Best Song: Juice Wrld - Lucid Dreams
This was the debut Top 40 hit for Juice Wrld. He died just less than 18 months later, shortly after his 21st birthday. It samples "Shape Of My Heart" by Sting, not the first time that record has been sampled but I do think it makes a good sample.
Worst Song: Rita Ora ft Cardi B & Bebe Rexha & Charli XCX - Girls
When I was doing my Top of the Pops posts I would give each record a listen as I was setting up the YouTube links. With this record though I remember finding it so dreadful that I couldn't listen to it until the end. I think this was the only one I ever abandoned early so I guess that makes it the worst record from the whole of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Top 40 Review
It was 2018 when Liam Howlett said music was in a much better place now that EDM music was dead. It was towards the end of the year that he said that, but even from this particular Top 40 you could see he had a point.
He was also complimentary to the rap music which was coming out, that we were getting music from the streets rather than music for the radio. I count 16 records in this Top 40 which are rap and it's by far the biggest genre.
Of these 16 rap records, only 5 of them get a zero. These included records from Drake, The Carters (aka Jay-Z and Beyonce) and Nicki Minaj ft Ariana Grande i.e. music made for the radio rather than music from the streets.
However, for a record to get full marks it must be a record I actually like, one that I would happily listen to of my own accord. The bulk of these records are solid, but not really enough for me to really want to listen to and therefore get half marks.
An example is XXXtentacion, a rapper who had recently died and had 3 records in the Top 40. I listened to all 3 records thinking this isn't bad, but I'm now struggling to remember how any of those tunes went.
EDM wasn't dead though, it was the 2nd biggest genre in the Top 40 with both David Guetta and Calvin Harris still present. No Ed Sheeran in there but there's a couple of clones in George Ezra and Tom Walker. Everything outside of rap gets a zero.
The presence of rap music though means we get the highest score we've had in a while.
Score: 6.5
Table
Let's not get too carried away though, we still have a lower score than every year in the 20th century except 1962:
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