1. Megan Thee Stallion f/ Beyonce - "Savage (Remix)" 
People have been rooting for a Megan/Beyonce collaboration all through Meg's rise over the last year or two, mainly because they're both from Houston. And while I was hoping for an original song rather than a remix, that will probably happen later, and this is pretty great for now. Definitely an improvement on the original "Savage," which I thought was alright but not one of Megan's best. It just really feels like Beyonce went all-out on this, like she often does. Jay-Z, The-Dream, Starrah, and Pardison Fontaine all have writing credits on the remix and it really sounded like she just got together some of the best writers she could find to make the verse something memorable. Here's the 2020 singles Spotify playlist I update every month. 

2. Dua Lipa - "Break My Heart"
Future Nostalgia is a great album and there's at most one or two songs on it that I don't think would sound particularly good on the radio if they were singles. "Break My Heart" wasn't one that leapt out as an immediate favorite, but it was a good choice, like most of the other songs on the album it's got a killer bassline. 

3. Regard - "Ride It" 
"Ride It" has had one of those truly strange circuitous paths to chart success that fascinates me. The original song was by Jay Sean, and it was a minor UK hit around the same time his song "Down" topped the US charts in the late 2000s. And then a DJ from Kosovo remixed it like a decade later, it became popular on TikTok, and is now a hit in the US for the first time and bigger in the UK than the original was. And the original "Ride It" sounds incredibly dated, but the cool slowed down vocal and sleeker new beat just make the remix sound perfectly of-the-moment. 

4. Flipp Dinero f/ Lil Baby - "How I Move" 
When Flipp Dinero finally released an album a year after "Leave Me Alone" broke though, I thought maybe he'd waited too long to capitalize on his big single and wouldn't have another. But the album had a Lil Baby feature that's kept him on the radio, I'm glad I was wrong, he's got a cool distinctive voice and makes great hooks.  

5. Pop Smoke - "Dior"
When Pop Smoke died, it seemed like "Welcome To The Party" was going to go down as his most famous song, but "Dior," which is about as old, has started to really eclipse it in the last few weeks, and I think I do prefer it. It feels like Pop Smoke really made this sound mainstream in America and I'm glad a song is doing well posthumously before other artists inevitably get to enjoy success that he tragically didn't get to experience for very long. 

6. Kelly Rowland - "Coffee" 
I always wish Kelly Rowland was a bigger solo artist and released stuff more often, and this is great, hope she has an album on the way. The way it's barely over 2 minutes is kind of cool and refreshing, although it breezes by so quickly that sometimes I will just play it twice in a row.

7. Jacquees f/ Young Thug and Gunna - "Verify" 
This song is great, I wish Young Thug had done Slime & B with Jacquees instead of Chris Brown.

8. Morgan Wallen - "Chasin' You"
Mainstream country has become so fixated on whiskey to the exclusion of almost any mention of other alcohol in lyrics now that nobody bats an eye when Morgan Wallen can follow up one big whiskey-themed hit with another. I like "Chasin' You" a lot more than "Whiskey Glasses," though. 

9. Thomas Rhett f/ Jon Pardi - "Beer Can't Fix" 
There are still some beer songs on country radio, and this one has a similar easygoing tempo to past inebriated hits like "Drinkin' Problem" or "I Love This Bar," which makes it very comfortingly familiar.  

10. Gabby Barrett - "I Hope" 
There probably has not been a more universally popular country song than Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" since "Before He Cheats." So I'm a little amused that Gaby Barrett, a blonde country singer who rose to fame as an American Idol finalist, has broken through with a a vindictive song about a cheating ex that sounds like it was written by an AI program to mimic "Before He Cheats." It's pretty well done, though.

The Worst Single of the Month: Blake Shelton f/ Gwen Stefani - "Nobody But You"
Listen, maybe their relationship is great and they truly belong together, but I do not want to hear Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani sing together, it sounds like a match made in NBC reality show hell. I'm especially annoyed because one of Shelton's best duets was with a different Gwen S.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 18, 2020 at 8:21 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.