THE CHART PROJECT PT. 5: The rain goes on (on on and on again)

#580
Europe, 'The Final Countdown'
1986 
I shan't bother transcribing them but the lyrics for this song are complete nonsense. To be fair to Europe, English is not their first language. It is their third, behind Swedish and Keyboard-led Soft Rockish. It's a chirpy enough entrance theme for sports teams but at best it is an okay but quite mundane piece of stadium 'rock' (in inverted commas because it doesn't really rock at all) which ambiguously deals themes of relationships and space travel.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw

#183
The Beatles, 'I Feel Fine'
1964
A confident and freewheeling number from a band transitioning from the clubs and 'beat combos' and toward something more original and satisfying. George Harrison's chummy lead line chugs along underneath a snappy and brief pop song. COME ON THIS IS THE BEATLES WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpMs_R3P6U

#1138
Ne-Yo, 'Beautiful Monster'
2010
It certainly wasn't force of personality that won Ne-Yo the #1 spot. This, from the strange moment when US R&B popsters were borrowing very heavily from long-established trends in French house and German techno (via Ayia Napa & Ibiza) - all filter sweeps, arpeggios, four to the floor where the beat sub-divides to indicate transition into the 'epic' portion of the song. It's a competent production but completely lacking in any form of lovability or expression. It just happens, it doesn't offend, it gets by, it will do, it will progress a scene or two.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J2dwFVZHsY

#1157
Adele, 'Someone Like You'
2011 
A song has officially happened to the Great British Public if my mum knows it. I have told her this. I said "you're a barometer for whether something is widely known." I don't think she knew what I meant but it wasn't a dig. She largely ignores music. Never listens to the radio. Her CD collection totals 30, all music she liked before I was even born. My father, a musician by trade for 45 years now, doesn't particular seem to like music much at all. Artists my parents and I share as 'likes': Roxy Music and The Beatles. She dislikes much of what I listen to and refuses to listen to the band I have played in for nearly half a decade. It's cool though, I don't particularly want to help her play Gardens of Time on Facebook.

However. Adele has happened in my parents' household. In a big way. 21 was purchased, quickly followed by 19. The lounge stereo has long been mere facade, the wiring faulty and neglected, so a new CD player was purchased merely to facilitate the listening-to of Adele's work. My mother goes out once a week with her friends: her 'getting ready music' is Adele. She prefers the stompier songs such as 'Set Fire To The Rain' and 'Rolling In The Deep' but I secretly think that she likes this song the most.

And to be fair, it is the least oblique and most direct song of the Adele singles to date. The song deals with the regrets that linger long after a relationship has ended. A universal sentiment. A universal chord sequence indicating sorrow and melancholy and the crepescule of hope. A performance containing the universal signifiers of an emotional and professional performance: starting small and personal, becoming large and inevitably universal.

And therein lies the problem: there's nothing unique about it. It is simply an execution of a well-stitched together pattern of long-established tropes. In its desire to touch the heart of everyone with a scintilla of emotional regret it fails to have any kind of likability or individual charm. It wants to touch so many hearts that it compromises on any sonic indicators of regret, musical moments where real pangs of panic and sorrow rise up and accompany the supposed sentiment. Undoubtedly Adele is a technically excellent singer but technically excellent singers are often the singers that don't understand that the emotional centre could be located in the vulnerability of the 'wrong' note or the untidy phrase.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwuLj33YyPk

#820
Mr. Oizo, 'Flat Beat'
1999 
To some 'Flat Beat' was a very mono-level piece of music that did nothing but repeat a sub-bass WHOOMP over an 808 beat. That's unfair. A closer listen reveals that there are Reichian flourishes, tiny counterpoints that pull the beat sideways and recast the monolithic low-end against jittering synth bleeps that play in the spaces created by unforgiving uniformity. It's also quite fun despite all that muso-wank I just wrote!
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv6Ewqx3PMs

#468
Barbra Streisand, 'Woman In Love'
1980
"Life is a moment in space / When the dream is gone." This is just a mess. 'Life is a moment in space'. Mixing the values of time and dimensionality in the opening line puts the listener on very shaky epistemological ground vis-a-vis dealing with the complexities of quantum theory. 'When the dream is gone'. Is Streisand arguing for solipsism despite previously arguing a quite dense quantum argument in the opening line? Yet the remainder of the lyric wants nothing to do with this bold opening gambit, leaving the listener flailing in their armoury with little other than pseudo-science and caterwauled balladeering.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ppc_dT-J5E

#204
Ken Dodd, 'Tears'
1965 
Ken Dodd is famous in the UK for being a hard-working stand-up comedian who performs marathon sets of over 4 hours in length, during which it has been known for the ambulance to make repeated trips to the venue of the performance to cart out audience members who have collapsed either from fatigue or sincere bouts of laughter fitting. He is also quite famous for having issues with the tax man. He is far less famous for his smooth orchestrated balladeering, which at least shows a side of the man rarely seen: professional, suave, technically competent, and not terribly amusing.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg6gD2ZJuss

#394
Abba, 'Dancing Queen'
1976
Man, you know what is totally shit? When people go on about 'guilty pleasures' in music. That is totally bullcrap man! What is basically says is 'I know that those old white guys with the tweed elbow patches know more about music so the music they like is 'better' but I put this on because it's like the musical equivalent of a can of Irn Bru'. No! Taste is totally totally subjective! So when I say something horrible like 'Matt Cardle is a subhuman' I am just trying to be entertaining and start a conversation because that's how ideas are passed between people. So don't take it personally. Unless you're a propagater of this 'guilty pleasure' nonsense, then you should go and EAT SHIT.

Joke! See previous paragraph! Anyway. Routinely shoved into the guilty pleasure pool are Abba. Why? Because they're not a proper rock band and had a keen sensibility toward fun and the mass ear? And? They knew how to write songs and repeatedly proved this over their long and storied career. They also knew how to perform the songs and also how to do all of the above without appearing like gigantic awful jackasses. Where 'Waterloo' bashed the door down and said 'here we are!' with bright lights and zero restraint, 'Dancing Queen' is more sensuous and luxurious. It also features another key feature of music that is great (for the first in this series, please read the entry for 'Moon River'): the double chorus! Realistically the 'you are the dancing queen / feel the beat of the tambourine' is enough for most bands, but the Ulvaeus/Andersson combo cannot RESIST the 'you can dance! / you can jive' section, sending the tune stratospheric. This is songwriting, ladies and gentlemen! It is a real artform and if you can do and perform it appropriately then world can still be yours!
(9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s

#115
Elvis Presley, 'Wooden Heart'
1961
A funny little rinky-dink quasi-oompah number from post-army Elvis, who sings some of the original German folk song's lyrics in a Swabian dialect quite accurately to this ear. A curio if anything, one to sate the thirst of a crowd deprived of the icon that made them realise that within their loins was FIRE.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7XZwDMS0G0

#819
B*Witched, 'Blame It On The Weatherman' 
1999
Is this the last vestige of innocence in adult boy/girl groups? Aside from some mild cleavage, there is nothing overtly sexualised about the group, even in a latent sense. One of them holds a dog lovingly. They look like happy, normal people, pleased to be singing a sweeping little acoustic-pop ditty with light Eurovision style orchestration. Everything since this single in the non-instrument playing pop idiom has quite literally been rubbing genitals in the face of the listener.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LXUsQNzSL4