You know what time it is! Songs that made the year-end list that I didn’t cover in Billboard Roundup, remixes, and then some shout-outs to songs that should’ve been proper hits.
Part One: Missing Hits
“Bloody Mary” by Lady Gaga
Peak #41, Year-end #99
TikTok! Somebody on that app decided that a sped-up version of this pre-chorus made for a good sound, and it was enough to force this to become a minor sleeper hit, with radio getting on board as well. Born This Way Lady Gaga strikes me as an odd choice for something to blow up years later given how badly a lot of that album aged, and sadly this song is no exception.
Look to start with the positives, both the pre-chorus and the chorus are really robust and therein lies the main appeal for any Gaga pop hit. For me it does suffer slightly from “reverse TikTok effect” where I’ve now heard it sped-up so many times that the normal version sounds sluggish (which perhaps it was anyway), but nonetheless it is very catchy. Lyrically she’s playing really hard on the Catholic and Gothic imagery in a way that is occasionally baffling (“We are not just art for Michelangelo to carve
He can’t rewrite the aggro of my furied heart” is just an insanely clunky line) but largely gets her point across in an ode to Mary Magdalene.
Unfortunately in terms of the production this just did not age well. The electronics are horribly buzzy and gurgling whilst completely lacking in low-end; the drum beat is similarly soft and a little slow for the club hit it’s trying so hard to be; the Gregorian “Gaga” chants seem rather inappropriate in a song that’s not about her and don’t really match the correct vibe; and the opulent plucked strings that open and close the track don’t fit at all with the griminess of everything in between. It’s a really weird mishmash of styles between dated electro-pop and Gothic grandeur that fails to capture either effectively.
The structure is also a bit lacking. The drop-out after the second chorus is really underwhelming and kills the momentum, and all we get after that is an empty section of stuttered vocal filters before Gaga comes in with a bridge where the only lyrics are “Dum, dum, da-di-da“. Sometimes the repetition of sounds can be an effective musical device but here it just sounds like a placeholder for an actual bridge that was never written.
So yeah, the hook is as strong as ever but as someone who was never a fan of Gaga beyond her debut era, this track is a reminder of why that is. Convoluted lyrical motifs that don’t really go anywhere, underwhelming song structures and production that aged horribly, the last of which makes this a baffling choice for a sleeper hit in 2023.
5/10
“I Wrote the Book” by Morgan Wallen
Peak #18, Year-end #95
One of the things with my current coverage rules on Billboard Roundup is that I do tend to miss quite a few hits from big album bombs. From One Thing At a Time’s album bomb I only reviewed Thinkin’ Bout Me because it was the highest charting, but several other album tracks made their way onto the year-end list. Fair enough I was wrong on that front. I thought that Morgan had overplayed his hand by dropping such a long album of, in my opinion, average material but obviously it worked out for him.
The idea of this song is set up in the verses where Morgan basically humble brags about the fact that he’s so good at everything, that he practically wrote the book on baseball, bowling, backing up trucks and catching “a bunch of hogs”, although the way he sings it sounds more like “hoes”. Apparently a girl he was seeing was also impressed, saying “she loved how I was good at everything”. I can’t tell if that line was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or if Morgan’s genuinely claiming that a girl said that to him, but anyway. The relationship all falls down because there’s one book he didn’t write – The Bible. He definitely didn’t write that book because he drinks too much and swears and gets in fights.
I get the idea he was going for but I don’t really warm to it, partly because the verses come across as an insane humble brag, which unless he’s literally Ty from Dude Perfect, is definitely bullshit. But it’s also just another song where Morgan shows no willingness to change his behaviour and just revels in his position as the bad boy who’s effortlessly good at everything but can’t sort himself out. And then we get the bridge which goes “Yeah, the good Lord knows I need it, I didn’t write it but I probably oughta read it”. So after all this talking about God and finding yourself spiritually and songs like Don’t Think Jesus, you now reveal that you haven’t even read The Bible, let alone applied its lessons? Fucking come on man.
Even if this song is supposed to be a joke, it doesn’t save it because I thought he was moving past this sort of thing and Morgan’s performance is as straight and sincere as always. It does at least have one of his brighter melodies, but that’s squashed underneath the grey trap-beat and sour guitars. Not for me mate.
4/10
“Ain’t That Some” by Morgan Wallen
Peak #11, Year-end #92
With such a long album, Morgan was inevitably going to throw in a little bit of something for everyone, and that means a few bro-country jams along the way. There’s not much to say about this. It’s a very straightforward dirt-shagging anthem where Morgan even acknowledges how cliché his words are. Songs like this pretty much live and die on how fun they are, and with the rap-sung delivery, desaturated tones, and so-so hook, this isn’t all that fun. Forgettable, at best.
4/10
“Everything I Love” by Morgan Wallen
Peak #14, Year-end #56
Now this is the twangy hit off the album. It’s got a proper jangly groove and generally some of the less canned-sounding production on the album. The upbeat energy masks the slightly sour and unhappy tone of the lyrics, where an ex has ruined various things in his life because he can’t see them anymore without thinking of her. This is a pretty overused lyrical idea, especially for country music, and Morgan doesn’t do much with it. It also comes across as unnecessarily negative towards the ex, when given other songs on the album the breakup was most likely as a result of Morgan’s own poor behaviour.
Definitely one of the brighter and chirpier songs on the album, but not one that I connect with much. Juxtaposition between upbeat sound and sad lyrics can sometimes work well, but I don’t really see the point of it here, it just means that the emotion doesn’t come across well, not helped by Morgan’s delivery still being very flat and expressionless. Eh.
5/10
“Nobody Gets Me” by SZA
Peak #10, Year-end #77
This is the other big streaming album of the year that my “one song per album bomb” coverage slightly low-balled. Low was also extremely close to making the top 100 but just missed. I’m not surprised this was a hit. It’s quite common for an album with full production to have one stripped back song that becomes a fan favourite as happened here.
Sza’s lyrics and performance are also very raw as she passionately sings of her difficulty getting over a relationship. She’s certainly no poet (“you were balls deep, now we’re beefing“) but her candidness is obviously part of the appeal. It’s got a strong melody, Sza commits to it one hundred percent, and it works out as one of those cry-belt along to alone in your car type of songs. It ain’t complex but it hits. Kinda prefer when Sza sings a bit clearer like this where you can really connect to what she’s saying.
7/10
“Snooze” by SZA
Peak #2, Year-end #9
Nine. Number fucking nine on the year-end list and I didn’t review it! If ever there was a slow-burn hit, it would be this. Originally a minor streaming hit and then picked up hard by radio in the second half of the year to give it a whole new lease of life on the charts. So what’s so special about Snooze? Well not much, but it’s just a good, low-key, dreamy ballad that hasn’t got old over the course of a full year.
I love the soft drum tone and watery keys, and the best instrument of all is Sza’s voice which flows across the track beautifully. I’m not always a big fan of “vibe music” but the sound of this is right up my street, and there’s enough catchiness in that chorus and hidden edge in the lyrics to keep me hooked. Doesn’t exactly scream top ten biggest hits of the year, but like I say it’s held up very well to a year of overplay and that says a lot.
7/10
“Spin Bout U” by Drake & 21 Savage
Peak #5, Year-end #43
Oh God, I forgot about this album bomb. To be honest I didn’t notice that this song had still been charting, let alone made its way into the top half of the year-end list. Something about the aesthetic of this album always turned me off in a big way. I don’t know if I was influenced by the horrible album cover or my existing opinions of the two artists, but it always gave me such an uncomfortable, toxic male vibe that made me want to pretend it didn’t exist.
And this song, yeah it’s not very good. A hazy vocal sample looped against a clattering beat which Drake and 21 drone over with bored arrogance. As for the content, on the surface both men are being affectionate towards their partners but it’s all through the lens of very clearly wanting to control them and doing everything for them, whilst gagging for a fight with other men. Eugh I think I’m allergic to this type of music, especially when it’s so turgid and hookless. Bad vibes.
3/10
“Superhero (Heroes & Villains)” by Metro Boomin ft. Future & Chris Brown
Peak #8, Year-end #38
This is almost a good song. That Future X Metro Boomin link-up that the streets crave. You would think a beat as repetitive as this with Future relentlessly going in on it would get old fast but it somehow doesn’t. Future’s bars aren’t very memorable but it’s made up far by the immaculate production and command of atmosphere.
But then for the final minute we get this terrible guest appearance from Chris Brown, that I am yet to see a single person defend. The tracks momentum drops dead out the sky as Chris Brown croons over watery pianos, asking “They don’t wanna see you winning, so who’s really the villain?”. Just fuck off. It’s you, you’re the villain, although at this point he doesn’t even deserve that title, he should’ve been forgotten years ago. Of course he brings out the classic dumb talking point of “people only say bad things about me because I’m doing well and they’re hating”, like no we hate you because you’re an awful person.
So thank you Metro for giving Chris Brown’s career yet another stay of execution, on a feature that everybody agrees makes your song worse, nice one. First half still slaps though.
6/10
Part Two: The Remixes
“Dial Drunk” by Noah Kahan & Post Malone
Peak #25, Year-end #80
I don’t have much to say about this one. The original Dial Drunk is still great, and seeing how Post is clearly trying to move in more of a singer-songwriter direction and Noah will seemingly collaborate with anyone, this duet makes sense. But I’m largely indifferent to the result.
Post did write an original verse to replace the existing second verse but it doesn’t really add anything to the narrative and his appearance is too short to make an impact audibly. If anything I’d say it slightly detracts just because I find his introduction into the track a bit distracting, just takes me out the song for a second. Doesn’t ruin the song or anything, but I stuck with the original personally.
7.5/10
“Karma” by Taylor Swift ft. Ice Spice
Peak #2, Year-end #27
Technically this could’ve gone in either part one or part two. I never reviewed Karma in Billboard Roundup, instead going with Anti-Hero because it was the first single, and Lavender Haze because it had a music video and I correctly thought it would go on to be the second single. I didn’t put Karma in the missing hits section because, spoiler alert, the original song is going to appear in my upcoming best hits list so I’ll give my thoughts on the track there, and now I’ll just comment on the difference between the original and this remix.
Pretty much everybody agrees that the remix is the worse version, and everybody is correct about that. In basic terms, removing a Taylor Swift verse for an Ice Spice verse will always be a downgrade. Taylor’s second verse had some great lines in it as well. Instead we get Ice Spice doing her usual bored delivery as she runs through a series of not very good similes. What’s far worse however is the way her verse is integrated into the track. If she spat over the original beat it might’ve sounded alright, but instead it stutters into this half-time breakdown that not only kills the momentum, but also Spice sounds lost over this slower tempo.
She also makes a reappearance for the bridge to really ram home the point that her and Taylor have absolutely no musical chemistry. Look I’m not a full-on hater for this remix, certain people had a really weird reaction to it at the time based on some horrendously cynical conspiracy theories concerning Taylor’s brief fling with Matty Healy and comments he had made about Ice Spice, which obviously had nothing to do with collaboration existing. But yeah it really didn’t work. Original song is still great though and most of it is intact here, but nobody’s going back to this over the solo version.
7/10
“Die For You” by The Weeknd & Ariana Grande
Peak #1, Year-end #7
God I’m burnt out on The Weeknd. Why was this so big? What was the reason? I reviewed the original song from 2016 over a year ago and basically said that it’s everything I don’t like about The Weeknd’s music. Well since Save Your Tears was so big, they just brought in Ariana again to milk another big remix hit, that for some reason people cared about.
It’s whatever. I liked Ariana on Save Your Tears because she sang a bit deeper and fuller which sounded cool over the dark synthy production. But here she’s a bit more light and twiddly and it doesn’t do a lot for me. I appreciate Ariana removing the unlikeable lyrics in the second verse, but the ones that she adds don’t really add the balance I was looking for. The Weeknd is being totally toxic but she doesn’t really acknowledge or respond to that in anyway, she just continues along the same lines of not being able to keep away from him.
I’m probably being a bit of a hater here but I just don’t really care about these two, especially on a mid remix of a not very good seven year old song. Most overplayed hit of the year.
4/10
Part Three: The Ones That Got Away
“Midnight Rain” by Taylor Swift
Peak #5, Weeks on chart: 8
Yes, I know I’m being very greedy by including this. Midnights was bigger than anyone could’ve imagined and considering how badly she did on radio back in 2017-21, its single run was nothing short of astonishing. But if I could’ve picked another track to be a late-album hit, it would be this one.
This has to be one of the most unique songs in her discography. I just love the totally spare arrangement with an incredibly simple beat complimented by these dizzying synths that give the whole track an immersive dream-like feel. The way she uses a pitched-down vocal as the hook and then interacts with it differently in each chorus is just so great, and the chorus melody is hypnotic. I’ll cut this short because this is only supposed to be a brief roundup, but I could honestly write an essay about this song, and all there is to dissect in the lyrics as well. Obviously I love Taylor’s music but I rarely associate her with music that’s this captivating on a production and compositional level, got to shout-out Jack Antonoff for that as well. Favourite track on the album.
“’98 Braves”/”Tennessee Fan” by Morgan Wallen
Peak #27/49, Weeks on chart: 7/7
If you’re going to release a thirty six song album that becomes the year’s biggest seller, there’s got to be at least a couple of good songs that charted for a while. There was no separating these two songs for me as the two football-related love songs. Although I don’t know the first thing about American sports, the big sport fan in me can’t help but marvel at the nerdiness of songs like these. Plus they serves as a nice reminder that Morgan can still nail a nice ballad or two when he wants to.
“Ghost in the Machine” by SZA ft. Phoebe Bridgers
Peak #40, Weeks on chart: 9
Meanwhile picking my favourite minor hit from SOS was not difficult at all. The record did end up growing on me quite a bit, and I’d even call if it pretty great if it ended right after Nobody Gets Me. But this is the only track that I feel like really lives up to the experimental, genre-bending tag that I’ve seen many publications bestow onto the whole record.
What is this song? It’s sound is haunting, melancholic, enveloping, spooky, dreamy, suffocating all in one. The layered beat with its muffled skitters and low ringing is a beautiful soundscape that Sza flows over at her most liquid and melodic. Phoebe Bridgers has one of those voices that cuts to the bone every time, and her out-of-nowhere introduction into the song is chilling. Special.
“SNAP” by Rosa Linn
Peak #67, Weeks on chart: 15
I’m not sure if this song is actually any good or I just have lingering good feelings towards because it’s rare for a Eurovision entry to chart in America. To be fair, reivisiting my tweets from 2022’s contest, I did rate this as the sixth best entry at the time and it’s held up for me. There’s been a bit of an early 2010’s indie revival lately and this plays into that a little with a lovely warm sound to the gentle stomping and strumming. Comfort song.
“10:35” by Tiësto ft. Tate McRae
Peak #69, Weeks on chart: 9
This is the required energy level every Tate McRae song needs in order to make up for her inability to sing or write. Bop.
“Hey Driver” by Zach Bryan ft. The War and Treaty
Peak #14, Weeks on chart: 15*
Somehow this song is still charting, but barring something miraculous occurring like Nashville radio actually picking it up, I can’t see this becoming a 2024 hit so I may as well include it here. This isn’t my really among my top favourites from Zach Bryan’s self-titled album but for some reason Fear and Fridays didn’t stick around nearly as long as it should’ve, so this is the biggest hit after I Remember Everything.
Granted, even mid-to-upper tier Zach Bryan still wipes most mainstream country and between the excellent mix and one of the more memorable hooks on the album, this is still a big vibe. What really puts this into greatness is Michael Trotter Jr of breakthrough duo The War and Treaty, who damn near takes over the whole song with his phenomenal vocal contributions on the chorus. Country radio, we’re all waiting for you to catch up, the demand for this kind of music is huge.
“Dawns” by Zach Bryan ft. Maggie Rogers
Peak #42, Weeks on chart: 20
Man this one nearly took off but never quite got there. But the fact that I can say I’m disappointed that a song by Zach Bryan and Maggie Rogers “only” charted for twenty weeks says a lot about how well indie-country-folk-pop is doing these days. Funnily enough this isn’t even one of Zach’s more accessible songs. Yes the chorus is anthemic when it eventually kicks in, but the vocals and instrumentation have a ragged sound to them, and the song’s unpredictable rise-and-fall structure is equally chaotic.
What really gets me about this song is the writing. It’s already a very intense song about the disintegration of Zach’s marriage, seemingly due in part to his wife’s lack of faith. Then inexplicably he cries out that he misses his mother who passed away some five years earlier. It’s shocking how this seemingly unrelated cry comes out of nowhere, but there clearly comes a moment where he sees his wife’s lack of belief in God, and memories of hearing his mum praying through the walls come flooding back. Perhaps he hadn’t fully processed his grief at the time, but as his marriage falls apart it hits home how much he misses his mum and how much time he lost on somebody who wasn’t the one.
In his own words, “And by the time she [his wife] wakes, I’ll be halfway to my mama’s home [heaven?]. It just dawned on me, life is as fleeting as the passing dawn”. He angrily demands his time back, furious at having lost so much time now that he’s had this epiphany about life’s shortness. “I need one small victory” is the wail of a man at rock bottom. Goddamn. I love I Remember Everything to death, but this song makes it sound tame in comparison. Brutal. Raw. Brilliant.
“Human” by Cody Johnson
Peak #61, Weeks on chart: 19
After having the biggest country hit of last year, Cody Johnson couldn’t come close to replicating that success in 2023, but I might actually like this song more than ‘Til You Can’t. It’s a complete change of pace as a very gentle ballad which Cody completely carries with his remarkably wise and mature sounding voice – It’s hard to believe this guy is only in his mid 30s. Oppositely, the lyrics paint a picture of humbleness and inexperience, which makes this an incredibly likeable song overall.
I love singers like this who sound effortlessly soulful and emotive without having to sing with any real intensity, it’s not something you get much of these days. He doesn’t even go for a big dramatic ending which is refreshing, the song is happy to stay in second gear throughout and let the lyrics set in. Great song, definitely went underrated this year.
“See You Again” by Tyler, The Creator ft. Kali Uchis
Peak #44, Weeks on chart: 20
OK TikTok, I’ll give you this one. That hook is killer.
“ceilings” by Lizzy McAlpine
Peak #54, Weeks on chart: 13
Alright TikTok, I guess that’s two Ws. God I love this song, along with Dawns, it’s probably the only song here that could’ve challenged for number one on my best list if it had just held a little stronger. The arrangement is absolutely stunning, Lizzy’s performance is goosebump-worthy, and that ascending chorus melody touches something in my brain that has me emotional in an instant.
How can a song make you feel so nostalgic on your first listen? Especially when it’s just about a date at the start of a relationship? But that’s great songwriting for you, making simple moments sound like the most significant things in the World. Well maybe those fluttering feelings of new love actually are the most significant things…… oh stop it, I’m going to cry again.
Best list by the end of the year 🙂
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