#1 Metro Station, "Shake It"

Shake shake
Shake shake
uh-Shake it

I'm pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that Metro Station came up with the chorus for "Shake It," got all excited, showed it to their label, and then were told, "Well, but you still need to write verses, too." One of the many great things about this faux-emo pop-rock-goes-electro single is that you can absolutely hear that, hear that this song was originally nothing more than a chorus, and yet the verses still manage to be more than filler. Of course, it's tough to come off as anything ther than filler when you're surrounded by that chorus, but the verses and bridge do admirably. Even more remarkable is that they manage to be so enjoyable while using every page in the pop-punk lyrical playbook. Quick, with the feeling of constantly pushing forwards towards something, they keep their hooks in a plentiful but repressed supply, never fully giving in to the temptation to let loose...

...until the song hits the chorus. Party anthem perfection of the undeniable sort, "Shake It" is the sort of song everyone knows they're not supposed to like, but ever time it comes on, the girls giggle and lean towards each other to confess how much they really love it and the guys put out their sternest faces so no sign of how much they actually like the song slips out. No other song this year was able to induce such instant exhilaration in me--even just thinking about the catchy chorus was enough to make me want to jump up and start jumping around, hands in the air, to the beat perfectly timed for doing just that. Neither was there any other single this year that I was always willing to play without hesitation, a fact even harder to believe because I've loved "Shake It" since its October 2007 appearance as an iTunes free download. None of its sheen has worn off for me and nothing--not the wannabe hipster but actually incredibly awkward styling of the group, not the "are they trying to be British?!" "accent" the lead singer puts on, not the fact that the group will probably never again produce anything even remotely approaching "Shake It"'s level of brilliance--can take away from the fact that Metro Station, having presumably sold their souls to the devil for the fun and catchiness embedded in "Shake It," managed to capture pop euphoria in a song.

As a matter of house-keeping, while we're on the subject of Metro Station, I'd also like to dig out an old draft of a post about Swedish pop-punk outfit Kid Down's 2008 single "I'll Do (It For You)"--which, as you'll see, I'm not recommending, but I had something to say about.

There are some really really awful lyrics in the verses and song-wise I don't think any element of it comes even close in quality to the chorus. In fact, the song never sounds more promising or more exciting than it does for the first 28 seconds. During the vocodered first fifteen seconds, in fact, you can even imagine Hellogoodbye or some dance project making the song. Those fifteen seconds easily transition into almost fifteen seconds of catchy upbeat pop-rock, more than good enough to get you thinking, "wow, maybe they actually are going to make a fantastic song!" Unfortunately, the first verse is OK but a little bit of a let down and the bits between choruses get progressively worse from there.

In practice, the song ends up playing out like a combination of Hellogoodbye and pre-'80's makeover Good Charlotte, but the pop-punk too often veers into the obnoxious end of pop-punk for me to endorse "I'll Do (It For You)." I'm therefore issuing a request: can someone please rescue those brilliant first 28 seconds (and subsequent choruses) from the rest of this song and use them to make something great? How about giving them to Metro Station and having them come up with some new verse melodies and lyrics? Or maybe even just new lyrics? Are Hellogoodbye looking for a new song opening? Or maybe there's some pop-rock group out there who'd sell the song better with their vocals.

Find it on: Metro Station