September normally gives us the last big musical events of the chart year, as everything released past this point will have much more impact in 2024. To that effect we did get two big album bombs that look like they’ll each produce a hit single, one being significantly better than the other. Elsewhere, pop had its strongest month in a while, whilst Drake continues to be a colossal bore. Enjoy!
“Single Soon” by Selena Gomez
Peak #19, Current #54
This is the first new music from Selena Gomez in a while as she teases towards a new album that is apparently “not quite done”. I think this song marks something of a return to form for Selena. I thought her last couple of projects, 2020’s Rare and 2021’s Revelación both had some admirable qualities, but musically both were a bit faint and washy.
Selena’s not the strongest of vocalists and I’ve always thought she sounds best with a strong melody that cuts straight to the hook of the song and full production to support her, which is exactly what we get here. The driving, synthy beat is very mid-2010s and it has a very strong, confident sound to it that matches the independent energy that Selena brings. Melodically and structurally it’s very basic, but there’s something to be said for a no-frills pop song that just hammers one thing and does it well.
Add to that a really stylish music video where Selena looks hot as hell, and yeah I’d say this her strongest pop offering in quite a while. She’s serving pop star, and nobody else is quite doing it like this these days. It’s not a mind-blowing song or anything, I mean she’s still a very limited artist, but for me this is the type of single she does best. Wouldn’t mind a full album like this.
7/10
“Used to Be Young” by Miley Cyrus
Peak #8, Current #23
It’s funny how Flowers was such an enormous hit, then the album came out and nobody cared about it, and then Miley somehow has another pretty big hit with this single from the digital reissue. Goes to show the power of promotion I guess. Anyhow, this track is a pretty obvious reflection on some of her old antics and controversies, with its releasing coinciding with the 10th anniversary of her infamous VMA performance.
Not going to lie, I don’t really care about any of that. I didn’t find Miley that interesting when she was twerking and licking hammers, nor do I find her that interesting a decade later moping about it. What both this song and Wrecking Ball have in common is that they’re pretty dull power ballads. This is such a plodding bore. I’m totally checked out by the halfway point, and the only new thing introduced after that is some exploding cannon sounds. Come on Miley, this isn’t Total Eclipse of the Heart, you can’t get away with dumping that shit on top of what is otherwise a very dull song. Yeah, I don’t care for it.
4/10
“I Remember Everything” by Zach Bryan ft. Kacey Musgraves
Peak #1, Current #5
Everything was geared towards Zach Bryan taking a huge career leap forward with his new album, but I don’t think he could’ve imagined it would go quite this well. Country music in general, and particularly a more neo-traditional sound, has been having such a huge moment lately and with Something in the Orange being such an enormous sleeper hit, as well as significant traction for the rest of his catalogue, it was all set up well for him. But a huge album bomb and a number one debut on the Hot 100? Utterly unthinkable two years ago, still pretty damn shocking today.
I really liked the album. Just good songwriting, good performances, a great overall sound to the record; everything you would want in a modern country project. My only slight grumble might’ve been that he didn’t push the boat out a little more in terms of instrumental palette and song structure, but then he released the Boys of Faith EP a month later which provided exactly what I was looking for. My personal favourites across the two records would be Deep Satin, Pain Sweet Pain, East Side of Sorrow, Hey Driver, Fear and Friday’s, Tourniquet, and of course I Remember Everything.
This song sneaks up on you with how good it is. It wasn’t an immediate standout for me but after a few listens that gorgeous, subtle chorus melody hits so well, it’s deceptively catchy. It helps that is has some of the grander production on the album with the excellent drum sound, atmospheric acoustics, and polished strings that give the track a greater anthemic swell whilst still sounding natural and intimate.
Of course it also helps that the writing is fantastic and so well sold as a duet. The imagery used is pure poetry as the intensity of this drink-ravaged relationship is laid bare. I especially love the lines that open Kacey’s verse, “You’re drinking everything to ease your mind, but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?”. So much hurt but also understanding shown at once. I’ve never been a big fan of Kacey as a singer but her rather weak and whimpery voice actually works to the song’s credit here, she was a good choice.
Yes this is simply a great country ballad. A few years ago the idea of a song like this even being a hit would seem a little unlikely, but now we’re out here debuting at number one. Strange times indeed but things are clearly changing for the better, even if country radio will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to get on board.
9/10
“Peaches & Eggplants” by Young Nudy ft. 21 Savage
Peak #33, Current #42
Gosh an actual hit rap song that isn’t just the biggest hit from some rapidly fading album bomb, what a novelty. Young Nudy is a name I’ve been vaguely aware of for a few years but I’ve never really cared to check out, and this is in fact his first song to chart on the Hot 100 as the lead artist.
Clearly this is going for some quirky minimalist thing where the charisma of the two rappers and the absurdity of the lyrics and all the repetition makes for some crazy fun banger. Yeah I don’t think that worked. It just sounds empty and the performances are dead. It really gives nothing. Meh.
5/10
“Bongos” by Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion
Peak #14, Current #31
Well you know these two will provide energy at least. Of course this is Cardi and Megan’s second collaboration after 2020’s smash WAP, a song I’ve always thought of as tuneless, and not nearly as shocking or funny as it was claimed to be.
In three years the subject matter has moved on from pussy to ass, so that’s something. Although lyrically it’s not as focused as WAP, since both ladies take time out from talking about their asses to drop various flexes and talk down to other girls, which certainly doesn’t add anything to the track. I will give credit to Megan for her line “All these wannabes my lil ponies” which is so good I’m surprised she hasn’t used it before, but none of the other lines stick in the head.
Musically it certainly has more in the way of a danceable groove and tempo to it than WAP and I don’t mind the beat or even the repetitive “bom bom bom” voice that never shuts up, although we probably could’ve done with cutting a couple of verses. So yeah, I think it’s OK, but obviously not a chance in hell I’d choose to listen to this.
5/10
“get him back!” by Olivia Rodrigo
Peak #11, Current #21
So here’s my hot take on Guts: It’s OK. It’s fine, it’s a perfectly acceptable mainstream pop album with some pop-rock influences. That’s about it. Why isn’t it better? Well I think my main problem is that it doesn’t really have any pop songs. When Olivia came out with Drivers License and Deja Vu as her first two singles and blew me and many others away with their quality, I didn’t really anticipate that as soon as her second album she would be hardly writing any pop songs at all.
The songs on Guts can mostly be divided into two categories. On one side you have the ballads. Olivia is not good at writing ballads. I’m sorry but this was also true on Sour, her ballads are really boring. I know for a fact that she’s influenced by Gracie Abrams and it’s not a good thing. The other half of the album are her attempts at a punky rock sound. I would say these generally go over a bit better when she picks up more of a groove and melody, Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl probably being the best example. But her very teenagery lyrics and over-reliance on talk-singing do make these tracks grate after a while.
The best moments on the album are where she sounds like she’s not trying as hard and gives us more of an enjoyable pop song as with Love is Embarrassing, Pretty Isn’t Pretty, or even Vampire, which despite its flaws is probably still one of the better songs here. And then right in the middle of the record we get this track which is being pushed as a single and divides opinion like no other. To fans of the album this is a highlight that encapsulates everything Olivia was trying to embody on Guts. To those of us who didn’t like the album so much……. er, this song fucking sucks.
I honestly thought this song was a joke when I first heard it, like surely she can’t be serious with this? The talk-singing is back in its most annoying form as Olivia bitches her way through the verses over these flat, farty guitars. Far worse is the chorus which reminds me of something off Eminem’s Revival in the way this totally obnoxious big hook over some sort of rap-rock beat barges in and doesn’t fit at all with the sludgy verses. Lyrically it’s not too far from a modern Eminem song either as Olivia is doing some toxic relationship bit, full of these wink-at-audience double meaning revenge/reconciliation lines. The instrumentation in the bridge switches to handclaps and an out-of-nowhere acoustic guitar break just to further add to the confused musical slurry as Olivia then rounds things out with a selection of tiring ad-libs and painfully staged studio chatter to cap it off.
It’s a frequent music criticism to say “if such and such made this song you would/wouldn’t like it” but I feel like that is apt here because there’s no way if this wasn’t by the new poster girl for pop-rock/pop-punk in the mainstream who publications think it’s cool to praise, that this would receive any sort of positive reception. The production sounds like something people would mock Limp Bizkit for, and the songwriting is beyond juvenile, but because it’s Olivia rather than Gayle or someone it’s apparently a banging punk anthem not a sloppy cringe fest. Even Olivia knows it’s bad on some level as she said herself “a few days before we turned in the album I was like ‘I hate this song, take it off'”. Should’ve listened to herself on that one. The music video is also just the worst. Nobody even watches music videos these days, why bother making one if you haven’t got a good idea for it?
I guess the most I can say for it as that on some level Olivia’s aware of this song’s ridiculousness and it can be enjoyed in some sort of ironic, deliberately melodramatic way. But even then, unlike some of the sharper tracks on Guts this doesn’t actually have any edge or energy to work as a campy revenge song, it’s just flat and rather annoying. Like I say, I didn’t hate the album or anything but this was by far my least favourite track and whilst Bad Idea Right has grown on me a bit, I can’t see this doing the same.
2/10
“greedy” by Tate McRae
Peak #33, Current #33
I don’t understand why Tate McRae is successful. She’s not awful or anything, but everything about her screams D-list pop star, yet the pushes for her last couple of singles would place her significantly higher than that. I guess good radio and streaming promotion is the answer, but even so it seems weird that she can debut a song this high.
This song is, er, fine I guess. I’ve listened to it half a dozen times and I still have no thoughts on it so I guess it must be OK. There’s not much of a tune and Tate gives nothing as a vocalist so it’s hard to get anything out of this positive or negative. It sounds like the type of song where the lead artist would be the producer with some unknown female singer credited as the feature, that would probably make the top ten in the UK but fail to chart in the US. Instead it’s a solo top 40 Hot 100 hit for the girl. Fuck me, RCA records have done well to milk this much cash out of her.
5/10
“Come See Me” by Rod Wave
Peak #19, Current #19
Not going to lie, I’ve slightly lost track of my own rules when it comes to which songs I review from album bombs. This was released two weeks before the rest of his new album Nostalgia, but it didn’t reach the top 40 ’til the week the album was released, and it’s currently the highest charting track apart from Call Your Friends which was covered last month, so I’m going with this as the track I review.
Perhaps the reason Rod’s new album was called Nostalgia is because the songs all remind you of other songs of his because they all fucking sound the same. Jokes aside, I haven’t actually listened to the album so don’t get mad at me if that comment is inaccurate but based on the singles I don’t think I’m wrong. On this track the watery pianos are more buried than usual as the trap beat dominates, but otherwise it’s business as usual as Rod croons his way through basically one long verse. It is what it is.
5/10
“Slime You Out” by Drake ft. SZA
Peak #1, Current #1
I don’t think I’ve ever been so quickly done with a song as when I first pressed play on this, saw it was five minutes long, then heard Drake open it with “I don’t know what’s wrong with you girls, I feel like y’all don’t need love, you need somebody who could micromanage you”. Why does he have so many songs like this? He’s like a self parody at this point, he doesn’t even try to hide his contempt for women anymore, he just comes straight out with it. And it’s always in one of these boring “R&B” cuts where he just drones over a minimalist beat. Didn’t we already get enough of these bad songs on Scorpion five years ago to last a lifetime?
There’s no hook, it drags on for an age, and for some bizarre reason he asked Halle Berry if he could use a picture of her for the cover art, she declined, and then he just did it anyway??? The only saving grace is the 20% of the track given over to Sza who at least gives a better performance, but it’s not like her content of helping men cheat and then criticizing their dick game is any more enticing.
All in all it’s a featureless, hookless five minute drone that nobody will remember when the album drops. Nice for Drake to stat-pad another number one “hit” though.
3/10
September average: 5.0/10
Worth listening to: “I Remember Everything”
🙂
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