The Not Contractually Obligated Top Ten Of 2011

Now that I’ve wasted so much time here establishing a few traditions, I’d be remiss to honor not them…

Almost every artist in the history of mankind has at least one title in their catalog that is a compilation, a stopgap collection meant to maintain interest between releases (often to boost holiday sales) or to fulfill a contractual obligation.

This is the former, a chance to make use, one more time, of a lot of wasted time over the past twelve months.

Three years ago, I reflected on the annual, childhood tradition of spending New Year’s Day with a half dozen blank cassettes as Q102 played back the Top 102 songs of the previous year.

So, as 2011 begins its fade into a speck in the rear-view mirror, here are the most popular songs that appeared here during the past year…

10. Asia – Ride Easy
from The Very Best Of Asia: Heat Of The Moment (1982-1990) (2000)
Harpsichord Everywhere

“I like that song,” I told her. “It has harpsichord in it.”

9. Bow Wow Wow – Do You Wanna Hold Me?
from When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going (1983)
Mohawks And Middle Linebackers

“It was 1982 and the big bang of punk rock had come and gone without us even noticing in rural Indiana.”

8. Single Bullet Theory – Keep It Tight
from Single Bullet Theory (1982)
March 5, 1983

“Yeah, if someone had shown me a device the size of a cassette that would hold 150 times the number of songs I owned, my flabber would have been gasted.”

7. Guadalcanal Diary – Watusi Rodeo
from Walking In The Shadow Of The Big Man (1984)
Odd Stuff In The Trunk

“Instead, there was several handfuls of straw, a crumpled carton that had contained wine coolers, and one tube sock.”

6. Player – Baby Come Back
from Super Hits Of The 70s: Have A Nice Day Volume 21 (1993)
Cat D’État

“I have legitimate concerns that, when nightfall arrives and Paloma is absent, things could get ugly.”

5. Squeeze – 853-5397
from Babylon and On (1987)
Caller Identity Crisis

“I sometimes wonder what his outgoing message might have been had his time with the “cowslaw” number coincided with the celebrated period during which he was the self-declared ‘Man Who Loves All Women'”

4. Mitch Ryder – When You Were Mine
from Never Kick a Sleeping Dog (1983)
July 16, 1983

“There would never be a time in which more music would be a wholly new experience for me.”

3. The Hollies – Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress
from Big Hits Of The ’70s (1998)
You Go Canoeing To Aintry With Burt, You Take Your Chances

“After a grueling day under the flourescent lights of an office, a commute from hell, and the rawness of a dark winter’s day in early January, does anything goose the spirits like a river trip to Aintry, hillbillies, and Ned Beatty getting sodomized?”

2. Was (Not Was) – Spy In The House Of Love
from What Up, Dog? (1988)
Was (Not Was)…Was

“‘Did anyone ever tell you that you look just like Don Was?'”

1. J. Geils Band – Angel In Blue
from Freeze Frame (1981)
Shuffling Slowly Toward Sound Fidelity

“It was a battered, oblong box – one corner of the grill covering the 45-sized speaker had separated from the unit and the cord was a scoliotic snake.”