#sorry for posting emo schlock

[chewsi]

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 1st July 2018

Just a shorter episode today, hopefully. As long as it’s 1,000 words I’m fine with making a lower-effort episode after a busy week of doing other stuff like BLAST TO THE PAST and promoting my mixtape. This has kind of fell in my priorities since, but I’ll still try and make something of an interesting read with the five new arrivals we have, and all the other antics.

Top 10

Well, we have another new number-one this week, topping the charts at its fourteenth week here! This one’s “Shotgun” by George Ezra, which I believe is Ezra’s first ever number-one, so congratulations, even if the song is much less deserving than, say, “Budapest”.

This means that the song “Solo” by Clean Bandit featuring Demi Lovato has been hit a spot to the runner-up space, number-two, but I have a feeling it will rebound.

“2002” by Anne-Marie won’t freaking go away at number-three. It’s been steady for weeks now, please drop or climb sometime!

Former #1 “I’ll be There” by Jess Glynne has not fulfilled its promise by staying at number-four.

Oh, yeah, and we also gave XXXTENTACION a top-five hit, as “SAD!” crawled up a whopping 26 spaces to get to number-five, after UK chart rules started to include YouTube video streaming, conveniently right at the time the video for X’s track dropped. I think this may mean more new arrivals each week, so prepare for that, but we’ll see.

“If You’re Over Me” by Years & Years is up two spots to number-six, and will go into the top five once the album releases this week.

“Better Now” by Post Malone is now down a position, probably due to “SAD!”, to number-seven.

“I Like It”, however, by Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin is climbing up higher – it had a one-spot boost this week and is now at number-eight.

“Leave a Light On” by Tom Walker is down two spaces to number-nine, but will rebound because I heard it on another advertisement and that’s how this song gets plays.

Finally, just like last week, we have “One Kiss” by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa staying at the final spot in the top 10.

Climbers

Other than “Rise” by Jonas Blue featuring Jack & Jack up five spots to #12, most of our big gainers this week are for cloud or emo-rap artists, including Juice WRLD, whose “Lucid Dreams” got a five-spot gain up to #18 (I called it!), Post Malone, whose feature alongside Preme on Tiesto and Dzeko’s “Jackie Chan” got a big 15-space boost up to #20, as well as the late XXXTENTACION, who got some more post-death streams, landing his two other songs that entered the top 40 last week in higher peaks, the highest being “Moonlight”, up 15 spots to #17, and the other being “changes”, which although latching on nowhere near as well as “Moonlight” and “SAD!”, is still up 11 spots to #22.

Fallers

We don’t have many, but the ones we do have are massive, and mostly for bigger hits that served a long time in the top 20. We have Ariana Grande’s “No Tears Left to Cry” taking an 18-spot leap down to #23, George Ezra’s “Paradise” being clearly drowned by his self-competition, jumping down 17 spaces to #29, joining “Love Lies” by Khalid and Normani down eleven spots to #33 in the group of bigger tracks that took giant hits. “Bed” by Nicki Minaj featuring Ariana Grande is also down ten spots to #30, and “This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble is down five spots, now at #35, and hopefully exiting soon.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

We have quite a few new arrivals, so naturally there were some drop-outs to let the entries come in, including Ziv Zaifman, Hugh Jackman and John Williams’ “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman, dropping out from #37, “This is America” by Childish Gambino featuring Young Thug dropping out from #39, “Lullaby” by Sigala featuring Paloma Faith collapsing and dropping out from #21, alongside “Bad Vibe” by M.O., Lotto Boyzz and Mr. Eazi out from #29. “In My Blood” by Shawn Mendes has also ended its decidedly decent run, as it has dropped out from #38.

In terms of returning entries, we don’t have any, but we do have sudden gains for a lot of songs that have been bubbling under the top 40 for a while, so let’s start talking about the new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Ring Ring” – Jax Jones featuring Mabel and Rich the Kid

Okay, I’m sick of this Jax Jones dude and his bland production, pointless producer tag and stupid sweet-wrapper album covers. Everything he does, including this, just feels so cookie-cutter and aggravatingly bland somewhat-danceable pop music. This, however, is a bit more interesting, as it combines dancehall girl Mabel with trap-rapper Rich the Kid – which has surprisingly happened before on a remix of Rich’s “Plug Walk” – however, it somehow makes the interestingly-distorted vocals from Mabel, which are delivered oddly sensually for a song that’s otherwise really annoying, with its vocal sample in the drop and skittering trap hi-hats that do little but make Rich feel more fitting (it doesn’t work), boring as all hell. This is dancehall, EDM and trap-rap combined without any of the soul, energy or passion that people like Sean Paul at least had when they combined hip-hop with reggae and dance. With Rich the Kid’s tacked-on, phoned-in (quite literally, it starts with him talking about someone calling him) non-presence of a verse, this just feels like a cluttered monstrosity of different minimalist genres that mesh together to create nothing but rubbish chart fodder. I’d say I expected better from everyone involved, but then I’d be kidding myself, and I don’t exactly believe Rich and Jax are even close to how talented Mabel is.

#39 – “Nevermind” – Dennis Lloyd

Wow, you guys just want to give me the bland, inoffensive schlock today, huh? This is Dennis Lloyd, guy with a moustache and a dream – except the moustache is the only thing he deserves to succeed. This dude has the least presence and charisma out of any singer I’ve covered here who doesn’t consider themselves a rapper, and the unnecessarily heavy bass, repetitive and boring hook melody, basically non-existent guitar strumming, weak and fake finger-snaps, the dreamy synths that add nothing at all to the song other than just making it more of a waste of time. This song is only two minutes and 36 seconds, and it’s 80% that simplistic, monotonous hook. I’d say it’s much of a muchness, but it’s not much of anything at all except that damned hook, which is repeated ad infinitum, like an earworm that develops into a full-on mantra that will haunt your nightmares. I mean, it’s not that bad, it’s just so lazily and sleep-inducingly awful that I have nothing to say about it other than the fact it’s snooze-worthy.

#36 – “APES**T” – The Carters (Beyoncé and JAY-Z) featuring Migos

Offset and Quavo don’t have verses. They just provide ad-libs. Biggest musical mistake of the year, probably! Offset would have killed this beat, and Takeoff isn’t even there at all. What’s the deal with that? They’d do better than Beyoncé, of all people, who is sloppily trying to stay on beat (why are we autotuning Queen Bey and letting her make trap-rap ad-libs again?). There’s also this really annoying synth in the beginning that Quavo just repeats “yeah” over, that’s kinda pointless. The pre-chorus from Bey is decent, but her verse just feels kind of boring, as does the hook, right before JAY-Z comes in to kill it like he nearly always does. It’s not incredible bar-wise, but it’s damn tight mainstream brag-rapping – sadly, he has barely any time on the track compared to his wife, as he desperately tries to get more words in edgeways during Beyoncé’s second verse, where he’s resorting to ad-libs behind Bey’s faster flow. Also, it’s kind of awesome that JAY-Z just disses anyone he can right now, because he can definitely get away with it. I don’t know, it’s just kind of cool how there’s no holds barred for him anymore.

It’s not a bad song by any means, but disappointing from three of my favourite urban and hip-hop artists right now – JAY-Z, Beyoncé and Migos. Speaking of Migos, actually, our next song is a much better example of a trap banger.

#34 – “Taste” – Tyga featuring Offset

I rated this a six out of 10 in a rate a few days ago and, well, I didn’t really want to give a paedophile and a homophobe any more credit, hence why I didn’t give it a seven, or even eight, but now, it’s grown on me so much that I can just say I kind of love this.

I love that vocal sample, with the vocalising sounding pretty great behind the subtle bass and piano loop, especially when the vocalist goes into his falsetto. Yeah, I don’t really believe what Tyga says about all his gang activity, because he’s not threatening at all, but when the beat cuts out, he has nice enough lines to make it not seem pointless and anti-climactic. Oh, yeah, and this hook? Catchy as hell. The whispering of “taste” is sensual and kind of creepy, but I frankly don’t care, especially when Offset comes in and kills it, once again – seriously, this dude’s great, and his flow and delivery is always so slick, and it’s proved here. Also, Tyga just sings a bunch of nonsense at some point and he somehow gets away with it because it leads into the chorus well and is apparently a reference to rapper A.E.’s catchphrase (thanks, Genius)? Yeah, while there are some questionable moments, this is a relaxed yet still exciting banger from the dude who made his album art a naked furry tiger lady monstrosity this same year and (Offset!), who apparently has access to pterodactyls, spaceships and Ric Flair (who he actually does have access to; he got him in a video more than once). Maybe that’s why I love Offset – for his goofy personality but how he confines it into such sweet, chill verses, kind of like MF DOOM. Sorry, I’m going off on a tangent, next song!

#32 – “Only You” – Cheat Codes and Little Mix

I was dreading the day I’d have to talk about both of these groups, because I really hate everything they’ve made. Little Mix are either infuriating, confusing or boring with fantastic singers, while Cheat Codes are bland but usually okay production-wise with an awful lead singer, so I guess it’s like the Chainsmokers collaborating with the Chainsmokers when they’ve got a featured singer.

Oh, yeah, this song? It sucks. It’s boring. It has some guitar strumming and simple synth bleeps but they mean nothing. All of the Mix singers are great, as always, but they feel wasted (once again, as always) here, because they don’t really get to burst too soon, which is what I like about their voices – when they belt, they can belt damn well, and I feel it’s just very underwhelming when instead, we get an ugly drop and harmonising from the Cheat Codes singer (in a falsetto at times) in the second verse, which just kind of hilariously proves the landslide in quality between people like Perrie Edwards and people like Trevor Dahl. It’s just kind of short and uninteresting, but what did I expect from Cheat Codes and Little Mix? Not much. Not much at all.

Conclusion

Best of the Week goes to Tyga and Offset for “Taste”, with Honourable Mention not being served, rather a double Dishonourable Mention: “Ring Ring” by Jax Jones, Mabel and Rich the Kid, tied with “Only You” by Cheat Codes and Little Mix. Worst of the Week easily goes to Dennis Lloyd for “Nevermind”. Knowing my luck, that’s going to be a hit. Delightful. See you next week.