“Cooler Than Me” by Mike Posner

Ah, yes, Mike Posner’s first hit, the ‘Pop song people forgot’, as he calls it. This song got a lot of grief when it was new, with many declaring it one of the worst songs of 2010 (which is not a statement to make lightly). The truth is that while it’s certainly easy to make fun of, this song isn’t really all that terrible. The lyric is admittedly pretty embarrassing, but the melody is terrific and showed a hint of what Posner was capable of as a songwriter. The real issue here is Posner’s performance. Posner has significant (at times even immense) songwriting talent, but his breathy, underpowered rasp of a singing voice is a liability at the best of times. It’s forgivable enough on the singer-songwriter material he sang on his magnum opus At Night, Alone, but the odd vocal style he attempts here (which he described later as ‘trying to sing Hip-Hop’) sounds absolutely terrible in his voice. So, no, I’m not sure I’d classify this as a “good song”, but it certainly showed potential, even if most people didn’t notice at the time, and given that Posner would go on to write classics like “Beneath Your Beautiful” and “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”, that potential has pretty much been fulfilled. People actually respect Posner now, so this song has, if nothing else, historical importance as the hit that initially launched his career.

Verdict: Not exactly ‘good’, but still showing visible hints of talent and artistic potential.

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