What the Kids are Listening to this Summer – 2011 Edition

Using Billboard.com again I’m gonna let you know what the top 10 songs of the summer were this year (well according to radio play and the chart still has a week or two to finalize).

As a reminder what we were listening to last year CLICK HERE

The chart I’m referencing is HERE

Most of you know where I’m going with this post, the top 40 songs are garbage and many of these songs on the list I’ve talked about previously. But here we go, the top ten songs of the summer of 2011…

10. Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae

The newest “rock” band to enter the pop punk world is Hot Chelle Rae. This band is what music lovers were afraid pop punk was heading, a band that sounds like Justin Bieber was apart of. You know they were half assing it when making this song since half the lyrics are “la la la”. Finally a band should never be talking about “keeping the beat bump’n” because you song shouldn’t be playing in the club you idiot (remember you are a ROCK band).

9. Good Life by OneRepublic

I’m less critical with this one, OneRepublic is hit or miss with me with their music, they remind me of a poor man’s Coldplay. You can’t deny how good Ryan Tedder’s voice is and the combination of the whistling in the chorus makes it an easy listening song. The video is interesting to watch with the sorta stop motion vintage effect painting being passed around.

8. E.T. by Katy Perry ft. Kanye West

First off, the original version of E.T. off the album is my favorite track off of Katy’s Teenage Dream album, but then add in Kanye and everything gets thrown off and the song becomes a dud (and Kanye’s been putting out decent material these last years too). This combined with a music video that registers a good 6 on the Lady Gaga weirdness scale. Katy is an alien that wants to turn robots into humans so she can take their shades? Yeah that’s what I’ll say its about.

7. How to Love by Lil Wayne

This is a rarity a song I like the video more than the song itself. This track is sort of influenced by Wheezy’s attempt at a rock album and it has a backing music of plain acoustic guitar which is fine, but what kills the song is Lil Wayne attempting to sing (which he can’t do) and ends up not being literate. The video is touching though showing two sides of how someone’s life could be by the choices made. So it’s 50/5o on this one.

6. The Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga

The Edge of Glory isn’t a bad song, but its a low point for Gaga because its boring. It sounds like a generic Madonna song and doesn’t really showcase Gaga’s vocal ability or brand of electronica pop. Even the video is tame compared to all her others, she’s just dancing around a set from one side to the other.

The Drop – Dear God the Billboard Top 10

Thanks to the likes of Spotify and Pandora you can expand your music horizons to much better stuff, yet the garbage that’s playing on mainstream radio is just shameful. This week’s The Drop is dedicated to what apparently “everybody” is listening to and we’re using Billboard’s Hot 100 as a source this time. Without further ado, let the rant begin…

10. The Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga

Using Lady Gaga does something with each of her singles interesting that makes its memorable, but Edge of Glory has to be her most boring single in her entire catalog so far. The song is just generic pop with a generic synth backing music and a majority of the lyrics is just “I’m on the edge with you”. The music video is just Gaga in a not that freaky leather outfit dancing from side of a small set to the other. Gotta admit that it’s gotten to a point that what Gaga does has become generic, kind of scary.

9. I Wanna Go by Britney Spears

I really don’t want to know what Britney Spears actually sounds like without autotune and music effects. Spears basically went over the Ke$ha threshold with this one, could not listen to more than half of this song. The video she tries to poke fun at herself and the media rumors, which would’ve been good if she could act (its a music video for god’s sake, you don’t have even have to act that well) and then you got your product placement. But thanks to good album sells Britney is back meaning there will be more of this garbage, next time I’m just going to outright skip the Spears songs if they come up on the diss countdowns, it’s not worth it!

8. Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae

Introducing Hot Chelle Rae, the most Bieber-friendly “band” in music today. The entire song is basically 2 chords, la-la-la as a chorus, and really poppy-hip hop verses. Then you got your stole line “it’s my party…” from the old Leslie Gore song. Also a band should never talk about “keeping the beat pumping”, rock music isn’t suppose to be played in the club, it just doesn’t make sense.

7. Lighters by Bad Meets Evil (ft. Bruno Mars)

I had this one on the charts a few weeks back, Eminem has actually been killing it recently with his Recovery album and collaboration album with Royce da 5’9, which is putting hip hop back where it should be with more meaningful lyrics and creative beats. I amazed that this single wasn’t their leading release single since its the most radio friendly on the album (it sounds a lot like Nothin’ on You by B.o.B mostly from Mars’ chorus line). Still waiting on the music video, apparently it was leaked at some time in the last few weeks, but I haven’t seen it yet.

6. Rolling in the Deep by Adele

This is the first Adele song that I really liked, but even with her first mainstream single, I thought she had an amazing voice. I don’t really got any beef with this song, great voice and that pounding bass line throughout the song is good stuff. The music video is also pretty interesting and kind of indie like, weird visuals and all that. Guess the only thing I have against it is it’s a little 2010 isn’t it? I mean its August 2011, pick another Adele song to play would you!