#250-#246

#250. Steve Lacy - Bad Habit (#4, 2022)

16th of 2022

In 2018, Kali Uchis released the song "Just a Stranger" which features Steve Lacy. It's a song I loved instantly and I think could one day find a bigger audience, the way many songs by both artists have in the years since it was released. It's the first time I really took notice of Steve Lacy as a solo artist and not just the guy who plays guitar for The Internet, though I'm not sure how much he contributed to the production of the song outside of a catchy hook. Both artists have certainly gotten more popular since then. Kali Uchis has a song that's closing in on 3 billion Spotify streams, and Steve Lacy has gotten a Billboard #1 hit, wait a minute, this is that Billboard #1 hit!

It's often hard to discern where you can draw or blur the line between a hit that seems accidental and one that seems planned. When a completely random band from years ago does it and then makes no notable headway from it (like Surf Curse or Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners), it's probably an accident. When it's a big artist on a major label, probably not. A somewhat big artist on a major label? That's where it gets blurry.

Steve Lacy prefaced this with his song "Dark Red". It's a very Dominic Fike type situation, in that it was chucked out years ago as part of a disorganised collection of demos that he recorded, with an average length of about 2 minutes. "Dark Red" is the kind of hit that just needs to be uncovered though. Just an incredibly sticky song that's dripping in catchy hooks and chill tones. If you're ever compelled to consider Steve Lacy a one hit wonder, it's worth considering that though "Dark Red" didn't chart quite as obviously well, it's managed to stave off "Bad Habit" and remains his most streamed song on Spotify, with a lead that is presently growing as I write this.

If it turned out that "Bad Habit" was written to try and capitalise on this success, I'd be willing to believe it. I don't think of it as a commercial sellout or anything like this, but the absolute density of hooks is not something you just accidentally stumble upon. One of those moments where a hip and cool artist writes an undeniable smash and nearly everyone's rooting for it to climb the charts. I wasn't obsessively in love with it, but it was clearly my favourite thing going on in the charts at the time. It feels appropriate to mention that I've dusted off the entire top 10 for 2022 on this list now. Somewhat ironic given that it was nearly the last one to open the pack (#688).

"Bad Habit" getting to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 feels like a fairy tale ending. I will break this illusion, because while it was absolutely a monster hit in its own right, it had a little helping hand. Its ascent was pushed up with the release of an official sped up version of the song. There's no magic to it; they literally just sped it up by about 21.47%. I know because I just mocked it up in Audacity and it sounds exactly the same as the official version. It's incredibly easy to re-create it. At present, this version has roughly 7.5% as many Spotify streams as the original version, which doesn't sound like much, but on its first and third weeks at the top, it was doing so with a razor-thin margin. The second week was probably fine either way, but it's a reminder that even those seemingly hip and cool artists (or rather their labels) are often times employing all the dodgy techniques that don't get associated with them.

The TikTok machine also revealed another wrinkle in the situation. Steve Lacy would go out on tour, and the obvious direction this would take is that it reveals a huge portion of the crowd that were only there to hear his big hit song. It's a familiar story, especially with one notable British band for a while. In Steve Lacy's case it was even worse. You can find a video of him performing the song in early October 2022, at the peak of the song's popularity to a crowd that immediately clams up after he gets past the 'I wish I knew' part of the song. They occasionally come back because the song has a few viral parts, 'I bite my tongue, it's a bad habit' and 'you can't surprise a Gemini', but it's an oddly fractured experience. He's performing to people who seemingly have only heard parts of the song. I'm not sure the crowd has clocked that he actually flips the title lyric on the second chorus into a question ('Can I bite your tongue like my bad habit?'). I remember the same thing happening not long later with Lizzy McAlpine, who'd perform "ceilings" to a roaring crowd that's screaming every word in 2022, but then a year later (after some viral success) has a whole bunch of people who try to sing the final chorus where the first one's supposed to go. You can tell in both cases that they're extremely irritated by this, and it's one of those things that can take some shine off the illusion of a beloved hit song.

Fortunately, it's not on me to judge a song on the merits of how it gets popular, and for those who are willing to engage fully with the conversation, it can be a means to put great music in the spotlight whether it truly is fulfilling the impression. "Bad Habit" remains a song that I have no beef with. It still sounds great, and we can always do with more songs about being socially awkward. I mean, who knows where I could be if I ever felt comfortable shooting my shot? How can anyone have the confidence to not feel like everyone's too good for them? Steve's speaking to my soul here.

#249. Duke Dumont - Ocean Drive (#13, 2015)

32nd of 2015

For a while, "Ocean Drive" was Australia's little secret. A hit song by an international artist that got incredibly popular, bigger than any song he'd put out before or since, while going mostly under the radar elsewhere. At this point Duke Dumont had two #1 hits in the UK in the past 2 years, but this one couldn't even crack the top 40. The system just worked here and the song caught on like wildfire, becoming one of the absolute biggest radio hits ever. The rest of the world has eventually caught up. It's firmly his biggest hit nowadays, very successfully carving itself a niche as a bouncy dance pop single that's fresh and original, no distracting elements at all.

There's a side of the story that's a little less fun, but I'm having trouble finding sources for it. My only assumption is that the hatchet has been long buried. I just have this strange recollection of the vocalist on this song (Boy Matthews) getting particularly peeved about the way Duke Dumont was acting once the song started to blow up. Taking the full auteur route of paying no credit to someone who was a big part of both performing and writing the record. There's nothing I can find from the immediate time, but from Boy Matthews' Twitter feed, he occasionally gets a bit (understandably) bothered about the way songwriters are often treated in the equation.

The reason I say the hatchet has been buried is because Boy Matthews has retweeted Duke Dumont many years later, suggesting better terms, while in his 2018 Under The Influence interview on triple j talking about the making of "Ocean Drive", Duke Dumont does take the time to absolutely spotlight Boy Matthews' contribution. He also mentions that the song was shopped around to potentially be sung by The Weeknd or a certain other R&B singer, as well as being very proud of the record, and very candid about Industry Rule #4080.

That's a happy ending I think. Except then in 2021, Duke Dumont got into an argument on Instagram with Kelli-Leigh over minimising her contribution for the song "Melt", which in a sign of either terrible misunderstanding or bad faith, had him instead citing her just singing a Whitney Houston top line on their previous collaboration "I Got U" (#441). This controversy was new to me but it looks exactly how I imagined it did for "Ocean Drive", so I guess some people never truly change. "Melt" actually comes from the same EP as "Ocean Drive" so it's one of three songs on there with uncredited vocals (the other one is "Won't Look Back").

Often times it feels like women get the worst shake of it, which is why I'm not sure I feel much better if Boy Matthews is just an exception in hindsight. At one point he quote tweets Bebe Rexha talking about unbalanced producer royalties. Bebe Rexha was a very public victim of these situations. When she sung the hook to David Guetta's song "Hey Mama", she was initially left off the credits under the belief that there were too many names on the song which becomes bad for business (it was credited as David Guetta featuring Afrojack & Nicki Minaj). A few months later she did get her name on it, but I often fear that not enough credit is given. Bebe Rexha unfairly became a massive punching bag for pop music fans as a permanent C-lister (even if she did eventually score an enormous hit for herself) that it's easy to dismiss her concerns, or worse, discredit her as a songwriter because of the way the industry treats her. I can certainly think of another artist who will eventually appear on this list with something to say about it all.

As for the song itself, yeah, it's delightful. One of those neat little packages that feels like opening a present every time. Nothing too flashy either, just a really solid groove, good vocals, and an insanely catchy hook. Duke Dumont says it himself that the phrase 'dance with the devil' works so well because the alliteration sticks it in your head, though he doesn't think he was smart enough at the time to make the same leap with his stage name. For me, that phrase always makes me think of the 1970 box office smash "Love Story". Can't imagine why. Poor Andy Williams, lived long enough to hear "Gangnam Style", but not quite long enough to also experience the joy of "Ocean Drive", and like, all those December royalties that really ramped up in the past decade.

#248. Kendrick Lamar - N95 (#41, 2022)

15th of 2022

It's been a few years so in case you've forgotten, this is the 'you out of pocket' song. You might have also forgotten that N95 refers to a specific kind of mask that was ideal for preventing spreading germs. It's also certainly a double-entendre in this sense given that he spends most of the song telling people to take off all kinds of metaphorical masks. I suspect Kendrick had some opinions about the geopolitical state of the world at the time, but surprisingly, it's a story for another entry. We're about to get introspective here.

"N95" is the sole representation here for "Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers". It's probably his most challenging album, because if you think it might be that other one, I think you should stack the two up together. I think you'll find this is the one that's considerably lacking in potential crossover singles. It says a lot that all you've got on the album is "Die Hard" (which just missed this list) and this song. Maybe it can be enjoyed as a mindless banger, but it feels far too confronting for that to actually stick.

When I think about "Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers", those aren't really the songs that come to mind. I'm thinking of those confronting moments. There's the lamenting of parental issues on "Father Time" (even if Sampha is steering it with a nice hook). There's the absolutely confronting experience of "We Cry Together", a scarily accurate depiction of a domestic dispute where everyone is in the wrong but too focused on getting the moral high ground to acknowledge it. Sure, you might have messed up, but that's nothing compared to what they did! You've got "Auntie Diaries", a song where I witnessed the global arrival in real time, where seemingly in the name of performative politics, the album's reputation took a total nosedive because Kendrick wrote a song about a family member transitioning but didn't follow the internet's guideline to saying the right thing because he's not online enough. The nuance did get through eventually, but it was an eye-opening experience. Towards the end of the album, you've got the album's crowning moment, the beautiful, evocative "Mother I Sober". Kendrick waxes on systemic sexual abuse and slavery with a hopeful turn to breaking the cycle, while Portishead's Beth Gibbons proves she's still got it with a harrowing performance. If you studied all the supplementary material in 2024, you might also recall it as the song that Drake mis-interpreted on one of his diss tracks. His final power play to land on his arse and embarrass himself, the way you could only wish could be the standard for genuinely awful takes that float around. I don't want to tap dance around the issue, but it is in fact the album with all the tap dancing.

On the whole though, it's a very introspective album, and I love it for that. I think a lot of people want Kendrick to use his platform to speak about all the injustices of the world again and again, and if you listen to "Mirror" at the end of the album, Kendrick probably feels some of that on himself. I don't know where he stands on it 5 years later, if the feeling of shame is still there, but I think there's something to be said about how many problems in the world could be alleviated if we took more time to better ourselves. Put on our masks before we help those around us. Just take off the superficial one before you do that as well.

In that regard, maybe "N95" resonated because it is the closest to something that does address the world at large. It's one that certainly feels more purpose built to be latched onto. Get a stopwatch out as you listen out for hooks and I guarantee you'll be hitting reset on the regular. And of course, if you're just listening out to hear Kendrick rap his head off with constantly shifting flows, well there's a lot to like here. I don't know what the general reception is on his high pitched voice he often does, but for me it always reminds me of Emperor Pilaf from Dragonball so I just get immensely amused by it. You can't rule the world with one Hottest 100 entry though, but I'd be lying if I said I thought it was supposed to rule the world. Kendrick just seems to have developed a holding pattern where he'll pivot between reaching for the stars and doing something completely different. I'm glad we get the best of both worlds. It makes me feel like there isn't a stone being left unturned.

#247. Bring Me The Horizon with YUNGBLUD - Obey (#71, 2020)

17th of 2020

The enjoyment of music isn't really a science you can pin down. Maybe on a grand scale there are sweeping gestures that can be made. Back in the early 2000s, a company named Polyphonic HMI developed a program named Hit Song Science. It would analyse music to spot similarities to hit songs of years gone by, and claimed to predict the hit potential of new releases, on the basis of familiarity. I don't know how much credit they get for it, but the claim that tends to get thrown around a lot is that it anticipated the monster success of Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me" album. There's another more interesting one where a certain song was scoring exceptionally high in all the important metrics, which gave the record label confidence to push it on the radio. Radio listeners hated it and would change the station very readily. That song was "Hey Ya!" by OutKast. You can claim they had the last laugh, but given their claims of familiar rhythms and patterns making a song more instantly stick immediately, it doesn't feel like it should count.

Even so, we're only looking at broad strokes. The notion that a lot of people will like something, whether or not you, the person reading this, or I, the one writing it are part of that circle. You can excavate a big pile of sand but some will inevitably fall out the side in the process. Sometimes we're just subject to whims that may or may not be quantified. Did we all think that "Keith" by Playlunch was certainly one of the best songs of 2025? Maybe, maybe not, but it was operating on a different playing field. One where the intangible fun of yelling 'don't f**k with my trailer, c**t', or otherwise imagining an exaggerated version of ex-Western Bulldogs star Barry Hall doing it instead can outweigh the hard science behind it all.

Why am I saying all of this? Well let's be honest, tangents are the only way I'm getting any meat out of my 12th entry on Bring Me The Horizon. But it is relevant in this case. However it is that you receive "Obey", it's probably different to me. Personally, it's one of my favourite Bring Me The Horizon songs on a purely stupid level. At the time I tweeted out something along the lines of 'Oh, bae, I hope you have a lovely day :)' and I've never been able to hear the song any other way since. This is a deeply political song that's taking aim at authoritarian regimes that pacify their constituents. I choose to ignore all of this and instead sing along a little goddamn louder to a happy song (#309).

This is absolutely the right song for this kind of juxtaposition. It feels like part of the metatext when it's one of their loudest and most chaotic songs in recent memory, but it's just waiting to give you a big hook to sing along with. YUNGBLUD doesn't really detract from the experience. I like to imagine someone who doesn't know his music is hearing the start of his verse and imagining that he's a trap rapper who demands a trap beat under his performance. When he mimics Oli on the pre-chorus, he's pretty impressive though. But yeah, wake up sheeple and all that.

#246. Hayden James (feat GRAACE) - NUMB (#32, 2017)

27th of 2017

I'm not sure how well known or remembered this is, but GRAACE was actually a contestant on Season 4 of The Voice Australia. She didn't get especially far, but as this list may continue to prove, that isn't always a hindrance to future successes. She chose an interesting time to emerge mononymously though. A couple of years prior to this, Australia housed two distinctly different singer-songwriters who went by Grace. Not a big deal, but one of those Graces happened their way onto a #1 hit, and suddenly the other Grace was getting a lot of mistaken messages. The less famous Grace is now R.W. Grace, but then later on, the more famous Grace also changed her name to SAYGRACE. Now we're left with GRAACE as the closest proxy who has steadfastly kept the name for nearly a decade now.

I suppose as a follow up to the Duke Dumont situation, I'm finding it hard to draw the right conclusion with Hayden James. Nothing but the nicest exchanges between him and Boy Matthews, not just about the song he sings on and receives a feature credit for (#401), but also one that he just co-wrote (#624). It's just that if you look at DSPs, you won't find those writing credits there. I don't think it's under dispute or anything, so I don't know why it ended up like this. GRAACE on the other hand has her writing credit locked in, which if anything makes it stand out as more unusual. Good for her. I wouldn't think she ever imagined she'd ever pen a 3xPlatinum hit, so it's important to lock down those royalties.

For me, "NUMB" feels like the natural culmination of Hayden James' sound. It achieves a certain mysterious darkness to it through what sound like conventional tricks initially. Like that rising tension before the chorus, it's just bringing up the background synth to waft a little closer to the surface, while adding and then promptly removing some handclaps. You've likely heard this exact same trick in Flume's remix of "HyperParadise". When the chorus does hit, it feels like the sinister energy has just been displaced onto GRAACE, with her vocals being pitched down. She also starts singing faster and it reminds me a bit of what Kygo tended to do around this time where he'd chop up vocal snippets and create new hooks from them to pretty good effect. GRAACE is pretty clearly speaking full sentences, trying to bargain with the man causing her pain. Just a really strong single that paved the way to his greatest success.