Opening this up again

My excuse/rationale/reason is that I've been busy since moving from occasional substitute teaching to going somewhere on nearly every school day to taking a full-time position. During that time, I learned that I can work with special ed students, and that I'm pretty good at it. Still, I learn something new almost every day.
I'm going back through my phone and transcribing my comments on music I heard going back to November of 2014. There might be some repeated information; if so, I'll weed that out in the process of turning my comments into a readable and informative compendium. That's the current goal. Let's see how it goes once I get back to school every weekday.
Voice recording 030-034, Nov. 3, 2014. 035-037 were recordings at Mavericks press conferences.
Sirius Channel 9, Sponge with "Plowed" from 1995, I'll go 4,300. On now is "Shoop," Salt-N-Pepa, about 3,100 with that one. Make it 3,400. That's from 1993. I just checked, and it appears that "Plowed" came out in '94. The version I heard might have come from a 1995 album.
I forgot to get the year for this one, but it's Joan Osborne, "One of Us." A nice mixture of reverence and skepticism. "What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Nobody callin' on the phone, 'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome." That one's 1,900. Then Fat Boy Slim, "Praise You," from 1999. 3,200 on that one. Going back to the last paragraph, I'll move "Shoop," back to 3,100 because I definitely like it better than "Praise You."
Fat Boy Slim had some good keyboards and a lot of engineering effects, probably a little bit too many. The producer pretty much had his way with that one. Next was Roxette, "Dangerous," from 1990. I don't remember much about Roxette. They were around for a while. I think "Dangerous" is on the low side of 4,500. From '94, we have "Tootsee Roll" from 99 Boyz. I'd say 4,000. It's kind of catchy. Later, something very similar morphed into DJ Casper's "Cha-Cha Slide" in 2000.
From 1993, Duran Duran, "Breath After Breath." Not one of their best efforts, 4,800. Real McCoy, 1995, a remake of "Come and Get Your Love," not a very good one. I'm not sure even Luke McCoy would be beaming with joy on it. I'd say 4,750.
From '91, Extreme, and this is their biggest hit, "More Than Words." It's a ballad, with acoustic guitar and pretty good lyrics. 2,100. I'm also listening to Montell Jordan from 1995, "This Is How We Do It." 4,150. No, I'll go a little higher with Montell, 3,950. It's not just the same old beat and the same old rap. He actually sings some of it. I'll give him some points for that. Something by The Cure now. I never got into The Cure. This is "Friday I'm in Love," from '92. Philip liked them, and the only I paid attention was when Robert Smith was on "South Park." I'll go 4,200.
Voice recordings 038, Nov. 4, 2014
From 2008, we've got Christina Aguilera, "Keeps Gettin' Better," though it doesn't. 4,550. From '05, Green Day, "Wake Me Up When September Ends," I'm going to go 3,950 on that from Sirius Channel 10. Justin Timberlake, "Rock Your Body," 4,700. Nelly Furtado from '06, "Say It Right." It's a little better than 4,400, so I'll say 4,375. Aerosmith, "Jaded," 4,100, not one of their best. With a little research, I saw that it was from 2000 and Mila Kunis was in the music video at age 16 or 17. Outkast, "The Way You Move," from '03. It's 4,050. Crazy Town with "Butterfly" from '01. It's about one step removed from standard-issue rap or hip hop. 4,800. Crazy Town tried to step out in that one with lyrics about Sid and Nancy, but it was more dated than edgy. From 2000, we've got Enrique Iglesias, "Be with You." Just standard-issue dance music, 4,850. Part of it reminds me of a better song, but I can't remember which song. I'll try to keep it in the back of my head, and if I do hear that other song I'll mention it.
Evanescence from '04 with "My Immortal." I'll slide this one up to 4,400 in honor of Allie, a woman I knew from back in those days. I remember her sitting in the driver's seat of her car and when some Evanescence song came on the radio -- she called them Evan Sense -- she sang the song to me as I stood outside the car window. Kind of a weird moment, and I'm not sure exactly what she meant by it but it was memorable.
Backstreet Boys, "The One," from '01, 4980. There might be 20 worse than this one in the top 5,000.
Voice recordings 042-046, Nov. 6, 2014
On Channel 10, we have The Pussycat Dolls, "Stickwitu." Because Philip once sat on a plane next to Nicole Scherzinger, I'll give it 4,600. It featured Avant, according to my later research. Script, "Breakeven" -- I thought it would have been called Falling to Pieces -- from 2008, 4,150. Not bad. Akon and Snoop Dogg, "I Wanna Luv U" I think it was called, from '06. When it's just one bite and undecipherable lyrics, it's kind of hard to give it a high score. They did mix it up a little bit toward the end, so I went up to 4,700. When I do hear music that I'm not familiar with, one of the reasons why I try to listen to certain channels every day is to try to get a feel for the music of the time and it might shake some memories for me in some of these eras that everyone has spent a lot of time listening to the music. Even if I wanted to love this song, I really wouldn't.
Lady Gaga, "Poker Face," from '09. I know it was a big hit at the time. I'm not a big fan of Lady Gaga. I'm being generous giving it 3,950. A word on how I resolve some of the differences between my scores and what they get from the general public: My recollection is that "Poker Face" was No. 2 for '09. That would make it around 99 per cent of the top score. 3,950 would be 21 per cent of the top score, and 79 per cent of the top 5,000 would be better than that. What I figure I'll do is average 21 plus 99 is 120, so I'd move it up 60 places. Or I might just move it up the difference of 39 places. Given those parameters, this one would come out to 3,890 or perhaps 3,911 or so. We'll see when the final scores come out how I apportioned the scores.
Mario, "Let Me Love You," from '04. It's kind of a melodic ballad over a steady, not rap, beat, but a steady beat. I'm saying 4,800.
The Ataris, "Boys of Summer," I think '03 -- I've been debating whether to move it up to the top half over 2,500, but I don't think it's that good. I do have a soft spot for it because of the title. It reminds of Roger Kahn's book, "The Boys of Summer," about the Brooklyn Dodgers, and I'm a sucker for baseball stuff. I would not have been able to tell you the group was The Ataris until I saw it on the screen. Part of the deal with the Lady Gaga thing is that I don't believe I would raise it more than 100 places based on its popular status at the time, and rarely above 50 given the way I'm setting the parameters. 2,600.