1. Sabrina Carpenter - "Manchild"
As someone who always had mixed feelings about "Please Please Please," I rolled my eyes the first time I played the lead single to Sabrina Carpenter's forthcoming album and it was another shrill trebly country/indie pop Jack Antonoff production instead of one of her better-sounding Julian Bunetta or John Ryan tracks. But the video, easily the best music video I've seen this year, helped hold my attention, and by the time they synced the crash cymbal in the chorus to Carpenter shooting across a pool table with a shotgun, I was sold on the song as well. This song rules, there's so much casual pop craft here, the two verses have completely different vocal melodies and the first one has a pre-chorus that never repeats. I will say, though, most misandrist pop songs are about cheating cads so I can enjoy them without feeling implicated, but I am an absent-minded doofus often enough that I worry that if my wife heard this song she might identify with it. This song also makes me think about reading in the '90s that so many magazine articles referred to Beck as a 'manchild' that he started performing the song "Asshole" with 'manchild' in place of the title lyric. Here's the 2025 singles Spotify playlist I update throughout the year.
2. Hudson Westbrook - "House Again"
Hudson Westbrook is a 20-year-old Texan who moved to Nashville and signed with an independent label, wrote a sad little breakup song inspired by his parents' divorce, racked up 40 million streams with it by the time a major label signed him, and is releasing his debut album later this week. He also did a version of "House Again" with Miranda Lambert that he released alongside a cover of her signature song "The House That Built Me." He's off to a good start, and I'm definitely interested to see where his career goes.
3. Sombr - "Back To Friends"
Sombr is another 20-year-old kid who just blew up in the last few months -- his ridiculous stage name and matinee idol cheekbones make him seem vaguely like a parody of a pop star from a movie, but I really like "Back To Friends." It and another similar but far less catchy Sombr song, "Undressed," entered the Hot 100 a week apart back in April. And as they kept racking up big streaming numbers, I heard both on the radio for the first time on the same day in May, "Back To Friends" on an alternative station and "Undressed" on a Top 40 station. Both songs are still doing really well and from week to week it's hard to tell which one will ultimately be remembered as his first big hit, but I know which one I'm rooting for.
4. The Weeknd - "Cry For Me"
It wasn't until I started putting together the S.O.S. Band deep album cuts playlist that I posted the other day that I realized that "Cry For Me" is built on a sample from an obscure S.O.S. Band track from the early '90s. I kind of feel like these days the Weeknd is mostly veering between his signature slow creepy R&B and his pop songs in the uptempo "Blinding Lights" vein, but this song really works because it's pretty fast and danceable but still really cinematic and ominous.
5. Megan Thee Stallion - "Whenever"
I feel like people have gotten weirdly nitpicky about Megan's output, I don't know why people would rave about "Bigger Than Texas" but hate "Whenever," I feel like they're both an example of a great rapper picking a track they'd sound fantastic on, love the Ms. Cherry sample.
6. Pluto & Ykniece - "Wham Whamiee"
Another song that went mainstream recently referencing an old Atlanta regional hit that never really went national, in this case Mook B from D4L's "Whim Wham." I'm such a huge Zaytoven fan, I love that he's got a hit like this a full 20 years after "Icy." And Pluto's album is pretty good, I feel like she's a real music head who's doing her best with her skill set, I think it's kind of a shame that she set herself up to be looked at the same way Sexxy Red is by putting her on the remix.
7. Keith Urban - "Straight Line"
It's been a minute since Keith Urban did one of those high energy anthemic songs in the vein of "Somebody Like You" and "Days Go By" and that's always my favorite shit from him, he just needs an excuse to really cut loose on the guitar solo.
8. Mariah The Scientist - "Burning Blue"
Mariah The Scientist has definitely been building a bigger fanbase and inching closer to chart success for the last few years, but it was surprising to see this song just instantly surpass anything she'd ever released before in both streaming and radio numbers. Also interesting that she's kind of part of a power couple with Young Thug but she's blowing up while the buzz around his new music has kind of cratered.
9. Mariah Carey - "Type Dangerous"
Strange to find ourselves in a moment where Mariah Carey has a new song but a different Mariah is outperforming her on the Hot 100! She'll get her revenge in December, though. Carey is a great songwriter but I do think she needs the right collaborators in her corner and making music with Anderson.Paak is probably gonna be good for her, I'm interested to hear what else they do together.
10. Ariana Grande - "Twilight Zone"
"Warm" is by far my favorite new song from the deluxe version of Eternal Sunshine, but I do like hearing this one on the radio. I saw a review of this song that described it as "chillwave-adjacent" and I feel like people will just say that about absolutely anything now.
The Worst Single of the Month: Alex Warren - "Ordinary"
I feel like it's kind of an easy target to use this space to single out the very unhip current #1 song in the country, but yeah I'm sick of changing the station when this comes on. "Burning Down," the minor hit about Alex Warren's TikTok creator house figuratively burning down, is probably worse than "Ordinary," but "Ordinary" is a lot more annoyingly ubiquitous.
No comments:
Post a Comment