Big’s Song Reviews/Rankings

[big2000]

Welcome to my reviews and rankings thread. In this thread, I will be taking requests from members for songs to rank. You name it, I’ll rank it. In addition, I will post a new song review every Wednesday. These will be songs that are either blowing up right now or just interest me in general. This week’s song just happens to be both. Here’s the first review:

Song Review #1: “Bad Habit” by Steve Lacy
This song came out of nowhere and is blowing up with insane streaming numbers, and just hit the top 15 on the Hot 100. After seeing just how great this song is doing, I was intrigued to check it out. On first listen, it didn’t really click with me. But after a few listens, I think I really like it. This comes off of Lacy’s second studio album, titled Gemini Rights. With a song as good as this, I’m surprised Lacy didn’t blow up sooner. The track is insanely catchy, and keeps you hooked from start to finish. Both the chorus and post-chorus are great in both lyrics and production. My only small nitpick is that I wish the lyrics and beat were more balanced, as some parts of it feel a tad messy. But, all in all, this is a very good song and I think Steve Lacy’s future will be bright.

Final grade: 8.5/10

As I said in the intro, I’ll also be taking ranking requests, so if you have a suggestion for songs I should rank, I’m all ears. Other than that, I’ll have another song review up next Wednesday. See you then!

[M5AGTS]

Can you rank my top 100 most listened to songs of the first quarter of the decade?

Here is the spotify playlist.

[big2000]

Will do. I’ll try to do that sometime this week.

[big2000]

I should finish the ranking within the next week. For now, here’s another song review.

So to set this up, I was recently drawn back in to country music. I used to listen to it regularly several years ago, but I stopped because I tired of how bro-country the whole thing had gotten. I can’t stand songs like “This is How We Roll”, “That’s My Kind of Night”, “Chillin’ It” and so on. While I think there is a time and place for bro-country, it had no need to be plastered onto country radio playlists 24/7. Country has made moves to break out of this bad habit. The genre is more inclusive of female artists, and even the bro-iest of the bro-country artists have toned it down a notch. However, the thing that brought me back in was the revival of neotraditional country. This is a form of country that was huge in the 70s and 80s, and was pioneered by the legendary George Strait, among others. However, in recent years, as bro-country has started to fall, neotraditional country has had a revival, and that brings us to one of the artists reviving the sound, Jon Pardi.

Song Review #2: “Last Night Lonely” by Jon Pardi
Jon Pardi is one of my favorite artists in modern country music, due to his music being authentically country in a genre where some artists (Thomas Rhett, Sam Hunt, etc.) feel more pop than country. This song in particular is his latest single. After some time off after his 2019 album Heartache Medication, he released this as the lead single for his upcoming fourth studio album, Mr. Saturday Night. His songs usually tend to rise slowly up the charts, but that is not the case for this song. This reached the top 40 on the Hot 100 within 9 weeks, and is on track to be his highest peaking single so far. Now, this song is far from perfect. The lyrics start to feel quite stale after a while, despite the solid hook, and it feels more like “white bread” than it needs to. However, focusing all on the lyrics would be doing this song a great disservice, as the production and instrumentation is as good as ever. He manages to take neotraditional country from decades ago, and elevated it to fit modern country standards. I really enjoyed the fiddle parts as well (any country song with a fiddle gets a million extra points lol). While I’m not inclined to call this song great, it’s definitely a good song, and I appreciate Jon Pardi and others for helping me realize country isn’t so bad after all.

8.1/10

[big2000]

Quick update:
1. Reviews will no longer be weekly. Instead, I’ll be doing reviews whenever I feel like I can do one.
2. The ranking will be done in a few days, I know it’s been taking a while but it’ll be done soon.