#fearofmu21c — Public Fediverse posts

To complete the story, here's the crowdsourced list of The Best 261 Songs of the 21st Century (So Far).

https://www.tumblr.com/weaversweek/737609794946498560

Some surprises in the list, both good and clichéd.

And if you want to spend a whole day listening to the top 250 in release order (and you have Spotify), it's all there.
#FearOfMu21c #PopMusic #21stCentury #chart

Far darker and edgier than I might expect from Cartoon Network: this show ain't just Babs at Burrito Bucket.

I would say "go watch DC Super Hero Girls", but you'll have to brave the ITV Hub, and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Jason Charles Miller performs the song, from a 2018 episode.
https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=Hlg0cm90_Bc
#FearOfMu21c #DCSuperHeroGirls #animation

What happened when the sk8er boi and the singer got together?

First thing they did, they wrote a song.

OK, second thing.

ALRIGHT, it took a few days. But let’s not pry.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=2otwfF5YWpw
#FearOfMu21c #Crystalyne

My interior monologue went a bit like this.

"Ah, c'mon, two nominations in the top 50 for someone who hasn't yet put out a full album?"

"Yeah, but it's a really good song."

"So are the rest of your #FearOfMu21c tunes. That's why you're pickin' 'em."

"It's the only one with an Ozzy Osbourne homage in the video."

"True, but remember The Noise Next Door?"

"Who are they?"

"Exactly."
https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=H1xVm76NpVw
#RosaLinn #OzzyOsbourne

A firey and passionate cry of love, produced by Rick Nowels (responsible for Belinda Carlisle's sound). From the 2000 album "Stilelibero".

I also considered "Un'emozione per sempre" as a foreign-language tip for #FearOfMu21c.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=Gr7VfbUKYCo
#ErosRamazotti #Italian

Her hit single, "Let it go", was number 53 in my #FearOfMu21c top 50, dropped in favour of "The climb".

"At this table" is from the 2021 album "Christmas A Season of Love", a radically inclusive song for all gathering around this time of year.

Happy *giving, to those who mark it.
https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=X8D9DP3hyfg
#IdinaMenzel #FoundFamily

From 2009's album "Curiouser", an artpop genius sings as though she's floating in the ether. As if anyone would ever perform on boingy springy poles.

Dropped from #FearOfMu21c because it wasn't a single.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=92hDF6hFS4s
#KateMillerHeidke

Close-harmony singing from Norway's finest export since A-ha.

"Air" the 2003 album.

55th in my #FearOfMu21c top 50; dropped because nobody else remembers this brilliance.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=LUhjiARqh8E
#Ephemera

Number 54 in my #FearOfMu21c top 50.

The comeback single for the band of your youth, and a gateway into Dutch adult pop.

Unlike (say) the Spice Girls reunion, this was well-received and done for the art. From 2019's "Sweet High".

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=wRNQRzGp6Uo
#Krezip

From 2021's "If I Could Make It Go Quiet", Girl in Red sings frankly about her destructive impulses. Hey, if flying in a red balloon through the Windows Teletubbyland works, brilliant.

This, and second tracks by Lorde and Avril Lavigne, fell from my #FearOfMu21c top 50 as it was getting a bit too repetitive.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=Gh8Gl2GwB6s
#GirlInRed

"How can I love you less?
Now that I know you more.
It's just a question I still don't have the answer for."

Vancouver's vibrant alt-indie scene provides number 52 in my #FearOfMu21c top 50.

Two people reflect on how they've grown together; it's really made by the video.

From the 2012 album "Little Mountain".
https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=_oSyfW7Ci1E
#SaidTheWhale

The top 50 #FearOfMu21c countdown is over. For the rest of the month, ten songs that almost made my top 50, plus one for Thanksgiving.

Number 51 in my top 50: The *other* song from those "Dance the night away" alt-country stars.

From their 2000 album "Smile".

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=TXpwurJ94qk
#Jayhawks

A great song is a great song, a timeless song works in any era. Especially when it's given a loving remake by people who completely understand it.

The Saw Doctors took "Downtown", persuaded Pet Clark to re-record her vocals, and took over the centre of Galway to make their video.

This one's full of joy and love.
https://iv.melmac.space/watch?v=ItVEhL-T7qQ
#FearOfMu21c #SawDoctors #PetulaClark

One of the great singalong songs from the start of the century. "Year 3000" put Busted on the map, proved they were more than one-hit wonders.

Lyrical nods to "Back to the Future", the group's seventh album, and the celebrity of Michael Jackson. Has his video finished yet?

"Year 3000" is completely disposable pop, and it's wormed its way into everyone's heads. Boy bands, and another one, and another one, and another one.
https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=zEERYu22tb8
#FearOfMu21c #Busted

The lead single from "Heartthrob", "Closer" confirmed the duo's transition from folksy-singer-songwriters into a sleek disco machine. A late-70s synth riff announces the song, it cuts through clutter on the dancefloor and on the radio.

And then we're into a dreamlike space, playful and energetic and with a wistful romance, and the prospect of something more.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=9e9NSMY8QiQ
#FearOfMu21c #TeganAndSara

Halsey's generation takes diversity to heart, because diversity comes from the heart.

She sings of a generation that mocks itself, doesn't take itself too seriously. A pointed satire, to the point where stupid people stop understanding it.

"New americana" is a perfect document of the cultural zeitgeist. It captures and explains what it's like to be young in the early years of the twenty-first century.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=b-eYbUVZedY
#FearOfMu21c #Halsey

Last part of my little menagerie, a very tight song from the mid-aughts.

Jenny Lewis mastered the art of saying a lot in a little space. "Portions for foxes" may be a reference to psalm 63 ("They will fall by the sword: they will be a portion for foxes") and certainly the petit mort of good sex.

This is a song about sex, the yearning and the possibilities. And the happening, and then there is no mystery left.

https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=qtNV3pOqcjI
#FearOfMu21c #RiloKiley

"that episode of Buffy where Xander becomes a hyena, only with the threat amplified."

Greenock's finest rock-folk-samples-literate band from the mid aughts.

A pack hunting together, playing together.

Time to roar, drum, the sound of campfires deep in the woods, getting high on woodsmoke.

Eighteen words circle around a thought to reach, trance-like, for the release. Scary, cathartic. Must do it again.
https://invidious.lunar.icu/watch?v=IXTXfBCre3k
#FearOfMu21c #MyLatestNovel

For identification purposes, it's this "Baby shark".
https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w
#FearOfMu21c #BabyShark #Pinkfong

A slow-burn love song, Francesca sings of a deep emotional connection that has crept up on her. The second chorus dips into English, to convey the message even more clearly.

And - oh! - Francesca's voice! A beautiful tone, conveys everything she wants to say almost before she's enunciated the lyric.

Gorgeous song, perhaps too lovely for the big loud Eurovision Song Contest.
https://iv.melmac.space/watch?v=NXE-aTIIG30
#FearOfMu21c #FrancescaMichielin

The greatest singer-songwriter we've found so far this decade. "Driver's license" was great; "Vampire" sees Olivia take control of her life, and mercilessly disassemble the older ex's manipulative behaviour.

Olivia's anger and exhaustion rises through the song, reaching a crescendo of fury as she spits out the title line. One of the 50 best singles of the century so far, and may well be the song of 2023.
https://invidious.protokolla.fi/watch?v=RlPNh_PBZb4
#FearOfMu21c #OliviaRodrigo

Writing from the heart, Lorde penned "Royals" in less than an hour. The song reads like a teenage diary, frustrated and irritated and aspiring for her better world. The song contrasts Lorde's humdrum suburban life to those of the stars and celebrities.

"Royals" comes from being on the fringes of the dominant culture, in this case Aotearoa. We see the materialist stuff, we're exposed to celebrity, we can never join it.

invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?nlcIKh6sBtc
#FearOfMu21c #Lorde

It's the apogee of the aughts decade: obsessed with popularity and celebrity, hedonistic, flashing a lot of skin.

For the video. Alexander McQueen sent in the costumes worn by Gaga and her dancers, not the sort of thing you'll see on sale at Primark on Wednesday week. Full of white latex, orbiting rings, a chandelier top, the clip shows Gaga as a pawn for sale, an amusement for rich men.
https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I
#FearOfMu21c #LadyGaga

Katy Perry started her career singing Christian pop songs. She knows the tricks used by evangelicals and the religious lot.

She uses the tricks on "Chained to the rhythm", when cautious optimism had been crushed by tiny tiny hands. Chiding her audience for being "happily numb" and "tone deaf", Katy warns of what happens when we "dance to the distortion", all to a woozy Caribbean beat and a rap from Skip Marley.

https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/Um7pMggPnug
#FearOfMu21c #KatyPerry

"Anyone I want to be" gets in with a throbbing chord, a solo vocal in English that turned into Polish for the pre-chorus. Visually, perfection - black-and-white video, fast and precise cuts. We're hooked with the loping beat and fists-in-the-air moment, a little thrill of the chorus.

A stunningly good song, rejected by Iggy Azalea and Rita Ora, turned into success by a young woman from Silesia.
https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=PT-EzzJxySI
#FearOfMu21c #RoxieWegiel #JESC

Greatest pop song of the 2010s? This disco confection, more perfect than any millefeuille. Start with a funky bass riff, add on some sampled guitars and horns to accentuate the chorus like Wham! did.

The lyric doesn't have to mean much, in fact it's probably better if the lyric doesn't mean anything. A feelgood song, an instant classic… and completely overshadowed in its own interval act.
https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=4onPsBIPUbY
#FearOfMu21c #JustinTimberlake

Celebrity destroyed Britney Spears; she's never been allowed to grow beyond the image we saw in "...baby one more time".

"Toxic" might be the moment when she tried to mature. Both in image and in sound - another crack song from Cathy Dennis! bhangra motifs! the cat burglar!

But then came personal problems, and legal nonsense, and we are where we are. Sigh. #FreeBritney, as we said.

https://iv.melmac.space/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU
#FearOfMu21c #BritneySpears