Monthly Report: October 2021 Singles
1. Adele - "Easy On Me"
I spent a few days writing my Billboard piece about Adele and listening to a lot of Adele just before "Easy On Me" came out, so maybe I was well primed to like it right away. In the past I've usually preferred Adele's uptempo material -- I have to admit I've never really liked "Someone Like You," I hate that "don't forget me, I beg" part. But "Easy On Me" is a shorter song with a warmer melody that I think suits her voice better, with a really strong bassline that kind of implies where the drums would be if the song had any. Here's the favorite 2021 singles Spotify playlist I update every month.
2. Roddy Ricch - "Late At Night"
Roddy Rich and Mustard are 3 for 3 on their collaborations being big radio hits, but it feels like each one is a mellower variation on the last one, with "Late At Night" being a slower version of "High Fashion," which was sort of a slower version of "Ballin'." I love this song's vaguely melancholy vibe, though, he's just so brilliant with vocal melodies.
3. Baby Keem f/ Kendrick Lamar - "Family Ties"
If you'd told me a few years ago that there'd soon be several rap hits with mid-song beat switches, I think I'd be pretty excited about that. But I'm weary of the shape man of them have taken, with each of the artists on the song rapping on a different beat so it kind of felt like completely different songs were awkwardly stapled together, and it's usually Drake or Kendrick Lamar involved in these songs so it kind of feels like superstars are just being shoehorned into the songs by any means possible ("Sicko Mode," "King's Dead," "Life Is Good," the new Young Thug song "Bubbly" that's probably about to be huge). There is a tiny bit at the end of "Family Ties" where Baby Keem and Kendrick go back and forth on the same beat, but for the most part Baby Keem raps over the first two beats and Kendrick raps on the third beat, and I'm still kind of indifferent to Keem, so for me the song doesn't really come alive until Kendrick storms in all wide-eyed and playfully pissed off, a verse that seemed at first like a stilted mish mash of different voices and flows but at this points sounds better every time I hear it.
4. Halsey - "I Am Not A Woman, I'm A God"
If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is in the running for my album of the year, and I love that Halsey didn't release any advance singles, but it made me very curious what the singles would be, and I was surprised at first that it was this. But then I realized that it's one of the first things Trent Reznor has done since "Closer" that has kind of a similar groove to "Closer," though in many ways it's pretty different, so it's a cool choice.
5. Foo Fighters - "Making A Fire"
Foo Fighters are one of the last bands left that could get away with saving the catchiest uptempo song on an album for the 3rd single and still having a hit with it, so I'm glad this song has done better than boring old "Waiting On A War," love how it alternates between the 6/8 intro/verses and the 4/4 chorus.
6. Kayla Nicole f/ Taylor Girlz - "Bundles"
I wrote about the great remix with Flo Milli already, but the original song has really grown on me too, there's so many little hooks strewn throughout the song, I think my favorite part is that hyperventilating "ah! ah! ah! ah!" ad lib.
7. Michael Ray - "Whiskey And Rain"
I have this pet peeve about Spotify's 'autoplay' function that just cues up some algorithm-derived selection after whatever album or playlist you're listening to ends -- I turn it off, but somehow my preferences keep getting reset and it comes back on maybe once or twice a week until I turn it off again. But something pretty funny happened when I was listening to Carly Pearce's new album that I wrote about last week. Pearce's album is mostly about her marriage and divorce from fellow country singer Michael Ray and features alcoholism-themed songs like "All The Whiskey In The World" and "Your Drinkin', My Problem." And when the album ended, Spotify autoplay instantly put on Ray's current hit, "Whiskey And Rain," which is a good song but definitely one that I hear in a different light after Pearce's album.
8. Guns N' Roses - "Hard Skool"
I was happy to see Slash and Duff rejoin Guns N' Roses for lots of successful tours and put a happy ending on the decades of GnR chaos and acrimony, but I didn't dare get my hopes up about future studio recordings, especially with secret weapon Izzy Stradlin sitting out the reunion. And the first new song from this lineup, "Absurd," seemed like a worst case scenario: Slash and Duff playing on a terrible Chinese Democracy outtake while Axl sings a string of profanities in this weird Dudley Do-Right voice. But the second new song released soon after, while also dating back to the Chinese Democracy sessions, resembles classic GNR a lot more, not all the way there but enough that I enjoy hearing it on the radio.
9. Evanescence - "Better Without You"
Evanescence have sort of had a Guns N' Roses-style career arc: a big debut, followed immediately by diminishing returns and lots of lineup changes that eventually left the singer as the only original member. But "Better Without You" is their best single in quite a while, gets a bit of that "Going Under" vibe back.
10. Jam & Lewis f/ Mariah Carey - "Somewhat Loved (There You Go Breakin' My Heart)"
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have produced about a dozen songs for Mariah Carey over her career, but few of them were hits or particularly memorable songs. So I underestimated their chemistry together, but this is probably the best song Mariah has made in at least a decade, would love them to do her next album.
The Worst Single of the Month: Latto - "Big Energy"
About 3 years ago, writer Kyrell Grant coined the phrase "big dick energy" on Twitter, and since then it's traveled that familiar path of a ubiquitous catchphrase where you mostly feel embarrassment when it gets referenced in a TV show. It finally becoming a bad rap hit feels like such an inevitability that I'm surprised that it didn't happen sooner: a rapper once named 'Mulatto' releasing her first single under her new zero effort rebranding, talking about "big big energy" on the radio edit (Grant weighed in: "somehow this is absolutely the worst song i've ever heard in my life"). It's impossible to not enjoy a "Genius of Love" sample at least a little, but it's pretty glaring when it's the only redeeming thing a song has.
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