the top ten best hit songs of 2011 (VIDEO)

And here we are - great list to put together, really happy y'all seemed to enjoy watching it, and it's the last of the retro lists finished for the 2010s!

Next up, I've got an episode of Resonators coming so stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2011

You know, I've said a number of times that my favourite lists to make are the top ten hits of any respective year, mostly because I have peculiar taste when it comes to my favourites and any chance to compliment songs people have actually heard... well, it's a nice boost. And once this is done - and with the exception of 2019 - I will have created these top tens for every year in the 2010s, and given that seemingly everyone is doing a retrospective, it does feel nice to place everything back in context.

But really, if you're examining 2011 in any way, shape, or form, it's a year that defies easy contextualization. Generally a really good year - although I still give a slight edge to the best of 2012 and 2015 - but not one that seemed to fit with any specific trends or sounds. If anything, it felt more like a year dominated by personalities, from the dueling pop divas to the rise of Adele's thunderous 21, an album that seemingly defied all expectations with its success. Yeah, rock was kind of non-existent on the Hot 100 - and you could argue hip-hop was kind of a mixed bag sliding through transition from the club boom - but between pop, soul, R&B, and a surprisingly bright year for country, there was a lot to like about 2011. More importantly, it was a year where the great songs were consistently great, where I didn't even have much difficulty filling out a solid - albeit surprising - list of Honourable Mentions. As always, the songs had to debut on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end list in 2011 to qualify, so let's get things started with...

video review: 'love and war' by brad paisley

So this was a solid release. Not a great one - I wish it was - but a solid one all the same.

Next up, though, time to tackle some old business and it's bound to be controversial, so stay tuned!

album review: 'love and war' by brad paisley

I've been anticipating this album a fair bit more than even I expected. Hell, up until a few weeks ago I wasn't even aware Brad Paisley had a new project put together outside of a few scattered singles.

But the more I thought about it, the more I got intrigued by the possibilities Love & War represented for Brad Paisley, because I do like him a lot as an artist. He's got natural charisma and a sense of humor, he can write great hooks and shred like nobody's business, but most importantly, he's willing to take creative risks when it comes to the direction and subject matter of his material. People rag on albums like Wheelhouse and songs like 'Accidental Racist' for being thoroughly misconceived, but there's a part of me that prefers him taking big swings for the fences, because more often than not he can actually stick the landing. 'Southern Comfort Zone', 'Those Crazy Christians', 'Officially Alive', the collaboration with Eric Idle of all people 'Harvey Bodine', and especially the knockout deep cut 'Karate' show a real sense of wit and humor that might tilt silly, but remain endearing regardless. And when you realize how creatively stifled he felt on the otherwise solid Moonshine In The Trunk - even though for a chilled-out party album he had a fair share of great songs, especially 'American Flag On The Moon' - I was all for Brad Paisley taking time off and coming back hard. Because despite the deep state of confusion afflicting mainstream country, I'm sure he's been carefully listening to the indie scene acts taking big risks and taking copious notes. In other words, even despite being pretty lukewarm on the lead-off single 'Today', I had high hopes for Love Abd War - so what did we get?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 29, 2016 (VIDEO)

So this was way too much fun. No joke, I had more fun editing the 'meme' segment of this review than any other time I've edited a video - it was weird and zany and fun, I dug it! Might see more of it if more memes chart, I could do this Fantano homage pretty regularly (and yes, he did give me permission).

Next up, JoJo, and then Blackberry Smoke, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 29, 2016

So this week was weird. I'm not going to say it was a bad week - it definitely wasn't, there's enough quality coming up new that I'm not going to call this precisely bad - but there are both shifts and new arrivals that extend all the way to the top ten that deserve some investigation, so this episode might run long, for as strange as things are...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 13, 2016 (VIDEO)

As I said, better late than never.

Next up, Dream Theater - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 13, 2016

So you know how I've been predicting things were going to get seriously unstable on the Hot 100 for a while now? Well, we've got a big one this week - major shifts in the Top 10 including a new number one, a ton of major shifts up and down, and a big crop of new entries... a shame more of them aren't better, but we'll get to that. Of course, Billboard also exacerbated the situation with a choice to shift their chart formula to better temper the impact of streaming, which they did by slightly shifting the balance in favour of sales. So how did that turn out?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 16, 2015 (VIDEO)

Overall, it was a better week than expected. Shame most of hip-hop is in the shitter in the mainstream right now, but you can hope for the future.

Next up, probably Chris Stapleton and finally - finally - Sufjan Stevens. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 16, 2015

So remember when I was lamenting last week that the expected chaos after the collapse after a long-running #1 didn't happen? Turns out I should have just waited one week, because we might have one of the busiest weeks on the Hot 100 I've seen in a long time. Massive gains, sizeable losses and dropouts, a slew of new and returning tracks, and even new entries to the Hot 100 that show that even if the #1 slot might be safe, everything beneath it sure as hell isn't. And in some cases, that instability might end up being a good thing.

video review: 'moonshine in the trunk' by brad paisley

Man, this album should have been so much better. Still good, but there's was potential for something awesome here that just wasn't realized.

Okay, next up... well, I want to talk about LMNO, but I should probably take a look at Mick Jenkins before everyone starts screaming for me to cover another Maroon 5 record. Stay tuned!

album review: 'moonshine in the trunk' by brad paisley

So I want you all to imagine that you're a world-famous country singer. Easy enough, I know, but imagine that you've managed to release a series of critically well-received records, albums that straddled commercial and critical appeal... and yet, you want to go further. You want to push the boundaries of country music while still maintaining commercial accessibility to country radio. You've already released a well-received instrumental album, but you're not willing to give up airplay to be that weird, at least not in your instrumentation. In the mean time, you're kind of stuck and very quickly getting bored with your genre of choice. What do you do?

Many critics have hypothesized this is the internal dichotomy Brad Paisley is struggling with right now. Ever since the mid-2000s, he's been straining and pushing at the edges of what is traditionally defined as mainstream country, adding more instrumentation and songwriting subjects, which culminated in last year's album Wheelhouse, a release largely overshadowed by 'Accidental Racist' with LL Cool J, a song attempting to tackle race relationships and pissing off everyone.

But people who have followed this series likely know that I didn't dislike Wheelhouse as an album - in fact, it featured two songs that featured highly on my year-end list of my favourite songs of the year, 'Karate' and 'Southern Comfort Zone', and there were other songs on that album that were close to the list too. The fact is that Brad Paisley as a songwriter still has a knack for a ridiculously catchy hook, a decent bit of lyrical nuance, and some interesting instrumentation and production - if he releases a record, at least it's not going to be boring.

So even though I wasn't impressed at all by his debut single 'River Bank', I made sure to give his new album Moonshine In The Trunk a lot of attention: how is it?

the top 50 best songs of 2013 (PART TWO: 25-1)

Whew, that takes care of that.

Last one is the long-awaited albums of the year - stay tuned!

the top 50 best songs of 2013

Some of you are probably scratching your heads with confusion at the title of this list and wondering, 'Wait, didn't he already make this exact same list a few days ago?' Well, this list is significantly different than the last one, mostly because we're no longer talking about the hits. No, these are the songs, singles or otherwise, that appeared on the albums I listened through this year and stuck with me. They aren't the hits - most of you might not recognize the songs I mention, but all of them bear the highest of my personal recommendations. That's right, from the 135 albums I reviewed this year, these were my favourite songs. I'm not segregating them by genre or success - singles or deep cuts all have a chance to make this list, which was initially reduced from thousands down to 436, which was then narrowed down to fifty. And believe me, even with that I had to make some painful cuts, and what is on this list will surprise you. So, without any more delay, here are my Top 50 Songs of 2013! Let's get started!

album review: 'wheelhouse' by brad paisley

Oh boy, I did not expect this.

And really, as I return to Nashville to tackle my third country album review this month, I can be allowed to say that pretty nobody before this album could have expected this. Even with knowledge of the current country scene, nobody could have expected this sort of thing to come up, least of all around Brad Paisley of all people. 

For those of you who inevitably don't know who Brad Paisley is, a quick introduction. You're forgiven for not recognizing him amongst the onslaught of male country singers - as I've said before, there are a lot of them still active right now, and frankly, the majority of them don't have enough personality to stand out against the crowd. Fortunately for us all, Brad Paisley has a lot of personality, and between his personality, his sense of humour, and his incredible guitar skills, he does stand out against the crowd of Jason Aldeans and Eric Churches and Luke Bryans. And while I wouldn't quite put him on the level of The Zac Brown Band, or the true country legends like Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley does pretty well for himself.

But if I'm being completely honest, I've never taken Brad Paisley all that seriously, and most of his material really reflects why. He's a joker with a gift for writing excellently constructed silly songs, and that's all I've ever seen of him. He's not making grand statements or delving into philosophy - to me, he's always been on the borderline of being a comedy act.

And then he released his ninth album Wheelhouse - and the Internet exploded.