Photo: Jive

By now, I'm sort of used to being called an idiot on a weekly basis. Because that's what seems to happen each and every Wednesday when I publish my Bigger Than the Sound column.

Usually, I get 10 to 20 negative — and angry — comments per column (though if said column in any way detracts from Britney Spears, that number jumps to 40 or 50), and though it would probably benefit my ego not to read them, I always do ... if only because I find them sort of hilarious and inspiring (and because I am a sucker for grammatical errors and ALL-CAPS MISSIVES). What I usually don't do is respond to them.

(Check out James' personal responses to some of those e-mails in the video right here!)

But this week is different. On Wednesday, I published my annual "Best Songs of the Year," and it got a lot of responses. Like, way more than I expected a column that didn't include "Britney Spears" or "Heidi Montag" in the headline to get. Some of the comments took issue with my picks — "I've never heard of half these bands!" and "Kid Rock? Are you serious?!?" being two popular ones — but most were upset with who I didn't put on my list (Britney, Madonna and Rihanna, in particular). So I figured it was time to break from tradition and write an actual response.

Since there were so many comments, I thought the best way to handle this would be to just address the four most basic types of complaints. Hopefully, in doing so, I'll be able to explain the method behind my madness ... why I made some picks, why I didn't make others and, really, whether I should be fired for doing either. To keep the dialogue going, I'd love to hear some of your favorites too. Feel free to leave them in the comments below. Also, call me as many mean names as you see fit — after all, I'm a professional rock-and-roll journalist. I can take it.

Complaint #1: "Where is Britney?!?"
A valid question, to be sure (so valid that it was often asked in ALL CAPS). After all, Ms. Spears certainly had a huge year — triumphant comeback, VMA wins, hit singles, prime-time tell-alls and, earlier this week, a #1 album — and ignoring her on a "Best Songs" list just seems rather odd. But here's the thing: In my opinion, the songs just weren't that good. As I wrote in a column back in October, " 'Womanizer' ... kind of sounds like what would happen if you threw Mike Jones and an air-raid siren into a blender — and not in a good way," and I'm sticking with that, no matter how little sense it makes. Britney is a pop artist, and pop artists live and die by their songs (look at Rihanna — oh, wait, she didn't make the list either ... but more on that in a second). "Womanizer" may have hit #1, but, to me, it's not even one of her top 10 tracks ("Toxic," it ain't). There's no progress there, no tremendous leap forward, no "Oh, wow, what was that?!?" moment. It's basically Britney being Britney — and while that might be good enough for her fans, it wasn't for me. And I think there are plenty of critics out there who agree with me. "Circus" hasn't been out long enough to make much of an impact on me, and though the chorus is catchy, I feel this is just Brit mining the same "The Paparazzi Won't Leave Me Alone" territory that she did on "Piece of Me" (which, come to think of it, is a better song anyway). At the end of the day, nothing I say here will be able to sway the most ardent of Britney supporters, but I figured I'd at least try to explain why I didn't put one of her songs on my list. I'm not denying her impact on '08, just her impact on, well, me.

Complaint #2: "Why isn't (insert name of popular recording artist here) on this list?!?"
This is sort of the catchall category. Readers were really miffed that artists like Rihanna, T.I., Madonna and Usher didn't make the cut — and, again, justifiably so. Each had huge hits in 2008, and they probably should've been on this list. Or at least Rihanna and T.I. should have. Some commenters seemed to think that I used some sort of statistical logarithm to determine who made my list, and I wish I could tell you that was the truth. The simple fact is, most of it was just based on my opinions, though I did try to include factors like critical reception and cultural impact when making my final decisions. That's why Katy Perry had two songs on my list. Whether they loved her or hated her, she at least had critics talking, and both of her songs ("Hot N Cold" and "I Kissed a Girl") made big impacts on the singles chart. Most critics didn't seem to care all that much for Madonna's "4 Minutes," so despite the fact that it landed in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and scored a pair of Grammy nods, I left it off my list. I don't think anyone was happy with Usher's output in '08, and when you consider that "Love in This Club" was: A) The lead single from an album that didn't do all that well, and B) Subject to an Internet controversy about whether it was just made up of stock GarageBand beats, I left it off the list too. In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit that both Rihanna's "Disturbia" and T.I.'s "Whatever You Like" should have made the cut, so apologies to them and their fans. Pink's "So What" probably should have been on there too.

Complaint #3: "Kid Rock?!? Tyga?!? Katy Perry?!? Really?!?"
Yes, really. If you apply the basic "Critics + Culture" reasoning I explained above, there is no way Rock's "All Summer Long" or Perry's two tracks are left off this list. "Summer" was an unquestionable smash, a critical sticking point (both for its source material and its unheard-of "No iTunes" marketing campaign) and a career-revitalizer. Plus, I have the creeping suspicion that it will be the kind of song that packs dance floors at weddings and racing-themed bars for the next decade. I already covered the reasons I included Perry on my list, and in the case of Tyga's "Coconut Juice," well, regardless of what you think of him, you cannot deny that his song was ridiculously catchy, so much so that it was actually voted the "Summer Jam of '08" by the readers of the Idolator music blog. And they're plenty smart.

Complaint #4: "I've never heard of half these people!"
Of all the complaints my column got, this one perplexed me the most (of course, I got the same comments when I did my "Best Songs" and "Best Albums" columns last year, too, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised). I don't understand how "I've never heard of ____" somehow equates to "______ is terrible," and, frankly, I wish our readers didn't think this way. The radio is not your only portal to discovering new music. There's soooo much good stuff out there, and it's just a few keystrokes away. Seriously, how difficult is it to Google "atlas sound + quick canal"? (screw it, I'll just do it for you). Would it kill you to sit and listen to a few Wye Oak songs? Or something from Ida Maria? It's a pretty lazy way of operating, to be honest, and I think that dismissing something because you've never heard of it (or in the case of Sigur Rós' "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur," because you couldn't pronounce it) is pretty dumb. Or maybe you're not a die-hard music fan like me. Maybe you don't like to have your notions challenged or your horizons pushed. Then again, why else would you wade through a 3,000-word column just to leave a single comment?

• The Best Songs of 2008?

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• Madonna
• Rihanna
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• Tyga

Tyga on the set of his music video for "Coconut Juice"
Photo: MTV News

The sun was shining and the party scene at the pool was popping on the set of Tyga's first video, for "Coconut Juice." Joining Tyga, and the loads of bikini-clad young ladies sipping from coconuts, was Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz and Tyga's older cousin, Gym Class Heroes MC Travis McCoy.

McCoy was the one who brought his younger cousin's music to Wentz. "I liked Tyga's voice a lot and his flow," Wentz told MTV News. "First of all, I couldn't believe he was related to Travis, because Travis is pretty geeky." Months later, Wentz signed Tyga to the Bat Squad imprint on his Decaydance label.

The theme of the video is a pool party run amok. McCoy, the owner of a million-dollar home, takes off on tour and leaves his pad in the hands of Tyga and his boys. Instead of taking care of the place, they decide to throw a banging party, only to have McCoy come home early, initially quite unhappy at what he sees.

In real life, though, McCoy said it's the exact opposite. "Just to see him here today almost brought me to tears," McCoy said proudly of his cousin. On set, the close relationship between the relatives is quite evident. You can tell that 18-year-old Tyga looks up to his older cousin and is ecstatic to have him there, a feeling McCoy reciprocates. At one point, McCoy had his arm around Tyga as they looked out over the hills of Southern California. "You see, one day all this could be yours, even the Badlands," McCoy said.

Even at his young age, Tyga is well on his way to making that happen, and he's trying to do it his own way. "I just didn't want to be like everybody else," Tyga said. "You have to be different. Like me, I'm from L.A. They just expect you to be gangster rap, being that I'm from Compton. Like, 'Oh, N.W.A!' That's all they know. I'm just trying to say something new, you know what I mean? I'm just trying to bring back the feeling Jay-Z gave me a long time ago — just good music, no stereotypes. I'm just here doing what I'm doing. I'm a young kid, and I'm having fun."

And though he might be young and just having fun, he is still garnering attention from some of the top dogs in the game. Lil Wayne worked with Tyga on a track for Tyga's debut album, No Introduction, set for release in June. "I was like, 'Man, I like your style,' " Tyga recalled of meeting Weezy. "[Lil Wayne] sent some songs to my Web site, I listened to them, and he was down from there. I love that dude already. He never heard me say that."

Insider buzz, a new album and a video in the can are just part of the recording artist's world, but having graduated high school only a little more than a year ago, Tyga is still getting used to the idea of being a hip-hop star. "I'm blessed," Tyga said. "I don't even believe that all this is happening. There's still a lot to soak in."

• Tyga: Compton's Hottest Export Since N.W.A.?

• Pete Wentz, Travis McCoy And More On The Set Of Tyga's 'Coconut Juice' Video

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• Lil Wayne
• Fall Out Boy
• Gym Class Heroes

Stars Collide At The 2008 VMA Weekend Parties

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MTV.com Exclusive: Tyga

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Pete Wentz, Travis McCoy And More On The Set Of Tyga's 'Coconut Juice' Video

• Fall Out Boy
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