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deadcactuswalking · 5 months

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 25/11/2023 (Tate McRae, Drake)

Content warning: Holiday festivities (bah humbug)

For a second week, Jack Harlow - sadly - holds onto the #1 with “Lovin’ on Me” on the UK Singles Chart. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, as this is very much a regular November-era episode, Hell, probably the real start of the Christmas music era, also known as the end-times, we start with our notable dropouts, which are songs exiting from the UK Top 75 - since that’s what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we bid our farewells to an actually pretty considerable selection of big hits, those being “TOO MUCH” by The Kid LAROI, Jung Kook and Central Cee, “Can’t Play Myself (A Tribute to Amy)” by Skepta, “IDGAF” by Drake featuring Yeat - most likely making way for Drake’s debut this week and will be back the next - “3D” by Jung Kook and Jack Harlow (also potentially back next week thanks to the Justin Timberlake remix), “Say Yes to Heaven” by Lana Del Rey, “Party All the Time” by Hannah Laing and HVRR (Rest well, sweet prince), “It Goes Like (Nanana)” by Peggy Gou, “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac, “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus, “Escapism.” by RAYE featuring 070 Shake, “As it Was” by Harry Styles and finally, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi. It’s likely that these end up back in the chart after Christmas, and really, there is no silver lining because we’re shoveling out old tracks for even older ones.

Now as always, I will never cover all of the Christmas songs but this is the week this year where we get the influx of the truly canonised classics, at least most of them, so for their first week in the top 75 this year, we have “Let it Snow Let it Snow Let it Snow” by the late Dean Martin at #69, “Snowman” by Sia at #67, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid at #65 - wow, not off to a good start at all. Thankfully, we do clean up with “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by the late Andy Williams at #57, “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues featuring the late Kirsty MacColl at #53, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens at #51, “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson at #49 and “Jingle Bell Rock” by the late Bobby Helms at #44. Wham! are at #14, Mariah’s at #16, Brenda Lee trails in third at #31. We do also see some non-holiday gains, namely “Lil Boo Thang” by Paul Russell at #36, “Angel Numbers / Ten Toes” by Chris Brown at #31 for whatever reason, “First Person Shooter” by Drake featuring J. Cole at #27 thanks to the video - more on Drake later - and “Can’t Catch Me Now” by Olivia Rodrigo at #13. We also see the bizarre re-entry for Ye’s 2010 track “Runaway” featuring Pusha T at a new peak of #34. Yeah, I assume there’s some TikTok virality here because I can’t figure out why otherwise, though it is a fan favourite - even if I think it’s pretty overrated, like the rest of that album. For the record, this is only its third week in the UK charts; it peaked at #56 for two consecutive weeks in 2010 and vanished thereafter.

And for THIS week in the UK Singles Chart, our top five starts with “Water” by Tyla at #5, in no doubt helped by remixes with Travis Scott and Marshmello of all people, and sadly not other Afrobeats artists as would have probably worked a lot better. Regardless, we then have “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan at #4, “greedy” by Tate McRae at #3, “Prada” by casso, RAYE and D-Block Europe at #2 and of course, Jack Harlow at the very top. Now to pick through our limited little bag of new entries.

NEW ARRIVALS

#75 - “Stay Another Day” - Jorja Smith

Produced by who cares?

Well, it’s that time of year again where we get the charts flooded with Amazon originals, tracks recorded for the Christmas season exclusively by artists working with Amazon Music that autoplay when you ask Alexa for holiday tracks. I think I would have loved to hear a Jorja Smith cover of “Stay Another Day”, personally, as her sultry voice would make the saccharine melodies of the boy-band original much easier to stomach. East 17’s 1994 original is barely even a Christmas song, it just happened to be released in late November and have a snowy video… well, they knew what they were doing with the sleigh bells at the tail-end. It’s not really a song I ever got, but it did spend five weeks at #1 and was the Christmas chart-topper for that year. So naturally, I’m going to talk about abstract hip hop. I made a Google form earlier this month asking for song suggestions to replace the Amazon originals, and got around 51 songs - all unique to be fair - sent to me, so I used a random number generator and selected two for this week. I probably won’t go into as much depth, and they won’t be covered in the conclusion out of fairness, and really for this suggestion, I don’t know where to start. “The Gods Must be Crazy” is a track from We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, the latest album from alternative rap duo Armand Hammer, consisting of rapper-producers billy woods and E L U C I D. With a beat from El-P, both rappers trade sarcastic, at times pretty funny, bars and some striking imagery regarding race, particularly the white misuse and misunderstanding of the black culture they use whilst also neglecting. E L U C I D goes for the abstract whilst woods is arguably more straightforward, but they both end up with some really poetic lyricism, often almost revolutionary and it definitely sounds like they’re leading a protest over some of the grooviest production I’ve ever heard from El-P, with the driving glitched-out vocals, with just enough fuzz to make it hit really hard, and a distanced, unpredictable set of drums. It’s a great track, but definitely one I feel will be much more effective in the context of the album, and I’d love to read a full analysis that puts some of what I simply don’t understand from E L U C I D’s brash delivery and woods’ as always effortless lyrical riffing into perspective.

#64 - “Surround Sound” - JID featuring 21 Savage and Baby Tate

Produced by Christo, DJ Scheme and Nuri

And bizarrely enough, we’re sticking with alternative rap though clearly, much less abstract. This was the lead single for JID’s great album The Forever Story last year, which peaked at #74 in the UK, and it was definitely one of the highlights for me, mostly because of the great use of Aretha Franklin’s 1965 track “One Step Ahead”, used similarly to how it was in Yasiin Bey’s 1995 track “Ms. Fat Booty” - which peaked at #85 in 2000, when Manic Street Preachers were at #1 - but instead layering it behind a killer trap beat. TikTok virality pushed this song back into mainstream popularity, but I’ve been bumping this one since release, with JID effortlessly rattling off flows as always, littered with breathy ad-libs and seamless rhyme schemes, so much so you almost forget most of this is just flexing. I love how the sample comes back in to act as an introductory jingle for 21 Savage, entering the ring with some of his coldest bars at that point, in a flow he hadn’t yet overused, and an overall brilliant if fleeting guest verse. Then Baby Tate strangely comes in, mostly moaning in a half-finished verse excerpt that blurts itself between the “banger” first half and a static noise that fills out the track before returning to a dark, fragmented beat that cuts in and out amidst JID’s grimier gangsta rap lyrics, with a menacing charisma honestly kind of reminiscent of Eminem, using flows and schemes that never seem to actually get a hold of the verse, it strays really far from the tightly-composed hit that makes up the first half and seems to show the grimmer reality of Atlanta that all three artists here are based in. Overall, I mean, it’s brilliant top-class hip hop, the kind you never expect to chart outside of the big-hitters like Kendrick and Cole, and I really hope it survives Christmas because it is fantastic.

#60 - “Lose Control” - Teddy Swims

Produced by Ammo and Julian Bunetta

I first heard Teddy Swims as a feature on a Meghan Trainor song, then discovered his real second name was Dimsdale so it really does not seem like a good first impression for Mr. Dimsdale or his pop-music Dimmadome but jokes aside, this has been his breakthrough hit in the US for a couple of weeks now, just hitting the top 40 on Billboard recently, and Mr. Dimsdale’s story is one we often see. He attracts a YouTube audience with cover songs and eventually sees industry attention. This is an original song and… well, wow, this guy can sing. That is probably the intended reaction to this, as content-wise, it’s not great, mostly because it feels a bit too obvious, but I mean, the whole song kind of toys on that boat of bombast, so it makes complete sense. The mix clips in the first verse with a slightly blocky-feeling bass and snaps that actually sound real and then that chorus comes in with the blasts of horns and the clanging percussion that despite the choir vocals, the clamouring of the production… it feels a bit empty, lacking in the actual composition, and I actually quite like that. It works for his raspy belt, the metallic attempt at recreating a big-band feel, it doesn’t feel “complete” or natural and this kind of breakup song where Dimsdale is rendered a broken man actually seems to warrant that sound. It even has a guitar solo that doesn’t deviate much from the chorus melody sadly but adds some needed grit before Mr. DImsdale really hits that note in the final chorus, and yet it doesn’t have a bombastic ending, or at least not as much as it needs. It just slips back out of existence, it’s kind of depressing in that aspect, I suppose. I guess, it’s not great, but I’ll take it.

#50 - “You’re Christmas to Me” - Sam Ryder

Produced by The Nocturns

The grip that Amazon has on the UK Christmas market is starting to be of concern. This is from the SEQUEL to an Amazon Prime-original Christmas film starring all British actors. There is a franchise at work, for God’s sake! At least this is an original song, and I will say this one is on YouTube but on principle, I will still refuse to review it and instead randomly select… “The Rose Song” by Olivia Rodrigo, which is also from a piece of visual media, that being the second season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. I have not watched that because, to put it bluntly, I’m not 12, but I’m sure it’s decent enough Disney sitcom fluff and you can definitely tell that Rodrigo still actually wrote this character’s songs, it wasn’t a screenwriter here, as it’s very much in the vein of her own solo work. It’s got similarly wordy moments, the actually pretty beautiful rising pianos amidst a shaky falsetto in the chorus, and none of the floaty over-production or attempts at grit that were on GUTS, despite one of her actually most impressive performances yet and a wonderful string swell that definitely sounds Disney but hey, there’s a reason why Disney still hits all these years on. The song’s content is about realising she’s more than what she is to this guy, who doesn’t seem to value her as a partner or really, human, and whilst it does go into clichés occasionally, it does it tastefully and with the power you can expect from a really good O-Rod ballad so… yeah, surprisingly enough, I really like this. It’d definitely be better than whatever Sam Ryder pushed out, at least. If I’m wrong, I don’t care.

#48 - “Body Moving” - Eliza Rose and Calvin Harris

Produced by Calvin Harris

I really didn’t expect Eliza Rose to grab a second hit after “B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)” but I guess handing over most of the production duties to Calvin Harris is the best way to do so, and with sadly no relation to the Beastie Boys song, we have a song that feels pretty separate from “B.O.T.A.”, even if Rose has the same… interesting delivery and pretty terrible lyrics, which absolutely did not ruin that song, in fact they added to its charm. I’m not sure if I can say the same with this one, which just feels… random, for lack of a better word. The drums are all over this, layered to skitter and clatter over places where I feel they shouldn’t be, we have a whispery vocal loop from Ms. Rose in the back of the mix but still way too loud, not that you can hear it over the horn blasts that honestly don’t even sound in key, even if they probably are. They don’t build up effectively to a drop either, which just kind of crashes in with again, an overly-scattered set of metallic drum patterns, and Rose being interrupted by those gross, blaring horns. I like the keys and strings added in that second verse, probably the only real resemblance to “B.O.T.A.” here, but it doesn’t bother much with that atmosphere, neglecting it for the sake of a bombast that isn’t there. It really just doesn’t feel like anyone was in the same room making this, and it really is a shame because this collaboration on paper should have been way better.

#26 - “You Broke My Heart” - Drake

Produced by Vinylz and FNZ

Out of all the songs to chart from Drake’s deluxe edition of For All the Dogs, subtitled the “Scary Hours Edition”, it had to be the one perhaps least representative of those six new tracks, which mostly consist of sluggish, paranoid jazz-rap rambles, most of the time eschewing the need for an actual drum pattern and using endless loops for some of Drake’s most self-aware yet least sobered writings in years. For the record, I like all of them, but I am partially glad that say, “The Shoe Fits” or “Stories About My Brother” didn’t chart because they’re heady, conscious and introspective tracks, whilst this song… it’s the relapse. It’s the full circle moment where Drake gives up on trying to contextualise everyone and everything around him, resorting to monosyllabic chants in the bridge - or “hook” at a stretch - and barely landing on a coherent flow over a cascading sample beat, that seems to go for the same drumless, hypnotic feel of the rest of the bonus tracks, switching between samples of Major Harris and the Supremes before the bait-and-switch into a hard trap beat wherein Drake can just flex and dismiss instead of the bitter breakup balladeering of the first verse, back in the mode of For All the Dogs. Now why do I actually like it? Well, it’s silly, it took me by surprise, it does a good job placing the murky, desperate “Stoned Love” sample from the Supremes - which peaked at #3 in 1971 behind George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” at #1 - against the almost rage-esque beat where OVO protégé Smiley provides… juicy ad-libs. He eventually gets back into talking about his ex but it’s in these whispered yells and rants that are just comedy, it’s a fascinating listen to me, maybe not as good as “Wick Man” or the more lyrical tracks I mentioned earlier but very much still in good fun. It won’t last past this week, though, as Yeat will come back like Superman to rescue the UK Singles Chart from… Smiley, I guess.

#12 - “exes” - Tate McRae

Produced by Ryan Tedder and Tyler Spry

Well, that next Tate McRae album is coming sometime soon and with the help of pop songwriting giant Ryan Tedder, she’s definitely in full “pop girl” mode, and this time without an obvious Timbaland sample to back her up. And surprise, surprise - the song is not great. It’s hard to take McRae’s sing-songy chorus and fake laughter seriously when Dua Lipa does the same conceit a lot better and a lot sexier on “Houdini” whilst trying less, as Tate moves on with guys very quickly and keeps memorabilia of all of her exes even if the relationships mostly meant nothing. It’s a shame that this is awful, genuinely, like it took a while but this is driving my insane. Why do we have a random blend of instruments functioning as the monogenre melody, and none of them mixed to be a focal point? Should I be focusing on the muffled, cheap and jaunty acoustic guitar line (which sounds especially terrible in the outro), the airy keys or the reverb-drenched rubbery vocal loop that is mixed in the chorus so it’s nearly as loud as Tate, who just sounds terrible because bless her, she’s not the best singer, and definitely not the most emotive, so she can’t sell this dead-on-arrival song with a rhythm that decided to add trap skitters for basically no reason when a more bass-focused funk groove or even a drum and bass backing would make this hit much harder. It sounds dated on arrival too, like this is something that Selena Gomez would have picked up in 2019, and McRae going for a semi-rap delivery sometimes just sounds forced and gross, especially coming from someone void of personality and full of Auto-Tune, and ESPECIALLY on the half-time trap breakdown in the second verse that made me have to stop the song just in shock of how insufferable it was. It never truly progresses either outside of layers of synth nothingness and vocal harmonies that basically register as Auto-Tuned whining baby noises from the back of the mix. God, this is just shockingly awful, especially from veterans like Ryan Tedder. Get this away from me before I start noticing more things to hate about it.

Conclusion

It should be obvious, Tate McRae gets Worst of the Week for “exes”, which is by and far the absolute worst song that debuted, and sadly, I do have enough disappointment to give the Dishonourable Mention to “Body Moving” by Eliza Rose and Calvin Harris, it is quite a shame. As for the best, we do have two great hip hop songs here, which feels good to say in a year that has been kind of lacking for mainstream rap. Drake gets the Honourable Mention with “You Broke My Heart” but the Best of the Week, similarly far ahead, goes to JID for “Surround Sound” featuring 21 Savage and Baby Tate, I really hope that one sticks around. As for what’s on the horizon, we’re safely in holiday territory now, so expect more of that. For now, thank you for reading and for once, I’ll see you earlier than next week. Stay tuned.

#pop music #song review #uk singles chart #tate mcrae #drake #eliza rose #calvin harris #teddy swims #jid #baby tate #21 savage

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