Zedd (5) – Week Of April 7, 2018

Hey guys. I realize that this post is out later than usual. But as you guys may or may not know, I am a college student. So I have to prioritize and school is more important than this, since blogging is really just a hobby that I do on the side. Don't get me wrong, I love doing it. But it's not something I'm dedicating my life to. I have other things going on that are more important. Most of you are very understanding of that and are very patient. So I thank you for that. But there are a few people including anonymous users that like to rush me in the comment section, which I find to be annoying and rude. Please understand that I have a life outside of here and if a post ends up not coming out at all, it's not because I don't want to do it. It's simply because I can't. Sometimes I see a comment that goes something like, "Someone please call Adrian's parents and have them tell Adrian to update the countdown." I genuinely hate this comment. It sounds stupid to me because none of my family members know that I do this. This is literally my own thing that I kind of just keep to myself. I post when I can. So please stop commenting this bullshit. I've turned off anonymous commenting, so hopefully that will help since there have been other issues before with anonymous users in the comment section. My apologies to the anonymous users that comment responsibly. You can comment again if you create a Google account, which is not that hard. But yeah, I just wanted to talk about that. It's been an issue that needed to be addressed. Thank you to those that are patient with me. You guys are the reason I still do this. Before we get to this week's Fresh 45, here are the songs we're saying goodbye to this week.

• Alan Walker/Noah Cyrus/Digital Farm Animals – All Falls Down (#40)
• Dua Lipa – New Rules (#45)

Last Week's #1 Song: Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey – The Middle

The Countdown

45. Portugal. The Man – Feel It Still (#44)

44. Keala Settle/The Greatest Showman Ensemble – This Is Me (#42)

43. Taylor Swift/Ed Sheeran/Future – End Game (#38) [1 Week At #1]

42. Charlie Puth – How Long (#35) [2 Weeks At #1]

41. Symon – Lonely Girl (#39)

40. AJR/Rivers Cuomo – Sober Up (#41)

39. Khalid – Young, Dumb, and Broke (#36)

38. Kelly Clarkson – Love So Soft (#37)

37. Fall Out Boy – Hold Me Tight Or Don't (#19)

36. Rudimental/Jess Glynne/Macklemore/Dan Caplen – These Days (DEBUT)

35. Justin Timberlake/Chris Stapleton – Say Something (#28)

34. Camila Cabello – Havana (#31) [1 Week At #1]

33. P!nk – Beautiful Trauma (#22)

32. Charlie Puth/Kehlani – Done For Me (#25)

31. Noah Kahan/Julia Michaels – Hurt Somebody (#30)

30. Selena Gomez/Marshmello – Wolves (#29)

29. Alice Merton – No Roots (DEBUT)

28. Bazzi – Mine (#33)

27. Shawn Mendes – In My Blood (#32)

26. Macklemore/Kesha – Good Old Days (#20) [1 Week At #1]

25. Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen (Saturday Night) (#38)

24. Halsey – Bad At Love (#23) [2 Weeks At #1]

23. Demi Lovato – Tell Me You Love Me (#34)

22. Ed Sheeran – Perfect (#10) [2 Weeks At #1]

21. Bruno Mars/Cardi B – Finesse (#16)

20. Imagine Dragons – Thunder (#24) [5 Weeks At #1]

19. NF – Let You Down (#18)

18. Marshmello/Anne-Marie – Friends (#21)

17. MAX/Gnash – Lights Down Low (#17)

16. Taylor Swift – Delicate (#27)

15. Lauv – I Like Me Better (#7)

14. Bad Wolves – Zombie (#26)

13. Meghan Trainor – No Excuses (#9)

12. Maroon 5 – Wait (#8)

11. Camila Cabello – Never Be The Same (#13)

10. Niall Horan – On The Loose (#12)

  9. Kesha/The Dap-Kings Horns – Woman (#15)

  8. The Weeknd/Kendrick Lamar – Pray For Me (#11)

  7. Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line – Meant To Be (#6)

  6. G-Eazy/Halsey – Him & I (#5)

  5. 5 Seconds of Summer – Want You Back (#14)

  4. Imagine Dragons – Whatever It Takes (#4)

  3. Hailee Steinfeld & Alesso/Florida Georgia Line/watt – Let Me Go (#3) [1 Week At #1]

  2. Walk The Moon – One Foot (#2)

  1. Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey – The Middle (#1) [5^th Week At #1]

#1 Song This Week One Year Ago: Ed Sheeran – Shape Of You (9)

Biggest DROP!!!... Of The Week: Fall Out Boy – Hold Me Tight Or Don't (–18)

Biggest Jump Of The Week: Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen (+13)

New Entrants
~ This week we have the return of Rudimental, whose music I have enjoyed in the past. Feel The Love, as repetitive as it was, I still really liked. Their collaboration with Ed Sheeran, titled Lay It All On Me, was really good as well. They're more popular in the U.K. with a couple of songs crossing over into the U.S. such as the ones I mentioned and this new one, titled These Days. The track features Jess Glynne, who we all remember from Clean Bandit's Rather Be. I really like her contribution here. I think she has a great voice. We also have Dan Caplen and Macklemore, and I think they both did a nice job on the song as well. This doesn't exactly top their previous work in terms of the production. I do like the piano, but the rest doesn't stand out all too much. That's not to say that it's bad. It's good, but not something that I'll really remember in the long run. Maybe that'll change with time and more listens. Overall, I think the song is good and hopefully it does decent here.

~ Next we have Alice Merton with her debut single, No Roots. I never really liked this song. I thought it was kind of odd at first and it never really grew on me unfortunately. I can definitely see why people like this and it's not a bad song by any means. It's just not my cup of tea. I don't like her voice. I get that it's unique, but it's kind of annoying in my opinion. That being said, I don't like the way the song opens up with just her voice and the bass. The production is underwhelming for the most part, especially in the chorus. I can tell she tried to do something "epic" at the three minute mark. But it just sounds weird and out of place. The song is extremely repetitive. There's virtually nothing interesting about it in my opinion. Like I said, I can see why people like this. But this is one of those songs that I just dislike for personal reasons, not because it's necessarily a bad song. So please do not argue with me about this. One interesting fact I want to mention is that the song is over a year old. It was released towards the end of 2016 and it's just now getting popular, which I find odd. But whatever. The EP didn't come out in the U.S. until just recently.


Best Debut of the Week: Rudimental/Jess Glynne/Macklemore/Dan Caplen – These Days


Hit-Bound
~ Here is the Hit-Bound list.

• Sam Smith/Logic – Pray (DEBUT)
• Dua Lipa – IDGAF
• Hundred Handed – Too Good (DEBUT)
• Kendrick Lamar, SZA – All The Stars
• Foster The People – Sit Next To Me
• Halsey – Alone
• Dustin Atlas/Erin Bowman – Fake Friends
• Maren Morris – Rich
• Post Malone/Ty Dolla $ign – Psycho
• The Chainsmokers – Everybody Hates Me
• Echosmith – Over My Head
• Why Don't We – Trust Fund Baby
• Portugal. The Man – Live In The Moment

~ I like Sam Smith and I think he has a great voice that can convey emotion. He definitely shows that on Pray. I think the song is very nice and enjoyable. Though it's nothing too far off from what he's done before. But I do like the addition of Logic to give it a little something extra.

~ Too Good is pretty catchy. I like the groove and the throwback vibe. I've only listened to it once. So I may have more to say after I give it a few more listens.

~ Last week I had Sit Next To Me as the best song on Hit-Bound because there really weren't that many good songs. I didn't love any of them. So I kinda just picked it at random. This past week I really grew to love All The Stars, so I thought for sure that it would be the new best song on Hit-Bound. But at the same time, I was listening to Sit Next To Me a lot and really grew to love that one too, even more than Pumped Up Kicks. So I just decided to have both songs as the best because I can't really pick one. Hopefully they each make their debuts soon, especially Sit Next To Me because Foster The People deserve another hit.

Top 5 Hit-Bound Picks

1. Foster The People – Sit Next To Me

2. Kendrick Lamar/SZA – All The Stars

3. Portugal. The Man – Live In The Moment

4. Sam Smith/Logic – Pray

5. Halsey – Alone

These Blurbs

~ For the sake of time, blurbs will be a little shorter. Though it's not like much even happened anyway. Want You Back is in the Top 5, which is about as surprising as the fact that fire is hot. Kesha is in the Top 10, which is always good news. We also have Niall and The Weeknd, both of which have good songs. So it's nice to see them in the Top 10.

~ Bad Wolves – Zombie made a nice jump into the Top 15 this week. I'm glad Hits 1 is treating this song well. Hopefully it keeps it up. We have two more new songs in the Top 20. Friends I've had a love/hate relationship with. It's catchy and I like the production to some extent. But Anne-Marie's voice is kind of annoying and I hate the whole friend-zoning theme. I get it if you don't want to be in a relationship with a close friend. But there's no need to be rude to someone who took a chance for love. It's hard to believe this is the same singer from Rockabye. And Delicate is just boring. It's closer to red than it is to green.

~ We've officially hit the one-year anniversary of Lights Down Low being on the countdown. It's funny because when it debuted, I said I hoped that it would last on the countdown as long as it did on Hit-Bound. It definitely went above and beyond. It's very interesting to see this song last a year without ever reaching the Top 5. I'm curious to see how much longer it lasts seeing that it's pretty much locked on to appear in Hits 1's Top 45 of 2018.

~ Perfect is out of the Top 10 for the first time in seemingly forever. Done For Me dropped out of the Top 30 for some reason. Hold Me Tight Or Don't took an unexpected drop. And Lonely Girl is somehow still here despite not doing very much.

~ As far as the exits go, New Rules dropped out despite still being popular because this is Hits 1 and they do shit like this more often than they should. All Falls Down leaving is kind of disappointing since I really liked that one. But it wasn't actually popular unfortunately. At least it spent a little while on here.

~ In other music news, Cardi B released her new album, Invasion of Privacy. I've only listened to a few track previews. But it doesn't seem that impressive. This comes as no surprised after the bland as hell Bodak Yellow and the shitty Bartier Cardi. Thirty Seconds To Mars also released AMERICA, which is also not good. On top of the terrible album cover, there are very few songs that actually grabbed my attention, those being Walk On Water and Remedy. Everything else is either okay at best or just bad. Feel free to watch this album review, which pretty much sums up my own thoughts.

Top 20 Review

0 – Crap:

NONE

1 – Bad:

20. Camila Cabello – Never Be The Same

19. Imagine Dragons – Thunder

18. Lauv – I Like Me Better

17. Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey – The Middle

2 – Mediocre:

NONE

3 – Decent:

16. Taylor Swift – Delicate

15. Meghan Trainor – No Excuses

14. Maroon 5 – Wait

13. Marshmello/Anne-Marie – Friends

4 – Good:

NONE

5 – Great:

12. NF – Let You Down

11. Niall Horan – On The Loose

10. Hailee Steinfeld & Alesso/F.G.L./watt – Let Me Go

9. G-Eazy/Halsey – Him & I

8. 5 Seconds Of Summer – Want You Back

7. Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line – Meant To Be

6. The Weeknd/Kendrick Lamar – Pray For Me

5. MAX/Gnash – Lights Down Low

4. Imagine Dragons – Whatever It Takes

3. Kesha/The Dap-Kings Horns – Woman

BONUS: 6 – Best Song On The Countdown:

1. TIE: Walk The Moon – One Foot

1. TIE: Bad Wolves – Zombie

Overall Score: 78/100 = 78% (B)

Throwback Pick Of The Week: Santana/Rob Thomas – Smooth

Most Missed Countdown Song: Jason Derulo – Cheyenne

#1 Recommendation For Hits 1: Daughtry – Backbone

Favorite Countdown Song This Week One Year Ago: The Weeknd/Daft Punk – I Feel It Coming (#16)

My Top 5 Picks

1. TIE: Bad Wolves – Zombie

1. TIE: Walk The Moon – One Foot

3. Justin Timberlake/Chris Stapleton – Say Something

4. Macklemore/Kesha – Good Old Days

5. Kesha/The Dap-Kings Horns – Woman