Flo Rida - Wild Ones

Flo Rida's currently made another big smash with "Good Feeling" and "Wild Ones" could follow on that moment. Personally I found that "Good Feeling" was a bit dull at first but warmed up to it, "Wild Ones" is the polar opposite, it's great at first, but has potential to get boring eventually.

The song starts out wonderfully. A smooth and catchy, yet still restrained, verse from Sia gets it started and the Flo Rida bursts in with his usual rap. It's a familiar structure, yet with Sia's voice and sound new to the industry it offers something fresh. The song continues like this for a bit, but eventually we run into a problem. Basically, Sia takes over the song. She has much more time singing than Flo Rida does, and by the end it's pretty much just her with Flo Rida only adding odds and ends. Sia's voice is amazing, but this was supposed to be a Flo Rida song, by the end it's a Sia song.

Like I said, it starts out very catchy and by combining powerful rap verses with a unique chorus. But once we get to the second half, and it's just the same thing again and again. Sia just repeating herself until the end. It's not atrocious but is this becomes a song that you hear a lot, then it is likely to get a bit tiresome. Flo Rida's raps always add life and the disappearance of them at the end takes away from the song sadly.

I won't bother saying too much about lyrics because dance-rap just isn't something that puts any effort into meaning. For the parts I can understand it's a pretty simple idea and nothing too special.

I think that people will like this song and it will be a big hit for Flo Rida. Who knows? It might be a number one for a while. But the problem is that it's not the kind of song that's going to be remember much once it's gone. And it certainly won't be remembered as a major Flo Rida song because it was most certainly a Sia song.

Will.i.am. - T.H.E.

Will.i.am. seems to love acornyms, earlier the Black Eyed Peas had the abum The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies) and now he's giving us The Hardest Ever. The Black Eyed Peas may been taking a break for now, but by this point the Black Eyed Peas aren't really much more than Will.i.am. and Fergie, and if you get Jennifer Lopez to replace Fergie than you can still turn out a hit dance tune.

This song has all the qualities to be a smash in the world of dance and by extention pop. JLo gives us a catchy, repititive hook throughout the song, while Will.i.am does his rap/singing thing. Combine that with a killer beat and it's easy to get pulled into a dancy mood with the song. The song goes back and forth between Will.i.am and JLo which keeps the energy alive and keeps the song very catchy. The only odd thing is the addition of Mick Jagger. It seems like a strategic move, combine the smash of dance with the rock sound of Mick Jagger, but it doesn't quite work out that way. Jagger's verse at the end of the song really doesn't fit and just throws off the whole feel of the song. It's like they just wanted to cram him someone to make the song seem special, yet it only ends up making it sound cluttered.

Another problem is the lyrics. Jennifer Lopez is just offering the same thing over and over and over again. The same sentence on repeat isn't too interesting. But Will.i.am's verse are just plain weird. I mean, I know that a lot of his songs have an abstract meaning in them, but those are usually clever and understandable. They're are just so many crazy lyrics throughout the song that it gets annoying. "I woke up in the morning, hard like morning wood in the morning," What the hell is that?

The song has qualities, but it also has faults. I don't think most people care about lyrics too much today and especially not when Will.i.am's involved. The song sounds like it's combining a lot of good sounds, but when you hear it, it's nothing super. I don't see this song becoming huge, but it might gain some success. Let's wait and see.

Selena Gomez and The Scene - Hit the Lights

Selena Gomez is an unpredictable artist. She has good songs that get popular, and bad songs that get popular; and vice versa she has unpopular good songs, and some that deserved to stay unpopular. But no matter what song she has, it's never number one material.

She was able to get her biggest hit with "Love You Like a Love Song" which was both catchy and unique. Now she has to follow that, yet "Hit the Lights" might not do that. She turns up the tempo on this song, so she'll still get people's attention with the dance style, but it's not a very interesting song.

Musically, it's just another dance song with nothing new about it. You've heard the same type so many times before, so when a generally boring artist does it again it's just not that intriguing. Then there's the lyrics, which I'm a little confused about. The verses sing about lost opportunities, the chorus is about dancing. I can see what they were aiming for, but it just sounds so disjointed. One minute she's lamenting the boy she didn't kiss, then it's just party, party, party.

Like I said, Selena Gomez is unpredictable and I don't know if this song will be a hit or not. Considering how she's still fresh off the success of "Love You Like a Love Song" I think that people will want to hear this song. But will they get bored of it soon? How far will it go before it drops? This may be Selena's last song for a while so let's hope she goes out with a bang.

Coldplay - Princess of China

I'm not sure if this song as actually been released a single, but it's been getting a lot of attention either way. Coldplay haven't been nearly as successful as they used to be, so it only makes sense that they would want to do a collaboration with someone more pop. But did it have to be Rihanna? Like I've said time and time again, I am getting sick of Rihanna and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Personally I preferred the more tender songs of "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall" and "Paradise," but I can understand why they would want to try something different. "Princess of China" starts like a usual Coldplay song with just a little more dance feel to it. But as soon as Rihanna gets on board it just all goes downhill from there. For starters Rihanna's voice clashes with the Coldplay sound; their voices just don't work together. Another thing is that Rihanna really takes over this song once she gets started. While the Coldplay parts are softer, she's just doing her usual blaring sound. Which means, basically, we've just got another Rihanna song in the system.

Lyrically it's nothing too special. It's a breakup song with obvious metaphors. I can't understand where the "China" in the title comes from because they never mention China once in the song. The song also contains a bunch of non-lyrical vocalizing; this is one of my pet peeves, but sometimes it works, this time it doesn't.

There's nothing preventing people from liking this song and there's a good chance that it'll be a hit, but I'm just so tired of hearing the same thing from Rihanna over and over again. This is just another one of her songs, but it features Coldplay. And she's still not doing anything new or exciting. To me this song is just a bore.

Fave Songs of 2011

Like last year, I've put together a list of songs that were the forty best in my mind. This has nothing to do with how good I thought the song actually was, just hope much I personally liked it. Therefore I might have given a song a negative review, but it might still appear on the list because I liked hearing it. I tried to stick with songs that belonged in 2011, so "Rocketeer" and "More" might have made it on the list, but they were already gaining attention in 2010. I'm saving songs like "Helena Beat" and "Turn Me On" for 2012 since I haven't had the full chance to appreciate them. So here it is, starting at forty and with one being the highest.

40. Papi
-Jennifer Lopez-

39. Blackout
-Breathe Carolina-

38.Don't Hold Your Breath
-Nicole Scherzinger-

37. Right There
-Nicole Scherzinger-

36. Neon Black
-Candy Coated Killahz-

35. Free
-Natalia Kills and Will. I. Am-

34. You Make Me Feel
-Cobra Starship and Sabi-

33. Set U Free
-Keshia Chante-

32. Never Say Never
-Justin Bieber and Jayden Smith-

31. Wait Till You See My Smile
-Alicia Keys-

30. Moment 4 Life
-Nicki Minaj and Drake-

29. Skyscraper
-Demi Lovato-

28. 123
-Craig Smart-

27. It Girl
-Jason Derulo-

26. Let's Play
-Kristina Maria-

25. Mean
-Taylor Swift-

24. ET
-Katy Perry-

23. Yeah 3X
-Chris Brown-

22. Call me Maybe
-Carly Rae Jepsen-

21. Judas
-Lady Gaga-

20. The One That Got Away
-Katy Perry-

19. When We Stand Together
-Nickelback-

18. Where Them Girls At
-David Guetta, Flo Rida, and Nicki Minaj-

17. Perfect
-P!nk-

16. Merry Go Round
-Suzie McNeil-

15. Wonderland
-Natalia Kills-

14. Tonight
-Enrique Iglesias and Ludacris-

13. I Wanna Go
-Britney Spears-

12. Higher
-Taio Cruz and Kylie Minogue-

11. Drama Queen
-Suzie McNeil-

10. Jar of Hearts
-Christina Perri-

9. California King Bed
-Rihanna-

8. Give Me Everything
-Pitbull, Ne-Yo, Nayer, and Afrojack

7. Just Can't Get Enough
-Black Eyed Peas-

6. Good Life
-OneRepublic-

5. What the Hell
-Avril Lavigne-

4. Mirrors
-Natalia Kills-

3. Coming Home
-Diddiy-Dirty Money and Skylar Grey-

2. Price Tag
-Jessie J and B.o.B-

1. Set Fire to the Rain
-Adele-

David Guetta - Turn Me On

David Guetta has thankfully left behind whatever "Without U" was and has returned to his usual dance style. "Turn Me On" is familiar turf, but it's a nice reminder that David Guetta isn't completely boring now.

The real star of this song, though, is Nicki Minaj. Just when she started to get stale with her style, she's shows off a completely different side of her. There is minimal rap in this song and instead she just autotune sings through most it. It shows that while Nicki's heart may be in rap, she can still change up when she needs to. This new style adds interest back into Nicki's voice. She sounds similar to Rihanna, and the song overall is very similar to "S&M." The blaring chorus, the sliding verses, the pounding repetition of the same phrase over and over again; it's all the same thing. However it's still just unique enough to be its own song and is still very catchy. And that's not all, while Nicki is mostly singing, she throws in one of her signature rap verses, and it's one of her better ones.

Lyrically I'm a little confused. Are they comparing a lover to a doctor? I'm not going to bother thinking about it, since it's a dance track. I'm happy to just bounce along with it, even if it doesn't make sense. It's not the first time that dance songs have abandoned sensical lyrics for just a catchy sound; and at least it's mostly actual words.

Overall it's a good revitalizer for both David Guetta and Nicki Minaj. Hopefully we'll stop hearing the boring "Without U" and "Fly" in exchange for this much more exciting song. The lyrics are the only weak point, but that's easy to ignore when it's such a great dance song.

Javier Colon - As Long as We Got Love

The X Factor is wrapping up, but The Voice will be returning in no time. Javier was a strong winner last season and he proves his place with this new single. Javier manages to find the perfect balance between his own identity and what's popular right now.

The song is immediately catchy, but builds into a nice pounding chorus. It's not quite dance, but will still get you moving. Javier stays true to his sound, while delivering a more pop piece. The addition of Natasha Bedingfield also really helps. This isn't one of those pointless collaborations that they just threw on to get attention; she actually does contribute and improve the song. With her voice it adds another side of the love song with a boy and girl together.

The lyrics are simple, but they have meaning to them. A lot of the lyrics are very cute and loving. Again, the song is delivered in an honest manner and I believe that emotion was put behind these words.

This song should remind people why Javier won The Voice. He's giving people what they want, but not losing his own personality. The song contains meaning and the Javier Colon voice. The music industry really needs more male singers right now, since there is an abundance of females dominating right now and not nearly enough competent males. Hopefully this song will make an impact and Javier will enter the music world again.