1. Luke Combs - "Beer Never Broke My Heart"
Luke Combs is on a record-setting run right now, as the first artist who's gone to #1 on country radio with each of his first 6 singles (and his second album doesn't even have a release date yet). I'm not even sure exactly how it happened, this big guy with a neckbeard taking off in a way that dozens of bro country heartthrobs didn't. 4 of those songs were ballads, so that's apparently a big component of his success, but I like the two uptempo ones, "When It Rains It Pours" and "Beer Never Broke My Heart," a lot more, they just suit his voice and his personality better and are big, silly, hooky things. I don't know if the idea that football teams cause more heartbreak than alcohol holds up, though. Here's the favorite 2019 singles playlist I update every month. 

2. Ari Lennox - "BMO" 
I'm surprised that I didn't single this song out as a favorite when Ari Lennox released her album a few months ago, it just sounds so fantastic on the radio. The beat really evokes a particular 1997 vibe, not in an overtly retro way, it just sounds like something SWV or somebody could've released back then. 

3. Megan Thee Stallion f/ DaBaby - "Cash Shit" 
I love songs where 2 rappers link up right at the moment both of their careers are exploding and seem to be in perfect sync, and as far as I'm concerned Megan and DaBaby are by far 2019's best breakthrough rappers. I'm a little ambivalent about the just-released non-album single "Hot Girl Summer" possibly pulling away spins from "Cash Shit" just as it's gaining momentum, but I think there's room for both songs to be hits. 

4. Ariana Grande and Social House - "Boyfriend" 
I was a little annoyed at Ariana Grande releasing a post-Thank U, Next single just 6 months after the album's release, I thought she'd at least let that album breathe a little longer than Sweetener. But it turns out that it's from the new EP by Ariana's frequent collaborators Social House, so I guess that's alright. It's kinda cool to see her hit this point where she's at the peak of her popularity and really prolific at the same time so she can hand off pretty good songs to Social House and Normani for their records. 

5. Tove Lo - "Glad He's Gone" 
The last thing Tove Lo released, Blue Lips, was my #1 album of 2017, but I liked it so much more than any of her previous work that I wasn't sure how much to anticipate her next moves. But I really like "Glad He's Gone," although it feels like a pivot away from the sound of Blue Lips and perhaps an attempt to revive her commercial momentum with something more radio-friendly, but it still has her weird profane sense of humor and the video is hilarious. I was surprised they didn't officially credit this song with a "Big Yellow Taxi" interpolation, though. 

6. Hobo Johnson - "Typical Story" 
The live performance of the song "Peach Scone" that went viral last year and made Hobo Johnson semi-famous really made me cringe with all its poetry slam cleverness, and I felt kind of terrified the day recently when I saw that his first major label single was the 'hot shot debut' on the alternative chart. But "Typical Story" is really fast and catchy compared to everything else I've heard by him, and while his prose is still really purple and his delivery is really hammy, I kind of appreciate hearing him try to cram that vocal style into a big hooky radio single. 
7. Lucky Daye - "Roll Some Mo" 
Lucky Daye has one of the worst stage names in recent memory, but his album's good, I'm glad to see this song become kind of a sleeper hit. 

8. Young The Giant - "Heat of the Summer"  
Young The Giant followed up their biggest hit in years with a really summery song with "summer" in the title, I feel like this should have gone over bigger. It's really imagine it being a giant pop hit with slightly shinier broader production. 

9. DJ Khaled f/ Meek Mill, Lil Baby, Jeremih and J Balvin - "You Stay"
Now that practically every '90s Bad Boy single has been sampled and remade, sometimes several times, it feels appropriate that we're now getting into No Way Out deep cuts like "Senorita," the basis of "You Stay." It's weird to think that Meek Mill and Lil Baby are currently two of the top practitioners of love raps on the radio. 

10. Blac Youngsta - "Cut Up" 
Blac Youngsta has generally been my least favorite out of this newer generation of Memphis rap stars, there's something charming about his unapologetically goofy persona but he just doesn't make very good music, "Booty" felt like it failed by the low bar of craftmanship for a rap song about ass. So I'm pleasantly surprised at how much "Cut Up" has grown on me, just a great unique beat and he gets a nice energetic flow going for once. I like the way his ad libs are looped to be part of the beat, Blac Youngsta just flatly saying "whore" in the background every 4 bars is hilarious. 

The Worst Single of the Month: Shawn Mendes f/ Camila Cabello - "Senorita"
The first collaboration between Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, "I Know What You Did Last Summer," was really good and one of the first things I'd enjoyed by either of them. But this song is just eye-rolling, it feels like both this and Ed Sheeran's Cabello collaboration "South of the Border" were both writen by the same Santana featuring Rob Thomas lyric generator. Mendes probably doesn't need to make any songs without Teddy Geiger co-writing. And since it was released less than 2 months after "If I Can't Have You," I feel like it shortened the chart run of a much better Mendes song. 

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 8:52 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.