As we parallel park into July and officially hit the curb of this year’s halfway point, it’s time to take a quick look back at what the past six months have taught us. Not conventional life lessons, however; we’re talking about stuff that’s a little bit less intense and also involves YOU! That’s right, in the first installment of our Top 100 Videos of 2011… So Far, we’re spilling the beans on the #100-51 most clicked-and-viewed videos on VH1.com. You’ll see that this piñata-like list of content contains tasty treats and slippery surprises alike! We’ve got brand-new videos that just recently launched, some VH1 Classic leaning clips (hey there, Megadeth), repeat offenders, and of course, effervescent, essential vids from the music video cannon. So take a look at the first fifty videos below and don’t forget to come back later this week as we continue on our quest to discover what artist snags the #1 spot!
For the first time since we started counting down this year’s Song Of The Summer, someone other than Adele is sitting in the proverbial cat bird’s seat. Weirdly enough, though, “Rolling In The Deep” has been usurped by another song that audiences first heard back in 2010.
While we’re plenty excited that Katy Perry‘s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” knocked Adele out of the top spot, we can’t help but lament the fact that Katy Perry is still ruling the airwaves with songs from her Teenage Dream album. If you’ll recall, that record came out way back on August 24, 2010, but last year’s Song Of The Summer, “California Gurls,” was released even further back (May 11, 2010, to be exact). And if you flip the calendar back to the summer of 2008, Perry’s first smash single, “I Kissed A Girl,” was that summer’s biggest party jam.
So, folks, you tell us: What exactly is it about the summertime that makes you want to listen to Katy Perry? Why does her particular blend of breezy pop music make you want to roll your windows down and turn the singles from Teenage Dream up? Let us know in the comments, and check back here next week to see if Katy can fend off the likes of Britney Spears, Pitbull and Lady Gaga to keep the top spot in VH1′s Song Of The Summer countdown!
Renee Graziano Styles Ghostface Killah
In case you missed yesterday’s Mob Wives and haven’t caught up with Liz Black‘s recap yet, make sure you do! Staten Island’s own Ghostface Killah met up with Staten Island’s own Renee Graziano in one of the episode’s few lighter moments for Graziano.
Jeremih Covers Adele‘s “Rumour Has It”
“Down On Me” songster Jeremih tried his hand at a cover of “Rumour Has It,” from Adele’s still-chart-topping 21, for Billboard today. He even dropped a bit of “Ice Ice Baby” and “Under Pressure” into a breakdown. [click to continue…]
Welcome to Week Two of VH1′s Song of the Summer countdown. Each and every Monday from now until Labor Day, we’ll be utilizing today’s most advanced data collection techniques Microsoft Excel to chart the competition of what will become THE song that people will think of when they remember the summer of 2011.
Last week, Adele‘s monster smash, “Rolling In The Deep,” captured the top spot, scoring 87 of a possible 100 points. (For a reminder on how the scoring system works, click here.) Somehow, the English songbird managed to increase her stranglehold on the #1 spot in this countdown this week, racking up 91 (!!!) points and proving that no matter what medium people use to consume music these days, they’re using it to listen to Adele.
Taylor Swift may have just released a music video two weeks ago on CMT, but while country radio has taken to “Mean,” it’s “The Story of Us” that’s been picking up steam on pop radio. So here we are, with “The Story of Us,” which literally just premiered on MTV. In fact, if you’re reading this in the first half hour it’s been posted, turn on MTV right now to see Sway interview Taylor Swift live on air and ask fan questions that have been submitted since Friday through MTV.com or via Twitter (using @MTVNews and the hashtag #AskTaylor).
But if you missed the special, you can still watch the new video, above. It’s more in the schooltime vein of “You Belong with Me”, though Swift has graduated (geddit?) to some sort of Gothic collegiate campus, though she’s still having boy trouble. Look how sweet she is:
HIGHLIGHT: The use of remixes in performance segments. Even excluding the two Britney Spears features (records that we like, but which could be industry warning signs), Ke$ha‘s performance featured a segment of the Cirkut remix of “Blow,” and Cee Lo Green‘s medley included an extended version of the spaghetti-Western break that Danger Mouse sampled for the “Crazy” beat, plus an electro remix of “Forget You.”
LOWLIGHT: Britney’s feature spots themselves. It’s hard to know what to make of her enervated performances, especially when her companion was practically using his arm as a seatbelt on her when they were in the audience, and while her father is insisting she’s mentally unfit to give legal testimony, but she was handily shown up by both Rihanna and Nicki Minaj (who first came out dressed as a member of G.I. Joe nemeses C.O.B.R.A. only to have that armor stripped off her by someone in a chicken suit, and then replicated the lapdance choreography she performs on tour). This does not bode well for her upcoming tour, but more than that, we’re just worried about her!
HIGHLIGHT: Cee Lo, on the other hand, was in fine form, and we salute his continuing stylistic tributes to Elton John. Apparently the Muppet-”Crocodile Rock” Grammys homage wasn’t a one-off, judging by Green’s bedazzled outfit and glasses (not to mention the piano, which he didn’t appear to play at all).
During her short (and wildly successful) career thus far, Taylor Swift has never been accused of being “too Nashville” to succeed with mainstream music fans. Rather, her songs seem to contain just enough torch and twang to appeal to country music aficionados (if not necessarily country “purists”) AND pop music fans alike. However, her latest single, “The Story Of Us,” is the furthest that Swift has dared to venture from the kind of sound that most would classify as “country music” to date.
In fact, the song would be more aptly classified as “power pop” than anything else, what with all those crunchy guitars and that propulsive drumbeat. It’s the closest that T-Swizzle has come to Kelly Clarkson territory, and represents as a very interesting career decision for her. However, it’s one that’s hardly without precedent. After all, Shania Twain wrote the crossover playbook back in the mid-90s, fusing country-based sound with radio-friendly rock production techniques, courtesy of superproducer Mutt Lange, and moving some 48 million albums in the United States alone. Still, “The Story Of Us” is the furthest that Taylor has dared stray from the Nashville hegemony, a choice that spells interesting things for the rest of her career as an artist who clearly wants to appeal to everyone.
And while we’re on the topic of Taylor, we’ll have the full video for “The Story Of Us” premiere for you at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, May 24. But that’s not all! For more exciting news on the Taylor Swift front, follow along…
You Oughta Know artists The Civil Wars may not have been hand-selected by Adele to open her United States shows, but they’ve wasted no time winning her over. The chart-topping British singer gushed about the duo on her blog: “If you’re coming to any of the shows on this trip make sure you get there early to see them. I’ve never been so blown away.” She joins fellow superfan Taylor Swift, who has tweeted about the band, seen them live, and included “Poison and Wine” (also Adele’s favorite track) in a playlist for iTunes.
Taylor Swift may have premiered the video for her new single “Mean” Friday night on CMT, but don’t be surprised if the video pops up on VH1; directed by Declan Whitebloom from a concept Swift herself envisioned, the clip’s crossover appeal practically guarantees the song (already a Country Top 10) a much broader pop audience.
The song’s lyrics are boilerplate “aspiration in the face of bullies” but delivered with enough charm and power that they maintain their power despite cliché. In particular, the sheer glee Swift takes in her prediction of a vengeful fate (“And I can see you years from now in a bar/ Talking over a football game/ With that same big loud opinion but/ nobody’s listening/ Washed up and ranting about the same old bitter things”) is especially effective—reminiscent of the “graph of a jock’s life” speechLate Night with Jimmy Fallon announcer Steve Higgins gave as A/V teacher Mr. Fleck on the series finale of Freaks and Geeks.
Listening to Taylor Swift’s catalog is, as she has admitted on numerous occasions, akin to reading her diary. Considering her stance as a confessional songwriter and performer, we feel inclined to believe that her decision to cover “White Blank Page” by Mumford & Sons during a recent visit to (the quite comely) Fearne Cotton’s BBC Radio-1 program wasn’t made willy-nilly.
So, what was it about the song by the upcoming Unplugged artists that appealed to Swift? If you’ll allow us to (wildly) speculate for a minute, perhaps it had something to do with the song’s strong sexual and religious undertones? One potential reading of “White Blank Page” is that it’s written from the perspective of someone whose religious beliefs strongly encourage them not to have sex before marriage (“Can you kneel before the King and say I’m clean, I’m clean?”), which clearly amounted to be a dealbreaker between of the lady that the song addresses and the song’s narrator. Which, if you’ve ever heard Swift’s “Dear John,” seems like something Swift can readily identify with.
