Monthly Report: February 2021 Singles
1. Olivia Rodrigo - "Drivers License"
The first I heard of Olivia Rodrigo or "Drivers License" was when the song was already doing insane streaming numbers and being projected to debut at #1, which I think was the case for just about everybody outside of teens and tweens who know her from Disney shows. That is to say, knowing a song is a huge phenomenon before you've even heard it puts a lot of pressure on the song to deliver, and I didn't feel too strongly about it either way the first time I listened to it. But it only took maybe 3 listens for it to start to click, and now I'm really on board, those woozy little synth bits under the main piano line are just so cool-sounding and by the time bridge builds to that big "I still fuckin' looooove you baaaabe" I'm caught up in all the adolescent drama. Here's the 2021 singles playlist I add to every month.
2. Mammoth WVH - "Distance"
I didn't know what this was when I first heard it on the radio and had to Shazam it, so it was good enough to catch my ear before I had any idea that it was Wolfgang Van Halen's debut single and tribute to his father. I always had mixed feelings about Eddie kicking Michael Anthony out of Van Halen and putting his son on bass, but it's cool to see the kid grow up and show some real talent.
3. Yung Baby Tate f/ Flo Milli - "I Am"
Yung Baby Tate and Flo Milli are both artists I'm really rooting for right now (shame about Flo Milli's Beats By Dre commercial, though) so I was excited to see them do a song together. And it's really started to pick up momentum on TikTok, would love to see it really break through to the mainstream.
4. Foushee - "Single AF"
The first time I heard this on the radio, it sounded like the DJ introducing it called the artist 'Fauci' and I was like wow, Dr. Tony's been in the studio. This is a fun song, although the radio edit doesn't really work that great, "single as WHAT" just sounds goofy.
5. Justin Bieber - "Anyone"
I've never had much time for Bieber outside of "Sorry," and the barrage of songs he's had on pop radio the last year, from Changes and then a string of non-album singles, has been mostly unbearable. The latest one has really grown on me, though, I'd much rather this kind of big bombastic '80s pop sound than his half-assed attempts at R&B.
6. Fat Joe f/ Amorphous - "Sunshine (The Light)"
A little over a year ago, I wrote a Billboard piece about the rash of rappers announcing their retirement, including Fat Joe, who had just released what he called his final album. But my skepticism about those retirements continues to be justified -- most of the artists named in that article have kept releasing music, including Joe, arguably the only rapper at this point who's been a regular presence on the charts for longer than Jay-Z. Amorphous is a DJ who went viral for tweeting videos of him blending popular songs together, and Fat Joe decided to turn a particularly good Luther Vandross/Rihanna blend into a song and got the samples cleared. I'm especially happy to see "Kiss It Better" get a second life with this song, it's probably my favorite Rihanna single that wasn't a huge hit.
7. 50 Cent f/ NLE Choppa and Rileyy Lanez - "Part Of The Game"
50 Cent hasn't been quite as resilient as Fat Joe over the years but he's got a decent track record of coming back now and then with a hit, and I really like this one. The first time I heard it, I looked it up on Shazam, thought I saw Tory Lanez in the artist credit and just changed the station. But I'm glad I realized my error later and listened to the whole song.
8. Jeezy f/ Yo Gotti - "Back"
The Recession 2 was pretty hit and miss but this song has a great beat, great hook, if it had come out close to these guys' career peaks it could've been a big one.
9. Megan Thee Stallion - "Body"
People absolutely detest this song, but I think it's catchy, Meg's had so many hard songs like "Girls In The Hood" and "Don't Stop" on the radio that I don't mind her coming out with more of a dance track. That beat with the loops of vaguely pornographic moans is great, surprised they snuck that onto pop radio.
10. Taylor Swift - "Willow"
I'm always annoyed when big stars top the Hot 100 based on name recognition and the size of their fanbase with songs that would never be a hit for anyone else, and Taylor Swift has done it twice in the past year with songs from her pair of chill acoustic quarantine albums. I like "Willow" a lot more than "Cardigan" though, it at least has a strong chorus and it's not hard to imagine a more uptempo version appearing on one of her mid-2010s albums.
The Worst Single of the Month: Yung Gravy - "Oops!"
We're basically already living in the white rapper apocalypse that most hip hop fans had been dreading since the '90s, there are a couple of decent talented guys on the charts but also over a dozen absolute clowns. And I still managed to be kind of surprised this morning when I was scrolling down the Billboard charts and saw that someone named Yung Gravy is rising up pop radio playlists, and the song was actually worse than I anticipated. I didn't even like Riff Raff, and this stuff makes him seem restrained and authentic by comparison. Yung Gravy is from Minnesota and dropped out of college because he wanted to be like Lil Yachty and Lil Pump, and apparently I'm late noticing his existence because he's already gotten a couple platinum singles and has done songs with Lil Baby and Chief Keef, but this is definitely the one that's going to make him insufferably ubiquitous.
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on Wednesday, February 17, 2021 at 12:21 PM.
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