#yes he''s a faller again

[sleepy-bunbun-ace]

i've revived myself in the submas tag to talk about the funny train blorbo. emmet has no escape from my grip <3

every day i play the game of how many games can i throw him into and so here's a new one: project sekai. i'm throwing him into the funny hatsune miku gacha game.

story: 16 year old kudari lives (what he calls) a sad life. he can't remember anything before being taken in by johanna at 14. as the new school year rapidly approaches, he can't help but wonder what kind of tracks the future will bring him to. he knows he wants to bring smiles to others but just doesn't know how. one day, a mysterious song called 'untitled' appears in his playlist and he's transported to his SEKAI. it's a magical train filled with many childish decorations. from there he meets miku and kaito before being sent back. he thinks it was all a dream, but little does he know it's the start of a new adventure.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 29/05/2021 (Eurovision, BTS, Olivia Rodrigo, Galantis/David Guetta/Little Mix, Anne-Marie & Niall Horan)

What better way to celebrate the end of a week in which I have been consistently ill and surprisingly busy? Sixteen new arrivals, of course! Shoot me, but first, congratulate Olivia Rodrigo for her second #1 as “good 4 u” gets the album boost to overthrow “Body” this week. I can safely say I think it’ll be there for a while. Let’s just start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Sixteen new arrivals and therefore, kind of a bloodbath. Why are there sixteen new arrivals? We’ll get to it. Other than six new arrivals from last week, we have a couple other drop-outs, the notable of which being those that spent five or more weeks in the UK Top 75 – which I cover – or those that peaked in the top 40. Therefore, those include, rather ironically on Olivia Rodrigo’s album week, former #1 “drivers license” (only dropping out because of a silly UK chart rule that only allows three songs per lead artist on the chart), as well as “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals, “Another Love” by Tom Odell, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Giveon, “Tonight” by Ghost Killer Track and D-Block Europe featuring OBOY and “Miss the Rage” by Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti. I’m not complaining about most of this, sorry, Giveon.

We have no returning entries – thankfully – so instead we can just focus on notable falls and climbers. I guess we’ll start with notable losses, songs that dropped five or more spots from their placement last week, and of course we do have a few of them at least as a result of, say it with me, sixteen new arrivals. The first few of these are all harsh drops because of ACR, which happened to coincide with the rest of the chaos, including “Little Bit of Love” by Tom Grennan at #24, “BED” by Joel Corry, David Guetta and RAYE at #25, “Friday” (Dopamine Re-Edit) by Riton and Nightcrawlers featuring Musafa & Hypeman at #26, “Peaches” by Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar and Giveon at #29 and “Let’s Go Home Together” by Ella Henderson and Tom Grennan at #33. We also have the losses for J. Cole staying surprisingly slim with “My Life” featuring 21 Savage and Morray at #27, “Pride is the Devil” featuring Lil Baby at #28 and “Amari” at #35. The rest are mostly just expected continuous fallers, like “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted at #44, “Nice to Meet Ya” by Wes Nelson and Yxng Bane at #46, “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S at #50, “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” by Fred again.. and the Blessed Madonna at #51, “Ferrari Horses” by D-Block Europe featuring RAYE at #53, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals at #57, “Seeing Green” by Nicki Minaj, Drake and Lil Wayne at #58 off of the debut, “All You Ever Wanted” by Rag’n’Bone Man at #61, “Martin & Gina” by Polo G at #63, “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic at #64, “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max at #65, Travis Scott’s remix of HVME’s remix of Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps” at #67, “Addicted” by Jorja Smith at #68, “Beautiful Mistakes” by Maroon 5 and Megan Thee Stallion at #70, “Sunshine (The Light)” by Fat Joe, DJ Khaled and Amorphous at #73, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #74 and finally “Believe Me” by Navos at #75. Phew.

Now what’s interesting is that we have nearly just as many gains, and they’re pretty unique, big surges in most cases, starting with “Cover Me in Sunshine” by P!nk and Willow Sage Heart at #52 thanks to the album boost that also prompted P!nk’s “All I Know So Far” to creep into the top 40 at #39, “Build a Bitch” by Bella Poarch at #32 off of the debut, “Starstruck” by Years & Years at #31 thanks to a bizarrely uncredited Kylie Minogue remix, “Little More Love” by AJ Tracey at #21, “Didn’t Know” by Tom Zanetti at #20, “Higher Power” by Coldplay at #19, “Black Hole” by Griff at #18, Majestic’s remix of Boney M.’s “Rasputin” at #16, “Good Without” by Mimi Webb soaring into the top 10 and hence becoming her first at #10, and Olivia Rodrigo getting her third thanks to the album boost as “deja vu” is at #4. I think that’s more than enough that needs to be said about music that was already on the chart last week, so welcome back to the part of this series where I get either increasingly frustrated or exhausted every time I have to list another song.

NEW ARRIVALS

#72 – “Life Goes On” – PS1 featuring Alex Hosking

Produced by PS1 and Mark Alston

So, what better way to start sixteen new arrivals? A generic piano-house club track, of course. PS1 is a New York DJ and for this track with a 90s-esque piano and synth melody, bassy drop and tight, bland percussion as well as oddly-mixed anonymous female vocals made to sound robotic regardless of genuine emotive performance, he’s enlisted Australian singer Alex Hosking as well as co-songwriting from hit-makers GOODBOYS, both of which make remarkably little difference to the fact that despite being a faux-inspirational club track, this song is incredibly joyless and flailing in as pathetic and one-note of a fashion as possible. Yes, that is one exhaustive sentence chugging on as long as possible, but there’s no better way to parallel this disposable garbage than that.

#71 – “What a Time” – Julia Michaels featuring Niall Horan

Produced by Ian Kirkpatrick and RKCB

Niall Horan coincidentally has two unrelated female-male duets debuting with him in this week. Thankfully, Julia Michaels only has the one track debuting, and for the love of God, I can’t even figure out why she has the one, as this is a track from a 2019 EP that flew massively under every radar except seemingly mine as whilst I have listened to this EP, I cannot remember for the life of me liking any of it besides “Anxiety”, which makes sense since Michaels is at best an uninteresting songwriter and at worst an insufferable vocal presence. Regardless, I’m going to assume the surge is due to TikTok or some kind of residual Niall Horan hype, whatever there is of that, and look at this song two years after the fact. Well, for what it’s worth, I appreciate the vaguely folkish guitar riff, even if it’s going to be drowned out immensely by Michaels’ approach to vocal takes, which is to put as little effort into that first take and then multi-track enough for it to sound listenable, particularly on that bizarrely unfitting chorus in which reminiscing on a wonderful, intimate time with your partner is demonstrated by rote piano chords, an awkward string swell and distant, reverb-drenched incoherency on the vocals. I guess I do like the switch in the final chorus as she changes “what a time” to “what a lie” to emphasise the bitterness of that break-up, but I don’t think that bitterness has to soak the entire master because this song is dripping in apathy that I just don’t have any time for personally in my pop power ballads. Wait, Niall Horan was on this song?

Eurovision Song Contest 2021

Whilst I may not do a special episode on this blog for the Eurovision Song Contest, I’d be lying if I didn’t confess to watching and enjoying it every year. This year’s, the first since 2019 for obvious reasons, was hosted in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and was won by an Italian rock band, with the United Kingdom infamously receiving zero points yet somehow more applause than Israel’s performance. Telling. It’s not all politics though, obviously: the reason songs win is not just the lighting, stage presence, vocal performance or grandiosity, but rather the songs themselves, or at least ostensibly so. The winner this year didn’t have the best of any of those factors in my opinion – no, not even the politics – so it’s clearly about a mixture of this success criteria. This year had some particularly good songs and the most consistency out of Eurovision in a while, naturally leading to quite a few new arrivals, also factored in by the charts being weak, so we essentially get an album bomb. Let’s pile up every new arrival related to Eurovision and talk somewhat more briefly about each song, starting with...

#66 – “Dark Side” – Blind Channel

Representing: FINLAND

The Finnish entry this year is one of two heavy rock entries, both of which charted, and this is a genre represented by about one country annually. There’s always a Gothic-influenced or industrial-esque band in the shortlist or national finals if not the semis and international final, but it doesn’t stop them from being some of the most interesting Eurovision contesters. It’s in English and came sixth with 301 points. Is it any good? Well, it’s far from bad with that pumping electronic groove before it’s crushed by metallic, distorted and rather ugly guitars that remind me of, if anything, scene-era nu metal and crunkcore, especially due to the clean and growling vocal dynamic. The song is still anthemic as all hell and if we ignore the dog barking and stuttering vocals, as well as the fact that these vocalists don’t have that much grit to their performance, we can appreciate the clamouring rock track this is, and I’d be lying if I said that final chorus isn’t pretty epic. Next!

#62 – “Voilá” – Barbara Pravi

Representing: FRANCE

The French entry this year is one my staunchly Italian nationalist online friend immediately had a distaste for, and as someone with British citizenship, I am also legally obliged to give this Worst of the Week. Sorry, Barbara but traditions are traditions. It’s in her native French and came second overall with 499 points. Is it any good? Well, like many French entries and French pop songs in general, it’s in a chanson style that adapts very well to the modern western art-pop sound, as Pravi’s cooing vocals are at full focus in the mix as they skate around more subtle pianos, wonderfully elegant strings and this wistful tone that may or may not make sense for the content. What? I’m not learning a word of French past what was grained into me during primary school. Overall, I think this is a pretty great song with a lot of that almost Bjork-esque swell especially in Pravi’s vocal performance that I think makes for a pretty excellent listen, especially by the time that abrupt finish hits. I’d probably prefer it being a bit less minimal and scattered so the hook hits harder but overall this is one of the best Eurovision entries this year. However, she is French so, next!

#59 – “SHUM” – Go_A

Representing: UKRAINE

The Ukrainian entry, always successful enough to get to the finals, was particularly hyped up prior due to its... eccentricity and ended up in fifth place with 364 points. It’s in their native Ukrainian so they might as well be garbling acid both verbally and as a written text, so I guess I have to judge it on the fact that this is pretty bonkers, with a charismatic and energetic vocal performance that yells over triumphant bassy horns perfectly blended with the 80s bass synths but not so much with those chirping flutes that, whilst cool on paper, kind of just give me a headache when faced against this thumping dance beat that remains decidedly strained for most of its runtime, and annoyingly so as it means the song never has that cathartic of a release, at least to me, but what drop it has ends up deconstructed and janky in something that might fit on PC Music but I’m not sure it does on Ukrainian Eurovision. This has something there, but I’m not into it. Sorry.

#47 – “Embers” – James Newman

REPRESENTING: United Kingdom

A catastrophic loss is British culture at Eurovision, and it’s not the first time in this century that we’ve gotten the infamous null points. James happens to be related to the more noteworthy John Newman, but that didn’t avoid a “nil points catastrophe”, coined by Jochan Embley, who reviewed the song for the Evening Standard and is now set in stone as an utter fool as his quote predicting that not to be the case this year is now forever preserved on the Wikipedia page for this very song. Nice one, Embley. We finished at twenty-sixth and Newman should honestly be glad this embarrassment is charting. The worst part of this whole ordeal is that the song’s actually fine and definitely representative of British pop music with its 90s-esque piano, bassy drop and anonymous vocal performance – if any of that sounds familiar – and I do love the plastic brass added here for the sake of bombast. It’s nothing interesting, and a tad too long considering how little it does with its musical premise, but it’s not worse than half of any given Eurovision. Maybe next year we submit a UK drill song, I’m sure that’ll get the people going. Tion Wayne, do you want to take a flight to Italy in 2022? Maybe bring Young Adz here while you’re at it; that could truly be a fascinatingly out of place Eurovision entry but at least one of these countries – probably Russia – would vote for it. As for now, at least this was funny to see absolutely bomb, and Graham Norton become increasingly hopeless for its success as the night went on.

#43 – “10 Years” – Daoi Freyr

REPRESENTING: Iceland

One part of this guy’s backing band tested positive for COVID-19 so they had to isolate and just show the dress rehearsal again but it didn’t stop them from charting and delivering a pretty damn unique entry, as Iceland is known for doing nowadays. It’s all in English and finished in fourth place with 378 points, and is it any good? Well, for one of the whitest concepts in television, this is the whitest song of this year’s entries, starting with some gentle violins before abruptly careening straight into this Daoi Freyr guy monotonously droning over bass-heavy nu-disco straight out of the 2000s with a level of irony balancing out whatever sincerity there is in the quasi-R&B breakdown, and, you know, it’s fun, at least? I do think the stage performance is remarkably more interesting than this funktronica mess in the studio, but this is catchy and inoffensive, two good ways to get people to care about your song in Eurovision, so it makes sense. Also,  that chiptune synth-solo borderline saves this song, even in all its brevity.

#17 – “ZITTI E BUONI” – Maneskin

REPRESENTING: Italy

So third place didn’t chart – sorry, Switzerland – but we do obviously get the winner charting as high as the top 20. The chart’s weak and the lead singer’s hot and probably does cocaine – it’s a recipe for success, especially when they probably have mafia connections and can threaten or buy their way into the charts. Unrealistic and possibly xenophobic stereotypes aside, this is the Italian entry and whilst I was personally gunning for Portugal, who came twelfth, I can see how this gathered 524 points, even if they had to censor the lyrics for the sake of the contest, not that I can tell because I do not know a lick of Italian. Sorry, Ignacio. Anyway, this song kicks ass and rather disrespectfully at that, as the lead singer breathily sings over garage rock-esque guitar licks and some pretty manic drumming that delivers not only a catchy hook but an undeniable groove, assisted by some slick rapping that comes out of the blue in the second verse and honestly fits the song – and the singer – a lot better than it has any right to. Congratulations, Italy – you’ll be paying out the ass for the next contest. Ciao!

Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Well, that got a lot out of the way. Not all of it, though.

#60 – “Topshottas Freestyle” – Potter Payper

Produced by Chucks

Potter Payper is basically some guy from Barking, East London, and that’s all you need to sign a record deal with the same label that has Stormzy on payroll so that’s why he’s here. With that said, there’s something deeper here, or at least in the first few lines of this singular verse – without a chorus – in which Potter Payper narrates a street lifestyle, far too common for young working-class British men, retelling what is probably his truth about the consequences of ignoring motherly advices and finding yourself in a situation surrounded by gang violence, drug trafficking and all the paranoia that comes with it. Of course, he then brags about his wordplay, gunplay and fashion, and the rest of the verse just feels aimless with nothing exactly restraining the meandering checklist of clichés, and zilch returning it back to what I thought was going to be the point of the song. I guess this trap beat is okay but this same acoustic guitar and oddly-mastered bass is so common and uninteresting that I find it hard to care. I don’t have an issue with British music being Americanised as that’s just the result of musical evolution and the sharing of culture, but when the only way you can tell this isn’t from the States is the accent does make me question why this is charting amongst Dave and AJ Tracey instead of Lil Baby and Gunna.

#56 – “GANG GANG” – Polo G and Lil Wayne

Produced by Angelo Ferraro

Polo G, after just having the biggest hit of his career with the US #1 hit “RAPSTAR”, follows it up with a Lil Wayne collaboration and thanks to a busy and just misguided release date and timing, it makes a lot less noise than it should. It absolutely deserves that level of attention too, with its chopped-up borderline ambient melody that creates  a perfect foundation for this high-energy bass-heavy trap beat as well as Polo G delivering a lot more energy than on “RAPSTAR” (to the point where I think that’s the reason why his actually interesting songs don’t do as well). The chorus has a pretty great melodic switch-up by the end and whilst the flows are pretty rote, it’s hard to say they aren’t smoothly delivering all of the flexing and gunplay pretty typical of Polo G, and if anything that’s what it’s missing: an extra layer of depth, not that I care of course, because Lil Wayne’s on it. Wayne has been astonishingly great on features recently and this is one of his most impressive features to the point where I could barely write about it on first listen, with some of his slickest flow switches ever and whilst the content doesn’t get any more interesting than pouring his heart out for his lean, his pure charisma outshines anyone who could have been on this track and this means this ends up pretty excellent in terms of 2020s trap-rap. I don’t know when that Polo G album is coming but I hope it has more of this. Also, for the love of God, Wayne, keep this energy up for the next album. I’m begging you.

#42 – “SUN GOES DOWN” – Lil Nas X

Produced by Roy Lenzo, Omar Fedi and Take a Daytrip

As his follow up to “MONTERO”, we have a new, decidedly less sexual Lil Nas X hit debuting again surprisingly low on the chart considering the last single’s success, finally delivering in the musical department as for me, there’s a constant conflict between wanting to like Lil Nas as a character, performer and personality rather than actually enjoying any of the guy’s music. Last time I talked about Lil Nas, I did bring up the Pitchfork album review that questioned if he really liked music and whilst it’s funny, I do see how Lil Nas could have perhaps taken Pitchfork to heart as a result as he practically explains his love of popular music as a way for him to feel like he belonged in a community, which is especially meaningful for a man constantly left alienated because of his own mental health issues as a teenager and struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality, to the point of suicidal thoughts. I just love how the verse ends on a happy note where makes the leap of faith to come out and how now he’s proud of himself, he wants to make sure his fans are proud of him since they’re the people who got him there. For me, those last lines recontextualise the chorus as becoming less about contemplating death but more about ascending to a happier place and rejecting all your struggles that you’ve overcome. It helps that this is all sang pretty soulfully over an almost emo guitar melody with some basic flows but gorgeous multi-tracked vocal melodies accentuated by strings that elevate this song even higher, even if it seems underdeveloped. Sure, it doesn’t have that second verse, but does a victory lap need a re-over?

#38 – “Mask” – Dream

Produced by Perish Beats and Banrisk

Nope.

#22 – “Our Song” – Anne-Marie and Niall Horan

Produced by TMS

Okay, so this is a duet where two ex-lovers – only in the song – attempt to get over each other but end up hearing a song they held special to their relationship and all of the memories and pain comes flooding back. Without the youthful exuberance of Taylor Swift’s song of the same name, this duet should carry some bitterness and resentment but mostly capture a hesitant nostalgia... and despite being oddly Niall Horan-dominated, I guess it does that pretty effectively, or at least would if Niall wasn’t crushed by a misshapen trap beat that drowns this pathetically fluttering guitar loop into a mush that not even Anne-Marie can over-sell. Everything here is so utterly basic that it kind of screws itself over by trying for any energy or passion, and therefore kind of just doesn’t. I’m glad.

#9 – “Heartbreak Anthem” – Galantis, David Guetta and Little Mix

Produced by Bloodshy, Henrik Jonback, David Saint Fleur, Thom Bridges, David Guetta, Mike Hawkins, SONDR and Johnny Goldstein

It really speaks to the power of Little Mix that even with only three members and only one of them not expecting a child, they can bring Galantis back of all people. Although given that Galantis is already a duo, I fail to see why David Guetta needs to be here, and the same can go for any of the other seven credited producers of this song, which actually only includes one half of Galantis! I question if a song ever needs that many, despite the fact that in reality they probably contributed zilch to the song each, just enough to get a pay check. None of that should matter, however, if the song isn’t good and I’ll admit this is far from the worst that any of these guys have delivered, with a string melody and swell not unlike 2015-era house Galantis themselves made, and vocal deliveries from the girls that sound like they were located in vastly different locations from each other (to the point where anyone harmonising with Perrie sounds really awkward regardless of how many vocal manipulation effects you can put on them). For seven producers, that’s inexcusable, but as a song, it’s just a shallow post-break-up song that kind of feels like a dig towards Jesy if anything (although I hope it isn’t). I’m not a fan – I never was going to be – but it works for what it is as this colourful house jam, and not much else. This is Galantis’ first top 10 since 2016, by the way. Yeah, Little Mix are that big.

#7 – “traitor” – Olivia Rodrigo

Produced by Dan Nigro

It couldn’t have been “brutal”? Or “hope ur ok”? Okay, well, if we’re going to have the dullest track on the album bar one I guess we’ll go with the one that follows the “drivers license” formula to a T but without as much passion in the vocals, without as much interesting songwriting quirks and with a whole lot of rote fluff removed far from any indie-girl influence that undercuts what is essentially a teen-pop product. I’m not going to pretend I cannot get caught up in melodrama and embrace that, but this is a slog of a ballad with an almost sing-song, condescending vocal melody in that chorus, multi-tracked and studio-produced to rid her of any of that natural rasp she has when singing live. The song is about being annoyed by an ex finding someone new and the more toxic thoughts that come with being the ex-girlfriend in that situation, but with decidedly low stakes this time around that just make her more unlikeable than relatable. I’m sorry, I didn’t think that album was half-bad at all, but please don’t make this the post-release hit.

#3 – “Butter” – BTS

Produced by Ron Perry, Rob Grimaldi and Stephen Kirk

See, I value my personal information, and I don’t know about you but I’m as scared of these guys as I am Nicki Minaj stans, or Minecraft YouTuber stans, or serial killers, so whilst I doubt my platform is extensive enough to reach that level, I also know that these people are so online that they could easily find me somehow somewhere. With that said, just to clarify, when I say I wish I could “Nope” myself out of this one like I did with Dream because I have consistently little to say about this band, it’s not because I in any way dislike BTS or the band members within, or their record label that manages them and many other K-pop bands which I also do not dislike, or, because I’ve seen this happen, East Asians in general. Is that enough stalling to just say I don’t care about this basic pop fluff? When BTS are in Korean, their lyrics aren’t embarrassing and their production tends to be more experimental or at least catchier, more interesting. I like a fair few Korean BTS songs as a result but I just do not see the appeal in making another stiff, cleanly-produced 80s-esque funk-pop song with some chiptune synths that are admittedly kinda cool other than getting on US radio. There’s some interplay between the boys here but it just leads to a pretty homogenised track where none of them have enough personality to shine through, not even SUGA and RM on the tacked-on rap verse that so awkwardly ends. The synth solo sounds perfectly out of an era of dated 80s synths that I’m not sure anyone other than Bruno Mars actually had nostalgia for, and not even some pretty vocoder can save it. The writing is too clumsy, the production’s not equipped to handle it and there’s not much to speak of in terms of performance. I fear for my life when I say it but I think this is actually pretty bad.

Conclusion

Okay, so, we’re finally finished with this week and God, I’m glad, as there’s not that much quality here to speak of, although what is here is here in droves, so Best of the Week gladly goes to Polo G and Lil Wayne for “GANG GANG”, with “Sun Goes Down” by Lil Nas X following closely behind as an Honourable Mention. In terms of Worst of the Week, it doesn’t actually go to they who shall not or he who should not be named, instead going to the pathetic “Your Song” by Anne-Marie and Niall Horan, with a Dishonourable Mention going to BTS for “Butter”. It’s just “Dynamite” again but with considerably less reason to exist. Here’s this week’s top 10:

If I make it to next week, who knows what’s coming? This is a slower week – hopefully – and I don’t think black midi will chart, though it’d be comical, so I’ll hold off on predictions and just thank you for reading. See you next week!

[alexsmitposts]

Inside the Globalist War On Our World The unconventional war for complete control of our world goes on. Camouflaged underneath the stealthy facade of relative prosperity for some, World War III rages as the cries of a billion people are muffled. The report you are about to read should amplify the horrific screams gagged by those engaged in the takeover. Or, at least I pray this will be the case. Many of you reading this will agree, the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a turning point. This was the day that those who run the so-called “military-industrial complex” took control of the United States. Kennedy, who was the enemy of the globalists who now run the show, he had to be eliminated. Furthermore, the cover-up that followed his assassination would give his killers a free rein to do whatever was needed. This was the case “if” the American people swallowed the official report. Which, as we all know now, ended up being the case. I mention this chapter in U.S. and world history for several reasons, which shall become obvious later on. The point is, the shadowy faces that built financial empires off this militarism machine, they’re “all in” for the final confrontation. Irony has become a resilient or even glowing facet of my job for the last couple of years. As a media analyst, the newsreel playing out to the people of the world is like one of those old burlesque shows you see portrayed in a period piece Hollywood movie. Watching public figures like Donald Trump, or Germany’s Angela Merkel, and especially France’s Emmanual Macron, I half expect a long walking cane to extend out from backstage to snatch one of them silly, dragging them offstage at any moment. As a geopolitical researcher, the situation in the world is not funny like a slapstick comedy, it’s horrid, dire, and inhumanly unfair. The fearsome failures that have taken place since Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas, they stain humanity like the dark red blood of crucifixion on pristine white linen. Let me illustrate some irony for you here. The fact that somebody named the United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS) after the man who would have gotten us out of the Vietnam War is an ugly joke. What was the brainchild of legendary psychological warfare guru General Robert McClure, was renamed after the slain president back in 1982 during the Reagan administration when then Army Chief of Staff General Edward C. Meyer approved the name and the school’s expanded mission. President Reagan’s people had to sign off on this, but it’s a certainty J.F.K. rolled over in his tomb at Arlington the day they named insurgency central after him. Another stark irony here is the fact that General McClure was instrumental in the 1953 Iranian coup d’état in Iran which installed the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran and a puppet to Anglo-European oil and money interests.I’ll leave you to connect the dots that led to 9/11, Arab Spring, Syria, and all the other bloodlettings that ensued after Kennedy died. Now that “their” school of war for control of Earth is in the picture, let’s turn to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Yes, I am trying to wrap it all into a tight ball for you. This document from SWCS detailing how World War III’s financial warfare strategies are being played out was leaked by Assange’s organization recently. FM 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare is a playbook for every crisis and regime change we see today. If you ever doubted the military-industrial complex took over after J.F.K. the exacting adherence to the SWCS playbook by western leadership will surely convince you. I won’t attempt to break down the whole strategy for you here. The section Civil Affairs Operations in Chapter 7, which outlines the mission objectives of Civil Affairs Personnel. Most people would more easily recognize the term “operatives” and understand “spies” rather than wrestling with terms like CA” forces. But let’s move on to what our real leaders are up to in Venezuela and other places. Be advised, the depth and scope of what our leadership exacts on other nations are unimaginable. Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) Civil Affairs (CA) forces are given special missions within a so-called unconventional warfare operational area (UWOA). For the sake of context, CA forces inside Venezuela, for instance, would work with selected civilian elements, “irregular forces, agencies, IPI, IGOs, and NGOs.” The ARSOF operate from strategy laid out over the Seven Phases of Unconventional Warfare, which are: the preparation, initial contact, infiltration, organization, buildup, employment, and transition phases. At the moment, Admiral Craig Faller is the commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). He relieved Admiral Kurt W. Tidd, last year. Both these admirals hold tight to the globalist mission as evidenced by the rhetoric of Admiral Tidd before his tour was over. The good admiral even goes so far as to refer to Latin America and the globe as our “shared home” – and trust me, he is not referring to a Walt Disney world where the United States cuddles its neighbors. Fortunately for most of us, Admiral Tidd is used to convincing imbeciles, and he becomes transparent as glass when he described “criminal networks” in the same fashion he describes “friendly networks” our ARSOF forces would be growing in Venezuela and elsewhere. “In Latin America and the Caribbean, the overarching security challenge is a very big one indeed: The destabilizing operations, corruption influence and global reach of transnational threat networks…..We talk a lot about dismantling networks, but we also never talk about building our own.” SOUTHCOM, or Admiral Faller, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Venezuela situation is “dire”. He refers to the networks Tidd alluded to as military and diplomatic “partnerships” fostered by the agencies we see illuminated in FM 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare. Finally, one key facet of the unconventional World War III we are part of is the weaponization of the financial sector. WikiLeaks recently Tweeted about FM3-05.130’s reference in Chapter 2 to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as unconventional “weapons” of this war. And here is where the line in between democratic government and the business sector blur to insignificance. Remember I said those “who control” the military industrial complex? Well, they also control the World Bank, the IMF, and the OECD. Think about this. How can the military use a weapon it is not sure it can control? Chapter 2’s Financial Instrument of U.S. National Power and Unconventional Warfare states that: “The agent controlling the creation, flow, and access to “stores of value” wields power. Although finance is generally an operation of real and virtual currency, anything that can serve as a “medium of exchange” provides those who accept the medium with a method of financial transaction. For both reasons, ARSOF understand that they can and should exploit the active and analytical capabilities existing in the financial instrument of U.S. power in the conduct of UW.” The Army unconventional warfare bible goes on to suggest financial and political collusion through leveraging the United States Treasury and other agencies to provide “financial incentives and disincentives to build and sustain international coalitions waging or supporting U.S. UW campaigns.” This is what we see going on from financially strapped Greece to those starving to death in Venezuela. WikiLeaks shined its light or truth on the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) component, which oversees US sanctions against other countries. It is this arm of government that has long been “conducting economic warfare” deemed necessary for the success of Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare (ARSOF UW). Now you tell me, is the tail wagging to dog here, or not? I am here in Greece, where austerity and massive taxes threaten to break the citizens, and eventually the nation. Despite that staggering effects of an imposed debt situation, Greek puppet governors buy billions in weapons for U.S. German and French arms makers. Furthermore, the Greeks spend more as a part of relative GDP on defense and weapons than any nation in Europe. Attacked in unconventional warfare like no other nation, Greece is now milked dry by this same military industrial monster. Now factor in Venezuela, and the puppet the United States is trying to put in place there. It’s significant to note that Juan Guaido has already requested IMF funds, and thus IMF-controlled debt, to fund what amounts to a “coup” against President Maduro. In Ecuador, the case of Julian Assange was decided on the basis of a $10 billion bailout from the IMF. So, our unconventional warriors simply adhered to the basic principles of ARSOF UW again. But I suggest you read this World War III strategy bible to discover what our benefactors intend the U.S. military become AFTER total globalization. The section Law Enforcement Instrument of National Power should scare the hell out of you. “As globalization increases world integration, the scope of threats to U.S. security and public safety becomes more global. The law enforcement instrument increasingly and necessarily works outside of U.S. borders to combat these threats.” If I need to go on, we are truly doomed. Please, just read the section of the aforementioned UW bible concerning military deception (MILDEC) operations. Apply this to any crisis area you can think of, and there is World War III in the spotlight.

[mrauthor3ds]

Things I hope to see in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon

Time for early wishlists! Assuming that Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon are indeed sequels to Sun/Moon, what kind of things would I like to see in them...

1: Lusamine and Nihilego’s redemption arc

I’m sure a lot of us hope to see that Lusamine is making an effort to atone for her insane actions in Sun/Moon. Perhaps it can also give us more insight on when and how she lost it. But I also hope to see that specific Nihilego redeem itself, too.

I’m of the belief that that Nihilego, the one that was hanging out next to her in Ultra Space and was supposedly in that Beast Ball, is the same on that appeared at Aether Paradise twice, and could be the one that applied its neurotoxin to Lusamine long before the story began (judging by how long Gladion stayed at Route 8′s motel, I’d say about 2-3 years prior).

And keep in mind, after Nebby got Lusamine and Nihilego to de-fuse, Nihilego went back into the Beast Ball, and likely got brought back to Alola with her. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lusamine was tasked with making sure Nihilego doesn’t try to cause more trouble, and maybe eventually, that Nihilego will truly become an ally to us.

2: Mohn gets a role in the story

We’ve seen Mohn managing Poké Pelago, yes. We also hear the name as that of the leading professor on Ultra Space studies. And there’s way too many in-your-face hints that he’s the husband of Lusamine who got unexpectedly pulled into Ultra Space and was never seen again. Given what tends to happen to Fallers - people who have gone through Ultra Wormholes - as we see with Anabel, it’s easy to guess that Mohn suffered amnesia when he reappeared where Poké Pelago is now.

So I’m sure a lot of people wanted to know why we can’t just bring him to Gladion and Lillie to resolve things sooner. Well, perhaps Mohn can make an appearance in USUM’s story and maybe clear that up. Maybe he’ll remember scant tidbits about his time in Ultra Space, which can provide some help to us.

And who knows, maybe his wife and children might not be able to fully restore his memory, but they can be happy that he’s still himself in spirit. I know that’s not quite the happy ending that most people would want, but I think that would still be happy enough, and it would give a subtle but important lesson in the process.

3: A different Team Skull

And by that, I don’t mean make the Trial Captains of Sun/Moon be its members. We’re talking if this is a sequel. No, I mean a completely different Team Skull, with slightly different duds and perhaps a more serious mission. They can still retain the goofy quirks of the previous Team Skull, but with a SERIOUS MISSION.

...Likely involving Necrozma. After all, one of the reasons everyone suspected the Aether Foundation in Sun/Moon is because their white/gold color scheme goes with Solgaleo and Lunala. Well, Team Skull had an emphasis on black, which is clearly Necrozma’s primary color. Also, the “necro“ in its name can relate to the skull of Team Skull (death and all). So...yeah.

But who would lead this Team Skull? Well, one Punk Girl in the trailer park near Tapu Village tells that Team Skull was originally founded by a disgraced kahuna, but was deposed by the wrath of the tapu. This is likely long before Guzma rebuilt the gang. Perhaps that disgraced kahuna can make himself known here in USUM.

I’m sure the previous Team Skull of Sun/Moon won’t be happy to hear about a Team Skull appearing. Guzma and Plumeria especially might not be happy about this. You know, it can be sort of like the new Team Plasma of Black2/White2, but under a different management altogether.

4: An Ice-type specialist

One of the fascinating things about Alola is that there’s a specialist for just about every type. The Trial Captains cover Normal, Water, Fire, Grass, Electric, Ghost, and Fairy, the kahunas have Fighting, Rock, Dark, and Ground, Kahili has Flying, Molayne has Steel, Guzma has Bug, Plumeria has Poison, Faba has Psychic, and Ryuki has Dragon.

...But no Ice-type?

Okay, I know Sina has Ice-type Pokémon, but she’s only battled in the Battle Tree. That and Dexio is another Psychic specialist, so I’ll have to count them as complete outsiders (though Ryuki might also count as an outsider).

Point is, there’s a lot of things in Sun/Moon that beg for an Ice user to appear in these games that clearly put focus on Necrozma. For instance...

Post-championship, an Aether employee in Secret Lab A will comment on how Pokémon moves were used for cryostasis on the Pokémon in Lusamine’s “collection“. This makes me wonder...the possibility of a high-ranking Aether member, alongside Faba and Wicke, who specialized in Ice-types and was ordered at some point to deep-freeze all those Pokémon, as well as the three Type: Null...and afterward s/he left.

Again, it seems that Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon will be putting focus on Necrozma. In Refresh, when you pet the horn above Necrozma’s face, your hand will freeze. But it’s not Ice-type? Still, that gives me another theory. What if that same Aether member who was told to freeze those Pokémon defected to this new Team Skull, which is trying to harness Necrozma’s power for...something? Wouldn’t be the first time the new team got an Ice user while harnessing the power of a cold legendary Pokémon - I speak of course of Zinzolin in New Team Plasma (BW2 again).

Either way, in Aether or in Team Skull, I really hope that s/he has some prominent blue on the outfit.

5: Hau as the new Melemele kahuna

I know, I’ll be taking a lot of cues from Black2/White2 for this. But what if Hau finally succeeds Hala as the new kahuna of Melemele Island by this time? This is of course a similar vein to how the rival Cheren became the first Gym Leader you face in the sequel.

Not sure if he’d have a single type specialty, or if he’ll be anything like Blue (as the Viridian City Gym Leader in Gold/Silver) and use a few Pokémon of completely different types. You know, like say...Flareon, Vaporeon, and Leafeon.

6: Don’t replace the island challenge with Gyms!

Seriously, I doubt that Alola is going to just give up the island challenge altogether in favor of the classic Gym formula. I mean, come on! The island challenge is one of the things that made Sun/Moon so unique to the series!

Yes, I know. Alola has a Pokémon League now. But that doesn’t mean it has to use Gyms just like all the other regions. It can still work its traditional island challenge into it.

So in short, keep the island challenge. Make new trials for this time around, sure. Maybe see some new kahunas as well (likely just replacing Hala and Olivia, since they’re Elite Four members now).

7: New Alolan variants

I know some people were bummed to only see variants for Gen-1 Pokémon. Well, this can be a chance to add Alolan variants from other generations! Might probably be just Gen-2 ones, though. Since the Gen-1 games came to Virtual Console leading up to Sun/Moon, I believe that Gold/Silver on VC will lead up to Gen-2 variants.

Wouldn’t be new. After all, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire added a lot more Mega Evolutions. So...

What would you think? Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea of a Fire/Ice-type Girafarig, so it can get a new duality to play around with. Or maybe a Grass/Fire-type Sunflora, as a result of getting so much sun in Alola.

Anyway, I feel we should look at the Pokémon that currently can’t be found within Sun/Moon for ideas on new variants, especially since Masuda said that we’d see Pokémon in USUM that can’t be found in Sun/Moon.

8: More signature moves

This can be a chance to give some Pokémon their own new signature moves, like Mimikyu. For such a standout Pokémon, it doesn’t have an exclusive move that it can call its own. Maybe a Ghost- or Fairy-type mimicry of Pikachu’s famed Electric attacks? And Nihilego stands out even among the Ultra Beasts, but it doesn’t have its own unique move. This can be a chance to truly give Pokémon like them their turn in the bigger spotlight.

Along with this, I also hope to see a few more unique Z-Crystals. You know what I mean, right? The Z-Crystals that give exclusive Z-Moves to certain Pokémon. What Pokémon do you think deserve their own special Z-Moves? Silvally? Nihilego? Lemme know.

9: More clarification on the Ultra Beasts

The reports that Wicke provides on the Ultra Beasts in the post-game do give a few neat details on how SUPER WEIRD they are. But I hope we see EVEN MORE information on the Ultra Beasts, like how they came to be. Perhaps Lusamine and Mohn can give more insight?

10: Visit Ultra Space

Yup. Being able to access pockets of Ultra Space during your journey. Perhaps you can meet Pokémon that have hidden abilities in there, similar to the Hidden Grottos in Black2/White2. Well, that and be part of the main story.

11: Story battles with special twists

So we know that Totem Pokémon, and Fused Lusamine’s team, get stat boosts right at the start of the battles, which can set them apart from normal battles. But apparently, that’s not good enough for SOME people. Perhaps there can be other twists in some story battles, like against the antagonists. For instance, that suggested Ice-type specialist could do something that neutralizes Ice-type’s weaknesses during some battles. Or, someone could make it possible for all of his/her Pokémon to use their Z-Moves, rather than just one. Or someone whose Pokémon are all Mega Evolved. You know?

12: Difficulty toggle

So clearing Black2/White2 will let you access different difficulties. Easy Mode to reduce opponents’ levels, and Challenge Mode to raise their levels. Perhaps something like that can be enabled for Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon...though preferably without needing some keys.

And...that’s all I can think of at the moment. What about you? What features - whether story or gameplay - to do you hope to see in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon?

[julystorms]

What if the Looker we met in ORAS was a Faller from the non-Mega Evolution timeline, just like Anabel?!

That was my original theory, but it’s very difficult to writeinto a comprehensive fiction. Suspension of disbelief can only take us so far,after all.

My original timeline was:

Looker is born in Red

Jumps to ORAS’s timeline

Then we have the events of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum

Black & White

X & Y

And finally Sun & Moon

I really love the idea of the global police agent on the S.S.Anne being Looker. So much so, in fact, that the long’fic I started in Decemberran with this theory.

But, uh, writing a history for Looker is more difficult than it sounds.

The two biggest things to consider when putting together thishistory are his amnesia and his career, because across all the games it isLooker’s career that defines him, not just because of his missions, butbecause, well, we only know him by his code name.

(Apologies, this got long.)

1.) Amnesia

Looker has amnesia in ORAS but that doesn’t mean he keeps it.The first thing to decide with him, regardless of whether or not he’s comefrom a different timeline, is: what’s up with his amnesia? Like Anabel’s it isretrograde, which means he’s only lost previous memories and has no troubleforming new ones. That said, does he get his old memories back or, like Anabel,does he at best remember just a few inconsequential details? Does he evenremember his name?

Anabel is the only other amnesiac person we’ve seen in-game; we’renever really made aware of what caused her amnesia in the first place, either.Lusamine, Guzma, the Sun/Moon protag: they were all in Ultra Space and didn’tlose their memories because of it, so is it a prolonged period there thatcaused her amnesia? Was it trauma? Or was a combination of both?

See, my original theory was that Looker was just like Anabel:the dimension shift/trauma he experienced was too much for his brain and henever regained his memories. Worse, he didn’t get his name back, either. Thisis why Anabel, who doesn’t go by a code name, calls him Looker: his code nameis literally all he has by way of a name. ORAS kind of hinted at this with thewhole amnesia thing/his code name being the only name we ever hear him referredto.

But…this brings with it a LOT of issues. First, it’s impossibleto guess whether or not Looker’s amnesia is permanent the way Anabel’s issuggested to be, but pretending it is, we have to consider suspension ofdisbelief: could he have worked closely with Anabel for at least a handful ofyears without her learning of his amnesia? Without her suspecting something wasoff about him? It’s possible he could keep a lid on it, but, I think, notwithout refusing to ever talk about his personal life, which makes me thinktheir working relationship would be, well, kind of…tense. (See also: personnelfiles, coworkers, et cetera; the truth would be bound to come out, even if it’snot something other people are supposed to mention. Like, let’s be real: twoamnesiacs working together is going to start a flurry of confused rumors withinInterpol.)

There is another option, of course—the only other one. We cangive him his memories back, which means he’ll remember his name, hisprofession, the names of people he thinks he works with. Not that it will dohim any good in another dimension, but he might know enough classifiedinformation (perhaps about Team Rocket) to make Interpol believe his claimshave some validity.

Which brings us to:

2.) Career

This isn’t a problem so much as something that has to beseriously considered. What are the chances that someone who was a global policeagent would become a faller and then, in another timeline, be recruited by whatis essentially the same organization? 

Okay, yes, before you can say it: I am aware that Interpolrecruits fallers. The original faller-bait woman is one example and Anabel isanother. Both were most assuredly unqualifiedfor recruitment and yet were recruited off the street with no credentials andno history. Cool.

But the problem with this happening to Looker, too, is that itgives him a very personal stake in this fallers-as-bait business.

And it also leads us tothe question: why isn’t Looker beingused as bait, then, if he’s a faller?

The obvious answer wouldbe, “Well, he just doesn’t carry enough energy on him,” which makes sense.Remember, the UB from 10 years ago went after his and Nanu’s team member—not Looker.However, as stated above, why would Interpol recruit him if he’s a defunctfaller and has no credentials or history?

Don’t worry—I’ll get toit.

Personally I feel that there are only so many options available for a basic history for Looker: either he is a faller or he is not; either he regains his memories or he does not.

In every instance, he will have lost his memory at least temporary due to [insert event here]. And in every instance he still ends up in the same situation: working for Interpol as a detective using the code name 100kr/Looker.

So here are the four options I think are most likely (and of course, if anyone has anything to add to these/any other combinations, I’d be happy to read them, so feel free to reblog & add to this):

#1: Looker is from another dimension; he doesn’t regain his memories and isrecruited SOLELY because he is a faller. 

This is the ONLY way to make permanent retrograde amnesiaLooker work, IMO. It’s possible he could remember a few inconsequential things butbecause he goes strictly by his code name, and has turned it into a real name(almost as if it started as a joke and then became real) it stands to reasonthat this version of Looker doesn’t actually know what his birth name was.

Consider the TVseries Get Smart. 99 always goes by 99; in fact, her real nameis never revealed and even after the two are married, Max continues to call her99. Max, however, is known interchangeably as Max and Agent 86 by pretty mucheveryone. As far as how this relates to Looker: Anabel only ever calls Lookerby his code name. (But she doesn’t seem to have one, herself...or at least, she doesn’t care to use it.)

In order for Interpol to decide to recruit Looker, he had to have something of value that they wanted/needed. In this case, it would be his status as a faller, so we have to assume that when he was found, the energy levels on him were high enough that Interpol recruited him despite his lack of credentials--in much the same way they recruited Anabel).

That said, we know thatduring the event “10 years ago” Looker and Nanu lost a teammate toGuzzlord. So if you’re going to assume Looker was recruited because of hisstatus as a faller, then you have to assume, too, that by the time the eventof “10 years ago” took place, the energy levels on him had fallen too lowto make him of any use.

This would suggest that between ORAS and this event of “tenyears ago” there is a gap of of time to allow those energy levels to drop into uselessness: a couple of years at least. This would imply that ORAS is at least 12/13 years before the events of Sun & Moon instead of the generally-assumed gap of 11ish years.

So thenthis timeline would look something like this:

Looker from Red ended up in ORAS with amnesia, was recruited byInterpol, lost his usefulness as a faller, but proved useful in other areas(due to years memory-muscle experience from another timeline that he doesn’t remember) andso kept his job.

#2: Looker is from another dimension; he is a faller, he does get his memory back, and he isrecruited by Interpol because he has experience. 

Looker’s status as a faller in this case is just a bonus; his energy levels were toolow to be of much use from the start. Because he got his memories back we can safely assume that unlike Anabel, he didn’tspend very much time in Ultra Space.

This allows him to kind of jump right back into working withouttoo much of a problem.

Regaining his memories means that he has useful information on his person. It might not be all 100% applicable/correct due to this dimension being a slightly different one, but surely some of it is useful—or at least gives his claims some immediate validity.

Not that he especially needs it. Interpol knows about fallers (after all, they find and recruit the woman who later dies on Poni Island), so they know there is a very high chance that Looker is telling the truth about his career in the other timeline. They would approach him regardless of whether or not he gets his memories back, but with his memories, they may very well want to recruit him solely for his preexistingskillset. 

This arrangement also allows for ORAS to take place closer to the “event of tenyears ago” but I’d probably put at least a year in between them for sanity’ssake (catching up on training, getting reacquainted with the world, getting into the swing of things at work).

Thistimeline would be:

Looker from Red ended up in ORAS with amnesia but recovered hismemories and investigated the situation he was in. He was able to join theInternational Police due to his skillset. As soon as the term “faller” was given to him along with a definition he was able to put two and two together. I think for sanity’s sake he would probably be made aware of this early on just because he would try to get in contact with his family ASAP and would fail spectacularly.

These aren’t terrible theories by any means, but they are prettycomplicated. I find the latter a bit easier to swallow, personally, since itdoesn’t stretch suspension of disbelief too far.

(Additionally, I’m pretty sure Generations wasgoing for the “officer on board the S.S. Anne” being Looker with the whole connection to Team Rocket thing, which, in a manner of speaking, helps support the theory that Looker is a faller.)

Anyway we have two smaller theories to consider:

#3: Looker is a faller who didn’t leave hisoriginal timeline.

This means he recovered his memories (probably, due to even lesstime in the wormhole/lack of timeline shift trauma), is a defunct faller with little to no wormhole energy onhim, and has his family/friends/job all waiting for him when he recovers from his ordeal.

This brings with it some huge advantages when it comes to writing something consistent, either fanfiction or RP. In this sort of situation, Looker is grounded in the world more firmly and has lifelong connections that keep him there. It also means that even though he’s been lying to Anabel about herself all these years...he hasn’t been lying about his own life...and hasn’t had a reason to keep anything personal from her, either.

He’s still a faller by definition, but he might not feel the same connection to Anabel that a faller-from-another-dimension version of Looker might feel. Anabel lost everything, after all, and Looker in this case would have only been temporarily inconvenienced.

This timeline would look like this:

Looker was born in the ORAS timeline, was pulled into a wormhole and spat back out again into the same timeline. He regained his memories after a short time and was able to carry on with his life almost as if nothing had even happened to him.

#4: Looker isn’t a faller at all; he was onlyin a bad accident on the S. S. Anne.

This could be split into two categories: one where he regains his memories and one where he does not, but I personally think it’s more interesting if he regains them.

The thing is, due to circumstance, it’s very likely that Looker himself mightsuspect he is a faller due to evidence that seems too obvious tojust be a coincidence. In reality, he isn’t actually a faller at all...just anInterpol agent who met with a bit of a bad time, probably on the S. S. Anne.

This theory is really simple, but it does have some potential for entertainment due to him mistaking himself for a faller.

The timeline is:

Looker was in a bad accident/met with a bad time on the S. S. Anne and washed up on the beach in Hoenn sans memories. He regained his memories, picked up with his life where he left off, but later ends up suspecting he’s a faller due to all of the similarities between his situation and Anabel’s.

No matter what theory I go with I’ll always choose onewhere Looker regains his memories because I don’t think two people sufferingfrom permanent retrograde amnesia could work together for as long as Looker and Anabel have without the truthcoming out—not without Looker having to go to extremes to keep her from putting the pieces together...which does not seem to canonically be the case. All things told, they act quite friendly around one another.

Currently #2 is my default go-to theory just because it works tolerably well (and I’d rather not piggyback on other people’s headcanons if I can help it). Plus there is a lot of room for Quality Angst™. Think about it: all these years Anabel probably felt incredibly alone but he’s gone through something similar and has been there the whole time unable to confide in her.

I can’t deny, though, that a part of me is like: isn’t itangsty enough that the last ten years Looker has known more about Anabel thanAnabel has? Isn’t it angsty enough that she’s been super promoted just to beused as fucking bait? That her position wasn’t honestly earned and she doesn’tknow it yet? That her bosses don’t give a SINGLE shit about her health? That Lookerhas to deceive some kid to get their help in protecting Anabel? That Looker hasto deceive ANABEL to recruit the kid in the first place and has to lie to her face when he’safraid she’ll die because Interpol didn’t give her anybody who could actuallyhelp???

Adding more onto it steps so close to overdramatic badfic territory that it makes it scary to think about writing. To work well, it would have to be incredibly well-written. Looker’s character would have to be well-established and remain so throughout the entire story, and all of the important questions would have to be addressed: for example, Looker remembers everything but has been separated from his family* whichbegs the question: what’s worse, knowing what you’re missing or being obliviousto it? Is this even comparable? 

*This could get really angsty, too. It’s bad enough to lose yourparents/siblings/grandparents/nephews/nieces but it’s also possible he wastaken away from a significant other and/or children as well. Not to mention all of his friendships, contacts, acquaintances. They all probably think he’s dead.

Too, Anabel’s writing is really important; and you might say, “but this post is really about Looker” and that’s true, but please don’t forget that Anabel, as a fellow faller, is incredibly important and a big part of Looker’s life. Regardless of how they view one another, they are on friendly terms and Looker goes way the hell out of his way to try to protect her; this implies a certain level of closeness. It’s not “how he treats everyone” either: the dude risks the life of an 11-year-old to act as PvP DPS peel-bait without even telling the kid that’s what they’re being recruited for. He’s a little ruthless about protecting her. They are close. They have to be for that kind of behavior to make any sense at all.

Anyway, Looker in the case of #2 at least remembers himself. Even separated from his family and friends, he knows what makes him him. This is not a luxury Anabel has been afforded in this timeline. She probably has a lot of self-image issues (among other things), and they need to be included if for no other reason than as a foil to Looker’s dilemma/situation/outlook. That said, it’s easy to fall into the trap of making Anabel’s entire personality about her amnesia, and that is a.) boring, and b.) pretty offensive to people who suffer from or have experienced memory issues/loss of any kind.

What I’m getting at here is that even though picking a theory is pretty easy, writing it seamlessly is not. The characters have to stay in character according to what we know of them, and their relationships to one another can’t suffer as a result of that attempt. 

Anyway, out of all four theories, I find #2 and #3 to be the most likely, followed by #4. #2/3/4 run less risk of Looker and Anabel both reading as exactly the same in writing, and IMO would give an author less trouble than the others. #1 could be fun but like I said, it brings with it a lot of issues with regards to writing Looker’s relationship to Anabel, and probably others, too (in particular Nanu).

I’m not about picking a route just because it’s easy, but I tried to make #1 work and it didn’t work for me personally; I stressed myself out trying to make it make sense.

In the end, I’ll probably always use #2 just because it’s been working pretty well for me. (I do realize my Looker blog kind of contradicts this in a thread but I was still feeling everything out when I got to that part, so consider that retconned if you happened to have read it lmao.)

The TL;DR version: I've been on board that train for a while and I agree it’s one of the more plausible theories.

[prettyflyforacyguy]

all

rlord christ uh okay

1: Kitchen Counter, Couch, or on top of the dryer?

kitchen Table. ;3

2: Your last sexual encounter: Good or Bad and why:

good!!!!! it was early morning and aiden was off work so we decided to mess around and it was just v low stress and nice

3: A fictional person that you think would be good in bed:

hm uh. who;s that one tiger from zootopia? shit dice drew a commission of him a while back. the sexy one. he’d treat me right.

4: Something that never fails to make you horny:

there are like a million dumb fucking things aiden does that makes me lose my gdamn mind!!!!!! like, when he loosens his tie and gives me The Sex Look or kisses my neck in a certain spot... luv that husband

5: Where is one place you would never have sex:

somewhere kids could see :/

6: The most awkward moment during a sexual experience was when ______________

one time admittedly when i was new to anal i had the inevitable ShitDick scenario bc i didn’t know how to prep myself properly........im so fucking sorry, trey, im so sorry

7: Weirdest thing that ever made you horny:

this petsmart flyer came in the mail once. that was a weird jerkoff. made me realize im deep in petplay pff

8: What is the best way to sexually bind someone: Handcuffs, Rope, or Other [if other please explain]:

aiden;s been practicing shibari and it’s pretty fun! i’d say its my fav way to be restrained rn 

9: What is the fastest way to make you horny:

it aint hard idk

10: Top or bottom?

this bitch be bottomin, my ass is Ready

11: We were about to ____________ but then ______________ [example: we were about to have sex but then his mom walked in]

12: Is one orgasm enough? Are multiple orgasms necessary?

it depends on how much stamina u have or if you’re in the mood for more? that time waiting for the refractory period tho suuuuuuuucks, im so jealous of dfab ppl that can come multiple times :/

13: Something that you have hidden in your room that you don’t want anyone to find:

a valentine’s present for aiden, shhh

14: Weirdest nickname a significant other has ever called you:

sometimes aiden fuckign. does French Shit and i dont know what he’s saying until after but it’s kind of become a joke because we’ll be having a really nice moment and he’ll lean in and like, whisper some bullshit like “my little lima bean” or “my sweet polished fork” and i fuckignt rftg,,, IT STILL SOUNDS HOT, WHY IS HE LIKE THIS 

15: Two things you like [or dislike] about oral sex:

that “pop” noise when ur mouth comes off the dick. also, when he like, holds your head with his fingers tangled in your hair and bobs your head down on his cock g gg go gogfdoood thats so hot i love it when he does that to me its nice

16: Weirdest sexual act some has performed [or tried to perform] on/with you:

welcome 2 Trauma Land next question

17: Have you ever tasted yourself? [If no, would you?] [If yes, what did you think?]

yeah. it’s a pretty slutty thing to do, it’s not great tasting if u don’t like, pineapple and shit but it’s a pretty good way to get your partner turned on more

18: Is it ever okay to not use a condom:

if u and ur partner get tested together and r clean and not seeing anyone else

19: Who was the sexiest teacher you ever had?

my sophomore year humanities teacher in my study abroad program....holy Fuck. hooooly fuck. mr. nakamura still gets me going to this day. he has a wife tho :(

20: A food that you would like to use during a sexual experience:

whipped creaaaam!

21: How big is too big:

some bad dragons are really intimidating. christ.

22: One sexual thing you would never do:

let ppl use me as an object again :/

23: Biggest turn on:

humiliation is pretty good

24: Three spots that drive you insane:

my neck

my back

my pussy, and my crack.

25: Worst possible time to get horny:

driving is pretty rough.

26: Do you like it when your sexual partner moans:

ch r is  t  y es

27: Worst sexual idea you ever had:

define “worst,” anon.

28: How much fapping is too much fapping:

who fucking calls it “fapping” still

29: Best sexual complement you ever got:

Yikes^TM

30: Bald, landing strip, Jumanji:

is this like, a lesbian thing? i dont get it

31: Is it good sex if you don’t nut:

YA GATTA NUT!

32: Fill in the blank: "If they ____________, we are fuckin"

IF THEY TRUCKIN WE ARE FUCKIN!

33: What your favorite part of your body:

my belly........? idk i used to Hate My Mcfuckin Self but aiden blows raspberries on me and its fkin cute holy hell

34: Favorite foreplay activities:

if i suck on aiden’s fingers he basically fucking Dies on the spot, so that’s fun to use. for myself, uhh. thigh kisses are hot. so hot.

35: Love (>,<, or =) Sex For those of us who don’t remember our math thats “greater than, less than, or equal to]

there was a a time when i wouldve said sex is bnetter but no, it’s Lov....i Love Husband

36: What do you wear to bed?

boxers, and my husband

37: When was the first time you masturbated:

probably when i was like nine or ten? in the “i dont know this is masturbating but it kinda feels nice” way

38: Do you have any nude/masturbating pictures/video of yourself?

there’s a lot floating around there but most of it is during The Bad Time

39: Have you ever/when was the last time you had sex outside?

uhhh shit its been a while i can’t really remember?

40: Have/would you ever have sex outside?

mhm. it’s not my fav tho

41: Have/would you ever had a threesome?

i;ve had more than a threesome, buddy

42: What is one random object you’ve used to masturbate?

when i was young and desperate and trying anal for the first time i used a vibrating toothbrush but no one told me you’re supposed to not use the brush end. the bristles were rough. 

43: Have/would you ever masturbate at work/school?

yes to both?? im a tiny troglodyte man what do u expect

44: Have/would you ever have sex on a plane?

maybe? this is a very specific situation, i know aiden would rather die than do anything on a plane tho

45: What is one song you’d like to have sex to?

i feel it coming - daft punk

46: What is something nonsexual that makes you horny?

literally like anything can make me hard im fucking easy

47: Most attractive celebrity?

my husband....he’s a star, to Me...

48: Do you watch gay/lesbian porn? why/why not?

yes. source: am gay

49: If a child was born on the occasion of the last time you had sex, how old would that child be right now?

Unborn.

50: Has anyone ever posted nude pictures of you online?

yes. i dont particularly like to think abt it but there’s a. big fan community wanting me to “come back” and it makes me super uncomfortable.

51: What is one thing that NEVER makes you horny?

girls :/

52: Do you have stretch marks? (How do you feel about them? Has anyone ever had a problem with them?)

i have a couple on my thighs and my belly from some healthy weight gain, but aiden doesn’t mind. he likes em

53: Do you like giving head? (why/why not)

dick....me Sucky Cock...nya

54: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in?

i dont rlly care

55: How would you feel about taking someones virginity?

i was a few people’s first lay and it was uh. difficult. they think they can just pound a man’s ass like their fleshlight and it’s rough when you���re like, laying there and your ass is on fire while you remind them to use more lube and also fucking go slower to start

56: Is there any food you would NOT recommend using during a sexual encounter?

sticky rice. good fucking lord, do not use sticky rice.

57: Is there anything you do on Tumblr that you would not like your significant other to see?

not really? we don’t hide things from each other

58: Do you own any sex toys? (what is it? (how long have you had it?)

we own a Shit ton. i’ve had some since i was like, a teenager but i’ve been collectin some over the years

59: Would you give your significant other unrestricted access to your Tumblr for a day?

oh god no. aiden barely knows what memes are

60: Would you be offended if your significant other suggested you get plastic surgery?

no, me and aiden have already discussed like, scar reduction shit. i have a few nasty keloids :/

61: Would you rather be a pornstar or a prostitute?

neither?? i mean, i was both for a while but *SLAMS TRAUMA BUTTON*

62: Do you watch porn?

duh

63: How small is too small?

all dick is good dick!!!!

64: Have you ever been called a freak? Why?

continues to Slam the Trauma Button

65: Who gave you your last kiss? Did it mean anything?

66: Would you switch phones with your significant other for a day?

probably not because aiden’s in a group chat with his work buddies and they’re all middle aged or young mom nurses. im a fish out of water.

67: Do you feel comfortable going "commando"?

sure, as long as its not like skinny jeans or something

68: Would you have a problem with going down on someone if they hadn't shaved their pubic hair?

not rlly. good dick is good dick

69: If you could give yourself head, would you?

im p sure everyone tries but usually i get my husband to B)

70: Booty or Boobs?

ass. please god, i’m all about ass

71: If you had a penis, what would you name it?

Ass Blaster 69

72: Have you ever been on an official date?

yes? like a movie and restraunt thing?

73: Have you ever cheated on someone? (Why?)

not that i know of, but there was a point when i was pretty low in life that i hopped around w/ partners and one night stands.

74: If you were a stripper, what would your name be?

the Pole Faller. i have no body strength and im named that bc i’d fall off the pole

75: Have you ever had sex in your parents bed? (Would you?)

no??????????? nO??

76: How would you react if you found out your parents had sex in your bed?

what...what kind of question even is this

77: What was your reaction the first time you saw a penis/vagina

“god i wanna put my mouth all over that”

78: If you had a penis/vagina for a day, what are five things you would do?

DOUBLE PENETRATION!!!!!! DOUBLE PENETRATION!!!!!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 09/10/2020

Okay, so as you know this show has been on a “hiatus” for reasons I explained in the last episode and I had been thinking of different ways to continue this. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it does not really matter if I skipped tens of songs, maybe even more than 100, because a lot of them don’t have lasting success and if I kept doing these massive blocks of songs from months ago I would pretty much get nowhere by the end of the year. So, I’m writing this on Saturday, meaning the UK Singles Chart updated yesterday, and I think it’s about time I get back in schedule. This week’s #1 is “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior, and let’s discuss the new arrivals in the UK Top 75. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts and Returning Entries

So, how will this work? Well, it’s going to be pretty simple. No rundown of the top 10, no climbers and fallers, just reviews of the usually about 10 or so new songs that hit the UK Top 75. I’ll cover returning entries and drop-outs as well ever so briefly at the start of each episode, just for some additional clarity and information, I guess. This was actually a pretty damn busy week to start off with so we have a lot of drop-outs, some of which are pretty notable, like “Secrets” by DJ Regard and RAYE, “Fake Friends” by Ps1 and Alex Hosking, “Dinner Guest” by AJ Tracey and MoStack, Tion Wayne’s “I Dunno” featuring Dutchavelli and Stormzy, “Dancing in the Moonlight” by Jubel and Neimy and some other relatively unimportant one-week hits I won’t be mentioning here. Of course, there are songs that have been on the chart for months but I only recently covered like “This City” by Sam Fischer, “Kings & Queens” by Ava Max and “Don’t Need Love” by 220 KID and Gracey, as well as some gradual losses from the late Juice WRLD, those being “Smile” with the Weeknd and “Wishing Well”. Returning to the chart are “Real Life” by Burna Boy and Stormzy at #71, “One Too Many” by Keith Urban and P!nk at #57, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at #55 43 years after release because of this guy on TikTok drinking cranberry juice (That’s 2020 for you) and finally, “Levitating” by Dua Lipa at #30 thanks to a pretty good DaBaby remix. Now we have two album bombs to start this season off. Let’s go!

NEW ARRIVALS

#66 – “Always Forever” – Bryson Tiller

Produced by J-Louis, Teddy Walton and CAMEone

Bryson Tiller. I don’t really get or even know his music enough to spark any insight before listening, and to be transparent, no, I didn’t listen to that comeback album. Anniversary is a sequel of sorts to his debut album, Trapsoul, and I can expect just that, I imagine, from this very quick pre-release single dropped just a week or two before the album proper. This drowned-out, watery R&B style doesn’t usually work with me, especially when Drake does it, and Tiller’s nasal, high-pitched squeaky crooning here also does not fit this otherwise lovely production, with some fat bass 808s I really enjoy. The chorus is a  mess of fleeting background vocal runs and the performance here while not embarrassing feels kind of lifeless and checked-out. Admittedly, some of the harmonies he hits in the third verse/bridge are pretty nice-sounding, but it feels wasted when the song just continues to flutter off afterwards with the same dull key patterns and frankly, this is just an uninteresting and clearly unfinished track barely under three minutes and never reaching a point where it feels worth listening to. If I were a Bryson Tiller fan, I would be pretty underwhelmed with this.

#65 – “Years Go By” – Bryson Tiller

Produced by Streetrunner and Tarik Azzouz

Well, here’s the opening track from the record, where Tiller has to make that impactful first impression, and with this reverb-drenched guitar melody in the intro and the distorted sound effects that start off the song proper, it starts off solid, and, I’m afraid to say, continues to be so. This obviously goes for a more direct trap-rap vibe with a skittering drum pattern that really bumps and a... pretty underwhelming two verses from Tiller here, who prefers to just kind of impersonate the Weeknd until the beat abruptly cuts out for pointless Auto-Tuned vocal riffing, and, yeah, this is just clumsy. The flows here are tired and messy, often clinging off the ledge of the beat, and even if I really like the cute synths in the outro, I can’t excuse this. Once again, it just seems unfinished, and lyrically on both tracks, he’s saying nothing of any substance. I guess he shouts out Jack Harlow and... Danny Phantom? He also seems to refer to himself as “Godtiller” by the end, as in Godzilla, because no-one’s stopping him from doing so. Sigh, next.

#62 – “Bet You Wanna” – BLACKPINK featuring Cardi B

Produced by TBHits, Mr. Franks and Teddy

You may be able to recognise a pattern here but no, I didn’t listen to this really short debut album by BLACKPINK either, pretty fittingly called The Album. This isn’t really a collaboration I understand or expected but it’s not that far-fetched, especially since BTS did collaborate with Nicki Minaj a year or so ago. The songs features the girls only singing in English over some finger-snaps that sound painfully fake and some demanding piano that is completely switched for the pre-chorus only for it to come back later and then technically in the chorus but covered in tropical-like percussion and some background squealing, only for Cardi B to interrupt with a surprisingly PG verse – you can really tell she had to censor herself here – and that’s all she does in the song. This actually is a fair bit more refined than K-pop I heard previously as it seems to at least stick to a musical motif which seems to be a pretty difficult concept for a lot of these bands. I mean, that’s probably just because of the Western producers on this song like TBHits, who’s worked with Ariana Grande before. It isn’t a headache like “Kill This Love” and I really love the vocal performance from who I thinks is “Jennie” here although the others seem to scroll through ugly distortion effects, particularly in their verse. I mean, it sure is listenable and honestly kind of a far cry from the earlier songs I heard from them, but it’s still not very good. Sorry.

#60 – “On My Mind” – Diplo and SIDEPIECE

Produced by Diplo and SIDEPIECE

So, in 1996, R&B girl group 702 released a pretty solid new jack swing jam as their debut single, featuring Missy Elliott, called “Steelo”. It was a minor hit in itself and even sampled the Police – the rock band fronted by Sting, I feel the need to clarify considering the current climate.  It’s not a bad song, albeit perhaps overlong and unintentionally intimidating at times. You can tell Missy’s phoning it in a bit here, but she’s still as charming as ever here. 24 years later, we have “On My Mind”, a glorified house remix of the tune by Diplo and two of his buddies, basically. Is it any good? Well, yes. The sprinkling of cute synths in the intro combined with that leering vocal line really replicate the vibe of the original song, and it does that even better when a single vocal sample from the bridge is looped constantly under a pretty pounding bass and a typical four-on-the-floor house track. This song’s bridge of its own is incredibly pretty as well, to the point where the squawking and low-tone beeping don’t really bother me, especially when it just... crashes with buzzy bass drops that sound like a mix of a dubstep track and a car zooming past. It shifts up the entire song and honestly it works, it’s an effective climax, this is pretty fun, albeit lacking many ideas. It doesn’t really matter if those ideas are executed as well as they are here, so, thanks, Diplo.

#54 – “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” – 21 Savage and Metro Boomin featuring Young Thug

Produced by Metro Boomin and Peter Lee Johnson

Of course, it’s not actually titled “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” but I’ve got to at least try and keep this show clean. Now, I haven’t listened to many albums this year but 21 Savage and Metro Boomin’s collaborative album Savage Mode II is definitely one of the best of those few. Admittedly, it has a pretty lacklustre beginning and it doesn’t really make sense as a sequel to that Savage Mode EP, particularly because it’s trying to pay homage to a bunch of different styles of 80s, 90s and 2000s rap to the point of identity crisis, but it is one of the best album listening experiences I’ve had this year, with some absolutely killer production from Metro, the sheer brilliance of the Morgan Freeman interludes and 21’s improvement as a rapper being really on show throughout the record. “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” is one of my absolute favourites on the album, with the smooth as hell synths and that violin sample that is just hypnotic. 21 Savage slides on this beat and he actually sounds pretty slick with Auto-Tune here, especially over this production which is just beautiful; Metro really is the highlight of the record all things considered. In fact, 21 kind of loses me with his brand flexing and the weird empty spaces that he seems to compensate for by jumbling words together to fit the meter which is unfitting for the mood of the song. Thugger, however, I’m convinced can do no wrong. His upbeat, joyful inflections are in great contrast with his crooning in the second half of the verse, and even though he only really uses one flow through the verse, it leaves a good impression on me fast enough for me to dismiss that. Are they on-topic? Barely. Are they saying anything of substance other than some flexing, sex talk and threats? No, I mean, it’s 21 Savage and Young Thug, but the most important thing here is delivery and these guys have it in spades. I’m a lot more convinced that Thugger has hit men than YoungBoy Never Broke Again is all I’m saying. That being said, please don’t send your shooters, Mr. Broke Again.

#43 – “Runnin” – 21 Savage and Metro Boomin

Produced by Metro Boomin

After the gorgeous introduction from Metro and Morgan Freeman, you are met headfirst with the wrath of... a pretty Diana Ross sample. The way Metro flips this into this head-nodding almost Memphis-like trap beat makes it sound a lot more ominous and menacing though, and it really hits when 21 comes in with his opening bars that start off the project, giving you a basic rundown about what he’s going to do in the album only in the first verse: beat people up, buy cars, spend money on women who he only keeps around for sex and finally, shoot the opps. In fact, he calls his Draco a paedophile because “all of his opps gettin’ touched”, which is a questionable line. 21, are you saying your opps are all children? Regardless, 21 does have some pretty funny wordplay and punchlines, particularly in the second verse with a really clever line about biblical marijuana (Go figure). Basically, he grows his weed in the Garden of Eden, but “zaza” is really high-quality marijuana and also a name mentioned in the Bible. I don’t know if that was intentional or not but if it was a coincidence it at least adds to the lyrics of the song. I have to say though that the chorus is weak and tedious as all hell, and by the end of the song that sample has well-overstayed its welcome, making the song hit a lot less harder than I think was intended. Hey, at least it has Morgan Freeman on it.

#40 – “Lovesick Girls” – BLACKPINK

Produced by R.Tee and 24

So, here we are in the top 40, with more BLACKPINK and to my surprise, honestly. I figured that the song with the big western rap star would be here but I suppose this did have a video behind it – that was controversial in Korea because of how the Korean Health and Medical Workers Union objected to Jennie wearing a sexualised nurse outfit, because, well, sure. This time the lyrics are mostly in Korean, and it sounds immediately much more like what I’d expect from what 2020’s K-pop has to offer. There is a pretty clean guitar loop that the whole song runs off of, some great vocal performances amongst simple rap flows and a drastic shift into an English chorus with some 80s-like synths and admittedly a nice synthpop beat. I prefer this a lot to “Bet You Wanna” but as it is it’s just inoffensive. I like Jennie’s rap verse though. “Don’t want to be a princess, I’m priceless / a Prince not even on my list”? Come on, that’s kind of fire, at least for middling Korean electropop standards.

#38 – “Heart of Glass” – Miley Cyrus

There aren’t any production credits on Spotify, Wikipedia or Genius, mostly because this is a live performance from iHeartRadio Music Festival – however they’re still doing that in these times – that was just dumped on streaming and impressively got all the way into the top 40. To be honest, I can’t say I’m a fan of the original – it’s a well-written song flattened by weak albeit infectious disco production and whilst the groove is infectious, the song has just never clicked with me, so I’m not excited to listen to Cyrus’ cover but hey, anything to delay talking about back-to-back Drake features and D-Block Europe. I WAS excited however when it started with a rock breakdown, especially that drum fill, but it soon restarted to the groove that we all know the song for and one that again, I never was too fond of to begin with. Miley is energetic, raspy and almost growling here at points but the instrumentation is somewhat stiff, which again is a problem I have with the original. It also doesn’t replace the synth riff with an epic guitar solo as I kind of hoped. At the point where Miley drops into “na-na-na”’s and unintelligible yelling is when I just zone out. I really hoped this could have been better, but I’m not a fan.

#35 – “Come Over” – Jorja Smith featuring Popcaan

Produced by Izaiah and MadisonLST

It’s rare there’s a song on these charts that intrigues or excites me in the way this one does, not because it’s particularly novel or groundbreaking, but just because this is a new song from two artists I like but haven’t checked out much from, and I have yet to hear it so I’m glad it debuted this high. I’m happy for Popcaan too, he seems to be having a good year signed to OVO and all, even if I’ve never really tried to listen to his solo stuff. I’ve heard many features from the guy though, with Drake, Kanye, Pusha T, Gorillaz on “Saturnz Barz” and especially alongside Jamie xx and Young Thug on one of my favourite songs of all time, “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)”, and he does not detract from a single one of them. I enjoyed Smith’s debut album a fair bit and whilst nothing she’s released since has really clicked with me, I’m still excited to hear what she has in store. I really love the production here, even if it is a tad fragmented, especially with that awkward vocal sample, but the atmospheric and hell, even spacey dancehall beat really evokes dub. I also hate the way that vocal sample is manipulated to a nasal, pitch-shifted tone in the bridge, but I guess the chorus is really pretty. Popcaan is kind of obnoxious crooning on here but he flows when he starts really flowing... then he’s immediately interrupted by Jorja singing the first verse again for whatever reason, and, yeah, this song’s a mess. It’s so oddly produced that by the time the air horns, yes, air horns, kick in during the outro, you are left with no real idea of what you just listened to. Or at least I was.

#28 – “Mr. Right Now” – 21 Savage and Metro Boomin featuring Drake

Produced by Metro Boomin and DAVID x ELI

And now, Drake. Thankfully this is the better of the two Drake-featured songs we have here, but this is still a low point on Savage Mode II and definitely an unnecessary inclusion. The production here is actually incredible, with those sweet strings and a quiet vocal sample that is absolutely infectious. The issue here is 21 Savage cannot really do an R&B hook that well, and even when he’s in his element on a trap beat, his bars are non-existent and generic. That pre-chorus is just awful coming from 21. I hate to say it, but maybe Drake could have been more involved here other than the second verse, where he starts by just repeating what 21 said, and then continues to just be Drake, and I’m not sure about the general public, but listening to Drake being Drake is nothing more than monotonous at this point. The only interesting thing he really says in his verse is that he used to date SZA in 2008, which, according to SZA herself, is actually inaccurate by about a year, which is just... well, Drake being Drake. Also, I’m really sick of quarantine music already. You should always reflect on the experience before making art about something like this, and I feel like a fleeting reference to the pandemic with a one-and-done bar I’ve heard a couple times before already (“We in quarantine, but my M’s long”) just dates this slow and sloppy R&B cut even more. Calling it now: if Metro hadn’t produced this, this would be unlistenable.

#24 – “Outta Time” – Bryson Tiller featuring Drake

Produced by Nineteen85, Vinylz and 40

Well, I guess it’s time to test this hypothesis. I don’t think that Drake has come out with anything salvageable this year, mostly because he’s been releasing leftovers and branding them as such, and they still top charts. I mean, “Laugh Now Cry Later” is okay but that’s mostly saved by 20 seconds of Lil Durk being an absolute treasure. The way he croons gargled nonsense and follows it up with “Bring Drake to the hood, surround Drake around Drac’s” might be the funniest and best moment in pop music this year. This song with Bryson Tiller is nowhere near as amusing but honestly Drake mumble-singing over a pretty classy 90s-reminiscent R&B sample is usually quite pleasant... here he just sounds whiny and immature, and he’s pretty clearly recycling cadences and flows he’s already used. He also has zero chemistry with Tiller, maybe because they never interact on the song, with Tiller’s Auto-Tuned crooning saved for the last half of the track, mostly because I imagine it’s easier to get streams with Drake at the start. Honestly, I prefer Bryson Tiller’s part. Hey, I don’t like his voice, but over that sweet Snoh Aalegra sample, I’m not going to say it doesn’t work. This is the best I’ve heard from the album but I mean it’s not like there’s competition.

#21 – “Wonder” – Shawn Mendes

Produced by Shawn Mendes, Nate Mercereau, Scott Harris and Kid Harpoon

Really? Only #21? Okay, well, I suppose some Shawn Mendes songs are slow burners but considering how successful “If I Can’t Have You” and “Senorita” were right after release I did expect this new lead single to seep at least into the top 15, especially since the UK has a tendency to just let anybody in the top 20, but, hey, if the song’s good, it shouldn’t really matter. Much like “In My Blood” from the last album rollout, this is a ballad, although this is specifically a post-breakup ballad where he contemplates on his manufactured relationship with Camila Cabello. So it couldn’t get into the top 20 even with fake personal drama surrounding the single? Wow. Well, I actually kind of like the lyrical content here, especially the second verse where he briefly addresses toxic masculinity, and how it makes him feel like less of a man when he cries because that’s what society’s conventions and norms programmed him to feel. I would like it a bit better if it weren’t as on-the-nose and kind of clumsy as it is, especially since the rest of the song is just wondering what it would feel like to be loved by Camila Cabello and some dreary, post-breakup lines. The first verse taps into more profound and insightful territory to but it goes nowhere and I find it hard to care about this melodrama at all, even if it is backed by a pretty powerful choir arrangement. Much like “If I Can’t Have You” and some of his other tracks before this, especially “Mercy”, this feels like a pretty overproduced, underwritten angst jam with absolutely no teeth to it other than a performance from Mendes that goes into some belting territory but is overall too restrained to fit this kind of anthemic orchestral instrumentation and especially those drums. In conclusion, this is a waste of potential but at least it had potential to begin with, unlike...

#11 – “UFO” – D-Block Europe featuring Aitch

Produced by Cardo, Cubeatz and DY Krazy

People complain about the charts all the time, particularly the type and quality of music on it. This is especially true with the USA’s Billboard Hot 100 and I understand that chart has incredible flaws it hasn’t made up for, but at least it doesn’t have D-Block Europe every other week. I mean, a pretty great British rap song even ended up on the Hot 100 thanks to TikTok and DaBaby, that being “Don’t Rush” by Young T & Bugsey featuring Headie One. That proves that these recurring antagonists of REVIEWING THE CHARTS are not necessary; I like Young T & Bugsey. We could just replace these oversaturated whining idiots with those guys, but no, we have Young Adz and Dirtbike LB, and they’re here to stay. Oh, and even better, they’re here with Aitch, pioneer of the new “gentrified drill” genre. Apparently to Young Adz, this is a “different” song that could isolate their audience, but I just see this as pretty normal Young Adz moaning over guitar-trap beats. It’s not drill, but it’s not like this is all that different or interesting... like at all. Adz has this hilariously bad “ooh-wee” flow that just sounds ridiculous on this beat, and Aitch proves his status as the whitest man in UK rap – and this is the country that brought you Professor Green. The song isn’t even about spaceships or any type of unidentified flying object! It’s just about having sex with drug dealers, with the only reference to the supernatural being the intro where Young Adz says that this sex is apparently happening in space... for no reason. And Dirtbike LB, well...

I’mma cover my pain with these shades

Just as embarrassing as usual. These guys have got an album out this week by the way, with 29 songs and a full 91 minutes of this same garbage they’ve been pumping out mixtapes of for two years now. They’re still funny occasionally and never on purpose, but the humorous inflections and stupid lines are now so few and far between that it’s barely worth pointing any of that out anymore. God.

Conclusion

This wasn’t just a busy week to start off on, but also a week where I’m not left impressed by really any of this, even from the album I liked. Worst of the Week still goes to D-Block Europe and Aitch with “UFO” with Bryson Tiller picking up the Dishonourable Mention for both of his first two lousy tracks here. Other than that, well, I only really like “Rich Gnarly Dude Stuff” by 21 Savage, Metro Boomin and Young Thug so that runs away with Best of the Week, but I guess I’ll give the Honourable Mention to “On My Mind” by Diplo and SIDEPIECE, for at least being kind of fun if not anything else.

Here’s the top 10 for this week:

...and that’s all from me. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more garbage and hopefully I’ll see you next week.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15th September 2019

This is a pretty damn busy week all things considered, especially in comparison to the last few weeks which have been incredibly dry, by that I mean “No new arrivals” dry, so without further ado, let’s review the charts.

Top 10

Now I’m puzzled, why hasn’t “Take Me Back to London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy, remixed by Sir Spyro with additional verses from Jaykae and Aitch (Yes, I’m saying that whole thing every time) been dethroned yet? It’s its third week at #1, and I understand that it’s Ed Sheeran making watered-down white-washed grime music which follows somewhat of a UK hip hop trend with pop sensibilities and riding off the waves of a late 2000s grime/UK garage nostalgia phase, it’s essentially the perfect #1 for late Summer-early Autumn 2019 in Britain, but come on, this isn’t a great song and it’s been so close to stepping down from this spot in the past three weeks, in fact...

Aitch may as well have dethroned himself by technicality this week, since the release of his AitcH20 mixtape (I don’t like the dude’s music but I respect the pun) has propelled his lead single “Taste (Make it Shake)” up a spot to number-two, which is a new peak but not the #1 spot as I very much expected, and dreaded, this week.

Potential #1 “Higher Love” by Kygo and the late Whitney Houston is down a spot to number-three thanks to Aitch’s impact, which fortunately, isn’t notable enough for an Album Bomb feature; neither is Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding but we will see some of that later on.

“Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey is staying still at number-four.

Meanwhile, we have a humorous blunder on the BBC’s part, who said that Post Malone’s “Circles”, at number-five this week, is “down 6”, implying that Post Malone reached the impossible: A #0 spot on the UK Singles Chart. Pretty impressive. This song has grown on me, especially in album context, but I’m not bothered about it all too much still and I do think “Goodbyes” with Young Thug is miles better.

Joel Corry’s “Love Island anthem”, “Sorry” featuring uncredited vocals from Hayley May, is at number-six this week, which isn’t a change at all from last chart.

Unfortunately missing its chance of #1 now is “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike, down two spots to number-seven. I predict Fike’ll be a one-hit wonder because of his general apathy for promotion and performing live, especially since none of his other singles seem to have matched the success of his breakout song, but that debut album will be what decides it, I suppose.

Lil Tecca is down one space to number-eight with “RAN$OM”, which still isn’t plummeting fast enough – I did a UK Top 40 ranking on my Twitter @cactusinthebank and this just barely missed the bottom of that list, so if you wanted any insight on how I feel about that track, there you go.

Young T & Bugsey ride off the Aitch feature as “Strike a Pose” is up another chart position to number-nine.

Finally, we have a gain I’m ecstatic about, as “Goodbyes” by Post Malone featuring Young Thug gains a second wind, up four spaces to #10 thanks to the album release. More on that later, but I’m glad this returned to the top 10, it is a near-perfect pop song.

Climbers

I’m ecstatic about this gain too as Regard’s Jay Sean remix, “Ride It”, is up 10 spaces (or “down 10” – thanks, BBC) off the debut to #15, becoming Regard’s first ever UK Top 20. Congratulations, but man, who cares? Jay Sean has another hit. It’s his ninth UK Top 20 hit overall and first ever since 2010, I hope this guy makes a comeback. Speaking of people getting their first UK Top 20 hits, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I had an unexpected boost 12 spaces up to #19, becoming her first ever as well. There are no other climbers but there are a ton of fallers, so...

Fallers

I think I need for the first time in months to separate these fallers by genre, so...

In reverse order of how high up these songs are on the chart unless noted, and starting with pop, EDM and rock(?), “bad guy” by Billie Eilish (Featuring Justin Bieber, kind of) is down six spaces to #37 as this one’s definitely on its way out. Skipping two songs for the sake of the writing to flow, “Ritual” by Tiesto, Jonas Blue and Rita Ora is down four to #28, “Someone You Love” by Lewis Capaldi is down six to #27, “Castles” by Freya Ridings is down six as well to #26, “Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid is down five to #24 and “boyfriend” by Social House featuring Ariana Grande is down five to #22.

Our second genre is Taylor Swift, as “You Need to Calm Down” has an end to its second wind thanks to the Lover album release, down eight spots to #36 (It’ll be out pretty soon), and the title track (That’s “Lover”) is down nine positions to #31.

Our third and final genre category worth noting is hip hop and R&B, starting with MIST and Fredo dropping a whopping 26 spaces to #35 with “So High”, just as I start to actually like this song, thanks to what are probably streaming cuts... and that’s actually all for that genre. Huh. Maybe I shouldn’t have split this in the first place.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Our drop outs seem to all be songs from the last stretch of the charts, in fact all of last week’s #36-#40 have been replaced this week, mostly some songs barely holding onto the UK Top 40, specifically in the realm of hip-hop seemingly, with “I Spy” by Krept & Konan, K-Trap and Headie One dropping out from #39 and “Location” by Dave featuring Burna Boy out from #40, as well as “Wish You Well” by Sigala featuring Becky Hill from #38, while some recent debuts are also out of the chart. “The Man” by Taylor Swift is out from #36 but won’t be back and is probably the result of a combination of a busy week and Lover hype dying off, while “Lalala” by Y2K and bbno$ is out from #37 off of the debut, but will re-enter next week at even possibly a higher position actually. It’s just because it’s a busy week and it happened to break in late, it’s not losing in performance.

There are no returning entries so let’s get into the most EPIC part of the show:

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Slide Away” – Miley Cyrus

Produced by Andrew Wyatt and Mike WiLL Made-It – Peaked at #11 in Slovakia and #47 in the US

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Miley Cyrus song I enjoy, even in eras people seem to praise like Bangerz and... well, just Bangerz. I don’t think I’ll ever be a fan of Cyrus to be honest, I’m definitely not a fan of the slight country twang she has in her voice and I never think her production is any good or even worthwhile, usually provided by Mike WiLL. It’s either completely misguided and cringeworthy like SHE IS COMING or to an even worse extent, Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, or generic, country-influenced pop slush like her Disney efforts and once again to an even worse extent, Younger Now. I did see a lot of buzz about this track in particular that seemed pretty positive, and I’ve got to say, it took her 16 UK Top 40 hits and a music video being released recently, but she’s finally got a charting song that I like, in fact, I might love this. Those slick guitar riffs that start the song off as well as soulful pitch-shifted vocals set a really sombre atmosphere, propelled by the trap percussion with 808s that really dig into the centre of the mix, and an odd scatting and incoherent vocal sample, which is actually an interesting addition and probably Mike WiLL’s contribution. The chorus here is insanely powerful, with Cyrus’ country twang being more subtle and overall, her performance here is a lot more bearable than normal. The swell the airy synths have here especially in the hook is less non-descript than most modern pop and doesn’t present any grandiosity like you’d expect, especially backed by the strings. It sounds more like acceptance, which is incredibly fitting for the subject matter, which as a result from Cyrus’ split with one of the Hemsworths, is focused on how she wants to safely move on rather than focusing on the past as it’s pretty unhealthy especially as she’s now a grown woman (Which she points out in the pre-chorus), with the fully instrumental and surprisingly lengthy outro (Really love the subtle touches there as well, as the vocal sample comes back briefly as well) full of vocodered synth brass and strings flailing out and going nowhere... much like her marriage. Was that on purpose? Probably not, actually, I doubt Mike WiLL really cares, he was probably there to programme some trap drums that sounded a tad sombre and then move on to giving Rae Sremmurd a reason to be making music. Yeah, this is pretty great, although I’d prefer the writing to be a little less undercooked, with a variation on the verse rather than a simple reprise, but I’m not complaining about how it is now really, considering this is a massive improvement on... pretty much everything else. Check it out if you haven’t already.

#38 – “Liar” – Camila Cabello

Produced by watt, The Monsters and the Strangerz and Jon Bellion – Peaked at #13 in Singapore and #56 in the US

I love how history repeats itself. In 2017, Camila Cabello released a double A-side single of sorts, with a trendy pop song following what was popular at the time and a slightly left-field Latin-tinged R&B cut. The trendy pop song, “OMG” with Quavo, underperformed, although the Latin-tinged R&B cut with the incoherent Young Thug guest verse was “Havana”, a #1 hit and one of the most popular songs of the decade, later ending up on the album. Similarly, the “dark pop” Billie Eilish rip-off that is “Shameless” was given the obvious label push but fans seem to really prefer the Latin one, “Liar”, which shows they should probably stop marketing Cabello as a pop star, but we’ll see how that goes in a few months when the album releases. For now, however, we’ve got “Liar”... wait, why the hell does Lionel Richie have a writing credit?

Okay, so I’ve covered 1994’s Year-End list for a Top 5 Best and Worst Hit Songs feature, and I’ve listened to the 1984 list as well for a Top 10 Best Hit Songs feature for that one, and as I guess is a gift of fate, one of the best songs from the 1994 list and one of the worst from the 1984 list are both sampled and/or interpolated in this Camila Cabello song, and trust me, once you hear both of them, you can’t un-hear them, and I heard them immediately. It’s not subtle, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be, the song can still be a catchy pop ditty with the blatant sample... but no amount of Melodyne and vocal manipulation can help Cabello from her rubbery and squeaky, slightly off-key(?) falsetto cooing. It’s not sensual or “Broken”, it just sounds awful. Oh, yeah, and the ska beat is mediocre, with hilariously plastic horns, especially in comparison with “Havana”... Honestly, replacing Pharrell with Jon Bellion and removing Young Thug entirely is probably the worst decision the label made. Nothing here is enticing except an admittedly tight bassline, but what’s the point? Just listen to “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base, download some extra FL Studio saxophone sound effects (Even though the cheap horns in the original are dated, they sound a lot better than the recreation here), and you’ve got a somewhat better version of this song. It’s a weak effort, but my expectations weren’t high in the first place. Still better than “All Night Long (All Night)” though, but that’s a pretty difficult feat.

#21 – “Buss Down” – Aitch featuring ZieZie

Produced by Mojam

Remember ZieZie? I wrote paragraphs on paragraphs about that “Fine Girl” song he had but it really was an enigma to me at the time and still kind of is. Anyway, this is the instant grat single and breakout song from Aitch’s second mixtape, AitcH20 (There are layers to that pun and I respect it). I don’t care about Aitch all that much, he just seems to be a safer alternative and pretty accessible guest rapper, like your grandmother’s favourite British trap artist. This is his fifth UK Top 40 single and ZieZie’s second (I never thought I’d say those two words in my life)... but first of all, I commented on this when I talked about “Fine Girl” but the dude’s released more singles so it’s even more jarring now – why is his pre-fame single “Low Life” still listed on Spotify as “ZieZie- “Low Life”” in both the album and track title? He’s signed to a major label, he’s on one of the biggest UK rappers’ promo single, how has no-one fixed this? Sigh, well, the song’s okay. It’s very much not a trap cut, it takes some influence from the Afroswing that people like MoStack make, especially with the piano riff that’s used as the main synth melody, as well as some cute 808s and an admittedly great hook from ZieZie... but the beat doesn’t change and Aitch is existent. The chorus is four lines, all of which sung twice in one chorus, which happens four times in the song. It’s mostly Aitch with corny lyrics and a really sloppy flow on the verses, with a third verse from ZieZie that is absolutely dreadful, pushes this song to mediocre for me. Not only is it incoherent enough for there to be some [?]s on Genius still, but it’s about taking your girl... but letting ZieZie’s friend have sex with your girl, although apparently your girl likes it when her and ZieZie have rough sex, even though your girl is having sex with ZieZie’s friend instead and your girl loves how caring ZieZie is... Huh?

#20 – “Sounds of the Skeng” – Stormzy

Produced by Sir Spyro

Now, THIS is some good British hip hop. This is Stormzy’s 17th UK Top 40 hit and tenth UK Top 20 single, and it’s pretty great. I understand why it didn’t have a Top 5 debut like the sweet gospel-pop number “Crown” or addictive bop that is “Vossi Bop”, because this is just straight-up grime. It’s not UK garage, there aren’t any pop beats or Jorja Smith vocal samples, it doesn’t go soft, it goes hard. It’s produced by Sir Spyro, it has three rapidly-flowing verses, and it’s an absolute banger. You can barely even hear Stormzy under the dramatic synths and bursts of brass, but you can tell he’s just going and going and going. The only sense of melody we get in this bass-rattling single really, other than the synths and smooth jazz horns in the left channel, is the producer tag that plays briefly in the chorus and never again. There are several moments here I just love, not even necessarily lyrical moments although those are usually on point here, but Stormzy’s wild inflections throughout. Most verses start with a simple, Westernised modern flow and then go into a more speedy and aggressive delivery that barely doesn’t clip in the mix. The first verse is comparatively relaxed, with a pretty lazy cadence, making a pretty obscure Kendrick Lamar reference for whatever reason, with the “Perfect!” sample from Street Fighter perfectly implemented. I like how the first verse seems more like a threat while the second verse and third verse are right into the action, as he asks “old Mike” not to resurface, and in the chorus, even mentions old persona Wicked Skengman or Mr. Skeng. The title of the song has a lot of thought into it as well, being a reference to The Sound of Music juxtaposed with grimey London slang term “Skeng” and the Sir Spyro producer tag, “Sounds of the Sir”. Stormzy starts dissing British rappers who use too much Americanised slang and beat selection in the second verse, with lazy, dismissive ad-libs almost mocking trap-rappers overseas like Migos, and then he reaches the peak of the song. The second verse, personally my favourite, is where he has a machine gun flow enraged outburst, and it is insane, mentioning his two BRIT Award wins while also keeping an impressive delivery that is pretty much just really quick yelling, it’s really intense, but he sounds focused and determined. The third verse is the cooldown, paying tribute to So Solid Crew and their flow and ad-libs, as well as some pretty clever wordplay regarding other rappers Flipz and MIST, as well as Giggs, whose song “Whippin’ Excursion” is rhymed with a brag about how tall he is. He’s 6’5’’, which is towering above me. All three verses here have their own unique flow and cadence, as well as theme seemingly, but that’s not all that clear right now. I’m excited for this one in album context, but this is great already. Check it out.

#11 – “Hollywood’s Bleeding” – Post Malone

Produced by Louis Bell and Brian Lee

Really? The title track? I mean, understandable, it’s the first song on the album and it’s not a bad song at all, but there are so many better and more interesting songs on the album that you’d figue would debut high. “Saint-Tropez”, the “Wow.”-type banger? “Enemies” with DaBaby? The awesome alt-rock banger “Allergic”? Kanye West-produced “Internet”? Future and Halsey pretty much saving the ballad “Die for Me”? Hell, I figured the record-breaking “Take What You Want” with Travis Scott and the legendary Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath would be the obvious choice to chart in the UK, it has Ozzy on it for goodness’ sake! Thanks to UK chart rules, this is the only track from the #1 album allowed though, and it’s not a bad song at all, far from it. It’s just a good more than half of the album, which admittedly is pretty great especially for a Post Malone album, is better than it, most by far. Regardless, it’s Post’s twelth UK Top 40 hit and 11th UK Top 20 hit, and it’s a pretty good introductory song. I should note though, that Post’s last album, beerbongs & Bentleys, also had its non-single intro track with no features, “Paranoid”, also co-produced by Louis Bell, debut and peak at #11, just more than a year ago. What a coincidence. Anyway, the song (And album may I add) starts with some sombre vocals from Post complaining about Hollywood and he sounds pretty great, with less strained vocals than usual and a slight warble which I’m actually a fan of, which is well integrated into the chorus, but when that trap beat hits, it knocks. It’s a great drop. Otherwise, eh, I love Post’s performance here, with a lot of flow shifts throughout both verses, but it’s a pretty standard beat until that one note Post holds into a beat switch, with a very glitchy rock beat with oddly mixed 808s, and it sounds pretty great... until it’s gone in like less than 10 seconds. Good song, but nowhere close to his best.

Conclusion

All things considered, this is a pretty great week. I’d probably give Best of the Week to Stormzy for “Sounds of the Skeng” with tied Honourable Mention going to Miley Cyrus and Post Malone for “Slide Away” and “Hollywood’s Bleeding”. Worst of the Week is going to Camila Cabello for just plain mediocrity in “Liar”, so Aitch is scot-free (Although ZieZie is both the best and worst part of that song). Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for, to be honest, SpongeBob memes and very infrequent musical commentary and ramblings, and I’ll see you next week!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 28th July 2019

This is going to be pretty short and rushed I imagine, but we’ll see.

Top 10

Now, we have a funny top four, similarly to last week, full of Ed Sheeran, but not at our top spot, as “Senorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello is back at #1 for a second week after our number-two took it last week.

Our number-two, by the way, down one spot from last week, is “Beautiful People” by Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid. Now, the rest of the top four is Ed Sheeran.

First of all, at number-three, we have “I Don’t Care” featuring Justin Bieber returning at number-three, which, due to nonsensical chart rules, must be some kind of record for highest re-entry ever on the chart. We’ll talk about this more in the dropouts section.

Oh, yeah, and to my surprise, “Cross Me”, also by Ed Sheeran, featuring Chance the Rapper and PNB Rock is not moving at number-four. I figured this one would be in freefall.

Thanks to a Justin Bieber remix, and well, not much else, Billie Eilish’s “bad guy” is up eleven spaces to number-five? I’m puzzled about this one, honestly, if anyone could tell me what happened here I’d appreciate it; this should be floundering in the top 30 right now.

Thanks to the rise of “bad guy”, however, Lewis Capaldi’s “Hold Me While You Wait” is down a spot to number-six. Please drop off quicker, I’m begging you.

Also down a single spot on the chart is AJ Tracey’s “Ladbroke Grove” at number-seven.

Eilish claims another victim as MIST and Fredo’s “So High” is also down one spot to number-eight. Don’t worry, all of these songs will rebound.

Oh, and “Wish You Well” by Sigala and Becky Hill is also down a space to number-nine, but I’m still disputing the fact that song exists.

The #10 spot is, once again, held by Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, Young Thug, Mason Ramsey and now that guy from BTS. Congratulations on a record-breaking 17th week at #1 in the US, but here in Britain, it seems oddly stable at #10, I expect streaming cuts to kill it any time now.

Climbers

Freya Ridings’ “Castles” is up eight more spaces off the debut two or so weeks ago, entering the top 20 at #18 and becoming her second ever single to chart there. I’m not complaining, it’s a pretty good song. Outside of the top 20, we have only one other gain here, and that’s “Ritual” by Tiesto, Jonas Blue and Rita Ora gaining more traction than I expected 12 spaces up to #28. I hope this doesn’t reach the top 20, it’s pretty trite and honestly would make an awful fit for Ora’s next album whenever in the next decade that comes out.

Fallers

We have plenty of these, however. First of all, “Goodbyes”  by Post Malone and Young Thug continues its unfortunate slow-burning dive down five spots to #17, with “Someone You Loved” close in front by Lewis Capaldi at #19, thankfully down five spaces from last week. It’s not fast enough, but I’m just glad this is on its way out. D-Block Europe’s “Home” is down five to #25 after surprisingly staying pretty stable on its second week. The biggest surprise here, yet at the same time not a surprise to me at all, is Krept & Konan’s “I Spy” with Headie One and K-Trap collapsing down 14 positions to #32. While most British trap has a pretty short chart run, I at least expected this to last longer than any given D-Block Europe song. Oh, and “One Touch” by Jess Glynne and Jax Jones is on its way out down seven spots to #35 after pretty much flopping, especially considering it’s a Glynne lead single.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Thanks to a nonsensical UK chart rule that to be fair made sense for situations like an Ed Sheeran album bomb, “Take Me Back to London” featuring Stormzy disappears entirely from its number-three debuts last week, and was replaced by “I Don’t Care”, which dropped out from #2 last week. It must be really confusing for those who don’t know all the chart rules to see stuff like this. Elsewhere, we have a couple dropouts so the new arrivals can move in, with “Bounce Back” by Little Mix proving that the damage control single doesn’t work, after dropping out of the top 40 in its sixth week from #34. Miley Cyrus’ “Mother’s Daughter” is out from #36, which isn’t a surprise, and neither is “Love of My Life” by Remedee, Not3s and Young Adz dropping out off the debut at #37. Young Thug’s “The London” with J. Cole and Travis Scott is also out from #38 and since we have no returning entries, let’s get straight to the new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “RAN$OM” – Lil Tecca

Produced by Nick Mira and Taz Taylor – Peaked at #11 in Canada and #19 in the US

I really did not want to talk about this song. This is... “Lil Tecca”’s first UK Top 40 hit (Yes, that is his name, it’s dreadful) and the 16-year-old’s first major-label single. He has like eight songs out and he’s essentially a younger, less interesting or even convincing A Boogie wit da Hoodie clone. A Boogie even has a song called “Ransom” that sparked a lot of buzz in him back when he started out. Some may say it’s the melodic New York trap scene repeating itself, I say it’s a clear “Homage” (Read: trend-hopping and copying another rapper for the sake of this complete nobody getting a lot bigger, especially now he has a label behind him). Nobody is talking about how he’s probably some kind of industry plant because nobody cares about the person, Lil Tecca, they care about the song, “Ransom”. This guy has no star power at all or even any potential as a legitimately interesting artist. Okay, let’s stop stalling and get to the meat and potatoes of this song, which are that hook and that video. The video, while uninteresting, was directed by Cole Bennett of Lyrical Lemonade and hence propelled the song to, you know, any sense of popularity, which it wouldn’t have gathered before at all, at least not to the heights of a worldwide smash and top 20 hit in the US. God, this guy infuriates me. I’m definitely going to talk about this song a bit more in January, if you catch my drift, but essentially, this song is melodic trap boiled down to its essence, with a Lil Tjay type beat carrying a Juice WRLD type rapper. There’s one barely-a-verse which lasts about 24 seconds, but the issue is the song is two minutes and 11 seconds long, and, yes, that chorus is infectious but not nearly as powerful as he thinks it is to carry the song for this long, especially since he has no charisma. It sounds like a Python programme wrote and performed a rap song, it really is some of the most monotonous, non-descript garbage to come out of SoundCloud rap. I hate this, it’s definitely on my worst list for 2019, and next!

#38 – “Sorry” – Joel Corry

Produced by Joel Corry

Is it bad that my first observation about this song is that some rapper is going to mention this in a sappy out-of-character love ballad? I mean, think about it, “Sorry” and Joel Corry rhyme. It’s going to happen. Anyway, who’s Joel Corry, you ask? Good question. His Wikipedia page or lack thereof redirects me to a record label called Ostereo which seems pretty successful, and they have a tiny paragraph on Corry. Apparently, he started establishing himself as a DJ on the MTV reality show Jersey Shore. This isn’t looking great, I know, but bear with me, he’s also a body-builder and now presents a radio show on KISS FM. Okay, so, really, much like Lil Tecca, he’s a complete nobody who got picked up by some big label who couldn’t care less about artistic intent, except this is a little more intriguing, considering Ostereo is an independent label and Joel Corry is a DJ, so I’m assuming it’s EDM and I’m right, but it seems snipped from a DJ set. You can tell in the intro, it sounds like the end of a song and an abrupt bleep transition, maybe that’s just for artistic effect but it doesn’t sound great. This is pretty standard deep pop-house, with an unnamed female vocalist singing over a lot of snare and keys, with plenty orchestral stabs to remind you a song is playing. Albeit oddly-mixed at times, the build-up is pretty affective, the drums sound cheap as hell though, as does that drop, it’s really anti-climactic and doesn’t really work at all. The final build-up and drop is admittedly pretty epic though, it gets rid of the anti-climactic minimalism and leaves just a club-ready synth melody over a lot of strings, it sounds really cool is what I’m saying. The build-up itself is manic as well, very interesting, and the singer seems to be a sample from Monsta Boy’s “Sorry! (I Didn’t Know)” featuring Denzie, and, yes, I know samples aren’t typically considered guest spots but the female vocalist is instrumental to this song and its success so surely a featured credit wouldn’t hurt. It’s not Denzie, and by the way, this is so much better than that Monsta Boy song thanks to how Denzie is one of the most incompetent singers known to man, and this female vocalist is actually pretty talented despite singing the exact same lyrics, and referencing Brandy, as in “The Boy is Mine” Brandy, which was unexpected. I’ve searched it up and I can’t find her anywhere, not even on the Genius page, so to me this is just a bit of a douche move.

Edit: I’ve done some extra research and the vocalist is Hayley May. It’s also from the Love Island soundtrack apparently, which makes me like the song a lot less on principle. I’d love to see more from May though, she doesn’t even have a writing credit on this song.

#36 – “Hate Me” – Ellie Goulding and Juice WRLD

Produced by Jason Evigan and The Monsterz & the Strangerz – Peaked at #18 in Hungary and #82 in the US

Oh, Ellie Goulding exists. Yeah, I forgot about that. Listen, I don’t hate Ellie Goulding, far from it, I think she’s fine, but at least lately after about 2015 or so, she has not been nearly as interesting as I want her to be, especially because the songwriting chops are definitely there. When I saw her collaborate with emo-rapper Juice WRLD of all people, I knew this would be far from interesting or good so I’m honestly starting to lose hope in that upcoming album, especially since her other singles “Sixteen” and “Close to Me” were far from special. This is Goulding’s 22nd(!) UK Top 40 hit and Juice WRLD’s third, and, yeah, this isn’t great. That hook is really desperate and this would work if her delivery wasn’t bratty and the lyrics really don’t fit and it feels very cluttered and rushed, like they’re just trying to get it over with... which makes sense, I mean that’s the topic of the song but it’s not convincing, because she wants an answer and she wants it quick, so she’d stop at nothing, surely, but the song’s really short and doesn’t really have any lasting impact. Juice WRLD doesn’t freaking exist, gladly, he doesn’t even join in with the chorus really, which by the third repetition gets really aggravating. The production is an airy mess with trap percussion and cloudy synths that cover Juice WRLD’s vocoder-fuelled performance to the point of not being able to recognise him. It’s not good at all, but I feel it’s just tolerable and bland enough for me to not dislike it. I never thought I’d say this, but Lil Peep did it better.

#12 – “How Do You Sleep?” – Sam Smith

Produced by Ilya – Peaked at #4 in Singapore and #29 in the US

Sam Smith’s second single from this upcoming new album and era, after the success of “Dancing with a Stranger” with Normani, seems to be a lot more energetic especially in comparison with his other two albums he’s released. He seems to have ditched the shoddy pop-soul and has gone straight into more danceable territory, which I’m not complaining about. I loved him on “Latch” and “La La La”, and thought “Dancing with a Stranger” was pretty cool, but other than that there’s not a single song by Smith that I like. Anyway, this is his 14th UK Top 40 hit, and you know what, it’s not bad at all. I love the twinkling synths that carry the song’s main melody, they’re cute but paired with trap percussion and intense sub bass can come off as both oddly sinister as well as infatuated, fitting with the content and subject matter of this song, in which Smith questions how his partner sleeps when he has Smith tangled in a toxic relationship which he can’t get out of, and that “love will keep them up tonight”. I love the second verse, where Smith admits he’s lost himself in his relationship through his subtly Auto-Tuned vocals that are still pretty impressive. The chorus is incredibly catchy while still being powerful and despite all this, that drop kind of sucks. After a great vocoder vocal bridge, the drop is really weak and squeaky, especially with that screechy synth tone, which doesn’t sound as melodramatic or pained as the rest of the song, and instead sounds incredibly lazy. It might grow on me, as the weeping of the drop is kind of humorous right now but could easily fit in with the song’s overall tone and mood, but we’ll see. Overall, this song surprised me, it’s actually really good bar from the trap and EDM elements possibly bogging it down a bit, I think Smith’s songwriting is definitely what shines here instead of Ilya’s production, which is disappointing since I usually love his production.

Conclusion

Yeah, I’m shocked too, but Best of the Week goes to Sam Smith for “How Do You Sleep?”, and Honourable Mention is reluctantly going to “Love Island anthem”, “Sorry” by Joel Corry featuring Hayley May, even if it’s not all that good, only decent. Dishonourable Mention is going to Ellie Goulding and Juice WRLD for “Hate Me” because of course it is, and Worst of the Week should be pretty damn obvious, it’s Lil Tecca’s for “RAN$OM”. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week.

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[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 23rd June 2019

Typically I’d call a week where we have two top 10 debuts pretty busy but when that and a couple Drake songs are basically all we have, it’s not that big of a deal... but these very few new arrivals will have a lot to unwrap, so part of me thinks this won’t be a short episode at all.

Top 10

There were three songs I figured would definitely make a play for the top spot this week thanks to both star power and controversy. None of them even got close, because Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber are still at number-one for a sixth week since its debut. There’s a better Ed Sheeran song in the top 10, can we get that up instead?

Stormzy’s “Vossi Bop” is only moving up two spaces this week because of the collapse of the songs above him, but I’m not complaining his boost to the runner-up spot.

Similarly, Billie Eilish’s “bad guy” is up two spaces to number-three.

Unfortunately, this boost has lead Lewis Capaldi’s “Hold Me While You Wait” up an identical set of placements to number-four.

Now, we have the first guess I had for number-one, and that is “You Need to Calm Down” by Taylor Swift, which debuted at #2 in America, becoming her 13th Top 10 hit over here in the UK. We’ll talk more about this one later, and it’s definitely a can of worms I’m worried to open.

The Chris Brown song debuting last week, “No Guidance” featuring Drake, has also had a two-space boost up to number-six, because of Drake and not because of the fading relevance of Chris Brown.

Oddly, “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus has taken a hit five spots down to number-seven, but I really doubt this won’t be rebounding because of Nas’ EP that released last week.

Now this was my second guess for number-one, “Cross Me” by Ed Sheeran featuring Chance the Rapper and PNB Rock, up a singular space to number-eight this week. I think it’s a lock for the top five next week considering the video release, but we’ll see.

At number-nine, we have the late Avicii’s “SOS” featuring Aloe Blacc down two positions.

Finally, my third guess for number-one and one I’m surprised performed as it did. This is Little Mix’s “Bounce Back”, and that title is quite ironic but more on that later. Nevertheless, it’s their 14th UK Top 10 hit since their debut, and we’ll talk more about the song itself when it comes to it.

Climbers

There aren’t all too many here, but what is here I’m not exactly complaining about at all, because these are songs I really like. “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike, which is an insanely good song, has had a pretty large 10-space boost to #21, and I’ve  been rooting for this to get into the top 20 for a while now. There’s also last week’s debut which I quite liked, “Strike a Pose” by Young T & Bugsey featuring Aitch up five to #25, but that’s pretty much it. I wouldn’t usually note a song which is up four spaces either, but “Ladbroke Grove” by AJ Tracey is at #22 now and I am rooting for this song so much, I am not giving up until this hits #1, it’s an outstanding song.

Fallers

Now we have a lot more of these to say the least. Starting in reverse order, “What Do You Mean?” by Skepta featuring J Hus is down 14 to #39, with “Greaze Mode” also by Skepta featuring Nafe Smallz down nine to #37 and “All Day and Night” by Jax Jones and Martin Solveig presenting EUROPA featuring Madison Beer down a whopping twenty-four spaces to #34 thanks to streaming cuts. We also have “Heaven” by the late Avicii featuring Chris Martin down eight spaces to #28 (The quicker the better), “Shine Girl” by MoStack featuring Stormzy down 10 spots to #23, “Grace” by Lewis Capaldi unfortunately not switching its spot with another Capaldi single as it’s down five to #17, speaking of, “Someone You Loved” is finally out of the top 10, down eight to #11, but I feel it’ll be back again when Little Mix drop off a bit.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

MoStack is proving his lack of longevity compared to Skepta as both of his album bomb hits from last week, “I’m the One” featuring Fredo and “Stinking Rich” featuring Dave and J Hus, are out from #39 and #19 respectively – probably because they weren’t any good in the first place. We also have the absolute collapse for Liam Gallagher’s “Shockwave” out from #22, but I don’t expect post-Oasis Gallagher singles to ever have any legs, so it’s fine. Thanks to hype dying down about the Detective Pikachu film the song was made for, “Carry On” by Kygo and Rita Ora is out from #35 and I don’t expect it to come back. Oh, and that Jonas Brothers song, “Sucker”, is out from #40 – finally. We do actually have a returning entry also, because “Summer Days” by Martin Garrix, Macklemore and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy is back to #36. A lot of the songs outside the top 20 are showing promise actually, I’m definitely seeing a lot of improvement within the Top 40 and I’m excited for these to become fully fledged Summer hits. I’m also glad to hear a Macklemore verse on the charts again. This dude gets too much slack.

“ALBUM” BOMB?

Drake – The Best in the World Pack

This isn’t exactly an album but it’s an EP or single or whatever, a two-pack? I don’t know, but it’s Drake debuting two songs from the same project, so I’m going to count this as the third episode in a row with an album bomb. Drake’s “Best in the World Pack” is just a group of two trap bangers to celebrate the win of the Toronto Raptors, or whatever, I don’t care about American or in this case Canadian sport, I just have to review the music every week.

#33 – “Omertá” – Drake

Produced by OZ, EY and Deats

This is Drake’s 48th UK Top 40 hit, which is something I didn’t think could even possibly happen but sure, let’s go with it. This is one extended verse which a pretty janky guitar-lead trap beat behind it, with gliding strumming and an organ, it’s not all that awful of a production, but then Drake bores me insanely with his ramblings about “Mob tradition” because of course, he has mob ties (Lotta ties, lotta tieeeeeees) and he really wants us to know. So, he brings up Pusha T in his monotonous, droning delivery as he would typically do, with flows that sound like he’s just thinking of it on the spot and not really putting any effort in to connect his bars, in a typical Drake way where he develops the rhyme scheme by halting the momentum of his verse completely. There’s no mention of the Toronto Raptors, it’s just about him and honestly, it’s just something we’ve heard so many times before. The self-proclaimed “Petty king” doesn’t really have any interesting bars mostly because he doesn’t attempt wordplay. He’s just stating “I’m rich and got mob ties” a lot of the time, and then his verse literally fades out, but it sounds like it was right in the middle of a bar and he wanted to continue, but the producer cut him off. I don’t know, I don’t care.

#13 – “Money in the Grave” – Drake featuring Rick Ross

Produced by Cydney Christine, Ljay Currie and Asoteric

This beat was produced by an Instagram model, and is Drake’s 49th UK Top 40 hit, as well as Rick Ross’ something or other, I’m not going to bother counting especially since the Wikipedia page doesn’t list UK as a section in his featured singles so I’d have to go page by page. But yes, as expected with no-name producers, this beat isn’t any interesting and feels like a pretty non-subtle way of blending the new West Coast bounce that is very prominent now but keeping it safe with a menacing trap beat so it’s not as jarring and can age better than the people who really care about the culture and making West Coast hip hop about their experiences in that environment. Oh, but this song also kind of bangs to be honest with you. It’s a bit too non-existent for my taste, and by that I mean Drake’s vocals are mixed a tad too loud, I feel, and while his bars usually connect, they often feel a bit too much like sentences that just drift away from one ear to out the other, although some of them I remember because they’re especially kind of dumb, where he uses the fact that he’s friends with Max B to hit Kanye with another jab as well as saying he’s going to get a face tattoo, which Drake is definitely a bit too safe for. Also, he says this:

I got two phones, one need a charge / Yeah, they twins, I could tell they ass apart

How do these two lines make sense together? I don’t like to nitpick but Drake’s a rapper rapper so I feel the need to say that these lines directly juxtapose each other.

Anyway, this song is shorter than “Omertá” and actually has a chorus, yet is somehow just as boring, because Drake is way too dull to carry a beat this safe and only slightly West Coast-tinted so it has no real bounce, since it’s still grounded in a stilted trap beat. Rick Ross sounds half-asleep but his verse is pretty good, I especially like his inflections on “Bounce” and everything that rhymes with it. Also, his guest verse tag, the “M-Maybach Music”, will always be fire. I hope his pear diet is going well, but overall this just isn’t very interesting. How about we bring back a segment we haven’t done in a while just to show what real charisma and energy is in trap?

FEATURED SINGLE

“Lalala” – Y2K and bbno$

Produced by Y2K

Y2K is a producer who I haven’t heard much from, but the Canadian MC bbno$ is from the same camp as meme-rapper Yung Gravy, but I’d like to think they’re more than a meme and instead just rappers who use humorous and comedic deliveries to propel their punchlines and that’s never more evident than it is with bbno$’s breakout track that was released off of the back of a viral marketing campaign, “Lalala”. This song is dripping with carefree attitudes towards the music and shows how they’re actually having fun, which is something I didn’t notice with Drake and Rick Ross at all this week. The song starts with a short back-and-forth outtake from the recording sessions, which isn’t distracting enough to feel unwarranted on repeat listens, especially since it just takes eight seconds for that beat to drop and it wastes absolutely no time to get into it. The beat is a slick trap production infused with bouncy Latin guitar and occasional beeping noises, with bbno$’s delivery really shining out as he essentially just has three different choruses. The chorus is insanely catchy and he rides the beat with his high-pitched, somewhat mocking tone but the “verses” (Which feel like a different chorus) has an even more fun, somewhat emo-influenced flow, which I noticed because of the nasal tones of his voice and lack of need to really enunciate a single word he says. It’s not like the content is all that interesting, but there are quirks about it that really show his background as a meme/comedy-rapper, especially the use of the word “Wristicle” and instead of directly bragging about all the stacks he’s throwing, he starts the first verse with flexing his stable credit card score, with even some cool wordplay about Canada thrown in there. The nonsense chorus is so fun, and even when he breaks out of the two typical flows for a more typical triplet flow he puts on an accent and just runs out of words to say, but instead of feeling incompetent (Which it still kind of is but that’s the point), this feels like the dude is actually having fun and you know, enjoying his job and his lavish lifestyle – which, by the way, is probably not that lavish. The dude says the word “Wristicle” several times in the chorus, do you REALLY think he’s getting any?

EDIT: I have just found out he does not say “Wristicle” and instead says “Wrist, it go”. My headcanon is better. But yeah, check this out, it has a pretty kicking Latin groove behind the trap beat and mocking lyrics, it’s great.

NEW ARRIVALS

#10 – “Bounce Back” – Little Mix

Produced by Swiff D and Stargate – Peaked at #2 in Scotland

I can’t help but think this is pretty seriously underperforming. Okay, sure, a top 10 debut is nothing to scoff at, but history’s told us you expect a Little Mix single to hit the top spot, so after “Woman Like Me” stalled at #2 and the album wasn’t as successful (Although still massive), I have full belief that they’ve made the worst decision possible, having a rushed single to alleviate fears of falling off, and sadly that often leads to even less success with that single and album. The last time they made a comeback, it was special, but this is an afterthought single. Oh, yeah, well, the song isn’t all that awful, it’s got a pretty fun bounce reminiscent of both trap and New Orleans hip hop of the 90s, although it does feel like a pretty cheap, manufactured rendition. You can REALLY tell this is one of these rushed singles, as the vocal mixing isn’t as flashy as usual, in fact the whole song is really odd, to be honest. After Jesy’s rap verse about taking Vitamin D (That hasn’t been done before, I’m sure), there’s a meaningless pre-chorus from Jade that just repeats a bunch of words that don’t really add anything to the song at all, like I’m fine with bland lyrics but come on, it’s just a bunch of faux-female empowerment/sex song buzzwords, before a really janky chorus that just sounds like one of the girls but it’s apparently all of them? They have an interpolation of “Back to Life” by Soul II Soul, but since the production is too lowkey and minimalistic, the chorus taken straight from that track, a much more glamorous and over-the-top song, it doesn’t work being translated to a moody sex song, in fact the fact that it’s four girls on the chorus probably makes it so much worse than just having Perrie, the more audible one. Then there’s a plastic-ass sax solo and I give up, this really isn’t even trying to have a pop spectacle anymore. Big Sean did it better. Also, I have started watching Celebrity Gogglebox specifically for when this band appears on the charts, because then I can know the names and any Mixers who find my blog won’t get mad at me for accidentally calling one manufactured pop star by the name of another manufactured pop star. When their onstage personalities are this similar, I don’t feel the need to care. The only one that shines out to me is Jesy because she’s the most obnoxious and genuinely awful, mostly because she tries to rap and AAAAAAAAAAAA

#5 – “You Need to Calm Down” – Taylor Swift

Produced by Joel Little and Taylor Swift – Peaked at #1 in Scotland and #2 in the US

Can I skip this one as well? No? Okay, well, first of all, I do not like this song’s lyrical content not because I’m a raging homophobic hillbilly as the video may suggest. In fact, I think the video’s got a larger issue than the song itself, where she uses slang inherited from both black LGBTQ+ as well as stan culture to get her point across, as it paints all of the people who are negative towards LGBTQ+ culture, and no it’s not a generic empowerment anthem, she explicitly says the word “gay” in the pre-chorus, as poor and just Texan hillbillies without a sense of fashion. First of all, nobody’s protesting Taylor Swift of all people, so I have a sense that this is making the issue about herself. Second of all, we should be fighting the people in power with backwards ideals, and I feel like she doesn’t know who is actually suppressing the community, which would be the people up top who are making the laws and controlling society from their government buildings, making decisions for what’s “best” for America, and they’re usually not just hicks who’ve never seen a grand in their lives to say the least, they’re usually suit-and-tie types with net worths that’d make the Monopoly man cry himself to sleep. Also, I feel like once again, she makes the video about herself. The scene where she makes up with Katy Perry in fast food costumes is supposed to be cute but it takes away from the message at hand and really just distracts from the actual topic, which is, you know, LGBTQ+ communities and oppressed communities as a whole, not Katy freaking Perry. This type of pandering content from the 1% usually bothers me and profits aren’t going to charity, but she is giving to them and she is being vocal about these issues so what am I to complain? She’s bringing LGBTQ+ people (Most already in the spotlight) to the spotlight—oh wait, yeah, that’s dumb, the video is less of a profitable pride parade and more of both a PR statement and a misguided attempt that just ends up as a “Bad Blood”-type celebrity cameo frenzy. The song isn’t any good either, it’s a pretty bland synth-pop track that directly rips off “Paper Planes” by M.I.A., which, to be fair sampled its bassline from the Clash, but I can’t listen to this song without thinking of the beautiful jacksfilms video  comparing the two songs. Also, “you need to calm down”? “You need to just stop”? What a powerful statement, that is, Taylor(!), and your disinterested rap flows don’t help, with corny lines about taking shots at HER, let me repeat, HER, like it’s Patron and the haters just being mad, when they can be... GLAAD. Sigh.

Conclusion

I spent some time talking about how I was excited for the Summer hits, but none of these debuts are good. At all. That’s pretty great though because none of them sound like they’ll stick around except Taylor, and we all know how “ME!” is doing so maybe not even that. Worst of the Week goes to Taylor Swift for “You Need to Calm Down” and we have a tied Dishonourable Mention to Little Mix and Drake for “Bounce Back” and “Omertá”. Uh, I guess Best of the Week can go to Drake for “Money in the Grave”, but trust me, that is because of Rick Ross and no one else. Follow me on @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 8th December 2019

Top 10

This is a pretty easy week for me, thankfully, as not much has changed... well, apart from pretty much everything... except the top four, of course. “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I is at its tenth consecutive week at #1.

At number-two, we have “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi steady at the runner-up spot.

Similarly non-moving off of the debut at number-three is “Own It” by Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy. I’d say this could make a viable play for #1 in two weeks with the album release but I have my qualms, mostly because... well, you’ll see.

“Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa has not moved at number-four.

Arizona Zervas keeps climbing with “ROXANNE” up two spaces to number-five. As much as I hate to say it, this could clinch the top spot in the foreseeable future.

Billie Eilish is only slowly pushing herself down the chart, with “everything i wanted” down a spot to number-six.

“Memories” byhabm Maorith 5n is aipneone s;aceygw to nnujmberse0even bht who the hell cares

Now here’s the big story: “All I Want for Christmas is You”, the 1994 classic by Mariah Carey, straight off of its re-entry in the Top 40 last week, is up a whopping 26 spaces, probably the largest increase we’ve seen in months. It’s getting the #1, I’m guaranteeing it, in both the UK and US. It has virtually no competition. It’s getting there.

“South of the Border” by Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B isn’t moving at number-nine.

At #10, we have “Heartless” by the Weeknd, a debut in the top 10 that I honestly expected to be higher, but nonetheless, it’s here and I’ll talk more about it later, but it’s the Weeknd’s 21st UK Top 40 hit and his eighth top 10.

Climbers

As I expected, there are no climbers to speak of here. You’ll see why.

Fallers

Well, here’s our first of three big lists to cover in this episode, as we have 14 fallers within the Top 40. Alright, let’s blast through them all: “Bruises” by Lewis Capaldi and “Down Like That” by KSI with Rick Ross, Lil Baby and S-X, both in the top 10 last week, are down five and seven spaces respectively to #11 and #17. “Good as Hell” by Lizzo isn’t far off, down seven spots to #19, and “Netflix & Chill” by Fredo is down five positions to #24... You know what, I’m typing too many words and too little numbers, here we go: “Turn Me On” by Riton, Oliver Heldens and Vula is down eight to #25, “Professor X” by Dave is down five to #27, “Must Be” by J Hus is down eight to #28, “Lights Up” by Harry Styles is down 14 to #29, “HIGHEST IN THE ROOM” by Travis Scott is down seven to #30 and “Ride It” by Regard featuring Jay Sean is down six to #31 – that’s five consecutive fallers. “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi is down eight to #34, “New Dior” by DigDat and D-Block Europe is down nine to #35 off of the debut last week, “Don’t Rush” by Young T & Bugsey with Headie One is down eight to #37, and finally, “Nice to Meet Ya” by Niall Horan is at #38, down 16 spaces from last week. The sad thing is that I think most if not all of these songs, excluding “Bruises” and “Down Like That”, have been hit by the Christmas explosion and prematurely lost their chart runs, which is kind of sad – I don’t see these tracks rebounding anytime soon.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Now for our second list of 12 drop-outs, which is only slightly less than the last list. Don’t worry, these lists do get increasingly smaller... or decreasingly bigger, however you want to phrase it. Out from #27 is “Orphans” by Coldplay, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles is out from #28 (It’ll rebound due to the album release in the next two weeks), “God is a Dancer” by Tiesto and Mabel is out from #30, “Loyal” by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake is out from #31, “Liar” by Camila Cabello is out from #32 (It’ll rebound next week if nothing goes awry, although she has suffered a serious sophomore slump), “Gangsta” by Darkoo and One Acen is out from #33, “French Kisses” by ZieZie and Aitch is out off of the debut from #34, “Circles” by Post Malone is finally out from #37 and “Better Half of Me” by Tom Walker is out from #38. I don’t see many of these rebounding, although the releases of sophomore albums Fine Line and Romance could seriously help out Harry and Camila, and “Gangsta” and “French Kisses” seem like they could rise later on.

Edit: I forgot to note that “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by Bastille and the London Contemporary Orchestra is out from #39.

IT’S CHRISTMAS INNIT

Now for our final list, and our shortest, with only seven entries, although I will also recite the year they were produced just to show how insane these returns are every year. “Step into Christmas” by Elton John, from 1973, is back at #39, “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande, from 2014, is back at #33, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé, from 2011, is back at #32, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens, from 1985, is back at #26, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid, from 1984, is back at #23, “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl, from 1987, is back at #22, and “Last Christmas” by Wham!, also from 1984, is back at #13. Rest in peace to George Michael (Who actually contributed to two songs here), Kirsty MacColl and Rick Parfitt.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Falling” – Trevor Daniel

Produced by KC Supreme, Taz Taylor and Charlie Handsome – Peaked at #3 in Latvia and #41 in the US

I have no introduction for this. It’s just one of these TikTok songs and it’s produced by the new crop of trap-rap Internet Money-type guys. I don’t care for Lil Tecca or most of the crop surrounding him, so I doubt I’ll like this. This is Trevor Daniel’s first UK Top 40 hit and yeah, surprise, surprise, it’s not great. The bland guitar pick-up is good enough, but Trevor Daniel cannot sing and makes no effort to convince you that he can. The distorted sub-bass is just odd and honestly way too menacing and dark for a break-up song that paints itself not as a kiss-off, but more like a “Thank God I found someone else” song, so why isn’t this happier? The trap percussion is an FL Studio loop, and his delivery and cadence is mopey and pathetic. Everything here just feels painfully amateur, almost offensively so. This might be a lot worse than I’m giving off with my more apathetic tone here, but this is underdeveloped with a singular verse that somehow stretches out to nearly three minutes due to an overlong chorus. Yeah, no, I can’t stand this. Next.

#14 – “River” – Ellie Goulding

We’ve seen this before with Katy Perry’s “Cozy Little Christmas” last year. A week before the real Christmas kick-in, a new, mediocre Christmas-related song enters for the first time at an alarmingly high position by an increasingly irrelevant female pop star, that is exclusive to Amazon music for no other reason other than to bump sales and chart success, falsely implying that this song is successful. In the r/popheads thread about this chart, people upvoted a comment saying they didn’t even know Ellie Goulding had released anything – and I didn’t either, because it’s not on Spotify, Apple or even freaking TIDAL. It’s just on Amazon music, which is so odd to me but that is why I don’t have production info. No-one on Genius has bothered to download Goulding’s cover of a 1971 Joni Mitchell deep cut (I’m sure they just copy-pasted the original lyrics) to check the songwriting credits. The Wikipedia page for the song doesn’t have a separate section for Goulding’s version, and they did for the John Lewis advert rendition of “Can’t Fight This Feeling” that Bastille made with the London Contemporary Orchestra, a song that I forgot to even note myself until I realised it dropped out this week. In fact, I am protesting this song’s chart placement. Okay, that’s a bit far, but I’m not reviewing it, even if I could easily take a peep at a leaked YouTube re-upload. If it’s not on Spotify, it’s not on REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

#12 – “Blinding Lights” – The Weeknd

Produced by The Weeknd, Max Martin and Oscar Holter – Peaked at #3 in Lithuania and #11 in the US

It’s the Weeknd’s 22nd UK Top 40 hit: the double A-side with “Heartless” was released oddly, with “Blinding Lights” here being released days after and about a week after, was finally accompanied by a music video that’s really just an advertisement for Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Neither single got to experience their best possible tracking week in full, but nonetheless, both are still pretty high because it’s the Weeknd, and I’m actually somewhat excited for this. I’ve heard that it interpolates A-ha’s cheesy 80s synthpop classic “Take on Me”, and it wouldn’t be the first rendition I’ve heard of the song in 2019. That would be Weezer’s hilarious cover on both the Jimmy Fallon show (Where they played it with kids’ toys) and their “Teal Album”. Sorry, I bring Weezer up too much. Is the song good? Hell, yes. It starts with an overwhelming wave of ominous distortion before retro 80s synths quickly come in and an iconic, reverb-heavy drum pattern comes in that sounds awfully familiar – it’s probably also from “Take on Me”. The synth riff, as typical with 1980s synthpop, is hilariously grandiose and egregious, but the Weeknd kills it here as well, not letting the instrumental or even the freaking bongos playing during the verse shine over him or put him off. He blends in with the airy synth painting in the chorus, and it is gorgeous, it really is. I wish this was a tad catchier but that definitely will be a possibility for it to grow on me later on (Which hopefully it does, it’s already perfectly qualified for my best of 2020 list). The Weeknd’s vocals on the bridge are oddly powerful, and that last moment in the penultimate chorus where there is this epic beeping synth that rises until the synth riff drops once again is awesome. The pre-chorus is probably my favourite part, though, especially when the synths cut out for it to just be the Weeknd over the drums, right before the chorus kicks in. I love this so much, unexpectedly so, and I’m so glad it charted so high. I hope it survives the Christmas songs, though.

#10 – “Heartless” – The Weeknd

Produced by The Weeknd, Metro Boomin, Dre Moon and Illangelo – Peaked at #1 in the US

If “Blinding Lights” was the “pop” single, this is the “R&B” single. It’s very much like the Weeknd to release two singles harboured towards two different demographics and two different radio formats, and for both of them to be smash hits, although dropping them at the same time is a tad overwhelming. I can skip the pre-amble as I’ve already done that at the start of the episode, so does it deserve its (Likely single) chart-topping week on the Billboard Hot 100? Well, yeah, I’d say so definitely, this is pretty cool, although not nearly as good as “Blinding Lights” or really any of his songs by now. This really is only decent-tier Weeknd but, man, this guy’s too good. Metro Boomin is one of my favourite hip-hop producers, and he definitely makes his presence known here, with the watery synths in the intro being abruptly drowned out by massive 808 bass and a skittering trap pattern, as well as the Weeknd whispering “Sheesh” for whatever reason. Weeknd uses a very typical delivery for him here, one I’ve heard on his other massive #1 hits, “The Hills” and “Starboy”, but he still sounds charismatic as all hell, and rides the beat incredibly well, especially when those drum hits come in before pounding back into the groovy trap beat. Weeknd plays more into his cocaine-addict sex god persona here, but is pretty thorough and honestly kind of funny here (Despite sounding checked-out in the chorus’ whiny falsetto), as he’s “running through the [women] like a dog pound” and getting so much of said [women] that it’s falling out of his pockets... although he definitely doesn’t just glamorise the sour rockstar lifestyle, in fact he predicts himself to be jumping the shark in seven years (Or, alternatively, says he has already jumped the shark within his seven-year-long career). On both of these songs, however, I do feel that while they don’t run too long, they don’t really have that effective of a climax, even if both the final choruses are epic (This one going for a distorted, cluttered vocal samples to build up the dark sonic atmosphere replacing a plundering bass), and the bridges are kind of unnecessary. I’m not complaining that these songs exist though, they’re both pretty good at least. Welcome back, Abel, we missed you.

Conclusion

Best of the Week is going to the Weeknd for both “Heartless” and ESPECIALLY “Blinding Lights”, and Worst of the Week goes to Trevor Daniel for “Falling”. We’ll see next week a large amount of Christmas nonsense coming in once again, as well as the impacts of a certain unfortunate circumstance I’ve said my peace on with Twitter @cactusinthebank, which you can follow for more musical ramblings. See you next week.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 13th January 2019

Don’t expect these to come out on a specific day in the week, just expect them to come, alright? For what I suppose is the second season, I’m not pressuring myself to get them out always on a Wednesday or a Sunday, just any day possible, okay? I introduced this concept today because, yes, this is kind of late and yes, this week is tiring and for all I care, doesn’t exist. Let’s go.

Top 10

“Sweet but Psycho” by Ava Max is still at the top spot for what I think is either its third or fourth week at the top. It might even be fifth, I don’t know. Okay song, I’m surprised it’s gotten this big though.

Ariana Grande also isn’t moving since last week at the runner-up spot with “thank u, next”.

Up a spot from last week, however, is “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” by Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus.

Speaking of great songs succeeding, also up a single spot is “Wow.” by Post Malone, now at number-four, right next to his other song, in fact.

Yup, the current US Hot 100 #1 (and one of the best in God knows how long) is down two spots to number-five in the UK, and it’s “Sunflower” by Post Malone and Swae Lee, from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Remember when Dave and Fredo debuted at #1, and it was just a really perplexing moment for me? Well, the dude’s done it again, as his new track with Headie One (who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, mind you), “18HUNNA”, has debuted at number-six. I’m assuming this is Headie One’s first anything, but I know this is Dave’s fifth top 40 hit and second top 10 hit over here, and to be fair, I’m actually starting to really like Dave, so I hope this is good, and I’m happy for the guy.

Oh, and in stark contrast, the absolutely dreadful James Arthur, with Anne-Marie on their cover of “Rewrite the Stars”, up a spot to number-seven.

A six-space gain for George Ezra at number-eight as “Hold My Girl” becomes his fifth top 10 hit.

Speaking of ballads that have grown on me, “Lost Without You” by Freya Ridings is also up three positions to number-nine.

Finally, “Without Me” by Halsey is up a space to #10. Cool, I guess.

Climbers

“Play” by Jax Jones and Years & Years is up eight spots off the debut to #11, “One Kiss” by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa has end-of-year boosts to thank for its delayed 15-spot gain to #22, and that’s it. We might as well try and get the Returning Entries out of the way right now as well. I’m planning to experiment more with structure so see stuff like this being out of order coming.

Returning Entries

Again, thanks to the year ending and the BRITs nominations being revealed, some of the biggest hits of last year have had increases in streaming and such, meaning “I’ll be There” by Jess Glynne is back at #40 and “2002” by Anne-Marie is back at #37. That’s all.

Fallers

Now we have a few more of these than we do climbers: “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong is down eight spaces to #14 – stay there or go away, I don’t care what you do, but whatever you do, don’t creep up to the top 10 again. Anyways, other than that, we have “Shotgun” by George Ezra down nine spots to #16, “Thursday” by Jess Glynne slowly falling down six spaces to #19, both “This is Me” by Keala Settle and “A Million Dreams” by P!nk from The Greatest Showman taking seven-position hits down to #23 and #24, “Promises” by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith down six spots, “Woman Like Me” by Little Mix featuring Nicki Minaj down 10 spaces and “Let You Love Me” by Rita Ora down six positions to #27, #28 and #29 respectively, “Happier” by Marshmello and Bastille sadly down nine to #35, and finally, “The Greatest Showman” by Hugh Jackman, Keala Settle, Zac Efron, Zendaya and The Greatest Showman Ensemble is down 13 spots to #38.

Dropouts

I’m going to order these from where they are on the charts this week, so, let’s just run through these because there’s a decent amount. “Money” by Cardi B is out from #35, “A Million Dreams” by Ziv Zaifman, Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams is out from #30, “Body” from Loud Luxury and brando is out from #39, “Funky Friday” by Dave and Fredo is out from #38, “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B is out from #34, and finally, “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran is out from #40.

Special Feature

This year, I’m going to talk about more non-charting songs, so I’ll rip off Spectrum Pulse like I’ve been doing for a full year or so now, and do something like his new Ideal Hit section. Instead of songs that he thinks should be hits, I’m just going to pick a song that I see has been getting a push and want to be a hit because it’s really freaking good. Let’s start with:

SHOUT-OUT #1 – “Voila” – N.E.R.D., Gucci Mane and Wale

“Alright, come on, let’s go”. Those words are somehow so effective in starting this borderline masterpiece off. I don’t even know how to express my absolute love and fascination for this song in words. While N.E.R.D.’s comeback album NO_ONE EVER REALLY DIES was good, it was inconsistent, although this is probably my favourite track from there, excluding perhaps “Don’t Don’t Do It!”, which, yes, is somehow even better than this. Listen, I’m not a massive fan of either Gucci Mane or Wale, in fact, I think Wale kind of sucks, honestly – but put Gucci Mane on an energetic new wave beat and I’ll marry you. His Southern drawl makes his performance on the relatively complex yet catchy hook seem effortless, and then the pitch-shifted Pharrell Williams sounds just great, almost as a stark contrast to Gucci though, as Gucci is lazy yet smooth, while Pharrell is so stiff and that works perfectly, as even when he goes on more interesting vocal runs, he’s robotic. The beat strips itself down to bass and drums for Pharrell’s sole verse in which he tries to motivate the listener, before a robotic pre-chorus, in which he makes himself sound so emotionless, but it’s on purpose because what it’s saying is that self-improvement like Gucci’s after prison isn’t perfect and isn’t magic. It slows down briefly for a smooth Pharrell bridge, but then it comes back to the insane, beautifully cluttered new wave jam, and I’m going to remove all pretence and just say, yeah, it’s a bop. It’s fun, and then Gucci’s last “different” is dragged on and repeated, because, guess what? The song comes back as something different, in this case, a tropical trap beat with steel pans and kicks drowning out Wale’s half-hearted, lazy flow, which works because it’s stream-of-consciousness delivery with such a clearly calculated, simple and concise verse. The whole song can be seen as a motivational jam or some kind of sarcastic parody of those songs, but either way you see it, it’s fantastic. I’ve seen this in Apple ads, I hope this becomes a smash, even though it probably won’t. It happened to “Lemon” with Rihanna so I can hope.

NEW ARRIVALS

We have a lot of hip-hop and R&B today so let’s start with something that is decidedly neither of those things.

#33 – “Grace” – Lewis Capaldi

Lewis Capaldi’s a Scottish dude, and he released this song in September of last year, naturally becoming a smash hit in his home country. In the UK overall however, it’s been a sleeper hit and this is his first song to hit the top 40, so is it any good? Do I have any hope for Capaldi’s future work? I mean, it’s okay, I guess. It starts with subtle, light piano that is so bare that it feels Capaldi’s immediate anger and frustration is unwarranted, especially in the pre-chorus because I feel there isn’t any build-up to anything here. In fact, I’ve heard this before, I vividly remember hating it because of how abrupt everything was, and yup, I get why. This is aggravatingly slap-dash to me, and I know that you kind of have to be in today’s pop climate, but that’s America. This is Scotland, and it sounds like the dude who does the clean vocals for a Scottish post-hardcore band was told to water himself down over “Fight Song”. No, thanks.

#25 – “Options” – NSG featuring Tion Wayne

Okay, so first of all, who? Let’s see what I can gather from Wikipedia and other sources. NSG is the Northampton School for Girls, but they’re a group that is also part of the GRM Daily crowd, as we have at least one of these guys each week, and Tion Wayne I’m assuming is also from that general field of UK hip-hop, although he’s more of a Link Up TV than a GRM Daily, I guess. This is obviously the first top 40 hit for either artist, and I wish more of the reggae/grime stuff we get was like this. I like how it immediately scares you with that sharp, eerie piano line, with a vocal effect on one of these guys’ voice that is really effective considering it muffles him. The verses come in and we have conflicting piano melodies that actually complement each other, with NSG and Tion Wayne both bringing simple flows and fun deliveries. Sure, it’s nothing new, the content is all stuff we’ve seen before, and it’s probably way too long. Some of the NSG dudes are actually pretty decent singers, or at least ride on the beat well enough for me to not notice, like Kruddz, but the longest verse goes to Tion Wayne, and he kills it. I love how layered the track is, with all the strings and the claps coming together in the final chorus with keys that almost sound like trumpets blaring behind everything. It feels really triumphant and is pretty great in that regard. For people into this stuff, I recommend it.

#15 – “Undecided” – Chris Brown

Go away and take your illegal monkey with you, you abusing, detestable waste of time and money. Your song sucks, you can’t even sing anymore, and your production is always cheap and in this case, kind of tinny? You can’t rap, either, so don’t try. We’ve been putting up with you for a whole decade now and I’m sick of it, and I’m sick of you. I am not going to review your song. Fair enough? Fair enough.

#6 – “18HUNNA” – Headie One and Dave

No matter what I say, this song is definitely going to grow on me like most British rap I review on this show does. I do have to say, though, I understand why this one debuted so high, because Dave lazily rehashes his “Funky Friday” flow in his opening verse. This production feels like a cheap, trash type beat downloaded off of YouTube, with its shrill piano, synths and badly-mixed bass. Headie One is pretty awful on here, barely staying on beat and literally cutting himself off mid-line and mid-rhyme scheme to even attempt to keep steady through what is a way too long verse, although I respect the Pot Noodles reference, I guess. Yeah, no, this is gutter trash. I’m disappointed in 1-6 here, because the “Funky Friday” beat is great, although to be fair, that was co-produced by Dave. Get this out of my face.

Conclusion

What an awful week. There’s a reason I wanted to have an extra song that I could talk about positively, because this week was a constant fuel of garbage. Headie One and Dave get Worst of the Week for “18HUNNA”, with Dishonourable Mention going to human trash Chris Brown for “Undecided”. Best of the Week goes to that NSG and Tion Wayne song, I guess? Yeah, that’s a pretty dope song. See you next week, and let’s hope for “Voila”.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 9th September 2018

Okay, so, when I put this show in the Wednesday slot, I expect to have a calmer week, but that is far from what I got here. We have seven new arrivals, three of which are one of our occasional mini-album bombs. Usually, we get the three most popular songs from an album which had nearly all of his songs chart on the Hot 100 – for example, here, the whole album charted in the US (excluding the skits) but we only get the lead single, first or so song on the album and the surprise breakout hit, as usual with album bombs. However, expect me to not be looking forward to reviewing each song here. When I have one of these mini-bombs to cover, usually either the album is pretty decent (Kanye West’s ye and Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD) or at least some of the better songs actually chart high so I don’t need to be as cynical towards the artist and the record as a whole while covering the individual hits (Drake’s Scorpion). We have a 4/10 album on our hands, folks, and the three songs that charted... well, we’ll get to them in a second, and you know what album it is already... if you don’t, well, here’s the top 10 to remind you.

Top 10

We start with a new #1... seriously, guys? Alright, well, Calvin Harris, now the man with the most #1s this decade, has added a new entry to the list, “Promises” with Sam Smith, up a spot from last week’s placing.

Next, we have last week’s #1 at the runner-up spot, “Eastside” by benny blanco, Khalid and Halsey. I told you this wouldn’t last long at the tip.

Meanwhile, “Shotgun” by George Ezra is still at number-three, proving its surprising amount of longevity in the top 10 at its 24th week on the chart.

We now have the first of three new arrivals in the top 10 from Eminem’s new album Kamikaze at number-four, with the spot taken by intro track, “The Ringer”.

Oh, and “Body” by Loud Luxury and brando is still at number-five. I’m surprised by how much stability it has.

The second new arrival from Eminem is at number-six, and that would be “Lucky You” featuring rapper Joyner Lucas, making his UK top 40 debut, and, damn, if he doesn’t finally deserve it, 11 years into his career.

Down three spots and slowly collapsing is “In My Feelings” by Drake featuring City Girls at number-seven. The faster this goes, the better.

“Taste”, however, by Tyga and Offset, is up a spot to number-eight, which doesn’t exactly shock me too much but I’m surprised it took this long, if anything.

Finally, our third and final (thankfully) new arrival from Eminem is “Fall” featuring uncredited (and fortunately so) vocals from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, debuting at number-nine.

Rounding off the top 10 is “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B down three spaces to number-ten.

Climbers

I’ll try and keep everything before the new arrivals brief, especially since we have seven of them, so let’s go past the climbers, fallers and such in pretty much rapid-fire speed.

The only really notable climbers here are “Lost Without You” by Freya Ridings fortunately jumping up seven spaces to #29, as well as “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong unfortunately taking a five-space increase to #32. Again, it shouldn’t be charting – it’s not even two minutes! I’m not saying short songs shouldn’t enter the charts, hell, I root for Lil Pump’s success, but this is only six seconds over of what I’d call an interlude track. Come on, guys, pull it together.

Fallers

Now the fallers are a different story... let’s go by genre.

For pop and... “rock”, we have “God is a woman” and “breathin’” by Ariana Grande both down six positions to #12 and #17 respectively, while “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer is down seven spaces to #25.

EDM suffered a lot this week, for some reason, with “Rise” by Jonas Blue and Jack & Jack taking a five-spot blow to #24, and six-space losses for both “Solo” by Clean Bandit and Demi Lovato and “Jackie Chan” by Tiesto and Dzeko featuring Preme and Post Malone to #28 and #33, as well as a whopping 23-space droop down to #37 for “Ring Ring” by Jax Jones featuring Mabel and Rich the Kid, alongside milder drops for Calvin Harris and David Guetta.

Hip-hop and R&B on the other hand just had one interesting enough loss, surprisingly, and that was the five-space drop for “SICKO MODE” by Travis Scott featuring Drake and Swae Lee. Now, drop-outs!

Dropouts

So, yeah, Drake had a rough week. As well as a drop for “In My Feelings” discussed earlier, both “Don’t Matter to Me” with Michael Jackson and “Nonstop” dropped out from #29 and #30, assumingly because of Eminem getting much more streams this week. Hopefully they’ll then go for good. Other than that, we had quite a few notable drops... genres again.

For pop, we have “IDOL” by BTS – kind of featuring Nicki Minaj – out from #21, “2002” by Anne-Marie out from #34, finally, “no tears left to cry” by Ariana Grande out from #35 straight off the re-entry and “This is Me” by Keala Settle and the Greatest Showman Ensemble out once again from #38.

For hip-hop and R&B, we just have a few little drop outs that were expected like “Fine Girl” by ZieZie out from #31 and “I Like It” by Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin out from #39.

Returning Entries

“TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME” by the 1975 is back to #40... please go back to #46, trust me, guys, you were better there. Now, since the Ed Sheeran Update is somewhat redundant, I’m scrapping that feature, so, we’re just going straight into the new arrivals...joy.

NEW ARRIVALS

I’m splitting this set of new arrivals into two parts: Eminem and non-Eminem. It won’t be a different blog, and they’ll still be in descending order of where they entered the charts at, but it’s just easier to separate this way, especially since seven new arrivals and their reviews could look very messy when there’s loads of them, so I thought why not separate them into halves. Let’s start.

#38 – “LO(V/S)ER” – AJ Tracey

We’ve talked about AJ Tracey before and I wasn’t impressed by his breakout hit, but his follow-up, with a quirky title showing how it has the potential to be an introspective look into how he trusts partners too easily or something related to that interesting “loser”/”lover” combination, could be much better, after all, he had Not3s to weigh him down last time, so how does he do solo, without the pop audience to please?

Well, first of all, it’s a trap beat with a sample that I’m pretty sure is out-of-tune for the neverending melody, hence it transcends monotonous and becomes pretty grating, especially with that repetitive hook and the simplistic flow... but what about the lyrics? Do they exceed or at least meet my expectations? Well, I was kidding myself, really, wasn’t I? It’s about how he’s a lover for “a pretty Latina” and how you, the listener, are a loser because you’re going to get hit with the strap while he’s chilling in Cuba sipping Hennessey and... running away from the police. Surely you shouldn’t mention that in your hit song, right? It just makes you more of a target. At least it’s more of a lust song for a pretty Latina, at least he’s not taking MY girl or anything.

I’m with your girl, she got blow on her nose (oh)

Well, damn, nevermind.

#36 – “Beautiful” – Bazzi featuring Camila Cabello

Sigh, Bazzi. I was so disappointed in this guy’s debut record after loving “Mine”, it was mostly just mediocre trite – and way too much of it, may I add. Camila Cabello’s hopped on a remix of one of the least tolerable songs on COSMIC, and knowing her tendency to have very squeaky, borderline unbearable vocals on a lot of her hits, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that she made an already trash song... a tad MORE listenable? Bazzi sounds out-of-breath and desperate, fitting for the pretty thirsty lyrics here, with the lines about the Gucci and how she looks better naked not exactly fitting with the lovestruck angelic theme he’s going for. The production is typical Bazzi fare, with “pretty” synths clouding the non-presence of the deeper 808s, however Camila Cabello’s performance is actually pretty song, and she goes for a more seductive vibe that I really like here, although the autotuned belting could really have been rid of. It’s not as awful as it was on the album, but it’s not like it’s any good either.

#35 – “Be Alright” – Dean Lewis

Dean Lewis, up-and-coming singer-songwriter and Australian chart-topper, who I initially confused with Dennis Lloyd, who recorded one of the worst songs I’ve heard on this show a few weeks or months back, has finally landed his first song in the UK top 40, and it’s quite fittingly, “alright”. Dean Lewis’ voice is actually pretty endearing, and the Ed Sheeran-ish brand of folk pop is much more effective when it’s slow and indie-infused like this. Sure, Lewis may appear somewhat whiny in the lyrics and overall performance, but there’s enough genuine charisma and strength here for me to forgive that, with the choir of Dean Lewis backing him up well enough. It’s not fantastic by any means, but for a short little simplistic track, it gets a pass. Not much to say about this one, and it’s not going to be one I go back to, but I hope this goes somewhere because I’m personally interested in how Lewis will follow this up.

#22 – “Thunderclouds” – LSD

This is the first top 40 entry for the group “LSD”, however this is the umpteenth time the artists involved have made the list, as LSD stands for Labrinth, Sia and Diplo. Labrinth is an R&B singer who I personally loved in his heyday in the early 2010s, but he seems to have faded away, despite some great hits like “Express Yourself” and “Let the Sun Shine”, which I still come back to today. Sia is more hit-and-miss for me, but I’ve never been amazed or appalled by any of her stuff, excluding maybe her Christmas album, which for the sake of shortening this review, I will not go any further into. Diplo is the artist I’m most familiar with here, mostly because he makes so much fun dance music under groups like Major Lazer and Jack U, as well as venturing into more alternative territory on his latest EP California, where he’s somehow made Lil Xan listenable. “Wish” featuring Trippie Redd and “Look Back” featuring D.R.A.M. are strong contenders for my favourite songs of the year so far, and that’s not to forget about his work with countless other people from No Doubt and Snoop Dogg to Lil Pump and G-Dragon to M.I.A. and even Die Antwoord. Diplo has a habit of making artists sound so much better than they actually are in their solo work, there’s something magic about him, I swear. So, what happens when a British R&B singer and rapper of fluctuating popularity, an eccentric Australian electropop singer-songwriter and an eclectic American EDM DJ come together to form a supergroup and make a song for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 promotional campaign?

Retro 50’s/60’s soul infused with elements of funky doo-wop, apparently. Don’t worry, I’m not necessarily complaining – the bass guitar groove is tight as hell, Sia’s as-usual intelligible vocals ride well on the Summery shimmer of the intro, especially with those surf rock guitars, and the powerful vocals from Labrinth in that strong hook, which is intertwined with choppy vocal snippets from Sia. Labrinth’s verse is somehow worse, however, due to the incredible lack of chemistry as they both trade lines as a faulty build-up, and that problem remains true for the rest of the song. No matter how much I love the horns and how it sounds like two (or three) worlds combining to make something so much more interesting and different than what they’ve made before, the chemistry is not there, Sia and Labrinth are even somewhat sloppy throughout, especially when they’re against some pretty rough vocal mixing. Speaking of, the horns should not be that back into the mix, they feel wasted... much like the talent on this song which could be summed up in an absolute mess of good musical ideas that start to mesh together and just fall apart and collapse before the abrupt ending. I feel bad for saying this since I like the artists involved, but I’m not excited for the album yet if this group keeps on making songs that just don’t work as well as they want them to be. It’s a decent listen and they shouldn’t go back to the drawing board conceptually if they go for this sound, but it really needs some polishing, guys.

So, what’s the next song? Oh... Oh, no.

EMINEM

#9 – “Fall” – Eminem featuring Justin Vernon

Let’s get through this as quickly as I can, because I can’t be talking about Eminem for too long here, so I’ll just give you some info on the track and then go straight into it, sparing no punches. You got it? Okay.

“Fall” is the tenth track on the album, and is being pushed as the lead single with a recently-released video. It features uncredited vocals from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, who soon distanced himself from the lyrics of the song, saying he wasn’t a big fan of the message. It was produced by Eminem himself with Mike WiLL Made-It... and it’s awful. Let’s ignore the lyrics for a second and just talk about the cookie-cutter trap beat with a fast yet pretty uneventful synth melody. I like Vernon’s autotuned falsetto hook quite a lot, actually, and Eminem’s flow is pretty great throughout the verses, as he says, his rapid Slim Shady flow is back... and so is his sense of humour, for better or for worse. I appreciate that Marshall Mathers plays a character and he is a charismatic performer, but, man, these disses just feel unnecessary. I’m not a fan of DJ Akademiks, Joe Budden, Charlemagne or any of the hip-hop reporting crowd for that matter, but criticising a trash album you admit is terrible is not something to take personally, especially when you have admitted you don’t like the record either, so why should you defend yourself against critics that you think are reasonable in not liking your album? He doesn’t go in depth to why, he just kind of ignores them and says the hate is because of “Walk on Water”... which it isn’t, it’s probably one of the songs people actually tolerated on that trainwreck. He also starts dissing the mumble-rappers, and yes, of course, I’m quick to defend them, but they are not mocking JAY-Z... ever. I have never seen a trap-rapper try and be JAY-Z. In fact, JAY-Z imitates Migos more than Migos imitates JAY-Z. If you meant mumble-rappers mock classic hip-hop, why JAY-Z? It’s typically legends like 2Pac who are seen as being disrespected, while JAY-Z is fitting into the mainstream rap crowd pretty nicely decades into his career, and making music with modern artists like Frank Ocean, Drake and even Quavo and Offset of the Migos. There’s some speculation that this line is instead about J. Cole and Lil Pump’s beef, but, yeah, I doubt that even Eminem would think that the “beef” is anything but petty and silly publicity. He threatens to kill Joe Budden, whilst criticising his domestic abuse charges... I’d argue Eminem isn’t exactly one to talk on things like this, but, hey, I’m probably not either, but I am one to talk on how Eminem, hiding in character as Slim Shady, throws petty shots at Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, to the point of calling Tyler, a pretty openly bisexual man, the f-word... you know what it is, I’m not going to say it (oh, and he wants to have sexual intercourse with the Pitchfork writers using a corkscrew for some reason). This is all because of criticism of his album – now, Slim Shady, naturally, would feel this way, right? But Slim Shady wasn’t on Revival, and he made it a point to be as personal on that album as he could, so when people criticised it, it’s blatant that the shots he throws are only using Slim Shady as an excuse for his immature, ignorant and loudly homophobic (and on other tracks during the album, borderline misogynistic) behaviour that he portrays here. He took the criticism to his work personally, and it’s obvious, no matter how much he tries to hide it. We can see your face through the veil, Marshall, and that face is of a legend falling from grace... unless he already has, which is probably the answer to all of this. However, Eminem is still a big of a name to get away with bull like this and get it to chart in the top 10 of the UK, and get to perform at Reading Festival, while Tyler’s still banned from Britain entirely. Oh, and critiquing the Grammys for being leeches to the biggest artists... like you, who has won 15 of the worthless awards. Nice one, you pathetic douche. Oh, and inspiring Hopsin is not anything to be proud of, my guy.

Now, there are many things about newer Eminem that just generally annoy me all the time, like his overall attitude and choppy staccato flow paired with the nasal voice he puts on, but he can still make banging hip-hop tracks when he wants to. He just needs someone fresh to light a fire up in him and let him explode. Who better to do that than the feature on the next track?

#6 – “Lucky You” – Eminem featuring Joyner Lucas

On Kamikaze, there are Tokyo Ghoul samples, Tay Keith giving Em a lazy beat that is literally “Look Alive” pitched down, a bloody hilarious outro track, skits about pulling up to Joe Budden’s house, interpolations of “Fack”, two interesting and funny collaborations with Jessie Reyez, an apology track to D12, a misogynistic rant and... an unironically great song. That song is the third track, produced by Boi-1da, “Lucky You”, featuring Joyner Lucas on his first ever UK Top 40 chart entry.

Now this song bangs hard. The beat is made up out of a maddening bell chiming incessantly that provide a minimalistic bass for Joyner Lucas to yell his freaking guts out, before transitioning to a rapid flow with on-point flexing, charismatic barking ad-libs like Lucas is on his DMX and a lot of catchy and memorable quotables... but somehow Marshall is even better, where he admits he took an L on his last album (rather hypocritical considering the content of the album) and gives out a lot of criticisms torwards trap-rap that even I believe, whilst reasoning with the Lils by saying it’s just not his taste and that he needs that diss so he can reload and aim back like he used to do, and Goddamn, he proves it, with one of his best verses from this decade and maybe ever, right before handing it back to Joyner Lucas for a brief repetition of the catchy hook. This is fantastic, and proves that Eminem still has it and he SHOULD be making more of this. However...

#4 – “The Ringer” – Eminem

This is the opening track of the album, produced by Illa and Ronny J, and I’ve already ranted in way too much length than I planned to on “Fall” and praised the hell out of “Lucky You”, so can I let the criticism take the backseat here and just make fun of this piece of hot garbage?

It starts with a plane crash and it’s getting intense. Eminem, in his unbearably nasal voice, may I add, is saying he wants to just “punch the world in its f***ing face”. He’s getting heated up. What’s he gonna say? What fire bars is he going to spit? Well, he’s gonna... “rape the alphabet”. This dude just said he’s going to molest the alphabet... I’m glad I’m not taking this seriously, and I don’t think he exactly wants us to, but he does try and make points he actually believes in like how Lil Pump and Lil Xan supposedly imitate Lil Wayne, even though they have barely anything in common stylistically other than the vague description of “rappers with Lil in their name who have tattoos and make brag-rap”. Lil Wayne wasn’t even the first guy to do that, and I’d argue Lil Pump is more energetic than Wayne has ever been or will again, and Lil Xan, although I hate the dude to death, has more of a lethargic, trippy style that borders on ambient. Although Xanny and Wayne do both have the questionable sex-related puns in check at seemingly all times. Eminem also talks about how if he mentions these rappers, they’re winning and he’s losing, so why even bother?

He then complains about the bad reviews – this isn’t Slim Shady either – before asking if I get his own joke, discusses how he should “eat” a pill and how supposedly the old Eminem was killed, although this side of Eminem is incredibly prevalent on Kamikaze. He also mentions his bad habits, like, flicking his scrotum like a light switch, supposedly similarly to Mike Pence, complains about how trap-rappers always take YOUR girl (okay, maybe that’s something I can agree with) and disses NF (again, I can agree with NF being worthless). The “chorus”-like bar is just a stream of consciousness-type lyric to the flow of “Gucci Gang” by Lil Pump, which rattles off a few notable names without much added context or reasoning.

So finger-bang, chicken wang, MGK, Igg’ Azae’ / Lil Pump, Lil Xan, imitate Lil Wayne

He does know Iggy Azalea isn’t relevant at all anymore, right? Is he that out of touch? Oh, and all you other rappers are “goners” because you’re not conscious and lyrical like J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and... Big Sean? Do you want to play odd one out with me, Marshall?

“Maybe if the vocals were autotuned on Revival, people would have bought it,” he claims, seemingly oblivious to the fact that that was one of the problems to begin with, oh, and finger-banging again:

So finger-bang, Pootie-Tang, Burger King, Gucci gang / Dookie-dang, Charlemagne gonna hate anyway

There’s more, like when he specifies he DOES mean “eating a penis” when he says critics should get a mouthful of flesh, but I’m done for the day on Eminem. I’ve written nearly 2,000 words on this trash-heap so let’s just conclude before I go insane.

Conclusion

This is already way too long and they should be obvious, so here it goes: Worst of the Week and Dishonourable Mention both go to Eminem. WOTW is shared with Justin Vernon for “Fall” and Dishonourable Mention is for “The Ringer”. Best of the Week obviously goes to Eminem and Joyner Lucas for “Lucky You”, with Honourable Mention, I guess, going to Dean Lewis for “Be Alright”. Next week, hopefully we’ll get some Mac Miller? I don’t know, but what I do know is the new schedule which I want to make clear. REVIEWING THE CHARTS will alternate sporadically between Sundays and Wednesdays, but there will be a monthly show called BLAST TO THE PAST, which instead of just covering an old chart, will cover a lot of older pop music, and will basically be a fun time for me to do whatever I want, honestly. There’ll be more down the pipeline but stay tuned for that either this week or next week, where I rank all of Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams’ collaborations that ever charted on the Hot 100. See you then.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15th July 2018

God, this first bit is going to be heavily ironic now, isn’t it?

Top 10

If you’ve been following the World Cup, you’d know that Britain got into the semi-finals before being beaten by Croatia and then Belgium, leaving us in fourth place, which isn’t too bad, but it is kind of sad when you realise that the day after we got beaten by Croatia, the unofficial World Cup anthem “Three Lions” by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the Lightning Seeds leaped up 23 spaces to number-one, at its 27th week in the chart, and not the first spent at #1, as it has had four different runs at the top of the UK Singles Chart since it was released 22 years ago – “Nice for What” by Drake is the first to break that record in the US, only a few months after its release. Talking about Drake...

That’s a segue I hope to never use again because I don’t want to talk about Drake ever again, to be honest with you. He’s so bad in such a boring way. That has absolutely no relevance to our number-two spot, “Shotgun” by George Ezra, pushed back to the runner-up spot because of “Three Lions”, but I wanted to mention that, especially since I have to talk about him today. More on that later.

“Solo” by Clean Bandit featuring Demi Lovato isn’t moving at number-three.

Oh, Drake. We meet again sooner than I thought. “In My Feelings”, thanks to a dancing challenge meme and Drake’s album (in which this song is probably one of the worst from), has debuted at number-four. Delightful.

Oh, hey, more Drake! Fantastic! “Don’t Matter to Me” featuring Michael Jackson is STILL in the top five, specifically at number-five after being pushed back three spaces by his own song.

Also thanks to an album, Years & Years’ “If You’re Over Me” is up three spots to number-six, barely missing out on the top five – thanks to Drake. Am I coming off as some anti-Drake protester? If so, I’m sorry, I like Drake for the most part, but his chart prowess kind of baffles me.

Hell, just to prove I’m not too bothered by Drake generally, I get to thank Drake and Years & Years for not letting this next piece of trash get to the top five, or any higher, really. At number-seven, after a four-space boost up to the top ten, we have “Rise” by Jonas Blue featuring Jacksfilms and Jack Black.

“Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B continues to go up and up the charts, bouncing up two spots to number-eight this week.

Funnily enough, Cardi outdid herself this week, as she pushes down her own song “I Like It” featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin a spot to number-nine.

Finally, down four spots from last week, we have “2002” by Anne-Marie at number-ten, where, frankly, it deserves to be more than in the top five – this is inoffensive enough to be a hit but I do not see the appeal in such a smash hit.

Climbers

This week on the US Hot 100, “Jackie Chan” by Tiesto and Dzeko featuring Preme and Post Malone just debuted at #88 – why did it take so long for this to cross over to the states? In fact, it went up five spaces to #12 this week on the UK Singles Chart, and it’s doing well globally. I know the US is really late to EDM, but, come on, it has Post Malone! Why are you guys so slow to this?

Some debuts from the week before last week are recovering from Drake – “Only You” by Cheat Codes and Little Mix is up 12 spots to #28, while “Ring Ring” by Jax Jones featuring Mabel and Rich the Kid is up seven spots to #29. Otherwise, there’s nothing really of note here to discuss.

Fallers

Former chart-topper “I’ll be There” by Jess Glynne is at freefall at this point, as it’s down six spots to #13. Drake’s “Nonstop” will obviously take a hit, going down 11 spaces to #15. The late XXXTENTACION also suffered, with “SAD!” down four spots to #18 and “Moonlight” down six positions to #37. Liam Payne and J Balvin’s “Familiar” took an unexpected but definitely deserved ten-space shove down to #30. “no tears left to cry” by Ariana Grande and “Paradise” by George Ezra are both down six to #35 and #34 respectively, seemingly ending their runs – that is, of course, until Sweetener releases soon.

Dropouts

Okay, so the biggest drop ever out of the charts is from #2, and I think “Last Christmas” by Wham! holds it. Of course, “Three Lions”, our current #1 will probably break that record, but a drop out from #5 is still impressive, and Drake’s “Emotionless” featuring a sample from Mariah Carey has done just that. Of course, the one I like the most has the least longevity.

We have quite a few other dropouts too: “This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble, finally out from #39, “Flames” by David Guetta and Sia out from #34, “changes” by XXXTENTACION out from #37 and “Girls” by Rita Ora, Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha and Cardi B out from #38.

Returning Entries

Former #1 “These Days” by Rudimental featuring Macklemore, Dan Caplen and Jess Glynne is back to #40 for some reason, but that surely doesn’t matter when we have a much more important return.

So, recently, the current President of the United States – you all know him – Donald Trump, visited the United Kingdom to talk to our current Prime Minister, Theresa May. I don’t really like to get political on this show, but let me just say I’m incredibly happy that people started a campaign to get this to return to the charts this week.

#25 – “American Idiot” – Green Day

So, let me clear up a few things first – this song isn’t about Trump, at all. In fact, it’s pretty much about a President in title only. It’s actually about the American media circa 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected. Billie Joe Armstrong just bluntly makes fun of rednecks and propaganda in his signature insane, loud and sometimes unintelligible delivery over a now classic guitar riff with a subtle megaphone filtering effect similar to Damon Albarn on “Feel Good, Inc.” at about the same time. The verses are meaningful and packed with political punch while still being catchy enough to sing along, which Armstrong even demands the audience to do in the second verse. The cuts in the instrumental during the verses and after the chorus are pretty intense, mostly due to Tré Cool’s fantastic drumming, which is simplistic but incredibly effective and powerful. Mike Dirnt’s short guitar solo is pretty amazing, too, and all the members come together to make a modern punk-rock anthem that will be remembered for decades to come. These guys were in their 30’s when they made this too, this isn’t from an exciting youthful band, they’d been around for years when the great album this track is from (also titled American Idiot) took the world by storm in 2004.

For curiosity’s sake, I checked when this charted, and it peaked at #3 in the UK 14 years ago, and becoming Green Day’s first ever Hot 100 entry at #61. It also debuted at #1 in Canada! It is funny how a song about criticising America took advantage of the controversy to much lesser effects in the idiot nation itself, huh.

NEW ARRIVALS

Now for the much less exciting songs, I suppose.

#39 – “Panic Room” (CamelPhat remix) – Au/Ra

So, CamelPhat are the guys from last year’s “Cola” which charted at #18 over in the UK, and would have made my best list if they had crossed over to the States. I like these dudes’ other work too, so I was pretty excited when I saw them chart in the top 40 again. Au/Ra, however I have no idea about. From what I can gather on her Spotify bio, she’s an indie pop artist who had her song “Panic Room” remixed (twice, may I add) by CamelPhat, leading her to have her first top 40 hit. There are also four other remixes, as well as an acoustic version, so, yes, there are eight versions of this ONE song. I’ve listened to all of them – excluding CamelPhat’s second remix since it’s just a club mix, so I’ll just say what I think of each one in a sentence or two.

The original by Au/Ra is boring as sin during the verses, although I kinda dig the pitched-down vocals, and it gets much more exciting in the drop with the buzzing synths. It’s also when I listened to this version that I realised this is from an advertisement, which explains why she’s in the top 40 without a Wikipedia page. This version is alright, though, but I understand why it needs a remix.

The acoustic version is a slow painful death. This is also barely acoustic, there’s a pretty blatant digitally-added filter on Au/Ra’s voice at several points.

The Jonas Rathsman remix is seven glorious minutes of 1980’s dance music. I’m not even kidding, this is wonderful. I love the random sounds they add throughout too, they all add up to a pretty cool listen. Au/Ra doesn’t come in until about five minutes, though, and even then, her vocals are chopped-up a bit to fit the instrumental.

The KDA “Stop Saying You Were at Trade When You Weren’t” remix is pretty fun too with some pretty unique percussion, and much shorter than Rathsman’s, but Au/Ra’s vocals are mixed horribly and it never really has a good climax or drop, it’s just a bit of a slog. I like it, but it definitely needs some work.

The Denis First and Reznikov remix is some of the blandest house music I’ve heard. It’s also much shorter and the vocals are mixed pretty badly, once again.

The Sway Gray remix is much better in its vocal mixing, but it feels way too safe – even if the drop is one of the best things I’ve heard in mainstream dance this year, it just doesn’t keep up his momentum throughout. It’s worth listening to for that drop, though.

Now the CamelPhat remix is the one used in the advert, and yeah, these guys have struck the barrel again. Like “Cola”, it’s intense but also damn fun, with a pumping beat, pretty nice synths and pretty interesting echo effects put onto Au/Ra’s voice, including in the anti-drop, where it continues to build up when you think it climaxes – something KDA didn’t really grasp – in fact, during the actual drop, which has a similar buzzing synth to Rathsman’s mix, it’s still building up. The whole thing feels like a hike on top of a mountain, and the vocal manipulation in the drop and crazy synth work during the second build-up are the obstacles that come your way, until you get to what is nearly the tip, relax for a second when Au/Ra’s vocals come back in and the white noise starts to somehow harmonise with time-stretched beeping noises and a nice deep wobble, for the final drop where you take the last steps but it never feels satisfactory. You never get to the top, you just stay right next to it for a while and you’re fine with that because you’ve gotten so far. Like “Cola”, the ending of the song is very abrupt and anti-climactic.

The CamelPhat remix of this song is easily the best one, because it feels like an exciting journey portrayed via house music. I love this. Listen to this, like, right now. CamelPhat are Goddamn geniuses, I tell you.

#38 – “Fine Girl” (remix) – ZieZie

Oh, delightful. ANOTHER remix. ZieZie is another musician without a Wikipedia page who hasn’t had a top 40 hit until today thanks to a remix, but I’m not exactly sure which one out of the four that exist, especially since BBC has made the artwork the original single’s cover. So, naturally, I’ve listened to them all, and I’m counting the original version as the hit single.

So, before we talk about the songs, let’s just make it clear that ZieZie is an incredibly incompetent British rapper – so incompetent in fact that his single “Low Life” has been listed as “ZieZie- Low Life” on Spotify – and that’s just the title. It is listed, on Spotify, no joke as “ZieZie- Low Life by ZieZie”. Now that’s stupid! If you want proof, here you go: https://open.spotify.com/album/5mZIWWiqFQBEGlcdXfojVf?si=uLweMtHjQs6yQHA0Vg0T0Q.

Okay, so the T. Matthias remix isn’t too bad, it has a nice piano melody and it’s a pretty generic but decently-produced house track, with a deep, overbearing drop. The profanity is censored, as normal with EDM songs recently (think “Solo” and “FRIENDS”). Nothing more than what it is and nothing less.

The James Hype remix is more Caribbean-influenced with steel pans, but otherwise is basically the exact same as the Matthias remix for the first few seconds, until the pretty stiff synth melody and bassline kicks in, with some nice vocal chopping, even if it kind of sounds like it sampled Super Mario 64.

There’s another remix without a producer name that just adds a couple pretty decent rappers to the original track. It’s okay.

The ADP remix is also like that, except the guest rappers have much worse flows for the most part.

Now, the actual track – I do like the production here, with the cowbell(?) and typical dancehall production, except being oddly minimalistic with the clicks and pretty cool synth sample, hell, I even like ZieZie here, as he sings the catchy autotuned hook with a decent melody and fun ad-libs, as well as some pretty funny lyrics throughout. He references Chief Keef in the hook, even replicating his signature “bang bang” ad-lib, the fact that he’s proud in ignoring the woman’s body entirely for the fact that she has a nice butt, and how he just kind of uses a lot of nonsense words as metaphors (or just bluntly stating fact) in some lines, like “booty jiggle-jiggle like Jello” and “she wanna tick-tock if you got time” (which, also, despite the fact that it oddly references someone else having time free, unlike the other lines which refer to him having fun with this girl, actually makes sense, because throughout the hook, he’s recommending the girl to someone else). He also HEAVILY channels Fetty Wap, so it’s pretty fitting that in the bridge, he mentions his name and sings Fetty’s  signature “yeah, baby” croon that he uses in songs like “679” and “$ave Dat Money”. Yes, he doesn’t only interpolate songs; he basically interpolates two artists’ whole discography, more than once, in the same song. The references to other trap artists and some filler lines are pretty lazy but I do like how he integrates not only Patois but French in an otherwise English song, while referencing African-American artists and the Congo, as well as making fun of British YouTube prankster Jack Jones crying after being hit by a slice of pizza... yeah, I don’t get it either. If anything, this is actually pretty culturally diverse, and catchy, so I don’t mind this and it’s probably the best dancehall song we’ve covered on this show.

#4 – “In My Feelings” – Drake featuring City Girls

Remember last week when I said I thought I’d be done with Drake? Well, lucky me.

Now, this song is hilariously awful. It’s not lazy like “Nonstop” or so-bad-it’s-good like “Ratchet Happy Birthday”, it’s just bloody pathetic and that kind of makes it enjoyable, if you’re into hearing Drake on the edge of insanity over a bunch of chopped samples and pretty bland R&B-trap production. The intro is kind of funny, too, as is the hook which is just him desperately moaning to other women, asking them if they love him and if they’re riding. There’s a few hand-claps in the singular verse too, that try to add any intensity to this, which kind of make it even worse because it proves that effort was put in, when it really doesn’t sound like it. City Girls have a short bridge before the absolutely-hellish breakdown, where Drake’s vocals are all over the place with samples from Magnolia Shawty being repeated and chopped to the point of sounding like a damn parrot, before it abruptly stops and we get treated to Lil Wayne joining the party with a lazy sample from “Lollipop”. The way Drake delivers everything is really funny in this song, especially how he says “TrapMoneyBenny”. It’s kind of like “Fake Love” in a way, everything is just so unintentionally joyful despite how horrible it is. There’s some extra percussion and a sample from an episode of Atlanta too? God, this is a mess.

Conclusion

What do you think? Seriously, you think I’m gonna give Best of the Week to that ZieZie guy? Hell, no, you can figure out who gets what pretty damn easily. See ya next week!

.

[deadcactuswalking]

BLAST TO THE PAST: Reviewing the UK Top 40 from 27th May, 1981

I’mma try something different.

Top 10

So, steady at the top spot is the classic “Stand and Deliver” by Adam and the Ants, the first of the six consecutive non-moving songs. Yep, that’s right, the top ten was just as stagnant in 1981 as it is in 2018. Joy.

“You Drive Me Crazy” by Shakin’ Stevens is not shaking up at all, still at the runner-up spot from last week.

Now here’s something interesting: Starsound. They were a Dutch cover band who had extreme success covering pop songs in little disco melodies, one of which, “Stars on 45” is at number-three here.

At number-four, we have “Chequered Love” by Kim Wilde.

At number-five, we have “Ossie’s Dream (Spurs are on the Way to Wembley)” by Chas & Dave and... the Tottenham-Hotspur 1981 FA Cup finals squad. Football fever was really alive in the 80s, huh?

We also have “Swords of a Thousand Men” by Tenpole Tudor staying in the sixth spot.

Jumping up 16 spots, however, is number-seven, Smokey Robinson’s “Being with You”.

That pulled off REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You” from its prior space as it ventures down to number-eight.

Also up back into the top 10 is “I Want to be Free” by Toyah, up four spaces to number-nine.

And finally, we have “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes, still at number-ten.

Climbers

We do have a few big climbers this week, with “How ‘bout Us” by Champaign leaping 17 spaces up to #11, as well as “Don’t Let it Pass You By” / “Don’t Slow Down” by UB40 going up 19 spots to #17, with “Ain’t No Stopping” by Enigma up 15 spots to #18. “Chariots of Fire” by Vangelis is up nine spots to #25, also, but we do have quite a few fallers as well.

Fallers

“Grey Day” by Madness is down seven spots to #15, as is “When He Shines” by Sheena Easton to #19. “Chi Mai (Theme from Life and Times of David Lloyd George)” has landed 11 spaces down to #20, while “Al No Corrida (I-No-Ko-Ree-Da)” by Quincy Jones is down eight to #22, “Making Your Mind Up” by Bucks Fizz is down 10 to #26, the Killers Live EP by Thin Lizzy is down eight to #27, “Only Crying” by Keith Marshall is down 12 to #29, “Drowing” / “All Out to Get You” by the Beat is down six to #31, “Is Vic There?” by Department S is down seven to #33, “Can’t Get Enough of You” by Eddy Grant is down 11 to #35, “Can You Feel It” by the Jacksons is down 12 to #39 and “Good Thing Going (We’ve Got a Good Thing Going)” by Sugar Minott is down 11 to #40.

Dropouts

Okay, so, obviously, we have limited info on these charts. We don’t know all of the songs that dropped out, however we do have some of them. These include “Attention to Me” by the Nolans from #20, “Bermuda Triangle” by Barry Manilow from #30, “Is that Love” by Squeeze from #40, “Muscle Bound” / “Glow” by Spandau Ballet from #22, “Pocket Calculator” by Kraftwerk from #39, “Don’t Break My Heart Again” by Whitesnake from #31 and “Night Games” by Graham Bonnet from #33. The reason for this absolute massacre in the fallers and dropouts has an easy culprit: the avalanche of new (and maybe returning – again, we don’t know) entries to the top 40, which we will start to review right now.

NEW ARRIVALS (and/or returning entries)

#34 – “Just the Two of Us” – Grover Washington, Jr.

Yep, you read that right – this is the absolute classic “Just the Two of Us”, the intimate funky jazz track that will have much more of a legacy than its Will Smith remake. Just listen to that iconic lead-in piano melody and that delightful strumming of the guitar, providing a perfect backdrop for Washington’s deeper falsetto croon, definitely a lot more stable than a lot of his competitors at the time. Then that beautiful, borderline iconic hook comes in, with that strong bassline and at the final chorus, a choir and some damn impressive cowbell – seriously, can these be used more often? Before the song ends, we have a fantastic climax with choir vocals and a steadily increasing speed pattern in the drums all being the assistance to a grand saxophone solo. The best thing about this track is that despite how sensual it may sound, it is not about sex at all. It is instead about true love, and how there’s no point in being sad or crying. Nothing will come out of it in the end, and if you persevere, you could make anything work. “Just the two of us, we can make it if we try.” I’d say I recommend this, but you’ve heard this.

#32 – “Spellbound” – Siouxsie and the Banshees

A lot of the songs in this new series will be ones I’ve never actually heard before, or have only passively heard once or twice, so it’s nice that I get to hear artists I’ve always heard about but never really sat down and listened to, one of which would be Siouxsie and the Banshees, female-lead post-punk group formed in the late 70s. Now, I love my classic alternative rock, so you’d imagine I’d be all over this, right?

Yes, yes, I am. What, did you think that was a fake out? I love this guitar riff, especially when it’s surrounded by the haunting synths and a... tambourine from the sounds of it, before Siouxsie starts to sing excellently in the intro, prior to a sudden kick to a more upbeat track, with some great strumming and a steady, albeit blocky, drum beat that Siouxsie rides on excellently. Not to mention how catchy and surprisingly rushed the whole thing is, with its abrupt ending. Did it deserve to get the Banshees’ guitarist into Mojo’s 100 greatest guitarists of all time list, like it did? Hell, yes, the guitar work is absolutely fantastic here. Great track, that will probably be in rotation for me for a long time. You could say I’m spellbound by how I’ve been missing out on them... yeah, sorry.

#30 – “Let’s Jump the Broomstick” – Coast to Coast

So, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick” has been performed by many people, and I don’t care for any of the others here. Will British group act Coast to Coast finally show me how well-written this song is and how elegantly-composed... nah, let’s quit the act. I can’t take any song with “broomstick” in the title seriously, in all honesty, and I don’t think anybody else did, because the damn thing’s impossible to find on Spotify. Hence, I had to resort to YouTube, and yeah, this was not worth the effort it needed to find it. It has a solid guitar riff – mostly because it’s a cover – and everyone performs decently except that singer with no range at all, which wouldn’t be needed if he was so obviously trying to impress us. This is a clumsy effort at retreading their last hit, with was also a classic cover. This is just kind of nondescript, actually. Skip it.

#28 – “More than in Love” – Kate Robbins and Beyond

This is a magically smooth song. With its subtle acoustic guitar strumming, gentle synth melodies and grand horn arrangements that make a lovestruck ballad seem so much more full of life than it has any right to be, you can tell that this isn’t just another soppy and soft 80s cheese-fest like the later years in the decade would offer. Nope, with the choir backing up Kate Robbins’ wide range and A-game delivery as well as just perfectly-fitting vocals overall, this is funnily enough effortless in how much more effort it puts in than other pop ballads. Just listen to the synth tones in the bridge while the choir sings your hearts out. It’s a damn good ballad that I did not expect, especially since I don’t know how this Beyond guy is. Is that the choir? If so, that’s a pretty uneven duet, since Robbins runs away with this majestic track.

#24 – “One Day in Your Life” – Michael Jackson

Now, I like soul. I like ballads. I like MJ, he’s one of the greatest period... but, man, this is dreary and boring. Wow, that sure is a Latin-inflected guitar melody and some pretty nice notes being played, with an incredibly uninteresting string-synth – nobody’s being fooled here – backing up Michael here on the weaksauce hook. His performance is okay, but is ridden with problems I have with young Michael, including over-singing and simply not having much natural charisma. I’m pretty sad that this is the first time I talk about the King of Pop on here, saying that his song sucks, but it sure does, so I’m sorry, MJ, but your song’s bad – albeit mostly because of the production. Oh, and it’s also way too long for that matter. This would be nowhere near as bad if chopped in half.

#23 – “Will You?” – Hazel O’Connor

Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Those were the questions I started and ended the song asking, because I’m still unsure if this is monotonous or one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. Those horns and the steady drum beat support the guitar to make a smooth new wave beat with an urban tinge, while O’Connor sings about spilling tea – “oh, silly me”. Apart from questionable lyrics, this is just kind of a bore for all of the five minutes it goes on for, even if it does develop with some interesting instrumentation and hell, experimentation. If this was two minutes, I’d argue it’s a masterpiece, but with an already repetitive hook and beat, it just can’t hold its own. The worst thing is that there’s a perfect place for it to finish at 2:36, but it starts back up again for some ungodly reason. Just... go away, I like the solo but come on, let the song end. We don’t need it to be this long, and I’m surprised that at its length it didn’t flop entirely, but apparently this got a ton of radio play somehow, with all its quirks and lack of normal construction. This may grow on me, but for now, this is a bit of a sleeper that never hits.

#13 – “All Those Years Ago” – George Harrison

This bassline and guitar melody in the intro isn’t really regarded as an iconic moment in music history, but it definitely should be. Those few notes pack a whole lot of punch, especially when packed by that oddly menacing synth, before George Harrison comes in and uses those elements to make a damn catchy song somewhat reminiscent of an 80s take on Beatles psychedelia, with smooth vocals, a keyboard solo and some beautiful choir backing. It experiments quite a lot with off-beat pitch-shifted vocals as well as guitar licks coming out of bloody nowhere, but it makes a great pop tune throughout all of the chaos, perfectly constructing it into a LEGO tower that will never fall – a timeless achievement that will hopefully be recognised as a solo Beatles highlight at some point, because this is one of my personal favourites. Yes, of course, it’s recommended, it’s a classic.

Conclusion

So, Worst of the Week is easy – that goes to “One Day in Your Life” by Micheal Jackson, with Dishonourable Mention for “Let’s Jump the Broomstick” by Coast to Coast. Best of the Week is definitely more difficult though, however I think “All Those Years Ago” by George Harrison pips everything else at the post, with a tied Honourable Mention going to “Spellbound” and “Just the Two of Us”. I have no clue what will happen next time, so Reviewing the Charts tomorrow, I hope. See ya!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 25th March 2018

 Sorry it’s a little late but it’s here anyways so here we go – a slap-dash episode of REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Top 10

Guess. Just guess. What do you think is in in this spot? Of course, still at the top, we have Drake’s “God’s Plan” that is slowly creeping down and giving the other spots maybe some speck of a chance, but not yet. It’s still a monster for now.

That is why I have to formally apologise to the runner-up spot, “These Days” by Rudimental featuring Jess Glynne, Macklemore and Dan Caplen, still struggling to rack up streams in order to beat that piece of Drake holding the top spot.

”Feel it Still” by Portugal. The Man surprisingly stays at number-three...

...while “Friends” by Marshmello and Anne-Mari e is staying at number-four.

The first real change-up here, however, is the seven-spot uptake that George Ezra’s “Paradise” took thanks to the album’s release, sending it straight to the top five, albeit barely scraping it at number-five. Joy.

“IDGAF” by Dua Lipa starts to slow down one space to number-six.

“This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble takes another one-space drop to number-seven.

“Psycho” by Post Malone featuring Ty Dolla $ign also takes a one-spot loss to number-eight.

However, “The Middle” by Zedd and Grey featuring Maren Morris does the opposite, creeping up a position to number-nine.

Finally, we have “All the Stars” by Kendrick Lamar and SZA, down two spots to number-ten, rounding off the most popular ten tracks this week.

Climbers

While there aren’t many big climbs this week, there’s quite a few album boosts so keep up here. We have “Meant to Be” by Bebe Rexha featuring Florida Georgia Line taking an undeserving eight-spot jump to #12. I really hope this does not hit the top 10. “Lullaby” by Sigala featuring Paloma Faith also takes a seemingly random leap up six places in the charts, now to #13. However, the boosts here that make a lot of sense are just because of the albums they originate from, as XXXTENTACION’s “SAD!” climbs the eight-spot hill to breaking the top 20 (at #20), and Khalid and Normani take their soundtrack hit “Love Lies” on a six-space stream up to #24.

Fallers

I could talk about “Never be the Same” dropping down six spaces to #19, the slow but sad five-spot loss for “Sanctify” by Years & Years to #30, or even how “Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 2” by Stormzy featuring MNEK bids adieu once again, taking a nine-space fall to #40, but what I really want to talk about is how Ramz’ “Barking” (ten spaces to #39) and Liam Payne and Rita Ora’s “For You (Fifty Shades Freed)” (13 spaces to #29) oddly are starting to drop out from the top 40 pretty early for how big these songs were in their heyday, earlier this year.

Dropouts

Rest in peace, “Finesse” by Bruno Mars and Cardi B gone too soon, narrowly dropping out from #40 to #41. It might come back soon, but we shall mourn for now. “Rapper” by Hardi Caprio also drops out from #38 because nobody cared about that song – I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.

NEW ARRIVALS

#31 – “Moonlight” – XXXABOMINATION

I’ve listened to this prior thanks to my decision to listen to X’s whole album, ? (yes, that is what his album is called), before any of it debuted on the charts... and listen, I hate this scumbag as much as you do – and chart milestones definitely aren’t the only things he’s going to have a legacy for beating – but I really like this song. You’ve got the twinkling constantly changing and pulsating synth playing as back-up to the rattling hi-hats and hand-claps (that really could be mixed better but like the rest of the album, there are some lo-fi decisions here) as well as X’s vocals that show some smoothness to his yet-to-mature voice, with a nice acoustic guitar melody to boot and one of the catchiest hooks to come out of that album. Yeah, while the album is pretty mediocre at best, I still have a soft spot for this track.

#16 – “Freaky Friday” – Lil Dicky featuring Chris Brown

Yo, Lil Dicky: is this supposed to be a joke? Is this supposed to have a joke? No, seriously, where is the joke? Is it the part where Lil Dicky – in Chris Brown’s body and voice no less – rhymes the N-word with itself a dozen or so times? Is it the part where Ed Sheeran tops “Shape of You” in terms of pure laziness, having his worst charting appearance on a song to date? Is it the part where Lil Dicky mentions Chris Brown’s assault charges as a joke? Because that’s not funny either—well, actually, I mean, I just kind of did that in the last section but I doubt X is going to want to croon on my tracks anytime soon. Like, really, Chris? You think it’s okay to pass it off as a joke? I know it happened nine years ago, but none of us have seen a truly sincere apology from you, and in your many collaborations with Rihanna where you beat that kitty up, there’s no remorse, there’s no sense of knowing what on earth you’re saying. Chris is joking about this in a way you’d joke about accidentally tripping over a chair and pushing the wedding cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake onto the floor – that’s a big mistake but in the end, you can get another wedding cake, right? You can’t really take back all the trauma and all the life-changing pain you inflicted on Rih, who was barely even 20 at the time, as if you were a replacing a cake, and it’s absolutely devastating that you think joking about it with your newfound friend, Lil Dicky, is okay. Oh, yeah, there’s also a cameo from DJ Khaled as well as Kendall Jenner, who sings about wanting to know the inner workings of a woman with the cheapest autotune, which I’d appreciate as some kind of presentation of lesbian pride or at least something interesting in this song if it weren’t tied to the loose and moronic plot of Chris and Lil Dicky switching bodies, until Dicky eventually switches with Ed Sheeran, DJ Khaled and Kendall Jenner in one of the unfunniest outros OR intros to ever come out of a hip-hop song – and that includes Joey Bada$$ and XXXTENTACION saying they want to catch all diseases in order to get rid of all diseases on “infinity (888)”. Seriously, what the hell, Joey? No matter how much you say that, catching Chlamydia is not “G-s***”. We’re getting sidetracked, thankfully, so I will continue to talk about Joey Bada$$, one of the best rappers to come out of our generation, who can make political and conscious music but also some damn good boom-bap jams and bangers, creating one of the best balances I’ve seen lyrically in this “new school”. Sadly, however, the baby kangaroo with the dollar signs in his name is not on this track, instead we have Kendall Jenner, a crooning muggle, a constantly-yelling bearded penguin who, no matter how many times he tries to say he does, does not make “THE BEST MUSIC!”, as well as an unfunny hack and a woman-beater. Thanks for that! Also, by the way, this debuted in the top 20, and will probably debut even higher in the top ten in the US! Joy. There’s no conclusion for two reasons: there’s only two tracks and isn’t it blatantly obvious which one I like more? Screw you, Lil Dicky, and a definite SCREW you, Chris Brown! I’m out.