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deadcactuswalking · 5 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 27th January 2019

FEATURED SONG #3 – “Happy Together” by Weezer

This isn’t necessarily being pushed as a single but I don’t care it was released a week or two back and I adore it so I’m covering it briefly on this week’s Featured Song segment. Now, ‘90s alt-rock act Weezer have had somewhat of a resurgence with their meme-fuelled cover of Toto’s “Africa”, which actually acted as the lead single for their surprise Teal Album, which dropped on January 23rd, to mixed reviews, but I personally loved it, and their cover of the Turtles’ “Happy Together” is my personal favourite of the 10 tracks presented. It’s very similar to the original, that is true, and yeah, they stick to the formula and do not escape their comfort zone, but do you need to? This is the most sincere I’ve heard Rivers Cuomo since Pinkerton but instead of whining like his old stuff, he seems genuinely content, and that’s what I love about this song, because it’s just Rivers Cuomo expressing his love for either his significant other or how I interpreted it, his job as a musician, because although they’ve had ups and downs in their career to the point where they’ve had to use Kickstarter to even record, release and promote one of their albums, Rivers Cuomo sticks to his craft and loves music so much that he’d be fit for all his life just doing what he loves, and I appreciate that. This song is so glittery and purely joyful, and I love it. Check it out, and maybe the Teal Album if you’re into this.

Alright, I’m focusing on my Top 15 Best Hit Songs of 2018 right now, so let’s make this as quick as possible.

Top 10

Yeah, we have a #1 debut, and our first in the 2019 chart year, and it’s Ariana Grande with “7 rings”, as it shatters records, debuting at the top in America, becoming her second in such a short time as “thank u, next” also debuted at its peak of #1 two or so months ago. It’s Ariana Grande’s 17th Top 40 hit in the UK and her fourth #1. We’ll talk about it later.

Otherwise, eh, nothing really happened. “Sweet but Psycho” by Ava Max is down a spot to number-two.

“Dancing with a Stranger” by Sam Smith and Normani on the other hand is up a space to number-three.

Post Malone’s “Wow.” is also down a single position to number-four.

This puts it right near Calvin Harris and Rag ‘n’ Bone Man entering the top five with “Giant”, a two-spot increase from last week to number-five.

Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus’ “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” struggled down four positions this week to number-six.

Post Malone’s other top 10 hit, “Sunflower”, with Swae Lee, from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, is also down two spots to number-seven.

Ariana Grande’s last #1, “thank u, next”, is down two spots to number-eight.

The only notable switch-up outside of the #1 today is the 25-spot boost for Russ’ “Gun Lean”, which has somehow made its way to number-nine. It’s not the American rapper, it’s the British rapper who calls himself “Russ splash” on Spotify but otherwise it’s just Russ? I’m not sure how to separate them, to be honest. Congratulations for his first top 10 hit, but, I mean, it’s awful.

Finally, at #10, down two spots from last week is “Play” by Jax Jones and Years & Years.

Climbers

“Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi is up a whopping sixteen spaces up to #13, although I don’t see the appeal, becoming his first top 20 hit. “Undecided” by Lil Dicky is back five spaces up to #16... and that’s it.

Fallers

We have a couple more of these, though. “Lost in the Fire” by Gesaffelstein featuring the Weeknd is down six off the debut to #15, both “18HUNNA” by Headie One and Dave and “Hold My Girl” by George Ezra are down 10 spaces to #21 and #22 respectively, whilst right next to them are two consecutive six-spot fallers, those being “Ruin My Life” by Zara Larsson and “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong at #23 and #24. “Baby” by Clean Bandit, Marina and Luis Fonsi is down five to #28, next to “Hello My Love” by Westlife, plummeting down sixteen spaces to #29, which is also next to another six-spot faller, “Thursday” by Jess Glynne at #30. Speaking of six-space fallers, “One Kiss” by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa is at #32, and “Mo Bamba” by Sheck Wes is down five to #33. Other than that, we have two eight-space falls at the tail-end of the chart, with “Promises” by Sam Smith and Calvin Harris at #38, and “This is Me” by Keala Settle and the Greatest Showman Ensemble at #39.

Dropouts

“Longshot” by Catfish and the Bottlemen is out from #25, “Leave a Light On” by Tom Walker is out from #37, “Eastside” by benny blanco featuring Halsey and Khalid is out from #39, “Woman Like Me” by Little Mix featuring Nicki Minaj is out from #40 and “A Million Dreams” by P!NK is out from #35.

Returning Entries

“2002” by Anne-Marie is back at #40 but what amazes me is the sudden return for “Close to Me” by Ellie Goulding, Diplo and Swae Lee at #25, up 32 spaces from its position in the top 100. Did they release an album or something? I just don’t know what made it suddenly increase this high. Other than that, nothing interesting here, let’s get to the new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#27 – “Psych Out!” – AJ Tracey

I’ve heard one or two songs from AJ Tracey and he just does not impress me or even come off as interesting. Apparently, he’s releasing an album soon, which is okay, but as a buzz single, does this entice me at all? I mean, yeah, to an extent, because it starts with a minimalistic bubbling synth melody that twinkles for a while until AJ Tracey, self-proclaimed melodic jukebox, sings over the beat as the kicks kick in, and slowly but surely, the skittering trap percussion hits and, yeah, I’m bored. The hook is catchy and in all honesty pretty great, AJ Tracey’s not a bad singer, but as his third top 40 hit, this is just such a re-tread of what he’s already done, and I don’t care about anything he has to say – because he doesn’t have anything to say, he’s just a disposable UK rapper who happened to latch onto a decent chorus and bam, you get a hit. This makes me feel bad for criticising American trap. Next.

#11 – “Don’t Call Me Up” – Mabel

Mabel isn’t really more interesting either – delightful – but she’s a British R&B singer who I think has a great voice and a knack for melodies, at least her producers and writers do, because all of her songs so far have been incredibly catchy, especially that “Fine Line” track with Not3s I reviewed nearly a year ago now. I’ve heard snippets of this one, and it seems like typical Mabel fare, except her performance is slightly sub-par and we’ve got some cheaper, yet almost vintage 80s-sounding string synths. The chorus is such an abrupt shift as that pounding bass comes in with the dancehall-infused drum beat and what sounds like a marimba, again, I’m not entirely sure, but I know it sounds pretty great, and I like how Mabel can pump out hits like this consistently (this being her fifth Top 40). This is pretty fun – pretty simple, conventional and essentially just more of the same, but like I said with the Featured Song above, it doesn’t need to be to be a fun dance song, and that’s exactly what this is. Mabel doesn’t really care about the narrative or even her performance at times, but she rides this beat insanely well with her smooth, sultry and dare I say proudly British voice, so, yeah, I’m happy with this, and I can see it peaking in the top 10 somewhere.

#1 – “7 rings” – Ariana Grande

So, I skimmed this Pitchfork piece about the song being so out-of-character for Grande considering how most of the roll-out for her album thank u, next has been about being relatable and almost sympathetic for Ariana Grande with all her recent struggles, and that this is some kind of break from that character, although I think that’s on purpose as it shows how she covers her issues and struggles with materialistic items (even though she doesn’t, and is clearly okay with making her grievances public in interviews and such). I do see how this can be a shattering of the facade though, similarly to “I Might Need Security” by Chance the Rapper last year, but there’s one issue with that comparison: the Chance song was good. The Chance song didn’t have a lazy, hackneyed interpolation of “My Favourite Things”. The Chance song maybe had a lightweight beat but there was a sample to add some soulfulness to it and it wasn’t just a lightweight trap “banger” that proves nothing other than the fact that this is only shameless genre-hopping for the sake of trend-following and not any artistic purpose now. Chance’s flow was calm, relaxed and potentially you could see it as lazy, but at least his flows were, you know, original, or at least not blatantly jacked from other rappers such as Soulja Boy of all people, who, by the way, has an absolute mess of a Discord server, find an invite to that at some time. Eh, I can’t be too mad at this because Grande is a great singer and the third verse has an okay flow, but this is way too stiff. Pass.

Conclusion

Best of the Week goes to Mabel for “Don’t Call Me Up” but I still do feel that’s unwarranted because it isn’t entirely great. Worst of the Week goes to AJ Tracey for “Psych Out!”, and, yeah, that’s it for this week. See you on Sunday!

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