Top 30 Artists of 2011:         #15 – Kelly Clarkson

Total Points –             103

Charted Songs:

31        Mr. Know It All – Kelly Clarkson      70 points

68        Don’t You Wanna Stay – Jason Aldean With Kelly Clarkson            33 points

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

I don’t care that Kelly Clarkson has gotten fat. It doesn’t matter if she’s a bit chubby or not, she’s talented. If anyone remembered the first season of American Idol, Kelly was naturally a bit chubbier. She had the cute face. It doesn’t matter: she had the voice. She wins. Adele’s a bigger girl, but damn is she a sexy woman both with her voice and her strategic clothing choices. I know that Kelly got some smack for her dress that she wore prior in one of those bajillion awards shows, but I don’t care. She sounded great:

I recall having the weirdest dream where Kelly Clarkson was chasing me with a zombie dog singing “Mr. Know it All.” Random huh?

Woof.

Top 30 Artists of 2011:         #16 – Foster the people

Total Points -             100

Charted Songs:

1 Pumped Up Kicks – Foster The People        100 points

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

“Pumped up Kicks” is one of those songs that kinda popped up out of nowhere and just dominated. Another one of those damned whistle songs that popped up this year, just like “The Lazy Song,” and it just wouldn’t go away. The song is so catchy that people forgot that the song is actually about school shootings. Not that I have a problem with that, I mean things happen.

I’m afraid that Foster The People is quickly going to turn into a one-hit wonder, but they are good. If you’ve noticed, “Pumped Up Kicks” was ranked as the number one song for the year and it was a combination of the fact that they only had one hit and the fact that the song was prominent.

Yeah, here’s me doing this song:

Top 30 Artists of 2011: #21 – The Band Perry

Total Points -             94

Charted Songs:

7          If I Die Young – The Band Perry       94 points

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

The Band Perry reminds me of Lady Antebellum but without the longing. I loved their song “If I Die Young” but their song “You Lie” was just okay. It wasn’t to me a standout for either trying to hit the Pop/Top 40 section or the Country charts. To me “You Lie” was like someone’s bad high school assignment where they had to use a lot of similes.

Let’s go back to the positive side, “If I Die Young” is a song that has a message that I haven’t heard in a while. I mean not a lot of people talk about their deaths and how they want to be remembered, but talking about deaths that were sudden and how they were okay with everything. It’s something you don’t hear in a while. In our society with a lot of “It Gets Better” and such, maybe the song hits a chord a bit more for me, but I thought the arrangement of the song was great.

The biggest issue I had with this song wasn’t the song itself, but the way that radio stations tried their best to shoehorn the music to their stations. The top 40 stations placed a thumping backbeat as if that would help the song. I’m not sure if it really did. I mean I give a bit of forgiveness when New York’s WKTU plays dance-y remixes, but other stations shouldn’t be doing that.

I guess this song/band was an interesting choice for me to end my posts with for 2011. Talking about death and such, but you know I guess things are just timed well. This song always makes me wonder how much impact I actually make, you know?

Top 30 Artists of 2011: #22 – Colbie Caillat

Total Points –             94

Charted Songs:

46        I Do – Colbie Caillat   55 points

62        Brighter Than The Sun – Colbie Caillat          39 points

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

To me Colbie Caillat was that girl in high school that everyone knew, but no one hated. She managed to be chill with the right group of people and still got talked to by both dorks and popular kids alike. She has the chill friends like Jason Mraz and went hanging out at the beach with them guitar in hand singing kumbaya songs.

In this list, both of Colbie’s songs were just enough to get her on the list. She only edged out one song below the 50 marker and the other was just a bit over the 50 marker, and since I tend to award people who are prolific, Colbie kinda sneaks onto the list. Fun right?

I remember earlier this year hearing that she’d appear as another singer on The Playboy Club, but clearly you saw how that turned out. I don’t even know if her episode played (I hope she was in the first episode). But seeing that she was cast in a TV show shows that she has a lot of potential and people are willing to book her for things so she has the ability to get away from generic top 40 music.

Top 30 Artists of 2011: 24 Hot Chelle Rae

Total Points –             92

Charted Songs:

9          Tonight Tonight -  Hot Chelle Rae      (92 points)

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

La, La, La, Whatever. – That line basically sums up the whole song. The song’s pretty standard: work sucks, lets party this weekend. I’m convinced this song would mash-up/remix perfectly with Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” That’s it. The end.
Oh just because this post is so horridly short, here’s one of the best parodies:

Sadly, this parody group generally sucks because their singing is pretty awful. That’s right. I said it.

Top 30 Artists of 2011: #28 Ne-Yo

Total Points – 83

Charted Songs:

18 Give Me Everything – Pitbull Featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer (83 points)

Last Year’s Rank: N/A

Ne-Yo didn’t have to do anything this year, but just sit back and ride the wave of Pitbull. Granted, Pitbull does that a lot. Ne-Yo is still a smooth gentleman and just needs to sing a chorus. I know that Ne-Yo has done a lot of work in the background with musicians like Jennifer Hudson during the 2011 music year so it’s not like he was taking a break per se.

So the apparent title of Ne-Yo’s new album for 2012 is called The Cracks in Mr. Perfect and I really hope that while it uses the word “crack,” I hope that he still has some really “gentlemanly” music that is catchy and dancy.I just had the opportunity to actually listen to “The Way You Move” and the song is good, but the video is a bit typical.

I need this song to be mashed up with “Touch my Body” by Mariah Carey now.

So why isn’t Nayer getting any points? Because she’s not famous. She was grabbed from a contest that Pitbull held. Normally I’d argue that people are important parts and you can’t tell which person is bringing the magic, but in this song, any woman could whisper random words. Hell, Allison from Top Model could do that, but she’s actually famous. In a Creepy-chan kind of way.

Top 30 Artists of 2011:         #18 – Alexandra Stan

Total Points –             97

Charted Songs:

4          Mr. Saxobeat – Alexandra Stan          97 points

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

I love me some good techno-dance-pop and I think “Mr. Saxobeat” was the definition of some of the best techno that came out this year. I know I’ve forgotten a lot of techno dance songs this year, but the fact that I remembered “Mr. Saxobeat” was the really catchy saxophone section. There are parts of the song that remind me of my personal favorite from last year’s “Stereo Love” by Edward Maya including the fact that instead of saxophone, there’s an accordion. You know what? Let’s just keep dancing:

Top 30 Artists of 2011:         #19 – Christina Aguilera

Total Points -             96

Charted Songs:

5          Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5 Featuring Christina Aguilera 96 points

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

Dear Christina,

Please go back to your ballad singing ways. Experimenting with cool people like Sia may fit for one or two tracks of a CD, but you’re not gonna have a real career where you get to support your baby. Your strength is in your ballads, people want to hear that. Or even your mid-tempo pop. Like “Candyman” or hell at this point I’ll take “Fighter.” I mean, you can have edge and stuff, but you’re also a mom.  You know what? Just work with some other people for now and keep your name fresh, judge a few raw singers on The Voice and come back with their souls.

Don’t go the Britney route.

Please.

Love,

Paz

Top 30 Artists of 2011:         #20 – Kayne West

Total Points –             95

Charted Songs:

27        E.T. – Katy Perry Featuring Kanye West        74 points

80        All Of The Lights – Kanye West        21 points

Last Year’s Rank:     N/A

I still think that Kanye West is an arrogant and prickly person, but I can’t deny the fact that he’s good at what he does and has a very original sound (which is basically whiny bitch) I think he thinks he deserves things when he really doesn’t. The real question is if he wasn’t such a prick douchebag, would we still like him? I argue against that, if he turned a new leaf and actually found Jesus or something, I’d probably hate him more and think that he’s even more of a douchebag for trying too hard. No one will win.

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.