2008: Top 20

Here's the whole thing, for posterity.

20. "Get Like Me" - David Banner
19. "Sexual Eruption" - Snoop Dogg
18. "Take You There" - Sean Kingston
17. "Womanizer" - Britney Spears
16. "Just Dance" - Lady Gaga
15. "Whatever You Like" - T.I.
14. "Flashing Lights" - Kanye West
13. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" - Bruce Springsteen
12. "Lollipop (Remix)" - Lil Wayne
11. "Swagger Like Us" - T.I.
10.  "A Milli" - Lil Wayne
9. "Love Lockdown" - Kanye West
8. "Paper Planes" - M.I.A.
7. "The Boss" - Rick Ross
6. "My President" - Young Jeezy
5. "Pork and Beans" - Weezer
4. "Single Ladies" - Beyonce
3. "Royal Flush" - Big Boi
2. "Mr. Carter" - Lil Wayne
1. "Live Your Life" - T.I.

Artist of the Year: Lil Wayne, T.I. (tie)
Producer of the Year: Kanye West

2008: #1 - "Live Your Life"

Its ridiculously catchy (and did we mention ridiculous?) interpolation of an annoying European dance hit should have pushed "Live Your Life" toward novelty territory, banishing it toward the bottom of our Top 20, if anything. There's nothing musically unique about it; the skittering machine gun drums sound cool and all, and work well in combo with both Rihanna's icy, robo-babe Auto-Tune vocals and T.I.'s super laid back - and out-of-place - sermonizing, but we've heard those drums before, and in much older and better sounding songs. Maybe the coolest part is those little Casio keyboard organs that come in during the 2nd half of the chorus. Sure, they're kind of out of the ordinary for a Southern rap tune, but then again, when was the last time T.I. could really be considered Southern rap - unless he gets bonus points for recruiting a Barbadian to help sell his records.

Though, when 2007 ended, we knew without a doubt that this was my number one song of the year. It hadn't been played out yet, and it just made me feel good. Then when we were making this list, nearly two years later, we'd pushed it down as far as #7 or so. We hadn't heard it in a while, and though we knew it was good, nothing was really jumping out about it, at least as far as our memory was concerned. Somehow, when we returned to it once more as we were officially finalizing the list, despite its silliness, despite the obvious Rihanna guest appearance, despite T.I.'s inability to really say anything deeper than the titular slogan (though his rhyme scheme and phonetic gymnastics in the 2nd verse are awesome), it still manages to be an extremely moving and uplifting song. We realize this is a very negative review for a dude's #1 song of the year, so we'll shut up now and, like we've done on a few other occasions, steer you to the video link above so you can hear it for yourself.

2008: 20-2

Another recap... We'll have #1 up early next week, so you have a couple of days to guess what it is. The offer from last time still stands!

20. "Get Like Me" - David Banner
19. "Sexual Eruption" - Snoop Dogg
18. "Take You There" - Sean Kingston
17. "Womanizer" - Britney Spears
16. "Just Dance" - Lady Gaga
15. "Whatever You Like" - T.I.
14. "Flashing Lights" - Kanye West
13. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" - Bruce Springsteen
12. "Lollipop (Remix)" - Lil Wayne
11. "Swagger Like Us" - T.I.
10. "A Milli" - Lil Wayne
9. "Love Lockdown" - Kanye West
8. "Paper Planes" - M.I.A.
7. "The Boss" - Rick Ross
6. "My President" - Young Jeezy
5. "Pork and Beans" - Weezer
4. "Single Ladies" - Beyonce
3. "Royal Flush" - Outkast
2. "Mr. Carter" - Lil Wayne

2008: #2 - "Mr. Carter"

There were bigger hits ("Lollipop", "Get Money", "Mrs. Officer"), and a couple of songs that, on first listen, were instantly jaw-dropping ("A Milli", and the crown jewel of Lil Wayne's career thus far, "Let the Beat Build", which was not released as a single, and sadly did not qualify for this list).

But perhaps the defining and most memorable moment of Weezy's breakthrough album Tha Carter III (yes, "Tha" is in the actual title) was the extraordinarily quotable "Mr. Carter", featuring dueling verses by Wayne and another of hip hop's finest Mr. Carters - Jay-Z.

The production is fairly typical 00's stuff, almost like a leftover from the first Blueprint album, so the vocals are what make this track work. And it's not really the words they're saying that are so profound (the most noteworthy ones are grabbed from an old Jay-Z song and repeated by Wayne on the outro), but how they're saying them. The vocals actually become part of the track and lift it above its basic blueprint. That's how flawlessly the rhyming is executed, at least as far as we're concerned.

You almost have to listen for yourself to understand, because it looks pretty dumb on paper, but here's the best excerpt from Wayne's 2nd verse:

"Cause Wayne win and they lose
I call them April Babies cause they fools
And while they snooze

We up
Feet up like a paraplegia
Or paraplegic

Or parallel park
In that red and yellow thang old skool Atlanta Hawk
Like I'm from Colli Park

But I'm from Hollygrove
Now all my Bloods scream 'Su-Woo' and 'Da, Da Doe'
I know my role

And I play it well
And I weigh it well

On my Libra scale
I suck a pussy fuck a pussy leave it there
Long hair don't even care"

Trust us, it sounds sicker than it looks. And from Jay-Z's guest verse:

"Show no mercy in Murcielago's
I'm far from being the bastard that Marcy had fathered
Now my name's being mentioned with the martyrs
The Biggie's and the Pac's and the Marley's and the Marcuses

Garvey, got me a Molotov Cocktail flow
Even if you box well
Can't stop the blows
Kaboom, the Roc Boy in the room
The dope boy just came off the spoon
Also

I'm so fly 

I'm on auto
Pilot, while guys

Just stare at my wardrobe
I see Euros

That's right, plural
I took so much change from this rap game, it's your go"

Wow. Maybe none of it makes any sense to you, but it was music to our ears.

2008: #3 - "Royal Flush"

Big Boi, Raekwon and Andre 3000, together again. The last time these three teamed up - on 1999's "Skew It On the Bar-B" - we got snappy, hard, yet minimalist stuttering synth-funk, carried lyrically by such impressive, distinctively unique verses it was hard to pick a favorite. Right now, we'd go with Raekwon's, where he spends 45 seconds rhyming things with "hydro". But more on that at a later date.

Does "Royal Flush" live up to its predecessor? Of course it does; would it be #3 otherwise? Let's break down why. This time around the funk is even funkier, with a slower, harder beat and a more sinister synth-bass line that's actually as memorable as any Top 40 hook of the year. Big Boi shouts through a tight, angry verse (on President Bush: "Iraq, 'I that', now he gunnin' for Iran"), talks nuclear war and gives way to an Isley Brothers sample via Billy Ocean reference ("Billy Ocean/body floatin'/take a voyage to Atlantis"). After the "break", Raekwon is next, and he hands off almost as soon as the beat starts to build back up, as if to clear the way for Andre 3000.

Now, in the last decade, Andre has built up an image in the mainstream as a funky, silly, quirky, well-dressed, psychedelic, singing, dancing, acting, sensitive hippie rocker ladies-man - a cross between Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Prince and George Clinton, but a very minor version, taking only the most superficial and annoying elements of each legend. Perhaps this public perception holds some weight, but it's far from the whole picture. Before he stepped into the limelight as a fashion icon/movie star, Andre was considered to be one of the very greatest lyricists in hip hop history. And in the late 90's, he was THE king. Here he sets out to reclaim that throne.

For nearly two whole minutes, he owns this song. When he comes in during the third verse, percussion elements that were in the song earlier are actually removed from the beat, perhaps to give the audience a completely empty stage with a spotlight shone directly on the man. The man comes through in the clutch with one of his top 5 verses ever. It's funny, clever, deep, full of great metaphors, references, twists and turns, and some of his trademark pauses and oddball rhyming schemes. Please listen, as descriptions do not do it justice.

2008: #4 - "Single Ladies"

When we first heard "Single Ladies" - before it set the standard for electro-pop-R&B, before the video became an internet phenomenon, before the Kanye incident (btw, he was right - Beyonce so should have won) - we were like, "Why?"

Why is it all herky-jerky, like it's speeding up and slowing down at the same time? Why doesn't it just pick a rhythm and stay on it? Why does that screeching noise keep coming in and out? Why does that one synth note there sound wrong? Why don't I hear any bass? Why is such an angry, sad song so damn upbeat? Why is she kind of screaming in this part here? And why is she quoting Toy Story?

Why does it all sound so... odd? (Well, because.)

But now we're like, "Who cares?"

Whoa-oh-oh, oh-oh oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh!

2008: #5 - "Pork and Beans"

Another guilty pleasure here, as we'd officially written Weezer off about 6 years earlier, "Pork and Beans" delivered some of the best pop-rock hooks this side of Fall Out Boy, making it one of the few "modern rock" (whatever that means) songs to make any of our lists this decade. It's annoying, effortlessly catchy, tossed-off, half-rapped trifle, but it totally works.

And although "Pork and Beans" was hailed by critics as a "return to form" - the form being the radio-ready post-Nirvana power pop of their debut - we found it to be more of a combination of three things: their cheesy but delicious 2001 self-titled album (aka The Green Album, another guilty pleasure of ours); "Buddy Holly", which was sort of atypical to everything else on The Blue Album anyway; and "El Scorcho", from Pinkerton, which was annoying and tossed-off, and kind of stunk.

But this mostly ruled.

2008: #6 - "My President"

From the unexpectedly ethereal to the unexpectedly poignant, our next most favoritest song of 2008 is "My President" by Young Jeezy.

We have to admit that we fell hard for this song during our post-Election Day hangover, and while our actual president has disappointed us tremendously (though for the exact opposite reasons you'll hear spewed on the news or in the paper), "My President" has stayed fresh, even as that historic November night becomes a hazy memory.

Jeezy hits all the right notes here - it's catchy, it's uplifting, it's epic-sounding, it's serious, it's fun, it's witty, it's angry. It's surprisingly strong lyrically, too, with pseduo-political lines like "Be all that you can be/ Don't that sound like some dumb shit?/ When you die over crude oil/ Black as my nigga Boo" delivered the only way Jeezy knows how (loud), and held together by a 3rd verse by Nas that blows through the gate ("Our history/Black history/No president ever did shit for me") and coasts until the final triumphant chorus.

2008: #7 - "The Boss"

Upon first listen, "The Boss", might sound like a very solid, but uneventful, pop-crunk rap hit, complete with an appearance from the once-ubiquitous T-Pain. And wouldn't you think that poppy production from J.R. Rotem (who had previously worked with Rihanna and Sean Kingston, and since, Jason Derulo) would further blunt the force of Rick Ross's in-your-face bass telling standard issue tales of bling and various misdeeds with women? You would, and you would be wrong.

Built on a drum loop of The Beastie Boys' skeletal "Paul Revere", and anchored by an almost horrifically eerie choir of pitch-shifted gospel singers that sounds like a 30's film soundtrack on helium, Rotem's track shifts the focus away from Ross entirely, which is a brilliant move here. Amongst the creepy production, Ross's actual voice is more important than the story he tells. And because his rhyming, timing and presence are great, while his lyrics are not, this is a positive thing.

The only misstep for us is the inclusion of T-Pain on the choruses; it seems tacked on, typical, and slightly crass. Without him, this glorious song and its Flaming Lips meets Gravediggaz meets The Wizard of Oz vibe (though not as cartoonishly bad as that sounds) could have been even higher on our list.

2008: #8 - "Paper Planes"

If "Boom Boom Pow" was the weirdest chart hit of 2009, then international star M.I.A.'s U.S. breakthrough single "Paper Planes" - with its impenetrable lyrics, genre-defying sound and hooky yet impossible-to-sing-along-to chorus - was the weirdest of 2008.

It took a couple of appearances in hit movies, another appearance on a chart-topping hip hop album, some playful borrowing from a new jack swing-era rap hit, and a perfectly executed Clash sample to make it all come together, but fortunately for us and the rest of the music-buying public, it did, and it was inescapable in the summer of 2008.

Only the most curmudgeonly serious Clash fan could object to the guitar sample - to us, it's not a rip-off of "Straight to Hell" in any way, just a whimsical and deftly modernized re-working. And M.I.A.'s repetitive, childlike and simplistic rapping fits in perfectly with the dreamlike quality of the beat, not to mention the disturbingly violent, surreal hook sung by a chorus of children. It all made it impossible to classify, and as such it got airplay on mainstream pop, dance, rap and modern rock stations alike. And it probably got stuck in everybody's head at least once.

2008: #9 - "Love Lockdown"

It just sounds cool.

2008: #10 - "A Milli"

Lil Wayne might be a little overexposed (OK, a lot) and kind of passe right now, but when we first heard this on the radio during an especially weak time for pop music, we thought we were hearing a transmission from another planet. With an absolutely insane sample that could stand toe-to-toe with any Golden Era rap track or peak-RZA material - and is essentially the entire musical backing for the whole song - "A Milli" is almost too much of a good thing. But it's a really good thing. And while further scrutiny has exposed a lot of Wayne's rhymes to be, well, stupid, rather than other-worldly, the track still floated high above most others in 2008.

(P.S. - R.I.P, Mr. Reatard)

2008: 20-11

20. "Get Like Me" - David Banner
19. "Sexual Eruption" - Snoop Dogg
18. "Take You There" - Sean Kingston
17. "Womanizer" - Britney Spears
16. "Just Dance" - Lady Gaga
15. "Whatever You Like" - T.I.
14. "Flashing Lights" - Kanye West
13. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" - Bruce Springsteen
12. "Lollipop (Remix)" - Lil Wayne
11. "Swagger Like Us" - T.I.

While reviewing a tracklist for a forthcoming year, my wife asked me, "Would you like this song if it wasn't Bruce?" My answer: "No, probably not."

The song was the folk-cheeser "Secret Garden", an unreleased bonus track on Springsteen's 1995 Greatest Hits disc, made popular by Jerry Maguire a couple years after its release, and made even more popular by a super cheesy radio remix featuring dialogue from the film. And before you accuse me of some sort of bias, based on undying loyalty to the man who recorded several of my favorite albums of all-time, let me explain.

My moderate fondness for "Secret Garden" is not simply because of who wrote it. What I meant was, if Bruce had not written it, it wouldn't be any good at all. It just wouldn't have the right production elements, the right tone, the right sentiment, even the right type of lyrics. For example, if it had come from John Mayer, it'd be sappy, creepy, self-important and overproduced. Dave Matthews would have made it too busy and ugly, while also faltering lyrically and vocally with something silly and gratuitous. Same with Conor Oberst, but in his own way. Finally, Jason Mraz would have made it cutesy or thrown in some awful pseudo-clever "wordplay" or, worse still, scatting.

Which brings me to the point I want to make about "Girls In Their Summer Clothes". I feel like, had this not been Bruce, it might have been received better, and appreciated for what it is - a super catchy, uplifting, kinda retro "pop" song. "Pop" in the sense of AM radio, 60's bubblegum, Burt Bacharach, even 70's power pop. Maybe, without his all-too-recognizable vocals, lush production and over-earnest lyricism, it would have even been a better song, or at least more accessible to and/or appreciated the mainstream. Either way, it fared well on the charts compared to most of his post-80s efforts, and to me, it's nearly great, up there among his all-time best, for sure.