22 November 2019 [Content warning: self-harm] Combine the intensity of electronic music, the intensity of teenage feelings, and the intensity of a subdued vocal delivery: that's already quite intense. Add the lyrical themes of unhappiness, world-weariness and terminal self-harm, and 'Everything I Wanted' becomes more intense again. The video below is audio only with a … Continue reading Billie Eilish – ‘Everything I Wanted’ →

8 November 2019 'Don't Start Now' is a strange track. Its chorus is its least engaging and impressive part: terse and choppy, as if Dua Lipa is reading a list of bullet points in a PowerPoint presentation. You'll remember that this is similar to the chorus of her first number one, 'New Rules', though that … Continue reading Dua Lipa – ‘Don’t Start Now’ →

1 November 2019 How much does pop culture in general affect pop music in particular? I ask because the incidental soundscape and intimate tones of 'Lose You To Love Me' feel emblematic of the new social media age of personal-content selfies and online self-help, to be consumed individually in private. (A decade earlier, this track … Continue reading Selena Gomez – ‘Lose You To Love Me’ →

25 October 2019 Did 'Dance Monkey' serve as aversion therapy by somehow flushing a taste for bad hits out of our systems? My recollection of the late-2019 and 2020 charts is of, if not quite a mini golden age, then a notable post-'Dance Monkey' uptick in quality from that particular low and the generally dreary, … Continue reading Regard – ‘Ride It’ →

30 August 2019 Gotye, Iggy Azalea, Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP, Sia... the '10s brought us a clutch of fleeting and idiosyncratic chart-topping acts from Australia. Now here, in the final year of the decade, is the most fleeting and idiosyncratic of the lot, with perhaps the most divisive track of all. Today's globalised online … Continue reading Tones And I – ‘Dance Monkey’ →

28 June 2019 Time was, Kylie and Jason could sing a chart-topping romantic duet in the afterglow of a ratings-smash TV marriage and we'd all enthusiastically go: "Are they? Aren't they? Of course they are!" Today, in our cynical Internet age, such a scenario would be immediately dismissed as a celebrity fauxmance. That was the … Continue reading Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello – ‘Señorita’ →

17 May 2019 Ed Sheeran spoke publicly in 2019 about suffering from social anxiety, the explicitly-stated theme of 'I Don't Care'. If the song helps you process or manage social anxiety too, or gets you through a challenging occasion, that's fair enough. I won't snark on you or this harmless track, in which the two … Continue reading Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber – ‘I Don’t Care’ →

10 May 2019 Lewis Capaldi's second chart-topping single within two months, and with another to follow by the end of the year, means he dominates the Irish number one spot in 2019 the way Ed Sheeran did in 2017. That's the only direct comparison I'll make between the two; Capaldi's more robust songs and style … Continue reading Lewis Capaldi – ‘Hold Me While You Wait’ →

12 April 2019 For chart stat purposes, the 'Old Town Road' that went to number one in Ireland is the solo Lil Nas X one. The well-known version with Billy Ray Cyrus, video and all, may have helped drive the song's popularity and topped the US charts, but in Ireland is considered a remix that … Continue reading Lil Nas X – ‘Old Town Road’ →

1 March 2019 I have a bit of time for Lewis Capaldi. He clearly has a sense of humour; the video for his 2022 single 'Forget Me' is an unlikely shot-for-shot recreation of the video for Wham!'s 'Club Tropicana'. He's had to deal with a crushing public episode of mental health difficulties while onstage at … Continue reading Lewis Capaldi – ‘Someone You Loved’ →