Selena Gomez—“The Heart Wants What It Wants”
#25
Preparing to leave Hollywood Records for Interscope, Gomez reteams with her Disney producers RockMafia, who generously provide her with her best single since “Naturally”. Tim James and Antonina Armato load the track with all their trademarks: a throbbing bass buried deep in the mix, ghostly background vocals and other odd noises, and a truckload of sultry eroticism. They also capture Gomez’s voice better than anybody else ever has, and this is probably her best vocal performance. I’m not sure about the stutter in the chorus, and the middle-eight may be a little too lush, but this is a high point for everyone involved.
One Direction—“Ready To Run”
#77
If, as Matthew Perpetua suggests, the secret of One Direction’s success is the idea of five cute guys singing the praises of a single teenage girl (that girl being whoever is listening to them at the moment), it’s also their greatest musical weakness. It enforces a homogeneity in the vocals that makes it impossible for them to reach beyond the most generic emotions. It’s the curse of all boy bands, and it’s the reason so few of them last long: if your group contains an individual talent like Justin Timberlake or Robbie Williams, it’s destined to break apart; if it doesn’t, the group will quickly drown in its own mediocrity. What’s fascinating about One Direction is that even after four albums it’s impossible to tell which fate will be theirs. “Ready to Run” is as bland as they come, and I still can’t tell the five of them apart, at least on their records, but there’s the nagging feeling that someone within the group has more influence and potential than the others. Based on current evidence, I’d go with Louis Tomlinson, who has a larger share in the writing, and recently skipped one of their endless string of live performances, but that’s just a guess. Who knows, maybe they’ll be the exception to the rule and hang on as a group. But if they flew apart the next time they get to take a decent vacation (they’ve been going five years now non-stop) I wouldn’t be surprised.
Shawn Mendes—“Something Big”
#92
I’ll admit my bias up front: I harbor a strong distaste for the massed, wordless, tribal chanting that serves as hooks for a lot of white male pop right now, and this is a particularly egregious example. “Oh. Wuh-uh uh-oh. Wuh-uh uh uh uh-uh-uh oh” or something is how this one goes, and matched to the vagueness of the lyric it could either be a gathering around a bonfire, a sports stadium in full cry, or a fascist rally. Something big is happening, but for the moment, thank God, it isn’t being led by a bunch of clueless white teenagers on YouTube.
Brett Eldredge—“Mean To Me”
#95
Eldredge produced two decent uptempo singles this year, “Don’t Ya” and “Beat of the Music”, but on “Mean To Me” he moves into ballad territory and lets the sap run free. Not terrible, but the fact that I keep mistaking him for Darius Rucker at his most bland is not a good sign.
Darius Rucker—“Homegrown Honey”
#97
Rucker is the perfect mediocrity, and even when he goes uptempo and demonstrates a sense of humor he never rises above the average.
Walk The Moon—“Shut Up + Dance”
#98
“Shut Up and Dance” is a near perfect distillation of a certain strain of 80s white pop music, and if that’s your idea of heaven you’re welcome to it. For me, though, the distillation comes complete with the leaden machine beats and synthetic emotions of the originals, and even though this has its moments it leaves me cold. Sometimes recreations can be too perfect.