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deadcactuswalking · 3 months

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 06/01/2024 (Sabrina Carpenter, Saltburn)

Content warning: Discussion of the Astroworld Festival crowd crush and brief sex references

It’s that time of year again, where all the Christmas songs flush out - no, I’m not going to list all of them as dropouts - and we get a rush of songs gaining or returning with extraordinarily high peaks at extraordinarily high rates because hey, that’s just how the chart is on the first week of January. It’s usually one of my most work-heavy episodes, but also because of the incredibly low barrier for entry on a first-week-of-January chart, it ends up pretty fun and kind of goofy sometimes, so this is actually a pretty exciting week for me, even if this episode will be lengthy to write. Regardless, Noah Kahan gets his first ever week at #1 with “Stick Season”, and welcome back to 2024’s REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

Now, it would be really easy - and also really tedious of me - to just list all of the songs in the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, and you know, I considered doing that, but I think I’m going to be quite subjective and selective here, especially given there are less debuts this week than I expected. Just know that the vast majority of Christmas songs are no longer charting and have been replaced with, for the most part, songs that were charting in the last couple weeks. I will not be listing every return, but I will list songs that have returned to new peaks or songs that I just think are interesting or strange, including songs that haven’t charted in a while or have fascinating stories, or are just goofy little novelties of the January week, and we actually start dead-on at #75 with those.

“Take on Me” by a-ha is back. The Swedish band peaked at #2 with this track, blocked off the top by “The Power of Love” by Jennifer Rush, in 1985, and a largely inferior boy band cover by A1 spent a week at #1 in 2000 because the world isn’t fair. We actually see another #2-peaking classic pop song return to the charts this week… at #8. So - spoiler alert, even though I haven’t seen it either - the film Saltburn which was widely released a few weeks ago ends with “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and naturally TikTokers have Kate Bushed it to streaming success. Now you may be interested in how this song debuted at #2 in 2001 and spent two weeks there behind “Gotta Get Thru This” by Daniel Bedingfield (hot take: better song), or that this is Ellis-Bextor’s first time charting since 2014 - “Young Blood” peaked at #34 - but I’m personally more inclined to welcome the return of the man, the myth, the legend Gregg Alexander, who co-wrote and produced the song, to the top 10. Welcome back, king. Also, “Baby Shark” is at #47.

Then we just have the re-entries that reached new peaks, which is a few: “Evergreen” by Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners at #50, “FTCU” and “Pink Friday Girls” by Nicki Minaj at #41 and #30, as well as “Everybody” featuring Lil Uzi Vert at #26, “Body Moving” by Eliza Rose and Calvin Harris at #38 - still really disappointed by that one, “Surround Sound” by JID featuring 21 Savage and Baby Tate at #35, “Runaway” by Ye featuring Pusha T at #23, “One of the Girls” by The Weeknd, JENNIE and Lily-Rose Depp at #21, and of course, the GOAT, Paul Russell back at #20 with “Lil Boo Thang”, then “I Remember Everything” by Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves at #16, “On My Love” by Zara Larsson and David Guetta at #15 and “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims at #14.

As for our gains, I’m also just going to list the new peaks, as we have “Entrapreneur” by Central Cee at #36, “leavemalone” by Fred again.. and Baby Keem at #11, “Rich Baby Daddy” by Drake featuring SZA and Sexyy Red at #10 (Sexyy’s first top 10… maybe I should just call her Red), and, to my pleasant surprise, “DNA (Loving You)” by Billy Gillies featuirng Hannah Boleyn at #9. When you factor in that “Water” and “Houdini” are also here, this latter half of the top 10 is fantastic.

Then finally, in our top five, which isn’t nearly as good, we have almost a status quo ante bellum, with “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift at #5, “greedy” by Tate McRae at #4, “Prada” by casso, RAYE and D-Block Europe at #3, “Lovin’ on Me” by Jack Harlow at #2 and of course, “Stick Season” at #1. Now we have a smaller than expected but still… curious batch of new entries, so let’s run through whatever we have here.

New Arrivals

#71 - “MY EYES” - Travis Scott

Produced by Travis Scott, Wheezy, WondaGurl, Vegyn, Buddy Ross and Justin Vernon

I’m gently surprised UTOPIA has had this much longevity, especially considering that the album didn’t really have bonafide “hits” on it, and especially not this one: two very different ideas spliced together with possibly Travis’ most introspective bars on the record… all of those being in the second half, because in the first, he wastes our time with such inward-looking gems as “Rollie-Pollie on my wrist” and “I need no beef, no cheese, even when I eat, they cheat”. These are elementary bars. Yeah, I hated this song on release and I hate it still now. The first half is a slog, filtering a perfectly fine The Japanese House sample to compressed nothingness, as Justin Venron of Bon Iver croons incoherently with no leading melody or really any lyrics worth caring about. It perfectly embodies uncertainty, which could perhaps be intriguing if Travis hadn’t confused being abstract for being interesting so you have these arbitrary vocal effects attempting to make up for lack of substance over this drone for as long as he can stall before Sampha comes in for nine seconds more soulful than the other four minutes and change combined… seriously, what a terrible use of your Sampha. It’s not like the flashy synthscape eschewing anything memorable for “vibes” and a stagnant trap skitter after the beat switch … and amidst all the meaningless flexing, comical controlling of women, it gets kind of ugly.

Travis throws out possibly his one explicit line about the Astroworld festival disaster on the album: “I replay them nights and right by my side, all I see is a city of people that ride with me… if they just knew what Scotty would do to jump off a stage and save him a child”… and yeah, I don’t want to start this year off on such a negative note but - go to Hell. The explicitly self-centred nature of these lines and those surrounding it show a complete misunderstanding of the festival’s failures to keep people safe, with Travis wanting to be seen as the “hero”, complete his rags-to-riches story, swoop in and “save him a child” as if he’s Superman, whilst pointing fingers at the unknown “they”, which if it refers to critics is sad and if it refers to those who were at that crowd crush, is utterly despicable. Just after disgracing his critics for not looking at themselves in the mirror, he brags about how he stands on the stage and he gives them “the rage” and there’s “no turning it down”, you “can’t tame it”. But it’s not like it matters to the main character of our story, Travis Scott, because his life is just a movie, and if you lived it, you can’t blink because everything just goes crazy fast. I mean, life would go pretty fast and easy without consequences, wouldn’t it? If we’re looking forward to 2024 in popular music this week, I’m pretty confident that I want to leave this mess, and honestly, Travis Scott as a whole, far in the past.

#65 - “You’re Gonna Go Far” - Noah Kahan

Produced by Noah Kahan and Gabe Simon

Sadly not an Offspring cover, but anyway, I promise the rest of this episode won’t be as… controversial. At least Noah Kahan won’t be, right? Another track from his deluxe reissue of Stick Season, Kahan sings about knowing that letting this person leave is for the best, and they’ll go far without him and his sticks tying them down. It’s pretty self-loathing in its acoustic frolick, so I completely understand why this would turn people off... but I’m starting to grow fond of Kahan’s voice, and even through his somewhat bitter chorus and seemingly non-sequitur observations in the verses, I still quite like this. What can I say? I’m a human, I find this reassuring, especially with Kahan digging into his falsetto range surprisingly well, including on that mantra of a post-chorus. It’s almost weird how little I have to say for a song nearing five minutes, but it does feel pretty self-explanatory and the folk-rock stammer of the instrumental feels genuinely home-grown, fitting with how the narrative is strung and the connotations of them moving far away from Kahan’s more hapless rural area. At its heart, it’s a “life goes on” song, but one knowledgeable of his own fate that he sets out for himself here, one that by the outro, he seems weary of, or at least convincing himself maybe he should do the same as this person. Though left seemingly vague in terms of what the exact relation is, given some of the verses I can imagine this is about a sibling or, looking into the future, a child leaving the house for education, and it would definitely work out with the context we’re given, but I’m sure there are many interpretations of this. Mine is that the song is great regardless of them. Man, this guy is really uneven, isn’t he?

#63 - “Never Lose Me” - Flo Milli

Produced by gerreaux

So it’s about damn time Flo Milli charted. Even if I’m not a big fan of all of what the Alabama rapper puts out, she’s got a particularly vibrant personality that becomes increasingly obvious when her overdue breakout hit is essentially a remix of Babyface Ray’s “Ron Artest” with 42 Dugg which is still a pretty good song given the incessant yet timeless-sounding vintage soul loop under a trap groove sounding like it splits time between 2000s Dirty South classics and modern plugg bangers. It’s just that when you hear Babyface Ray go on for one exceedingly long verse followed by an… oddly solemn and badly-mixed 42 Dugg performance, you kind of wish Flo Milli was on the beat instead. So she just is, and it works out brilliantly. Sure, Milli isn’t saying much of interest and you could definitely see that chorus as tedious, but she’s just so much more dynamic with her flows and encompasses the mix much more effortlessly than those it was first made for. It’s mostly just about being in love with this street guy, and honestly, I’m probably overrating it when I look at it outside of its context… but man, there’s just something hypnotic about this beat. Now there are two separate remixes that helped this chart, for a little remixception, those being from Bryson Tiller, who I couldn’t imagine on this at all, but delivers very explicit sex bars with a verse that slides much more effectively than I expected… and Lil Yachty, who is such a perfect fit for this beat that I swear I see him on the original intro anyway. In fact, the Lil Yachty version was released on the same day as the original. He says “I’ma snack on your booty like Scooby”, so I think we’ve found a definitive version of “Ron Artest”.

#46 - “Toxic” - Songer

Produced by Songer (supposedly)

When I typed this into Spotify and saw the Britney Spears song of the same name, I had a sinking feeling… and sure enough, my suspicions were proved correct the moment I pressed play on the song and swiftly paused it in disappointment. This is a white guy rapping over the “Toxic” instrumental with flows and bars that sound like a pastiche of drill freestyles, as if he spent a couple weeks researching them and thinks he can do it better. The original “Toxic” spent one week at #1 in 2004 and I am not giving this dignified character-actor any time of day. Let’s just hope this doesn’t get any higher.

#40 - “Perfect (Exceeder)” - Mason and Princess Superstar

Produced by Mason

Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to say this: who the Hell are these people? And in addition, why does this song have enough versions on Spotify to reach nearly 52 minutes? Also, why is this song from 2007 charting and once again, who the Hell are these people? Okay, so one at a time: this song from 2007 is charting because it was in Saltburn. Also, it technically already charted but we’ll get to that. Secondly, it’s an electro house song, of course it has that many versions. Thirdly, and this will take the longest, Mason is a Dutch DJ active since the 90s who released an instrumental jam “Exceeder” in 2006 and yes, suddenly I know this song all too well, just never by name - I always heard it as background music in ads or on the radio, but never actively listened to it. It’s fun, growling, fidgety fun with a lot of slick edges and refrains, from before electro house got too festival-ready, so it’s still a little dirty. Now here’s where it gets weird - according to the Official Charts Company’s website’s archive, this is the version that charted, peaking at #3 in 2007, behind MIKA’s “Grace Kelly” at #1 - “Starz in Their Eyes” was at #2 by the way, that’s a… trio and a half. Despite this, the article OCC wrote about the song says that this is a re-entry of “Perfect (Exceeder)”, which makes more sense to me since that version was released on Ministry of Sound and is the cover art for the song on the OCC archives, so this probably isn’t a new entry at all. If this song’s story wasn’t so weird, I’d chalk this up as an error and briefly touch upon it in the rundown, but technically, this isn’t a remix, it’s a mashup, and one from 2007, far before I started reviewing, and it was only the 44th biggest song of the UK in 2007 so it’s not like it would have returned naturally so either way you slice it, it FEELS like a new song - stretching the definition of new here - is charting here.

So who’s Princess Superstar? Well, she’s “Pennsylvania’s top female Jewish rapper”. O…kay, so her song “Perfect” from 2005 failed to chart, and it also may be one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard but hey maybe we wouldn’t have… Kreayshawn without this, so maybe I should be grateful. To be fair, she did chart in Australia, so Iggy Azalea can probably attest to being influenced by this. Therefore, I’m not grateful whatsoever. She had a minor chart hit with “Bad Babysitter” in 2002, which is somehow even worse, but someone somewhere decided to mash her failed single “Perfect” with the club jam “Exceeder” and create the malformed “Perfect (Exceeder)”, which is… a song I’ve never heard before. I have only ever heard this instrumental version, and the addition of the Princess Superstar just makes the song genuinely insufferable, at least there was a goofy novelty to the original “Perfect”, this feels like it’s taking itself half-seriously… when nobody should be taking Princess Superstar all too seriously. I don’t know, if this was the original “Exceeder”, I’d probably give it Best of the Week in all honesty, but this weird remix oddity… yeah, keep it in 2007, guys, it even has the gymnastics in the video like “Call on Me”. I don’t think we need to start with a 2024 revival of… whatever this is.

#24 - “Feather” - Sabrina Carpenter

Produced by John Ryan

Well, we started with controversy and we may end with controversy as the scandal surrounding the music video erupted… I’m going to stop pretending like I care. Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” did all this and then some decades ago, let’s just talk about the music which is… utterly serviceable. It’s a good kind of serviceable, it’s not slop, just a Dua Lipa rip-off that doesn’t like filling up space in the mix, or at least isn’t very good at it, and it leads me to like it, bizarrely enough. Despite how breezy she is, she’s desperate to fill up space with riffs and stray melodies filtered with reverb and echo over this vague funk-pop that doesn’t even have the guts to go full disco. I may have more to say about this song as the year goes on? I don’t know, I’m kind of fascinated by how I just… feel sorry for this pathetic little dance-pop song. Weird note to end on, but I mean, she’s hitting all kinds of weird notes so…

Conclusion

Strange week, as is to be expected, with a lot of interesting stories, for the better and for the worse. Okay, mostly for the worse, and Travis Scott nabs Worst of the Week pretty easily for “MY EYES” - sorry, Sampha - and that Songer doofus can get the Dishonourable Mention for his “Toxic” freestyle, I guess, but let’s just ignore that exists. As for the best, it is actually pretty difficult but I think Noah Kahan eases it out here for “You’re Gonna Go Far”, with Flo Milli - and realistically, Lil Yachty - pretty close behind with the Honourable Mention. As for what’s on the horizon… God knows. Welcome to 2024 in pop music, I’m pretty sure anything can happen. Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week!

#uk singles chart #pop music #song review #sabrina carpenter #saltburn #sophie ellis bextor #mason #princess superstar #songer #flo milli #lil yachty #bryson tiller #noah kahan #travis scott #bon iver #sampha

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