My tops for 2007- Pop Songs

Welcome to the first CODama Top Things of the year 2007. (No budget homepage advert or Euro 154 I’m sorry) Even if I’m not as good as the critics of the Times, In-Nazzjon or L-Orrizont, and not so much people will read this I still want to put my opinion online. It’s up to you to agree or not!

Let me start with The Top Pop songs for 2007

Hey There Delilah
by Plain White T's
There've been thousands of heartbroken men reaching out to distant girl with a recorded song throughout the years, and it's a credit to the Plain White T's that this one manages to feel fresh. Singer Tom Higgenson has an imperfect voice, but his nasal delivery makes the nearly-comic sincerity of his lyrics “Delilah I can promise you/ That by the time we get through/ The world will never ever be the same” seem completely genuine. Backed by a warm acoustic guitar and a hint of viola, Delilah is an intimate love song that’s complete.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place
by Radiohead

I find this song like a journey through flirtation, consummation and regret. I think no song comes so close as to summing up a hopeless relationship in four minutes. The lyrics are typical Thom Yorke‘s sharpness ("What's the point of instruments/ Words are a sawed off shotgun") — but it's the tightness of the music, rising in intensity like a three act play, that makes Jigsaw scream.

All My Friends
by LCD Soundsystem

There's a magic to this song that I won't ruin by trying to explain the potion. Suffice it to say that a straightforward repetition of the same guitar, keyboard and bass lines, combined with lyrics about life without regret ("I wouldn't trade one stupid decision/ For another five years of life") and life with all kinds of regrets ("You spend the first five years trying to get with the plan/ and the next five years trying to get with your friends again") pays off with a punch about what we lose as we get older.

Umbrella
by Rihanna

Sometimes an umbrella is just an umbrella. A few seconds into Rihanna's Umbrella you realize that this is probably not one of those times. It's not that Umbrella is explicit; its lyrics ("Now that it's raining more than ever/ Know that we'll still have each other/ You can stand under my umbrella") owe more to Doris Day than Madonna. But Rihanna, a Barbadian ex-beauty queen, has a special talent for vocal innuendo. She toys with the word umbrella — or, as Rihanna would put it, um-ba-rella, ella, ella — as if she's taking it for a ride. The sexiest song of 2007.

Baby Fratelli by The Fratellis
This Glasgow band has no new tricks in its bag. They steal the sounds from the Ramones and riffs from T-Rex . I read that all the the members last name is Fratelli, this might be the reason they produced this shamelessly glam rock song. It's about a simple girl, but really it's a high-energy limerick to the thrill of stupidity, maybe that’s the other reason why it’s part of Hot Fuzz soundtrack.


1 2 3 4
by FeistLeslie
Feist specializes in songs that make sophisticated adults feel like little kids, and 1 2 3 4 may be her masterpiece. Lyrically it's little more than a nursery rhyme — "One Two Three Four/ Tell me that you love me more" — but Feist sings it with a mixture of wisdom and exuberance that's all her own.

Rehab
by Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse is so confident about her voice and performance that on the song Rehab that she starts her vocal a half beat before the music comes in. She tries to be no common star. She is cheeky, funny, hot, and quite possibly crazy. "They tried to make me go to rehab/ I said 'No No No,'" she announces, and while real life it is something that she might think about to go thru, it's impossible not to be seduced by her originality. Combine it with production by Mark Ronson that references four decades worth of soul music without once failing, and you've got one of the best song of 2007