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deadcactuswalking · 2 months

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 02/03/2024 (SZA, Central Cee, Pozer)

Beyoncé may have the #1 for a second week with “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” but the real winners on this UK Singles Chart are songs benefiting from songs above them plundering, partly thanks to everyone’s favourite arbitrary rule, Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR). I am never explaining that rule, look it up, but you’d think maybe we’d get a surge of new songs, right? No, it’s a pretty minimal week, and I’m not complaining. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we start with our notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40, and we have… unless I’m missing something, surprisingly little of note here? We bid farewell to “BACK TO ME” by Hitler, Goebbels and an uncredited Freddie Gibbs, “Ophelia” by The Lumineers, “Toxic” by Songer (thank God), “Sprinter” by Dave and Central Cee and of course, Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved” but that’ll be back soon enough.

Okay, so as for returns, we just get Ye’s “Runaway” featuring Pusha T back at #48, but our notable gains are where this week gets actually interesting, because we actually have quite a few, particularly in the top 40, thanks to ACR as mentioned but also potentially some TikTok-related industry politics that probably act in parallel with each other, but we start with “Thank You (Not So Bad)” by way too many brain cells at #68, “Soaked” by Shy Smith at #51, “vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo at #44 and “Evergreen” by Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners at #41. Then the top 40, where all Hell breaks loose, though most of these songs are actually pretty good: “Birds in the Sky” by NewEra at #40, “Made for Me” by Muni Long at #37, “Never be Alone” by Becky Hill and Sonny Fodera at #35, “Whatever She Wants” by Bryson Tiller of all people at #31 (and yes, I think I get it now), “On My Love” by Zara Larsson and David Guetta at #28, “Scared to Start” by Michael Marcagi at #22, “Nothing Matters” by The Last Dinner Party at #16, “Lovers in a Past Life” by Calvin Harris and Rag’n’Bone Man at #13, and finally - unfortunately - we have “CARNIVAL” by Adolf Hitler and Ty Dolla $ign featuring Playboi Carti at #9. Yes, it’s Rich the Kid’s first top 10 hit and no, you should not care.

Our top five should sound pretty normal, apart from a new entry into the top 10 at #5 as Djo gets his first with “End of Beginning”. I guess Steve Lacy can be a one-hit wonder twice. Aside from that, well, it’s all pretty expected: “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan at #4, “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone at #3, “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims at #2 and Bey at #1. I like how this top five is a herd of angsty indie rock-adjacent white dudes led by the queen of the hive.

NEW ARRIVALS

#61 - “Love On” - Selena Gomez

Produced by The Monsters & Strangerz and Isaiah Tejada

Man, one of the few times that a mainstream artist releases a well-received and popular album that I think is absolutely brilliant, if not perfect, and none of it charts in the top 75. I’m not revealing who that is, if you know, you know. No worries, guys, we have Selena Gomez instead! God… to be honest, I like to give Selena the benefit of the doubt more than often, and I actually really like this song for its quirks as I’ll discuss later, but it’s pretty funny that this song starts with the French language only for all of that effortlessly seductive aura to be replaced with “Wait ‘til I get my love on”. What? In fact, this song is incredibly clunky in its sexiness or lack thereof, and if you think it’s to fit an already constructed rhyme or construction… why does it sound this awkward and almost improvised? “Screaming yes in quotations”, “night shift but with all the perks” (or Percs?), “why are we conversating over this steak tartare”? Yes, Julia Michaels, I knew you wrote this song before I checked the credits, you didn’t need to make it too obvious. Now I actually love this song, it’s so artfully stupid in execution: Selena sounds Auto-Tuned to Hell as always but it doesn’t grant her any rhythm with that robotic hook slipping over itself, as if the verses don’t embarrass her enough: Isaiah, listen, why leave her only with the clipping bassline and add all those accentuative vocal effects? It’s almost cruelty. She doesn’t even sound like herself on the strained falsetto pre-chorus, especially not those backing vocals which you could easily convince me are Toro y Moi of all people, and the chorus promising that you should just wait until she has her love on before she loves on you, which is… what? Asexuals could write better songs about intimacy, but in all its goofiness, the song ends up winning me over on pure silliness. The production has a straightforward groove but a lovely disco swell to the strings, detailed vocal layering and those phased synths acting as stabs that make Selena’s rhythmic bruising in the chorus sound almost normal are the icing on top. This is an adorable little failure of a song, I kind of admire it. Push it in the same category as “Feather” by Sabrina Carpenter in being loveable nu-disco messes.

#49 - “Showtime” - Catfish and the Bottlemen

Produced by Dave Sardy and Ryan McCann

It’s been a five-year hiatus, but indie rock band Catfish and the Bottlemen are back to music, though with some departures and line-up changes, and oddly enough, all of that ties into the fittingly titled comeback single, “Showtime”. Yes, this song is about the strains of touring and life on the road as part of a band, but how that’s all ultimately worth it for how gratifying it is to make an impact on listeners and be performing to audiences, as well as being with the band members he loves to record and perform with. I love the breakneck pace of the bass and post-punk rhythm of the verses and pre-choruses with that soaring guitar lick, and I think that the lead singer Mr. McCann (of no relation to that one) has a solid control of his distorted nasal tone until that disappointing chorus comes in which doesn’t feel nearly as ambitious or arena-ready as it wants to be, mostly because McCann is mumbling and it halts the momentum of the entire song. Also, it starts really shoddy lyrically, it’s hard to sound profound when half of your chorus is moaning “fuck that shit, get on this”. It does end up contextualising itself better on repetitions, mostly because of the warm finger-snaps in the bridge that eventually evolve into a heartland rolick that gives the final chorus space to breathe in a muddy mix… then seems to never fully get its power back, replacing it with a gross basic synth that parades around a befuddled Bottlemen, until eventually the song is just a lo-fi piano recording that doesn’t feel like it’s entirely warranted its inclusion, though it wraps up the narrative nicely as he comes back home after touring. I really like the sentiment of this song and parts of what it’s going for but the chorus, which really makes or break an anthemic song like this, just loses me, which is really disappointing as the rest of the song focuses entirely on building up to it. I’m sure it’ll be a killer live, but that’s also with the caveat that when performing live, they can mess with the structure, the lyrics and the performance, as well as most importantly for this one, the mix… so I don’t think this song will ever sound as good on record as it could do at a festival, which considering the song’s content, is kind of beautiful.

#29 - “Kitchen Stove” - Pozer

Produced by Young Madz

It’s pretty weird that this is not the first time in recent memory that I’ve never heard of the lead rapper on a track but have seen a dozen or so credits for his producer. Unlike Rich Amiri, this is far from rage however, it’s a drill track, of course, with Young Madz being a New York producer who’s worked with Fivio Foreign, the 41 collective and sadly, Lil Mabu, as well as having produced a previously charting track from Russ Millions. Pozer, on the other hand, has no other songs, with this being a breakout track on TikTok as well as his debut single… that’s being distributed by Sony. Yeah, slick one there. To fully understand this, we need to look back two years for another fluke viral hit, “snowfall” by Øneheart and reidenshi, a Russian space ambient track with over 500 million streams on Spotify - yes, really. It debuted nearly exactly a year after release and eventually peaked at #57 in 2023 whilst Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” was #1. Øneheart’s follow-up was another ambient track, “this feeling”, which is not nearly as successful and also not as good, mostly because it lacks as sticky of a lead as “snowfall” and falls more into a vaporwave-esque filter of hopelessness which resonates a bit less. It does sound ripe for sampling though, especially that tiny vocal lead at the tail-end, so I guess it makes sense that for a manufactured viral hit, Madz took a sped-up version of the Russian ambient song and put it over some of the most rote, typical Jersey drill percussion possible. He doesn’t do much chopping, mostly because you don’t need to - like I said, that vocal sample would be perfect under Jersey drill, and Madz had the exact same idea, I suppose. Pozer, despite the name, isn’t exactly a bad rapper, his flow is pretty typical but solid and his second verse goes into more introspective and paranoid territory, pretty befitting of the haunting production… my problem is his delivery and the way he’s mixed: he just sounds too obvious. For production as potentially eerie as this, the production needs to be way more textured and dynamic, and Pozer himself needs to be quieter in the mix - as do the bed squeaks. This feels like a perfect lay-up of an idea that would make both a great song and an easy hit just fumbled in execution. It’s still a functional song for sure, but it doesn’t hit the way it absolutely could have.

#18 - “I Will” - Central Cee

Produced by John Alexis and LIOHN

Cench has another single out as he seems to drip-feed these - if he keeps them all on the record, that debut studio album will be more like a greatest hits compilation. As for this new one… first of all, I need this guy to step away from women: he’s awkward, condescending, and has strange fixations on this girl’s mother, how “young” she makes her feel, as well as just the extents of the capabilities of his penis… as well as a song-long hyperfixation on her shaving her privates. Over an Ed Sheeran-sounding beat? The acoustic guitars don’t mesh with the distant vocal loops, his vocal mix sounds horrifically unprofessional as does his complete lack of melodic understanding or personality when trying to sing on the chorus. You’d think he’d try and pick up the rapping to make up for it but he sounds half-dead. Speaking of Ed Sheeran, even he raps better than this - and yes, that includes about sex and relationships. There’s so little in the beat to distract from Cench’s terrible performance and content, so this is just an embarrassing display of everything that he cannot do properly. The second top comment on Genius, so you know, the fans, is asking what the Hell this is, and I can’t say I disagree with the fans in this case. I know you love Drake, it doesn’t mean you have to be him.

#15 - “Saturn” - SZA

Produced by Carter Lang, Rob Bisel, Solomonophonic and Monsune

SZA’s finally released a highly-anticipated song she performed at the GRAMMYs that may be connected to some form of SOS reissue and… oh, this interpolates one of my absolute favourite albums of all time. The opening track to Canadian composer Mort Garson’s peaceful, dynamic and forward-thinking 1976 electronic album Mother Earth’s Plantasia may not be iconic to everyone, but I still get goosebumps listening to it and that’s even outside of its greater context where this is the opening suite to a themed, arguably conceptual record acting as a love letter to two different pets of the musician: the myriad of plants his wife grew in the home, and his admired Moog synthesizer that he composed the entire album on. Sadly, Garson passed in 2008, before the record could gain its underground cult following amongst music fans, and before its official reissue in 2019 which particularly benefits the opening track, which has since been used in advertisements and now ends up interpolated on SZA’s new single, which released as a surprise to her fans and feels like a pretty spiritual return to some of the sounds explored on CTRL, using the sprinkling nostalgic synths of “Plantasia” as a backing for her lamenting of how dull and monotonous life on Earth can be. It’s actually fascinating to use that sample considering how celebratory I’ve always seen Garson’s album of both the natural world and human influence or appreciation of it, but definitely not a bad one as Lang, Bisel and co. add their own cascading synths to the dejected drum mix and warm guitars that flow this song swiftly into psychedelic territory, especially on the gorgeously harmonic chorus. My favourite moment may be the pre-chorus though, where SZA’s vocal layering filters into the static of both itself and the incessant hi-hat wearing itself out over time. It’s pure escapism for sure, much like a lot of this week, really, but it’s damn effective escapism, pulling you into this forest that, despite my general issue with fade-outs, makes sense to drift out of existence. The song’s about wanting to live on Saturn, I can just imagine that as the song fades out, we pan away from SZA and the camera focuses on the scarce night sky peppered with stars. If a song ever justifies its cop-out ending, then it’s doing something really right.

Conclusion

Yeah, the girlies really won this episode, didn’t they? SZA takes Best of the Week away easily with “Saturn” but “Love On” by Selena Gomez does take the Honourable Mention. As for the Dishonourable Mention, I think Pozer just frustrates me with “Kitchen Stove” whilst Central Cee handedly has the Worst of the Week because Jesus Christ, “I Will” is almost irredeemable on pretty much all fronts. As for what’s new on the horizon in the coming weeks, I’m unsure, but it will be interesting what new stuff arises as a result of the ACR clearout this week. For now, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week!

#uk singles chart #pop music #song review #sza #mort garson #central cee #catfish and the bottlemen #pozer #oneheart #selena gomez

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