Reviewing the Billboard Number One Hits

While the Billboard chart is somewhat irrelevant in the days of iTunes and the Hype Machine, it still acts as a good barometer for which songs captured the public consciousness during the year. Every year, I look back on the year in pop culture and I review each one of the Billboard number one hits, commenting on the landscape of pop music during the year. I started reviewing the Billboard hits at the end of each year since 2005, when I was 15 and my tastes and writing ability were far from fully formed, so I'm gonna post the years 2007 through 2009 in separate posts.

Here's 2007 (written when I was 17):

2007: The Year of the Robot

2007 was the year when America was obsessed with synthesized voices. The two people who made the biggest impact on this year's hot 100 were Konvict Music's Akon and the pudgy, cyborg R&B singer of the future: T-Pain. Akon had a multitude of top 40 hits (mostly in the first half of the year). T-Pain dominated the Summer and fall with two #1 hits (and the first one of '08 ). I happen to think that T-Pain's robotic R&B is pretty entertaining, but Akon is pretty annoying, with one exception, which I'll get to later.

Anyway, to the hits:

Irreplaceable - Beyoncé: 12/16/06-2/17/07 (10 Weeks)

"Irreplaceable" is as good as an R&B song can get these days, with a Max Martin-esque beat, heavily featuring acoustic guitar and one of Beyoncé's most powerful vocal performances. The opening "to the left" hook is irresistible and subversive all at once, as the listener expects a dance number, but instead gets a send-off song to a man who did not realize what he had. While I generally prefer Beyoncé in "Crazy in Love" fill the dancefloor mode, "Irreplaceable" is an undeniably effective ballad with clever lyrics and a memorable vocal hook.
Rating: 9/10

Say it Right - Nelly Furtado: 2/24 (1 Week)
While T-Pain and Akon may have dominated '07, Timbaland was no slouch either. This song is a pretty strong, like many of Timbaland's hits, and has a great drum beat and a catchy chorus. It's also incredibly fun sing "eh" after every bar along with Timbo. This is probably my favorite of Nelly's hits and shows a dark side of Furtado that we haven't seen much of, except in "Maneater."
8/10

What Goes Around...Comes Around - Justin Timberlake: 3/3 (1 Week)
Timbo strikes again, this time with his pal Justin. While not as good as "My Love," this song brings Justin back to "Cry Me a River" territory. In fact, if anything, it's just a supersized version of that song. This is a good thing. "Cry Me a River" is a pop masterpiece (it is, just trust me) and the formula works well. As with Beyoncé, I prefer Timberlake in kiss-off mode than romantic mode. The song has a nice little Arabian guitar line running through the beginning. The song really heats up at the 5:30 mark, when the "Comes Around" interlude kicks in with a new drumbeat and stadium synths. While he's no Prince, Timberlake still makes some of the most daring and out-there pop songs of anyone on the current pop landscape and hopefully he works his magic with Timbaland again sometime in the near future.
9/10

This is Why I'm Hot - Mims: 3/10-3/17 (2 Weeks)
The premise is simple really: Mims is hot. He's hot because he's fly. Therefore tautology. You, unfortunately, ain't hot, because, you not. Don't get me wrong, the beat is actually pretty hot, but Mims, unfortunately, is not. Mims says "I could sell a million saying nothing on the track," which is pretty much what he did. The lyrics mainly revolve around the extent of Mims' hotness ("If you take the sun and multiply it's heat ten times over then what you got is me."), but he does not spend so much time focusing on actually why he's hot. If the song was called "This is How Hot I Am," I might have liked it more.
5/10

Glamorous - Fergie featuring Ludacris: 3/24-3/31 (2 Weeks)
In the future, Sesame Street is going to be replaced by Fergie, who loves to use songs to teach people how to spell. G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S. That spells glamorous. At least she spelled it right this time, unlike in "Fergalicious" (there's no "e" in "Tasty," Fergie). Anyway, this song sucks and even legendary guest rapper Ludacris can't save it. It's not her worst song, but it's pretty bad.
3/10

Don't Matter - Akon: 4/7-4/14 (2 Weeks)
Akon brings back the chipmunk from "Lonely" and steals the verse melody from the remix to "Ignition" in his only #1 of the year, despite his ubiquity (when this was #1, however, Akon either guested on or produced (or both) 7 other songs in the top 50). Though it attempts to be a heartfelt R&B ballad, one can't help but squirm and think about the lyrics in relation to that time he dry-humped a 15-year-old on stage in Trinidad. "Nobody wanna see us together." Damn straight. Akon is obviously taking more than just musical cues from R. Kelly. Hide all the preteens.
4/10

Give it to Me - Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado: 4/21-4/28 (2 Weeks)
"When Timbo is in the party everybody put up they hands." Especially after that murderer's row of Akon, Fergie and Mims, I am more than relieved to see Timbaland return to the party. The drums are once again fantastic as Timbaland and his two biggest stars take down their various rivals. Just don't pay too much attention to the lyrics.
8/10

Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne: 5/5 (1 Week)
On the one hand, it's good to see some energy in the billboard charts. It too often seems that chart-toppers are hardly even trying. Avril brings her all bringing a cheerleader energy that finds its way to the top of the charts every once and a while. I like the idea of the cheerleader-esque chants during the verses. However, the song is annoying as fuck. Just completely diabolical in it's ability to imprint itself on your memory and piss the hell out of you for the rest of the day.
5/10

Makes Me Wonder - Maroon 5: 5/12-5/19, 6/2 (3 Weeks)
This song is miles better than anything else Maroon 5 has ever recorded. I like the dance feel and I think that Maroon 5 should stick to stuff like this in the near future. It is rare that a modern rock song comes along that doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out with a nail file.
7/10

Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin') - T-Pain ft. Young Joc: 5/26 (1 Week)
The song is pretty much a succession of pick-up lines. The well-known secret of T-Pain is that any run-of-the-mill R&B song triples its commercial appeal when filtered through a vocoder. It makes you wonder how the robots from Kraftwerk found out about hip-hop, rather than "this song sucks." This song isn't bad, though. The beat is pretty standard but the chorus is catchy as hell. Yung Joc quite literally could not rap his way out of a paper bag (though his lyrical dumbassery is nothing compared to his real-life stupidity: he was arrested in December 2007 for attempting to bring a semi-automatic onto an airplane.) However, even Yung Joc (it pains me even to type his name) can't stop this song from being compulsively listenable and pretty catchy.
6/10

Umbrella - Rihanna ft. Jay-Z: 6/9-7/21 (7 Weeks)
Ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh. Who knew that the key to writing the year's best pop song was stretching the word "umbrella" to eleven syllables? Rihanna, Jay-Z and songwriter "The-Dream" did. Umbrella is one of the best songs of the year and is incredibly catchy. Rihanna, like T-Pain, sounds more like a robot nun from outer space than a R&B singer, but it hardly matters because the song is a beast. Jay-Z sounds pretty lazy here, though. He made up for it later by releasing the best hip-hop album of the year. The story one goes that Britney passed up on Umbrella, and she actually seems like she would be a pretty good fit for the song. Imagine how huge the song would have been if she didn't.
9/10

Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's: 7/28-8/4 (2 Weeks)
I can't stand this song. If I were Delilah, I would be disgusted about what I had wrought onto the world. This song represents the epitome of shitty emo-pop and, in my ears, it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Isn't it completely crazy and unexpected that there's a black guy in the band that recorded the second most white bread song of the decade (James Blunt probably won't be topped for a couple centuries)
0/10

Beautiful Girls - Sean Kingston: 8/11-9/1 (4 Weeks)
A fat 17-year-old Jamaican named Sean Kingston (probably not his real name) accomplished what most people thought was impossible: he brought Ben E. King back to the top of the charts in 2007. Kingston samples "Stand By Me" on this one, waxing poetic about a "beautiful girl" who "did him dirt" and made him "suicidal." While the song is enjoyable, and Sean Kingston sounds very innocent despite singing that he went to prison, by the 100th time I heard this song, I nearly became suicidal.
6/10

Big Girls Don't Cry - Fergie: 9/8 (1 Week)
This isn't a Frankie Valli cover, but it should've been. Instead, we are treated to an acoustic ballad from Ms. Ferguson. This might be the worst song of the year. With lyrics like "And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket" (another example of Fergie's mastery of the English language), it tries to be heartfelt, but instead recalls Linus and Lucy. Big girls may not cry, but grown men do when subjected to the music of one Stacy Ferguson for an extended period of time.
0/10

Crank That (Soulja Boy) - Soulja Boy: 9/22, 10/6-11/3 (5 Weeks)
"Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" It's in your head now, isn't it? The biggest internet phenomenon of the year, the Crank That Soulja Boy dance, came courtesy of a little-known 17-year-old (another one) rapper from the South named Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. The song, depending on the day, is either a work of Pop genius or the dumbest thing ever put to tape since that time someone decided to put a tape of Screech from Saved by the Bell having sex on the internet (and probably before that too). I'm going to try to represent the two dueling perspectives. The awesome/awful beat, based on a 7 note keyboard riff and a huge bass hit, is infectious/evil as anything released this year. The dance itself is nothing special/the best thing since the Charleston. The lyrics are retarded/retarded and lines like "watch me crank that robocop" add to the song's charm/depravity. "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" is the best/worst song of the year. Now watch me youuuuuuuuu!
(1)0/10

Stronger - Kanye West: 9/29 (1 Week)
Our brief reprieve from Soulja Boy came in the form of a harder, better and faster Kanye West (I guess he's stronger, too). Kanye is probably my favorite rapper right now. While some of his lyrics are dumb, even the clunkers tend to grow on you because Kanye is so damn likable [editor's note: this was before Swift-gate - I still find Kanye's on-record persona to be very appealing]. The beat is undeniable and one of the best of the year. This song brought nearly everyone together: white dudes and black dudes, French people and Americans, indie house fans and Hip-Hop fans. Even Sarkozy probably liked this one.
9/10

Kiss Kiss - Chris Brown ft. T-Pain: 11/10-11/24 (3 Weeks)
Chris Brown is a fucking great performer [ed. note: sorta a shame what happened, eh?]. I hadn't really liked any of his songs, though, before I heard this one. T-Pain is back from outer space to give Brown a hand with the ladies (as if he needed help). The chorus is catchy and doesn't wear thin, even if you hear the song three times a day, like I did in its heyday.
7/10

No One - Alicia Keys: 12/1-12/29 (5 Weeks)
Some people really like this song. I don't. I think it's melodramatic and I don't particularly think Keys is suited for this type of song. Leave these to Christina, who has a voice strong enough to deliver the goods. She almost sounds like she's crying, which would be a plus if the lyrics weren't so impersonal and schlocky. It comes off as annoying, rather than heartbreaking.
4/10

That was 2007. In general, pretty bipolar in terms of quality - which explains why Soulja Boy had the song of the year.