Here's Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 from earlier in the year and the Spotify playlist with all the 2022 remixes I've covered. 

I don't think this is one of the better songs on Dawn FM but it works better as a duet, Summer Walker's voice definitely adds some dimension to the song and makes it less monotonous. It hasn't been pushed as a single yet but Abel wants to get back in R&B radio's good graces this might work. 

Best Verse: n/a

Overall Grade: B 

I recently named "Vogue" my #1 pop song of the '90s, and "Break My Soul" is definitely in the running for my #1 song of 2022, so I'm happy to see them melded together pretty well. It's not clear to me if Madonna actually recorded any new vocals for this remix or did anything besides approve the sample, it sounds like all her vocals are from the original "Vogue." But I don't mind since Madonna can sound kind of rough these days, and there are a lot of new Beyonce vocals namechecking dozens of other artists and ballroom houses. 

Regional rap stars often raise their profile by remixing one of their biggest songs with a big super famous mainstream rapper. And Tallahassee's Real Boston Richey tripled down on this strategy for his recent album Public Housing, which features "Bullseye 2" with Future, "Certified Dripper 2" with Moneybagg Yo, and "Keep Dissing 2" with Lil Durk. The Future verse got a lot of attention for the reckless lines referencing Beyonce and Ciara ("If my n*gga wasn't Jigga, I'm the type to go after B, and I'd still smash on C"), but I dunno, I'm kind of tired of 'toxic king' Future, it's corny. Real Boston Richey is kinda growing on me, he sounds like a cross between Lil Baby and Kodak Black, which seems like a recipe for success right now. 

Since "Only Murders In The Building" took off I wondered if Selena Gomez was pivoting away from music into acting fulltime. But maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part, because here she is again, joining Bieber in Sheeran in the bandwagon of pop singers awkwardly jumping on Afrobeats hits. "Calm Down" already had a very nice gentle guitar loop that gave it a lot of crossover appeal to begin with, but yeah, I did not to hear that voice on this song. 

"Just Say That" is a great track, I love the use of the same "Warsaw Concerto" piano bit that was in DMX's "What's My Name" in a completely different way. I can even imagine DMX ripping this remix if he was still here. Unfortunately, what we have instead of Quavo, sounding a little out of place next to two of Memphis's brightest rising stars. 

Saucy Santana first released "Material Girl" two and a half years ago, pretty early in his metamorphosis from City Girls sidekick/makeup artist to a famous rapper in his own right, and "Material Girl" has becoming increasingly viral this year. And this year he performed with Madonna at NYC Pride, and a few weeks later they released their remix of the song (with the new all-caps title more in line with how the phrase is said in the song). The combination doesn't mesh at all, but the shock of hearing these two together is kind of the point, I suppose. 

J. Stone came up alongside Nipsey Hussle in Crenshaw, but "No Time" is a very east coast-sounding Swizz record, and they grabbed another Ruff Ryder vet for the remix. I'm kind of annoyed that this is one of the only Jadakiss features I've heard in the past year since the Verzuz other than that disappointing Kanye record, but his verse on here is excellent. 

Doechii is really talented and it was exciting to hear that she signed to TDE, but I didn't necessarily think she had a song as radio-friendly as "Persuasive" in her. And SZA's great addition to the song obviously makes it sound like even more a hit. 

"Sunroof" is the most summery song of the summer this year, and Nicky Youre and Dazy have released an EP of different versions of "Sunroof" for every occasion: an acoustic version, a dance mix by Loud Luxury, and remixes featuring country singer Thomas Rhett, reggaeton star Manuel Turizo, and rapper 24kGoldn. I interviewed the latter a couple years ago when "Mood" was blowing up and I found him to be a charming young dude, and he put down a good energetic verse for this. 

The first solo #1 of Nicki Minaj's career feels like a triumph for her diehard fans and nobody else, a song so rote and boring that it almost makes me miss "Anaconda." And part of Nicki's very successful rollout for the song was a remix that was still a solo track 'featuring' her most famous alter ego, Roman Zolanski which was also underwhelming. So I was pleasantly surprised to see while finishing up this post this morning that another remix, the only posse cut remix in this whole post, dropped last night. And it's pretty good, five MC's from five cities, ranging from a City Girl to a couple up-and-comers that don't have Wikipedia pages yet. JT always shines in posse cuts but I really like BIA and Katie's verses too. 

Three years ago, the original "Use This Gospel" appeared on Jesus Is King, a fairly terrible song featuring a Clipse reunion, a Kenny G saxophone solo, and a 'beat' with no drums that was just one note repeating over and over that sounded like the alarm some cars have to tell you that a door is ajar. I was ready to forget that song ever happened, but DJ Khaled revived it for a remix on his new album God Did. The song has drums now and is co-produced by Dr. Dre, so it's probably a leftover from the Jesus Is King 2 album that at one point Kanye said he was going to do with Dre. But it actually manages to be possibly an even worse song now, thanks to the unlistenable word vomit that Eminem calls rapping now. 

Koryn Hawthorne is a gospel star who caught my ear earlier this year with her first song on the secular R&B charts, "Speak To Me." "You" is more of a gospel track, though it has a nice beat, and the presence of Big K.R.I.T. on this remix makes me think of a classic tweet about him. 

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