Monthly Archives: August 2018

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Song of the Day #3,685: ‘Sad!’ – XXXTENTACION

In the eighth and ninth spots on the latest Billboard Hot 100 are two songs I’ve already featured: Ariana Grande’s ‘No Tears Left to Cry‘ and Post Malone’s ‘Psycho.’ The Grande track is, of course, a banger.

Rounding out the top ten is a song that made a huge leap on the charts for a not-so-great reason. Rapper XXXTENTACION’s ‘Sad!’ jumped from #52 to #1 after his murder by two masked men on June 18. He became the first artist to score a #1 hit posthumously since the Notorious B.I.G. did it in 1997 with ‘Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems.’

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Song of the Day #3,684: ‘You’re Breakin’ My Heart’ – Harry Nilsson

Harry Nilsson’s Son of Schmilsson was released in 1972, a follow-up to the prior year’s Nilsson Schmilsson, his biggest commercial hit. This album was more experimental and risky than its predecessor.

A case in point is today’s jaunty SOTD, ‘You’re Breakin’ My Heart,’ which could have been a hit had it not opened with the lines “You’re breaking my heart, you’re tearing it apart, so fuck you.” Nearly 40 years later, in a much different era, Cee-Lo Green found success with a similar sentiment.

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Song of the Day #3,683: ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ – Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet

‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ is a track from Elvis Costello’s 1993 album The Juliet Letters, a song cycle for voice and strings recorded with The Brodsky Quartet.

I try to imagine crowds watching Costello in his young punk days belting out ‘Pump It Up’ and then immediately fast-forwarding to this, or his classic country album, or his collaboration with Burt Bacharach. The man has certainly carved out a unique career path.

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Song of the Day #3,682: ‘Lucid Dreams’ – Juice WRLD

Guess who has the #6 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 this week? If you said Drake, you win a prize! ‘God’s Plan’ is his third track in the top six. I featured it a couple of months back.

At #7 is Juice WRLD with ‘Lucid Dreams,’ a heartbreak song driven by a sample of Sting’s ‘Shape of My Heart.’ Or, as Juice WLRD put it, “my producer Nick Mira used a sample from the band Sting, and I was like ‘Wow, I gotta really take off on this.'”

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Song of the Day #3,681: ‘Boo’d Up’ – Ella Mai

Drake makes his second appearance in the top five with ‘Nice For What,’ a song I’ve already featured (the last time I looked at the charts). That song, like Maroon 5’s ‘Girls Like You,’ features a video full of cameos by female celebrities.

At #5 is a female on her way to becoming famous enough to appear in one of those videos. Ella Mai, an English singer-songwriter, is the first woman since Beyoncé (in 2012) to top the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop, R&B/Hip-Hop and Adult R&B charts.

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