Panic! At The Disco (4) – Week Of June 30, 2018

With the end of June comes the end of Pride Month and summer is in full swing. I hope everyone enjoys their 4^th of July this upcoming week. Brendon Urie hosted the countdown and Hit-Bound this week. So it makes sense why his song is still #1. Before we get to this week's Fresh 45, here are the songs we're saying goodbye to this week.

• AJR/Rivers Cuomo – Sober Up (#30)
• Echosmith – Over My Head (#32)
• Sam Smith/Logic – Pray (#34)
• Zayn – Let Me (#43)
• Charlie Puth – How Long (#45) [2 Weeks At #1]

Last Week's #1 Song: Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen (Saturday Night)

The Countdown

45. Camila Cabello – Havana (#44) [1 Week At #1]

44. Ed Sheeran – Perfect (#38) [2 Weeks At #1]

43. Hailee Steinfeld & Alesso/Florida Georgia Line/watt – Let Me Go (#42) [1 Week At #1]

42. Bad Wolves – Zombie (#26)

41. Rudimental/Jess Glynne/Macklemore/Dan Caplen – These Days (#39)

40. Sugarland/Taylor Swift – Babe (DEBUT)

39. G-Eazy/Halsey – Him & I (#41)

38. The Wrecks – James Dean (DEBUT)

37. Dua Lipa – New Rules (#37)

36. Imagine Dragons – Thunder (#36) [5 Weeks At #1]

35. Hundred Handed – Too Good (#40)

34. Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes (DEBUT)

33. Dustin Atlas/Erin Bowman – Fake Ass Friends (#29)

32. 5 Seconds of Summer – Want You Back (#28) [1 Week At #1]

31. Camila Cabello – Never Be The Same (#33) [1 Week At #1]

30. Lauv – I Like Me Better (#17)

29. The Weeknd/Kendrick Lamar – Pray For Me (#27)

28. Meghan Trainor – Let You Be Right (DEBUT)

27. U2/Cheat Codes – Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way (#35)

26. Demi Lovato – Tell Me You Love Me (#25)

25. Bazzi – Mine (#21)

24. Maren Morris – Rich (#22)

23. Liam Payne/J Balvin – Familiar (#31)

22. Walk The Moon – One Foot (#24)

21. Cardi B/Bad Bunny/J Balvin – I Like It (DEBUT)

20. Maroon 5 – Wait (#10)

19. Calvin Harris/Dua Lipa – One Kiss (#23)

18. Bebe Rexha/Florida Georgia Line – Meant To Be (#18) [1 Week At #1]

17. Post Malone/Ty Dolla $ign – Psycho (#7)

16. 5 Seconds of Summer – Youngblood (#20)

15. NOTD/Bea Miller – I Wanna Know (#9)

14. Charlie Puth/Kehlani – Done For Me (#12)

13. Selena Gomez – Back To You (#19)

12. Niall Horan – On The Loose (#14)

11. Halsey – Alone (#13)

10. Maroon 5/Cardi B – Girls Like You (#16)

  9. Dua Lipa – IDGAF (#15)

  8. Shawn Mendes – In My Blood (#8)

  7. Marshmello/Anne-Marie – Friends (#5)

  6. Foster The People – Sit Next To Me (#6)

  5. Ariana Grande – No Tears Left To Cry (#11)

  4. Imagine Dragons – Whatever It Takes (#3) [1 Week At #1]

  3. Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey – The Middle (#2) [9 Weeks At #1]

  2. Taylor Swift – Delicate (#4)

  1. Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen (Saturday Night) (#1) [4^th Week At #1]

#1 Song This Week One Year Ago: Ed Sheeran – Castle On The Hill (3)

Biggest DROP!!!... Of The Week: Bad Wolves – Zombie (–16)

Biggest Jump Of The Week: Tie Between U2/Cheat Codes – Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way and Liam Payne – Familiar (+8)

New Entrants
~ We got five new songs this week, starting with Babe by the country group Sugarland. The track features Taylor Swift, which is the only reason why the song is here. I don't care too much for what she contributes. She doesn't make much of an appearance until the end of the song. I do think it's a good song. I like nice country tunes like this one. The vocals are really good and I think the chorus is something that'll easily get stuck in your head. It's catchy, it's fun, and overall it's a good song that I want to see do well. So hopefully it does.

~ Next we have underground group The Wrecks with James Dean. I didn't listen to it too much while it was on Hit-Bound. I just said it was a good song and that was it. But listening to it numerous times this week knowing that it would be making its debut, I realized that this is actually a pretty great song and arguably the best out of all our debuts. I love a good rock song and I'm glad Hits 1 picked this up because this song is very enjoyable. The instrumentation is great. The song is catchy with an infectious chorus. I like the lyrical content. Everything about this song is great. I really want it to do well. I think these kinds of songs are underrated these days and I'm glad we have a song like James Dean on here. It's worthy of being here and the listeners and voters enjoy it as much as I do.

~ Next we have our host Brendon Urie with his new single from Pray For The Wicked titled High Hopes. I still think this is one of the stand-out tracks from the album. This is another very catchy song. The horns are something that'll constantly get stuck in your head. Brendon sounds fantastic on this song vocally. I think he shows off his vocal capabilities much better on here than on Say Amen (not including the high note at the end of that song). I don't have much else to say because it seems kinda obvious why this song is so good. Panic! At The Disco's latest singles have been pretty underrated lately, so I'm glad they're getting some success here. These are great songs that deserve to be big more than artists like Drake and Post Malone. I have no doubt that High Hopes will do well on this countdown.

~ Does anyone actually care about Meghan Trainor anymore? She's back this week with Let You Be Right, a song that I'll admit is a step up from No Excuses and pretty much her discography as a whole. She is slowly improving, but I feel like it'll be a while until we actually get a good song from her. This one is kinda catchy, but it's not very interesting. She sounds better vocally on here than on No Excuses as she's not actually yelling anywhere. This song has more of a chill vibe and I'll give it that. But she still doesn't sound that great. She is not a very good singer and I just think the song is kinda bland. The lyrical content has improved though. I could grow into it, but I can't make any promises. Hopefully this song doesn't get overrated, which it probably will.

~ Finally we have Cardi B with I Like It. This song is a major improvement from some the garbage she has released like Bartier Cardi. To quickly sum up my opinion, I have grown into the Latin trap production and I actually think it sounds pretty good. The problem here is Cardi B because I think her voice is annoying. But it's almost obnoxious enough to the point where it's actually kinda funny. So while the song is not good by any means, I'll still listen to it just to get a kick out of how annoying she sounds. I also want to talk about Hits 1's terrible "radio edit" if you can even call it that. They edited out Bad Bunny and J Balvin (again, what is wrong with Spanish in Latin-produced tracks???), so the song is literally Cardi B's verse and then the chorus three times. I heard this edit earlier this week and it's terrible. Bad Bunny and J Balvin make up a big portion of the song. By editing them out, the song went from being over four minutes to being just barely two minutes. And I don't know about you, but hearing that chorus three times in a row like that will certainly make me get sick of it much faster. So yeah. This edit is laughable because of how bad it is. The song is laughable because of Cardi B's vocals. Not a very good song, yet it'll probably do well given its high debut at #21.


Best Debut of the Week: The Wrecks – James Dean


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

• Big Boi – All Night
• MNEK/Hailee Steinfeld – Colour
• lovelytheband – Broken
• Dan + Shay – Tequila (DEBUT)
• Julia Michaels/Trippie Redd – Jump
• Backstreet Boys – Don't Go Breaking My Heart
• Alessia Cara – Growing Pains (DEBUT)
• Train/Cam/Travie McCoy – Call Me Sir (DEBUT)
• Bebe Rexha – I'm a Mess (DEBUT)
• Post Malone – Better Now (DEBUT)
• Madison Beer – Home With You (DEBUT)
• Fall Out Boy – The Last Of The Real Ones
• BTS – Fake Love
• Cole Redding – Father Father

~ Country duo Dan + Shay have finally brought a song to Hits 1. I think Tequila is an enjoyable song. The production is nice and I really like the vocals. These guys deserve more credit than they're getting. Like I said with Babe, I like good country tunes and Tequila is one of them.

~ I'm critiquing Growing Pains just from listening to the iTunes preview. It's okay. I think Alessia Cara has done better with Scars To Your Beautiful and even Wild Things. I'll try to listen to the song in full sometime this week and we'll see if my thoughts change.

~ I'm not really sure why Train have been heading in this weird direction lately with their music. This song doesn't seem that different from Play That Song, which I enjoyed in more of a guilty pleasure kind of way. Call Me Sir is not very good. I don't think this style fits Train very well. I much prefer some of their fast songs like Drive By. Something this slow from them is not very interesting.

~ I think most people can agree that I'm A Mess is a step up from Meant To Be. It's probably one of the best songs from Bebe Rexha's new album, Expectations. I like the guitar and I think she sounds really good on vocals. The chorus is something that has been stuck in my head lately. So yeah. It's a good song. I hope it has some success.

~ Better Now is a big step up for Post Malone from the beyond mediocre Psycho. The production has a little bit more life to it and Post's vocals are pretty decent here. This is something I feel like I could enjoying at some point. But for now, we'll just say it's an okay song. It's definitely an improvement and improvements from artists like Post Malone are worth noting.

~ I don't have much to say about Home With You. It's a good song, I guess. Madison Beer has a unique voice. I'll try to give it a better review after I give it more listens since I've only listened to it once.

Top 5 Hit-Bound Picks

1. Backstreet Boys – Don't Go Breaking My Heart

2. Dan + Shay – Tequila

3. Fall Out Boy – The Last Of The Real Ones

4. Bebe Rexha – I'm A Mess

5. Julia Michaels/Trippie Redd – Jump

I Like Blurbs Like That

~ Hits 1 has been all about technical errors lately. For some reason they like to add a period at the end of Cardi B's name and they have the title of the song set as I LIke It. And for some reason, they have Let You Be Right in the artist name slot and Meghan Trainor in the song title slot. I'm not sure how no one has noticed this and fixed it. Finally, this isn't really a technical error, but it's still kinda wrong. They credit Cheat Codes as the primary artist for Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way when it's U2's song that was just remixed by them. They had it as U2/Cheat Codes in the Wutchuwant survey, but not on the radio for some reason. So yeah. These are just things I felt like pointing out.

~ Anyway, on to the countdown. At #2, we have Taylor Swift – Delicate, which I thought would've been #1 if it weren't for Brendon hosting the countdown just because of how much more airplay it got. I would prefer Say Amen at #1, but I wouldn't object to Delicate snagging a week or two.

~ Maroon 5/Cardi B – Girls Like You is already in the Top 10, which isn't surprising since I heard it so many times these past few days. I'm still slowly warming up to the song. It's slowly getting better with each listen. I don't know it'll ever be green, but it's possible.

~ Bad Wolves – Zombie has unfortunately fallen into the Bottom 5. It seems as though this may be the end for the song. As saddening as it is, I am happy with how it did here. Peaking at #8 is pretty good. I'm glad Hits 1 treated this song reasonably well for a little while. It deserved all the success it got.

~ As far as the exits go, Pray is currently in the running for shortest tenure of the year, lasting only two weeks. That one deserved better. No one cared for Let Me and I personally didn't care for Over My Head. How Long was getting pretty old so I'm happy with that one leaving. And good riddance to Sober Up. That one stayed much longer than it should've. Hopefully we don't have to hear from AJR again, at least for a little while.

~ My apologies for the lack of blurbs. Not very much happened this week.

Top 20 Review

0 – Crap:

20. Post Malone/Ty Dolla $ign – Psycho

1 – Bad:

19. Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey – The Middle

18. Marshmello/Anne-Marie – Friends

2 – Mediocre:

17. Maroon 5 – Wait

3 – Decent:

16. NOTD/Bea Miller – I Wanna Know

15. Dua Lipa – IDGAF

14. Maroon 5/Cardi B – Girls Like You

4 – Good:

NONE

5 – Great:

13. Niall Horan – On The Loose

12. Halsey – Alone

11. Shawn Mendes – In My Blood

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

9. Selena Gomez – Back To You

8. Taylor Swift – Delicate

7. Imagine Dragons – Whatever It Takes

6. Ariana Grande – No Tears Left To Cry

5. Calvin Harris/Dua Lipa – One Kiss

4. Charlie Puth/Kehlani – Done For Me

3. 5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood

BONUS: 6 – Best Song On The Countdown:

1. TIE: Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen (+2 extra points for being #1)

1. TIE: Foster The People – Sit Next To Me

Overall Score: 82/100 = 82% (A)

Throwback Pick Of The Week: JTX – Love In America

Most Missed Countdown Song: Cash Cash/Bebe Rexha – Take Me Home

#1 Recommendation For Hits 1: The Carters – APESHIT (I love this song more than I should)

Favorite Countdown Song This Week One Year Ago: The Chainsmokers/Coldplay – Something Just Like This (#2)

My Top 5 Picks

1. TIE: Foster The People – Sit Next To Me

1. TIE: Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen

3. Bad Wolves – Zombie

4. The Wrecks – James Dean

5. Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes