At #5 on this week’s Billboard chart is the unexpected collaboration between Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney. How cool that Macca is charting for a whole new generation more than 50 years after The Beatles reigned.
‘FourFiveSeconds’ is an acoustic country folk pop song that features a great vocal by Rihanna, who isn’t exactly known for her great vocals. The song has a rawness that works for her and works in general.
Two songs in the current Billboard Top Ten are from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, making that franchise a hit on the page, on screen and through your speakers.
Not bad for something that started out as Twilight fanfic. It’s either an inspiring story about the creative triumph of a superfan or a sign of the apocalypse.
In Billboard’s third spot this week is Maroon 5 with ‘Sugar.’ This is the eighth straight single the band has landed in the top ten.
More interesting than the song, which is a highly enjoyable pop soul confection, is the music video. Adam Levine recruited Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin to film the band crashing a series of weddings on a single day in Los Angeles.
At #2 on the latest Billboard Hot 100 is Ed Sheeran with ‘Thinking Out Loud.’ It’s an appropriate selection for St. Patrick’s Day given Sheeran’s leprechaun-like appearance.
Like yesterday’s SOTD, ‘Uptown Funk,’ this is a track my younger daughter latched on to earlier this year and played to death. But while I like the song well enough, it hasn’t grown on me the way ‘Funk’ has.
Two and a half months into 2015, I’m kicking off my first installment of ‘What are the Kids Listening To?,’ wherein I feature ten songs ranking high on Billboard’s Hot 100.
A glance at the chart reveals that the music business is a lot like the movie business, in that the first quarter of the year is sloooow. Most of the songs atop the Hot 100 are from 2014.
