Decade songs - 70 to 61

Featuring the female leads of no fewer than three separate CW TV shows, Robyn, and a song in a completely different language (but not the one you're thinking of. Probably.)

70. Leighton Meester - Summer Girl
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:22
UK release date: 22nd January 2011
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 25
Gigs this decade: 0

The first Country Barbie I actively listened to, even though this was just a part in an underrated and overlooked movie. Her character is probably not based on Taylor Swift, and I'm sure there's no end of wide eyed female country vocalists on the Nashville scene. It's a shame that the only Leighton songs on Spotify are her soundtrack releases (and even then only just from this movie - I'd love to hear her cover of Bette Davis' Eyes, or her version of Inside The Black, in a more phone-in-pocket-friendly format) and the song she did with Cobra Starship, as her 2014 EP Heartstrings is great!

69. Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 2:56
UK release date: 21st February 2010
UK chart position: 4
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 73
Gigs this decade: 2

Two days after I posted the final entry to last decade's rundown, I went to see a gig in London. Fresh off the release of her first album (and of Remedy appearing prominently in an episode of the TV series Dollhouse - I've gone to gigs on more spurious reasons!), Little Boots was headlining Shepherd's Bush Empire. Supporting her that day was a blonde singer who I realised I'd seen busking around Canterbury. Three months later she released Starry Eyed, which took her from bubbling under to mainstream success. This track soundtracking some early dates and MSN conversations with Dana has seen it beat off other releases of hers that I've listened to more (c.f. Love Me Like You Do - oh look, there's that film franchise soundtrack again) but nothing she's released since gives me the happy feelings quite like Starry Eyed does.

68. Glee Cast - Wrecking Ball
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:39
UK release date: 14th November 2013
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: 23
Listens as at 8th October: 18
Gigs this decade: 1

Poor Miley, being beaten out by a cover of her biggest UK solo single. (I'm sure she's avidly refreshing my blog to read all these posts.) The gigs total above has a caveat as well, in that the Glee cast I saw didn't include the singer of this track - Melissa Benoist. With that out of the way, it should come as absolutely no surprise that I've cheated my own rules to get another song with her in this list, because she was the sole highlight of Glee from season 4 onwards, a TV show that got so bad I resorted to alcohol to make it through the final season. When I posted Don't Stop Believing in my 00's chart and recommended people watch the show, it was still great - I firmly believe that if the show had been cancelled after the first season it would frequently crop up on lists of TV shows gone too soon alongside Freaks & Geeks, Veronica Mars et al. Instead it stumbled on, becoming the very thing it was satirising, but Melissa has thankfully come out of it well - she gained a husband, and leads a well regarded TV show which has also given her a second husband, and she just seems lovely.

67. Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 4:13
UK release date: 7th December 2015
UK chart position: 29
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 12
Gigs this decade: 0

Saw this performance crop up on Tumblr a year or so back. I was intrigued, I love me a good cover, and this was much more mellow than I expected. Any metal song with strings gets an immediate bonus star from me as well. 

66. My Chemical Romance - Sing
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 4:30
UK release date: 3rd November 2010
UK chart position: 50
Last decade's chart: 51
Listens as at 8th October: 13
Gigs this decade: 0

A poppier sound than expected from MCR, but a similar defiant anthem to Teenagers, the track of theirs that made last decade's chart. 

65. Marmozets - Why Do You Hate Me?
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:11
UK release date: 17th March 2014
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 35
Gigs this decade: 5

I first saw Bradford's finest export opening for Rolo Tomassi at Camden Barfly in October 2011. Since then they've grown into the UK metal scene, at one point being the token female fronted band on their label (long-standing rumours that Roadrunner passed over another female-fronted band because they "already had one") and overcoming several hospital bouts and operations to supplying the theme for an NXT Takeover PPV. 

64. Rihanna - California King Bed
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 4:11
UK release date: 13th May 2011
UK chart position: 8
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 25
Gigs this decade: 0

Growing up with the parents that I have, I've got a certain weakness for power ballads with guitar solos. They're few and far between nowadays, seen as an 80s relic (and shockingly the penchant for 80s throwbacks has ignored this goldmine) but this track from Rihanna is an absolute belter. Even when I realised it wasn't Slash from Guns n' Roses playing the guitar solo, it's still my go-to Riri track (and an excellent answer on Pointless, I imagine)!

63. 78Violet - Belong Here
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:05
UK release date: 30th November 2010
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 6
Gigs this decade: 1

One advantage to bands having legal troubles with their labels - and this is not a sentence that can come up too often - is that name changes enable me to crowbar the group in to my highly prestigious decade charts more than once. Aly & AJ, for it is they, only released two songs under the 78Violet moniker, and while Hothouse is a lovely track, this one wins out by virtue of being the theme song to the TV show Hellcats. Hellcats - basically Glee, but about cheerleading - only lasted for a single season, is remembered by about a dozen people and remembered fondly by about half that, but was thoroughly entertaining and my go-to answer when I'm asked which TV show I'd bring back for another season (well, now that Veronica Mars has returned anyway). Plus, it featured my favourite telegraphing of a plot point when it cast AJ Michalka as a new character in an episode when main cast member Aly Michalka was trying to track down her estranged dad, and ended on the reveal that AJ was her half sister - which would have been dramatic had they not cast a well known sibling of their lead!

62. MNEK ft. Haileeee Steinfeld - Colour
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:21
UK release date: 26th June 2018
UK chart position: 92
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 11
Gigs this decade: 2

This was one of my favourite tracks released last year. Thanks to seeing both artists in support slots, and copious showings of the video before Little Mix, I managed to hear this song at three separate gigs that year too, which may be some form of record for me. Another nice, lovely song that won’t storm the charts or break the internet but it will make the day seem a little less grey when you listen to it - and isn’t that the point of pop?

61. Angèle - Balance Ton Quoi
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:09
UK release date: 15th April 2019
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 7
Gigs this decade: 0

I discovered this track completely by happenstance. Earlier this year the Women's World Cup took place in France, and this was used as incidental music on a podcast I listened to regularly. About three days in I Shazamed it to find out more, as my attempts at Google what I thought the lyrics were just lead Google to suggest health advice for people suffering a stroke. It's a really sweet song, a melodic throwback to 60s French pop, but if you're going to check this out watch the video on YouTube with English subtitles translating the lyrics and you'll soon see how biting it is - given the changes over the last decade and the steps we, as a world, are taking towards equality (even though some are trying desperately hard to drag us back) I can't think of a more fitting subject matter.

Next time...Last year's number one artist, both the longest song and the oldest song in my top 100, a YouTube personality who had a UK number one single, and the biggest example of my loophole as the same artist features twice in the space of three songs.

Decade songs - 80 to 71

Featuring an Oscar winner, two viral hits, a flagrant misuse of a consonant as a vowel and the decade songs equivalent of giving someone an Oscar for something underwhelming because what's been regarded as their best work was previously overlooked...

80. Billie Eilish - Bad Guy
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:14
UK release date: 29th March 2019
UK chart position: 2
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 6
Gigs this decade: 0

Good old William Eyelash. Previously written off as a fad that I was too old for (and I'm not convinced I'm wrong about that), her song "You Should See Me In A Crown" being the theme for the NXT Takeover wrestling show we attended, and subsequently being played at every chance while we were there, led me to give her a chance and actually listen to her music. This is definitely the high point of the album, and is much filthier than you'd realise from a cursory listen, but as a signpost of the direction that pop music might be taking over the next ten years we're in for some great songs!

79. JJAMZ - Never Enough
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:31
UK release date: 10th July 2012
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 4
Gigs this decade: 0

I've seen three quarters of this band live over the last 15 years, as it features the drummer from Rilo Kiley, the lead guitarist from The Like, and the lead singer from Phantom Planet, but it's through the latter's partner that I discovered this song and video, as he's been dating Brie Larson since 2013. I'm fairly certain that's why she's appearing in the video for this track! Given the above credentials, you can pretty much guess how the song's going to sound and it won't disappoint you in that respect, but that doesn't make it any less lovely a listen.

78. Bebe Rexha - Last Hurrah
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 2:30
UK release date: 15th February 2019
UK chart position: 50
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 21
Gigs this decade: 0

One of those songs that the Spotify algorithm bludgeoned me with until I accepted that it's actually pretty catchy and fun. A consequence of mostly listening to the Daily Mix 1 playlist which featured all my favourite pop girls, with some suggestions from Spotify thrown in the mix. Leaving aside Bebe's habit of stretching out "hurrah" into eight syllables, the song doesn't overstay its welcome, ending abruptly enough to leave you wanting more. It remains to be seen whether she'll break through and have the career she's good enough to have - maybe not Swift/Beyonce/Grande tier, but definitely Ora/Lipa level.

77. Rebecca Black - Friday
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:30
UK release date: 14th March 2011
UK chart position: 60
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 1
Gigs this decade: 0

Ok listen shut up a minute. This isn't purely the best 100 songs from the 2010s in this list, it's also ones that encapsulate the decade, or had a big impact, and this certainly has the latter. This was everywhere online in early 2011, and even leaking out into real life (I realised how much when I heard someone whistling it at King's Cross tube station), a meme before we'd properly defined what memes were. Yes, it's not the greatest of songs, but if you asked 100 people to sing a line from each song on this list, this would definitely have more people able to sing than a large majority. Much like Poppy, she's also evolved her style over her career, albeit without the metal influences.

76. Astrid S - Emotion
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:10
UK release date: 12th October 2018
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 22
Gigs this decade: 0

Until a few years ago, Scandinavia's main export to me was cheap but decent players on Football Manager. After joining the Reddit subreddit Popheads and being exposed to smaller artists, I've realised the region is also a hotbed of pop bangers. Not just Nils Sjoberg or Max Martin's work, but others we'll meet later on. Astrid S is one that I found out about from the sub, a Norwegian with a habit of including lush sonic soundscapes in her work. 

75. Liam Payne & Rita Ora - For You
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 4:05
UK release date: 5th January 2018
UK chart position: 8
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 15
Gigs this decade: 0

The Fifty Shades saga is a series of films with soundtracks faaaaaar better than the films that they accompany. Owing to me being obsessed with a track from one of them, Spotify decided that I would clearly also like this song as well. Despite it having several no-nos (a male vocalist on a pop song?! From a boy band?!) they were right. It grew on me, it's a big sounding song, the epic sounding synth line provides a nice bit of consistency throughout and both Liam and Rita have believable chemistry.

74. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 5:06
UK release date: 28th July 2013
UK chart position: 50
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 9
Gigs this decade: 0

I have no idea who this band are. I don't know if Edward Sharpe is a real person or not, what he looks like, how many band members there are, how magnetic they are, or the effect they have on compasses. What I do know is that I've heard this song on both Glee and Gossip Girl, and had it stuck in my head for weeks after both. It's catchy, and it's nice. It's a pure, pleasant song, the aural equivalent of watching a Robert Linklater film.

73. Emily Browning - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 5:18
UK release date: 22nd March 2011
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 69 (nice)
Gigs this decade: 0

Oh look, this decade's first cover! Possibly one of the last too, I had a much longer list to choose from this time round (helped by starting to prepare in 2016). Sucker Punch is similar to the 80s flick Streets Of Fire - a much maligned film with a heavily praised soundtrack. I like the film, but can see where its detractors are coming from. However, it did make me aware of the lovely Emily Browning, an Australian actress who refuses point blank to follow in Kylie's footsteps and have a dual singing/acting career. She does grace us with plenty of songs for the soundtracks of films she appears in though, and it is off these scraps that we feed. 

72. Britney Spears - Clumsy
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:02
UK release date: 11th August 2016
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 8
Gigs this decade: 2

Look, we all make mistakes. While I didn't have a rundown for the 90s (although that gives me a cracking idea), not including "Oops!... I Did It Again" in the 00s chart was a travesty. I was young, foolish, and thought I was too good for pop music. This track isn't as good as Oops (but very few songs can come close) but it's the best one she's released in the qualifying period, from the 2016 album Ben, and was a definite highlight of her live sets when we saw her in 2018! It's difficult to listen to her output from this period, with the conservatorship situation hanging over her (basically she can't do anything fun without risking losing custody of her kids - read more here) so hopefully when I stick one of her five number ones from the next decade in the 2020s list, I can provide a happier update.

71. PVRIS - My House
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 4:02
UK release date: 23rd September 2014
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 36
Gigs this decade: 1

It's pronounced the same way as the French capital, if you're wondering. Another band I discovered via Alice, and there's another connection to number 83 as well - both Blake and Sierra from VersaEmerge contributed to the song writing. While I went for the first promotional single from the album White Noise, really I could've stuck a pin in the tracklist and any song would've done - they're all consistently bangers. It's a shame the second album never clicked with me, but if/when I get round to writing up an albums of the decade list, I can see White Noise sneaking on!

Next time...three separate female vocalists who have also been the first credit on different CW TV shows, a healthy chunk of rock acts and the first - but not the last - song in a different language.

Decade Songs - 90 to 81

Some surprising names in this, bands you'd expect to see in the top 20, but first we'll start off with a great gimmick...

90. Poppy - I'm Poppy
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:06
UK release date: 14th February 2017
UK chart position: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 10
Gigs this decade: 0

I first discovered Poppy on a random Spotify playlist, on the train home after a night shift last July, which it turns out was exactly the best time to fall down the rabbit hole of the Church of Poppy.  Poppy is an object your best friend an AI that gains sentience and has evolved over four albums, three EPs and half a dozen other tracks into...well, she's evolved into exactly the sort of thing you'd expect an Artificial Intelligence robot to evolve into after reading the internet. This track is vastly different to her latest, but is a good starting point, showcasing the innocence and naivety that the character had when starting out.

89. Nina Nesbitt - Chewing Gum
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:19
UK release date: 5th February 2016
UK chart position: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 13
Gigs this decade: 3*

It's been fun watching Nina evolve over the last decade as well. While it's not been as severe a jump as Poppy, the Scottish songstress has gone from a starry-eyed teen to developing a harder edge. She's moved out from the Ed Sheeran comparisons, through label disputes, to a position where it feels like she's making the music that she wants to make. This track, slotting neatly into the 3:30 maximum length of a pop song, sees Nina kicking back against a boy for casually discarding her.

*We've got tickets to see her in Camden in December, so this number may increase before decade-end.

88. Miley Cyrus - Younger Now
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 4:08
UK release date: 18th August 2017
UK chart position: 54
Last decade's chart: 58
Listens as at 8th October: 13
Gigs this decade: 0

A drop of 30 places from the last decade chart, but don't let that fool you - this isn't Miley's last appearance in this chart. When I compiled the last list, Dolly Parton's goddaughter was scandalising the world by wearing some short denim shorts in the video for Party In The USA - ten years hence, and the outrage seems rather quaint compared to her current tabloid headlines! (If there's a theme of evolution to this entry it's purely by coincidence.) We will revisit Miley twice more, once directly and once by one of her songs being covered, and she very nearly had another entry because of her Black Mirror character Ashley O!

87. Jenny and Johnny - Big Wave
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:53
UK release date: 9th August 2010
UK chart position: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 24
Gigs this decade: 1

The first time we see Jenny Lewis in this chart, but obviously not the last. This was the lead single from the album that she did with her (then) boyfriend, which is a great summer album. The track shares a name with a lovely drinkable golden ale too!

86. Demi Lovato - Cool For The Summer
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:34
UK release date: 1st July 2015
UK chart position: 7
Listens as at 8th October: 3
Gigs this decade: 1

Ah, Demetria. I don't think we could sit and have a drink together without falling out with each other, but this is a proper banger. The best bi-curious summer song since Katy Perry's track in 2008 (which reached number 56 for that decade's chart), it's a good enough track to let me overlook her habits of taking shots at Taylor Swift on Twitter, or having been in Glee. The piano chords running through the track really let the song breathe, having the music recede to just her vocals and the instrument before bursting forth for the finale. It's not going to be the last time we encounter Max Martin's fingerprints during this chart!

85. Garbage - Automatic Systematic Habit
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:18
UK release date: 14th May 2012
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: 15
Listens as at 8th October: 30
Gigs this decade: 5

Wow, ten years ago it was a shock when Garbage didn't make the top ten, now they're bumping along with ex-Disney stars and bands that lazily get compared to Paramore. My listening to the band has halved in this decade compared to the last (and the 00s weren't properly recorded until 2005, so that's not a complete total either) despite two new albums - the records just haven't clicked with me, to the point where I left their 2016 gig at the Troxy halfway through because I was feeling too maudlin. I haven't made it through their Tiny Little Birds album in its entirety either. This is the best track from their first album of this decade, a punchy number reminiscent of the first album.

84. Against The Current - Another You (Another Way)
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:23
UK release date: 17th February 2015
UK chart position: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 23
Gigs this decade: 1

I got sent this track by my brother, who (accurately) assumed that a female fronted pop-punk band would be up my street after a discussion about We Are The In Crowd, who include an older sibling to an ATC band member in their roster. This is one of those anthemic tracks that sound good on record, but absolutely great being belted out during the encore of a fantastic gig by a band at the top of their game.

83. VersaEmerge - Fixed At Zero
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:41
UK release date: 13th July 2010
UK chart position: N/A
Listens as at 8th October: 24
Gigs this decade: 1

Oh look, another female fronted rock act. Quelle surprise. I heard about these guys from Alice, a friend I made at a Paramore gig in 2010. I downloaded the album to listen to on the train to London and an hour later, when I got off at St Pancras, as soon as I'd passed through the barriers I immediately found a seat and bought tickets to see them in London four days hence! Sadly after that they had some label issues and only released a pair of EPs before splitting, but their influence is still shown on other bands in the scene, two of which we will see later - one who wrote their first album with a Versa member, and another whose name could almost be an anagram...

82. The Subways - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:00
UK release date: 21st April 2012
UK chart position: N/A
Last decade's chart: 48
Listens as at 8th October: 9
Gigs this decade: 3

I don't know that I'll ever be able to listen to The Subways with unbiased ears. The band have introduced me to so many people I call friends (as well as indirectly to my wife), not just in the Young For Eternity era in 2005 but even nowadays. They're one of my most listened to artists. This track, from the Money and Celebrity album, is a three minute long blast of energy that doesn't let up from start to finish!

81. Charli XCX - Break The Rules
YouTube // Spotify
Track length: 3:23
UK release date: 19th August 2014
UK chart position: 35
Listens as at 8th October: 35
Gigs this decade: 3

Following on from track 92, and with a popular soundtrack song to carry on the momentum, Charli launched Sucker with this as the lead single. It hints at the heavier side of Charli's music, but with all of the edges sanded off in a much more radio friendly manner. The Sucker era seems to have enabled her to find a niche that works for her - she's a big enough name that a songwriting credit for her will give a song extra cachet (as we'll see in the 30-21 entry) and also gives her the freedom to make music that she wants, such as the electropop of the newer era.

Next time...artists from Australia, Albania, Norway and Boston, two viral hits, and an Oscar winning actress.