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deadcactuswalking · 3 months ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 10/08/2024 (Charli xcx/Billie Eilish, Hanumankind/Kalmi)

It makes way too much sense that as “Brat Summer” begins to slowly fizzle out, Charli xcx would replenish it with one more outrageous single and video, this one tied to the biggest name she’s collaborated with on this project yet, for a moment that seems to already be embedded in pop culture from just people claiming it will be. It makes even more sense that despite this only being Billie Eilish’s third #1, Charli’s second and her first since “I Love It” with Icona Pop in 2012… that the new track, “Guess”, landed directly at the top of the UK Singles Chart. But first, we’ll need to talk about what’s, well, under there. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

content warning: language, references to antisemitism, addiction and Drake

Rundown

This isn’t the busiest week, but what has been happening within it is definitely of note and absolutely of interest. As always, we start with our notable dropouts, those being songs that exit the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid adieu to both of the posthumous Nate Dogg remixes, thank God, those being “Pick Up the Phone” by PAWSA and “6 in the Morning” by Flex (UK), as well as “Chk Chk Boom” by Stray Kids, “Tough” by Quavo and Lana Del Rey, “places to be” by Fred again.., Anderson .Paak and CHIKA, “Miles on It” by Marshmello and Kane Brown and, finally, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” by Ariana Grande.

As for our re-entries and notable gains, it was an interesting week. Ella Langley’s “you look like you love me” featuring Riley Green is back at #74, and we also see resurgences for “Bring Me Joy” by Rudimental and Karen Harding at #69 and “Close to You” by Gracie Abrams at #66, though there are assisted by plenty of gains, those being “Carry You Home” by Alex Warren at #67, “Alibi” by Sevdaliza, Pabllo Vittar and Yseult at #58, “Houdini” by Dua Lipa at #42, “I Love You, I’m Sorry” by Gracie Abrams at #41, “LUNCH” and “WILDFLOWER” by Billie Eilish at #64 and #37, really happy about that second one, even if it’s all due to residual “Guess” gains, “Somedays” by Sonny Fodera, Jazzy and D.O.D at #31, “feelslikeimfallinginlove” by Coldplay at #26, “Red Wine Supernova” and “HOT TO GO!” by Chappell Roan at #32 and #15 respectively, “Bye Bye Bye” by *NSYNC at #12… sure, and finally, taking a nice little boost from the new remix, Charli xcx has both “360” at #11 and, surprisingly overtaking it, “Apple” at #8. Oh, and Jordan Adetunji put Kehlani on “KEHLANI” and sneaked up to #9 for his first top 10 but we don’t need to spend much time on… that. Kehlani themselves have only peaked as high as #25 with “Nights Like This” in 2019.

Our top five this week all crept down a spot to make room for the new leader: “Stargazing” by Myles Smith is at #5, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” by Billie Eilish at #4, “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan at #3, “Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter at #2… all to allow for the bomb at #1 as Charli xcx debuts “Guess”, with the Official Charts Company for once actually crediting Eilish as a feature on the remixed version that took it this far, probably on the grounds that it had no chance at #1 otherwise. We’ll talk more on that later, but for now, let’s look at the oddities that debuted below.

New Entries

#71 - “Stumblin’ In” - CYRIL

Produced by CYRIL

We’re giving the guy whose claim to fame is an unlistenable remix of Disturbed’s “Sound of Silence” cover a career… why? So “Stumblin’ In” is originally a very schmaltzy but perfectly fine, in fact very endearing, soft rock duet from Chris Norman and Suzi Quatro. It’s nothing special, especially from 1978 adult contemporary, but there’s absolutely a charm to just how in love these two sound. Despite Norman being English, the song was much bigger in Quatro’s native States and… well, pretty much everywhere else, as it was only a mid-sized success here, peaking at just #41. The #1 that week was “Rat Trap” by The Boomtown Rats, which is actually one of my favourite ever #1s. Norman never found much success after this, with “Stumblin’ In” being somewhat of a fluke, and it reminds Quatro’s biggest US hit chartwise by quite a large margin. Last year, this Australian guy CYRIL took the vocals and placed them over the most basic house beat and called it a day, with what has to be some of the laziest sound design I’ve ever heard on a charting EDM hit - is that guitar line taken straight from AI-separated stems of the original or is it just that low in the mix and underproduced? The song functions, barely, but it does very little with the original’s structure, refuses to develop on it and does not even try to make the original strings - torn apart by the shoddy stem separation - or Norman’s rough vocals fit in with the modern production. More than anything, this is just useless, and we have another EDM remix of an unfitting soft rock track coming that should show this guy, who clearly is trying to make this his niche, how it’s successfully done.

#65 - “FIELD TRIP” - Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign featuring Playboi Carti, Don Toliver and Kodak Black

Produced by Wheezy, Dez Wright and The Legendary Traxster

Sigh… the post-”death con” Kanye discourse was tiring long before the time we even got to VULTURES 1, so the fact we only have one track from the sequel debuting is probably a blessing. Many fans and critics alike have now completely overlooked Ye’s history of… controversial statements to say the least, which baffles me because the only reason there’s no antisemitism on this episode is that whoever’s handling its production took a line out of “DEAD”, yet the major reason why people are looking past it may also be because of those same, and I say this phrase loosely, executive producers who put out this clearly unfinished album whilst Ye is off the nitrous oxide designing non-clothes for his wife. The same guys who removed that line for the sake of the bag also took YouTube rips of fan favourite leaks like “530” and placed them on the record without finishing them, updated the album post-haste to add ad-libs no fan seems to have actually wanted, failed to clear a single sample on the album, ruined some of Ye’s best unfinished material by running CyHi through AI (that could be a bar) to make him sound like a robot Kanye on “SKY CITY”, and are currently “updating” the album by charging fans money for leaks they’ve had circulating for years, including ones like “CAN U BE”, which predate this era by a decade and have no relation to Ty Dolla $ign… not that the albums do either, even if Atlantic wants 40% of their revenue.

With all that said, I actually liked VULTURES 2 quite a bit, which appears to be a hot take online: this is the most straightforward and cohesive Ye has been in structuring an album since Yeezus, it’s compelling to hear mostly refreshing bangers undercut with the sinister semi-ballads about how possessive he was over Kim Kardashian, whilst he references his older material to desperate cling onto past greatness in what ends up as an interesting back and forth mostly ruined by two weak closing tracks. Fix “SKY CITY”, take off some of the filler, and it’s a great album without needing to record any new vocals from Ye, and yes, that includes the mumble reference track, I think it works on here. Yet I really don’t want to spend much of my time defending a clearly mentally struggling neo-Nazi’s work being mishandled by vultures picking off of the remnants of his artistic output for what appears to them as easy money but really deprecates the value of his catalogue and by extension, their presence in the Yeezy staff meetings. I like this album, mostly, and same goes for this song, a rage banger with incomprehensible Don Toliver falsettos, Vory filling in for Ye under a Kanye AI filter in his tiny verse he already shares with Ty, and an industrial Portishead sample digging in behind Kodak’s nasal sex bars in a way that makes him sound interesting for once… but, even more so than other industry shenanigans that make it difficult for me to admit I enjoy a lot of pop songs, the circumstances surrounding Ye are just too sad.

I don’t pity the racist millionaire, the abusers featuring on this tracks or his chief of propaganda Ty Dolla $ign, but I do pity fellow former fans of Ye who mostly hated this project as it serves as the deathliest reminder so far that not only is our GOAT kind of washed, there might not be much left of him at all, on an artistic and honestly mental level. It’s pitiful, and for a fanbase like Ye’s, who have dealt with a lot more than even the industry is willing to deal with for the sake of the eventual release of a quality project, and have for years now been curating their own remix albums that far outweigh the genuine article on consistency and creativity, I really understand that this is probably the absolute final moment for those diehards to jump off ship, with the album’s first-week sales evidencing that to some extent. Ye fans are now going to bat for Milo fucking Yiannopoulos because out of all people around Ye, he’s the one giving them hope by feeding into a victim complex narrative and accusing Ye’s dentist of giving him brain damage. Whether that’s true or not, I can’t know for sure, and it’s not like there’s no evidence of Ye being off nitrous or his mental capabilities being impaired in the past half a decade, but I do know that if your source of hope for your favourite artist arises from famous alt-lite prick Milo Yiannopoulos… you might be just as “FRIED”.

If you still care about Ye, check out “RIVER”, it’s a legitimately great song without any of the qualifiers I have to give the guy nowadays, but otherwise, you’ll need to stomach at least as much as I have of those little “yes, but…” copium doses to truly enjoy the record. I don’t see this trilogy being finished, and honestly, for the sake of Ye’s family and fans, I think that’s for the best.

…Oh, and because I’m obliged to, “Machine Gun” by Portishead peaked at #52 in 2008. The #1 that week was, ironically, Estelle’s “American Boy” featuring Kanye West.

#61 - “Double Life” - Pharrell Williams

Produced by Pharrell Williams

I know that Pharrell’s solo releases aren’t on many a radar nowadays, and outside of 2014, have never really been his strong suit since he’s a producer first and foremost, but the man released one of my favourite albums of the year, and it’s a real shame how overlooked it’s been. Now I do know exactly why that is - it’s a psychedelic pop and rock album released subtly on his website, not on streaming services, and features mostly summery pop jams released on his birthday, though a bit too early in the year to really catch on. I recommend the whole album if you can get your hands on it, I know that I’ve personally found his sticky, bedroom-produced set of bops pretty resonant, though I’m a bit of a Pharrell stan, this is the closest we’ll get to an N.E.R.D. album for a long time, it’s probably not for everybody. So colour me surprised when he’s charting a solo single that basically sounds just like that album except the reason why it’s here is primarily because… it’s from the Despicable Me 4 soundtrack.

One of the elements of Pharrell I’ve never fully understood is his undying love for the Minions. And no, I have not seen that film, why would you dare accuse me of such? Now a second reason to why this caught on is that the lyrics appear to double as both a “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”-style takedown of the villainous Gru character and also, a Drake diss track, with Pharrell singing about allegations coming to light and his private life being much seedier than his public image. Now, I was originally sceptical of this, but then I realised thanks to the bridge that the main gimmick of Gru is that, yes, he’s a villain in control of an army of minions, but he’s also a loving father to his daughters… ouch, imagine being out-fathered by Illumination Entertainment characters. This guy isn’t on the level of Disney-Pixar, we know that because Kendrick is doing their soundtracks, but I at least thought that Drake was DreamWorks-level. What makes the diss even more evident is that, well, the narrative doesn’t make entirely too much sense for Gru, who is pretty known to even his daughters as despicable, right? Maybe I’m misremembering or more is revealed in this new song, but Gru’s antagonism is well-known, right? Regardless, whilst this isn’t exactly on the level of the best his Black Yacht Rock album had to offer, it has a lot in common with it, specifically the twinkly production, Pharrell’s penchant for sound effects and goofy delivery of lyrics that sound terrible on first listen but end up growing on you in a unqiuely Beck-ish way, all coated in a self-produced, self-written bedroom mix. This time, he blends it with a programmed funk rock guitar, because well, Goddamn, N.E.R.D. is practically defunct so why not? The cinematic elements like the horns and choral vocals are clearly programmed so it struggles to succeed on the front of being a convincing soundtrack hit, but that cheapness just makes it fit even better with the loveably lame, idly-gazing guitar-pop he put out earlier this year. It may not be fantastic, it’s still a very well-executed Pharrell song, with the added Gru-Drake comparison just sprinkling some fun on top.

#60 - “Black Friday (pretty like the sun)” - Lost Frequencies and Tom Odell

Produced by Tom Odell, Cityfall and Lost Frequencies

A remix of a chart hit a few years after, usually a decade or so after, is very common. A remix of a chart hit being popular simultaneously with the original is also very common. A remix of a chart hit arising as a sleeper hit just a few months after the already middling-level hit was past its course. I did really like Odell’s comeback hit “Black Friday”, which peaked at #21 in late 2023 when Doja Cat’s “Paint the Town Red” was #1, and possibly the last thing that would come to my mind when listening is “boy, this needs a tropical house remix”. Alas, I’m not the rich and famous DJ, so here we are. “Black Friday” has soured on me a tad since release but it’s still great, thanks in part due to its sweet, acoustic slow burn and the looming guilt Odell feels for doubting the strength of his relationship based mostly on his lack of confidence in his self-image, all leading up to a dramatic swell that defines the song. I’m sure you can undrstand my worry when I see a remix by Belgian DJ Lost Frequencies that’s not even two and a half minutes. How exactly does he retain or transform the meaning of the song whilst switching its genre in that short time?

Well, I don’t want to say it’s genius or anything, but the way he recontextualised the track is sneaky and clever. He turns Odell desperately aiming for escapism that can make him forget his inadequacies - “I wanna go party, I wanna have fun / I wanna be happy, could you show me how it’s done?” - into an out-of-context dance chorus, using Odell’s wispiest take, drenching it in reverb and placing it over a subtle house beat with a lot of clicky echoed details I enjoy, especially the shaking and barely audible percs that complicate the production enough to retain the uncertainty of the original, especially with the self-loathing of the first verse remaining untouched. Mr. Frequencies goes for a very typical vocaloid drop but does so by manipulating Odell’s vocal into the most wholesome pleas for friendship possible, and in the outro, he renders his belting to chipmunk pitch in what I think is an inspired decision. “(pretty like the sun)” strips the gut from “Black Friday”, refuses to go for a real bombastic EDM drop to cover Odell’s insecurities, retaining the acoustic guitar sound and lets the new concoction just float around, as if this version is what everyone else sees. A silly little remix almost completes the song’s narrative, giving an outside perspective that warrants Odell’s refrain that it’s just all in his head (which is naturally removed here). It would be very funny if this new version had a similar chart run, but honestly I just like the two as counterparts to each other. I’m not really big on Lost Frequencies in general but this remix works.

#35 - “Big Dawgs” - Hanumankind and Kalmi

Produced by Kalmi

Florida rapper Denzel Curry released an album recently that I did not like nearly as much as others. It was a love letter to the South, especially Houston and Memphis sounds, that whilst well-executed, felt lacking in the unique stylings I get from ‘Zel on any other project, with it being suffocated by guest features and production that should have been way more interesting than it was, with those guests being practically hit-and-miss. So this Indian guy motorcycles in (quite literally, watch the video) doing a Project Pat impression and has a worldwide smash hit alongside his producer Kalmi and somehow, I end up liking it a lot more. Hanumankind has been active for a while making primarily English-language alternative hip hop in the same lane as, say, an IDK, where it’s not mainstream, it’s not lyrical-miracle, but it’s a place in between. It’s Spotify-algorithm pop rap, where you’ll see very unique, accessible yet experimental, rappers and their crews include more conscious lyrics, weirder percussion choices, more soulful melodies and much more competent flows, but ultimately still a chintzy pop sheen, trap beats, R&B samples, the rest. I don’t want to dismiss any of these guys, because they do all have unique come-ups and origins - evidently, this guy’s from Kerala - but they do end up falling in a similar boat, that I’m very familiar with (honestly, might have been my specialty for a while there) and I don’t know any other way to sum it up than saying it probably started with Chance the Rapper.

On the harder end of this spectrum, as his singles got increasingly tougher and more indebted to the Dirty South, is Hanumankind. The motorcycle revving sound acts as the lead noise for the beat, giving Kalmi some industrial grit to lay down the very typical but almost undeniable Memphis beat, and there are definitely enough shifts in the beat to prevent this from being tedious throughout. Hanumankind himself does not have much in the way of lyrical content, especially not anything too interesting, but his flexes come through in his flow switches, incredibly nasal delivery that comes off as him being an endearing pest, especially since this is a glorified freestyle, with no real hook. The back-and-forth bridge is listed as a chorus but it doesn’t reoccur, and we end up getting a slowed-down refrain a lá DJ Screw, to really amalgamate the reference points on display here, if the UGK references weren’t good enough. I do like the focus on coping with pain and proving systemic issues wrong through success, as it tempers the obnoxious cadence and bragging in a likeable way… and honestly, I think I need to start listening to this guy’s EPs because this is fully in my lane. I really hope this guy gets some big-name cosigns and can take off with his signature mixture of southern styles. I’m very much here for Indian Memphis rap to be a thing, especially if we get to hear more artists from that region as a result of this guy’s virality. Oh, and I know Big K.R.I.T. is mostly on an R&B kick right now, but get him and Anycia on the remix and it’d be torn to shreds. Love this.

#1 - “Guess” - Charli xcx featuring Billie Eilish

Produced by The Dare and FINNEAS

It’s fine. For such a monumental-feeling #1 - the #2 was not even close - I don’t have much to say about this at all. Thanks to no involvement from A.G. Cook, EASYFUN or the rest of the more interesting contributors to BRAT, the production feels pretty rote and lacking the unique bite and vibe of the album’s standard edition, with “Guess” being tacked on as a deluxe track that I find pretty underwhelming. The least successful of the three bonuses, “Hello goodbye”, is the only one I care for as this and “Spring breakers” just sound like unfinished demos with their purpose already fulfilled by other tracks. There’s some charm to the very forward and explicit sexuality of this one, though not as much with all the grimy synth fuzz. Dylan Brady was involved in writing it, which may explain some of the distortion or the undercooked meme lyrics referencing Charli’s underwear, record deals, leaked song and a “lower-back tattoo” she got that literally says “lower back tattoo” in the BRAT font, and she calls it “brand new” in part because it is literally her brand new branding being branded onto her. This feels like a pastiche of the BRAT phenomenon in not a particularly interesting or nuanced way - the album already has bangers, it already has songs that comment more bitingly about celebrity culture, and Billie Eilish’s lesbian whispering somehow does nothing for me on the remix, which doesn’t really turn it into much else thematically or sonically. This is the first new #1 hit on the UK charts by a UK artist this year, and whilst I do have doubts about its longevity, it will most likely stick around despite it being probably the least interesting song from this entire rollout. Sorry, not really feeling this one.

Conclusion

It feels like cheating, almost, to put Hanumankind or Pharrell at Best of the Week because one’s sound and one’s artist are obviously going to appeal to me specifically and very easily, and really, the same can be said about the “Black Friday” remix since it uses a song I already really enjoy. As convincing as a three-way tie would be, I think Hanumankind and Kalmi have me the most excited for more, so “Big Dawgs” grabs Best of the Week with Pharrell Williams’ “Double Life” and “Black Friday (pretty like the sun)” by Lost Frequencies and Tom Odell tying for the Honourable Mention. As for the worst, obviously, CYRIL takes Worst of the Week for “Stumblin’ In” whilst I don’t feel like anything here is worthy of a Dishonourable Mention. In regards to what’s on the horizon, I suppose beabadoobee or Katy Perry, or even Chase & Status, could debut, but I’d actually keep an eye more on Asake, the new Clean Bandit-David Guetta-Anne-Marie collab and even Shawn Mendes, for entries next week. My prediction skills with this chart are about as competent as a blind weatherman so don’t quote me on any of that. For now, thank you for reading, rest in peace to Maurice Williams, and I’ll see you next week!

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thesinglesjukebox · 2 months ago

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HANUMANKIND FT. KALMI - "BIG DAWGS"

youtube

YouTube: "I'm from Sweden and this hits harder then our meatballs!"

[6.30]

Alfred Soto: Reaching a new peak of #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 with no signs of stopping, "Big Dawgs" is one of the more traditional hip-hop tracks to score. This Indian producer-writer team has got "money on my mind," a trope no less tiresome for sounding fresh in its secondhandedness: Kalmi and Hanumankind after all absorbed these tropes as kids. Energy and skill it's got, if not much inspiration. [7]

Jonathan Bradley: In 2024, Texas rap no longer requires Texan rappers. Hanumankind claims a "Southern family" in "Big Dawgs," which checks out: he's from the south Indian state of Kerala, and spent some time in Houston. He has a slick, bumptious flow, and he's versatile enough to quote Pimp C before switching up into a Project Pat cadence for a few bars. It would work better if he wasn't playing Rap-a-Lot Mad Libs with his rhymes: he's standing on business, he's got money on his mind, he would like hoes to get up off his dick. The beat rumbles like a dirt bike, except it also buzzes like a mosquito, and the longer it goes on the more like the latter it sounds. I like how he says he's rolling through the city with his lawyer with him; it makes him sound like Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas careening through the streets with a dubiously identified attorney as sidekick. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The kind of rap hit only a Goldman Sachs analyst could write — every second optimized for hookiness, every boast a little self-satisfied and unearned. The Project Pat and Pimp C bites are cute, and I don't doubt this guy was listening to UGK as a teenager, but the aggregate effect of this (and Kalmi's big, aggro beat) is less to thrill and more to annoy. With every listen I find something new to dislike. [3]

Katherine St. Asaph: This is so fucking stupid. [6]

Taylor Alatorre: Maybe it's the suppressed debate-club nerd in me, but I appreciate how much of "Big Dawgs" is constructed as an argument for its own right to exist. The guy clearly wanted to do a straightforward Project Pat imitation -- no reason, just 'cause -- but he knew this would ruffle feathers, so he spends most of the song's back half pre-addressing the controversy, inhabiting the guise of his soon-to-be critics: "how you get like this?" His answers range from standard brush-offs to some genuinely provoking commentary, most notably his suggestion that those of brown skin color "face closed curtains" worldwide. Knock him if you must for jacking the Memphis flow, but Cherukat did at least grow up in Houston, that sprawling sweatbox of contrasts -- a global magnet for high-skilled immigration whose suburbs can nonetheless foster protests against a Hindu temple's new Hanuman statue. Lest you wander too far intto the political weeds and end up thinking "promises are broken" is a veiled reference to H-1B visa caps, Hanumankind brings things back to the carnal with a well-timed sexual boast, a head-spinning turnaround that helps ward off any party-unfriendly grievance wallowing. The spiky defensiveness ends up working in the song's favor; both lyrics and delivery act out the kind of immigrant hustle that was valorized in M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," the most recent South Asian crossover hit of this magnitude. Confident that his points have been made, Hanumankind signs off with a lengthy chop-and-screw session that's indulgent in the best of ways, bolstering the song's "anything goes" sense of slippery self-assurance. He ain't worried about it, so why should we be? [9]

Nortey Dowuona: "In school, I used to fight the bullies -- now I'm fighting with the law. Guess some things don't leave you fully." [10]

Mark Sinker: The wind and grind of the backing is good, but he should half-speed his voice all the time; au naturel it’s too weedy. “We ain't got the time for you fuckin’ bugs” is a strong near-closer of a line -- except he actually just says “bums,” and that’s weedy too. [5]

Kristen S. Hé: No idea why people are calling this TikTok rap when it's clearly pro wrestling entrance theme music -- but for whom? [6]

Edward Okulicz: I look forward to hearing 20 seconds of this accompanying a montage of some contact sport as I channel-surf. The cool bit is the whir and grind under the verses, like an '80s home computer trying to sound like a car engine. The slowed-down finale breaks up the monotony a bit, and the kids listening to it don't realise that trick is about 35 years old because they're half that. [5]

Ian Mathers: How you feel about him yelling "hey, shut the fuck up!" at the standard "don't imitate these stunts" warning at the beginning of the video is probably a good shorthand for how you'll feel about "Big Dawgs" as a whole. The production is nicely blocky, buzzy, and abrasive, and the flow follows suit. It feels likely to be divisive, in the kind of way where both sides go "see?" and point to the same lines/elements to prove their point. Those stunts, though... those stunts are pretty cool to watch. Maybe that's a good shorthand too. [7]

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#hanumankind #kalmi #music #rap #hip-hop #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #Youtube

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