Jark's Top 100 Songs of the 2010s (so far!)

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Just for the lols I looked at how many of the 5 Jark listicles in the similar threads I actually completed. The answer is zero :D I'm surprised I even got as far as #65 in Jark's top 111 of '09.

This one, however, will be finished. We're quite sure of that.
 
Just for the lols I looked at how many of the 5 Jark listicles in the similar threads I actually completed. The answer is zero :D
We already knew that. I think one chart stopped just before the #1 reveal.
 
SO... the list has been assembled, I'm still toying with the order because I don't want to birth this thing until it's really ready for the world and vice versa, but it's coming much sooner than you'd imagine, and certainly before the new MKS album (although Keisha might have something to say about that).

...and I imagine everybody will be equal parts shocked and thrilled to learn that it has been UPGRADED to a TOP 100... PLUS a top 10 ALBUMS of the decade TO DATE! Thank me later!
 
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A punctual one month after exclusively revealing that this will be a top 100, I'm thrilled to announce that it is beginning TONIGHT! :disco: once I hit 100k retweets!
 
before we kick off, here's some HOT TRIVIA regarding the countdown ahead from the Jarkette book of stats:

-including featured acts, there are a total of 76 artists in the list
-8 of the songs in the list were #1 in the US or UK
-the most featured artist appears 5 times
-2 of the acts who achieved a top 10 placing have only one song on the list; the rest have multiple
-21 songs are credited as belonging to a male singer/act
-63 of these songs did not chart on the Hot 100

in terms of RULES, the only criteria was that every song must have been first released between 2010 and 2017 (or on an album in 2009 if a single release happened in 2010).
 
BUBBLING UNDER

Here's an incredible song that didn't make it. Or, more accurately, did, until I realised 30 minutes ago I'd forgotten a significantly more incredible song.



Sorry Ryan Tedder. I still love Kids and its enormous post-chorus.
 
It's on.

100. Nicki Minaj 'Va Va Voom'


Va Va Voom opened the infamous previous edition of this countdown at #50, and it has taken quite a tumble - truthfully I overrated it then and in the light of Nicki's spectacular fall from grace these past 18 months, I've probably given her no more than about 10 plays this year. But this remains a ludicrous and brilliant slice of trashy EDM (original write-up here).


99. Nick Jonas 'Jealous'


Original write-up (#43 last time): Jealous is fucking brilliant. The verses are short and relatively nothingy, and nobody in the studio could be fucked writing a bridge, presumably because everybody recognised that the chorus must be reached as swiftly as possible, on account of the fact that it GOES OFF! The original is great but for me the Tinashe remix tops it - but neither quite matches the FUCKING RIDICULOUS Rooftop Boys remix (with the repeated vocal refrain of "fuck me! fuck me!" - was his bottom status ever in doubt?) which is basically a Cahill remix riding the wave of a particularly good pill for four and a half minutes. Truly poppers o' clock.

Nick Jonas may be a questionable popstar, and we may never get another Jealous. But if he spunks away all his money on sultry R&B gems at least there's a chance he'll turn up on Sean Cody in a few years.


98. Carly Rae Jepsen 'Call Me Maybe'


Yes, after creating one of the most celebrated pop albums of the decade, and then possibly even eclipsing it with the follow-up, putting Call Me Maybe in this list may feel a choice - the kind of choice somebody would only make if they'd never heard Emotion or Dedicated, ie. 100% of straight people. I am 100% gay but still I have a lot of time for this, her most straightforwardly sweet bubblegum pop song. It's just ridiculously well written, infectious from the second the beat kicks in, and sports more hooks than a pirate party at Captain Hook's place - not to mention the iconic video which served a twist so genius and unexpected it's a surprise it wasn't directed by Christopher Nolan (those 1.1bn views are probably still putting the cereal in her bowl every morning). Yes, this is a very good song indeed, and while she has far surpassed it since in terms of artistry, sometimes a bop will more than suffice.


97. Ty Dolla Sign ft. YG 'Ex'

I actually only discovered this about a year ago - it's from 2017 - and while I doubt more than 3 Moopy posters have ever voluntarily listened to Ty Dolla $ign (outside of Work From Home), Ex is a banger of the highest order. Like all great love songs, it tells the story of hooking up with your ex while your current partner waits for you at home. Don't ask why - ask why not! Sample lyric, courtesy of (the gorgeous) YG's fairly brilliant guest verse: "I'm on jet skis with naked bitches / Leave your main squeeze for these naked bitches". Totally relatable.


96. Le Youth ft. Ava Max 'Clap Your Hands'

Before Ava Max was the worst case scenario next big pop girl, but after she was various other alter egos too shit to get any real attention and since furiously removed from Youtube, she featured on this really quite dazzling Le Youth single which has soundtracked many a pre-drinks for me - the lyrics are as inane as the title suggests, the production quite nice in a deep house-lite kinda way, but it's her vocal which really transforms Clap Your Hands from a decent oddity nobody will ever hear to... well, a very good one. Her adlibs over the final chorus surpass falsetto toward whistle register territory, and it's glorious. She may lack star quality, or the budget to invest in a decent weave (seriously, my friends who do drag for fun have better wigs), but that is a voice and a half, and this bops.



I bet this one won't even get started.:disco:
Who's laughing now bitch? :disco:
 
I never wanna hear Call Me Maybe ever again.

Jealous isn't bad though. Tinashe is the best thing about it.
 
I will continue, but only if people actually comment on the songs instead of exclusively being a tragic shady bitch like Pennylope.
 
The only song I truly like out of those is Va Va Voom. Jealous is decent but I prefer looking at Nick rather than listening to him.

Call Me Maybe is shit.

I hadn't previously heard the Ty Dolla $ign song but it's a bit of a bop isn't it. Well done Jark.

Clap Your Hands and Ava Max is meh.
 
95. Avril Lavigne 'Wish You Were Here'


I have a strange relationship with the clone who replaced Avril in 2004. On the one hand her music, spotty at best since The Best Damn Thing, has been spiralling in quality terms. But there is something about her I can't help rooting for - perhaps I just really like her voice. Or perhaps it's the fact that, every now and then, she unleashes something like Wish You Were Here, a really straightforwardly emotional song about just missing someone a lot. It's a nice throwback to that time when guitars were not banned from pop and it's basically my go-to Avril moment these days. Just lovely.


94. Solange 'Losing You'


I was pretty late to this train, and quite surprised to find out that it basically didn't chart anywhere (except #9 in Denmark - come through!). One of those songs which is really entirely simple - that slinky, repetitious disco beat really gets under the skin. In another timeline it was number one for five weeks. I do respect what she's doing now but a return to something more immediate and less important wouldn't go amiss either.


93. Delta Goodrem 'Sitting on Top of the World'


There are a lot of songs like this in the lower half of this list - stuff I hammered to living death back in the day, and rarely touch these days. But when sun is shining and the mood takes me, Sitting on Top of the World totally hits the spot - not enough pop music is this propulsive, infectious or effortlessly melodic. Every segment flows with beautiful ease into the next, it's superbly well written, and Delta gives easily one of her best vocal performances here - the adlibs over the outro are pure joy. When it's over I even feel a tinge of melancholy. I don't know if she can actually be arsed to try and make music like this anymore (or indeed, to make music at all), but for an artist with such a stop-start career and quite a few properly great songs in the back cat, it still feels like there's untapped potential there.


92. London Grammar 'Strong'


Excuse me for a while, while I'm wide-eyed and I'm so damn caught in the middle

I always like it when an act like London Grammar - so clearly a universe apart from the tastes which dominate radio and popular music - catches the public imagination. Sometimes talent is just too undeniable to ignore, and the voice on Hannah Reid really is something else entirely. This is not her final appearance in this list, as you'll find out when I finish it (isn't it ironic? don't you think?), but I do believe Strong is something close to a masterpiece, and when I'm in a certain mood it really speaks to me. Even though I have literally no idea what it's about. Probably just have wikied that shit before I did this write-up.



91. Jennifer Lopez ft. Pitbull 'On The Floor'


And just to remind you that my tastes span the entire spectrum from (mildly) high-brow to lowest common denominator, here we have On The Floor, the most recent and surely final global chart-topper from Jennifer Lopez (although if anyone could score a major hit at 50, I'd put money on it being pop's ultimate queen of hustle). Everything about On The Floor is absolutely ludicrous, not least the degree to which it slaps, but also standout hot lyrical moments like "if you're a criminal, kill it on the floor" (disclaimer: J.Lo does not endorse massacres at the discotheque). Maybe what I like most about it is that its huge success promptly did away with any questions of whether Jenny from the block was really a legendary 00s pop diva - when you cash in your comeback card in this fashion, you know you're a member of the club.
 
'Sitting On Top Of The World' IS lovely - an actual evolution of the sound she had on 'Innocent Eyes'. You nailed it with her career - it's SO frustrating and these days I have no idea who she wants to be as an artist. Her only recent song I have any time for is 'Encore'.

'Wish You Were Here' is a GREAT Avril song - the album is extremely underrated, although clearly it's not what people wanted from her at all. She can still knock a great ballad out of the park though - that and 'Push' from the album are easily in my Avril top ten.
 
yes, Push is quite fantastic also. I still think she has more of that in her.
 
although if anyone could score a major hit at 50, I'd put money on it being pop's ultimate queen of hustle
She may be 50 but she looks like she has barely aged since 2000. I think she might just get away with it.:disco:
 
Goodbye Lullaby really was quite good. Even the novelty hits like "What the Hell" I still listen to.
 
I don't think there's ever been a less talented duo than JLo and Pitbull.
On The Floor isn't bad though.
 
JLO/PITBULL top 5

Dance Again
On The Floor
Booty
.
.
Live It Up
We Are One (Ole Ola)
 

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