Jake Zavracky returns for another analysis of this week's top of the Hot 100. Find out if his own music is any good by listening to it here.
5. Rihanna - "Diamonds"
Rihanna remains in the top 5 this week with "Diamonds", and the song remains the only song in the top 5 that doesn't sound like 11 different people wrote it. In this case, "only" 4 people wrote it - Benny Blanco, Sia, and the production team known as StarGate, who are two Norwegian guys who have produced every song to hit the top ten for the last 7 years and who are also probably responsible for the song sounding subtly Norwegian. Norwegians are very subtle after all. They're not going to come out and hit you over the head with their Norwegian-ness. They're going to slowly subvert your American way of life, until you suddenly find one day you're constantly eating lingonberries, wearing black eye makeup, and saying things that sound a little sad and that don't really make any sense when translated into English.
4. Taylor Swift - "I Knew You Were Trouble"
Taylor Swift's new album is not available to Spotify users, which means that in order to review a song from it I have listen to it on YouTube, which also means that I will have to sit through a 30 second commercial before I can hear it, and usually it's one of those tedious Sprint ads with the chick on the pink motorcycle who recently underwent an image change from girl-next-door type to badass biker chick, probably due to some sort of market research conducted by Sprint which indicated that America is not interested in having their women characterized as the generic girl next door, but rather a strong woman capable of riding a motorcycle, but just to be safe, let's make her a Barbie doll version of that and have her donning a hot pink Biker Barbie outfit; and then when the commercial ends the video version of the Taylor Swift song starts with 2 minutes of Taylor Swift doing some wholly extraneous spoken word-y voice-over which is basically incomprehensible and the tone of it has absolutely nothing to do with the ensuing relatively cheery pop song, and so by the time the song actually starts I am already really mad at Taylor Swift.
And after all that it's not a very good song. So I think Taylor Swift owes me an apology.
3. The Lumineers - "Ho Hey"
It seems that every time I truly despise a song, America keeps it in heavy rotation just to spite me.
Out of sheer fascination, I listened to portions of the Lumineers eponymous album to see what the giant fucking deal was; why America is pooping its pants over this exhausting song, and the majority of the album is actually not bad. There's certainly been worse things to reach the top. I can understand why people would want to listen to it, especially if they prefer, as people seem to, to not be challenged or stimulated in any way. A preference which is certainly accommodated with "Ho Hey".
2. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - "Thrift Shop"
Thrift Shop is this weeks pacesetter, which is Billboard's designation for the biggest percentage of growth from the previous week. In other words, it's blowing up. As it should be, it's wicked fun.
Well done, America.
1. Bruno Mars - "Locked Out of Heaven"
"Locked Out Of Heaven" remains at number one for the 73rd week in a row. The song was written and produced by 6 different people, which is a lot. Probably as a result of that, the song sounds, to me, like a complete mess that doesn't go anywhere, so its reign at the top of the charts is mystifying to me, but as usual, my ability to gauge what America will like is woeful, as it appears that this song is going to be number one for the rest of time.
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Next week: Will America make me write about Justin Bieber again? Will the top 5 ever change or is it going to stay like this for the next 4 months? Check back here to find out.
--JAKE ZAVRACKY
--JAKE ZAVRACKY
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