UK Top 20 Ranked (Autumn 2020)

Greetings fellow machines! This is DalekTurret32 with my UK Top 20 ranking of the season.

The unexpected is starting to happen every now and then thanks to TikTok. Conan Gray got a Top 20 hit, A classic Fleetwood Mac song from 1977 (and from one of my favourite albums of the 1970’s in the form of Rumours) returned to the Top 40, and a Clairo song from last year may have a chance at smashing.

A recording of a patriotic song by Vera Lynn from 1962 charted in the Top 20 in August, following some controversy involving the BBC Proms. Bring Me The Horizon got their 2nd Top 40 entry of this year, and they brought YUNGBLUD along for the ride.

We managed to get a song in the singles chart with the lyrics entirely in African language (i.e. “Douha (Mali Mali)” by Disclosure feat. Fatoumata Diawara). It’s a shame that it didn’t reach the Top 40, or it would have been the first Top 40 hit with the lyrics entirely in a foreign language in 10 years (the last one I can remember being Stromae’s Alors On Danse), and the first African hit since Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Inkanyezi Nezazi (The Star And The Wiseman) in 1998.

This week, we’ve got a fusion of rock and trap, a dirty chart topper and a triple bundle of Pop Smoke.

Here are the tiers ranked from worst to best, for those who are new to my ranking

BAD

Poor

Mediocre

(↑the three ratings above won't pop up a lot)

Mixed

Okay

Solid

Swell

Excellent

GOLDEN

Mixed tier

#20. Mood Swings by Pop Smoke feat. Lil Tjay

Warning: Sexual references

For a long amount of time, I thought I was going to add this to the Mediocre tier. It’s the weakest of the R&B love songs that were on Shoot For The Stars. The lines about ‘nutting’ made me cringe (and not in a good way) and there’s a part where Pop Smoke uses the term ‘daddy’ in a sexual context. After giving this a relisten, it was better than I originally thought. The cons that I listed still stand out, but the keyboard driven beat is quite pleasing,

Of the Smoke and Tjay collabs I’ve heard, War is deffo my fave.

#19. Holy by Justin Bieber feat. Chance The Rapper

A song connecting religion to love could work, but there are some lines about making love that don’t fit with the instrumentation. I’m also not a fan of the chorus with the repetition of ‘hold me’ and ‘holy’. I do like the sound of pianos though; they remind me of Hey Ma by Cam’Ron a fair bit.

Chance The Rapper comes in with a verse filled with pop culture references with the likes of Oscar Proud from The Proud Family and Lionel Messi. They can get cheesy at some points (especially with the Joe Pesci reference), but his verse is fine. 

Before we move on, let me take a guess as to what the next video from charliewinsmore will be called! I Love My Wife II: High On Lovin’ You.

#18. UFO by D-Block Europe feat. Aitch

Warning: Sexual references

The lone new entry of the Top 20 this week. The trap beat is catchy, even if I feel like the synth is a bit quiet, and our three artists ride the beat well. I can see myself bopping to it.

This was close to making it to the Okay tier, but there are a handful of bad lines that weigh this song down. We have Young Adz giving some ‘white to [his] white girl’, this girl who doesn’t ‘fuck with white boys’ but still fucks Aitch, Aitch having her ‘squirtin’ when [he] choke[s] her’ and ‘Open your mouth, darlin’, force feed’. Oh, and it’s implied that Adz is trying to steal someone else’s girl. Though Aitch’s verse does mention the girl he is with has an ex, and he did come with some clever wordplay when saying he isn’t beefing with the ex-lover. I also give credit to this line in Dirtbike’s verse: 'Ima cover my pain with these shades'. This shows that he may be chillin’ on the outside, but deep down he has to put up with personal struggles in life. It shows that even in a mindless, catchy hip hop song, there can be hints of serious topics brought to the table.

Okay tier

#17. you broke me first by Tate McRae

At first, I thought this song was pretty decent, but it’s beginning to shrink on me after repeated listens. I do give credit to the synths for the moody atmosphere they carry, as do the vocal effects, even if they sound a bit too similar to those of Billie Eilish (And after looking through the recent chart show threads on Buzzjack, I know I’m not the only one who has made this comparison)

The lyrics see a relationship that has ended, with Tate McRae addressing the problems that occurred. The ex is now wanting to start over, but McRae rejects it and doesn’t care about his feelings since he broke her first. We don’t get any elaboration of how this former lover ‘broke’ her, which doesn’t make me completely side with her. Doesn’t help that the 2nd verse shows how hurt she was that the ex ‘moved on quicker than [she] could’ve ever’ done, which is a bit selfish and contradicts the chorus.

Solid tier

#16. What You Know Bout Love by Pop Smoke

One of the cheesy R&B love songs from Shoot For The Stars, but it became a gradual grower for me (as did The Woo), and this may be because of the beat. The beat takes a sample of Ginuwine’s Differences and makes a smooth, beautiful instrumental out of it. Pop Smoke’s singing fits it well, even if it comes with the usual sexually explicit lines and him telling his girl her ass looks fat when she’s wearing tights.

We’re not done with Pop Smoke just yet!

#15. For The Night by Pop Smoke feat. Lil Baby and DaBaby

Here, we get a slow beat with the acoustic guitar and flute, as well as that twinkling synth. They play the ‘iv-i’ chord progression and make it sound soothing.

I like Smoke’s chorus. When he says he’s ‘real discreet like a thief in the night’, the instrumental and tempo do a good job backing him up, making for some good word painting. DaBaby is quite charming in his verse and Lil Baby, despite his Ray Charles line, provides a decent verse about ‘runnin’ the streets’ and how he learned about religion at a young age.

#14. Savage Love (Laxed - Siren Beat) by Jawsh 685 x Jason Derulo

Yeah, this grew on me! I still am confused as to why Derulo would go back to this one-sided relationship, but he does come through with a good amount of charm and charisma, and the syncopated beat fits with the feelings of infatuation he conveys in this song. 

In the chorus, he calls this girl savage for playing with his feelings before coming up with the comeback ‘Did somebody break your heart?’. The lyrical themes have a slight similarity to those of Attention by Charlie Puth (both songs have our artist dissing a girl who’s playing with their feelings, but they’ve still fallen into her tricks). I prefer Attention, as well as another Derulo song that’s coming soon in this ranking.

#13. Giants by Dermot Kennedy

After the Top 10 smash of Outnumbered, we were unsure as to whether Dermot Kennedy would be a one-hit wonder to the charts or not. Then came the sleeper hit Power Over Me. I loved that song when I first heard it back in late 2018. While I don’t like it as much now, I still think it’s pretty great. Now Kennedy has another sleeper hit to his name called Giants.

The instruments bring a Stitches style rhythm as Kennedy looks back at a past relationship and wonders how it went wrong. The lyrical concept has some potential, especially when he uses the ‘gold in the dirt’ metaphor to show a positive outlook upon looking back. Unfortunately, the lyrics can get clingy at times as, in the chorus, he wants this ex of his to ‘say the word’ (which I assume has to do with love).

#12. WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion

Warning: Sexual references

It’s not everyday you see a sexually explicit song in the vein of Lil Kim and Cupcaake become a number one hit. So a song like this making it to the top seems like a big event. I’m not keen on most of the rap that is sexually explicit, but this one’s pretty solid.

The minimalist beat loops a vocal sample of the 1992 club track Whores In This House by DJ Frank Ski and recontextualizes it. The original had these people chanting about the ‘whores’ in the club. Since that term is generally used as a sexist insult (It’s mainly used to describe a prostitute, but Urban Dictionary defines it as someone ‘who sleeps with multiple people’), WAP’s sample of it shows that Cardi and Megan don’t care what members of society view or say about them as and opt to stay true to their sexualities.

Our two artists bring in some humorous exaggeration, as they tell you to bring a bucket and a mop, along with boots and a coat, if you want this ‘wet ass pussy’ they speak of. They also have some good flows that pull the listener in to listen to their witty punchlines. I lipsync ‘park that big Mack truck right in this little garage’ everytime it comes up. ‘If he ate my ass, he’s a bottom-feeder’ made me LOL. I don’t know what macaroni in a pot has to do with the pussy, but OK.

Here’s a fun fact! Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro did a live lounge cover of this song

I don’t know what’s funnier? The fact that they did this, or what sounds like me making this shit up turning out to be a real thing?

Swell tier

#11. Tick Tock by Clean Bandit feat. Mabel and 24kGoldn

It’s the beginning of a new era for Clean Bandit with the first single of a potential third album. It has their usual style of strings, along with a blocky xylophone, guitar and the occasional synth line. The instrumentation adds some colourful textures to the song, especially in the chorus.

The song is about Mabel being infatuated over some guy, but part of her tells her to ‘go away’ from him. In the first verse, she says that one lover is all she needs to be satisfied, so I don’t know why her head is telling her not to go to that lover. 24kGoldn provides a solid verse as he sings from the perspective of that guy, and he plays the character well. 

#10. Laugh Now Cry Later by Drake feat. Lil Durk 

There isn’t a lot to get from the lyrics, except for lots of bragging and possible shots at Kanye, as well as one from Lil Durk which could be aimed at 6ix9ine. But both Drake and Lil Durk ride the beat well enough to make it a solid song. Oh, and I like the Super Mario esque MIDI keyboard that plays throughout.

#9. Lemonade by Internet Money feat. Don Toliver, NAV and Gunna

Is it me or does the chord progression of this song bear a resemblance to that of Alec Benjamin’s Let Me Down Slowly?

Anyway, Internet Money is a producer collective consisting of Taz Taylor and Nick Mira, the latter of whom has frequently produced for the late Juice WRLD (who appears on the collective’s new album as a posthumous feature). The first song of theirs I heard was Somebody from last year and I wasn’t a huge fan of it. Many months have passed and now comes their first big hit Lemonade.

At first, I thought the song was alright, but I ended up liking it more and more overtime. The guitar driven beat provides a nice Summery vibe. Don Toliver delivers an earworm of a chorus as he sings about lemonade dripping down his neck. Sounds ridiculous, but he brings some charm to it.

I was surprised by NAV and Gunna’s verses, as I’m not usually a fan of either. NAV brags about his luxuries but he’s also grateful that he has them, as he didn’t have a lot when growing up and had to deal with backstabbers in his ‘disgusting’ old life. Toliver brags about codeine in the chorus, but Gunna uses codeine to reminisce about the days when he took the drug with a friend of his.

#8. Take You Dancing by Jason Derulo

Unlike Savage Love, which has a Reggaeton instrumental, this song has more of a funk and rock influence. The relatively fast tempo and guitar hits fill the chorus with groove. Dafuq is up with those Tom’s Diner esque ‘da-da-da’s? They stick in my head nicely though, so I can’t complain.

In the song, Derulo meets some girl and asks her if she wants to go dancing. A closer look at the chorus lines could mean that ‘dancing’ is used as a euphemism in this song. He’s charismatic as usual, though the line ‘Know we not in love, so let’s make it’ is a weird one.

The way Derulo says ‘Let me take you dancing’ reminds me of Charlie Puth saying ‘You just want attention’ in Attention (That’s the 2nd time I’ve used Puth and Derulo in the same sentence). It’s peculiar that I thought of that song during that part, but they use a similar rhythm in the vocal lines.

#7. Lasting Lover by Sigala feat. James Arthur

The song takes the recognizable synth line from MGMT’s Time To Pretend and makes a vibrant instrumental break out of it. The rest of the synths in this song carry this feeling too.

I’m usually not keen on James Arthur as his voice tends to break frequently on songs like Say You Won’t Let Go, but the production on this song backs his voice up effectively. He sings about how he has been dwelling on a past love for so long that he is having trouble letting go of it. When he finally finds that girl who’s ‘looking for a lasting lover’, the MGMT sample comes in to bring in a burst of euphoria.

There is one line I didn’t like, and that is the one in which Arthur wants this girl to stay until ‘the taste of [her] love turns sour’. This shows that he wants to be with this girl until he is no longer in love with her. Credit to him for being aware of the fact that most serious relationships go downhill at some point, but the way it’s worded makes it sound clingy.

#6. Mood by 24kGoldn feat. Iann Dior

I first heard of 24kGoldn on Billboard Breakdown, when he nabbed his first charting hit in November 2019 with Valentino. The first song of his I listened to in full wasn’t Valentino, but his first charting hit in the UK, which was City Of Angels. Unlike Valentino, which had a trap beat, City Of Angels leans more into a rock style. While the guitar loop gets repetitive, 24kGoldn displays a solid look into having fun while as a youth. Now comes the surprise smash Mood, and what do I think of it?

I like how the song fuses rock and trap together. We also get a flavourless relationship with 24kGoldn asking this girl why she’s in a mood. There is this line in his verse where he’s saying this girl could be blowing up on his phone that contradicts the lyrical themes of the song, but he was still solid on this.

Iann Dior provides the main highlights, as he looks into his conflicted feelings of love and how he and his girl ‘play games of love to avoid the depression’. His lyrics take a quick dive into mental health in serious relationships and they do it well. I especially like the part when he stands up to the abuse he received from his partner by saying ‘I won’t be your victim’.

#5. Dynamite by BTS

Usually, when a K-pop act gets a hit on the charts, it ends up going through a huge fall on the charts after a few weeks (Gangnam Style by PSY is an exception, as it managed to hang around for many weeks). But Dynamite was lucky enough to have some staying power, and it even managed to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 (giving BTS the chart record of being the first all-South Korean group to hit the top of that singles chart).

This song is more of a disco/funk throwback than your usual K-pop song, with the synths, electric guitars, piano, strings and brass stabs. BTS cook up a lot of charm in this song as they brag about luxuries and that they’re going to ‘light it up like dynamite’ They also mention The Rolling Stones and King Kong. The pop culture references work better than in Chance’s verse in Holy as they are placed in a mindlessly upbeat tone rather than a down-to-earth, gospel-influenced tone. Plus, the music video has a record store in it. That’s another good thing.

It’s worth pointing out that this is one of the few hit songs nowadays that uses a key change near the end. It has been used as a gimmick in pop music of the past, but the transition flows well here.

Excellent tier

#4. Looking For Me by Paul Woolford and Diplo feat. Kareen Lomax

This is Paul Woolford. He’s been producing electronic dance music since 2002. He nabbed a one week wonder in 2003 with “Out Of My Life”. I was surprised to find out he has been making music for this long, because I first discovered him in 2018 from his single “Hang Up Your Hang Ups”, which featured the late Kim English. I thought it was a good ass club track for the night time. Now he has gotten a surprise hit with “Looking For Me”. It also could mark Diplo shifting to piano driven house, which follows his dive into country on his Snake Oil EP.

The instrumentation sounds fantastic. The piano chords sound good like they usually do in house music. That short synth line that plays in the instrumental break adds a nice texture to the song. Like with Laugh Now Cry Later, there isn’t a lot to get from the lyrics, but they might paint a scenario in which this person is looking for someone they’ve previously had an argument with as that ‘someone’ has something they want.

#3. Ain't It Different by Headie One feat. AJ Tracey and Stormzy

When I first heard this song, I thought it was alright. I liked the verses from our artists enough, but I felt like the Lady Saw sample didn’t fit with the rest of the lyrical content. A couple relistens later and it grew on me big time (But then again, a good chunk of the songs in this Top 20 have). 

The song samples a guitar line from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Pretty Little Ditty, which you may remember being sampled in Crazy Town’s 2001 smash hit Butterfly (I know the album it was in came out in 1999, but it became a hit in 2001). The sample of Bump N Grind by M-Dubs feat. Lady Saw in the chorus bumps too.

Headie One’s verse sees him rapping about how his criminal record stops him from flying to the USA (that’s a shame), cheating a urinalysis by using lemon juice, and... digestive biscuits. AJ Tracey and Stormzy are on this too, and their verses are great.

#2. Head & Heart by Joel Corry feat. MNEK 

I previously talked about this song in my Summer ranking, and my thoughts on this haven’t changed. A contender for my Top 10 UK Hits Of 2020? Maybe! We’ll see when we get to January (or February)!

Well, Blinding Lights is not in the Top 20! So there’s no songs in the Golden tier for this ranking (the first to have none in the Golden tier since my Winter 2018/19 Ranking). The song that topped that ranking and the one that’s topping this ranking have one thing in common…

https://youtu.be/S3hu7YvtPpU?t=123

In case the YouTube clip gets taken down due to copyright, it’s Miley Cyrus.

#1. Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus

Looks like we’ve been getting a lot of 70’s/80’s throwbacks lately, and this is another addition to the list of amazing retro songs.

The synths generate this gothic, cinematic feel that reminds me of what Bat For Lashes did on her last album. They accompany Miley wonderfully as she escapes a past relationship of hers and heads for the midnight sky. 

The song offers a slice of cathartic pop power as she sings about feeling liberated from leaving that relationship. I also like the metaphorical line ‘Fire in my lungs, can’t bite the devil on my tongue’ as it represents Miley letting her spirit run wild.

My favourite Miley Cyrus songs were Malibu and Slide Away, but this one is better than both of them.

Mixed: 3

Okay: 1

Solid: 5

Swell: 7

Excellent: 4

GOLD: --

Looks better than the Top 20 I ranked in the Summer, because there’s more songs in the Swell tier and above. But there aren’t any golden songs for further elevation. 

Coming in February 2021 (or maybe later) will be my usual end-of-year countdown lists (which I’ve been doing since 2015). This one will feature Top 40 Albums Of 2020 (possible reduction to 30), Top 10 UK Hits Of 2020 and Top 50 Songs, Tracks or {wywtct} of 2020.

Here are three songs in the lower 60 of the Top 100 that I would love to see break the Top 40.

There were two songs that I originally planned to talk about for this section. The songs were Trouble's Coming by Royal Blood and Baby It's You by London Grammar. But, alas, both of those songs have dropped out, so I’m going to have to add some substitutes.

FUTURE HIT #3. On My Mind by Diplo and SIDEPIECE (#59, 3 wks)

I know I’ve talked about a Diplo song on my Top 20 ranking, but here’s one that would be nice to see smash, and it looks like it’s rising up the charts.

This has the common characteristics of a night time deep house tune: drum machine, repetitive but catchy vocal line, not much melody except for that vocal line thus adding a layer of minimalism. There’s also some choral voices, which serve as a good addition to the song, and an unexpected drop that is reminiscent of the ones found in FISHER’s work (‘Tis a shame that neither Losing It nor You Little Beauty became big hits). 

FUTURE HIT #2. OK Not To Be OK by Marshmello feat. Demi Lovato (#42, 5 wks)

Marshmello’s song with Halsey, Be Kind, shows a sign that he could be changing up style. And this new song with Demi Lovato could add to that.

Like with Be Kind, the synths sound great as they accompany Demi, who gives some good advice to those who are struggling with depression; telling them that it’s ‘ok not to be ok’. Marshmello also adds some electric guitars to add some rock elements to the song. The instruments come together to make a lush, vibrant beat. Alas, the song comes to a sudden stop, which prevents it from being better than Be Kind.

FUTURE HIT #1. Jerusalema by Master KG feat. Nomcebo Zikode (#57, 6 wks)

At the beginning of this post, I brought up Disclosure’s Douha (Mali Mali) and how it was sung entirely in African. The original version of Jerusalema is sung in Zulu, but the Burna Boy remix (which may be the one giving this song a chart boost, along with a viral dance challenge) adds a short English verse from him.

The combination of synths and strings with the handclaps represent a feeling of hope out there as Nomcebo Zikode sings about her longing to return to her hometown of Jerusalem, and that she doesn’t belong in the place she’s in.

I don’t think we have had a Zulu song in the charts before, so this would be interesting to see.

Chart used: https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/20201009/7501/