Chart Review: 12th April 2024
Making sense of a nation’s musical tastes.
Showing how meagre a grasp I have on the UK’s musical tastes, the Beyoncéfication of the Top 40 has not gone as expected. “Texas Hold ‘Em” drops to (3), while her other two tunes have dropped nearly 10 places apiece. Adding insult to injury, Cowboy Carter only lasted one week atop the album charts, with The Libertines’ new effort (which is really not bad) displacing it at the first time of asking. It’s a surprising development; there seemed to be articles galore running up to the record’s release, but now that it’s out, the excitement has levelled off pretty quickly.
This week’s column inches have mainly been devoted to J Cole, who’s had a bit of a mare. “7 Minute Drill” is in at (38). It’s a diss track aimed at Kendrick Lamar, who launched a mild, quickfire barb at Cole on that Future song, and has essentially handed J enough rope with which to hang himself. Cole almost immediately publicly announced his regret for the track, and has since deleted it from streaming services. It’s just dreadful stuff, it really is. The beat is anaemic, the lyrics are ineffective (he runs down Kendrick’s discography, most of which he says he likes), and Cole’s heart isn’t in it. Fair play to him for admitting defeat, I suppose.
From the same Might Delete Later mixtape (and it’s worth noting how dated that title is) comes “H.Y.B.” (29) featuring Bas and Central Cee. This one’s a lot better. Bas’ hook is decently catchy, the guitar loop distinctive. The problem for Cole is that he gets absolutely cooked by Central Cee on his own tune (it doesn’t help that, at one point, Cole spits the alphabet sans the letter L to illustrate that he never takes Ls). I wasn’t into Cee’s “I Will” at all, but he’s in the pocket here. You can hear he’s hungry for it, grabbing the opportunity for international exposure, and if the content isn’t exactly groundbreaking, the execution is flawless.
Artemas, whose “I Like The Way You Kiss Me” (5) I like with reservations about the lyrics, now has another track in the top 40, “If U Think I’m Pretty” (39). This one’s even better, nicely produced art-pop with a bit of glitchiness and a smattering of goth. The beats thump, the guitars have a nice sinister tension and energy when they rise in the mix. Most impressively, for a 24 year old, he knows exactly how to use and produce his voice, both in a low, louche croak and a spooky falsetto. It’s hard to find out a great deal about him - he’s self-releasing all this music, but some of these tracks have three to five credited songwriters or producers. Evidently someone’s hand is on the tiller here, but that’s neither here nor there as far as the music itself is concerned. Strong track.
Guetta’s back with OneRepublic. “I Don’t Wanna Wait” (37) half inches the melody from the Numa Numa song, whose name I can’t even be bothered to look up. It’s the absolute bare minimum effort you can put in and still legally call it a song.
Someone I do actually quite like, Bakar, returns to the charts with “Hell N Back” (26). He’s got much better music than this, but it’s a decent track in the laid back, soulful tradition. He benefits from a distinctive, believably emotional voice and some lyrics that are a little more interesting than the simple copy and paste stuff you’ll hear. For my money he’s better when he’s working on something more minimalistic, like “Hate The Sun” from his latest record; still, it’s not surprising this one’s caught on.
Hozier’s finally snagged himself a UK #1 with “Too Sweet”, and it’s worthwhile once again having a laugh at how stupid this song is. As a reminder, it’s a song about how Hozier’s bored of his girlfriend because she’s just too well behaved for him. He likes black coffee, whiskey without ice, staying up late, standing near a bonfire. She likes going to bed a bit earlier. It’s never going to work. One line in the song is “If you can sit in a barrel, maybe I'll wait”. That’s deranged. I’ve nothing really against the melody of the song, but the lyrics aren’t just bad, they’re embarrassing.
Pick of the week: Artemas - “If U Think I’m Pretty”
