Oh my god, I see the way you shine

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

2019 : Dance Monkey - Tones And I

This is a peculiar one - I actually quite like the track, but just the idea of listening to it on repeat is enough to concern me, so I'm a bit surprised it's been quite so popular. I'm also not expecting to find a load of cover versions out there.

The video is amusingly bizarre with Tones And I (who is a mid-twenties woman) dressed up as a old man who escapes from his care home with some other residents to terrorise various people at the local golf club. It seems to bear no relevance to the song, but who cares? Not the general public it appears since it's done pretty well for itself on YouTube with over 2 billion views.

Wikipedia has a lot on the song (250 milliPeppers) but nearly all of it is on how successful the song has been - it basically blew up everywhere and was, amongst many other statistics, #1 in the UK for eleven weeks (the most by a female artist), #1 in Australia for TWENTY FOUR weeks (the most ever) and has over three billion streams on Spotify (the first by a female artist to do so). Interestingly, when it made the top five in the US, it was the first song in eight years to do so written solely by a woman - which just seems mad. It doesn't offer up any cover versions, but secondhandsongs.com offers up a surprising number - none of which are by anyone I've ever heard of. The same is true on YouTube but I still checked some of them out and most of them displayed no imagination in the slightest, so I'm going to give Jules a name check for doing something at least slightly different.

Wikipedia tells us this was #8 in the year-end chart for '19 and #2 in the year-end chart for '20 - the split here is a bit surprising because she spent her 11 weeks at #1 in '19, but she was in the chart for pretty much all of '20. We also already know that Lewis took the #1 spot for '19 - the rest of the top five were Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" (this was everywhere but I never understood the appeal), Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber's "I Don't Care" (which I don't remember), Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" and Calvin Harris & Rag'n'Bone Man's "Giant" (a pair of decent songs). Other songs I recognise and like from the year-end chart are Mabel's "Don't Call Me Up", Shawn Mendes & Camilla Cabello's "Senorita" and, errr, that's it. There were a few others I recognised but didn't like and a load more I recognised and liked but were from '18, but it doesn't seem like this was the best year for me.

Looking further down the chart throughout the year, the only thing I've got is Dua Lipa's "Don't Start Now" - it really wasn't a great year, was it? It'll be interesting to see whether things just get worse from here on in - but we've only got three years to go, so who really cares!?!. It won't surprise you to hear that things aren't any better if we look across the pond - Lil Nas X took the year over there, which doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

So - I think it's safe to say that 2019 was not a vintage year. I think Mabel is probably my favourite track throughout the year, but it was always gonna be either this or Lil Nas X that took the year and I'm happier that Tones And I took it rather than him.

2018 - The best someone song since the last one
2020 - Catchy, if inessential