Chicken077's Top 200 Songs of All Time (Video Link Posted)

[Ice Cream 15 (Broccoli 2018)]

Love songs 185, 184, and 183

[Xaprios]

Aww yes I loved "Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah)" and "Sugar" :) Tag me

[chicken077]

Nov 18, 2016 3:09:17 GMT -5 Sambalada said:

Stop teasing bitch, tell us bout that freakin accident already! :^

Lol I was a bit busy finishing up work for the last days before Thanksgiving Break, so I didn't have time to type up the full description. I was planning to talk about it this Wednesday, but it seems that it might be a bit late. So I'll tell you guys about the story tomorrow

[chicken077]

#180: Chris Young – I’m Comin’ Over

Era: 3 to very early 4
Peak: 25
Weeks in Top 100: 22
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 230648



We start off Day 3 with another country song. We’ve had a bit of a drought of country songs in the past 10 songs compared with Day 1, but here, we have another one! I don’t this song was ever played on my local radio stations I listened to back then (since I rarely listened to country radio before country really grew on me this summer), and I don’t think it was ever played on SiriusXM. However, I did hear this song on Billboard countdown videos and I really liked Chris’s voice in the song and the emotionality he put into it. While it didn’t gain too much traction on my chart in the beginning, it became the type of song that with every listen, I seemed to like more. So this got quite a bit of personal listens while it started rising on the Billboard charts. It had a pretty slow rise before the song hit its peak on both Billboard and my chart around the same time – December 2015, at #25 on my chart. Unlike many era 3 songs, this song is one of the more emotional and sadder ones, so lasted a bit longer in era 4 than the other songs; it fell off in February of 2016.

“So I’m comin' over
Runnin' every red light
To Hell with the closure
Save it for another time”

[chicken077]

#179: OneRepublic – I Lived

Era: 1
Peak: 29
Weeks in Top 100: 23
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 233886



So this was the song SiriusXM literally adored back in era 1, especially back in January 2015. I remembered hearing this song like every other day on the commute to school (I think it’s just their Morning Mashup that loves this song, because the morning commute is pretty much the only time I hear it). Back then, however, I thought the song was mildly annoying and although there were a few verses that were great, overplay definitely killed the rest of the song. So it didn’t make it too high on my chart, peaking at #29. As late era 1 approached, however, as the Morning Mashup started toning down on their plays of the song, each time I heard it I felt as if the song started to regrow on me. It’s a bit of a departure from OneRepublic’s style back in “Counting Stars” and “Love Runs Out”, and it’s definitely an interesting one. It’s their take on nostalgia and light sorrow. And I believe they did it really well! As era 2 approached and the school year winded down, although life was getting better by the day, hearing this song really gives me nostalgia of era 1 and the origins of my personal chart back in December 2014. Since freshman year was so easy for me, I started missing daily drives to school in the winter and being “annoyed” by this song. To this day, it’s a reminder of how much I actually sorta wanted to go to school back in era 1 because life was getting so much better by the day socially and academically. All this would change later on, however…

“I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places
The things that I did
Yeah, with every broken bone
I swear I lived”

[chicken077]

#178: The Vamps featuring Shawn Mendes – Oh Cecilia (Breaking My Heart)

Era: Very late 0 to 1
Peak: 23
Weeks in Top 100: 21
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 235873



It looks like I’ve made a good decision delaying all the stories to tomorrow. Because this song is another song that’s so interesting to talk about, but I’m simply too tired to talk about it… I’ll for sure to add descriptions to go along with these songs later.

This is the first song on this countdown to have Shawn Mendes in it, and is pretty much my first exposure of Shawn back in the very end of era 0. “Life Of The Party” wasn’t popular on the radio, so I never got attracted to it in the “Fancy”/“Rude” era when I first started listening to the radio. “Something Big” also wasn’t big (lol) in my area, but SiriusXM liked The Vamps, so they really played “Oh Cecilia (Breaking My Heart)” on their station. Interestingly, when “Stitches” first came out, I didn’t know that the artist featured on “Cecilia” was Shawn, and I thought it was a new artist. Not until the time “Treat You Better” was rising did I realize! Like The Vamps’s I just love how happy this song is and it really feels corresponding to my mood back then. After looking at the lyrics, I really got to realize that the song took on a sorrowful subject, and it’s great to see The Vamps and Shawn Mendes turn this sorrow into happiness, something I kinda did in the era (turn the aftermath of the incident into semi-happiness as music grew on me and I made new friends). It rose quickly on my charts before peaking at #23 in early era 1. Unlike similar songs, however, this did have a relatively slow fall, lasting for 21 weeks on my chart until the very beginning of era 2.

The story for this song is very interesting, kinda like the coincidence in “Manana”. My mom is a teacher at a weekend Chinese school, and she taught this student whose mother has the name “Cecilia”. The day before week 1 of my chart was published (December 20, 2014), it was a Friday, so I had the ping pong class right after school before having to drive to the Silicon Valley for the piano class (something I think I talked about). About a quarter of the way there, although SiriusXM has already played it for a few weeks, my mom first realized that the name to this song was “Cecilia”. So I think my mom literally messaged the parent and was like, hey there’s a song on the radio called “Oh Cecilia” haha. Since it was the day before my first chart release, the song was really in my memories when I made my first chart. So “Cecilia” was a great reminder of life back when my chart came out and the weekly drive from ping pong to piano back in freshman year which I loathed back then but thinking back on it, induced so many memories.

“She don't wanna say, Where she's gone away
But she's on replay, In my, in my brain
I'll do what it takes, Any time and place
We can turn a breakup into an outbreak”

[chicken077]

#177: Florida Georgia Line – H.O.L.Y.

Era: mid to late 5
Peak: 25
Weeks in Top 100: 24
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 236430



Another recently charting song! This song, along with a few others, was a representation of the best times of the not so good 2016 – mid to late era 5! Back in 2013, I didn’t listen to a lot of radio, but I really liked “Cruise”, and in 2014, “Dirt” was also amazing (it even had some residual chart run in the first weeks on my chart! Is it enough to make it on this list? You’ll have to wait to find out)! So when Florida Georgia Line came out with “H.O.L.Y.”, I was really excited, and after listening to it, I felt it was so emotional and romantic. The lyrics were a bit boring, but I liked the play on “HOLY” as “High on loving you”. It also has a bit of a vibe of exiting bad times and entering sunlight. Since era 4 and early era 5 were so bad for me, I felt as if the release time of this song was perfect – kinda serving as a symbol for hoping that my life will become so much better. And indeed, that happened! At least in the short term… until era 6 came rolling along. The song had a very standard rise to a peak of #25 in late era 5. It did, however, had a pretty fast drop as era 6 approached. Country radio quickly rotated this out (like other country songs) and it fell off Billboard fast. Also, era 6 became a return to sadness of my life, and since this song represented the happiness I had during mid to late era 5, it soon became irrelevant so took a big hit for personal plays as well. It did, however, gather enough points to score 24 weeks on my chart and a position on the all time chart!

“You're an angel, tell me you're never leaving
Cause you're the first thing I know I can believe in”

[chicken077]

#176: Anna Kendrick – Cups (Pitch Perfect’s “When I’m Gone”)

Era: first grew on me back in 2013, regrew on me in era 3
Peak: 34
Weeks in Top 100: 37
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 237175



This is probably going to be the only song on here that I relate to that is before the May 16 Incident, and probably the song with the weirdest chart run. Well, actually there are two memories to talk about here. Back in 2013, I really wasn’t following a lot of pop culture, so I didn’t even know what “Pitch Perfect” was. Although I didn’t listen to the radio a lot, my parents did sometimes turn to the radio when driving, and that’s when I first heard this song way back in summer 2013. In the beginning, I didn’t really like Anna’s almost “country-like” voice and I felt the song was really repetitive. I started falling in love with this song in October 2013, when my mom took me on a vacation over a 4 day weekend to Reno. Since the May 16 Incident was just months after this, I view this vacation as pretty much the final happy time of my life prior to the explosion of everything. A local radio station loved this song, and as I heard it more, I turned out to like Anna’s unique voice and the retro-feeling to this song. It would’ve been a record breaking #1 song if I had a chart back then (probably “The Hills”/”Peter Pan” level). It never grew off me over 2014, and is one of the only songs that would’ve survived all the May 16 stuff and come out with absolutely no damage if I had a chart back then (even “All Of Me” and “Happy” would’ve come out of that time period taking some significant hits). It performed well enough, in fact, to score 10 more weeks in era 1 – the first 10 weeks of my chart, and that’s still me not even knowing what “Pitch Perfect” was and not knowing a sequel will come out. So I guess that’s the first memory: it’s one of the only songs on my chart that CONTINUOUSLY (so minus the flashback songs like “Back To December”) survived since the period happiness prior to the May 16 Incident – kinda reminding me of what life was like back then.

So in late era 2, I realized that “Pitch Perfect” was a movie and a sequel was coming out soon. I watched the movie online and although didn’t like it as much as the song, I still felt like it was a very solid film and was looking forward to part 2. So this song started charting again in August 2015, but was hanging around in the second half of my chart. But then came the second memory. Remember me saying back in “House Party” that I haven’t had a party with friends since 7th grade until October and November 2015? And one of the reasons I went to them was because my crush also went? So in the November party, we were playing something with cups, and my crush convinced her cousin to show off her “talent”, doing the “Cup Song” with only the cups we had. And she was really good at it! Like she actually had the right idea (minus Anna’s voice of course lol). That was an absolute highlight of the party that day, and it corresponded well with the release of “Pitch Perfect 2”. So this song blasted up my chart to a peak of #34. But as all this craze died down, it had a pretty standard era 3 song fall – relatively fast due to the sudden sorrow that came in era 4. It did last long enough, however, to make it on this list as one of the only songs that didn’t hit the top 30. But hey, it lasted for a whole 37 weeks on my chart! So to this day, this song reminds me of so much: what life was like well before the incident, my crush, and how happy life was, even weeks before the dawn of era 4. If I had a chart since 2013, this will probably be the only song (the only other contender is “Just Give Me A Reason”, but I think it’ll just miss it) to be in All Time Top 10 that peaked before the May 16 Incident – and even has a good shot at top 5!

“It's got mountains, it's got rivers
It's got sights to give you shivers
But it sure would be prettier with you
When I'm gone, when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone”

[chicken077]

#175: ZAYN – PILLOWTALK

Era: 4 to very early 5
Peak: 20
Weeks in Top 100: 20
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 237990



Tbh I have two different feelings about this song. The song itself I don’t hate at all. After leaving 1D, Zayn has made at least a good attempt at being a mature guy. Although the lyrics of the song prove otherwise and have been lashed at by critics, at least the vibe and the tone of the song shows that he has really transformed into a guy that is going on the mature path. And because it’s so hard to hear the lyrics from the song, who even cares about the lyrics? (jk lol). It brings back some pretty interesting memories too. I volunteered at a Kaiser site about 15 miles north of home (because that’s the closest hospital). Back when this song was first released, SiriusXM played it all the time when my mom was driving me there (and she always takes me on a little drive before actually sending me there). So this song reminds me of what drives used to be like to Kaiser, now that I have quit my position. Although volunteering itself was pretty annoying cuz I was with some pretty inconsiderate peers, I always catch sicknesses from there, and the place I swear has this chemical in the air (NOT 24K magic in the air LOL) that makes me feel tired after staying for a while in there, it’s still at least an interesting experience, and this song is a pretty good reminder of it. And that’s why this song performed well enough to peak at #20 and last until mid era 5 – 20 weeks on my chart. There is one thing I don’t like about this song though – and that’s because it’s part of the Billboad “screw-up” that started with Adele’s debut at #1 and I thought ended with “Don’t Let Me Down”’s entry of the top 3 but realized is still happening with “Black Beatles” taking the top spot. It’s not that I hate these songs – it’s just that I hate it when ALL #1 songs of Billboard recently barely had a growth period – they just debut there or rise for like 3-4 weeks – just too fast paced for me. In fact, that’s what I was trying to avoid when first making my personal chart, though I realized that I do have examples of this as well lol, such as “Can’t Feel My Face”, “Out Of The Woods”, “Starboy”, and to a lesser extent, “Peter Pan” and "Stressed Out". But don’t get me wrong, I love all these songs.

“Yeah, reckless behavior
A place that is so pure, so dirty and raw
Be in the bed all day, bed all day, bed all day
F****** in, fighting on
It's our paradise and it's our war zone”

[chicken077]

#174: O-Town – All Or Nothing

Era: Flashback song from 2000s that grew back in era 1
Peak: 12
Weeks in Top 100: 16
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 238158



I was born a year before this song came out (born in 2000, song came out in 2001). I didn’t even hear this song a single time or even know about this group until I heard this song on my local radio channel on the week before Winter Break 2014, during the first tracking week of my chart. Although I did find this song a bit annoying on first listen, I somehow liked some aspect of it (I don’t remember what aspect now lol), so I went home and listened to this song a couple of times. Through the winter break, it really grew on me and pushed up to #12, held back simply because it’s not a recent song. It is part of a set of “flashback songs” in era 1 that grew on me because my local radio station suddenly started playing some of these songs since it was I believe the 30th anniversary of their station, and I believe they started playing some of the best performing songs on their countdown (more to come)! Winter Break 2014 is when I made week 1 of my personal chart (though back then it was literally listing songs on a Word Document) and started to watch videos by Testee and started caring about and watching the Billboard charts. By the end of winter break (week 3), I combined the personal chart idea I started in week 1 with the Billboard charts and started making my personal charts on an excel document with data for “TW, LW, Peak, Weeks On”, though it was still formatted a bit differently than today. And because when I was writing up my week 1 chart, this song came on when listening to my playlist, “All Or Nothing” is a really good reminder of the very origins of my personal chart, one of the most important aspect of my life up to this day…

“Is it all, or are we just friends?
Is this how it ends?
With a simple telephone call
You leave me here with nothing at all”

[chicken077]

#173: One Direction – Drag Me Down

Era: very late 2 to 3
Peak: 18
Weeks in Top 100: 22
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 240037



Interestingly, my mom likes this song. I mean, she liked 1D’s “What Makes You Beautiful” and “Night Changes”. I found the former to be a bit annoying and loud, but I loved the latter (watch for it on this countdown)! When “Drag Me Down” came out, I was relieved it didn’t prevent “Can’t Feel My Face” from hitting #1, and thought it was a step down from “Night Changes” at first simply because I only listened to the excerpt Testee gave. After first listening to the full song on the radio, I still thought the song was meh and a bit bland, but my mom fell in love with it. I mean, my mom and I disagree with a lot of music opinions: my mom doesn’t like Taylor Swift, while I’m like a huge Swiftie. I think if she had a personal chart, “Drag Me Down” would be the late-2015 pre-holiday season dominator instead of “The Hills” for me. But after a few weeks, each listen to this song seems to get subsequently a bit better. I still didn’t like the song’s lack of emotion, but I’m fine with it because my life was pretty nice back then. This rose on my chart very slowly to a peak of #18 in early October, when my mom took me on a drive after school on a Friday before a 3-day weekend, and when the song came out on the radio, she started singing to it. Although I never fully liked this song, it’s still memorable for me because of how much my mom loved it and the interest it produced here on Pulse about its debut.

“If I didn't have you there would be nothing left
The shell of a man who could never be his best”

[chicken077]

#172: Demi Lovato – Confident

Era: late 3 to very early 4
Peak: 23
Weeks in Top 100: 23
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 242579



Here’s another song that SiriusXM was literally in love in back in winter 2015/2016. I really liked “Cool For The Summer”, Demi’s single prior to “Confident”. This song couldn’t seem to grow on me when it first came out – I mean, the two songs are very similar… so to this day I’m confused to why “Cool For The Summer” was successful but “Confident” wasn’t nearly as. My best guess was because “Cool For The Summer” debuted when I life was on an upward curve and I had hope in the Billboard charts. So the harder rock/more aggressive tone was more fitting for me than late era 3, when I was reaching my peak and although I was happy, I already see that I’m reaching the top. Also, with “Hello”’s debut changed music, and I had less hope in the Billboard charts. Maybe that’s starting with this generation of debuts, only the best songs like “Stressed Out” and “Dibs” have a chance at dominating, while songs that would normally have a pretty great chart run like “Confident” would fall off short.

Anyways, SiriusXM loved this song so much that I couldn’t really relate this with any particular memory. There’s just too much that comes to mind! And no memory related to this song is so major that it’s worth to pick it out from all these memories to talk about! When this song was first released, I still went to the school library to do work after school until the night. Then, I heard this song so many times when my parents drove me to that Physics class on Saturdays, especially during Winter Break. As the new year and era 4 began, SiriusXM continued to play this song well into the year as it is related with numerous events, and I feel the radio did not drop it until mid-era 5, around the time Don’t Let Me Down was #1 (although the song dropped on my chart in late era 4). I definitely got a bit tired of this song, but honestly it just got a bit unlucky by debuting in the wrong era. It would’ve been higher up on this countdown if it debuted with “Cool For The Summer”.

“So you say I'm complicated
That I must be outta my mind
But you've had me underrated”

[chicken077]

#171: Thomas Rhett – Die A Happy Man

Era: 4
Peak: 28
Weeks in Top 100: 32
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 246804



Despite critics such as Spectrum Pulse bashing this song for being a “Thinking Out Loud” ripoff, I actually quite like this song. Although I could hear “Thinking Out Loud” in this, I think Thomas gave this song a bit of a new vibe to it. I can’t really describe how, since on first listen, both songs seem very similar. But I guess as I listen to it more and more, I guess you can say this is much more romantic than Ed’s version? I still like TOL, but I guess “Die A Happy Man” gives the song a different feel to it. Also, it is a good reminder during era 4 that despite the fact that I was descending into trouble, there was still a time of my life – era 1, when “Thinking Out Loud” was dominating, that life was so awesome. And if I try hard enough, I could get my life back to that level. Although since then, I was never as happy as I was, it still kept hopes in place so that I won’t give up. Also, there will be at least one other Thomas Rhett song on here! So watch for that!

“The cutest, the hottest, A masterpiece
It's too good to be true, Nothing better than you
In my wildest dreams”

"If I never get to see the Northern lights
Or if I never get to see the Eiffel Tower at night
Oh, if all I got is your hand in my hand
Baby, I could die a happy man"

[chicken077]

Again, guys, although I'm on Thanksgiving Break now, after 3 exams I had today and having to go somewhere after school, I'm way too tired to write descriptions about this batch of songs just now. Some of them have really really great stories that bring back many memories, and I feel that writing descriptions for those songs with me being super tired at this moment and not being able to write good descriptions kinda mistreats those songs and how important they are to me. But that doesn't mean I won't write them! No new songs will be posted tomorrow, but I will spend tomorrow writing these descriptions I skipped and posting them, and also (finally) talking about my life over the past few years and all about that incident so you guys will understand the rest of the stories on the countdown better :)

I'm just too tired right now... It's just 7:30pm Pacific Time when I posted this, but I think I might go to sleep already... it's been a long day... I'm just happy I have the next week off, though!

Tags: @markg94 Leo ✔ Ice Cream 15 (Broccoli 2018) MTSChart21 Sambalada georgetherunner314 bboat11 fearlessarrow Mr. Thonk Eyes .indulgecountry  born Xaprios
If anyone wants to be tagged or untagged, feel free to tell me. :)

(Also: I know some guys following this countdown and my chart that I haven't tagged. I feel it might seem a bit rude to some (not all, I'm fine myself so feel free to tag me on your charts), to tag them without their "permission". So if you want regular notification updates about this countdown and my weekly chart, be sure to ask for a tag!)

[Leo ✔]

I lived is my favorite song in this round :]

Also confident is good tho

[matteeeb]

179 is probably my favorite song of all time :) great list!

[bboat11]

YES, I love seeing Chris Young make the countdown! :) "I'm Comin' Over" was a bit overplayed on country radio, but it is still a dang fine song. One of my very first #1s! And I am not surprised you first started liking it because of Chris' vocals, because he has some of the best chops in the business!!!

If you think "I'm Comin' Over" is great, you should definitely listen to his newest hit, "Sober Saturday Night". You might have already for all I know. But it would totally fit in with the more somber feeling that you seem to be experiencing in 2016. And it has some of the best vocals I have ever heard from him.

Also gotta give some love for "H.O.L.Y.", because it is one of my favorite Florida Georgia Line songs. Which is not a very stiff competition, I will admit... But it is a wonderful song, no ifs ands or buts about it! They actually pulled it off surprisingly well.

[chicken077]

EDIT: I JUST realized how long this was lmao. I guess when I start talking about something I really couldn't stop. Forgive me for making this so long :)

We are just 30 songs into this countdown, which means we’re not even a quarter of the way done. But like Sam, you guys are all probably like, “what do you mean May 16 Incident? Why is it that on every description, you seem to care so much about your life trends?” Well, I don’t blame you for that, because tbh I do talk a bit too much about the incident and my life after it, and I sometimes over-relate songs with life events. But you know, music has been so important to my life since the incident and especially important since 2015 that I can’t help but to relate music with life. Although this isn’t 100% relevant to this countdown, here’s a description/story of what has happened to my life these past few years, why I got into music and why it’s so important to me, the history of my personal chart, where my life is going, and where you guys fall into it. It’s gonna be long, so I’m probably going to split this into two to three days. I won’t be posting any songs today because my dad had an emergency in his company and I had to go to the Silicon Valley with him. I did update yesterday’s posts, however, with stories to go along with each. But because of popular request, I decided to post this earlier than scheduled. So what are we waiting for? Let’s begin!

NOTE: Just in case people that personally know me somehow find this, I’m going to make all proper nouns, other than song names and artist names, made up. And because I don’t want to use the term “this guy” or “this girl” throughout the story, I’m going to use random names for everybody.

So I think it’s relevant to start this story in 2008. That year, I moved from the Silicon Valley to a rapidly developing town out in the East Bay known as X Town in 2008, and after I moved, I barely had any friends. Actually, I had social problems back in the Silicon Valley as well. But the problem is, I really couldn’t fit in with the environment at X Town. I mean at Silicon Valley, at least I had a group to talk with and people treated me as meh. I was bullied and laughed at for being a nerd at X Town, and I even considered dropping out in 4th grade. I did have one friend, though, my neighbor, a girl known as Grace. She was really nice to me and I could talk with her about stuff going on in life and she wouldn’t judge me as someone who only cares about studying. She was a grade below me, so we don’t have many chances at talking at school. I was pretty much a loner there, and when I got home, Grace and I used to go to each others’ houses to talk and play. Also, I used the piano to let out a lot of my anger. I’ve played piano since I was 4, and although I had a lot of requirements on what I have to play, by the time I got to 4th grade, I had enough skills to play certain pieces however I’d like it. So that’s a plus in my life as well. But the music I always played is classical music. I barely listen to any pop music at that time. I mean my parents sometimes listen to pop radio and I sometimes follow along, but for some reason, I did not want to accept pop music in my listening menu of songs. There were a few I really liked, including Taylor Swift’s songs (I was a Swiftie since elementary school lol), and some other sorrowful and deeper ones like “Viva La Vida”, “Bleeding Love”, OAR’s “Shattered” (which remains as the only flashback song to hit #1 on my chart), The Fray’s “How To Save A Life” and “You Found Me”, Owl City’s “Fireflies”, etc. You get the point, most songs I like are really emotional and somewhat negative/sad. My parents were a bit worried that I have some mental disease, but they see I have piano and Grace to let out all my anger on. So they didn’t really care about my life outside academics.

Then 5th grade came along and something happened that I think led to everything that happened afterwards. In other words, if this didn’t happen, idk if I’ll even have a personal chart. So Grace’s family decided to move to China, which means that as I enter middle school, I will have absolutely no friends around me. In addition, my parents and my teacher are pressuring me to enter piano competitions. And I’m a guy that hates competition and is not competitive, so piano is becoming more of a duty than a hobby. The summer right after 5th grade, I ended school a week earlier to visit my family in China, so I didn’t even go to graduation. That also means that I didn’t even know when the last time I saw Grace was. The trip to China came so suddenly that I didn’t even have time to say a last goodbye to her. That year was 2011.

By the time I came back to America, it was almost the beginning of middle school. I dreaded the day school started. I knew I barely had any friends and I couldn’t fit in with the culture at X Town, heck, I couldn’t even fit too well into American culture tbh. I spent my last few weeks of the summer worrying about what is to come, though I really should’ve spent those weeks enjoying my last few weeks of childhood. Because what is about to come, that’s going to define my entire future and strip all the childhood-ness away from me that I still kinda long for.

I had a weird first period class. Our school has this thing where all sixth graders get their years split into six sections, and for most people, their first period will be spent alternating through those classes. Interestingly, I had dance 1st period, and the people in my class, I didn’t know most of them. There was a guy called Mark, however, that I’ve known in elementary school. I didn’t quite like him, but hey, he’s the only guy I knew in the class. So I quickly became friends with him, but literally not even a hundredth of my relationship with Grace. He brought along some of the new friends he made, and one of them is called Charlie. Charlie has a friend at his old school named Shawn. This Shawn guy was very similar to me, at least I thought so. His family is adheres very closely to Chinese culture, he’s smart, he’s a math and sciency guy, he likes travelling, he likes making YouTube videos (yep, I had a channel back then. And it’s still on YT, except I made all the videos unlisted), the list just goes on and on; heck, he even has the same last name as me! At that time, the only differences that I could see between us is that he’s not as shy as me (doesn’t have those social issues I do), and he doesn’t like music (well, I guess you can say I only liked classical back then, but whatever).

The relationship between Shawn, Mark, Charlie, and I started off really well. We sat together at lunch and talked everyday about our lives. But even then, I longed for the talks I used to have like every day with Grace. As time passed, I felt I began connecting more with Shawn and less with Mark and Charlie. Mark and Charlie also started venturing off into another group at school and playing this trading card game. In the depths of my heart, I was fine with that, but then one day when Mark and Charlie were playing with the other group, Shawn said something to me that would change my life and myself forever.

Shawn was like, “You know my old friend Charlie? How’d you think about him?” I’m like, “he’s pretty cool.” Shawn casually stated, “you know man, he’s a very cool guy, but the problem with him is that he easily gets swayed into joining other people’s groups. Like he very unpredictable”. Since Shawn was so close to me, I easily trusted him, and was like, “Ok Shawn, I’ll take that into consideration”. That was October 2011. Up until November, Shawn slowly appeased me into saying increasingly bad things about Charlie. It eventually got up to him lying a lot and being disrespectful to his parents. It got to the point in December when I was like, “hey Shawn, we should really stop talking to Charlie then. He seems like a bad kid”. So Shawn and I began keeping to ourselves, cutting ourselves from Charlie, and with him, Mark was bye bye as well.

So 2012 came by as Shawn and I became closer and closer. At school, Shawn taught me that to survive in a community like X Town, you really have to think for yourself. Everyone in this school and in this community is worse than Shawn and I in some way because we get such good grades. So they don’t deserve the treatment we do. Because I was such mistreated by everyone back in elementary school and Shawn was so similar to me, I trusted Shawn and was I guess you can say influenced by him. By the time February passed by, I was bossy, mean to everyone except Shawn and my parents, fast triggered, and just overall a d***bag. But of course, I thought I was on the right path to success. Because every day, Shawn talks about how much he has succeeded in math competitions and how he knew calculus. I had nothing on the scale as he did. Seeing him so similar to me yet so successful both academically and socially, I kinda looked up to him, but I didn’t realize that all of this success was either a lie and that he was leading me on the wrong path.
By the time 6th grade ended, I was the biggest d***bag you could find and literally the guy everyone hated at school. But I didn’t give a f*** back then because I thought, “hey, Shawn follows this pathway and look how successful he is. So I just have to follow his path and I’ll be successful too!” Over the summer, my mom met Shawn. At first impression, she thinks Shawn is a really good kid and unlike me, will be extremely competent in society. After a few playdates, however, she warned me about him, something along the lines of “he’s too ambitious”. But of course, I didn’t listen to her because you know, puberty. And the things we talk about aren’t the nicest things as well. Like we literally came up with “plans” to deal with people at our school and how “stupid” they are.

Then 7th grade started. Two things defined the first half of 7th grade. In the first half of 7th grade, my parents got in a huge fight about sending some milk formula thing to my cousin in China because she just gave birth. Since my parents’ relationship was so well (other than this time, I think the only time they got into a big fight was 2006), it’s huge to have parents in a fight this size. With that came my parents letting me do my own s*** in the room. And of course, that meant more time chatting with Shawn online. And of course, that’s bad news… Shawn continued to indoctrinate me with feelings that make me feel as if what I’m doing is right and I should continue further on this path. So of course, I listened to him and became such a bad person at school… Like I would refuse to talk with anyone other than Shawn and a few others (more on “a few others” later) and literally make fun of someone for being not as smart as me. Literally only Shawn and the “a few others” liked me in school – everyone else went from either hating me to vilifying me. I mean back in elementary school, at least people felt that I was meh at best and bad at worst. Now, not even…

But there are those “a few others” that thought of me as okay. This included a kid called Tyler who was new to our school and sat with us on the first day of 7th grade. I helped him out, but Shawn said that I felt too sorry for him and I should treat him like all others. For the first time, I thought Shawn went a bit too far, so I started secretly talking and interacting with Tyler. He was in my PE class, and in that class, I became close with a few other guys I have known but did not like until then. There was, however, another new guy in my PE class at that time called Josh. I think him and Tyler were family friends prior, but I kinda became friends with him as well. So we had this whole PE squad, but overall, I still respected and listened to Shawn more. They did warn me that Shawn was a bad guy, but of course, I was stubborn and didn’t listen to them.

In December, I tried doing something. After Tyler, Josh, and the other guys telling me like every single day that Shawn was a bad kid, I was like, “ok, maybe they are right. Why is Shawn a bad kid? I have no f****** idea, I mean look at him, he’s so successful. Maybe a little break from him will help me realize?” The week before winter break, I tried breaking away from Shawn’s greets to me every morning, but every single day Shawn was like, “HEY MAN, I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO TELL YOU”, and he made it so friendly that I felt bad that I couldn’t resist. This one day, I really tried my best to avoid him, but still succumbed to him by third period algebra. So I told Tyler and Josh, “You see, I know what I’m doing right now. Shawn might have problems in his personality, but at least he’s successful. And I’m hoping that by following in his steps, I’ll get successful as well”. Tyler and Josh were like, “ok. Well, we’ve tried convincing you. Don’t blame us when things go bad someday”. They are right. Because in a year and a half, everything will change.

As 2013 and the second half of 7th grade dawned, I felt I was in a pretty good position. I was getting better grades, and because I respected Shawn so much, I kinda thought Shawn’s way of living was making me get those grades, so I continued to be that d***. But of course, I started building my relationship with Tyler and Josh. Of course, everyone else still hated me. I did, however, make another friend in my math class that tolerated my personality. He goes by the name Abel, and is currently still a friend of mine and is probably the only friend that I had when 2014 started and remained as a friend at the dawn of 2015 when I started making the personal chart. Abel’s a genius; he’s very well rounded, but most of all VERY mature. I didn’t know any of this back then, but now talking to him, apparently he knew back in 2013 that I was not a bad kid despite acting like a d***bag and he knew all along that Shawn twisted my personality. And that’s why he became friends with me. Apparently he knew that Tyler and Josh (he knows both of them) wanted to turn me back to the light side, but he also knew that because I was so indoctrinated into Shawn’s words, Tyler and Josh’s words were of little use to me. So Abel really wanted to get close with me and make me a truly good person.

But even Abel’s geniousness couldn’t save me. I was so into Shawn back then that I didn’t even realize it when Abel was subtly hinting to me that I’m going on a wrong path. So 7th grade passed like that. My relationship with Tyler, Josh, and Abel were awesome, but I still viewed Shawn as a guide and mentor that can make me successful in life. Grace actually came back that summer (so I guess it’s wrong to say Abel was the only friend that “survived” 2014. Grace did as well), but because of how much I changed for the worse, I viewed Grace as everyone else and was kinda mean to her. Of all the people I was mean to back then, I felt the worst for being mean to Grace because she has been so nice to me, and was pretty much the only person that was nice to me, back in elementary school and it truly is unfair to her that because of me trusting in Shawn, I treated her so badly. I could tell that she started despising me a bit, but after May 16 when I told her about this, she forgave me and we became great friends again, lasting until this day.

The second half of 2013/first half of 8th grade was honestly a continuation of the first half of 2013 – me being mean to everyone except Shawn, Tyler, Josh, and Abel; and Abel trying to convince me to leave Shawn subtly but I didn’t realize. It is also notable that Shawn, Abel, Josh, and I had English, History, and Geometry together. Josh started succumbing a bit to Shawn as well, but I think he didn’t fall as far as me so he got pulled back easily. Abel wouldn’t bulge, and he continued to be friends with Josh and I. There was a lot of interaction between us four, and because Abel was smart enough to not be hostile to and offend Shawn, I was tricked into believing that Abel never believed Shawn was taking me on a wrong path. So with added “support” from Abel, I trusted Shawn even more, and he led me on one path that proved to be the ultimate thing that led to the May 16 Incident.
 
It was kinda like a personal chart. Except it wasn’t. There are some differences. First of all, a chart comes out every month instead of every week. Second of all, there was no column that says, “last week (well in that case, month), peak, etc”. Third of all, I did not have a point system. Fourth of all, everything on that chart lasted for forever. There were #1s that lasted for 10 months, and on average lasted in the top 100 for years and years. Fifth of all, it wasn’t a top 100. It was pretty much a top 500, except we only bothered to work on the top 50 and bottom 50, so in effect, it was a top 100. The most crazy thing is, back then, I had no interest in pop music. I didn’t even know the charts were called the “Hot 100”, and I had no idea people kept personal charts. But there was one more crucial difference, and that’s why I’m not scared at all to make a personal chart now. My chart then was not ranking songs. It’s ranking people at our school.

Shawn first proposed it right when 8th grade started. I initially rejected it because I thought it was too much work. In October, he proposed it to me again, giving reasons such as, “it helps us determine who to be nice at in school” and “it’s a good organization tactic” and “we won’t get in trouble because just think of it as a journal” and “no one will know”. He made it sound so good that I gave in by November. We had our first issue on the day we got out for Thanksgiving Break. So literally 3 years ago. Over the holiday season, we backtracked the top 10 of our chart to 2008 (it wasn’t a lot of work because it was by months and not weeks), when I moved to X Town. So that’s why it was possible for #1s to last for years (Grace lasted at #1 for I believe 3 years?) Of course, Shawn and I were not charted. Otherwise, we said that we couldn’t pick a #1 because we both deserve it and the #1 position would’ve lasted for almost 14 years because we were almost 14 years old back then.

So then 2014 started. I still couldn’t believe that I kept a “bad” personal chart at the beginning of 2014 and by the end, I was already 2 weeks into my current personal music chart… Anyways, the first months of 2014 past as Shawn and I always talked about our chart at school (of course, when other guys aren’t around us). Tyler eventually got annoyed that Shawn was becoming friends with Josh and Abel (the friendship with Abel was actually an illusion because Abel didn’t want Shawn to hate him apparently), so he started hanging out with other people more. Abel continued trying to subtly turn me back, but all his efforts were in vain because I was so deeply troubled. I need something massive and extreme that can save me. Something as big as the May 16 Incident. And I assure, most of you probably have an inference of what happened on May 16 - it's much bigger than what you are expecting. At least psychologically.

I think that’s a good place to stop for today. After a long day at the Silicon Valley helping my dad solve the problem at his company, writing like 4 pages of words for this, and calculating points for Week 101 on my chart, I’m too tired to continue. So I think it’s good to leave off right before the May 16 Incident, a little more than halfway through this story. I hope you guys learned more about me so far and hopefully won't judge me for my past, and the second half of this story, I promise, will be more relevant to my chart lol. Tomorrow I will post part 2 of this, the next 10 songs, and Week 101 of my chart on my main thread (that may be delayed to Monday depending on how long part 2 takes me to write up). And lmao at me using singers as substitute for names.

Tags: @markg94 Leo ✔ Ice Cream 15 (Broccoli 2018) MTSChart21 Sambalada georgetherunner314 bboat11 fearlessarrow Mr. Thonk Eyes .indulgecountry  born Xaprios
If anyone wants to be tagged or untagged, feel free to tell me. :)

[Sambalada]

still teasing bye bitch.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
jk ofc. luv ya hun'

will look forward!

[georgetherunner314]

Just got a chance to look through your top 200 so far... songs that I've loved here include Sugar, Middle, Blame, Waves, Cool Kids, Sucker For Pain, and I Lived.  :)  Lots of other good ones there too!

Also, I read your very long post and wow that is a lot of tough sh*t you went through in middle school. I gotta be honest I went through something similar with one of my friends I met sophomore year who is truly an arrogant d***. He's also intelligent (though he believe he is more so than realistically) and has guided me on a lot of college info as well on other smaller things in life, but I feel like I let him control me and alter my personality (at the same time, lowering my self esteem) and it isn't until this summer/fall that I'm distancing myself from him. I also will admit he's a big cheater in school and I had kinda joined in on it and felt cool about it for some time. But I slowly became full of guilt from the actions I was taking and finally realized on how far I had gone downhill, since a lot of people hated me now (or more so disliked me; they hated him). He always put on this fake personality when communicating with teachers and office members and it really started f***ing pissing me off; I still don't know how he manages to do that without any feelings of remorse. I figured that I just didn't want to be a "bad person" alike him, even if he ends up going to some prestigious college and becoming rich for his false efforts. I didn't go much into detail with that "short story" but you get the gist.

I'll be waiting for part 2 tomorrow! I appreciate all the dense descriptions you're including for all the songs (though I'll be honest I haven't read most of them  ).

[chicken077]

Sambalada : So mean :'(

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
haha lol knew it. You're gonna love my next post here :)

georgetherunner314 : wow... It's crazy how we both got interested in music at around the same time, started posting here at around the same time, have somewhat similar charts, and have similar experiences! And man, I totally understand your story there... and I'm glad you got yourself out of it before the problem got too big like mine did (gonna post about it in a while :) ). For me, it only took around 2015 to build new friendships because I was lucky that it occurred right before middle school graduation, so I got to meet new people in high school and get a clean slate with them. Unfortunately, I don't think you're gonna get this clean slate, and I can't imagine how hard it would be if the incident did not happen at the end of high school. I'm having some issues in 2016 with people at my school; it's very torturous especially with stressful classes, and tbh I don't think I'm gonna completely recover from these 2016 incidents (which are very minor, but it happens like every other week...) until graduation (I'll talk about this soon in another post). I wish you best of luck... and remember, you always have the Pulse community to talk to if you need anyone :)


So I got a bit busy today again (why is Thanksgiving Break so busy too lol), and plus I don't want to annoy you guys with another super long post, so I'm going to split the rest of the story into part 2 and part 3. Part 2 will be talking about the May 16 Incident and the rest of 2014. Part 3 will be talking about 2015 and 2016. I will post Part 2 later tonight (PST) as well as the next few songs on the countdown. Part 3 and more songs will be coming tomorrow. I still haven't decided on when I will post Week 101 of my chart, but it will definitely be coming latest tomorrow night

EDIT: I actually might split the story into three more parts depending on how long it takes to write up 2015 and 2016. I also might combine the second half of 2014 with 2015 because the story for the May 16 Incident is already so long.

It looks like I'm falling a bit behind on this, so much for the schedule I made myself lmao. But I will definitely keep posting songs here and in the worst case scenario, get this countdown done once Winter Break is here

[chicken077]

K guys, super long post #2. Part 2 of the story of me and my personal chart. We will start off where we left off yesterday. The month leading up to the May 16 Incident – the first months of 2014.

So as I said earlier, 2014 up to the May 16 Incident was defined as Josh, Abel, Shawn, and I hanging out together almost every day. Since I’ve been friends with Shawn for the longest, I was completely changed into being a complete d***, mean, arrogant, inconsiderate, you name it. Josh got changed a little bit, but at least he’s still nice. Abel refused to bulge, but because he didn’t want to embarrass Shawn in front of everyone and lose me and Josh as friends, he did not tear apart Shawn. On top of all of that, I was making a new friend called Mike, a really shy but really nice guy. At times when I get a bit stressed about my relationship with the three others, I talk with Mike. But my life was still dominated by Shawn and the “personal chart” we were making.

The May 16 Incident happened on Friday, May 16 (of course), and started in 2nd period (around 9 am). It was history class, and Josh, Abel, Shawn and I were all in the same class. While we were talking about the Battle of Vicksburg, the teacher received a phone call from the office, and the teacher after hanging up told me to report to the vice principal Mr. Sheeran’s office. In the beginning, I had no idea what happened, but I was born with a sense of paranoia and fear of authority (which I still have to this day, and the paranoia will turn out to be why 2016 up to May was kinda bad), and I knew something was wrong. But I never thought about the personal chart. Mr. Sheeran was a tall, fat, and old man. He was at least 6 feet (I was only 5’3”) and at least 200 pounds – like he looked like a retired wrestler now at X Middle School to scare off students. On his computer screen was a digital copy of the personal chart. I immediately started sweating, my heart started beating at the rate of a heart attack, and felt I was going to poop in my pants because of all the nervousness. The first thing he did was tell me to sit down and question me about the personal chart. “What is this about?” was his first sentence, and with every subsequent sentence, I felt small and weak and like trash – a really big hit for a guy who has historically gotten awesome grades and has been educated by Shawn to be so proud of it. I was so nervous then that I completely forgot the speech he gave to me. All I remembered was that around 30 minutes later, he was like, “you know what? I’m going to have to suspend you for the day”. My emotions at that point was very conflicted. My first thought was, “oh gosh I’m screwed. The worst thing has happened to me”. Second thought, “wait… oh no, Shawn is going to be in trouble too”. Third thought, “How did Mr. Sheeran get the document?” Fourth thought, “whatever. I need to stop thinking about Mr. Sheeran and Shawn and start worrying about how I should face my parents and everyone else at this school”. The thoughts that ran through my head are some of the most conflicted of my life during the 10 minutes my mom drove to school to pick me up. If there’s a song to describe this feeling, it’s probably… I don’t even know honestly.

So my mom was, obviously, blazing mad when she picked me up. When we got home, my mom took my laptop and forbade me to use it for a month. Meanwhile, she was inspecting everything I had in there. So every arrogant chat with Shawn and other guys, every version of the personal chart, every picture I took with friends, every music I downloaded (of course, mostly classical back then), was all found by my mom, most of them deleted. She even told my dad to come back from his company, but my dad was quite nice to me about this. He said that even if I did make the “personal chart”, he’d forgive me because back when they were in school in China, they were ENCOURAGED to do something like that. In fact, teachers did that all the time, and the rankings were PUBLICIZED! So my dad went to school in the afternoon to have a debate with Mr. Sheeran, but apparently Mr. Sheeran said, “well, if it was truly private, how did I get hold of it?” My dad had no word to say. Shawn didn’t cross my mind back then. I was too busy dealing with my mom, because she just found files on my laptop that I lied to her about (and because I was so twisted, I used to lie to her all the time), and the #1 thing she hates is lying. I could tell she almost smashed my laptop, but she controlled her anger. But instead, she did something to me that evening that truly changed me forever. And I thank her for that. It’s probably the best thing that has happened to me in my life, better than everything Grace has done to me added together, better than everything Taylor and Kelsea will do to me later in this story, both the actual singers and the people they will come to represent in this story, everything.

At around 8 in the evening, my mom took me to this pretty unpopulated area around 10 miles east of home. It’s right under the Altamont Pass and east of the Lawrence Livermore Lab – the section of land that was never built up. On the entire way there, my mom dissed me probably the hardest she has in my life. Once we got there, she’s like, “get out of the car. I don’t want you as a son anymore”. I refused. But she kicked me out and drove off. I was there by myself. First thing I thought, “crap. Now I’m really screwed”. Second thing, “Is there any signal here? Oh never mind, my mom took my phone away”. Third thing, “Guess I have to hitchhike 10 miles home. Good thing I was interested in roads before this all happened. I know where I’m going”. Fourth thing, “Crap. It’s almost night. I’m never gonna get back. Oh no…” So I just stood there. The sunset was beautiful. I mean, the area I live in already has awesome sunsets. But that night, there weren’t a lot of clouds, but the sun lit the existing clouds a soft red color, corresponding to my feeling. Behind me were bands of purple and shades of blue/grey over the horizon. In front of me was bands of yellow, red, and blue, dark blue and light blue. It was a beautiful night. I just stood there, staring at the sunset (one reason why I came to love Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams”. I love sunsets anyway). It was very silent. The distant lights of civilization glowed as I stood in a land of nobody. I didn’t know how much time has passed, but I suddenly realized, “You know, maybe I’m wrong all along. Being smart, getting good grades, and all that is NOT what defines a good person. Instead, it’s being nice. Being nice to everyone no matter how smart they are, what there background is, and what their beliefs are. Treat everyone with kindness. I was so mean to everyone over the past 2.5 years, and although I am a successful guy academically, my personality is s**t. And that is what makes me a bad person. And that is why I deserve what just happened today. Mr. Sheeran is right. My mom is right. I don’t deserve to get a good education when I am this bad of a person”. So then I yelled out at the sunset (I’m actually atheist, but when you’re in a situation like this, you don’t really care anymore), “If I can get back home today, I swear that I will be nice to everyone. No matter how smart they are and no matter what background they are from. Everyone deserves respect, and I will treat everyone with love and kindness”. I broke out into tears and collapsed on the road. A car passed by around a minute later and stopped. It was my mom. Apparently she was around fifty feet behind me this whole time, I was just too preoccupied to even notice. She took me back on the car and drove me home. I could tell she was still mad, but that night, we had a talk, and she said that she heard what I said, and told me she would never abandon me. She wanted to let me feel abandoned and sad, and learn what truly matters in life in that way. And I think she has done a very good job. I hugged her and went to sleep. May 16, 2014. At 9am, everything was normal. At 9pm, everything has changed.

On Monday, May 19, I walked back into school with my new ideology in my mind. I told Shawn, Abel, and Josh to please let me be quiet for one day. Leave me alone, I’ve got a lot to go through in my brain. At lunch, I got called in by Mr. Sheeran again and he gave me some final remarks about this. He basically told me the same things my mom wanted me to learn, but I knew that without my mom fake abandoning me, I would still be the old chicken077. Before I left the room, I said, “One last question sir. You see, technically having a document like this is just like a journal. Like in journals everyone talks about people and how they feel about them. But nobody gets in trouble for it. So what exactly is the difference? I’m just quantitizing everything that would go into a journal with ranks”. Mr. Sheeran said, “Because you shared it with someone”. I immediately knew. I said thank you to Mr. Sheeran and ran out of the office.

Shawn was talking with Abel and Josh, and I told him, “Shawn, I want to talk to you”. Shawn said, “yeah sure, sit down!” I was like, “No. Abel and Josh don’t have to know. I want to talk to you alone.” Shawn said, “um… sure? Meet me next to the 8th grade lockers”. He ran off, and I told Abel and Josh, “tell you guys everything later.”
Once I got to the lockers, I didn’t yell at him. I repeated in my brain, “be nice to everyone. Even people like Shawn”. I simply said, “Why?” Shawn looked puzzled, “Why what?” I said, “you know”. Shawn was like, “I don’t know.” I couldn’t control it anymore. I yelled at him, “WHY THE F*** WOULD YOU REPORT ME FOR THE PERSONAL CHART?!” Shawn was like, “No I didn’t… Oh so that’s why you weren’t at school after you got called in to the office. What did Mr. Sheeran do to you?” My anger at that point was simply unbearable. “STOP ACTING SHAWN. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID. MR. SHEERAN TOLD ME. WE’VE BEEN FRIENDS FOR WHAT? TWO YEARS AND A HALF AND YOU BACKSTAB ME? LIKE WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT TO DO? BACK IN 6TH GRADE YOU TAUGHT ME TO BE A ‘SUCCESSFUL’ PERSON LIKE YOU WANTED ME TO BE TRULY SUCCESSFUL. AND I TRUSTED YOU. I F****** TRUSTED YOU ALL ALONG. AND WHAT AM I NOW? A f**king DICKBAG THAT DOESN’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO BE A GOOD PERSON. TYLER WAS RIGHT BACK IN 2013, BUT I TRUSTED YOU SO MUCH!!! I TRUSTED YOU WHEN YOU PROPOSED THE PERSONAL CHART AND I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST BETWEEN US! I NEVER THOUGHT YOU HAD A WHOLE PLOT BEHIND YOU’RE BACK. LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE NOW! YOU’VE MADE ME INTO A MOTHERf**kinG STARBOY (nah I didn’t say ‘Starboy” cuz I didn’t even know what a Starboy was lol. I think I said something like bitch. I just had to drop Starboy in there) AND ONCE YOU’RE DONE SCREWING AROUND WITH ME YOU REPORT ME. AND NOW YOU ACT LIKE ALL NICY AND ALL THAT. I BET THE NEXT STOP IS TO ACCUSE JOSH AND ABEL FOR REPORTING ME. BYE SHAWN. I’M SO DONE WITH YOU. YOUR WHOLE IDEOLOGY IS A HOAX”. I could tell Shawn was getting mad as well, and before I was done saying “hoax”, he yelled back, “I TOLD YOU NOT TO TRUST ANYONE!!! IF YOU BELIEVED ME YOU WOULDN’T HAVE DONE ALL THIS PERSONAL CHART THING WITH ME! YOU KNOW WHY I DID EVERYTHING LIKE THIS TO YOU? BACK IN 6TH GRADE IT SEEMED LIKE I WAS MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN YOU, BUT LOOK AT YOU. YOU HAVE ALL THE GOOD GRADES, YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND…” “NO!!! GRACE IS NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!” “FINE! STILL, YOU HAD EVERYTHING. BUT I KNOW YOU WANTED TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN COMPETITIONS, ETC. LIKE ME BECAUSE YOUR PARENTS GAVE YOU THE PRESSURE TO. SO TO DO THAT, I HAD TO TEACH YOU TO BE SELFISH AND BULLY EVERYONE AROUND. BECAUSE WITHOUT THAT IDEOLOGY, YOU s**t CAN’T DO ANYTHING! AND IF YOU THINK YOU’RE A STARBOY, WHAT AM I RIGHT NOW?” I dissed him outright, “YOU’RE A PIECE OF s**t AND I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU EVER AGAIN. I’M GOING TO SHOW YOU THAT I CAN BE SUCCESSFUL WITHOUT BEING A MOTHERf**kinG STARBOY. I MIGHT NOT GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL WITH A 5.0 LIKE YOU DO, BUT AT LEAST I’LL BE A GOOD PERSON AND THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS”. I walked away as I tried to hide my face. Because I was crying and felt bad for dissing him so badly. After all, he’s been a friend for 2.5 years. But I felt like I’ve done the right thing; I have been freed from the “tyranny” of Shawn’s personality. (sorry for such a long section with all caps lmao. and I'm sorry for all the profanity...)

There was just less than a month of 8th grade left. But that last month was one of the worst months of my life. I didn’t want to tell anyone about the incident, so I just simply told Josh and Abel, “Shawn’s not a good person. Stay away.” Unfortunately, Josh did not listen so he continued to fall into Shawn’s trap as he got more and more influenced. Abel had a talk with me and told me that this whole time, he was trying to hint that to me, but I never got it or listened to him. Since Josh did not want to leave Shawn, they started talking more and more, while Abel and I were joined by Mike, that shy new friend I made months before the May 16 Incident. Mike and Abel are still both good friends of mine and remain the only ones in my life that are unaffected by both the May 16 Incident and everything that happened in 2016, though they both hang out with some other guys more now, which I’ll explain later. I still talked to Josh and tried to warn him of Shawn, but it looks as if I was becoming the new Abel – it’s not working. This is also when I told Grace about why I was so mean to her over the past year and that I was incredibly sorry. So happy she forgave me.

8th grade graduation came and it was a not so happy day for me – apparently I was supposed to get a few rewards but because of the May 16 Incident, Shawn got them. I was like “whatever, I don’t even care anymore. At least I’m a good person”. But my parents got really mad and made a big deal out of it with the school and me. I remember the week following graduation they tried to protest against the X Town School District, but I was like, “You know, just think of me as getting a ‘good person’ reward now. Physical rewards are nothing compared with being a better person”. So they never protested. And I’m happy about that. I didn’t want any more interactions with Shawn ever again.

Summer 2014 was I would say the summer of atonement. Although my personality changed following the May 16 Incident, I never got a chance to prove myself, because, well, my reputation of meanness and arrogance was well established at X Middle School. That summer was defined by two events that would eventually help me atone and shape my life up to the 2016 incidents.

First, for the first six weeks, I took a summer biology class at school to get ahead. Since I’m very interested in science, I wanted to get first year biology over with so I can take more interesting classes that require Bio and Honors Chemistry, which I ended up taking as a freshman. My Biology class was very easy because we had a teacher that literally curves tests 30 percent. I think everyone got an A in the class, and we barely had any homework except for weekly vocabulary. In that class, there was barely anyone in that class that knew me from X Middle School – most were from the other middle school, Y Middle School, from other districts, or even students that just finished freshman year and were incoming sophomores (of those students older than me. There were four students that knew me from X Middle, however, but none of them particularly hated me – they just disliked me. There was one that I talked to however, and it was Josh. Anyways, the fact that everyone else didn’t know me was the perfect opportunity for atonement. I was as nice as possible to everyone in my class, including people I used to think as “stupid” or people that don’t even try. The three other students from X Middle were so surprised that I think they asked me what was wrong with me. In addition, I made friends with a few guys: a set of brothers from another school district, an incoming sophomore known as Drake (he does kinda look like Drake tho lol, and the most interesting thing, he will be the most relevant in my life when One Dance was #1!), an incoming freshman from Y Middle called Justin, and a few girls from other schools that I later lost contact with. I had a really good time with this class, including Josh, and it was six of the best weeks of my life. I felt that my new personality really received a really well reception and if I start high school like this in a few weeks, even if I don’t get good grades, I will still feel very happy and finally be a normal person. So there we go! The first step to atonement!

Second, right after the summer biology class was over, my parents took me on a huge vacation to Northern California (I live in the SF Bay Area, so I mean even more Northern CA when I say that), Oregon, and Washington. This trip was crucial to me on three levels. Firstly, some of the destinations on my trip were my favorite. We started at Lassen Peak, went north to Redding and Shasta Lake, then headed to Portland (we went to Crater Lake before) and visited many natural landmarks including Mt. Hood and the Columbia River Gorge, and then head north to Mt. Rainier, Seattle, and Olympic National Park. From there, we took the long shot along Interstate 5 back home. Since I love natural landmarks and beautiful scenes, this trip was awesome for me. And many of the natural scenes convey a sort of mild sorrow that I was experiencing at that time due to May 16 reverberations. Especially there was this one town next to Olympic National Park called Sequim. And it is there where I witnessed the most unique sunset I ever saw. Definitely the best one I’ve seen all my life as well. So if you like sunsets, be SURE to visit Sequim and head over to Dungeness County Park for the sunset. It has a sort of mystic quality in which the sun sets in a haze of mist above the Strait of Juan De Fuca. The scattering light particles of the low sun as it bathes itself into the strait through the fog make it seem like you’re in heaven. And that’s especially emotionally corresponding with me. To this day, I consider that mystical sunset experience as the symbolic change from the old to new chicken077. Secondly, it was the first trip I took after the May 16 Incident, and effects of this incident still reverberated. My parents still didn’t completely trust me on deciding on places to go/eat/live because of the incident, a low mood still existed in the car, and my parents gave me advice on how to avoid being friends with Shawn-like people again. Although I didn’t learn a lot through the trip and was a bit annoyed, I felt that although I kinda changed already, the trip was a symbolic representation of my old self leaving X Town and my new self entering X Town when the trip ended, ready to start high school and prove that I am a good person. Finally, and perhaps most importantly for all intents and purposes of this countdown, it’s when I first listened to pop radio. The drive was so long my parents eventually got board of classical music, Chinese music, and the CDs we have, so they convinced me to take a listen to pop music. So we tuned on local pop radio. At first, I was a bit annoyed because I heard “Happy” and “All Of Me” way too many times “Fancy” was atrocious for me. However, after hearing songs such as “Maps”, “Boom Clap”, “Shower”, “Rude” (yes, I liked it), “Cool Kids”, “Am I Wrong”, “Problem”, “Classic”, “Black Widow”, even “All About That Bass”, I felt that pop music I underestimated over my whole life. And it’s not just pop too, like mainstream music I always did not like because I thought it was too generic. But then, I found that each song has its unique character to it and convey something that I just couldn’t deny as deep, fun to listen to, emotional, and best of all for some of these songs, correspondent to my feeling of the time. That was when I started listening to pop music, and the “Rude” generation was the first set of songs that really grew on me. But I still didn’t know what a Hot 100 was. And I had such a bad feeling about personal charts because of the May 16 Incident that I didn’t even want to think about making a list of favorite songs. But still, that’s the roots for my passion for music.

By the time we got back from the vacation, it was almost school time, and because I have to go now, I’m going to stop talking right now. In this part, we really elaborated on the May 16 Incident and most of the summer that followed. We also saw the change of my personality both literally and symbolically and the beginnings to my path through pop music. In the next part, we will talk about what happens as high school finally started and my path to happiness in 2015 and the beginnings of my personal chart and my experience here on Pulse. I will post quite some songs later as well as Monday morning, as I get back on topic and start counting down the top 200 songs again :)

Tags: @markg94 Leo ✔ Ice Cream 15 (Broccoli 2018) MTSChart21 Sambalada georgetherunner314 bboat11 fearlessarrow Mr. Thonk Eyes .indulgecountry  born Xaprios
If anyone wants to be tagged or untagged, feel free to tell me. :)

[chicken077]

#170: Sam Smith – Lay Me Down

Era: late 1 to early 2
Peak: 24
Weeks in Top 100: 18
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 249563



So I guess you can say this is Sam Smith’s forgotten song? After the success of “Stay With Me” and “I’m Not The Only One”, and because Sam’s songs kinda sound similar, I literally thought this was just “Stay With Me” when I first heard it for a few times on SiriusXM. But as this charged to its #8 peak on Billboard, I realized it’s a whole other song. Tbh by the time this was released, I was a bit tired from overplay of Sam’s songs, and this song is sorta similar. So that’s why it didn’t chart as high as “Only One” did (peaking at #12 on my chart) and “Stay With Me” would’ve done, and why this song only lasted for 18 weeks while “Only One” did for 27.

But regardless, this song does remind me of weekly (Friday) drives from piano class back home, which was always at night before daylight savings time started. I remember right before DST, I heard this song on SiriusXM when my parents drove me home. Although I still thought it was pretty boring, I legit attempted singing to this song. And it was actually the first, and might be the only time where my parents said my singing was pretty good. Maybe because this song has a sort of loneliness to it and drives back home in dark make me feel lonely? Probably that’s why I got all my emotions out on my take of this song. Never again will I be praised for my singing lmao.

"And it's hard, the days just seem so dark
The moon, the stars, are nothing without you
Your touch, your skin, where do I begin?"

[chicken077]

#169: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication

Era: I liked this song when it was on the radio when it came out, but I first figured out the name of this song in era 0, so this was major in late era 0 and era 1
Peak: 22
Weeks in Top 100: 30
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 251931



Hmm… it’s so interesting how this song made the all time countdown but RHCP’s newest “Dark Necessities” didn’t peak too high and is not going to make this. That probably serves as a bit of a reminder of the trend of my chart since week 0. Back in 2015, my chart, aside from pop, had pretty much only rock. Maybe a little EDM? But very little hip hop/rap/R&B and almost no country. Now in 2016, my chart’s a huge mixed bag – pop is still the main genre, but there are considerable proportions of rock, hip hop/rap/R&B, EDM, and country. The genres caught on to me one by one: first rock #1 was first #1: “Take Me To Church”; first hip hop/rap/R&B #1 was technically “See You Again”, but admit it, that was because of Furious 7, so aside from that, it’s the Weeknd songs (ugh, if you wanna debate that fine. “My House” is the first one); first EDM #1 was Mike Posner’s “I Took A Pill In Ibiza” (EDM is actually taking over rock as my secondary genre aside from pop actually!); and first country #1 and only country #1 so far: Kelsea Ballerini’s “Peter Pan”.

Anyways, back to this song. I have lived in California since 2002, and of course, local radio loves this song. I know I first heard this song in the previous decade when my mom switched off classical that I used to always listen to (and still do tbh) and turn on pop radio. This was actually one of the only songs I liked: the lyrics were a bit “California-centric” but hey, what’s wrong with having a bit of state pride? I also liked the laid back feeling to this song and how emphasizing the instrumental instead of RHCP’s singing really brings out a chill yet mildly sad feeling to it (a type of song that I seem to always like). But sadly, I was too small to even ask for the name of the song or band. So this virtually went forgotten until SiriusXM decided to play this in a flashback weekend thing weeks before my chart started. This immediately brought back nostalgia from when I didn’t even move to the East Bay yet and I still lived in the Silicon Valley. I started absolutely loving this song, but sadly, the radio never played it. So I couldn’t really give this song too high of a position in era 1, as it was fueled only by personal plays. There was one week, however, it was actually the weekend after my piano competition in February 2015 (another great memory to talk about, but that’s for another day), where my mom took me to the medals ceremony and on the way, I heard three songs that really left an impression, two of which will be charting on this countdown eventually, so I’m not going to release their names. The third one is a flashback single, and it turned out to be “Californication”. And I was like omg I love this song, and the week following, this blasted to its #22 peak. Sadly, it fell off the top 30 very quickly. This did, however, have amazing longevity for a song that didn’t peak too high and for an era 1/2/3 song (there was so much competition back then): lasting for 30 weeks. (Today, a #22 peak and 30 weeks together is pretty common. “You Don’t Own Me” as actually heading for that right now and it’s a pretty standard #22-peaking song. Shows you the difference in eras again).

“Destruction leads to a very rough road, but it also breeds creation
And earthquakes are to a girl's guitar, they're just another good vibration
And tidal waves couldn't save the world, From Californication”

[chicken077]

#168: Alessia Cara – Wild Things

Era: Early to mid 5
Peak: 26
Weeks in Top 100: 23
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 254586



Another 2016 song! It’s been awhile since we’ve had an era 5 or 6 song to talk about – I believe the previous one was “H.O.L.Y.”? Another interesting thing to note on here: it seems like many the songs that charted together/in the same era and have similar stats are kinda clumped together. Very interesting thing to note and analyze.

So “Wild Things” is a little messy to talk about tbh. Although “Here” is musically a bit repetitive, I loved the message Alessia conveyed through the song as I kinda relate to it, and it reminds me of drives from the Saturday enrichment class home in the dark night back when “Here” was charting. But that’s for another time. After “Here”, “Wild Things” caught me by a little surprise: I didn’t expect Alessia to release a light hearted song like this one. After first listen, I felt it was a bit of a step down from “Here”, but I came to realize it was simply because of my bias towards deeper and sadder songs due to my mood in 2016. Although AP testing was approaching, summer was also coming, and I told myself, why not listen to some happier songs? So “Wild Things” really started growing on me before peaking at #26 right after AP testing in May.

The memory of this song actually didn’t happen until June 2016. The weekend after school ended (not sure if I talked about this already. But I do remember talking about this on my personal chart thread. Carson City’s local radio station LOVED “Don’t Let Me Down”, so I remember saying on the thread at that time that caused “DLMD” to retake #1 from “Better Place”. If you guys were following my thread back then lol), my parents took me on a short trip to Reno, Carson City, and Clear Lake. While driving home and passing by the Lake Tahoe area, “Wild Things” came up on the local radio. At that point, the song was already getting a bit old to me. But as summer was here, this song made me truly realize the implications. Although I was taking a summer PE class, that’s more fun than stress (plus the guys in my PE class as I know of before it actually started was mostly friends or people I didn’t know. The 6 weeks of summer PE are hands down the best 6 weeks of 2016 so far). “Wild Things” made me realize that finally, in the dark and gloomy 2016, I finally get a 10 ish week solace from all the stress and s*** going on at school. It made me truly relaxed for the summer. Thanks, Alessia. Although this song didn’t perform as well as “Here” did, I’m so happy this song was probably why I felt so relaxed going into summer PE.

“if you don't like our 808s, then leave us alone
'cause we don't need your policies, we have no apologies for being...
Find me where the wild things are
We'll be alright, don't mind us, yeah”

[chicken077]

Ok guys, gotta go sleep! Almost midnight for PST now. Tomorrow, I'll finish this set of songs, continue on the story, and post Week 101 on my chart :) Just to prevent this thread from overloading with posts, this post will be a placeholder for the next song, #167, to be posted tomorrow

[Deleted]

wow...sorry about your experience dude :/ like how a personal chart could be hurting someone so much that it calls for a suspension...like wtf? Maybe I'm not understanding something here but that seems like way too harsh of a punishment for something so insignificant. But anyway, I'm glad you've recovered and hopefully things go more smoothly from here on out. In college there shouldn't be this kind of senseless drama from other people, and even if there is, it's pretty easy to avoid :) I've found it to be much easier to get along with people here than I did in grade school (granted I didn't have the best social skills back then, but still...)

looking forward to the rest of this chart and other charts from you! :)

[chicken077]

So today I was writing the descriptions for the next songs when I pressed the wrong command on my computer and accidentally deleted it all. Sadly, I have some assignments due online tomorrow and on Wednesday, so I wasn't able to re-write up the songs just yet. I'll try to get as much through this chart tomorrow as I can :) And lol, I'm falling so behind my schedule. Oh well, I guess we can scratch that at this point. I'll just take this countdown one step at a time and I promise to all of you, I WILL finish it by the end of 2016!

Nov 21, 2016 3:34:04 GMT -5 @markg94 said:

wow...sorry about your experience dude :/ like how a personal chart could be hurting someone so much that it calls for a suspension...like wtf? Maybe I'm not understanding something here but that seems like way too harsh of a punishment for something so insignificant. But anyway, I'm glad you've recovered and hopefully things go more smoothly from here on out. In college there shouldn't be this kind of senseless drama from other people, and even if there is, it's pretty easy to avoid :) I've found it to be much easier to get along with people here than I did in grade school (granted I didn't have the best social skills back then, but still...)

looking forward to the rest of this chart and other charts from you! :)

Thanks for understanding bro :) Honestly it's not the suspension that really bothers me to this day. It really bothered me at that time, but I learned that even if this incident ends up preventing me from making it into prestigious colleges or shattering my dream of being a physicist or if it remains on my record, I'd still be all right with it, because this experience truly made me a better person and got me into music. The thing that kinda bothers me is the very fact that the guy "Shawn" represents led me on a downhill path, yet I trusted him so much, and in the end, he backstabs me. Like honestly without that last backstabbing part, he's already such an idiot (and I kinda became an idiot with him), and once you add the May 16 Incident into the story, ugh... honestly he's a f****** b****. And as I talk about my life in 2016, you'll see that I find that it's not just Shawn... People, especially Middle School and HS students, really need to learn that life is not just about being a good student and getting a good education and making lots of money. Truly, it's about having a good character and have fun with your life without impeding with others. I'm just happy I only have a year and a half left with these salty ppl around me, and I'm kinda excited for college tbh!

[Deleted]

Well I don't think it goes on your record if it was not in high school (I got suspended numerous times but my behavior was fine in HS, and I was told only HS suspensions go on your record.

Yeah, I've had my fair share of backstabbers too...but that's in the past :) hopefully I've learned my lesson and know who to trust. :)

Also, that's why you should periodically copy and paste your work so far so you don't lose what you've written when doing these charts I've learned that the hard way :|

Anyway, can't wait for the rest of the chart!

[chicken077]

#167: Maroon 5 – This Summer’s Gonna Hurt Like A Motherf****r

Era: 2
Peak: 15
Weeks in Top 100: 20
Weeks in Top 10: N/A
Points: 255001



Probably the most underrated singles from V. I LOVED “Maps”, like it would have reached #1 in summer 2014 if I had a chart back then. I felt “Animals” wasn’t as good as “Maps”, but it was still an amazing song worth listening to. “Sugar” was a bit bland but still a really fun song with some good memories. I feel “This Summer” kinda blends “Sugar” in with “Animals”, the song’s super fun to listen to yet it’s still not boring and musically amazing. Sadly, it did not gain too much traction on Billboard and because there was so much competition in Summer 2015 on my chart, it sadly only lasted for 20 weeks, but it had a pretty substantial peak at #15. I still felt “Maps” was their best from V, but this is a close second! Also excited to see how far “Don’t Wanna Know” goes on my chart going forward. And definitely expect more Maroon 5 on this countdown!

This song is literally like the representation of era 2 lol. At the beginning of Era 2, mid April 2015, was when I first heard it. My first reaction was, well, this summer will not hurt because life is getting so much better. Summer 2014 hurted like a “mother****r”. If only this song was released a year ago… But regardless, this is still an awesome song! SiriusXM fell in love with the song and played it from then on out through the summer, and this song became related with many events as I heard it there, including the Independence Day Weekend, the coincidental trip to Mono Lake, visits to San Francisco, and even summer precalc class. It even reminds me of my first visits to music forums. Back in early July 2015, I looked up “2015 Billboard Year End Chart Predictions”, and UKMix’s thread came up. Back then, Broccoli was not here on Pulse yet and he posted on UKMix, so that’s when I first got introduced to Broccoli (Clayton94 on UKMix). And the first set of major analysis (everything else was like a sentence or two) I saw from Broccoli was whether or not this song has the potential to make it on the YE list. So that’s another memory worth thinking about!

“I see her when I go to sleep
I check my phone when I am weak
She never posts anything deep
'Cause she's so fancy, oh,
This summer's gonna hurt like a mother****r”