2006: #7 - "So Sick"

In the meta-ballad "So Sick", the main character of the song (played by the always smooth Ne-Yo, in a particularly restrained but effective performance) sings another sad love song to lament all the other sad (and slow) love songs he hears on the radio, presumably because they remind him of an ex-girlfriend, but possibly also because they tend to be boring, unmelodic wastes of time that merely exist to give pop performers a chance to over-emote and whine through a song that shows their "serious" side.

"So Sick", produced by the once-hot Stargate ("Irreplaceable", "Tattoo", several other Top 10 hits not really worth mentioning), has two things most other modern ballads do not - honesty and melody. While the former is refreshing, truth is hardly a prerequisite for quality music, as fans of Ice-T, Johnny Cash, Judas Priest and "Party In the U.S.A." could attest to. So where this one mainly stands out is melody, and in a very unfussy, cool way, "So Sick" hits all the right notes, making it just bright enough to avoid sounding self-pitying, and just sad enough to work as it was intended to lyrically. Ne-Yo doesn't even have to show off to get the idea across - the song does it for him.