366 Songs 133: Ain’t No Other Man

When it comes to lists of “Great Pop Songs of The Last Decade,” we can all agree that “Ain’t No Other Man” by Christina Aguilera belongs somewhere in there, right…? As with so many great pop songs of recent years – Well, recentish; this one is, what, six years old now? – what makes it click isn’t so much the vocal acrobatics of Aguilera, all brassy and hitting too many notes when far fewer would do, but the production. It’s a song that hints at classicism, and then tweaks it – The opening horns that get looped on their climactic note, with the join audible (I love that detail), or the mix of a disco-esque bassline with the processed horns and entirely, obviously, fake scratches – to become something that’s more a wink at the past but something that’s far more interested in the kind of crossover magpie approach that you can only really get up to these days.

Plus, of course, it’s catchy as hell.