1. Billie Eilish - "Everything I Wanted" 
I was a little surprised when Billie Eilish released a new bonus track single 7 months after When We All Fall Asleep's initial release -- if anyone didn't need to keep churning out new product to stay relevant the last few months, it's her. But it's a good song, kind of feels like one of her drumless ballads with a gently pulsing beat put under it, responding to the shock of fame with a murky subconscious dream journal entry instead of the kind of boring unambiguous thing most other singers would put out after getting this big. Eilish has notched five top 10 hits on alternative radio in the space of 14 months, which is remarkable for a format with slow turnover and few back-to-back hits. Here's the 2020 singles playlist I add songs to every month. 

2. Maggie Rogers - "Love You For A Long Time" 
Another standalone single released on the heels of an album that probably had more singles in it, something I see too much of these days. But I guess Heard It In A Past Life didn't quite do what they were aiming for commercially, and this song feels like an attempt at something more accessible. The bridge kind of takes a melodic turn that feels more like Rogers's other stuff, but I don't mind hearing her do something brighter. 

3. Roddy Ricch - "The Box" 
I'm interested in the mechanics of songs becoming crowdsourced singles after albums are released. Would "The Box" have broken out as the immediate hit from Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial if it wasn't the first (non-intro) track on the album? The "ee-err" vocal loop certainly might have made it stand out anyway, but I'm really not sure. But that quirk of streaming era music kind of means that sometimes we get giant chart-topping songs that don't really sound like premeditated crossover hits, which is cool. I gotta say, though, I get a little anxious when I hear a Jay-Z verse or a #1 rap hit that insinuates that somebody should off George Zimmerman, because you know if that fucker ever does get killed they're gonna try to blame a rapper for inciting it. 

4. Megan Thee Stallion f/ VicKeeLo - "Ride Or Die"
New Orleans bounce homages rarely get old to me and this single from the Queen & Slim soundtrack is one of the best in recent memory, Megan sounds so great on this beat. It's had a nice run on the radio charts for the last couple months but I wish it had become huge and become the launching pad for Meg's album, I like it so much more than her other recent singles. "He's smilin' like they brought the food out" is one of those hilarious and evocative one-liners that she just seems to have an endless supply of. 

5. Hayley Williams - "Simmer" 
I thought that all of Paramore's lead singles since they became famous -- "Ignorance," "Now," "Hard Times" -- undersold the albums, so I was kind of bracing myself to not feel strongly about Hayley Williams's debut solo single and just wait for the album to make any judgments. So I was delighted that "Simmer" feels like such a confident step forward, Williams bending her voice into melodic twists unlike anything she's sung before, enough of a different sound that it makes sense that it's not under the band name (even though Paramore's Taylor York produced and co-wrote it). The whole 5-song Petals For Armor preview she released after this single is great and weird and varied, looking forward to the full album. 

6. Pearl Jam - "Dance Of The Clairvoyants"
Pearl Jam have been releasing expectation-confounding lead singles for decades (I'm still annoyed about "Nothing As It Seems" being the single from Binaural), so they're another band where I try not to make any assumptions about the album based on the single. The weird ominous funky "Dance Of The Clairvoyants" is at least not a ballad and an interesting change of pace, though, one day I turned on the radio in the middle of the song and before I recognized the song it sounded a little like Talking Heads. Eddie Vedder doesn't quite know how to fit his voice into a track like this but I still enjoy it.

7. Zedd & Kehlani - "Good Thing" 
I feel like nobody is more divorced from their biggest hits than crossover EDM superstars, it really seems like labels are hooking them up with songwriters and singers and letting them put their name and a drum loop on surefire hits and they just do it because the visibility of the songs make touring more lucrative. But out of all those guys, Zedd has by far the best track record of pop singles, I mean, "Clarity," "Stay," "The Middle," c'mon. I really wish "Good Thing" was doing as well as those, because it's another gem. Kehlani writes R&B songs but her voice sounds so pop to me, so I feel like it makes sense for her to be on these recent Zedd and Justin Bieber singles. 

8. Lil Uzi Vert - "Futsal Shuffle 2020"
After all the delays and mystery and false start singles that faded quickly, I really thought "Futsal Shuffle" would be the big single that finally got Eternal Atake out. But it's really dropped out and away from the top 10 quickly after its debut, the weird manic anime EDM vibes combined with the social media-friendly dance craze really seemed like a good formula for a smash but no radio format is touching it. Good song regardless, though.

9. Eric Church - "Monsters"
Not as good as "Some Of It" but it's still nice to see one of the tender midtempo songs from Desperate Man get a single release.

10. DaBaby - "Bop" 
DaBaby and JetsonMade have a distinctive sound that they've continued to mine and make minor variations on, which gets a lot of complaints now, but that's basically how rap works, anyone who's got a signature sound has to really get all they can out of it until someone bites it or comes up with something better. I liked "Suge," and "Bop" and "Vibez" add enough new elements like the flute loop on "Bop" for it to still be fun. And if people wanted DaBaby to switch up as much as they say they do, "Intro" would have been as big as it deserved to be.

The Worst Single of the Month: Ed Sheeran f/ Camila Cabello and Cardi B - "South Of The Border"
Last summer when "South Of The Border" and Shawn Mendes's "Senorita" were released a few weeks apart, I joked that both Camila Cabello collaborations sounded like they came out of a Santana featuring Rob Thomas lyric generator. I thought we dodged a bullet when the Khalid song was picked as the second radio single from the Sheeran album, but now unfortunately "Border" is becoming ubiquitous.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 12, 2020 at 11:14 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.