STREAMING MADNESS: BILLBOARD’S TIKTOK TOP 50
INSIDE THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
TikTok is bad for you in the same way that all social media is bad for you, but it’s just better at being bad for you. It’s a little perplexing that the kind of person who spends their evenings scrolling Twitter with half an eye on Netflix can be sanctimonious about not using the app, but I don’t not get that sentiment. TikTok is high-test stuff, a greatest hits megamix of all the videos you never asked for, and too much scrolling will do things to your dome that make other screen-based activities seem almost quaint.
Setting aside certain policy dimensions—I’m going to assume most of you don’t subscribe to “John’s Music Blog” for nuanced geopolitical game theory—TikTok is where the action is. At least once a week, I will see something so confusing and funny that it almost justifies my habit. It’s also the place where music is broken, both sonically and commercially. It’s the place where indie rock songs become dance anthems, where everything gets faster or slower, and where music loses whatever little context it had to begin with.
1. Tommy Richman “Million Dollar Baby”
Last week, a video circulated online of Funkmaster Flex roasting “Million Dollar Baby” live on Hot 97. It’s classic Flex, and it’s pretty funny, though at this point, his disapproval of a song might be a sign of its value. But sometimes a bit of old head salt is just what the doctor ordered. I was sort of disappointed, then, when Flex revealed that he would be premiering Richman’s newest single on the air a few days later. He says he likes it. Frankly, I don’t know what to believe anymore!
6. 310babii, OhGeesy & BlueBucksClan “Rock Your Hips”
This contempo Cali rap tune has been the engine for a new TikTok dance craze. The prompt: dance as if you have the best [blank] ever. It’s a prompt made for wife guys to shine, no doubt. It’s also a prompt made for kids to dance next to Super Mario Brothers characters at Universal Studios.
11. Sabrina Carpenter “Please Please Please”
Aging coastal elite pop music enthusiasts seem to love “Espresso,” but I’m pretty neutral on it. “Please Please Please” is better. I think Jack Antanoff should’ve saved it for Lana Del Ray, though. Picture it a little slower and without that kind of wack drum machine…
The synth on “PORSCHE” can only really be described as “nagging.” But why? What does it mean for a synth to be nagging? What does it mean for a hi-hat to skittering? These are just words that we music bloggers love to say. We call a synth “nagging.” It’s fine. Maybe we could instead say that the track’s detuned portamento lead sounds like an annoying teacher, but would that really be any better? Hell no! There is no escape.
20. Shaboozey “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
It was only a matter of time before a country singer interpolated “Tipsy” by J-Kwon. I’m not sure if America is actually careening towards a hybrid ultra-genre built out of the scraps of country, rap, and rock, as some have postulated, but I do think that one of the few chances we have for cultural transcendence in this twisted nation rests in the hands of songs that sound like Mumford & Sons meets the St. Lunatics. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t make the damn rules.
24. snowblind & n3wd “Dont Understand”
Contemporary music 101: snowblind has almost 300,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and isn’t even old enough to drive. There is very little information about the artist on the internet. Scrolling through the content made using “Dont Understand” gave me a headache. It was a strange mix of Emma Stone memes and video game clips.
27. Chromatics “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Sped Up)”
The fact that a band I saw play live almost 20 years ago at a small indie rock club in Boston (RIP Great Scott; it is now a Taco Bell Cantina) would end up on a Billboard TikTok chart says a lot about the chaos magic of the app. And of course it is a cover, and of course it is a sped-up version of that cover. The ghost of neo-no wave continues to haunt contemporary culture in ways that nobody could’ve ever predicted back in the white belt era. Listening recommendation for the day: the debut Chromatics LP “Chrome Rats Vs Basement Ruts,” which was released on the legendary San Diego label Gold Standard Laboratories in 2003.
32. BossMan DLow “Talk My Shit”
The most recent BossMan DLow record contains a few of my favorite rap tracks of the year. For one, there is “Mr. Pot Scraper.” The way he says “ride foreign” on the chorus of that song has been carved into my head, where it will stay for all time. “Talk My Shit” is almost as good; it has the man’s signature strutting, glittery cadence, which reminds me of that moment in McCabe & Mrs. Miller when Robert Altman zooms in on Warren Beatty’s gold tooth.
37. Kinfolk Thugs, GC Eternal & Tyme Bomb “Back It Up And Dump It (Dump Truck)”
Here is a perky Memphis rap song that has been on the TikTok charts for months now. It’s from 2013, but it could’ve come out a decade earlier. Listening to it, I get phantom pangs from my high school years. Was this really not a hit in 2005? Am I sure I don’t own it on vinyl? Did I not DJ the song at a Milwaukee art gallery that later turned into a head shop? What have I done with my life?
38. Flawed Mangoes “Killswitch Lullaby”
Speaking of elusive feelings of nostalgia, I’ve been getting emotional reading comments on the YouTube video for “Killswitch Lullaby,” a gentle indietronica song. @BrxdW says: “I’m so alone. I have friends, family and working it out with some girl. Yet I have never been so alone in my whole life. Nobody really texts or hangs out with me. I wish I was young again where conversations and friendships was unconditional. Now it’s nothing but work and trying to keep the ones I love most close. Damn I miss the old days…”
46. Chief Keef & Mike WiLL Made-It (Feat. Sexyy Red) “Damn Shorty”
“Damn Shorty” is fine, but what about “Grape Trees,” the Sexyy Red collaboration off of Keef’s newest record? Some of the drum programming choices on that one are downright psycho (the footwork-ish kick runs), and so is the song’s overarching structure (it’s five minutes long). I would like to imagine that in order to finish the track, Keef spent a late night in front of a Pro Tools screen—full tweakhead mode, damn near losing his mind—and came out of the darkness with a prog rap classic. I would also like to imagine that afterwards he headed out into the Los Angeles morning and got a nice diner breakfast.
While it's certainly overused "skittering" works for me because it's evocative of an insect rapidly moving its feet, which I think captures something about the inhuman speed of trap hi-hats.