Twostepcub's Biggest Hits of 2021: Part Three - #80 to #71...

 

 

we're up to round three of my 2021 year-end countdown of the biggest "hit" tunes on my weekly music chart. You can catch up with the first two installments by clicking here. And on it goes...

 

#80 - "Big Big Plans" - Chris Lane

          from the album TBA (2022?)

          Highest rank: #9 (three weeks)

          Weeks on the chart (in 2021): 16 (was on for 8 weeks in 2020)

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42

          Billboard Country Airplay peak: #1

          Songwriters: Chris Lane, Ernest Smith, Jacob Durrett

 

 

 Previously on the countdown I mentioned the rise of "boyfriend country" in the last few years, where pin-up ready hunks coo romantic verses to woo the ladies. Chris Lane is one of those interchangeable singers, and while this is a pleasant proposal song, complete with the music video where he married reality show fodder Lauren Bushnell of The Bachelor (who apparently dumped her bachelor), it really could be sung by a plethora of toothy guys. Still, in a soft field at the time, it rose to heights it may have not in a more competitive year.

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#79 - "Shivers" - Ed Sheeran

          from the album = (2021)

          Highest rank: #2 (eight weeks as of 12/17)

          Weeks on the chart: 12 (still on the chart on 12/17)

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: #3

          Billboard Dance Airplay peak: #29

          UK Singles chart peak: #1

          Songwriters: Ed Sheeran, Steve McCutcheon (Steve Mac), Kal Lavelle, John McDaid

 

 After starting the year with the one-off single "Afterglow" (on yesterday's installment), Sheeran ends 2021 with this white-boy groove about the sexual tension with a lover. It's unusually randy for Ed, who usually goes the romantic route, and the result is an earworm that hasn't worn off me yet.

#78 - "Shy Away" - twenty-one pilots

          from the album Scaled and Icy (2021)

          Highest rank: #5 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 16

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #87

          Billboard Rock Airplay peak: #1

          Billboard Alternative Rock peak: #1

          Billboard Adult Alternative (Triple-A) peak: #18

          Songwriter: Tyler Joseph

twenty-one pilots, the indie-rock duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, gave rock radio the COVID-19 quarantine self-help anthem of "Level Of Concern" last year, which came in at #11 for 2020. (They also were at #40 with "The Hype" from their previous album Trench.) "Concern" finally got an album release on this year's Scaled and Icy, with this post-punk throwback as a follow-up. The bouncy guitar fuzztones and reassuring lyrics continued their therapy session with their fans, along with Joseph's daughter cooing in the background.

#77 - "Settling Down" - Miranda Lambert

          from the album Wildcard (2019)

          Highest rank: #15 (one week)

          Weeks on the chart: 19

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41

          Billboard Country Airplay peak: #6

          Songwriters: Miranda Lambert, Natalie Hemby, Luke Dick

Lambert collaborated with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall on the Texas Country-styled The Marfa Tapes this year, but her biggest success was from this holdover from her own 2019 album Wildcard. It's a safe mainstream treatise on the married life, but the production has a lot more character than those type of songs have, especially with the pedal-steel effect on the guitar. And with husband Brendan McLoughlin in the video, it appears Miranda definitely "traded up" from Blake Shelton. Last year Miranda was on the list at #79 with the #1 country hit "Bluebird".

#76 - "One Of Them Girls" - Lee Brice

          from the album Hey World (2020)

          Highest rank (in 2021): #46 (was #18 for one week in 2020)

          Weeks on the chart (in 2021): 29 (was on for 16 weeks in 2020)

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #17

          Billboard Country Airplay peak: #1

          Songwriters: Lee Brice, Dallas Davidson, Ashley Gorley, Ben Johnson

Well, country radio couldn't quit this song which was on my list last year at #96, so much so that it did even better pointwise even with having left the top-40 on my chart. Sticking around for over seven months did the trick, and it's the only song on here that wasn't in the top-40 during 2021. It is peripherally "boyfriend country", but Brice has such a way with his vocal delivery and turn of phrase that sends the song into another plane of existence as he makes his moves on a girl at a bar as if she's the love of his life. Who knows how it will eventually end, but in the chase his level of commitment is commendable. 

#75 - "Skate" - Silk Sonic

          from the album An Evening With Silk Sonic (2021)

          Highest rank: #8 (three weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 15

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: #16

          Billboard Adult Contemporary peak: #20

          Billboard R&B/Hip Hop Airplay peak: #12

          Billboard Adult R&B peak: #4

          Songwriters: Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars, Anderson Paak), Dernst Emile II, James Fauntleroy, Domitille Degalle (DOMI), JD Beck

Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak's Silk Sonic project offered this disco pastiche as their followup of their smash "Leave The Door Open", which I think overshadowed this from becoming the bigger hit it deserved to be. Those chord changes! Those string flourishes! That lyrical flow! There is nothing I could criticize of this, which would've ruled the airwaves in 1975.

#74 - "Bed" - Joel Corry, Raye, and David Guetta

          from the single (2021)

          Highest rank: #13 (three weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 19

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: did not chart

          Billboard Dance Airplay peak: #1

          Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs peak: #7

          UK Singles chart peak: #3

          Songwriters: Joel Corry, Rachel Keen (Raye), David Guetta, Giorgio Tuinfort, Janee Bennett (Jin Jin), Lewis Thompson, Neave Applebaum

 

 DJ/producer/reality show fodder Corry, who was also at #81 with the 2020 leftover "Head & Heart" with MNEK, collaborates with another dance music artist that deserves more success in the States, Raye, along with EDM icon David Guetta to continue the Brits continued dominance in neo-house music this year. The video's a cute takeoff on the movie Her as well. Now why isn't Raye a star already?!?!

#73 - "Pick Up Your Feelings" - Jazmine Sullivan

          from the album Heaux Tales (2021)

          Highest rank: #35 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 26

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #75

          Billboard R&B/Hip Hop Airplay peak: #2

          Billboard Adult R&B peak: #1

          Songwriters: Jazmine Sullivan, NOVA WAV (Denisia Andrews, Brittany Coney), Kyle Coleman, Audra Mae, Michael Holmes

Sullivan returned to my chart for the first time since 2015's "Let It Burn" with this direct descendant of Erykah Badu's "Tyrone", where Sullivan summarily dismisses a cheating lover. This roller coaster ride of emotion is every much worth the E ticket to hear Jazmine's vocal acrobatics that should earn her a Grammy or two come January. 

#72 - "Single Saturday Night" - Cole Swindell 

          from the album TBA (2022)

          Highest rank: #38 (three weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 30 (still on the chart 12/17)

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26

          Billboard Country Airplay peak: #1

          Songwriters: Cole Swindell, Michael Hardy (HARDY), Ashley Gorley, Mark Holman

Some more "boyfriend country", this time from the red-haired baseball-capped Swindell, who sings about going out and finding a girl at a bar (yeah, already done on this list) that will end his swinging single days. Inoffensive enough, it's here more on radio lingering power than anything, though.

#71 - "Positions" - Ariana Grande

          from the album Positions (2020)

          Highest rank: #12 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart (in 2021): 18 (was on for four weeks in 2020)

          Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1

          Billboard Adult Top-40 peak: #9

          Billboard Adult Contemporary peak: #22

          Billboard Dance Airplay peak: #6

          UK Singles chart peak: #1

          Songwriters: Ariana Grande, London Holmes (London on da Track), Tommy Brown (TBHits), Steven Franks (Mr. Franks), Angelina Barrett, Brian Vincent Bates, Nija Charles, Taylor Parks (Tayla Parx), James Jarvis

After being on Lady Gaga's "Rain On Me" last year (which also is on this year's list at #85), Grande settled down and got herself married off. She also gave us Positions, led off by this title track, an ode to "versatility" that got much of the LGBTQ community mouth agape and singing along. For her "seductive"-style tracks, this may be my favorite of the bunch. 

Well there we go, I'll be back tomorrow with another ten, including brotherly rockers gone bad, hip-hop's gay god goes to prison, and last year's Eurovision winners tackle the Four Seasons of desperation.