo,” “My Life Would Suck Without You,” “Funhouse,” S.O.S (Let the music play),” “Boom Boom Pow,” and “I Hate this part” didn’t make the list in lieu of songs by said artists that I deemed better or personally more favorable.

Five songs that didn’t make the list because I just found out about them:

5. Brad Paisley – Welcome To The Future – Okay, I’m not the biggest of Country music fans, but this song is oddly catchy. Brad has a strong voice and it’s accompanied by “futuristic sounds.” There’s a big plus because I like the references to Pac-Man and the Philippines.

(Click Read More to find out who else just barely missed the list)

4. Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes – I found this just wandering around other lists trying to get some ideas. I know that my list stays pretty close to the Top 100 list, but if I knew this song earlier, it would have made the list easily.

3. Adam Lambert - For Your Entertainment – I actually didn’t get a chance to see Adam’s performance on the AMA’s but after hearing all of the hoopla about it, I’m not going to. The song is catchy and the devil inside me loves the song. Don’t worry if you think Adam won’t make the list though.

2. Passion Pit - Sleepyhead – The combination of a very catchy sample, synth sounds, falsetto, and an interesting music video. I’m almost disappointed that the song is less than three minutes long.

1. Rihanna – Russian Roulette – I’m a little slow, I only noticed this song and watched the video. I was blown away. The song captures some of my emotions at the moment. I dunno why, but it does.