Chart Review: 23rd August 2024
Making sense of a nation’s musical tastes.
There’s precious little new to get stuck into this week as we’re in a bit of a dead zone. Festival season’s winding down, the summer has already been claimed by Carpenter, Roan, and XCX, and the new semester hasn’t yet begun for the music consuming college kids (I have no idea if that’s how the release cycle works, but there’s a logic of sorts to it).
One of only two new tracks, at (35) we have Gigi Perez with “Sailor Song”. There is precious little I can learn about this artist - even her own website just has a list of tour dates and some links to the equally unhelpful socials. Her “About” on the Google search page has been pulled from Genius.com and reads “Gigi Perez is a LGBTQ+ artist who identifies as a lesbian.”
That sense of mystery is to the benefit of a tune like “Sailor Song”, which is quite a gorgeous piece. It skirts close to advert music but feels a bit more substantive than that. The choppy guitars sound fantastic and I’m into how Perez produces her voice. Without wanting to have a dig, it feels like she doesn’t have the strongest voice in the world, but the double- and triple tracking and drenched reverb sounds fantastic for the swooning, nostalgic production. It’s somewhere between ‘70s singer songwriter and early 2010s indie, especially when the muffled, sorrowful trumpet comes in at the end.
This is another TikTok job from what I can ascertain, but it seems to be a properly small scale production. I can’t see anything suggesting she has label backing, and the smartly executed video - tying together the nautical themes in its beach location and retro bent in its 4:3 ratio and home movie filters - seems to have been done on the cheap. The recommended videos are mostly people performing their own covers; when a serious song like this catches fire, you’ve got to tip your hat to the app, even if I still don’t really understand it.
The only other new song is Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars with “Die With A Smile”, landing at an impressive (7). Gaga’s obviously a class act and a genuine talent in multiple fields, and I’ve a fairly soft spot for Bruno Mars. At his absolute worst he seems inoffensive (apart from that “Lazy Song” which I despise), and at his best, he’s got real chops. That Silk Sonic album? Good stuff!
This collaboration falls into the inoffensive category more than the actually good one for the most part. There’s not an awful lot about this song, a downtempo moderate rocker with the odd moment of drama. I’ve got it on right now and I can already feel myself forgetting it. What is notable, though, is how good the pair of them sound singing together. These voices blend together beautifully. I wouldn’t mind hearing them do this again but with some slightly more interesting material. Nothing wrong with it but it’s not going into the top tier of either of their canon’s (certainly not Gaga’s at any rate).
To my moderate surprise, Chase & Status feat. Stormzy have hung onto the top spot with “Backbone”. I’ll make another of my crap predictions, though: surely Sabrina Carpenter’s back up there next week with her new song that has Jenna Ortega in the video. A stopped clock and all that.
Pick of the week: Gigi Perez- “Sailor Song”
