#440-#436

#440. DMA'S - Silver (#20, 2019)

36th of 2019

It's pretty fair to say that an artist's highest charting single isn't necessarily going to be their biggest hit. You can choose to interpret it that way (Billboard generally does), but you'll pull up so many obvious cases that don't work out quite right that you probably won't want to do that. It's an interesting application because it can happen at any particular part of the summit, including the very bottom.

I'm writing this not long after Tame Impala made the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time with "Dracula". I don't think anyone would consider this a breakout hit by any stretch, even if the reach above the usual bounds is pretty notable. There's a solid chance though that by the time this post goes live, there'll be more Tame Impala hits, because once you break through the first time, it's less surprising when it happens again. The band that likely won't change the story by then though is DMA'S. I'm talking about their UK Chart history, where they've never charted officially, but spent 1 day on the Spotify chart when "Silver" managed to sneak in at #197 on release. This easily could've been nothing, but the fact that it's there gives it a strange aura. Within those confines, they're just the "Silver" band, an utterly absurd concept. Or maybe it isn't that hard to consider. It's the classic lead single hype after a successful album, but this still stands as the highest DMA'S polling position, outside of their Like A Version (#987). Nothing else has come particularly close. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to give credit to the song itself, an initially tough prospect when this had all the makings of DMA'S just coasting on momentum.

"Silver" is not particularly memorable. They pin the title to a repeated lyric before the song even gets going, and when you get to the chorus, it's full of hooks that are also not brimming with exciting personality. 'It's funny how I think of you right now', 'you're still coming round, yeah', lines like these make me think that it wasn't their priority to generate Instagram captions. It's another one that's worked better for me when I meet them at what they're trying to do. With that in mind, the DMA'S songbook of putting together low to mid tempo rock ballads has churned out a winner this time. Another one that won't challenge your perception of the artist at all, but it's admirable for how well they themselves have locked in on the concept. It just sounds good. No muck, no notes.

#439. Lil Nas X (feat Jack Harlow) - INDUSTRY BABY (#8, 2021)

41st of 2021

I don't want to make this all about Kanye West so I'll just get this part out of the way now. He has a producer credit on this song. He's pretty much the most successful artist in Hottest 100 history to have never made the top 10, but he's got this technicality on his side at least. It also unexpectedly became the first song he was involved in to top the Billboard Hot 100 in a long time, and it seemed to be the last, until another one I won't be talking about showed up. For once, it's not through future appearance on this list that I'm not acknowledging something.

Something that's only gotten more clear in the years since, is just how potent Lil Nas X's 2021 singles were for him. The combination of this and "THATS WHAT I WANT" (#636) together just made it feel like he was untouchable. This wasn't remotely the case as he hasn't really struck gold again since. Maybe it's a misplay. I haven't been checking in with him much lately, but I wonder if one of these songs would've hit it big if they'd come out now, because momentum is a powerful factor, it's just a surprise that it vanished so fast.

I mentioned the idea of industry plants once before on this blog. I wasn't even thinking about saving it up for this entry because the truth of it is that I just loathe the term. File it under something that I'll almost never acknowledge when not under duress. Just one of the latest in the list of short, snappy phrases that can put forward the notions of skepticism and dismissal without having to mount a compelling case. Oh, of course this artist I don't like got a leg up, how else would you explain something I don't like being popular? It's incredulous how unwilling some people can be to just accept horses for courses and go about their business. It's always gotta be petty snipes that are justified because they probably cast the first stone (note: everyone thinks this to be the case). It often feels like it's for the sole purpose of denigrating someone for liking something. Everyone just wants to be that mean girl on the bus from a 30 year old Simpsons episode I guess.

It makes me want to applaud Lil Nas X for making a song that's an answer to all of his dismissive detractors and absolutely succeeding to the fullest with it. It's hard to make a strong argument against the guy who's getting demonstrably rich and famous on the back of a #1 hit that he essentially pre-calls in the song. Like yeah, if people want to dismiss artists as one hit wonders when their career is just starting, they better like the taste of receipts in the morning. This song gets by on the conviction of triumph it conveys because it does it so well. Also Jack Harlow is here I guess.

#438. Vallis Alps - Fading (#94, 2016)

46th of 2016

We've covered the full range of the Vallis Alps experience now. The plucky beginnings and the drawn out resolution. All we've got left is that little speck in the middle, where they got another hit in, just barely. It's part of why I found the "Oceans" (#833) appearance so surprising, because if a song like "Fading" couldn't steady the ship, it didn't seem like there was any coming back from it.

It's one of my favourite kinds of entries though. It's the ones that feel lucky to be here and not really part of the prescribed hit parade. You hear "Young" (#519) and that's obviously the hit, but "Fading" doesn't have that same It Factor, just a pleasant follow up for those who were keen to hear more. I'm not completely certain where I stand now, but I've said before that my favourite Hottest 100 ever was Silversun Pickups' "Panic Switch", a pseudo follow up to the generational anthem that isn't tugging for the same heartstrings. As a bonus, it landed at roughly the same spot as "Fading" and is also maybe a minute or so longer than it probably should be, but it's one of those songs I'm just glad to have as much as possible of.

This is my wheelhouse though. Maybe a bit light and fluffy if you came from the emotional heft of "Young", but all the craft still shines through. Parissa gets a chance to run through a few more styles of vocal delivery here and compliments herself well when she does her own backing vocals. It would have been very easy to just call this song "Paradise" and be done with it, and I think I'm glad they didn't because we've got more than enough songs with that name now. I'll inevitably probably download another in the next couple of years.

#437. Genesis Owusu - Don't Need You (#73, 2020)

37th of 2020

The duality of Ourness and the two notable artists on their roster. Maybe their meddling can be a net positive if it's helped Genesis Owusu reach a bigger audience. On the other hand, I have been sitting on certain feelings about another one of his songs all year and it's driving me up the wall that I can't talk about it yet. "Don't Need You" has no baggage attached to it at least, this was just a nice surprise.

This feels like a commercial breakthrough moment. He'd been on my radar for a few years at this point but felt like he was destined for the minor leagues. His music was always a little off kilter and people don't usually go out of their way to listen to music by artists with hard to pronounce names. Even now it feels like a strange outcome. His hits definitely have pop appeal, but they sound out of place with everything else, like he's getting by on pure aura. That part I can believe.

My introduction to paying close attention to his music was a very strange one. What I've learnt of people who still pay money for music is that many of them do so very immediately. The iTunes chart on the weekend is cluttered with a whole lot of new releases that I'm never going to see on that chart again afterwards. I'm not like this though, Like Tom from Parks & Recs, every song I download has to go through a series of rigorous tests, primarily the one of repeated listens over a number of weeks. It's something I've trained myself to do to get myself to like new releases, but it can come at a cost.

In January 2020, Citizen Kay released a song called "Funny Business" with Genesis Owusu. The two notable things here is that Citizen Kay is Genesis Owusu's older brother, the second is that the song slaps. Oh actually there's a third thing, which is that the song wasn't released in January, but February. I'd heard the song in January, saved it to my playlist for further testing, and by the next day, it was gone. I had no idea when it was coming back but it was fortunately pretty soon. I just wonder what happened with that. You hear about strange happenings and the explanations you get are sometimes even stranger. I'm fortunate that the timing window for "Shirim" by Melody's Echo Chamber being deleted was a little more lenient otherwise I'd have needed to wait nearly 4 years to get a hold of it. "illusions" by Shanae borders on being lost media except I still have a copy of it.

The other song that really got me on board that year was "The Other Black Dog". It came out really late in November so I'm not sure it got a proper chance to shine on the Hottest 100 but it remains an absolute belter. Another example of how well he can mold his sound to fit eclectic genres. It actually appears on the same album as "Don't Need You" as well as another song I'll be talking about and the contrast is significant.

This will be the first of 5 Genesis Owusu songs here and I don't mean to completely denigrate it by placing it the lowest of them. There's a goofy charm to this that isn't dissimilar to something like Biz Markie's "Just a Friend", just making it absolutely clear here that the goal is to be incessantly catchy to a fault. It's like you've got two versions of the character in this one, the contemplative one who's thinking about every little detail, and the brash one who speaks without a filter. It's a song about rejecting depression that uses the phrase 'your ass is stinky'. Make up your own mind.

#436. The Presets - Martini (#57, 2018)

48th of 2018

My one reference point for something getting too popular is always that one Plan B lyric about "Valerie" by The Zutons. I don't know how much it actually holds up because I don't know what Zutons discourse is like. It does feel like it's the kind of hit that becomes so big, that despite raising the band's profile, they just become engulfed by it. The Zutons had 9 UK top 40 hits, most of them before "Valerie", all their albums hit the UK top 10. Yet you look at their Spotify numbers and it just looks like a one hit wonder, a massive gulf between the one song and all the others. Even their first top 10 hit "Why Won't You Give Me Your Love?" (same peak as "Valerie") is lost in the abyss. I look by comparison at a band like We Are Scientists who were never that popular, have about the same number of monthly listeners, and I'd imagine more of them are listening to multiple songs.

It felt like The Presets were having a similar problem. It's not really reflected on their Spotify stats (which are a bit weird, I don't think I've ever noticed it before, just a total clutter that's been hobbled together). They had a massive commercial breakthrough in 2008 with their album "Apocalypso" and just could not repeat it. Given what they were putting out after that, I don't even think they were trying to do it. All the big singles from "Pacifica" find some way to betray that expectation and I think a lot of people jumped ship (not literally, although "Ghosts" sounds like pirate music). I remember being so surprised when they managed to get back onto the Hottest 100, and then they just kept doing it after that. I think they did in some way, decide to start giving that "Apocalypso" audience what they wanted.

I don't think that "Martini" is particularly brazen about this (maybe another song is), but I'm finding it interesting to compare these releases a decade apart from the same band. It's making me feel an appreciation for how their songwriting has definitely tightened up. Don't get me wrong, I love "Apocalypso", but it also feels like it's throwing everything at the wall and not worrying about the second draft. It's like they've got a good idea for what the album should sound like but not enough ideas to flesh it out. Some of the looping patterns they use have aged in a peculiar way. I was trying to find exact examples of what feel like the most obvious throwback elements on "Martini" and I wasn't having great luck. There's a stuttering effect that reminds me a bit of "Talk Like That" and "Together", but this one's much less aggressive. The angelic bridge feels like something they maybe considered doing a few times but it would end up coming out half formed. "Eucalyptus" comes pretty close, but I admire the restraint on this one. It's not overcooked, it's not abrupt, it just feels like the natural place for the song to go. Otherwise I've just been holding onto this dumb mondegreen in my head where the chorus sounds like Julian is just repeatedly demanding to listen to Mansionair. Also ending nearly every line of the song with the same word proves they haven't forgotten how to make inanely catchy songs, because it doesn't even feel egregious with this one.

Also aforementioned stream still happening tomorrow on my Twitch channel. Watch in real time as I forget my streaming hotkeys and where the silver coins are on Windmill Plains. I'll be aiming for a 7pm GMT+8 start. I don't have any hot takes about the 2025 Hottest 100 voting list, I just woke up.