Critic of Music

With a just a week left in 2013, and with no major album releases coming (except for a Beyoncé wannabe potentially dropping without notice), it is time to unveil the best pop songs of the year.

Last years rating on this site was just messy, we shall never speak of it again. This year, instead of saying "this was the 77th best pop song this year," I'll just be listing some standouts with no relative order.




Don't expect to hear this track on your local radio station anytime soon. I can think of dozens of pop artists who have a track in their discography entitled Haunted, and not one single person has made a track with that title truly haunting. Then Beyoncé came along. With the Ghost intro and strange lyricism and video, Beyoncé creeps you the f*** out. And it's awesome.




"Let me paint a picture for you then I'll have to teach you to see it," IE just one of the incredible lyrics we find in this gem. This album track was inspired by Bareilles's move from Los Angeles to New York and realizing that LA wasn't as great as she thought. Eden however, is just as good any of the best pop offerings this year. No one would've predicted that Bareilles could have pulled of an 80's synthesized production this well, but she by damn, she did.

What were your favorite tracks from this year? Comment below!

So this bitch decided to keep the world waiting for 12 months by teasing with snippets and full versions of songs without ever releasing them. Then, last night, with no prior announcement or warning, her 5th studio album dropped on iTunes, with each track getting their own music video. Since this is being described as a visual album, I will not only review the song, but the accompanying music video as well.

Pretty Hurts: When a woman as beautiful as Beyoncé releases a track called "Pretty Hurts," she has your attention from the very beginning. The video portrays an out of control beauty pageant, showing Beyoncé repeatedly running to the toilet to vomit, cut between scenes of her at home, backstage and on stage. When asked what her aspiration in life is, Beyoncé replies, with much thought and hesitation, "to be happy." The song and video make a statement that no one wants to acknowledge in mainstream media, that just because you're pretty, skinny, successful, you can be unhappy, and there is justice in feeling that way. The drum propelled song itself could become an anthem for struggling girls everywhere (a demographic Beyonce constantly appeals too for better or worse).
Video: A+
Song: A-

Ghost: Not a track on the audio portion, but a video and song on the visual portion. It's definitely very creepy, Beyoncé contorts and twists herself around painted black, while overlapping vocal tracks give off a haunting vibe. It creeps me out too much to give it a grade, and I don't have any desire to watch it again.
Video: Creepy as hell.
Song: Also creepy as hell.

Haunted: So this song is creepy also. Shot with a vintage tinge, Beyoncé enters a mansion, with an occasional glimpse of a camera shot looking straight at her. As she proceeds up the stairs and down a massive hallway, Beyoncé looks into 12 rooms, each room showing a different group of people. There's a room with what looks to be strippers, gamblers, and a lot of nearly indescribable people. It's interesting, at least more so than Ghost.
Video: A-
Song: B-

Drunk In Love (Feat. Jay-Z): The video opens with a black and white scene of a beach, with Beyonce almost stumbling along with a trophy, similar to the ones she destroyed in the Pretty Hurts video. You would think there would be a statement made here, nope. The video is the most bland so far, she's just dancing uncoordinatedly on the beach. And when Jay-Z comes in you feel like you've been Punk'd. They've made this statement together 478 times on 478 different collaborations: They love each other. That's cool, but now you've become that High School couple that everyone wants to just get a room. And to make matters worse, the song and video both feel like album fillers.
Video: C+
Song: C-

Blow: I pray for Blue Ivy's sake that she NEVER has to listen to this song. This isn't like Kesha's Blow, where she plans on igniting the club; Beyoncé's Blow is much more…. sensual. The references are so blatant, it made me so uncomfortable, that I had to play S&M to make myself feel pure again. It has a smooth production that's as glitzy and glamorous as the roller rink music video, but it is still just… Gross.
Video: A-
Song: D+

No Angel: A lot of falsetto, a lot of cars. What's the statement here? What's the point? The track and the video are both equally ambiguous as they are pointless.
Video: C+
Song: C

Yoncé: The second video that isn't accompanied by a song on the albums tracklist. I feel like this will be her Birthday Cake, a beat that Beyoncé "sneezed on and the beat got sicker,"should've been on the tracklist, it seems to have more single potential than most of the other material seen (even though it is just short of two minutes in length). This will be a fan favorite for sure.
Video: B
Song: B+

Partition: Up until now, I haven't seen much in the way of stand-out singles (excluding Pretty Hurts). Partition is definitely very sexual, perhaps a bit too sexual for pop radio, but the beat and production seem to go right in line with what Pop is eating up right now. The video pushes a lot of limits, Beyoncé slides up and down all around wherever she can, showing the inner-thoughts of a very regal woman desperate for some attention.
Video: A-
Song: A

Jealous: The Partition video segways directly into the video for Jealous. The video shows this same woman, regal and and focused as the one before. As the Lana Del Rey-esque intro begins, the video soon portrays Beyoncé as a woman very jealous of the freedoms of her significant other. She trashes a dinner that she "made naked," plays pool in a club, walks down a New York street before she is found by the one she's been singing of. It's a beautiful video, with an interesting message. The message here seems to be that sometimes, she's jealous of everyone else.
Video: A+
Song: A-

Rocket: Smooth R&B with sexy lyrics. Been here, done this, at least 47 times across 5 albums. We get it, can we move on please?
Video: B+
Song: C-

Mine (Feat. Drake): Beautifully shot video, a lot of stunning scenes and images presented here. It's fascinating and invigorating to watch, and the demanding statement "f*** what you heard, you're mine, you're mine" presents a stronger message than most of the other over sexualized ones we've seen thus far. Though I wish Beyoncé would have made the song match it's infectious Drake led elecrto-chorus, I feel fairly satisfied with this one.
Video: A+
Song: A

XO: Powerful, moving, there isn't a proper word nor a multitude of words that fit this. Masterpiece is pretty close. Wow. Wow. Beyoncé, you killed it here. You took a fun pop song and made it feel moving and beautiful. Bravo.
Video: The best of 2013.
Song: The best of 2013.

***Flawless (Feat. Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche): Having actually studied Ms. Adiche, I find it very interesting that Beyoncé used her as the bridge for her revamped "Bow Down Bitches." The proclamation of power in the first chorus is followed by Adiche's speech, which very casually dismantles sexism and sex shaming. This speech would've served better as an interlude or introduction into this album, because the speech speaks so heavily to the content on the rest of the album. Beyonce changed what many presumed to be an attack on women with Bow Down, to once more a female empowerment anthem with just a simple change of lyrics and name to ***Flawless to justify the bowing.
Video: A+
Song: A+

Superpower (Feat. Frank Ocean): The video can only be described as the People Like Us video and any end-of-the-world-action-movie having a baby. Here, the misfits of the world, the lovers, rebel and trash a post-apocalyptic world. Beyonce is joined in the video by Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and Pharrell to show off this second proclamation of power. However, the song is pretty boring and dull, and feels like a lackluster soundtrack to its video.
Video: A+
Song: C+

Heaven: I'm going to caution you now, if you're sensitive to quick flashes of light, don't watch this video. The video apparently shows Beyoncé comforting a friend after her husband suddenly passes away. We see them jumping into a pool and getting tattoos, cut between scenes of the two mourning in a church and cemetery. It's a beautiful song and video, but it seems to get lost in the shuffle of the rest of the album.
Video: A-
Song: A-

Blue (Feat. Blue Ivy): Blue's feature isn't anymore astonishing then her feature on her father's track last year, but after Beyoncé paints the scene and sets the stage for this to be a real gut wrencher, it comes off as effective. It's a sweet mother-daughter love song, that can be applied to many different relationships. It ends the album on a sweet and affectionate note.
Video: A
Song: A-

Beyoncé seemed like a pretty boring album title at first, "Ugh the self-titled route? That's so overdone." But Beyoncé nailed the idea and premise of naming an album after yourself, you have to reveal what it means, in this case, what it means to be Beyoncé. For Beyoné, that is being confident, sexy, loving, considerate, and a mother. When most artists claim they're going to be taking a "darker sound," they're usually lying, or they fail at pulling it off. Beyoncé pulls off these darker sounds, and these darker images. While the sexy tones have been a bit overdone by this point in her career, she makes Beyoncé feel fresh with its exposure into her life, and who she is. Beyoncé came down from the stratosphere of fame, to deliver us here on the ground this revealing piece of art.

Overall: Grade: A+

Gaga has had a pretty good year (or not, depending on what side of the ARTPOP fence you are) and she might have ended her year on a massive high note. This performance really showed off all of her strengths, her voice, her ability to sing acapella without issue, and her piano skills. It wasn't too weird, in fact it wasn't really weird at all.

Gaga is at home in both restrained and explosive settings, but this shows off a potential for universal appeal. With just a xylophone, a piano, and a great vocal, Gaga managed to blow the roof off of the place, all without alienating any demographics. Grandpa and Grandma aren't going to be flashed by anything, and maybe the lyrics are a bit too sexualized for them, but they will probably be too busy thinking, "Sweet baby Jesus, she has pipes!"

I hope this is a trend to come, this Gaga, is what you should be doing. No more "Koons Balls" by your who-ha-ha, just sitting at the piano, and singing. Scale back to some Fame/Fame Monster level weirdness and you can truly amaze people. Most people are sick of the eggs and the horns, but we loved your American Idol zipper-eye patch weirdness. It's nice to see you're still there, and change is good, but don't change too much on us now.

Overall: A+

Rebecca has returned to the calendar, and to the music scene, for her Friday follow up entitled Saturday. And before you bash your head into the keyboard, she isn't taking herself too seriously with this one.

16 year old Black's Saturday video is definitely self aware, something she proved earlier this week by re-watching and cringing through her 2011 viral smash, Friday. She portrays the typical teenage party scene, with a more Disney-image (IE writing fun, fun, fun, fun on passed out party-goers face instead of say… a male body part), and makes sure that this video will prove far less embarrassing. She makes quite a few references to her past work, with a "yesterday was Friday, today is Saturday" bridge, a "gotta have my bowl" of cereal, and the infamous pink clock.

Now, you can't really give much criticism when Black really isn't trying to impress anyone. She's showing that she's moved past the despair Friday bestowed upon her, by making a bearable track. By no means is Saturday a great song (again, that's not what she's going for), but it at least has a nice hook, a non-tortuous vocal, and less unintentional lyric atrocities.

Though it's been made clear that she wasn't going for a great pop song, you still have to wonder if she was going for at least a good or decent one. Between the lines of a parody and an actual song, that's where Saturday falls. But at least we know one thing for sure, she is enjoying herself and her music.

Overall: B-

I don't usually pay attention to the K-Pop world, but when I went on Billboard to see the few words, "nail Beyonce,"I knew I had to see what could be described as "nailing Beyonce." And let me be the first to say, this wasn't a mess, but it wasn't much of "nailing it" either.

Now, I probably wouldn't have much to say if I hadn't seen Beyonce perform the song in front of my very eyes at the Super Bowl in February (that performance blew my mind), this performance was clean, but it lacked energy and complexity. Hyroin looked tired with her dancing, sounded boring with the vocals, and no where near as appealing as Beyonce. There was hardly any stage presence, shocking for someone whose been described as Korea's Beyonce. When covering Beyonce, one must be spot on, as Beyonce works like clock work on 99% of performances. This was more like a 90 year old clock that's fallen a little slow.

Now, again I will reiterate, this is a bad performance in comparison to Beyonce. When considering that this is a singer who does not speak english and is a brand new solo artist, it's not that bad. In fact it shows a little promise. This shows a lot of potential, but it also illustrates areas of work. Not bad for someone as new to the solo game as Hyroin, but Beyonce would scoff at the comparisons.

Overall: C-