Now THAT'S What I Call Music! Vol. 74: A Review

 

Hello and welcome to a different kind of episode of Drink The Fire Hose.  I guess we're going to extremes, because last episode, I reviewed nine projects, and this week, we're here to look at...one.

This is going to be a track by track breakdown of a compilation, and a more than slightly off the pulse look at mainstream music in general.  Buckle your seatbelts, because here's a dive into:

Now THAT'S What I Call Music! Vol. 74

So.  I went down a rabbit hole during quarantine and figured out that for the 2010's, most years the #1 song on Billboard was a song I liked for more than half the year.  Like 38 weeks one year, some other number for another...I only realized this because in 2019 "Old Town Road" and "Truth Hurts" were #1 for more than half the year combined just by themselves.  So it got me to thinking....

Do I like pop music now?

Well, yeah.  I have for awhile, but like, do I like mainstream music in general?  That's a tougher question to answer because things are more niche than they seem.  Also, going back to "Old Town Road" specifically, genre is kind of passé.  My dream 20 years ago of embracing amalgamy has come to pass, but wow does it not sound anything like I thought it would.  Mainly cuz back in 2001 I was in a painfully white exurb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and didn't have an internet connection in my house, so I was...culturally starved, shall we say.  I didn't have access to different viewpoints.

I also didn't realize (nor did anybody), that file sharing and streaming after it were gonna break down everybody's pre-conceived genre barriers and it would become okay to listen to a little bit of everything.  As a result, people broadened their horizons more and tried music they wouldn't have even heard of a decade or two prior.

But in the mainstream we also got the dreaded "MONOGENRE": aka Imagine Dragons Syndrome.  Artist and labels determined to tick every box and please as many people as they can to get the highest market penetration they can, appealing to the lowest common denominator in the process and risking backlash because the results usually end up disposable and/or annoying.

Weirdly enough, this compilation doesn't really have that problem.  There are hybridizations: country not sounding like country, trap that has emo et cetera.  But they don't really mush into the goop that some charting hits tend to do; not for the most part anyway.

I guess the only other thing to discuss before we get started is...

Why the hell are they still doing these?

Now That's What I Call Music! started in November of 1983 in England, with hits such as "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", "Too Shy", "Down Under", "Karma Chameleon" and "The Safety Dance".  It did incredibly well in that country for decades, and led to expansion into Asia in 1995, and then the U.S. in 1998.  Right in the middle of the halcyon days of Total Request Live, you could now buy a corporate-approved soundtrack to the movement.

But what does Now! matter twenty-two years removed from that?  Music in the American market has been primarily consumed by streaming for around five years now.  And these compilations come out six months after the songs were on the charts in a lot of cases.  Most listeners are already done with them by then.  They're onto the next playlist.  Maybe it's a royalties workaround that keeps them in business, but you'd think they would have tried to get into the playlist game themselves.

Whether or not it still makes sense, it's still here, so let's take a track by track look at what passed for popular music in the half a year before the pandemic hit:

1. Lizzo "Good As Hell"

The song is edited, so there's that.  Look, I think Lizzo's a national treasure, so if you want to put any of her songs into rotation, go right the fuck ahead!  I'm here for it.  And this one is a banger.  (Not to be confused with Lizzobangers, her first album.  This was three years after that, and three years before it became popular...)  Lizzo's path to success is as unique as her presence is.  I'm really glad so see her finally get her come up.

2. "Dance Monkey" Tones and I

I don't hate it as much as I used to, but her voice is an extremely acquired taste.  I can understand the appeal of this song, yet at the same time hear why somebody would want to claw their cochlea out after hearing it more than once.  The video didn't help either; Kenny Rogers Jackass was 20 years ago; let it rest.  But I guess it's all supposed to be in your face in a landscape full of songs designed to be unobtrusive so I have to give it some points.

3. "Blinding Lights" The Weeknd

Facts about this song: It had two separate two week runs at #1, It's still in the top ten as of this recording, and it was the theme song to Wrestlemania 36.  It's one of The Weeknd's better songs, devoid of the molasses slow pace or terrible puns that hamstring most of his deeper cuts.  He doesn't put a lot of power into the vocal, but that helps bring across the melancholy and possible hangover soaking through his being.  I can dig this one.

4. "ROXANNE" Arizona Zervas

This was a top ten hit for quite a while.  It's nothing revelatory, but it has a hook.  Even if it got played to shit, it's inoffensive enough it might hold up better than something more distinct like "No Guidance" or YK Osiris or something.  And there's kind of a story to the song, so it has more substance than the average pop rap track; low bar, I know, but it's something.

5. "BOP" DaBaby

Deliberately distorted bass makes this sound out of place on a squeaky clean comp like Now 74.  It's also lyrically a lot tougher than the surrounding material.  It's ALSO not even from the album he's got out now, but from the one that came out the previous September.  So like...I don't know, maybe it's perfect since a time capsule from March of this year would seem so foreign to us now that being unable to keep up with the frequency of DaBaby's output is a deft, albeit accidental representation by the NOW series of the speed of the times we live in.

6. "Yummy" Justin Bieber

One of the worst songs of the year.  Yes, the video makes it feel douchier and that's not quite fair to the music itself, but I don't feel like I need to be fair to a song like "Yummy".  There's also plenty wrong with it that has nothing to do with the visuals, like all the stereotypical rap cliches he throws in the lyrics and the syllable placement that make it sound exceedingly artificial.  Thing is, if this does make the worst list it shows it was a good year because there are reasonably well executed harmonies in the song, but they're in service of something so transparently fucking hollow that any points this song can accrue in its favor are undone.  Pass on this one every day of the week.

7. "Know Your Worth" Disclosure

Never heard this one before.  It's not bad, has a bounce, the voice is not the best, but it's not the worst either, so that makes it stand out more.  I half expected with the opening key lick for this to turn into a reggaeton song on the drop, but it's a laid back club funk jam.  Reminds me of Khalid...oh wait, that is Khalid.  Fucking Google Play.  Don't know if I'll miss you or not, since I haven't checked how bad YouTube music is yet.  It doesn't even list the feature artist.  I like Khalid just fine, and this is a decent song for him to sing over.  Lyrics are positive and encouraging.  I guess I'd hang onto this one.

8. "South Of The Border" Ed Sheeran, Camila Cabello & Cardi B

Yyyyeah...I never need to hear Ed Sheeran say "Te yamo mami" ever again.  And I never need to hear Camila Cabello sing again either.  Cardi B does the one trick she knows by rapping about the same thing she always raps about: material wealth.  Oh and Ed Sheeran's "Jungle Fever".  The hook isn't the worst, but the rest of the song sinks itself by ramming too many mines bow first.

9. "everything i wanted" Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish is an artist that I respect but don't listen to myself.  She's doing something pretty different, she deserves the recognition and success she has, but her reliance on the maudlin is not for me.  I like her new song "My Future" for what it's worth.  And this one is decent enough.  The hook is a nice build that fills things out and the lyrics, despite being territory trod on by rock and pop stars for half a century now, don't feel worn out, maybe because of the context they're placed in.

This is one of her better songs.  I can kind of dig it.  What I really want to hear are Billie Eilish's third and fourth albums.  That's where she'll really come into her own.  And the fourth album is usually the experimental one, so imagine what she's doing now and then picture what a 90 degree left turn from there might sound like.  I personally can't wait.

10. "hot girl bummer" blackbear

Okay, we've found the worst thing on here.  And that's having never heard 11 out of the remaining 12 tracks.  I'm calling it right here.  This is annoying in a way the constant cadence of the raps won't let me think about long enough to convey properly.  But if you're trying to use words like convey....or think....you're listening to the wrong shit anyway.  "We Go Stupid" is repeated a lot and it's a badge of honor.  That can be endearing in the right setting, but the rest of the lyrics are douchey in a Hollywood Hills Jake Paul kind of way that throws that right the fuck out the window and lands it in a pool with two or three models that are only there because they're paid to be.  Fuck this noise.

11. "Rare" Selena Gomez

Wasn't expecting Selena Gomez to try and make a Tame Impala song, but here we are.  And it goes maybe a scotch better than you'd expect that too.  This song is reasonably decent, better than your average radio hit, but it's not setting my world on fire or anything.  Wouldn't mind hearing it again, but wouldn't mourne if it disappeared either.

12. "My Oh My" Camila Cabello & DaBaby

The only reason this got put out as a single is it has like six bars from DaBaby on it.  This is not a song that screams single, and as a result it's kind of interesting.  Not necessarily good, but honestly this is one of Camila's least annoying vocal performances.

13. "Say So" Doja Cat

If this wasn't produced by the man who literally raped Kesha, this might have made my top 20 songs of the year list.  It's a damn shame about that and that Doja Cat's own bizarre online past kind of got tied to this otherwise sublime funk jam.  Okay, the rap verse is sort of cloying.  And like, no wonder Nicki Minaj is on the remix: it's a complete ripoff of her flow.  What makes all of this even more of a crime is this song is even better Screwed and Chopped; I saw somebody on Twitter post a version with some quick animation they'd done and it was gorgeous.  But...I think ultimately I have to give it a pass.  Separating art from artist isn't possible for me in music.

14. "Falling" Trevor Daniel

A song that will be forgotten (and probably already is, since I've never even heard of it in spite of watching Billboard Breakdown every week), for emo trap this is really sanitized; really polished.  Most of the punk appeal that catapulted the genre to the forefront is sanded off in favor of marketability, and as a result, this is the least distinct thing on here.  Pass.

15. "Sometimes" H.E.R.

Guitar?  Okay.  Tuned to D, no less?  All right.  Points for being different.  The vocal delivery's a little stereotypical for R&B, but not offensively so.  She's only trying to bend every line-ending syllable into seven notes instead of fifty, so eh.  It's a breath of fresh air with more organic sounding instruments and organic singing.  It sounds like a throwback to like 1997-2003 in that respect.  But really if I'd heard this outside of the context of a hit package in 2020, it wouldn't have caught my ear at all.

16. "The Bones" Maren Morris

Only Country by the technicality of being a "Country" artist by label.  Otherwise it's American Idol core soft rock.  The shining example of the Monogenre I discussed in the opening.  Kind of the only one I can think of, to be honest; this compilation has been pretty varied all in all.  Pleasant surprise.

17. "True Believer" Brett James

I...assume this is a country song too?  Raspy voice and a guitar, but lumped in with pop music so it can't be indie...But no twang at all.  Fifteen years ago, this would have been VH1-Core.  MiniVan Rock.  But now it's...Country?  Because that's the only genre you can still chart singles in that still uses guitar?  That's a weak excuse.  And also a weak song.  It's better than a lot of Dianne Warren-esque ballads of its ilk, but not memorable in the slightest.

18. "Make You Mine" (Radio Edit) PUBLIC

Oh hey.  Pop rock.  They still make this?  Drums are a little more complex than I expected: a kick roll going into the first verse?  But the chorus reminds me of a lot of the songs I heard on the AM Gold comp I randomly got out of a grabbag last year from 1974.  It's saccarine enough to rot xenomorph teeth.  But it's got enough modern indie sheen on it that beginners just tuning into that genre might get tricked into listening to this.

19. "makeup drawer" Isaac Dunbar

Fuck is this?  Was dude so stuck for love song inspiration he tried to make makeup drawer a metaphor for...something...I don't know what the fuck is happening here, and I don't really care because the sound of the song is trash.  Random autotune in the pre-chorus and vocal manipulation to match is really last decade.  Skip this one.

20. "Over Him" Evie Irie

This sounds like a throwaway pop rock song from the late 2000's.  There's not much to it, but it's got a little bit of enthusiasm in the vocals at least.  Then the bridge does the same vocal manipulation "makeup drawer" did and whatever.

21. "Alaska" Little Hurt

This reminds me of the band Fidlar, but more pop friendly.  It's built on an indie rock skeleton and it sounds like it's trying to imitate some of its big brother's attitude, but it winds up precious instead of threatening.  The lyrics are some of the best on the disc because the idea that shit is so lame you have to move to Alaska and don a disguise is at least novel.

22. "Sunday Best" Surfaces

I really don't get why Spectrum Pulse hates this as much as he does.  When Mark had to mention it on Billboard Breakdown, he got vehement about its success and gleeful at its downfall.  This song is one of the best on here, honestly.  It's got groove, it's got latin piano and booming bass, it's an unassuming song about wearing nice gear to the function...I can understand it not being your thing, but actively, openly despising it?  I don't get it.  This song goes on the playlist.