Top 30 Artists of 2011:         #7 – Rihanna 

Total Points –             213

Charted Songs:

6          S&M – Rihanna           95 points

34        We Found Love – Rihanna Featuring Calvin Harris   67 points

57        Only Girl (In The World) – Rihanna   44 points

94        Fly – Nicki Minaj Featuring Rihanna  7 points

Last Year’s Rank:     1

Rihanna…what can I say about her that someone else hasn’t said? Everything ranging from her being amazing to her being awful. Her videos tend to be fun and her live performances have gotten more theatrical post-GaGa making everything a bit more visually stunning. She had a lot of hits, but “S&M” dominated the front half and “We Found Love” dominated the second half. Interestingly, she’s only 7 on my list. Meaning there was clearly some more influencial and prolific people.

Not the point.

Rihanna is good. She has one Grammy by herself (for “Only Girl (in the World)” and three others in collaboration. I forgot that she was in “Run this Town” which is a very catchy song. Interestingly, she never won any American award for “Love the Way You Lie.”

I loved this performance from I.aM.Me, who deserved their win on ABDC.

Total Points: 280
Charted Songs: “What’s My Name” (ft. Drake) – #98 “Rude Boy” – #74 “Russian Roulette” – #44 “Love the Way You Lie” – #6 “Only Girl (In the World)” – #3

I’ve gotten into many discussions about Rihanna’s voice. It’s very…original. She has the Barbadian accent no matter what she sings, but she does have an actual vocal range as well. I think the main point of Rihanna by the end of 2009 and going into 2010 was that she could bounce back from the whole Chris Brown/Domestic Violence snafu.

Her album Rated R was darker, but with that she probably produced my favorite slow song from her: “Russian Roulette.” Interestingly, Ne-Yo had a hand in writing it. It’s dark and edgy.

Notice though that “Only Girl (In the World)” still ranked higher. I think Rihanna’s voice is best fit for the club/dance floor and she really should just stay there. Yeah, I mean I like her slow and mid-tempo songs, but I still love blasting “Breaking Dishes.”

Fashion-wise, I remember Rihanna when she started back in “Pon de Replay” and she was wearing jeans and an interesting bra/top. I give her credit for becoming more original in her clothes, but she’ll never become a Lady GaGa. I appreciate her attempts at edgy clothing though. I also appreciate that she does more tasteful clothing when she was at more prestigious awards shows.

Random Bonus: Apparently Rihanna did a small nod to the song “Airplanes” when she was on tour:

Interestingly, I liked her version better, and she sang it for like three seconds.

Eminem was one of those artists that I thought would slowly fade away when he decided to care for his children. I mean I’d assume that he’d show up on guest spots here and there. But somehow, Eminem and Enrique Iglasias reemerged in the same year. Then the Backstreet Boys and NKOTB came together to create ultimate boy band? It was like my childhood all over again. Granted both Eminem and Enrique benefited from relevant artists (Rihanna and Pitbull respectively)

I saw the piece of Eminem on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper and I really thought that Anderson did a horrible job. I really was hoping he’d ask better questions than: So I hear you can rhyme the word “orange.” One would think that Anderson (of all people) would be ballsy to ask any questions about homophobia.

There were tons of parodies, but one of my favorite groups that do parodies has to be The Key of Awesome and their parody of “Love the way you lie” was really good. Their take on Rihanna was hysterical:

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.