Soko—“We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow”
#9
Yet another YouTube flash, debuting in the top ten and disappearing completely the next week. Soko herself isn’t a flash—she made a wonderful record with Cornershop a couple of years ago—but this is hardly normal pop material, and most likely even those who watched the video didn’t really notice it. There have always been media driven hits, but this may be the first one where the music is secondary and it’s chart placing is essentially an accident. There have been plenty of top ten hits that no one remembers, too, but now we have one that no one was even trying to remember. How can you say a record is popular when no one is consciously listening to it? This odd, inoffensive blip, not a great record but not a terrible one, whose arrival in the top ten barely generated comment, may be the greatest argument yet against Billboard’s current chart formula.
Kristen Bell and Santino Fontana—“Love Is An Open Door”
#49
Cute; unbearably cute.
Luke Bryan—“Play It Again”
#78
The chorus has a lustful quality that’s rare in country, but overall this is Bryan at his most overbearing and mediocre. Everything bad about current country is in it, and very little of the good.
YG featuring Drake—“Who Do You Love?”
#78
I read somewhere that YG represents a return to straightforward rap or something. Which apparently means guys bragging about how rich and tough they are over minimalist beats. Where have we heard that before? Drake easily walks away with the track, but it’s not like he had to break a sweat to do it.
Eminem featuring Nate Reuss—“Headlights”
#86
The dark past that was, in a sense, Eminem’s muse, has become his crutch—whenever he runs out of juice he can always dredge up his mother, or his ex-wife, or his kids, to apologize to or berate or both. He’s become the John Wayne of rap: stolid, predictable, always playing the same role in the same costume, with rotating guest stars. Here he employs Nate Reuss to provide the plangency. Reuss sings very well, but his part amounts to an entirely separate song uncomfortably wrapped around the other. Sounding uncomfortable is one of Reuss’s trademarks, but in this case it doesn’t work.
Sara Evans—“Slow Me Down”
#89
Even in country, there should be a limit to how many comeback attempts you can make. Evans is way over it.
Ty Dolla $ign featuring Wiz Khalifa & DJ Mustard—“Or Nah”
#91
Even more straightforward than YG, with the addition of sexual power games thrown in. Bad enough to put you off the sound of squeeky bed springs forever.
Tiesto—“Red Lights”
#97
I understand Tiesto once showed promise as a DJ, but that doesn’t mean he can make a pop record. He can’t sing, has a lousy sense of structure, and stole the best bits from “Teenage Dream”. I bet he was never that promising a DJ, either.
Jennifer Lopez featuring French Montana—“I Luh Ya Papi”
#98
You can hear Beyonce’s influence all over this, but coming from Lopez it doesn’t mean much—just another way of scoring a hit, she hopes. It doesn’t seem to be working, largely because the record is too low key. It’s jolly enough, but it doesn’t jump out at you the way a great pop record should. Not that I would expect a great pop record from Lopez, but you’d think she would understand this stuff by now.
Future featuring Pharrell, Pusha T & Casino—“Move That Doh”
#99
As good as much of this is—especially Mike Will’s beat, Pusha T, and Pharrell’s old school flow—it still boils down to ancient tropes on the usual subjects. Even the best beats and the most inventive raps aren’t going to revive them or turn them into something new. The reality behind them hasn’t changed, but if that reality is going to matter again, if it’s going to mean anything to anybody, it needs to be approached in a different way. I have no suggestions; just pointing out the problem.
Disclosure featuring Sam Smith—“Latch”
#100
I’m having a hard time making up my mind about this record. I like it, but I don’t like it a lot. The music is often lovely and Sam Smith deserves all the positive press he’s been getting. The main problem is the overall structure: the way “Latch” is constructed it seems like it should be much longer, but it could benefit from being rearranged and made shorter, as well. The first would turn it into a great dancefloor track, the second into a good to great pop song. I know Disclosure are trying to create something new by tredding that middle ground, but they haven’t done it yet, and the current result is a fairly pleasant mishmash, but not much else.