Chart Review: 21st June 2024

Making sense of a nation’s musical tastes.

For the first time in this project there are precisely no brand new tracks in the charts, with the Great British public and/or world’s musicians either gripped with a case of Euros fever (on which more later) or kicking back for the summer, as geographically appropriate. There are a couple of risers from the lower ranks and re-entries, though, so let’s get those ticked off and then we’ll have a look at what’s standing the test of time in the Top 10.  

At (39) is Chappell Roan with “Hot To Go”. This is a cut from her first album, released last September. I’ve listened to the LP and enjoyed it a lot, though I can’t say this song initially stuck with me. That’s a surprise, because it’s so immensely catchy and bouncy that I’d imagine it’ll be in my head for the rest of the weekend. Roan’s big on kitsch and throwback stuff, and she even equips this tune with a YMCA-esque dance routine chorus. She’s an incredibly sharp songwriter who seems to be able to get across a lot of her personality without just writing confessional, gossipy songs. It’s no surprise a lot of fans are connecting to her in a big way. Not that it’s any of my business but I hope she keeps doing the idiosyncratic and explicitly LGBT+ stuff and doesn’t tone everything down in pursuit of the big, big time (not that the two ideas are necessarily mutually exclusive but corporate America and all that). 

The only other novelty of note is a re-entry in the form of “3 Lions” at (32). Amusingly this hit the lower reaches of the Top 40 just after England’s bore-inspiring performance against Denmark on Thursday. It’s hit the top spot three times before, twice on its initial release and once during the heady days of the 2018 campaign out in Russia (for my own edification I’ve crunched the numbers and this was actually after England’s semi-final exit to Croatia, so on that sort of form, it could be back up there again soon enough). 

There really isn’t a great deal to say about this one, I suppose. As far as the shallow pool of football songs goes, it’s certainly one of the best. The Lightning Seeds cultivate a terrific melodic sweet spot between resigned melancholy and pigheaded optimism in the face of overwhelming evidence that football is not, in fact, coming home. Meanwhile Skinner and Baddiel’s lyrics are somehow evergreen despite the chorus explicitly tying the song to 1996 (or 1998 if you’re for some reason listening to that version). The gleaming/dreaming rhyme is a cracker. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve belted it out in a beer garden, and Southgate gets his team purring, I might just do so again. For the sake of royalties alone, Messrs Baddiel, Skinner, and Him Out Of The Lightning Seeds will certainly hope he manages it. 

With little else to occupy us this week, let’s have a look at the Top 10, which seems pretty settled of late. The likes of Dasha’s “Austin” (9) and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” (5) have held down two months or more in the top quarter of the table, highlighting the record buying public’s immense appetite for pop country. I’m not into either of these songs in the least, though I’ve heard pretty good things about Shaboozey’s album, so maybe I’ll bring myself to give that a spin. 

Meanwhile Myles Smith’s “Stargazer” has spent a month in the upper echelons. Currently at (6), it has somehow been climbing week on week. While I understand the appeal of the pop-country stuff, for folk who want country but only a very little bit of country please, I cannot get my head around this tune at all. It’s the most milquetoast, underbaked indie imaginable. I’m clearly the outlier here because the song’s no flash in the pan, but I think this is just dreadful. 

The top two spots, the summer, and perhaps yet the year 2024, however, belong to one Sabrina Carpenter. As expected, Eminem’s mostly turgid “Houdini” has slipped to (3), leaving us with a double dip of “Espresso” (2) and “Please Please Please” (1). The latter especially seems to have received universal praise, expertly bridging the gap between salacious celeb scuttlebutt and just great songcraft. Carpenter may be able to claim two songs of the summer, the first for the daytime, the second for the evening. 

Pick of the week: Chappell Roan - “Hot To Go”