This has been the goal of this blog for years. On the surface, it pretty much seemed like a formality: Sum up ten years of music by listing my favorites of the decade gone by, and be done with it.
But something happened on the way. It pretty much wound up like a sad "goodbye" to a fun era, one which, unbeknownst to my friends,, was a celebration of the music that I listened to, creating a soundtrack for the ups and down that marked the 2010's.
Yes, I said the 2010's.
Now, why, may you ask, does this decade, which saw me age from 53 to 63 years, with popular music abandoning rock almost all together and placing a whole new culture to it, was able to tug at my heartstrings? Yes, funny about that.
You have to go back to my formative years, namely the 1960's and 1970's, particularly the latter. The seventies were the years of high school and college; listening to AM (and then FM) radio, and amassing a big vinyl collection, blasting it out college dorm windows, and attending some concerts. Add to that, crushes, friends, events, and the occasional drama to tie it all together, it was a pretty interesting decade. While I probably preferred sixties music to that of the "me decade", by the time the end of 1979 came, and being over a year out of school, I was very sentimental in looking back at the prior ten years and wondered about all the memories, friends, girlfriends, bars and nightclubs and anything else that went on there, and the songs I associated all of them with
And while the eighties and nineties also had a very meaningful part of my life (mostly from having shares in beach and ski houses), by the new millennium, I was getting past the point of middle age and all of the fun things the young, single person experienced. The 2000's were pretty much a decade that I had lost interest in music (although still downloaded and collected it). I had gotten married, bought a house, and pretty much my life had changed. In the middle part of that first decade of the millennium, I stopped with my year-end top 100 lists, and concentrated on other things.
Enter social media.
I joined Facebook in September 2008, and by the start of 2010 realized that I actually had an audience, i.e. friends, that I could share thoughts and posts with. I posted a year-end "top 100" list of my favorite songs of 2009 that was well received. With friends posting music, and even being able to "like" pages of celebrities, namely bands and singers, it's almost like you're right there with the artist.
Then in August 2010, given the capabilities of social media, I tried something new. Thanks to digital downloading, the iPod and YouTube, music didn't have to be listened to on the radio. Friends who have been into music for decades provided "notes" listing their "song of the month", or "top 25 albums of the year". Well, that pretty much was right up my alley, and by the end of August, I started with a weekly Facebook note about the new music I was listening to. I also provided a Top 20 list of ranked songs based on my preference. It would include some of the accessible pop songs of the day, but it also enabled me to include lesser known current singers and bands, access new music from classic rock artists, delve deeper into the alternative rock scene, and probably most importantly, being able to listen to up-and-coming local artists, who I would listen next to established artists. My first blog, dated August 23, 2010 provided an introduction, but made an inauspicious debut: It got no "likes". But I persisted.
Thus, what became the "Scenes 'n' Soundwaves 100" was born. Eventually I listed 100 song titles and moved the notes to BlogSpot, and my blogging became extensive, not only discussing the music of the day I was listening to, but recollections of past experiences with music listening or anything music-related.
While I didn't get a deluge of followers or publicity (my follower list of 15 has been pretty much stable for much of the decade), it was enough to keep the thing going. Chris Martin of Coldplay even tweeted my blog once; the topic was the relief concert at Madison Square Garden (12-12-12) for Superstorm Sandy.
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| Chris Martin, of the band Coldplay. Martin, who performed at the Superstorm Sandy relief concert at MSG on December 12, 2012, tweeted my blog about that event. |
But it was the interaction of friends--both directly and indirectly-- that made the music sink in. The playlist of my SNS 100 that was on iTunes and my iPod was listened to as if I was listening to a radio station, except that all the songs were my pics. Where else can you hear The Black Keys, Katy Perry, The Cars, Kendrick Lamar and Nick Waterhouse on the same playlist? As for my friends, some of them loved the music I listened and shared, some of them even recommended artists to me, be it stuff they've heard, or, remarkably friends, relatives and even artists themselves, came to me with suggestions as to what to hear.
Social media in the 2010's was pretty much like high school and college; we were all pretty much in one place, and getting together even beyond the cyberspace to many events, be it get togethers, ski trips, whatever. Many of the cruises, road trips and a trek to Ireland, become attached to music, whether or not I actually heard it there. And the music I listened to, perhaps unknown to them, related to it all. I had my share of interactions with many friends, but the songs that comprised my soundtrack made that music even more enjoyable and---if you can use the word for the decade just passed---nostalgic.
As for the music trend, traditional rock was pretty much left in the dust if you consider only popular songs. An occasional one would cross over to the pop top 10, but it was pretty much a novelty, and follow-up songs would get little or no attention. Hip-hop dominated the popular landscape, with what I call "sparse pop" (or "trap") constantly scoring. If you're a rock fan, you had to dig deeper and check out certain websites, or specialty satellite channels, where you're bound to hit a gold mine.
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| Fidget Spinners were one of the fads of the 2010's |
Still, pop culture gave us everything from "Gangman Style","Harlem Shake" to "Watch Me (Nae Nae)", and from "Baby Shark" to "The Git Up". The 2010's featured the fidget spinner, the "ice bucket challenge" (to support ALS) as well as other Internet challenges such as "10 year challenge" and, gasp "Tide Pod challenge", memes, Pokémon Go, twerking and bottle flipping. And of course, social media, the "online high school" of sorts.
Last week, I had compiled not 100, but 200 songs that I had listened to in the period between 2010 and 2019 and naturally put them in a playlist all its own. Of course, it was in rank order, starting with #200 and working on down. What I didn't expect, however, was the impact these songs would have on me, taking me back to a specific moment in time. That wasn't supposed to happen.....I'm too old for that, and besides, most of my friends who were a part of this decade weren't even familiar with new music; their hearts were back in the seventies.
All that, with the good possibility that my weekly blogs are history (more on that later), I got really sentimental. Usually at the end of a year, we look back at the events and friends that made the last twelve months possible. But probably even more so, the past ten really got to me.
So, what about the music that I had listened to over the past ten years? There was a lot to choose from; I had downloaded close to four thousand songs during these past ten years. I became acquainted with new bands and artists, some I didn't even know existed back in 2010, some I was perhaps aware of before then but really got into, this decade.
It was one of those artists, Adele, that I selected as my favorite song of the 2010's. The British singer first released an album in 2008, which was very awesome--soulful, in the Amy Winehouse vein-- released her second set, 21, in December 2010, and the first single "Rolling in the Deep", was a powerhouse. It became my #1 song in January 2011, a good five months before it hit the same position on the Billboard Hot 100. Adele became an international star as a result, and although she only released one other album this decade--2015's 25--her music sales are still strong and she is still frequently in the news. Overall, Adele scored four songs on my top 200.
But for me, the decade belonged to Fitz and the Tantrums. Their song "MoneyGrabber" was full of the neo-soul that brought back memories of the early 1970's, and competed with "Rolling in the Deep" for the top of my chart. At one point, at least one of their songs was on my SNS 100 playlist for five years straight. "Out of My League", from their second album More Than Just a Dream, landed in the #2 spot on my decade-end list. The band was one that attracted interest from several of my friends. And while subsequent releases started skewing more toward a pop and even EDM sound, I stuck with them. The band placed twelve songs on my top 200 list, way more than any other artist. They had three songs in the top 20, and six in the top 30. A 13th song, "123456" just missed that list at #201.
Other artists and bands that did very well, were The Black Keys, with six entries; Florence + the Machine with five; Ed Sheeran, Foster the People, Nick Waterhouse, Elle King and the previously mentioned Adele, with four.
But, it was many of my artists who I call "up-and-coming'---those who are Facebook friends, are related to one, or who have been longtime friends of one---that are present on the list. Leading in that category is my longtime friend Tom Corea, who has four songs on the list with his studio band The Hounds of Winter. Rachel Allyn, the aspiring country artist who we saw numerous times in the first half of the decade, but who has now apparently "retired", married and settled down, also has four songs. Paul Czekaj, who became a friend by me listing his song "My Home New Jersey" on the SNS 100, is on here twice, with "That Old New Jersey" and "At the Beach". Shannon Marsyada appears twice; once with the Shannon Marsyada Trio (which I caught back in 2013 at the Jim Thorpe Fall Festival), and one solo. Ron Pietranowicz, who I've known since fourth grade, and who sadly passed away in 2016, was the keyboard player for The Billy Spanton Band, who has a song on the list.
Matt Weiss, now the frontman for Offguard, recorded some solo material and is here with "Black Magic" is the son of a friend. Nieces of two friends also made the list: Hegazy, consisting of Leila and Omnia is here (as well as solo efforts from each), as well as Donna Missal. Artists who are friends of friends include country singer Christina Taylor , Matthew Koma, and a member of The Big Takeover.
Speaking of Koma, he appears in two configurations: As featured vocalist with The Knocks, as well as his band Winnetka Bowling League. Other artists on the list billed twice include Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys, The Arcs); and Pharrell Williams with both "Happy" and featured on Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines".
And, while alternative rock bands control the list, there are some big pop hits on the list. "Rolling in the Deep", "Someone Like You" and "Hello" from Adele; Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud", "Perfect" and "Shape of You"; Ellie Goulding's "Lights", Lorde's "Royals"; Selena Gomez's "Same Old Love"; Mike Posner's "Cooler Than Me"; and Rihanna's "Love on the Brain" were just some of the pop stars making it on the list. Country, on the other hand had slim pickings; aside from the aspiring Allyn and Taylor, Keith Urban featuring Carrie Underwood, Thomas Rhett and Jake Owen appear as the only established artists.
Artists from the Garden State did well, too. While pop stars like Halsey, Jonas Brothers and Charlie Puth missed out, and even indie folkers such as The Lumineers came up short, home state artists Donna Missal, Rachel Allyn, The Hounds of Winter, Paul Czekaj, Smash Palace, Real Estate and Vivian Girls made the list.
However, some monster hits of the 2010 that I did embrace, fell short: "Uptown Funk" (Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars); "Despacito" (Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee); and "Old Down Road" (Lil Nas X & Billy Ray Cyrus), despite all of them being on my playlist for lengthy periods of time, didn't make the cut.
While many of my songs were nowhere to be found on the charts (my #1 song of 2018, "Straight Love Affair" by Nick Waterhouse), several of Billboard top hits were here. Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" (2011), Gotye's "Someone That I Used to Know" (2012); Pharrell Williams' "Happy" (2014); and Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" (2017) are all here.
In the case of #1 year-end songs on Billboard, three of the above--"Rolling...", "Someone..." and "Shape..." were my #1 songs that year as well. You have to go back to the 1970's to find three of my songs matching Billboard's in a decade: "Joy To the World" (Three Dog Night, 1971); "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" (Tony Orlando & Dawn, 1973); and "My Sharona" (The Knack, 1979).
Below is my top 200 of the 2010's. Most of them have URL's where you can click and watch the video. These songs were the soundtrack to my decade. Keep in mind that not all of these songs came out in the 2010's, but it was this decade that I had discovered them (Neko Case, The Satelliters and the Generationals, for example, have songs that were released in 2009, but didn't discover them until the following years.
So, how were these tabulated? Rather easily. I simply took my lists from all ten years and sorted them by favorite points that I awarded them each week. For each year, I adjusted some of the point values, since years like 2010 only had five months of points, while 2014 had a big adjustment because of my several-month hiatus that year. I then tweaked the listing in a few spots where some significant songs that should have been in my top 200, as well as a few not-quite-favorites which were removed from there.
I just want to thank everyone for their support and inspiration (whether direct or unintentional) these past nine and a half years. While most of the time, doing this blog was a "labor of love", many times it just seemed that I was spending too much time on it. The things we do for a love of music. But, your support was very much worth it all!
THANK YOU!!
Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves Top 200 of the 2010's
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Omnia
Hegazy - Dust●
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¨Songs which received 100+ plays on my iTunes library or on my iPod. ▲Songs which received between 50 and 99 plays. ● Songs which received 25 to 49 plays.
SO FINALLY: What lies ahead with this blog. To be honest, I don't know. I had a positive experience with exploring new music in the 2010's; how could I not continue to do so. But, the blog takes a long time to do. I will continue to check out new music, and occasionally I will blog about it. I will, however, maintain my SNS 100; publishing it, however, may be sporadic. Normally I take a hiatus most of January, but the urge is there: Legendary radio host and former jock Don Imus had passed away at the end of 2019; Paul Czekaj just came out with a new CD, and others, such as Donna Missal, have new music. Tom Corea, of Hounds of Winter and Bad Attitude fame, has joined a new rockabilly band which will release new music very soon.
However, I am building a rich library of songs dating back to the 1960's and I would love to blog about the "years in music" starting each year from 1964 onwards. So, you can look for that.
But again, a big "Thank You" for your support!!! See you soon!
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