Chart Review: 27th September 2024

Making sense of a nation’s musical tastes.

Because there’s not so much to get our teeth into this week, let’s have a quick look at Charli XCX’s Troy Sivan-featuring remix of “Talk Talk”, which was in the Top 40 last week but has dropped 19 spots to (43). Unlike the most successful remixes off the forthcoming Brat redux album, I think this one actually takes away quite a bit from the original version. There’s not an enormous amount to it other than adding Sivan’s verse, a bit of bass I think, and generally giving a little more dynamic variation, but for my money this is substantially less enjoyable than the version on the LP proper.

“Talk Talk” isn’t my favourite track on the album but I find the stripped back simplicity of the original version a lot more effective. Hudson Mohawke’s production is stretched and nervy and it’s a straight ahead club track with Charli’s vocals minimal and repetitive. I like Sivan as an artist so it’s nothing against him - but unlike the Eilish or Lorde remixes, I don’t think he’s either complimenting the track or taking it in an interesting direction with some pat verses about lust etc. 

At (37) is a cool surprise in the form of Addison Rae’s “Diet Pepsi”. Rae is a name I’ve seen before but never knowingly listened to - I must admit my mind always goes first to the car company Addison Lee. It transpires she’s the latest insanely productive child actor-turned musician to make a splash, and even got her own nod as an XCX remix guest on “Von Dutch”. 

While noting that “Diet Pepsi” is an outrageously on the nose effort to make the jump from kiddie star to sexy adult pop, this is a belting song. She’s got a lot of Lana Del Ray to her delivery, from the cooing falsetto to the way she structures her sentences (Taylor Swift is another who has lifted heavily from Lana’s speech patterns). We’re not getting much of a sense of how good of a singer Rae is, as she’s sighing and chirping her way through the verses and choruses respectively, but that’s not important. She has the charisma to pull off a track this brazenly sexualised, which most artists don’t. The instrumental is also Del Ray-esque with an added club beat; I don’t know that this was the right choice thematically, given the song lacks any of the melancholy of Lana’s usual lyrical palette (it’s just about how fab it is to be young and hot and shagging a lot), but I like the music all the same. 

In a real case of tonal whiplash, at (32) is Alex Warren with “Burning Down”. I despised his Mumfordy song a few weeks back, and while this one isn’t nearly as bad, I basically hate this one too. This is straightforward post-Imagine Dragons rock, nil subtlety, all the bells and whistles in the form of overwrought, emotionless gospel backing vocals. It’s quite funny to hear this dude scrape for notes that are below his range; it just gives me the vision of a singer with a distended jaw, hoping he’ll somehow land on noises he’s not capable of finding.

He rhymes “sinner” with “dinner” and in the lyrics video there’s a big picture of Michaelangelo’s Creation Of Adam, which adds more fuel to my theory that he, like Benson Boone, is a big time God guy who doesn’t want to make that explicit at this time in his burgeoning career. Evidently the song’s about some serious stuff - an abusive, toxic, or otherwise dysfunctional relationship - but you mustn’t give folks a pass for that. Nowhere near as bad as the other song, but in being so unspeakably bland, it’s somehow slightly more annoying. 

Sabrina Carpenter tops the pops once more with “Taste”. That’s yer lot. New stuff please.

Pick of the week: Addison Rae - “Diet Pepsi”