1. Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey - "The Middle" 
Last week I worked on a video shoot for a media class for high school students, where a TV reporter taught media literacy and how to differentiate between different kinds of content. And one of the examples they used of how things can be deceptive is how "The Middle" video, which was premiered during The Grammys broadcast this year, was presented as entertainment but was really an advertisement, since the video is full of the Target logo and was placed in the commercial break as a Target ad. Kind of an obnoxious, insidious thing, but I do really like the song. At first I was annoyed that Zedd reused a lot of the percussion and synth sounds from his last big hit, "Stay" with Alessia Cara, in this song, particularly since the clock ticking sound was appropriate to the lyric in "Stay" but not "The Middle." But Morris is a great singer and it's kind of fun to hear her outside of a country context. And I could easily imagine her doing a twangy acoustic version of this for country radio. Here's the 2018 singles playlist I update every month. 

2. Justin Timberlake f/ Chris Stapleton - "Say Something" 
I remember "Say Something" and "The Middle" came out the same week and both instantly gave Maren Morris and Chris Stapleton their biggest Hot 100 hits to date. Now both are all over pop radio and the Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line song I wrote about in January is dominating both pop and country radio, so it's a very interesting time for country/pop crossover, feels very distinct from the 'bro country with annoying hip hop references' thing of a few years ago. 

3. Kendrick Lamar and SZA - "All The Stars"
I really enjoy this song, it feels like they managed to do the big splashy action movie soundtrack anthem thing while staying within the TDE aesthetic and Sounwave's murky detailed production style. I'm always surprised that in these litigious times they didn't credit the opening lines of the song as an interpolation of Salt-n-Pepa's "Let's Talk About Sex," though, it always reminds me of that. I only just noticed recently that the SZA verse on the album version is pretty different from the radio/video version, I think I like the latter better. 

4. Rae Sremmurd f/ Juicy J - "Powerglide" 
As much as I loved the first SremmLife, I've been quietly kind of indifferent to most of the stuff they've done since then and didn't even like "Black Beatles" quite as much as everyone else. So I don't really know about this whole 'triple album' thing they're doing and most of the songs they've released from it are whatever to me, but "Powerglide" is a good one. It's funny to think that the Three 6 Mafia nostalgia wave lately has advanced to the point that "Side 2 Side," the 3rd single from Most Known Unknown that people didn't really care about much at the time has been refurbished as another act's big lead single. The stations around here tend to play "Powerglide" without the Juicy J verse, which annoys me, that's really a highlight of the song.

5. Kent Jones - "Merengue" 
Kent Jones is this guy from Florida who's signed to DJ Khaled, I don't really understand if he has a sound or he's just a total opportunist chameleon. He had a big R&B crossover hit a couple years ago "Don't Mind," but he rapped like an east coast guy on a Khaled posse cut with Jadakiss and Busta Rhymes, and this new single is this really goofy fun latin pop pastiche with a great piano loop from an obscure '90s George Benson song matched to a killer bassline.  

6. Shawn Mendes - "Lost In Japan" 
The big thing these days is for artists to launch a new album cycle with at least 2 new songs at once, and kind of let them compete to be the 'hit.' When Ed Sheeran did it last year, I rooted for the rockier "Castle on the Hill," but of course the clubbier "Shape of You" turned out to be far far bigger. In the case of the new Shawn Mendes songs, the guitar-driven power ballad "In My Blood" has been the focus of radio play, but I prefer the funky piano pop of "Lost In Japan." 

7. James Bay - "Wild Love" 
James Bay is another earnest raspy-voiced young pop guy with a guitar with a pair of new singles, and I kind of think of "Wild Love" alongside "Lost In Japan" because it has lyrics about Tokyo. The other single, "Pink Lemonade," is also really good and doing well on U.S. rock radio, but "Wild Love" has this really interesting gentle, ethereal quality to it. 

8. The Killers - "Run For Cover"  
Brandon Flowers is the kind of bad lyricist who's at his worst when he's actually trying, and this song is just a weird grab bag of references to Sonny Liston and The Hollies and 'fake news.' But it's also probably the fastest Killers song I've ever heard and a pretty fun listen.

9. Dua Lipa - "IDGAF"
It's always bittersweet when an album kind of gets its breakthrough hit well after it comes out, because attention is so geared to new releases that I don't know how many people actually went back and realized how good Dua Lipa's album is even after "New Rules" blew up. So I'm glad that her label is actually working a viable followup single instead of just moving quickly onto the next project as often happens these days. "IDGAF" is from the sassier 1/3rd of the album where I really like the more earnest emotional side a little more, but this song still bangs.

10. Offset and Metro Boomin - "Ric Flair Drip" 
So many pairs of rappers have teamed up for collaboration mixtapes in the last year or so that I'm amused that the biggest song to come out of any of those projects is the song from the Offset/21 Savage record that didn't have 21 Savage on it. I feel like Metro Boomin changed up from his usual tempo for the better on this beat, the first few times I heard that hi-hat pattern I thought Dorrough's "Ice Cream Paint Job" was coming on. 

Worst Single of the Month: lovelytheband - "Broken"
There's just so much here to dislike, from the band name, all lowercase with no spaces with the words "the band" in it, to the lyrics that take place in a 'Brooklyn loft,' and the synth line that MGMT could probably successfully sue them over.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15, 2018 at 6:08 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.