1. Dennis Lloyd - "Nevermind"
It's interesting to see how far the U.S. is out of step with the rest of the world when songs like this or Alice Merton's "No Roots" is a top 10 pop hit in many many countries but in America it's isolated to alt-rock radio and only gets up into the 80s in the Hot 100. "Nevermind" is really an oddly blank little song, a few loops and a handful of lines repeated over and over for 2 and a half minutes, but I still totally understand its popularity, it's really entrancing. Here's the favorite 2018 singles playlist I update every month. 

2. Sevyn Streeter - "Yernin" 
Last year, Sevyn Streeter's 5 years of releasing great, largely underappreciated music on Atlantic Records culminated in an underpomoted debut album, Girl Disrupted, and that appeared to be the end of her contract. Fortunately, her first self-released single as an indie artist, "Yernin," is really fucking good and has drummed up some spins on my local station so hopefully she's still got some momentum in her career. I love how she took a classic Gap Band slow jam and kind of amped up the energy. 

3. The Glorious Sons - "S.O.S. (Sawed Off Shotgun)" 
Mainstream rock music is usually such a vague word salad that anytime a song says anything even a little pointed about anything it tends to stand out. So this song has been stuck in my head ever since I heard the chorus that goes "YEAHHHH, THEY SENT THE TAXMAN, I LOST MY JOB AND YOU GOT HOOKED ON OXYCODONE, THEY SHUT THE LIGHTS OFF, THEY TOOK THE CAR AND I BOUGHT A SAWED-OFF SHOTGUN." I'd never heard The Glorious Sons before, apparently they're from Ontario and have had a bunch of radio hits in Canada but this is their first song to do well in America. The band's official site has this odd 500-word disclaimer about "S.O.S." that their management apparently wanted to them to write ("They want me to explain it to you. They are scared. Because of Columbine. Because of Paris. Because of Las Vegas."). And it definitely is easy to imagine this song generating a lot of blowback if it got big enough, but I think ultimately it does come off more cathartic than celebratory. 

4. Young Thug f/ Lil Baby and Gunna - "Chanel (Go Get It)"
In my big Young Thug piece a couple months ago, I mentioned this song in the light that it's got the most buzz of any 'solo' track Thug has released in the last 2 years, but he only does the hook and cedes the spotlight to his two ascendant proteges on the verses. It works, though, I love this song, might be better than even "Drip Too Hard" in terms of capturing Gunna and Baby at their best. And as someone who's always been underwhelmed by Wheezy production and thought Thug relied on it too much on his releases since 2015, this is one of the first tracks he's co-produced that I really love. 

5. Cardi B - "Money"
Invasion of Privacy has been out for 7 months and has absolutely ruled rap radio over the past year with five different top 10 singles, and yet I still feel like it has untapped potential singles that I wouldn't mind them continuing to work to radio and shoot videos for. So it's kind of bittersweet that she's already started to move on with the first solo release since the album, but "Money" is also really great so I can't complain that much. The other day this came on when I was driving my kids home and they both went "money!" along with the vocal loop in the song. 

6. Ariana Grande - "God Is A Woman" 
I thought Cardi was kind of moving on from her album quickly, but Ariana now has "Thank U, Next" about to debut at #1 on the charts less than 3 months after Sweetener came out, with 2 of its singles in the pop radio top 10. And honestly, I wish Sweetener was given the space for a whole promo cycle because I like its singles better than "Thank U," but it's still exciting that she's kind of throwing out the rulebook and potentially releasing a whole new album really soon. I kind of rolled my eyes at "God Is A Woman" when it first came out, I'm not the biggest fan of how she's kind of picked up Drake's habit of filling every available space in a vocal track with "yuh." But it really grew on me, all the harmonies and runs are fantastic. There are so few decent vocalists on pop radio right now that Ariana stands out more than ever. 

7. King Princess - "Pussy Is God"
I kind of laughed when I saw this song's title because it kind of made "God Is A Woman" seem like it was mincing words by comparison. It's really good, though, and samples "Oochie Wally" of all things. I feel like King Princess and her girlfriend Amandla Stenberg co-wrote this song to up the ante from Janelle Monae and Tessa Thompson's "pussy pants" in the "Pynk" video.

8. The Chainsmokers f/ Kelsea Ballerini - "This Feeling" 
Given the way country radio's 'tomato' problem is only gotten worse and her 2nd album hasn't been embraced as much as her first, I don't blame Kelsea Ballerini for following Maren Morris into teaming up with an EDM act for a crossover single. And this one works well for her, she has a good voice for pop. 

9. Silk City & Dua Lipa - "Electricity"
The way people feel about the Chainsmokers is how I've been feeling about Diplo and Mark Ronson for the last 15 years or so, so I'm salty that they made a hot song with one of my favorite new pop stars out, but whatever, it's good. 

10. GoldLink f/ Miguel - "Got Friends"
This didn't quite hit the mark of continuing what "Crew" started, but it deserved more spins than it got, love the sound of GoldLink and Miguel together and the beat was great.

Worst Single of the Month: Quavo - "Workin Me"
Quavo Huncho is about as bad as people say it is, Quavo really just isn't that good at making complete songs without other Migos or collaborators filling in the blanks. But what really frustrates me is that there are much better songs on the album than the hit, "Workin Me" was released simultaneously with two singles that were both better, and the Pharrell production on the album is also really good. It's weird to think that this guy who writes dozens of catchy hooks every year could end up with lead singles that have choruses as crappy as "Workin Me" and "MotorSport."

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12, 2018 at 9:33 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.