The bittersweet type of movement (Week of 4/27/2023)

 

Hello everyone, welcome back to... my first time ever posting in the last week of April (remember I took two weeks off last year while in Europe). So compared to last week, this was an improvement, notably none of the top 9 holding on to their spots from last week. It also wasn't that great, thanks to our one debut that I have a shit ton to say about. You've been warned. Let's just get into it, here is our lone exit:

Luke Hemmings- Shakes (#23 last week)

Countdown:

30. The Beaches- Blame Brett (=)

29. Beyonce/ Miley Cyrus- II Most Wanted (-9)

28. Glass Animals- Creatures In Heaven (-3)

27. Muni Long- Made For Me (+2)

26. Taylor Swift/ Post Malone- Fortnight (Debut)

25. Teddy Swims- The Door (+3)

24. Victoria Monet- On My Mama (+3)

23. Shinedown- A Symptom Of Being Human (-12)

22. Sabrina Carpenter- Espresso (=)

21. Usher- Kissing Strangers (+3)

20. Imagine Dragons- Eyes Closed (+1)

19. Dua Lipa- Illusion (+7)

18. Girl In Red- Too Much (-1)

17. Justin Timberlake- Selfish (-9)

16. Beyonce- Texas Hold Em (-1)

15. Djo- End Of Beginning (-1)

14. Meghan Trainor/ T Pain- Been Like This (+4)

13. Noah Kahan- Stick Season (-4)

12. Sza- Saturn (+1)

11. Knox- Me Myself & Your Eyes (+1)

10. Renee Rapp/ Meghan Thee Stallion- Not My Fault (-3)

9. Hozier- Too Sweet (+10)

8. Dasha- Austin (+8)

7. Henry Moodie- Pick Up The Phone (-1)

6. Sabrina Carpenter- Feather (-5)

5. Olivia Rodrigo- Obsessed (+5)

4. Ariana Grande- We Can't Be Friends (+1)

3. Knox- Not The 1975 (+1)

2. Dua Lipa- Training Season (+1)

1. Benson Boone- Beautiful Things (+1)

Countdown Extra: Chappell Roan- Good Luck Babe

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

#1 Two Years Ago: Imagine Dragons/ JID- Enemy

My Favorite Song Last Year: Charlie Puth/ Dan + Shay- That's Not How This Works

My Favorite Song Two Years Ago: Jack Harlow- First Class

Recommendations For Hits 1: Gryffin/ BabyIDontLikeYou- Magic and Shaboozey- A Bar Song

So normally, Shakes by Luke Hemmings would be a W, except it was replaced by a song that is infinitely worse in every possible way, not to mention this might be at the top of my worst list for 2024. So yeah, for whatever reason, Post Malone thought it would be a good idea to feature on Taylor Swift's album The Tortured Poets Department on the lead single Fortnight, and now this is projected to go #1 on the Hot 100 next week with the entire top 15 being TTPD songs. I talked about all the reasons this collab doesn't work last week when this shit debuted HB. First off, it feels a shit ton like something that should be a fucking vault track from Reputation Taylor's Version. Also, the song is so painfully slow, apparently, this is what the majority of the album is like according to some people on the Discord (although Hallett gave the album a high score when reviewing it earlier this week). As I previously stated, I'm not entirely sure what the point of crediting Post Malone on here when he's mostly doing background vocals. After that completely underwhelming album Austin from last year, I was expecting a lot better from him, and this song completely doesn't help at all. At least this only debuted at #26 instead of the top 15 or worse, the top 10. If this pulls a Good 4 U next week, I swear to fucking god, I will be ranting infinitely harder than I'm doing right now.

Hitbound:

Michael Macargi- Scared To Start

Lay Bankz- Tell Ur Girlfriend (Debut)

People R Ugly- Dumb

Lauv- Potential (Debut)

Jessie Murph- Cold (Debut)

D4vd- Feel It

Knox- Change Your Mind

Twenty One Pilots- Backslide (Debut)

David Guetta/ OneRepublic- I Don't Wanna Wait

Doja Cat- OkLoser (Debut)

Chappell Roan- Good Luck Babe

Mark Ambor- Belong Together

Artemas- I Like The Way You Kiss Me

Teddy Swims- Apple Juice (Debut)

OneRepublic- Nobody

Kygo/ Zak Abel/ Nile Rodgers- For Life (Debut)

This first debut has been having somewhat of a viral moment lately, it's Tell Ur Girlfriend by Lay Bankz. I haven't fully formed an opinion on this yet, but it's pretty good with my first listen. She sounds pretty good and it is pretty catchy. That's all I have to say on this so far.

Next up, Lauv is back with a new song called Potential, as in it had the potential to be better than it currently is. He sounds pretty good and I like the production here, but he could have put this in a different key than he did, and as it stands, this kind of reminds me of All 4 Nothing from a couple years ago, which was on the border of mediocre and decent. However, I feel like it could grow on me, who knows?

Ok, it was time to give up on Jessie Murph long ago, but Shits 1 still hasn't gotten the message, and now she's here with Cold. And as you've probably guessed, I easily prefer Maroon 5 and Future's song of the same title by an entire mile. This is so painfully slow, which isn't new to her in the fucking slightest. At least she sounds better than she normally does.

On to artists I actually care about, Twenty One Pilots drop Clancy in a few weeks, and today, we have the latest single, Backslide. Yet another solid banger from them. It has some cool production and Tyler Joseph once again sounds quite good. Good to see this.

Looks like Hits 1 switched out Masc by Doja Cat and Teezo Touchdown for the song from the deluxe edition of Scarlet that has been having a viral moment, OkLoser. And I'm going to be quite honest, I think Masc is better than this. She sounds fine, but I'm reminded more of Paint The Town Red or Agora Hills when I listen, and those started out good but now I'm kinda tired of both songs. I'll need to listen more.

On the topic of deluxe albums, Teddy Swims put out the deluxe version to I've Tried Everything But Therapy, and from it, we have Apple Juice. And this is my favorite song from him thus far. It's in Bb major and is super catchy, not to mention this might be one of his better vocal performances. Also, the concept is strange in a good way. It's about him spiking his apple juice and his response to those who question him about doing that. Fun song.

Lastly, we have one of my recommendations from last week, For Life by Kygo, Zak Abel, and Nile Rodgers. This is extremely fun. Kygo and Nile Rodgers did a great job producing, it's honestly a full on house vibe, something I'm not entirely used to Kygo doing, but it works. Also, Zak Abel's vocals are quite good. I hope this is a hit.

We lost Masc (as previously stated), My Oh My, You're My Moon, You Need Me Now, and Cheerleader. This is a mixed list. I definitely wanted Masc on the countdown, and I also thought My Oh My and Cheerleader were going to debut. My Oh My, I should point out, was growing on me. But in reality, none of these were going to make my 2024 best list.

Blurbs:

Our lone exit was Shakes. I'm glad they realized this was never going to do anything, but he really should have waited more than a week after doing Lighter before dropping this, because that song deserved to be more of a hit.

How did II Most Wanted fall? No, it's not growing on me yet, but since the Mash Up was filling in for Spyder this week, I should have expected strange movements.

This also being the case with A Symptom Of Being Human. This should have made the top 10 instead of dropping 12 spots. Hopefully, this rebounds.

Selfish also took a hard hit. But I think this might be on its way out, since it's been here for a long time.

Yes! Too Sweet and Austin are both in the top 10! Hopefully, these continue climbing.

Obsessed is now in the top 5. Hopefully, this gets to #1 before Fortnight does.

And we have a new #1 this week as Feather dropped to #6. As I have been suspecting for the past few weeks, Beautiful Things is now #1. I'm quite glad we're making this a hit, it is such a great song. I should point out, however, that this hitting #1 is bittersweet because since Waffle is no longer making countdown posts, we won't be getting any kind of rant from him about Beautiful Things hitting #1.

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