#1 month into hiatus and let me tell you. life is weird r

[astonishinglegends]

Ep 205: Terry Carnation's "Dark Air" and Rich Hatem

“Imagine the universe, compressed on the head of a pin…”

– Scott’s remembrance of a Carl Sagan quote, which, turns out, probably originates from a parody impression of Carl Sagan

Description:

We have a very special guest joining us tonight, metaphysical "astralnaut," philosopher of the liminal, "Pope of the Paranormal," and host of the AM Radio talk show Dark Air, Terry Carnation. Terry first got his start in the paranormal radio genre when unexpectedly thrust into taking over for another show. While working as a late-night rock n' roll Disc Jockey for an FM station in Buffalo, NY, in 1992, Reginald Wilcox, the host of the paranormal call-in show that aired after Terry's slot was mysteriously murdered while Terry was in the bathroom... or so he claims. In his unflappable sense of duty, apparently stronger than his sense of legal obligation, Terry immediately took over the role of consigliere for listeners stupefied by the supernatural. And in Terry's words, "that's how a legend was created." Now, after a three-year hiatus, Terry Carnation returns with a new podcast, also called Dark Air, available starting April 1, 2021, wherever podcasts are given away for free. While you may not have heard of him, there will be something uneasily familiar about his voice and visage. And the audience will come to know his strange power for tearing off the head of disbelief and reaching down deep into our souls to yank out the viscera of our darkest fears and mysteries. Wrapped around our interview with Terry, our good buddy Rich Hatem joins us once again to discuss his latest adventures and projects. We'll also con him into playing our version of a game show, in the spirit of America's NPR radio program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and Britain's Would I Lie to You? We'll tell Rich three outrageous paranormal stories, and he has to guess which one is fake. Please join us for an episode of inscrutable levity.

Reference Links:

Terry Carnation’s website, TerryCarnation.com

Terry Carnation and Dark Air on Audioboom, where you can subscribe to the platform of your choice

Dark Air with Terry Carnation on Apple Podcasts

Follow Terry Carnation on Instagram

Follow Terry Carnation on Twitter

Terry Carnation on Facebook

Where to stream DC Titans

“TERRIBLE FLYING JELLY BAGS aka DOMSTEN BLOBS: (SWEDEN)” by Rob Morphy on cryptopia.us

National Public Radio’s Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

The BBC One panel show involving true and false tales, Would I Lie To You?

“The Story Behind The Haunted Donkey Lady Bridge In Texas Will Send Chills Down Your Spine” from OnlyInYourState.com

“South Texas Haunted Folklore: The Tale of the Converse Werewolf” from KSAT.com

On a totally unrelated subject…

Rainn Wilson is best known for playing the role of Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office. Additional film and television credits include Galaxy Quest, Almost Famous, The Rocker, Super, Six Feet Under, Juno, Backstrom, Star Trek Discovery, Thom Pain, The Meg, Mom, Don't Tell a Soul and Utopia.  He will also be appearing in the forthcoming podcast Dark Air with Terry Carnation. Wilson co-founded SoulPancake, a digital media company, and the Lide Foundation, an educational initiative in rural Haiti that empowers at-risk women and girls through the arts.

Dark Air with Terry Carnation was created by Rainn Wilson and Aaron Lee and is produced by Thom Harp and Chris Kelly. Dark Air with Terry Carnation is a production of Imperial Mammoth, Audioboom and Kelly&Kelly. Theme music by Marcos Moscat

This episode features the voice talents of Jinous Khjadivian and Dana Davis as the two audience callers.

Please help out our good friend Stan Gordon, by purchasing his books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble – you’re gonna love ‘em!

At Barnes & Noble:

Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook

Astonishing Encounters: Pennsylvania’s Unknown Creatures, Casebook 3

Really Mysterious Pennsylvania: UFOs, Bigfoot, and Other Weird Encounters, Casebook 1

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Credits:

Episode 205: Terry Carnation’s “Dark Air“ and Rich Hatem. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel. Sound Design by Ryan McCullough; Tess Pfeifle, Producer, and Lead Researcher; Research Support from the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2021 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[dcarhcarts]

regarding recent absences

And other such updates!

If you want the tl;dr, here it is: my mental health isn’t in the greatest place right now, and I figured I ought to explain why I must ask you for continued patience for the snail speed on this blog. I’m not announcing official hiatus, but just know that I...might continue to be pretty scarce, but I’m trying my best to be here and to be writing here. To hopefully get me more active here, I plan on dropping a few threads and cleaning out my dash re: people who follow me but aren’t writing with me. You’re more than welcome to keep following me if I unfollow you, and if you want to write with me and just haven’t gotten the chance and would like me to re-follow you, pls just go ahead and shoot me an im. I will be making a separate post about both those things, it’s just that I can’t deal with how fast my dash is moving at the moment.

If you care for the long version, under the cut so as to not bother everyone else!!! Be warned that it’s uh...it’s l o n g. TW for depression and anxiety and the general things my brain does to me lolol. 

Wow I haven’t used the post title function in a l o n g time. Anyway, hi, it’s me, Ro, your friendly neighborhood mun of a 20+ muse mumu. Don’t let the kind-of-serious format scare you - nothing bad is happening. I just have a few things that I felt the need to address that have been happening either in my life or just in my screwed up brain :D Buckle in and get ready for the ride, I guess?

Starting with something y’all already know about - I’ve not been here a lot recently. I joke about that a lot, but really, if you catch the pattern, my activity here is: exclusively after 10 pm, 2 drafts at most a day, inbox straight up clogged from like a month ago. IMS basically desolate, because I haven’t worked up the courage to pick them back up since I last forgot about them in the endless stream of things I had to do about a month ago! (that being said, uh, if you want to talk to me your best bet is probably through discord. Ro#6782 - pls, mutuals only, and tell me who you are!)  

And - because I h a t e being that mun that reblogs memes and asks for for them and then never answers their askbox / puts out starter calls when she has 10000 drafts / puts out plotting calls when she has unanswered ims, (no problem at all when other people do this but somehow when it’s m e I’m like “no you’re a terrible person”???? hmmm), I’ve also been avoiding t h o s e. If you’re new and you followed me in the last month, I’ve been putting out n o t h i n g that indicates a willingness to interact with new/more people, while the opposite is true. I’m always willing to interact - if I follow back, I want to write with you, only, well, aforementioned issue aside, I also have m o r e problems.

Namely, IRL and the fucked up thing called my brain. 

As most of you know, I got a job ~end of may or early juuuune~ and....well it’s pretty damn time consuming. I can’t have my phone during the course of my job - by the way, 4 hours - and so in those 4 hours (from 4 pm to 8 pm) I can basically get nothing done here. Then there’s also the fact that the time my shift is placed mentally and physically drains me a lot. Because it starts at 4, most of my morning is spent thinking “god I don’t wanna go to work” and because it ends at 8, most of my evening is spent trying very hard not to doze off. It also drains me a lot socially - I work at a call center, and all day I’m basically calling people who don’t want me to call them and are very irate even when they pick up, and uh, that already doesn’t do well for my anxiety haha. 

The other thing, of course - is my sort-of-seasonal depression. Winter tends to equate to anxiety for me, and summer tends to equate to depression. Again, I think I’ve joked about this a lot, but I apparently can only do drafts when I have 3 finals tomorrow and I haven’t studied for any of them. When it’s break, I get into a really weird slump - when i wake up in the morning, I don’t really want to wake up, and sometimes just stare at the wall for like, an hour. Nothing that I enjoyed during the other months, I seem to enjoy doing now. There’s too much time and too little time. It’s like i spent the whole day doing absolutely nothing meaningful but I can’t break myself out of the cycle so I keep doing that, rinse and repeat day after day, and sometimes my definition of spending time is just lying down in bed again and doing nothing for an hour randomly in the middle of the day. I feel guilty for wasting time as much as I am clueless as to how to fill it in a fulfilling way. “But Ro, you could do drafts!” A Concerned Person May Say. “You like writing!” Well, Kind Person, on some of these days, absolutely n o t h i n g Sparks Joy. 

“But Ro, I follow you on your other blog too!” The Concerned Person might continue.“You’re kind of active there, aren’t you?” And the answer, Kind Person who supported my career even if that blog is mostly obscure af fandoms - is yes.  I am kind of active on my other blog, @storyblcd. This brings us to the third and final reason why I’m.....moving at snail’s speed here, and that, my good friend - is anxiety. Well, mixed with a certain amount of mental exhaustion, of course. Note: this is n o t anyone’s fault. People’s interactions with me have not been negative - and they are not responsible for how my brain chooses to reaact to it. 

I’ve not lost muse for the muses on this blog, per se - but I’m getting burned out really fast writing them, for multiple reasons. First, muse imbalance. Now I know, I definitely k n o w - that sometimes people like one muse more than another, or have more interest in writing with one or the other, and I get that. I’ve said multiple multiple times that that is p e r f e c t l y fine. But honestly the reason I’ve lasted so long on a multimuse is because I can pick which muse I have muse for when, and I can respond accordingly / ask for interactions accordingly. But when I get so many people coming at me at once for the o n e muse when I have t w e n t y it sometimes gets a little? Discouraging? It makes me question whether or not only that one muse is popular for a reason. It also exhausts me re: the portrayal of that muse, because I”m putting out so many replies for that muse in a lot of sort of similar plots/scenarios that I just get burnt right out. And then I get scared that if I keep going I’ll want to drop the muse, so I’m staying away from those threads a little bit.

Second, I’m at a point in my portrayal of certain muses where I feel like there’s a certain expectation for how it’s going to be. My personal feelings aside, I think every mun expects their own portrayal to be different and unique and exciting - and it’s not different for me, only now I feel like the expectation and the pressure of coming up with something good and meaningful outweighs the feeling of exploration as I’m “discovering” the muse. Like most writers - I still crave validation, though more and more lately, I’m at a place in my writing where I f e e l like me from 2 months ago could have probably done a better job. While it’s not necessarily true, and these pressures are coming from m e and not any outside source, I f e e l like I have to consistently Make Good Writing, and simultaneously feel like some days I sit down and I try to do drafts and all I write is garbage. It just - doesn’t feel the same? So - more and more, I’m staring at the empty drafts page and then closing it - because if I don’t w r i t e I don’t have to admit I peaked two months ago.  

Both of these reasons have made me rather a bit avoidant of my muses here / this blog. Now, I’ve been struggling with anxiety for long enough that I know that a lot of this is - well, p r o b a b l y just my brain lying to me. See even as I’m writing this post now, my anxiety is saying “haha guess what n o one cares you’ve been gone” and my rational Anxiety-is-a-stupid-asshole voice is saying “nahhhhhh your brain is probably just lying to you.” But! In the battle, anxiety is kind of pummeling me now. I will r i s e again and win the war, most likely - but for now it’s anxiety: 1 and ro: 0.

AND finally - if you made it all the way down here, you’re a c h a m p. The solution! Well, as much of a solution as I’m hoping to get anyway - we’ll have to see if it implements well. I’m going to unfollow a few blogs so I can get my dash cleaner/more organized/less fast-moving and b r e a t h e. I’m going to drop a couple of threads, I might make a couple more muses request only/exclusive only for the like 2 people that have threads with them, I might drop a couple muses (though I don’t think this will really happen, Idk tho). There will be separate posts on those things coming soon, this is just to notify y’all. Thank you for all of your patience, thank you for all the wonderful people who’ve allowed me to write with you, I love all of you!!!!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 09/10/2020

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

Dropouts and Returning Entries

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

NEW ARRIVALS

#66 – “Always Forever” – Bryson Tiller

Produced by J-Louis, Teddy Walton and CAMEone

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

#65 – “Years Go By” – Bryson Tiller

Produced by Streetrunner and Tarik Azzouz

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

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

Produced by TBHits, Mr. Franks and Teddy

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

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

Produced by Diplo and SIDEPIECE

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

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

Produced by Metro Boomin and Peter Lee Johnson

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

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

Produced by Metro Boomin

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

#40 – “Lovesick Girls” – BLACKPINK

Produced by R.Tee and 24

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

#38 – “Heart of Glass” – Miley Cyrus

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

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

Produced by Izaiah and MadisonLST

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

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

Produced by Metro Boomin and DAVID x ELI

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

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

Produced by Nineteen85, Vinylz and 40

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

#21 – “Wonder” – Shawn Mendes

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

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

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

Produced by Cardo, Cubeatz and DY Krazy

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

I’mma cover my pain with these shades

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

Conclusion

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

Here’s the top 10 for this week:

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