Top Ten Songs of 2011 – #10
If I had to pick one word to describe singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles, it would be ‘endearing.’
She has an endearing personality, as she demonstrated in her adorable stint as a judge on The Sing-Off.
She makes endearing videos, such as the one for today’s SOTD, in which she hides herself until the last few frames and instead depicts gleeful lip-synching by Ben Folds, Adam Levine, Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles and others.
In yesterday’s post, I described the second half of Paul Simon’s You’re the One as “sleepy” and it’s true that it is more languid and less accessible than the album’s first half.
But sometimes it’s those slow-growers that wind up having the most impact in the long run. Such is the case with a lovely song titled ‘Señorita With a Necklace of Tears.’
Three years after the Capeman debacle, Paul Simon released his first proper studio album in ten years, 2000’s You’re the One. This album is easily overlooked when considering the span of Simon’s career but every time I revisit it, I’m reminded how strong it is.
Frequent commenter Dana hit the nail on the head in describing this album the last time I featured it. He said it is reminiscent of Hearts and Bones but without matching that album’s highest points, and that the first half of the record is extremely good with the second half a bit on the sleepy side.
NBC’s Community has rapidly become one of my very favorite TV shows — right when the network decided to shelve it indefinitely.
Community is ostensibly about a group of seven wacky community college students in a study group, but it’s really a vehicle for brilliant pop culture satire. The show has lovingly parodied everything from Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction to My Dinner With Andre and the films of Charlie Kaufman.
When Beyoncé performed at MTV’s 2011 Video Music Awards shortly after announcing that she was pregnant, she turned a rousing R&B rave-up into the world’s biggest baby shower.
Watching her beam about the “love inside her” and command the stage with even more energy and star power than usual, then unbutton her jacket and run her hand over her baby bump with a wide smile… I wanted to strangle Jay-Z.
