#Nimino | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deadcactuswalking · 2 months ago

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 28/09/2024 (Alex Warren)

For a fifth week, Sabrina Carpenter remains at #1 with “Taste” - it’s been there since release, and shows no real sign of decline. I suppose time will tell, but for now, welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, G-Eazy

Rundown

This is a pretty slow week, and if Alex Warren having the biggest debut doesn’t tell you that, everything else should, but that doesn’t mean nothing happened and of course, we start as always with our notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after a peak in the top 40 or five weeks within the covered region. This week, we bid a fair adieu to, firstly, a couple songs that really did not kick off and are gone really early like “ALL RED” by Playboi Carti after just a week in the top 40, “Moi” by Central Cee and RAYE, “Nobody’s Soldier” by Hozier and “Pretty Slowly” by Benson Boone, alongside two more seasoned hits in the form of “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone and, thank the heavens, “I Don’t Wanna Wait” by David Guetta and the hacks over at OneRepublic. I have never once said my coverage is unbiased.

Apart from Ariana Grande’s “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” back at #74 and “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas at #71, just creeping back up in a slow week, alongside Coldplay’s “Yellow” at #62, we don’t have many returns of note, so we can look towards the interesting and relatively significant gains for “KEEP UP” by Odetari at #51, kind of surprised that’s making it higher, “Close to You” by Gracie Abrams at #47, “Who” by Jimin at #40, “Diet Pepsi” by Addison Rae at #37, “Carry You Home” by Alex Warren at #32 thanks in part to the new song which we’ll talk about later and the album next week. Then we have “feelslikeimfallinginlove” by Coldplay at #32, “WILDFLOWER” by Billie Eilish at #23, “Embrace It” by Ndotz taking virality up to #20, and finally, “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan at #15.

And as for our top five, well, it’s mostly stagnant. Sure, at #5 and #4, “Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter swapped places with “Die with a Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, but our top three stays still: “Espresso” by Sabrina at #3, “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan at #2 and of course, “Taste” at #1. Now to run through our batch of new songs, a small but really mixed bag here, starting with:

New Entries

#73 - “I Only Smoke When I Drink” - nimino

Produced by nimino

Alright, I’ll bite: who the Hell is nimino? And perhaps more importantly, does it matter? This is a woozy, bordering on fuzzy and lo-fi, spin on a house tune from a producer based in London who has been active since at leasst 2018 in EDM but hadn’t broken out with a big single until now. Firstly, here’s a way of telling if someone is more of a real deal bedroom producer finally getting a deserved break instead of an opportunist TikTok viral moment: this is a bit of a deep cut of a sample, isn’t it? R&B singer Rayana Jay released her song “Hangover” in 2019, it’s a smooth jam with just barely over a million streams on Spotify and a post-success feature from G-Eazy alongside the much more unknown and definitely much more talented Beni Moun. It’s not something that stands out to me, but is a cute enough song that closes her album - it’s rough to finish your record with a G-Eazy feature, though. It stood out to nimino though! He takes not the chorus but the opening line I wouldn’t think twice about to make the titular hook, turning it into a mantra unrecognisable from its original context.

This new song has flittering percussion and synths similar to a Fred again.. track alongside the filtered, more typical house drums which all eventually collide into a louder, almost overwhelming melodic blend against the original cooed hook. The main synth may be too loud, actually, but it phases in very well into a chirpy rhythm that really reminds me of the late 2010s with the cute vocal sound effects and one-offs like the kid laughing, the shuttered future bass-esque synth and nice little percussive percs that show a level of detail to the production here. The sound design is top-notch, the drop is not one-note as the second time around, we get a much more filtered rendition that renders everything into pitch-shifted fragments and even new elements from the original sample coming in, before a final lead-up to what seems like a crescendo amongst 2-step drums… and it just doesn’t arrive, which in this case is genuinely disappointing, because the potential is there for a longer song and really impactful third drop. For what it is, though, it still exceeds my expectations greatly and is a neat, fun little jam I wouldn’t be against seeing chart for a few weeks longer. I believe this is what the kids are calling “stutter house” but I may also need to check out more of nimino’s other work to see what he’s been up to outside of this viral hit, and also to see if he ultimately fits into that genre or, like many EDM DJs nowadays, is a jack of all trades. I feel like his late-summer, wavy sound will fit into many different styles. For now, I recommend this… and not really the song it came from.

#72 - “TEFLON DON” - Future

Produced by Southside, Topp, Peeb, MoXart Beatz, London on da Track and Desro

So, Future dropped an album. Or mixtape. Or album called mixtape. Either way you shake it, it does not seem like this drop will make as strong a wave of his duo of collaborative projects with producer Metro Boomin, primarily because of how there are no features, and it’s an overall rawer project that spends most of its time in and out of short, hard beats with a lot of decadence and deviance from the main affair and no-one else. Given its shorter length, the lack of other voices does not really lead to it dragging as you’d expect, and outside of other long-time collaborators Wheezy and Southside, there aren’t many recurring producers, and a lot of beats have varied contributions from several. There’s a snappier and more diverse palette of instrumentals than you could have expected as a result. However, that doesn’t translate to sales, and this album debuted at #11 on the UK Albums Chart, with only one song charting - I didn’t expect to discuss MIXTAPE PLUTO at all but I’m sure the last-minute music video helped matters, though it’s also the opener - I assume many tapped out after realising there wouldn’t be any guest stars, but Pluto does hold the tape well on his own. This has a hard trap beat, some operatic textures, and splintering production amongst the other alien loops that find themselves in his mix serving one verse from Future, comparing himself to John Gotti like many a rapper before him and not saying much of interest. Why do I prefer this to many other trap bangers? It’s simple: firstly, the beat has a genuine dark menace with the vocals and strings, but mostly because of Future, whose relentless flow locks him into falsetto vocal cracks and nonsensical ad-libs that add so much more character to this track than needs be. It’s far from my ultimate favourites on the album - “SURFING A TSUNAMI” and “LOST MY DOG” are what I recommend - but it’s a fair opener that primes you into exactly what you’d expect from a decent trap solo tape from the king of the genre.

#70 - “S P E Y S I D E” - Bon Iver

Produced by Justin Vernon and Jim-E Stack

Sure, Bon Iver. We’re just doing whatever the fuck this week anyway, it appears, so why not Bon Iver? Ostensibly an indie folk band around since the 2000s, the catalogue of which I’m admittedly not familiar, Bon Iver is synonymous with its lead songwriter and vocalist, Justin Vernon, who will often use the name when in collaboration with bigger acts like Ye, Taylor Swift and Travis Scott, with the Bon Iver albums themselves also increasingly using outside collaborators, making the name feel closer to, say, Tame Impala, even if they’re yet to be that level of one-man band, though they started out as such initially. It doesn’t appear that any of the band actually play on this one, though, with pop producers Jim-E Stack and BJ Burton helping out for a lead single I also did not expect to chart at all this week.

He has - or they have - got an EP coming out and interestingly, this has less of the folktronica, art pop and R&B influences Vernon has been messing around with for the past decade now, instead going for a stripped-back, conventional singer-songwriter track with some great acoustic guitar playing from Mr. Iver, alongside a falsetto vocal that I have always struggled to distinguish from James Blake if I’m honest, especially since I usually hear him in a poppier context. There’s not even a chorus here, but there is a delightful swell of strings jumpstarted by a floaty, almost flippant falsetto chirp from Vernon, though that same swell has a certain melancholy to it, fittingly when there’s a great deal of despair in the content. Vernon begs at the end of the song for him to be made a man from what’s left of his life, one that he acknowledges as full of mistakes, nothing like how he’d have hoped. He starts to enter the stage of sobering up, realising what’s been wrong by the tail-end, but that’s only after moping about self-sabotage for so long that actually articulating what the problem is seems unnecessary. The last verse’s last glint of hope is not a plea for fixing, but more a rearrangement: he barely even resembles the man he’s supposed, so with whatever remains, make a new one. It’s a sombre ballad, it won’t last on the charts, and there isn’t a particular moment that really resonates with me like a specifically poetic turn of phrase or vocal inflection: there’s little to the song over than vocal, guitar and strings, so it’s not very layered in that front. There’s something missing that prevents me from gravitating to it in a specific sense, outside of the context of the tracks it will be sandwiched between, but it’s a powerful vocal, pleaant listen and downright earnest song that deserves well enough to be here.

#66 - “Heavy is the Crown” - Linkin Park

Produced by Mike Shinoda

Well, I suppose with all the controversy floating around, you’d want to move quickly and release some good songs to shut everyone complaining up, right? Well, potentially, that method will work - given the YouTube comments and the tour on the way, with pretty much guaranteed sales, I don’t doubt it will. It won’t work on me, though, primarily because this song sucks. I liked “The Emptiness Machine”, but this feels pretty transparent in its approach: let’s recreate “Faint”. From their 2003 album Meteora, the single starts with an eerie strings sample before dropping into the distorted guitars and a jungle-adjacent drum sound, as co-lead Mike Shinoda raps slightly awkwardly with his characteristic digital stutter, before Chester Bennington crashes in for not just the anthemic chorus but a guttural screech for the bridge. It peaked at #15, but this isn’t a direct sample, instead just a very similarly-structured song which could be a decent thematic song, but it feels a tad lazy when Shinoda is referencing his own rhyme schemes and newly-hired Emily Armstrong also does a long scream in reference to Chester’s iconic one from “Given Up” that really just does not hit the same: technically impressive, but it doesn’t feel as “real”, especially with all the electronic, reverb-heavy production that has flattened this song in terms of having the impact it wants to, including that gross Auto-Tune pre-chorus and the unnecessary echoing. More than actually creating new and interesting music with their new members, this song feels more like a corporate-requested Linkin Park compilation of revisited ideas in a song that’s not even three minutes, squashed into some promo link with League of Legends. Yes, really. I appreciate that since they’re in a genre where sounding like you care is kind of required, they can’t go fully into autopilot, but this has erased some of my hopes for that new album, given this is completely a retread, very transparently, and nothing else.

#35 - “Burning Down” - Alex Warren

Produced by Adam Yaron

You know the stomp-rock revival is really coming to a head when we’re giving Alex Warren, who barely really has the one hit with “Carry You Home”, a serviceable folk-pop tune but nothing special or distinct, a second hit… and an album this week! Maybe we’ll see how that does to see if he can join Noah Kahan in being the figureheads for a really unexpected turn in pop - rock? - music, but for now, he’s got a new single to promote it, it’s debuting over trap legend Future on one of his many peak runs, a Bon Iver lead single, and megastar band Linkin Park’s video game crossover marketing launch, so there must be something to it. There must be. There’s not. Okay, I suppose, the gospel organs are a tad unique, even if it’s moreso just bringing the Christian imagery that’s often subtext in folk songs to a more explicit angle, reflected in the choral vocals and a tone from Warren that resembles David Kushner - yikes - over a dark atmosphere leading into the song that completely flails into a swinging tune by the time the chorus hits. It’s a nasty post-breakup piss-off, but it’s not fully unlikeable given the smug tone has some more genuine drama, with the backing vocals doing a lot of heavy work there, and the chorus being genuinely catchy helping a great deal too. I do find Warren’s vocals here actually pretty shit, generally, he sounds dull on the verses and I have no idea what emotion he’s trying to convey the rest of the time, not sure he does either. In fact, given the mediocre writing that doesn’t really give much detail, he’s the weakest link in a song that sounds more professional than the breakout track, but also in a variation of this genre I don’t have much patience for. It’s once again serviceable, and I appreciate that there is much more character to this than “Carry You Home”. The problem is that I don’t really like that character, and whilst it’s not as immature as a Benson Boone, at least he sells that unlikeability factor in a really uniquely stressful way. This is just unremarkable.

Conclusion

That word does tend to summarise the week, both chart-wise and with the quality of these songs, though most of them remain on a pretty positive edge of the spectrum. nimino, whoever that is, grabs Best of the Week for “I Only Smoke When I Drink”, with Bon Iver just cutting Future off for the Honourable Mention with “S P E Y S I D E” - if it were another track, he could have ran away with it. I can only give one bad title here, Worst of the Week to Linkin Park’s “Heavy is the Crown”, but it’s not as offensively bad as much as it just being utterly see-through. As for what’s on the horizon, expect Kylie Minogue and JADE to land their new bops onto the chart, then maybe something from Alex Warren and Lady Gaga’s soundtrack companion album… and then The Weeknd and Playboi Carti following up their faltering singles with an immediate collab that will probably debut pretty high. I can’t say I’m excited for all of that, but we’re entering the end of the year, with just two months of non-Christmas chart-reviewing, so I suppose we’ll have to see. For now, thank you for reading, long live Cola Boyy and I’ll see you next week!

#uk singles chart #pop music #song review #linkin park #alex warren #nimino #future #mixtape pluto #bon iver #s p e y s i d e

3 notes · View notes

deadcactuswalking · 20 days ago

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 09/11/2024 (The Weeknd & Anitta, Tyler the Creator)

Gracie Abrams snabs her first UK #1 this week with “That’s So True”, which just two weeks ago debuted at #19 and is now, thanks to special discounted sales, topping the chart, usurping Gigi Perez’s “Sailor Song” after just one week. As for what’s below, we have a cooler week so welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, references to sex, weapons, daddy issues and prostitution

Rundown

As always, we start the episode with our notable dropouts, those being songs exiting 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 not only all of the Halloween tracks, which aren’t really worth listing – you know them all by now and they’ll be back last week next year – but also a set of duos: Liam Payne’s solo cuts, “For You” (Fifty Shades Freed) with Rita Ora and “Strip that Down” featuring Quavo, two tracks falling victim to arbitrary UK chart rules: “Noid” by Tyler, the Creator and “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan, more on those later, and Coldplay having both “WE PRAY” with Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI and “feelslikeimfallinginlove” drop off this week. Other than that, we say our farewells to “Mantra” by JENNIE and “You & Me” by Disclosure featuring Eliza Doolittle: a lot of good songs making their exits this week, sadly.

Now, what’s making up for all that? We have a few gains and four strong new entries to pick through later in the episode. As for our returns… well, it’s a slow week in November, meaning we begin our annual thawing of Christmas music, starting with “Last Christmas” by Wham! at #61 and “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey at #58. From this point on, these episodes may be shorter and forcedly more festive. We also see a spike in older tracks returning once again, amidst some newer tracks, with the list as follows: “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at #75, “Belong Together” by Mark Ambor at #72, “Yellow” by Coldplay at #71, “Scared to Start” by Michael Marcagi at #70, “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls at #68, “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers at #67, “NEW DROP” by Don Toliver at #64 and perhaps most notably, “labour” by indie-folk one-hit-wonder Paris Paloma at #62. It peaked at #29 in 2023 the same week Ed Sheeran’s “Eyes Closed” debuted at #1, and due in part to its feminist themes, as well as fitting a wave of more emotionally open folk-pop from women on the charts, it has had a resurgence that I can’t really complain about – I didn’t remember the song but on relisten, I still like it, perhaps more than I did back then. Turns out in my old review for it that I almost predicted a similar trend to what is actually happening on the charts right now with a larger focus on organic, 2010s-resembling indie and folk-pop having a larger moment. Maybe I don’t always bullshit my way through these episodes – and, hey, she still has the time to launch a second track on the charts, it’s an opportune time for her.

There are some noteworthy gains here too, many of which have also been here a while, such as “Riptide” by Vance Joy at #65, unfortunately, “Slow it Down” by Benson Boone at #60, “The Days” by Chrystal at #55, “The Sound of Silence” by Disturbed at #54, “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction at #53, “I Only Smoke When I Drink” by nimino at #52, “TOO COOL TO BE CARELESS” by PAWSA at #51, “Burning Down” by Alex Warren at #50, “Heavy is the Crown” by Linkin Park at #49, “Don’t Dream it’s Over” by Crowded House at #48, “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen at #46, “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” by Dasha at 42, “Close to You” by Gracie Abrams at #41 (she’s really having a moment right now and it’s beyond me as to why), then “Stargazing” by Myles Smith at #29, “The Emptinesss Machine” by Linkin Park at #28, “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims at #26, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #25 – I will say that sometimes it’s disheartening to see so many long-term hits rebound just as there should be a winter shake-up. Not that the newer tracks are any fit to replace them, with “Timeless” by The Weeknd and Playboi Carti at #21, sigh, but also “Bad Dreams” by Teddy Swims at #15 as he grabs a second top 10 with “The Door” at #8, a song that has grown on me a lot since my review, and finally, just on the cusp of that region is Billie Eilish’s fantastic “WILDFLOWER” at #11, which I think will be able to make it there in the next few weeks.

In terms of our top five, we already know about Gracie and Gigi’s folk-pop songs switching places at #1, but we also see Chappell Roan hit a new peak with “HOT TO GO!” at #5 and there’s a woman playing at least co-lead on every track here, as Abrams’ “I Love You, I’m Sorry” sticks to #4 and “APT.” by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars is down to #3. I’m not sure if that’s a significant stat considering the political climate, but it’s something. You know what’s not… women?

New Entries

#69 – “One by One” – Central Cee

Produced by Cash Cobain

Okay, let’s get the needed waffle out of the way: this was initially promoted with the live performance on A COLORS SHOW, which genuinely has so little distinctly different from the official version that it may have just assumed that role instead. This beat samples Bryson Tiller’s 2015 track “For However Long”, which itself cribs from Jodeci’s “Alone” from back in 1993. Neither were released as singles, and both in eras where that actually mattered, so they never charted. What I most want to acknowledge in this is the top one slizzer, the Slizzy God, Cash Cobain, finally making his official dent on the top 75 after having influenced Jordan Adetunji’s “KEHLANI” earlier this year. As briefly discussed in the review for that, sexy drill, slizzy drill, whatever you wish to deem it, is a niche subgenre pioneered by Cash and surrounding artists like Chow Lee, PoWR Trav, wolfacejoeyy, etc. out of New York and taking a more melodic, R&B-sampling approach to that city’s burgeoning drill music. The lyrics are sexual, the vocals are dripping wet with meek Auto-Tune, and the beats have a certain constant underlying tension to them due to the drum patterns and mostly shoddy mixing. This year has been big for the genre thanks mostly to “KEHLANI” and, ahem, “Grippy”, and I’ve become somewhat of a scholar just because it’s a fun scene with often recognisable samples and funny lines or deliveries that creep up on you on multiple listens because they’re not immediately obvious or practically mumbled. I for one have been hypnotised by Cash Cobain’s debut solo album, PLAY CASH COBAIN, practically since release.

One thing Cench definitely isn’t is subtle or saying anything you won’t notice on first listen, given his crass delivery, but that perfectly fits with the shoddy bass master and chipmunk sample, and he leaves a similar amount of empty space, given the lack of ad-libs originating from the fact it was originally published as a live performance, so it functions perfectly fine as a sexy drill song, and is actually enhanced and made unique by Cench’s presence, as his lyrics actually have genuine attempts at multisyllabic rhymes and clever wordplay, unlike most slizzy drillers who rely on comically autopilot sex raps, not that this is a bad thing, but Cench is also just really funny here! He threatens those who are tweeting at him to log out of their account whilst also saying that he bought the PS4 and scented candles to his trap to help make it “homely” which is hilarious… though I guess Cench can’t even get a PS5. He seems to be slightly disdained, but not particularly, about not being able to watch Disney Channel but SPECIFICALLY The Suite Life of Zack & Cody – I question if that’s much of a loss – and that is all in the chorus. It does help that Cench’s flow, whilst mostly the same throughout, brings a typically British mouthful to a genre that is otherwise “less is more”, whilst still shouting out New York, as well as comparing himself to Jason Derulo and… Tyga, saying he had “young money”… I’m not sure if even he is aware of the other meaning there because I’m not sure he would have kept the lyric in otherwise. My favourite part of the whole song, which feels not like a mockery of the genre but him being very ridiculous over it, is when he starts the second verse by just listing the weapons he would own not only if he didn’t live in the UK, but in different time periods, because if he lived in the Stone Age, he would have had a spear. Great. Thanks, Cench. This is the kind of humour and unique production I found appealing before he started to succumb to the pressure of trends and virality, and I’m glad to see it back even if briefly. Let’s hope he locks in on the album.

#47 – “Casual” – Chappell Roan

Produced by Dan Nigro and Ryan Linvill

I’ve long been frustrated with not really connecting to Chappell Roan’s singles from The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess that have charted, often for small nitpicks of reasons that have to do with the production or structure not functioning as well as they could to uphold the strong writing and a narrative connection I often resonated with or appreciated to some degree. I’m glad that this one has actually been the one to click really well. That could be found in the lighthearted conceit of it all that speaks to deeper issues: the comical framing of her hanging with a potential romantic partner in a more platonic way and asking at what point during their sexual and more wholesome intimacy is it still a casual and not long-term relationship? That all gathers, through a droopy 80s synth and gated drums, a wave of distrust and disappointment about her girlfriend’s lack of commitment, and as the descriptions of sex get more intense and vivid, as well as the mental health sacrifices Chappell’s making for her girlfriend’s family get revealed, the longing turns into a hateful frustration, a bitterness that arises in large part to the expectations Chappell has coming into a relationship that she acknowledges aren’t only unfounded but perhaps unrealistic, shaming herself for them in the second verse for giving into “dumb love”. It has a more reasonable and less unlikeable bitterness than “Good Luck, Babe!”, no production issues that deweight its impact like “Red Wine Supernova” and the writing actually progresses quite sensationally towards the outro, unlike the somewhat muddled “Pink Pony Club”, so I think aside from the dumb fun of “HOT TO GO!”, this is the first of hers to really stick with me, and definitely elevates above that song, even if the core conceit isn’t too dissimilar. If I had one issue, it’s that I get too connected with the narrative that the effective, disappointed self-blame hits too close and makes me want to hear much more about how this relationship actually ends. If that’s not effective songwriting, I don’t know what it is.

#33 – “Like Him” – Tyler, the Creator featuring Lola Young

Produced by Tyler, the Creator

Out of all songs from CHROMAKOPIA to swap out “Noid” with, I did not expect the late-album ballad, if anything I assumed we’d see one of the bangers, like “Rah Tah Tah” or especially “Sticky” with Sexyy Red, GloRilla and Lil Wayne. I’m not complaining though, because this is one of the best songs of the year, it’s heartbreaking and I cannot do it justice. It’s not all doom and gloom, of course, as Tyler inserts some comedy in it as always, whether it be the “huh?” he slides in from what sounds like a shoddily-EQ’d Baby Keem sample but I stand corrected if he actually went in the studio to record a few sounds, or the intro, wherein Tyler’s mother Bonita compares Tyler to his father, setting up the “Like Him” theme but also listing every point of comparison on his body before she gets cut off. That kind of bittersweet, slight ironic humour comes with the familial territory the song otherwise works in, with the track acting as a bit of a plea to Bonita: if he’s so like him, why doesn’t he know who he is, or where he is? Where is Tyler’s father in his life? It’s a question that T has been struggling with for much of his career with constant references and some full songs directed to his absence like “Answer”, which is particularly potent in retrospect considering this song is full of questions.

Starting with sombre pianos and a frail high-register performance from Tyler, who sings for all of the track, it eventually develops into a progressive soul track backed by harmonies from British singer Lola Young and a gorgeous soaring guitar in the back and the detailed soundscape you should expect from one of Tyler’s slow jams, that fuzzy synth coating in particular contrasting with the breathless gasps that appear all across the album. You also have the chorus accentuated with what sounds like Bonita herself chiming in with “Like what?”, acknowledging the role she played with the absence of Tyler’s father, which is expanded upon firstly in the second verse, wherein Tyler croons directly to her, with a great pause before he delves into how everything worked out and there may even be a sense of guilt there that Tyler is still on the hopeless chase for something he never had and won’t ever need – hence all the empty gaps left in the production. It resonates particularly hard for me, not that I’m in this specific situation, but as someone without a father figure in adulthood, I can relate to the idea of having something inexplicably missing there that you just kind of have to fill in for yourself. The most potent point is that incredible bridge, wherein Tyler stops the question at simply, “Do I look?”, asking his mother whether it’s worthwhile searching for either his father or that part of him that’s missing due to his absence, before a glance of piano and a vacant hole failingly filled in by Baby Keem pre-empting a wraparound of synths climaxing the song with utter defiance. In his third, improvised-sounding verse, spent mostly in the mix as backing vocals, he half-raps about his devotion to his mother but simultaneously, the insistence that he doesn’t “look like him”, because he’s everything HE wanted himself to be, and even with how abrupt Lola Young’s belting ends, you still get the time to chew on that dynamic… before that crushing outro, a home recording of his mother apologising for her involvement in keeping Tyler’s father out of his life, a plea from her for forgiveness over an off-tune bass note and cascading keys that really tugs at the heartstrings as someone who’s followed Tyler’s career and knows just how common and meaningful this topic is to him. Hell, it even wraps up the closure Tyler desperately seeks on the album, and leads into another banger in “Balloon” that, in many ways, is a middle finger to what a father figure could have brought into his life, that being restriction, tradition and hypermasculinity. Once again, it’s a brilliant song from a brilliant album, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get yet another switcheroo but I’d be delighted to have this one stick around. It is a wonder of a song.

#22 – “São Paulo” – The Weeknd and Anitta

Produced by The Weeknd, MIKE DEAN and Sean Solymar

Named after the Brazilian city that he premiered the track in, this new single with co-star Anitta, a massive singer in her own right in Latin America, is in some ways an embracing of Brazilian funk, which has been having a viral surge creeping up in the western world and having major influence on western artists now after years of it soundtracking the country’s cities. This song in particular is probably the widest western audience funk mandelão will ever get, and it’s not compromising either! It’s not as minimal as what you may hear from the genre, but it’s got the raw aggression of the rough cheap synths and the bass-heavy rumble manned by an oddly-mixed Anitta who, despite the genre being so in your face, feels about as far away from the party as possible even when you translate her stuttering, Auto-Tuned chanting to English and realise just how filthy it is. In fact, that’s my main problem with the song: as much as it embraces the genre, it seems way too distant as an overall piece from the actual fun, and sexiness, that this genre could be used for, with Abel on a murmuring autopilot once again – he sounds so sick of even opening his mouth this whole album cycle so far – and drenched in a reverb that echoes him out of the immediacy this production needs, with his sexual lyrics not prompting anything all too interesting either.

I like the chaotic sample brought in to an almost off-beat bridge but that all leads to what should be a promising second half… and ends up just trailing off. The Weeknd somehow ends up both robotic and out-of-breath – I’m not accusing it of being AI because it absolutely sounds human, but that’s also how I would describe what happens when you filter high-pitch vocals through AI and it gets all glitched out, losing breath, life and also clarity like Abel does here. I do enjoy the sly reference of the prostitute being “desensitised with money” and him needing to pay for his pleasure with work of his own, but outside of a burst into a drop that fails to really make much impact thanks to MIKE DEAN’s wankery souring the party, I’m unsure to what point any of the song’s second half serves that the first didn’t. It’s not the worst of his singles from this album so far, but it’s the one that tests your patience the most and honestly shows the most frustrating potential. Sadly, trying isn’t exactly on the agenda for the team behind this final album, and I hope the album gives me at least something to latch onto, unless, and I fear I might be correct, this is part of a narrative that involves losing interest in the “Weeknd” persona and shedding that baggage away. I suppose we’ll just have to see.

Conclusion

I suppose it has to get Worst of the Week, given that it’s the only dent on an otherwise above-average set of tracks this week, though Tyler, the Creator still blasts them all out of the water so he grabs Best of the Week easily with “Like Him” featuring Lola Young. As for the Honourable Mention, choose your gender, and as for what’s on the horizon… I don’t know, JLS? Who cares? Thank you for reading, rest in peace to Nipsey Hussle, and I’ll see you next week!

#pop music #song review #uk singles chart #chappell roan #tyler the creator #lola young #the weeknd #anitta #central cee #cash cobain #chromakopia

3 notes · View notes