BILLBOARD DANCE / ELECTRONIC YEAR-END HOT 100 - REVIEW [PART 2] (feat. Casper)
LUX: Whew cliffhangers, anyways welcome back to my place!
LUX: Oh, right. You're here.
This is the part 2 of our review, not a ranking, of the 2020 Billboard EDM YE Hot 100.
LUX: I'm giving this a 3/5 but the truth is that this song is either the best or the worst thing mankind has ever created, absolutely nowhere in between.
LUX: This is like,, the most obvious Pop/EDM collab ever, it was specifically designed to be a banger. It worked.
LUX: Alan Walker has never been all that good as a producer but at least he tends to know how to make his music not feel overpowered and shaky, whereas most elements on this song sound like ass, including Ava.
Casper: For the longest time I thought I was listening to the original version, while it was actually the Will Sparks remix. The original sounds so bland and slow compared to it.
LUX: I've heard like 10 different songs use the sample from Don't Go by Yazoo and all of them do it the exact same way. It's a good sample tho so I can excuse it.
LUX: 4/5 Casper: 3/5
LUX: One of the songs from Golden Hour that I don't love nearly as much anymore, but it's still good.
LUX: Forget about Toosie Slide or stuck with u, this is the song of the pandemic. I think what I love the most about it is how contained in itself it feels, it's an Electro House song but the production is so lowkey and bouncy that it gives a vibe of a simple House jam that I could find myself listening to quite often.
Casper: more Gryffin and... huh I actually really like this one. It's cute and bouncy.
LUX: I don't think I've ever mentioned this but I've been a REZZ stan since 2017, she's the 2nd queen of the universe right behind Eileen from Regular Show. This is not her best song but honestly the mere fact that she now has a hit to her name is enough for me to simp.
LUX: Oh look, the 3rd queen of the universe. I've talked about this song and its remixes a lot by now so I'll just repeat myself, the original is a pretty good song with a killer groove that unfortunately lacked something new to stand out from all the other pretty good songs with a killer groove on the Future Nostalgia album. Turns out what it needed is DaBaby doing one of the most DaBaby verses of his career, adding the right amount of variation and charisma to push this over the top and turning it into, in my opinion, Dua's best single this year.
LUX: Be Alright would be a pretty decent song if Dean Lewis didn't sound awful throughout most of it. Fortunately most of the problems with his vocals are fixed on this other song which would also be pretty good if the instrumental wasn't so watered down coming from Martin Garrix.
LUX: I like this one a lot more than Rushing Back but it doesn't fully live up to its potential either, at least it does have a really smooth vibe and it does sound like it was made by Flume.
Casper: Ooooooo
LUX: We're back again with Kygo doing remixes for old classics, once again this isn't quite as good as Tina Turner's original but it has a pretty great vibe, a very clean production and like,, an amazing key change. Very solid overall.
Casper: It's a good song, but like, it's a strictly inferior version of Higher Love.
LUX: This is a song by Lady Gaga.
Casper: Sure
LUX: No idea why this is here but it has a very cozy and atmospheric melody so it's alright I guess.
Casper: It's a very interesting song and I'm glad it's here, but it's definitely something not for me.
LUX: Oh look, another Donna Summer revision. Honestly I might like this more than the original version and I'm saying this only semi-ironically.
LUX: This is one of the better produced songs on Golden Hour, almost every element of it is very polished and pleasant to hear, including the vocalist.
Casper: Everything sounds nice, just a Nice song to listen to.
LUX: This is a song by Lady Gaga.
Casper: i have no thoughts about this lady gaga song
LUX: Hybrid Trap is a subgenre that's still pretty relevant in the EDM scene, just as much as (if not more than) Dubstep itself, this being by far the biggest representation of it this year, and it slaps pretty hard. It's a whole acid trip in which every segment of it slaps you in the face, if the payoffs were as strong as the buildups every time it would be an easy 5/5.
Casper: bumps in the whip, i like how varied this is.
Casper: I hate to do this but to me this drop is just different sounds fighting over which one gets to be the most annoying.
LUX: I've been familiar with this song for like 3 years now. I heard the original version back in late 2017 and thought it was one of the worst things I'd heard at the time, with an awful instrumental and terrible performers. I certainly wasn't happy when it got a TikTok revival thanks to a Jason Derulo remix 3 years after the fact.
LUX: The existence of this song is fucking hysterical.
LUX: This is a song by Lady Gaga.
LUX: Remember when The Chainsmokers put out a 3rd project? This is the best song from it imo. I've been listening to it for over a year now and I'm still not sick of it for some reason.
Casper: It's like other Kygo songs except worse
LUX: This is better than anything else Liam Payne will ever do and that's kinda comical.
Casper: Out of all Kygo songs on this list, this is the one I've heard on the radio the most and I'm fine with that.
LUX: Pretty nice stuff.
LUX: My favorite Kygo song of the year. If you don't feel like listening to the whole Golden Hour album I recommend you at least listen to this one to get the whole idea, it's beautiful.
Casper: Deserved to be a summer hit.
LUX: I loved this one for like a month, now it's just kind of pretty good.
LUX: I've come to the conclusion that this is better than Ride It. I love that one but it doesn't change much throughout, this one on the other hand feels like it moves faster and has more of an instrumental variation within sections. My favorite part is the little pre-chorus it has, when the bassline gets a bit deeper and it fits the low pitched vocals perfectly. The drop is just Ride It again but it's still a good drop so it's fine.
LUX: The lyrics are stupid and it barely sounds like an ILLENIUM song but every other aspect is well done so I'm giving it my approval.
Casper: Yes. This barely sounds like an Illenium song. I wonder what correlation this has with the rating I gave it.
LUX: Good point.
LUX: Kind of annoying but most of the times it doesn't give me any reaction.
Casper: It was great for like 3 days and that's it
LUX: MEDUZA are lazy. What they do is way beyond just ripping off themselves, they literally just do carbon copies of their own songs, exact same formula, element by element. They already did this 3 times and so far it's giving them a 3rd hit called Paradise, which, of course, is exactly the same song as both of their 2 previous hits, Piece Of Your Heart and Lose Control.
Casper: Out of the 3 Meduza hits, this is easily my favorite. They're all pretty much the same song, but what makes this song go beyond is Becky Hill. She has an incredible voice, and I love the feeling of genuine danger and darkness on "when **I** lose control"
LUX: Be Kind this is not but it's pleasant enough.
Casper: More like
Casper: I still like it, but it honestly gets worse with every listen.
Casper: This one was so close to charting on the hot 100
I'm so glad it never happened.
LUX: This one is probably shit, not sure tbh I don't care enough to find out.
LUX: Eh, I know Casper really hates this one. When I first heard Golden Hour I thought this one was pretty good, then I listened to it more and more on its own and I started to love it. Now that I'm relistening to it alongside all the other cuts from the album I can recognize that it's not as great in comparison, but I still like it.
LUX: Now unlike the other 2 Kygo remixes on this list, this one is for a Whitney Houston cover cut that never got released... and I'd say it could pass as an actual Kygo x Whitney collab, and a great one at that.
Casper: At least the last Kygo song on the list is also the best one.
Casper: Kinda crazy how good this song is, but I guess that's what happens when you rip off Ocean Drive but make it Lit... sorry, Brazilian Bass.
LUX: Lithuanian Bass.
Casper: but we're on your blog...
LUX: Everyone welcome our new overlord, Jay Sean.
Casper: It's been more than a year since the vocals on the official YouTube upload and all streaming services have been changed. The new version is much worse. Possibly millions of people around the world have only heard the inferior version and don't even know it. And that depresses me.
Casper: Should have been a hit over Rain On Me
LUX: I still like this as a cute little pop song but there's no way it was a bigger EDM hit this year than Ride It or Breaking Me.
Casper: Is this really it? Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande collaboration and it sounds like this? Lame
LUX: I'm not letting Casper give this one a 5/5 so I'm forcing him to listen to and review the Jaden Smith remix instead. What are your thoughts Boof?
Casper: Are you fu- ok, I can do this.
It's a huuuuge downgrade compared to the original, but since the core of the song is still mostly intact it gets a fat 2/5.
Casper: At this point, what haven't I said about this song? It's like the second coming of Jesus Christ for me.
Comments
Post a Comment