A View From The Top #42

It seems like a lot has significantly changed over these past 15 weeks. This time has seen the UK voting to leave the EU, the resignation of one Prime Minister and then the fully completed appointment of another. Pokemon Go has taken over the world, Wimbledon has been and gone, and Taylor Swift has been ‘exposed’. Most of us have been back from University for a pretty solid amount of time, and many of us have even graduated.

Yet One Dance is still number one.

Everything I could possibly say about this song has already been said – from Kate’s spot-on analysis of the effect of streaming on the UK charts last week, to Jess struggling to see how it made it to the top of the charts the first week it was up there. “Let us hope that One Dance is only here for one week.” she said, echoing the vast majority of our naive thoughts.

With the past 15 weeks in mind, I’ve come to the decision that I’m simply going to ignore One Dance for now (and as long as possible), and focus on the rest of the charts instead. If you ignore a problem for long enough it eventually goes away, right?

At number two is Perfect Strangers by Jonas Blue featuring JP Cooper. The first time I heard this song, I thought it was the ideal summer track. Chilled vocals, a cool pop-house beat and a catchy chorus. It nails the ‘summer vibe’ down to a T. It’s also a welcome second release from Jonas Blue, who made the biggest mess of Tracy Chapman’s beautiful Fast Car as their debut single. Having said that however, I think there have definitely been better summer releases in the past – some can even found lower down in the charts. It’s nothing ground-breaking but I can certainly see why it appeals to the British public, especially with the heat we’ve had this week.

These more impressive summer songs are, as expected, peppered throughout the charts. Don’t Let Me Down by The Chainsmokers sits at number three, whilst This Girl by Kung vs Cookin’ On 3 Burners can be found at number five. I can’t pinpoint exactly why I prefer these songs to Perfect Strangers, but I’ve definitely found myself pressing play on them a lot more frequently. They’re the type of songs which you can imagine hearing at a club, but can also be played at a beach or a barbecue without seeming out of place.

My favourite song for this summer can actually be found at number seven. Sitting in the charts for its 12th week, Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s (and Taylor Swift’s) This Is What You Came For has been around for almost as long as One Dance. For obvious reasons it is particularly reminiscent of the duo’s previous release, We Found Love, but in my opinion betters it because of the more chilled out, house influenced feel. Recently, aside from the (unnecessary) drama regarding Taylor Swift’s input to the song, there has been a lot of criticism about the ‘over processing’ of Rihanna’s vocals. Whilst I don’t generally agree with the use of auto-tune, I don’t think there is anything wrong with mixing vocals to fit more with the song. The more electronic sound definitely agrees with the rest of the track, with the beat and vocals working together nicely.

There is a selection of great summer songs found throughout the charts this week, so please, let’s stop listening to One Dance now.