The songs that get to #1 aren't always the songs that actually sell the most in a given year, y'know. Often there are songs that sell just as much overall, but never sold quite as much in a particular week. In fact, two of the top five selling songs of the year never got to #1.

ARIA have just released their annual top 100 singles of the year chart. This year, of the top 20, there are six songs that are some variation of teen pop (Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, etc), six R&B tunes (LMFAO, Rihanna, etc), five which are vaguely based around rock or indie music (Adele, Gotye, etc), and three which are based around rap vocals (Pitbull, Snoop Dogg, Flo Rida).

Obviously, the boundaries between rap, R&B and teen pop are pretty blurry. As David Guetta's tendrils stretch ever further through the charts, a lot of it seems like dance music underneath. Even more so than last year, despite its rap or teen pop veneer.

In comparison, last year, there were nine songs which are some variation on Max Martin-style teen pop (e.g., Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, etc), six R&B tunes (Usher, Rihanna, etc), two which were vaguely alternative rock or indie (Train, Owl City), and three which were based around rap vocals (Jay-Z, Eminem, B.o.B.).

So without further ado:

20. Flo Rida – ‘Good Feeling’



(#4 for 3 weeks in November)

 A 2010 New York article on hit producer Dr Luke’s methods discussed how he would gather beats and hooks and lyrics from disparate sources, and put them together in such a way as to create a hit. For example he might select a beat that one of his young protégés had been working on, send it to Max Martin to put some hooks over the top, and get Ester Dean to write some lyrics. ‘Good Feeling’ is the result of pretty much the same process except that instead of working with other writers, he’s taken an already-existing Avicii song, ‘Levels’ (with a sample of Etta James singing ‘Something’s Gotta Hold Of Me’), put the hooks more front and centre, and then gotten Flo Rida to rap in the verses and show off his rippling muscles in the video clip. It's probably inevitable that I'd prefer to listen to Etta James' song, but this is innocuous enough.


19. Wynter Gordon – ‘Dirty Talk’



(#1 for 3 weeks in January & February; TheVine's review is here)

I'm not saying here that 'Dirty Talk' doesn't deserve to be #1 – it's catchy enough. I am slightly baffled that it's not called 'No Angel', considering the vocal hook in the chorus - “I am no angel” - which is presumably currently stuck in several heads. Gordon and Jupiter Ace know that it's the hook – it's pretty much the first and last thing you hear in the song; twelve times all up if you listen to the song in full. The prominent syncopated synth part, reminiscent of the kind of keyboard parts you'd hear on early 1990s disco tracks, like 'Be My Lover' by La Bouche, or 'Sing Hallelujah' by Dr Alban, is also pretty catchy. And, interestingly for a song that was first released almost a year ago, 'Dirty Talk' features Gordon almost speaking a lower register “dirty talk” at the end of sections, which is almost identical to the “dirty bit” hook in The Black Eyed Peas' “The Time (Dirty Bit)”.

But the song is not quite as fine-tuned for massive success as, say, 'Dynamite' by Taio Cruz or 'Bad Romance' by Lady Gaga – songs that were always going to be hits in the right place and right time. Beyond the chorus hook and the requisite middle-8 buildup, there's not much sense of tension and release in 'Dirty Talk'; of dynamics pushing and pulling. It's a static and samey song, with a bland and possibly already-out-of-date David Guetta-style club beat under a relatively anonymous vocal – it sounds safe and airless. Gordon's vocals resemble Rihanna's, but don't have her presence, don't quite let her personality and sexuality emerge through the vocals and the autotune. And for a song called 'Dirty Talk', which is clearly meant to be racy and provocative, this is a problem.


18. David Guetta feat. Sia - ‘Titanium’ 



(#5 for 4 weeks in September & October)

Celebrity producer David Guetta’s usual collaborators are the likes of Akon (‘Sexy Bitch’), Flo Rida (‘Where Dem Girls At’) or Rihanna (‘Who’s That Chick’). And he produced ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by the Black Eyed Peas, the song that will eventually be blamed for this year’s apocalypse (pfft to Mayan calendars). So it’s exceedingly odd to hear Aussie songbird Sia singing about her impervious metallic properties over Guetta’s usual sounds. After all, Sia’s voice is an expressive instrument in itself, with odd tones and occasional nasal flecks – the kind of thing that Guetta would usually prefer to obliterate with autotune. Sia comes across as too arty here, too self-reflective to really be the kind of club hound that Flo Rida or Rihanna convincingly pretend to be in the videos. But while Sia’s vocals often struggle to compete with the sheer volume of those beats, you can still hear her vocal tics clearly enough, which does give the song some character. And really, I think the basic point of the song is that Guetta’s massive synthy beats are as impervious and shiny as the titular metal itself.


17. Nicki Minaj – ‘Super Bass’



 (#6 for 2 weeks in August; TheVine's review is here)

The kind of pop music that sits at the top of the charts these days is very often all about losing yourself in the crowd in the Club; thus the autotune obliterating the personality of the vocals; the melodies that could be sung by anybody; the disco-beat backing tracks that sort of all sound the same. And so it’s a testament to just how big Nicki Minaj’s voice is that when you hear ‘Super Bass’ that her personality doesn’t just poke through the sound of the song (which generally follows the pop formula, but which also somehow reminds me of ‘Hyperballad’ by Bjork). Instead, her personality completely obliterates the rest of the song. Nothing else in the song matters except for that voice, and the sense of not having any idea what will come next. The most exciting thing about the song for me is how she tries on about half a dozen different voices over it's length, all of which somehow still retain her personality.

There’s 1) The little tendrils of R&B vocal melisma which start the song; 2) The dreaminess in the way she sings the best hook in the song (‘boom bo-dum boom boom bo-dum boom bay’); 3) The way she apes autotune in the middle 8; 4) The confident clippiness of her voice when she raps “When you come up in the club you’ll be blazing up”, which for some reason reminds me of Kanye West’s flow. But the two best voices she use come one after another, and the transition between the two at 0:32 is the kind of moment this list is made of. When she sings “And yes you’ll get slapped if you’re looking, ho”, it has the same kind of anger and force that she had on her verse on Kayne’s ‘Monster’; but suddenly she swaps voices and she’s almost coquettish as she sings “I mean, excuse me, you’re a hell of a guy, I mean my my my my, you’re like pelican fly”.


16. Christina Perri – ‘Jar Of Hearts’



 (#2 for 1 week in July)

Christina Perri’s voice is reminiscent of Amy Lee of Evanescence, with its mix of classically-trained pop diva and punky nasalness. And with that voice attached to her musical brand of maudlin teen angst, it’s no surprise that Perri ended up singing the theme tune to one of the Twilight movies later in 2011.

‘Jar Of Hearts’ has the sheen of professional songwriting to it; you could imagine Celine Dion covering it, pretty easily. Like much professional songwriting, it aims for universality – there’s no specific personal details, as that kind of pro songwriter-type often feels that such a thing might reduce the amount of people who want to use the song (whereas for an Adele or Gotye, the personal details typically increase the feeling of authenticity about the song, which can often be appealing in itself).

Funnily enough, ‘Jar Of Hearts’ is also heavily reminiscent of ‘Video Games’ by heavily hyped indie darling Lana Del Rey; both are maudlin piano-based songs with prominent strings, both are about men mistreating women. But to my mind ‘Video Games’ works better than ‘Jar Of Hearts’ because it has less pro-songwriting sheen – those personal details that Perri and her songwriting collaborators maybe thought about and ended up ditching (or that Perri didn’t bring up because she was a little embarrassed to say it in front of the serious songwriter?) are what makes ‘Video Games’ the song it is.