Fourthords' ten most-played songs of 2022
For maybe half the year, I didn’t have my music library, and since early summer I’ve had to work on rebuilding it, one album at a time. If you’re a Facebook friend, I’ve been posting boring updates there as I re-add each batch of music. Anyway, this is just to explain a wonky top-ten list this year.
10. “We Are Family”
9. “I’m on Fire”
- Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
I’m not usually one for this genre, and the lyrics don’t do much for me, but the… tone? timbre? brainfeel? of both the music and the vocals really plays my sympathetic nervous system like a… steel-string guitar? That got away from me. Anyway, as a wise man once said, “Not my usual, but nice.”
8. “You Spin Me Round”
- Auralnauts & Silver Letomiz, How to Make a Blockbuster Movie Trailer (2017)
This is a cover of Dead or Alive’s 1984 hit, “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)”. It was made for the fantastic satirical YouTube video called How to Make a Blockbuster Movie Trailer. Great video, but this track bopped too hard not to release on its own, and here we are.
7. “Pictures of You”
- The Last Goodnight, Poison Kiss (2007)
This one’s a result of downloading all the constituent songs from this performance of “Four Chords” by The Axis of Awesome.
6. “Crawling”
- Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory (2000)
Teen years etc. etc., but within that category of songs, there’s this subset that’re uniquely depressing and melancholy in their sound. Last year’s “Outside” was another of these. They even have their own dedicated playlist: ‘90–00 sensibilities’.
3. “The Phantom of the Opera”
- Emmy Rossum & Gerard Butler, The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
When Angelbiscuit suggested we go see the then-recent Phantom of the Opera film adaptation, I was uninterested but willing to go. To this date, it’s the only film where I’ve literally found myself on the edge of my seat. Why’s it here? Probably because I found myself blaring a number of soundtracks this year to help my depression.
1. “Back on the Chain Gang”
- The Pretenders, Learning to Crawl (1984)
Why’s it number one? I don’t know. However, this isn’t a song I intended to have in the first place. Many years ago, I was looking for Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” which has a choral lyric of ‘back on the chain gang’, and I grabbed the wrong song. However, it’s still a great track, so I kept it!
Honorable mentions
“Scars” (2020) by Lukas Graham
“Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” (Flood, 1990) by They Might Be Giants
thumbnail image: “A Touch Or Vinyl” by Jo Zimny (CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0)
