Twostepcub's Biggest Hits of 2020: Part Four - #70 to #61...

 

 

It's time to roll out part four of my countdown of the 100 biggest "hit" songs on my weekly music chart for the last 52 weeks. You can catch up on the best so far by clicking part one, part two, and part three. And away we goooo... 

#70 - "Midnight Sky" by Miley Cyrus

          from the album Plastic Hearts (2020)

          Highest rank: #2 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 14 (still charting)

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14

          Billboard Adult Top-40: #11

          UK Singles Chart: #5

          UK Airplay Chart: #1

          Songwriters: Miley Cyrus, Andrew Wotman (Watt), Louis Bell, Alexandra Tamposi, Ilsey Juber, Jon Bellion

Miley jumped on the neo-disco craze of 2020 a bit late in the game, but her delicious Plastic Hearts album was definitely worth the wait. With a more 80s-by-way-of-Stranger Things production, the record had such a familiarity yet was a fresh look at the everchanging artist. "Midnight Sky", the lead single, was at first listen a definite throwback to Stevie Nicks' "Edge Of Seventeen", so much so that Nicks agreed to come on for a "mashup remix" of the two songs that works way better than it should. Cyrus looks back on her past relationships with both men and women in her recent past and emerges even more powerful. A propelling track with enough darkness to get us through the long stretch of the pandemic. Last year Miley was at #56 on my year-end list as a featured artist on Mark Ronson's "Nothing Breaks Like A Heart".

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#69 - "I Just Wanna Shine" by Fitz & The Tantrums

          from the album All The Feels (2019)

          Highest rank: #19 (four weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 20

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: DNC

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: #10

          Songwriters: Fitz & The Tantrums (Michael Fitzpatrick, Noelle Scaggs, James King, Joseph Karnes, Jeremy Ruzumna, John Wicks), Nicholas Long

 

 The consistently interesting modern rock group with a French-born lead singer with a soulful female counterpart came into 2020 with this optimistic fifth single from their fourth album. An assertive little Maroon-5/One Republic-style white-boy funkrock with a more sunny disposition, the Tantrums are a nice little hidden secret.

#68 - "The Man" by Taylor Swift

          from the album Lover (2019)

          Highest rank: #5 (one week)

          Weeks on the chart: 15

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: #9

          Songwriters: Taylor Swift, Joel Little

The third single from her 2019 Lover album, "The Man" is my favorite of Swift's "industry" songs, where she lays bare her feelings about the (big) machine she's a part of. Coming just as Swift was fighting her former record company who sold off her prior catalog without giving her the chance to buy it herself, which is a real dick move. And she's right, whatever issues she's had over the years, the treatment of her by the media would be much different if she was a guy. Then there's the music video - damn does she make a convincing Tom Cruise.

#67 - "What A Man Gotta Do" by the Jonas Brothers

          from the album TBA

          Highest rank: #3 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 16

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #16

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: 11

          Songwriters: Jonas Brothers (Nick, Joe, Kevin Jonas), Ryan Tedder, David Stewart, Jessica Agombar

Last year was a banner year for the sibling trio, with a triumphant comeback album Happiness Begins, and two songs that made my year-end list with "Only Human" (#53) and the leadoff shot "Sucker", which placed at #2 for 2019. So riding high on that wave, the group returned with this anthemic punchy pop track co-written by this generation's Holly Knight, Ryan Tedder (from OneRepublic). They even shot a flashy cameo-filled music video. But somehow it came at the wrong time. Perhaps because we were just entering this nightmare that was 2020 that this was relatively left aside (along with follow-up "X") and suddenly their new album which was due this year never emerged. It's a shame, the song it pretty catchy, though maybe trying a bit hard. Maybe they can sit out a little again and return stronger. I mean, Stewart and Agombar rebounded by writing BTS' #1 hit Dynamite after this.

#66 - "One Man Band" by Old Dominion

          from the album Old Dominion (2019)

          Highest rank: #14 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart (in 2020): 24

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20

          Billboard Country Airplay peak: #1

          Songwriters: Matthew Ramsey, Trevor Rosen, & Brad Tursi (Old Dominion), Josh Osborne

In just three albums, this Virginia act has become the country band Nashville puts up top right now, in the tradition of Alabama and Lonestar. This midtempo love song is understated and dry of the hokey bro-ness the genre has been coming up with lately as it evolved into "boyfriend country". But it's refreshing for a band to sound like a band instead of hired on studio hacks. Last year they were at #38 with the lead single from this record, "Make It Sweet".

#65 - "Daisies" by Katy Perry

          from the album Smile (2020)

          Highest rank: #7 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 16

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #40

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: #9

          Songwriters: Katy Perry, Jon Bellion, Michael Pollack, Jacob Kasher Hindlin, Jordan & Stefan Johnson (Monsters & Strangerz)

 

 Since Katy found herself at #28 on my 2019 countdown with "Never Really Over", which eventually found itself as the opening track on Perry's sixth studio album Smile, she's had a pretty topsy turvy year. She mended fences with Taylor Swift, appearing in her "You Need To Calm Down" video as a cold war of fandoms ended. Her album was delayed until the summer of this year, with the pandemic also coinciding with her pregnancy with fiance Orlando Bloom. She emerged with that pregnant glow in "Daisies", a loud yet understated empowerment mantra to herself as she navigates the rocky road that the media and business puts on female artists. While the record and its followups' reception is more muted that her past domination of the pop charts, perhaps her psyche is much better off for it.

#64 - "Raising Hell" by Kesha featuring Big Freedia

          from the album High Road (2020)

          Highest rank: #10 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart (in 2020): 17

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: DNC ("bubbled under" at #117)

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: #22

          Billboard Dance Club Play peak: #5

          Billboard Dance Airplay peak: #8

          Songwriters: Kesha Sebert, Stephen Wrabel, Sean Douglas, Ajay Bhattacharya (Stint)

    Big Freedia, the gender-fluid queen of New Orleans' "bounce" music scene, may have technically been on a #1 record two years ago when Drake employed her but didn't officially credit her on "Nice For What", but she gets featured billing on this glorious lead single from Kesha's latest record High Road. A gospel-style revival hymn about living the hard life, Kesha proves she's come a long way from the over-autotuned start she had. It's a shame that her tour was cut short by COVID, with Freedia planning on being the opening act. But something tells me it won't be the last. Kesha herself was a featured singer on rapper Macklemore's "Good Old Days", which came in at #15 on my countdown for 2018.

 

#63 - "Lay Your Head On Me" by Major Lazer featuring Mark Mumford

          from the album Music Is The Weapon (2020)

          Highest rank: #20 (three weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 19

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: DNC

          Billboard Rock Airplay peak; #7

          Billboard Alternative Rock Airplay peak: #10

          Billboard Adult Album Alternative (Triple-A Rock) peak: #1

          Billboard Dance Airplay peak: #1

          Songwriters: Thomas Pentz (Diplo), Mark Mumford, Henry Allen (King Henry), Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen (MØ), Jasper Helderman (Alvaro), Bas Van Daalen (Will Grands)

It seemed as though Diplo alt-dance side project Major Lazer was taking cues from the late Avicii for their latest single by recruiting folk-rocker Mark Mumford from the British band Mumford & Sons, but "Lay Your Head On Me" takes the idea a step further by fusing folk with Afro-Caribbean rhythms instead of cold, sterile EDM. The result was a much warmer display of emotion that came out at the right time for this time, as evident in the crowd-sourced dance video. Mumford and his band were at #21 on my 2019 year-end with "Guiding Light".

#62 - "Nobody But You" by Blake Shelton featuring Gwen Stefani

          from the album Fully Loaded: God's Country (2019)

          Highest rank: #32 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 30

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18

          Billboard Country Airplay peak: #1

          Songwriters: Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne, Ross Copperman, Tommy Lee James

 

 This could've been way worse than it was. Country music's current statesman, along with his current fiance (his third) and frequent The Voice co-worker Gwen Stefani are the cringiest couple in music today, with Gwen's punk past totally distilled into mainstream red-hat consumption form. But nevertheless the two are incredibly professional, and this all-out duet does what it came out to do, simply put the pair at the top of the country radio chart (which they recent repeated with "Happy Anywhere"). The chiming guitars are more adult-rock as it is, and only Blake's pronounced twang sets it in the genre, but the record is bombastic without being overblown, and stayed on the chart for months (hence its appearance here). Detached from their tabloid-style affair, this isn't anything to be embarrassed about. Last year Blake was at #92 with the greatest hits title track "God's Country"

#61 - "Here And Now" by Kenny Chesney

          from the album Here And Now (2020)

          Highest rank: #9 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 17

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38

          Billboard Country Airplay peak: #1

          Songwriters: David Lee Murphy, David Garcia, Craig Wiseman

Kenny is now country's reigning "old man" at the age of 52, as fellow middle-ager Tim McGraw is still re-navigating his place in Nashville. But Kenny really has never had a mis-step or label fight in his nineteen studio albums. This ode to living in the present was co-written by veteran David Lee Murphy, who Kenny guested with for "Everything's Gonna Be Alright", which came in at #83 on my countdown in 2018. On this, Kenny sounds just as commanding and powerful as he did years ago.

That's it for today. Tomorrow I'll return with a singer hitting "sweater weather", Gaga's legacy serenading royalty, a boyfriend country pair ready to hit the hay, and more.