2010s

You know, I came into 2018 expecting the worst year of the decade for music, fearing the continued expansion of Soundcloud trap and even less variety than there was in 2015-2017. However, I was quite wrong; 2018 has so far turned out to be easily one of the decade’s better years for music.

Trap, while still around, seems to be finally declining or at least downgrading into mostly a minor influence on music instead of the dominant sound in pop. In its place, we’ve had probably the most diversity on the charts since the end of the 2000s, from Justin Timberlake’s ambitiously experimental new singles, to a new jack swing variety that made Cardi B sound like Lisa Lopes, to an actual rock song becoming a decent hit with “Zombie”, to a matured sound from Shawn Mendes, to two of the freshest and liveliest rap songs in a long time with Nicki Minaj’s new songs, to Camila Cabello’s solid debut album, to Ariana Grande’s breathtaking dance anthem, and so on. Even the driving forces of the trap movement, such as Migos, Cardi B, and Drake, have had a few hits that break from the usual lifeless trap style and utilize their lyrics a lot better.

While there’s still no shortage of middling EDM and autone-soul tracks on the pop charts, there really hasn’t been much music this year that I’ve outright disliked, and already there are several songs that I genuinely enjoy and come back to a fair amount, even though we’re only about a third of the way thru the year and we haven’t even reached the summer yet. If things continue to go this well, 2018 may actually turn out to be my favourite year for music this decade, even better than 2010.

I've noticed that my local Top-40 radio station (and another Top-40 station in Sydney) have started to play S Club 7 songs within the past few days. i98fm played "Bring It All Back" at around midday today and just a week ago, the station played "S Club Party". As far as I know, the Top-40 stations never play any S Club 7 songs. I can only assume that the songs haven't received regular radio airplay since 2002/2003, because I've never heard them being played on the radio before and I haven't noticed the songs in radio logs that I have studied. 

In fact, before #Infinity introduced me to the group, the only S Club 7 song I was aware of was "Bring It All Back" and that's because I can remember watching the music video on a music TV channel a few years ago. I wonder why Top-40 radio stations are starting to play their songs again? 

Their only single I ever knew from when I was a kid was "Don't stop Movin", but their biggest songs "S Club Party" and "Don't Stop Movin" have received some AirPlay over here for a number of years now.

I agree. It's likely that people are beginning to become nostalgic of them. The release of "Family" didn't receive any press coverage here, so nostalgia most likely is the reason behind the increase in radio airplay. 


That's interesting to hear! Maybe S Club 7 are slightly more popular over in New Zealand?  I've noticed that the group had three #1 hits in NZ and three of their albums also charted within the Top-20 on the NZ album chart. In Australia, however, none of their singles topped the charts (and only S Club charted on the album chart), but "Bring It All Back", "S Club Party", "Two in a Million" and "Reach" all stayed within the Top-50 longer here then they did in New Zealand. I guess it's hard to say which country they were more popular/successful in.

"No Tears Left to Cry" debuted at #2 in the UK, still behind "One Kiss", although it did already hit #1 in a few countries, such as Norway and Ireland.

The current iTunes top 3 in the US is kind of odd. The #1 song is a remix of "Never Be the Same", which has more synthetically inferior production and a guest appearance from Kane Brown, who also gender-flips the second verse. Personally, I don't know why Camila didn't just release "Consequences", "She Loves Control", or "Something's Gotta Give" as opposed to recording this fairly pointless remix of a song that has already gotten heavy exposure over the past several weeks in its original incarnation.

The other two slots are occupied by Post Malone, who, in the tradition of Shawn Mendes and Nicki Minaj, just released two new singles at the same time. Not surprisingly, they both sound like crap and are a huge letdown after all the positivity about 2018 starting to stray away from the sleazy, hedonistic, trap-oriented, monotone that plagued pop music in America during 2016 and 2017.

Yeah, "I Fall Apart" is pretty much the only Post Malone song worth listening to. I still don't relate to the guy in the least, but that song does have some real punch to its vocals and even some fairly decent production, complete with electric guitar riffs. "Ball for Me" and "Same Bitches", meanwhile, are both regressions to the worst music of 2016 and 2017. Those songs have at least already both fallen out of the iTunes top 3, replaced by "Meant to Be" and "Whatever It Takes", in contrast to "No Tears Left to Cry" holding onto the top spot for almost the entire week after it was released, but I still don't want lifeless trap to survive after all following its seeming decline early this year.