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deadcactuswalking · 1 year

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 25/02/2023 (Niall Horan, beabadoobee, Lana Del Rey)

For a sixth consecutive week, Miley Cyrus reigns on top of the UK Singles Chart with “Flowers”, and it’s a messy week otherwise so let’s just get straight into this. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

There was a lot of movement this week, partly because of ACR having a particularly long hit list in recent weeks but it’s also a week of general fluctuation, some for the better and some for the worse. As for our notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40, other than seeing a bunch of our debuts from last week drop off, including “Call Me What You Like” by Lovejoy, but also leaving are “Nobody Gets Me” by SZA, “Superhero (Heroes & Villains)” by Metro Boomin, Future and Chris Brown, “Kiss Me” by Dermot Kennedy, “go” by Cat Burns and “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi. I’m not complaining about any of that.

What’s here to fill up the blanks? Well, “Mr. Brightside” is back at #75, but pushing that aside, our notable gains are pretty interesting as thanks to songs above them collapsing, we see a decent surge, particularly at the top of the charts. We see Ed Sheeran’s “Shivers” and “Bad Habits” at #62 and #61, “Until I Found You” by Stephen Sanchez at #60, “Under the Influence” by Chris Brown at #59, “Rumble” by Skrillex, Fred again.. and Flowdan at #52 with a slight album boost, “Oh Baby” by Nathan Dawe and Bru-C featuring bshp and Issey Cross at #42 (hope to see it even higher soon), “Here with Me” by d4vd at #39, “Die for You” by The Weeknd at #37 (it’ll be even higher next week), “Rush” by Ayra Starr at #36, “Just Wanna Rock” by Lil Uzi Vert at #32, “Ready to Fly” by Sub Focus and Dimension at #29, “If We Ever Broke Up” by Mae Stephens off of the debut all the way to #23, “Lavender Haze” by Taylor Swift at #22, P!nk seeing album boosts for “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” at #19 and “TRUSTFALL” at #14 (more on her later), “Us Against the World” by Strandz taking a Digga D remix to #12, and three songs that weren’t in the top 10 last week now sitting comfortably at the tail-end. Sure, “10:35” by Tiesto and Tate McRae returns to the top 10 at #8, but otherwise, we have “ceilings” by Lizzy McAlpine at #9, becoming her first ever song to hit the top 10, and same goes for... Coi Leray with “Players” at #7. I suppose life is full of ups and downs.

Despite a lot of commotion below it, of course, our top five is pretty stable. “Calm Down” by Rema is at #5, “Sure Thing” by Miguel is at #4, “Kill Bill” by SZA is at #3, “Boy’s a liar” by PinkPantheress is at #2 and of course, “Flowers” is at the very top. Now for our pretty big and pretty diverse set of new entries.

NEW ARRIVALS

#71 – “In Ha Mood” – Ice Spice

Produced by RIOTUSA

I don’t get it. I got “Munch (Feelin’ U)” – it isn’t unique but it’s a short breezy song with an actual hook. This being the bigger, actual breakout hit for New York rapper Ice Spice confuses me in just about every way. The chipmunk vocal loop in the background is of complete irrelevance to the plummeting Brooklyn drill beat and I feel like rappers don’t understand how stiff drill beats are when the rappers over them sound defeated, uninterested and just repeating the same flows, same words, and all of it is triumphant flexing that isn’t convincing when Ice Spice sounds as cold and unresponsive as possible. There is one moment where I can see this working – the second pre-chorus has Ice Spice drip off a lot more confidence with a sneaky flow switch over a Jersey club rhythm, and it does genuinely feel like a great moment of tension that’s alleviated with the final drop into the chorus. I just wish that one moment was the whole song, but with plenty of Jersey drill out there that can do just that, there really isn’t much to me that pops out about Ice Spice other than the Chucky from Rugrats hair... which I suppose is the point, since she’s known for her viral traction rather than the music being anything particularly refreshing but it really didn’t need to be, it just needed to be good. I’m sure she’ll have her moment regardless but I do want to hear a more confident Ice Spice in the music itself when it’s clearly what’s helping her appeal in her videos and on social media.

#67 – “Whistle” – Jax Jones featuring Calum Scott

Produced by Jax Jones, Jon Maguire, Josh Wilkinson and Neave Applebaum

Jax Jones made another dance-pop track with a chintzy, fake lead that sounds incredibly cheap, a four-on-the-floor beat and over-processed vocals from Calum Scott. The only thing that makes this differ from any other given Jax Jones song is the increased tension, with the build-up getting awfully busy before plopping itself into a slap house drop that actually isn’t all that anticlimactic. It would hit pretty hard if not for the whistling, which is the main motif for this lovestruck single that is really relying on that one motif... which is not present for most of the song. Also, Mr. Scott sounds horrible with all the obvious Auto-Tune and awkward vocal inflections that reek of not understanding the assignment. The way he sings the bridge particularly just confused me. Why are you here? Why did I even let myself get this far into the song?

#63 – “Beautiful Day (Thank You for Sunshine)” – Rushawn and Jermaine Edwards

Produced by ME13 or Trinix

This song does not exist. Okay, at least according to how it’s been credited on the Official Charts Company website, this song does not exist. Instead, we have a series of songs that vaguely connect into one song that is actually the one that is the most popular and therefore contributing the most points to this entry. We start with Jermaine Edwards and his 2014 song where a very Auto-Tuned Edwards thanks the Lord for a beautiful day over a very 2010s electropop instrumental. It’s not all that great, but it’s very charming, and Edwards’ singing has a lot of charisma behind it, even if everything he’s performing on is about one inch away from a trainwreck. This Jamaican kid called Rushawn Ewears was in a viral video recorded by his teacher where he very cutely sang the song, but this video was made when he was 10 and only recently found virality on TikTok thanks in part due to a remix by the South African musician The Kiffness, and since something’s viral on TikTok, it will need some viral remixes. One particularly viral version that came up when I searched was by French duo Trinix, turning the cover into a lowkey R&B song with some distracting synth bass and vocal chops alongside a lead synth that just sounds like royalty-free YouTube music. The undeniably biggest version in the UK, and honestly a confusing choice on OCC’s behalf not to credit, is the version by rapper Prinz which of course flips the track into an atmospheric, melodic drill track. The beat produced by ME13 is simple but combined with the wonderfully optimistic vocals from Rushawn, and what might be the first non-Stormzy verse from a UK rapper to chart that is explicitly about Christian worship, where he thanks the Lord for allowing him to prosper whilst also acknowledging his own role in that success, it’s surprisingly quite good. Sure, it’s less than two minutes – there’s not a real song here – but Prinx even harmonises with Rushawn in a way to ensure this is still a viral moment instead of a full song, so I don’t think the intention is to make much of a career off of it, though both Rushawn and Edwards now have record deals. It’s a cute, hopeful song that does pretty much nothing wrong in executing the very simple thing it wants to do, and sure, whilst I’d prefer a longer song that maybe does a bit more with the sample or goes into more detail about why God is so important to Prinx, it would possibly detract from the wonderful simplicity of it all, so I think it’s fine as is.

#49 – “Barbie” – D-Block Europe

Produced by Nathaniel London and MiikkaT

This song starts with the trap beat already fully in force with disgraceful bass mastering and the percussion being way too busy for a melodic, acoustic guitar-based beat wherein for some reason, everything in the song feels a tad too quiet. Young Adz essentially just auto-croons about convincing this girl he loves her through buying her things, though he has a worrying meander into suicidal ideation in the second half of his verse amidst typically odd vocal inflections and honestly, one of the least interesting DBE songs ever. Dirtbike LB does outshine Adz with the very little time he’s given, as his defeated cadence really has grown on me and his flow isn’t as monotonous as Adz’s. With that said, they’re not that far removed, and it’s definitely not enough to save this from just being mediocre.

#48 – “HOPE” – NF

Produced by Tommee Profitt, NF, Jeff Sojka and Patrick Tohill

Out of all recurring themes to pop up this episode, Christian rap was not one I expected, but I’m sure everyone is excited about NF coming back, right? Well, Middle America’s favourite since Eminem denounced Trump has an ambitious, two-part lead single with a big-budget big-concept video and I don’t care, is it actually any good? Well, I am really not close to NF’s target demographic and I feel like half the time, I have to understand his lore or whatever to really come to grips with what’s happening, but that may just be because he tends to say a whole lot of nothing, so I may be the absolute worst person to judge that. In fact, as soon as I heard the strings in the background of the intro, I knew I wasn’t going to like this, and it is purely because of the production: NF makes music that sounds like superhero film trailers, with the mix clipping and substanceless melodrama included, as well as flow switches and adjustments in the beat that feel like jumpscares. I understand that in this song, particularly, a lot of those flow switches and sound effects show his emotional instability but that singing intro has basically nothing to do with the first verse, which is self-motivational, sure, but I feel like it really should have been about a lot more than what it is. Annoyingly so, when he finally starts being introspective, he interrupts himself with “They get it”. That last verse about parenthood is pretty well written, but then that dramatic monologue becomes some kind of mantra and back-and-forth between him and his demons, and I can’t say it’s not ambitious or a cool idea but it doesn’t feel worth the energy and intensity that we get here. Some of these verses could easily be chopped up and reworked into a song that more directly focuses on either the “facing demons” aspect, or the absent mother aspect, or the self-improvement aspect, or damn near any of the topics he covers in the song yet together, it’s all a bit clunky. Again with NF, I respect the intention way more than I actually like the song.

#44 – “When I Get There” – P!nk

Produced by David Hodges

P!nk’s newest album TRUSTFALL debuted at #1 on the UK Albums Chart, and this is the newest single being pushed. This particular ballad, not written by P!nk but dedicated to her late father, from whom she first found her interest in harmonising and playing acoustic guitar and had even sang some of her father’s Vietnam War-era material, is really sentimental amidst the strings and almost country-esque guitars, and whilst P!nk’s delivery is earnest as always, it doesn’t really resonate with me much in particular. It probably should considering mitigating circumstances, but it just doesn’t go far enough into personal detail, probably because she didn’t write it, so the only links made are through vague knowledge that it seemed the writers about P!nk’s connection with her father – about as much as what I know and said in this review. I can’t complain about it really, and I’m not enough of a P!nk fan to direct anyone to better ballads from her discography that tackle this subject matter, but as for this song, it will either hit you or it won’t and for me, I’m not phased.

#41 – “A&W” – Lana Del Rey

Produced by Jack Antonoff and Lana Del Rey

I’m not a Lana Del Rey fan by any means, and I am a bit taken aback by the fact that this seven-minute, decidedly not radio-friendly track debuted so high, especially because the lead single from Lana’s upcoming release was not one I even had to mention on this series. Regardless, it’s here, and what do I make of it? Well, it splits itself into two halves, the first of which is about a loss of purity through sex, reminiscing on childhood, using not doing cartwheels in years as a way to signify how she’s been in some way “tainted”... and yeah, it gets pretty heavy from there, with an acoustic backing that is typically cloudy, as well as a distressed falsetto wherein Lana admits she ends up not caring after years of being an “American whore”, making parallels to her stardom being just as shameless and superficial when fans are going to body-shame her. That tumultuous relationship with media and society as a whole culminates in a third verse that takes aim at the culture in the US that will shame and blame women for the rapes committed against them, indicating that she’s scared to testify because being a woman who proudly admits to having sex is already too much to incriminate her in the eyes of the patriarchy: her story’s already dismissed. We get from the second verse that really, the character isn’t doing anything particularly out there or abnormal, so the persecution is definitely a fault of the unjustified systemic misogyny that doesn’t accept a proud woman, branding the same shamelessness that men will engage in as the behaviour of an “American whore” when a woman is open about it, with Lana bringing up the inherently misogynistic idea of the “fallen woman” in that first verse to show the falsified control that men believe they should be able to have over female bodies. Lana’s broken voice really sells this vulnerable content, and then it goes all industrial with eerie drum machines, zipping-up sounds, increasing TV static, glitchy guitar fragments and percussion that spirals around Lana’s vocals before finally settling into a dejected groove wherein vintage, low-fidelity strings are placed against heavy 808 bass hits as Lana mantras about this guy called Jimmy who only loves her when he wants to get high, explicitly taking advantage of this woman but the helpless character can do little more than embrace the fact that she will be branded as the “bad guy” whatever she does so she calls up his mother to tell her that her son’s messed up and admits in the club that she’s already lost her mind, amidst all the industrial fuzz. It’s a great ending to the song since it acts as kind of a revenge, fully taking on and weaponising the unfair expectations placed onto her, as well as all of the hateful rhetoric that surrounded that first half. I’m sure it’ll make more sense in the context of the album – which I don’t know if I’ll listen to – since this does feel like part of a grander narrative, as a singular piece, it really hits hard and feels like it encapsulates an entire story in this seven minutes, to a good level of nuance but also with some of the most poignant performances I’ve heard from Lana, amidst a great production you can expect from Antonoff, who really is at his best producing for indie acts. Of course, it’s not really my place to comment on how effective the storytelling is in terms of realism, since it hits on some sensitive topics I have genuinely not experienced up-close to the level that Lana is describing, and there is some mirroring towards Lana’s relationship with the media that of course are beyond me in terms of feeling but it makes for a fascinating and honestly quite distressing listen. It’s definitely not going to last, and a shortened radio edit would completely butcher it in my opinion, but it’s impressive that it charted and is definitely one of my favourite tracks from Lana in years so I’m glad I got to talk about it, even if I probably can’t do it enough justice. Like with NF, I’m not clued up to the artist lore which I imagine will make this song even more either cathartic or tougher to stomach if I knew everything that had led to this point in her catalogue. Regardless, it’s an excellent song, and we actually stick with the indie girls – though definitely on a less heavy note with...

#38 – “Glue Song” – beabadoobee

Produced by Jacob Bugden and Iain Berryman

I did not expect British-Filipino indie darling beabadoobee to chart beyond albums having critical success and that one terrible song she’s sampled on the hook of, which I refuse to name because both the artist and title make me irrationally upset because of how clunky it all is. Yet we’re in a different kind of era now with the likes of PinkPantheress and Steve Lacy, so it doesn’t entirely surprise me that bea has a new top 40 hit, and it’s a two-minute lovestruck track about finding the words to express how much she loves her partner, eventually setting on the tried-and-true glue metaphor. The acoustic backing with all the strings is pretty elegant and it definitely feels like a wedding song, almost to its detriment because it feels a bit impersonal in effort to be universal, especially since I feel like this kind of cute slow-dance isn’t really bea’s forte (and I’m not really a fan of the whispery vocals here). It doesn’t really go anywhere either, just willing to mellow out in its cute, self-contained glory, which is completely fine. It’s nice enough.

#18 – “Heaven” – Niall Horan

Produced by Joel Little and John Ryan

This is decidedly less subtle, with my personal favourite 1D member going full pop rock again, starting the song with a mess of phasing synths and multi-tracked harmonies before pushing right back into a solid rock swing that reminds me, if anything, of old Phil Spector productions considering how cutesy and lovestruck it is with a lot of echo and willingness to just throw nice chords and sounds at you with as little filter as pop music will allow. Niall doesn’t go for the melodrama as much as he goes for complete earnestness that turns itself into silliness, which is the best mode for someone like him, as what could be described as weird vocal mixing fits perfectly when he’s saying that the love he shares with his partner goes so out of control that it will literally change what Heaven looks like. I adore this song in the same way I’m sure someone adores “Glue Song” and ultimately, I think the appeal of them both is that they are incredibly cute and honest songs about being so obsessively in love it’s hard to describe without being silly. It’s just that the earnestness broadcasts itself in two different ways, and very unsubtle pop rock is definitely a bit more of my thing so I end up preferring this one, and I just had a massive grin on my face the entire time I was listening to it.

Conclusion

I think what may have been the recurring theme this week was honesty and openness, as most of these songs are attempts at expressing emotion as accurately as possible, bringing those instincts to the songwriting and even the production. Oh, yeah, and D-Block Europe, who get the Worst of the Week for “Barbie” which is just useless, and same goes for Jax Jones and Calum Scott with “Whistle” as the Dishonourable Mention. In a batch of songs that feel as open and genuine as they can be, these stand out to me as the least compelling but also the least real. As for Best of the Week, Lana Del Rey does really run away with it with “A&W”, but I can’t deny how much I love that Niall Horan song on a purely instinctual level, so “Heaven” gets the Honourable Mention. I think new music releases are starting to really kick into gear now, so I expect some busier weeks coming forward into the Spring but for now, thank you for reading, rest in peace to Trugoy the Dove and I’ll see you next week!

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