Songs of the Year: The State of Pop Music in 2015

Once again, there isn’t much debate about who reigned the year in pop music. The clear choice is Adele. Other than “Hello”, few songs had such broad appeal and praise this year. Much like Taylor Swift in 2014, Adele swooped in during the last quarter of the year to deliver a song and an album that were considered a must listen. If you couple that with sales unprecedented by today’s standards, all that was missing from the chanteuse was a mic drop. But she’s too classy for that. Leave it to Taylor Swift to mop up all the adulation. She embarked on a victory tour selling out stadiums and surrounding herself with special guests (including rock royalty) in a vain attempt to bolster her brand and her cred. She wasn’t the only one jumping up and down saying “look at me”. One of the biggest songs of the year had a nation whipping and nae-naeing all over social media.
Silento and his hit song “Watch Me (Whip/Nae-nae)” is the modern update of “Land of a 1000 Dances”,albeit a terrible one. At first, I assumed the whole purpose of this song was an excuse to get your grandmother up at a wedding reception to see if she could do the “Duff” or the “Stanky Leg”. Plainly, the songs true message is in the repeated phrase, “WatchMe!” The song seems like a metaphor for these self absorbed times. Yes, watch me Instagram, now watch me You Tube, watch me Vine, now watch me Periscope, etc. You get the idea.

Someone else who’s always looking for attention is Demi Lovato. She’s was the worst of the bunch this year. Lovato is a tart, and I’m sorry if that sounds offensive. Their is no other way to describe her hit and unintentionally hilarious video “Cool For The Summer” . If she was hoping to win “Song of The Summer”, she failed miserably. I will give that honor to Walk The Moon with “Shut Up and Dance”. It gets to the point and gets out before anyone is annoyed. Another somewhat agreeable song from the summer was Elle King’s “Ex and Oh’s” which enjoyed success on both pop and alternative stations. Her success is even more unlikely when you consider she is the offspring of this guy. Also unlikely, was the continued success of Meghan Trainor, someone I had written off last year as a novelty. She double downed with “Lips Are Moving” and stole the show at the American Music Awards when her and Charlie Puth performed mutual tonsillectomy at the end their duet “Marvin Gaye”. We might have something to look forward to if these kids found a little more talent.

Hip-Hop and R&B continued their slide with tepid offerings from Drake, Kanye and Kendrick Lamar. Meanwhile, can someone please explain the success of The Weeknd and the two massive hits, “The Hills” and “Can’t Feel My Face”?  If you’re saying to yourself “I’ve never heard of that band”, you might be showing your age.  The Weeknd is the stage name of some dude whose music is described as “dark R&B”. For sure, the music is different when compared with soulless wonders like Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber. They sold more albums than The Weeknd, but that’s by design. Those pretty boys are pre-packaged bubblegum while The Weeknd is flavorless and boring. The same however cannot be said for Macklemore who landed the decent hip hop track “Downtown” in all its hand me down charm. It’s all a big goof…I hope. But let’s circle back to the beginning.

The year came in with Taylor Swift and ended with Adele. Women are still on top of the pop world. That’s not bad for the kids when you compare those two with the weakly talents of Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez. In a few months however they’re success will pass and another void will be created. I look forward to ranting about whomever that is next year.

Any other thoughts on 2015?