On The YouTube Charts [6/8/17–6/15/17]

Gonna try and a new thing here: YouTube. I still haven’t cracked exactly how I wanna do this kind of chart commentary for Spotify, so I’m gonna jump into YouTube and mess around with a few formats and see how it goes. This week I’m gonna start with the United States Top 20 songs, make a few notes; go onto highlight a few songs that were in the Top 20 of specific cities, but didn’t make the overall Top 20. This gets fairly meta, but what otherwise is the point of blogging in 2017.

1. Bruno Mars — “That’s What I Like” (17,320,857 Views)
2. DJ Khaled (feat. Justin Bieber, Chance The Rapper, Lil Wayne, & Quavo) — “I’m The One” (16,952,375 Views)
3. Luis Fonsi (feat. Daddy Yankee) — “Despacito” (16,087,263 Views)
4. Luis Fonsi (feat. Daddy Yankee & Justin Bieber) — “Despacito (Remix)” (15,858,914 Views)
5. Future — “Mask Off” (14,331,614 Views)
6. Ayo & Teo — “Rolex” (14,172, 516 Views)
7. Post Malone (feat. Quavo) — “Congratulations” (14,033, 408 Views)
8. Lil Uzi Vert — “XO Tour Llif3” (12,861, 979 Views)
9. Ed Sheeran — “Shape Of You” (11, 870, 445 Views)
10. Kendrick Lamar — “HUMBLE.” (11,635,940 Views)
11. KYLE (feat. Lil Yachty) — “iSpy” (10,376,161 Views)
12. Rae Sremmurd — “Swang” (8,323,782 Views)
13. Migos (feat. Lil Uzi Vert) — “Bad And Boujee” (7,490,305 Views)
14. French Montana (feat. Swae Lee) — “Unforgettable” (7,470,700 Views)
15. Donald Glover — “Redbone” (6,973,109 Views)
16. Playboi Carti — “Magnolia” (6,742,105 Views)
17. Migos (feat. Gucci Mane) — “Slippery” (6,243,702 Views)
18. Tee Grizzley — “First Day Out” (6,113,505 Views)
19. A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie (feat. Kodak Black) — “Drowning” (5,798,121 Views)
20. Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars) — “Uptown Funk” (5,193,252 Views)

• [The #1 Spot] — I’ll admit to being wrong about the Bruno Mars album, 24K Magic, last year. I though it was fine, but I incorrectly assumed it was an early sign that his pop reign was going to end, because I didn’t think he could follow up “Uptown Funk” and it was a four year gap between albums. Welp I was wrong, as “That’s What I Like” clearly proved. The song already hit #1 in the United States, but I wanted to point out that the Streaming Gods of Atlantic Records not only tapped Gucci Mane and PartyNextDoor for remixes, but they got EDM wunderkind Alan Walker for one. The remix is fairly whatever, but considering he’s put out less than a dozen songs in his career and all of them have 100s of millions — yes millions — of streams, why not.
• [R.I.P Pop (Music Genre)] — I’m not sure if I’ll do this every week, but by my count there are three pop songs in the Top 20 this week with “Shape Of You,” “That’s What I Like,” “Uptown Funk.” Excluding those and Luis Fonsi, the rest of the Top 20 is rap. I tried to hint at this when I wrote this piece about Katy Perry, but pop music as a genre is struggling on streaming charts. Not that it can’t do well, but it doesn’t have the fan base on these platforms like rap, at least in the United States — international charts do help reintroduce pop into the equation. Also there are no women here, even though Katy Perry, Lorde, and Halsey just put out albums this month — *grinning face emoji*.
• [Roly Poly Roly Poly] — I essentially wrote my piece about “Rolex” and dance/meme songs earlier this year for Genius. But, Ayo & Teo released a video for the song that featured them a whole slew of dancers doing their best moves. What struck me most watching their video is how just a little bit of editing, slow-mo effects, and a budget makes these talented kids almost appear super human in the dance moves they can pull off. Now I love guys like Meechie, Toosi, King Imprint and ect., but the “Rolex” video how much more this particular for of dance videos can go when given more time and effort. But as I say that perhaps the charm of their videos is that the production values aren’t so high as to over take the dance moves.

Regional Hits

YoungBoy Never Broke Again: “Untouchable”, #16 — Charlotte, North Carolina

YoungBoy Never Broke Again, or YoungBoy NBA, last year became one of the most buzzed about “street” rappers from the south. The Baton Rogue teenager spent much of 2016 in jail on charges of first degree murder, but was released earlier this year and late last month put out a video for his single “Untouchable” that shows him living it up in his post-jail life. When I spoke to David G, who directed a number of Youngboy’s videos, for this Noisey piece on Post-Chief Keef rap videos, he made a comment that he never encouraged YoungBoy to include all of the guns that he was toting in all his earlier videos. This comment struck me watching the video for “Untouchable,” which was also directed by David G, because the verisimilitud he brought to those older more violent videos can also be seen here at the pool party, trips to the mall and quieter moments of just showing off money with his family. Clearly some of the locations are a bit more staged than his earlier videos — that money on the screen must be going somewhere — but the video shows a side of Youngboy’s life that his music often reveals, but his video chose to hide.

Yung Bleu: “Miss It”, #19 Baton Rogue, Louisiana

On my real real shit, I didn’t know about Yung Bleu until I was hunting through these charts, but he’s from Mobile, Alabama and on Boosie’s Badazz Music label. My initial thought when I heard this was Kevin Gates and Drake, because all overly emotional 2010s street rap just brings me back to those two, because as much as people call Drake a culture vulture, his impact on guys like Kevin Gates, Meek Mill, and other street rappers is hard to overstate. Anyway, “Miss It” is a fine rap song, but part of me wonders what this dude would sound like on some of the beats from J Hus’s album, because when one’s voice is treated as a pure melodic instrument there is a wide range that one can go.

Christian Nodal: “Adiós Amor”, #19 Houston, Texas

This song to put it lightly is fucking huge with currently over 200 millions plays. Christina Nodal, is a teenage Mexican singer, who scored a massive hit with “Adiós Amor” this year. I’m not too familiar with norteño music, but this song appeared charmingly inoffensive on a few listens. The Singles Jukebox appeared to agree with my lukewarm take as it got a 5.67, not bad not great. But one of the many trends within the YouTube charts is that Mexico and Latin America music dominates the YouTube charts in a way I never see in Apple Music or Spotify. I say this because much more of this music will be popping up on here, so I’ll certainly be aiming to be more informed going forward, as this series demands it.