Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #66 on iTunes, uncharted on Billboard.

The team: "Want U Back," the third single off of Lloyd's debut album Sticks + Stones, was written by Shellback and Savan Kotecha, both of whom worked on the last Cher Lloyd hit I wrote about back in October, "With Ur Love." Since then, Kotecha's added a number of hits to his resume, including One Direction's "One Thing" and "What Makes You Beautiful" and Usher's "Scream." He's also written a Justin Bieber/Nicki Minaj collaboration called "Beauty and a Beat" that will appear on Bieber's forthcoming Believe album. Shellback, who also produced "Want U Back," recently repeated his successful Maroon 5 collaboration--he wrote and produced "Moves Like Jagger"--with "Payphone," which has been charting in iTunes' Top 10 since it was released in April.

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #54 on iTunes' R&B/Soul chart; #14 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.

The team: R. Kelly's a one man team--he's singlehandedly written and produced many of his biggest career hits, including "Ignition (Remix)," "I Believe I Can Fly," "The World's Greatest," "Bump 'n Grind," and this song, "Share My Love." You might say the hits just flow out of him--he's also written and produced songs for a number of past and present pop and R&B stars, including Aaliyah ("Age Ain't Nothing But a Number"), Michael Jackson ("You Are Not Alone"), Blaque ("808"), B2K ("Bump, Bump, Bump"), Britney Spears ("Outrageous"), and Whitney Houston's "I Look to You," which he performed at Houston's funeral back in February.

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: "Primadonna," the lead single off Marina Diamandis' second album, Electra Heart, which will arrive in the US in July, was released late in March and has yet to chart in the US (it did debut at #10 on the UK Singles Chart this week). I'm calling it out regardless because I think it has the potential to become a huge hit.

The team: Reason number one this song has smash potential? It was co-written and produced by today's producer du jour, Katy Perry and Ke$ha career-maker Łukasz Gottwald, professionally known as Dr. Luke. These days, a pop song with Dr. Luke's fingerprints on it is almost a guaranteed hit. Gottwald wrote "Primadonna" with Diamandis as well as Julie Frost, who won a Golden Globe this year for co-writing Madonna's "Masterpiece," and Henry "Cirkut" Walter, who's worked with Gottwald in the past writing songs for Rihanna and Britney Spears. Gottwald and Walter produced "Primadonna" with Diplo, the Philadelphia producer and songwriter who came to fame after collaborating with M.I.A. in Major Lazer and produced M.I.A.'s ubiquitous breakout hit "Paper Planes" and has since crafted tracks for Beyoncé ( "Run the World (Girls)," "End of Time"), Chris Brown ("Look at Me Now"), Robyn ("Dancehall Queen"), Das Racist ("You Can Sell Anything"), and Usher's currently-charting "Climax."

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #3 on iTunes, as yet uncharted on Billboard (it was only released on Monday).

The team: "Eyes Open" is Taylor Swift's second contribution to The Hunger Games soundtrack; she premiered "Safe & Sound," a funereal collaboration with her friends and fellow Grammy winners The Civil Wars, back in December. (It went to to number 1 on iTunes the day of its release). The entire soundtrack to The Hunger Games was just released this Tuesday; it includes songs from Neko Case, Arcade Fire, Kid Cudi, and Miranda Lambert and was produced by T-Bone Burnett. Burnett's previously had huge success with film music--he produced the acclaimed soundtracks for 1998's The Big Lebowski, 2003's Cold Mountain, and 2005's Walk The Line; he won a Grammy in 2002 for producing the bluegrass soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou? and an Academy Award in 2010 for co-writing the year's Best Original Song, "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart.

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #39 on iTunes; as yet uncharted on Billboard (it was only released this past Tuesday; I'm betting it'll surface on next week's Hot 100 chart).

The team: Reverb readers may recall that last December, I was rooting for Rene to take The X-Factor crown. (He ended up placing third). One of the reasons I liked Rene so much was because his bare personality always shone through, starting from his very first audition, when he sang a rougher version of his self-penned sobriety anthem "Young Homie." (That original audition now has over 13.5 million views on YouTube). Rene's original songwriting set him in a different league than the show's champion, Melanie Amaro--as so often happens on these singing shows, Rene's "Young Homie" has made a far bigger splash than Amaro's first post-X-Factor recording, a forgettable "club version" of Aretha Franklin's "Respect."

"Young Homie" was such a hit on The X-Factor that it was the obvious choice for Rene's first single. The official version released on Tuesday has been given a good polishing by JR Rotem, who, like Rene, straddles the line between pop and hip-hop--Rotem's produced songs for Rick Ross, Bun B, Nicki Minaj, and Flo Rida, as well as huge pop smashes for Britney Spears ("Everytime"), Jason Derulo ("Whatcha Say"), and Iyaz ("Replay").

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #81 on iTunes; #90 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The team: In the US, the Scottish DJ/producer/songwriter Harris is best known for "We Found Love," the monster smash he created for Rihanna that's still sitting way up there on the Billboard charts after 21 weeks. More recently, he contributed a track called "You've Messed Up" to Leona Lewis' upcoming third record, Glassheart. Harris' solo work is better known in his native UK; he's released two records and is currently working on a third, about which little is known--no title or firm release date--other than that it will include his collaboration with Kelis, "Bounce," as well as "Feel So Close." "Feel So Close" shot up the pop charts in the UK, Ireland, Scotland, and Australia when it was released last July; it was only released in the US last week.

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #5 on iTunes; too early for the current Billboard chart (the song just hit radio on Valentine's Day).

The team: If you keep track of these sorts of things, it won't be a surprise to know that "Starships" is RedOne track. RedOne is 39-year-old Nadir Khayat, who won a Grammy in 2010 for producing Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." Others of Lady Gaga's early hits also bear RedOne's stamp, including "Just Dance," "LoveGame," "Bad Romance," and "Alejandro." On Gaga's second album, Born This Way, RedOne worked on four tracks, including the second single, "Judas." So far, Gaga is RedOne's most notable collaborator, but he's also produced tracks for Jennifer Lopez, Cher Lloyd, Selena Gomez, and Little Boots. On "Starships," he shares production credit with three others--Rami Yacoub, who co-wrote a slew of Britney Spears' early smashes, including "...Baby One More Time," "Oops!...I Did It Again," and "Stronger"; Wayne Hector, who's also written for Britney; and Carl Falk, who wrote and produced another track that's currently charting in iTunes' Top 10--"What Makes You Beautiful" by the British boy band One Direction.

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #31 on the Billboard Hot 100; #11 on iTunes.

The team: "Somebody That I Used To Know" is off Making Mirrors, the third full-length from the 31-year-old Belgian-born Australian artist Wouter De Backer, who goes by the stage name Gotye. Gotye wrote and produced "Somebody" himself, and it's his first song to chart in the U.S. (It's also hit number one in seven other countries around the world). His guest vocalist on the song, Kimbra, is a 21-year-old singer from New Zealand, who released her debut album, Vows, on Warner Brothers Records late last year. The opening of the song samples "Seville," a 1967 track by the Brazilian guitarist and bossa nova singer Luiz Bonfá, who died in 2001.

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #87 on the Billboard Hot 100; as yet uncharted on iTunes.

The team: Goulding, who is 25 years old, wrote "Lights" with Richard Stannard and Ash Howes, both of whom also produced the track. Howes is a member of Stannard's Brighton, England-based production and songwriting group, Biffco. Stannard's responsible for the Spice Girls' most major hits, including "Wannabe," "2 Become 1," and "Spice Up Your Life." He's also written and produced songs for such British pop stars as Marina Diamandis, Little Boots, and Will Young. In 2001, Stannard and Howes teamed up to pen Kylie Minogue's worldwide smash, "Love at First Sight."

Nice Hits! is a Reverb column that unironically dissects, reviews, and appreciates the best songs of the current Top 40. It is unsnobbishly premised on the logic that just because a lot of the music on the radio is crap doesn't mean all the music on the radio is crap.

Current chart position: #14 on Billboard's Top Hip-Hop and R&B Songs & Singles Chart; uncharted on iTunes. "Fool For You" is nominated for Best Traditional R&B Performance and Best R&B Song at next month's 2012 Grammy Awards.

The team: Thomas Calloway, who is much better known as Cee Lo Green, wrote "Fool For You" with the LA musician Jack Splash, who in his spare time fronts a funk band called PlantLife and also produced the track. Splash has notably composed and produced songs for Alicia Keys (2007's As I Am), Estelle ("Pretty Please (Love Me)," which also featured Cee Lo), R. Kelly (2009's Untitled), and Jennifer Hudson ("I'm His Only Woman," which featured Missy Elliott). Cee Lo and Splash wrote "Fool For You" about six years ago (Jamie Foxx recorded it) and then revisited it while recording The Lady Killer.