It's another year, and another brilliant mashup of the year's Billboard Top 25 from DJ Earworm. When I remarked on last year's installment, the thing that struck me most was "a plaintive, shivering yearning for an easier time."
This year, the visuals made more of an impact: bleak scenes of home or work life, broken up by wild, otherworldly parties. The popular mind wants to get the fuck away, dammit, possibly to a bizarre sonic future ruled by will.i.am and Fergie.
I also have a new appreciation for why Illuminati temptress Lady Gaga has caused such a ruckus: in this visual landscape, her quasi-fetish fantasias stand out as comparatively inventive.
I am also predicting that we will see the usual wailing about how interchangeable and plastic music has become. So I'm offering the vaccine early; here's the top songs from 1989. Popular frequently doesn't mean influential. Personally, I remain thankful for our era of audio mutation, when the lowliest drone song can become musical gold.
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