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deadcactuswalking · 1 year

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 01/04/2023 (Ed Sheeran, Jimin, Paris Paloma)

Welp, you knew it was coming. Or, really, he was coming. Ed Sheeran takes the #1 from Miley Cyrus with his new single debuting at the top, “Eyes Closed”. More on that later but for now, welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, even on this busy week, we start with our notable dropouts – songs that are exiting the UK Top 75 (which is what I cover) after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week includes many of the debuts from last week, which is no surprise, including “Set Me Free Pt.2” by Jimin, but we’ll get back to him. Otherwise, we say farewell to “I Wrote a Song” by Mae Muller (it’ll be back in May), “PAINTING PICTURES” by Superstar Pride, “Weekends” by Freya Riding, “In Ha Mood” by Ice Spice, “Martin’s Sofa” by Headie One, “Pointless” by Lewis Capaldi, “Lavender Haze” by Taylor Swift, “Hide & Seek” by Stormzy and “Save Your Tears” by The Weeknd (again). There’s always one week per season or so where you can tell the hit parade is having a drastic change over the seasons, and this may be that week where we see that spring turnover – finally.

As for what’s filling in the blanks, well, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi and “Afraid to Feel” by LF SYSTEM are back seemingly at random at #65 and #72 but we also have two artists with albums impacting the chart in our returning entries, both of which we’ll talk about in detail with our batch of new songs. Firstly, “The Kind of Love We Make” by Luke Combs is back at #75, and secondly, Lana Del Rey takes “A&W” back up to #45 – neither reach new peaks, and it really would have been great to see “A&W” in the top 40, but both are great songs and I’m glad they’re back, though again, like much of this week, I’ll say more on them later. As for our notable gains, we see “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen at #66 (I imagine a lot of people will be bothered that this is a thing – not me), “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran getting residual hype at #55, “Oh Baby” by Nathan Dawe and Bru-C featuring Issey Cross and bshp at #41, “Hell n Back” by Bakar at #35 off of the debut, “Pretty Boys” by Caity Baser at #30 and finally, “REACT” by Switch Disco featuring Ella Henderson and the late Robert Miles at #26. I’m not exactly pleased about all of this, but what can you do?

Now before we get into our new entries, we can cover the top five, where we see “Die for You” by The Weeknd at #5, “People” by Libianca at #4 and “Miracle” by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding at #3. “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus has been pushed down to #2 by our ginger prophet’s debut, which we’ll cover at the end, but we’ve got a country song, a posthumous single, a K-pop track and Lana Del Rey album cuts to talk about so... joy. Let’s just get into them.

NEW ARRIVALS

#73 – “The Light” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Gezin, Hurtboy AG, ManOhManFoster and Max Lord

Even more posthumous singles from Juice feels like overkill at this point. I know the man recorded thousands of unreleased tracks but the way that the label and management feels the need to create genuine single and album rollouts has gone way beyond “feeding the fans” and into just pure exploitation territory, which is kind of sad because well, a lot of these songs aren’t even bad. This one... absolutely is, and honestly makes me mad. Juice’s vocals are drenched in reverb and echo that distance it even further from this obnoxiously programmed attempt at emo-pop, with drum mixing that sounds genuinely horrible, louder than any kind of melody that the song finds, but with too many cooks producing the track and Juice’s vocals still clearly an unfinished demo where we hear punch-ins just so he can try and find the beat, there’s not much melody to offer either. At some point they give up and put a trite trap beat under the whole song like some kind of amateur YouTube remix. I didn’t even notice initially but the more I researched, I found out that this was actually censored. I thought why of course, since none of the others had been censored, and honestly, I can’t seem to find much of a reason: they even uncensored one line about hoes being pretentious because fans complained. They reworked and censored a dead man’s art for what I can only assume are financial reasons in order to make it more accessible and radio-friendly, only for his fans – who otherwise eat up all of the posthumous garbage the label gives them (which is the label’s fault, not theirs) – to actually push back against it and force them into changing that one line and none of the others. This is an embarrassing and pathetic attempt, and the fact that it debuted so low may prove that people are sick of this grave-robbing schtick, and God, I hope so. The fact that this was originally intended to be a love song makes the label scum involved in revamping it seem even less sympathetic: I probably wouldn’t have liked the song if he was alive and fully involved in its production, but at least then it’d be a genuine track, released by someone who can consent to its release and adjust it to get to his artistic vision. Over three years after Juice’s death, that prospect is clearly no longer possible, and the flagrantly cash-grabbing label snabs to replicate the success and resonance he had with his audience is utter disrespect. The less Juice WRLD I cover from now on in this series, the better, because every time I do, it’s just a truly sad experience.

#71 – “Flip a Switch.” – RAYE

Produced by Di Genius, RAYE and Mike Sabath

I was a tad underwhelmed with My 21st Century Blues as a whole because it has most of the expected debut effort scruffiness and confusion in what it actually wishes to convey. With that said, it’s an honest album – one that kicks itself in the foot in order to be so – and has some beautiful songs... “Flip a Switch.” is not one of them. Sure, I like the harmonies in the intro, but otherwise I find it an oddly dull kiss-off about a guy who clearly didn’t want RAYE for love and just for sex, so it leads her to a similarly vengeful and careless mindset. It’s a cool enough sentiment and definitely one RAYE can deliver with both power and nuance – Hell, she did just that in “Escapism.” – but against this hybrid, mono-genre beat, anything she sings is going to sound disappointing, especially when her hypnotic harmonies are lost behind a deadpan performance from RAYE that kind of just sucks, I’m sorry. The writing’s okay, but the flailing acoustic guitars and sterile drums are not, and her lack of casuality in any of her rap flows becomes increasingly obvious with this one wherein she’s forced to rap for the whole song and she basically just loses any of her power on the mic. It just ends up sounding actually dead, which may have been the point, but without a bridge that actually, you know, sounds like a bridge, or any kind of further narrative, there’s not much of promise to be found on this mediocre production and one of RAYE’s worst performances, outside of those backing harmonies which again are great. It’s just a shame that the rest of the song really isn’t.

#70 – “Fast Car” – Luke Combs

Produced by Chip Matthews and Jonathan Singleton

Ohio singer Tracy Chapman first released “Fast Car” in 1988, and it became a top five single here in the UK, peaking at #5 in its original run and since kind of becoming a beloved classic. It reached a new peak of #4 in 2011 and for some reason became victim of several terrible tropical house remixes, with Jonas Blue’s version featuring Dakota out-peaking the original at #2. Now my favourite rendition of “Fast Car” will always be how it was sampled in the rap classic “Sometimes I Rhyme Slow” by Nice & Smooth, but the original is a pretty undisputed song so I was interested to hear how the UK’s favourite country star (not exactly the highest bar) would tackle it. As is, Chapman’s “Fast Car” is a beautiful folk-pop track about the cycle of life, starting with escapism: chasing their dreams with their partner and just driving away is a necessity with the tragic background, yet that backstory ends up informing how her partner ends up acting, just like her father, and Chapman takes a stand against it using the exact same motto they used to get together in the first place: “leave tonight, or live and die this way”. It turns out that it isn’t what it seems, and it’s a bittersweet song, sure, but there’s satisfaction in how much confidence Chapman has gained since, and still finds a lot of time to reminisce on the earlier escapism of that relationship. Does Luke Combs do it justice? Well, it’s hard to say for me; he does do it more justice than Jonas Blue but that’s a given. I do love his delivery as always, as he just has a BIG voice, giving more power – alongside the more conventional, streamlined country production – to the narrative and really amplifying the drama. He doesn’t change the narrative much either, even still calling himself a “checkout girl” in the verse, which I think is a great choice. It feels more like he’s elevating another voice than really lifting his own... which honestly works in this context. The album’s called Gettin’ Old – part of that is understanding other peoples’ stories and integrating what you learn from them into how you live your own life. If “Fast Car” is your choice to cover in order to express that, I’d say they’re some pretty damn good lessons to learn. It’s a great song, really difficult to mess up especially in this acoustic sound.

#68 – “Candy Necklace” – Lana Del Rey featuring Jon Batiste

Produced by Zach Dawes, Lana Del Rey, Nick Waterhouse and Ian Doerr

No, I didn’t listen to that new Lana Del Rey album. Who do you think I am, someone who listens to Lana Del Rey albums? I barely have the time to read her album and song titles in full. I’m also not largely a fan of Lana, so having two tracks to cover here is not exactly exciting, but they do both have features so maybe it won’t be too bad – and hey, I loved “A&W”, so this could be good? I’d introduce Jon Batiste but I mean, he won Album of the Year in 2022 without anyone knowing who the Hell he is, so I think he’ll be fine. This is a song about young love, about Lana’s brain shutting off when she’s with this restless guy and all his innocent little candy necklaces, though you wouldn’t know it based off of the whispery vocals and intense pianos that eventually have credence given to them by the second verse, where for whatever reason, this relationship is bringing her down... with a pretty cheesy implementation of an A Tribe Called Quest reference before the chorus continues basically as if that verse didn’t happen. Now Lana is an albums artist; I fully expect that context is required and provided by the album, and this fits into a larger narrative, but considering how minimal the song is outside of the manic piano solo, I don’t get a lot from this song as it stands on its own, especially since Batiste could really have played off Lana for the whole song to give more detail and only ever shows up at the end for a final mantra. It just ends up kind of disappointing by the end, which is a shame because there’s something more to tassle with here.

#48 – “Paris, Texas” – Lana Del Rey featuring SYML

Produced by Jack Antonoff and Lana Del Rey

Okay, well, I will introduce SYML, since I had to look up who this was myself, and it’s the stage name for Seattle musician Brian Fennell, who does not provide vocals and is rather just sampled for the instrumental, though it fits very well into the sprinkling piano sound of the other Lana album cut we covered. I like how she specifies she is going to Americanised, diluted versions of these important European cities, it adds some cohesiveness and depth to the meandering track that absolutely makes use of that meander: it’s about moving on, even if it’s not onto anything all that new or special. If you’re no longer enveloped in that scenery, maybe it’s just time to go, and with her frail falsetto floating over acoustic guitars, it’s a pretty breezy track that exemplifies that feeling of not really being “home” in one place but still having the constant mindset of having to move around and venture into new place, only for the outro to kind of confirm the fears of this moving around all being a tad pointless. Surely, when you know you’re right at home, you will be, right? The framing can definitely be interpreted as about a relationship (or more than one), but I prefer the idea of it just being about uncertainty and not knowing where you can actually feel safe. It’s something that resonates with me particularly, not because I moved around a lot but because there’s no place that actually feels like home for me... except music. Okay, let’s not get too sappy on this, we’re only at #48 and I already put way too much emotional depth into two other new entries so far. It’s an excellent song, and I’ll leave it at that. The original SYML instrumental isn’t half bad either, but the Lana version adds a lot more depth.

#38 – “Fly Girl” – FLO featuring Missy Elliott

Produced by MNEK, LiTek and WhYJay

I really wanted to like this. The original “Work It” is undeniable and a song that hit #6 here in the UK in 2002, though I’m surprised it never reached any higher. This new song with promising girl group FLO is heavily based on that 2000s banger and... it’s just a mess. The first verse mentions a checklist and that’s absolutely what it is: does it have a slick R&B acoustic guitar line? Yes. Does it have an overpowering hip hop rhythm section with hard bass? Yes. Does it have good enough harmonies with lyrics about being fly, sexy and independent? Yes. Does it interest me? Well, kind of, but not for the right reasons – it seems like it’s checking all of the boxes, but the guitars sound like MIDIs, the “Work It” sample takes the reversed section and makes it sound oddly eerie, and Missy’s ad-libs throughout have way more energy than FLO do. I can’t really tell the difference between the girls yet – it took me a couple years for Little Mix even – and they do sound good together but the strings and bass just kind of protrude in a way that has less groove or nuance and instead just sounds kind of funny. That’s before we get to the trap breakdown which gives up on itself as soon as it kicks in, and the same goes in general for the warped bass in that second verse, or the build-up in the pre-chorus that anticlimactically stops bothering for the chorus. There is an uncharacteristically gritty beat switch that completely messes the song’s momentum in order for a mediocre Missy Elliott verse, even if she has some great lines and still as much effortless swag as she ever had. The problem is that she doesn’t have much room, with very little time and a lot of interruptions from FLO. The final chorus is genuinely so overwhelming I have nothing to say about it, and alongside the chorus with the staccato, Auto-Tuned riffing, random spoken word is that same interjected “Work It” sample which just comes in with no sense of sequencing. It’s bizarre, and only kind of in a fun way. Honestly, I’m just kind of glad there is a song this obviously messy and grandiose, hyper-focused on being as all over the place as possible, in the top 40 because if there’s anything about the 2000s I miss, it’s the guilty pleasure.

#29 – “labour” – Paris Paloma

Produced by Justin Glasco

Okay, I’ll bite: who the Hell is Paris Paloma? Well, they are a folksy pop singer with this being their breakout hit, and through some clunky, kind of old-fashioned writing, in not a dissimilar way to Hozier last week, condemns the patriarchy and misogyny, although Paloma is much more personal, focusing on a betrayal in what could be seen as a relationship but also the wider world that promises opportunity but really makes you work for it, with the elite playing God around you. It’s a good lyrical and thematic concept, but I don’t really like the song: Paloma is not an interesting or unique voice in the indie pop scene, and whilst there is some grit to the darker folk touches here that feel almost gothic, honestly, the chorus is pretty underwhelming. With some more electric guitar and less focus on the muddy, mono-genre-sounding bass and stomp-rock drums, I think I’d like this quite a bit, and be more able to get past the clunky lyrics that I think at least prove a point. In fact, the semi-sincere apologies and scathing attacks on this guy alongside a pretty smoky instrumental makes her sound kind of badass... but not enough, especially not if Justin Glasco’s going to make her sing over 2012-era Imagine Dragons. This is a good song just waiting to come out and prove itself, but the production holds it back – regardless, I’m actually interested to hear more from Paris Paloma if this brand of Tumblr folk pop is going to make a resurgence, just out of curiosity if anything.

#8 – “Like Crazy” – Jimin

Produced by Pdogg and GHSTLOOP

I knew there was hype behind Jimin and his solo debut, FACE, but I was surprised that this album-release single is out-peaking the debut... until I realised how many God damn versions he released. Whilst I try and appreciate all of the K-pop I hear, and often end up disappointed, I’m not afraid to say that this is just bad. It’s not as comical as “Set Me Free Pt.2”, sure, but the original Korean standard version – which I’m listening to as I write this – has these cheap acoustic guitars drowned in a lot of reverb and muddy bass alongside the vocal samples. I figured it’d be an alternative R&B track, especially considering the tacky sample of a 2011 romcom starring Jennifer Lawrence (really, guys?), but it turns into a boring 80s synthpop pastiche in no time, because why be interesting when you can be anything else but? The synths are either flailing or piercing, never floating or really finding any solid footing in the mix, especially once the cheap buzzing comes in post-chorus, only to completely render itself irrelevant soon afterwards. Jimin’s voice continues to sour on me with his nasal nothingness crooning over an already boring track. It’s honestly sad that this is the route Jimin’s going to get a hit; I know sales got it this far but the existence of an English version (though some of the original is also English) and several dance remixes makes this a clear push to the international market in just the laziest way possible. The English translation proves the lyrics as awkwardly generic, and then we have the remixes that feel like the cheapest, most surface-level renditions of the respective genres of deep house and UK garage possible. The deep house remix has these annoying and unfitting festival claps, and ends up becoming your typical house-pop nonsense. The UK garage remix starts with a freaking trap beat, so I didn’t bother listening to it in full – yes, it does eventually become UK garage, but I guess he just had to knock on another genre in there. I honestly can’t tell that the fact Jimin and co wrote a song that works perfectly fine in all of these genres but is never actually good in any of them is impressive or just proof that the cynical pop establishment is studying the vaccine that prevents its pop singers from ever being contaminated with any unique personality or defining sound. This is garbage, I’m sorry, BTS fans, but this is not how I, if I were a fan, would want my favourite boys to move past the group and their regional fanbase, because this is a gaping void of a pop song.

#1 – “Eyes Closed” – Ed Sheeran

Produced by Aaron Dessner, Fred again.., Max Martin and Shellback

So, Ed’s back, and thanks to great sales, he of course hits the top. It’s his 14th time here, how could you be surprised at this point? This is the lead from his upcoming album, - (Subtract), which promises a more personal and alternative style, probably courtesy of production from The National member Aaron Dessner, though it’s interesting to see Max Martin still here alongside Ed’s flagship co-producer Fred, who appears once again, as his name prophesied. Recently, I’ve been on kind of an Ed Sheeran defence streak, or at least for the past album cycle or so... so I ended up kind of excited for this, and were my hopes reached or hell, even surpassed? Well, you can tell it’s a mixture of Dessner’s folk rock and the streamlined pop of Max Martin considering how the acoustic pluck sticks out like a sore thumb amongst a sterile kick drum in that first chambering chorus. Ed sounds frail when dedicating each song and dance to the loved ones he lost, and for a song with a chorus about dancing with his eyes closed, it’s really not danceable. It’s a rhythm more appropriate for the third line in the chorus, “time is moving so slow”, and once the minimalism succumbs to a vaguely danceable rhythm with the tropical guitars back in the mix for the post-chorus, it becomes increasingly obvious how the emptiness is absolutely the point. That second verse about his delusion just wanting him to believe his room isn’t empty hits really hard, and I get this vision of Ed alone in a bar just kind of moving along – not dancing, just nodding his head and taking another drink. I’d like a bit more lyrical detail maybe, and whilst the production fits, it’s not exactly always to my taste, but as a concept, especially lyrically and thematically, it’s really well executed. The mixing does do it some justice too with how much echo there is and I can’t really fault a song with the perfectly melodramatic pop song line, “I guess I could just pretend the colours are more than blue”. It’s also decidedly not lead single material so if that’s all he has for radio, I’m excited to hear what Ed was cooking up with Dessner for the album cuts. For now, this is pretty solid, but I’m aching to hear where this is going.

Conclusion

I think it’s pretty obvious that whoever the Hell is managing Juice WRLD’s back catalogue gets Worst of the Week for “The Light”, and I can’t blame him for any of it. Please, let the guy rest. The Dishonourable Mention goes to “Like Crazy” by Jimin, though again, most of the blame for that doesn’t catch Jimin himself, not because he’s dead because I damn sure hope he’s not but because he’s one cog in a pretty hopeless machine, and it’s definitely not unique to K-pop. It just turns out that we didn’t get much of that this week, though you definitely could read “Eyes Closed” that way, even if I can’t because of how the lyrics resonate with me. As for the best, it’s honestly pretty easy: Best of the Week goes to “Paris, Texas” by Lana Del Rey featuring SMYL for, you know, making me cry, but Luke Combs easily snags the Honourable Mention for his cover of “Fast Car” and would on a good day maybe end up further than Lana though those two songs are just phenomenal. Maybe we’ll get a bit of a slow down next week, but who knows with these charts? Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you then for whatever’s on the horizon! Right now, though... God, I have a headache from listening to five versions of that bloody Jimin song.

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