I remember once, maybe when I was in high school, noticing that most adults had a cut-off age at which they stopped listening to the radio, and by extension, stopped paying attention to new music in general. My father, for instance, was intelligent and knowledgeable about popular music up to about 1978 — after which point he knew essentially nothing. (To his credit, after missing all of the 1980s, he started listening to some new things again; it became sort of something for us to share.)

Of course, as your humble superstarcastic.com correspondent, I continue to listen to as much new music as possible. I can, however, tell you that I stopped listening to music radio in 2004; although I know a good deal about plenty of albums released during the past three years, including some released on some very, very small labels, as well as a few not released on any label at all, many if not most “radio hits” are lost on me. Unless possibly they were playing in the mall when I was there.

And so, as some kind of penance to the gods of pop, I’m going to listen to the current top 10 tracks on Billboard’s Hot 100, and give you my thoughts as I do so, in real-time (or some approximation thereof). (I was going to do the top 20, but I figured it’s best to start with baby steps after being away from this for so long.) For the record, I’ve never heard any of these songs before in my life.

10. “Shawty” — Plies feat. T-Pain

I don’t have any idea how this man pronounces his stage name, but I’m hoping its “plee-AYS,” just like in ballet class. But I have high hopes for this tune, given that it’s a duet with a fellow whose biggest hit was a song called “I’m in Luv Wit’ a Stripper.” Plus, the current top comment on its YouTube video reads “diz song iz gud,” which is a ringing endorsement if I’ve ever seen one.

Now that I’m listening to it, I think my favorite thing about this song is that all of the sung vocals are filtered through an effect box stolen from Eiffel 65. Well, that and that it’s got some of the most clumsy, misogynistic, and ugly claims to be giving one’s girlfriend (or “shawty,” in the common parlance) sexual pleasure that I’ve heard outside of a middle school anywhere. (I’m assuming the radio version is edited…which this is definitely not.) I’m thinking it’s mostly men buying this song, because it’s difficult for me to imagine a woman doing so. I feel like taking a chemical shower now.

9. “Who Knew” — P!nk

I actually remember liking P!nk a little, back when she was all mizzundastood. This one sounds so much like the beginning of “Since U Been Gone” — and P!nk sounds so much like Kelly Clarkson — that it’s hard to recognize as P!nk’s work. It’s pleasant enough, and certainly much more inoffensive than the last song, but it’s had all of the edges sanded off — especially when the strings kick in on the bridge — and at this point, this is derivative enough to make Aly & AJ look positively avant-garde.

8. “Rockstar” — Nickelback

Erm…the nice thing about Nickelback is that they don’t trust their audience to catch irony, so they’re more than willing take anything that might otherwise have been subtle or clever and smash you over the head with it until they’re quite certain you get the point.

At any rate, if they wanted to perform a song on this subject, a cover of Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good,” which is quite a bit funnier, would have been far superior. But that might have required overtaxing the drummer, who seems to be playing most of the song out of one of those “Play the Drums With Mel Bay, Level 1″ books.

7. “Let It Go” — Keyshia Cole Featuring Missy Elliott & Lil’ Kim

I once wanted to record a rap single by, say, Sam E. & SEE-NOTE with K-Taff and O.F.P., featuring R-Murray and introducing A-Dream, just to see how far you could stretch this trend of billing artists this way. But that’s neither here nor there.

The “ha-ha-ha-has,” just leave me wanting to turn on Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. Cole herself actually has a pretty good voice, but her efforts are sabotaged by the fact that she’s stuck singing mediocre lyrics over the top of some very lazy production. Well, that and the fact that she has to fight with Missy and Kim, who appear to think that they’re in a very different song. Seriously, the switch between the sung sections and the rapped bits is awkward enough that I thought I was going to get whiplash. (I was going to compare it to the bit where Dorothy steps out of the house in The Wizard of Oz, but there isn’t any Technicolor in this song.)

Also, this song is over five minutes long. I hate to think what the extended-play dance remix sounds like.

6. “Bed” — J. Holiday

I really hoped that the backing track was going to go into full-on Peter Gabriel mode, since the drums showed some promise, but instead it sticks in first gear for the entire song. I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep, which is fitting I suppose given the song’s title, but I do have five more of these to go.

And the best thing you can say about J. Holiday’s come-ons is that they’re better than Plies’. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

5. “Ayo Technology” — 50 Cent featuring Justin Timberlake & Timbaland

I think the single most disappointing music news story of the year involves Mr. Cent reneging on his promise to retire if Kanye West’s album outsold his own. On the basis of this particular tune, I’m going to posit that encouraging the world to party like it was their birthday — and sip Bacardi in the aforementioned manner — represented the zenith of 50’s lyrical ability. I’d quote a few lines as evidence, but my mother does occasionally read what I write here, and I don’t want to give her a heart attack.

Also, though he’s becoming really overrated, I do like Timbaland’s production, but this is one he could have tossed off in his sleep. The Bjork single was better.

4. “Big Girls Don’t Cry” — Fergie

I doubt it somehow, but if this is a Four Seasons cover, my estimation of Fergie will probably rise several notches. I might even temporarily stop making fun of the guy who works in the library with me for bringing his copy of The Dutchess to work with him.

And…it’s not a cover, but it vastly exceeds my expectations. That’s not exactly the highest praise, given that my expectations were entirely shaped by how much I hated “London Bridge” (a rare radio hit that I was not able to avoid, alas), but it’s a pleasant surprise after the last few songs. If anything, it shows that if Fergie gets tired of the whole hip-pop thing, she’s got a future making adult contemporary albums. Heck, I’m gonna make a prediction: sometime in 2011, Fergie will release a duets album, which will feature collaborations with Jim Brickman, Josh Groban, and that one girl who sang “I Hope You Dance.” Well, and Justin Timberlake too, but only because he’ll still be on everything, even then. (Did you know that he’s on the new Reba McEntire album? And no, that’s not a joke, much as I wish it was.)

3. “The Way I Are” — Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson

I’m happy to note that the official music video for this song is presented by the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese. (What, you were expecting The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar?)

This strangely canned robot-funk is actually pretty catchy. It’s got the elements I tend to like in Timbaland’s productions — big fat synth-hooks, beautifully simplistic drums that use silence well, and basslines the size of an American car of the late 1950s. That said, Timbaland isn’t much of a rapper, (”I ain’t got a motorboat, but I can float your boat” is a pretty typical line) and so I’m not completely sold on this one. It sure sounds good by comparison though.

2. “Crank That (Soulja Boy) — Soulja Boy Tell’em

In a field with some pretty impressive contenders (think Vanilla Ice, or possibly Chingy, whose name I always wanted to rhyme with “dingy”), I think Soulja Boy Tell’em is right in the running for worst hip-hop stage name.

This apparently is a song with a dance that goes with it. It looks pretty dumb, from what I can see in the video, but less dumb than “The Macarena,” which is encouraging. I kind of want to like this song, actually, just because it’s got a goofy steel drum sample, but I’ve been listening to The Knife’s “Pass This On” all week, and so my standards for songs that use steel drums in unorthodox ways are pretty high just now. Props to Soulja Boy Tell’em for the totally old-school sunglasses though. Next pair of sunglasses I get, I’m gonna write my name on the lenses too.

1. “Stronger” — Kanye West

Well, I can’t hate this completely, since I like the Daft Punk song that makes up three-quarters of this track. Or maybe I can hate it, in the same way that I hated “I’ll Be Missin’ You.”

I can at least understand why this is popular — it’s based heavily on a very catchy song. But it’s also everything I detest about pop music — an amazingly lazy piggybacking off the work of the more talented, the triumph of mediocrity over genius, the ultimate victory of creative bankruptcy.

Yeah. I think it might be a while before I do this again…

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