rolling pop 2018

i guess it's appropriate that a year when a limp bebe rexha / florida georgia line duet reaches the top 10 would be a year with a pop thread that started in almost-mid-february

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_0XJT-7FuE

that said, this is pretty good! it's by the guy who wrote britney's 'love me down' and a bunch of uh brooke candy songs. he says he 'grew up on bloghouse' which lol

(also is the bass line from a beck song or... ?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eC_i6WS1Hs

I like this a lot (Dr. Luke production though :/)

It's really good!

kim petras killing it this year
'faded' is amazing

faded is amazing

i like the victoria monet ep. it sounds like she listened to a lot of dawn richard before heading into the studio. also its intro is the best tribute to janet jackson's spoken-word bits that i've heard in a while.

preparing myself to enjoy shawn mendes in 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycy30LIbq4w

oh that's nice

yeah i love this. every time i've listened to a new phoenix song in the last 5 years i've hoped it would sound like this

is this going to be as godawful as the artist/title, and a cursory scan of the lyrics, suggest

not awful but it's pretty meh/ignorable like almost all of his music

I was really enjoying the slightness of it until the falsetto came in but it's a huge leap forward from anything else he's ever done

that really does sound like a phoenix track, until the bridge/hook anyway. really nice track.

the best track off Halsey's album got released as a single finally, and Stefflon Don is on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGd1dq1BatM

"Dirrty Is Good Actually," the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O02MnrL_wrc

among the more fruitful genres (covered by zero sites) are female-fronted rock bands sort of like Paramore before they went full Jazz Styrofoam Cup in Music Form; this is a cover but good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvXkYUxKVrE

I won't stand for paramore hate tbh, anyway that mostly just makes me want another dead sara record

according to wikipedia (I know): "Dead Sara is currently signed to Atlantic Records with a new EP set to release in 2018."

oh nice!

i liked dead sara's first album so much (if that's the one with "weatherman" on it), i don't know why i stopped checking up on them

their records are so great

Yah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxmtHVSVjdo

i love this new charlie puth. i'm a sucker for the wispy guitars in the chorus but it's just really well produced, cool drum fills and interlacing backing vocals all over the place. apparently he produced it himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5orrZxSjLQA

i’m lukewarm on puth but i’ll check this out.

new jess glynne! her album from a few years ago was so good

https://open.spotify.com/track/083Qf6hn6sFL6xiOHlZUyn?si=WWLzT4g1TXiiBRNpdLJO7Q

I'll see if I can forgive Puth for that Marvin Gaye thing... but I really don't think the world needs more songs about love me or hate me I am what I am

verse vocal melody tethering is w/e but otherwise the puth is good

i saw him live last year and he was just so smarmy

puth's newer songs are better than his older ones but ever since he faved those mark dice tweets i've been doing my best to ignore him

i really do not like charlie puth, even his 'good' song ("attention") was just passable to me and in general he just grates

i lol'd somewhat at his recent tweet in which he praised the chord progression in ariana's new single. (he's a real musician you know, he produces his music himself etc etc)

HE WENT TO BERKLEE

(he mentioned this a lot when i saw him)

lmao

i like the troye sivan track that was posted recently, including its awkward and overly conspicuous metaphors

feel like this is the most interesting thing on pop radio right now (not that there's a lot of competition)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc71AmT_b2k&vl=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc71AmT_b2k

also, speaking of dead sara, they have a new single out (not an exact fit for this thread but still)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amc9UAAy-NM

Bazzi song is nice, but somehow he manages to come off as a douche to me...

are Dead Sara getting airplay?

lol no way, they’re women!

Dead Sara song sounds like if Bonnie Tyler got really angsty and joined The Hives.

j0rd's right about that charlie puth track

i did not like "attention" v much (the instrumentation is great but the vocal melody is diet zayn) and "the way i am" is def what i wanted it to be

great, i may like this whole record, what the hell

i guess it should surprise no one that i'm mesmerized by derulo-esque pastiche but the "what a fool believes" chords working in and out of this, jeez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFVtb5_Pec4

omg i thought positive opinions about charlie puth were going to be safely contained in his new dedicated thread

i would also call the bazzi song 'interesting' but mainly because it sounds like two different songs spliced together. like, okay, we need this verse so the viral marketing ppl and streaming kidz can work w/ it but we also need this completely different chorus so we can sell him to radio as a 'pop' artist instead of something resembling a rapper.

the bazzi song became a hit due to a snapchat filter? lol

i like it though it feels a bit slight at only 2 minutes, the individual parts are good enough that they could surely be stretched out a bit more to make it feel more substantial

This new track "Girls" (Rita Ora feat. Cardi B, Bebe Rexha & Charli XCX) seems to be generating discussion/controversy. Sexual politics aside, it's... not a good song, IMO. Despite the talent involved.

i usually don't mind her idiosyncratic voice but bebe rexha in particular sounds terrible on this

i don't particularly like this song... the first single was pretty good but also i'm not sure what they're supposed to be now. they totally dropped the pop punk shtick in favor of vague post-1975 tasteful guitar pop a la shawn mendes essentially? there's a little bit of a rock edge to "youngblood" that is like "ey remember us??" but idk i feel like some ppl in some conference room somewhere decided that they could be the next one direction & it hasn't seemed to take at all

i didn't realise their second album's singles had flopped everywhere. post-1975 tasteful guitars is preferable to their pretty dire pop punk but there's a lot of this stuff around now and it doesn't really stand out

this single's gone to #1 in Australia FYI.

i'm pretty sure i must have listened to at least some of their singles since "she looks so perfect" (which i loved) but for whatever reason now i can't remember anything about them

this is more Bruno Mars-y than anything this Disney-affiliated deserves to be, and I actually like it a lot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hes1pOSLeYE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FCqPtfJWl0

idk what thread she fits in but i love the new album by amy shark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-IoluTnuKs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONcndBmSwyI

that's lovely in a glossy justin vernon way

i heard kim petras's latest "heart to break" and it's really good, i think the best i've heard from her so far

Faded, Heart to Break, and Can't Do Better are all fantastic but her latest, All The Time, is pretty weak

oh i didn't realize she had put out anything after "heart to break"

has she denounced or stopped working with dr luke yet

No — https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/08/dr-luke-kim-petras-kesha/568639/

great article

the song caught me in the wild and i had to know what it was, hear it again. it's unfortunate.

i should prob make my own thread for "new shawn mendes singles i enjoy" but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGzy8FE1Rhk

h/t maura for that one

jason derulo's new single sounds like leftover black eyed peas-type trollwave from 2010/2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-mZwL4Bh6E

("time to say goodbye" is a legit lovely tune tho. personally i especially enjoy the chris botti orchestral version lol)

oh my god wait are you fucking serious don't tell me it samples t hat

this song is trollwave in that it exists to troll me specifically

so rita ora return to her run of surprisingly good tunes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCQK6LmhYqc

The vibe is similar to “Your Song,” but it’s not as good IMO.

Some very big-80s sounding tracks I've been digging lately:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy-WhOVbKZ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOlVELlP2jk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3yoXph7fgU

yep love all three of these
still need to check out the aces album actually

Rolling most 2018 sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixkoVwKQaJg

DJ Snake feat. Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B • Taki Taki

(Don’t know where Snake got this beat from, but kudos, it’s a great track)

think I'd enjoy it more without the Ozuna guy

Really? What is it you don’t like about him?

i like ozuna. selena gomez is the weak link for me. song is just okay overall.

xp I guess his voice comes across very... loud in the mix, slightly grating

maybe I'll grow to love it

Selena is probably the weakest here (although the Cardi verse surely isn't the best she's done) but I've a lot of sympathy for her and always like to see her have a hit single

shawn mendes track from upthread has been remixed by zedd, who repurposes the 'let's get lost tonight' bridge from the original into a buzzy instrumental hook. it got performed at an awards show and it's the only version i've heard on the radio so far. i'm not sure if i like it better or not? the tweaks are pretty slight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiTCDijrze8

oh and i like the new halsey song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9ienljU834

idk if there's been any poppy discussion on these boards or even if this is the right thread for this, the best song i've ever heard

this is getting some push from someplace and I'm sure someone could potentially complain about TEH ALGORITHMS but if TEH ALGORITHMS are swapping out faux-tropical whatever for Kylie/Gaga then they are good actually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ_IXA-x4hA

xps ah bunch of my friends saw poppy the other night and i had to miss it :(

surprised there isnt a poppy thread tbf, deffo been discussed somewhere - probs big enuff for her own thread now

loving that chater tune too

Miya Folick's album (Premonitions, out last week) is an impressive debut. I hear Fiona Apple in the way her voice flutters sometimes - but it's also a serviceable replacement (like the October album from earlier this year) for the 2018 Sky Ferreira record we're probably never going to get.

man i'm so into aggretsuko poppy. the video came out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQsxWKfTSU

love it

I'm not convinced by the album, but AURORA live was a joy to look at. Especially the first song (Churchyard).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2ANW6Kn_2o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a2bVCMZPms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L17e4-VXV7g

Here's a post xmas pop playlist with everything discussed on the thread this year.

ILM's 2018 Rolling Pop Spotify Playlist

Couldn't find a 2019 thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTJ-oqwxdZY

justice for yvonne elliman

groovypanda, i was just searching a thread to post the same video.
never cared much about shawn mendes (besides 'nervous') but i'm really enjoying this new one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UToVr_vLnI8

did the 2019 thread never get made?

this is only really notable because the slowed down "better off alone" sample somehow ends up with an air france-esque vibe which is hilarious and incredible and i wish the rest of the track was anywhere near as good as those first few seconds when those dual realisations hit

this bangs :D

the new camila cabello record is excellent

I just can't with her voice :(

i love her voice!!!! but i get it's divisive