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deadcactuswalking · 5 months ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 06/07/2024

Some may argue that this is the first Labour-led #1 on the UK Singles Chart since 2010. I would disagree: much of the tracking week, like has been the case since at least 2021, has been under the watchful eye of a functionally flailing Conservative government, but indeed, Labour got their landslide victory, and if we’re going for political analogies, it seems pretty apt that in an election where the Conservatives are doing anything for you to stick with them and Labour’s just desperate to get anything done in spite of their organisation… I feel like a third week at #1 for Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” is pretty fitting. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, UK politics

Rundown

As always, we start with our notable dropouts, which if you don’t follow the show, are songs exiting the UK Top 75 (that’s the region I cover) after five weeks there or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid farewell to: “Genesis.” by RAYE - awfully prematurely but as to be expected with a song structured like that - “Pedro” by Jaxomy, Agatino Romero and the late Raffaella Carrá, “We Ain’t Here for Long” by Nathan Dawe, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” by Ariana Grande, “Thank You (Not So Bad)” by a rogues gallery of people who should know better - Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Tiesto, Dido and W&W to be specific - as well as “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” by Beyoncé and finally, “Valerie” by Mark Ronson and the late Amy Winehouse.

So what’s filling in the gaps? Well, bizarrely enough, some songs that had dropped out just last week: “3 Lions” is at #73 of course, I’ve written extensively about that song, but “Gata Only” by FloyyMenor and Cris Mj has also crept his way back in at #75 for some reason, and same goes for “Carry You Home” by Alex Warren at #60. We also have a Glastonbury impact in terms of its most viral performers having catalogue songs returning: Coldplay’s “Yellow” and “Viva la Vida” are back at #66 and #63 respectively, and they peaked at #4 and #1 respectively too. The latter debuted at the top for one week in 2008 whilst “Yellow” was stalled out by another suprisingly still relevant act, Eminem, who was #1 that week in 2000 with “The Real Slim Shady”. In addition, their new track, “feelslikeimfallinginlove” soars up to #16. The second notable Glastonbury impact is Dua Lipa, as not only is the #2-peaking “Houdini” from last year back at #38 but she sees a gain for “Illusion” at #25.

Speaking of gains, we definitely have a plenty notable ones here, starting with “The Man Who Can’t be Moved” by The Script at #55, “misses” by Dominic Fike at #50, “Kisses” by BL3SS and CamrinWatsin featuring bbyclose at #35, “NIGHTS LIKE THIS” by The Kid LAROI at #30 (helpful reminder that this song isn’t even 90 seconds), “HOT TO GO!” by Chappell Roan at #26, and finally, “KEHLANI” by Jordan Adetunji at #24. Looking pretty dire, Starmer, you’ve got to release a diss track to spice up the game.

And now of course, finally we have the top five where there’s not much change but what is there I’m sure will make a lot of folks happy. Firstly, Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” is steady at #5 - in fact, the rest of the top five is completely still - but secondly, Chappell Roan brings her breakout “Good Luck, Babe!” to #4, and outside of the fact that her other songs are doing so well that the streams might be spread out, I don’t really see it going anywhere. Otherwise, it’s as normal: “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #3, and Sabrina Carpenter with the top two spots: “Espresso” at #2 and the aforementioned “Please Please Please” at the very top. The gap between the two is tiny, but also pretty unimportant: it’d be Sabrina either way. That’s that Keir espresso, or something to that effect.

New Entries

#61 - “Move” - Adam Port, Stryv, Keinemusik, Orso and Malachiii

Produced by Adam Port and Stryv

Okay, I’ll bite: who in God’s name are any of these people? Seriously, it’s not every day that five acts debut out of nowhere all on one song. To be fair, this was bubbling under the top 75 last week, and it has 39 million streams since June worldwide, so clearly there’s a big hit on these guys’ hands… I just want to know how the royalties are split. I feel like Mr. Port gets a bigger slice of the pie here, as thankfully, some of these guys are actually the same people. Port is a DJ from Germany who is part of the Keinemusik collective, though no other members feature on this track. Those who do however include Stryv, who is also credited twice as Orso is actually another DJ duo between him and Justin Kam. Stryv also seems to be pretty proud of his work on Ye’s VULTURES 1, so much so that he even pinned it on his Instagram. Telling. As for Malachiii, he’s a California singer who acts as the vocalist on this Afro house track that despite all the names attached is relatively relaxed and subtle in its execution. It’s got a slightly chalky Afrobeats groove, a very staccato lead melody to begin with that does get a bit annoying and some minimal Auto-Tuned vocals from the nasal Malachiii who I suppose does his job within the cloudy atmosphere, and I wouldn’t expect much lyrically, but there’s still very little here other than a relatively solid beat and constant wooshing and flowing. There’s barely even a drop, mostly just a synth that slides in occasionally, and that might be for the best, as it seems much more concerned with just flowing across smoothly, which it… tries. The second clap sound they bring in is way too loud and mixed bizarrely so it just sounds obtrusive, and there’s really not enough here melodically to chew into for it to function on “just the vibe, man”. Honestly, for three producers, it’s impressive how dull this ends up being.

#49 - “Rockstar” - LISA

Produced by Ryan Tedder and Sam Homaee

For your badass solo single about living the dangerous rockstar life, you bring in the most milquetoast pop rock singer and one of this milennium’s safest songwriting choices on the boards. That really should tell you all you need to know about the new single from LISA, a member of BLACKPINK who seems closely tied with JENNIE in terms of who is the biggest solo star so far. As the first of our two K-pop songs, which really makes up for half of what is a nothing week, I was at least expecting some punch and we do get that, with an annoying beeping synth is placed under vaguely factorial but not quite industrial trap drums, that end up not hitting nearly as hard as they should be. As for convincing me on selling the rockstar lifestyle… maybe some actual guitars would help, or at least an instrumental that isn’t minimal weaksauce outside of abrupt, bizarre synth blasts that would act as interludes if there wasn’t a more fitting phrase: random insertions of unfitting textures in place of actually being interesting. Also, there’s nothing rockstar about synth organs, or having gold grills you don’t use, or knowing Japanese. If the life is so fast, big and exciting, and you’ve got a beat that isn’t subverting that hard-hitting expectation, at least sound like you could care about selling it, both lyrically and in the delivery, because this isn’t even on an annoying level of obnoxious or heavy. It’s once again just stunted and dull. If that’s the theme for this week, well, I suppose make a political analogy out of that, it’s not difficult.

#47 - “GIRLS” - The Kid LAROI

Produced by Jon Bellion, Pete Nappi, Rogét Chahayed and Tenroc

I really thought that LAROI’s career has been hanging on strings for years now, and I’m still not entirely convinced that’s not the case, but he still ends up notching minor hits just out of complete luck, I suppose. Spin of the draw, surely, because the songs aren’t particularly any more catchy, unique or charismatic than other pop singers, including this one’s co-producer, Jon Bellion, who seems to make every song he writes a hit, for anyone other than himself. In this one, he tries to flip Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” but I suppose they didn’t have the budget so he just… plainly references it instead when the song’s chorus reads as if it were clearly written with nostalgia sample bait in mind. For whatever reason, this was replaced with a flat orchestra and buzzing, Neptunes-lite groove that isn’t awful but is still plain and much stodgier than Pharrell or Chad Hugo would ever allow. LAROI himself is whiny and useless as always - that’s not even an insult, he’s practically trying to be - and there’s something particularly gross about the sinister, whispering delivery Mr. LAROI opts for when flipping an anthem for women having fun and being themselves into how he’s just trying to get some ass. It’s decidedly unpleasant, barely saved by a surprisingly decent swell and sizzle in the bridge that shows at least one guy in pop music - probably Jon Bellion - still cares about bridges. Yet I still prefer it to half of this week. It’s nights like these, I suppose.

#46 - “Smeraldo Garden Marching Band” - Jimin featuring Loco

Produced by TBHits, Mr. Franks, Pdogg and GHSTLOOP

…Huh? Okay, so the smeraldo flower apparently has a deep connection to BTS lore and iconography, first being used in 2017 and ending up featured on cover arts, promotional pictures and the like. Hence, when releasing his solo single for his upcoming album, Jimin fused the concept with that of a similarly massive band with an obsessed fanbase, the Beatles - and “obsessed” isn’t necessarily a negative in either case. The Smeraldo Garden Marching Band sounds like word salad but seems to reference Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, and he’s enlisted fellow Korean rapper Loco for a track with similar swell and narrative to that record… right? Well, no, but there is a certain childlike joy to the chipmunk vocal chop and the cheering sound effects used to punctuate Jimin’s unfortunately Auto-Tuned and often weirdly-inflected lyrics, flinging between Korean and English. I actually really like the goofy ad-libs and decoration added all over the mix, even just for tonal clash’s sake, but I’m somewhat disappointed in the actual song, which feels a bit underwritten given the nothingness of the basic, lovestruck chorus and a surprisingly blank production that does not layer the mix as consistently or as effectively to not demonstrate some of the faults of both artists’ vocal deliveries, with Loco in particular coming off as indistinguishable and avoidable, though Jimin’s vocal processing fading right into the drums he’s against is pretty egregious too. By the time the horns come in above the heavy-handed drums, I start to understand the silliness and bombast it’s going for - maybe a late-stage Panic! at the Disco - but for a song with that name, it spends way too much of its runtime on a five when it could probably justify being on eleven, and I think Jimin would be up for that. As it stands, it functions, I just don’t really vibe with it as much as what could have been.

Conclusion

Welp, welcome to Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer. I feel like you don’t need a mediocre chart week to have your stint in power recognised largely as mid, but it helps. Worst of the Week goes to LISA, sadly, for “Rockstar” - I don’t dislike BLACKPINK and they can sell more bombast and fun than she did here - and Best of the Week fittingly goes to the other K-pop act, Jimin, for “Smeraldo Garden Marching Band” featuring Loco. Hey, a fun title will get you places in my books. Thank you for reading this short little episode, long live Cola Boyy, and I’ll see you next week!

#uk singles chart #song review #pop music #jimin #loco #blackpink lisa #the kid laroi #adam port #keinemusic #stryv #orso #malachiii

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deadcactuswalking · 2 months ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 14/09/2024 (Linkin Park Reunite! + Central Cee/RAYE, Fred again.. - ten days)

Sabrina Carpenter may no longer hold the top three of the UK Singles Chart but she still hangs onto the top two with “Espresso” at #2 and “Taste” at its third week at #1. It’s an interesting one so welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, discussion of sexual assault

Rundown

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 farewell to a long list of hits, including “Double Life” by Pharrell Williams, “Bring Me Joy” by Rudimental and Karen Harding, “Pour Me a Drink” by Post Malone featuring Blake Shelton, “misses” by Dominic Fike, “360” by Charli xcx, Badger’s remix of “These Words” by Natasha Bedingfield, “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone, “Happier” by The Blessed Madonna featuring Clementine Douglas, “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen, “Houdini” by Dua Lipa and finally, “Evergreen” by Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners. Whew.

Now what ended up replacing this mass exodus of songs? Well, other than the new tracks, which we have plenty of, we also have re-entries for “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas at #74, “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls at #69 and “Numb” by Linkin Park at #41, which we’ll get to. We also see a few boosts for “Scared to Start” by Michael Marcagi at #65, “Belong Together” by Mark Ambor at #59, “Carry You Home” by Alex Warren at #36, “WILDFLOWER” by Billie Eilish at #30, “We Play” by Coldplay and friends at #26, “The Door” by Teddy Swims at #16, “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez at #13, “Move” by Adam Port, Stryv and Malachiii at #12 and “Somedays” by Sonny Fodera, Jazzy and D.O.D at #10, with most of the higher gains filling in for Oasis losses.

Our top five in the UK Singles Chart this week consists of: “Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter at #5, “The Emptiness Machine” by Linkin Park at #4 (yes, I know, we’ll get to it), “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan at #3 then of course, Sabrina with the top two. As for what’s below, it’s pretty interesting so let’s start right at the bottom.

New Entries

#75 - “Embrace It” - Ndotz

Produced by RJ Pasin

We start with… what? Okay, so Ndotz is a rapper from the UK who imitates Cash Cobain’s cover art gimmick on this single’s art, but the music is anything but, going for a bass-heavy rhythm not dissimilar to a Neptunes beat but with bass so blown-out it basically comes as its own bass-boosted meme version, which makes sense given that it’s barely two minutes, mentions TikTok in the chorus and commands girls to twerk, presumably to this song, so the mystery is solved to why this cheap, kind of garbage mix is charting. The worst thing is, thanks to the silly acoustic guitar and the fact you can tell Ndotz is having some fun, I don’t even dislike this. I don’t want to give the obvious, somewhat cynical attempt at virality much praise, I don’t want to “hand it to ‘em”, but I gotta hand it to ‘em. It’s just somewhat funny, and that’s pretty much all it wanted to be. Sure!

#71 - “Circadian Rhythm” - Drake

Produced by London Cyr, Ben10k, Eli Brown and Gordo

So, the embarrassed post-beef Drake has been posting songs on social media, leaking them to his website, hoping the sample gets cleared, then tossing it onto streaming if the reception is positive, and this has been vaguely unsuccessful, with the songs - even potential hits like “It’s Up” with 21 Savage and Young Thug - not making much noise, even with Drake still dissing subliminally throughout these leftovers. This song from the latest re-release of 100 GIGS - in reference to the realest thing he’s ever done: dump a bunch of useless files on a website because he felt like it - is billed as somewhat of a sequel to his 2013 song “The Language” but this all just feels like a demo. The chorus is primarily drumless, filling space with a chipmunk sample, and the verses have oddly webby-sounding snares, with Drake’s verses not fully equipped to the beat yet, and some unclear vocals if I’m being honest where I absolutely had to check what he was trying to say. This might be common for Future but definitely not Drake, whose nasal drone has never been indecipherable. The song ends abruptly, has frankly nothing to say with pretty minimal and vague lyrics about the rap game betraying him and shouting out Toronto artists, which may be the realm he should be in: part of Kendrick’s critique was his lack of identity, and harkening back to when Drake was at least marginally closer to his birthplace may be a step in the right direction regarding that. If this is the Toronto sound, though, this may be the drowsiest of all time because this is clearly a dull leftover, and for Drake, whose discography is no stranger to dull leftovers, when it’s this obvious, that’s just sad.

#70 - “I Adore You” - HUGEL, Topic and Arash featuring Daecolm

Produced by HUGEL, Topic, A7S and Late Nine

The only names I recognised here were Topic and A7S, who had some hits together in 2021, namely the top 10s “Breaking Me” and “Your Love (9PM)”, which were both okay slices of European deep house. Here, the German and Swede DJs team up with HUGEL from France, Iranian singer Arash Labaf who represented Azerbaijan in Eurovision years ago and South African-born Daecolm for a considerably multinational collaboration. Music really is borderless these days so I was interested on how this would mesh, and whilst you can definitely hear Daecolm bring an Afro-house rhythm in both the percussion and higher-register vocals, they’re inserted into a more generic tropical house template that doesn’t allow the organic sense of much of the African music that charts nowadays translate very well. I appreciate the strings in the back of the chorus, but with such an echoed mix and incessant “la-la” vocals, the final product renders as overproduced with very few realised sonic ideas, just kind of an unemotive noise, which is disappointing but might be expected with four lead artists, four producers and a short runtime that aligns strictly with the typical EDM build-drop format, but without much impact as everything is a wispy cloud, made to soundtrack adverts telling me to visit the Canary Islands rather than actually form that solid of a groove or string me along with an anthemic hook. It just kinds of floats in the air, but with a stiffness brought to it by how programmed it all is, and how there’s little in the way of actually unique sound design. I suppose it joins “Move” in this niche category of international Afro-house tunes which set the energy to negative numbers, but we didn’t really need another one.

#68 - “BABY I’M BACK” - The Kid LAROI

Produced by Rogét Chahayed and Dopamine

I know this looks bad with The Kid LAROI and Drake, but I promise you that there is interesting, worthwhile and genuinely amazing music coming up, it’s just that there’s plenty of less impressive stuff to get through also, like all weeks. I was faintly interested to see LAROI collaborate with UK DJ group Dopamine, who typically don’t collaborate with rappers necesssarily, but that quickly left me when I realised it was another lazy sample flip. As I always say, the story starts in 1977, when Player released “Baby Come Back”, cheesy soft-rock adult contemporary schlock typically schmaltzy of its era, but just catchy enough to be a semi-ironic guilty pleasure, which Yung Gravy understood when using the track as the basis for his comedic storytelling track about MILFs, “Cheryl”, from all the way back in 2017. So why The Kid LAROI wants to try and get us to believe it as a semi-serious breakup narrative with some toxic piss-offs but still loving platitudes, is completely beyond me. The original song by LA band Player peaked at #32 over here despite topping the charts stateside, though Vanessa Hudgens brought it back to the chart by sampling it on 2006’s “Come Back to Me”, peaking at a whopping… #100. Mr. LAROI’s rendition is largely pointless, with a weirdly-mixed chipmunk variation of the hook, where you can tell it transitions to a version where the vocals may have been removed through an AI website, which is largely covered by the drums, so why so much of the song actively presents the sample without them is also beyond me, the drop doesn’t hit hard or anything. I suppose the bridge’s flip on the original hook with the pianos is sweet, but LAROI doesn’t have the soul in him to pull this off, at least not yet. Sorry, it gets close to being… okay, though.

#66 - “Neva Play” - Megan Thee Stallion featuring RM

Produced by LilJuMadeDaBeat, Shae Jacobs, B Ham and Peter Fenn

“Neva Play” is the newest single from Texas rapper Megan Thee Stallion, coinciding with the success of her VMAs hosting and her other stateside hit “Mamushi” with Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba, by bringing Korean rapper RM, of BTS fame, to the fold, though Megan had remixed “Butter” before so this is not the first time they’ve crossed paths. Hilariously, Megan makes what appears to be an active attempt to keep it clean here, to fit with BTS’ young fanbase, seemingly unaware that RM was not afraid to drop F-bombs anyway. Other than that trivial note, the song’s pretty cool, there’s a minimal phonk beat that really brings into question why it needed more than Megan’s long-time collaborator LilJu to bring it together, though the distracting deep backing vocal is a bit off-putting in the verses. Megan has a lot of charisma, and whilst the content isn’t anything new - or really anything referencing East Asian culture outside of a “Hadouken!” ad-lib - her verse is a lot of fun. The counting chorus feels a bit basic or immature for this kind of banger, but RM brings a really compelling verse here. In fact, he outperforms Megan by just being really interesting - I wasn’t familiar with just how deep his drawl could go, pairing interestingly with Megan by smokily floating in at the end of the chorus and quickly going into a staccato verse about how he paved the way for Asian artists, before swtching into different flows and paces, including one moment where he purposefully kills all momentum of his verse to echo into a different cadence that feels very fittingly Memphis and also surprisingly catchy, with a decent amount of unique character and swag to his warm tone that he later brings onto the final chorus. Without RM, this would be a fine if typical Megan track, but his performance is pretty interesting if not a bit awkward or slightly abridged, and I like to hear the BTS members stepping into weirder cadences and musical ideas. More of RM would be interesting to hear.

#64 - “peace u need” - Fred again.. and Joy Anonymous

Produced by Fred again.., Joy Anonymous, Barney Lister and Will Bloomfield

So this week, Fred again.. released one of my favourite albums of the year, ten days. I spoke more about this on my RateYourMusic 2024 listening log - account name: exclusivelytopostown - but in summary, the album acts as what I would imagine as a picturebook, a collage of postcards reflecting on a particular Summer wherein those memories are all stored in layered, gorgeous progressive house taking motifs from more ambient directions and placing them into slow-burn atmospheric dance tracks. Outside of “adore u”, I love pretty much all of the songs on there, and it’s an incredibly cohesive listen despite the fact that we hear so many different voices thanks to it consisting primarily of remixes, and perhaps succeeds in part due to that as we get to hear different stories that all tie into the reminiscent feeling of wishing you could experience that Summer all over again, with the sound collage interludes forming a togetherness that is really touching and reflects on Fred’s collaborative spirit.

“peace u need” is yet another highlight, with perhaps the most strident attempt at making a classic 90s house piano banger considering the faint crowd cheers and vintage piano notes placed against a falsetto moan not dissimilar to Moby’s “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?” - at least that’s what it reminded me of. This track is a rare example of Fred providing his own vocals, longing for a relationship that has passed but hoping for amicability and fulfilment on both sides, given how lost he is without them but also how much they put into making it work, though this can also function as an analogy for nostalgia. “I let you take a piece of me” - your identity is found in memories you can’t revisit but also end up remembering, or dreaming about, on those particularly “quiet nights”. He teams up here with UK EDM duo Joy Anonymous here, who do not disrupt or honestly, really add anything new to, Fred’s distinct, stuttering style and greatly uses his sample of Snoh Aalegra’s 2017 track “Time”, fabricating a semi-duet between Aalegra and himself that really manifests in a creeping refrain of backing vocals that eventually overrides the entire track, leaving little of Fred’s vocals remaining as the “silence” - the distance from that period of time - “clouding” the mix entirely. The organic drums that rumble on occasion from the middle section onward as well as the tiny blips of vocal rendered as practically a sound effect shimmering just a bit too high in the mix, exemplify the album’s constant instrumental mirroring of the beauty of the humanity he experienced and that of the electronics he’s using to express it. Much like nearly all of the album, this is an incredible if not too accessible track, eschewing a pop structure for clearer and more concrete progression, including a weirdly eerie bass warp coming in at the last second to end that timespan for good. I don’t see it making a second week at all, but it’s absolutely worth your time, and thankfully, we have another one of my absolute favouritess from the album right up next.

#57 - “just stand there” - Fred again.. and SOAK

Produced by Fred again.., PARISI and Tobias Wincorn

ten days debuted just outside of the top five on the albums chart at #7, but that is still an impressive feat for an album that is simultaneously a remix compilation and almost sound collage, with “just stand there”, primarily a spoken word piece as Fred has explored a couple times before, coming towards the middle of the album. The piece pre-empting it, “.four”, has a car ticking aimlessly in a spreckle of rain, before a sample of SOAK’s spoken word piece “I’m Alive” featuring Gemma Doherty begins. SOAK is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter who broke out in 2015, whose track here is used mostly to have a spoken piece sat in the middle of wonky, heavily-manipulated vocal loops surrounding, circling the story being told, though it’s a different one from the original, as fragments from it are re-contextualised and at times looped to emphasise the awestruck moment of having someone tell you that she loves you. They stand there, amazed by the connection they feel and the appreciation of being able to “hear a world”, which makes them feel alive. There are many ways to interpret what now registers as a poem, in fact I have contemplated, given how introspectively focused some of the details seem to be, to if the “she” is the speaker themselves and it is a track about a confused sense of self-love and recognition of the world around them.

I love the pitch-shifted, distorted vocal leads cutting in as the song produces a slight bounce alongside more organic drums faintly set out to the left of the mix, I love the rise of pianos elevating the relative mundanity of SOAK’s poetry, the self-appreciation they find in observing other people live their lives and internalising that wonder, and especially the stuttering vocal that transitions the piece outside of that distorted bump of a kick into utterly transcendent territory, once the poetry steps way out of reality and into the surreal: “all four seasons happen in one day”, and whilst they’re already lovestruck, quite literally stuck in place because of their overwhelming feelings, it becomes unbelievable. Hell, it becomes too much to continue to try envisioning, and the song fades into echoes of vocal and synth that phase in and out, whilst they remain. Without anything, despite everything, “she loves me.” The fact that this is sandwiched between “fear less” with Sampha and “places to be” is really unfair, an emotional rollercoaster in the mid-section of the album that is as gorgeous as it is utterly overwhelming, which fits the nature of not just this song but the conceit of the whole record. It’s one of my favourite songs of the year, as if Fred again.. didn’t already have enough of those, and I cannot recommend his latest album more. Once again, this basically cannot last a second week, but God, it deserves to. Now, what’s next?

#38 - “Moi” - Central Cee and RAYE

Produced by Harry Beech and Eight8

…Cench, did you have to bring RAYE down with you? Central Cee, as he becomes more of a global star, has been swiftly shredding my goodwill for him, becoming increasingly gimmicky and embarrassing, seemingly taking his status as our biggest rap export to fuck around and make sure we’re never taken seriously in the genre again. We have an irrelevantly lovestruck French intro from RAYE here, which is atmospheric enough, but is completely rendered pointless by a flexing set of typical Cench verses where he talks about threesomes, drugs, the fact that you just HAVE to mention him when talking about drill - no, I don’t - and thirsting for random women in the public eye that he should just leave alone. He leeches onto the gay jokes again in the chorus, over a decent 2-step rhythm that transforms in and out of a stiffer drill beat, but the more telling line may be: “They gave me a fish, they ain’t teach me fishing”. Cench never struck me as ambitious, so the platform he has, largely off of TikTok virality and connections, I think scares him as much as it does me when it comes to how he represents UK rap. What’s frustrating to me is that I think he knows other people deserve the spot he has, but he cluelessly stumbled into it anyway and isn’t really willing to let it up at this point. Instead, he continues dropping these loose singles - allegedly from an album called Can’t Rush Greatness… okay - as he appears less connected, much less convincing and all the more deluded. Take a break, man, make something worth the pedestal you’re giving yourself and maybe stop relying on what got you there in the first place.

#4 - “The Emptiness Machine” - Linkin Park

Produced by Mike Shinoda

“This is not what I had planned. It’s out of my control.” One of the most successful rock groups of the century, Linkin Park, and the music world as a whole, suffered a terrible loss with the death of their co-lead vocalist, Chester Bennington, in 2017. Since then, the band has naturally been dormant on much new material but have played concerts, some in tribute, and have released troves of unreleased or rare material in compilations and reissues of their earliest records. There had been some concerning moments, namely the AI video for “Lost”, but the treatment of the posthumous material was respectful enough, at least as much as I can tell as I was never the biggest fan of Linkin Park. I would not say they have any great albums that are consistently fantastic all the way through, but what they do have to me are plenty of fantastic songs and even more fond memories dating back to my childhood, so regardless of my overall opinion, they definitely hold a comfortable place in my heart. So this reunion, which had been rumbling for a while, was probably going to grant strong opinions from me regardless of who it was and, ironically, I actually did not have strong opinions on new lead singer Emily Armstrong’s performance during the live shows. The livestream featured the Dead Sara frontwoman singing “Numb” which honestly did not seem all too different or interesting, though it clearly gave it enough of a boost for the song to return to #41 this week. She has a good voice, she was clearly present and has the range to perform much of their material, and since they’ll be recording and releasing new songs, she does not need to “replace” Chester.

Here’s the deal, though: Armstrong is connected to the cult of Scientology, which is extensively controversial, with Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta and his wife Chrissie on Instagram criticising the choice publicly by connecting her with the group and accusing her of being present at the 2020 trial of actor, Scientologist and convicted rapist Danny Masterson, which she admitted to and called a “friend”. Chrissie herself was a victim of Masterson, and with Chester’s history of being sexually abused as a child as he admitted to Kerrang! and NME, naturally this sparked outrage amongst some fans and music nerds in general who found that the choice of lead singer does not reflect Bennington’s principles, trauma, experiences and what he both fought for and expressed in his music, which has always been angst-driven and, at times painfully, honest. I tend to concur that this was a tone-deaf decision and though not all of his family have been open or even disapproving, his son Jaime has spoken against the decision and also about how band members including Mike Shinoda have ignored his concerns, and even that Linkin Park “fans” have harrassed him over his public opposition to the new singer. Armstrong confessed in a response that she did indeed attend the trial but was mostly dismissive of the contents or identity of what the trial actually involved, claiming to be unaware of details that at the time of trial, were - as allegations - readily available, especially to someone familiar with the then-alleged, now convicted.

I do not have to tell you that I have enjoyed music by bad people, I do not have to tell you that Armstrong is not the worst person ever, I do not have to tell you that the other members of Linkin Park I’m sure already have skeletons in the closet. I do have to tell you that this sucks. A man who formed some of my earliest memories of enjoying and connecting with music having his former band return, without the acknowledgement of his own family, alongside someone who defended - though not as publically as others - a man who afflicted sexual violence onto others, when Chester has been sexually abused and wrote earnestly about his overall trauma on the very records his band members played on, just sucks to me, and it seems many others, including Jaime and including the Bixlers. I cannot imagine how Emily Armstrong can guiltlessly cover some of his songs, and even if she relates them to her own experience as many fans have, Hell, many audiences have in general, including myself, I can’t help but feel a gross element to that. Those aren’t just not your experiences, they are experiences you worked in part to dismiss. For many, the apology will be enough, and that’s fine. Hell, I’m still going to listen to that new album when it’s out and it won’t stop me from relistening to their back catalogue which has some of my favourite songs of all time, like “Waiting for the End”, “She Couldn’t”, “Given Up” and a ridiculous amount of modern rock classics. Linkin Park are still a great band, and their legacy is not torn by this. But doesn’t it just suck?

You know what bothers me the most? The song’s fantastic. Armstrong’s not Chester, sure, but she already has an impressive chemistry with Shinoda, whose voice seemed off at first but blends perfectly with her more breathy rasp, and as a songwriter, Shinoda is in full pop form, with fuzz and reverb alongside some fantastically muffled drums leading in the echoing verses until a very typical but still anthemic chorus about falling victim to perhaps misguided hope and optimism leading you on in a moment of vulnerability: giving your life and receiving very little in return. It was a clever move to have Shinoda lead in, with Armstrong driving the song from the second verse on, but appearing in smokier, backing screeches during the first chorus, and once the full band comes in, whilst it doesn’t go as hard as it could, it’s still an incredibly full mix as you’d expect from Linkin Park. The band may have replaced the singer and drummer, but the core emotive thesis that LP have been working with for decades may still be here, and honestly, for as much shit as I will give her “apology” and public connections to Scientology, Armstrong kills it here. I’m a sucker for some good pop-metal and whilst this is far from their best, it’s a killer track, I’ll give it that, even if it probably won’t last too long past this week - though it’s 2024 so anything could happen - and it comes with a lot of baggage that I don’t think anyone was looking for.

For chart trivia purposes, as always: “Numb” returns after peaking at #14 in 2003 and returning to #20 in 2017. When it peaked, the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love” was #1. Its official mashup version with JAY-Z’s “Encore” matched the #14 peak on three separate occasions across late 2004 and early 2005.

Conclusion

I didn’t lie, did I? It was a fascinating week with an array of genres, artists, stories and even quality, but Fred again.. sweeps the competition here, getting Best of the Week for “just stand there” with SOAK and the Honourable Mention for “peace u need” with Joy Anonymous. Worst of the Week is more of a toss-up because the worst this week has to offer is largely just mediocrity, but I think Drake takes it by default with “Circadian Rhythms” as Cench wastes even more of our time with “Moi” featuring RAYE as the Dishonourable Mention. As for what’s on the horizon: The Weeknd, Playboi Carti, Tate McRae, Charli xcx and Troye Sivan with Dua Lipa on the new remix, it could be a lot at the top of the hit parade next episode so prepare for that. As for now, rest in peace to Will Jennings, Frankie Beverly and the legendary James Earl Jones, and I’ll see you next week!

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