First airing at 7am today (Week of 4/13/2024)

 

Hello everyone, I'm writing this two days after the Kelce brothers did their podcast live at UC (I unfortunately had to miss it due to homework). I still only have five submissions for my rankdown, so please, for the love of God, get those in if you haven't done so already. Also, for my two year anniversary, in addition to the four countdown recreations I previously announced I would be doing, I will be doing a couple Electric Top 20 posts, one for the anniversary weekend and one for the week before. If you don't know, the Electric Top 20 is a weekly countdown that Daniel, Tri, and I like to listen to every week. Now on to this week in Hits 1, here are the exits:

Tate McRae- Exes (#5 last week)

Taylor Swift- Is It Over Now (#12 last week)

Teddy Swims- Lose Control (#19 last week)

Countdown:

30. Glass Animals- Creatures In Heaven (Debut)

29. Beyonce/ Miley Cyrus- II Most Wanted (Debut)

28. Imagine Dragons- Eyes Closed (Debut)

27. Madison Beer- Make You Mine (-4)

26. Benson Boone- Slow It Down (+4)

25. Meghan Trainor/ T Pain- Been Like This (+2)

24. Hozier- Too Sweet (+4)

23. Olivia Rodrigo- So American (+6)

22. Usher- Kissing Strangers (+3)

21. Twenty One Pilots- Overcompensate (+5)

20. Dasha- Austin (+2)

19. Luke Hemmings- Shakes (+5)

18. Girl In Red- Too Much (=)

17. Beyonce- Texas Hold Em (-4)

16. Olivia Rodrigo- Obsessed (+5)

15. Djo- End Of Beginning (+5)

14. Sza- Saturn (+3)

13. Knox- Me Myself & Your Eyes (+3)

12. Selena Gomez- Love On (+3)

11. Shinedown- A Symptom Of Being Human (+3)

10. Dua Lipa- Houdini (-7)

9. Noah Kahan- Stick Season (-3)

8. Justin Timberlake- Selfish (=)

7. Renee Rapp/ Megan Thee Stallion- Not My Fault (+2)

6. Henry Moodie- Pick Up The Phone (+4)

5. Ariana Grande- We Can't Be Friends (+7)

4. Knox- Not The 1975 (-2)

3. Dua Lipa- Training Season (+4)

2. Benson Boone- Beautiful Things (+2)

1. Sabrina Carpenter- Feather (=)

Countdown Extra: Ava Max- My Oh My

Last Year's #1: Tiesto/ Tate McRae- 10:35

#1 Two Years Ago: Charlie Puth- Light Switch

My Favorite Song Last Year: Charlie Puth/ Dan + Shay- That's Not How This Works
My Favorite Song Two Years Ago: Nicky Youre/ Dazy- Sunroof

Recommendations For Hits 1: Corbyn Besson/ Armani White- Like That and Jay Wheeler/ Natti Natasha/ Luar La L/ Mambo Kingz/ DJ Luian- Mil Palabras

So uh... anyone remember Glass Animals from their song Heat Waves three years ago that spent about two years on the hot 100? I remember that song, and liked it at first but it faded on me a little bit the longer it stayed on the countdown. Today, their new songCreatures In Heaven debuts, and this is not as good as that song. It feels on the slower side and while Dave Bayley sounds good, he doesn't sound as good as he did on Heat Waves. So, I'm just all right with this on here.

Our next debut is from Beyonce and Miley Cyrus, this is called II Most Wanted, and it's off Beyonce's country album Cowboy Carter. Well, I can safely say 2024 Miley Cyrus is better than 2023 Miley Cyrus. This is a pretty good song, these two have on point chemistry, but I feel like the production is a little bit too slow. That's what causes me to give the blue ranking, but it could grow on me.

And saving the best for last, we have Imagine Dragons' latest, Eyes Closed. H o l y C r a p. This slaps so fucking hard, and I don't even care that they jacked the title from an Ed Sheeran song from last year, as this song is leagues better. The beat on this is amazing, and Dan Reynolds sounds quite great here. I hope they make this a hit.

Hitbound

Michael Macargi- Scared To Start

Dua Lipa- Illusion (Debut)

D4vd- Feel It (Debut)

OneRepublic- Nobody (Debut)

Benson Boone- Cry

Mimi Webb- Mistake (Debut)

Girl In Red/ Sabrina Carpenter- You Need Me Now

People R Ugly- Dumb (Debut)

Doja Cat/ Teezo Touchdown- Masc

Artemas- I Like The Way You Kiss Me (Debut)

Sabrina Carpenter- Espresso (Debut)

Mark Ambor- Belong Together (Debut)

Vaultboy- You're My Moon (Debut)

David Guetta/ OneRepublic- I Don't Wanna Wait

Chappell Roan- Good Luck Babe (Debut)

Ava Max- My Oh My

Oh shit. 2 weeks in a row with ten debuts. Let's just get started. So Dua Lipa's new album Radical Optimism drops the week before my two year anniversary (By the way, I'm actually considering reviewing it as part of my two year anniversary), and the third single, Illusion, debuts this week. Tbh, the other two songs I heard from that album are better than this one. The feel is a little bit different and the key doesn't exactly go with this. However, she still sounds fine and the production here does work. So, good song overall.

Oh great. D4vd is back. The only song of his I previously talked about was Here With Me from last year. This new song, Feel It, is more upbeat than that one but still not great. I personally don't mind D4vd's singing voice and he sounds pretty good here too. I don't know, it's just on the forgettable side, I guess.

While their song I Don't Wanna Wait with David Guetta is still here, OneRepublic has a second song on here called Nobody. And I'm going to be completely honest, this sounds a decent bit like I Ain't Worried from two years ago, and if you're new here, I liked that song quite a bit. So, of course, this is also good. It's super fun and Ryan Tedder sounds quite good per usual. I hope this is a hit, you know, if I Don't Wanna Wait is a hit too. I don't want any repeat of what happened with Shakes and Lighter please.

It's been a year since I last heard from Mimi Webb, her new song Mistake debuts. I have a bit of a mixed history with her music. She has a couple good songs, a couple really bad songs (like Good Without), and mostly songs that are in between, such as this new song. She experimented with Drum & Bass here (that's what Pink Pantheress and Kenya Grace usually do), but this would be better if one of those two were singing, because Mimi Webb is not the right vocalist for this type of production, even though it is kind of cool. So, this falls in the middle for me.

The guys who've only known for four months that Will Smith was a rapper and Drake used to be a Nickelodeon actor are back. So yes, People R Ugly bring their second song to Hits 1 and first since Brain Dead, this is called Dumb. This is great but not Brain Dead great. The vocalist sounds great, it's in Bb major, but what does it for me here is the infinitely relatable lyrics, most notably "Could you tell me in the end, are we better as lovers or friends?" So this is about some girl the lead vocalist has a crush on but he's not sure whether a relationship will work between them or not, and that is indeed quite relatable to me. So yeah, I hope this is on the countdown.

All right, we're halfway done with the list of debuts. And next up is a random newcomer named Artemas with his song I Like The Way You Kiss Me. And this is a bit odd. The production is strange, the vocals are a little bit odd, but at least the bead is listenable. So I don't hate this too much. 

OneRepublic is not the only act to have two songs on HB this week, as a new Sabrina Carpenter song called Espresso debuts this week while You Need Me Now stays on. This is pretty good, not anything I want to revisit soon. It's on the more forgettable side for a Sabrina Carpenter song, but I do remember it being slightly better than You Need Me Now. So I'll take it.

We have a second random newcomer this week, this is Mark Ambor with his song Belong Together, and this is just another decent song. It has a bot of a groove and he sounds fine, I'm not sure what is bringing this song down for me, but something is, and I'm not sure what it is.

So uh... anyone remember Vaultboy from that not so great song Everything Sucks three years ago? Well, he's back with You're My Moon, although I heard a song from him last month called Closer with Salem Ilese and liked it. I also think this new song is an improvement over Everything Sucks but it's not as good as Closer. Everything about this song makes sense and he delivers one of his better vocal performances here. So based on the two songs I've heard from him this year, he may be moving over to my good side.

Lastly, on the topic of artists I had a bad first impression of but have a great song this week, Chappell Roan is back with Good Luck Babe, which was actually one of my recommendations from last week. So if you haven't already guessed, not only is this a step up from Kaleidoscope, this is actually one of my favorite songs at the moment. She sounds infinitely better than she did on the aforementioned song and the production is just incredible. My only complaint here is that the slowdown and pitch drop at the end were completely unnecessary, but other than that, amazing song.

We lost Eat Pray Love, Thing U Do, Cheerleader, Part Time Lover, Hell Of A Good Time, and FINALLY Bad Feeling, The Door, and Blame Brett. I wish Eat Pray Love had at least lasted longer if not debuting, and I can live without Thing U Do. Hell Of A Good Time was just decent, Cheerleader was nowhere near as good as an amazing song from 2015 with the same title, and I sort of wanted to see Part Time Lover on the countdown. And Bad Feeling is finally gone, as good as that song was, it went 15 weeks without being introduced by Mikey Piff, and Hallett even pointed out that that is longer than Vampire lasted on the countdown (14 weeks). The Door and Blame Brett also lasted fairly long, but at least they were previously introduced by Mikey Piff.

Blurbs:

Our exits were Exes, Is It Over Now, and FINALLY Lose Control. As surprised as I am about Exes leaving from the #5 spot, becoming I believe the 6th song in history to leave from the top 5, it was starting to fade on me, so I'm fine with that going. With Is It Over Now leaving, we now have no Taylor Swift songs on here for the first time since October 2022. Unfortunately, that could change with the release of The Tortured Poets Department dropping soon, but I'll take what I can get. And I was getting pretty tired of Lose Control, so I'm fine with that leaving.

Glad Too Sweet is jumping off its debut.

Overcompensate is finally starting to do something. I hope this breaks into the top 20 next week.

Except why is Shakes there instead? And yes, I'm still quite annoyed that we chose to make this a thing instead of Lighter.

Looks like A Symptom Of Being Human's big jump from last week was not a fluke, as it continued jumping this week, hopefully, this makes the top 10 next week.

It's safe to assume Houdini is on its way out. This had a great run, plus, Training Season is better anyways.

Speaking of Training Season, it replaced its predecessor in the top 5, and We Can't Be Friends made it there too, hopefully, these both hit #1 at some point, but if Not The 1975 and/ or Beautiful Things get there first. For reference, it's been nearly nine months since we last had a guy at #1, not counting fake countdowns with Satellite or Selfish at #1

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