George Michael’s Faith is one of those great 80s albums that contains so many hits it’s hard to believe they all originated on the same record. And it holds up very well 25 years later.
‘Faith,’ ‘Father Figure,’ ‘One More Try,’ ‘I Want Your Sex,’ ‘Monkey,’ ‘Look at Your Hands’ and ‘Kissing a Fool.’ If you were listening to music with any regularity in the late 80s, I bet you can sing a few bars from every one of those songs off the top of your head. I know I can.
Rihanna has fallen quickly out of my good graces over the course of a couple of years.
She peaked with Rated R, the dark and emotional follow-up to the hit-filled Good Girl Gone Bad. That album followed her assault by deranged lunatic Chris Brown and it was angry, defiant and featured her strongest material yet.
Top Songs of 2012 – #1
I first heard the best song of 2012 toward the end of 2011. Gotye’s video for ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ turned up on a list of great videos and I watched about half of it before deciding not to include it in my year-end collection.
What amazes me is that I listened to the song that first time without really hearing it. A year later, it’s at the top of my ‘best songs’ list but at the time it barely registered.
Top Songs of 2012 – #2
My second favorite song of the year comes from my second favorite album, The Shins’ Port of Morrow. Singer/songwriter James Mercer outdid himself on this album, shedding the backing musicians who’d accompanied him on the previous Shins albums then crafting the band’s best work yet.
Though Port of Morrow‘s songs run the gamut content-wise, its finest moment belongs to the most old-fashioned topic of all — the love song.
Top Songs of 2012 – #3
I’ve been pleased to see Fiona Apple’s latest album (after a seven year break) sitting at or near the to of one critic’s list after another.
The Idler Wheel… is a dark and difficult record but a deeply rewarding one. It epitomizes what it means to create art through popular music and it’s the best album I heard all year.
