Twostepcub's Biggest Hits of 2022: Part Five - #60 to #51...
We're coming up on the halfway mark on my countdown of the biggest "hit" songs on my weekly music chart for 2022. You can catch up with the series so far by clicking here.
from the album Public Displays Of Affection (2022)
Highest rank: #14 (two weeks)
Weeks on the chart: 22
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #16
Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay peak: #1 (eight weeks)
Billboard Adult R&B Airplay peak: #2
Billboard Rhythmic Airplay peak: #3
Official British Singles Chart peak: #41
Songwriter: Muni Long (Priscilla Renea)
After recording two albums that didn't really go anywhere, but writing big hits for Kelly Clarkson, Rihanna, and Miranda Lambert, Priscilla Renea Hamilton, who had been recording under her first and middle names, reinvented herself as Muni Long, and the gambit paid off, with her breakthrough R&B hit that topped the urban radio chart for two months. The seductive slow jam, which featured such lines as "(I'll) Order shrimp and lobster towers, But it's me that gets devoured". Get it! The music video positioned her in the same camp as SZA and Ari Lennox, and that's good company all around.
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from the album Come Get Your Wife (2023)
Highest rank (in 2022): #18 (two weeks) (went to #18 for two weeks in 2021)
Weeks on the chart (in 2022): 22 (was on for 25 weeks in 2021)
Hot 100 peak: #37
Billboard Adult Contemporary Airplay peak: #28
Billboard Adult Top-40 Airplay peak: #12
Billboard Country Airplay peak: #1 (one week)
Songwriters: Elle King (Tanner Elle Schneider), Martin Johnson
This barn-burner of a trailer trash anthem from Rob Schneider's daughter and Blake Shelton's ex-wife placed at #39 on my 2021 year-end list from its run on adult pop radio; this year the song got a deserved second wind finally on country music stations, a rarity in this direction, where it eventually reached the #1 spot and spent 47 weeks on the main airplay list. If points from both years were combined, this would be at #8 this year, and I'd be happy with that. Elle and Miranda pull out the self-empowerment without the preachiness and it worked so damn well. A classic, both in production, performance, and lyrics. Miranda was also on last year's countdown at #77 with "Settling Down".
#58 - "Thinking 'Bout You" - Dustin Lynch featuring MacKenzie Porter
from the album Blue In The Sky (2022)
Highest rank: #10 (two weeks)
Weeks on the chart (in 2022): 21 (was on for nine weeks in 2021)
Hot 100 peak: #30
Country Airplay peak: #1 (six weeks)
Songwriters: Dustin Lynch, Andy Albert, Hunter Phelps, Will Weatherly
This mid-tempo song about rekindling flames was originally recorded for Lynch's 2020 album Tullahoma, with American Idol tenth season runner-up Lauren Alaina as the female foil. However as she had just released her own single, "Get Over it", a duet with traditionalist Jon Pardi, she (or possibly her record company/managers) didn't want to flood the radio with two similar songs with her on it. So Lynch redid the song with Canadian singer MacKenzie Porter and put it out as a single. How'd that turn out? "Get Over It" stalled at #29 on Billboard magazine's Country Airplay chart. "Thinking 'Bout You" is still one of the top 10 recurrents over a year and a half after its release, with a month and a half atop the country airplay chart. Bad choice, Lauren. Still, MacKenzie's vocals are more striking and dramatic here anyway, so it may have not been the case. It's a cringy subject, but both make it at least casual and comfortable, and the production brings me back to the 90's Nashville heyday, instead of the current boyfriend country glut Lynch has been attached to. Dustin "bubbled under" the 2021 list at #123 with "Momma's House. Before that, he hadn't been on the countdown since 2017, when his "Seein' Red" was at #56 and "Small Town Boy" was at #65.
#57 - "Ramon Ayala" - Giovannie & The Hired Guns
from the album Tejano Punk Boyz (2022)
Highest rank: #10 (two weeks)
Weeks on the chart: 20
Billboard Rock & Alternative Airplay peak: #1 (five weeks)
Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay peak: #2
Billboard Alternative Rock Airplay peak: #3
Songwriters: Giovannie Yanez & Alex Trejo (Giovannie & The Hired Guns)
Hailing from the outskirts of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, this upstart band got their big break by combining Latin rock with a basic rewrite of "Teenage Dirtbag" for a huge rock radio hit. An anthem for the loser guys of the country.
#56 - "Won't Stand Down" - Muse
from the album Will Of The People (2022)
Highest rank: #9 (four weeks)
Weeks on the chart: 17
Rock & Alternative Airplay peak: #3
Mainstream Rock Airplay peak: #1 (one week)
Alternative Rock Airplay peak: #3
British Singles Chart peak: #56
Songwriter: Matt Bellamy
The modern rock veterans returned defiantly this year with this call to arms, and are back on my year-end for the first time since 2018 when they were #52 with "Thought Contagion". The guitar noise is strong, predicting it becoming their first #1 on the harder Mainstream Rock radio chart, but the melodic structure is still there.
#55 - "I Think I Like You" - The Band CAMINO
from the album The Band CAMINO (2021)
Highest rank: #7 (three weeks)
Weeks on the chart: 19
Adult Top-40 Airplay peak: #13
Songwriters: Spencer Stewart (The Band CAMINO), Graham Rowell), Jordan Schmidt, Sam Hollander
WIth a break in the Maroon 5 output, this Memphis-based band filled the need for white-boy funk-rock with falsetto vocals. This is insanely catchy. (Mind you, Rowell, who was their original bass player, was ejected after being exposed for taking advantage of fans on the internets.)
#54 - "A Little Bit Of Love" - Weezer
from the EP SZNZ: Spring (2022)
Highest rank: #4 (three weeks)
Weeks on the chart: 18
Rock & Alternative Airplay peak: #4
Mainstream Rock Airplay peak: #39
Alternative Rock Airplay peak: #1 (two weeks)
Billboard Adult Album Alternative (Triple-A) Rock Airplay peak: #6
Songwriters: Rivers Cuomo (Weezer), Dave Gibson, Jackie "Jax" Miskanic, Wayne Wilkins
Nerd-rock titans Weezer released four EPs this year, one for each season, and this simple strummer came on the first spring set. Fun fact: it was co-written by Jackie Miskanic, the New Jersey-born singer that was on American Idol and is now riding the charts with her own "Victoria's Secret" which is at #91 on this countdown. Weezer was on the list last year all the way at #9 with "All My Favorite Songs".
#53 - "First Class" - Jack Harlow
from the album Come Home The Kids Miss You (2022)
Highest rank: #18 (two weeks)
Weeks on the chart: 24
Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Pop Airplay peak: #2
Adult Top-40 Airplay peak: #17
R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay peak: #1 (two weeks)
Rhythmic Airplay peak: #1 (six weeks)
British Singles Chart peak: #2
Songwriters: Jack Harlow, Roget Chahayed, Jasper Harris, Charlie Handsome (Ryan Vojtesak), Micaiah Raheem, José Velazquez, Douglas Ford, Fergie (Stacy Ferguson), Ludacris (Christopher Bridges), Polow da Don (Jamal Jones), will.i.am (William Adams), Blac Elvis (Elvis Williams)
After getting to #1 as a feature on Lil Nas X's "Industry Baby", which came in at #64 on last year's recap, "blue-eyed" rapper Harlow did it again with this smooth track that sample's Fergie's "Glamorous", which accounts for five of the twelve credited songwriters. He can damn well ride the flow here.
#52 - "Half Of My Hometown" - Kelsea Ballerini featuring Kenny Chesney
from the album Kelsea (2020)
Highest rank: #14 (three weeks)
Weeks on the chart (in 2022): 18 (was on for three weeks in 2021)
Hot 100 peak: #53
Country Airplay peak: #1 (one week)
Songwriters: Kelsea Ballerini, Jimmy Robbins, Ross Copperman, Nicole Galyon, Shane McAnally
Country singer/songwriter Ballerini, who was on the 2021 list with "Hole In The Bottle" at #68, gets nostalgic and gets her first #1 radio hit in four years, while also giving a boost to veteran Chesney, who "bubbled under" last year's year-end at #104 with "Knowing You" and #121 with "Happy Does". While Maren was remembering while looking forward with "Circles Around This Town", Kelsea is more somber about the downtrodden she left behind.
#51 - "Here To Forever" - Death Cab For Cutie
from the album Asphalt Meadows (2022)
Highest rank: #2 (one week)
Weeks on the chart: 17
Rock & Alternative Airplay peak: #2
Alternative Rock Airplay peak: #1 (one week)
Adult Album Alternative Airplay peak: #1 (eight weeks)
Songwriters: Ben Gibbard & Zac Rae (Death Cab For Cutie)
Ben Gibbard's indie-rock heroes don't pull any punches from the starting verse where he makes the passing observation while watching an old movie that everyone in it is dead. From there it's a treatise on the fleetingness of life and how the search for eternal wisdom will just make what life you have miserable. The band was last on my year end in 2019 at #78 with "Northern Lights".
Well, we've made it to the half-way point in my year-end countdown. Tomorrow (Saturday), I'll quickly roll out the 25 "also rans" that almost made the list, including some real good nuggets. Then it's back to the main list on Monday, with the return of a White Stripe, a woman with Harmony celebrates an end, and a pop rock band isn't fazed by Tom Cruise.
But later today, I'll have my top 100 hits from the previous week. Stay tuned.
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