This month I’m featuring my top 20 albums of the past decade, to celebrate 10 years of This Must Be Pop! Click here to see all the Decade of Pop posts so far.
Often the best pop albums are the ones you aren’t anticipating. The fact you have no expectations makes the joy of discovering a new favourite even sweeter. This was the case with When The Sun Goes Down, as I’d never paid Selena Gomez any interest previously. I knew of her song Naturally, as many pop fans seemed to like it, but I thought it was quite average. If it hadn’t been played in the office where I was working that fateful day, I might never have even heard When The Sun Goes Down. My eyes were opened to an exciting new pop star, who had been right under my nose for years.
There are very few Disney pop albums which have impressed me – most are poor imitations of pop music. But someone involved in Selena’s third album definitely knew what they were doing. There’s nothing too groundbreaking here, but the songs are current in sound and consistent in quality. The most famous track, Love You Like A Love Song, is a definite highlight, but there’s plenty more where that came from. Bang Bang, My Dilemma and Outlaw are among my favourites, and even the saccharine lead single Who Says has grown on me a little bit. Well, I occasionally don’t skip it! This album is throwaway pop that you’ll want to keep.