'04 Shame -- when new good songs were hardest to find

I dare you to watch the clip above.

This blog suggests that new good songs are difficult to find. But is 2012 a particularly bad year for finding new good songs?

No. Not only are there more ways than ever to find good songs, but songs this year have been pretty good. It takes more work to find them, but they're out there.

The worst year for new good songs (i.e., the worst year for songs)? In my opinion, of the past 23 years during which I've been following music closely, my vote is for 2004. What a piece of shit that year was. In life, fantastic. In music, nauseating.

Behold the year's most popular songs, which is not a comprehensive look at the year, of course, but a snapshot of what was widely deemed to be the best:

1. "Yeah!" Usher, Lil Jon and Ludacris
2. "Burn," Usher
3. "If I Ain't Got You," Alicia Keys
4. "This Love," Maroon 5
5. "The Way You Move," Outkast f/ Sleepy Brown
6. "The Reason," Hoobastank
7. "I Don't Wanna Know," Mario Winans, Enya and P. Diddy
8. "Hey Ya!" Outkast
9. "Goodies," Ciara f/ Petey Pablo
10. "Lean Back," Terror Squad

Typing this list actually made me angry. I need to take a few breaths. OK, that's better. WAS EVERYONE DEAF IN 2004??? Hold on, need more breaths. Phew, OK.

I cannot explain this list except to say that the output of 2004 was awful, if this is any indication. "I Don't Wanna Know" is cute. "The Reason," while overplayed, was not offensive. All the rest of this is trash.

I've gotten into heated debates about "Hey Ya!" that tend to end with me glaring with pity and bafflement at the other person. That is one horrid collection of consecutive noises.

But what if we look a bit further down the list than the Top 10. Any saving graces? Actually, it just gets worse and worse, if you can believe it:

11. "Tipsy," J-Kwon
12. "Confessions Part II," Usher
13. "Slow Motion," Juvenile f/ Soulja Slim
14. "Freek-a-Leek," Petey Pablo
15. "Here Without You," 3 Doors Down
16. "Slow Jamz," Twista f/ Kanye West and Jamie Foxx
17. "Someday," Nickelback
18. "Naughty Girl," Beyonce
19. "My Immortal," Evanescence
20. "Sunshine," Lil' Flip & Lea

Other than "Naughty Girl," those are the 9 worst songs ever written, produced or performed. I'm surprised I didn't stab my ears in 2004, or kill myself.

Fortunately, things got better in 2005, the year that gave us "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey, "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson, "Gold Digger" by Kanye West f/ Jamie Foxx and "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers. Not the best year for music by any means, but worth not stabbing my ears in 2004 for.

When is a new good song not a good song?

It takes more for a new song to be a new good song than being good. Other qualities drive a purchase -- originality, appropriate maturity, a sense of sincerity. There needs to be some sort of essence of truth.

Take the clip above. "The Fighter" by Gym Class Heroes f/ Ryan Tedder is by many accounts a good song. The delivery and production are quite nice; it's catchy and has a good message. It's pleasant to the ears, for sure. Everyone involved is talented. But it feels phony. Expected. Calculated. As a result, it feels untrue and manipulative. Therefore it's terrible.

Even the mere fact of this particular collaboration seems inorganic. When I hear this song, between the lines I hear the murmur of producers, managers and record-label executives, seeking to produce a product with mass appeal. This is their job, of course. But the output should be independent of this objective, or at least disguise it better. When a song feels written, produced and performed for no genuine or artistic reason, it  cannot be good. This is what makes Justin Bieber's output particularly excruciating. He is talented, and some of his output has appealing musical qualities. But as a package, Justin Bieber's portfolio is American cheese.

This is the problem I had with "Payphone" by Maroon 5 f/ Wiz Khalifa earlier this year. It is right on the borderline of good. But there's something inauthentic about it. Listening to it does not feel like listening to music. It feels like listening to the result of meetings, not the result of feelings.

I have now presented a standard for goodness that many people will find naive, objectionable or impossible to measure. As a listener, I am sure I sometimes fail to detect authenticity. For example, is "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen borne from any authentic feelings? I don't know. I was not in the room when this song was conceived, produced, recorded and released. But I feels, at the very least, as though the song was written, produced and arranged by people who were enjoying their jobs, and were talented, and cared about quality. The vocals are delivered in a way that's perfectly appropriate to the material, which indicates some sense of sincerity or performance capability on the singer's part. This exact same song by, say, Madonna, would have a very different effect indeed.

Therefore, I realize that phoniness is a hard quality to identify accurately, but I think it is sufficient to say that if a song feels phony, that's reason enough to negate its otherwise good attributes.