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deadcactuswalking · 20 days ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 04/01/2025! (SZA's LANA, Sam Barber & Avery Anna, Ella Henderson)

Welcome back to normalcy on the UK Singles Chart. It’s the week after Christmas, and all through the chart, there’s return after return, of both slop and great art. “Last Christmas” still at #42, #62 stands Carey, but otherwise, it’s a boost, debut or a “Re”. Damn near every song that was on last week’s chart is gone, because they were Christmas songs, and I don’t feel the need to list them all, because they’re the same and they’ll be back next year. There is much more variation in what returned and gained, so I will discuss all of that, meaning that yes, all 75 songs in the UK Top 75 – which is what I cover – will probably get a name-drop today. That’s just how it is, and might as well drop a third in the pre-amble – Gracie Abrams’ “That’s So True” returns to #1 for a sixth week, welcome to Season 7 of REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, discussion of sex, depression and - sigh - Drake

Rundown

The rest of the top five consists of songs that were already charting, but got a very solid boost from the snow melting: “APT.” by ROSÉ & Bruno Mars at #2, “Messy” by Lola Young at #3, “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez at #4, and even Chrystal gets her first top 10 with “The Days” at #5, a weird song to peak that high in my view. To add to the post-Christmas confusion, “It Can’t be Christmas” by Tom Grennan held on the highest at #30 for no good reason, but other than that, we have gains, returns and debuts, so I’ll talk about those categories in that order, but bear with me, it will just be listing songs, even if it is interesting to see how high certain songs are, how much traction they gained over the holidays and how much of a semi-artificial boost they get from this week’s rejection of all things wintry.

For our notable gains, we see boosts within the top 20, namely “Nice to Meet You” by Myles Smith at #13, “Bed Chem” by Sabrina Carpenter at #11, “Defying Gravity” by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande at #10, “Die with a Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars at #8, and as for the returns… well, it’s the rest, and plenty of these are new peaks or close to it as well. For ease, I’ll split it between vague genres and if you don’t like my categorisation… fair enough, I don’t either, genre is a myth.

For hip hop and R&B, we have Tyler, the Creator with “Sticky” featuring GloRilla, Sexyy Red and Lil Wayne at #70 and “Like Him” featuring Lola Young at #35, “Oscar-Winning Tears.” by RAYE at #68, “Empty Out Your Pockets” by the late Juice WRLD at #55, Kendrick Lamar with “tv off” featuring Lefty Gunplay at #38 and “luther” with SZA at #28, “Thick of It” by KSI featuring Trippie Redd at #22 and, sigh, “Timeless” by The Weeknd and Playboi Carti at #12, which allegedly has AI vocals – I don’t personally see the clear evidence yet, but if you believe it… hey, maybe my disgust with that song rings even truer.

As for the hodge-podge of everything encompassed by “rock”, folk, country and whatever counts as alternative these days, we see the re-arrivals of “Favourite” by Fontaines D.C. at #72, “All My Love” by Coldplay at #69, “Casual” by Chappell Roan at #60, “Headlock” by Imogen Heap at #57 (not complaining about this resurgence), “The Emptiness Machine” by Linkin Park at #53, “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen at #51, “Burning Down” by Alex Warren at #49, “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers at #48, “The Sound of Silence” by Disturbed at #47 (really, we’re still doing this?), “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan at #31, “Stargazing” by Myles Smith at #29, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #25, “Too Sweet” by Hozier at #24, “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone at #21, “People Watching” by Sam Fender at #19, and, hey, why not? Let’s slot Billie Eilish in this category too with “WILDFLOWER” at #16 and “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” at #14.

Finally, for pop, dance and Afrobeats, we say welcome back to “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift at #75, “Indestructible” by Andy C and Becky Hill at #73, “BACKBONE” by Chase & Status and Stormzy at #71, “365” by Charli xcx at #67 – “Guess” featuring Billie Eilish is at #65, “Sympathy is a knife” featuring Ariana Grande at #50 – then “Who” by Jimin at #64, “Disease” by Lady Gaga at #61, “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” by Stromae and Pomme at #56, “Move” by Adam Port, Stryv and Malachii at #54, “Kisses” by BL3SS, CamrinWatsin and bbyclose at #52, “2 hands” by Tate McRae at #45, “This is What You Came For” by Calvin Harris featuring Rihanna out of seemingly nowhere at #43… it peaked at #2 in 2016, behind Drake’s “One Dance” featuring Wizkid and Kyla, which was #1 for like half that year it feels. Moving swiftly on from whyever that’s there, we have “it’s ok i’m ok” by Tate McRae at #41, “NIGHTS LIKE THIS” by The Kid LAROI at #40, “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” by Dasha at #39, “Close to You” and “I Love You, I’m Sorry” by Gracie Abrams at #36, “Diet Pepsi” by Addison Rae at #34, “PUSH 2 START” by Tyla at #33, “What is This Feeling?” with Cynthia Erivo and “Popular”, both by Ariana Grande from the Wicked soundtrack, at #27 and #26, “Dirty Cash (Money Talks)” by PAWSA and The Adventures of Stevie V at #20, “Taste” and “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter at #18 and #15, “HOT TO GO!” and “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan at #32 and #17, “Somedays” by Sonny Fodera, Jazzy and D.O.D at #9, and finally, whilst he probably counts more as soul, he’s got three songs real high so Teddy Swims, probably a big star of 2025 that I’m placing all my bets on, has “Lose Control” at #23, “Bad Dreams” at #7 and my favourite, “The Door” at #6. Welp, that’s all good and fun, but what did that door let in when it was left open? Let’s take a look.

New Entries

#74 – “30 for 30” – SZA and Kendrick Lamar

Produced by J. White Did It and Michael Uzowuru

I’m somewhat torn on SZA’s new deluxe reissue of her album SOS. Whilst basically a new album in terms of quantity, it’s not nearly as finished as you’d expect from an album teased for years, and LANA is still, according to SZA and her management, going to be updated with improved mixes and bonus tracks. Given how barebones, lacking in powerful or hooky refrains – definitely nothing as sticky as “Saturn” – these new tracks are, and given how SZA sounds damn near underwater on all of them, this is less like an everchanging work of art being improved for the fans and more like, well, VULTURES 2. The quality is about as mixed of a bag too, with two tracks debuting from the album this week, the first being the big viral moment with Kendrick Lamar and it may be his first complete miss this year because I don’t know about the general consensus on this, but this is clearly a demo to me. I’ll be keeping much of this episode short – it’s already late and filled to the brim with the big first-week-of-the-year resurgence of songs – but part of that may just be because of how little these songs, especially SZA’s, give me to discuss. I’m not surprised that J. White Did It, mostly known for lazy piano-led trap, produced this, because the same dead-eyed minimalism is present, just in an even less covert and purposeful way. To put it simply, this is the “Throw Some D’s” beat thrown in a blender and rapped over by Kendrick and someone who’s really not a rapper. Whilst R&B group Switch’s 1979 track “I Call Your Name” has been sampled plentifully, Polow da Don’s flip with Butta on Rich Boy’s 2006 Stateside smash “Throw Some D’s” remains the most iconic and exciting to this day, with Rich Boy’s stuttering, gang vocal-backed take ensuring that once that driven swell rushes in, there’s no breath to be taken, it’s an all-time 2000s hip hop one-hit wonder. In “30 for 30”, the sample is flipped near-identically, with this newer version sounding somehow more feathery – as if some EQ or AI stem separation took all the bass out – and the stabs Butta and Polow created are even jerkier, almost sounding delayed. Most criminally, it’s missing nearly any drums until a basic, terribly-mastered bass rumble and very clicky drum, comes in to remind you this was produced by the aforementioned J. White. It’s not that SZA and Kenny do much to help here either, because this is four minutes of them goofing about aimlessly, dissing Drake in weak subliminals that serve more to detriment Kendrick’s victory than hurt Drake. “Some of y’all just look lost”, he murmurs on a first-take vocal going back and forth with a frankly embarrassing SZA performance and elongated vowels that remind me of… well, Drake. The lazy, well-known sample with lazy trap-adjacent drums, it’s a Drake thing to do, the sing-rapping about vague pettiness directed towards no-one in particular (massive asterisk applied), it’s a Drake thing to do, as is the terrible mixing where you can tell obviously where SZA punched in a vocal and Kendrick’s ugly ramble about “conservative girls” and their sexual activity, followed by some flubbed rhymes in his half-baked outro. There’s so much space left here and “filled in” by aimless bars or dragged-out delivery, and given how much of the track is effortless, unrelatable flexing and posturing towards someone who doesn’t even pose a threat, there’s only so much of SZA asking what “chat” thinks before I can say that this is dreadful and reflects badly on the attempted victory lap Kendrick had me fully on board for in GNX. This seems like a complete misunderstanding of everything that made Kendrick win that battle and I think partly due to the influence of those who wish to play both sides. This is trash, it shouldn’t have been cleared for release – that sample couldn’t have been cheap enough to waste on this.

#66 – “Bug” – Fontaines D.C.

Produced by James Ford

Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. had a great year with their album release in 2024, and residue from that success seeps into the next year as a cut that previously spent some time below the top 75 rushes back in after the Christmas freeze. I’m overall mixed to positive on what I’ve heard from them – still didn’t check out the full Romance album, sorry – so I didn’t really know what I should expect. I was met with a dusty post-punk jangle that drummer Tom Coll said was an easy jam with everyone in the studio, and I believe it because this is a very focused song you could imagine comes from a simple, back-to-basics studio session, though with some very professional guitar and vocal mixing that adds that extra level of detail, particularly that wiry fuzz in the second verse and the backing vocals behind singer Grian Chatten that aren’t that much of a presence, but provide a great favour to the content which could otherwise seem self-absorbed and whiny. After what appears to be a breakup, with Chatten functioning as a miserable, envious lurker who feels wronged by his ex-partner doing very well without him, he’s still somewhat obsessed with her, like a parasite linking on his brain that he can’t help but maintain some probably unwarranted contempt for. There’s a sense of holier-than-thou delusion that feels like the middle point between lying to yourself and genuinely moving on that pokes through the song, especially in the repeated conceit of being “higher than anyone here”, and in a concise three minutes, Fontaines point towards an arc rather than seeing it through. A very misty and temporal track, especially with all the reverb, but a surprisingly straight-forward one at that, this might be my favourite so far, no pun intended. Maybe I do need to listen to these guys, I do become more impressed and intrigued each time, even if the grand scheme of the genre and scene, this isn’t pushing many boundaries. It’s just a damn good story told in a great indie rock song, not often you get that in the charts outside of Sam Fender. Can’t complain about this one at all.

#63 – “Push the Tempo” – Sub Focus and Katy B

Produced by Sub Focus and Punctual

Katy B, long time – no see. An English singer known for EDM hits in the early 2010s, she was heavily associated with mainstream dubstep from that era and produced plenty of hits with her as a vocalist, though surprisingly hadn’t been picked up for a drum and bass revival track yet in the 2020s, which seemed like a missed opportunity until the pretty excellent producer Sub Focus comes along with Katy B’s first charting track since 2016. Much like a lot of successful production from this new set of drum and bass tracks, the jump-up groove is the eventual result of a slow, atmospheric ascent that Katy B doesn’t fully fit into with her vocals not as manipulated as they probably should be. Sure, it may sound human, but she isn’t the the beyond-Earth diva or anonymous wispy presence that she could be, finding a middle-ground that leaves some inflections a bit awkward but adds a welcome human touch to the build-up. The track fizzes into a simple piano hardcore line that soon encompasses all the tropes you’d expect, before the title drop and the expected sparks from the bass plummeting in. I’m a sucker for this genre, it’ll pretty much always work for me, but Sub Focus isn’t on autopilot here with the slides and really grimy sound design that pushes that fuzzy synth bass right back into Katy B’s territory alongside her echoed fragments of vocal that take up a lot of space in the mix during that second verse, it’s really overwhelming and euphoric. I wish the second drop was a bit less copy-paste, especially given the lyrics about losing control and pushing the tempo – I know you don’t want to ruin a club track by being too on-the-nose, but if it’s well-done, a shift in pace or a flip into some hardstyle patterns here could have made it even more exciting… though maybe that’s just because Sub Focus did do this on the absolutely killer “Ready to Fly” with Dimension, which I still find just as much joy in now as I did on release. Yet again, Sub Focus brings a detailed drum and bass track with a few less surprises this time but an attention to detail that’s never left, and most importantly, it’s incredibly fun to listen to and write about. I know most people who read this are here for the pop and rap songs high in the chart, or the novelty memes that end up here (more on that in a bit), but these middling EDM debuts are absolutely my favourite reviews to write. Sound design is beautiful, the songs are often wonderful, and I never truly know exactly what to expect.

#59 – “Peggy” – Ceechynaa

Produced by Extendo Beats and Rupa Beats

On social media, I tend to stay in whatever echo chamber the algorithm decides for me, especially given how relatively private I am on my personal, non-cactus accounts. Hence, I thought nothing of the woman parading around London in an outfit that’s ought to be cold that I saw reposted constantly on X – my interest in pop music leads me down Stan Twitter rabbitholes I’m too old and normal for at this point, and I figured this was one of their underground faves, so much so I never even turned the volume on when I saw that video pop up time and time again. Turns out it’s charting! Also turns out the beat isn’t very good, kind of a lazy Jersey drill track with a menacing choral loop that does not fit the playfulness of these bars at all. Ceechynaa literally name-drops Phineas from Phineas and Ferb, why is it this aggressive of a beat? To be fair, there’s definitely a violent sexuality to this, treating men with as little respect as possible, especially in the bed, and I do understand the appeal, especially with her distinct vocal delivery. The lyrics are clunky as Hell, though, made for memes, pop culture references and reactions rather than an actually worthwhile song, with that “outro” and the aborted structure of the song overall making it evident where the priorities of it lie. That’s fine, novelties have always been charting, I just think there is some potential and untapped market in this, especially in UK drill, that might leave a track like this looking a bit lacklustre very soon if this is allowed to take off the way it seems primed to be.

#58 – “Filthy Rich” – Ella Henderson

Produced by Nicolas Rebscher and Sean Cook

Sure, Ella Henderson – somehow on my favourite hit song of 2023 and my second least favourite of 2024, Henderson rarely provokes emotion from me herself, it’s usually a combination of writing and production ideas whilst she acts sort of like a blank canvas, which can be promising given how many EDM hits she’s played a part in. What interested me, however, were the producers here. Rebscher has worked with AURORA and Alice Merton, and Cook with cats like Shaboozey and Hozier, so this at least won’t be something we’ve heard before from her. My head was swirling between “interesting attempt at branching her sound” and “cheap, pathetic stomp-clap rip-off”. Then I heard this dance-pop singer from Lincolnshire talk about her “momma” over a country banjo, mentioning “Georgia” – a ride-or-die friend that would double as the state if this was, say, Megan Moroney, but loses all of that extra detail with this kind of singer, who has never shown any interest in this sound or even lyrical content before. Since when was the house diva who sings about love on club tracks by David Guetta and Joel Corry going to release a track about allegedly not needing money to be “filthy rich”? Not only is there nothing filthy about this song’s production, there’s nothing authentic about it and whilst I love when singers play characters, this is so plainly a ploy produced for a petty part of the pie and it’s pure nonsense. It’s not your friends and family back home in the “sticks” that are preventing you from being a “broke-ass bitch” (seriously in the chorus!), Ms. Henderson, it’s the track you made with Rudimental sampling the deceased Coolio’s biggest hit for streaming points and sucking away all the context that makes it powerful for vapidity. How’s that for “filthy rich”, ma’am? Go back to performing for Tories, I’m sure Kemi Badenoch is itching for anything to take away from Reform’s share of the vote right now – Hell, Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson may have a more convincing grift on their hands than whatever this shit is. Get this the fuck out of here before people buy into it.

#46 – “Indigo” – Sam Barber featuring Avery Anna

Produced by Joe Becker

Over the winter, this previously mildly successful country singer Sam Barber broke out with a viral duet featuring an even less well-known country singer, Avery Anna, and whilst it seems out of nowhere, this kind of relatively independent country or folk song going viral the way a rap or dance song would seems very normal in 2025. It’s a double-edged sword: we get inauthentic wagon hopping like the song above us, but also, we often get a much more sincere track that charts above them. Sure, you have your commercial tracks from Myles Smith, but Noah Kahan and Shaboozey are some of the biggest names in British pop music alongside guys like Sam Fender who are on the outskirts and helped blossom this new trend, which I mostly welcome with open arms because it seems to reflect pop music listeners desiring something more human. That’s exactly what “Indigo” is, a pretty depressing cut about the colours of Barber’s life fading away from him over solemn pianos and an acoustic guitar rollick that distracts from the slower elements of the track in a unique way, so it never finds a confident footing on a groove. The song’s lost, questioning God’s plan, and even when the typical organic country drums come in for the chorus, it remains a drunken bar-stool swing to it, with a chemistry between Avery Anna’s more expressive vocal and Barber’s drooping old dog voice that reminds me of Zach Bryan’s duets. There are hints towards a breakup between the two narrators having kickstarted this period of depression, but I more so interpreted the song as about losing yourself, with Anna seeking a higher power based on her own optimism that someone still cares up there, and Barber dragging that hope through the mud like a foregone conclusion. The piano solo and its staggered build-up genuinely gave me goosebumps, and the mix is dynamic enough to accommodate that crash into the final chorus – Anna sounds like a Goddamn star on this, by the way, if I’m hedging my bets on 2025, it’s her as she’s got a traditional rasp and grit to her that goes beyond smoky indie girl voice into something really raw and beautiful. I feel like with age, I’m becoming even more in tune with my dad’s affection for sappy ballads, this hit me kind of like a truck. In a perfect world, this sees an “I Remember Everything” run – it may sacrifice that song’s lyrical and anecdotal detail but for a melodramatic arrangement that resonates with me just as much. I couldn’t recommend this more.

#44 – “BMF” – SZA

Produced by Carter Lang, Blake Slatkin and Omer Fedi

And we end with our second cut from LANA, and sadly still not one of my favourites – “Kitchen” and “Love Me 4 Me” are my picks from the new crop of songs. This doesn’t mean “BMF”, originally titled “The Boy from South Detroit” and intended to feature Lizzo (glad that didn’t pan out), is bad though – far from it. It’s definitely safe, with a guitar pluck fully in the realm of its producers Slatkin and Fedi, not doing anything to separate this from a prior work from them outside of the “Girl from Ipanema” interpolation. That’s already an oft-implemented song, whether it be samples, covers or reinterpretations – the original peaked at #29 in 1964 – so there’s little to find that’s all too new about this song, which is completely what you’d expect! It’s practically a compilation of glossed-up demos or ideas stretched out into deluxe tracks, so the fact that SZA is clear on most of this (there are definitely some watery or mumbling moments) and the lyrics are generally charming, describing this bad boy type and how she can be a ride-or-die partner, but it’s still just a fluttery indie pop-adjacent bedroom shuffle with stock drums, pleasant but empty sound design and a performance that has its peaks and troughs. The song even fades out by the end and that feels like a signifier that the song just wasn’t there, wasn’t developed beyond a cute idea. With a unique arrangement or even just better production, it could work, but there’s not enough to compel me here, and I find the dents in the construction of the track a lot more distracting when vibes and a perky hook are pretty much all it has.

Conclusion

Well, that was a long one, apologies for the wait, but also an important episode because this sets the stage for the next year of popular music. We also get some really obvious standouts for the best and worst. Best of the Week – feels like ages since I’ve given this out – goes to Sam Barber and Avery Anna for “Indigo”, with a very respectful tied Honourable Mention to “Push the Tempo” by Sub Focus and Katy B, and “Bug” by Fontaines D.C., both songs that stop at great and don’t reach the outstanding levels they could – in Sub Focus’ case, it doesn’t, and for Fontaines, it probably shouldn’t. Worst of the Week was torn between two very ugly tracks, but I think Ella Henderson takes this because wow, that sure is one way to provoke emotion from me for the first time in your decade-long career, “Filthy Rich” is just remarkably terrible. SZA and Kendrick Lamar do get the Dishonourable Mention, mostly out of the lazy instrumental but their insufferable yapping on “30 for 30” doesn’t do them any favours. Next week, the Stateside charts’ll be shook up by Bad Bunny and Morgan Wallen, but for us, it may be a quieter time. I’ll regret saying that on Friday, I’m sure. For now, thank you for reading, here’s to a good 2025, long live Cola Boyy, and remember…. I’ll see you next week.

#pop music #song review #uk singles chart #sza #kendrick lamar #lana sza #ella henderson #sam barber #avery anna #indigo #fontaines d.c.#sub focus #katy b #ceechynaa

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deadcactuswalking · 1 year ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 20/01/2024 (Ariana Grande, 21 Savage's american dream, D-Block Europe)

The story of this week is… well, there are a lot of stories, and the moral of nearly all of them is: don’t get your hopes up. Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” has halted a certain someone off the top spot, and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we swiftly ignore you-know who and instead spend a little time on the notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75, which is what I cover (read the FAQ), after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. As one would expect, there’s quite a lot of movement this week so we do have a hefty list, bidding farewell to… “Just Another Rainbow” by Liam Gallagher and John Squire after just one week at #16, “Entrapreneur” by Central Cee, “You’re Losing Me” (From the Vault) by Taylor Swift getting three-song-ruled out and exchanged for another Taylor song, and then “Standing Next to You” by Jung Kook, “Murdaside” by Mazza_l20 and friends, “First Person Shooter” by Drake featuring J. Cole, “adore u” by Fred again.. and Obongjayar, “Daylight” by David Kushner, “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus and the Selena Gomez-assisted “Calm Down” by Rema. Yeah, some massive losses this week, it really is ushering in the 2024 hit parade this quickly

As for our notable gains, well, we see a return for “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift at #69 due to the swap I talked about earlier - it really isn’t a good trade-off in my opinion. Aside from that, there are boosts for “Black Friday” by Tom Odell at #31 which I can’t complain about, and same goes for “Never Lose Me” by Flo Milli at #24. I will complain about “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield at #18, but that brings us neatly to our top five, where we have Teddy Swims fly in at #5 with “Lose Control”, followed by familiar faces, “Lovin’ on Me” by Jack Harlow at #4 and “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor at #3, and then, despite multiple versions and a music video, Noah Kahan fended off Ariana Grande’s comeback single “yes, and?”, stalling out narrowly at #2. It’s fully the season of the sticks, and also the season of 11 Goddamn song reviews, some of which were expected and don’t give me much to say, or much that I want to say, and some that just came out of thin air. I guess let’s just get this party started.

New Entries

#73 - “Scared to Start” - Michael Marcagi

Produced by David Baron

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Who the Hell is This Guy? So, Mr. Marcagi started out as the lead singer for non-starter indie rock band The Heavy Hours, before the release of two very recent and very obviously trend-chasing solo singer-songwriter singles. This is the second of them, and seems to have been his breakout and yeah, I suppose we have Noah Kahan at home. The song is overall about a youthful relationship that gets them into undetailed recklessness and escapism, particularly getting away from a small boring town into being on-the-road nomads, without much care for where the future actually takes them. I like the heartland rock pianos and the tried-and-true drop into half-time for the second chorus, though by the time he does it again in the final chorus, I mostly wish he just picked up the pace as the momentum needs to accelerate from there if it’s such a carpe diem track, it feels like a missed opportunity to really go hard at the final hustle, like Kahan would do. As a whole, it’s really not that difficult to see why this is here or even why people could love it, but I feel like it needed more refining to truly make it worthwhile.

#63 - “Praise Jah in the Moonlight” - YG Marley

Produced by Lauryn Hill, YG Marley and JohnnyG

When I say everything will chart in January, I mean everything. This is one of Bob Marley’s many grandchildren, and yes, that is the Lauryn Hill you’re thinking of. She married into the Marleys, this is her son, she co-produced and co-wrote the song, which additionally samples the original Marley’s “Crisis”, a 1978 track with the Wailers, an uplifiting song about living it up through crisis, staying aware of tragedy but taking time to yourself to allow for fun to be had, peace to be found. I like the song a lot, but it was an album track and hence never charted until it was sampled on this newer song from late last year, which - this is not the first time this week we’ll see this either - turns the otherwise conscious track into a love ballad, but sonically, it’s incredibly faithful, even down to the liquidy reggae groove and charming background singers. Sadly, YG does not have the presence of his grandfather, sounding mostly like a nervous, Auto-Tuned child stumbling onto the school talent show, but that’s also partly due to the mix crushing his nasal croon a bit, it feels smashed in between different elements of the mix instead of resting carefreely in it like Bob would. I do actually appreciate the shift in content for the second verse, which I can only assume was written by Ms. Lauryn Hill considering its cynical, conscious stabs at soul-taking and standing your ground. In fact, I actually like this song quite a lot - whilst it starts off as a love ballad, it ends up using more of an appreciative worship angle that fits much better with the lax, improvisational performance, especially once Lauryn comes in for the outro, it’s just nice to hear her singing again, to be honest. The guitars are also surprisingly sludgy by the end, it feels, fitting the mix’s general vibe, which makes it feel a tad sinister or at least defiant, which makes the sample flip - or really, recreation - a lot more sensible. So, yeah, I think this turns around to actually being quite good, if not great? I guess you can’t go wrong when you just plod in that classic Bob Marley tune as a loop for so long and get Lauryn Hill to do backup, I mean, it really does not seem like you can go wrong placing those two together on a track, albeit posthumously. I know it’s never coming but part of me wants to at least hope this may mean we get, if not a solo album, a wider array of collaborations from Lauryn Hill in the future.

#61 - “No Man’s Land” - Marshmello and venbee

Produced by Marshmello, Digital Farm Animals and Earwulf

To be completely honest, I thought Marshmello’s time in the Sun was over. He’s been latching onto Fuerza Regida and Latin music overall Stateside, so I figured his hit-making days could be far behind him, yet here he is without a reggaetónero or corrida band, and instead venbee, who has yet to really replicate the success of “messy in heaven”, but maybe this will be a winning combination and not another desperate last-minute attempt by Marshmello to find a final niche before the spark dies completely. Surely by now, you know where this is going. Mr. Mello even got Digital Farm Animals to co-write and produce so there really is a distant scent of imminent failure written into this one. That’s not to say the song isn’t good because, well, despite all my cynicism, it’s a damn good track, I actually really love this one. It has all the 2018 plastic tropical flavour but due to going for a faster-paced drum and bass rolick and surprisingly compressed and gross-sounding mix on venbee’s vocals, it doesn’t have any of the effortless sheen and instead sounds a bit rough around the edges, with even the little intricate details in that second verse sounding a bit out of place. That lines up pretty perfectly with venbee’s self-loathing that she feels has buried her into an isolation that she can’t really handle considering how much she hates that cycle. Now I don’t think this’ll be a hit: it sounds like something that could be a sleeper success, but by the time it would get much traction, the song is rather too depressive to be dropped into a Summer EDM mix, and honestly, we have no track record for venbee in terms of any consistent success, and it’s not like Marshmello is a pull anymore. So whilst I actually think this is brilliant, I would have to say to Marshmello: Maybe don’t get your hopes up.

#59 - “J CHRIST” - Lil Nas X

Produced by Omer Fedi, Gesaffelstein and Lil Nas X

“The biggest comeback” since Jesus and he couldn’t even break top 50? In this chart climate? In this economy? I did see a lot of social media disillusionment with Lil Nas’ religious angle, none of which I agreed with because really, it’s only his second time doing so and who decided that artists suddenly couldn’t use themes in their music? Yet that may explain the lack of success out of the gate for… “J CHRIST” - God, what a terrible song title - and I can’t say it’s unfortunate, this song is terrible, and not in an honest-sounding way either. LNX has never sounded more bored and typical, going for a vocal take that doesn’t even fully sound like him, as if he was pitched up in post, and the lyrics seem absolutely unfinished if not unchanged from a mumbling reference track. Even the catchy hook is pretty gimmicky with the “high note”, and the second verse just repeats itself sloppily over this piano-based trap beat, that doesn’t really go anywhere at all. In fact, if left on its own, one could consider this a bit of a feat: gawk in awe at Lil Nas X trying and failing to inject life into an amateur YouTube remake of “HUMBLE.” made by a guy with 12 subscribers! Yet due to the promising, alien outro from Gesaffelstein, we know that more effort could have been put into this to make it much more unique and refreshing, and his springy synth bounce lingers throughout the rest of the track, especially that pre-chorus, as a tease for something to come, which would be promising if that “something to come” wasn’t the absolute lowest barrier of entry for decent music: being interesting. Again, don’t get your hopes up.

#46 - “Alibi” - Ella Henderson featuring Rudimental

Produced by Aidan Glover, Cliff Masterson, Rudimental and Punctual

It is with the deepest of sighs that I say the late Coolio’s iconic Dangerous Minds soundtrack cut “Gangsta’s Paradise”, that has long outlasted its film companion, debuted at #1 upon release in 1995 and stayed there for two weeks total, and has returned intermittently to the UK Singles Chart since 2009 due to just how great of a song it is, a timeless Stevie Wonder flip with L.V. on the chorus and some of the most harrowing yet accessible conscious verses that have ever appeared on a chart hit. Ella Henderson, we are not doing this. Why Rudimental decided to credit themselves onto this… thing they barely produced is beyond me, because this is a worthless parody of the original, a dead-on-arrival concept with little respect for its source material… but that makes it sound cool, doesn’t it? It makes it sound risky, like it’s trying new things, when in reality, that’s far from the case. Ms. Henderson copies inflections and melodies directly from L.V., who already took them from Stevie, and replaces the lyrics with meaningless relationship platitudes. The beat is stock drum and bass, the main lead sample is from the most famous and memed part of the song. This kind of song makes me question whether I can even consider it art at all because what human aspect could have possibly been involved in this? Ella’s singing, sure, but not only are the vocals touched-up in post, it’s not like she or her choir care all too much about emoting these lyrics, and they really shouldn’t. Sure, a human - or several, according to the credits - programmed this song, but would you really be surprised if it was done algorithmically based on a TikTok search of the original song? I love sampling, it’s possibly the most interesting thing about popular music past the 1990s, but some reinventions are little more than fleeting insults at artists not alive to repel them. The man rejected Weird Al’s parody and even after he’d lightened up about that, I have serious doubt he would sign off on this garbage. May he rest in peace - I personally really love his other single “Fantastic Voyage”, maybe even more than “Gangsta’s Paradise”, and I’ll always remember his voice performance as the Kwanzaabot in Futurama. This? I’m trying not to remember it. Hopefully the UK can realise this for its cheap distasteful novelty and leave it buried in the dregs of Spotify where it belongs.

#42 - “Heather on the Hill” - Nathan Evans

Produced by Alan Jukes and Stevie Jukes

I’m… genuinely surprised Nathan Evans is still popping up, especially with a song like this. The title may be referring to the song of the same name in the 1947 musical Brigadoon, set in the Scottish Highlands, perhaps most well known in its version by Grace Kelly. Now that is a beautiful composition with a surprisingly frail performance in the verses that really gives a lot of lackadaisical charm to the track, even if I’ve never even heard of the musical before. This track by everyone’s favourite sea-shantier has nothing to do with that song. The traditional Scottish folk strings may interpolate the original slightly but this is a pop song through and through, with Lewis Capaldi-esque vocal and guitar production, it’s all compressed and staccato and aimless but at least you can tell Evans is Scottish given all the references which would seem tacky if there weren’t just so many of them, and Hell, I’m not Scottish, I can’t judge how a Scotsman expresses his Scottishness. There is a great dramatic charm in the absolute joyfulness this seems to at least want to display, especially with the Scottish folk chaos in the back of the mix and Evans just giving it all he can. In fact, I kind of love this: it’s an adorable love song that ends very abruptly for no good reason, is littered with little Scottish lyrical details, and whilst it doesn’t hit the same as the song from the musical, it’s going for an entirely different vibe: one of folkish lovestruckness and awe, admiration. This feels like a first crush, if my first crush was from Orkney. She wasn’t, of course, but I can dream; both songs I discovered from this entry I appreciate in largely different ways but are pretty admirable all the same.

#27 - “n.h.i.e.” - 21 Savage and Doja Cat

Produced by Kurtis McKenzie, Scribz Riley, Jonah and Nineteen85

Okay, so 21 Savage released a new album, american dream, last Friday, and it debuts at #2 on the UK albums chart, with three new songs debuting here because the entire album was new material, and quite frankly, next to none of it fit the concept of the album, and that includes pretty much everything we have here. It’s really frustrating when ambition, especially conceptual ambition, seems to be promised and whilst the product itself is completely fine, serviceable and in the case of this 21 album, frankly quite good, it does not abide by the ideas that were presented in, say, the introduction, the soundtrack connection, how 21’s mother appears on both the opener and closer to speak frankly about her experiences and how they relate to her son’s, especially in regards to travelling from London to the US. Given that 21’s finally gained US residency and this seemed like his way of commemorating his escape from the confusing citizenship debacle, wherein he can be proud of both his British and American heritage, I was quite disappointed when it was 90% a typical rap album with soul samples, trap beats, flexing on haters, having sex with women, killing people in comical detail and even having a second half largely consisting of R&B just for the ladies, I suppose. With all that, like I said, I enjoyed the album! 21 is a lyrically and vocally quite fun presence nowadays, and the production was incredibly cohesive in its sound despite trying out some different rhythms and vibes throughout. It is, by all means, a good 21 Savage album, but if you’re hoping for more than that, again, don’t get your hopes up. As for the tracks that debuted, they are by far the least interesting and actually some of my least favourites. This one has an eerie guitar lick but also Doja Cat all over the track just whispering and distractingly so, with 21 kind of on autopilot, even if his short verse is pretty good. Doja is doing the whole quirked-up not-a-rapper schtick with the “ad-lib!” ad-lib and basic flow accentuated by again, those multi-tracked whispers and outright refusal to write a verse of considerable length. It’s just lazy on mostly her part but pretty much everyone else as well, there’s little to care for here.

#23 - “née-nah” - 21 Savage, Travis Scott and Metro Boomin

Produced by Metro Boomin

Why is the song called that? Anyway, this is my least favourite track easily. You have a straight minute of Travis wasting my time - without the Auto-Tune, without the spacey production, without the atmospheric concepts and ambition, who even IS this guy, really, other than an unconvincing cornball who never decides on a solid flow and fills up time with ad-libs, including some weird Westside Gunn riffing this time around? Also, considering how much time he’s spent with Kanye, I’m getting slightly worried to who this villainous “they” he’s referring to in this verse all the time might actually be, he’s been oddly defensive and conspiratory since UTOPIA at least. This is a completely serviceable Metro beat, though it actually gets kind of hard on the ears midway through due to that shrill sample that doesn’t really have much to blend with when the chopped, vintage sample isn’t present. It’s a shame that the rest of the track is pretty much garbage because 21 delivers some of his most violently funny and out-of-pocket verses on this whole album, with a cold-as-Hell chorus and lines about Virgil Abloh and Usher that hit pretty hard as punchlines. Again, a shame it’s all placed here on what was for everyone else, a throwaway track.

#19 - “Eagle” - D-Block Europe and Noizy

Produced by Da Beatfreakz

DBE sold like 10 million USB sticks or something, their album is #1 yet here’s their sole track in the top 75. Now this is the kind of so-bad-it’s-enjoyable DBE I like to hear, with Beatfreakz on production, an unusually long, minimal intro, an array of deranged ad-libs, terrible Auto-Tune, Young Adz stammering helplessly and not understanding how disparate some of the consecutive lyrics are from each other. He barely sticks to a coherent flow and starts the chorus with declaring that he thinks he’s Albanian, but he doesn’t enunciate so it sounds like he just calls himself the country of Albania. We even have Dirtbike Lb going for a verse that completely washes whatever Youthful Advertisement was doing, he actually kind of kills his verse, it’s impressive. The flow switch is much clearer and well-done than whatever Adz tries his hand at, his slurring and naturally slow, droning delivery is used to its best extent here. Oh, and like half the song belongs to this one extended verse from an actual Albanian rapper, Noizy, who goes in… I think? He says near the end, “I’m Albanian, you’re not supposed to like me” and I really don’t know what to make of that, or this song in general, it’s kind of a fascinating mess with some genuine flow highlights but mostly just bizarre choices. In that regard, classic DBE.

#11 - “redrum” - 21 Savage

Produced by London on da Track and Peeb

My favourite track from this album is “see the real”, a sassy, witty and dismissive hyphy-esque bop that inflects a lot of melody into 21’s sound but not enough to dissuade you from his cold demeanour. Some of my other favourite tracks include the sincere PSA “dark days”, the needlessly catchy R&B track “should’ve wore a bonnet” and yeah, “redrum” has none of what I just described. It’s pure violence, it got the music video set in London, so here it is, with its Italian classical music sample in the intro that just eventually forms into a menacing, unchanging loop. It sounds great, but with the caveat that it also just sounds like that the whole time. If 21 weren’t generally an incredibly compelling and more importantly convincing presence as a killer on the mic, this would be a pretty unimpressive beat, so it really shows how much better an instrumental can sound when the right pocket’s found, and for 21, who is on his A-game punchline and ad-lib wise on this track, it seems almost effortless. I’ve obviously not got much else to say about this song or the album as a whole, but I do think it’s a shame that its most unique and enlightening moments didn’t make their way to the charts, or that they were so few and far between to begin with. Hey, at least we didn’t get any shreds of that terrible Kid Cudi project, right? Sheesh.

#2 - “yes, and?” - Ariana Grande

Produced by Ariana Grande, Max Martin and ILYA

It’s fine. I know it’s the big story of the week but there’s nothing too celebratory, triumphant, badass or even interesting about this comeback single from Ariana, that clearly goes for an attitude it couldn’t fully commit to, given the cheaper-than-usual sounding vocaloid chop behind the diva house pianos and a cooing that sems to miss the point of its own genre. Lyrically, it’s self-motivation but I mean, we have “BREAK MY SOUL”, and the genuinely experimental and explorative RENAISSANCE from just two years ago, we really don’t need a lacklustre Ariana Grande rendition of this genre, especially when she’s completely phoning it in. She’s not someone who’s meant to chant mantras, that’s not the kind of loose, parading singer she is, it’s why she never worked on trap beats. The spoken word bridge is pitched-up - because sure, Ariana needs pitching up of all singers - and practically egregious: going for the censor during the Ethan Slater-related line is exactly the “serve” it was intended to be, given that it’s the one time the song actually feels like it exists, but it also just drills this hole further that Ari cannot sell this at all, and should absolutely not be trying to when the audience, even if invested in the “I’m fucking the SpongeBob guy” drama, cannot find themselves motivated by because, well, last time I checked, the only other person fucking the SpongeBob guy was the mother of his child. If someone can point me to the passion and empowerment in this song and its seven other versions instead of a lingering tinge of desperate acting-out, please do, because every listen just leaves an even sourer note in my mouth. Ugh, let’s move on.

Conclusion

I actually did not dislike “yes, and?” before writing this episode, but several listens and caring to look at the lyrics more have really prevented me from enjoying it the way I wanted to so, yes, it will get the Dishonourable Mention, with the Worst of the Week being so obvious I really don’t have to say it, do I? Best of the Week goes to Marshmello and venbee for “No Man’s Land” with an Honourable Mention to Nathan Evans of all people with “Heather on the Hill” and I suppose that’s it. It was a bit of a long ordeal this week, but thank you for reading, see you… a bit earlier than next Friday, I think, but still, next week.

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