Last pre co-op post (Week of 1/14/2023)

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another countdown post. Just a reminder that you have only one week to submit for my rankdown and I only have four submissions not counting my own, I will likely extend the due date a week. On to this countdown, here are our three exits: 

Harry Styles- Music For A Sushi Restaurant (#20 last week)

Charlie Puth/ Jungkook- Left And Right (#24 last week)

Omar Apollo- Evergreen (#29 last week)

Countdown: 

30. Joji- Die For You (Debut)

29. Sza- Kill Bill (Debut)

28. K Flay- It's Been So Long (+2)

27. Raye/ 070 Shake- Escapism (Debut)

26. Sabrina Carpenter- Nonsense (+2)

25. Rema/ Selena Gomez- Calm Down (=)

24. OneRepublic- I Ain't Worried (-6)

23. Sza- Nobody Gets Me (+4)

22. Beach Weather- Sex Drugs Etc (+4)

21. Post Malone/ Doja Cat- I Like You (=)

20. Selena Gomez- My Mind & Me (+2)

19. Nicki Minaj- Super Freaky Girl (=)

18. Avril Lavigne/ Yungblud- I'm A Mess (-2)

17. Beyonce- Cuff It (=)

16. Taylor Swift- Lavender Haze (-1)

15. Metro Boomin/ The Weeknd/ 21 Savage- Creepin (+8)

14. Nicky Youre- Eyes On You (=)

13. Rosa Linn- Snap (-3)

12. AJR- World's Smallest Violin (=)

11. Tate Mcrae- Uh Oh (+2)

10. Charlie On A Friday- Enough (+1)

9. Jvke- Golden Hour (-1)

8. Ava Max- Million Dollar Baby (+1)

7. Jax- Victoria's Secret (=)

6. Sam Smith/ Kim Petras- Unholy (-1)

5. Lewis Capaldi- Forget Me (-1)

4. David Guetta/ Bebe Rexha- I'm Good (-1)

3.Meghan Trainor- Made You Puke (+3)

2. Lil Nas X- Star Walkin (=)

1. Taylor Swift- Anti Hero (=)

Countdown Extra: Leah Kate- My Bed

Last Year's #1: Ed Sheeran- Shivers

#1 Two Years Ago: All Time Low/ Blackbear/ Demi Lovato- Monsters

My Favorite Song Last Year: Sza- I Hate U

My Favorite Song Two Years Ago: Lil Nas X- Holiday

List of Recommendations for Hits 1:

Steve Aoki/ Regard/ Mazie- New York

Sigala/ Mnek- Radio

Bizzarap/ Shakira- Bizzarap Music Sessions Vol 53

Ava Max- One Of Us

Alok/ James Arthur- Work With My Love

Armani White/ Denzel Curry- Goated

Up first is Die For You by Joji. You'll notice I moved this back up a tier from the past few weeks, it's more upbeat than I remember, plus HrishK said the production takes a Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish- esque turn at the end, but I don't see any Amun type production anywhere here. Overall, this did regrow on me a bit.

So two years in a row with Sza having my favorite debut. One year ago, I Hate U was my favorite debut, now Kill Bill is here. This is pretty cool. It has some cool production and she sounds pretty good. I'm fine with this on here.

What I'm less fine with debuting, however, is Escapism by Raye and 070 Shake. Yeah, this is not good at all. First off, it's safe to say Raye's accent goes better with house type production than whatever the hell this production is. Second, I have a hard time deducing what the lyrics are about, but I am assuming it's about having a super bad hangover, and if that is the case, I have no clue why you would think having a hangover is a good thing. And to cap everything off, it feels too long for what it is. I hope this flops hard.

Hitbound

Tiesto/ Tate Mcrae- 10:35

Miley Cyrus- Flowers (Debut)

Diplo/ Kodak Black/ Koe Wetzel- Wasted (Debut)

Sam Smith/ Koffee/ Jessie Reyez- Gimme (Debut)

Ava Max- Weapons

Lonnie- One Night Stand (Debut)

Mimi Webb- Red Flags (Debut)

Gracie Abrams- Where Do We Go Now (Debut)

Regard/ Drop G- No Love For You

Owl City- Kelly Time (Debut)

Maneskin/ Tom Morello- Gossip (Debut)

Jordi- Hate You

Pink Pantheress- Boy's A Liar (Debut)

Coi Leray- Players (DJ Smallz 732 Remix)

Pink- Never Gonna Not Dance Again (Re-entry)

Loud Luxury/ Kiddo- These Nights

Oh shit, 10 songs to go over, but at least one is a re-entry. First up is a new Miley Cyrus song called Flowers. I usually like Miley Cyrus's music, and this is kind of good too. She sounds pretty good here, and it has cool production, but it's just sort of forgettable. I hope the next song off Endless Summer Vacation is better.

Umm... okay. This next song actually debuted HB the day it came out, and this is a good surprise. Anyways, Wasted by Diplo, Kodak Black, and Koe Wetzel (the last two making their Hits 1 debuts) is on here. H o l y c r a p. Talk about a banger. First off, the first 15 seconds or so sound somewhat like those of Scream & Shout by Will.i.am and Britney Spears from 2013, and that is a good thing. Then Diplo's production is super wild on this, Kodak Black's hook is super cool, and I like the verses from this Koe Wetzel dude, who sounds a lot like Billy Ray Cyrus here. Man, I really want this on the countdown.

In two weeks, Sam Smith will be releasing their new album Gloria, and today, we get a new song off that album called Gimme with Koffee and Jessie Reyez. This is super cool. I feel like they are going for an Afropop vibe with this, and this isn't the first time they have tried to do Afropop, Burna Boy had a guest appearance on Love Goes. I like the production here, and all three of them do well vocally, and I especially like Koffee's verse here. Between this and Unholy, Gloria might be my favorite Sam Smith album.

Up next, we have this. It's called One Night Stand by Lonnie, and it interpolates Love Fool by the Cardigans. This is actually pretty cool. I like the production here, and this Lonnie dude sounds cool, almost like a cross between 24kgoldn and The Kid Laroi. The use of the Cardigans interpolation almost makes sense in a way. Interesting song.

Fuckin hell, of course there's another Mimi Webb song on here, this one is called Red Flags, and.... it's actually somewhat good? Yeah, this might actually be her best song so far. She sounds better on her than her other four songs that were on here (even though 24/5 and House On Fire were tolerable). Also, the production just makes sense unlike in Good Without. I hope she continues putting out songs like this.

Next up, we have newcomer Gracie Abrams on here with her song Where Do We Go Now. This is pretty good. Gracie Abrams has a great singing voice and I think the production is solid, but whenever the chorus is about to come up, I feel as though it is about to go into a hard rock song, then it doesn't, and that is my only complaint, the song is in Bb major, and I've made it quite clear I like songs in that key. This should be the next One To Watch.

10 years after Owl City hit #1 here with Good Time with Carly Rae Jepsen, he's back with Kelly Time. I'm not sure what is supposed to be, It has happy production and the lyrics start out positive then get sort of dark in the middle, and a key change around that is pretty unnecessary. Also, this takes its sweet ass time to end. Goody.

Thankfully, it gets better, because we have a new upbeat Maneskin song on here, this is called Gossip and it is with Tom Morello, who is a guitarist. H o l y c r a p. This might be Maneskin's best song so far. Damian David sounds amazing per usual, and I like the wild production and Tom Morello's post chorus guitar solos are amazing, and I usually like speed metal guitar solos. Glad this is here, and I can't wait for Rush and its amazing songs.

I promise you this is the last debut. It's Pink Pantheress's second Hits 1 appearance after Where You Are with Willow from last year, which was decent. I would call this an improvement over that song. She sounds good and I like the production. Definitely an improvement over what she had before.

Lastly, Never Gonna Not Dance Again by Pink is back. Please let it do something this time. 

We lost My Bed, Paper Crown, Girl Like Me, Special, Too Well, Pointless, Hero, and Ever Fallin. The first one could be in the abyss as it was the countdown extra, but who even knows at this point? Paper Crown wasn't even close to Alec Benjamin's best, so I'm fine with that leaving. Special did not live up to its title, so I'm fine with that going. I liked Too Well and I wanted that to debut. Pointless was better than some of his other songs, but it was never that great. Hero is the latest EDM song they fucked over. And Ever Fallin was interesting but nothing I will be revisiting.

Ok time to go a rant. WHY IN THE LIVING HELL IS WEAPONS BY AVA MAX STILL HERE? This makes no fucking sense, as it has been here for 10 weeks and she has put out not one, but TWO songs off Diamonds & Dancefloors after Weapons, one of which came out yesterday. Mikey Piff even acknowledged that there were new songs that she was putting out, yet he still left Weapons on as though that is the latest single off the album. And I didn't even see her latest song on Hits 1's New Music Friday post yesterday, so it is clearly as though Mikey Piff is trying to forget about her except for that one song. Not to mention they could have removed this instead of fucking over Hero by Martin Garrix and Jvke, which is leagues better in my opinion. Oh, and do I see this debuted Hitbound the week the Black Eyed Peas dropped Elevation? See, if they picked up on something off that album like Muevelo and left it on here for this long, I would not have cared since the Black Eyed Peas don't make bad songs. But now, I have officially had it with Weapons, which sounds a lot like Victoria's Secret and was never great. It got especially annoying when everyone was dropping the lyrics of the chorus in the Discord in a super annoying way, and all of this is now causing me to hate Weapons now. So this NEEDS to leave ASAP. Ok, rant over.

Blurbs: 

Our exits were Music For A Sushi Restaurant, Left And Right, and Evergreen. Music For A Sushi Restaurant thankfully didn't hit #1 despite being a Harry Styles song, Left And Right had a great run here and was getting kind of old, and Evergreen was only decent. So I'm fine with all of these going.

Looks like I Ain't Worried is on its way out. I shouldn't complain too much, but I wish this had hit #1.

Not sure why Nobody Gets Me is jumping while Kill Bill is here and better.

I'm even less unsure why Sex Drugs Etc hit a new peak of 22. This should be gone by now.

Why is I'm A Mess flopping now?

I was not completely expecting Creepin to make the top 15 this week, but I am obviously very happy that it did.

Phew. Snap fell three spots after re-entering the top 10 last week.

Enough is back in the top 10 instead.

So Made You Puke is now at #3... and I still haven't gotten tired of this. I will easily take this at #1 over Anti Hero, though I would prefer Star Walkin or I'm Good there as well.

I guess that does it for me this week, see you guys next week.