Chart Round-Up – 17 November 2013

Dance hits continue to top the charts

Riding upon the #1 success of Storm Queen’s dance hit ‘Look Right Through’ last week, Garrix’s dance floor smash breaks the spell of the John Lewis Christmas magic and beats Lily Allen to the number one spot (though Keane’s original has crept back into the Top 40 9 years after its release at number 29).

New entries

Lady Gaga makes another disappointing entry into the singles chart at number 9, which is a shame as ‘Do What You Want’ is a return to the proper catchy tunes of previous albums. Still at least ARTPOP is number 1 in the album chart –  all is not lost, let’s not eject GaGa into space just yet. Canadian Queen-of-Ballads, Celine Dion makes a return with her highest charting single in the UK in over a decade at number 14 with yet another Sia Furler penned hit ‘Loved Me Back To Life’.

Best Song: Youth – Foxes – beautiful shimmering electro-pop at its finest with a superb vocal and melody from this Rudimental vocalist. Not to be confused with Ylvis ‘The Fox’ which was a contender for Worst Song…

Worst song:  All Bad – Justin Bieber – Another dull single in a string of generic hits from Justin Bieber, securing his sixth top 40 hit in as many weeks All Bad. Someone needs to tell this boy quantity doesn’t mean quality.

Little Mix – Move

Vying its way for the number one spot in this week’s Official Chart is Little Mix’s ‘Move’. Little Mix have said that their second studio album includes songs “we wrote pretty much ourselves”. AHEM. So by “pretty much” they mean with the help of vocal coach Maegan Cottone and producer Nathan Duvall. Anyway…

‘Move’ is jam packed with lots of little hooks, but seems to lack a clearly defined chorus. It’s as if someone threw together the best bits of 6 different songs to get a rather tasty bag of mixed nuts. The hook that kicks in over rising octave jumps on  bass synth (sung by Perrie Edwards, the blonde one) is especially brilliant.

The track sounds like a hotchpotch of every girl band song from the last two decades whilst not sounding out of place in today’s chart. There’s everything: a noughties Girls Aloud club vibe, Lady Marmalade-esque vocal harmonised riffs, and even a shouty ‘Hey! Hey!’ Irish jig section at the end that could have been plucked straight out of a B*witched single.

Lyrically there are some gems ‘Feeling like it’s my birthday, like Christmas day came early’ (it rhymes if you pronounce it earl-ay’). Plus they’ve quite cleverly positioned themselves as a girl, waiting to be approached by a man, while still being an assertive independent women but not appearing in any way slutty. Well done everyone.

Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball

Before we get started, we’re not even touching on the whole video scandal. Let’s just focus on the song (this is a songwriting blog after all). Interestingly on an album titled BANGERZ, the song that stands out is a bonafide ballad. Writing and production for ‘Wrecking Ball’ was headed up by Dr Luke, Cirkut and a team of super-songwriters Sacha Skarbek, Stephan Moccio, and Maureen Anne McDonald.

Hooky from the get-go, the verse melodies bounce up and down playfully. The bridge introduces a beautiful descending melody that dramatically winds down to a complete halt, setting up the chorus to sound even bigger (as if it wasn’t humungous enough already).

Production, as is always best with a ballad, is kept tastefully minimal. Ebbing keyboards gently surround the anguished vocals, subtly doubling the melody in the bridge. No drums until the chorus, all very restrained, and that is what allows the song to shine.

But what really sets ‘Wrecking Ball’ apart is the lyrical content. I mean WHAT a metaphor. So simple, but so perfect at putting the idea across that love can smash you into a million pieces.  Totally one of those wish-I-thought-of-it moments.