I recently remembered that from 2010 until 2014, I used to make iTunes playlists ranking my current top 40 songs.
I think I intended this chart to act as a time capsule, but I didn’t realise quite how questionable some of my choices would look in just a few years’ time. To be fair, I mainly ranked songs by how much they’d been stuck in my head lately, not necessarily how objectively great I thought they were. I do not stand by all of these decisions, but they’re documented here for better or worse.
(By the way, this isn’t the first chart I made, but I did make this one exactly eight years ago, so I figured it was a good starting point.)
10. Rihanna – “What’s My Name?” (feat. Drake)
Can you believe this BANGER didn’t hit #1 on the UK chart until January the following year? Maybe I was too ahead of my time for certain people.
9. Willow – “Whip My Hair”
I can’t imagine listening to this song in 2018, but back then, this was a moment. She was fucking 10 fucking years fucking old!
8. Ke$ha – “We R Who We R”
I’ll be honest, not her best. I actually spent most of this single campaign listening to a low quality YouTube snippet of “Blow” and waiting for that to be released instead, but this was catchy too.
7. Cheryl Cole – “Yeah Yeah” (feat. Travie McCoy)
Mrs Cole truly SNAPPED. This song is an experience. It’s a complete mess with a really quite horrible chorus melody and completely batshit production. It should be unbearable, but somehow it’s brilliant.
6. Joe McElderry – “Until The Stars Run Out”
Another song which is a mess on paper and shouldn’t work at all. And this time, it’s true! It’s highkey shit!
However, credit where credit’s due: for a fresh X Factor winner to push for this gay pop sound was pretty interesting to me.
5. Rihanna – “Only Girl (In The World)”
Invented EDM and the colour red.
4. B.o.B. – “Magic” (feat. Rivers Cuomo)
Dr. Trash produced this which explains why it’s so fucking catchy, and that’s all I have to say. Hey, back in 2010, the world was simpler. And flatter.
3. Nicole Scherzinger – “Poison”
Does anyone else remember the original Poison, before it was called “(New Main Version)”? The difference was that instead of the “RedOne!” voice introducing her at the start, she actually BELTS her own name, and it’s an absolute moment. They ended up cutting it down to just the “…OLE!” and presenting it as a meaningless scream. Maybe they thought the original sounded laughably arrogant, and they were right, but I loved it.
2. Cheryl Cole – “Amnesia”
Compared to “Yeah Yeah”, this is a little bit less mental, but I still can’t think of anything that sounds similar. This album was either complete trash or artistic genius, and I still haven’t decided which.
1. The Wanted – “Made”
Yep, my hashtag one songel eight years ago was an album track by The Wanted. And what about it?
I actually hated all their singles from this album, which pissed me off because they were hot. Fortunately, my friend with poor music taste listened to the whole album and introduced me to this. I like the vaguely melodramatic tone, but mostly the guitar hook (“He About To Lose Me”, anyone?).
So there we have it. I might actually go back a bit further in a future post, because 2010 really did that.
For now, here’s the top 20 (I really wanted to like this Cheryl album, huh?).