#71

The Top 100 Songs You've (Probably) Never Heard - 2007

#71
Vampires Are Alive
DJ Bobo
Switzerland

Another potential novelty hit, Vampires Are Alive is as kitschy as they come. Harkening back to the 1990s European dance tracks, this song could easily ride the wave of 20th century nostalgia onto the charts. The video is MTV friendly (if only MTV still played videos) and conjures up images of Thriller (but only with better effects and worse dancing). It’s too bad the song writer didn’t properly research his topic: vampires aren’t alive, they’re undead.

DJ Bobo - Vampires Are Alive

#72

The Top 100 Songs You've (Probably) Never Heard - 2007

#72
Vive Papa
Les Vedettes
France

Energetic and chaotic are the best way to describe this effort from Les Vedettes. The song is incredibly catchy and the performers are certainly memorable. (It’s not every day you see six screeching women in majorette uniforms.) The whole wacky package has the potential to become a novelty hit for a couple of weeks before it gets overplayed by radio and people get tired of it. But a hit’s a hit.

Les Vedettes - Vive Papa

#73

The Top 100 Songs You've (Probably) Never Heard - 2007

#73
Sunflowers
Laura Põldvere
Estonia

Any song that unexpectedly makes me want to do the robot (2:12) deserves to be on this list. That is all.

Laura - Sunflowers

#74

The Top 100 Songs You've (Probably) Never Heard - 2007

#74
Fight
Natalia Barbu
Moldova

Fight is a magnificent example of a rock song with a message, but what that message is is anyone’s guess as the lyrics certainly live up to the name of the blog. (Example: Believing, forfeiting the past; The onfall's adapting the hearts; Each people will know our wishes no more.) Fortunately, nonsensical lyrics don’t ruin careers and the obviously gifted Natalia could yet make an international hit out of this song. The video for this song includes fire and Moldova. More importantly, it answers the age old question: What does one do with a business degree?

#75

The Top 100 Songs You've (Probably) Never Heard - 2007

#75
Get a Life-Get Alive
Eric Papilaya
Austria

It is easy to understand how Get a Life-Get Alive would do well in North America. It is a fairly well put together rock song, and the Bon Jovi influences would be well received by the record buying public. However, the live performance serves as an object lesson demonstrating that the staging of a song can ruin it. The first time I watched the video, I could barely concentrate on the music because I was distracted by the dancers. Who thought that it made sense to have red, spastic chicken people wandering about during the performance? Maybe they wanted to raise awareness for avian influenza in addition to HIV/AIDS (Note the large red ribbon).

Song of the [Indeterminate Time Period]

This is one of the new features I am introducing on this blog. Song of the [Indeterminate Time Period] posts are intended to share older songs that probably would have made the Top 100 List, had it existed. As a bonus, I guarantee that the songs in these posts are of high quality, or are otherwise interesting.

The first "Song of the [Indeterminate Time Period]" is a Swedish song from 2000. The first line of the song translates to "Give me arsenic," so you know it has to be good. Coincidently, this song has been stuck in my head for the past week.

Känn Ingen Sorg För Mig Göteborg
Håkan Hellström
Sweden
2000

Blog Information

I would like to apologize for the spotty nature of the posting on this blog. The past few months have been quite hectic and it has been difficult to maintain a regular posting schedule. I am hoping to remedy this. (Although, I will be out of town during the last two weeks of May, so there may be no new posts during that time.)

I am planning to attempt to finish the 2007 countdown as quickly as possible because, well, it's from last year. The current list is being assembled and the complex mathematical formula for determining the ranking has been tweaked in order to create a more exciting list. I plan on beginning the countdown for 2008 in mid October.

I also plan on introducing a few new categories of posts to share older songs that may be of interest to you.

I hope you enjoy the blog. Please, feel free to leave comments.

#76

The Top 100 Songs You've (Probably) Never Heard - 2007

#76
Die Welt Ist Pop
Heinz Rudolf Kunze
Germany

Picture, if you will: While in the middle of a mid-life crisis, your wealthy, eccentric uncle decides to put together a band to chase after lost dreams of fame, etc. The band only writes one song and you have to listen to it at every family gathering for the next decade. Everyone puts up with it because it’s the aforementioned wealthy uncle’s band and no one has the heart (read: wants to risk losing their inheritance) to tell him that it’s time to move on because, although the song is pleasant, hearing it a handful of times is more than enough.

Having a difficult time imagining the song? This might help…

#77

The Top 100 Songs You've (Probably) Never Heard - 2007

#77
Cara Mia
Måns Zelmerlöw
Sweden

It seems to make sense that this could be a moderate hit in North America. It’s a tad overproduced, but it seems to fit nicely on pop radio. The main concern I have is that there is not a large market for male soloists in the pop genre at the current moment (I’m having a difficult time even thinking of three) but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.