rolling pop 2020s

not to judge a song by its etc but

The Ant Man released an EP:

https://antsaunders.lnk.to/BUBBLE

He’s a very interesting interview subject, lol: https://www.idolator.com/7906247/interview-ant-saunders-talks-yellow-hearts-future-plans

i think it's fair to say that the tiktok hit pipeline is unrelenting at the moment

two of the earlier-breaking ones on the charts right now are lil mosey's "blueberry faygo" and surfaces' "sunday best." they're both trifles but the former has a pretty simple appeal to it imo -- and i can't help but appreciate the johnny gill "my, my, my" sample. the latter embodies the same energy as spring breakers in florida last month.

certainly the biggest of the most recent-to-break tiktok hits is megan thee stallion's "savage." while i'm glad to see her, talented as she is, scoring such a substantial success, i wish it had been with a different song -- like "b.i.t.c.h.", which is currently a hit at urban radio but running out of streaming steam. "savage" is not bad, but for me there's not a lot to it aside from the effortlessly catchy hook. i'm generally not one to be amused by dance challenges, but i did enjoy seeing a clip of the 'god warrior' dancing to it.

i appreciate that "supalonely" by new zealand singer benee at least sort of defies expectation as to what hits of this sort should sound like, but i'm not entirely won over by the song itself yet, and the dude on the track is nearly intolerable.

'in these uncertain times' (to use a phrase currently favored by advertising copywriters) it seems tiktok users are connecting with powfu's "death bed," a rap-ballad fantasy about dying young. the sample that comprises the hook is definitely the focal point: pitched up, distant-sounding, like a fading memory replayed in one's head. the song it's derived from, beabadoobee's "coffee," has been out since 2017 but now has a new music video -- perhaps someone is hoping it can be the "thank you" to powfu's "stan."

of course drake had to swoop in with his own. i'll be honest: i was fully prepared to be among the apparently many online bemoaning its crass cynicism, its lack of justification for existing beyond the potential to inspire predictable social media activity -- but oops, i actually like it, certainly more than some of the drake singles that critics have deemed classics, and more than any of the other songs i've mentioned in this post. i have a strange affinity for putatively upbeat 'party' records that have a touch of moroseness to them, and the sustained tones in this one's backing track push it into that territory for me. the synth noodling also has an inexact, uncertain quality that i find vaguely intoxicating; even paying the lyrics little attention, it's a track i can find myself lost in. those particular lines meant to inspire the inevitable dance videos are so brief and inconsequential, but i wouldn't consider myself above trying the steps if i found myself at a gathering, were it advisable for me to gather anywhere. it will probably crash in at #1 on the week after next's billboard charts and may remain there a while.

Great post, dyl. I agree the Drake song is catchy (when I let him borrow my house to shot the video, I made him promise it would be a hit).

I remember that Surfaces video from the “Worst Music of 2019” thread. So it finally “broke through,” huh?

The “Supalonely” song has a nice sound, but the lyrics stink...

Several of the songs dyl mentioned are name-checked here (plus “our own” Glenn McD.): https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-04-07/benee-supalonely-powfu-deathbed-pop-songs-coronavirus

i appreciate that "supalonely" by new zealand singer benee at least sort of defies expectation as to what hits of this sort should sound like, but i'm not entirely won over by the song itself yet, and the dude on the track is nearly intolerable.

it's a good song, but for all its idiosyncrasies it seems like a calculated attempt to create a meme: goofy adlibs, OTT autotune, self-deprecating sadboi-isms, prominent curse word in the hook to make the 12-year-olds feel edgy, trigger words (thinkin 🤔, drinkin 🍻) that lend themselves to tiktok hand gestures/dance moves. it reminds me of Superorganism in that respect even though they don't have much in common musically. I prefer Benee's first EP to her second because the novelty factor is a little less pronounced. Gus Dapperton's verse is awful and I really wish there was a version without it

What do you guys think of "Stupid" by Tate McRae? I heard it on a top 40 station yesterday. Haven't really focused that much on the songwriting but the guitar line interested me enough to stop and listen. The sound itself reminded me a little of In Rainbows-era Radiohead and the overall production has an interesting atmospheric quality. Apparently, she's a teenager from Calgary who works with Billie Eilish?

― With considerable charm, you still have made a choice (Sund4r), Wednesday, February 19, 2020 9:11 AM (one month ago)

her 'I Wrote a Song' video and Clairo's 'Pretty Girl' refused to leave my youtube sidebar for what seemed like a month toward the end of 2017. Billie and Finneas wrote one of her songs ('Tear Myself Apart') but they haven't worked together directly, and Tate's own songwriting style owes more to Alessia Cara than to Billie. I like that song and 'Stupid' and 'Happy Face', but as a whole her EP is a little awkward: the production is all sparse reverby beats and ominous bass drops, which doesn't really suit all her artless confessions about crushes and backstabbing friends. but of course it's 2020 and teenpop is expected to be grimdark rather than just plain moody. fwiw she's probably one of the best competitive dancers in the world, so this is sorta the equivalent of Shaq having a music career on the side

as misposted in the indiepop thread:
this comes via breastcrawl in the afro thread, where i would rather it didn't lie unnoticed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEI0U55rM-I

i feel like this should hit a lot of ILM's pop tastes dead-on. it certainly got me!

yeah, that's great. I really need to lurk on the Afro thread more often

Lennon Stella - Save Us

hopefully this isn't too downbeat for the pop thread. really elegant interpolation of that one overplayed nineties hit

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

It’s a nice track, but I’m not sure about the strategy of reminding the listener of a better song as your song wraps up.

This country song was released nearly a year ago, but just recently stormed the charts (including the Hot 100):

Gabby Barrett - I Hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlPfN4heqBo

There's also a poppier remix feat. Charlie Pluth.

this new yungblud song is actually pretty dope... it's like all american rejects trying to do a 1975 song. the production team behind it also did the poppy album from this year which has at least one amazing song on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIWALAgvz2U

This one's a bit of a rush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO-U2WlgroQ

"somebody" is fine but it's funny that this sort of scandipop hasn't changed at all in the past decade

Yeah I wasn't immediately struck by excitement over 'another one of those', but I guess there are turns and subtleties of melody and delivery here that just gets me

New charity fundraiser single, I think it's pretty good:

Ariana Grande & Justin Bieber - Stuck with U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE49WK-oNjU

Long article on Dr. Luke. I don’t much care for “Say So,” but there you go: https://variety.com/2020/music/news/dr-luke-back-doja-cat-say-so-kesha-1234605151/

Here's one I am fond of (very atmospheric):

NIKI - Switchblade

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

I think Audrey Mika (from the "Yellow Hearts" remix) is limited as a singer, but this is a nice & "professional" track that should appeal to fans of Dua Lipa, etc.:

Audrey Mika - Just Friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBfEK320hVg

truly abhorrent quotes coming from some of the interviewed a&r folks in that dr. luke piece

i like "switchblade" tho!

Victor Leksell's sappy, and not exactly inventive, but sweet 'Svag' is the undeniable monster hit of the spring in Sweden and Norway, currently #1 in both countries for the nth week in a row.

He did a performance with Norwegian popper Astrid S that was pretty clever -- the two of them sat on each side of the Sweden / Norway border. If she went over on his side she would have to be quarantined coming back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_PkXvkFBY4

curtis waters - "stunnin"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgduhk26sIw

this is a tik tok thing that is like a gen z chromeo song or something, i think it's pretty dope

that feels like a very deliberate attempt to write a tik tok hit but I love it regardless, very charming and the kind of thing it's difficult for a male popstar to pull off

pretty intoxicating production honestly. in a good way it also ~feels~ much longer than it actually is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HqTDoScPI4

Those Surfaces doofuses did a track with... Elton John?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaDmrrlYNv4

screaming at jason derulo catapulting himself back to relevance by becoming the world's thirstiest tiktok personality + putting lyrics over a preexisting tiktok instrumental hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUci-tsiU4I

the original instrumental (jawsh 685's "laxed") is honestly entertaining in a kitschy/goofy way, the main synth sounds like something off an snes sound chip

I like her voice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrjvJxv5Ht4

(Angel Cintron - Hometown)

This is a nice slice of bedroom pop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-NmCipcL-M

(ELIO - LA in Two)

I'm really into this cute album by Roki Fernandez (from Argentina) right now:

https://rokifernandez.bandcamp.com/releases

this is awesome. like a bit more twee Javiera Mena

pop industry + charts news: trade pub billboard is making some long-overdue changes to its tabulation processes to disincentivize the most fashionable of chart-rigging tactics lately, the music/merchandise bundle

while at first glance this would seem to have little relevance to anything 'real' regarding how the industry operates, the fact of the matter is that these aggressive bundling tactics, generally used to juice a release's charting stats during the first week of release, have been so heavily relied-on that eliminating the incentive for this practice may even increase the rate at which album sales continue to crater into oblivion, which may have something of a ripple effect in an already-challenged industry

especially as the pandemic continues to rage, leaving touring generally off the table (of course, ticket bundles were quite popular until recently), i would expect fewer high-profile 'pop' artists to take chances on initiating new album cycles for the next while, and for the pace of tune-turnover at 'pop' radio to slow to an even more glacial pace

while those would obviously not be good developments, it was unquestionably the correct decision for billboard as far as protecting the utility and meaning of their charts. with both streaming volumes and radio audiences in a modest-but-significant ongoing depression since the pandemic took hold, it's become unusually easy lately for artists to use these tactics to launch their hits at #1 overwhelmingly based on encouraging mass-purchasing from artists' hardcore social media-connected fans, in many cases leading to precipitous drops immediately following the first frame once labels/fans apparently stopped caring to put in further effort, the chart peak having already been achieved.

(on a less important note: i am honestly impressed with how direct they are being about the motivations behind this rule change, even going as far as to directly name some of some of the artists who were beneficiaries of some of the more blatant attempts to rig the charts in recent weeks. i generally find billboard's writing about its own charts in recent years to be very lacking in insight, rarely acknowledging in any meaningful way the strategies by which labels work their product to play that particular game, tho such strategies remain abundant. it wasn't always this way, so this more direct/honest announcement was nice to see.)

i know that at this point the billboard charts are mostly about spins and not purchases but the real bottom line is that no one is buying albums and i assume billboard would prefer not to say the quiet part loud. at least bundle sales are sales.

In addition, Billboard will no longer allow sales of physical albums or singles that are bundled with digital downloads to be reported as digital sales, thereby eliminating the practice of “spontaneous” non-manufactured items being used to influence first-week chart rankings. Only when the physical item -- ostensibly what the consumer is buying -- is shipped, will it be counted in Billboard’s official tallies.

Why would a purchase of a CD + download not count as a sale until the CD ships? I've bought these myself, and was not under the impression that the CD was what I was "ostensibly" buying. I was buying both formats at once. I was buying the single.

presumably because vendors are shipping cds well past the date of "purchase" but those numbers count toward week one sales? it's juking the stats no matter how you look at it.

But so what? I bought it when I bought it - that's when the "sale" happened - and got the download immediately. Who cares when the CD ships? (I don't care about the chart, btw, but don't get this controversy.)

To put it another way - the merch item is the add-on to the download, not the other way around. At least, that is how I saw it, as the "consumer."

i wonder if the implication of that passage is that some of the "manufactured items" in question never got manufactured/distributed to fans in the first place. especially when it comes to ticket bundles, you're dealing w/ a purchase (a concert) that is subject to not existing or drastic change at the hands of any number of forces. i feel like we can say w/ confidence that there were albums sold in the last 6-9 months w/ ticket bundles attached where the concert in question is no longer scheduled.

that having been said, i ordered a bad bunny t shirt (w/ digital download) for my bf when his last album dropped, and the shirt shipped in late june weeks after it was originally scheduled to ship and at least a month after the album came out. adding my purchase to his total at that point makes no sense to me... i was reacting to the "spontaneous" act of him suddenly releasing a new album, and also he was selling some cute t shirts. having chart tabulations dictated by the whims of the packing and shipping industries (sorry your package will not ship for another 2-4 weeks) seems pretty stupid.

i would also keep in mind here that altho the individuals at billboard who work on the charts are very passionate about and protective of the billboard charts as an institution that essentially keeps a public historical record of pop music, the company itself is run by imbeciles

that all sounds about right.

the concern is that labels lately have gotten into the habit of "spontaneously" offering a gazillion different pieces of merchandise, many of which do not actually exist yet except in concept, simply so they can be aggressively promoted on social media to diehards who will make sure to buy every single piece w/ the download of a song that would normally be purchased just once (online stans are hyper-aware of the charts + know that buying these things 'helps' their favorite artist). there is absolutely no question that labels would not engage in this extent of merch bundling, offering limited-time-only perks that just happen to coincide w/ billboard data-tracking weeks, etc., if it weren't a quick-and-easy means of achieving favorable(-looking) charting outcomes (again, many of these high-peaking 'hits' don't end up actually doing much business in the end -- one of this year's #1s might actually miss the year-end chart, which is, uh, not good). the billboard charts are meant to be a barometer of overall consumer interest, not a tabulation of which too-online stanbases were fleeced the hardest last week. so yes it seems weird/stupid on the surface to tie a singles bundle to shipment date of the bundled product rather than the date of purchase of the music download itself, it's something that had to be done because this obviously manipulative practice had gotten so out of hand

this is very similar to the labels' practice of arranging to have retailers deep-discount their singles in the mid-to-late '90s which ultimately helped lead to the especially early death of the physical singles market in the us. this tactic literally lost labels money and yet they couldn't stop themselves from doing it because execs + artist managers remained so eager to snatch up yet another #1 hit whenever it seemed even remotely achievable. billboard ended up having to nip that practice in the bud too, but it took them years to figure out how they wanted to go about it

Wasn’t the rule something about one credit card would only be counted toward purchase of 4 copies of a single, max? (This came up in that Tekashi 6ix9ine vs. Ariana & Bieber spat.) Why not just change it to one (1) copy, but still allow that sale to count, even if it’s part of a merch bundle? One copy seems fair.

i don't know the specific rules billboard's data provider (nielsen) applies to attempt to correct for suspicious/manipulative/fraudulent activity that may appear in the figures they collect. even in their statement about that controversial charting week, they seem to avoid going into specifics. i would say much of what's said among fan communities and within the industry about hard limits on number of copies per transaction/'receipt' or credit card is largely rumor/speculation.

i don't know that nielsen even has access to buyer/credit card info for all the download sales figures it receives

interesting collaboration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byO74UGa8bI
Sam Smith ft. Burna Boy • My Oasis

it's so sad how slow american top 40 radio is to turn songs over these days. i am now hearing songs like "supalonely," "death bed," "if the world was ending" and "i hope" as much as i ever did, and they all started really popping off like six months ago... not to mention the extended tenures of ancient tunes like "circles," "adore you" and "blinding lights," which is now enjoying its bazillionth week as the top title on billboard's airplay chart. lest it all be blamed on the pandemic, last year was actually just as bad: there have been 25 top 10s on the airplay chart so far this year (by the same time last year it was 24), whereas in the years about a decade ago that number would generally be ~40% greater.

i'm not that idealistic: i know that even in its best years radio seeks to respond to listeners' pre-existing tastes more than it hopes to introduce them to new songs, but this still represents a truly absurd low, at least as far back as i can remember from my lifetime. at this point i have come to expect that any pop song i find online that sounds like a hit will probably not actually enter regular rotation at the top 40 stations i am subjected to at w*rk until half a year later.

so uhhh by that logic, what's gonna be ringing out in the w*rkplace come early 2021? tate mcrae from upthread actually has a song on the charts now, "you broke me first." the eilish influence is obvious but i kinda like it anyway. apparently it's a thing on tiktok, but what isn't these days. conan gray's "heather" is too -- the concept is intriguing in some ways but beyond that i'm not feeling the song at all.

speaking of tiktok, i recently saw a group of high school-age girls across the street from my apartment filming each other doing something-or-other to saweetie's "tap in," presumably for that app. like her last big hit the production is based primarily around an instantly recognizable 00s hit and could have been produced by anyone, but in fact it turns out it's dr. luke's latest.

"mood" by 24kgoldn and iann dior has been zooming up the streaming charts with alarming rapidity for the past month and is about to go top 10 and probably beyond on the hot 100; radio is unsurprisingly just getting started on it. both artists have had previous singles promoted alternately to both rap and alternative stations, w/ mixed results either way, so i guess splitting things down the middle was the way to go. nothing fancy or high-minded about it, but it's cute and catchy.

racing up the airplay charts surprisingly quickly by today's standards is bts's new one, which sports english lyrics and an unnecessary key change. as always, its lofty chart debut was fueled by feverish fan activity, but unlike with previous singles the strong early radio response could actually help it stick around near or even at the top, where it began. i wouldn't say i really like this one -- "boy with luv" is my pick among bts singles -- but the chorus melody is an earworm.

certainly one of the worst songs i have heard recently is surf mesa's sedated house cover of "can't take my eyes off you" (sorry, i mean "ily"). the other 'edm' one getting a shot at top 40 right now, topic & a7s's "breaking me," is no less basic but at least has a solid tune and a non-execrable aesthetic. the latter artists recently released a pretty forgettable followup w/ lil baby of all people.

"i hope" has actually grown on me over the course of its slow rise to full saturation. (i know i'm an incessant charlie puth h8r, but i've come to prefer the original solo version -- it would have been cool if his verse had been more of a response to gabby's instead of just the original second verse sung by a dude, but oh well.) i guess given their past crossover history, the next country tune to go pop could be dan '+' shay's "i should probably go to bed," but the song is a total snooze and the production sounds weirdly hollow. preferable would be morgan wallen's "7 summers" which recently posted shockingly high opening-week streams for a country single, landing in the hot 100's top 10. wallen's already got a single going at country radio right now, so even if they did try crossing it it would probably take until next summer to go the full distance. if it's already this big a hit, why bother?

anyway. i guess i should probably go to bed.

thanks for that post, stay up late any time :)

Thx

Heard this playing in a coffee shop... I dig it. Sorta nü-Sheryl Crow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_miaFW4nRYk

(Ashe - Another Man's Jeans)

Here's a really nice ballad ("Love Is Letting Go") from the same album – featuring Diane Keaton, of all people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBqh2CiDPyM

Feel like this year was kinda… good??

Hottest Record Of The Year 2022 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fv8t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MUPTcjjiCA
Klara Keller - Sad Thinking of You

I guess this is Bebe doing Miley, but I like it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrGhXL9zCPQ
Bebe Rexha • Heart Wants What It Wants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSMryyB315A

not totally sure where to post this incredible jam with all of 9k views but an early soty for me

This is a good place for it! I like to see this thread revived… :)

I've got this vibey jam on repeat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYBlOxyB3sU

Audrey Nuna ft. Teezo Touchdown - Starving