#i wish we had marinas vocals on off the hooks version but the same reason i like squidsters i like theirs. upbeat and makes u wanna cheer

[pcktknife]

if you havent heard em all. all versions are on the wiki on the side banner. music player's at the bottom (^^)

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 11th November 2018

Okay, I am so sorry this is so late, but honestly I don’t think the Sunday routine works all that well with me personally, so I just moved to my alternate date for maybe the next two weeks. I’m thinking of going for Saturday or Friday with alternate dates on Thursday for next year? We’ll see.

Top 10

And, of course... “thank u, next” by Ariana Grande debuts at number-one. I believe this is the fourth #1 debut this year, two of which were Drake, of course, and the other was “Funky Friday” by Dave and Fredo. We’ll talk more about it later, but for now, this is Grande’s sixteenth top 40 hit in the UK, her ninth top 10 and her third #1. Congratulations, Ari.

“Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, last week’s #1, is of course down a spot to number-two.

As is “Woman Like Me” by Little Mix featuring Nicki Minaj at number-three, kept in the top five by its X Factor performance.

Oh, and so is “Promises” by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith, now at number-four.

“Let You Love Me” by Rita Ora, on the other hand, is one space above its placement last week, at number-five.

Out of the top five now, we have “Funky Friday” by Dave and Fredo in freefall now, down two spots to number-six.

Up a whopping 11 spaces this week is “Thursday” by Jess Glynne, as I expected, due to an Ed Sheeran acoustic remix and now a video that may just push this one up to the top spot. As of now, it’s her eleventh top 10 and matches the peak of previous single, “All I Am”.

The ever-so-fascinating song “ZEZE” by Kodak Black, Travis Scott and Offset of the Migos is down a spot to number-eight... full-length review of that coming soon, by the way.

“Without Me” by Halsey is up 13 spots to number-nine due to the Colin Tilley-directed video, and becomes what I believe to be only her third top 10 (two of which are number-ones, funnily enough).

Finally, Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower” returns to the top 10 after a one-spot increase, rounding off the top 10 (which is actually pretty good this week) with a fantastic song.

Climbers

Outside of the top 10, there’s pretty much nothing here I should bother with. Yeah, those are the only notable jumps this week, other than “Ruin My Life” by Zara Larsson bouncing up six spots to #22, I guess, but it’s not like that song’s any interesting.

Fallers

Now this is a very different story. There were so many fallers this week, although not many of them really have any value. I mean, sure, there were basically hundreds of one, two or three-space fallers, but who cares about them? Let’s focus on the fortunate five-space fall for “Arms Around You” by XXXTENTACION, Lil Pump, Swae Lee, Maluma and with honourable credit to Rio Santana, now sent back to #19. Same fall goes for “Better” by Khalid too (although that song is much better, for the record), now at #24, right next to the big story here – “Happier” by Marshmello and Bastille plummeting 18 spaces to #23, because I’m pretty sure it’s time for its streaming cuts, which affected Dynoro and Gigi D’Agostino’s “In My Mind” to a much heavier extent, because, Jesus Christ. It’s down freaking 32 positions to #40. This could have easily dropped off straight from number-eight and that’s pretty crazy. Now, rapid-fire: “Eastside” by benny blanco, Halsey and Khalid is down five to #26 while “MIA” by Bad Bunny and Drake and “Shotgun” by George Ezra are down four to #29 and #30, “Ay Caramba” by Stay Flee Get Lizzy with Fredo and Young T & Bugsey is down six to #38, and, to my dismay, “when the party’s over” by Billie Eilish also falls down five spaces to #39.

Dropouts

Right before the new arrivals, might as well mention the dropouts here. “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B is out from #31 (the beast has yet to be slain in the US, it seems), “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong has dropped out again from #35, “Body” by Loud Luxury and brando has exited from #37 after having a pretty good run, “Venom” by Eminem has been bit down to the bottom of the charts as it drops out from #38, “Kiss and Make Up” by Dua Lipa featuring BLACKPINK has fallen out from #39, and finally “I Want You to Freak” by Rak-Su is out from #40.

NEW ARRIVALS

#37 – “A Million Dreams” (Reimagined) – P!nk

Apparently there’s been a “Reimagined” edition of the soundtrack for the musical The Greatest Showman (that has just had his songs finally leave the top 40 after months of “This is Me” dominating), adding covers of the musical’s songs by Kelly Clarkson and Panic! at the Disco. This is the second time I’ve had to cover this song on this show, since the original version also charted, and my opinions haven’t really changed. This is P!nk’s thirty-second UK Top 40 hit, and easily one of her least memorable. Everything feels quite plastic in the production here other than that pretty nice guitar melody but it’s nothing new and nothing all that interesting, with the strings adding some extra melodrama to a pretty-sounding but otherwise kind of useless, typical piano ballad. P!nk has some real power to her voice like she always has, and that pounding percussion is pretty effective in giving it that extra “oomph” but I’m not feeling it here. This shouldn’t be a surprise to any of you if you’ve seen other episodes; I just don’t like ballads as much as I really wish I could, I guess. Oh, and this is way too long. After less than two minutes, I get bored – and this is more than double that.

#35 – “I Found You” – benny blanco and Calvin Harris

benny blanco seems to be striving for a solo lead artist career, and his first venture after the massive success of “Eastside” is to pander to the UK crowd he’s been doing so well with, by collaborating with one of our favourite Scottish DJs, Calvin Harris, and disregarding that oddly eerie cover art, this is benny blanco’s second UK Top 40 hit as a credited artist and Calvin Harris’ thirty-third, and it’s pretty awesome. It starts with that guitar or organ riff repeating with Calvin Harris actually performing vocals (yeah, he can’t sing but it works here) in a deeper register, creating an odd atmosphere before it’s immediately retconned for some brighter synths and disco-inflected deep house grooves, because that’s the road Calvin’s been going down lately, but it still keeps me on-edge with those haunting background vocals in the hook, and that pitched-down vocal fragment that repeats is such a taunting melody. Man, and that riff returning in the bridge with only the backing vocals is pretty creepy as well. Yeah, absolutely nothing works the way it should here, and that is just perfect – nothing goes as plan and it still bangs. Nice one, guys. I recommend this... for all the wrong reasons.

#33 – “Baby” – Clean Bandit featuring Marina and Luis Fonsi

What a strange combination. Reggaeton singer and accidental meme-pioneer Luis Fonsi performing on a duet with synthpop critic’s favourite Marina Diamandis, this being her first single without “the Diamonds” (who didn’t exactly exist in the first place, it’s always been a solo venture) over a beat from orchestral-EDM fusion outfit Clean Bandit? I mean, I’m up for it, but this wasn’t expected to say the least... although looking into it Marina’s collaborated with the group before so maybe it’s not too out of left field. Anyways, this is Clean Bandit’s eleventh, Marina’s sixth and Luis Fonsi’s second (after “Despacito”) UK Top 40 hit, and it’s okay. This instrumental feels pretty cluttered with a 808 bassline on coke desperately following the slick guitar strumming, but they can definitely keep up with Marina’s beautiful voice on the track, as well as Luis’ pretty good (albeit shorter) performance, with the hats in the drop being a nice addition, but then there’s another drop for some reason, and it’s completely different, adding horns and just becoming more Latin-inflected because the rest of the song isn’t at all, really, just relying on the guitars and Fonsi to handle that crossover appeal. When Marina and Fonsi start singing completely different melodies on top of each other while the drop is still playing, I feel like way too much is going on, and it’s not mixed in an interesting or well enough way for me to forgive. This isn’t for me, but I can see other people liking it, it’s just a bit too messy for me.

#27 – “Empty Space” – James Arthur

I don’t like this guy at all. His voice is unrecognisably familiar at best and aggravatingly incomprehensible at worse. I have never heard a single song I can stand from the guy, especially after his “comeback”, in fact I’d argue he’s just gotten so much worse with songs like “Naked”, “Sun Comes Up” and especially “Say You Won’t Let Go” – oh, God, that one’s unlistenable. Anyways, this is the X Factor series nine winner’s ninth UK Top 40 hit, and it’s probably not his worst one, but it might as well be because it is still pretty terrible. James Arthur sounds bored like always over the pseudo-aggressive indie-ish production that starts the song off until we have a bit of trap percussion he rides well, right until it abruptly switches to him belting with bottle caps up his nose for unlistenable pre-choruses, especially since nothing drowns him out. It’s just him, his guitar and those only – and even when the strings and percussion comes in, it just gets worse because the drums aren’t fitting – this isn’t a motivational track. That chorus with Arthur nasally repeating “space” with tiny little chipmunk vocals placed in there at somehow exactly the worst moments. Oh, and that final drop with all the four vocal tracks going on at once, none of them even half-decent, is audio torture, especially with all the synth noise that absorbs the trash and just regurgitates it with all the spit still lingering all over it. What an excruciating three and a half minutes.

#16 – “Polaroid” – Jonas Blue featuring Liam Payne and Lennon Stella

Jonas Blue’s been here before – he’s a mainstream EDM producer who’s made songs I love like “Mama” and songs I hate with a burning passion like “Rise” with Jack & Jack, Liam Payne we haven’t really talked about but he’s one of the One Direction boys that you all know and love. Lennon Stella is a bit of a different story. She’s a 19-year-old actress who shaped her career out of the TV show Nashville – I’ve never seen it and can’t comment, but it involved a lot of singing and country music from what I can gather, so it’s understandable that it should be in her best interests to start a pop music career, and she did so with a couple singles here and there, but this is her first ever UK Top 40 hit (congratulations), Jonas Blue’s seventh and Liam Payne’s sixth as a solo artist. It’s here because of an X Factor performance, and it also sucks mostly because it’s nothing to write home about, ironically for a song named after memorable photographs. It starts with those fake finger-snaps, as background laughter and chatter fills up the mix, before an abrupt semi-drop that just kind of clouds the song with synth noise as Liam Payne uses what seems to be his lower register (proving that he just pretty much can’t sing, can he?). Oh, and the actual drop is not catchy at all, like it’s so forgettable. Lennon Stella doesn’t perform very well at all either, but yeah, the chorus isn’t a new or memorable melody, and while I like that it’s an EDM song that focuses less on the drop as its source of climax, it makes the song miss the point – and doing so, it also misses the mark.

#1 – “thank u, next” – Ariana Grande

And finally, it’s the big one – Ariana Grande’s new single where she rattles off her ex-boyfriends and thanks them for what they’ve helped her learn and how they’ve assisted in her growth as a person – in one, very non-descriptive verse, but it’s there nonetheless – and comes to terms with herself as a human, realising she does not need what she perceived as a necessity – to always have a partner. Basically it’s a self-confidence anthem that only Ariana can really relate to specifically. If you twist it around a bit it would apply to you but without any of the names changing, that’s just how it is... and it’s all over a smooth R&B beat. Ari sounds great like always, I don’t even need to comment on that, but when that warbly bass slides in after just a few seconds of just the keys and vocals, that’s just beautiful. The beat throughout is wrapped in silk and just dripping swagger, fitting Ari’s low-key verse delivery and even limiting herself in the chorus where she’s supposed to burst like usual – but nah, she doesn’t all that much. It’s there, but relegated to ad-libs and nothing else, which is good because that catchy-as-all-hell hook could not be delivered better. If I have any issues, it’s that the ending is a rushed, abrupt fade-out which adds so many additional musical elements that could have easily been developed afterwards, and that the lyrics may be a tad too passive so the whole thing comes off as disregarding even keeping to herself and instead still being boy-hungry, especially in the chorus, where the whole “thank you, next” phrase just doesn’t really make sense to me in the context of the song, especially since she implies she’ll be moving onto the next relationship. She does elaborate in the second verse, but it still irks me like all my little nitpicks do. Otherwise, great song.

Conclusion

It’s a middling weak overall, with obvious stand-outs at each end of the spectrum. James Arthur gets Worst of the Week for “Empty Space” as Dishonourable Mention goes to Jonas Blue, Liam Payne and Lennon Stella for “Polaroid”. Best of the Week is obviously going to going to Ariana Grande for “thank u, next”, but she had close competition with the Honourable Mention this week, benny blanco and Calvin Harris, for the wonderfully incompetent “I Found You”. See ya in a few days!

at1 \lsdpr