#220-#216

 #220. SAFIA - Listen To Soul, Listen To Blues (#76, 2013)

39th of 2013

There's a definite risk if you're a new artist and you include the name of a genre in your song. You're gonna potentially alienate people from ever listening to it in the first place because it might be selling them something they don't think they want. This gets even worse if it's arguably not even the genre you're getting involved in. That way, all the people who thought they were getting one thing get let down when they instead get another thing. Just best to stay away from the whole concept until you're big enough to get away with it.

I don't know what anyone else's first reaction to SAFIA was, if this was the first song, but I remember being a bit confused by it. It's possible that I was ignorant enough to convince myself that this was something that could be described as soul and/or blues. It wasn't a very immediate song for me and I think that initial bait and switch might have slowed me down on it for a bit. Certainly, there's a soulfulness to Ben's singing, but outside of a shade of sorrow, I don't hear the blues in this.

It's the kind of thing that I think the radio can be very beneficial for. Sometimes the ease at which we can pick and choose what we listen to can make it that we miss out on anything that isn't immediately making its best case. The very fact that something is on the radio means that someone has decided it's worth our time even if we haven't realised it yet, and it'll likely make you hear it enough times to figure out if that's true.

The part of this I've been leaving out until now is that "Listen To Soul, Listen To Blues" takes a big pivot just after the halfway mark. The previously smooth backing just goes completely haywire. With this being SAFIA's first single, it's not clear which part of the song is more representative of their work, but with the gift of hindsight, I think this section is the SAFIA we'd come to know. It would grow to be my favourite part of the song, not for all the wacky sounds, but for the return of the song's chorus. There's this distorted effect they put on Ben's voice that adds some gravitas to what was already a pretty powerful hook. It's clearly the sound of a band in their infancy, but they're willing to try some interesting things, and the only way was up.

#219. Flume (feat Toro y Moi) - The Difference (#3, 2020)

14th of 2020

In what might be the most pointless thing to try to gain hipster cred for, I think I knew about COVID-19 before most people. I wasn't on the scene obviously, but someone I followed on social media was. Throughout December I was getting pretty regular updates on this serious issue that was spreading over China and the seemingly drastic response to something that in hindsight, the world just wasn't ready for. When you look at search trends for it online, it's practically non-existent until 2020, though that might say more about just how incredibly sharp the graph jolts up in March. It seems weird to think that more people weren't looking into it before, but it's easy to not think about something until it's absolutely uprooted your day to day life.

I touched on this a bit with "Sending Me Ur Loving" (#731). That was one of the songs that made it out into the world early on in 2020, one of the last songs to get the full extent of possible attention until the world got concerned with bigger news. You have to feel for the artists and labels who might have had a full rollout planned and then had to restructure everything because suddenly nothing was quite where it used to be. With Flume we've got a prime example. "The Difference" was released on the very same day that COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the WHO. 'Hey guys, check out my new song...oh, fair enough'.

If you look at charts and numbers (and obviously I do), you won't notice a significant change in terms of how the big hits tended to perform at the time. Maybe a slight dip in streaming numbers as it turned out the lack of commuting more than cancelled out the extra time at home in terms of reasons to put music on. I think the main issue was that it completely changed the dynamics of music discovery in a way that made people not really return to the old. I used to get annoyed at my brother if we'd be playing a game, someone would get called off to do something for a minute, and then we'd come back and he wouldn't want to play anymore. Just breaking that enchantment could have permanently kneecapped past promotional avenues like the radio. I'm not about to call "The Difference" a total failure and pin all of it on this, but when you compare it to his other high placing Hottest 100 hits, it didn't really have much to show for it on the charts. Only with hindsight has it held up as one of his biggest hits. More global streams than "Rushing Back" (#619) for instance.

Then again this could be a classic symptom of a hit that plays off better in hindsight. Something like an "On Melancholy Hill" or an "Instant Crush" (#293). Not really playing to the feel of the big hits that came before it, but hitting a sweet sentimental spot that resonates better out of context. The people who are just sampling random music they haven't heard before might get something out of this that the people pining for new Flume could potentially never see.

That's what I like the most about "The Difference". It's a Flume song that doesn't remotely feel like it's just doing his standard affair. He almost removes himself from the song completely without much of a hallmark, outside of the first 5 seconds. This is a drum & bass song that begs for you to run outside to on a hot day. I'd try it myself but it's too hot today. I'll admit I was a little surprised to see it poll so well. Maybe I'm stupid for ever doubting Flume in that regard, but it was a welcome thing to see.

#218. Silk Sonic, Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak - Leave The Door Open (#47, 2021)

10th of 2021

It's always fun when an artist who knows nothing but success collaborates with an artist for whom those heights are a foreign concept. It's an unstoppable object meeting an immovable object. One of your guys has to break your rule! Usually what happens is something that breaks both rules by meeting in the middle to an extent. It can at times be a harsh reminder that as much as you may certainly think your favourite artists just lack the promotional game to get to the top, when they finally get that chance, they're just not famous enough to command the attention of that large majority of an audience that have been keeping them down in the first place. You'd more readily bring Bruno Mars down to Anderson .Paak's level than the other way around, it's just not what he does.

In 2021 we got a terrific demonstration of this all when Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak decided to work together. It added a certain layer of intrigue that opened things up outside of the usual realm of Bruno Mars discussion. I say that thinking that I don't really see much discussion around Bruno Mars albums, despite the fact that he's sold so many of them and even won a GRAMMY for Album Of The Year for one of them. I'm much more likely to see people talk about a new Anderson .Paak album even if he categorically sells less of them and wins less awards. Now those people get to hitch their wagon to a juggernaut and use those numbers to validate the notion that it's a big deal when they do talk about it! In the end, it wasn't quite as successful as the average Bruno Mars album. I like to imagine it's a case of suffering from side project side effects, where there's just generally less imperative to check it out as not part of the mainline series. Maybe it just didn't quite have the hits, to which you might say 'Yes it did', but when you look at Bruno Mars' chart history, you have to remember what you're competing with. This is a man who had not remotely missed the mark once before this.

I mainly say all of this because I think the Silk Sonic project is really good! It's the kind of meeting of minds that works well for both by getting to inject that meeting ground on what both of them tend to do. Maybe you can be cynical and say that it's the kind of project that looks engineered to win GRAMMY awards and then feel alienated by the whole thing, but I hear it as a reward that keeps on giving. It pains me a little that it only comes up just the once on this list because "Smokin Out The Window" was a bonafide hit that's just right there. Evidently the mathematics of audience get even more complicated when you introduce it to the triple j circle, where neither of these artists are particularly notable stars (though Anderson .Paak will certainly appear more times here).

The Billboard charts have a funny tendency to just keep greasing the wheel for a certain handful of stars. From the outside looking in, it just feels like they're ordained the top spot while getting a reality check overseas. Just recently, Bruno Mars has had no issues scoring another #1 hit with "I Just Might". He's thoroughly backed by the machine and has the trust of radio airplay to plug up the shaky streaming figures. Outside of North America though, it feels like a hit that's only riding along because it's one of the few new and notable songs going around at the moment. In any case, I'm also describing a similar situation that happened with "Leave The Door Open", which also had its early week at #1 followed by the secondary week to coincide with better airplay. That one was a little less comfortable though, and resulted in a highly delayed Hot 100 since there had to be fraudulent downloads of Dua Lipa's "Levitating" removed from the count. None of that is on Bruno Mars or Silk Sonic, except to say that this collaboration was putting a strain on that guaranteed feeling of taking the top spot.

I'm also not going to knock it because I think "Leave The Door Open" is great. It's one of the best produced hit songs I've ever heard. Sounding smooth like a new born, or in a way that I feel like I'm going to be asked to leave quietly without making a fuss. Bruno Mars is still the star of the show, and I think does a lot to add to his own stocks when he shows off his vocal chops here. Usually he's the kind of performer that doesn't warrant a lot of comment, but his performance on this song is stellar. As for Anderson .Paak, he slips into the whole thing so naturally as if to make a case that he should be more of a star. I mean, I'd thought that for a long time already, but that's a topic for later entries. This is the kind of nostalgic throwback that is so well crafted that I can't help but fall for it. It's not good in a boring technical way, but in an 'I didn't realise how badly I wanted this' kind of way. Just absolutely puts me in a good mood.

#217. Tame Impala - Patience (#52, 2019)

16th of 2019

Still mining the well here. Something I always find interesting is the way the Hottest 100 preserves a state of time. The way we look at a lot of music can change over time. We can gain new insight that increases or decreases their worth to us. I heard an interesting quote recently about how we instinctively look for things that have been said before and try to find a way to level ourselves above us, in the abstract sense of either superiority or progress. Sometimes it'll be completely contradictory to reality. 'Why wasn't this song a bigger hit?' I say to myself while ignoring the fact that I was one of the people being a barrier to its success by not buying into it right away.

Going back to the original point though, Tame Impala's performance in the 2019 Hottest 100 remains locked in place. It's not changing, unless that one guy who keeps editing the 2013 & 2014 Wikipedia pages increases his scope. It leaves us with "Patience", the first new Tame Impala song since "Currents", nearly 4 years ago at that point. So many big accolades to come with it. It was nominated for multiple ARIA Awards, it was the first Tame Impala song to crack the UK top 100, named on multiple year end lists (including my own). This is a crazy amount of attention for a song that ended up tucked away on  "The Slow Rush B-Sides & Remixes". We did not know when "Patience" came out that it would never end up on the album proper, unless you count the Japanese bonus track, or one physical box set. Maybe the Hottest 100 performance really is an early reflection of it. Imagine a Tame Impala lead single not even cracking the top 50. You've got to scrub that immediately, the classic 'promo single' pivot that implicitly implies fans have to really do the work if they want the songs they like to get the proper treatment (except not so forcefully as to make it happen). Now it just feels like a random Tame Impala song that got in because it was one of three Tame Impala songs that were around in 2019 (well, four, but "Posthumous Forgiveness" was in December).

It's hard for me to not want to self-correct in the wake of this. I look at the way I responded to it initially and start to wonder if I'd ever give it the same time if it were just an album track. We're looking at the last gasp before Tame Impala fatigue started to set in and I look positively generous looking back. But then I want to cite "No Choice" (#307) and just contend with the idea that maybe this still is one of the best Tame Impala songs from this period. Maybe it's not really re-inventing the wheel, but the reverberated piano filling out the mix is positively striking. Then it's just the usual hallmarks. You've got drums that seem to splash, and all those mini odysseys where Kevin changes his inflection. It's definitely a little brother to that other Tame Impala song, but still worthwhile in a pinch.

#216. Boy & Bear - Southern Sun (#41, 2013)

38th of 2013

The locked in history can work both ways. For every hit that doesn't stand the test of time, there's one that probably should've been a hit but just wasn't really. You look at the performance of "Southern Sun" circa 2013 and it's just a modest comedown after their mighty success a couple of years ago. Still a hit to some degree, but one that comes off as a sophomore slump. Anyway, I don't know if you've kept track of things but it's absolutely Boy & Bear's most popular song now. All that says to me is that they just weren't allowed to keep the gravy train rolling into the future. Seemingly there isn't a song they could've put out that would've kept them at the top. It's why I do like to prioritise long time success. That's where the platinum certifications are hiding at least. "Southern Sun" is up to 3xPlatinum so far, which ties it with their cover of "Fall At Your Feet". I'm sure they'd probably prefer it if their own song is the one that goes the distance, given they implied as much when "Feeding Line" got their highest Hottest 100 position in 2011.

When I saw Boy & Bear live a couple of years back, it was a tour for the anniversary of their second album. They played every song on it, some for the first time in many years. I quickly also cottoned onto the fact that they were playing the whole thing in track list order. It's a cute, sensible idea in theory, but probably in practice isn't the most satisfying. The three most popular songs on the album are tracks 1-3. Maybe you've got some favourites on the back end but it's a long time to go without big highlights. This is how I also quickly realised that they were cheating on this system, and deliberately saved "Southern Sun" for last, so they could go out on a high, before coming back for several more highs when they brought out all the expected favourites that aren't on that album. It was quite peculiar though to see the reaction. Such a loud reaction for such an unassuming song. Maybe it's just a numbers game but funny how it works out like that.

There's an odd set up to this song though. A brisk walk the whole way, but with unusual moments to lift. You can't tell if the chorus is supposed to be the hook, or it's the nifty little guitar getting its moment afterwards instead. Generally stays at one pace almost the whole way until you get one of the great bridges. Maybe I'm doing it backwards as it's probably cooled off on me a little over the years, but hard to say it doesn't succeed in its mission.