A Year End Retrospective: 2017

Lately I've been pretty inactive, and I apologized for it. I've been really busy lately and nothing in the music world has really been worth talking about. So, for this year-end Retrospective (since I felt I likely missed out on most or all hits this year) I went and looked up what were Billboard's Top 100 Songs of 2017. I think I wasn't the only one who felt this year in music was worthless for in the list Billboard included songs like "Treat You Better" by Shawn Mendes, "Black Beatles" by Rae Sremmurd, "Heathens" by Twenty-One Pilots, and "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake which were all released in 2016. I guess there wasn't a lot I needed to catch up with, huh?

What were the toxic wastes of 2017? Well, if we're looking at Billboard's Top 100 Songs of 2017, "Treat You Better" by Shawn Mendes, might be the worst of them all. However, it was released in 2016 so unfortunately doesn't count. Even though we had to borrow trash hits from the previous year fill up the slots this year, there were some terrible, terrible songs. "Bad Things" by Machine Gun Kelly (ft. Camila Cabello), despite the interesting sampling of "Out of My Head" by Fastball (and by "interesting" I mean that they sampled this song at all), it was just a mediocre rap song with a mediocre singer with no personality. However, it could be worse. It could be Taylor Swift ripping off Right Said Fred in one of the most self-indulgent, pretentious, train-wrecks of a song. Still struggling with her persona, Taylor seems to be fed up with everything and everyone and is no longer young sweet Taylor. Too bad she hasn't been young sweet Taylor for years now. Bad songwriting aside, "Look What You Made Me Do" is probably the embodiment of a headache. Other trash contaminating our airwaves and our ears this year were "Juju on that Beat" by Zay Hilfigerrr & Zayion McCall, anything by Migos but especially "Bad and Boujee", and "Thunder" by Imagine Dragons.
But by far THE STUPIDEST song in 2017 HAS to be "Body Like a Back Road" by Sam Hunt. While musically, it isn't that bad and it is catchy as hell, "Body Like a Back Road" is everything I hate about country music: cheesy, stupid, and way too proud over minor insignificant stuff. While it isn't Bro-Country (which is probably the worst out of all possible outcomes) it is pretty infuriating how badly written this song is. First off: a "Body Like a Back Road" isn't a compliment. It's an insult. It may have curves, sure, but never in my life have a seen a back road that is pretty in ANY sense of the word. A "Body Like a Back Road" is a body with no care, unpaved, used up, old, full of pot holes, and depending on where this back road is, probably full of feces of various animals ranging from dogs to horses. Dear Sam Hunt, are you sure this is the metaphor you want to use to describe your wife? Dear Sam Hunt, are you absolutely sure you want to sing this song about YOUR WIFE to THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE? Wasn't there ANY other country cliche you could've compared your wife to? Like the American Flag? Maybe written something like "the stars in your eyes" or "you are my freedom"? Dear Sam Hunt, really...?

For the Mediocrity awards we have A LOT of runner ups. Again, most of the songs on Billboard's Top 100 Songs of 2017 were songs released on 2016 (or in the case of "Scars to Your Beautiful", 2015) so that means that there are a lot of songs not worthy of even putting up there. However, I have to name drop a few and more than a bad or mediocre song, "Castle on the Hill" is probably the biggest disappointment. In fact, let's just throw in the entirety of the "÷" album on here. As mentioned in my "Castle on the Hill"/"Shape of You" review, Ed Sheeran as a pop singer/songwriter is like chocolate but as a musician he is like wine. While his pop songs are good, they get tiresome to the point of seeming terrible (as such is the case of songs like "Thinking Out Loud"). On the other hand, Ed sometimes releases songs that go beyond "Pop songs" and just get better with every listen (like "Make it Rain"). "÷" unfortunately leaned more towards Ed's chocolate side and while that doesn't make it bad, it doesn't live up to the promise of "Shape of You". Moving on to ACTUAL mediocrity (and not just disappointment) Maroon 5 is still a thing (and a pretty bad one at that), and so are Charlie Puth and Shawn Mendes (which I'm actually happy because it is an improvement from "Treat You Better"). But mediocrity isn't just what is "eh". There's one song that truly went one step further to be the laziest and most "eh" song of them all:
"Something Just Like This" by  The Chainsmokers and Coldplay. Lord, even the title I think was just a comment the producers said to them and either the Chainsmokers or Coldplay said "Perfect! Let's use that as the name of the song". The Chainsmokers are infamously known for using the same chords in 99.9% of their songs, but using the exact same drop as "Roses" might be a little too lazy even for them. Actually, it kind of sounds like a recycling of "Roses" and "Hymn for the Weekend". Was there ANY work done on this song!? Like, AT ALL!? It is bad enough for the music to be this blatantly lazy, but did the lyrics have to be phoned in as well? "Spiderman's control and Batman with his fists"? What the hell are you talking about!? That means literally nothing. The song is about feeling like you're worthless when compared to the legends of the days of old and then finding comfort in settling for what you have and what you are. This is not a bad message, but in the context of this song it almost feels like they're brainwashing you to be less critical about the music you like for them to keep feeding you recycled garbage. You know, Something JUST LIKE THIS.

Not all is doom and gloom, however. There were some great songs in the radio this year (even if apparently we had to borrow most of them from previous years). "Shape of You" is still one of my favorite songs of the year and the overplaying of it is just proof of how good it really is. Furthermore, it is testament to Ed Sheeran's talents as a songwriter. Even though it is one riff, Ed masterfully escalates the song to an amazing climax through very subtle additions to the song with every passing stanza. One downside of it is, of course, that it is pretty much the same song as Sia's "Cheap Thrills" but it is so good I'm willing to let it slide. "Believer" by Imagine Dragons was another great song full with energy and a heartbeat. It was alive! Even if the songwriting choices were if-y at best, musically it was just a perfect combination of accidental genius. Imagine Dragons are by far not good songwriters or composers, but "Believer" is their best work to date and it is a seed for greatness to come (either by them or by someone breaking down and re-working this song).
Finally, the song everyone has been loving and then immediately hating, "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee. This song has been overplayed to death and its song is based on the 4 chords of pop, but the word play is pretty good (kind of vulgar, but it is Reggaeton), the performance and delivery are great, and most importantly: there is passion, energy, and fun. Like with "Shape of You", the fact that it is overplayed just demonstrates how good the song is, and furthermore, how much we need songs like this.

This time, I will not nominate a best song of the year because I honestly haven't been paying as much attention to the music scene as much as I should've. I will say that the sickness of 2016 still lingers and permeates the music of today, but I still hope that we'll get better music in the near future. Here's to a better year and great music in 2018.
Happy New Year to all!