A View From The Top #49

*Turns to camera* … I had a lot of questions.

First of all, who is to blame for this loop? This one is easy. It’s Spotify, really, but the users of Spotify more so. However, not everyone that uses Spotify to stream music is content to see their streaming figures count towards such terrible music charting for weeks or months at a time. My next question, therefore, is, who are these people who are happy to stream the same song many times in a day, only to hear it everywhere they go, and consider it old within just months of its release? God knows, EDM is not progressing fast enough for people’s lack of patience for new club songs to actually be reasonable, and really, for anyone who knows anything about music, modern pop’s progress and growth rate can barely be charted. So yet again, we have teens, tweens, and pre-pubescents to thank for Chainsmokers’ ascent to the top spot.

My next question was: does this song seem, as number ones have seemed unfailingly for years now, like it was written in mere minutes? Closer is as jam packed with petty deepisms and frivolous night life clichés as the next chart topper. Its deployment of the sentimental live-laugh-love mood is lyrically a lazy move. “We ain’t ever getting older” - yeah that’s great, modern pop, but let’s turn the record over now. Meanwhile, its opening lines seem to hint at a grapple with substance abuse – “I drink too much, and that’s an issue / But I’m okay”. This idea is never revisited despite being the lyric with the most potential for development. It ends up being merely a throwaway line - not exactly The Needle And The Damage Done guys, but hey, who needs good music these days when we’ve got Cold Water and #Selfie?

Now, for the sake of sounding well balanced and acting as if I am capable of seeing this clichéd mush as anything but the death of creativity in popular music, I will now ask my final question - is there anything worth commending this song for? Objectively, the song is catchy in places. Also, working with Halsey as opposed to the very lazy move of collab-ing with someone who’s already proven their pop chops is nice to see. However, music needs more than this, to be completely honest. Frankly, I find it difficult to comprehend that three people earning as much as Chainsmokers and Halsey do can think that this song was worth putting out.

So. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: when I realised I’d entered an endless pop music time loop - *turns to camera* I had a lot of questions.