A View From The Top #86

If we posted last week’s View From the Top again word-for-word, would anyone notice? The charts themselves definitely wouldn’t. Despacito (Remix) takes number one, I’m The One has number two, and Strip That Down number three. As far as the top of the pile is looking, there’s still a whole lot of Bieber and Quavo, and I don’t think they’ll be moving around any time soon.

I’m not entirely sure that Strip That Down was necessary, though. The beat is decent, but nothing original. And don’t get me wrong, I love a good tasteless sex track, but this just doesn’t feel that sexy. When Jason Derulo tells you that, “If you’re feeling thirsty / Come on take a sip ‘cause you know what I’m serving,” you might not want a drink but you know damn well that for him happy hour lasts all day. But Liam Payne announcing to the world that he, “Love[s] when you hit the ground, girl / Oh, strip that down, girl,” is hardly convincing. What do you love hitting the ground, Liam? Is he picking apples as they hit the ground, perfect to make into cider for him and the wife? Stripping orchards of their fruit? I honestly can’t think of anything else that it could be. It’s listenable, but not convincing anybody. Swalla is still in the charts, for the record, but has started to slip down. It lost its grip on the top ten, slipping from eight to eleven. I don’t think that will stop it being played at every commercial and R&B night for the next five years though, so nothing to worry about.

It starts to get interesting at number four, where the listening public have decided that the charts will be interrupted for a party political broadcast.

Liar Liar GE17, the anti-Theresa May anthem by Captain SKA, has reached its highest position yet with less than a week to go until the general election. I’m reluctant to stray too far into my personal views (but like, Grime4Corbyn until I die) so will instead look to the numbers. It’s been streamed over 300,000 times and downloaded by 42,000 people, according to NME. Clearly the powers that be are not all too happy about this, considering that it’s been greyed out on the BBC’s online tracklist, only offering a soundbite where every other song in the charts can be played in full.

As for the band themselves, despite being unsigned and compromised of a rotation of freelance session musicians, their place in the top five isn’t undeserved. The track itself is a remix of a song they released in 2010 to protest the hike in tuition fees, which is why it may sound familiar, as it entered the charts then too, though nowhere near as high up.

So that’s the charts: completely stagnant and repetitive, but very concerned with the UK’s political climate. Just like my Facebook feed.