1. Toni Braxton - "Deadwood"
I already did my year-end singles lists, including the R&B list that had this song on it, it always feels a little redundant to do my December singles list after the year's all wrapped up, but at the same time, I'm not gonna waste an opportunity to write about 10 songs I like. And this one really gets better every time I hear it, Toni's voice goes surprisingly well with a spare acoustic guitar. You can hear these songs on this Spotify playlist. 

2. Lalah Hathaway - "I Can't Wait" 
I have mixed feelings about what trap rap has done to hi-hat programming in popular music, which has mainly been to turn a metronome tick into something that more resembles the rapid fluttering of an insect's wings. But my favorite trap hi-hats were in a single by Donny Hathaway's daughter, which is a weird thing to say. 

3. BØRNS - "Faded Heart"
Of the guys on alt rock radio with ambiguously high voices that I thought might be women the first time I heard them, I much prefer BØRNS to the more ubiquitous Portugal. The Man guy. And it's cool to hear him try something here that rocks a little harder than "Electric Love."

4. Eric Church - "Round Here Buzz"
The Eric Church song I loved first and most was "Springsteen," and this one evokes the bittersweet synth ballads that Bruce excelled at from Tunnel of Love onward. Like "Kill A Word," I didn't think of this as an obvious single when Mr. Misunderstood came out, but I've started to really relish catching it on the radio. 

5. Lauren Alaina - "Doin' Fine" 
I didn't especially like Lauren Alaina's big hit "Road Less Traveled," mainly because it felt like the hook was a little too close to "Take My Breath Away." But the followup is really nice, it deserved a better run on the charts than it had. 

6. Just Chase - "Ego"
The first time I heard this song I was really struck by the guy's vocal similarity to Zayn Malik, like I honestly thought maybe Zayn had released a recent single that was way better than his first album that I'd managed to miss (incidentally, Zayn's current single is garbage). I listened to Just Chase's recent mixtape and was disappointed that it had nothing remotely as good and that he usually just sounds like a Drake imitator. 

7. Astrid S - "Think Before I Talk" 
This song topped the charts in Astrid S's native Norway, and I just randomly caught it on a video channel in America and really liked it. The sound of it feels kind of like early 2000s American pop to me, like I dunno if it would blow up here or sound kind of old fashioned, but I dig it. 

8. J Balvin & Willy William f/ Beyonce - "Mi Gente (Remix)"
Nothing symbolizes R&B's erasure from Top 40 in the 2010s like Beyonce's absence from pop radio, where her only top 10 hits since "Halo" have been a Lady Gaga song and now the Ed Sheeran duet. In this context, the Sheeran and Eminem collaborations pretty openly strategic, as is her appearance on a latin hit's remix so soon after Bieber on "Despacito" ran the charts. But "Mi Gente" is a killer record and it's pretty fun to hear Beyonce sink her teeth into it, I wouldn't mind her getting more beats in this vein. 

9. Taylor Swift - "...Ready For It?"
I think it speaks to how much rides on the lead single from a big star that this song, which probably would've been #1 for longer than "Look What You Made Me Do" if it had been released first, has really struggled to make much of an impact in the wake of "Look"'s divisive run. "...Ready For It?" is kind of ridiculous in its own way, but it's grown on me, it feels a bit like a descendant of "I Knew You Were Trouble," which also seemed absurd before I came around to it. 

10. Post Malone - "Candy Paint" 
Post Malone having any career at all horrifies me, but I've been particularly appalled at his surge in popularity in recent months: not only has the recent "Rock Star" topped the Hot 100, but two older tracks, "I Fall Apart" from his year-old album and "Candy Paint" from the Fate of the Furious soundtrack released back in April, have also been steadily climbing the charts. But listen, I try to give artists I dislike their props when I think they made something good, so I'll grudgingly admit that "Candy Paint" is my favorite thing he's done, and by his low standard "goddamn I love paper like I'm Michael Scott" is a pretty funny line. 

The Worst Single of the Month: 6ix9ine - "Gummo"
It seems like shooting fish in a barrel to say that a Soundcloud rapper's viral hit sucks, or that 6ix9ine looks like Rainbrow Brite on meth, and the fact that these songs keep blowing directly after media coverage of a rape or murder or assault charge (or in 6ix9ine's case, pedophilia) is a really disturbing trend. But it honestly kind of surprised me just how unpleasant this song is, it's like the worst possible combination of yelled raps and a woozy lethargic beat. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 21, 2017 at 9:55 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.