Keep it down in there!

Doing preliminary research for my top 10 best and worst songs lists, and holy wow. Since I'm combining pop and country, I'll have no trouble picking 10 best hit songs, but I'll certainly have no trouble picking 10 worst ones either. Well, I won't in that there were approximately 144.2 terrible hit songs this year, but I will in that most of them are terribly boring. OMG. How do you choose between one boring thing and another? And how do you do it before you fall asleep??? These are the things bloggers must deal with. It's a heavy load, lemme tell you.

I already wrote a bit about the "death" of hip-hop - not that the genre's dead, but most of the hit songs are so lifeless. Not just hip-hop, but a lot of pop too. I'm calling it "library music," because it sounds like everyone's trying to make as little noise as possible. Whispery, barely there vocals. Beats so weak, you could produce more sonic thunder tiptoeing across a shag carpet in bedroom slippers. It's like everything has been muffled by a giant pillow. I don't get it. This is music, not story time. Crank that shit!

I'm not talking about ballads that are supposed to be quiet. But even ballads need to have energy. There's a place for softer music, even in pop. But it still needs to sound full in its quietness. It needs to resonate, somehow. So much from this year just sounds like nothing. Ambient noise with something that may or may not be human intoning their grocery list over it. Do robots even have grocery lists? Are they just the word "batteries" over and over? These are the important questions we must consider when making these lists.

And country... oh God, country. We'll see what impact Chris Stapleton and his brand of actual-music has on mainstream country - I hope to GOD it's not just a Timberlake-infused fluke - but most of the year was really, really dull. Like, the kind of songs you forget right after hearing them. Or even in the middle of them. "What am I listening to again? ... oh yeah." And five minutes later, forgotten. This is where making a worst list gets hard. Anything I forgot so quickly must be bad, but how can I remember to put it on the list if I forgot it??

Yeah, it's that kind of year. I mean, did I listen to "Nothin Like You" by Dan + Shay? Probably...? Did I like it? Did I hate it? I can't even remember if I heard it! "Gonna" by Blake Shelton? Wow, great title bro. There's one for the ages. "I'm Comin Over" by Chris Young? Well, that one I vaguely remember... actually I don't. I don't remember how the song goes at all. What I do remember is my disappointment that a great talent like Chris Young is making music so mediocre and instantly forgettable. This is the guy who did "Drinkin Me Lonely" and "Neon," two of my favorite modern country songs. "Already Callin You Mine" by Parmalee? I don't think I've heard this one, but does it matter? If there's anyone that exemplifies bland, forgettable music, it's Parmalee. Not egregiously bad, like FGL - egregiously dull. Stubbornly mediocre.

This stuff brings new meaning to "disposable." It's literally in one ear and out the other. One of the hugest stars in the world right now is Drake, who I've found quite charismatic in interviews, but where's that charisma in his music? Every song I've heard is just this low, flat nothing. Flatline Bling. Hahahahaha. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that. Screw you, internet, I said it anyway. It's only unoriginal if you didn't actually think of it yourself!

So yeah. There's a lot of dull dreck that won't make my list. I might pick one especially boring* song from each genre to represent this sad trend.

*can something be especially, boring, or does that automatically make it interesting?