The current single from Tems's debut album Born In The Wild borrows its chorus and title from "Love Me Jeje," a 1997 song by the Nigerian artist Seyi Sodimu. Given the way Tems has opened all these doors for Afrobeats and modern African music in America in recent years, it's cool to hear her reach back to watch people were doing in her home country over 25 years ago (apparently Sodimu remixed "Love Me Jeje" with K. Michelle a few years ago as well). The original song has a bit of a different sound but I absolutely love the sound of the Tems version, this song puts a smile on my face every time it comes on the radio. Here's the 2024 singles Spotify playlist that I update every month. 

The rollout for Hit Me Hard And Soft heavily emphasized how happy Billie Eilish was to release the whole album all at once, while also repeatedly stressing that "Lunch" would be the lead single once the album was out. The thing is, though, it's a lot harder to control what song people choose to stream more if you don't give one a head start. I called "Birds Of A Feather" my favorite thing Billie Eilish had ever made the first time I heard it, and a lot of people felt similarly, because it's just kept ascending the charts while "Lunch" quickly descended. I think that's kind of a shame because "Lunch" is an excellent song that deserved a full run as a single, but I'm not surprised that "Birds" jumped the line like this, it's so gorgeous. 

A few months ago I praised Chappell Roan's "Good Luck, Babe!" while worrying that her label was moving on from the groundswell of enthusiasm for The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess to new music too quickly, instead of letting people focus on the album they slept on last year. I'm happy to be proven wrong, though, because it worked out really well, with "Good Luck" becoming a top 10 single while Rise is also a top 10 album. "After Midnight" and "My Kink Is Karma" are currently battling it out for my favorite song on the album, but I'm happy with "Hot To Go!" becoming the biggest of its six songs on the Hot 100. It has that over-the-top cheerleader vibe that has a lengthy pop hit lineage ("Mickey," "Hollaback Girl," etc.) but it also has such big glorious vocal melodies, I especially love the "Baby, do you like this beat?" pre-chorus part. 

I'm glad Coco's got a proper debut album on the way, it could be really great. That Lenny Williams song has been sampled many times, most notably by Twista and Kanye, and "Here We Go" colors within the lines of "Overnight Celebrity" but Coco adds a great vocal performance to it. 

After I interviewed Jackson Dean last year, "Fearless - The Echo" spent almost 70 weeks on the country radio charts. I was sad when the song finally dropped off the charts after falling short of becoming a top 10 hit, but then Dean got to start releasing singles from his second album, which comes out next month.  I love that Dean co-wrote "Big Blue Sky" and his other recent singles with members of his backing band, I've played Baltimore indie rock bills with two-thirds of that band (Sean Mercer of Us And Us Only and Rich Kolm of Hollywood Blanks), good dudes. 

I remember a long time ago, back in the '90s, somebody pointed out that the guitar riff at the end of "Better Man" is similar to The English Beat's "Save It For Later," and then Eddie Vedder started singing "Save It" over the "Better Man" outro in Pearl Jam concerts. Decades later, we finally have a proper Vedder cover of "Save It For Later," recorded for the TV hit "The Bear," and it's a little quieter than I expected it to be, but it's lovely, and is getting some alternative radio airplay. If Vedder ever made a covers album, it would probably be a lot heavier on early '80s new wave and post-punk than people would expect, I've heard him sing lots of Split Enz and X and Squeeze songs over the years. 

GloRilla has three different singles as lead artist in the top 15 on R&B/hip hop radio right now, she's really having a better 2024 than any rapper besides Kendrick -- I wouldn't be surprised if "All Dere" gets up there in the next few months too. 

Offset and Gunna have released two singles together this year and have worked together a couple times before that, and all their songs together are good, I kinda hope they do a full duo album at some point. I think it's a perfect match, Offset was always better in a group, and most of Gunna's best songs are collaborations but a lot of people aren't working with him these days because of snitching allegations that increasingly seem flimsy and insubstantial.