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deadcactuswalking · 4 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS - SPRING 2020

It’s been a while since I’ve had to look at a blank Microsoft Word document and write these words but: welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

This may or may not be a pretty long episode but this is also the start of a new edition of the show in which the format is changed pretty immensely. After a couple years of this chart show, I’m going to be honest: I got bored of doing it every week, so I simply stopped doing it. I reviewed songs in secret, wrote notes of future potential episodes, but never released anything. However, recently, I’ve decided that perhaps it would be smarter to not cancel the show but adopt a new format. Basically, I will not do an episode every week, rather every month, where I review each new arrival on the UK Top 40 during that month, without covering any of the nonsense that happened during that month outside of the new arrivals. I’ve actually been wanting to change the format to this for a while but after doing the BRITs special I’ve decided that this actually might be a more palatable workload. Hopefully this’ll work and I can get back into this chart thing and start enjoying looking out for new music again but we’ll see; potentially if I enjoy this I can get back to the weekly stuff. So, let’s start off the new format with a bunch of garbage from March, April AND May that I didn’t review, in chronological order, rounding up everything that I missed in these interim weeks. So, let’s start:

MARCH NE W ARRIVALS: 01/03

#40 – “Moral of the Story” – Ashe

Produced by FINNEAS and Noah Conrad

This is Ashe, a female singer-songwriter from California who got big on TikTok. This song, from the soundtrack of Netflix comedy To All the Boys (Haven’t watched it), is produced by FINNEAS, as he branches out from just producing for his sister Billie. Yup, that’s my pre-amble. The song is pretty cute, and I admit I quite like Ashe’s sing-songy, musical theatre style of singing, which is actually more of a spoken style in the verses. FINNNEAS’ production isn’t too bad, either, with an infectious and jaunty piano melody as well as some cool, explosive choir samples during the post-chorus that sound pretty cool. Admittedly, I’m not listening to this with my headphones (Not currently working because of course they’re not), so I can’t really tell about the mixing (which is something FINNEAS has gotten wrong a worrying number of times). For Ashe’s first UK Top 40 hit and first hit in general, it’s not a bad song at all. I’m not going to save it or praise it to high heavens, but for what it’s worth, I can’t complain. Decent track.

#39 – “City of Angels” - 24kGoldn

Produced by Neek and Omer Fedi

Speaking of people who got big off of TikTok and have their first UK Top 40 hit, here is 24kGoldn, a rapper-singer also from California. You probably know him from his breakout single, “Valentino”, but this other single from his debut EP, Dropped Outta College (Classy), seems to be the bigger hit worldwide. I hate “Valentino”, for the record, and I think it’s practically unlistenable garbage, so I don’t expect to like this. Also, fun fact: This trap-rap song about sex and drugs does not have any profanity. Kids these days with their clean, acceptable music. To be fair, I don’t actually hate this, mostly because of that catchy guitar line used as the main backing for what isn’t actually a trap-rap beat and instead kind of a power-pop type drum beat, with this Juice WRLD rip-off vocally riffing over it in a way that’s just disrespectful to the producers. Jokes aside, this is a good song, with a pretty catchy chorus, though admittedly an underdeveloped structure, with only one verse and two choruses. It’s kind of edgy nonsense but I could see an emo-pop band doing this justice, so I can appreciate it, actually; I do like the rough-around-the-edges vocal style in this context a lot more than “Valentino”. Also, this kid got a Fetty Wap feature on his EP. I’m jealous.

#34 – “Mice” – Aitch

Produced by LiTek and WhYJay

Ah, this guy, back again for more whitebread British trap, hey? Well, I guess I’ll give him another chance; the guy keeps coming back on the chart so there’s got to be some appeal to him, right? Well, nah, not really. This beat is kind of funky but it’s just his other big hit’s beat with less instruments anyway. It’s got the flute, it’s got the crow, it’s got this white dude talking over it. If you make a song that’s just one verse and has a standard beat, you should know that people expect BARS – if the focus is on Aitch, and not the minimalist beat, which didn’t need two producers, or the catchy club chorus and hook, then we need impressive flow or lyricism. You know, wordplay, cool punchlines, something. Aitch doesn’t even have bars. How are you going to make a song about bars when you don’t have bars? I mean, the flow does get impressive by the end and I’m astounded by how he just keeps going here, especially when he’s got nothing interesting to say, and he does ride the beat fine, until he literally gives up at the end. Like, come on, this is a lead single, not a SoundCloud loosie one-off. At least try.

#33 – “Dior” – Pop Smoke (featuring Gunna)

Produced by 808Melo

When this charted, the late Pop Smoke would have recently passed away as result of a shooting and home invasion. I was never a fan of Pop Smoke, and I won’t pretend to be like most of the people listening to his songs after his death. I can say that anyone who is murdered by cowardly thugs at age 20 deserves at least a respectful message and best wishes to his mourning family and close friends. May he rest in peace. You hear that, record labels? In peace. Don’t milk this guy’s unfinished material like you did X. At least be respectful with it like they did with Peep (mostly) and Mac. My feelings on the song are irrelevant at this point, and I feel like bringing them up would be almost disrespectful, but it is my obligation to say that I don’t like the song, his uninteresting cadence, his somewhat homophobic lyrics or the shitty Gunna guest verse on the remix. The beat admittedly does kind of bang but otherwise, I’m just not a fan; the rest of his posthumous album is actually quite a bit better. I personally really like “Snitching” and “Make it Rain”. Regardless, rest in peace, Pop Smoke, and I’ll stop the review here.

#21 – “On” – BTS (featuring Sia)

Produced by Pdogg and Mick Schultz

Oh, yeah, these Korean boys are back... kind of. I mean, they’re always gunning for a “comeback” but it does feel arbitrary to have comebacks every four months. I like BTS for the most part, and their songs do tend to grow on me a lot as time goes on. “Boy with Luv” is such a grower, as are “Fake Love” and “Make it Right”. However, I didn’t like the lead-off single from Map of the Soul: 7 (“Black Swan”) to be interested enough in this new album, so I haven’t listened to it and probably never will; I never actually listened to the last album. I was hoping that this new single wouldn’t fall into the trap a lot of K-pop does, and, oops, it does. There’s a chaotic structure that mixes tribal drumming intros with spacey trap drums, awkwardly Auto-Tuned bilingual singing and rapping from all of the boys, none of which sound particularly good here, not even in the chorus, which has a lot less groove than the other singles I like from them, with a pretty stiff, electronic drum beat. The flow isn’t particularly impressive and I don’t really buy in to the cute aesthetic of the music, so overall, this is just ear fluff that serves little purpose to me other than wasting my time. The Sia remix isn’t any better, either. Congratulations on the top five hit in the US, though, boys. I hope the record label isn’t treating you that bad, although they probably are, knowing the situation with some other overworked bands there. I won’t make any baseless assumptions, though. In terms of K-pop, I prefer YUMDDA. Check him out, I like “Flight” especially.

#20 – “After Hours” – the Weeknd

Produced by the Weeknd, DaHeala and Illangelo

By this time, the Weeknd has released his album, obviously, but at this time, it was a promotional single that came out of nowhere and surprised everyone with how non-single it was. Despite me loving the two lead singles, I didn’t listen to the album for whatever reason (I should probably get on that, actually, since it’s the Weeknd I’m probably missing some good stuff), so let’s hope the title track boasting a six-minute runtime and no discernible chorus gives me a good taste for the album. I mean, the production here is pretty sweet, for the most part, and I like the urgency given by the alarming synths in the intro, coupled with a pretty tight falsetto and grand vocal performance from the Weeknd as always (Can I call him Abel?). I can’t help but feel the song does drag on a bit, though, and I hope that’s not just my attention span but this does get a bit tedious, especially due to very little interesting development towards the climax in the intro, which means the drop feels abrupt and thus not satisfactory in the least, but it’s a pretty great beat admittedly. Actually, the song reminds me of one of my favourite songs of all time, “Instant Crush” by Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas, which is a similarly eerie robotic funk song with vocoder-mangled falsetto vocals. Whilst that song is constantly emotive and full of great hooks from each and every inch of the music, vocals and lyrics, this one feels completely aimless, and after four and a half minutes, it just meanders for a little bit, proving itself as a bit of a waste of time, frankly, even if the lyrics are very well-written albeit vague and perhaps not necessarily too profound or interesting, especially since this is building up a story presented throughout the album. I appreciate this for what it is, but it could have been a LOT better.

Conclusion

Best of the Week probably goes to “City of Angels” by 24kGoldn, which isn’t what I expected but it’s the only song I actually saved from this bunch. “After Hours” by the Weeknd gets the Honourable Mention, but just barely. Worst of the Week would be a bit of a dick move if it went to anyone else but Aitch for “Mice”, and there isn’t really anything worth a Dishonourable Mention here. Let’s move on.

NEW ARRIVALS: 08/03 #40 – “Blueberry Faygo” – Lil Mosey

Produced by Callan

Listen, I really didn’t want to like this stupid TikTok dance song that samples a cheesy 80s R&B track by Johnny Gill, but, man, this is just inescapably catchy. Lil Mosey is a pretty pathetic rapper on his own, so I didn’t expect him to hold himself in any capacity here, but he flows and rides the beat well enough, which is surprising considering his hot garbage fire of an XXL cypher verse. The real standout here for Lil Mosey’s first UK Top 40 hit is the beat from Callan. You just can’t resist the soulful sample and jovial vocal samples here, it’s such an addictive, fun track, and that’s without Li Mosey rapping a repetitive but infectious chorus that can’t get out of my head at all. Yes, he doesn’t talk about anything interesting here, at all, and he bites TAY-K of all people in the first verse, but the verses are short and they immediately transition back to that sweet, sweet chorus. I feel like this is the stuff Lil Yachty should still be making right now, but alas, he’s being Oprah, I think. Yeah, I love this type of cloud rap that just oozes sunshine and beachfronts. It’s not a great rap song and it’s not even a great song, but it’s impossible to resist that beat, and it’s not like this kid from Seattle who may or may not be able to say the N-word is ruining that for me.

#35 – “Death Bed” – Powfu featuring beabadoobee

Produced by Otterpop

Or, as it now wants me to call it, “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)”. It’s not often a song just straight-up renames itself but hey, it’s the streaming era. Anything can happen. Speaking of unpredictability, this is the first UK Top 40 hit single for both half-Filipino BRIT Award nominee beabadoobee as well as sadboi Canadian rapper Powfu, and the first UK Top 40 hit single for the genre of lo-fi hip hop beats to relax and study to. You love to see it: lo-fi hip hop in the charts. Honestly, this genre gets way too much slack and there are releases I adore from people like Jinsang and GentleBeatz, and if you look at it in a broader sense, you can look at stuff like MIKE, Navy Blue or the newer Earl Sweatshirt stuff, and I eat that stuff up now, so what I’m saying is: you can’t really go wrong with lo-fi hip hop... until you do. This song sucks. Powfu’s flow is cringeworthy at best, and the pitched-up beabadoobee sample runs through the whole song, becoming pretty irritating by the end of the song in all honesty, despite the original song being pretty sweet, in my opinion. This got big on TikTok, and listen: Powfu can’t sing and he can barely rap (This dude’s flow sounds like it came from Looperman.com), but I won’t complain about people digging the undeservedly maligned genre of lo-fi hip hop in 2020, so I’ll accept Powfu and I’ll accept Will Smith’s quarantine beats, if it makes people accept and appreciate the genre just a bit more.

#28 – “Boyfriend” – Mabel

Produced by Steve Mac

Mabel will not bring anything interesting to the Tabel. I can almost guarantee it. I don’t mind Mabel at all, I mean, Neneh Cherry’s daughter has got to have some talent, right, but relistening to her discography, I noticed it is plagued by bland and uninteresting R&B production. I love her voice and some of the songs are still pretty fun, especially “Don’t Call Me Up”, but overall, I find myself disappointed and the potential wasted. This song is actually pretty okay, to be fair, as most of her songs are, but mostly due to an interesting sample choice – “Remember Me” by house DJ Lex Blackmore, or Blue Boy. “Remember Me” was a massive hit for him, and in reality, the sample here is actually a sample of a sample (from “Woman of the Ghetto” by Marlena Shaw), but my favourite song of his is “Sandman”, which is an infectious and fantastic song that I think is quite underrated, despite performing somewhat well on the charts at the time. You should check it out, it’s amazing. This song, on the other hand, has no interesting characteristics other than said sample. Thanks, Mabel, very cool. Let’s move on to something interesting.

#5 – “Stupid Love” – Lady Gaga

Produced by Tchami and BloodPop

I mean, I hope this is interesting. It’s the big return for Lady Gaga onto the pop scene after A Star is Born practically saved her career, and with BloodPop behind the boards, it’s got to be at least interesting, right? Right? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I actually like the sound of the chugging 80s synths here that remind me of the 2010s club boom, which of course was Lady Gaga’s heyday, and while I didn’t exactly expect lyrical depth from that era of Gaga, I expected some of the development in her music since to shine through here and it just hasn’t, making this song feel really shallow and empty, and dare I say, boring. Gaga’s vocals here are as good as ever, and in fact, quite unique in the pre-chorus, and I can definitely say the whole song is just one train of constant hooks playing on top of each other, but the transitions are shoddy and abrupt, the vocaloid drop is typical and whilst it sounds great and is well-implemented, strips the song of the character it could otherwise have, especially coming from one of the most interesting and engaging pop singers of the last decade. I can see why this underperformed, as this song is like a Simpsons rerun with all of the funny jokes cut out. Basically, it’s disappointing.

Conclusion

I don’t think there can be an Honourable or Dishonourable Mention here, but Best and Worst of the Week fall out pretty nicely. Best of the Week goes to, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Lil Mosey for “Blueberry Faygo”, whilst Worst of the Week goes to “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” by Powfu and beabadoobee, for just being the epitome of dullness. Again, let’s move on to something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 15/03 ALBUM BOMB: Eternal Atake – Lil Uzi Vert

Hey, an album I actually listened to – and liked! Lil Uzi Vert has always been hit or miss with me and whilst Eternal Atake is more of the same in that regard, its highest highs are incredible, especially in the middle third of the album, but overall, despite some filler and straight-up bad tracks sprinkled throughout, Uzi’s sophomore effort is very enjoyable, slightly more so than its pointless deluxe reissue (although I come back to “Bean (Kobe)” with Chief Keef a lot more than I’d like to admit). Now that I’ve praised the album, let’s talk about one of its worst songs, because, well, that’s how chart works.

#37 – “P2”

Produced by TM88

Should this really count as a new song? I mean, it’s a glorified ��XO TOUR Llif3” remix, with the same producer, practically the same chorus and definitely the same premise, and whilst I didn’t like the original, I understand its purpose, story and appeal. Here, despite my respect of the continuation of the song’s narrative, I question the existence of the song. Did the original need a continuation? Not at all. Does this cheapen the original song’s impact, legacy and influence? I mean, not directly, but instead of being able to appreciate the original in the context of one-off hit single by charismatic emo-rapper, I know have to comprehend it as the disappointing sequel to a film that was never all that great in the first place. I’m not a film buff so I can’t think of an analogy that’ll work for that exactly, but you know how there was that old episode of SpongeBob with Bubble Buddy that was fun but overall pretty forgettable? Yeah, they tried to bring him back in season eight but the new episode was just bland and didn’t even promise what a sequel should promise, whilst also being pretty pointless as the original’s cliffhanger worked fine and added to the episode, as did the overall mystery of the Bubble Buddy character that had been dissolved with the creation of a new episode? Yeah, that’s my analogy, don’t care. Next song.

#36 – “Baby Pluto”

Produced by Cousin Vinny, Bugz Ronin, Brandon Finessin and Ike Beatz

Now THIS is the Uzi I like. Much like “Free Uzi”, which probably should have been on the album, this is Uzi spitting rapidly with a slippery flow that at times creeps into off-beat territory but isn’t noticeable because his energy level is astounding and rubs off on the listener. Lil Uzi’s charisma and tone is determined yet loose, and he switches from flow to flow and from topic to topic swiftly and without a care in the world. It helps that the beat from the Working on Dying collective is freaking incredible (Although not the best beat on the album), with sweet glistening piano loops and sci-fi sound effects dropped in for some reason or other. The beat is also genius in how it cuts off exactly where you’d expect it to drop, teasing you every time that Lil Uzi’s flow reaches the point where the beat should logically drop, until it finally does and it is so satisfying, especially when Uzi gets in his lower register and actually sounds intimidating. The term “Baby Pluto”, whilst being a nickname Uzi uses, isn’t even mentioned in the chorus, but there’s an equally iconic line here, “I turned to an addict, I bought me a Patek”, which is just poetry. I don’t know exactly why he’s going to war, either, but hey, it sounds cool, right? “I bought a G-wagon, that shit was the BRABUS”? I have no clue what the hell that means, but it sounds awesome. He’s so casual in how he goes from verse to verse and from flow to flow, it sounds effortless. Lyrically, it’s all over the place (But generally correlates to luxury) – his neck is “on squeegee”, he mentions Ouija boards because of course he does, he seemingly doesn’t understand the concept of blindness (Seriously, Uzi, Stevie Wonder couldn’t see THEM, not the other way around). In the second verse, he brags about being a pescatarian (In a pretty clever way) and moves states for again, seemingly no reason. And, of course, in the third verse, he says he is so sex-deprived that he’d even do it with your girlfriend in a Honda Accord. Sure, there are some filler lines (I don’t think any “icy wrist” pun can beat Future’s ridiculously blunt “I just put my whole damn arm in the fridge”), but they go by so quickly and so breezily you don’t notice them. This is a great song, and an incredible introduction to the album as a whole.

NE W ARRIVALS #39 – “Supalonely” – BENEE and Gus Dapperton

Produced by Josh Fountain and Gus Dapperton

A song by zoomers for zoomers which got big on TikTok. It’ll make sense in the context of this depressing pandemic, in fact all pop music seems like it’s having suicidal thoughts right now. I’ve heard of Gus Dapperton before; he was on the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack with a vaguely 80s-sounding indie pop song that to be fair, I actually really liked! In fact, listening to it now, I think “Of Lacking Spectacle” should have actually been the big hit, but alas, we have “Supalonely” by BENEE, who I’ve never heard before. She’s from New Zealand but her biggest listening audience is Jakarta, Indonesia, for whatever reason, and I guess I should get onto the song... wow, this sure is a song. It’s like the groovy funk and disco pop without much groove or even funk – this song feels really staccato, especially due to that droning chorus, intentionally of course but accentuated by more sincere, Auto-Tuned inflections and ad-libs that add emotion and character that take this song from being “understandably boring and annoying due to its subject matter and hence better in that it reflects those emotions effectively” to being “wasted potential and perhaps just a failure at making a pop song”. I like to use the word “janky”, but so far, most of these songs have been too competent for my liking. Oh, and Gus Dapperton sucks here too. Have fun with your guitar lick you found on FL Studio, guys, but I’m not a fan.

#26 – “Self-Obsessed” – Da Beatfreakz featuring Krept & Konan, D-Block Europe and Deno

Produced by Da Beatfreakz

If you’re not British, you will statistically have no idea who these people are. If you’re British, you will statistically have no idea who most of these people are. Da Beatfreakz produce a lot of British trap and Afroswing hits, Krept & Konan are one of the biggest grime duos of all time, Deno was a guy who was vaguely funny on a song once so we kept him around, and D-Block Europe... well, they’re D-Block Europe. Just as I was talking about songs being too competent, we review this song, which will likely be a trainwreck. Firstly, let’s get it out of the way: what dumb shit does Young Adz say in this song? Well, it’s not initially clear who’s self-obsessed but he’s talking about a woman here, because we’ve got to love that sweet, sweet misogyny, which is even blunter and more disgusting in British rap for whatever reason. You know that if you already ate it in the Porsche, you’re not legally obliged to give her some more, right? You can just give who is assumingly a prostitute a wad of cash and drive off, as you are big famous rapper man. In the chorus, he also says he sells crack but only smokes marijuana, which is reassuring I suppose, and that he plays chess on his Louis Vuitton bag because he is bored. Okay, he’s trying to say that he’s so rich he could deface designer fashion but playing chess isn’t exactly a messy activity, and I highly doubt this man knows how to strategically play it. Also, who are you playing chess with? The prostitute, or the other member of D-Block Europe, Dirtbike LB? Speaking of, his verse depicts the time where he was thinking about the... anatomy of the woman his best friend was... interacting with when he crashed that Porsche. Also, if this woman is so self-obsessed, why are you not letting her get a Louis bag before she sucks you off? I know it’s just flexing and rapper talk, but it’s painfully not self-aware. He also has an odd moment of feeling love for the woman but immediately retracts it after a one-line topic shift, because of course he does.

Girl, I hate it when that love’s feeling strange / Paid cash for the car, that’s the Range / If I ever said, “I love you”, then I think I’ve gone insane

Wait, how many cars do you have? Oh, and Young Adz comes in immediately afterwards.

Long story short, made a boy do the running man

Oh, and he’s actually kind of funny on purpose for once.

Three litres of blood, swapped it for a couple grand

Wait, wh—

Should have saw her face when I crushed a Xan

Huh?

Every bitch want to f*** a man

Somebody’s got to tell this dude about lesbians before it’s too late. This is all, in typical D-Block fashion, rapped awkwardly and stiffly with 17 layers of malfunctioning Auto-Tune and reverb coating the two until they’re indistinguishable over a beat that... admittedly, this one’s pretty good, but I swear it’s a fluke. Oh, and if you hadn’t had enough of Young Adz, his ad-libs are all over Konan and Deno’s verses. No-one else says anything interesting, by the way.

Said she want to F a drug dealer, but, baby, I wasn’t raised in the trap

Bro, then why are you on this song? Deno’s whole verse seemingly revolves around the fact he has never sold drugs and doesn’t use swear words. Yeah, this is tough, but exactly what I expected.

#3 – “Rain” – Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith

Produced by Tay Keith

Tay Keith’s beats are all the same. Aitch’s bars are all the same. It’s a perfect combination. At least AJ Tracey could be amusing here, and admittedly he is, with a catchy chorus and a pretty great verse, where not only does his flow stand out as particularly interesting but he throws a lot of funny pop culture references in there too, like Kenan Thompson, Bugs Bunny and the ridiculous “gyal on curry, neck McFlurry”, which he accentuates with a “bling-baow”? The first line is actually a reference to an obscure term for people from Manchester coined by Liam Gallagher, and Aitch is from Manchester, so, you know, it’s those nice little additional touches that count, and while AJ’s verse isn’t exactly flooded with wordplay, Aitch, come on, man, step your game up. Your flow and rhyme scheme is excellent but you have absolutely nothing to say. There’s a vague Blueface reference, I think, but that’s all. Ultimately, the song isn’t bad at all, and the beat is pretty menacing and slaps pretty hard, with both rappers riding it effectively, especially Aitch’s straightforward, intimidating triplet flow in the pre-chorus and AJ’s more rapid, free-flowing cadence, and, hell, I have a soft spot for that dumb eagle caw sound... but I mean, it’s just more of the same, and I can’t think of a way to restructure it that makes sense; without the chorus it’s too short and directionless, without Aitch it’s too staccato, and without AJ Tracey, it’s outright garbage, so, yeah, mixed feelings but I can listen to this with no issue. Oh, yeah, and this is Tay Keith’s first UK top 40 hit as a credited artist.

Conclusion

Best of the Week definitely goes to “Baby Pluto” by Lil Uzi Vert, with an Honourable Mention to Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith for “Rain” because, well, it’s somewhat entertaining, I guess. Worst of the Week goes to “Self-Obsessed” by whoever the hell with a Dishonourable Mention to “Supalonely” by BENEE and Gus Dapperton for existing simply without purpose. Let’s move onto something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 22/03 #37 – “Papi Chulo” – Octavian and Skepta

Produced by Go Grizzly, YoungKio and BricksDaMane

Or something exactly the bloody same. This is Octavian’s first UK Top 40 hit. Welcome to the chart. As you can tell by the Skepta, this is a British rap song that might have some more quality to it than usual. So, it’s produced by the “Old Town Road” producer, YoungKio, and it’s got a Latin-flavoured guitar, as well as stupid falsetto skrrt ad-libs instead of a chorus, gross sex talk that is just unpleasant to listen to, misogyny for days, and Octavian sounding like Sean Paul on painkillers. Yeah, just absolutely disposable, exhaustingly dull garbage which I don’t have much to say about. Maybe doing this in bulk is getting to me.

#35 – “The Take” – Tory Lanez featuring C**** B****

Produced by Sergio R., Play Picasso, Papi Yerr, Tory Lanez, Alo905 and Rajah

There was a Drake interview where he said he squashed his beef with CB because it was “silly” and “girl stuff”... you know, like when he gruesomely and infamously assaulted Rihanna. Silly girl stuff. Yeah, I’m glad you and Ray William Johnson are on the same page, Drake – I hope at least someone gets that reference. I am not listening to CB, I am not helping CB, I am not funding his bail next time he kicks a woman in the face for not liking his new five-hour epic about having sex with your girlfriend. Tory Lanez, please don’t play as an enabler or apologist for this man anymore. I’ve heard your album, you know how to rap, don’t give any playtime to this sicko who barely knows how to function as a non-violent, law-abiding citizen. Thanks, Tory.

Edit: Fuck, nevermind. Both of these guys make me sick.

#34 – “Boss Bitch” – Doja Cat

Produced by Sky Adams and Imad Royal

Finally, someone talented this week. I don’t know why this song actually peaked and debuted this high though – I don’t know if the film it was attached to, DC’s Birds of Prey, did particularly well here in the UK, but I know the nation likes the Harley Quinn character enough for E4 to start airing the mediocre animated series to much appraisal, so I’d assume the song got popular off of that, maybe? Otherwise, Doja Cat’s a pretty big star now so it’s a good choice for the soundtrack, especially since she does give off the same vibe as a lot of the film. Yes, I did watch the movie, and it was, as most movies I have watched, vaguely tolerable. This song was in it, during a scene that I remember being colourful. What insight. Anyway, the main focus here is the song itself, and yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Sure, you can rip on how derivative of Nicki Minaj it is, and she does sound exactly like her here sometimes, especially with the Barbie references, but you can’t deny that infectious, simplistic mantra of a chorus, and the pure charisma diffusing out of the sassy lyrics and nasal, aggressive vocals from Doja, often resorting to yelling, as well as that noisy house-pop beat with chimes and screaming in the background. It is just a beautifully chaotic song, especially with the off-beat pitch-shifted vocal loops in the final chorus; hell, it doesn’t really work well as a pop song because it’s just so bloody all over the place, and, yeah, I can dig this. It’s pretty much a complete mess, but it takes you along for a ride with it, so I’ll endorse it.

#32 – “No Judgement” – Niall Horan

Produced by Tobias Jesso Jr. and Julian Bunetta

Before I write this section, I am going to take a break because I have written entries for a bunch of songs in the span of an hour and a half if that, including one or two that were very long, hence I am starting to grow tired of the chart music and also sound very cynical. I didn’t want to sound too cynical when talking about a pop song like this, which is frankly just existent and relatively inoffensive, even if its funky tropical guitar beat does feel dated and Niall Horan’s vocal presence is so small compared to “Nice to Meet You”, which is a really good song, and—Goddamn it, I’m reviewing the song anyway. Okay, well, let me just conclude this and then I’ll take a rest.

Conclusion

No Mentions of any sort here because there’s one garbage song, one awesome song, one song I cannot mathematically have an opinion on, and one which I do not want to listen to due to being morally righteous or something like that. So, yeah, obviously Best of the Week is Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch” and Worst of the Week is “Papi Chulo” by Octavian and Skepta. See, this different format works out well because this would have been a short-ass episode otherwise. I’m barely awake now and actively feel myself nodding off every few sentences – sorry for any errors due to this but I can’t be bothered to fix them – so I’ll see you when I’ve rested, I hope.

NEW ARRIVALS: 29/03 #39 – “War” – Mastermind and Bandokay

Produced by LiTek

Just so you know, I had to check the Spotify credits for this song because there is seemingly no Genius lyrics page with all the details and such (as of my writing this). It exists, for sure, but it just lists the artists, the title and displays a “no lyrics available” message, with the cryptic song bio of “Mastermind X #OFB Bandokay”. I mean, sure. Well, I have no idea who these guys are, but their song kind of bangs. Well, at least the beat does, produced by LiTek, who I have also never heard of. That fluctuating flute paired with the pretty intense, exploding trap patterns make for a rap song that actually feels like it’s fulfilling the purpose trap should. I say that without taking into consideration that both of these guys can’t rap for squat and that most of the time, their high-pitched nasal Auto-Tuned whining – or “crooning”, if I’m being kind – is pretty aggravating and pretty derivative of their American contemporaries. British hip hop has never been particularly unique but with the pretty great drill beat here I expected at least some attempt to reflect its intensity in the vocals, but alas, this is just okay, if that.

Oh, apparently Bandokay was the son of the late Mark Duggan, who was killed by police, leading to the 2011 England riots. The more you know.

#36 – “Sunday Best” – Surfaces

Produced by Forrest and Colin Padalecki

I listened to this once without writing anything about it, and honestly, yeah, that’s enough. I should, hypothetically, love this song. Surfaces are two dudes with pretty alt-rock voices who decided to make a pretty, cute pink indie-pop song with a pretty nice trap skitter and simple piano chords, as well as a lot of robotic stuttering. This sounds like it should be some great, catchy stuff, but I actually found this pretty infectious in a different way, which may sound insensitive considering the current state of the world, but I don’t care, this song is garbage. These guys can’t sing, and they don’t want to attempt to hide that fact, instead obnoxiously sharing that with the world through their egregiously optimistic lyrics that seem pretty reassuring in these times, if you’re into shallow, vague rhymes and repetitive fluff that substitutes any kind of genuine, inspiring message or motive. I would say I’m disappointed, but I’m not entirely sure how low my expectations were in the first place.

#34 – “Flowers” – Nathan Dawe featuring Jaykae

Produced by Nathan Dawe

I assumed this would be another trap or grime song but actually this seems to be a DJ once again using uncredited female vocals for his electro house tune fused with dance-pop and a bit of UK garage. I am pretty intrigued by Jaykae’s feature though since he’s a rapper. The song focuses on the UK garage sample used, which is “Flowers” by Sweet Female Attitude and Cutfather, which was a pretty massive song for the genre in the year 2000 that seems to be pretty adored amongst British musicians. It’s been covered by Bastille, remixed by AJ Tracey and finally sampled by Nathan Dawe and Jaykae. I recognise the song – I don’t particularly like it but I respect in how it is a pioneer of the Vocaloid drop that became big in electropop, house and related genres like future and bubblegum bass decades afterwards. Nowadays, despite some pretty and surprisingly modern production at times – it definitely sounds like some bubblegum bass stuff from years later – it’s a pretty sloppy song, thanks to some unneeded complexity in the drop, and ends up sounding clunky as all hell. This new song uses the stems of the vocals – or perhaps a re-recording from the group themselves, or at least a pretty damn good impression – to create a pretty standard house tune that is nothing to write home about but is joyful enough and pretty club-ready. I like the vocodered “Whoa, baby” in the pre-chorus, but overall it just seems like a lazy flip of the original, especially since the drop is basically unchanged. Jaykae’s verse attempts to recreate the hype of a fun verse the DJ or a classic grime MC would add at a club and I do appreciate the new nostalgia for this type of music, but his verse is also kind of garbage. Also, despite his lyrics, this song is decidedly not the type of music you would sip lean to, but, sure, Jaykae, whatever you’re into.

#17 – “In Your Eyes” – the Weeknd

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and the Weeknd

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.

Okay, all jokes aside, this is a good song, albeit safe as all hell. I feel like I’ve heard this song a bunch of times before, not just in “Blinding Lights”, and Abel can perform, sing and even produce better than this, so I’m left with little to no original insight. I’ve grown to like the Weeknd more when he’s on his depressed trap-R&B style as well, so this is even less appealing to me now. Oh, yeah, and the Doja Cat remix is cool, in fact I might prefer her verse to the original song. She flows pretty well. Oh, and I figured I should specify the Doja Cat stuff would have been written before the whole ‘oops, she’s racist’ scandal. I don’t defend her on that really. In fact, due to a lot of this being written in bulk at different periods of time (Half of this review is from January, the other half being from both May and July), some things may be pretty dated or currently untrue.

Conclusion

The only good song here is Abel’s, so I guess Best of the Week is going to “In Your Eyes” by the Weeknd and Worst of the Week goes to Surfaces’ “Sunday Best”. Nothing else here is all that good or bad, or even worthy of a mention, so next month?

APRIL NEW ARRIVALS: 05/04 ALBUM BOMB: Insomnia – Skepta, Chip and Young Adz

No, I didn’t listen to this album either. What, you think I’d listen to an album by a guy called Young Adz? The Guardian gave it four stars because it had Skepta on it, if you’re interested. Let’s just listen to the songs and get this over with. It’s Young Adz so it’ll have some funny lyrics at least.

#32 – “Mains”

Produced by Skepta

Oh, no, I like this song. This beat, produced by Skepta, is actually pretty incredible, with a very catchy, joyful flute loop smoothly placed under a pretty hard trap beat, which sounds really cutesy, kind of like some Lil Yachty stuff. And Skepta, of course, being Skepta, pretty much kills it – in a good way, that is. His flow is impeccable and I mean, how can’t you ride a beat you produced? Young Adz is actually fine here, and I’d argue his ad-libs actually add to the experience here rather than subtract from it as usual. I’m actually starting to like this guy’s zany charm. He’s much better than Chip, who sounds rusty as hell here, with some badly-fitting Auto-Tune and an off-beat flow. The whole song is one verse between a chorus, with all three rappers sharing the verse pretty much equally. Young Adz kills his second verse in a way I never expected him to, and I love how his ad-libs are implemented into the beat and his “WHAT?! SKEET!” yells are honestly really charming. Yeah, this is pretty good, but it’s Young Adz so...

I’mma whip that crack like banana pudding again / When I step in the bando, fiends and the workers act like Vladimir Putin just came

Got a little three-two concealed in my boxers, call that fire in the mains

You know, now that this guy has improved, these ridiculous non-sequiturs start to sound more like a genuinely funny guy rather than just... an idiot. Also, this:

Come in her p****, a lava lamp

That’s just gross, man.

#18 – “Waze”

Produced by Cardo

I hope this one is good, I mean, I’ve never liked Cardo as a producer, but trap has always been dependent on the vocalists anyway, and Skepta and Adz have both never been ones to disappoint, each in their unique ways. The music video for this is rather pretentiously subtitled “the movie” for whatever reason, by the way. The song, despite the beat coming in via a fade out, which is an odd decision, is pretty okay beat-wise, albeit uninteresting. Young Adz decides to be a lot slower and whinier here so he’s pretty boring and much worse than when he goes on his speedy, rapid, ad-lib-a-plenty verses. Chip tries to be badass but ends up sounding pretty dull, although his verse about rappers claiming they’re the best when they’re the only people in the room is kind of funny, unlike Adz here, who isn’t even humorous here. Skepta is just as bad as Chip, arguably worse, with a really short verse, so, yeah, this album is looking pretty inconsistent so far, just from two tracks. The album’s actually pretty short so I might listen later.

NEW ARRIVALS #38 – “If the World Was Ending” – JP Saxe and Julia Michaels

Produced by FINNEAS

I don’t know who JP Saxe is, I assume he’s some industry playlist singer. Julia Michaels we know, I assume, and FINNEAS is, of course, the producer of Billie Eilish’s hits and her brother. However, most of the time, his other productions don’t end up being nearly as interesting, unique or really anything like his work with Billie. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe that’s a bad thing, I, however, do not care, because frankly, nothing he produces outside of his solo work and with Billie ends up being all that noteworthy. His voice is just a typical white-guy-with-an-acoustic-guitar voice, the instrumentation is minimal and generic (I swear I’ve heard that same piano sound hundreds of times before). This song has been contextualised to relate to the whole COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences but that is arguably as ridiculous as the whole 5G garbage. Speaking of garbage, this song. Music criticism, everybody.

#28 – “Savage” – Megan Thee Stallion (featuring Beyoncé)

Produced by J. White Did It

I haven’t listened to a Megan Thee Stallion project but what I’ve heard ranges from tolerable to pretty damn great. I particularly really enjoy her breakout single “Big Ole Freak” and of course, I applauded “Hot Girl Summer” with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign on this show before. On the other hand, songs like “Captain Hook” or “Cash Shit” with DaBaby, where Meg boasts about her prowess in both the bank and bedroom over a pretty simple bass-heavy trap beat are just dull to me, regardless of how funny her wordplay is or how occasionally impressive her flows happen to be. “Captain Hook” especially, I mean, at least “Cash Shit” had the DaBaby verse, splashy percussion and sound effects and some pretty memorable bars, as well as the iconic profanity-laden chorus. I haven’t listened to the Suga EP but I did like the lead single, “B.I.T.C.H.”, with the pretty nice 2Pac sample flip. Given that and the other songs I like from her, she may be at her best when she’s rapping over a soulful, early-2000s-esque R&B beat with a helpful pattering of trap skitters. Considering this is produced by J. White Did It, whose discography consists of cheap pianos, stiff trap drum patterns and blocky 808s, he sells off to mostly female rappers like Cardi B or Iggy Koopa, I’m not expecting that, I’m expecting a boring brag-rap song that Megan sounds way too good to be on, and, yeah, pretty much. To be fair to J. White Did It, this beat is pretty nice with the smooth keys and the driving beat behind Megan who kills it with the sass here in the verses, even with an overly repetitive chorus. I especially like the opening verse where she’s the hood Mona Lisa and breaks a [gnarly dude] to pieces, although the second verse has its equal share of notable and funny lines.

I keep a knot, I keep a watch, I keep a whip, ooh / Let's play a game, Simon says I'm still that bitch, ayy

A while ago, I made SpongeBob say the second verse using artificial intelligence and that was funny. Again, music criticism, everybody. Beyoncé isn’t out of place on the remix but I still think she’s not intriguing as a rapper, and I personally prefer her trailing ad-libs in the chorus. I do appreciate Megan adding like three new verses, which is pretty unprecedented, but the two do not have chemistry and it just feels like Beyoncé singing along to the original song sometimes, although her second verse is a lot better. I still prefer the original, though, it’s just more concise. Oh, and there’s an official chopped-and-screwed remix of this, and it’s pretty good, although it doesn’t give me the same ethereal vibe DJ Screw does. The whole “Say So” vs. “Savage” thing was a bunch of malarkey, by the way. No malarkey in Bikini Bottom, please.

#12 – “Believe It” – PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna

Produced by NinetyFour, Cardiak and Bizness Boi

I still can’t tell if PARTYNEXTDOOR is a parody of alt-R&B yet. As with most of Drake’s OVO signees, he makes most sense as a backing vocalist for Drake. I like him ooohing on “Ratchet Happy Birthday”, which is a ridiculous joke song in itself, and his crooning on “Loyal” is just hilariously awful, so he’s just Drake’s friend who decided he could be funny and sing R&B songs, right? So. how did this dude get Rihanna? Okay, I’m half-joking, he’s a serious R&B singer, he just happens to be bad at it. We’ll talk more about Drake in a bit, so let’s listen to the single from PARTY’s most recent album... PARTYMOBILE. Come on, this has to be satire. Anyway, this collaboration is a perfect fit, mostly because PARTY wrote a bunch of Rihanna’s recent songs, but the song itself is a pretty soulless washed-out guitar lick under some inconsistently intricate vocal layering, a gross chipmunk vocal sample, a boring trap skitter and barely any Rihanna.

You got the power, p***y power

I can’t be the only one who thinks this guy is joking, right?

#9 – “Break Up Song” – Little Mix

Produced by Goldfingers and KAMILLE

Little Mix are a girl group practically formed by a talent show that have had more longevity than anyone would have expected but after leaving their awful label management under Simon Cowell, they’ve pretty much consistently flopped. They have these high debuts and drop off pretty quick, whilst Cowell is making cameos in sub-par Scooby-Doo movies. The whole team isn’t doing well after their decade of success, really, and one of them’s hosting a show on MTV or something? I don’t know, I keep getting adverts for it. This is not a good song. It is a vaguely EDM-fused pop song with some reverb-heavy 80s-esque drums. It sounds a bit like “Blinding Lights” production-wise. The lyrics are a remnant of the Industrial Revolution, the melodies could rebuild the Berlin wall, and the song has about as much worthwhile content as the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has Jews. That sounds a lot better than it is, but trust me, this song is just empty and void of anything. It makes his three-minute runtime feel like a Star Wars VHS, complete with grain.

#6 – “Break My Heart” – Dua Lipa

Produced by The Monsters & Strangerz and watt

Now THIS is some good nostalgic dance-pop. I loved the album, it was full of energetic, perfectly-constructed and excellently written bops, although it was slightly knocked down a few points by some filler, which sounds weird saying about a 37-minute record, so it’s a lot more or a bit less noticeable than a longer effort, if that makes sense. In this case, I was jamming out to the infectious hooks so much I didn’t even notice that two or three of the tracks were samey and boring... including the second single, for some reason. I still think “Physical” is pretty mediocre. This song, however, is one of the highlights of the album. The groove here is undeniable and Dua’s voice compliments the at-times minimalist production perfectly, especially in the intro where it’s just her and the bassline before it abruptly transitions into a dreamy pre-chorus full of strings... and then drops back into the pure funk for the chorus, full with strings and horns that despite sounding particularly 90s are effectively timeless. Is this anything that impressive production-wise? Well, no, it is a pretty simple track which is admittedly at times kind of sloppy and rushed, especially in said chorus, but the little touches like the spitter-spatter of 808s in the first few bars of the chorus before it truly drops are there, and they are pretty sweet. The bridge is my only real complaint because I don’t really see the point in its existence since it just repeats a line from the chorus in a really short string break and it seems kind of messy overall, kind of dampening an already fragile structure. Okay, well, it’s not a perfect song, and its flaws are evident towards the end of the song, but I can’t say that detracts from the experience for me overall. Oh, yeah, and I don’t usually watch the videos for these songs when or before I review them but, oh, my God, Dua Lipa in this video is so--

Conclusion

Okay, so Best of the Week is actually pretty much a toss-up here because there are two great songs with pretty obvious flaws that debuted this week, but I’ll give it to Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”, with Honourable Mention going to “Mains” by Skepta, Chip and Young Adz. Worst of the Week is also pretty difficult to plot, but I think I’ll give it to “Believe It” by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna for just being a joke of an R&B track, with a Dishonourable Mention to “Break Up Song” by Little Mix. Moving on...

NEW ARRIVALS: 12/04 #39 – “This City” – Sam Fischer

Produced by Jimmy Robbins

Am I the only one who thinks Jimmy Robbins is a funny name? No? Okay, well, let us discuss this next song then. Who’s Sam Fischer, you ask? Well, I had no idea either so I looked him up and found out that he was some R&B singer from Sydney, Australia, and this song is a single he released in January of 2018 that happened to get big on TikTok – so big in fact that RCA Records slid in his DMs and signed him to re-release the song. So surely there must be something in this song to make it memorable to the average TikTok viewer, and hopefully something good. Before I talk about the song though, the Genius page at the time I’m reading it and writing this is hilarious and kind of heartwarming. Seemingly, this guy communicates with his fans via poorly-written Genius annotations, and there’s specifically this one person in the comments, Genius user “Sechser”, who is lonely, or “lonley”, during quarantine, and she wishes to express this on this Genius lyrics page for whatever reason, leading to someone else asking if they were on Instagram so they could talk. That’s nice and friendly, unlike my reaction to the person who said the song was underrated when it had four Goddamn remixes, including some from Anne-Marie and Kane Brown. While I’m on Genius, I might as well explain what the song is about: being exhausted and tired by the city you live in, and becoming disillusioned by everything going on around you, but not in Sydney, Australia. No, instead, this is a diss track towards Los Angeles, California. Clearly a cultural and economic hub that happens not be the capital of one of the biggest and wealthiest English-speaking countries in the world wasn’t good enough for him, so he moved to another one that fit the exact same description. Oh, and the song? It’s kind of boring. It’s just a white guy with an oddly-mixed acoustic guitar and vocal chords as generic as the plastic finger snaps that suck the power out of this power ballad. If this were the only pop music I knew existed, I’d say pop is dead. Let’s move on.

#34 – “Thank You Baked Potato” – Matt Lucas

Produced by Kevan Frost

Okay, so at this point, the UK is on full quarantine COVID-19 lockdown mode, and I am forced to talk about this in this episode because of this unfunny racist Anthony Fantano-looking motherf—

Okay, so back story: Matt Lucas is a comedian who got big off of the comedy show Little Britain with David Walliams and as a connoisseur of the Dave television channel, I conclude that he’s not very funny. Due to the fact that he portrayed iconic British stereotypes of the 90s and 2000s, such as the disabled guy (?), homophobic homosexual (Wait--) and... okay, so I don’t know how he got so loved by the British public, but he’s a bald guy who people found funny and now he’s making charity singles, not the first time he’s done so either. He also lent his voice to Gnomeo and Juliet because, well, of course, and fittingly this is a children’s song. In the early stages of the pandemic, Europe was asking everyone to wash their hands and stuff like that, focusing on the hygiene ethics that you should follow every day to prevent spread of the virus. So he adapted this song he wrote on some comedy show a couple years ago to fit with the ongoing pandemic, and it’s going to help the NHS workers. It’s a valuable cause for a guy who is ‘very sorry’ but also ‘very willing’ to bring back the blackface from not the 1920s but the mid-2000s, and also really eager to defend Israel’s breach of international law only when Black Lives Matter starts to comment on the situation in the occupied territories. He has also been rather cryptically tweeting videos daily despite his pinned Tweet claiming he has been taking a break from the platform, seemingly to hide his gross-out jokes and gross-out politics in case anyone realises that no, this man isn’t as much of a CBeebies-friendly happy chap with a bald shiny head and enthusiasm as you could have suggested. He’s still got the bald head I suppose but that’s beside the point. The song is (vaguely) listenable despite being completely irrelevant to the cause and also completely bad because he puts on this nasal annoying voice for half of it, when he can’t sing anyway. It’s almost like he’s making a mockery of the pandemic. Regardless of the song’s contents and history, we can all agree it’s a children’s song with a runtime of barely a single minute, hence it shouldn’t be in the UK Top 40, or even the charts at all. At least the guy who made “Baby Shark” wasn’t racist. Free Palestine. Anyway: Drake.

#2 – “Toosie Slide” – Drake

Produced by OZ

You know, I didn’t like “Nonstop”. In fact, I really hated “Nonstop” – but there was at least some charm in it, intentional or not. You know, the Tay Keith beat kind of bangs for what it’s worth, and some of the lyrics are really that bad that they cycle all the way back to being really funny again. “I just took it left like I’m ambidex’”, “Yeah, I’m light-skinned but I’m still a dark [gnarly dude]”, “Bills so big, I call ‘em Williams, for real”? Only Drake could make up garbage this humiliating for both him and the listener, and kind of get away with it. Surely, he can replicate that in “Toosie Slide”, his new drab, dry trap banger with a pretty audible lack of colour, especially in this time of depressing quarantine and lockdown and... yeah, no, this song just doesn’t work in any context. It was propelled by TikTok and is effectively and by all intentions, a dance song much like “Watch Me” or “Crank That Soulja Boy”. Unlike “Crank That”, however, it is not a song you can use in a mash-up or DJ mix, it is not a song you can exploit or have fun with, or even really dance to, despite the cynical, unabashed trend-hopping on display here. Maybe that’s the point, right? I mean, in the video, he’s dancing by himself in his massive mansion where he keeps art of Chairman Mao (Relatable) with a ski mask on, so maybe this intends to reflect the current lockdown period... but I can’t even stretch that far enough, and I tend to stretch the meanings of songs a lot on this show. Sure, musically, with its ambient synths and piano loops, it works as a parallel to real-life, and I guess how easy and depressingly boring the dance is also reflects that, but the rest of the song is completely irrelevant to both the lockdown and dance.

Black leather gloves, no sequins

Oh, thanks for specifying that you have no sequins, Drake, I appreciate that, it really helps create the imagery of a dull white void or a single balloon in the wind, drifting into thin air.

It goes: Right foot up, left foot slide, left foot up, right foot slide

Alright, so that’s a pretty simple set of instructions, I mean, I could do—

Basically, I’m saying, “Either way, we ‘bout to slide”, ayy

So the last instruction was not an instruction but just a recommendation? I just have to slide and that counts as a Toosie Slide?

Can’t let this one slide

So you are prohibiting any form of sliding. Got it.

Don’t you want to dance with me? No? I could dance like Michael Jack... son / I could give you thug pass... ion / It’s a Thriller in the trap... where we from

Okay, first of all, you cannot dance like Michael Jackson, secondly other than “Smooth Criminal” and I guess, “Bad”, he had very little thug passion. Thirdly, this is just lazy and Goddamn unbearably so. He mumbles to himself in a single, droning Auto-Tuned vocal layer, with little to no dynamics in the vocal at all, and clearly an obscene lack of effort that is just despicably abusive of the platform Drake has. He built his career through connections and a universal, likeable charisma, and he is doing a solo song where he shows absolutely no unique charisma at all. After not long ago reviewing “Baby Pluto”, where Lil Uzi masterfully creates a burst of character through rapping about being vapid, materialistic, and having as little character as possible, this is just shockingly bad, honestly. How are you going to make a simple, fun dance for children sound this grading and colourless? It’s almost impressive, honestly, which makes a nice contrast for the non-existent but nonetheless pathetic bars on this track. “It’s a Thriller in the trap where we from”? Bro, he said the Michael Jackson album and he just compared himself to Michael Jackson! This guy’s a genius? Oh, and he said this trap house he most likely did not grow up in or participate to the extent of having any detailed memories about that would constitute a rap verse was as scary as Michael Jackson! Wow, Drake, how many millionaire kiddy-fiddlers were in your meth labs? Jesus Christ, this is just deplorable, honestly. I try not to get upset or mad at songs anymore on this show because it’s just sounds at the end of the day, but this may just be the worst song I’ve reviewed this year so far. Usually I can put up with Drake’s nonsensical garbling or misogynistic rambles but without anything to sugarcoat Drake’s questionable morality and ethics, we can just see a pure-bred Aubrey Graham doing what he does best: being an absolutely miserable man in his thirties surrounded by yes-men and drunk on star power. It doesn’t even have an insensitive and nonsensical reference to Osama bin Laden like the other big Drake singles completely lacking in structure that were released this year, “Life is Good” and “Oprah’s Bank Account”, which by the way are both pretty great songs.

I could give you satisfac... tion

That’s not even a freaking Michael Jackson song—you know what, let’s just conclude this. I’m sick of this.

Conclusion

Oh, I wonder who will be getting Worst of the Week. Yeah, it’s obviously “Toosie Slide” by Drake, and I haven’t even written the reviews for the other songs while I’m writing this one, so make of that what you will; I will be more opinionated on the rest of the songs by the next sentence.

I wish I wasn’t. Both of those songs were garbage. No Best of the Week.

NEW ARRIVALS: 19/04 #39 – “Skechers” – DripReport

Produced by Ouhboy

This is a TikTok meme in which the Indian YouTuber talks about a woman being attractive because of her light-up Skechers. That is the song. That is the joke. Let’s move on.

No, but seriously, while I don’t find the song funny I appreciate it being some kind of lighthearted fun in what seems like a dour pop scene. The trap beat here is freaking pathetic though, and don’t get me started on the Tyga remix; seriously, I’m surprised his verse didn’t make Skechers cease-and-desist Tyga for defamation. The Badshah guy on the other remix kind of kills it though. Oh, and the actual Skechers gave away like a million face masks because of this song so I guess I do respect this stupid freaking song for its... cultural impact. Yeah, shawty bad with the Skechers. It’s a movement.

#24 – “Rover” – S1mba featuring DTG (DejiTheGamer)

Produced by RELYT

S1mba is a Zimbabwean musician who spent his first nine years under Mugabe before moving to Swindon, England, where he started listening to gospel music. DTG is a YouTuber from Croydon. Naturally, their big breakthrough single is a trap-Afroswing song about cars, or specifically the women that young British men can potentially attract with said cars... and somehow it is pretty good. That chorus is undeniably infectious and S1mba is a pretty damn charismatic guy who honestly sounds pretty good singing in the pre-chorus. DTG is considerably less impressive, Auto-crooning repeated lyrics several times with very little effort put into the inflections or cadences. The pianos here are pretty solid and I particularly like the strings in the outro. Also, the build-up to the third chorus is pretty epic. There are also four remixes of this song, including big names like ZieZie, Joel Corry and Lil Tecca, accumulating about 10 people across five songs. I listened to them all and here are my opinions: On the first remix, Poundz sounds kind of awkward as an auto-crooner, ZieZie sounds pretty great – I don’t really know why his verse is bilingual but sure, why not – and Ivorian Doll, who I assume is rather fittingly from Cote d’Ivoire, sounds great rapping but her stuttered singing is less than impressive. S1mba provides a new verse here and it’s pretty mediocre. The Lil Tecca remix is pretty great actually, with Tecca riding the beat effortlessly. Maybe the song can have some popularity stateside because of this? I mean, Young T & Bugsey did it with “Don’t Rush”, which I was surprised to see. Tecca sounds great on the outro, too. Oh, and there’s an Australian remix, too, because Aussie drill is a thing, apparently. The Youngn Lipz guy wastes time, and is not really sounding very Australian unlike the thickly-accented Hooligan Hefs who provides a pretty good verse which is kind of tonally out of place, which is the same with the Hooks guy. And finally, the house remix with Joel Corry, which is censored for some reason but I imagine is getting a lot of radio play despite being a lot less interesting and joyful than the original. It’s a pretty danceable, club-ready banger but you can’t really just get a song’s isolated vocals and put it on an unrelated house beat and expect the best... okay, well maybe Imanbek can, but that’s not the point. Joel Corry just does his thing here, and his thing is pretty freaking boring. Also, I’d like to point out that this is only the remix with DTG on it, and is hence not one of the best remixes. I’d put this above the Aussie remix and the first remix with Poundz and ZieZie (which ZieZie kind of carries), but below the original and the Tecca remix, which is my personal favourite and the one I’ll be saving. I really hope this remix trend continues to be a thing because I’m getting so much more writing out of this. Also, apparently this song is about a specific Range Rover – the 2019 Land Rover Evoque. Great.

Conclusion

“Skechers” by DripReport is Worst of the Week. I know it’s harmless and ultimately just a fun time but that Tyga remix is a crime against humanity, so “Rover” by S1mba featuring DTG and eight other dudes is Best of the Week. I mean, there’s only two songs so you could probably infer this conclusion.

NEW ARRIVALS: 26/04 #39 – “Where We’re Going” – Gerry Cinnamon

Produced by ???

Yeah, neither Genius or Spotify knows who produced this. I assume it’s the artist, Gerry Cinnamon, but that’s just my best guess. He’s an acoustic guitarist from Scotland, which is a bad sign, but this is actually a pretty damn good song. It’s a new wave-ish post-punk song with a fast-paced folkish riff that reminds me of The Cure, specifically a slightly more depressive “Just Like Heaven” came into mind immediately. Cinnamon isn’t a bad vocalist but his performance here is kind of sub-par and lyrically the song suffers from la-la-la syndrome but it makes perfect sense in the profanity-laden, careless tone of the lyrics and the song itself, which relies on the oddly profound hook of “Where we’re going this shit don’t matter”. Whilst I like this song a lot, I am slightly turned off by its dreariness which would work if the song weren’t four minutes, which is perhaps a couple choruses too long, but yeah, this is pretty good for what it is. I’m surprised it’s here in the UK Top 40, but this guy has been big in Scotland for a while so I guess this is his big single. He seems like more of an album artist, anyway. I need to listen to this guy’s album, perhaps.

#29 – “Rockstar” – DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch

Produced by SethInTheKitchen

It’s funny how two songs can be so different yet so similar. At its core, both this and “Where We’re Going” are profane, carefree and reckless pop songs with acoustic guitar as a focal instrument and a pretty bleak-sounding atmosphere to it all, which is fitting with the world being bricks and all. The main difference between the songs is that DaBaby is not a Scottish punk singer, and, last time I checked, neither was Roddy RIcch, although things change pretty fast in the music industry, and Taylor Swift just released her overhyped indie folk album as I’m writing this, so who knows? It’s not even her best album. I stand by reputation being her best but I don’t think I should elaborate on that hot take until “cardigan” inevitably debuts at #1. This is the second #1 hit trap song in the US to be a duet between two rappers about being a rockstar (this one is stylised in uppercase rather than lowercase, though). DaBaby also made a song about being a “Pop Star”, which Drake and DJ Khaled did a couple weeks ago. Trap-rappers are really original, I swear. Anyway, the acoustic plucking here courtesy of SethInTheKitchen is pretty funky here, but the drums do feel pretty stiff here. I love the Auto-Tuned “Oooooooh” that I think Roddy provides; again, the second #1 this guy has had with a vocal gimmick. DaBaby flows impressively in his first verse, where he recounts when he killed a man in front of his daughter and that he’d do it again. As you do. Roddy isn’t particularly interesting here but his Young Thug impression hasn’t worn off on me yet, so, yeah, pretty okay, decent song. Not many lyrics to analyse here, either.

Brand new Lamborghini, f*** a cop car / With a pistol on my hip like I’m a cop

This line in the chorus inspired DaBaby to release a “Black Lives Matter” remix of the song, and whilst it’s not as good as the original, simply because the beat doesn’t drop or hit as hard due to the extended intro and the song’s brevity is kind of its main saving point for me, I really respect his introductory verse on the remix where he raps viciously without a beat about police brutality, even referring to personal experiences he’s had with systematic racism in the United States. Also, in both versions, the sudden and brazen “SETHINTHEKITCHEN” producer tag never fails to get a chuckle out of me. Now that we’ve listened to two pretty respectable pieces of art, how about some manufactured plastic-wrapped garbage made in a factory by television producers?

#25 – “You Taught Me What Love Is (Britain’s Got Talent Live Recording)” – Beth Porch

Produced by Matt Banks, Charlie Irwin and Paul Jones

Those are the producers of Britain’s Got Talent, if you’re wondering. Spotify doesn’t list any producer credits because of course, they don’t. This is not really a typical pop song rather it is Simon Cowell’s attempt at replicating an indie-girl songwriter with an acoustic guitar and typical indie-girl voice, and, man, I don’t like half of those artists and Porch here can sing, but come on, this is just pathetic and desperate. I remember when Cowell started the talent shows, he didn’t have to directly replicate other trends really because he was making and defining the sound of British pop music in a way. It wasn’t very good but you can remember some of his signatures that are still present in remnants of pop music on the island today, especially this song, which has the skyscraper chorus and crowd cheering at the end, but God, this is just sad. I’m glad we’ve moved past the need for singer-songwriters, boy bands and girl groups created by reality television for the sake of putting more money in old rich white guys’ pockets. If I were doing this show any earlier than 2015, I feel like it would have been plagued by this stuff. Thank God for the streaming era, I suppose.

#20 – “I’m Ready” – Sam Smith and Demi Lovato

Produced by ILYA

This is a Sam Smith song featuring guest vocals from Demi Lovato. They are both good vocalists. The production from ILYA is not very interesting. Okay, I take it back, the production here is kind of cool, because it’s half an intimidating dated trap song and half a piano-based power ballad, and neither of these guys are convincing on a deep sliding 808 or rattling hi-hats. Oh, yeah, and the trap beat sucks. Like what’s with that snare? Yeah, this is garbage. I’m not sure why I expected otherwise, to be honest. If this is motivational to you, all respect to you but to me, this is pure cremation.

#5 – “Times Like These (BBC Radio 1 Stay Home Live Lounge)” – Live Lounge Allstars

Produced by Fraser T. Smith

“Times Like These” is actually my favourite Foo Fighters song; I’ve never been a big fan of the band but they have some incredible songs that I love very dearly and “Times Like These” is one of them. I guess it’s a fitting song for the current situation but I’m not expecting the Live Lounge Allstars to bring anything other than a washed-out, dry and bland cover of this classic. Who are the Allstars? Well, BBC Radio 1 has a series called Live Lounge where artists perform covers live or something to that effect – I don’t watch/listen to it – and this song features a lot of artists from that show who are more relevant, commercially viable or connected to Foo Fighters genre-wise, including Simon Neil, Zara Larsson, Sam Fender, Rita Ora, Rag’n’Bone Man, Paloma Faith, Mabel, Hailee Steinfeld, Grace Carter, Coldplay, Celeste, Biffy Clyro, Anne-Marie, AJ Tracey (Wha—), 5 Seconds of Summer, Dermot Kennedy, Sean Paul (Because of course), YUNGBLUD, Sigrid, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Bastille, Ellie Goulding, Jess Glynne, and of course, the only Foo Fighters present, Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins. I’m not going to pretend this song doesn’t have potential (I love Royal Blood and Dua Lipa, hell, a cover of this song with just those guys – or even Bastille – could work pretty damn well) but this is over-flooded with completely random artists, other than a couple rock bands picked out so they could replicate some sense of vague guitarism, whatever that means. Anyway, let’s remind ourselves why “Times Like These” works in the first place: it’s a lighthearted adult alternative song with a real message to learn from mistakes and to always think about the decisions you make before you hurt feelings or you feel guilty. It’s got a maddeningly infectious chorus, an iconic guitar riff and a so bad it’s good music video. It’s what the Foo Fighters are good at making, but it’s warmer and perhaps more intimate than usual, being based on actual events and internal drama within the band. It’s almost a diss track Dave Grohl wrote to himself, but in the most jovial tone possible with metaphors that are just odd and creative enough to be memorable to the listener. In the song, he beats himself up for being indecisive, ignorant and confused, before reassuring us and himself that he will learn from these lessons and become a better person, even if he has to drill the mantra into our heads. It’s just a great song... and it doesn’t really work in the context of this pandemic. Sure, the whole vague idea of becoming a better person in the new normal following lockdown, and how the lockdown will be troubling for the mental health of the British public, but otherwise, I mean, it’s a song that specifically refers to an event in Dave Grohl’s life, and has the typical, sludgy post-grunge vocals and some charmingly janky production choices (There, I said it), such as that echoing vocal in the verses. It all makes sense in the context of the song, though; here, it just feels impersonal. Sure, Grohl himself wrote off on it and contributed to the song, but there’s a certain lack of sincerity to the vocals here that makes the song’s profound lyrics feel cheap. I’m not going to say they disrespected a classic anthem. After all, “Times Like These” isn’t a brilliantly written song in the first place and it’s not like it’s influential or held in high regard. These singers are generally pretty talented, albeit not showing their best performances here. Despite that, with the slow, acoustic trod of this new cover, the shadow of dullness that looms over the whole song, and some outright garbage vocal performances from Simon Neil and YUNGBLUD, it doesn’t hold up to the original in any way. I wish this wasn’t acoustic either; again, Bastille, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Biffy Clyro and Coldplay could all do great covers of this song with some electric backing and some actual Goddamn energy. As is, it’s just a shoddily made charity single that misses the point of the original song completely. Oh, yeah, and the AJ Tracey guest rap verse is freaking AWFUL, and so out of place. It’s about making a wicked pasta bake, seemingly, and is capped off by Sean Paul giving the best performance out of any of the singers here, because, well, of course, he does. It’s Sean Paul. Big up the dude on the glockenspiel as well.

#1 – “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – Michael Ball, Captain Tom Moore and the NHS Voices of Care Choir

Produced by Nick Patrick

Reviewing this song misses the point of the song, as this isn’t a song for you to listen to, really. This is a song for you to appreciate and respect the charitable cause it represents. Captain Tom Moore is an army veteran who is 100 years old, making him the oldest person to ever get a #1 on the chart. He served in India and Burma during the Second World War, and 70-odd years later, he started walking laps around his garden to raise charity for NHS workers, and, naturally, he garnered media attention and attracted more than £30 million in donations. This song in particular is pretty special to a lot of Britons because of its attachment to the Liverpool football team (it’s been a crowd chant for a while after it was originally written by Rogers-Hammerstein in 1945 and further covered by Gerry and the Peacemakers in 1963). Even The Weeknd, who was #1 at the time, asked his fans to give him the #1 instead. Several people were inspired by Moore and practiced similar fundraising efforts that also raised millions for similar causes. After the song was released, Queen Elizabeth II, who is also approaching 100, knighted Moore, so, yes, he is Captain Sir Thomas Moore. I have nothing but respect for the man and his service to the country. To many people in the United Kingdom, especially elderly people who have had particular struggles during the pandemic and increased loneliness, especially without the otherwise regular family visits, he is a hero, and I completely understand that. I mean, the guy was on Blankety Blank once in 1983, so you’ve at least got to respect him for that. If you have the time, read up on the man’s life story, because as one would expect, he’s been through a hell of a lot in 100 years.

Conclusion

I can’t give Worst of the Week to charity singles, I’m sorry, I don’t have it in me. Sure, the Allstars butchered a great Foo Fighters classic, but if it helps people in these trying times, then I can’t say the song is worthy of my bile, really. So Worst of the Week goes to “I’m Ready” by Sam Smith and Demi Lovato, and Best of the Week goes to “Where We’re Going” by Gerry Cinnamon. Next month.

MAY NEW ARRIVALS: 03/05 #39 – “Kings & Queens” – Ava Max

Produced by Cirkut and RedOne

I just today found out that Cirkut ISN’T Dr. Luke. For some reason I always assumed so. Anyways, Ava Max is back to prove she’s not a one-hit wonder by making her one hit another time. Man, I’m just so bored of this. One of the reasons I stopped bothering or trying to make these blogs and music review list type things is that I gravitate less than ever towards music reviewing and journalism. I would love to use this hobby and passion for some good at some point and maybe make a career out of it but as an Internet music critic who reviews nearly exclusively chart music, this shit is just boring – and 2020’s supposed to be a really cool, unique interesting year for the charts. I’m kind of disillusioned with the whole cinematic top 10 build-up and this massive, melodramatic aggravated assault on the #1 worst song, when in reality everything is subjective and it’s not worth doing that. I mean, as well as I rested my case about “Taki Taki”, it doesn’t remove the song from existence or the charts. People won’t stop liking the song, it’s just my measly opinion, and, yes, while I think the whole idea of reviewing art is futile and at times counterproductive or toxic, it is completely fair to say your opinion on something, otherwise I wouldn’t be still writing this months after this song had first charted. I just don’t get the idea of a pop music reviewing community or whatever, which obviously does exist, and you’re probably a part of it if you’re reading this in all honesty, if you even got this far. In the bluntest way possible, they just argue with each other. I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking way too much into this, it’s just a bit of fun but I just don’t care for the whole slog of reviewing five songs every week when I know I won’t like half of them. I feel like when I started, I viewed myself as one of those music-reviewing YouTubers with Pokémon avatars and top 20 rankings, and yeah, I don’t get that anymore from doing this. I just get apathy, although when I do feel happy and productive, which isn’t often nowadays, this is one of the first things I start thinking of and start doing so that should show that maybe chipping at this brick wall of Top 40 singles every couple months is fun? I don’t know. I decided today that I’ll release this block as the first part of this wall of sound, no pun intended, and I don’t know how good that’ll make me feel after releasing it. It’s definitely a relief, I guess. Anyway, Ava Max, I guess.

If all of the kings had the queens on the throne / We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Wait, sorry what was that?

We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Sorry, could you clarify that first part?

We would pop champagne

No. NO.

Pop champagne

#38 – “Don’t Need Love” – 220 KID and GRACEY

Produced by Will Graydon, Sam Brennan and Mark Ralph

Okay, back from mental trauma, is this song good? I don’t know, man, I don’t know who these guys are. 220 KID is a self-proclaimed “fizzy pop” artist from the UK, and GRACEY is a singer from Brighton who at some point lost her voice. Sure. This is their breakthrough song, I assume because of TikTok since they both don’t have an album yet, and I haven’t heard anything about them or their other singles, but I’m probably just ignorant. I mean, this is 220 KID’s debut single so they might just be a great, upcoming artist. I wouldn’t be able to tell because this is just really a mediocre house-pop song in theory. I mean, it has the exact same robotic, distorted and echoey vocal production, similarly thumping bassy beats, a stitched-up vocal drop, but something about this sounds cold. Maybe it’s the weak albeit bouncy production and snapping, maybe it’s the odd amount of dead space, maybe it’s the admittedly cool-sounding synth pads, but really, I think it’s just that non-existent drop. It doesn’t feel climactic, it doesn’t feel like anything, it just feels like someone ate the charting dance-pop singles from the past three years and regurgitated it. GRACEY sounds really nice in the falsetto towards the end now, and I like the melodies in the verse, I suppose. It’s not all bad, not that it was bad in the first place, just sonically void of personality. Also, there are way too many remixes and different releases but I still listened to all of them. The acoustic version is really sweet, and I think I actually really like how this song is written when hearing it stripped-down, but her desperate moaning in the chorus of the acoustic version feels a lot more genuine than the pitch-shifted garbage we get on the official, not that it doesn’t sound awkward on all versions. The Majestic remix is kind of nuts and I like the UK garage production but it’s way too long, and the TCTS remix is just the original with annoying beeping.

#26 – “Righteous” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Charlie Handsome and Nick Mira

I’m still pretty hurt that Juice passed. To be only 21 and die so suddenly after such a successful albeit brief career, at a moment where Juice seemed to be on top of the world more or less, is a tragic reality and Juice seemed like a nice, genuine guy from interviews so it was pretty shocking to hear the news, to say the least. Now, this gets awkward, like Pop Smoke from earlier, in the case that I was not a fan of Juice WRLD, and I’m still not. I think he was a very talented songwriter who attracted a fanbase due to a pretty unique 2000s emo-pop-inspired brand of trap, and he wrote some of my favourite emo rap songs ever, like “Lean wit Me” or “Robbery”, which is a damn excellent song and one of my favourites of last year. It even was in the top five of my Spotify Rewind 2019 playlist, I love that song to bits. However, most of his music had not appealed to me, and to be honest, I haven’t listened to that posthumous album, Legends Never Die, and probably never will because of that. I don’t want to dislike an album that serves as a genuine tribute to a good person, and I also am not sure if I’d be able to get through the entirety of the album, to be honest, mostly because of this song, which impacts me emotionally in a way not many songs do. The instrumental consists of a pretty sparse, spacey and minimal guitar-based trap skitter that is just a perfect base for Juice to pour his emotions onto in a way that feels eerie and sad but also pretty accepting, which makes the lyrics feel haunting, especially because the topics he discusses are mostly centred around how he thinks death for him is imminent. The first lines of the chorus already hit so hard with how he pictures himself as a “righteous” angel figure in his all-white Gucci suit and says, “I know that the truth is so hard to digest”. Then Juice continues to talk about the sheer quantity of drugs he’s consuming, which is just harrowing. This song feels like Juice was introducing someone to his lifestyle and realising how depressing and draining it was as he goes, especially in the first verse, where by the end he starts reassuring someone, who could be his girlfriend, his audience and fanbase, but most dauntingly, himself, that he’ll get out of this addiction and lifestyle at some point, when, in reality, he passed before he could even try, and he passed as a consequence of this lifestyle. In the second verse, he parallels how he died in his lyrics, saying and almost threatening to his inner demons, who he characterises as people he knows (but they “don’t know [him] like that”), that he will “take a pill for the thrill, have a relapse” and “crash”. The fact that this song is sprinkled with the silly, melodramatic metaphors not atypical to Juice, makes this song feel directly personal and not a retelling of the same line a lot of emo-rappers have sang and sadly, some have fallen victim to, about taking copius amounts of Xanax and codeine. Much like “Robbery” and a lot of his other work, Juice adopts a longing and nasal cadence and vocal delivery, but it feels much more trained and tuneful here, especially among the subtle vocal samples in the verse, and it is used sparingly in turn with a more muted delivery, particularly prominent in the chorus and the second verse, which connotes Juice’s lethargic acceptance with a lifestyle that he fell victim to. I don’t react emotionally that much to music, and I think that’s the same with a lot of people, but those first two lines in the chorus hit like a dagger and sound so great while doing so. Rest in peace Jared Higgins, and may the beauty of this song reflect on your talent.

#14 – “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” – The 1975

Produced by Jonathan Gilmore, George Daniel and Matthew Healy

I really loved “Me & You Together Song” but I find it hard to get behind anything else these guys made, really. They actually released an 80-minute album this May featuring backing vocals from Greta Thunberg, because of course, they did. I feel like if they started making music that was more natural and organic and didn’t try to make Pitchfork-bait political statements or whatever, I would appreciate them more. Not that I’m against political statements in songs – I’m definitely not, in fact, I’m sad “The Bigger Picture” by Lil Baby missed the top 40 this year – but the 1975, particularly Matt Healy, have never commented on pop culture in a way that’s not incoherent, preachy and frankly kind of stupid and obnoxious. Thankfully, this song, their biggest so far, is just about meeting a girl on FaceTime so you know, it makes me much more optimistic. The intro is really pleasant ambiance, but that awkward main guitar/bass riff makes it sound a lot less serene and more chaotic, even with FKA twigs providing some choral background vocals. Then the steady drums and 80s synths drown it out and once again, it suddenly becomes a fun, catchy song, even if Healy sounds really annoying with some inflections and notes that just sound... kind of horrific, especially with the multi-tracking that makes him even more irritating. He sounds even worse on the pre-chorus, but the cheesy and unabashed chorus where he says “Maybe I would like you better if you take off your clothes” followed by this corny, clearly synthesised horn riff, is just incredible. I kind of have to embrace Healy’s incompetence here because I can’t help myself but chuckle hearing him shout over 80’s beats in a way I guess isn’t too dissimilar to bands like Duran Duran, and hey, I love Duran Duran, and this is a good replica of a post-new wave 80’s synthpop track, even with a Goddamn saxophone solo. Is it too long? Yes, but so were those 80’s songs, and they just awkwardly faded out afterwards, and there is a shorter edit without the intro that cuts a whole minute off the track, meaning it starts just as awkwardly as it finishes, but that’s kind of the charm. Yeah, this is a pretty fun track, and maybe that Notes on a Conditional Form album is worth checking out. Maybe I give the 1975 too much flack. Wait, nevermind, no, I don’t, they’re called the 1975.

#11 – “The Scotts” – THE SCOTTS (Travis Scott and Kid Cudi)

Produced by Dot da Genius, Plain Pat and Take a Daytrip

Whoever decided to call this song “THE SCOTTS” is a brilliant mind and intellectual. Not only do I laugh every time I see this song title, just on pure absurdity alone, but it’s also by The Scotts. No one will proudly say, “Yeah, I’m listening to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS.” It’s also in all caps as if it’s this monumental, groundbreaking track, or at least an important, interesting one, but it’s actually just because all Travis Scott songs will be TITLED LIKE THIS NOW, ever since ASTROWORLD. It also amuses me that this makes absolutely no sense if you tell someone that this is actually a collaborative project between Kid Cudi and Jacques Webster. Travis Scott’s name isn’t even Scott, and Kid Cudi’s never used it in his name, although admittedly, in a lot of songs – and many I adore and remember fondly – he does say his name, Scott Mescudi, or some shortened variation of it. He doesn’t do it here, but Travis does say “You lettin’ THE SCOTTS outside”, as if it’s dangerous to let THE SCOTTS outside of their zone or outside of their cage or whatever. This song was also performed and premiered live on Fortnite, has like ten different vinyl editions to bump up its sales (It went #1 on the Hot 100 in the US in fact), and, man, the very idea of this song and everything surrounding it is just funny to me. Too bad the song’s not. I really like the keys loop used here coupled with some great-sounding drum fills but it is just destroyed by this ugly, slow bassy trap skitter and really gross-sounding Travis Scott vocals. He just uses this one lethargic flow, and switches it briefly in less of a technical or interesting way than Cudi does later in the song, delivering a really great verse, but my issue is that it sounds like a Travis Scott verse. He even tries to do his ad-libs. Then there’s this chiptune outro that sounds like a Mike Dean idea, mostly because it sounds kind of cool but doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t do anything to improve this shoddy song and its messy, dare I say, janky structure. “Baptized in Fire” is a much better collaboration from these two, and it’s telling that that one doesn’t have a verse from Travis at all. Rodeo is still amazing, but this guy has been disappointing and underwhelming for such a long time now. Maybe he’s lost his charm, but even with ASTROWORLD, where his experimental production shines and he is the most energetic he is in recent years, he just sounds tired and lazy. And Cudi, well, he’s Cudi. He’s made some of my favourite songs of all time, and some of the most confusing garbage I’ve ever heard. The duality of man.

#6 – “Houdini” – KSI featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne

Produced by AjProductions and Jacob Manson

Hey, this mildly amusing but definitely not my thing YouTuber got two of my favourites of the recent crop of British Afroswing and drill rappers on the same track. That’s something, right? I mean, yes, this is something, because this beat is AWESOME. It’s so full of joy and energy, even with the dark 808 tones and sparse vocal tones. I just love the bouncy, funky production on this thing and Swarmz kills it on the chorus with his typical happy nasal tone. Stormzy also kind of kills it, at least for the first half where he flows really swiftly and with a lot of smooth swagger, before he starts listing things and saying “Check” afterwards, for whatever reason. Tion Wayne delivers the clumsy fun he usually does, and whilst neither him or anyone here really brings any interesting lines or wordplay with them to the track, except a really awful corny line from KSI where he says his fourth letter is getting bigger in the alphabet, the track still feels really fun and cheerful, and most importantly full. Even when there’s literally silence, or no-one’s saying anything, it never feels like there’s dead space because the beat is always doing something cool. This is notable especially when Tion Wayne starts flowing really awkwardly and even when the beat cuts out for a really odd, nothing line, it still feels kind of worth it. Not much to say about this song other than it bangs, and a lot more than I’d expect from a guy like KSI.

Conclusion

I actually have pretty positive feelings on this week, which is good to go out on, I suppose. Best of the Week is obviously and undeniably going to the late Juice WRLD’s “Righteous”, with tied Honourable Mentions to the 1975’s “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” and, yes, KSI’s “Houdini” featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne. There’s not much to complain about here, so Worst of the Week goes to “Kings & Queens” by Ava Max for the kind of vapid nothingness I can’t even bring myself to stay on topic to talk about and Dishonourable Mention to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS because it’s “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS, and I don’t know about you but to me, that’s just laughable. See you in the next year, hopefully.

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