#//in other verses? he has no idea what fallers are and that he is one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deadcactuswalking · 3 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 08/05/2021 (Billie Eilish, DJ Khaled)

Whilst this is slightly busier than last week, I am genuinely surprised with how little is actually going on here on this week’s chart, a lot less than I expected or predicted. With that said, the top of the chart is where our biggest story comes from and that is “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne taking advantage of a weak chart with its star-studded remix and peaking at #1 for its first week, replacing Lil Nas X’s “MONTERO (Call Me by Your Name)”. Not only is it the biggest hit for both of these guys and their first #1s, but it’s the first #1 for the entire UK drill genre, which kind of came out of nowhere for me since I think the song’s pretty worthless but with a TikTok challenge and streaming numbers that have even placed it in the American Spotify chart, it’s gearing up to be one of the biggest British rap songs ever. Let’s hope maybe this one doesn’t stall out as badly as “Don’t Rush” outside of the UK. With all that out of the way, let’s start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Our only new arrival from last week’s UK Top 75 (which is what I cover), “Come Through” by H.E.R. featuring Chris Brown, is gone on the next off of the debut. Well, at least we have more than one new song this week, as well as some interesting chart nonsense lower down, but also some notable drop-outs for “Mr. Perfectly Fine” by Taylor Swift, “Mercury” by Dave and Kamal., “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” by Drake featuring Rick Ross, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man (which will rebound next week as that album makes its impact) as well as “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles finally making what seems to be its last exit. Our only return is in the form of “Confetti” by Little Mix getting a massive surge back at #15 after its Saweetie remix and the attached music video, though Saweetie doesn’t happen to be credited here.

We do have an interesting selection of gains and losses, as with the notable fallers – dropping five spots or more down the chart – we have “Titanium” by Dave at #23, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted getting ACR’d down to #29 (it had a surprisingly great run), “The Business” by Tiesto having the same happen to it at #32, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #40, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo at #43, “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd at #45, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #51, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK hit hard to #54, the same with “Up” by Cardi B at #59, “You” by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae shaking off the gains #63, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #60, “Heat” by Paul Woolford and Amber Mark at #66, “Solid” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake at #69, “Paradise” by MERDUZA and Dermot Kennedy at #71 and, sadly, “How Does it Feel” by London Grammar at #75.

Where it gets a bit more telling about how the charts are going to adapt into the Summer is in our climbers as we have solid gains for “Another Love” by Tom Odell making another run at #60, “Sunshine (The Light)” by Fat Joe, DJ Khaled and Amorphous inexplicably at #57 and now we get into the top 40 where we have more potential future hits. “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack is at #38, “Don’t You Worry About Me” brings the Bad Boy Chiller Crew their first hit at #37 (although the song is only ever worth hearing for that chorus) and “WITHOUT YOU” by the Kid LAROI returns to the top 40 at #30 thanks to a remix with Miley Cyrus who is again not credited by the Official Charts Company. Boney M. are granted their first new top 20 hit since the 1990s, even if it is just a remix of a song that went #2 in 1978, as Majestic’s remix of “Rasputin” is at #18. Our final gain is for a song first entering the top 10 thanks to the remix with Ariana Grande finally making an impact – yet once again not given the official credit by the OCC – as “Save Your Tears” by the Weeknd makes its way up to #8, becoming his tenth top 10 hit here in Britain. That’s not the only song to first enter the top 10 this week but we’ll get to that in due time with our... odd selection of new arrivals this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 – “EVERY CHANCE I GET” – DJ Khaled featuring Lil Baby and Lil Durk

Produced by DJ Khaled and Tay Keith

Two of our new entries are from DJ Khaled’s most recent album Khaled Khaled, an album much like any Khaled album I found cheap and just dull. This record especially is just mixed horribly, with a budget spent exceedingly on getting big-name features instead of any worthwhile engineers to actually mix and master this 50-minute trainwreck. The album doesn’t have many highlights at all but if I had to choose some they would be the two debuting this week, the first of which is basically a Lil Baby cut, “EVERY CHANCE I GET”, with a verse from Lil Durk. Okay, so, yes, first of all, much like the rest of the record, this mix is compressed and just weak, with bizarre bass mastering and drums that sound like garbage, before we get to Lil Baby himself sounding even froggier than ever. I do think that gives the song part of its charm, though, as with a Tay Keith beat, it’s definitely going for a hardcore, old-school Memphis rap atmosphere, and with Lil Baby’s flow switches disguising paranoid lyrics about the typical gunplay and flexing, it does effectively make a pretty intimidating listen... okay, well, it would, if DJ Khaled didn’t have to pop in to convince Lil Baby to “keep going”. We also get a single verse from Lil Durk here, mixed like he recorded his vocals in his bath to the point where it’s clipping against the bass, but delivering a King Von-esque flow that sounds pretty great, and admittedly more detail than you’d expect. I also love that silly “mmm-mmm” flow he uses at the end. I do wish a song like this, clearly supposed to be menacing, did not have the ludicrous personality void that is DJ Khaled on it, and it’s not like they need Khaled to collaborate together – or with Tay Keith for that matter – so I don’t really see why the dude doesn’t just shut up and promote his albums as compilations instead. I understand it comes from his mixtape days, but if this is going to be a studio album, treat it like one and just be quiet for once.

#72 – “Oblivion” – Royal Blood

Produced by Royal Blood

Royal Blood got the #1 album this week for Typhoons and admittedly, whilst I am interested in this band, I haven’t gotten around to listening to it, so I’ll take this album cut as a preview of what to come. If I am doing that, I hope to be surprised by whatever else that album has in store as I’m not really a fan of this. That eerie choppy guitar loop being immediately crushed by this heavily distorted riff and stiff percussion just does not sound unique or interesting, especially if Mike Kerr is going to sound this soulless. The build towards the chorus feels pretty pathetic and unwarranted, and said chorus is just not catchy, before we get to content about how he knows his fate through how arrogant he’s been and he deserves what’s coming to him. I mean, sure, but there’s nothing that makes it obvious that these guys don’t care about what’s coming to them given the pained vocal delivery and monotonous instrumental. It doesn’t feel exciting, rebellious or whatever emotion this tries and fails to capture, just stiff and staggered in its execution. This does make sense for Royal Blood but seems to me like they’re resting way too heavily on ideas ran through the soil at this point. With all that said, this isn’t bad at all, just not as great as those other singles have been from the record. I think I’d be more forgiving if it didn’t come off as a Queens of the Stone Age tribute act writing “originals” that bomb at their shows.

#56 – “love race” – Machine Gun Kelly featuring Kellin Quinn

Produced by Jeff Peters, Jared Gudstadt and Travis Barker

I guess this might actually be a rock-heavy week – not that I’m complaining about more of a rock presence on the chart but God, I wish it wasn’t coming from MGK. I’ll have some choice words to say about this guy’s last attempt at a pop-rock hit by the end of the year, probably, but at least for this song he brought on someone with some kind of legitimacy. Kellin Quinn is the frontman of post-hardcore band Sleeping with Sirens, one of the most successful bands in their genre but not one unlike others that grew out of the metalcore-infused pop rock to anything more unique or experimental. With that said, Quinn is barely here and other than Travis Barker’s typical explosive drums, MGK is the biggest presence here in his raspy but borderline unlistenable vocal tone that I just can’t stand, especially if it’s going to stretch out “run” as long and as far as he did in that longing, desperate chorus. MGK barely even lets Kellin Quinn have his own verse, registering him as backing vocals throughout the entire song, dampening his vocals that sound a lot more unique and enthused, especially when he starts screaming. That bridge did give me trancecore flashbacks – not that I’m complaining if I’m fully honest – so I’ll admit the part of me that eats up emo-pop garbage did let this grow on me a bit, but, man, without a guitar solo to distract from pretty awful lyrics (not that I’d expect much more from this artist or genre) and without really letting Quinn loose on the vocals, it’s lacking a certain grit and punch I expect from post-hardcore. The song did, however, indirectly remind me of New Found Glory, for which I am thankful for.

#53 – “I DID IT” – DJ Khaled featuring Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Baby and DaBaby

Produced by Ben Billions, Joe Zarrillo, DJ 360, Tay Keith and DJ Khaled

You wouldn’t expect an artist line-up like this to continue this trend of rock in this week’s new arrivals, but you’d be surprised, and personally I’m pretty happy with how much rock seems to be creeping up back into the public consciousness as if there’s one thing I got back in touch with the most over lockdown, it was the rock music I was raised on and it led to me even further appreciating a genre I had kind of lost touch with over the years out of just a lack of interest. With that said, this isn’t a rock song per se, but it does heavily and lazily sample a classic like much of this Khaled album, going for “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos. I’m not going to lie, either, it sets up a pretty effective back-bone for a trap banger about being awesome, especially with those squealing riffs in the chorus. Oh, yeah, and the mixing is horrible as expected, but to be honest to me it does not dampen the boasting, anthemic nature of this track, especially with Post Malone being a perfect choice to croon that infectious chorus. Megan Thee Stallion has a pretty embarrassingly by-the-numbers verse over a switch in the beat that makes it sound oddly stunted, but she does have that swinging rock charisma that people like Lil Baby do not have. With that said, I think I’m at the point where I eat anything Lil Baby says or does, because the flow switches combined with his frog-throat delivery is just impeccable. Content-wise, I think everyone here realises they’re being squashed by the clipping beat as they just go off about complete nonsense that goes in one ear and out the other apart from Lil Baby’s misguided but still pretty funny line about how he contemplated going vegan but sees no point in it because he’s got ten karats in both of his ears. Sure. At least DJ Khaled as something to do as he... harmonises, I guess, with Posty on the chorus. DaBaby is as distant as possible from the microphone to the point where I can barely hear him, not that it matters when his verse is that basic and short. This is kind of a trainwreck in all honesty, but with four choruses and a beat this heavy, it’s hard to be annoyed by it. Overwhelming maybe but these performers are all characters by themselves and throwing them in this three-minute chaos of squealing guitars and trap skitters just fascinates me if anything. Does it count as a posse cut? I don’t know. Either way, this is hilarious.

#5 – “Your Power” – Billie Eilish

Produced by FINNEAS

Decidedly not hilarious is this new single from Billie Eilish looking to be a smash from that upcoming album which now has a track listing and release date, with this functioning as I suppose the true lead single and her seventh top 10 here in the UK. It’s a brave choice too considering the lyrical content which is a pretty scathing attack on her ex-boyfriend and their abusive relationship, making several references to the gap in age and power dynamic that played into something really distressing for the both of them but especially a young, vulnerable Billie Eilish who found herself helpless in this relationship because of that “hero” quickly revealing himself as little more than his projected insecurities. The song’s detailed enough not to detach itself from Billie’s personal struggles but also works as what I suppose is a warning, as it’s retelling a story all too familiar with many girls of her age at the time who end up in these really scary situations. It does help that the song itself is great, relying on these layered acoustic guitars to form some kind of dejected groove behind Eilish’s vocals, whispery and cooing as always but in this case way too loud in the mix for my taste to the point where it kind of takes me out of the song as a whole. With a better master that blends her vocal take a lot better into the guitars, maybe going for a fuzzier, dream-pop angle, could work a lot better but with that said, I do understand the purpose of making it feel this intimate and minimal because Billie’s honest songwriting calls for a delivery like this, even if she ends up sounding shakier or even mumbling at times as a result. This is a big debut for Billie for a song not prepared to do as well as it did given its content and sound that is not exactly radio-friendly and oftentimes requires more heavy of a listen than a pop song would otherwise. I do love that final outro as her humming careens off the gentle guitars with just enough scratch but I do question how abrupt the ending is. Hopefully when the album’s out, we’ll have a bigger picture to as where this single in particular fits in.

Conclusion

With only five new arrivals and not much in the way of anything bad, I guess Worst of the Week goes to “Oblivion” by Royal Blood but giving a Dishonourable Mention would just end up as dishonest. Therefore, Best of the Week goes to Billie Eilish for “Your Power” but – and I cannot believe I am saying this for a 3/10 album with only fluke hits – but DJ Khaled – and Lil Baby for that matter – get a tied Honourable Mention for both of their songs, “EVERY CHANCE THAT I GET” with Lil Durk and “I DID IT” with Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby. Now to distract from the fact I just did that, here’s this week’s top 10:

I can’t really make any healthy predictions for next week. Maybe we’ll get some songs from Lil Tecca, Rag’n’Bone Man or Bebe Rexha? Maybe we’ll end up with some fluke Weezer smash hit, who knows? Regardless, thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week.

2 notes · View notes

angermango · 6 years

Note

For the alphabet meme: F, K, P, S with Dragon!Raiden, T, and Z

hhh anon you spoil me~ :) I’m gonna go for a mixed variety if you don’t mind (cut for length)

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

gollygosh golighty, it is probably the Kirby fandom. if my math is correct, I’ve been a fan since 11 years and counting!

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat. man went from obnoxious fuckboi jackass comic relief and butt monkey of the entire franchise to an honestly funny, caring and loyal guy who’s also a shockingly good parent and can even be pretty mature and reasonable if he needs to. Midway/NRS clearly didn’t like him all that much in the OT and made him pretty cringey, but now he’s actually bearable without losing the original ego and bad sense of humour that makes him who he is. got to say, I really love him now.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

Pokemon SU/MO AU where instead of protag being recruited to hunt UBs Guzma ended up being drafted into it as a half ‘community service’ to make up for what he did with Team Skull and Lusamine, and the fact he also qualifies as a Faller. It’s not totally willing or a happily made decision (sort of imagining Looker or someone strong-armed him into it), but maybe he was desperate due to having nowhere to stay let alone a livelihood after disbanding Team Skull and wanting an escape and something to do. And there’s gonna be complications, such as others like Plumeria or perhaps even Nanu disapproving of his new ‘job’ (though it’s more like they’re angrier at the guys like Looker who dragged a guy who is clearly in a bad place into their dangerous ops) and the fact Guzma has a justified phobia and probably PTSD because of Ultra Beasts and Lusamine. It’s a redemption story yes, just an alternate path instead of going back to training with Hala like he did in the games.

I’m a little surprised how few people actually try to explore how Guzma’s experience in the portal affected him, and how it may have contributed to his heel-face turn in both timelines of the games.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

(hhhhh I can’t believe you remembered this one esp when i haven’t officially done anything on it but in the tags of that one post!)

The dragon form is actually closer to Raiden’s ‘true’ form than the humanlike mortal body we know best. In his truest form Raiden is a shapeless mass of sentient lightning which would blind/vaporise any mortals who saw it, so a dragon made of lightning is his next best ‘safe’ form before actually taking a mortal vessel. In this form he’s possibly the most powerful and free in his element without being in his ‘raw’ form.

This is true for all gods, who if they can’t be bothered to take a more humanoid form or an actual mortal body they will turn into an elemental dragon - the next step between dragon and mortal form is an elemental humanoid form like the unnamed gods in SZM.

Basically think of it like a weirdass Pokemon evolution line roughly like: Shapeless elemental mass > elemental dragon > elemental humanoid > human vessel

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Mortal Kombat: RAIDEN IS A GOOD PERSON WHO CARES AND ISN’T A FAILURE, YOU ARE ALL JUST MEAN.

Marvel: Tony Stark finds it easier to talk to and connect with robots and AI/VI than humans. His robots are like his kids and he’d totally have pictures of them in his wallet.

Kirby: (Game) Kirby’s impulsive, naive and childish but not a complete idiot. He often understands what’s going on and what’s at stake in serious and even pretty complex and highly dangerous situations, but he’s just the type who can put all that aside and single-mindedly focus on what needs to be done to save the day. True, he does have too-big a heart and often approaches things too simply in black and white terms, but it’s more of a merit of his that he has seen so much shit and yet can still trust and be kind even to total strangers in the direst of circumstances.

Madness Combat: Deimos is younger than Sanford (and a lot of the other characters) and isn’t as happy or ditzy as he acts a lot of the time - he’s got a fair bit of baggage for being a defector and the bloody and thankless ‘job’ he and Sanford have now. Sanford knows this, which is why he lets him off the hook [lmfao half-intended pun] for goofing around so much.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

free pass to ramble? OK!!

sooo I just really like the Kirby series? It’s such a dependable series that is so enjoyable for all ages and fans, it has excellent art and music and always hits the right amount of throwback and new innovations and rarely disappoints or fails to deliver. Everything’s cute and colourful and accessible for the kidduns, there’s some juicy lore and deeper storylines for older fans to sink their teeth into and all round there is hardly anything to complain about in the canon media and the fandom. plus the Anime is like its own bomb ass ‘canon AU’ verse and can be taken separate, and that too is a barrel of fun with a cute and cheerful world that can be studied and mined endlessly for all sorts of story potential and themes without being exhausted. honestly, just everything about the Kirby series is superb and i would say it’s one of the best franchises ever, period.

#Anonymous #asks #thanks a bunch!!

3 notes · View notes

i-am-an-accidental-hipster · 7 years

Text

Straightness Intervention

So, I think it was three years ago? Something like that. Anyways, three years ago, my senior year of high school. Not my best year, but it certainly is a funny year to remember. Especially because I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

I think it was in march or something that we had that fateful assembly. Everyone came to see the speech prepared by one of the students in the journalism club. Except for me. The assembly we had prior was all about our frankly terrible rugby for wimps american football team. Like, our debate team, our track team, are tennis team, virtually every other team was the best in the region, but out principal was an american football lover, and so that’s what we celebrated. I hate american football. Anyways, the principal had done that several times that month, and assemblies were miserable as it was anyways, always being help in the most echoey room possible, and when it’s not about sports it’s about the “battle of the sexes” or some shit, which I hat because all my friends save one are girls and we can’t even make snarky remarks back in forth about how counterproductive such an event is in actually pushing social equality due to the separation we end up with. So i decided I would take the assembly off.

I went up to the security guards. I didn’t sneak around them. They knew me, partially because I always wore a lab coat everywhere I went, cause I was/am a pretentious nerd, and partially because I always went to talk to them during study hall, because study hall was to loud for me. I told them: i’m going to play solitaire. And they let me past, because they didn’t like assemblies or the principal any more than i did.

You might think I went and did something else. But no, I actually did go and play solitaire. For a good hour and 15 minutes. Little did I know that something was stirring in the school. Something that would turn out exceedingly hilarious.

To the principal’s terror, the speech turned out to be the way that student had chosen to come out of the closet.

When those doors opened and people began pouring out, I could sense something was up. I could sense that their was a new tension between my senior class and the administration which I had not felt before.

The next day, the fun really began.

Suddenly, people were coming out of the closet left and right. At first there seemed to be no pattern. by the following week, though, i began to see one: They were all people from my senior class. Not a single member of the lower divisions was coming out.

The shift was especially apparent among my circle of friends, probably because the one who came out was friends with all of them, except for me (cause I didn’t know who she was at all, and she only knew me vaguely from my lab coat). In my primary friends group, I quickly found myself to be the only straight guy. The token straight. I found this little bit of irony to be fairly amusing. I still had no idea what happened.

That is, until I met the girl who first came out. My trans friend ended up introducing her to me. Turns out she was the only one in the entire school who was as well versed in Gravity Falls lore as I was. Which for me, meant that we were friends. I ended up spending more time with her exchanging theories and references than I spent with the rest of my friends combined during that time. She’s probably one of the nicest people I have ever met.

Anyways, if I was at all uncomfortable with the situation before, all my discomfort was immediately wiped away in the wake of a medical issue i ended up with. To put it as simply and with as little graphic detail as possible, there was a thing in my head that shouldn’t have been there, it was growing, and it was really close to my brain. We thought it might be cancer, but the doctors never really figured out what it was in the end. It was just a THING. In any case, I had the operation on my birthday. Four people showed up to visit me. My girlfriend from Colombia who I had met at my work 2 years prior and who I found out a year later was very bisexual (who video chatted with me for about 2 or three hours), my ambiguously bisexual friend that I had a crush on in elementary school before we accidentally friendzoned each other (who brought a hand-drawn star wars card and some pastries from her family’s bakery), my trans friend who had been driving me home ‘cause i’m a stupid klutz who can’t get a licence (who brought this adorable hand-drawn card with peas on it that said “peas get better” or something shamelessly cute like that), and my new Faller friend. And my Faller friend, she brought a hand-drawn card with Gruncle Stan on it, basically shouting at me to get better XD and some home-baked cinemon roles. And by some, I mean roughly 20, fresh out of the oven.

You see what i meant about her being one of the nicest people I have ever met? I don’t think I have met anyone else who spontaneously decides to bake massive batches of pastries for people on the fly. They were good, to.

So, anyways, the story goes further. You see, I may have been the only straight guy in the group, but I was by no means the masculine one. My trans friend had me beat in that regard, even before he made the change. Also, even given my Autism, I am a very strange person. My friends began to notice this, and... I think they jumped to conclusions. Seeing as the rest of the senior class seemed to have come out already as one thing or another, they reasoned that I probably was going to as well. And then they seemed to have formulated a plan to make me come out of the closet before graduation.

Again, I was completely unaware of this. But if I was, I would have been fairly amused.

We decided to go to the beach. Most of my core group was there. My Trans friend, my Bi friend, and the best faller ever. I forget who suggested it. It was a good place objectively, though, ‘cause the beach is the only place where sunlight doesn’t bother me (because of the water in the air? i don’t know. my ace friend has suggested that I might have a psychological reaction to light due to my sensitive eyes, so the water my help sooth that).

But as we were driving to the location, I noticed something was up. Despite living in a dessert, I have a natural sense for where the ocean is relative to myself, and... we were deviating from the path significantly. We ended up picking up a few people I didn’t remember inviting or being notified about, but who I vaguely remembered as among the first to come out.

By the time we reached the beach, I was almost certain that something was different. The tone of the conversation had shifted dramatically (being self-taught in terms of social interaction, I can tell these things). It felt strangely like and intervention.

A Straightness Intervention

In fact, I could plot EXACTLY what they were doing in my head. They were talking about the history of homosexuality and prejudice, making counterarguments to statements i hadn’t even made. In fact, I knew what they were doing so well, I could, and did, complete their arguments for them. after all, i probably knew their arguments better than they did, having studied the subject of social unrest and ancient customs intensely. I get bored sometimes.

At the middle of the event, they had become more convinced than ever that I was in the closet and wanted to come out, and I had become... i don’t know. I was just thinking to myself “they’re going to ask me sooner or later. But... I really am straight. I don’t want to disappoint them. What if they don’t like me afterwards? But I really don’t want to lie to them either. I hate lying, especially to friends.”

I made up my mind.

Finally, one of the new invites asked me “so, <insert my real name here>, are you gay?”

I did not expect it to be that direct, but I was relieved. I like direct questions, because they invite direct answers.

“nope”

For a moment, everyone looked visibly deflated, and it made me sad. but then, we just went back to what we were doing.

my Trans friend, however, was very much not convinced, and he asked me twice afterward “are you sure your not gay?” I had to tell him the truth. He did not seem happy about it, but eventually he let it be.

The situation may not have been pleasant for anyone at the time, but I have found that my friendships with those three have grown much stronger since then, perhaps because there were no more major secrets or presumptions of major secrets between us.

I’m still with my girlfriend, despite not having seen each other for 5 or 6 years in person (aside from video chat). Honestly, in that regard I am at least a little in debt to my trans friend and faller friend. Turns out that they are excellent wingmen, which is great because I can be extremely oblivious at times. It also has to do with how smart and nerdy my girlfriend is, though. After all this time, we still haven’t run short of things to talk about over chat, or animes to watch together. It’s great.

And when I look back on that time, I can’t help but giggle a little at how silly the entire situation was.

1 note · View note

deadcactuswalking · 3 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 24/04/2021 (AJ Tracey, Young Thug/Gunna/Drake)

On this week on the UK Singles Chart, we get a well-deserved break after last week’s chaos but we still have seven or so new arrivals – half of last week’s amount. Lil Nas X’s “MONTERO (Call Me by Your Name)” is unfazed by any of it as it spends a fourth week at #1, and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

So last week was busy but a lot of what debuted and returned didn’t actually sustain so we have a plentiful amount of drop-outs and returning entries this week as well. For notable drop-outs – as in songs that had peaked in the top 40 or spent at least five weeks in the chart (specifically the UK Top 75, which I cover) – we have “Anyone” by Justin Bieber, Drake’s “What’s Next” after only six weeks, “What Other People Say” by Sam Fischer and Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift’s re-recorded version of “Love Story” and “Headshot” by Lil Tjay featuring Fivio Foreign and Polo G as well as the late DMX’s “X Gon’ Give it to Ya” off of the return last week.

We do have an oddly large amount of returning entries as a result of this because I guess there’s not enough new stuff to fill in the cracks, as “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles is back at #75, “Heat” by Paul Woodford and Amber Mark at #69, “Anxious” by AJ Tracey at #68 off of the album boost, “Another Love” by Tom Odell at #67 and “Cover Me in Sunshine” by P!nk and Willow Sage Heart at #62.

Then we have songs actually on the chart that are moving about – first off, let’s start with our notable losses, falling about five spots or more on the chart. We don’t have an excess of these, but we do have “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK getting ACR’d at #23, “Latest Trends” by AI x JI and remixed by Aitch at #33, “Mercury” by Dave and Kamal. off of the debut to #47 (good!), “Black Hole” by Griff at #48, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’ Bone Man at #49, “Mr. Perfectly Fine” by Taylor Swift at #50 off of the debut, as well as “Anywhere Away from Here” by Rag’n’Bone Man and P!nk also off of the debut at #51. Oh, and again, falling after last week’s debut, we have “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack at #52. Other fallers that actually lasted at least one more week on the chart include “6 for 6” by Central Cee at #57, “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy at #63 and that’s about it. Also, somehow “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” by Drake featuring Rick Ross is sticking to the charts at #71 despite all of the more pop cuts off of that EP – and by that I mean the songs that aren’t six long minutes of pure rapping – dropping out. How that is I have no idea but it does bring us to our gains.

Our gains are always more interesting and we do have a fair few of them this week, like “Starstruck” by Years & Years at #56 off of the debut, “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” by Fred again.. and the Blessed Madonna somehow surging up to #55 off of the debut, “Beautiful Mistakes” by Maroon 5 featuring Megan Thee Stallion at #54, “Summer 91 (Looking Back)” by Noizu at #53, “Last Time” by Becky Hill at #46, “Don’t You Worry About Me” by Bad Boy Chiller Crew at #45, “Medicine” by James Arthur at #44, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #41, “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd rebounding at #40, “Runaway” by AURORA making the top 40 at #34 (six years late), “Levitating” by Dua Lipa bizarrely rebounding at #32, “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #31 and that’s pretty much it other than big gains for Olivia Rodrigo’s “deja vu” up big to #12 and “Let’s Go Home Together” by Ella Henderson and Tom Grennan breaking into the top 10 at #10. A lot of these new entries are concentrated towards the bottom of the chart, so let’s start with something that’s actually pretty great.

NEW ARRIVALS

#74 – “How Does it Feel” – London Grammar

Produced by London Grammar and Steve Mac

London Grammar are an indie pop band from Nottingham that just scored their second #1 album with Californian Soil, one I found genuinely promising but absolutely meandering. For all of the great, swelling and powerful tracks there were – many already on the pre-album EPs and singles – there were pointless, time-consuming ballads that feel if anything underwritten and dull. My personal favourite track, “Baby it’s You”, was the lead single and it actually charted, though this cut is the highest-peaking track from the record and also, thankfully, one of my favourites. Hannah Reid has a smoky, unique voice and it always swells over these atmospheric, reverb-drenched instrumentals, full of subtle bass and those infectious guitar links before it drops into the borderline vocaloid drop in that distorted synth-pop chorus that... okay, is pretty anti-climactic and there for no reason other than to give an excuse for the band to incorporate that 80s production into the rest of the song. Regardless, it’s still a damn good production and that chorus is unreasonably catchy, even if she’s hitting falsetto notes I’d never be able to sing along to. It’s not a song that ends too early so it can stream well either; this is a pop song constructed like one of old, and is just as intricate, especially with those twinkling keys in the final chorus. This isn’t the best on the album by far but it’s understandably the one that’s the most accessible and upbeat so it makes sense it’s here. I don’t expect it to stick around but I wouldn’t mind if it did.

#73 – “Sunshine (The Light)” – Fat Joe, DJ Khaled and Amorphous

Produced by Cool N Dre and Amorphous

So, Fat Joe might be back? I’d be hard-pressed to find out way until I look at this... comeback single of sorts and realise that the chorus is just straight-up taken from a Rihanna song, that being the verse of “Kiss it Better” from 2016 layered over this almost disco-sounding sample of Luther Vandross and that’s pretty much the song as far as the beat is concerned. In that way, I guess it’s kind of fun and harmless but Rihanna’s vocals are mixed pretty horrifically on this instrumental without any attempt to cover it up with some backing vocals, which would have been a really good touch. DJ Khaled is only here because he finishes Fat Joe’s punchline and he contributes literally nothing else. In fact, Fat Joe is a waste of time here as well, especially in that really odd bridge and second verse. Admittedly, I guess his first verse has one clever line but it’s all clearly so unfocused even when the sample gives you a lot to work with in terms of content. By the time the Luther Vandross vocal sample is oddly dribbling over the beat, I’m out of this.

#72 – “Ski” – Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna

Produced by BabyWave, Outtatown and Wheezy

Slime Language 2 was a project I thought was actually fairly enjoyable given its runtime and content. I mean, it’s 23 tracks running at about an hour and a half of just mindless flexing, sex and gunplay from Young Thug and YSL affiliates but it has an energy and camaraderie that I rarely find is all that noticeable during these label or collective albums, and whilst not any particular rapper shines on more than one track, we still hear a lot of voices on the record that are far from unpleasant and can hold their own against Thug, one of them of course being Gunna. I’m surprised the songs with Travis Scott or Lil Uzi Vert didn’t debut but this Thug-Gunna cut did, but I guess that video pushed it over the top and I’m glad because this is by far one of my favourites on the album on pure, stupid and mindless energy. That camaraderie that I mentioned is in full force here as Thug and Gunna trade bars over this basic watery beat with some catchy strings and, of course, awkward bass mixing. The first intelligible words are “Spider sex” and then Thug just goes into yelling “Yeah!” because, sure, that’s a chorus. Thugger delivers his typical flow-switching charisma with a lot of loud, fun energy and whilst not anything of lyrical standard is said here, I love how he and Gunna trade each other’s names on their versions of the post-chorus. It’s a clever, little touch that makes songs like this feel just that bit more fun, if the manic ad-libs didn’t already show that. Gunna’s verse might be the best of the two here as he actually comes with some unexpected energy over that beeping synth loop that sounds great finally coming from Gunna, and, yeah, what can I say? It’s a mindless trap banger that will be out as soon as it was in – both for the charts and your ears – but it’s so much fun and with Thug’s poppier projects, that’s all that matters.

#66 – “You” – Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae

Produced by Regard

The Kosovan DJ that brought us that great remix of Jay Sean’s “Ride It” as well as original song “Secrets” with RAYE is back and bringing... Troye Sivan and Tate McRae with him. Okay, I mean, sure, maybe Regard can pump up the production to get either of these singers to sound enthused. The content is pretty basic, with the “coming back to an ex” story we’ve heard before and not much interplay between Tate and Troye – not that there can feasibly be but that’s beside the point. This isn’t all that important to a song like this, though, but it can be done so it always feels anti-climactic when these EDM songs don’t have good lyrical content anchoring its groove and catchy hooks. That said, this song is actually pretty good, trading much of the more fast-paced house grooves and minimal deep house drops for a pretty slick, almost synth-funk production with some hard-hitting 909 bass and Troye’s laid-back mumbling falsetto actually sounding pretty great over electro percussion and this blend of really cool, retro synths that aren’t afraid to sound jerky and out-of-tune in that post-chorus. They almost remind me of Plastic Beach if this isn’t that ludicrous of a comparison. Tate McRae barely exists here but that’s fine – sadly she has the only verse and her voice just doesn’t mesh that well with Troye’s outside of some of the chorus harmonising, and on its own just sounds kind of unwarrantedly raspy on pretty clean, smooth production. Regard’s addition of those distorted backing vocals and the lenient vocal manipulating in that bridge make sure you know this is intricately produced to every detail and I just love that ramping of intensity even if the final chorus doesn’t really act as that impactful climax so the song ends on kind of a low note where I can tell Regard didn’t know where to go from there. Otherwise, this is a pretty great synth-pop track and I really hope it sticks around. I knew Regard had an ear for more unique EDM production since he came onto the charts for the first time with “Ride It” so I hope to hear what’s next from him as well. For now, oh, God, please make this a hit.

#61 – “Kukoc” – AJ Tracey featuring NAV

Produced by Yung Swisher and Pxcoyo

This is our first of two songs that debuted this week from AJ Tracey’s album Flu Game, which I decided not to listen to on the basis that it was nearly an hour’s runtime with a NAV feature. It’s just my luck then that for whatever reason, the British public decided the NAV song was the second most important track to listen to when the album dropped. Well, I guess this beat isn’t bad, especially with that synth flashing over the acoustic guitar inflections and the Pop Smoke-esque rattling drill percussion creating an oddly-mixed and cluttered beat but one that I guess still hits pretty hard. NAV sounds more enthused than ever over a drill beat – maybe he should stick to that – but I still feel like this is just a pointless song. The content is primarily just flexing and AJ Tracey’s energy is there but not in a particularly likeable, charming way or in an intimidating, menacing way so he just ends up out-shined by NAV’s cheaply Auto-Tuned and simple, basic flow in his verse where he emphasises how he’s a grown man at 30 years old – yet still not showing any sign of maturity, seemingly. This is listenable for sure but at best it’s a mildly amusing drill track and at worst it’s sensory overload. The build-up is only in the intro here and it’s just full force for the next two minutes making it kind of aggravating to even listen to and keep up with. Oh, and “Kukoc” is some Croatian basketball player mentioned once in the chorus. That’s about as interesting as this content gets.

#36 – “Solid” – Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake

Produced by Foreign Teck, Elvas, Wheezy and OZ

It’s an unwritten rule that if you release an album, the song with Drake on it will always debut on the charts, and often particularly high. Okay, I guess it didn’t work for Drakeo the Ruler – sadly – but it did work for Slime Language 2. “Solid” which absolutely did not need the four producers it has is pretty much just the trio being as uninteresting as possible as they slide over a synth-based trap beat with, say it with me, odd bass mixing. I guess Drake’s hook is mildly catchy and the steel pans in the verses are kind of fun even if they’re there for pretty much no reason. Gunna probably delivers the best verse, if not the purest as he brags about having solid friendships, and boasts wealth over the beat which gets a lot more eerie and downbeat with Gunna over it for whatever reason, even when he’s spitting ridiculous sex bars. The best part of this as with most of the YSL label projects is the interplay between Young Thug and Gunna, as over an increasingly badly mixed beat and some slick organ licks, Thugger ends off the track with an effortless verse and... well, it sure is a trap-rap song by Young Thug, Gunna and Drake. That’s for sure. It’s not bad at all and this beat could be a lot better if there were more steel pans and better mixing, it’s just that none of these guys deliver as well as they can and like most things he’s on nowadays, Drake is the worst part of it.

#29 – “Little More Love” – AJ Tracey

Produced by Venna, Mark Raggio, RyFy and Yoz Beats

I’m surprised there’s little fanfare about this song and the album in general, especially given how big songs like “West Ten” and “Bringing it Back”. Sadly, I think this might be a case of waiting too long to get the record out or just AJ’s star fading away and towards – unfortunately – Digga D. This cut got the music video treatment and hence debuted the highest of any entries this week but it was set for a top 10 debut from the album and video boost, but just seems to have stalled. I actually think that’s pretty unfortunate as this is a great song, with that tropical guitar lick that sounds cheap when drenched in the reverb and especially when the beat comes in and it’s mixed too loudly, but that doesn’t really obscure the trap knock and groove, particularly in that chorus with AJ’s expected dead-beat delivery. That delivery really works for this song, though, as it’s about the paranoia that comes with unexpected fame and success for someone from a background of poverty. I wish the beat gave AJ more room to breathe but he still flips the typical UK flows on his verses so they’re a lot more catchy and smooth, particularly over those soulful vocal loops that come in at the same time. That second verse is pretty excellent too, as whilst it’s short, it runs through some pretty excellent flows and some interesting lines, like about how he sees himself as Che Guerava, represents his Trinidadian identity and how he’s “got God” so he and his crew don’t need to wear a bullet-proof vest, which is actually kind of profound for Tracey. The horns at the end of this beat deserve some credit for making this song great too, and with all the sounds packed into this song, I think I understand why this one has four producers, even if this cluttered mix could use halving that total.

Conclusion

This is a pretty solid week all things considered, with a lot of good to great songs, so much so that it’s difficult to give out titles. I guess Best of the Week is going to “Ski” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna but I’m convinced to give a three-way tie for Honourable Mention. I think I’ll just stick with giving it to Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae for “You” but it was close. Worst of the Week ends up going to “Sunshine (The Light)” by Fat Joe, Amorphous and DJ Khaled almost by default, with a Dishonourable Mention to AJ Tracey’s “Kukoc” featuring NAV, even if I still kind of like the song. Here’s our top 10 for this week:

Hopefully next week will keep this quality going, but in terms of new arrivals I can’t really make any concrete predictions other than a boost for “Save Your Tears” and hopefully an impact from Jorja Smith and Little Simz. I guess time will tell however, so thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week!

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 3 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 23/01/2021 (Anne-Marie, Juice WRLD, Young Thug)

The site I use for this show has refused to update – which is fine, it’s probably run by one guy and/or their bots – which means I had to go on the UK Singles Chart page from the Official Charts Company for information, and man, I hate that site. Anyway, despite a big #2 debut and a big remix at #3, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo stays steady at #1 for a second week, which shows us a little sliver of how much longevity this song could have – and it’s good too, so I’m glad. Anyway, time for more apathy. Let’s start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

I feel like, especially recently, debuts don’t really stick at all. We have many songs gradually falling below the chart this week, and they place into either two categories: songs that I wished would go away already, and songs that debuted last week. Out of the debuts from last week still on the chart, we have three notable gains and four of the opposite, making this actually an okay week for debuts, but it still feels like people have not got time for new music right now, which is honestly understandable. Out of those debuts, “Streets” by Doja Cat surges up to #20, “Notorious” by Bugzy Malone and Chip drops to #39, “Best Friend” by Saweetie featuring Doja Cat is down to #42, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental unfortunately is up to #51, alongside an even more unfortunate gain for “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” by Lana Del Rey at #58 (Please, don’t make this a hit). That’s it for gains for our debuts last week, as “Vibez” by ZAYN couldn’t even gain from an album boost down to #62 and “WW2” by Unknown T makes the expected second-week drill dive to #63. Our other gains aren’t much to discuss either, although I’ll admit I actually kind of like “You’re Mines Still” by Yung Bleu and remixed by Drake up to #47 (I do really want to see this as a hit). I don’t like, however, the two deep house pastiches at #15 and #16, “Goosebumps” by HVME and “The Business” by Tiesto. What’s even worse is that “Goosebumps”, a remix of Travis Scott’s song, now has a Travis Scott remix, so that remix remix could land this in the top 10 next week. What might not be is also a remix: “34+35” by Ariana Grande featuring Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion up to #3. It was doing okay before the remix so it could stay here but I don’t see the remix as a replacement for the original so it could falter from #3. Of course, we do have other notable fallers, mostly pointless to list and a couple weeks too long on the chart, so I’ll split it into two once again: “Go away, please” and “Go away, but maybe later”. In the first category, we have “Whoopty” by CJ at #9, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd at #23, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #25, “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior at #28, “positions” by Ariana Grande at #33, “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus at #41, “See Nobody” by Wes Nelson and Hardy Caprio at #48. “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #52, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco at #53, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles at #54, “Looking for Me” by Paul Woodford, Diplo and Kareen Lomax at #55, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo at #64, “Diamonds” by Sam Smith at #67, “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit, Mabel and 24kGoldn at #72 and “Lasting Lover” by Sigala and James Arthur at #74. I like a fair few of these songs but I’d like some new blood in the charts, like the second category of songs that seem to have started dropping out prematurely: “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish at #22, “Loading” by Central Cee at #25, “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke at #45, “Forever Young” by Becky Hill at #57, “Plugged In” by Fumez the Engineer and A92 at #59, “champagne problems” by Taylor Swift at #65, “Body” by Megan Thee Stallion at #68, “pov” by Ariana Grande at #70, “Love is a Compass” by Griff at #71 and, finally, since I only cover the top 75, “Your New Boyfriend” by Wilbur Soot at #73. We have one return here, and that’s for a song that’s a couple years old but from a new star: Olivia Rodrigo’s “All I Want” returning to #32, from the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Soundtrack which I had assumed was new initially but did peak at #72 prior to this. The song’s fine, but I don’t review returning entries, and honestly it’s even more of a Disney teen-pop ballad that “drivers license” is, so I don’t find much point in making exceptions. Note to self to edit the drop-outs in whenever you know what they are.

Edit: The notable drop-outs are “HOLIDAY” by Lil Nas X, “Princess Cuts” by Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey, “no body, no crime” by Taylor Swift featuring HAIM, “Ain’t it Different” by Headie One featuring AJ Tracey and Stormzy, “Savage Love (Laxed - Siren Beat)” by Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685, “Show Out” by Kid Cudi, Skepta and the late Pop Smoke, and “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

NEW ARRIVALS

#60 – “Friday (Dopamine Re-Edit)” – Riton and Nightcrawlers featuring Mufasa & Hypeman

Produced by Riton

“Push the Feeling On” is a song by Scottish collective Nightcrawlers that is known much more commonly for its classic deep house remix by American DJ MK, which would be known now for how much it’s been sampled in pop music: You’ve probably heard the synth riff or vocal chop in “Hotel Room Service” by Pitbull, “Dinner Guest” by AJ Tracey and MoStack, “Wiggle It” by French Montana and City Girls, “House Party” by MIST and Fredo, or even “Nightcore in tha Club” by Viper of all people. So, 20 or so years later, here comes English DJ Riton making another official remix alongside dually-credited Musafa & Hypeman, who I guess are social media influencers from articles I see about them. That would explain why this is charting... but yeah, this is lazy. A female vocalist sings “It’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday again” to the melody of the classic vocal loop, and the rest of the song is a worthless and artless “future house” track made for no-one, with Musafa & Hypeman delivering nothing more than obnoxious skits and faint ad-libs. I’ll admit, the second verse where it suddenly drops into her vocals over the haunting vibration of bass is inspired, but it goes nowhere. It uses the same drop as the original MK remix and if it isn’t, it uses a vocaloid drop that sounds way too similar to blackbear’s “hot girl bummer” for my liking. Once you hear it, you may not unhear it – although I doubt you’d come back to this song for any reason other than clicking the wrong song when looking for the original MK remix, which is still great. This, however, is useless.

#50 – “Skengman” – Ghetts featuring Stormzy

Produced by Ten Billion Dreams

This is actually Ghetts’ first ever track to hit this chart as a lead solo act and that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Whilst Ghetts is very important to grime and his mixtapes are considered classics, he’s not exactly the peak of commercial success – and is somewhat infamous for said squandering as he released a diss track against MTV for not thinking he was that great of an MC – which wasn’t exactly helped by beef with the Boy Better Know collective. It makes a lot of sense for him to ride off the coattails of the new generation of English rappers and make a drill-adjacent track with Stormzy, the track’s namesake. It also makes sense for this to be good: we have some pretty ominous keys and horns that sound great under this cold and minimal trap beat, relying less on percussion than it does the eerie strings. Sure, the chorus is pretty awkward and tired, with Ghetts not selling it nearly as he well as he does the verses, which even then are off-kilter. The second verse – by Stormzy – is where this song really shines, as gorgeous vocal samples combine with the rise of the strings, looming 808s and Stormzy’s deep contrast of a voice before the beat drops and Stormzy lets out his best flows. Honestly, after Stormzy’s verse, not even a beat shift really makes Ghetts’ other two verses worthwhile, as his just seem short and ineffective, even if the beat is going to keep on intensifying with these incredible strings and horns – lest we forget the choir of “Skengmen” behind him on the chorus. I really wish this was a solo Stormzy track, with no disrespect to Ghetts, who just feels out of place if anything. This could have been a lot better.

#49 – “Lumidee” – Chip featuring Young M.A. and Young Adz

Produced by the Fanatix

Most of our new arrivals are hip-hop or hip-hop-related, so of course whenever we see Stormzy, I guess we have to have a Chip song the same day. Is that beef still going on? Regardless, this is a very different song, named after the artist behind the awkward, minimal R&B sample used here. Listen, I like 2000s R&B, but “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)” is just a fatal misunderstanding of what makes Timbaland’s production good. Surely that would make any reworking an improvement, especially with these subtle strings and guitars under a dancehall beat just as awkward as the original. Oh, and I call the strings subtle because it’s not like Young Adz could ever be, or Chip for that matter, as both of them deliver stiff, ugly performances about how the sex is spectacular... but also how they want this woman to treat them kindly after they cheat on her because they buy her nice things. “They” of course being everyone here, as Chip plays the same role as Adz – who only grabs the chorus – and hell, I think Young M.A., who could deliver a narrative here that criticises Chip’s attitude, just expresses the same ideas. I’ll admit that M.A.’s flow and cadence is a lot smoother, less nasally Auto-Tuned and honestly kind of good, but this honestly, much like “Skengman”, reeks of missed potential. A dancehall back-and-forth about love that means nothing but sex and materialism sounds fun on paper but nothing’s really done with it here, which is what I’d expect from these guys in all honesty. It’s weird and kind of cool to see Young M.A. on the UK Singles Chart again (She appeared on an Eminem track around this time last year too), though, so I’ll give it that.

#44 – “Pinging (6 Figures)” – Central Cee

Produced by ItchyDaProducer

Well, we can now add Central Cee to the drill guys that spark a top 50 hit out of nowhere every couple weeks. I actually quite like “Loading” mostly because of the fusion of hard 808s with those slick horn samples. As an aside, the Genius.com page for “Loading” has a comment saying the beat is “disgusting” that has a ton of downvotes, probably because of some sort of disconnect between cultures and audiences. This new track is a lot less interesting, though, relying on a really cheap guitar loop, but otherwise I do think the drill percussion works here, especially with the sliding 808s and Central Cee’s pretty constant delivery. I can’t really say he’s saying anything of interest other than the fact he supposedly turned down a six-figure record deal to stay independent, which of course is the chorus, so it’s not like this is great, or even good, but it makes the best out of a bad loop, and I can respect that, especially with piano touches, although this apparently sounds like another beat Itchy’s made so I’m not sure if that deserves much praise either. You know, I really thought Central Cee could have been on to something with the jazzier touches, but once again, this is missed potential.

#37 – “Wellerman” – The Longest Johns

Produced by ???

There aren’t any producer credits for this one, though I’m not sure to how much extent you can “produce” a sea shanty. It’s not often for this show that I can say a song that debuted is from the 1800s, but this song dates back to around 1833, where the Weller Brothers and their “Wellerman” ships became the most important merchant traders in New Zealand, operating mostly through their base in Otago. Naturally, sea shanties are sang at sea but it’s seldom seen that said songs surge up as singles on Spotify. Thanks to TikTok, however, this 2018 cover by the Longest Johns, a folk group from Bristol, debuted in the top 40. There’s no instrumentation, so this is just an a-capella cover, with some genuinely great vocal harmonisation, even if these guys aren’t great singers – not that you have to be to sing sea shanties. The end product is a pretty fun track about wishing for a supply ship to come whilst whaling, and that they hope to come home soon – or something like that. Look, I hope this doesn’t stick around even though I have the feeling it will. It’s not a bad song at all and the guys are talented, but come on, guys, it’s a sea shanty from TikTok. As that damn app still runs a lot of the charts, though, I suppose I should embrace this, because it is harmless, and that’s really all there is to it.

#31 – “Bad Boy” – Juice WRLD and Young Thug

Produced by Pi’erre Bourne

Now, I’m usually cynical about posthumous releases from Jarad, and I was initially for this, but it has been in circulation as a leak and it was also completely finished with a music video produced before his death by Cole Bennett of Lyrical Lemonade, who directed a lot of Juice’s earlier videos (including “Lucid Dreams”). It has Young Thug on the second verse and Pi’erre Bourne on production so I can’t be mad at this at all. As long as these posthumous projects from now on don’t have tacked-on features and are surrounded by collaborations from only his genuine friends who cared for him, I have no issue with them going on – even if I’d prefer for all of his demos to be released with proceeds going to charity (which should be done with most if not all artists after their passing unless they have an album on the way). It helps that this song isn’t just respectful, but it’s incredible. The hard trap beat from Pi’erre has this great squealing guitar and noisy synth blend that kicks ass whenever it comes in, especially when at odds with the more casual bleeping in the verses. Juice’s chorus is infectious and fast-paced, exactly how he should be on his “banger” tracks, but his verses are really a genius blend between his melodic and technical skills that I wish I heard more from Juice when he was alive. Oh, and Young Thug has what might be verse of the year, with smooth flow switches as always, unique inflections as always as well as playing with the beat perfectly as he drops the nasal screech of his “skrrt!” ad-libs amidst a more simple, intense flow by the end – with the addition of that squealing guitar. Is the content unique? Maybe not, as this is mostly flexing over an explosive trap beat, but there are enough quotable rhymes and vocal deliveries that make this more than honestly the sum of its parts, as out of context I don’t think this beat, this feature or Juice’s hook could work nearly as well as they do. As is, however, this is one of Juice’s best songs, hell, even one of Thugger’s best – and he has a strong discography – so, yeah, for the part of me that appreciates ignorant, stupid-hard trap-rap, this clicked. I hope it’s a hit and even if it isn’t, this is one of the best send-offs they could have chosen for Juice, and I’m just glad it’s finally met an official release.

#2 – “Don’t Play” – Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals

Produced by Mojam and Digital Farm Animals

“Bad Boy” seems like it should be the big story here, as it’s a massive lead and/or final posthumous single from one of the biggest rappers in history featuring another A-list that is getting a lot of praise and YouTube views... but alas, this is the UK, so here’s KSI and Anne-Marie. Is this KSI-Digital Farm Animals collaboration going anywhere? He had a similar one last year with “Really Love” featuring Craig David and that was kind of big – still is – and I think also debuted at #2 behind a really strong #1. They also had awkward, ugly cartoon cover arts, so maybe this is a collaborative project between KSI and the EDM producers? Well, “producer”, because Digital Farm Animals is actually just one guy. I think I honestly wouldn’t mind that considering how better KSI pulls off rapping over EDM than hip-hop. Anne-Marie is filling Craig David’s role, although this time with a verse and lead billing, so it could be from an upcoming album that may or may not exist. Honestly, who cares? Is the song good? No, the chorus is lazy, the UK garage-adjacent beat is cheap and KSI gets outshined in his verse both performance and mixing-wise by orchestra hits. Is the content interesting? Well, KSI’s lyrics are supposedly subliminal disses towards other YouTubers, which annotators on Genius have “marked as a stretch”, only to be met with downvotes from fans because of course, they would. Is it catchy? I guess so, that is the purpose. Hence, we have an inoffensive pop song from three artists who have made better but mostly through freak accident. Top 10 material? Probably not, but the charts are weak and it’s the UK so you can’t really expect much more. Also, why does this have an extended version?

Conclusion

Whilst I’m writing this conclusion, the site I use still has yet to update, so I’ll actually have to do a Kanye in 2016 and edit this post-release for the top 10 and drop-outs. For now, though, I can pretty solidly give Best of the Week to “Bad Boy” by the late Juice WRLD and Young Thug, with an Honourable Mention to I guess “Wellerman” by the Longest Johns for at least being different, although most of these debuts reek of missed potential. “Wellerman” could have been a lot more jaunty with actual instrumentation, “Don’t Play” could have replaced Anne-Marie with an actual personality, Ghetts could have gone in harder on “Skengman” and the beat in “Pinging (Six Figures)” could have actually existed. Therefore, the songs with the least potential are the victims here, as Dishonourable Mention goes to Chip, Young Adz and Young M.A. for “Lumidee” and Worst of the Week goes to “Friday (Dopamine Re-Edit)” by like, four complete nobodies, honestly, I do not see the purpose in that song existing at all. Well, here’s the top 10 for this week – or at least it will be here in a couple hours:

I can’t make any solid predictions for next week other than Billie Eilish and ROSALIA, maybe Lil Skies? You can follow me @cactusinthebank if you’re vaguely interested in doing so, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week.

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 3 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 19/12/2020

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” spends a second week at #1. It’s #1 in the States as well. We’ve got a week of Christmas music and a Taylor Swift album bomb so... God, let’s just get this over with. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

So let’s start as always with the drop-outs from the UK Top 75, which we have a few of but not as notable as the last few weeks, as the less interesting 2020 hits that just can’t leave the chart are slowly dropping off. We have some of the bigger hits like “Looking for Me” by Diplo, Paul Woodford and Kareen Lomax (Good song, by the way), “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, as well as some more recent and more moderate successes like “Princess Cuts” by Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey, “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra and “SO DONE” by The Kid LAROI. I can see this all rebounding after Christmas though, especially those last few. What I can’t see rebounding are the three Christmas songs that ironically dropped off from last week, particularly “Santa’s Coming for Us” by Sia which I do not remember being a top 20 hit. We do, of course, have some more fallers as well, like “34+35” by Ariana Grande at #14 and “Santa Tell Me” also by Ariana at #17 – not a good week for her, I suppose. I also find it funny that we have a couple Christmas songs that actually dropped places this week, not many of which are notable, but to give an example, due to three separate songs entering the top 10 this week, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé dropped five spots to #12. On the course of fallers, we also have “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus at #22, “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish at #28, “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #36, “Monster” by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber at #44, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #48, “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd at #50, “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV at #51, “you broke me first” by TateMcRae at #57 (the biggest fall this week), “Golden” by Harry Styles at #58, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco at #60, “Wonder” by Shawn Mendes at #63, “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke at #65, “See Nobody” by Wes Nelson and Hardy Caprio at #69, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” by Post Malone and Swae Lee at #70 and “A Little Love” by Celeste at #74. Of course, we also have some notable returning entries and gains, those returning entries being “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by the Jackson 5 at #75 and “Baby it’s Cold Outside” by Adele Dazeem and Michael Bublé at #61. The most notable gains aren’t as plentiful this week because I feel like most songs, Christmas or not, are relatively stable if they’re not falling dramatically off the chart, so I’m not going to separate it into festive and non-festive tracks this time. We start off with “No Time for Tears” – the biggest climber this week – by Nathan Dawe and Little Mix up to #64, “Christmas Lights” by Coldplay at #43, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #32, and whilst that’s it for notably large gains, we do see “Whoopty” by CJ and “This Christmas” by Jess Glynne enter the top 10 at #10 and #9 respectively. Delightful. Well, we’re already done with the rundown – oddly quickly – so let’s get on with these new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#72 – “The Business” – Tiesto

Produced by Anton Rundberg and Tiesto

I have no time for umlauts. They’re simply not productive. Dutch DJ Tiesto has been at it for a while now and “The Business” is his new house-pop track with vocals from James Bell, probably propped up the chart by a remix with English DJ 220 KID. The original song charted though, so we’ll talk about that one and I do like the cold, bizarrely eerie strings for a song like this, even if the pitched-down vocals make it more comical than anything. The deep house groove here is cool but mostly cheap, especially whatever the hell those claps are. The bridge is aimless and James Bell gives a performance really not worthy of note. At least this has some essence of personality and artistic intent, unlike 220 KID’s usual output, who actually improves on the song by giving it more of a 90s Eurodance tinge, in my opinion at least. The 220 KID remix is a remix of a song that already felt like a remix though, so everything about this is unnatural and awkward, even for EDM.

#71 – “Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas” – Dolly Parton and Michael Bublé

Produced by Kent Wells

The only time country music charts on the UK Singles Chart is when it’s barely country or Dolly Parton. Whilst a lot of country music is rarely appreciated out of the States, I feel like Dolly Parton is one of those singers that’s just universally loved. Michael Bublé on the other hand I have no patience for and I was dreading the time I’d have to review his songs again. The man made a career of off offensively inoffensive Christmas standards and his original music is painfully bad, so honestly, I’ll take it, but the man is clearly not interesting and whilst I understand why Dolly had him on her A Holly Dolly Christmas TV special in the vein of Mariah Carey’s this same year, I’m not excited to hear it. I’m not excited to talk about it either, because this is only vaguely country and is mostly just a jazz-adjacent traditional pop standard, except this is an original song. Neither Parton and Bublé have any chemistry, there’s a lot of empty space, and Bublé’s awkward attempts to add personality to what is and will always be a dull, painful slog of a track are just cringe worthy if anything. This song is barely about Christmas either or anything warm and intimate about cuddling up with family as I expected. It’s just the image of Dolly Parton banging Michael Bublé by the fireplace, and it goes on for about three minutes and 39 seconds too long. Next.

#66 – “Baby it’s Cold Outside” – Brett Eldredge featuring Meghan Trainor

Produced by Ron Mousey and Jay Newland

“Baby it’s Cold Outside” spews controversy nowadays, and whilst I never found a reason to be mad at what is clearly a dated but to me pretty innocuous and satirical Christmas standard, I never found a reason to like the song. Even the classic Dean Martin version is pretty much a slog, but that doesn’t mean I can stomach John Legend’s “politically correct” version either, which is probably the worst rendition I’ve heard, although Bublé’s is close. I don’t mind Tom Jones’ attempt, I guess. Regardless, this version from 2016 is by another country singer, but it did just chart because Meghan Trainor’s here. These two might have even less chemistry than Dolly and Bublé; at least they tried, whilst here despite the song being a back-and-forth, they seem to be on completely different ideas on how to tackle the song. Admittedly, I like this flat, jazzy rendition of the track fine but if anything Trainor is an inconvenience to my enjoyment of this lounge track. She shows off her vocal strength a bit too much for it to work until that awkward burst of energy at the end. Also, Brett Eldredge exists. How unfortunate. It may also be insensitive in retrospect, and maybe ironic, that the song ends with Eldredge warning her she might catch pneumonia if she went outside. Huh.

#55 – “Forever Young” – Becky Hill

Produced by Charlie Hugall

“Forever Young” by Alphaville is one of those classic 1980s synth-pop tracks that sounds so obviously 1980s but is far from dated, with the lyrics being a take on contemporaneous political issues covered in optimistic calls for action and gorgeous strings that undercut Marian Gold’s longing, belting delivery and of course, that horn section at the end that sadly fades out instead of coming to a genuine climax but would be brilliant either way. The song has a legacy indeed, and is continuously topical, being covered by One Direction, Kim Wilde and Imagine Dragons, and being sampled or interpolated by Dorian Electra, JAY-Z, Maroon 5 and even Tangerine Dream. The song has had so many reimaginings that it’s hard to imagine what new can be done with a classic track that didn’t really need much reworking in the first place... so naturally, Becky Hill made an acoustic cover for a McDonald’s commercial. It’s just her singing it vaguely competently over an unimaginative piano rendition of the original, but it does offend me in how it strips everything out of the original song to replace it with a vague orchestral swell and exhaustingly boring delivery from Becky Hill. Sure, the original song sounds cheaper now but if anything, this sounds even cheaper, with mixing drenched in reverb that makes everything sound a lot uglier than it’s supposed to. JAY-Z screwed “Forever Young” up to hell and back on his track with Mr Hudson but at least he rapped over it and had a bit of a sample flip, instead of just reciting the lyrics and chord structure without realising what made the song so biting and anthemic in the first place. This isn’t REVIEWING THE ADVERTS though, even though most of the time it ends up being, so I won’t bore you much longer with this.

#37 – “Show Out” – Kid Cudi, Skepta and Pop Smoke

Produced by Dot da Genius, Plain Pat, Heavy Mellow and Gravez

I knew this would be the highest-charting track from the Cudi album as soon as I saw the feature credit, but I didn’t expect it to be the only one charting. Regardless, I should probably talk about the album because I have listened to Man on the Moon III: The Chosen, Cudi’s highly-anticipated follow-up to his last two Man on the Moon records, both of which are pretty damn great, and this one isn’t far from it either. I liked it a fair bit and even if its derivative first few tracks means it gets off to a slow start, there are absolutely moments on this album where we see a classic Cudi matured and aged, and able to talk about mental health in shallow detail as always but from a perspective where we see a Scott Mescudi that has settled down and is happy with life. While it’s far from a perfect album, I won’t lie and say it wasn’t heart-warming to hear Cudi like this considering how much he’s struggled in his decade-long career, and it’s backed by great, psychedelic production as always. “Show Out” is a complete abandonment of all of that, acting as a shallow turn-up drill track with a massive posthumous hook from the late Pop Smoke’s booming voice, accompanied by an Auto-Tuned Cudi mumbling over gorgeous string samples, which don’t feel like they’re watered-down by the overwhelming drill beat and instead accentuated, which I think is missing from a lot of UK drill. It helps that Skepta is here to slide effortlessly in his verse. He’s selling out shows and shooting guns “the same size as Kevin Hart”, and whilst the verse feels a little short, he absolutely steals the show when he’s there. That’s not to say Cudi doesn’t spit endlessly on his verse, which is also fire, before an atmospheric bridge where, in the midst of the gang violence and hedonism, he calls out to God to ask what the cost of it is. It’s the one part of the song that makes it make any lick of sense in the context of the album, but it’s also the one part I’m never so sure on. It sounds pretty jarring between Cudi’s verse and the hook, and it’s not cathartic when Pop Smoke comes back in so I think it could have been better used as an outro if anything. Other than that, the song is still really hard-hitting and one of my favourites from Man on the Moon III. Songs like “The Void” and “Rockstar Knights” with Trippie Redd blow it out of the water though.

#19 – “no body, no crime” – Taylor Swift featuring HAIM

Produced by Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner

As you probably know, Taylor Swift dropped a new album last week called Evermore, which is basically a much weaker collection of B-sides from the Folklore sessions. I’ll discuss my gripes with the album more as we get onto “willow”, so I’ll give some short individual reviews here. This is one of my favourite tracks on the record, mostly because of how it takes Taylor back to her country roots but in sharp contrast to the original bubblegum country-pop style she had on her first few albums, she and HAIM of all people perform a pretty convincing true crime story about a missing persons case that might just end up being a murder. With a catchy chorus, oddly eerie and menacing delivery from Taylor Swift that sounds determined and honestly kind of badass with those electric guitars in the post-chorus, as well as some descending melodies in the verses I admittedly love, this is one of the best tracks on the album without hesitation for me. It’s one of the few tracks on Evermore that feels like Swift’s storytelling, knacks for infectious choruses, and the more serious, rootsy acoustic guitar-based instrumentation, are in perfect harmony, even if it is a bit short and much like the rest of the album, it falls victim to the meandering nature of these songs and their aimless bridges or outros. Either way, it’s good. Check it out if you haven’t already. It’s cool to see HAIM back on the chart too, by the way.

#15 – “champagne problems” – Taylor Swift

Produced by Taylor Swift and Aaron Dessner

When I was listening to Kid Cudi, Avalanches and Taylor last Friday all in one session, I was constantly engaged even through the duller parts of the second half of We Will Always Love You or the most rote, derivative Travis Scott rip-offs present on Man on the Moon III. I was only awake for about three and a half hours when I first went through Evermore, but you know that feeling you get in your eyes when you start feeling tired or exhausted? Maybe that’s just a me thing, but “champagne problems” is that feeling when your eyes start to sore a bit and you start blinking a bit more. The storytelling isn’t as engaging as it usually is on this track, and although I do like the main narrative, it takes a detour and doesn’t decide whether it wants to focus on that or a vaguer metaphor about mental illness and how it’s affected Taylor as a celebrity. I care about that on Reputation but I do not give a damn when it’s presented with this uninteresting chasm of piano melodies and a really awkward, pointless outro, once again, that’s out-of-place if anything. I wish anything on Evermore was as good as “seven” but that’s wishful thinking. Anyway, let’s start rambling, because it’s the big-boy debut time now.

#3 – “willow” – Taylor Swift

Produced by Aaron Dessner

I have nothing to go off when judging Aaron Dessner’s production. He’s the frontman behind The National and he does contribute to the album vocally on one of the worst tracks but usually takes a backseat in production. On Folklore, although Dessner was still greatly involved, it felt a lot more varied and interesting from Taylor particularly, who went on unexpected songwriting angles and some melodies I genuinely love. I’m not a fan of the indie-folk direction for her – I think her style of writing and vocals actually fits better on pop tunes, which might be a hot take but I mean, my favourite album from her is Reputation so I’m full of those when it comes to Taylor. I can appreciate when it’s done well, though, and I like her storytelling abilities most of the time, unless of course the song itself is nothing to be interested in... and, I’m sorry, but half of Folklore was aggressively dull, particularly the back half, and I can barely make it through songs like “exile”. Maybe I just don’t “get” it, maybe I’m just not “listening hard enough”, or maybe, perhaps, I’m just not a fan of Taylor doing exactly what she usually doesn’t do on her albums, which is bore me. Say what you want about Red, 1989 or even Reputation, and ESPECIALLY Lover, but they take risks, intriguing ones at that and whether they’re successful or not is obviously up to listener’s interpretation, but regardless, it makes for a listen that is unpredictable and often fascinating. Lover is an absolute mess full of pretty mediocre attempts to do... well, anything, but it’s a better listen than Evermore out of sheer intrigue alone. It’s interesting to hear Taylor try all of these different musical ideas, whether it’s her trying obnoxious bubblegum-pop on “ME!”, ballads with the Dixie Chicks, 1980s-style synth-pop on “Getaway Car” and the majority of 1989, or even industrial-pop rapping on “...Ready for It?”. It’s not interesting to hear her make 16 quite similar songs and less than half of them have a unique flavour to them that makes the hour-long listen feel like you gained anything from it. It’s not just the album experience either that Folklore and Evermore lack, but it’s also the songs themselves, particularly in Evermore. Let’s look at “cardigan”, one of the best songs on Folklore, with Swift’s pretty low-key but emotive delivery, a noticeable and profound refrain, songwriting that evokes a pretty sweet metaphor and tells the start of a story that runs throughout the record in a way that can detach itself from the rest of the record, infectious choruses (even if they are cribbed somewhat from “Wildest Dreams”) and that subtle drum machine with pretty intricate percussion patterns covered by gorgeous string compositions, and a four-minute runtime that feels worth it, especially for that last chorus and verse, an effortless switch-up. Now let’s compare it to its equivalent lead single “willow”, a track with a checked-out Taylor singing pretty janky, awkward melodies over a cluttered mess of guitar strumming, with absolutely none of the very few ideas Taylor has musically actually succeeding. The song has to drop out entirely because Taylor and Dessner apparently can’t handle the three over-lapping ideas just in the first two verses and choruses, and whilst it still has that switch-up for the third verse/bridge, it does not feel worth it because there is another, over-long chorus with no lyrical adjustments to the hook that made the subtleties in “cardigan” so special. The song is 20 seconds or so shorter than “cardigan” but feels a lot longer because of how directionless the outro is, and none of it feels like anything other than a pretty folk-pop tune (which is barely qualifies as anyway because of how ugly these acoustics are, and how meandering Taylor’s cadence is throughout). She tries out the chorus with and without the falsetto for no reason other than to extend the song by the end and it makes effectively no change to how the chorus feels like it’s delivered. I’ll give “willow” credit that it’s listenable and a lot less boring than other tracks on Evermore but I can’t see this as anything more than a failed attempt that should be met with a “game over, try again” screen. I’d accept the musical chaos of misshapen ideas if I ever felt it was genuinely warranted. On Evermore, nothing Taylor does is what the audience deserves accompanying – or maybe even improving on – Folklore. Sorry.

Conclusion

Yeah, “no body, no crime” by Taylor Swift featuring HAIM takes the Best of the Week, but it was a toss-up between her and Kid Cudi, who gets the Honourable Mention for “Show Out” with Skepta and Pop Smoke. For the Worst of the Week, it’s really picking your poison between sickly Christmas duets, but I’ll ignore them and give it to Becky Hill for absolutely butchering “Forever Young”, with a Dishonourable Mention also going to Taylor Swift and “willow”. Here’s the top 10 for this week:

You can follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more ramblings and Taylor Swift hot takes, if you’d want to see that. I won’t post another episode before the 25th so, if you’re reading this, merry Christmas, everyone, and I’ll see you on Boxing Day!

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 3 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 12/12/2020

For the first time ever after being released in 1994, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” has hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart, like it did on the US Billboard Hot 100 last year and will probably do so this year. This is a really short week full of nothing so that might be the biggest story here, and the song deserves it. It’s a great song and it’s genuinely massive. I wonder how newer songs like Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree” will be able to enter themselves into the Christmas canon after Mariah Carey proved that it can be done with modern pop. Well, that’s not for us to find out today, because this is REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Like I said in the introduction, this is far from a busy week, which almost surprises me. Sure, nothing important was released – except that Shawn Mendes album which flopped remarkably and debuted at #12 on the Albums Chart this week – but I did expect another festive flood of holiday tunes. To my surprise, this didn’t happen or at least not to the extent that I assumed it would. Sure, we still have a lot of Christmas songs replacing newer pop songs that had already been in the charts, ‘tis the season, but this week only had five notable drop-outs from the UK Top 75, and none of those are that notable. I guess “Ain’t it Different” by Headie One featuring AJ Tracey and Stormzy, one of the biggest hip-hop hits of the year, dropping out is a pretty big deal, but otherwise we just have “Diamonds” by Sam Smith, “UFO” by D-Block Europe and Aitch, “Come Over” by Jorja Smith and Popcaan, and I guess “Chingy (It’s Whatever)” by Digga D. All of these songs are recent and might have a rebound after the Christmas season is over, but I do have my concerns about the longevity of these songs, particularly because of how, you know, none of them are actually good. I guess now we could discuss some of our biggest fallers, which are of some quantity considering the season, so I’ll run these off quickly: “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus at #15, “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish at #18, “Levitating” by Dua Lipa at #20, “you broke me first” by Tate McRae at #21 (these last four songs were all in the top 10 last week, by the way), “Prisoner” by Miley Cyrus featuring Dua Lipa at #22, “Really Love” by KSI featuring Craig David and Digital Farm Animals at #31, “Monster” by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber continuing to free-fall to #33, “Train Wreck” by James Arthur at #35, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #37, “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior at #38, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #40, “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring NAV and Don Toliver at #45, “Dynamite” by BTS at #46, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco at #52, “See Nobody” by Wes Nelson and Hardy Caprio at #54, “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra at #56, “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke at #57, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” by Post Malone and Swae Lee at #61, “All You’re Dreaming Of” by Liam Gallagher off the debut at #62 (our biggest fall this week), same goes for “No Time for Tears” by Nathan Dawe and Little Mix at #71 and some long-lasting hits right at the tail end of the chart: “Princess Cuts” by Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey at #72, “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion at #73, and “Looking for Me” by Diplo, Paul Woodford and Kareen Lomax at #74. We do have a lot of Christmas gains and returning entries, so before we get to anything non-Christmas, let’s round off those real quick. Returning to the chart are “Santa’s Coming for Us” by Sia at #69, “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” by Frank Sinatra at #66 and “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby at #63. There are a lot more of our notable gains though: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Sam Smith at #65, “Cozy Little Christmas” by Katy Perry at #58, “Love is a Compass” by Griff at #53, “Feliz Navidad” by José Feliciano at #51, “Christmas Lights” by Coldplay at #49 (the biggest gain and deservedly so), “Santa Baby” by Kylie Minogue at #44, “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” by Dean Martin at #43, “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronettes at #41, “Mistletoe” by Justin Bieber at #36, “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney at #32, “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #30, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono with the Plastic Ono Band featuring the Harlem Community Choir at #29, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams at #28, “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade at #26, “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis at #25, “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea at #17, “This Christmas” by Jess Glynne at #13, “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande at #11, “Step into Christmas” by Elton John at #10, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid at #8, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #7 and finally, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens at #6. That’s not all of our gains and returning entries though, as we do have some peculiar events outside of the Christmas singles. First of all, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd is up to #39 thanks to a remix with ROSALIA, and secondly, “WITHOUT YOU” by The Kid LAROI returns to the chart at #23. I have no idea why or how this happened but I want it gone as quickly as possible. Anyway, we have three new arrivals to talk about, none of which are particularly interesting, so let’s get on with those.

NEW ARRIVALS

#75 – “Real Stuff” – Juice WRLD and benny blanco

Produced by Dylan Brady, Jack Karaszewski, Henry Kwapis, Cashmere Cat and benny blanco

The song’s not called “Real Stuff”, but come on, this is a family show. About a year ago, Jarad Higgins, or Juice WRLD, died tragically at age 21 of a substance abuse-related seizure. Naturally, since it’s Juice and his label we’re talking about, they’re still pumping out unreleased content. Two songs of this nature were released around this time, one with Kid LAROI and Kim Petras we’ll probably see next week and even higher on the chart, but first of all, an emo rap anthem produced by benny blanco and Dylan Brady of 100 gecs. I mean, okay, sure, it is 2020 after all. Blanco posted on social media about how this was his first ever recorded song with Juice when they had a studio session before Juice was that recognised, and before he was signed, they cooked up a lot of music. This makes it surprising how it didn’t leak after all this time but it shouldn’t matter. What’s important is the quality of the song and since this is a genuine song from a real-life studio session, it’s not nearly as insincere and cynical as some of the other posthumous projects from Juice. Sadly, I don’t this makes it any good. The clicking, stuttering trap beat doesn’t sound bad with his bumping 808s but doesn’t complement the acoustic guitar strumming or even Juice as much as it should – and this is really early Juice, so it’s not like he’s mastered his style of emo-reminiscent self-loathing and painful, drug-induced relationship ramblings. It’s not even as catchy as Juice would start to be later on, so it is just a primitive version of whatever Juice’s sound would end up being. Sadly, we won’t get more development from the guy other than these cheap releases, and if benny blanco guided Juice more into a lane he’s comfortable with and more importantly, Juice was still alive, this could be an example of something great yet to flourish but since his incomplete discography of disposable output is all we have to evaluate, it makes Juice’s work much more difficult to appreciate, especially posthumously, where every throwaway bar about substance abuse has this haunting, unnerving impact it didn’t have before. Oh, and I really like the first verse, which is just aimless flexing but with more charm than he usually has, and with some promises of extra detail he could have gone into, before of course, it switches onto a different topic, an issue plaguing much of the man’s work. In conclusion, the song is fine but I don’t think I can listen to Juice’s work, complete or incomplete, released when he was alive or scrambled posthumously, without feeling sad or just having this contempt for the yes-men who surrounded him. Rest in peace, Juice.

#67 – “Oh Santa!” – Mariah Carey

Remixed by Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson

Produced by Scott M. Riesett, Marc Shaiman and Daniel Moore II

“Oh Santa!” is an original Christmas tune Mariah Carey wrote and released with Jermaine Dupri in 2010, for her second Christmas album, aptly titled Merry Christmas II You. The song wasn’t a success, and it couldn’t live up to “All I Want for Christmas is You”, which is fine. We don’t need more Mariah Carey songs in the Christmas canon if we already have an absolutely perfect one at the top of the charts, but if she wants to start flooding the market, I guess it’s best to do it with two experts at vocals, because for her little Apple TV Christmas special, she’s bought along Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande for whatever the triple version of a duet is. I assumed this would have been a returning entry because it’s a remix but the original never charted in the UK so I’ll have to talk about both here, and, well, there’s a reason “All I Want for Christmas is You” has never been replicated in terms of success and just sheer quality. I talked about this on my best list but there’s never been a song I feel is so ubiquitous of modern Christmas in the current millennium than “All I Want for Christmas is You”, an outright rejection of festive commercialism in preference of just having her significant other around for the holidays. “Oh Santa!” has a similar presence, but in this one, Mariah Carey’s asking for Santa Claus himself to wrap her crush in wrapping paper and gift it to her for Christmas, with a lot less of the warm intimacy of the classic song and without any of the charm. The 2010 version has this really gross drum machine and a lot of cheerleader-type chanting and clapping that starts off as really ugly – and the chanting still is – but honestly makes a pretty good backing for Mariah sliding over the beat with vocals that may not be as impressive as her best but are just as smooth as they should be over a more coy, low-key festive instrumental. My main issue with it is pace because whilst it is a short song, and she does treat us to some whistle notes and runs by the end, it just fades out and the instrumental doesn’t feel like it goes anywhere, making this song sound slow as all hell. If anything, this remix sounds dated, especially with the more modern vocal production with Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson, both in a constant struggle with Mariah for getting a word in, to the point where Hudson over-sells her belting and Grande is the only voice recognisable enough here that actually works. Half way in, the song completely devolves into a bridge of aimless runs and “harmonising” from everyone with that ugly chanting, seemingly unchanged from the original. Yeah, this isn’t pretty, and if anything is a remix of an older song that needed a lot more updates to make it work in a 2020 context and fits all of these incredible vocalists in. This could have been great with an original song that was completed to flatter everyone, but there’s too many cooks in the Christmas kitchen here and the cookies being made are being overcooked. Sure, let’s go with that analogy. Next.

#59 – “Daily Duppy – Part 1” – Digga D

Produced by AceBeatz

It’s not uncommon for freestyles to chart in the UK, particularly important British hip-hop tastemaker GRM Daily and their “Daily Duppy” freestyles, which have been the break-out moment for many rappers like Aitch or DIgDat because they reach a level of viral fame and attention that music videos can’t do as well, mostly because of the platform just letting them spit bars over usually decent beats. Digga D was actually opposed to doing one and even sparked some kind of feud with GRM Daily but that dried up soon enough for him to provide them with two “Daily Duppy” freestyles on two different beats but with one cold verse each. Only the first part charted here, as you’d expect, but I’ll cover both. The first part, produced by Ace Beats, has a pretty nice pitch-shifted vocal sample quickly abandoned for the same sample pitched differently, and then it comes back, under a pretty messy drill beat, and whilst Digga D’s riding it really well, I find it hard to be convinced by his delivery here, which is either checked-out or edited so heavily it’s bizarre. I mean, I thought this was a freestyle, right? He can just spit bars over the beat and it’ll be fine, but they add all these stuttering effects, ad-libs and censors that censor pointless words like “juice” but keep actual vulgarities completely intact, as well as censoring some locations but not others. It takes me out of the whole verse, honestly, even if some of it is some pretty slick and nice wordplay, with some funny punchlines and the typical pop culture references you can expect from the more lighthearted of UK drill. I know that people like to make references to their guns in ways that make them even more threatening and eerie, but just like 21 Savage calling his Draco a paedophile, I don’t think Digga D saying that he grooms young ethnic minority boys to sell drugs is “hard” or even enjoyable. I just think it’s pretty awful. I said I’d talk about the second part here, but honestly, it’s a lot less interesting, with a more trap-adjacent beat and boring synths instead of the cool vocal sample. Admittedly, it sounds more like a “freestyle”, but he wastes the moment where the beat cuts out by just rapping filler, and the quarantine references are going to date this, so, yeah, whilst I’m impressed by Digga D’s flow switches here, I’m not a fan of really anything else.

Conclusion

There’s not enough here to give an Honourable or Dishonourable Mention, so I’ll just have to give out the big ones... but everything here is mediocre, so I’m left with not a lot of content at all. I guess Best of the Week can go to the late Juice WRLD and benny blanco for “Real Stuff”, almost purely out of respect, even if the song is just listenable. Worst of the Week was really a toss-up, but I think I’ll give it to “Oh Santa!” by Mariah Carey featuring Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson for being such a waste of talent and potential. Only time will tell what comes next week, but I predict a busy one with Christmas music, Taylor Swift and hopefully Kid Cudi, but we’ll see really. I’m going to hazard a guess that we’ll get at least two songs from Taylor and only the Skepta track from Cudi, but I think we could easily have three from each. Here’s this week’s top 10:

You can follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for Imanbek fan-girling and thank you for reading, I’ll see you next week!

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 4 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 21/11/2020 (Billie Eilish)

I’ve got an easy week ahead of me since nothing happened this week. Okay, that’s a lie because there are some big stories here but we only have six new arrivals, meaning that this might be a shorter episode and honestly I’m glad. We’ve had immensely busy weeks since I started this show, full of album bombs from 21 Savage, Ariana Grande and Headie One, bizarre new entries from years ago like “Train Wreck” or “All Girls are the Same”, interesting and intriguing new arrivals ranging from Clairo to Giggs and most importantly, a lot of comical mediocre garbage from D-Block Europe. This week, however, I’ve got half of my usual bargain bin of pop music and whilst some of these songs are notable and worth talking about... well, you’ll see. “positions” by Ariana Grande is spending a fourth week at #1. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Firstly, let’s run through the drop-outs, most of which are inconsequential considering this is a slow breather week between two massive ones – BTS are coming next, folks, and bringing Megan Thee Stallion with them. I think our most notable losses is how absolutely everything from Kylie Minogue, the Kid LAROI and even dutchavelli is completely gone here, including “Cool with Me” with M1llionz, the actual single from the record. I guess we can say goodbye to the top 10 hit “Breaking Me” by Topic and A75, as well as the drop off of one 2020’s biggest #1 hits, “Rain on Me” by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande – we can wish a perhaps premature farewell to “Jerusalema” by Master KG and Nomcebo Zikode while we’re here. The bigger stories probably lie with our returns, many of which are peaking or returning to their peak like “Sofia” by Clairo at #75, “All Girls are the Same” by the late Juice WRLD at #73 and “Martin & Gina” by Polo G at #71. The Christmas songs have also started flooding in, one of which is a new arrival that we’ll talk about later, but so far we just have the controversial classic “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl returning to #63, “Last Christmas” by WHAM! – the biggest #2 of all time – back at #44 and already, on November 21st, more than a month before the big day, “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey moving up to the top 40 at #30. I don’t see much competition that’ll block this from #1 this year. Also, speaking of all this holiday music, “Holiday” by Little Mix returns at #36 thanks to silly UK chart rules that meant it was traded off with “Happiness” from last week. I’ve already reviewed all of these songs – or close enough to all of them – but one I haven’t reviewed is “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie” by Baccara returning to #57 as it becomes the new Scottish football anthem. You know, that Spanish disco track from 1977. It did hit #1 that year, but this is such a bizarre return I felt the need to talk about it... but, never mind, I think I should take advantage of having less on my plate this week. In terms of fallers and climbers, “Straight Murder (Giggs & David)” by, you guessed it, Giggs and Dave, dropped out of its top 40 debut to just #56 this week, joining the biggest faller, “Dynamite” by BTS, presumably having its streaming cut or just finally running out of the K-pop steam, dropping from #21 to #52. Other songs backing away from the top 40 include “Deluded” by Tion Wayne and MIST at #49, “Confetti” by Little Mix at #42 and “Loading” by Central Cee at #41. What worries me is there’s not much that seems to be replacing it, other than maybe “Plugged in Freestyle” by Fumez the Engineer and A92 at #45 or our biggest climber, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #30. It should also be noted that strangely, the album at #1 on the Album Charts has no presence in the UK Top 75 – which I review because, really, who cares about those last 25 songs? – probably because of how many physical albums were sold instead of digital sales and streaming. It’s an AC/DC album so it’s expected that the audiences who stream songs and buy CDs from Australian rock legends don’t overlap, even with a big lead single that nearly charted on the US Hot 100. Well, let’s talk about the songs that DID debut finally, starting with... the revenge of the Sith.

NEW ARRIVALS

#65 – “Cut Me Off” – Yxng Bane featuring D-Block Europe

Produced by DZL and Akeel

The music I’ve been listening to has been pretty much all over the place recently, ranging from 1990s drum and bass to McAlmont & Butler to bitcrushed hyperpop to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin to... Young Thug, for some reason. That’s part of the reason I like doing REVIEWING THE CHARTS. It keeps me grounded to what music is actually popular, important and what I should be looking out for. With that said, I don’t think I’ve ever felt the need to look out for D-Block Europe, but they keep on popping up on the chart week after week regardless. Well, a collaboration between these two is never unexpected; after all, they have an entire album together, which has sometimes confused me since Yxng Bane has always been a smoother Afrobeats crooner whilst D-Block Europe make stiff, comical trap-adjacent emptiness type beats... whatever that means. The collaboration, I have to say, actually works and I’ll admit, I’m actually pretty fond of this track. It’s got a pretty minimal beat off of mostly dancehall percussion, sparse vocal samples and bass, but it picks up a lot of groove during the chorus and whilst Yxng Bane isn’t exactly the most interesting frontman, he does ride the beat fine and his sing-songy flow is pretty damn catchy. He takes care of the first half of the song, before D-Block Europe even come in, and surprisingly, the first other voice we hear is Dirtbike LB. No, Dirtbike isn’t interesting but he sounds a lot more engaged than usual and he actually sounds mentally sound and happy, so that’s good, even if he rids the song of any of Yxng Bane’s subtlety. His flows are pretty solid, even if they are sometimes copped from NAV on “Lemonade”, oddly. This beat can also handle Young Adz’s fascination with leaving empty space in his verses, as he has some pretty complex melodic and triplet flows over the beat, which never loses its funk even when threatened with how awkward D-Block Europe tend to be, and that final flow Adz uses over the pumping 808s is smooth as all hell and actually has some swagger for once. He doesn’t say anything embarrassing and there’s actually some wordplay going on here, so I really can’t complain about this track as much as I wanted to. Will it stand up to replay? Maybe not, but this is pretty great actually and a massive improvement from all three of these dudes, although this may just be a fluke like “New Dior”. If these guys want to show more fluke brilliance from now on that would be great. Just saying.

#60 – “HOLIDAY” – Lil Nas X

Produced by Take a Daytrip and Tay Keith

I like Lil Nas X. I enjoy his fun social media presence and meme-heavy persona, which may grow old to a lot of folks but I still like seeing him pop up on my timeline. I admire how he is openly gay and not afraid to discuss that in his music especially when he has the impossible platform of “Old Town Road”, one of if not the biggest songs of all time. I’m intrigued by his willingness to blend genres and break down boundaries in styles of music from sound, presentation and even race, even if it loses him some points on actually developing said tracks, mostly ending up as demos – the initiative is there. However, on that last EP, and especially this song, his charisma is the driving force and I don’t think Nas can replicate the magic of even “Panini” without more than his natural, jovial and playful tone. To start off with the positives, I do like the cold, icy beat that fits with the vague, pretty false holiday theme here, and they are some nice little details like that wobbling synth-bass differing from typical distorted trap 808s, the background keys replicating the melody of the second chorus throughout, and even the morphing of the producer tags to form a sentence. Tay Keith took it to ten instead for this beat, I suppose, and it is a good fusion of the two production styles. The problem I have with this song is, unfortunately, Lil Nas X. His delivery is checked-out and bored, and that makes these hard-to-sell lyrics about his career both irrelevant to the ostensibly Christmas-themed song and just not convincing in the slightest.

I can’t even close my eyes and I don’t know why, I guess I don’t like surprises / I can’t even stay away from the game I play, they gon’ know us today, yeah

This is the chorus and he’s saying absolutely nothing here. It’s just rhyming words that would have fit for a demo but are produced with some robotic multi-tracking and engineering to make it sound professional but also dull and manufactured. Sure, the verses and pre-chorus have more depth but this type of self-aware flexing and snarky one-liners only works well when it doesn’t sound like it’s being played completely straight (No pun intended). The song and artist exhumes character and optimism but both the beat and Nas here sound sour, mean-spirited and almost ugly. Most of the throwaway pop culture references are pretty pointless and awkward as well, with some really awful lyrics.

Ayy, and I’m sexy, they want to sex me

I call redundancy, Your Honour. Oh, and what a pre-chorus. “Hee-hee, I’m bad as Michael Jackson”? In 2020? It’s not like I expected anything lyrically superb from Lil Nas X, but less filler and... unfortunate implications would have been fun. Man, I do want to like this song, and I’m excited for that “CALL ME BY YOUR NAME” track he continues to tease, but for now this doesn’t work as a Christmas single at all, unless your idea of the Winter holidays is joyless cynicism. Okay, well, maybe in 2020, that’ll work out for you but any other year, this wouldn’t cut it.

#59 – “A Little Love” – Celeste

Produced by Josh Crocker and Jamie Hartman

This song is an advertisement. So much of an advertisement in fact that the full name of the song is “A Little Love (From the John Lewis & Waitrose Christmas Advert 2020)”. The John Lewis company is a brand of high-end department stores across the British Isles and have become kind of an iconic Christmas tradition in the UK for their heart-warming but often fantasy-adjacent advertisements they release every November or so. It always comes with a song, sometimes original, sometimes a cover, and nearly always a dreary piano ballad. This year they enlisted BRIT Award winner and British soul newcomer Celeste but not even new blood and an original song written for the advert can make this sound anything resembling interesting. A lot of people thought this John Lewis advertisement was disappointing – I don’t have an opinion because I do not care about the quality of adverts. I also do not care about the quality of the song which I’m sure you can tell is very little. This advert becomes increasingly irrelevant as the years go on and not even Celeste’s pretty unique voice can make this anything more than dull and half-baked. I mean, it’s well-mixed, but so is nearly everything that charts. You really can’t say this is anything but a product that serves as promotion for another product. It’s no surprise this didn’t debut high because in 2020 – and really any year – people would and should want more than this. Hopefully this doesn’t coast off of the advert and become a hit because, I don’t know, it kind of sets a bad precedent. Maybe I’m just pretentious. Probably.

#43 – “Flavour” – Loski and Stormzy

Produced by Mike Elizondo and Steel Banglez

Last time we saw Loski, he was going for a threatening and menacing “bad guy” drill track, but now he’s making room for the ladies in that drug trafficking route, rapping over a smooth Afrobeats instrumental courtesy of Steel Banglez, who’s still around actually amongst the waves of rip-offs and producers courting his style for their own, and it’s just a hook-up jam where the guys mostly trade bars about girls. Of course, Stormzy gets the first verse, but with the deadpan delivery of both of these guys but especially Loski, the somewhat shoddy vocal mixing on Stormzy’s voice, I find myself caring so little about absolutely any of this. This beat is kind of distracting in how it mixes Eastern strings with Afrobeats rhythms, early 2010s dance music synths (the main synth pattern sounds as 2014 as possible) and trap skitters. The hook is barely existent, neither of the guys have chemistry or charisma here, not even Stormzy, and the song’s about two Loski verses too long. No, the lyrical content isn’t anything but vaguely cute, surprisingly inoffensive and shockingly lacking in misogyny for once, and I don’t expect it to be. Honestly, Stormzy name-dropping Everybody Loves Raymond is probably the highlight. I’m sure Ray Romano is beaming.

#7 – “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” – BBC Children in Need

Produced by Brian Rawling, Mark Taylor, Anoushka Shankar, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Grace Chatto and BBC Concert Orchestra

When I did my Spring episode, I was met with a BBC Radio 1 cover of “Times Like These” by the Foo Fighters that was released to support the NHS workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the first British lockdown. This “Live Lounge Allstars” single went to #1 and naturally, with a second lockdown we have a second single by a second BBC radio station with second-rate “Allstars”, which is probably why it’s just credited as BBC Children in Need this time. Oh, and for some reason, they credited every single BBC Child in Need on the Spotify page this time. Now last time we had you know, the actual Foo Fighters, as well as global superstars like Dua Lipa and Ellie Goulding, as well as Sean Paul, Rita Ora and members of Coldplay, alongside many, many others, all of which were or are relevant to this day. So for this second song, not only did they take an absolutely crap Oasis single from their early-mid-2000s years, way after they had stopped being worth listening to, and stripped it of any of its genuine orchestral backing and intriguing and iconic Liam Gallagher vocal deliveries. I’m not going to go in-depth like last time. It still butchers a classic, but a classic song I hate in the first place, just getting rid of any redeemable elements that Oasis still had in 2002, so I don’t care enough about the source material but really this is weak and boring, with questionable vocal mixing and unimpressive vocal performances from everyone involved. If you’re wondering who everyone involved is, it’s Izzy Bizu, Grace Chatto of Clean Bandit, Melanie C, Jamie Cullum, Ella Eyre, Paloma Faith, Rebecca Ferguson, Jess Glyne, LAUV, Ava Max, James Morrison, Gregory Porter, Nile Rodgers, Jack Savoretti, Anoushka Sankor, Robbie Williams and Yola... as well as some of the more bizarre additions, like Jay Sean riding high off of an uncredited sample of his hit last year, Kylie Minogue clearly only here to promote an album (In fact, that can sadly be said for most of the artists here), Lenny Kravitz and freaking CHER both being somehow completely unrecognisable, Goddamn Bryan Adams and KSI of all people, who doesn’t even get a rap verse like AJ Tracey and Sean Paul on the first cover. He’s just... there, I guess? None of these guys are in sync at all and the song was unremarkable in the first place but I can’t get mad at charity going to a good cause, even if all of these musicians could just cough up some of their own cash. I expect to see this fall dramatically next week.

#2 – “Therefore I Am” – Billie Eilish

Produced by FINNEAS

This, however, I predict will stick around. Billie Eilish bravely drops the lowercase for a brand new song – and maybe perhaps could possibly be a lead single – and it acts as an attack on the critics, particularly a response to all of the nonsense that has been thrown her way for being a confident young woman in the industry who decides she doesn’t want to conform to outrageous beauty standards set by the media. I think a very recent notable one was when she was photographed by paparazzi walking and looking like a completely normal 19-year-old woman (although, perhaps one with particularly vibrant hair dye) and was met with criticism from the news media and a lot of different narratives on social media, ranging from general body-shaming (which she already took a stance towards in March on her tour with a pretty cool short film) to weird professions of beauty when, no, she did not look like she was keeping up appearances and that is completely fine. That image displays a problem with how society holds celebrities and particularly women to a ridiculous fashion standard, even when they’re just walking from place to place, like they can’t look like your normal, ordinary, every-day adult woman, which, you know, they are. I think she really gets to that point when she says this:

Top of the world but your world isn’t real / Your world’s an ideal

Sadly, I think the rest of the song is rather underwritten and feels like a vague diss track towards critics, using arguments that really only apply when talking about cyberbullying and genuine toxic media press (which the UK knows well), and generalising them with all critics, making it seem like a human attack on mass-media corporations, which doesn’t really go down as well as she wants it to. The pre-chorus, chorus and even the second verse and bridge feel pretty underwhelming in terms of content too and whilst her carefree delivery is supposed to make the lines hit harder if anything it just weakens the blow. The minimal production from FINNEAS with a pretty nice 808 bass groove and distorted percussion, as well as a pretty piano flourish, does help to make this sound a bit less tired but honestly just makes Eilish seem out of place if anything, which isn’t true for anything else the two have made together, so I’m personally not a fan and think this is a rare miss for Billie and FINNEAS. I agree with the message, but this could have been executed in a much more impactful and aggressive way that would have made more of a point, in my opinion.

Conclusion

That’s not to say that the song is bad, though and I’ll give “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish an Honourable Mention even for just being interesting and more than the most basic, factory-produced equivalent of its genre that could be made, which can be said for most of the rest of the tracks here. Best of the Week does go to Yxng Bane and D-Block Europe of all people for “Cut Me Off”, and I can’t bring myself to dislike a charity single so I suppose Worst of the Week goes to Lil Nas X’s “HOLIDAY”, and the Dishonourable Mention will be brought to you after the messages. In other words, it’s “A Little Love” by Celeste. Here’s this week’s top 10:

I’ll brace myself for the upcoming week now, and you can follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank if you want to see me Tweet complete nonsense the majority of the time. I’ll see you next week.

0 notes

pkmnomegaverse · 6 years

Note

do you have any hcs for whitney in this verse? like her and rosette. who they're friends with, what they do, etc.

I’ll admit that I haven’t thought that heavily about Whitneyand Rosette, and about half of what I have applies more to the timeline Faller!Lonanis from than what Main!Verse Whitney is doing. As far as general things thatapply to both versions, Whitney remains the Goldenrod Gym Leader, largely sinceit’s a good source of income for her and Rosette. Whitney and Colden (Rosette’s father), weredating for about a year before Whitney got pregnant. The relationship was already rocky at thispoint, but they tried to see if they could make it work for Rosette. After a couple years together, Colden decidedthat he couldn’t do it anymore, and gave full custody of Rosette toWhitney. The two have extremely minimalcontact after this, as Whitney tries to do what she can to give Rosette theoption to know her father (despite her animosity towards the guy), but Coldenis largely distant. He meets with hisdaughter a handful of times here and there and occasionally speaks with herover the phone, but doesn’t really want anything to do with his daughter orex. He only keeps some contact out of asense of duty, since as a father, he should probably at least be aware of thestatus of his child.

Despite the situation upsetting Rosette at times, Whitneyand Rosette largely ignore Colden and his lack of presence doesn’t hang overthem that much. Whitney remains herbright and bubbly self, and has a lot of friends both in Goldenrod and throughoutthe region. She’s pretty good friendswith most of her fellow Gym Leaders, but gets along with Jasmine and Morty thebest. With Jasmine, the initial sparkfor their friendship was camaraderie as the two omega girls in the Johto League. From there, they continued to keep in contactover the years (helped by the fact Jasmine also remains a Gym Leader). With Morty, it was a proximity thing. Their towns were close, so Whitney took itupon herself to try and get to know her fellow Gym Leader better by visitinghim in Ecruteak. Morty foundher to be a bit much at first, but her perseverance eventually won himover. Jasmine and Morty are generallythe people Whitney turns to for advice and help. When the whole situation with Colden wasgoing down, they were her main support in helping her get back on her feet(Morty even half-jokingly offered to hex the guy for her).

One of the bigger differences between the two timelines is herrelationship with Falkner. In thetimeline where Lonan lives, she becomes good friends with him as well, sincethe two families become close family friends, helped by the fact Lonan andRosette are playmates who love spending time together. Lonan in particular is very insistent about Rosettecoming over to visit and nags his parents about it, which leads to Whitney andRosette visiting more often (the National Park is a common meeting place forthe families as well). Whitney 100%encourages her daughter’s budding romance with Lonan, and is prone to embarrassingher daughter with her unsubtle comments about the matter (made even worse ifLonan or his family are around). Whitneyreally likes all of Morty and Falkner’s children and dotes on them, being a bitlike an eccentric aunt to them. For asmuch as she and Rosette go to visit them in Ecruteak, she encourages them tocome down to Goldenrod, since the kids need to be exposed to the happening citylife to even out the stuffiness of Ecruteak (both Morty and Falkner take offense tothis sentiment, but she insists on it anyway). Astor’s issue with large crowds complicates things, but they make thingswork and all three kids do love going to visit Whitney and Rosette inGoldenrod.

Unfortunately in the timeline where Lonan dies as an infant,while Whitney remains friends with Morty, she never gets close with Falkner,Kele, or Astor. Lonan’s death causesFalkner to almost completely close himself off from other people. He can barely tolerate Morty half the time,interaction with someone like Whitney is out of the question. Even once Falkner starts to recover and thetwins are born, he still mostly keeps to himself when he’s not focused on hisfamily. Kele and Astor also end up muchmore sheltered in this timeline, since both of their issues lead to theirparents being extremely overprotective. Theyalready lost one child, they’re not going to risk losing another. Whitney certainly knows of the twins and hasmet them (afterall, her and Morty talk about their childrento each other), but doesn’t take on the aunt-like role she has in the othertimeline. Rosette also isn’t that close with any of them, which leads to herbeing more of a shut-in in the Main!Verse timeline.

The only real pro, if one could even consider it that giventhe reason, is that in this timeline, Morty confides in Whitney a lot moreabout his troubles and insecurities. While Eusine is his best friend, he’s not always the best when it comesto issues involving people or relationships, so Whitney ends up being theperson Morty comes to in regards to Falkner and Lonan. He doesn’t actually expect her to be able togive him any advice on how to help Falkner (or himself) handle Lonan’s death, butit helps him just to have someone to talk to. While Whitney really has no idea what shecould possibly say to help her friend, once she comes to understand that allMorty really needs is someone to vent to, it becomes easier for her to talkwith him. While she’s always willingto help her friend, she can’t help but to imagine what it would be like if shelost Rosette. While her loyalty to herfriend makes her wish Falkner would do more to support Morty, she can sympathizewith Falkner as well. After all, she doesn’tthink she’d be able to handle the death of her child either.

#but guess who dies in Faller!Lonan's timeline!#Whitney #Morty #Falkner #Rosette #Lonan #Kele #Astor #sorry this took so long but thank you for the ask #it made me think more about Whitney and write it down

2 notes · View notes

deadcactuswalking · 4 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 07/02/2020

I’ll be transparent: my left ear’s blocked and I’ve been struggling to hear really, I feel I can’t properly critique music with that issue for many reasons, so I’m just going to BS my way through that one. I think that’s fair. Let’s “review” those charts.

Top 10

At the top spot, finally, it’s the amazing “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd, up one space to #1 after 10 weeks on the chart! I’m glad it’s here, and I think it can last though it does face some competition.

At number-two is the runner-up, “The Box” by Roddy Ricch, up a single space from last week.

Last week’s #1 “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi is down two spaces to number-three this week.

“Don’t Start Now” is also down two spots to number-four this week.

Unfortunately still holding onto number-five after a one-spot drop is “Godzilla” by Eminem featuring the late Juice WRLD.

“Someone You Loved” has dragged itself up three spots from the depths of hell, rebounding to number-six. I have no idea how this is happening and I want to put a halt to it as soon as possible.

At number-seven, “everything i wanted” by Billie Eilish gets a slight one-spot boost possibly due to the Grammy’s performance.

“Life is Good” by Drake, then Future is down a position to number-eight.

“ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas is still hanging on up a spot to number-nine.

Finally, to round off the top 10, we have “Adore You” by Harry Styles back at #10 after raving up four positions this week for whatever reason. I’m not exactly complaining; it’s a pretty decent song, but I have no idea why it’s back.

Climbers

We have only two climbers that are notable enough to earn a spot here, but they are very interesting and seem to be surprising hits. “You should be sad”, a country rock-infused hot mess (Or song, depending on how polite you want to be) by Halsey, is up seven spaces to #17 this week, with some true organic momentum, and “Roses” by Saint Jhn, a trap song that was made into an unauthorised house remix by Kazakh producer Imanbek, zoomed up 19 spaces to #21. These two songs seem like they could make the top 10 pretty soon, so I’d keep watch.

Fallers

There are a few more fallers, however, as there always naturally tends to be. First of all, J Hus had all three of his songs that debuted last week from the album bomb (for Big Conspiracy) fall dramatically in pretty expected fashion, but I’m surprised they’re all on the chart still, considering most of the time at least one of the songs tends to drop out. Leading the pack is “Play Play” featuring Burna Boy down eight to #19, swiftly followed by “Repeat” featuring Koffee down 12 spots to #33 and finally, “Big Conspiracy” featuring iceé tgm barely scraping the Top 40 at #40, down a whopping 21 positions from last week, which is a drop intensity I don’t think we’ve seen in a long while. There are also a few hits falling off due to the arbitrary streaming cuts rule, like “Pump it Up” by Endor down five to #23, right next to the absolute collapse of “Own It” by Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy, a former #1, down 19 spaces to #24. As I’ve always said, this rule mostly and usually solely affects hip-hop artists. It does have a notable effect on some pop and EDM though; “Lose Control” by MEDUZA, Goodboys and Becky Hill is down five to #25, and not all hip-hop has the streaming cut to blame. The mediocre “Ei8ht Mile” by Digdat featuring Aitch has only been in the chart for three weeks and is already at #28 after its 11-space decrease this week. Regardless, those are our only fallers this week... well, except “Those Kinda Nights” by Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran down 11 spots to #38 but do we really want to acknowledge that song exists? I’m not sure if we do.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Novelty songs don’t last long, and neither do protest songs, so the anthem of the European Union, “Ode to Joy”, as performed by Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra is out off of the debut at #30, as should be expected. The other dropouts are just songs that have been slogging in the lower reach of the top 40 for at least three weeks, like “Circles” by Post Malone out from #31, “Darkness” by Eminem out from #37 and “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles out from #39, but there is also the dropout for “Pee Pee” by M Huncho. The song’s growing on me too. Don’t think about that too much. There aren’t any returning entries as usual, so let’s run through some possible future hits in the top 75. Not all of them are good, not all of them are bad. We have “What if I Told You that I Loved You” by Ali Gatie at #71, “Charades” by Headie One and Fred Again at #67, “July” by Noah Cyrus at #66, “Momentary Bliss” by Gorillaz featuring slowthai and Slaves at #58, which is a fantastic comeback for Damon and gang, “Only the Young” by Taylor Swift from her documentary at #57, “High Fashion” by Roddy Ricch and Mustard at #56, as well as “Ballin’” by the same duo at #46, the returning entry of “when the party’s over” by Billie Eilish after the Grammy’s at #45, “Power Over Me” by Dermot Kennedy at #42 and finally, “Suicidal” by YNW Melly at #41. Let’s get to the new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

Like I said, I’m going to BS my way through most of these; I can listen to these songs in their entirety completely fine but I won’t be able to have that pleasant of an experience through headphones so I’ll just be blasting it out loud from the crap speakers of my laptop, meaning I could be losing some notable production elements that I would usually further analyse. I’m sorry about that, guys, but I’m still reviewing the charts even with a hearing impairment.

#36 – “Better Off Without You” – Becky Hill and Shift K3y

Produced by Shift K3y, Jarly and Svidden

Is impairment a word? I am so tired right now, I apologise if I start droning on or meandering about garbage, but here we are. I actually got three predictions right last week, with our first three new arrivals all being songs I predicted would end up here this week! So that’s pretty cool. Uh, this is Becky Hill’s new single with Shift K3y? Who’s Shift K3y? I don’t know. Looking him up, he’s another one of those future garage and house DJs from London, and he had a pretty massive hit with “Touch” in 2014. This is his third UK Top 40 single and first in five years since “I Know” peaked at #26 in 2014. It’s Becky Hill’s ninth (eighth excluding the uncredited feature on Wilkinson’s “Afterglow”) and I think I know exactly what to expect. It’s going to be “Wish You Well” with Sigala again. I wasn’t exactly incorrect; there is the same fake handclap, the same breathy and dull vocal from the admittedly talented vocalist Becky Hill, who does have a certain sound to her voice that is recognisable albeit not particularly impressive. The chorus is especially awkward and leads to a lot of empty space vocally within the duration of the drop, it sounds really odd. Otherwise, this is barely anything more than just pop-house fluff and a bit of a waste of time. Oh, and Shift K3y actually provides backing vocals here, or at least that’s who I’m assuming they are. They might just be a heavily edited Becky Hill. Regardless, this is a slightly cuter rendition of what we get every other week on this show.

#35 – “Say So” – Doja Cat

Produced by Tyson Trax

Yay! So, okay, I’ve been a fan of Doja Cat for a while even though her discography is wildly inconsistent in quality, back when “MOOO!” happened, and I’m pretty excited to finally see her here and be able to talk about her first UK Top 40 hit, which I’ve actually already listened to so I can confidently say it is a pretty decent, fun song. It is actually the biggest hit from her album Hot Pink, which saw more success than her debut and contained her second break-out single, the “Juicy” remix with Tyga, which of course had the viral video, but this one doesn’t have a video and instead got big on both TikTok and its pure groove and musical merit. Surely, this is Doja Cat’s best possible “first” impression, yet it’s kind of generic and definitely lacks some of her usual charm. On another note, I don’t care at all; this is a bop. The groove is immediately recognisable as it’s a direct sample from “Good Times” by Chic, or at least damn well sounds like it, and it provides a pretty good foundation for the synth-heavy funk-pop production that, while it does feel flavourless, especially by the end of the song, is a perfect beat for Doja Cat’s light falsetto, especially in the infectious chorus and gorgeous first verse, with some very interesting melodies and harmonies, although her voice does falter at times and it does sound somewhat awkward and abrupt, especially when a shift in her cadence does not reflect a shift in the music at all right at the end. Her second verse is a more typical Doja Cat rap verse, and it has as much charisma and energy as she usually does, with some really sweet, fast and surprisingly aggressive flows. By this time, however, that chorus does really start to drone on, doesn’t it? There are barely any developments in the instrumental to keep it interesting. Like, maybe try a key change? Just don’t loop the same vocal line for the chorus six times, especially since the chorus’ melody is incredibly simple. The meandering outro doesn’t really do much for me either, it just feels like they couldn’t figure out an end to the song. Speaking of not figuring out stuff, the second verse is borderline nonsensical but, hey, despite all those flaws, the song works well as a little dance-pop venture for Doja, and I’d like to hear it more... or perhaps in this case LESS, refined in the future.

#30 – “Lonely” – Joel Corry

Produced by Joel Corry, Lewis Thompson and Neave Applebaum

You remember “Sorry”. Now he’s back with another house-pop song with a one-word, two-syllable title that nearly rhymes with his name and features an uncredited female singer. I have no idea how this one’s going to sound!!! Maybe I shouldn’t be too cynical, I mean “Sorry” was okay. This one seems to have Harlee Jayne Sudworth on it as the vocalist in place of Hayley May, but it could be a sample as I’m just going by the writing credits. It’s Corry’s second UK Top 40 hit, by the way, after “Sorry” was his breakout hit. Yeah, I’m sorry, I find it hard to care. The vocalist sounds exactly like Hayley May, the instrumental is just vaguely deep house-influenced preset loops, and the drop is one I’ve heard at least seven times this past month. The stuttering in the post-chorus and bridge is possibly the most obnoxious shit I’ve heard in EDM since “Like a G6”. AIt’s also way too long for how uninteresting it is. Pass.

#12 – “Physical” – Dua Lipa

Produced by Jason Evigan and Koz

Ah, there are two new songs just outside of the top 10, the first by Dua Lipa, serving as her second single from Future Nostalgia, which is shaping up to be a pretty interesting dance-pop/90s house and nu-disco throwback record seemingly from these singles and the vibrant, colourful aesthetic. This is “Physical”, and despite a pretty cool music video, this seems to have debuted pretty low, which is disappointing but she could easily gain more traction as “Don’t Start Now” starts to falter. I’m excited to listen to this with both ears, but regardless this is Dua Lipa’s 14th UK Top 40 hit, and let’s listen, I guess. First off, this sounds a lot less 90s than it does 80s, in fact I’d probably call this instrumental typical of let’s say, early Madonna, but with an extra injection of steroids inserted right into the tempo, with that first beeping synth melody sounding a lot more menacing and intense than intimate as I expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, Dua Lipa herself is probably the worst part of this song, as her presence is questionably mundane here, sometimes having her Auto-Tune trail off awkward, in the verses especially. Otherwise, the additional bombast of the synths in that chorus are a pretty nice addition but without Dua Lipa putting that much effort this does feel a tad empty until of course that bridge which is the final release and climax, and that sounds beautiful, especially with the strings and all, but is it really worth it at that point? Not only that, but the chorus that follows feels neutered in comparison. The song feels like it’s a high-speed car chase that happens to constantly be in traffic. It’s not bad, but it’s hard not to feel at least a little disappointed.

#11 – “Wake Up Call” – KSI featuring Trippie Redd

Produced by S-X and Mally Mall

Well, this’ll be an ant-climactic one I think. This is KSI, British vlogger, rapper and semi-professional boxer, with her new song “Wake Up Call” featuring Trippie Redd’s first ever appearance in the UK Top 40, which is unexpected. He’s only ever been in the #80s before, but KSI is a different story, as it’s his third appearance in the UK Top 40 and his umpteenth in the singles chart overall. I’m not exactly excited to hear this since even though I am a fan of Trippie, he really would phone it in on a KSI feature, within reason, but we’ll see how it is. Just as I expected, it is kind of garbage, even though I actually love that quirky synth loop that acts as the main melody. Sadly, it gets pretty old two minutes in, and Trippie’s hook, drowned in reverb, is just unpleasant, as is the pathetic trap beat and KSI’s surprisingly anti-charismatic delivery. Like, I thought he was a YouTuber people liked for being happy and upbeat, right? Why is he just murmuring to kill time here? Yeah, this isn’t worth anyone’s time. KYLE and Lil Yachty could probably do this beat the little amount of justice it deserves, though.

Conclusion

Well, there’s nothing particularly amazing here but it’s clear that Doja Cat’s “Say So” is what is most worth listening to here, so it’ll get Best of the Week, I suppose. I guess I’ll give the Honourable Mention to “Physical” by Dua Lipa, and the Dishonourable Mention to... “Lonely” by Joel Corry, actually, as while it’s less interesting and probably has a larger absence of good than our Worst of the Week, “Wake Up Call” by KSI featuring Trippie Redd, at least there wasn’t any potential being wasted. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more pop music rambles and I’ll see you next week – or sooner!

REVIEWING THE CHARTS 2020

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 4 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS 2020: 31/01

So, this is the first UK Top 40 after Brexit—we left the European Union the day of this chart’s release... and we’re clearly being punished for it already.

Top 10

Lewis Capaldi, Lewis, Lewis Capaldi. Somehow, due to a new music video, this bloody creature has got his second #1 with “Before You Go”, up four spaces to the top. This is France’s revenge, isn’t it? Sacrebleu.

Up two spaces however is “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd, to the runner-up spot, which is never a bad thing.

At number-three, we have the slight one-spot drop for “The Box” by Roddy Ricch.

At number-four, unfortunately, there isn’t that big of a drop for “Godzilla” by Eminem featuring the late Juice WRLD, down three spaces from its #1 position last week. I guess sales are doing well enough to keep this at the top.

Down two spots is “Own It” by Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy at number-five.

At number-six, we have a slight one-space increase for ��Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa.

“Life is Good” by Drake, then Future is down one position to number-seven.

Due to the Grammy’s performance, because, yes, they do affect the UK charts as well, probably because of 4Music’s pathetic coverage, as well as a long overdue video, “everything i wanted” by Billie Eilish is up three spaces back into the top 10 at number-eight.

“Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi is up a spot to number-nine because of course it freaking is.

Finally, to round off the top 10, we’re seeing the end of the top 10 run for deteriorating TikTok meme “ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas, down two to #10... just as it was starting to grow on me.

Climbers

Our singular climber this week is “bad guy” by Billie Eilish up six spots to #22. I’m as confused as you are.

Fallers

On the other hand, we have a handful of these due to a bigger story this week, probably the one that’ll occupy the most time of the three big chart stories here. So, outside of the top 10, “Ei8ht Mile” by DigDat featuring Aitch is down eight spaces to #17 off of the debut, “Ride It” by Regard featuring Jay Sean is also down eight to #29, “Circles” by Post Malone is down six to #31, and that’s not a lot, right? Well, no, but there are also the fallers from last week’s group of Eminem debuts, which unlike what happens with album bombs in the US, did not cause absolute chart chaos once dissipated, and instead just peacefully and rather slowly decreasing in chart points against the flood of the other album bomb. I’m of course talking about “Those Kinda Nights” featuring Ed Sheeran down 15 spaces to #27 and lead single “Darkness” crumbling down 20 spaces to #37.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

We have a couple dropouts here as well, but no returning entries. These are the songs that dropped off the face of the chart this week: “South of the Border” by Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B out from #30, “Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid out from #32 (Not Sheeran’s greatest week), “Me & You Together Song” by the 1975 sadly out from #35 off of the debut – I thought this song would last, unlike “STILL DISAPPOINTED” by Stormzy out from #36, or even long-running hits like “HIGHEST IN THE ROOM” by Travis Scott and remixed by ROSALIA and Lil Baby out from #37, and finally, “Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello. Now, I figured I should mention some songs in the top 75 but not in the top 40 that we could see enter the chart in the coming weeks—I haven’t got a single one of these right yet (Well...), but regardless, here are the songs I picked. Not all of them are good, not all of them are bad. There is “Better Off Without You” by Becky Hill and Shift K3y at #42, “Suicidal” by YNW Melly at #44, “Say So” by Doja Cat at #45, “Power Over Me” by Dom Kennedy at #48, “Lonely” by Joel Corry at #61, “SUGAR” by BROCKHAMPTON at #62, “High Fashion” and “Ballin’”, both by Roddy Ricch and Mustard, at #63 and #64, “One Night” by MK at #66, and even the two new songs from M Huncho’s album that missed the Top 40: “Indulge” at #50 featuring D-Block Europe, and “Head Huncho” at #60 featuring Headie One... now for a bit of a different story that starts in the Summer of 1785.

BREXIT RUBBISH

German poet Friedrich Schiller published an ode in 1786 that he wrote the year prior. It was later interpolated by the legendary Ludwig van Beethoven in his 1984 Ninth Symphony. In 1972, quite ironically for a song composed by two Germans when Germany was still split into two (Although admittedly they were both born in western regions of Germany), Beethoven’s composition was adopted as the anthem for Europe as a whole, and the European Union. Does that sound familiar? In 2016, the most famous pig-adulterer in Britain commenced the Brexit vote, resulting in a slight majority to leave the EU. I don’t like getting too political on this show, so I won’t get into this in-depth, but all you need to know is that the Scottish party protested in Parliament in 2017 by singing this song, and that led to this two-party war: The Anti-Brexit and pro-EU song, “Ode to Joy”, the European anthem as performed by Dutchman André Rieu, and the pro-Brexit song, if you excuse my language, “17 Million Frick Offs”, a song by some right-wing comedian (Dominic Frisby) directed towards the 17 million people who proudly told the European Union, to, well, “frick off”, and praising them for doing so. Thankfully, the nation has spoken.

#30 – “Ode to Joy” – André Rieu and Johann Strauss Orchestra

Produced by André Rieu

Frisby’s song peaked at #43, meaning we only have to talk about the Dutch man here, and his first UK Top 40 hit, probably his only one. I would have preferred “Anarchy in the UK” personally, but I’ll accept this. I see how this works as a protest song too, as it’s a pretty triumphant composition, but really, I mean, what do you expect me to say about the European national (Continential?) anthem? Yeah, I think the Johann Strauss Orchestra guest verse kind of ruined the vibe for me on this one, but the beat slaps hard. I don’t like boring, patriotic squabble like this, and it’s not like Rieu does anything with it as this is rather trite, with some really gross mixing of the horns. In fact, the whole song is mixed pretty painfully. I appreciate the sentiment, though, guys, but this is pretty bad. Call me a Eurosceptic for not appreciating some Dutch dude’s rendition of a European historical motif, but really I’d say the same about “God Save the Queen” – and not the Sex Pistols song; that one’s awesome.

ALBUM BOMB: Big Conspiracy – J Hus

I haven’t listened to this album yet, simply because I haven’t had the time, but J Hus is a British rapper who released his first album since his release from prison, Big Conspiracy, on 24th January 2020, to immense critical acclaim and commercial success, debuting at #1 on the UK Albums Chart. These are the three biggest songs from it, and my thoughts on all of them.

#21 – “Repeat” – J Hus featuring Koffee

Produced by Jae5

Interestingly, all of these songs have features. Anyways, let’s get through these as quickly as possible, shall we? I mean, they will probably all sound the same. This was released the day before the album, and is J Hus’ tenth UK Top 10 hit, and Koffee’s first. Who is Koffee, you ask? She’s a Jamaican reggae artist who became the first woman to win the Best Reggae Album award at the most recent Grammy’s. I can see some of the reggae influence here as well, but it’s not actually that clear as it’s mostly a typical Afroswing song that J Hus would have made, with inorganic and pretty stiff drum patterns, and a non-existent atmosphere. Koffee puts way too much effort in, at least in comparison to Hus’ dire performance here, where he just literally mumbles somewhat off-beat for a couple bars and calls it a day, while Koffee is singing her heart out. It’s a really imbalanced ratio is what I’m saying. The strings towards the end are pretty cool but the final chorus is abrupt and overall, this song feels like a pointless meander for the sake of either filler or just landing Koffee a place on the album. I can’t hate it, because Koffee’s performance is great and the instrumental is tolerable, but for Hus, this is oddly flavourless.

#19 – “Big Conspiracy” – J Hus featuring iceé tgm

Produced by TSB

“Big Conspiracy” is the title track and the opening track on the album as well as J Hus’ 11th UK Top 40 hit, and Iceé tgm’s first – hell, she doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page and it’s seeming pretty likely that she debuted on J Hus’ album and she is in fact his sister. It’s pretty cool getting your family involved in the business. You know what else is pretty cool? This song; I like the guitar pick-up and the complimenting bassline, with some sweet vocal melodies and loops from iceé tgm, that seem to be scattered around the entire beat, which is an interesting idea. J Hus is still a tad lazier than usual here, with very little multi-tracking (Seems to be only one-take) or energy, but the chorus has some gorgeous harmonies, his rap verses are casual albeit memorable. I enjoy his (hopefully) sarcastic endorsement of Ronald Reagan in the first verse, and his point about underdogs rising in the second verse, which is a nice message. The bridge is pretty good, as it gives iceé tgm a bit of solo time, and she sounds decent but admittedly non-descript, and then there’s a smooth sax solo for seemingly no reason. Eh, I’m all for it. This is sweet, and it’s nice that an out-of-the-blue conscious rap song debuted in the top 20, but again, lacking a lot of the character I saw from the lead single.

#11 – “Play Play” – J Hus featuring Burna Boy

Produced by Jae5, Nana Rogues and Scribz Riley

Finally, also a pre-release single by about a day, is “Play Play”, J Hus’ 12th UK top 40 hit and Burna Boy’s fourth. We all know who Burna Boy is by now, although coincidentally Koffee happened to have covered Burna’s breakout hit “Ye” on the BBC Radio Live Lounge. I suppose that’s of note. I figured maybe the highest debuting single from the album would have that lively energy and bright comedy that I saw in “Must Be”, but no, there isn’t, which is exciting as that’s what I expected from this record, and the second single did try to confirm my suspicions. Much like “Repeat”, however, I feel this would easily be better if it were just a Burna Boy single, with his charming hook and cute steel-pans-based instrumental, but no, J Hus is here, and... did he forget how to rap? He sounds pretty awful here, with a dry flow that flubs rhymes and fits too many words into the meter, an uninteresting cadence and even awful mixing that makes him feel so distant from a song that should be warm and intimate. The reason I can’t dislike the song, however, is the concept, which both artists talk about in detail, especially Hus’ hilariously... bipolar verses, if that’s the best way to describe them. It seems to be about comparing women to guns, but also that women like him for his guns, and that he treats his gun like a woman? I don’t know, it’s a dumb concept that is messy in execution, but at least it’s unique. Pretty disappointed in these tracks, to be honest; maybe the deep cuts will be more to my fancy.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Roses” – Saint Jhn

Produced by F a l l e n and remixed by Imanbek

Hey, a song I actually predicted would reach the UK Top 40, just last week! I’m pretty impressed with myself, but admittedly I guess if you throw 70 stones at a bird, at least one will kill it, just as the old proverb says. Anyways, this is Saint Jhn’s first ever UK Top 40 hit and was mostly propelled by the Imanbek EDM remix, which I’ll be listening to as well. The original song “Roses” was released on the Guyanese-American rapper’s SoundCloud in July 2016 and was included in his 2018 compilation album. He had written for other artists like Jidenna before but his solo work went mostly unnoticed until a producer called Imanbek released an unauthorised house remix. Imanbek is a Kazakh producer, and his remix was released through a Russian record label, so there is a surprising amount of cultures involved in making this one song; it’s kind of interesting. Also, we never see anyone on the UK Top 40 chart from freaking Kazakhstan! That’s insane! By the way, Kazakhstan’s flag is my personal favourite flag of the world. I love the colour combination. The original song is one I’m generally not pleased with, personally, with a dull trap beat and hi-hats that somehow rattle too much, and a murmuring, unintelligible Auto-Tune drawl from Saint Jhn that’s just unpleasant, and for a song called “Roses”, is kind of eerie, and overall, the song is just kind of boring and underwhelming, although I’ll admit the vocal melodies and ideas are there, and I especially like the synths in the later parts of the chorus. What this needed to push it over the edge was a 19-year-old guy from Kazakhstan and I’m not joking; I love this house version. The pitch-shifted, almost chipmunk, rendition of the vocals could be obnoxious to some people but to me it adds so much energy and quirk to an otherwise dry performance from Jhn, and the beat in this version has such an infectious synth bass, despite otherwise being a pretty standard house beat, with some vague horn inflections, traditional pop-house drum beat, and pretty cliché vocal samples, but the melodies I liked are still here, in fact the trap beat is partially kept in during the chorus, and touches like that are pretty nice. The slog of the verses have a lot more groove to them sped-up too. Yeah, I enjoy this, and it’s a massive improvement over the original. Big up Kazakhstan.

#32 – “Pee Pee” – M Huncho

Produced by ADP

Honestly, if the form of protest against Brexit is only demonstrated into making songs chart, I’d like to think that the children all around Britain have all decided to make it clear that Brexit is pee pee, and I couldn’t be more proud. This is M Huncho’s third UK Top 40 hit and from his album Huncholini the 1st... this guy is a joke, right? He even wears a mask to be anonymous, but it’s not for personal or even gang-related reasons. It’s just a cartoon mask that he says is supposed to accentuate the message of the music. What’s the message of this song then, Mr. Huncholini?

When I bust my nut, I go and take a pee pee

Inspiring. I’m tempted to just leave it at that, actually – can I? Yeah? Are you sure? Okay, well, that’s all, then.

Conclusion

Honestly, “Pee Pee” isn’t even that bad, and it’s not getting the Dishonourable Mention. That’s going to “Play Play” by J Hus featuring Burna Boy, with Worst of the Week going to that crap rendition of “Ode to Joy”. I don’t have much to praise here, but I might as well give Best of the Week to “Roses” by Saint Jhn, purely for the Imanbek remix, as if it were the original only, it could easily get the Dishonourable Mention. Honourable Mention goes to “Big Conspiracy” by J Hus featuring iceé tgm, just barely. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank, I’ll see you next week!

REVIEWING THE CHARTS 2020

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 4 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS 2020: 10/01

So: REVIEWING THE CHARTS 2020. We’ve got the second episode here, and we’ve already stagnated. Hey, I’m not complaining. It’s really boring and we’ve got nothing to talk about with the exception of the top five new arrival, but let’s agree that we’d really not want to talk about that one either. Here’s the top 10.

Top 10

Stormzy’s “Own It” featuring Burna Boy and Ed Sheeran is still at the top for its second week at #1. I can’t really see a threat to this as of yet, but we’ll see.

“Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi hasn’t moved at number-two, the runner-up spot. To be honest, I don’t see this hitting the #1 but the charts are pretty unpredictable right now, so I can’t decide as of yet.

Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” sticks at number-three. I doubt it’ll get there, but let’s hope this hits #1.

“ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas is at number-four, the same from last week.

Now for our first and pretty much only headline here, “Yummy” by Justin Bieber, his new song that despite a massive promotional push, only debuted at number-five. You’d figure that Bieber would learn a lesson from Taylor Swift’s “ME!”, which is that pop veterans can’t just release Godawful singles and rely on name recognition anymore in the streaming era, at least enough for a #1. It’s his 45th Top 40 hit if I recall correctly (which is crazy), and about his 17th top 10, and somehow not his worst.

“Dance Monkey” by Tones and I is down one spot to number-six.

Surprisingly up a spot due to... well, seemingly no reason at all, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi has rebounded up eight spaces to number-seven. It’s been nearly a full freaking year since this song first charted and it won’t go away.

Sadly, due to “Yummy” and “Someone You Loved” rising, Billie Eilish’s “everything i wanted” is down two spots to number-eight but it could very much propel back up next week.

“Adore You” by Harry Styles is also a victim of the two songs, down two to number-nine.

Finally, we have a one-spot boost for “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd, which has reached #10, marking his ninth top 10 hit in the UK.

Climbers

There are actually a couple here, seemingly from “end-of-year UK hits” YouTube playlists? I don’t know; this happens often after the Christmas songs fade away because there are all of these playlists and different end-of-year commemorations. It would explain “Ride It” by Regard and “Bruises” by Lewis Capaldi both up 12 spaces to #11 and #12 respectively, as well as “Memories” by Maroon 5 up eight spots to #13, “Lose Control” by MEDUZA, Goodboys and Becky Hill up 16 spots to #31, “South of the Border” by Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B up 15 positions to #17, and finally “Circles” by Post Malone up seven spaces to #19. It doesn’t exactly explain “The Box” by Roddy Ricch up 24 spots to #16 though.

Fallers

There are quite a few honestly pretty surprising and unexpected fallers here, once again because of end-of-year commemorations allowing songs from the past year to have some sort of artificial boost. This leaves actual upcoming hit songs pretty much in the dust, such as “Pump it Up” by Endor down eight spots to #14, “This is Real” by Jax Jones featuring Ella Henderson collapsing nine spaces to #18, “Lose You to Love Me” by Selena Gomez tripping down 10 spaces to #20 just to rebound next week because of the album, “My Oh My” by Camila Cabello featuring DaBaby, as well as “Falling” by Trevor Daniel, seemingly losing all of their momentums since they’re down eight and nine spaces respectively to #21 and #23. The same seems to apply for Stormzy and Harry Styles as they’ve had pretty bad weeks: “Audacity” featuring Headie One is down 10 to #26, “Vossi Bop” is down 12 to #24, while “Watermelon Sugar” is down 12 to #29, and “Lights Up” is down 14 to #32. “Don’t Rush” by Young T & Bugsey with Headie One is down 11 to #31, as is “Gangsta” by Darkoo and One Acen at #33. “Heartless” by the Weeknd is also struggling down 13 spaces to #38, which is unfortunate as the song has only grown on me since its debut. Oh, and “In the Unknown” by Idina Menzel and AURORA from the Frozen II soundtrack is down 18 spaces to #37. Yikes.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

The climbers and fallers aren’t the only result of the end-of-year commemorations though, as we do have returning songs straight from the end-of-year list (Which I have ranked and will post on my Twitter as soon as possible). Those are “HIGHEST IN THE ROOM” by Travis Scott and remixed by ROSALIA and Lil Baby back at #25, “I Don’t Care” by Ed Sheeran featuring Justin Bieber at #27, “Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid at #28, “Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello at #30, “Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey at #36, “Turn Me On” by Riton, Vula and Oliver Heldens at #39 and “Outnumbered” by Dermot Kennedy back at #40. That does mean a hefty list of drop-outs however, including “Lucid Dreams” by Juice WRLD out from #27, “River” by Ellie Goulding thankfully out from #28, “No Cellular Site” by D-Block Europe also thankfully out from #29... in fact, I’m not complaining about any of this really. I can’t be upset about “Better Half of Me” by Tom Walker out from #30, “hot girl bummer” by blackbear out from #35, or even “No Idea” by Don Toliver out from #39. “Netflix & Chill” by Fredo is out from #34, and unfortunately, J Hus had both of his singles from the forthcoming album drop out this week: “No Denying” is out off of the debut from #33, and “Must Be” is out from #37... and that’s all other than the new arrivals, so I’d like to note that despite momentum being slashed in half by all these returns, there are some songs within the UK Top 75 that are promising; not all of them are good, but you can expect these songs from the tail-end of the top 75 debuting in the coming weeks after a good rise, probably even next week: “Up All Night” by Khalid, “Say So” by Doja Cat, “BOP” by DaBaby, “Ballin’” by Mustard featuring Roddy Ricch, “Suicidal” by YNW Melly and “July” by Noah Cyrus. I figured I should start doing this. Now for the new arrivals:

NEW ARRIVALS

#35 – “Savage” – MIST

Produced by Swifta Beater and Zeph Ellis

MIST is back... I guess. I’ve never found MIST very interesting, well, musically – I saw the dude on a really awful ITV2 comedy panel show thing, and he was pretty charismatic, so I have no idea why that’s not present in his music whatsoever. This is his fourth UK Top 40 hit however, and “So High” with Fredo has grown on me a bit since its release, so I figured this could be somewhat interesting... and you know what, MIST might have won me over with this one. The chipmunk vocal samples are catchy and the beat coming in so abruptly after the first line is just perfect. MIST’s content isn’t exactly all that unique, but some of the description of him shooting this man is pretty specific and intimidating. The beat is heavy with plummeting 808s and a sporadic trap drum pattern, and the part in the first verse where after he mentions his gun, a sound effect (Of said gun) plays, and the next line is a pitch-shifted “Cabbage (Bang)”. It’s just really funny, and adds some needed humour to the otherwise pretty menacing song. In fact, all of the three verses in this very short song (2 minutes and 26 seconds) have a really intense delivery from MIST, who really surprised me with his angry cadences and overall emotive performance here. The production is great but the mixing is at times slightly dodgy, so the bass does start clipping, but that’s mostly during the chorus, which is a repetitive vocal sample that does sound good, but at first is somewhat jarring and the sample is way too quiet to work as an anthem. The first two verses follow a strict rhyme scheme that is limiting but MIST makes the most of it, calling himself a “Birmingham assassin”, which again is a comedic turn of phrase to depict something that’s genuinely very dangerous. The third verse does feel out of place but I’d like to say that the rejection of the rhyme scheme and a calmer flow represents him abandoning the “Gangsta all the time” mantra and ideology that runs through the track. It still could sound better if there was some kind of beat switch, and in some way it does make the song seem underdeveloped, especially since the song fades out, which is just a really odd decision that doesn’t fit the song’s mood at all. Still, it’s a good song, a surprising one at that, and definitely my favourite from MIST.

#5 – “Yummy” – Justin Bieber

Produced by Poo Bear, Kid Culture and Sasha Sitora

On January 3rd, Justin Bieber, one of the biggest pop stars of the millennium, a viral star who has been a polarising figure in music for 11 years straight due to legal issues and a tsunami of online hatred. He released the single alongside a music video and a trailer to promote his new documentary, that also was a trailer for the song and his tour. Bieber joined TikTok and encouraged his fans to make TikTok videos of the song, him doing so as well, raking up millions of views not only on the app but on YouTube compilations. Four days later, he released autographed cassettes, autographed picture discs, SIX unique autographed CDs and FIVE unique autographed vinyl records. They were only available for 24 hours. There were also FIVE additional music videos released other than the official music video upon release and the audio. If that wasn’t enough, Billie Eilish suddenly started promoting the song, and soon afterwards, Bieber posted on Instagram a fan-made image asking for his fans to manipulate streaming numbers and get a VPN if they are not in the US, proving that this isn’t just a promotional push, it’s the #1 that Bieber and Scooter Braun want; whether it’s because Braun wanted the #1 to undermine Taylor Swift or because it’s bragging rights and label politics, we don’t know. This meant it was ever so funny when “Yummy” by Justin Bieber debuted at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, below a non-single without a music video, “The Box” by Roddy Ricch, celebrating its first week at #1 with a triumphant “err, ooh”. In fact, it’s never hit #1 in any country at all (As of yet). That’s just a beautiful moment when the entirety of the world unites to refuse streaming this garbage fuel of manufactured, plastic trash with headline-chasing references to Megan Thee Stallion and a falsetto from Bieber that’s as weak as ever. This is as out as touch as pop music could have possibly ever been in 2020. It’s a new decade but it seems like we’re regressing.

Conclusion

Yeah, it should be obvious that Worst of the Week is going to “Yummy” by Justin Bieber, but surprisingly, and also by default, MIST’s “Savage” takes Best of the Week. Good stuff; I hope it’s not a fluke. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank, I’ll see you next week.

REVIEWING THE CHARTS 2020

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 4 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 22nd December 2019

It’s the special Christmas episode – or at least the climax of many – of REVIEWING THE CHARTS, where we discuss the UK Top 40 every week without fail, with a complete disregard for my deteriorating mental state. Let’s start with the top 10 and finish what is essentially season two of this show.

Top 10

I’m sure everyone knows the Christmas #1 by now. I’ll talk more about it later, I actually have a lot to say, it’s British YouTuber LadBaby’s “I Love Sausage Rolls”, debuting at #1 much like he did last year. I’ll elaborate in more detail once we reach the new arrivals section.

Steady at the runner-up spot is “Own It” by Stormzy featuring Burna Boy and Ed Sheeran, sadly pipped at the post even with the release of his sophomore album, Heavy is the Head.

At number-three, actually up one space this week, is “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi.

It replaces “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa, down one spot to number-four.

We have our first true Christmas song in the top five this year next, as “Last Christmas” by WHAM! is up two spaces to number-five. It isn’t the first time it’s reached the top five, or even its highest placement, but I think they’ll settle for top five this year.

At number-six, we have another debut, the second of three in the top 10, and first of two for Stormzy: “Audacity”, a pre-release single from Heavy is the Head, or “Audacitiy”, as the BBC’s page, in its typical fashion, misspells horribly. It features Headie One, becoming Headie’s highest-peaking song ever, tied with “18HUNNA” featuring Dave, and fifth UK Top 40, as well as second top 10 entry. It’s Stormzy’s 20th UK Top 40 hit and also his ninth entry into the top ten.

At number-seven, we have “ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas, down two spaces to number-seven.

Also down two spaces, surprisingly, is “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey, despite the release of a new music video. In reality, all of the top 10 has probably gained in performance, and Carey here was a victim of LadBaby and Stormzy.

We have Stormzy’s third and final debut here, “Lessons”, at number-nine, this time solo, which is his 21st UK Top 40 hit and his tenth entry into the top ten.

Finally, at #10, we have a nine-spot crash for “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I, hurt by streaming cuts that dumb UK chart rules implement, but also would have possibly cost LadBaby the Christmas #1, and at least his song is vaguely Christmassy, unlike “Dance Monkey”, which would have otherwise spent a consecutive twelfth week at #1 hadn’t it jumped down to #10.

Climbers

We have one non-Christmas climber this week, and it’s “Falling” by Trevor Daniel up nine spaces to #26.

Fallers

We don’t actually have many of these, either, though, but we do have a handful at the tail-end of the chart: “Heartless” by the Weeknd is definitely in freefall, down 13 spaces to #35, whilst “Don’t Rush” by Young T & Bugsey with Headie One curiously goes down seven spaces to #37 after going up seven spaces last week, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi crashes down 11 positions to #38, and “Netflix & Chill” by Fredo collapses down 12 spots to #40.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

As always with these Christmas weeks, we have quite a few drop-outs, yet very little returning entries. Streaming cuts have dragged out “Memories” by Maroon 5 out from #10 (Thank God), and brought out two other garbage top 20 hits with it: “South of the Border” by Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B from #13, and “Lose Control” by MEDUZA, Goodboys and Becky Hill from #18. Sadly, a pretty fantastic top 20 hit, Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” featuring Ariana Grande, is out too from #20. Also out from middling positions last week, #37 and #38 respectively, are “Down Like That” by KSI featuring Lil Baby, Rick Ross and S-X, and “Into the Unknown” by Idina Menzel and AURORA, from the Frozen II soundtrack. Oh, yeah, and “Professor X” by Dave is out from #40.

In terms of returning entries, we only have one revolving around pretty depressing circumstances. The early death of 21-year-old emo-rapper Juice WRLD, one that we have seen a lot on this show, has propelled his song “Lucid Dreams” back to #27. For what it’s worth, the song has grown on me a lot since its release, and I’ve said my peace on the matter on Twitter. Rest in peace, Jared Higgins.

There is one returning entry and one drop-out that I’ve missed, but we’ll talk about them later.

IT’S CHIRSTMAS INNIT

First of all, the non-movers, climbers and fallers: If “River” by Ellie Goulding counts, it’s down three spots to #11, but otherwise... “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl is at #14, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens is at #16, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid is up two to #17, “Step into Christmas” by Elton John is up six to #19, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé is down one spot to #24, “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis is up four to #25, “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande is up three to #28, “I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard is up five to #29, “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade is up five to #31, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee is at #32 and “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson is up six to #33.

We have one Christmassy returning entry, and that is the festive albeit creepy “Santa’s Coming for Us” by Sia back at #36. Combined with the Christmassy new arrival and the songs within the top 10, that means we have within 15 to 17 holiday songs on the “Christmas chart” (More on that later). So, basically, we’re 50% Christmas here on the UK Top 40... arguably, disputably, whatever. Here are the Album Bomb(s)?

ALBUM BOMB(S)?: Heavy is the Head by Stormzy and Fine Line by Harry Styles

This is a pretty awkward album bomb as I’ve already covered most things about Stormzy in the Top 10 section and it’s really disputable if Harry Styles had an album bomb but he had one debut and one re-entry as well as a faller, all from the same album, so I’m counting that as an album bomb. Rod Stewart, however, the damned fool, didn’t get an album bomb however he got the Christmas #1 on the albums chart, trumping both UK rapper and songwriter Stormzy at #2, and former One Direction member and current rockstar Harry Styles at #3.

I haven’t heard Heavy is the Head but I’m excited to check it out. I’m weary of its length, but some of the features seem intriguing. Its impact on this chart is weakened by both UK chart rules only allowing for three songs and the fact that, well, it’s Christmas, technically. That would also explain why Harry Styles’ “Lights Up” dropped out from #33 this week, as it was the single that performed the least, whilst “Watermelon Sugar” is back at #18 and “Adore You” has dropped off one spot from its debut, landing at #12 on this chart. Before we even get to exciting new music from Stormzy, let’s cover some weaksauce garbage from Harry Styles.

#39 – “Falling” – Harry Styles

Produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson – Peaked at #62 in the US

Aw, do I have to? Well, I’ve already said how much I disliked Styles’ sophomore record and why, back on last episode (And the last paragraph) actually, so I don’t need to bring it up again. “Falling” is Styles’ fifth UK Top 40 hit, and the third best-performing song from the album; three is all allowed from one album on the UK Top 40. Styles had an actual album bomb on the Hot 100, and this one charted decently high there too. Also, fun fact: since Trevor Daniel is still here, this marks the first time in forever that two identically-named songs with entirely different lyrics and content (I.e., aren’t covers) have charted simultaneously. Somehow, and I dread to think, the Trevor Daniel song may be better. The pianos here are reverb-heavy and saturated so much to the point where I geta feeling of drab, moist dread, which is represented in the production overall, especially when Harry Styles belts and his vocals clip pretty heavily in the mix here. The lyrics are specific and do resonate to some extent, especially the self-referential and dare I say meta second verse, and I can’t exactly say Styles’ delivery is unconvincing, despite it reminding me too much of Lewis Capaldi than it probably should – you’re a much better singer than him or this, Harry. If the production wasn’t so shoddy and it wasn’t four plodding minutes, perhaps this gross, distorted excerpt of a power ballad wouldn’t be so excruciating, but alas, here we are. Good effort, I suppose.

#9 – “Lessons” – Stormzy

Produced by Ed Thomas

I have no idea what to expect. It’s the penultimate track on the album and it’s produced by some guy I don’t know. I haven’t been this clueless about a song before hearing it on this show in months, but it’s actually pretty high here because of how it touches upon Stormzy’s personal life, specifically his relationship with television presenter Maya Jama... and I really want to like this. The song is honest and soulful, with Stormzy admitting his faults in the relationship multiple times, and I enjoy the theme of childhood that he toys around with in the verses, but it’s really vague to exactly how he “disrespected” her, and I’m not asking for a vent that details his entire relationship with Jama but it feels somewhat insincere if the closest you get to a specific memory is either having candles lit up, which is overwhelmingly common, and pacing around the kitchen after a fight, “like this s**t is foul”. Some of these rhymes are also pretty painful. Rhyming “Maya” with “Maya”, and then, “fire” with “desire”? Come on, man, you’re better than that, and there is a lack of internal rhymes or even a comprehensive flow to the whole thing. I do like the vintage R&B beat with some very 90s keys sprinkled through the fake finger-snaps, and the blocky percussion is pretty smooth, albeit too stiff to make the chorus work at all, as it’s just really odd, aimless, multi-tracked rambling, with really half-hearted singing vocals from Stormzy. I don’t know, I really want to like this, but the content is overly vague, the production is dull and uninteresting, and the performance is just the same, as he sounds like he hasn’t slept in days. Maybe that’s the point? Probably, but it doesn’t make this song any more endearing. Sorry, I really wanted to like this, so a half-decent single here sounds like the biggest disappointment, but it’s just passable at best, really.

#6 – “Audacity” – Stormzy featuring Headie One

Produced by Fraser T. Smith

This is the banger of the record, with an up-and-coming UK drill rapper, that would burst onto the chart with a wham... whilst also being right next to WHAM!, but that’s a coincidence. T. Smith is on the boards, Stormzy and Headie One are on the mic, and they sound hungry. Any time Stormzy starts off a track with that trailing “It’s like...” ad-lib, I know it’s going to be ferocious, and this is what this track is. Over looming 808 bass and crawling synths, Stormzy is losing his breath, rasping through his bars because of his insistency to do an angered one-take, like a madman, and it sounds angry and really violent. I’m genuinely kind of scared, it kind of works like Bobby Schmurda’s “Hot Boy” because its purpose is to paint such a vivid picture of gang violence that it gives you goosebumps. Stormzy is talking about inexperienced rappers dissing him... and in the first verse, he goes into detail about why he wants to kill this man, in an oddly calm demeanour before he starts losing it once he starts talking about how he’s going to “skeng-fry his dome”, even accepting the gunsmoke (Both literally and figuratively) that this person tries to use to intimidate Stormzy as just weed smoke, which sounds a lot more savage than I made it sound. Headie One is more melodic on this mix of nasty grime synths and UK drill bass beats, but his more casual delivery really makes the pretty funny bars somewhat intoxicating, especially when he says, “Knowledge is power, ask Gandhi”, which is just hilariously nonsensical... but it’s still not great. It runs way too long at four minutes, and feels pretty repetitive and like a drone by the end, especially due to lack of a true climax. Also the beat just fades out and leaves Stormzy’s isolated vocal, which is abruptly cut off by the end too, so that just sounds awkward. I wish I liked this more, but it sounds more like a weak “Wiley Flow” than the anthemic “Vossi Bop” or the pounding “Sounds of the Skeng”. I still like it, though, it’s just a fair bit duller than Stormzy’s usual offerings in this trap banger lane. Speaking of that, I listened to “Big Michael” out of curiosity and that was freaking amazing, so why didn’t that chart instead of these comparatively mediocre offerings?

One week, it’s “Blinded by Your Grace” / Next week, it’s bang you in your face!

NEW ARRIVALS

#34 –“Happy Christmas (War is Over)” – John Legend

I have no production or chart data for this one, because, guess what? It’s another Christmassy cover song released by an aging and increasingly irrelevant pop star exclusively on platforms that provide more sales and hence boost its false chart placement. I’m glad this is only a holiday thing because it’d drive me up the wall if this was done often. Legend released his Christmas album in 2018, called A Legendary Christmas, and it included many covers, including the infamous “woke” “Baby it’s Cold Outside” rendition with Kelly Clarkson on the 2019 deluxe edition. Of course, this song’s not on said deluxe edition for whatever reason... he really couldn’t just cover a nice old Christmas song, he had to do the controversial songs, huh? The whole album is really disposable garbage filled with novelty and commercialised merriment. I used to really like this guy but he is far beyond receiving my best wishes at this point in his career. Uh, the original song is a hot mess as well. Let’s just get to the meat and potatoes, no pun intended.

#1 – “I Love Sausage Rolls” – LadBaby

Produced by LadBaby

No, not DaBaby. LadBaby. Okay, so, first of all, this potentially isn’t the true “Christmas #1”, as after all, this chart was released before Christmas Day and doesn’t count sales that were made on December 25th, although the press seems to have accepted this as the Christmas #1, and have highly publicised it as such, so I’m allowing it, even though I guess you could dispute that. Second of all, LadBaby is a YouTuber who makes comedy videos or vlogs or something? I don’t know, I don’t pay attention. The video for this that they showed on Top of the Pops (Yes, this was aired on Top of the Pops) had his family in, all wearing sausage roll outfits, so maybe he’s a family vlogger? Speaking of those outfits, the same family is featured on the cover, which is a parody of the famous Abbey Road album cover by the Beatles. Not only is that not a Christmas album but it equally doesn’t work because this is a parody of a Joan Jett song, “I Love Rock and Roll”. Finally, LadBaby got to the top before with “We Built This City” in 2018, a parody of the Starship song with the exact same punchline as this one. Bottom line, this is just a novelty song with a dumb punchline and pretty terrible production, because as with all YouTube songs, it sounds cheap and very royalty-free. These guys can’t sing, especially not LadBaby himself, but it really doesn’t matter because we’re not supposed to actually listen to this. We’re supposed to listen once and have a chuckle, and move on, but sadly, this isn’t even funny enough for me to snigger. I’m not a fan, and if Tones and I’s song hadn’t crashed as hard as it did thanks to dumb UK chart rules, LadBaby would be even less liable to stick the landing next year, and I really hope he doesn’t.

Conclusion

On principle, I feel like giving a tied Worst of the Week to John Legend for his annoying exclusivity and really garbage album that “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” is connected to, alongside LadBaby, for hitting the #1 spot with a cheap novelty song in “I Love Sausage Rolls”, which is a joke he’s done before, instead of Stormzy or, you know, an actual Christmas song. In reality, I haven’t heard the John Legend song and I don’t even want to, and the LadBaby song isn’t really worth getting angry about. The Best of the Week is just as hard to pick due to the sheer lack of quality on display here, but I’ll give it to Stormzy and Headie One for “Audacity”, I guess.

I hope you guys enjoyed this second season of REVIEWING THE CHARTS – I know it was a rocky one, but we got there in the end. I can’t really say happy holidays because I’m a day or two late from Christmas but I’ll definitely say thank you for reading this past year. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week – but that’ll be next season, and possibly next year.

0 notes

deadcactuswalking · 4 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 1st December 2019

REVIEWING THE CHARTS SPEEDRUN – 1:20 (WR)

Top 10

For the eighth consecutive week, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I is at #1.

Up a whopping 17 spaces off of the debut last week is “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi hits number-two, becoming his fifth top ten hit in the UK.

At number-three, we have Stormzy’s big debut for the final single from his upcoming sophomore album, Heavy is the Head. With the album release, this can likely get to #1, but for now, “Own It” featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy has debuted at number-three. It’s Stormzy’s 19th UK Top 40 hit and eighth placement in the top 10, Sheeran’s 53rd UK Top 40 hit (Jesus Christ – that might actually be an inaccurate figure since I manually counted) and 27th top 10, and Burna Boy’s highest-ever peaking song and both his third UK Top 40 and top 10 hit.

The two new top three entries sadly crush Dua Lipa’s hopes at a #1, as “Don’t Start Now” is down two spaces to number-four. Let’s hope the Christmas period isn’t too rough on this track.

Billie Eilish’s “everything i wanted”, is also down two off of the debut at number-five, fairing a lot better than I expected it to, to be honest.

Lewis Capaldi is two-for-two in the top 10, as “Bruises” is steady at number-six.

Unfortunately, Arizona Zervas is up to number-seven with the clunker that is “ROXANNE”... trust me, I’ll be covering this in about a month, although not to that much of an extent. My year-end worst list seems to be pretty small and uninteresting this year, actually.

“Memories” by Maroon 5 is down three spaces to number-eight. God, that sounded like an AI-written sentence.

At number-nine, we have Ed Sheeran’s pathetic “South of the Border” featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B continuing to fall down two spaces this week.

Finally, at #10, finishing off the top 10, is “Down Like That” by KSI, Rick Ross, Lil Baby and S-X, becoming what I’m pretty sure is the first UK top 10 hit for all artists here, although I could be wrong about that. Congratulations, I suppose, although the song is far from great.

Climbers

I am my own best source when fact-checking what the BBC site says. I don’t go to the Official Chart Company’s UK Singles Chart, I don’t go to ACharts, I go to last week’s REVIEWING THE CHARTS, especially for situations like this, in which BBC messes it up so badly that I’m confused to how they messed it up in the first place. BBC says that “Pump it Up” by DJ Endor, is down nine to #29. The issue is that it is placed after #20, and #22 continues after it. After looking at my climbers section last week, I found that “Pump it Up” by Endor was already at #29... last week. So, “Pump it Up” by Endor is up eight spaces to #21... and “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles is up seven spaces off of the debut to #28. BBC got that one wrong, too.

Fallers

There are only a couple here. We have the unfortunate continuing fall for the great “Must Be” by J Hus down seven spots only on its third week down to #20, as well as a couple of massive songs that have probably had their on-demand streaming numbers cut. It sounds about time for “Ride It” by Regard featuring Jay Sean and “Circles” by Post Malone to be affected by that arbitrary chart rule and they have, as they’re now down 21 and 26 spaces respectively, at #25 and #35. Oh, and “Paper Cuts” by Dave continues to flop down 10 spaces at #40.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

We have a pretty plentiful number of drop-outs and, uncommon for the UK Top 40, two returning entries. The drop-outs are all reasonable and in order of their last chart position (For now, at least), we have “Buss Down” by Aitch featuring ZieZie getting its streaming cut from #21, Dermot Kennedy’s ballad “Outnumbered” finishing its run at #23, “Jerry Sprunger” by Tory Lanez featuring T-Pain flubbering off of the debut last week from #32 after Chixtape 5 fails to continue its hype beyond the first week, “Post Malone” by Sam Feldt featuring RANI dropping out from #34, “Follow God” by Kanye West embarrassing itself out from #36, “Opp Thot” by Poundz suffering from the amount of new and returning entries from #37 (This one’s the most likely to rebound), “Lover” by Taylor Swift dropping out from #38 despite returning last week and the release of the first dance remix, and finally, as expected from last week, “Take Me Back to London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy and remixed by Sir Spyro featuring Aitch and Jaykae, is out from #40. Hopefully, I never have to type that mouthful again. Our first returning entry is “Orphans” by Coldplay returning to #27 after dropping out from last week, thanks to the album release. Our second, well...

IT’S CHRISTMAS INNIT

It’s starting! We have a second returning entry this week in the top 40, and it’s “All I Want Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey at #34, which is making a play for #1 in the US. I’ve already reviewed the song last year, and I just love this song even more now, to be honest. That’s the only Christmas song in the top 40 (For now), but I figured I should just mention the other Christmas songs in the top 75. “Fairytale of New Yorks” by the Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl is back at #71, “Last Christmas” by WHAM! is at #43... and that’s all for now. We’ll definitely have more to fill out the new It’s Christmas Innit section next week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#39 – “Can’t Fight This Feeling” – Bastille featuring the London Contemporary Orchestra

Produced by Mara Carlyle and Hugh Brunt – Peaked at #4 in Scotland

It’s not exactly an unpopular opinion to admit that the original REO Speedwagon version of “Can’t Fight This Feeling” from 1984 is an incredibly well-written pop song, especially for the time, but real talk: I don’t like that version of the song at all. While I can’t deny the anthemic chorus, the song is such a slog at nearly five freaking minutes and it is exhaustingly dull. I was actually quite interested in hearing the full version of the cover, as the John Lewis Christmas advert always has a hit single to go along with it, in fact the next song I’ll be reviewing includes an artist who got their big break from John Lewis... and it’s only three minutes, and better yet, features the London Contemporary Orchestra in their first credited UK Top 40 appearance. I also like Dan Smith’s voice a hell of a lot more than I do Kevin Cronin’s. Notably, for a bit of trivia, this isn’t a John Lewis-exclusive single, as it features on a Waitrose advert as well. Huh. Anyway, is Bastille’s eighth UK Top 40 hit any good? Well, I feel it’s misleading to call it a Bastille song as this is very much Dan Smith crooning over an admittedly pretty gorgeous and busy orchestral rendition of the original Speedwagon single. Smith does sound overwhelmed in the mix by the strings at times, and the dude has a couple weak moments at times, especially during the verses, but he mostly holds his own and I’m always a sucker for some well-placed horns riffing out of nowhere. Even then, I don’t think the song is all that great, and nearly two minutes in, there’s a really abrupt, distorted string riff that clips heavily and it just sounds gross. Do I prefer it to the original REO Speedwagon song? Of course I do – it’s nearly half the length and I’m a fan of both Bastille and well... the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack, as the tones of this instrumentation do resemble that at points (Which is never a bad thing). Oh, and I love the addition of the twinkly pianos at the end as a nice touch. Otherwise, it’s pretty good, but I don’t see it reaching the heights of the Lily Allen’s cover of “Somewhere Only We Know”, also from the John Lewis advert, that peaked at #1 in 2013. I guess it didn’t warm the cockles of my cockles.

#36 – “Into the Unknown” – Idina Menzel and AURORA – from the Frozen II soundtrack

Produced by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez and Christophe Beck – Peaked at #55 in the US and #5 in South Korea

I don’t know or care about Frozen II. I am not a film person; I watch about five movies a year, and they typically aren’t boring Disney sequels that pose no interest for someone who has already seen the first film. I don’t think the sequel will ever reach the absolute phenomena that the original Frozen was because that era starting from 2013 is impossible to match, even for the monopoly that is Disney. This is Idina Menzel, or as most people know her, Elsa’s fourth UK Top 40 hit excluding those that she had as part of the Glee cast and AURORA’s second after the indie darling’s brief stint of fame she experienced due to covering the Oasis B-side from 1994 that was attached to a standalone single that peaked at #3 and got them sued by Neil Innes of Monty Python fame. AURORA’s version was featured in a John Lewis advert in 2015 and peaked at #11, and then she became a folktronica-influenced art pop songstress, who is still getting calls from companies to promote their products, despite the inaccessibility of her newer material. Regardless, this is “Let it Go” part two, or at least Disney’s attempt at one, and I have no idea what relevance this has to the film, but the song itself is okay, although it struggles, as do a lot of cinematic, orchestral show tunes, with structure and a lack of transitions that make the shifts in sections any less abrupt, as at times, it does feel like a certain string section is off-beat simply because you’re never prepared for what’s coming next. AURORA’s verse has a lot of odd empty space, and overall, her presence seems to kill the momentum of the song entirely, even if the chorus has a lot of swell despite some painful, dry mixing that Disney tends to have. Also, this will not be the next “Let it Go”. It’s way too disjointed and not nearly catchy enough, and nobody will be able to hit the belting notes these guys do in the chorus... except maybe Brendon Urie, who in fact did hit those notes in his inferior cover that debuted at #74 (Might be one of the first times since at least 2016 where both the US and the UK have had the same song twice on their charts). Weezer have a song on this soundtrack, too, called “Lost in the Woods”, and I kind of like it, to be honest, with some pretty cool, chugging guitar riffs and great harmonies from Cuomo in the pre-chorus. It’s kind of reminiscent fo the White Album, but I digress. “Into the Unknown” is listenable; next!

#35 – “French Kisses” – ZieZie featuring Aitch

Produced by Tré Jean-Marie

This might not be listenable, however. Aitch was the worst part of their last collaboration, “Buss Down”, which ironically dropped out this week (It’s almost like they called the Official Charts Company and asked them to switch the two out), with ZieZie being equally mediocre, although in his chorus, he was pretty cool, and in the verse, he was vile. I don’t have high expectations is what I’m saying. What a fitting producer for this song, though, and it’s ZieZie’s third and Aitch’s sixth UK Top 40 hit, so... eh? I actually quite like the vintage French vocal and string sample used here, but it’s abruptly drowned out by a bass-heavy Afroswing beat that sounds pretty okay but ZieZie doesn’t play it cool here, reaching into his relatively non-existent higher register in both the chorus and his verse, although admittedly that pre-chorus has some swagger. The post-chorus, on the other hand, has a nasal repetition of nonsense sounds, and Aitch just... Jesus, man, what the hell WAS that? He sounds half-dead, and his monotonous flow is continually harbouring on off-beat! His lyrical content is far from interesting either as he follows the main theme of the song, which is “I’ll give this girl French kisses and make her girl, “ooh-la-la”.” It’s a bit of a flimsy concept, and to quote a geography teacher, there isn’t enough place-specific detail to really excuse this dreck. This is pretty disposable.

#31 – “Loyal” – PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake

Produced by Dregotjuice, OG Parker and 40 – Peaked at #63 in the US and #19 in Canada

Alright, well, I’m surprised this debuted so high but I’m not surprised it’s here. I’ve only ever liked PARTYNEXTDOOR on uncredited guest appearances (“Ghost Town” by Kanye and “Ratchet Happy Birthday” by Drake) so that doesn’t exactly bode well for him. I assume this will be a very Views or More Life-type song, which also doesn’t bode well as those albums are some of Drake’s worst but obviously have a very large PARTYNEXTDOOR influence. I don’t have much hope for this, but it’s PARTYNEXTDOOR’s third UK Top 40 hit (First as lead artist), and God knows how many of those Drake has at this point. The song starts off well with some lo-fi keys that could make a very smooth R&B ballad... but then the snares come in and it’s obvious this is some garbage. PARTYNEXTDOOR sounds checked-out as does Drake, although at times PARTY decides to just belt and it sounds freaking awful. It’s almost hilarious, actually. To be honest, the synths paint a really pretty atmosphere behind the Young Thug impersonator with the out-of-place “Ayy” ad-libs and the 808s that cover any sense of lead melody. This barely has a groove or melody to catch onto, and Drake’s heavily Auto-Tuned which leads me to believe he just came into the studio for about five minutes whilst drunk. It sounds like both of these lads are drunk, actually. Honestly, I’ve been nice. This is disposable, mediocre garbage, although the outro does seem promising, with some nice strings and cute synths... but I doubt that’ll lead to anything good on the album, if it even does. I doubt PARTY has that foresight. God, this guy is really only good for uncredited backing vocals, huh?

#16 – “New Dior” – DigDat and D-Block Europe

Produced by RXR Music

Okay, this song debuting high shouldn’t be a surprise. D-Block Europe get this high purely off of YouTube and Spotify every few weeks, and they’ve gotten to their highest peak of #16 before with “Kitchen Kings” and even “Nookie” featuring Lil Baby. DigDat, on the other hand, has never reached this high with one of his three UK Top 40 singles, not even “Guten Tag” with Hardy Caprio, which I’m still impressed by and don’t think he’ll make anything as good as that anytime soon, especially not with these two hacks. Young Adz and... the other one have consistently proved to be some of the most untalented yet also the funniest duo from this crop of British rap of recent years. I can’t take these guys seriously, and I know they want me to. This starts as all D-Block Europe songs do, with some incoherent murmuring from Young Adz and nonsensical guitar strumming, but this one has a lot of momentum initially, with Young Adz’s comedic inflections in the chorus (Which is all he has: for once, he doesn’t provide a verse) failing to cover up the hilariously cheap producer tag... but Goddamn it, I like it. I’ll admit, this is a pretty decent song all things considered. First of all, Sean Donoghue, the mixer of this song, sorted out the issues D-Block Europe constantly have with vocal mixing, and to be honest, now that I’ve got to hear his voice a lot better, Young Adz may be more talented of a singer than I thought, although he sticks to a pretty monotone cadence here. In the post-chorus, Young Adz genuinely raps pretty well, and the 808 hits that pound through the beat are a cool addition, as are the yells that act as screaming ad-libs throughout the chorus. DigDat is on-brand, and by that I mean a misogynist and untrusting gangster, but he has two verses here, and they both detail his court case with his brother – not in great detail, but it’s really interesting how he depicts his materialistic mindset failing to let prison tame him. It’s kind of emotional, which is something I never expected D-Block Europe to be. Dirtbike LB is just extra weight as always, although his line about telling his mother that Percocets aren’t vitamins is kind of funny. For once, I think these guys have won me over... well, this song has. I still don’t think these guys are any good, and this may be a complete fluke, but I don’t care. This song is good.

#3 – “Own It” – Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy

Produced by Fred Gibson and Jay Weathers

Somehow, I have less hope in this song than I do D-Block Europe’s. Since I’ve already said everything else about this song in the top 10 section, I can skip the pre-amble and get this done pretty quickly. I like the sporadic vocal samples, they have a crowd cheering effect and a sound you can genuinely attribute to found footage rather than some sampled pack. Stormzy doesn’t sound great here, in fact, he sounds asleep and oddly distorted, clipping in the mix several times in the chorus. The synths here are airy and boring, the groove is stiff, the ad-libs are awkward and the beat cuts out for no reason when they come in. Burna Boy comes in with Stormzy on the chorus and for a random bridge / interlude, so I don’t know his purpose here and it makes the song feel very disjointed. The extra glittery synths in the post-chorus are really nice-sounding, and Ed Sheeran can sing better than any of these guys, so he somehow gets the crown of the best verse here, especially due to the harmonies with his multi-tracked vocals and Burna Boy’s. I don’t like Ed, but he definitely brought his talent here, even though his vocodered contributions on the chorus are pretty gross, in fact the mixing on the song entirely is pretty gross – and muddy. Everything sounds a lot more distorted and loud than it should. Is it disappointing? For Stormzy, yes, but for a Stormzy collaboration with Ed Sheeran and extra baggage Burna Boy, it’s about what I expected.

Conclusion

Well, Best of the Week goes to... DigDat and D-Block Europe. Colour me surprised, but “New Dior” is actually pretty good, and Honourable Mention goes to Bastille and the London Contemporary Orchestra for their improvement on the REO Speedwagon classic, “Can’t Fight This Feeling”. Worst of the Week is definitely going to PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake for “Loyal”, and Dishonourable Mention... uh, sure, ZieZie and Aitch. “French Kisses”. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank and I’ll see you next week!

0 notes