#8
2009 - Jordin Sparks - Battlefield
Album: Battlefield
Different life, different time I suppose. I always felt like Jordin Sparks had a really nice voice and this song played a lot at work when I was feeling like I needed some strength to get through bad relationships. I don't think I've watched any episodes of American Idol since season 2 so I don't know too much about what happened while she was on there, but I know she is a phenomenal singer and seemed like a really great person. "I guess you better go and get your armor" was a battle cry for me this year, and so this song carried me along. Weird to think that I spent so much time with this song, though.
2010 - 30 Seconds to Mars - Kings and Queens
Album: This Is War
You know, Jared Leto could have stuck with acting. Or he could have kept with the space-rock theme of 30 Seconds to Mars' first record, which was actually a solid disc. But no, he wanted to be a popstar as well as Mr fancy actor, and so we now have this atrociously overrated pop-rock outfit that pretends that they're hot shit when indeed they just make trash music. In 2010 they were evolving away from their rock sound, and they showed that somehow, they had enough catchiness between them that they could pump out an actual solid hit in "Kings and Queens". I was still biking a lot back then and this was a great song to really mash the pedals to, along with the previously mentioned "Resistance" by Muse. Amusingly, both bands essentially traveled along different paths to become bands I can no longer stand. Music... haha.
2011 - Emmure - Children of Cybertron
Album: Speaker of the Dead
Emmure is such a volatile act, it's no surprise that their music is as chaotic as it is. Unfortunately, Frankie Palmeri is a total yutz and has spent most of his career careening down a path of self-destruction that has blown up Emmure multiple times, to the point that they're essentially a shell of the fantastic music that they used to be and are a clone of a copy of the original act. Fortunately, in Speaker of the Dead they were still on top of their collective games and dropped some massive songs, including "Last Words to Rose", "Solar Flare Homicide", and "A Voice From Below". "Children of Cybertron" was a rallying cry for the Blue Jackets this season for me and has been ever since. I just wish the band had stuck to their guns rather than combusting.
2012 - Demon Hunter - Dead Flowers
Album: True Defiance
Remember what I said a few weeks ago about life, death, and Demon Hunter songs on the Countdown? Here you go. The downside of True Defiance is that upon my initial listen I wasn't totally sold on any of the individual songs until I got to the very last track. Of course, that was "Dead Flowers" and they released a video for it, and the rest is history. 10 years after their first record changed the way I listen to music, they were at it again with another song that I legitimately could not stop listening to for anything. True Defiance is probably my least favorite of their records; it's solid but doesn't really have the stand-out punch of their previous efforts. "Tomorrow Never Comes" and "I Am A Stone" are my other favorites, which goes to show that their slower efforts are still their best in my opinion.
2013 - Paper Route - Letting You Let Go
Album: The Peace of Wild Things
Far too many times there are bands that release entire records that sound absolutely nothing like their lead singles. I've found it could be a combination of many different things - the band had been riding that one song until they finally got signed, the band had previously written the song in a different sounding incarnation of their group, or even the record label just wanted to work off of one song without giving much help going forward. Whatever it is, there is nothing else that Paper Route has recorded that sounds anything like "Letting You Let Go", which is a beautiful, passionate fantastic hit of a song. The band still gets plenty of airplay on stations like RadioU and has a decent online following, but I just can't latch on to anything else they've done since this song.
I do of course remember the first time I heard this song: getting ready to take a shower in my old apartment listening to the Ten Most Wanted of the day. It was one of those OMG moments where I immediately dug up as much as I could about the band and listened to the song on repeat for about 3 days. But that's really all I have for these guys, unfortunately.
2014 - Sleeper Agent - Waves
Album: About Last Night
Dear Sleeper Agent - why you break up in 2015?!? "Waves" was one of those songs that I legitimately thought had a chance at being #1 in 2014. It's SUCH a good song that just goes on and on and digs deep into you. "Be Brave" was another song I enjoyed off of this record, but nothing else compares to "Waves". The band had a couple of solid hits off of their debut record as well, it's just a shame that they decided to hang it up on top. I really liked Alex Kandel's voice and unfortunately she hasn't been active in music since 2015 either. Alas, what's a man to do?!
2015 - Ellie Goulding - Love Me Like You Do
Album: 50 Shades of Gray OST
Ellie Goulding is silly, man. I'm silly for loving this song so much, but there's something about the way she sings in it that just captivates me. It's not my style and honestly she's not my type of singer, but it just works. 50 Shades, blech. All of it is strange but that's what music is, right? I had fun singing this one at work to the horror of my co-workers who know me as staunchly anti-pop music though. Lol
2016 - Jess Lamb and the Factory - End of the Line
Album: End of the Line
On the flip side, I love Jess Lamb. Seeing her live, meeting her, following her for the past two-plus years has just been phenomenal. She's so wonderfully quirky, positive and uplifting. Her music always surprises me but her voice feels like home. When we went to see Assemblage 23 at the end of 2015 we expected a bunch of electronic acts, and we were treated two 2 industrial openers, a noise group, and Jess and the Factory. It was a fantastic breath of air that I needed, and she's one of those people who has helped me recapture myself as a person. "End of the Line" is beautiful but oh so grim - a perfect mixture of what Jess does in all of her music. Love, love, love.
2017 - Circle of Dust - Machines of our Disgrace
Album: Machines of our Disgrace
Very rarely in the history of the countdown has one artist/record featured songs in back to back years. The combination has to be perfect - the previous album has to be released late enough in the previous year that it qualifies for the next, but has to have a song that's good enough on both discs to make it. Generally any band who made it the year before rides off of the wave of that song long into the next year and doesn't catch much else. In 2010-11 Matt and Kim hit the double, landing at #5 and #3 in what can only be considered the biggest single-handed crushing in countdown history for a record. Circle of Dust repeated that feat after having "Contagion" land at #11 in 2016 and the title track of their new record in at #8. As much as I love CoD, I didn't draw it up like that; but I'm happy the dominos fell that way. Here's to more of that soon!
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