Radio's Top Songs By Genre

Feel like you heard Tim McGraw’s Something Like That about half a million times in the past decade? Well, the ratings folks at Nielsen will back you up on that, with their list of commercial radio’s most-played songs of the decade:

Country: Something Like That, Tim McGraw, 487,343 plays
Top 40: Yeah, Usher featuring Ludacris & Lil Jon, 416,267
Hot adult contemporary: Drops Of Jupiter, Train, 338,749
Alternative: Last Resort, Papa Roach, 221,767
Rhythmic: Low, Flo Rida featuring T-Pain 206,864
Album rock: It’s Been Awhile, Staind, 189,195
Urban: Drop It Like It’s Hot, Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell, 169,511
Urban adult contemporary: Think About You, Luther Vandross, 147,818
Gospel: Never Would Have Made It, Marvin Sapp, 92,603
Smooth jazz: Pacific Coast Highway, Nils, 29,328

Women's Fashion Turns Tough

Women are starting to turn their backs on girly pastels, floral prints, and strappy heels in favor of a more aggressive, tough-but-sexy look. “It’s not cool to be demure,” one stylist, who prefers big T-shirts over ripped jeans, tells the New York Times. The trend toward a more utilitarian look is partially a response to the struggling economy: “So-called luxury—people are tired of it,” says a boutique owner.

Out are skin-baring style icons like Scarlett Johansson and Megan Fox; in are blazers, boots, biker jackets, leggings, and the often-disheveled look of editors like Carine Roitfeld and Giovanna Battaglia: “They show you a real-world version of high fashion. They’re not dressed by a stylist, and sophisticated people recognize that,” says a store owner. Adds the Met’s Costume Institute curator: “There is so much sex appeal in imperfection.”

Square-Dancing Steps Into Rock, Hip-Hop

That tattered bastion of Americana, square-dancing, has fallen on hard times, but intrepid youngsters and older dancers eager to court them have turned to non-traditional music and methods to keep the practice alive. In Portland, Ore., a 20-something caller gathers friends in warehouses to do-si-do to punk rock. “It turns into a hoedown mosh pit,” he tells the Wall Street Journal. Some purists are aghast, but the new blood is vital.

“It's scary,” an older dancer says of the falloff in dancers—one group estimates the number at 300,000 nationwide, down from 1 million in the 1970s. The older and younger breeds of dancers have reached a wary accord in some groups. One spritely dancer says his caller grandfather’s square-dance version of “Whoomp! (There It Is)” is a crowd favorite. Still, his wife says, “we have to warn older dancers that they're in a younger square. It can get crazy.”

The Year's Best Albums

Who says the album's dead? This year saw some fine ones, with veterans like U2 and Bruce Springsteen setting the bar. Rolling Stone rates the cream of the crop:

U2, No Line on the Horizon: Bono & Co. explored “dark places” and came away “with a sense of drama that no one could match all year."
Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream: The Boss at his “wildly baroque” best: “decked-out folk and rock struggling with the big stuff—and having a great time along the way.”
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: “The wholesome French version of the Strokes,” delivered an energetic and insanely catchy mix of guitar rock and electronics.
Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3: Some of Jay-Z’s “cleverest braggadocio ever,” backed by “stunningly good beats from rich friends like Kanye West.”
Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown: With their second rock opera, Green Day “revitalizes the idea of big-deal rockers actually saying something.”
Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca: This freaky yet fun art rock album was the year’s most original, with its “sideways harmonies, warpedsoul crooning, and dreamlogic arrangements.”

Rock Hall to Induct Stooges, ABBA

The Stooges, Genesis, and ABBA will head next year’s class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, along with the Hollies and Jimmy Cliff. The ceremony will be March 15, with all the inductees invited to perform, though some, particularly ABBA, may be tough to bring together, notes Rolling Stone. The Swedish pop outfit has refused multiple pleas for a reunion show.

“The people who are really fond of ABBA, I think we are doing them a favor by not going out,” says co-founder Benny Andersson. The odds are “99 against 1.” Andersson says he never expected a Hall call “because we were a pop band, not a rock band.” The Stooges, on the other hand, have been expecting this for a while. “We’ve been rejected seven times,” says Iggy Pop. “It started to feel like Charlie Brown and the football.”

Grand Hip-Hop Museum May Rise in the Bronx

A prospective hip-hop museum in the Bronx will feature MTA subway cars free for the tagging, a Microsoft-designed music video wall, a hip-hop hall of fame, and political action seminars designed by the likes of Chuck D and KRS-One—if its founder can scare up $150 million to $250 million. “We’re fighting all the past failed attempts to do this,” Craig Wilson tells Paste. But he’s driven. “There would be no Soulja Boy if there was no Afrika Bambaataa.”

Wilson got the idea for the National Museum of Hip-Hop when an acquaintance didn't understand why the Bronx—the birthplace of hip-hop—figured in so many hip-hop movies. “The fact that deejays, graffiti artists, and beat boys are all but forgotten,” he says, “is exactly the kind of stuff that perpetuates the absolute need for a museum of hip-hop.” A raft of hip-hop luminaries will kick off fundraising in February, and industry leaders are behind him.

Decade's Best Sellers: Eminem, the Beatles

The Beatles might have had its heyday a few decades ago, but the band managed to emerge from this decade with the best-selling album. Perhaps more surprising is the decade’s top-selling artist: Eminem, with 32.2 million albums sold—followed closely by, yes, the Beatles again in the No. 2 spot with 30 million sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The most surprising appearance of all, however, is a certain boy band…

The top five best-selling albums of the decade, courtesy of USA Today:
The Beatles, 1: 11.5 million
‘N Sync, No Strings Attached: 11.1 million
Norah Jones, Come Away With Me: 10.5 million
Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP: 10.2 million
Eminem, The Eminem Show: 9.8 million
Bonus surprise: In the number 10 spot? Nelly’s Country Grammar, with 8.5 million copies sold.

NASCAR Gets Jolt of Girl Power

Female racing phenom Danica Patrick confirmed today that she's going to race in NASCAR events next year. Patrick will make the jump to stock cars while maintaining her presence on the IndyCar circuit, where she is a certified star. But the best part of this new deal is that she's joining JR Motorsports, which features Kelley Earnhardt—sister of Dale Jr.—as a team owner, writes Jay Busbee.

"That's right—in a sport derided by its detractors as backward-looking, the hottest new team in NASCAR will have at its center two women," writes Busbee of Yahoo Sports. "The truth is that Patrick and Earnhardt will make for a powerful tandem regardless of their gender ... and, to an extent, regardless of Danica's immediate success on the track."

Man Cleavage: It's All the Rage

Plunging necklines: They’re not just for women anymore. Male cleavage is back, and if you like chest hair and heaving pecs, you’re sure to appreciate the variety of V-necks and scoop-neck tops for men that are hitting the runways. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the history of man cleavage, from bare-chested heroes of last century’s early swashbuckling films, to recent stars who just like to leave a button or three undone.

Disabled Model Show Handicapped by Sincerity

A British reality show about disabled women competing to win a spot as a fashion model has mostly admirable intentions, but ultimately does more harm than good. "There is something both bold and troubling about Britain’s Missing Top Model," writes Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times. "It’s a contest designed to raise the profile and confidence of disabled women but makes a spectacle of their hunger for acceptance."

"The contestants’ desire to be desired, not pitied or patronized, makes sense," Stanley continues, and they are actually treated just the same as non-disabled models in one very important way: "An ounce of fat is a greater hurdle than a missing limb," she writes, recalling one photographer on the show who says, "Rebecca’s disability didn’t cause me any problems. It was just the fact she’s not really in shape."