Last December, in a piece for the Rock & Roll Globe, I surmised that the wave of nouveau protest-rock which arose in the wake of (but did little to temper) Trump Epoch I might find a more effective correlative in the proudly queer girlypop-pop which reigned (but still lost to the boys) in last year’s lead-up to Trump Epoch II. Thrashing and crowing about how awful things are is one way to fight; fizzing and enthusing about how fun things are if you just say fuck it and be yourself is probably a better one. But we’re between album cycles for the big gay three (Charli, Chappell, Billie), and while 2024’s other cultural triumph proved an ace dragonslayer, after his riveting but less efficacious Super Bowl victory lap, Dot’s returned his focus to “big me” — a well-earned, but inconvenient (if not outright disappointing), outcome.
What we’re left with on the ground, under our relentless avalanche of stressors (not linking to any horrors but yes I’m talkin bout the daily news), are the long aftereffects of these moments, and variously welcome portents of a distressingly unclear popular musical future. With the most exciting parts of the Now drifting into history, and the New at a decreasing degree of shock, a smear of post-holiday doldrums are in soft full swing. Nothing in the major pop rotations feels as pertinent or necessary as, say, Bob Dylan’s 62-year-old “Talking World War III Blues”, and for a generation “Bob Dylan” will now call to mind Timothee Chalamet’s (Bob-sanctioned) cipheric cutie pie. I can’t knock a movie I haven’t seen, but if there’s no scene of Beaujolais-addled Zim dicking through “Motorpsycho Nitemare”, then it’s an all too incomplete unknown for me.
Readers (all five) of the tumblr edition of this blog — at thirteen posts in two years growing at a Kendrickian clip – know from its compulsive occasional autobiographic passages that my attention to the charts will never be the obsession that fulfilled and frustrated my late, great old pop partner Tim. (Gratefully thriving other bff Amanda: “he wanted to make sense of them.”) Yet I too find myself preoccupied by the pop the American public is electing — obviously it beats the fucker in charge, and when it doesn’t offer assurances of sanity, it’s at least batshit in an edifying way. For an artist, Tim was half a numbers guy; we proudly shared an indifference to sports, but chart analysis is one quirk away from fantasy football. And Billboard was too quirky even for my man. When he wanted to hear today’s top hits, Timbo would turn to Spotify’s.
Over at Whitburn’s Pride, the turnaround is much more tortoise-paced, though there are few unfamiliars on today’s TTH. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (good), “Beautiful Things” (sure) and “Lose Control” (OK already) are straight male inescapables still hanging on in the upper 20 of the Hot 100. From the same demographic, Morgan Wallen always seems to do better on Billboard than the chart we’ll be drawing from today, the latter of which I ought to clarify for those not in the know is global, not national (Wallen currently has lower showings on Spotify’s Hot Hits USA). Where I’m encouraged is that the egregiously agreeable avec-Post Malone blockbuster “I Had Some Help” has now been joined by something called “I’m the Problem”, whose title, at least, fixes the prior smash’s prob in one fell swoop, nailing Wallen’s whole career’s foremost issue.
Meanwhile, a disgraced ex-Degrassi star has mustered the audacity to show his face again, if not on his new album’s cover art. Drake’s long players have been locks for #1 on Billboard for longer than Elton John enjoyed that luxury; I’m sure he took some pleasure in unseating GNX for one of the two nonconsecutive weeks his nemesis’ shower and grower of a skill-measuring contest entrant filled the top slot. But we all know none of its too many songs will have the stamina of last summer’s nail in his primacy’s coffin. And while “Nokia” is at #11 on the Hot 100 (#29 on TTH), Dreezy’s fixers are still no match for whoever’s banding together to keep the still-delicious “Not Like Us” in the top tier. And all but Charli of the Great Girlypop Quartet are still in both top 20s — our country may never outrun “Pink Pony Club”, and good for us.
At the top of Today’s Top Hits, and the Hot 100’s runner-up, is the deathless “Die With a Smile”, the wooziest valentine of the current “slowburn waltz” craze. Dame Gaga is mounting a comeback effort, partying like it’s 2009 — you may have noticed the campy double intonation of the syllable “ga” on your local media machine. My take on Gaga is controversial among most queerfolk, whom one should always listen to: that her talent is more for smoke and mirrors than music (though the lady can still sing). “Die With a Smile” is like a lot of her big non-album moves, by which I mean most of them, in that it’s surprisingly normie, and I don’t see it as a good sign that it wasn’t supposed to go on Mayhem but ended up there. More on her later — if the world was ending, which it is, I’d rather die in those blue suits than this blockbuster’s wearisome echo chamber.
Cruising in at #2 is a new drop from BLACKPINK’s JENNIE (I’m not yelling at you, that’s how you style it), a duet with Dua Lipa called “Handlebars”. ‘PINK, who’ve been silent for a spell, distinguished themselves from other K-pop groups by favoring an unrelenting metallic edge, echoing nothing so much as Sleigh Bells (remember?) to my old-millennial ears. Split into four, they’re prone to less aggressive whims, and I’m still learning the flavor each prefers. A midtempo pop jam with sugar-soul overlays and vague neo-‘80s inflections, “Handlebars” is an easy one to both get up and get down to, searingly melodic and sultry as AI on an aphrodisiac. This recovered alcoholic notes a disquieting drunk-driving(/crashing) theme, “Tipsy” once it’s left the bar. But “my lips and your lips/we could press them together” — that’s the line that leaves a mark.
The fuck song of the moment, “luther” could stoke some antagonizing scuttlebutt if the rap battle of the century weren’t long settled — with respect to Whitney, most of America has to be shipping Kendrick and SZA right now. The song is distinct among its GNX siblings, but its coup is of a piece with that record and “Not Like Us”: the great inheritor of West Coast hip-hop leans into the pop part of its history (he a fan, he a fan, he a fan). Like all of Kendrick’s albums, GNX gives up layer after layer of riches with each play, but this is one of the songs where everything’s right on the surface. Its flawlessly seductive balladry is very “for my next trick”, and that’s what this consistent contender for the greatest MC of all time is currently alternating with butterflying through a pool of Goliath’s blood: hey there fan, look what the fuck else I can do.
Gracie Abrams, a nepo baby of somewhat random origin (spawn of J.J.), is a signpost of the post-Swift era — pick a Taylor, any Taylor. She picks Fearless: mostly acoustic, breathlessly innocent, sharp at the end of the feather she dips in her ink. Her breathy vocals also draw from Olivia Rodrigo, who built on Swift’s style by colloquializing the verbal part of her formalist balladry. When she drops that perfect not-quite-cliché “your dumb face”, that note of petulance is what makes it stick. But a friend who knows from pop recently confused her with Maggie Rogers, who also never revs up her vocals, no matter how empowered she’s feeling when casting off heartbreak’s weight like a thrifted fur coat. Abrams is content retooling tropes, but “That’s So True” is a definite rush, getting plenty of mileage tumbling down the hill right behind the high school.
But “Messy”, by London’s own TikTok sensation Lola Young, is my pick hit of this pop moment — foursquare and strummed, yet elevated by a savvy infusion of electronic atmospherics. Young defies meter as much as she can manage through the verses, conversationally carpentering her setup as she steadily ascends to the crest of her chorus. Where Gracie’s vulnerability feels like a breezy affectation, Young simmers with a wounded indignation you can’t mistake for fake. The litany of dichotomous offenses bores straight into sexism’s walled-off core, an anthem for everyday victims of inconsiderate partners, which is probably most girlfriends (incl. my ex + maybe yours). It’s the boiled-over hurt of “I beg you don’t embarrass me, motherfucker” drawn out to a line in the sand with its hands thrown up — everyday and a revolution at once.
Coming in at #6 is Bad Bunny — now one irksome but inevitable degree of separation from me (& again, probably you). Bunny’s pop has justified his carefree assurance for a long time, but his latest release has deeper things in mind emotionally and artistically, and it’s a tour-de-force apparent even to those unfamiliar with the styles he draws on or lanugage he sings in. My first guess at the expansion of this archetypal heartthrob’s latest single “DtMF” was “Down to MotherFuck” — which I mean, I’m sure he is — but that camera-shutter click is a clue for English-only speakers who haven’t looked at the album: Debí Tirar Más Fotos. Bunny is in an elegiac mindset on his seventh record, mourning not just the youth he spent in Puerto Rico (both thematically and musically), but the quotidian things we all feel doomily compelled to. It could be his best album.
Sex positivity is the only good answer, especially under this Gilead-horny government — even in response to a 21-year-old whose image feels like what ChatGPT would spit out if you typed in “male gaze”. In an ebbing straight-girl pop market, Gracie covers “nonthreatening sweet girl”, while Tate McRae heads the pack for those leading with libido. Still, nobody should be obligated to wear pants in 2025, and as is typical today, the feminism is in the phrasemaking — “baby, don’t get greedy/that shit won’t end well” was more than sufficient warning, and for palpitating (yet smooth) “Revolving Door”, McRae plays someone sympathetically losing her grip on control. It’s not very innovative, but it’s way inhabitable, its sole unambiguous lyrical flaw a Chainsmokers-y use of “Boston” for a rhyme. Hopefully the character finds her way to “Messy”.
Three evergreen smashes follow at #s 8 to 10 on the chart. Heading the flock is Billie’s beautifully broken “Birds of a Feather”, which works as both a breakup and a wedding song, and is in its oblique way more mature and complex than most such standards. #9 is ‘PINK quarter ROSÉ’s “APT.”, which you either find irresistible or are wrong about, so much livelier a Bruno feature than “Die with a Smile”. And rounding out the TTH top ten is honorary (but decidedly het) queer pop femme Sabrina Carpenter’s divine Divinyls pastiche “Taste”. I figure that her forthright camp, counterposed so shrewdly against Olivia’s rock-derived “authenticity”, is why queer culture has more readily embraced her. But Short ‘n’ Sweet’s deluxe edition might nudge the title into an apt descriptor of her moment: its most prominent bells and whistles are missteps.
“Busy Woman” (#15), the big one, steers Carpenter’s “wry dresser-down of dumb men” tack down the wrong track. That the song is a little rote and faint isn’t its main drag. Nope — it’s those subtle swerves into, gasp!, homophobia. “I didn’t want your little bitch-ass anyway” could, sure, annoy the right Mr. Wrong fairly efficiently. But rarely has SC’s confidence teetered into ego in a way where she risks being the joke, and the language is unavoidably problematic. The offense is reinforced with that horrible “I’ll just deem you gay” aside — the gays are your friends, Ms. Carpenter, and “deem you” demonstrates how it’s not that her (“her”) lyrics are always clever, it’s that they’re always unconventional — the way Dolly Parton’s sibilant stab at “but the ceiling fan is so nice” on the neutered “Please Please Please” duet rips the wig off a bad line.
At least Morgan Wallen has figured out he’s the problem (though I haven’t played that song yet, and there could be a catch in the chorus*). In the meantime, Abel Tesfaye is reassuring us and (mostly) himself that he’s timeless (#11), if not an idol. It’s not like you could pack a full-length “Not Like Us” about him — Week’s not even Team Drake, on account of that Take Care kerfuffle. Playboy Carti breaks no ground on a feature intended to make the song interesting, which it does, kinda. At #12 is a doleful, gently bearded white boy with a guitar and at least the lower keys of a piano (plus a drummer in a church or something) — Alex Warren to you — making his bid for his place in the corny-pop-in-indie-guise resurgence with “Ordinary”. Right now it seems Imagine Dragons/Lumineers awful, but let’s see how badly it bugs us as it hangs around.
#13 is Gaga’s rehashed attempt to reclaim, or at least revisit, her old cold seat atop the zeitgeist, the wanting “Abracadabra” (one slice of “Bad Romance”, one slice of “Born This Way”, a dollop of, I dunno, “Applause” in between, a minute and a half in the microwave). I’m not convinced, but just a few too many people I respect are. Gaga’ll get what she gets; to me, it feels like more of a regression than a relief from ambitious moves like, uh, that Versace movie. But now that Tony Bennett’s passed on, I guess she felt the room to reexplore her roots. For me, it reinforces what I’ve suspected since 2011 — that her ideas are a Coach bag deep. Her audacity feels thinned out from years of neglect. But even though it’s ultimately the Owl City to Renaissance’s Postal Service (sorry) to my ears, I’m not as pissed that I can’t scrape that chorus out of my head.
Well — good luck, babe (#16, hits like it always did). Rounding the corner into the top 20 is Tate McRae’s “Sports Car” (#14), even more original and rhythmically satisfying than her other hits — this one makes you realize that her sound is her strength, with those whispered sections subtly percussive strokes. Then another self-pitying Weeknd title, “Cry For Me” (#17), and I guess this talented twerp is gonna be around forever. Its chorus is yet another sturdy one, its misery enlivened with just enough synthesized sprucing-up to surrender to. #18 is SZA’s “BMF”; it’s uncommonly bubbly for her, but she’s doing better six months from September. As always, she deserves everything coming to her, even if Lana doesn’t threaten to bloom as dazzlingly as SOS did.
At #19, our girl JENNIE turns it up and goes “fuckin’ hard”, as she semi-convincingly decrees in a spoken intro, for the wonderfully titled “like JENNIE” — much closer to BLACKPINK’s sonic assault than the much more ingratiating “Handlebars”. It’s not a masterpiece, but I dunno, maybe it’ll make a harder dent against the pop status quo. And down at #20 is an inexhaustible new old reliable, the greatest thing of all by the greatest artist working. Whenever shit piles up or bears down or comes apart or blows up in your face, well, you can always rip yourself away from the bullshit with Doechii’s wild-ass breathing exercises — or just let her inexhaustible wit, energy and invention distract you for a second. There’s a lot about life it’s all too tempting to look away from in 2025. But if denial is a river, hey — at least we can count on moving forward.
*there was