#i imagine if he has a terrible time with paul's album she might feel a bit heartened by that and then get nervous after walls and bridges

[myplasticadversary]

So I've been thinking about 1974 in my Plastic Ono Band universe, and I think what I've settled on is John and Yoko still separate and she puts out Approximately Infinite Universe and meanwhile John is antsy about recommitting to Paul without her but manages to get talked into briefly joining Wings to play lead guitar for recording Band On The Run, long as he can bring his girlfriend May. #9 Dream replaces Mamunia (which is released as a B-side to Helen Wheels) and Let Me Roll It breaks out into the Beef Jerky jam as an outro.

But I've been trying to decide, if John is on the album does that mean he goes with them to Lagos or does he wait till they come back for overdubs? I feel like with all the crazy shit that happened on that trip like the robbery and Paul's heart attack and getting antagonized by Fela Kuti (who had a point let's be real) John would believe that's all somehow due to his presence being a curse despite it having nothing to do with him and afterward be even more compelled to self-isolate, that is if he would decide to go in the first place.

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1983

Under the cut.

Toto -- "Africa" -- February 5, 1983

This song becoming massively popular recently sort of mystifies me. But maybe it shouldn't; the music is very pretty, and we've been short on popular music that goes for "pretty" for a long time. The lyrics... I really don't know. The best explanation I've seen was someone joking on Tumblr that maybe the narrator's a werewolf. I'm sure that wasn't the intent, but it's what I'm going with. It is a good song, entirely because of the music.

Patti Austin and James Ingram -- "Baby, Come to Me" -- February 19, 1983

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's a romantic duet. It's not annoying or anything, it's fine, but now that I've heard it I think I'm probably about to forget it again immediately.

Michael Jackson -- "Billie Jean" -- March 5, 1983

This song, I've heard. A whole hell of a lot. Like everyone else, we had the Thriller album (or tape, rather.) Actually I had it -- for some reason, Thriller was seen as some kind of child's first pop album. Every kid I knew had it. (And since seeing Leaving Neverland, that has been very creepy to me.) As for me, I'd put it on and dance, especially to this song. I pretty much understood what the song was about, and even got the "His eyes looked like mine" line. I didn't have an opinion on whether or not the kid was his son. It didn't matter; it was entirely about the music. Which is truly great.

Dexys Midnight Runners -- "Come On Eileen" -- April 23, 1983

Until the last couple years, I didn't entirely know what this song was about, because I couldn't understand Kevin Rowland's weird singing outside the chorus. I got that he wanted Eileen, and that this was about the combination of arrogance and horniness of youth. I did not know about all the references to the previous generation's pop culture, with an obvious inference that they felt the same way at one time. Also about Margaret Thatcher's intentional destruction of her own country's society. You don't have to think about any of that to enjoy the song if you don't want to, though. It's a fun dance song as well as being complex lyrically.

Michael Jackson -- "Beat It" -- April 30, 1983

This is the Michael Jackson song I remember being played on the radio by far the most when I was a child. It's basically the main background song of a couple years of my childhood. It's a hard-driving song about how you should run away from a physical fight rather than die. "It doesn't matter/ Who's wrong or right." Yes. It's rock, and it's dance, and it's... probably really great? I don't know, some things are too formative.

David Bowie -- "Let's Dance" -- May 21, 1983

"Put on your red shoes and dance the blues" makes no sense. But this is David Bowie; he knew that. It's part of the point. While this song is perfectly feasable to dance to, it's not really a dance song. It's achingly romantic and not the tiniest bit soppy, with music that's both accessible and fascinating. And my god Bowie could sing. I love it so much.

Irene Cara -- "Flashdance... What A Feeling" -- May 28, 1983

I didn't see Flashdance until college, when my roommates decided we would watch a bunch of cheesy 80s movies because it seemed a brilliant thing to do. It was, actually. Some of them even turned out to be good. Not Flashdance. Flashdance is memorably stupid, at least -- it doesn't hold back. It's extremely entertaining because it's deeply unintentionally hilarious. This song, though, I've heard a lot since it came out. The song is much better than the movie. It's got a wide-eyed optimism that's appealing, and the music is fun.

The Police -- "Every Breath You Take" -- July 9, 1983

I remember people periodically insisting that many, many women don't understand this song and think it's just romantic. I have never met any of these women. I have a feeling it was only a few, and that got blown up into some kind of crisis, as things do. Especially when people can imagine angelic airheaded women being dumb and somehow inviting abuse from those scary scary men. That's a favorite hobby for many. Anyway. It's a really good song that gets into the mindset of a really bad man -- or of a man who's currently imagining being really bad but is going to wake up, deal with his hangover, and get on with life. It's not a comfortable song, and that is good. Also Sting's hot.

Eurythmics -- "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" -- September 3, 1983

Usually repetitive songs drive me nuts. This song is incredibly repetitive lyrically. I love the lyrics, though. And musically, it changes up just enough to keep my interest. It's almost hypnotic. Apparently, Annie Lennox can do whatever she likes with me. Speaking of "some of them want to be abused"...

Michael Sembello -- "Maniac" --  September 10, 1983

The original demo of this song was about a serial killer, and it sounds like it, with the Psycho-like musical parts. It's not a dance song at all. Michael Sembello worked with Stevie Wonder during his best years, but he's no Stevie Wonder. He has that 70s light rock white guy voice, and it doesn't fit this song. If he'd handed this to another singer, it would have been better. Though still goofy, because it's music about a serial killer wedded to a story about a dancer. Many of the lines don't seem to have been changed either: "On the ice-blue line of insanity/ Is a place most never see." And  okay, that's a good line; I wouldn't want to leave it out either.

Also my aunt is a professional dancer (mostly choreographer now), so I've seen quite a bit into the professional dance world, and it is seriously unhealthy. It seems to be getting better, at least in modern dance, but the reason my aunt didn't go farther as a ballerina and switched to modern dance is that she could not get skinny enough for the fashion in ballet, no matter what she did. We're a muscular family with solid bones, and she couldn't get rid of that. She's got an eating disorder still though. Professional dance is harsh and terrible, and probably kills more women than serial killers do.

That's what I think of when I hear this song.

Billy Joel -- "Tell Her About It" -- September 24, 1983

Billy Joel's best songs didn't make it to #1, but that's almost always the way. This bouncy throwback of a song is still fun. With most excellent advice: "Tell her about it/ Tell her everything you feel/ Give her every reason/ To accept that you're for real." (It occurs to me that my husband is the first guy I dated who did that actually while we were dating, as opposed to waiting until after we broke up. Most of the guys I dated did not take in "I will not get back together with you if we break up." Not my fault; I told them about it.) Anyway, this isn't as good as "Big Shot," or "You May Be Right," or "My Life," or a whole lot of other Billy Joel songs I like a lot better, but it's pretty good.

Bonnie Tyler -- "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- October 1, 1983

Melodrama, I love it. This song is so Great -- big, fantastical, unembarrassed, and awesome in both meanings of the term. Bonnie Tyler knows her strengths and has no hesitation about using that huge voice, and yet she doesn't oversing, either. The lyrics? Hell if I know. To me, it sounds like that part of a relationship where you're losing yourself and can't think about anything but the other person, and especially about having sex with the other person. But whatever else it is, it's poetry. And big thunder crashes. Which is a lot like falling in love. It's not necessarily happy. It just is.

Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton -- "Islands In the Stream" -- October 29, 1983

Going from "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to this song induces emotional whiplash. The opening goes "Baby, when I met you/ There was peace unknown." That's the exact opposite of "Total Eclipse of the Heart." What is the same as "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is that the lyrics make no actual sense -- but of course they don't, this thing was written by the Bee Gees. Nonsensical lyrics can be poetic, but the Bee Gees didn't do poetry, at least not good poetry. Oh well, it's probably their most tolerable song. It's a sweet and light song, and I'm sure the narrators will be very happy together. They sound exceedingly "emotionally healthy." But as art, I prefer the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" take. Also I think this song might have been better with just Dolly Parton. Kenny Rogers was good, but he couldn't match Dolly.

Lionel Richie -- "All Night Long" -- November 12, 1983

Lionel Richie puts on a fake Jamaican accent for this thing. Also he makes up pseudo-African chants. I'm not going to go all "j'accuse!", at least not of problematicicity. No, I am accusing him instead of being annoying. Also dull. This is a party song, but an extremely boring one. Also Richie kind of tries to do an "ow" thing, obviously inspired by Michael Jackson, but of course it doesn't work. It's still not terrible. Unlike all the gloop Richie made, I can listen to the whole thing. The drums --  or drum machine, rather -- have a neat beat, and there are some good horns and other musical touches.

Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson -- "Say Say Say" -- December 10, 1983

Well this is weird. I can't remember ever having heard this song before. The song is about begging someone not to "play games with my affection." And it sounds like the two men are singing to each other, regardless of the lyric about getting through to a "girl." It's not bad -- Michael Jackson gives Paul McCartney the musical edge that he'd lost as soon as he left the Beatles. Strong beat, harmonica and all. But I'm not going to seek it out, either. I think the beat's too repetitive. Also it feels too busy.

BEST OF 1983 -- "Let's Dance" by David Bowie, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler, and "Sweet Dreams" by The Eurythmics. Great year for the pop charts. WORST OF 1983 -- There aren't any that I think are truly terrible this year, so I guess I'll go with "Baby, Come to Me," because as predicted, I have already forgotten it.

[who-is-olivia]

Track 4. Two Ghosts

Harry Styles x OC x Taylor Swift

Harry reunites with Olivia after he settles in a relationship with Taylor Swift. [4.5k]

Genre: angst, fluff

Warnings: substance abuse, mentions of panic attacks, mental health struggles, infidelity

January 2013

“I just left the keys with Nialler, mine and El’s, tomorrow we’ll come pick up the rest of my clothes” Louis explains over the phone while Harry looks at the New York landscape through snowy windows.

  After the successful tour, there was no more financial reason to share a flat with Lou, and before that there was not a good healthy climate to share it either. He felt terrible seeing him every day after they shared such intimate moments. They’re still close friends, just not as much as they used to be, and it hurts. He misses the days when they would play video games on the couch and diss each other’s clothing, he misses the companionship they shared. In fact, looking back to this time last year, there’s a lot of things he misses. His anonymity, his mum’s house, Oli...

  Boy, does he miss Oli.

  Few months after her first big hit debuted, launching her album and promoting their tour, she became too stressed. She felt the hate and the press lurking around her like vultures, she cried about small things, she smoked three packs a day, she became aloof and apathetic. One day, it was all too much.

  Since she decided to live with Frank her mother has shut her out, they haven’t been on speaking terms. Right after the tour, when her band started racing up the charts, a tabloid wrote an article with her mum spilling all of her life story. Oli’s always been very secretive about her family history, Harry knew the basics but she seldom talked about it. So one day she woke up and everybody, in the whole world, knew and judged her for it.

  Looking out the window, the New York landscape disappears and he’s back in her hotel room holding her by the shoulders, her eyes puffy and vague, her tear-soaked face was catatonic. She had been kneeling on the living room unable to move or talk for hours and it scared him. She was absolutely broken, and no amount of love declamations and tears were enough to bring her out of that loop.

  Harry took her to a mental institution that day and never saw her again, all he heard from Frank was that she went back home to make peace with her mother. That was back in September, now it’s January and he still haven’t heard from her, so he’s trying to move on. He’s been hanging out with Taylor, she’s good company – and, most importantly, a good distraction. They’re set to travel tomorrow and enjoy some well deserved vacation but he hasn’t packed swimsuits or anything, so he’s going out to buy some after he’s done with Lou.

“It’s alright mate”

“Okay, I’d hand it to you in person but I was thinking about taking El to meet my mum”

“Wow, that’s huge!” he smiles sadly, he never got to introduce Oli to his mum. Bet they’d get along just fine. “You think you’ll be back in time for rehearsals?”

“Can’t miss that, Simon’d just kick my arse”

He chuckles, “Right, see ya then”

“See ya” they both hang up.

  Although Taylor offered to host him at her private loft in Chelsea, Harry opted to book a hotel room on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, next to where Olivia used to live. So, when he goes out for a morning jog, he always walks past her building and the pub where she used to work. This morning, he packs up to go shopping and leaves the hotel, reaching a point where, if he makes a turn, he’ll reach the tube and go shopping right away, if he goes forward he’ll pass in front of Uncle Jim’s Pub, but he’ll have to walk another twenty minutes before he finds another station.

  It’s a pointless ritual, going over to Uncle Jim’s. She’s never there. But he can’t help that fear in his guts of missing an hour on the day where she might just be. So, despite all logic, he goes forward.

  He soldiers through the cold morning stomping over melted snow until he passes over the pub. He looks through the window and this time spots something odd, or rather, someone: a man in a dress sitting over the bar.

  He comes closer, rubbing the glass to see better. He spots Jim sitting on one of the tables, his signature cane beside him. They’re both looking at the same spot on stage but he can’t quite see it. Slowly, he opens the door and immediately hears the soft piano tiles playing something harmoniously crude but melodically so, so sweet.

  There she is, beautifully onstage playing the piano forte, her back perfectly straight, her signature braids are gone, her hair a small afro surrounding tanned cheeks. She looks sober and... peaceful, all her nervous agitation is gone, she looks healthy.

  He hides behind the bar, bumping into the portraits on the wall: Uncle Jim with Brian May and David Bowie, Oli and Frank sitting on Elton John’s knees, Paul McCartney watching her play the piano. He remembers Oli talking about uncle David and uncle Paul but he never saw it like this, her sweet toothless smile alongside some of the biggest rockstars in the world. She has a lot to live up to, maybe he didn’t realise that. He didn’t realise a lot of things.

  For a while, Oli was just the thrill of the chase, someone untouchable who graced him with her affection. But then they went on tour and suddenly she wasn’t just a fling, she was a friend who stood at the backstage every single show, who talked to him until late hours on the tour bus, she shared her most vulnerable side and he loved it, he loved her. Those stolen kisses and quick fucks became meaningful, they became friends then they became lovers. That’s why it was so hard to watch her crumble.

  The portrait he bumps smashes on the ground making them all turn, including Olivia.

  It’s like she’s seen a ghost. And so has he.

“Harry” she gasps, getting up from the stool. Jim and Frank both turn toward him with big salutary gestures.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-“

“Oh, don’t worry! How’ve you been? It’s been a while!” Jim nods, unable to get up.

“Jim, we better give ‘em some room” Frank, always the expert on reading the room.

“No, no, no need, we’re going outside” she indicates for him to follow her out the door. Before she walks out she notices Frank’s weird looks, she sends one back signaling it’s alright in their own mental language and pushes Harry out the door.

  Harry is still appalled, trying to make sense of things while his eyes are assaulted by the winter morning’s sun. She pulls the door until it’s shut and, when she turns to leave, she finds herself being cornered against the glass by Harry. She stumbles back before being welcomed into his embrace.

He sighs in relief, feeling her hair tickling his cheek as it used to do. He can’t help but smile at the sensation of her body pressed against his and her gentle hands making their way to his back. “I missed you so much”

“I missed you too” she sighs through a smile. “I’m so sorry for the silence”

“I understand” he kisses the top of her head, “how’re you feeling?”

“Fulfilled, relieved... it’s like there’s a huge weight off my shoulders” she steps to his right, “You’re heading this way?”

“I- I don’t know”

“Jesus, Harry, let’s just walk” she mocks, “How are the boys?”

“They’re fine, Zayn and Perrie just moved in together”

“Nice” she swallows dryly, hadn’t she gone away maybe she and Harry would be living together.

“Niall is going out with someone, he won’t tell us who but we know” he chuckles, “we’re making bets on it, wanna join?”

“Sure” she replies, still thoughtful.

Noticing her discomfort, he hurriedly switches the subject, “I guess things with your mum were alright”

“It was fine, we just needed some quality time to put our thoughts in order. And Frank helped a lot, you know, getting her to know him made all the difference” she smiles earnestly, “He’s the fucking best, I couldn’t have done it without him”

“Blimey...”

“What?”

“I just... nothing, it’s silly”

“You’re silly all the time, tell me!” she taunts him with a smile.

“I already know what you’re going to say” he warns, “but sometimes I wish you were talking about me” he shrugs his shoulders.

“You’re such a-“

“-jelly baby, yeah I know!” she laughs, a laugh he was dying to hear.

“- such a jelly baby”

“Oli” he cuts that sweet sound, “I need to know... did you ever get to hear what I said to you the day you passed out?”

“No... sorry Haz, I just zoned out. What was it?”

“No, it’s nothing”

“What? Why are you so secretive today?” she continues to taunt.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t expect to meet a lot of people today, least of all you...” a thought crosses his mind, cutting his speech, “When did you arrive?”

“Just this morning, I got a night flight from Rio-“

“Were you going to call me? After all that happened?”

Olivia ponders for a moment, afraid of giving him an honest answer. He’s always been sincere, even if it hurt her, now it’s time to return the favour: “I don’t think so, Haz... It’s not because I don’t care about you or anything like that, it’s just...” she looks for the words but this time they’re hard to uncover, “I’m feeling fine now, but I can’t forget the fright I gave you. I don’t remember what you said or what was actually going on but I have a clear image of you just” she crosses her arms over her collarbones, “holding me so hard I almost choked, I can’t imagine how that felt to you... and I don’t want to put you through that again. I’m fine now but I don’t know how I’m gonna be tomorrow, I still feel the old me lurking just around the corner. Feeling fine is new territory to me, but I don’t know how you fit into this”

He nods, “Let me know when you do?”

She grins, “Of course! Yes, of course!”

  And then she does it again, hugs him like she used to, pressing her whole body against him and nestling her head on the crook of her neck. He wants to turn her and kiss her so bad, but he can’t do it. That’s what they used to be, not who they are.

“I better get back, Frank must be losing his shit... how long you’ll be around?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow, me and... hm... Taylor”

“Taylor?” she frowns. Fuck.

For all the tabloids and gossip websites, she has to hear it from him. Why can’t she just use her phone like a normal human being and read the fucking news? “Taylor Swift? We’ve been hanging out...”

“Oh...” she gasps in surprise.

“You didn’t say anything, I assumed-“

“No, it’s alright” her words don’t align with her face, “It’s ok Harry, really”

“You don’t seem ok”

“I’m just surprised, that’s all” she compensates with an awkward smile, “I’m happy for you”

“Thanks” he replies with a sour taste, he can feel when they’re not being honest to each other, in this cases cordiality is worse than just lying. Lying just hides something, cordiality shoves the thing in your face and acts like it’s not there.

“Oh, just in case I don’t get to see you anytime soon” she reaches into her sleeves and takes a colourful bracelet, “just a little souvenir from Rio, I was going to keep it in my bag but I thought I’d lose it”

“Thanks Oli, that’s lovely” he watches as she ties it around his wrist.

“Well it was great to see you, have a nice trip tomorrow!” she pecks his cheek and leaves.

  Just as she came, she went away. Not a moment with Oli ever feels wasted but they sure do feel short. Without any options, Harry goes on with his day chores which now include buying swim gear for a trip he doesn’t want to make anymore.

  He lifelessly picks random trunks and floral shirts, taking fewer than he’ll actually need then takes a cab to Taylor’s place. When he arrives the Chelsea flat, she’s reading a book on the couch, her perfect blond hair on a ponytail.

“Hey, stranger!” she looks over the backboard.

“Morning!” he comes over and kisses her temple, but she calls him back with a finger and presses her lips against his. “What’re you up to?”

“Not much, just finishing this” she shows him a copy of The Hunger Games, “I’m loving it. Everything’s already packed, I guess we’ll just wait around”

“I could use a nap, jet lag is driving me mad” he scoots over the couch and pulls himself a pillow, laying his head over Taylor’s lap. She rests her book over his chest while mindlessly playing with his fingers. While she’s distracted, he notices something about her face: even without any makeup, Taylor’s lips are still tinted red, which contrast beautifully with her stark blue eyes. Despite having a beauty of her own, she reminds him so much of Lou. For the second time today, he feels an uncomfortable void on his guts after remembering fondly someone he loved.

  He turns his gaze away, it hurts so bad to be haunted by these people who feel so close and vivid but at the same time feel like a distant memory, a ghost. He talked to Louis on the phone, he just saw Olivia on the flesh, Taylor is right in front of him caressing his hand but they feel so foreign. Maybe they’ve changed a lot ever since that idealised moment when they fell in love, maybe Harry’s the one who’s changed.

“Hey” she whispers, “what’s going on in your head?”

“Just thinking... do you still talk to the people you used to date?”

She chuckles at he spontaneous question, “Not on purpose, I always bump into them at these big events and of course everybody knows, so I have to be polite. If I even blink wrong the whole world will be like: Taylor Swift is just a bitter old hag”

“Come on, now”

“It’s true! If I talk to them, I’m fake, if I don’t talk to them, I’m rude, there’s no winning for us girls. You guys can do whatever you want!” she pokes his side, “If you see your ex and talk to them you’re oh, so polite and considerate, if you don’t talk you’re really discrete-“

“I get it” he nods in agreement. “But that’s not what I meant, it’s like... can you still be friends with people you used to be more than friends?”

“You and your weird questions” she mocks him lightly before sighing and finally answering: “It’s weird being friendly with someone you shared so much intimacy with”

“Yeah” he nods.

“ Just seeing them reminds me of something that I used to feel but I can’t talk about it, so I always end up tiptoeing around it and I... I hate it. I’m usually very straightforward but in these tight corners I never say what I really mean”

  He nods silently. If he could see Oli again, what would he say? There was so much he wanted to say, in fact he already said it but she wasn’t able to listen. It’s so frustrating...

  Taylor and him spend the day together lounging around, making out and napping. At some point they nap in a hammock, her body cuddled against his while the night falls outside. She sleeps very quietly while he doesn’t sleep at all, just stare at his new bracelet and ponders upon the last words Oli said today: ‘just in case I don’t get to see you anytime soon’. In a few weeks he’ll go on tour, her band split and they have no projects mapped out, when will they actually see each other again? On tour, they spent every day together except the ones when they’d be tired of each other and just spent the day apart. It’s so upsetting not knowing when he’ll see her again, that feeling just turns to a small pit of fear in his heart. What if his story with Oli is already over? It can’t be, he still has so much he wants to do, so many places to take her.

  But coming back from his daydream he finds himself laying with another girl. Shouldn’t he be planning things with her? For fuck’s sake, they’re about to take a romantic trip together! Still, looking ahead to his future, he can see nobody but Olivia. She’s left such a gap in his present and in his future he can’t stand the possibility of not taking a chance.

  Trying his best not to disturb her, Harry gets up from the hammock and walks to the kitchen. The fridge light washes the room white as he finds the rest of the wine bottle, there’s just two gulps left so he decides to take the whole thing. When he closes the fridge, surprisingly the room doesn’t go dark as the moon shines furiously through the windows. Another memory hits him: when he and Oli hid on the roof of their hotel in Phoenix. She took a bottle of rosé and a few blankets, cuddling with him while trying to remove the cork. She said “I hope you like a good rosé, I hate red wine”, and ever since then he lost the habit of drinking red wine... until today.

  As if to defy her memory he drinks the wine anyway but somehow the taste feels repugnant. Even now, she still haunts him. He looks over to Taylor and an enormous guilt befalls him. She is incredible, a good company, but his heart still beats for somebody else. He hits his head against the fridge in shame but it won’t change how he feels... so he decides to seek counselling.

He calls Zayn at least three times but not even a friend in need can dissuade him from deep slumber. So, he heads to the balcony and calls his second option, the one he wants to avoid but can’t anyways: “Hey curly, what’s going on? It’s a bit late here”

“I know Lou, I’m so sorry I just couldn’t help it”

“It’s alright, I’m up already. What’s going on?”

“I saw Oli today, she’s back in New York” he blurts at once, looking back at the balcony door to make sure Taylor’s still asleep.

“That’s great man, cheers-“

“Yeah, except I’m with Taylor now and I can’t stop thinking about Oli”

The line goes quiet for a moment. “Oh... that’s bad”

“I don’t know what to do, mate”

“Harry... I should tell you to stay with Taylor, you know, ‘cause she’s a nice gal and she helped you out of a tough place, but...” he smiles sadly, “I know if I tell you this is the right thing to do you’ll do it, even if it hurts you”

Harry snorts, “I probably would”

“Exactly, so I can’t tell you that. Listen mate, I... I fucking adore you, you’re one of my best mates and I know what happened between us hurt you”

“It’s alright now, Lou”

“I know it is, but I don’t want to be that wanker to tell you ‘just forget your feelings and do what you have to do’, you know?”

He chuckles, “Sure mate”

“See? So, in my humble opinion, you should go for Oli. I know you’re crazy ‘bout that lass... and, you know, we won’t get everything we want in life, specially us if we keep the band thing going. The least you can do is have fun with someone you love”

“Thanks, Lou”

“Anytime curly... ‘though if you can call a bit earlier”

“Right, right... bye mate”

  Olivia tosses and turns on her bed. The flat is so quiet when Frank’s not home, it’s unnerving, specially when she’s emotionally wavering. She gets up and away from her tormented thoughts and searches for one of her vinyls, she could do with a bit of music to drown it all out. She finds ‘Rumors’ from Fleetwood Mack and places it on the speaker, swinging to the melody of the first track and letting the tune fill her ears. She starts to assemble a cigarette while keeping a distant eye on her phone, she’s been trying to avoid it ever since the breakdown but seeing Harry today was very triggering. A spark of curiosity hits her but she refrains, last time she spent too much time on her phone she ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

  She finishes rolling her cigarette and lights it, getting up and singing along. It’s a good song, but not good enough to distract her from the temptation of her phone.

“Fuck it” she reaches the phone and searches for Twitter. Turns out Frank deleted it so she has to download it again, letting the anxiety take her reins as nervous tears cloud her view. Sighing in frustration, she logs in her secret account and searches for Taylor and Harry. “So stupid, so fucking stupid” she puts it down.

  Oli takes a long drag, holds it for a while then let go, letting one single tear fall down in self pity. Unnerved, she takes the phone back. She looks at the search results: Harry and Taylor walking down Central Park with Baby Lux, kissing after her midnight show in Times Square, talking at a restaurant. And of course, where there is a new girlfriend there will be comparisons:

@directionfever: Thank god he’s moving on from his drug dealer.

@bluejayway: my boy Harry looking like a prince with that new chick, he finally getting what he deserves

@styyles_xo: That’s the smile of someone who ain’t playing nurse anymore and’s finally living <3

@larryxx: taylor aint all that but at least harry is free from that fucking pr relationship

  Oh yes, the PR argument. Of course Harry and Olivia were arranged by a group of public relations managers in order to promote her career, as if she couldn’t possibly fall in love with him just for the sake of it. And boy did she fall graciously in love with him. It felt so strange seeing him this morning and just not squeeze his cheeks and give him a kiss, she didn’t even feel like the same person. Now he’s going away and all she wants is to fuck all logic and reason and just get him back like nothing ever happened. But of course, everything happened. She made a choice to stay away after she came back, now she has to deal with the most uncomfortable consequences

Before she can fall deeper into that self-doubt abyss, there are knocks on the door. “Frank? Did you forget the keys?” she asks wiping her tears.

  She opens it to find Harry.

“Haz?” all coherent thoughts evade her, “W-What’re you doing here, it’s past midnight already-“

“Did you, hm... did you see the moon?” she frowns at him but not completely dismissive, “It looks just like that night... bloody hell Oli, do you remember that night? On the roof?”

“Yes, I remember” she chuckles.

“If I close my eyes I can see it clear as day, I remember every single day I spent with you clear as day, it’s so clear I can almost touch it, love” he sighs shyly.

“Harry...” she gasps.

“The first night on the bus! Do you remember it?”

“Harry I had a breakdown, not amnesia!” she laughs before noticing the typical agitation on her hallway and the neighbors paying attention to their exchange, “Shit, come on in”

“What I’m trying to say, the best way I can is... I have this very vivid memory of you and I thought that’s all I’d ever have. But when I saw you this morning... I thought we still had a chance” he reaches out for her, before slowly recoiling at her lack of response, sitting at the couch’s arm rest. “Please say something?”

She quirks her head, “Is that Frank’s shirt?”

He looks down at the plain white t-shirt and frowns, “This?”

“The one he gave to me and then I gave it to you?”

“Hm... yeah, did you hear-“

“I did” she smiles shortly, “I just don’t know what to say, I mean I was just here bawling my eyes out thinking I’d never get to see you again and all of a sudden you’re here saying all these things!” her voice cracks. She stops, takes a deep breath and continues: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say”

“You could say: ‘I’m really, really in love with you and I want to try again’” he mimics her lower pitched-voice while pulling her closer by the hem of her shirt. She giggles at his little tantrum, pacing closer until his chin rests between her breasts. Without another word, she strokes his curly locks of hair and holds him close agains her bosom. He nuzzles a straight line from her sternum to her collarbone, feeling just a tinge of her cologne. Every crawling touch feels like he’s desperately trying to remember how it feels to have her heartbeat singing in his ear.

  He pulls her shirt collar down and the loose fabric slides revealing a bit more of skin and a couple more tattoos. He runs his lips over it, feeling the sweet taste of her skin just as it used to be. Looking up, he sees her eyes lightly shut, her parted lips lit by the moonlight that invades the living room. He remembers when having her like this was enough, when he felt truly alive. Olivia is still everything he really needs, the rest is the rest. She’s not a ghost, she’s not a reverie, she looks, sounds, tastes, smells and feels so real to him, it’s impossible to desire any other incarnation of her other then the very present one.

“Haz” she sighs in a whimper, pushing him away a bit. She tries but she can’t escape his looming eyes. “I know I have no right to ask anything from you... “ her courage suddenly evades her, “but I don’t want you to go”

He cups her cheeks in a small comforting gesture, “I won’t go anywhere”

“What about Taylor? She must be so upset with me”

“Believe me, you’re not the one she’s upset with, it’s ok” he dismisses it, leaning in to kiss her lips passionately. “I’m right where I want to be” she smiles and kisses him back.

<< Previous | Next >>

Masterlist

[p4nkow]

Fight from the inside

Hey everybody! Here’s another Roger fic. I’m thinking on writing a second part to this but please tell me your opinion. Let me know if I should and especially what you think of it!

Summarise: Reader is having some fun with the boys when a ghost from Roger’s past comes back to haunt her. Not literally. 

Warnings: none, I think? It’s a bit angsty but also fluffy

This could be read both as real life Roger or as Ben!Roger.

Gifs not mine so credits to the owners.

“But I want to hear you sing!”

“Not a chance.” John shook his head at your request. You had been trying to persuade him for about half an hour now, but he seemed inflexible.

“You’re not the first one to try to change his mind, darling.” Fred glanced at you while he took a sip of his drink.

It was a quiet afternoon and the guys decided to take a break from the studio in order to go grab some drinks. An old Beatles’ song played in the background as you guys were chatting.

“C’mon, just in the chorus.” Roger supported your cause and Brian nodded in consequence.

“We need one extra voice.”

“You don’t.” John cut all of you off and you knew he wouldn’t change his mind. You took a morsel out of your piece of cake, glancing at Roger with the corner of your eye.

“What?”

“Nothing” He said with a smile, starting to caress your thigh. You smiled back at him and leaned your head to his shoulder. He surrounded yours with his arm in order to keep you close to him.

“Y/N could be your extra voice” John said, bringing back the subject.

“I could what?” You said in disbelief and Roger chuckled next to you.

“Obviously you never heard her sing.”

“I’m sorry?” You said with an amused tone, turning your face to him.

“I’m sorry love but you’re terrible.”

“No, she isn’t” Fred said, taking your side.

“I’ve never heard you singing.”

Roger glanced at Brian and coughed. “Lucky bastard.”

“Roger!” You slapped him on his chest but you giggled. You knew you were terrible at singing. You really, really were.

“But I wanna hear you sing. You could give us a hand with the chorus.”

You glanced back at Brian, shaking your head. “Bri, Roger’s right. I-”

“Roger?” A new, feminine voice cut you off so you turned around to see who it was.

“Jo?” Roger’s tone was full of disbelief and confusion as he let go of you and stood up to greet the newcomer.

Of course you knew who Jo was- Roger’s well known ex girlfriend. You stood in silence as the boys greeted her and for the first time ever you felt uncomfortable around them.

“Long time no see, darling!”

“Where have you been?”

“You look so different!”

“I missed you all so much.”

You alienated yourself from their conversation as you started to overthink- one of your worst flaws.

Roger’s voice brought you back to reality. “Love?”

“Hm?”

“This is Jo” He said with a smile, so you forced yourself to stand up and to shake her hand. She meant something to the boys so you had to be polite with her.

“It’s nice to meet you” You forced a smile as her watchful gaze judged you.

“So, are you a groupie?” She asked and you felt yourself blush.

How dared she?

You heard Brian cough and you could feel John and Fred’s gazes on you.

Fuck politeness.

You were about to say something when Roger spoke up. “Actually she’s my girlfriend.”

You were glad he interrupted you- you might have said something you’d have regretted. You were too mad to move your gaze away from Jo. Roger put a hand on your back, probably with the purpose to calm you but you couldn’t even look at him.

“Oh- oh! Your girlfriend! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

Fred stepped in to divert attention from you. “What are you doing here, darling?” You were glad he did so you sat back down and tried hard not to meet Roger’s eyes.

“Love” He murmured, placing again his hand on your thigh.

“Not now, Rog.” So he let it go.

You could feel Jo’s presence behind your back and you clenched your jaw in order to avoid to say something stupid. You have never been so ashamed in your life.

You met John’s gaze and he smiled at you. “You wanna leave?” He mouthed you and you were grateful he did, but still you refused his offer by shaking your head. You couldn’t leave Roger just like that. Not when Jo was around.

“I stopped by the studio and Paul told me I‘d found you here. I’m your new assistant!”

“You’re what?” Brian was as shook as you were.

“Yeah, I was the assistant of this band but it just split so EMI is trying to place me on a new one. In the meantime I’m your temporary assistant along with Paul!”

And you thought it couldn’t be worse.

“Great” You murmured, drawing Roger’s attention. He started to stroke your hair in order to reassure you but jealousy was eating you alive.

“That’s awesome!” You could tell Freddie was really ecstatic delighted by that news.

“Yeah, that’s really fantastic” Brian said while Jo took her seat right in front of you. You couldn’t help but notice the looks she gave Roger.

“What did I miss? Please, catch me up.”

“Not much, really” Roger said with a shrug. “We’re working on a few new songs.”

“I hope they’re as good as the old ones” she replied with a smile and you couldn’t help but give her an eye-roll.

“Oh yes darling, some of them have got potential.” Freddie said with a smile, proud of the work they’ve been doing.

It was at this point you decided to join the conversation. “It’s my favourite album so far.”

“Really? You were crazy about A Night at the Opera.” John has an amused look on his face.

Roger couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “He’s right, you did nothing but talk about ‘39 for months.”

“I guess Fight from the inside got me.”

Jo had been following your conversation in silence until now. “What’s Fight from the inside?” She asked, and Fred immediately answered “One of Roger’s songs for this new album.”

“Oh I absolutely have to listen to it!”

“Sure” Roger said with a little smile. You put all your attention to your piece of cake which you never finished eating. Your stomach was blocked because of the entire situation- which, to be honest, you weren’t really excited about.

“Anything else?” Jo asked, glancing at the boys one by one.

You hoped Fred didn’t tell her the real news but oh man, your hopes have been destroyed. “Our boy here is getting married!”

Jo’s lips formed an O after hearing that and for a little moment you were pleased for her reaction.

You were getting married. Roger had proposed the day of the final stage of the tour, the second night of the show in London. He caught you completely off guard and that’s probably why you cried you eyes out since the moment he kneeled in front of you.

“Is that true?” Jo asked and Roger glanced at you with the biggest smile. Just the thought of the two of you getting married made your hurt run faster than ever. You smiled back at him, nodding at her question. “Yeah, we are.”

“Hopefully as soon as possible” he added and you leaned to him, letting him surround your shoulders with his arm.

“That’s... fantastic” she said, but you could tell her smile was fake. John thought the same and glanced at you as soon as he noticed it. There was a moment when you thought she wasn’t that bad, if it weren’t for her comment about you being a groupie. That was until she said “I cannot imagine you being married. You’re too a free spirit to chain yourself to one woman.”

Roger was as blindsided as you. You tried to take deep breaths before speaking but in the meanwhile John did it for you. “Jo.”

“What? It’s true. We all know all the crazy adventures me and Roger had, there’s no point in hiding them.”

“It was the past, Jo.” God, you loved that man. You glanced at Roger and you could tell by his eyes that he wasn’t that happy of the whole situation. You tried to reassure him by placing your hand on his thigh, squeezing it a bit.

“It was, but what a past! We had our fun, didn’t we? Do you remember that time when we-”

“That’s enough” you snapped, catching everyone’s attention.

You got up as you couldn’t take it anymore. Roger stood up too. “Love-”

“I’ll see you at home.” And with that you took your coat and walked away from the table, as you heard Jo asking “What? Did I say something wrong?”

You walked away as fast as you could but you heard steps following you. You glanced behind your back just to see Roger following you.

“I thought you were stayin’ with the boys.” You said but you didn’t stop walking.

“I’d rather go home with you.”

“You’ll miss all the fun.”

“Don’t really care.”

You were mad but it wasn’t right to take it out on him. Despite the fact you knew that, you couldn’t help but act that way. You kept walking in silence, followed by Roger, until you made it home. As soon as you both entered the flat, you turned to him, trying to find the right words to apologise for your behaviour. You couldn’t do it- Roger’s lips crushed into yours as he placed his hands on your face.

You put your hands into his chest, kissing him back as he moved forward up to when your back was against the wall. He took your wrists into his hands, lifting them up and holding them with one hand only.

You kissed him back and you completely forgot what you were gonna say. He placed lots of kisses on your jawline and on your neck and in that moment you were at his mercy. You hated the power he had on you but when he kissed you like that there was no way you were gonna argue with him.

“Roger...”

“Shh, love” He murmured with his head buried in your neck.

“Roger.”

“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful” He said, meeting your gaze as he kissed you again. “Don’t you ever doubt that.”

“I don’t like her.”

“I want you to forget about her for now.”

You placed both of your hands on his hips, slightly lifting his shirt to caress his bare skin. “Make me.”

And he did. Over and over that night. Now it was almost 1AM and both of you were enjoying the silence of the night, standing on the balcony. You were admiring London’s night lights and Roger was smoking a cigarette. You were wearing his shirt and you could smell his cologne on it.

However, despite all the love that he had showed you that night, you couldn’t help but to think of Jo.

“When did the two of you split up?” You murmured, silently praying he’d answer your questions. Roger knew how persistent you could be and how bad you could feel about this all situation so the only solution was answering your questions.

“About a year and a half ago.”

“Why?” You weren’t mad anymore, just curious.

“I didn’t love her anymore.” He frankly said, glancing at you with the corner of the eye.

What if it happened to you too? You were getting married, yes, but it could still happen.

“Stop” he said, interrupting your thoughts.

“Stop what?”

“Overthinking. That won’t happen to us.” He really knew you. He put away his cigarette and came closer to you, placing a hand on your hip and the other on your face. He gently caressed your cheek as his beautiful blue eyes met yours. “I love you so fuckin’ much for something like that to happen. And you shouldn’t worry about her.”

“I don’t” You lied.

“Yeah, you do. I don’t want her, Y/N.”

“She meant something to you.”

“Yeah, she did in the past. She’s my past, love, but you’re my present and my future. You’re the only woman in my life, the only one I need. You’re going to be my wife, for fuck’s sake. Don’t let a ghost from the past ruin what we have.”

“God, I love you so much” You murmured as you placed your lips on his. You believed him, you trusted him, and you knew he spoke the truth, but you couldn’t say the same of Jo. That’s why you were terrified of meeting her at the studio tomorrow, but no matter what was gonna happen- you wouldn’t let her ruin what you had with Roger. You were going to stand up for your relationship.

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2016

I think everyone will agree that 2016 had “Impending Doom” written all over it, and as a result a lot of pop music became very depressed very quickly, and as such, I’m less enthusiastic about this list than some of the previous ones.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

For a year that was so cataclysmic worldwide, 2016 was pretty mundane for me, so let’s just skip to the albums that came out that year and which I consider relevant to my tastes. Obviously (and unfortunately) there was David Bowie with Black Star. We should have known we had jumped right into the Worst Timeline when the year started with the death of Bowie. Nine Inch Nails also released Not The Actual Events, which was pretty good, and as I said previously I consider Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams to be more of a 2016 than a 2015 album. And then there was the biggest surprise of all, the return of Enigma after eight years of silence, with the very good Fall Of A Rebel Angel (even if A Posteriori is still my favorite “modern” Enigma album). EDIT: I forgot Ghostlights by Avantasia. Took me YEARS to listen to it & realise how good it was.

But no. Surprisingly enough, my favorite album of the year wasn’t any of those. It was... oh god, that title. Here we go. It was I Like It When You Sleep for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It by The 1975 - which I like to call “The 1975′s second album” instead, because what the hell, guys. Anyway. It had been a while since I had found a new band I’d consider to be one of my favorite bands. I really liked Chocolate from their previous album but that was it. But this one? What a breath of fresh air. A Change of Heart, She’s American, Please Be Naked, The Ballad Of Me And My Brain, Somebody Else, The Sound, This Must Be My Dream? That’s only the songs I listened to on a loop and that’s already nearly half of the album. Great music, love the vocals, but I especially love the writing, full of strange and awkward details and lines that make everything feel so alive. The first time I listened to some of these songs, some lines actually got a chuckle out of me, like the American girl wanting the narrator to fix his teeth, or him hopping on a bus to ask the passengers if someone found his brain, or his girlfriend complaining about his shoes and his songs then immediately adding “I thought that you were straight, now I’m wondering”.

As someone who’s constantly puzzled by human relationships and tends to act super awkwardly, all of this is extremely relatable. So yeah. Album of the year, love this band - impatiently waiting for that fourth album!

As far as unelligible songs go, as you can guess I’m furious The Sound (The 1975) wasn’t a hit because I was and I’m still listening to it on a loop. And that’s about it. Wait there’s also Kids by One Republic. It was super good. Apart from that, there’s also one (1) elligible song that I’m gonna put on the 2017 list instead because I really struggled to find enough songs I liked for that list, and that particular one is elligible for 2016 thanks to the French year-end list and 2017 thanks to the US year-end list, so eh.

Time for some honorable mentions.

This Girl (Kungs vs Cookin’ on Three Burners) - Number one of the year here. Every time I heard it (and I heard it a lot) I enjoyed it until that wretched drop.

Fast Car (Jonas Blue ft Dakota) - Not a good cover, but I love the original so much I’d be lying if I said I hated this completely.

Sucker for Pain (Lil Wayne & Imagine Dragons) - No, that slow, heavy, tortured beat that all recent Imagine Dragons songs have doesn’t work on topics like being a natural at something, being a believer, or describing thunder. It does work, however, with a chorus saying “I'm just a sucker for pain”.

Cheap Thrills (Sia ft Sean Paul) - Sean Paul, and a song about having fun without any money. Everything I want from an average hit song on the radio.

In the Night (The Weeknd) - This would be much higher if I didn’t find The Weeknd’s upper register slightly painful to listen to.

J’ai Cherché (Amir) - Hey look, the guy France sent to Eurovision that year. He’s still around, too. He’s pretty good, and that song is super cute.

Ride (21 Pilots) - Not the last time they will appear on this list.

Je Suis Chez Moi (Black M) - Pretty good song about racism, and the singer explicitly calls out a far right political figure who said some pretty terrible shit about him, and it’s a good answer.

Perfect (One Direction) - This is just Style by Taylor Swift all over again except slightly less good. But as I said before, copying good songs isn’t always a bad thing.

Human (Rag’n’bone Man) - Would definitely be on the list if listening to it didn’t feel like working.

Into You (Ariana Grande) - The last cut. The ending is wonderful and explosive, it’s just a shame that the entire song doesn’t sound like that.

And now... the list.

10 - Stressed Out (21 Pilots)

US: #5 / FR: #9

Defining song of the entire year, whether you liked it or not.

Fortunately, as you can see, I liked it a lot, even if I don’t have anything interesting to say about it.

9 - Don’t Be So Shy (Imany, Filatov & Karas remix)

US: Not on the list / FR: #2

I often joked that the melody sounded weirdly similar to Goldman’s “Envole-moi” by singing the lyrics of the verses over the Don’t Be So Shy verses, and it fits nearly perfectly. But apart from that, great song, great remix, very overplayed but never to the point of being annoying.

8 - I Took A Pill In Ibiza (Mike Posner)

US: #15 / FR: #29

There’s nothing I could say about this song that Todd hasn’t said before in what I consider to be one of his best reviews, if not the best, so here it is.

7 - Heathens (21 Pilots)

US: #21 / FR: #23

Super ominous and tense. It’s rare when a mostly grey song looks interesting, and this one definitely does. I also like the ending a lot. Don’t hang out with too many toxic people, guys, they will influence you over time.

I had no idea this was made for the Suicide Squad movie until very recently and frankly I wish it hadn’t because it’s way better on its own, especially the hand grenade line which works a lot better as a metaphor for self-destructive tendencies.

6 - Starboy (The Weeknd)

US: #58 / FR: #16

As I said before it took me ages to like The Weeknd. His voice is great but I found most of his songs fairly boring or disliked their lyrics. And then he teamed up with Daft Punk and to be honest, I didn’t even care if the lyrics of this one included weird lines about drugs on furniture, the beat was completely worth it and the singing was great. Not enough to put it on my mp3 playlist, but a delight every time it was on the radio.

5 - Faded (Alan Walker)

US: Not on the list / FR: #11

I adore this post-apocalyptic, contemplative music video. The music itself has this weariness and this quiet despair that felt super relevant, and even the drop is a bit slow instead of energetic. I usually don’t like this kind of song but this one found the perfect balance. If we really need to have more sad, exhausted hit songs, more like this, please.

4 - Closer (The Chainsmokers)

US: #10 / FR: Not on the list

I usually don’t like love songs if they are just that, random love songs without a good melody or good colors or good stories. If the melody isn’t particularly great and the colors boring, it needs to paint an interesting picture, and the more details the better, even if they are super awkward, like, as I said previously, in some of The 1975′s best songs mentioning bad shoes, or people’s jobs, or how a car smells like.

So yeah, what I’m trying to say is that my favorite thing about this song is the over-abundance of weird and kind of off-putting details that most people consider to be its main flaw. To each their own, I guess.

3 - Never Forget You (Zara Larsson & MNEK)

US: #46 / FR: Not on the list

See, this is one of the reasons why I decided to make these lists: to find great stuff I missed over the years. I discovered this song while making the 1.0 version of the lists on a google sheet in early December, and now this has a spot on my mp3 player. And it’s so weird because this song shouldn’t work. The drop is ridiculously lifeless compared to the soaring quality of the chorus and it actively works against the rest of the song. It takes a while to get used to it and I’m still not entirely sure it does work, at all.

But what can I say, framing is, once again, everything, and songs about imaginary friends are super rare, and that music video made me cry and catapulted this song from “that’s pretty good” right into the “holy shit that’s fantastic” category. And it made me rewatch Where The Wild Things Are, so yeah.

2 - Perfect Strangers (Jonas Blue)

US: Not on the list / FR: #70

This, on the other hand, stayed on my mp3 player for about two years, and the music fits the lyrics perfectly. It’s not a groundbreaking song, it’s not even that original, but in such an average year for pop music, “happy energetic song with beautiful colors and nice lyrics” meant the world to me. It’s kind of telling that it was enough to put it as high as #2, though.

1 - Hymn For the Weekend (Coldplay ft Beyoncé)

US: #73 / FR: Not on the list

And with this, Coldplay has officially topped as many of my lists as Linkin Park. If, back when The Scientist dropped, you had told me how much I would love this band in the future, I would have laughed pretty hard, but here we are.

But yeah, it’s one of my favorite songs on the album and it’s a super weird combo of heavy and aerial sounds, soft and super colorful notes, and I love the lyrics that completely mirror that feeling, feeling “drunk and high", “poured on a symphony when I’m low, low, low”. A great party song that’s also strangely melancholic. Exactly what I needed.

And then the Seeb remix happened and added a truely fantastic drop on top of an already great song, like turning the saturation up and adding little pulsing lights and transparency effects and shit. It’s sincerely hypnotic and visually so complex and fragile I’m afraid I won’t be able to draw it if I ever attempt to turn it into a synesthesia drawing. Just like A Sky Full of Stars, I was driving the first time I heard that remix on the radio, and I wasn’t expecting that drop at all, and I was gawking.

Godspeed, Coldplay, I’m so glad you’re still a positive force in my life, especially in these trying times.

Next up: Oh my god are you telling me that after 15 years I can finally put a song from that other band at the top of one of my lists

[kentremendousblog]

Tom and Lin-Manuel: An Appreciation/Jealous Rant

Every writer has a golden period – a chunk of time when her brain is ripest, when the veins he is tapping are the richest, when the ideas, big and small, spill out over the sides of the bucket instead of having to be patiently collected like drops of rain off a leaf. This is true for songwriters, playwrights, novelists, screenwriters, anyone who writes anything in any genre. Go look at John Hughes’s IMDb page and marvel at his golden period, which I would bookend as 1983-1990. It’s outrageous. He wrote Vacation, Mr. Mom, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, and Home Alone in eight years. Eight years?! That’s absurd.

But then look at his next 20 years. You won’t find one movie that is better than the worst one he wrote in those seven years. The vein ran dry. It always does. That’s just the deal.

Tom Petty’s golden period never ended. Or, at least, the silver periods on either side of his golden period were seemingly infinite. No matter where you think he peaked -- Full Moon Fever, or Wildflowers, or Damn the Torpedoes -- the decades on either side were wonderful. He was great from the moment he released his first album in 1977 to the day he died last month. For forty years he wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and the songs he wrote were good or great or amazing.

Tom Petty wrote “Breakdown” and “American Girl” in 1977. He wrote “You Don’t Know How it Feels” seventeen years later, in 1994. He wrote “You Got Lucky” in 1982, “King’s Highway” in 1992, “The Last DJ” in 2002. He wrote “I Won’t Back Down,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” Free Fallin’,” “Love is a Long Road,” “A Face in the Crowd,” Yer So Bad,” and “The Apartment Song,” and “Depending on You,” all in 1989, and they were all on the same album, and that’s absurd.

He wrote “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” in 1981 and “Big Weekend” in 2006. He wrote every song on Wildflowers – and they are all great – in or around 1994. He wrote fifty other great songs I haven’t named yet, like “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and “Jammin Me.” He wrote great songs you've heard a million times, and great songs you've maybe never heard, like "Billy the Kid" (1999) and "Walls" (1996) which was buried on the soundtrack to She's the One.  He took a break from the Heartbreakers and casually released “End of the Line” and “Handle With Care” and “She’s My Baby” with the Traveling Wilburys in 1989-90. He wrote “Refugee” in 1980 and “I Should Have Known It” in 2010. Is there any rock and roll songwriter alive who wrote two songs that good, 30 years apart? (Paul McCartney wrote “Hey Jude” in 1968, and only 12 years later he wrote “Wonderful Christmas Time,” which is so bad it nearly retroactively undid “Hey Jude.”)

He wrote about rock and roll things, like ’62 Cadillacs, getting out of this town, and dancing with Mary Jane. He wrote about love and loss and heartbreak. He wrote legitimately funny jokes, and moribund memories, and personal narratives, and imaginative flights of fancy. One of his characters calls his father his “old man” and it somehow isn’t cheesy. He was from Florida and California and wrote about both of them, and every time I’m on Ventura Boulevard I think of vampires, because the images he wrote are indelible. 

Petty didn’t just write songs directed at women, like most rock stars. He wrote about women, and he wrote for women, and he wrote with women. He treated the women in his songs as lovingly and respectfully as he treated the men. He cared about them as much, he spent as much time thinking about them, and he liked them as much, and all of that is rare.

He wrote simply, but not boringly. He made his characters three-dimensional, somehow, in a matter of seconds. There’s a famous (probably apocryphal) story about Hemingway bragging he could write an entire novel in six words, then writing: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” I prefer the 18-word novel Petty wrote as the first verse to “Down South” –

Headed back down south Gonna see my daddy's mistress Gonna buy back her forgiveness Pay off every witness

When I was working on Parks and Recreation, whenever we needed a song to score an important moment in Leslie Knope’s life, we chose a Tom Petty song. It started with “American Girl,” when her biggest career project came to fruition. It was “Wildflowers” when she said goodbye to her best friend. It was “End of the Line” at the moment the show ended. For the seven seasons of our show, Tom Petty was the writer we trusted to explain how our main character was feeling, because he wrote so much, so well, for so long.

*******

It seems like a joke, Hamilton -- a joke in a TV show where one of the characters is a struggling New York actor, and is always dragging his friends to his terrible plays. Like Joey in Friends. There’s an episode of Friends where Joey is in a terrible musical called like Freud!, about Sigmund Freud, and you get to see some of it, and it’s predictably terrible. Freud! the musical is arguably a better idea than Hamilton the musical.

I’m far from the first person to say this -- I’m probably somewhere around the millionth person to write about Hamilton, and the maybe 500,000th to make this particular point, but it needs to be said -- a hip-hop Broadway musical about the founding fathers is an astoundingly terrible idea. Lin-Manuel Miranda should never have written it. As soon as he started to write it, he should’ve said to himself, “What the fuck am I doing?!” and stopped. And after he got halfway through, he should’ve junked it, gotten really drunk, and moved on with his life, and made his wife and friends swear to never mention the weird six months where he was trying to write a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton. I literally guarantee you that when Lin-Manuel Miranda first told his friends what he was writing, every one of them reacted with at best a frozen smile, and at worst a horrified recoiling. Some of them might have been outwardly encouraging – “sounds awesome bud! Go get 'em!” But then later, alone, they would call each other and say What the fuck is he doing?

There is a moment, in Hamilton, when what you are watching overwhelms you. (It’s not the same moment for everyone, but most everyone has one, I suspect.) It’s the moment when the enormity, the complexity, the meaning of it, the entirety of it, overpowers you, and you realize that what you are experiencing is new – new both in your specific life, and new, like, on Earth.  The first time I saw it, that moment was a line in the middle of “Yorktown.” Hamilton sang the line And so the American experiment begins / With my friends all scattered to the winds, and I burst into tears in a way I hadn’t since I was 10 and a baseball went through a guy’s legs in the World Series. Something about how casually he says that – And so the American experiment begins – just settled over me, like a collapsing tent, and this thing I was watching wasn’t in front of me, it was everywhere around me, and it was exhilarating and transformative.

(If I could put this part in a footnote, I would, but I don’t know how to, so: I should mention that I am very far from a musical theater aficionado. I have seen maybe eight musicals in my life. Not only did I not expect to cry, hard, during Hamilton, I did not expect to enjoy it. I saw it like a week after it opened on Broadway, kind of on a whim, knew nothing about it, and the last thing I said to my wife, as the lights went down, was: “We’ll leave at intermission.”)

The second time I saw it, that moment came much earlier (I knew what I was getting into, this time, so I was more ready to be subsumed). It came barely three minutes in, when the entire cast of the show, in a piece of choreography that can best be referred to as “badass,” all walk down to the very front of the stage and stand, shoulder to shoulder, and sing very loudly about how Alexander Hamilton never learned to take his time. The cast has, to this point, trickled on stage, slowly, one by one, telling you Hamilton’s origin story, and then suddenly there they all are, all of them -- maybe 20? 50? It seems like 1000? – as close to the audience as they can get, and they are every size and ethnicity and gender, and their voices are loud, and I thought to myself, oh my God, this is a cast of people descended from every nation on Earth, all singing about the foundations of the American experience, and yes I “knew” that, intellectually, but holy shit, now that I see them all, I know it, like in my stomach, I understand it, and what a thing that is.

The third time I saw Hamilton, that moment was during “It’s Quiet Uptown,” when this enormous, sprawling, improbable, otherworldly, multi-ethnic, historical, art tornado presses pause on all of its historical-cultural-ethno-sociological-artistic investigations, and spends four and a half spare minutes with a couple who are grieving an unimaginable tragedy.  Specifically, it was the lines

Forgiveness Can you imagine? Forgiveness Can you imagine?

What a thing to do, for your characters -- to give them four and a half minutes in the middle of an enormous, sprawling, historical swirl, to just be sad. What a piece of writing that is.

(Again, should be a footnote, but: as long as I’m talking about writers here, I should point out that if the late Harris Wittels were alive, he would, at this moment, text me and hit me with a “humblebrag” for writing about how I have seen Hamilton three times, and he would be right. Miss you Harris!)

In the hundreds of hours of my life I have spent thinking about Hamilton since I first saw it – far more hours than any other single piece of art I have ever experienced – I have revisited that same thought over and over: he never should’ve written it. It was an absurd thing to do. It took him a year to write the title song, then another year to write the second song, and how did he not give up when two years had gone by and he’d written two songs?  He must’ve known in his heart it needed to be a 50-song, 2 1/2-hour enterprise, and he had two songs after two years, and he kept going. How did he keep going? I've been trying to write this blog post about two writers I admire for different reasons since the week Tom Petty died, and I’ve almost given up five times.

At this point, the entire musical is that "moment" for me. It's the whole thing, now – the thing that overwhelms me is the whole thing. The conception of it, the writing of it, the rewriting of it. The music and the motifs and the themes and the threads and the dramatic shape and the characters and their inner lives, and the eagle-eye writer’s view it took to keep all of that in his head, all of it, the whole time. The writing of it. The utterly impossible writing of it. 

[loveisblindfanfiction]

Chapter Twenty-One

With the new year brought the arrival of someone new to my life; Koko.

Koko was my seeing eye dog. I had wanted a dog for as long as I could remember and a seeing eye dog ever since I had gone blind. Now with my regular inflated pay cheques I could finally afford one and the moment I met Koko I was in love.

Paul however, was not as enamoured.

“He sheds all over the carpet. He leaves his black hair everywhere!” he complained.

“But he’s so cute.” Cooed James.

I was at home, done with my appointments for the day so I let Koko off his leash to signal to him that it was time for him to relax.

“The dog is stupid! Look at this, Koko! See? Where the fuck is he going?” said Paul pointedly.

I laughed as I sat down on the couch.

“This house is not big enough for a dog that size!” he complained.

“Well it’s a good thing we’re moving to a bigger house soon.” I replied.

“Why can’t you have a seeing eye Chihuahua? A hairless one.” Complained Paul.

“Those things look like skinned rats.” Said James pointedly.

“She’s already got a rabbit! A rat makes more sense than a dog.” He said, “I don’t suppose either of you care that I am actually allergic to dogs.” He said grumpily.

“How can you not like dogs? Dogs are amazing and far cuter than babies.” I replied.

“I agree. Dogs are so loveable.” Said James.

“I said allergic. Not that I didn’t like him. But for the record I don’t.” said Paul.

“How can you not like him? Look at those big brown eyes.” Cooed James.

I felt a wet nose come and nudge my hand and I knew Koko was at my side. I leaned down and gave his head a good scratch, “Who’s a good dog?” I asked, my voice almost a coo, “Who’s a god dog?”

“It’s you.” Said James, actually cooing, “You’re a good dog.”

“You two are ridiculous. See? He’s knocking everything off the coffee table with his tail!” complained Paul.

So that’s what that clattering sound was. I’d been too caught up in patting Koko to notice.

“Relax. We’ll be in the bigger house next week.” He said pointedly.

“He’s right. I finalized all the paperwork today.” I told him. Thinking of the two story house I had that as right next to a park yet still central enough to London that I didn’t have to travel far to work.

“Speaking of which, have I told you about my colour scheme?” asked James.

“Yes, black and white with splashes of colour.” Said Paul sounding bored.

“No babe, you have to say ‘splashes of colour’ with jazz hands otherwise you’re missing the whole point.” Said James, “It’s going to look great. You’ll see.”

“I really won’t.” I replied.

                                                 …

Despite my saying that Koko would be my date to the 2017 Golden Globes, James and Paul played rock, paper, scissors to see who would accompany me; James won.

I wore a pink Michael Kors long dress with Badgley Mischka Radiant ‘T’ Strap sandals. I paired it with a  Dolce and Gabbana Vanda shoulder bag.

James enjoyed the red carpet more than I did. He loved having his photo taken and from what I could hear, he was photobombing all the other celebrities having their photo taken.

With Koko, I was a lot more independent at these kind of events so I didn’t need James with me as much, which was nice for the both of us. I didn’t feel crowded and he was able to run amuck like he wanted.

Having Koko with me, feeling more independent and not so reliant on people, I felt a lot more confident. I knew Kit was going to be at the Golden Globes, Game of Thrones was up for Best Drama Series, so I had my guard up; I was ready for him to try and talk to me like he had every time we’d been in the same room as each other.

But it was not Kit who approached me when I was sitting at the table, it was someone else.

“Excuse me, are you Gertrude Trinket?” asked a female voice.

“Yes, I am. And who might you be?” I asked as I stroked Koko’s head.

“I’m Emilia. Emilia Clarke.” She replied.

I felt as if a bucket of ice had been thrown over me, but I fixed a smile on my face and held my hand out for her to shake, “Nice to meet you Emilia.” I said, formally.

“Like wise.” She said as she shook my head, “Do you mind if I sit down?”

Given the circumstances, yes, I did mind. I expected her to start yelling at me any moment to ‘stay away from my boyfriend’ but her voice had been so bright and happy that there was no malice behind it. So I really had no reason to refuse her.

“Please.” I said simply.

I heard her pull the chair next to me out and sit down. There was a moment of silence when I was sure that she was going to unleash a string of verbal abuse towards me, or demand to know what history I had with Kit, but she didn’t.

“What’s your dogs name?” she asked politely.

“This is Koko.” I told her.

“Can I give him a pat?”

“Sure.” I said, feeling a little bemused.

“He’s adorable.” She cooed.

I didn’t know what to say so I simply stayed silent. This was one of the weirdest moments in my life. Kit’s current girlfriend was sitting with me, his ex-girlfriend, chatting pleasantly about my dog. None of this made any sense.

“You looked amazing in the Victoria Secret show.” She told me.

“Thank you.” I smiled. Things were getting weirder.

“I could hardly believe it was you when I came over here, I’ve heard so much about you from Kit of course.” She said.

And there it was. She had heard all about me from Kit and now wanted to see me for herself to form her own nasty opinion. I knew it. Her niceness was just a façade.

“I can’t imagine he would have had many good things to say.” I commented, ready for her to spew forth all the horrible things he had said about me.

“No, on the contrary. He speaks very highly of you.” She disagreed immediately.

“Really?” I asked, disbelief colouring my voice.

“Yeah. He’s really proud of everything you’ve achieved. Not just with your modelling but your music. He made everyone in the Thrones cast buy your album.” She told me.

I blinked in shock; Kit was proud of me?

“He’s actually the reason I came over here to talk to you.” She stated.

I shifted uncomfortably, this couldn’t be good.

“He has no idea I’m over here by the way, so I’m speaking my own mind.” she began.

“The mind of a girlfriend.” I interrupted.

“Girlfriend?” she asked in shock, “Oh no. Kit and I aren’t together. I mean, we hooked up a few times in the early days but nothing like that anymore. We’re just friends.” She explained.

I blinked in shock, “Oh.”

“So it’s as his friend that I’m going to tell you that he is a good guy.” She said seriously, “He’s a good guy and I think you should give him a break.”

“A break?” I asked in disbelief, how on earth could she be saying this to me? She wasn’t a part of our relationship. She didn’t know what happened.

“Yeah. He feels terrible about the way things turned out.” She told me.

“Turned out? Do you even know what happened?” I asked angrily.

“I know enough.” She assured me, “And if I was in Kit’s position I would have done exactly the same thing.” She said simply.

I felt my jaw go slack in disbelief. I couldn’t believe she was saying this to me.

“Surely you can understand now that your famous how hard it can be to trust people. To know whether their intentions are good or bad. With you, there was never any doubt in Kit’s mind that your intentions were pure and that was why he fell in love with you. Why he’s still in love with you.” She explained.

I couldn’t believe that Kit still loved me. My mind couldn’t process that kind of information right now. But she had a point; I now knew far too well how Kit must have been feeling. I was inherently suspicious of all new people in my life now because they all wanted something from me. Even people who I did know, the way they treated me had changed.

It would be nice to meet someone who I never had to worry about using me for my fame.

“That doesn’t mean what he did was ok.” I reminded her.

“I completely agree.” She said, catching me off guard, “He knows he did a shitty thing. Why do you think every time he sees you he tries to apologize?”

I kept my mouth shut. I knew I’d never really let him apologize to me because I thought the words would be meaningless. But now I wondered, if I actually heard him apologize, would that make it easier to forgive him?

“He’s a good guy Gerty. As your friend, I think you should give him another chance.” She said.

“Oh, we’re friends now are we?” I asked, picking the word out with interest.

“I feel like we’re friends. I’ve heard so much about you.” She said happily, “The two of us have so much in common, I think we’ll become best friends.” She said.

I laughed happily.

“Besides, two girls that have as amazing eyebrows as we do, kind of have to be friends.” She told me.

“Yes, you do both have some pretty epic eyebrows.” Agreed a voice.

“James.” I smiled, “When did you get back?” I asked, I wanted to know how much of the conversation he had heard.

“Like two seconds.” He told me and I felt him sit in the chair beside me.

“I’ve never plucked my eyebrows.” Said Emilia.

“Me neither. My mum told me never to do it.” I replied.

“Mine too!” she said happily.

“You guys should have an eyebrow off!” declared James.

“An eyebrow off?” asked Emilia.

“Yeah, I’ll post it on Instagram and people can vote for who has the best!” he said happily.

“Ok, what do we have to do?” I asked.

“Show off how great your eyebrows are.” He replied.

Emilia must have pulled a face because a moment later I heard the click of James’s phones camera. Then I pulled a face and he snapped another picture.

“Alright, its on!” declared James, “Let the internet decide who is the eyebrow queen.”

“Well your already mother of dragons, I think I should be eyebrow queen.” I said.

“No way! I’m adding it to my title. Queen of the Andals and Eyebrows, thank you very much.” Said Emilia.

I laughed loudly.

“Oh, the show is starting.” Said James.

“I better go. But we should exchange numbers.” Said Emilia.

“Definitely.” I replied as I grabbed my phone and handed it to her.

“There. Speak to you later.” She said as she handed me back my phone, “Bye.”

“Bye.”

There was silence for a moment as she left and I felt utterly bewildered about what had just happened.

“Well,” said James after a moment, “That was weird.”

“Tell me about it.” I agreed.

“Kit’s ex-girlfriend making friends with his current girlfriend. Perfectly normal.” He said.

“She said she’s not his girlfriend.” I told him.

“They break up?”

“No, she said they were never together.”                                                    

“Oh. And how do you feel about that?”

My brow creased as I thought about his question, “I’m not sure. Relieved I think.”

“Relieved?” he questioned.

“Yeah.” I said, feeling firmer in my statement, “if he hasn’t moved on it means that what we had was real.”

“Were you doubting that?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The program started but I paid no attention.

Once again it had taken a third party to make me see my situation with Kit in a different way.

I knew what I had to do. When there was a break, I turned to James, “Where’s Kit?” I asked quietly.

“Over at the bar. Why? Where are you-” he began but I didn’t listen to him as I grabbed Koko’s leash and headed over to the bar.

I didn’t know where it was at the bar, so I figured I needed to grab his attention.

“What can I get you?” asked the bar tender as I leaned against the bar, his voice clear with innuendo.

“Yeah can I get a banana smoothie?” I asked.

The bar tender seemed confused, “Ah, what?”

“With honey, coconut and kale?” I asked, smiling at my own joke.

“We only do alcoholic drinks.” He said.

“Well in that case, I’ll have a Malibu and coke.” I replied.

“Coming right up.” He replied.

I counted in my head. It wouldn’t take long. Three, two, one…

“Banana smoothie to Malibu and coke; pretty big leap.” Said a voice that I knew all too well.

“Well, they both have coconut in them.” I replied as the bar tender placed the drink down next to my hand, “Thank you.” I told him before I took a sip.

“Barely.” Replied Kit.

“Congratulations on your win.” I said. The sixth season of Game of Thrones had won best drama series for the night.

“Thanks.” He said, then after a moment he said, “Where’d you get the dog?”

“Harrods. They’re a big fashion accessory now. Everybody wants one.” I told him.

“Right. And what do you call yours?”

“Koko.”  

There was a moment of silence where I took a sip of my drink, waiting.

“Can we talk?” he asked quietly.

“Sure.”

He seemed stunned by my agreeance because he didn’t automatically try to talk to me or take me anywhere. So I prompted him.

“Lead the way.” I instructed as I grabbed Koko’s leash.

Koko followed Kit, as I knew he would. I had no idea where we were going but from the way all the noise was suddenly dulled, I thought we must have been out in the lobby.

“I’ve rehearsed this conversation so much in my head, now that it’s here, I’m not sure what to say.” He revealed.

I fiddled with Koko’s leash. I too had thought about this moment a lot and now that it was finally here, I was a little nervous to hear what he had to say. I was also very aware that for the first time in what felt like a long time, the two of us were alone and I was very aware of how my body reacted to his.

I felt the hairs on my arm stand up on end and my chest felt hot. I subconsciously pressed my thighs together under my dress. My lips felt dry and I resisted the urge to flick my tongue out and wet them.

“I wanted to say,” he began, taking a deep breath in, “That I know what I did was wrong. There were so many times where I wanted to tell you. Every day I promised myself that I would but then I’d see you and the way you looked at me, I didn’t want that to change. It was selfish of me and I’m sorry.” He said.

I felt as if a led weight had been dropped into my stomach. I felt the weight of his words drag me down into the depths of despair.

“I’m so sorry Gerty. I shouldn’t have lied to you. Not a day goes by where I don’t regret it. Not a day goes by where I don’t think of you and wish we could start over. I wish we could get back what we had but I know I’ve done too much damage for that to ever happen.” He said seriously, “I know it can’t change anything but I need you to forgive me.” He said as a note of pleading came into his voice.

The weight of each word he said pulled me a little deeper into that pit of despair. But instead of letting it bury me, I chose to rise above it.

Letting Koko’s leash slide from my wrist, I placed it over my elbow as I stepped forward, searching with both my hands. They eventually found Kit’s chest and I felt his hands grab my wrist. I wasn’t sure what I was about to do was the right thing, feeling him touching me filled me with an emotion I couldn’t name; anticipation? Fear? Nervousness? Perhaps all three.

Sliding my hands up the smooth material of his shirt I came to rest them on his shoulders. I knew then that I was staring him right in the eye, like I wanted to. His body was tense under my hand as he waited for me to speak. But I didn’t.

This one thing, just this one thing I would allow myself.

Pressing up on the tips of my toes I gently pressed my lips to his cheek, which was once again covered in facial hair. I let my lips linger on his skin for just a moment, in that moment I could breathe in his signature scent and feel how his body responded to mine by relaxing, his ace turning ever so slightly so his nose could skim the shell of my ear.

Everything melted away between us in that moment and there was only the two of us. No past, present or future. Just the two of us in that moment.

But it was only a moment. The only one I would allow myself.

Pulling back, I felt Kit lean forward in an attempt to prologue our touch but I wouldn’t let him. Staring straight in his eyes I spoke, “I forgive you.”

And just like that, the weight I had been carrying around with me ever since I’d stepped out of that taxi was lifted and I felt so light that it was as if I was walking on air.

Taking hold of Koko’s leash, I walked back into the theatre alone. Leaving a still stunned Kit in the lobby.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15th April 2018 -- Extended Super Deluxe Version 3 & Knuckles

Holy busy week on the charts-ioli! There are nine new arrivals this week – two of which sample the exact same Lauryn Hill song - so let’s just get on with it, shall we?

Top 10

Drake... Thank you. Thank you for being such a streaming Cookie Monster that your new track, “Nice for What”, debuted at the top. Please stay. I don’t want the dreck one space below it to even see another week in the top ten, let alone at the top of the charts.

What is that dreck, you ask? Well, unfortunately to you and fortunately to me, I shall refuse to repeat its name until it exits the top 40. Google it! I won’t waste any more space in my show to talk about this trash.

At number-three, we have our second new arrival in the top five, “One Kiss” by infuriatingly hit-and-miss producer Calvin Harris and the latest of many of his pop girls that he can just grab out of a bucket for a quick smash (hit, for all you people with minds in the gutter), Dua Lipa.

Sadly, that means that “These Days” by Rudimental featuring Jess Glynne, Dan Caplen and the return of the Macklemore, has dipped down two spaces to number-four.

“Paradise” by George Ezra also took a small one-position hit to number-five, but if you care about that song’s existence, you’re a terrible liar.

“Friends” by Marshmello and Anne-Marie won’t budge at number-six. Good for them, I suppose.

“This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble streams down (no pun intended) four spaces to number-seven.

“Feel it Still” by Portugal. The Man, the most unlikely sleeper hit of this year – and that’s only because it was a hit LAST year in the US – has been taken down a notch or two... or three, to number-eight at its thirty-seventh week in the chart.

“Lullaby” by Sigala featuring Paloma Faith at number-nine won’t go away!

Although the saddest drop here is Post Malone’s “Psycho” featuring Ty Dolla $ign, dropping two spaces to number-ten. Am I the only one who wanted this to hit the top, especially after it got a video and noticeably an increase in radio play? No? Well, let’s just get on with the climbers.

Climbers

“Love Lies” by Khalid and Normani grows on both me and the charts, where it took a five-space jump to #18... but that’s it in terms of anything notable. I could talk about Bebe Rexha and B Young possibly getting a top ten hit as they creep up into the top 15, but they’re not really having immense leaps so I’ll decline.

Fallers

She says, “do you love me?” I tell her, “only partly. This forced meme couldn’t give my song boosts while it’s charting.”

Talking about forced memes, I apologise for possibly the cringiest passage I’ve written on this show thus far, but the content still rings true, as Drake’s “God’s Plan” just kind of cannonballs from its

number-one spot it had just two weeks ago, dropping five spaces to #16. The Weeknd sees some falls too, as “Call Out My Name” drops ten spaces to #17, and “Wasted Times” takes a 12-space drop to #30. The biggest story here, however, is Mabel’s “Fine Line” featuring Not3s, just nosediving 20 spots to #35. Damn, these new arrivals really shook the charts, huh? Talking about losing songs too soon...

Dropouts and Returning Entries

We have a whole lot to mourn here, with some damn good songs like “Havana” by Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug, “Tip Toe” by Jason Derulo featuring French Montana, “Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 2” by Stormzy featuring MNEK as well as “Mine” by Bazzi (which still might rebound next week due to the album) all dropping out from #34, #40, #39 and #27 respectively. We also have the not-as-sad losses of “Never be the Same” by Camila Cabello from #20, “New Rules” by Dua Lipa from #37, “Let Me Go” by Hailee Steinfeld and Alesso featuring Florida Georgia Line and Watt from #38, and “Strangers” by Sigrid from #35. We also have some absolute collapses for “Try Me” by The Weeknd from #17 and “Check” by Kojo Funds and RAYE from #32, both of which are not even in the top 75 anymore. Rest in peace to all of you, but good riddance to some.

“Pray for Me” by The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar also returned to #32. I don’t know why but I really don’t care – this song doesn’t really deserve the attention.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “I Like It” – Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin

People who follow me on Twitter know that I listened to Cardi B’s album, Invasion of Privacy, and wasn’t too big of a fan. This track, however, was definitely one of my favourites out of the bunch. Some part of me just absolutely loves that delicious Pete Rodriguez sample, providing Cardi with a Latin-infused trap beat that matches her bombast and simple yet effective flow. Those horns are just beautiful, and I love how the vocal samples play into Cardi’s hook and her “woo!” ad-libs that are just injected with fun. Bad Bunny’s deeper growl is entirely different from his sadboi moaning on his last single, “Amorfoda”, but damn, if it doesn’t still impress, with a melodic flow and Daddy Yankee inflections. Oh, yeah, J Balvin is here with some Lady Gaga references, but his autotuned bounce is completely drowned out by this crazy instrumental. Cardi, don’t do anything else. I like it like this.

#39 – “Mad Love” – Sean Paul featuring Becky G and David Guetta

Why does David Guetta get a featuring credit? Sure, he produced the track but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t give you free range to a feature, especially when producers usually (should) get credited for their work anyway. Well, is the song any good? No. I can tell you that. The watery synths that introduce the track are just kind of... pathetic? As are Becky’s attempts at Jamaican inflections, and Sean Paul’s as-always infuriatingly mediocre bars, coupled with his hilariously careless “singing” on the pre-chorus. Don’t give me “Fake Love” flashbacks. All that, however, can’t really distract me from the fact that maybe Guetta deserves his featuring credit, as his dancehall-influenced beat has some buzzing synths and clattering drums on the chorus that just make everything so much more exciting and... “mad”. Despite by enjoyment of Guetta’s instrumental, I can’t dig Becky or Paul here, so I think I’ll give it a skip if you can’t look past the vocals.

#38 – “Dancing” – Kylie Minogue

Man, it’s hard to believe that Kylie Minogue of all people has a song that takes ages to get to the top 40 after bubbling under for weeks on end, but yeah, I can understand why, because this track has an identity crisis. Is it country? Is it just some of what Minogue does best, bubblegum dance-pop? Who knows? Who cares? Well, Minogue does, obviously, as she tries to pull off a country twang and a melody that I don’t think she can really handle anymore on the chorus. The instrumental is the least notable thing here, especially with that weak drop – well, that is, if you ignore the pop-by-the-numbers writing. That one line as the hook – “when I go out, I want to go out dancing”. Yeah, maybe, you should stay home tonight, Minogue, as if you’ve lost your touch on making damn good pop jams, you’re probably not too great on the floor, either. Sorry.

#37 – “I See You Shining” – Nines

I feel like Patrick Star when I see these nobodies creep into the top 40 on this show sometimes. Who are you people? This one bothers me especially, mostly because of how terrible the name of this act is. Nines? What, are there bands called Sevens and Eights that just couldn’t blow up? Are you going all Timberlake on us and being dressed up the nines? Actually, looking at this dude, I don’t exactly think he is – no shade and he doesn’t look bad, particularly, but the dude’s not wearing a suit and tie or anything. Apparently, he also goes by Nina with the Nina. I see... Well, since I’m supposed to be talking about the song here, I suppose I should mention how it sucks. It’s just some more generic braggadocios faux-reggae faux-grime nonsense with a nice vocal sample, if anything. Nines has very little of a presence. It reminds me of the trap-rap you poor Yankees get oversaturated with, but with a bit more energy and more cluttered instrumentals. I’m just getting sick of this new brand of bore-hop, with the stale reggaeton drum patterns and the uninterested MCs.

#27 – “Be Careful” – Cardi B

Yo, Cardi, why’d you have to be so brutal on Offset? What did he do except be somewhat homophobic, possibly a cheating jerk and a terrible liar...? Yeah, maybe, I get why she had to go in on this dude, and I can buy her aggression with the Wii Shopping Channel synths and the occasional reverb-soaked shrieks of some person saying “yeah”, which I assume is a twisted sample of the classic “yeah! Woo!” break, but I’m not entirely sure. Cardi’s singing doesn’t totally impress, but it does its job at making elevator music somehow threatening (despite her insisting that it’s NOT a threat) and pretty awesome, which it really shouldn’t be. Sure, it does feel monotonous, but it’s a pretty nice love-on-the-rocks track, with a catchy hook to boot. However, it’s not the best song to sample Lauryn Hill’s “X-Factor” that debuted this week.

Fun fact: Lauryn Hill’s song also samples a Wu-Tang Clan song which samples a Barbra Streisand song, so I imagine Marvin Hamlisch and his team, writers of “The Way We Were”, is getting royalties upon royalties for the decades of use his song had. That also means that “Be Careful” has like seventeen credited writers, but that’s besides the point. The song’s decent.

#25 – “Answerphone” – Banx & Ranx and Ella Eyre featuring Yxng Bane

I’ve heard of these artists before several times in passing, mostly because Ella Eyre is one of UK’s favourite feature-pop girls, Yxng Bane has charted last week and Banx & Ranx did a few Gorillaz remixes last year. I didn’t really know how they’d mesh, but I did know what to expect – a boring dancehall track with some autotuned rapping from Bane and serviceable vocals from Ella Eyre.

Yep, I was right. Eyre has a slightly smoky voice here, which can sound croaky and unfitting against the bouncy dancehall production and looping melodies on the keys, along with an ugly synth tone and a stale but notably somewhat garage-influenced drum pattern that speeds the song up enough for it to not become boring. Yxng Bane has like 20 seconds of the song, and I’m glad, because he’s not very interesting here at all, and I wouldn’t want this song to be longer than the three minutes and eleven seconds that it is, otherwise it’d be pretty gratingly snooze-worthy. If you have insomnia, I recommend this instead of ASMR or whatever you find on the Internet, because this will definitely send you to sleep.

Well, now we have our three big ‘uns, starting with...

#14 – “Dreams” – Ruti

Who? What? Where? When? How? Let me repeat that first one, who? That’s the problem with these reality shows – they have much more of an effect on the UK charts and honestly, I couldn’t care less for who wins; I just watch the auditions. Ruti here is the winner of The Voice UK this year, and on her debut single, she covers a Cranberries song that I hadn’t heard prior, “Dreams”. Hence, after listening to this decent enough albeit bland piano-lead rendition with a shaky vocal performance from Ruti, I listened to the original version and realised that I really could have gone without knowing Syco put their turn-songs-to-snoozefests hands on it.

#3 – “One Kiss” – Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa

Calvin and Hobbes bring us some by-the-numbers slightly tropically-tinged EDM-infused electropop, with a decent synth melody and some interesting vocal samples, as well as experimentation on the drop that is just kind of all over the place and balls to the wall, with its deep samples of Dua singing “one”, brief blips of a horn riff, a reversed percussion pattern and a whole lot of pointless synth noise.

That’s really all I can say about this. For the first time from Dua Lipa and the seventy-eighth time from Calvin Harris, all I can say is that it exists and I’m entirely indifferent on it. Sorry.

#1 – “Nice For What” – Drake

So, this is the biggest debut, because of course, it’s Drake, and, yeah, guys, as much as I hate this dude’s lack of charisma and overall just boring flow, writing and even beat choice, he’s won me over on this one. Big Freedia starts the track with a few drum fills and distorted shouting, before the pitched-up Lauryn Hill sample (I told you it’d come back) enters like a Kanye track from 2004, and the percussion hits heavy as with nearly all of Drake’s singles. Then Drake starts spitting with delivery I’ve never heard from him before – a Kanye-like melodic hook as well as a repetitive but effective flow in the verses as he talks about this girl that “hits them motherf***ing angles”. Big Freedia then comes back to break it down into the chopped sample hook as Drake chops his own verse up, creating a weirdly jerky experience. If she hits them angles, you’re hitting the gym because this is the strongest single I’ve heard from Drake in years. Congratulations, my man, you deserve this number-one! It’s probably the best I’ve heard for a long time.

Conclusion

Damn, Drake really takes the cake with “Nice for What” running with Best of the Week, with tied Honourable Mentions for both of Cardi B’s debuts. Worst of the Week... I can’t really say anything here is outright bad, but I suppose Kylie Minogue takes it with “Dancing” while Dishonourable Mention goes to “Dreams” by Ruti for taking all of the excitement out of an excellent song. See ya next week!