1. Queen Naija - "Medicine" 
After a decade of women not named Beyonce or Rihanna gradually disappearing from mainstream R&B, it's been heartening to see a bit of a resurgence lately with SZA and Ella Mai and H.E.R. and a few others doing really well. Queen Naija doesn't sound quite as contemporary as some of those recent breakthrough artists, the first time I heard "Medicine" I thought 'is Ashanti making a comeback?' But it's a good song and I kind of like that it doesn't sound like it's trying too hard to sound of-the-moment. Here's the 2017 singles playlist I add songs to every month. 

2. Backstreet Boys - "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" 
One of my pet peeves is when people release a new song that shares a distinctive title with an unrelated pop classic. BSB's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" may not touch the Kiki Dee & Elton one, but it's pretty nice. I always liked AJ McLean's voice best out of the group and there's an interesting weathered, raspy quality now to his second verse. It amuses me that while a 'new wave' of US boy bands like Why Don't We and PRETTYMUCH has been getting hyped up the last couple years, the dudes in BSB who are mostly in their 40s now are charting higher than the new groups, doing all that goofy choreography with their dad bods. It's also really funny that Kevin Richardson dresses like white Snoop Dogg now. 

3. Lil Baby f/ Moneybagg Yo - "All Of A Sudden" 
There's something about the Drake-based rap economy that I find really depressing in how it just flattens the genre and all its regional stars and scenes into satellites of his empire. So, for instance, Lil Baby has had two really good sleeper hits from his 2017 mixtapes on the charts this year, "My Dawg" and "All Of A Sudden," but their success is dwarfed by that of "Yes Indeed," a barely there 2-minute track that opens with Drake's most monotonous verse in years. "All Of A Sudden" is incredible, though. 

4. Gallant - "Doesn't Matter"
Christopher Gallant is from Columbia, Maryland, just a few miles up the road from where I live, and I really enjoyed his 2016 debut Ology. But it still surprised me to hear his latest single on the radio, I thought of him as this critically acclaimed guy who toured with Sufjan Stevens and wasn't really being aimed at mainstream R&B, but "Doesn't Matter" really presents his voice and sound in that context well. 

5. Maggie Rogers - "Fallingwater"
Maggie Rogers is another Maryland native, who went viral a couple years ago for a clip where Pharrell visited with her NYU class and listened to her song "Alaska" and was reduced to tears. I somehow missed that whole thing, though, my entry point was her current single "Fallingwater," which is just gorgeous. Her music has done the best on 'adult alternative' type stations but she has a really distinctive production style and cites influences like Kim Gordon and Bjork so I'm really excited to see what comes from her next. 

6. Brent Faiyaz - "Gang Over Luv" 
It was so exciting to watch "Crew" bring platinum plaques and a Grammy nomination to 3 D.C./Maryland artists, GoldLink, Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy. And I would love for any or preferably all of them to continue having that kind of national success -- GoldLink's new single with Miguel is very good, Shy Glizzy has had about 3 local hits on D.C. radio in the past year that were all pretty good, and the single from Brent Faiyaz's 2017 album Sonder Son has finally started to chart nationally. 

7. Dej Loaf f/ Leon Bridges - "Liberated"
I've liked a lot of Dej Loaf's more melodic, pop-leaning material like "No Fear," but I was still pretty skeptical about the title track from her upcoming album being a collaboration with retro soul guy Leon Bridges. This song is really beautiful, though, and it's fun to hear Teddy Geiger do something so different from her work with Shawn Mendes. 

8. Little Big Town - "Summer Fever"
As far as I'm concerned, very few people in country music these days, or popular music in general, do summer jams better than Little Big Town, from "Pontoon" to "Day Drinking." I think it was a mistake for them to release "Summer Fever" in June, though, it didn't really have time to make an impact on the country charts when it should've, I've seen a lot of other country artists release their most summery songs early in the year so they can peak at the right time. 

9. Kacey Musgraves - "High Horse"
For all the currency Kacey Musgraves has with pop fans and other people who don't listen to a lot of country music, her music tends to be very intimate and acoustic and folky. And I love that about her, and wasn't particularly interested in hearing her change her sound at all, but one of the highlights of Golden Hour was the disco experiment "High Horse." I'm glad it's finally a single and video now, even if it probably won't much improve her standing on country radio. Maybe pop radio will finally give her a try. 

10. Sam Hunt - "Downtown's Dead" 
Sam Hunt's second album will, no doubt, be a blockbuster, but I've been puzzled by its extremely slow and disorganized rollout. Last year he released "Body Like A Back Road," a gigantic crossover hit, but didn't get the album out in time to really capitalize on it, and 15 months later finally squeaked out a follow-up single, "Downtown's Dead," that became his first real flop, peaking outside the top 10 on country radio and then disappearing, while there's still no news about an album release date or anything else. It's a shame, I don't like many of his singles but I enjoy "Downtown's Dead," the timing was just all wrong. 

Worst Single of the Month: Tyga f/ Offset - "Taste"
For a decade, I could easily blame Tyga's oddly resilient career on the more famous benefactors who always seemed to be there to keep him in the spotlight: his cousin Travis from Gym Class Heroes, then Pete Wentz, then Lil Wayne, then Chris Brown, then the Jenner/Kardashian family and Kanye. Now Tyga doesn't have Cash Money or a famous girlfriend, and while a Migos feature probably didn't hurt, it seems like "Taste" kind of just became huge because people like it, regardless of how they feel about Tyga. I try to keep an open mind to artists I don't like having good songs, but I just don't get it with this one, he's such an awkward and charmless rapper and the beat is nothing special. And he's still as full of shit as ever, opening this song with "Why you claim that you rich, that's a false claim" as if he's not the guy who's famous for getting luxury cars repossessed.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13, 2018 at 9:30 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.