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deadcactuswalking · 4 months

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 08/06/2024 (Eminem's "Houdini", Fred again../Anderson .Paak/CHIKA, Chappell Roan)

It’s been over two decades for Eminem and his new lead single is still debuting at #1 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming his 11th overall. It’s stupid as all Hell, but it might be worth to have some lightening up in the rap world after, well, you know. As for whatever else is charting… well, welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, death, gay sex, uncomfortable age gaps, The Real Slim Shady, transphobia, cancel culture, 70s Italian cinema, RuPaul

Rundown

As always, we start with our notable dropouts - 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 some rap as “Malicious Intentions” by Poser drops out - a shame it couldn’t last or reach the top 40 since I do really like that as a follow-up - as well as Future and Metro Boomin’s work naturally dampening off with “Type Shit” featuring Travis Scott and Playboi Carti, and “Like That” featuring Kendrick Lamar. Our three other notable dropouts, unless I’m missing anything, are older pop hits: “Teenage Dreams” by Katy Perry, “Tears Dry on Their Own” by the late Amy Winehouse and finally, “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac. Again.

As for our notable gains and returns, we see the resurgence of “Without Me” by Eminem, as his newest single actually landed his biggest first-week sales since that track hit #1 back in 2002, according to the Official Charts Company’s article about “Houdini”… and looking at the top 10 it spent one week on top of, yeah, I’m happy Em took that one. That is a rough week, imagine if I was doing this show in 2002. The new song of course makes reference to and interpolates “Without Me”, yet another one of his goofy lead singles that tend to be really fun highlights of any of his albums, but the original is back at #38. Notably, it spent some time at the very bottom of the chart in 2004 and 2022. Oh, and Becky Hill’s #3 album gave “Outside of Love” the chance to re-enter at #73 though none of the deep cuts ended up debuting, which is a bit of a shame.

Then of course, there are some more predictable boosts for songs already on the chart like “on one tonight” and “one of wun” by Gunna at #57 and #30 respectively, “Thank You (Not So Bad)” by people who should know better at #55, “Addicted” by Zerb, The Chainsmokers and Ink at #54, “360” by Charli XCX at #41 - wonder if the Yung Lean and Robyn remix has anything to do with it - “The Door” by Teddy Swims at #28 and finally, “Pink Skies” by Zach Bryan at #25. Most of these are ones I cannot really complain about, good stuff.

As for our top five, we start with pretty much seeing Billie Eilish’s single choice switch in realtime as “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” remains at #5 whilst “LUNCH” falls right below, then we have “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #4 - shame the album didn’t seem to have much of an impact - followed by “BAND4BAND” by Central Cee and Lil Baby at a new peak of #3, “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter dropping off to #2 and of course, with over 100,000 sales, which is a pretty big deal for the UK, Slim Shady at #1 with “Houdini” which we’ll get back to after these messages.

New Entries

#69 - “Carry You Home” - Alex Warren

Produced by Adam Yaron

Okay, I’ll bite: who’s Alex Warren? Well, he’s a young singer-songwriter from California who struggled in childhood due to his parents’ troubles and having to leave home as a teenager, dealing with homelessness for a while, but has channelled that into both a music career and as an Internet personality and YouTube vlogger, which has given him some viral circulation but nothing enough to chart until this year, where after two other tracks bubbling under, he has his breakout new song, “Carry Me Home”, which sticks with me for an interesting reason.

Whilst given that it’s mentioned on his Genius, his Wikipedia and Spotify biographies, and articles by Distractify and Forbes, that his come-up, probably regarded by the more cynical as a “sob story”, is in some way integral to the public image he wishes to portray, it’s clear that it’s embedded in these lyrics as well. One could take them as generic loving platitudes, but the emphasis on a long, going-the-distance relationship that is as passionate in the future as it is in the present, feels very immersed in a guy trying to improve on the example of relationship his parents left him, or really lack thereof given his mother’s addiction and father’s untimely death due to cancer. He mentions not having a place to sleep in the second verse and the song is mostly about marriage, mentioning his mind being on his mother when he says “I do”, bringing that joy of a “traditional” relationship and wedding to a family he never really got the “perfect” version of. Lyrically, I really like these notions, yet I don’t find much to be inspired by in musical execution. The reverb-drenched vocals in the pre-chorus are distracting and he doesn’t have the most unique voice in the world, and the sequencing overall is a bit wonky: there’s very little effective build-up into the stomp-clap frolick of the sing-a-long chorus. Additionally, it just feels a bit rote in its choice of vocal melodies and musical elements, like a factorial way of constructing this kind of song, which sucks considering how personal the lyrics are to him. I’m sure this means more to long-time fans of him, but on a sonic level, I’m not really feeling it at all. Sorry.

#68 - “Red Wine Supernova” - Chappell Roan

Produced by Dan Nigro, Noah Conrad and Lixa

Whilst “Good Luck, Babe!” was the breakout hit for Chappell Roan, it was a new release that took advantage of existing hype solidied from existing releases, particularly on her album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess which is an album revolving around an overexaggerated pop persona whilst also heavily including narratives surrounding her own identity as a queer woman. More LGBT-related concept albums about famous people are coming on this chart week and it’s just funny that I can say that over-specific thing happens not once but twice in these debuts... and I’m not sure she’d like the comparison. Regardless, her two songs that have been bubbling under for a long time are now in the top 75, acting as some of the strongest singles from that album - commercially, at least, I have yet to listen to it in full - that helped prep the fanbase and now general audience for the sleeper smash that was to come.

I was excited when I heard the jangly guitars mixed with Roan’s almost cabaret voice on the intro to “Red Wine Supernova”, before the synth bloops came in almost immediately and whilst the buzzing clash of the two elements later in the track is compelling, it does really disappoint me when a song crashes into synthpop pastiche like that. This is a song about particularly passionate and envigorating lesbian sex, so the dissonance of the somewhat static, distorted electro-rock groove with the point of blissful, organic euphoria in the chorus shouldn’t be that difficult of a metaphor to figure out. The cute back-and-forths in the verses are pretty funny, the pre-chorus is maddeningly catchy… but I still don’t vibe with the main momentum of the song, it feels predictable past its main trick and once you’ve heard that first chorus, her pre-empting the drums coming in during that moment with a goofy ad-lib just feels extraneous the second time, and I really don’t like how the drums mesh with it anyway, it feels too… obvious, I guess. And much like “Good Luck, Babe!”, there’s a disruptive bridge but this one isn’t narratively disrupting, going for a bit of a disco-rap pivot that is equally reminiscent of the “Shake it Off” cringe as it is the natural fall into faster and sassier vocal deliveries you can hear in a surprising amount of queercore and riot grrl punk. One of my favourite examples is the back-and-forth between the vocalists on Team Dresch’s “Yes I Am Too, But Who Am I Really?”, where the two topics of expressing yourself amidst discrimination and being submissive in the bedroom intertwine chaotically and playfully but really make you think about sex’s place in queer identity, whilst also just having a fascinating relationship between the song’s groove and where the words are placed. Chappell Roan’s bridge goes for a similar idea and is just as effective, it’s just that the surrounding sonics aren’t as dynamic or really just to my taste. I can tell the passion is there, as well as crucially, the honesty, but it might not be reflected within the flashy pop production, which is a shame because unlike “Good Luck, Babe!”, the pieces are here for me to love this.

#61 - “She’s Gone, Dance On” - Disclosure

Produced by Guy Lawrence and Howard Lawrence

There are quite a few dance tracks to get through this week, and from many familiar faces, some less familiar than others, some less frequent chart fixtures, some more respected figures, but still a good deal of EDM debuted this week, probably due to it being slower in general and we start with wonky house duo Disclosure, who I generally like. This track has a somewhat peculiar choice of sample: “Dance On” by Italian composer Ennio Morricone, from the 1978 film Così come sei, or Stay as You Are in English. A European erotic romance drama with “ravishing” performances and songs like “Dance On” as the soundtrack, which is a killer slice of slightly dissonant-feeling disco, having a falsetto chant sharing space with synth freakouts but in a call-and-response format that is both fascinating and renders the track tense and almost instrumental, this seems like the kind of film I would consider a guilty pleasure. The lead actress, Natassja Kinski, who was… 17 at the time? Doing nude scenes with a guy in his mid-50s? And she now regrets this film entirely, disapproving of her scenes and saying she wouldn’t let her daughter do it? Okay, well, firstly, I shouldn’t have expected anything less from 70s continental Europe art films, but also, abort, abort, mission abort, let’s not think about the sample’s origins any longer.

Regardless of what sketchy film it tracks its way from, it’s a song that seems built for a French house flip, especially due to its extended instrumental breaks, and Disclosure do just that, with some glading tropical guitars, a steady if predictable house groove and an emphasis on bringing some bliss and transcendency out of a vintage, maybe dated-sounding sample, which is something Disclosure have always done when working with similar samples - “Love Can be So Hard” is a brilliant example of this. The added shuffling percussiion makes the moments of synth magic even more relieving, and the level of detail in sound design is expectedly immaculate and crafted to ridiculous degrees: the little moment in the pre-drop where the synth briefly wanks out in a zig-zag style before the beat comes back in fully is such a nice, goofy touch - there’s a lot of goofiness this week - and that bridge / outro with the glitched, screechier synth that gets shut off into a murmur is great. It’s almost weird to talk about a song like this on here - it feels like one of the many future funk songs I’d find randomly on Spotify and jam to them in my own time, never really thinking about how to review them. But I’m not upset it’s here - whilst I understand that my enjoyment of this pries on very specific genre preferences, it’s outstanding in its field, this is excellent stuff.

#59 - “Set My Heart on Fire” (“I’m Alive” x “And the Beat Goes On”) - Majestic, The Jammin Kid and Céline Dion

Produced by Majestic and Lee Tyler

Wow, been a while since we had a mouthful like this on the chart because dear God, what on earth is this? Let’s start with the artists, as that should be easier. Majestic is an English DJ known mostly for his hit remix of Boney M.’s “Rasputin” that I reviewed back in 2021 and thought was just okay, whilst The Jammin Kid is new to the chart, and seemingly new to streaming services entirely as he has no other work on even SoundCloud than just this track and its remix. What he does have, however, is a TikTok following so I think his social media presence may have led to a credit on this track, especially since I tracked down the mashup idea to a TikTok of his with a couple hundred thousand likes wherein he does the typical “pretend to do anything on a mixing board” as he dances around to an obviously pre-programmed mashup of the two tracks in this medley, which is probably not enough for a track on its own so took a cosign from Majestic to get on Spotify, who also probably helped with his connections to get the sample cleared.

The original mashup, available on The Jammin Kid’s SoundCloud, is a pretty straightforward mashup with a few additional production touches but no outright reworking, pairing Canadian legend Céline Dion’s 2002 hit “I’m Alive” with the soul group The Whispers’ 1979 classic “And the Beat Goes On”, their only #1 on the US dance and R&B charts, and one of their biggest hits in general, as it peaked at #2 in the UK in 1980, behind Kenny Rogers’ “Coward of the Country”, and is an iconic, undeniable funk track. If you think you don’t recognise it, listen to those first few measures and have all the memories coming back. Once again, it makes perfect sense for a French house remix. That’s not what The Jammin Kid did though, he placed the vocals of a Céline Dion song from beyond her biggest era and one that didn’t even chart on the US Hot 100. A big worldwide hit, of course, because it’s still Céline Dion, but at least from my experience, not one nearly as remembered as the instrumental he’s being paired with. I also don’t really like the song, frankly, it’s some adult contemporary schmaltz that wastes Dion’s iconic voice. It did peak at #17 in the UK however, whilst Blazin’ Squad’s cover of the Bone Thugs classic “Crossroads” was #1. Similarly to the Whispers, it is built for sampling and actually has a history of being made more upbeat and disco-influenced. A popular remix of the time places the vocal against a soundalike of Blondie's "Heart of Glass".

The mashup itself is fine if kind of lacking in much more of an idea than just “this song works on this song”, which is sometimes all you need, but I definitely prefer the more intricate house remix from Majestic, which phases out its isolated instrumental elements from “And the Beat Goes On” is a very wispy way that absorbs the smoother elements of the original mashup rather than fully reimagining it in sped-up house form, which does help it go down a bit easier considering all the glitz and saccharine nature of mixing two very famous and shimmery songs together. Interestingly, The Jammin Kid is replaced as a producer by industry co-producer and writer, Lee Tyler, which goes to show just how little idea or involvement he had in developing the track any further - it’s not unrecognisable in this form, far from it, but it has such a clearer sole identity from Majestic and Tyler’s reworking. There’s a lot of swell to the gospel choir, disco strings and trickling synth cascade as well as typical French house guitar riffs but it does feel a bit like, well, exactly what it is. TikTok backing music for a guy dancing around in his living room pretending to produce. I do like that a song with this interesting of a story and rabbit hole is charting, as well as it being notable that TikTok mashups if given the right push and clearance, can be successful risks for all companies involved, from the original labels to opportunist scene-familiar DJs, and make hits in themselves. I just don’t think this thesis of a flip is particularly inspiring.

#53 - “HOT TO GO!” - Chappell Roan

Produced by Dan Nigro

I was worried when I started looking into the lyrics of this track and their meaning, because it seems to be all about high school - the chorus is a cheerleader chant, and “HOT TO GO!”’s main conceit is about her school experience, wherein her appearance was dismissed as “pretty”, but not “hot”, with the Chappell persona absorbing the overt sexuality she was never granted during those times. Now, I was worried because of the perhaps bratty nature of the song which definitely is there and I can’t personally relate to much of the teenage melodrama anymore, but this might actually be my favourite of hers so far, mostly because I love this. The blooping new rave synth bop is still less interestingly textured than it should be but its taunting sing-songy loop reflects the almost condescending nature of her treatment as an adolescent, and the twinkling shakers in the chorus bring it to an incessant, mechanical level that I find a fascinating choice. The post-chorus, which should be the moment that feels like a release given its blast of guitars, is still stiff and constricted by its limitations, with the most catharsis coming from Chappell’s vocal outbursts within the verses, which are often just comically honest. She actually got a laugh out of me when she expressed her clear ulterior motives in the second pre-chorus that she made this song so that this girl would sleep with her, connecting the otherwise perhaps disparate themes of this song, which is mostly a dance track, albeit one that ropes in the potential tedium of those genres as a plot device, with that outro being a great way to end off the track; its awkwardness and lack of mutual response from the second party is the kind of skit you see in a 90s or 2000s teen comedy. Perhaps surprisingly, this one ended up being my favourite from the three, but still, I’m not fully convinced on whether that album would be to my taste, I suppose we’ll see if we get more debuting from it or her later works in the future.

#50 - “6 in the Morning” - Flex (UK) featuring Nate Dogg

Produced by Flex (UK) and Doc Funk

Yes, (UK) is in their official Spotify name, and I say “they” because this doesn’t feel like a chart placement for this specific song but more of a phenomenon because oh, boy, there’s a rabbit hole to go on with this one. I don’t actually know where our story starts, but an obscure loosie from the late rapper Nate Dogg was circulating at least as early as 2009, where a popular, unauthorised upload still remains on YouTube. There is artwork on Discogs of this being a physical, non-label, perhaps unauthorised release, but it’s not explicitly dated as far as I can find, so this being described as “new music” in June 2009 is as far as I’m getting. It’s a catchy, twinkly R&B-rap fusion with some uncredited female vocals and a lot of richly-voiced hooks from Nate, who was just the master of those, though the song doesn’t sound fully finished considering the sheer amount of chorus, a bit of an unmoving beat and vocal mixing not as layered as it could be until its meandering outro, but also sounding slightly unfinished was kind of the norm for cheap 2000s pop rap. In 2009, Nate Dogg was suffering from having experienced two strokes the years prior and was largely retired from music as a result, with this record not seeing an official release until long after his death.

After passing in 2011, Nate Dogg naturally fell victim of the pop music indutsry’s exploitation of its deceased, but not nearly as heavily as one would expect from a death that could be placed firmly in the dying moments of rap’s bling era, as hip hop tends to treat posthumous features even less gracefully than other genres. Hell, the only reason “Gangsta Walk” probably didn’t get an immediate posthumous re-release is that it had been on the Internet for a few many years and sadly, Nate Dogg had fallen into irrelevance… until 2016, wherein a remix of his song with 50 Cent, “21 Questions”, went viral on SoundCloud. As Mixmag reports, California producer SNBRN was granted access to an unreleased acapella from Nate Dogg’s estate for him to place a warm, vaguely tropical house beat under, speeding up the track to fit the tempo and placing some nice, yet very typical and now quite dated pianos and horns that fit how this genre really sounded for quite a while there. Whilst not charting, it was a viral enough success that this became retrospectively recognised as the original song, particularly due to reporting that, in my opinion, was misleading and did not do its due diligence in explaining the leak circuit around the track that had existing for nearly a decade at this point. Nonetheless, Genius does not have a page for Nate Dogg’s original and attributes samples of that vocal to the SNBRN track “featuring” Nate Dogg.

There aren’t countless examples but are now plenty of dance tracks using that Nate Dogg vocal, and now that 2010s nostalgia is in the midst, it makes all too much sense that yet another viral hit would be made out of flipping the sample on a house beat, so here comes Flex to do just that with a pretty boring house beat that does sound like a throwback to older garage tracks due to its bass and use of an acapella that’s kind of crusty at this point, ends up having to be drowned in reverb, but that and the wonky synth paired with the vocal make this feel less like a throwback and more just a cheap, dull and frankly lazy attempt at taking what was already a successful flip and throwing it into this producer’s style. Well, as far as I know that it’s his style because he has no other Spotify presence, but I understand that streaming doesn’t reflect club mixes, and this definitely feels like the kind of remix that gets thrown into one of those and promptly forgotten the morning after. The story behind this track’s success is so much more interesting than the song itself that it’s honestly humorous.

#35 - “places to be” - Fred again.., Anderson. Paak and CHIKA

Produced by Fred again.., Skrillex and Boo

A collaboration between Fred again.., Skrillex and Anderson .Paak is like a dream to me. I’m not surprised that it exists given how collaborative all these guys here, but I’m absolutely glad it does and yes, it lives up to all expectations, this is excellent in all the ways you’d expect and then some. Bringing the breezy blue skies of “ten” to the frenetic drum and bass of “leavemealone”, this is such an organic meshing of the styles that feels second nature to Fred again.. at this point, and the overall vibe is a transcendent rush of feelings, borrowing tiny snippets from Alabama rapper CHIKA’s commandeering, kind of sexy poetry and fusing them melodically to create hooks that feel way too obvious to have been reconstructed through samples of spoken word and not just be inherently there in the sample. I don’t know which one of the three it was to form a hook out of a 2017 poetry recording from an underground rapper, probably Fred’s given he’s done it before, but it’s just as cute and catchy as it is thematically fitting to the lifting of worries that this song embodies. The clipped percussion amidst a myriad of pitched-down vocal glitches and a loveable wave of vintage synths, delightfully slightly distorted to push this into a similar vapor feeling as a lot of the other EDM tracks debuting this week, allows this song to feel homegrown despite the big names involved and the disparate sample selections. It’s impressive to have a drum and bass song with this much immediate punch and drive still feel like such an airlift, and the first time I heard it, knowing that it would be special, I was still pretty awestruck by just how beautiful I found this track.

I could swear I’ve heard the pitch-shifted “down” / “I” hook from somewhere, maybe even sampled in another EDM track, but given WhoSampled haven’t found it yet, my immediate thought is just that it’s co-writer BEAM delivering ad-libs that were then implemented as one of the song’s many hooks, alongside the main conceit of the track that CHIKA’s got places to be, and they’re next to her partner for some intimate time. It’s adorable and loving, so when .Paak comes in with his familiar pre-verse child-like shouts of “yeah!”, I knew a special verse was coming. I understand that most chart fans will be familiar with his smooth jams alongside Bruno Mars as part of Silk Sonic, or even his funk and soul solo albums, but he has a pretty storied history of rapping over wonky electronic tracks by acts like KAYTRANADA so he’s not a surprise here and he’s also just a perfect fit. Going for a faster flow than usual, embedding inklings of promising melodies within otherwise rapid bars about just having fun with this girl, .Paak oozes an effortless and carefree charisma, and is fully at home with this subject matter - if you know, you know, the guy just loves women. Same. Anyway, even the lyrical details amidst the quicker, less noticeable parts of his rhyme scheme here, add to the otherworldly atmosphere created, referencing NASA and the fact that, hey, if they put a man on the Moon, the least he can do is make that ass shake, right?

In further choruses, CHIKA’s sampled vocals are warped and flubbered in a way that .Paak’s fuller vocal mix that fill in for, both in harmony and separately, making a song that could narratively feel quite distant due to an original verse being in combination with several samples, fall brilliantly into place. The level of care put into not just the sound design but the thematic, narrative elements of the songwriting that can be involved in what may sound like rote sequencing decisions, may not be unique to Fred again.. and Skrillex but they are masters at this, and .Paak is down to let those visions into reality as he hypes up the CHIKA sample with his ad-libs as if they were recording in a studio together. They literally complete each other’s sentences, it’s gorgeous. So where does it go from that perfect second chorus? It goes through the motions, but hardly in a negative way as it continues to soar further into the skies on the cover art, with a vocal chop from someone who is definitely BEAM panning from left to right and whilst being explicitly stuttered nonsense, somehow makes complete sense when .Paak or CHIKA pre-empt it with “You got that…”. Like, yes, sometimes that loving feeling is completely indescribable, and human relationships can only be expressed in a garbled emotive response, that eventually has to slow down into a rest as the night is over and you both need some sleep. CHIKA’s lines about adjusting her speed slow down and warp into a glitch but it doesn’t feel inhuman, it just feels like the inevitable winding down, and you can tell from the lyric chosen that there’s still a great deal of mutual comfort in that.

I have gone into way too much detail about this, probably, and the next review will be just as frustratingly long, but the care put into tiny little details like a stray chipmunk soul vocal used to transition between parts, a funny YouTube clip from 2020 they picked out and placed in the bridge, it’s all just so endearing and immersive. It’s everything I love about what can be done in this genre when taken to a pop format, and even without, and effortlessly intertwines the story and character of the artists involved to its sonic design. I know it’s only been a week since release but I can confidently say that if it isn’t my favourite song of the year so far, it’s close, and I understand that this is in large part because, well, of course a song like this would be to my taste, but I hope I’ve given more than enough valid reasons for that love not to be misplaced.

#1 - “Houdini” - Eminem

Produced by Luis Resto and Eminem

I am far from the biggest Eminem fan in the world, as is probably well-documented on this blog, but I’m well-informed enough and definitely nostalgic for some of his older material when he took himself less seriously. I knew that eventually he was going to come around fully to the goofy Slim Shady persona - his last album, Music to be Murdered By, was just teeming with dad jokes and “horrorcore” lyrics - but the sheer amount of self-referential humour and surprisingly smooth integration of the character into the modern day seems like both an ambitious project to take on and a cheap take on the nostalgia circuit. Nonetheless, there seems to be a higher concept to this all being the final nail in the coffin for that persona, with this lead single featuring Slim Shady returning by travelling to interact with the modern Eminem and make his typical irreverent comments about pop culture that he would back in the day. Lyrically, whilst it’s not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, he’s really bumped up the surrealism to some of the commentary as to ensure we know that this character should probably die: just full of pointless hatred and cheap dad jokes, but still comes back to pester the game.

The magician conceit doesn’t go very far outside of the cover art or that incessant chorus borrowed from the very prominently sampled “Abracadabra” by San Francisco group the Steve Miller Band, which fits in both the pop climate and Em’s discography as he’s sometimes been one to sample, at his leisure, cheesy choruses in incredibly obvious and corny ways. “Abracadabra” itself peaked at #2 for two weeks here behind Captain Sensible’s equally ridiculous “Happy Talk” and Irene Cara’s “Fame”, with their bigger hit, and only UK #1 being “The Joker”, an actually good song. Whilst I’ve never liked “Abracadabra”, its inclusion here is playful and almost mocking, I feel like Em doesn’t even like the song either, so there’s a snarky nodding of the head to the audience with how gratuitous its use is. As for Em’s flow and lyrics themselves, he has not sounded this smooth in a while and whilst still occasionally choppy, I think that comes from an intention to always be exactly on-beat outside of the funny, sing-songy melodic flow switches, as if you care to look back at Em’s plethora of goofy tracks, whilst a lot of them are just as choppy, he tends to take a more conversational and devil-may-care attitude towards its cadences, and that is somewhat present here but less so than when he was making tracks about shitting, pissing and cumming. I guess you could say that over time, he’s gotten less fluid.

The track even starts with a classic Paul Rosenberg skit where he finally gives up on trying to reel Em in, before he ends up taking shots at Megan Thee Stallion (no pun intended), modern technology, RuPaul, “wokeness” and even Rosenberg himself, and whilst I’m sure some people will take this at face value, not only are these kinds of anti-PC lyrics wherein you’re supposed to know he’s in the wrong Shady’s bread and butter, but they’re 1.) more clever than half of the edgelord memes you see on X nowadays and 2.) very obviously just as dedicated to dissing himself as those he mentions, and some of those people like R. Kelly might deserve the mockery. The Megan Thee Stallion joke is cheap, but part of the joke is that Eminem doesn’t have a chance of a collaboration - a “shot at a/her feat/feet” - in the first place, and when he calls Paul a male cross-dresser, he knows full well that you can look up the “My Band” video and a myriad of others and see Em doing the same. He even dedicates a lot of this song to criticising his previous drug addictions and whilst you may find that even harmless jokes about trans people would still be rough coming from a guy on Em’s level, that argument relies on the idea that anyone is taking the line “My transgender cat’s Siamese, identifies as Black but acts Chinese” as anything more than a throwaway non-sequitur poking fun at the idea that anyone can “act” like a certain race. If this is taken by any commentator from any end of the political spectrum as an attack on wokeness, they’re missing both that Eminem himself is very woke and that the song takes elements of wacky right-wing commentators, bringing them into the Slim Shady persona which would be very in-character for a character who slings around the F-slur, and by connecting them with such degeneracy as Slim, he’s absolutely parodying them. Is this line that far from how Alex Jones thinks the government is turning frogs gay using chemicals in the ocean? And plus, if we can hump dead animals and antelopes, then is there a reason that a man and another man can’t elope?

This is a certifiable entry into the now prolific standard of goofy, nonsensical Slim Shady tracks, and to nerd out a bit, this is exactly the kind of style I want from Eminem. My favourite album from his is the inexplicable and fascinating Encore and some of my favourite tracks from him like “Rain Man” or “Campaign Speech” are absolutely off the rails. A concept album about this character is really exciting to me and whilst some of the references to his catalogue are more surface-level, even in that first verse, he references deep cuts like “Evil Deeds”, implements one of the catchiest flows from “My 1st Single” - as soon as I heard that concentrated verse, I knew that he was finally back in that bizarro space I love and calculating it in a much clearer and funnier way. I’m weary to say it, but this is a hilarious, promising single and I’m genuinely really curious to where this album goes. Also, he shouted me out on the third verse. Always love a cactus bar.

Conclusion

It should be pretty evident, right? A good week, with a lot of insane rabbit holes, detailed, intricate productions and a whole lot of sampling upon sampling, just a lot to talk about overall, but if you read any of this, you’ll be able to tell that the Best of the Week goes to Fred again.., Anderson .Paak and CHIKA for “places to be”, whilst the Worst of the Week handedly falls in Flex (UK)’s hands for just a boring remix of a promising track from the late Nate Dogg in “6 in the Morning”. There’s nothing worthy of a Dishonourable Mention here so I’ll tie the Honourable Mention between Eminem’s “Houdini” and Disclosure’s “She’s Gone, Dance On” - sorry, Chappell Roan, “HOT TO GO!” was close, but it’s a lot of competition. As for what to expect from the next episode, RAYE’s on the horizon, as are Halsey, Sabrina Carpenter aiming to avenge the #1, Jung Kook of BTS and most importantly, Charli XCX has a new album. But for now, thank you for reading, long live Cola Boyy and I’ll see you next week!

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rimaiahwrites · 1 year

Text

Know better

Connie catches you playing with his gun… short spanking, bratty behavior, softish dom!connie, sub!black!reader, aftercare, fluffy.

———

Your stomach growled as you stood up from the bed and went to the kitchen to grab something to eat, then went to sit in the living room with Connie, “hi my handsome boyy.” You grinned as you leaned in to kiss him on the lips. He ignored you, mumbling a quick “wassup” while aggressively clicking on the buttons of his controller.

You huffed loudly, Connie was paying you no attention today because he was too busy on the game with his homeboys, eren, jean and ony. You pouted and laid your chin on his shoulder “Bubba you’re not paying attention to me” you whined. His eyes still glued to the tv not hearing a word you just said but apparently all the boys talking through his headset did because you could their loud asses asking for you to say hi, so you grabbed the headset from Connie and placed it on your head. “Hi boys yes it is I the princess.” They all chuckled and each said their hi’s and hello’s.

“Where you been at girl?” Eren asked, the group hasn’t hung out in a minute because normally the kickbacks were at yall house but since Connie been working way more lately nobody has really had the time to hang out.

You huffed and looked over at Connie giving him the side eye, “nothing just at home dealing with your annoying ass brother he’s been ignoring me all day-“ before you really finish Connie snatch the headset from you. You flipped him off and grabbed your phone to go back up stairs. “She tripping y’all know she spoiled as fuck.” Stomping your back up stairs to your room to find something to do and just as you walked past the dresser Connie’s gun was just sitting there. Curiosity got the best of you and you grabbed the heavy weapon, it looked so big in your hand compared to the way it looked in Connie’s. You pulled your bonnet off and posed in front of the mirror with it in your hand, your finger off the trigger. You giggled.

Maybe I need one I look like a boss bitch for real. You thought.

“Y’all niggas tripping man gimme my shit!” You whispered yelled putting the gun up and pointing it at the mirror playing like you was a gangsta like mr. baldie down stairs. You kept playing around with his loaded gun saying all the things you hear him say to people whenever he has to pull his gun out, which was only twice because he always tries to be on his best behavior when he has you around, he didn’t really like you seeing him like that or to put you in a position to be harmed with the nonsense he deals with. you were his little princess and he wanted you kept in the dark about all the stuff he puts himself into.

So he definitely didn’t playing with his gun so imagine the shook on your face when his deep voice said loudly “what the hell is you doing?” snatching the gun out your hand and placed in his waist band. “Huh? Nothing I-I was just-“

“Just what? Playing with my loaded gun? Which you know you ain’t supposed to be doing you know the rules”

“I know i was Broad you wasn’t paying me any attention!” You pouted crossing your arms, he fake pouted back and bend down to your height, “oh so you think just because I wasn’t going you my full undivided attention for a couple hours you can break the rule and go against what I say?” Hissed as he sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at you very angrily like he was up to something, it made you very nervous so you stayed as far away from the bed as possible. “Co’ mere” he said lowly making the come here motion with his finger, you stood there hands behind your back playing with the end of Connie’s over sized shirt that laid at the back of your thighs.

“Now y/n.” He said sternly making you jump a little as you made your way over to him. He grabbed you and flipped you on your face, your face was planted on the bed and your ass laid across his legs. You gasped when he pulled your shirt- well his shirt up over your booty and pulled your pink lace panties down to expose your bare skin.

“Con please no.”

“You know you ain’t supposed to be playing wit’ daddy’s gun, you know better so what happens when you don’t follow the rules?”

“I get Punished, but-“ he chuckled and pulled his hoodie off.

“Ain’t no buts, you getting 20 and don’t lose count because if you do imma start over.” He said raising his hand high up and smacking you hard on the plump of your ass making you jump, you gasped loudly reaching back to grab his hand.

“Move your hands, now put them under your chin.” He popped your hands making you whine and quickly hide them away from him. He spanked you again, the tears began to come, you tried your best to keep the sobs in but his rough hands kept coming down on your bottom so hard making it sting.

What made it even worse was you weren’t used him being so mean, your daddy has barely raised his voice at you let alone spank you as a punishment, the most he has done was give you light soft spanks when you would act up when he was in your guts. You almost didn’t know if your were crying from the pain or your feelings being hurt.

“Papa please no more!” You cried

“Nah I already told, never touch my guns so why I come up here to see you playing with it?” He asked hitting you again. You almost couldn’t get your words out

“I-I didn’t put my finger on the trigger!” You screamed.

“That doesn’t matter I told you not to touch it at all, what if you accidentally shot it? Huh? What if you accidentally shot yourself?” he was so mad and you could tell by the way his grip on your waist was getting tighter and his hand was coming down harder making your ass jump, his hand felt hot and your ass you were sure was a bright red by now. Him even thinking about you hurting yourself with HIS gun made him feel a little sick, he didn’t play about you.

You were on the last five spanks and you just couldn’t take it anymore so without thinking of the consequences you reached back and grabbed his hand looking him in the eyes with your big brown teary eyes. “Papa please no more m’ so sorry won’t do it again..” you pouted, you felt like you were in a daze. Connie could see it in your eyes that you were deep in sub space, you looked so far gone. His heart melted and pulled you up to face him.

“Ok baby no more.”

He grabbed your chubby cheeks and kissed your lips softly.

“You won’t ever do that again mama?” You shook your head fast. “I p-promise, never ever again.” You sniffled. Putting your head in his neck breathing his scent in deeply. He smiled and leaned back against the pillows resting against your headboard, he rubbed your back trying to sooth your sniffles and hiccups. He looked down and saw that your bottom was a dark red and big hand prints covering it. He put his hands on it and you jumped a little and let out a whine. He cringed a little, his poor baby he thought even if it was for your own good.

“I just wanna keep you safe and I can’t do that if you don’t listen to what I tell you sweetheart you understand?” You nodded your head still keeping your head in between his neck and shoulder. After a few minutes of silence you spoke very softly keeping your voice very low. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Look at me,” he demanded holding your face in his big vainly hands. “I’m not mad anymore ok? And you did such a good job at taking your punishment mama, my big girl.” He mumbled kissing you all over your face and neck.

“You deserve a reward for taking it like a good girl, what do you want? A new Prada bag? Shoes? Ice cream? Anything you want.”

“Mm…” you said patting your chin in thought. “How about a new bag and ice cream?” And Connie agreed because you were his spoiled good girl…most of the time.

———

Might do a part2 cuz it’s not as long as I wanted but just wanted to get this out

#connie x you #connie springer #connie x black y/n #connie x black reader #aot connie #connie snk #dom!Connie stringer #dom!connie #black!sub!reader #black!sub #dom!connie x sub!reader #aot x black reader #aot x reader #aot x y/n #aot fanfiction

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