Billie Eilish released the stripped-down and stirring single “Your Power” this week after officially announcing her sophomore album Happier Than Ever . The track is a melancholic take on the prevalence of men abusing their power in the music industry, a nuanced issue that Eilish addresses with a delicate vocal delivery.
Debuting another track from her forthcoming album Better Mistakes , Bebe Rexha taps Lil Uzi Vert for the radio-ready hit “Die For A Man.” Steeped in empowerment, Rexha confidently addresses the importance of putting herself first in a relationship over a shuffling beat.
DJ Khaled dropped the star-studded project Khaled Khaled this week, which boasted big-name artists like Drake and Cardi B. It also featured the more buoyant tune, “Let It Go,” with Justin Bieber and 21 Savage. Over a snappy beat, Bieber and 21 Savage trade inspiring verses on the importance of focusing on the bigger picture.
Jessie Ware returned this week for another disco banger. “Please” arrives off her What’s Your Pleasure? deluxe release and features the familiar cascade of sparkling synths, groove-forward beats, and Ware’s euphoric lyrical delivery. "'Please' is full of optimism and ready to be played in a place where we can all be together and flirt, dance, touch, and kiss,” she said about the track. “A wonderful excuse not to stop the party from ending."
In her first new single of the year, Hayley Kiyoko shares “Found My Friends.” The dark pop track draws on brooding synths and layered harmonies, which offer a intriguing contrast to Kiyoko’s sunny vocals. "'Found My Friends' is a song I wrote during a challenging time when I realized instead of being my own worst enemy, I could actually be my own best friend," she said. "It’s about discovering and nurturing a strong friendship with yourself.”
Julia Michaels released her long-awaited debut LP Not In Chronological Order this week. Much like the album as a whole, her track “Little Did I Know” showcases Michaels’ vulnerable songwriting. The track also marks a sincere and newfound hope about the possibilities of love, which Michaels details in her impassioned lyrical delivery.
This week marked the official release of Girl In Red’s anticipated LP If I Could Make The World Quiet . Much of the album boasts vulnerable lyrics, but her snappy tune “Body And Mind” is a more playful tune. Its popping hook and interesting production displays a jazzier side of Girl In Red’s music, while the track’s lyrics speak to the difficulties of healing from heartbreak.
After sharing a handful of effervescent singles, The Marías have officially unveiled their debut full-length album Cinema with the dark pop anthem track “Hush.” Over a reverberating beat, vocalist María Zardoya’s gossamer vocals delicately ushers in an era of sensual-yet-energizing music.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Pop Punk Is Back Thanks To TikTok
This pop-punk revival has been a long time coming. Fall Out Boy and Paramore have remained popular even after breaks and comebacks (which always helps draw in audiences). My Chemical Romance albums keep re-entering the Billboard charts – despite their last studio album being released over 10 years ago. In some ways, it feels like pop-punk’s influence never quite left pop music.
Pop artists like Halsey and 5 Seconds of Summer not only have hints of pop-punk in their sound, but are friends with the genre’s leading artists like All Time Low and State Champs. Genre-agnostic pop acts like Billie Eilish and Post Malone incorporate pop-punk and hip-hop, among other genres, into their music. Alternative breakout duo Twenty One Pilots, who in many ways are the successors to bands like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, had a strong hip-hop influence, along with emo and indie.
Pop-punk’s continued relevance is in part due to a long history of hip-hop guest features. Fall Out Boy, in particular, took a lot of cues from hip-hop, collaborating with artists like Wiz Khalifa, Big Sean, Lil Wayne, and Jay-Z across their career. Pete Wentz’s Decaydance label signed rap-rock band Gym Class Heroes, whose frontman, Travie McCoy, reached pop-level fame with his 2010 single “Billionaire” featuring Bruno Mars. Around the same time, Hayley Williams guested on rapper B.O.B.’s hit “Airplanes” and its sequel, which also featured Eminem. Paramore’s “The Only Exception” also made an appearance on pop radio alongside “Airplanes”.
The blurring of these two genres culminated in the advent of emo rap, which set the stage for today’s pop-punk moment. Emo rap, in addition to blending rap with the emo and pop-punk from the mid-2000s, made emo accessible to people who didn’t just look like the emo bands of the past (predominantly male and white) and showed that emo’s mainstream era had an impact on an entire generation of musicians and fans. Artists like the late Juice WRLD, Lil Peep, and XXXTentacion shot up in popularity by drawing from and even sampling pop-punk songs. It revitalized one genre by translating it into another one that has much more relevance: hip-hop.
Pop-punk, is, quite literally, a mix of punk music with pop. In the time since the mid-2000s, hip-hop has become the defining genre of our era, dominating the charts for the past five years. This means that the “pop” in pop-punk now includes hip-hop. It’s hard to think that these artists would have had this success if their style of alt-rock wasn’t mixed together with hip-hop.
But there’s another major factor bringing pop-punk back, and it’s causing a lot of change in the music industry. TikTok has been revitalizing hits from the 2000s and 2010s – many of them scene staples like 3OH!3’s “DONTTRUSTME”, Paramore’s “All I Wanted”, and All Time Low’s “Dear Maria, Count Me In”. It’s also bolstered newer songs, like “I Miss Having Sex but at Least I Don’t Want to Die Anymore” by pop-punk-adjacent band Waterparks, who didn’t even release the track as a single (and have subsequently signed to hip-hop label 300 Entertainment). YUNGBLUD , whose work combines elements of pop and punk with other genres, frequently collaborates with Machine Gun Kelly and Travis Barker, and his song “parents” went viral on TikTok earlier this year.
It’s the combination of hip-hop and TikTok that are largely responsible for bringing pop-punk into the spotlight again. TikTok is an audio-driven app. Users take sound bites from other posts and use them in their own videos, and users can search for other videos that use that audio. TikTok also enables users to mash up, splice, or add to sound or video clips. It’s sampling and remixing, but in audiovisual form. So, it’s no surprise that it’s become a musical launching pad or that hip-hop and genre-blending music have found a natural home on there.
After pop-punk exited the mainstream in the late 2000s, it went through a narrowing, resulting in the mid-2010s iteration sounding rawer and less pop-influenced. That’s changed in the past two years. 2020 albums by Neck Deep, Stand Atlantic, and Boston Manor, whose previous material was very much in keeping with the more back-to-basics style of pop-punk, instead released more experimental albums, incorporating pop, electronic, and even hip-hop influences. Artists like Rivals and DE’WAYNE are continuing this trend.
A new generation of pop-punk bands, like Pinkshift and Meet Me @ The Altar, are gaining traction. And while their sound is more traditional, rawer, more punk than pop, they do represent a different form of progress within the genre: both bands are racially diverse and fronted by women.
Julia Michaels on Debut Album, 'Love Is Weird,' Songwriting
Charlie: You've been in the songwriter game for a minute and have put out three EPs of your own, but Not in Chronological Order is your first full-length. Why now?
Julia: I think I just wasn't ready yet. With me, everything takes a little bit of time. It took me a long time to realize I wanted to be an artist. It took me a long time to feel comfortable with people potentially relating to things that I was talking about. And it took me a long time to fall in love with something super healthy and then to talk about it.
Julia: Yeah, "Love Is Weird" is basically just about how it's just really strange how you can go from loving a certain kind of person and a certain kind of love. You spend two, three months crying over this relationship and then all of a sudden, a year later, you've found yourself again. You're healthier. You feel like you can go on and you're in the park with somebody new and you're asking really deep questions and you're psychoanalyzing one another and you're like, Oh, I actually think I could really fall for this person . You feel these butterflies.
Charlie: You wrote this song in just 30 minutes. How do you train to be able to write a song that quickly? Has this always been the case for you?
Julia: No, but a good majority of my bigger songs have been written very fast. I think that's because you're not really focusing on the technical side of things. You're just focusing on your subconscious. [I wanted it to be] very conversational for "Love Is Weird." Billy Walsh and I wrote a song called "Wrapped Around," and we had 30 minutes left in the studio, and I was talking to him about love just being really weird. And he was like, "That's a song." And then John Ryan picks up the guitar and starts singing. And then we all just, [each with our own perspective], wrote the song super quickly.
Charlie: What is it about the idea that you want to work from your gut, from your memory — why does that yield such positive results?
Julia: I think it's just the most relatable. Even though you haven't shared the same experience as somebody, you've experienced the same emotion. So even though my situation may be different from someone else's, they've felt love so they can equate their situation to what I'm feeling and then blend it out, essentially.
Charlie: Over the many years I've listened to your music, it's gotten to the point now where I can hear a song that you've written for somebody else and I know it's a Julia Michaels song very quickly. Do you have a sense of what a Julia Michaels song sounds like, those things that come out of your subconscious?
Julia: I've always felt a little allergic to, like, moon/June rhymes — things that you would expect people to rhyme with, like far and star. I always just want to see what we can get away with and usually my melodies are just me trying to fit as many words in a melody as possible. I think more about how to get the lyrics in there than I think about how to make the melodic structure interesting.
Dodie Can't Resist Sharing. It's Made Her Music Soar. - The New York Times
Through her laptop camera, Dodie, 26, gave a 360-degree tour of her bedroom studio, with acoustic and electric guitars, ukuleles of various sizes and a cello (though she doesn't play it) hanging on the walls. A keyboard, a marimba she recently rescued from the trash and a clarinet — her elementary-school instrument, which appears often on "Build a Problem" — were within easy reach.
"She understands harmonies in a way that she comes up with these really complicated and amazing vocal arrangements," she added. "She can read music, she can score it all out. There's this real kind of determination in her, which is cool."
When recording, Dodie calibrates every note. "You can look at a song and look at the structure and notice how it flows to create a feeling," she said. "I've been told before, like, 'Oh, it needs drums,' or, 'Can you add a verse?' And I'm like, 'No, I wrote this. I've like built this pattern in a way that is mine.' It's not like Lego blocks."
Like many songwriters in the social-media era, Dodie often unveils new songs in skeletal, one-take video form — some to return as finished studio tracks, many others to linger unpolished online. "I can't help it," she said. "I want to share things now — to finish a song and then get that instant gratification of sharing it. That is my instinct now, soothing that itch for immediate validation."
Music is only part of Dodie's copious online content. In homemade videos, along with occasional professional productions, she has not only revealed her songs but also offered up her insecurities, her enthusiasms, her self-care regimens, her frustrations, her bloopers, her giggles, her knitting, her career advice, her high-school grades, her sexuality , her mental-health struggles, her sniffles from the flu and her tears .
"What's terrifying, like panic-inducing, is how I can't take it back now — none of it," she said. "I want to share, and I don't know where that comes from. Maybe it's that I love empathy. I want to spread the idea that — I'm convinced that — everyone could be empathetic if they are shown it."
For the teenage Dodie, YouTube was an obvious outlet. She took drama and music classes in school; she had her own camcorder. YouTube also beckoned with a career path. At 15, Dodie was avidly following many vloggers, among them Charlie McConnell, known as charlieissocoollike . After she panicked at a meet-and-greet, she wrote and uploaded an awkwardly earnest song about fame: "Even though I know you like you're mine/I'm a stranger to you, a fan who screams all the time." He responded, drawing traffic to her fledgling YouTube channel. By 2015, she was duetting with him .
It was too much. She had already had bouts of depression; in the spring, she had a complete breakdown. She briefly stopped appearing online. Friends, family and eventually therapy helped her pull through, and in November 2016 she released her debut EP, "Intertwined."
Yet ever since, she said, she has been dealing with what she calmly calls her "bad brain." Although she presents a buoyant persona, Dodie often experiences depersonalization, feeling unreal or separate from her body; she spaces out. But she continues to share.
Why Yoko Ono's Music Matters
The other story of Yoko Ono is far more interesting. The story is of a passionate and powerful songwriter and artist. A creative and sensitive musician who worked doggedly to bring her avant-garde aesthetic to pop music and to use her voice to advocate for the rights of women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ people. She is an underrated though hugely influential artist whose reach finds its way to a range of artists as wide as the B-52's, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna.
The 1984 tribute album to Ono, Every Man Has a Woman has a diverse set of artists, including Rosanne Cash, Roberta Flack, Elvis Costello, and Harry Nilsson – a dizzying array of musicians representing a wide swath of genres in pop music. Another album, Yes, I'm a Witch , released in 2007, saw a new generation of Ono disciples, including Peaches, DJ Spooky, Le Tigre, and the Flaming Lips. Performance artist Ann Magnuson found inspiration in Ono's feminism, noting, "People joked that her voice could shatter glass, but it was her spirit that shattered many an artistic glass ceiling."
Still, it's not enough to talk about Ono's influence on other artists. To appreciate Yoko Ono, one must look at her output. From her first album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band in 1970, Ono has created a wildly inventive and challenging discography of pop music. She has written songs that challenged the concept of pop music. She pulled, stretched, and splintered conventional song structure. Her silvery, wild voice challenged the notion of ‘good’ singing. Her voice wasn't the buttery, beautiful instrument of say, Karen Carpenter or Barbra Streisand. But her message – one of indignant and angry feminism – was better delivered by that distinct warble – one that leaped from an anguished yowl to guttural growls, to shaky croons.
During the 1970s, Ono put out a series of experimental, avant-garde records that indulged in and spoke to her performance artwork. John Lennon had left the Beatles to work out his musical muscles. He and his soulmate had graduated into a celebrity power couple, becoming influential figures in the anti-war movement, using their fame to highlight their political and social points of view. The two artists joined to create a niche and esoteric discography of collaborative albums that left mainstream audiences largely nonplussed.
Though not at her most prolific, the three records she released in the 1980s: Season of Glass (1981), It's Alright (I See Rainbows) (1982), and Starpeace (1985) represented a particularly transitional phase in Ono's musical career in which she attempted to marry her progressive, subversive politics with her gigantic celebrity. Her high profile meant that she had access to top New York session musicians who helped her create a series of records that recast Ono as a New Wave-influenced pop singer with art school pretensions. She followed Andy Warhol's lead in trying to braid pop commerce with art.
Those three albums were arguably Ono at her best because it was during this period – fresh from her unimaginable trauma – that she sought to speak to the increasingly bleak decade beset by many problems, including the crack epidemic, the tail end of the Cold War, AIDS, Reaganomics, and the existential threat of nuclear war. She always used her music to address societal ills – particularly when wanting to write about sexism – but during the 1980s, she sought to make her message (relatively) accessible to match her growing profile.
The album's follow-up, It's Alright (I See Rainbows ), was almost immediate, just a little over a year later. The cover art for the record – by Bob Gruen – features a more recognizable Ono: one staring into the distance, her eyes – and really half of her face – covered by her ubiquitous sunglasses. Those glasses would prove to act as armor or a shield. They were a way for Ono to let people into her physical emotions on her terms – if she wanted to, she would take the shades off. If not, she slipped them on, like the visor of a motorcycle helmet.
Instead, she was choosing to express herself by wrapping her strange vision in more palpable coatings. And though some of the rock press was confused by Ono's shift in sound, her followers understood that she was simply traversing her musical journey. Something is bracing and awe-inspiring about the Yoko Ono of It's Alright , a woman who can embrace the artifice of pop music as a vehicle for a flaying honesty. Fellow iconoclast Grace Jones, another artist who reshaped the tradition of pop singing, admired Ono for being brave enough to "to have the guts to go in and just, to have that strength to express yourself… she's not afraid to express her inner self."
Her final album in the 1980s was the strangely named Starpeace , a direct response to Reagan's “Star Wars”, an anti-ballistic missile program that was fed into the ’80s fear of nuclear war. With Starpeace , Ono wanted to respond to the turmoil of the ’80s not with the barbed, feral anger but with a shiny, smiling utopist vision. Again, we look to the cover art – again, Ono is wearing her aviators, but she's looking directly into the camera, this time with a beatific smile on her face. In her hand, she's gently cupping the earth as if she was handling a fragile baby chick. The songs on Starpeace are some of the most upbeat that she's recorded. The centerpiece of Starpeace is "Rainbow Revelation", is a moving ballad in which she generously embraces seemingly negative personality traits like jealously, anger, and greed. But she recognizes these qualities as parts of a complex personality with the potential to change the world or make it better.
K-Pop Music To Look Forward To In May 2021 - OtakuKart
The South Korean music industry, popularly referred to as the Korean pop or K-pop industry, is extremely diverse. There are hundreds of bands and thousands of solo artists. That is why it is almost always comeback season here. When we say comeback, we mean a new album or song release. In the month of May 2021 alone, there are at least 10 big comebacks that fans are eagerly looking forward to. Some of the big bands who will be releasing music this month include the likes of Monsta X, Tomorrow X Together, and the K-Pop supergroup – BTS. We will also get solo albums from the youngest SHINee member – Taemin before he goes off to complete his mandatory military service. At the same time, certain groups like Highlight, which have been missing in action for more than two years, are re-entering the music scene, and we couldn't be any more excited!
Though K-Pop is often considered a genre on its own, it is rather an umbrella term for all music that is made in South Korea and includes all kinds of genres from across the world. In the last couple of years, the industry has been taking the world by storm with chart-topping releases; top awards show wins and Grammy nominations. The disciplined structure of the industry ensures a constant outflow of good quality music from all the artists here around the year. Read on to find out more about K-Pop Music To Look Forward To In May 2021.
NCT is one of the biggest K-Pop boy bands in South Korea. There are a total of 23 members in this group that was formed by SM Entertainment in 2016. NCT is divided into several sub-units so that each of the 23 members gets an equal opportunity to showcase their diverse talents. NCT Dream mainly consisted of the seven teenaged members of the larger band. Their agency announced in mid-April that the immensely popular band would be coming out with their first-ever full-length studio album on May 10th 2021. The album is titled Hot Sauce. In the past, NCT Dream has released several mini-albums, extended plays and singles.
Highlight is a South Korean boy band that made its debut in 2009 under the name Beast . Originally a six-member band, one member of Highlight left during their transition from Cube Entertainment to Around Us Entertainment and another member left in 2019. As of now, the four members of the band are – Doo Joon, Yo Seob, Gi Kwang and Dong Woon. After a hiatus that lasted for over two years as the members completed their mandatory military services and the demographics of the band changed, Highlight released their first album as a four-member band – The Blowing. The main single here is titled – Not The End.
Oh My Girl is a seven-member K-pop girl group who is managed by WM Entertainment. They debuted in 2015. Originally, the group had eight members, but JinE left the group citing several health issues. Oh My Girl has previously released several full-length albums in Korean and Japanese, along with many extended plays. This time, they are back with their eighth mini-album titled Dear OhMyGirl, which is all set to release on the 10th of May 2021. The group has already released several teaser photos of the concept. They have also released a trailer video of the single Dun Dun Dance.
Oneus is a six-member boy band in South Korea that debuted in January 2019 with their first extended play titled Light Us. The mini-album had a total of 7 tracks. Since then, the boy band has released a total of four extended plays and one single album. They have been very consistent with the music that they have produced. They are definitely one of the most promising fourth-generation K-Pop bands in the industry. Oneus is coming out with their 5th extended play on the 11th of May 2021 – Binary Code. The 5 tracks in this EP are Black Mirror, Connect With Us, Polarity, Happy Birthday, and Valkyrie.
The Cosmic Girls are a thirteen-member idol girl group formed by Starship Entertainment. They have members of both South Korean and Chinese origins. At the time of their debut, the group had 12 members. Their thirteenth member was added about 6 months later. WJSN The Black is a subunit of the Cosmic Girls. It features Seola, Exy, Bona, and Eunseo. They will come out with their debut single album, My Attitude, on the 12th of May 2021.
Taemin is the youngest member of one of the biggest groups in K-Pop history – SHINee. The group debuted in 2008 under SM Entertainment. SHINee recently released a new album after almost two years. However, the group's members have been constantly engaged in solo work. Taemin, a brilliant musician, and dancer recently announced that he would be enlisting in the military to complete his mandatory service. Apart from Taemin, all other SHINee members have already finished their mandatory military services. Recently, Taemin sang the song My Day from the popular K-Drama Navillera 's original soundtrack. Taemin's third extended play, Advice, is all set to be released on the 18th of May 2021, shortly before he goes on a temporary hiatus on the 31st of May 2021. Taemin recently held a solo concert on the 2nd of May where he sang the title track Never Gonna Dance Again for the first time.
Tri.be is the newest K-Pop group on our list. They debuted just in February 2021. Tri.be is a seven-member girl group that is managed by TR Entertainment. Their debut announcement was made in December 2020. Their first album was Tri.be Da Loca which saw moderate success in South Korea. The album had two songs – Loca and Doom Doom Ta. The group is already coming out with their second album in about 3 months on the 18th of May 2021. Their second single album is called Conmigo. The tracklist again consists of two songs – Rub-A-Dum and Loro. The seven members of the group are Songsun (leader), Kelly, Jinha, Hyunbin, Jia, Soeun, and Mire.
Winter Music Conference 2021 Releases Full Lineup | Billboard
Winter Music Conference has released the full lineup for its upcoming virtual event, which will take place on the internet this May 20-21.
Keynote speakers include Twitch Cofounder Kevin Lin, Pandora Cofounder Tim Westergren, N.W.A's Arabian Prince, Droplabs CEO Susan Paley, Raised In Space's CEO Zach Katz and a team from Spotify.
The two-day virtual conference will, naturally, also include a virtual afterparty along with a screening of the documentary Larry's Garage , which unpacks the backstory of dance scene legend Larry Levan and his iconic New York nightclub Paradise Garage.
2021 marks the first time that the annual Winter Music Conference will happen virtually. The event, which typically happens every March in Miami in conjunction with Miami Music Week, was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
One Hit Wonder Girl Group Tries To Rekindle Their Fame Years Later As Music And Comedy Converge
So the question becomes, can a group that had a hit, then split, rekindle the success they once enjoyed?
This is the premise of the new comedy series Girls5Eva which takes a look at what happens when a '90s girl group reunites to give their pop star dreams one more shot.
The problem is, things are drastically different from those early days when they were a group as these grown women are now juggling spouses, kids, jobs, debt, aging parents, and even some shoulder pain.
"I wanted to write a show about women in my age group and be able to talk about all the things that you go through as being a woman in your 40s, and I thought it would be amazing to do it with this backdrop of pop music," says Girls5Eva creator Meredith Scardino. She says the combination feels like, 'very fertile duet.'
She brought the idea to Tina Fey and Robert Carlock of 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt fame, and they came onboard as executive producers, bringing along Jeff Richmond to help with the musical aspect of the series.
Bareilles, who wrote the music for and performed in the Broadway show Waitress , is taking on her first regular on-screen TV role. " Waitress has oddly prepared me in ways I never imagined," she says, adding, "I mean, people who are a part of the theater understand the stamina [needed]."
She calls the series, 'a dream fantasy,' saying, "It's comedy and music, and female empowerment, and stories about women - slightly heightened - but based in reality."
Richmond says that he created several full-length songs and about 200 11-second songs. "You get your money's worth. That's all I'm saying."
Bareilles also wrote an original song for the series, which Richmond says, "really gives us a lot of street cred."
The 25 greatest opening lines to songs | Yardbarker
There are many aspects that define a great song, such as a truly special opening phrase or line. Some are downright legendary, even amid an exercise that is relatively subjective. That said, here's our list of 25 great opening lyrics of all time.
The legendary words of Carl Perkins, and obviously these two opening lines, made Elvis Presley sta r. As legend has it, Johnny Cash encouraged Perkins to write a song about a military airman who referred to the issued footwear as "Blue Suede Shoes." When it came time for the opening lines, Perkins approached it as a nursery rhyme and thought of "One for the Money. " The rest, as they say, is history.
While reportedly in his early 20s, Paul Simon's penchant for writing songs with his guitar in the dark led to the opening lines to one of the great pop songs of all time . While the overall meaning of the song has been a mystery over the years, hearing that something as simple as playing guitar in a quiet room with the lights off kind of seems like a downer. Great nonetheless.
Jim Morrison had said often he wasn't sure what exactly he was saying "goodbye" to when writing this song. It's a haunting piece, from its simple, yet emotional, beginning, to a maddening and somewhat frightening climax. The track earned a resurgence in popularity for its symbolic use in the opening scene of Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War classic Apocalypse Now .
This was Bob Dylan's song, but the version done by Jimi Hendrix and his band is what is more widely recognized. Dylan, as we know, loves to tell stories through his music. In many ways, "All Along the Watchtower" is a conversational song. Opening with a quote is rather unique. Hendrix, meanwhile, added more emotion and plenty of amplification to make it a massive hit.
"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste. I've been around for a long, long year, s tole many a man's soul and faith."
Though not every member of the band liked the song upon presentation, Three Dog Night eventually had fun with this beloved classic that was written by folk legend Hoyt Axton. In fact, the band has referred to it as a "kid's song." Chuck Negron's opening proclamation is one of the most memorable lines in music history -- and not just to open a song. The tune hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart in 1971.
"When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me... Speaking words of wisdom, let it be."
It's tough to choose from the countless number of Beatles' notable opening lines. But, considering the state of the band, this seems to be the most prophetic and poignant . Paul McCartney has stated that the "Mother Mary" reference is to a dream he had of his late mother during a particularly tough time during the band's tenure.
State of the Hot 100's Top 10, Q1 2021 | Billboard
What were some of the most notable trends on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart in the first quarter of 2021?
Hit Songs Deconstructed , which provides compositional analytics for top 10 Hot 100 hits, has released its Q1 2021 State of the Hot 100 Top 10 report.
Pop tops, R&B bounds. In Q1 2021, 42% of all Hot 100 top 10s were of primarily pop, the leading genre for a third consecutive quarter. Though down from a 48% share in Q4 2020, the genre rose from 41% in Q3 2020 (when it tied for the lead with hip-hop/rap) and 30% in Q2 2020.
The genre includes Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License," which debuted at the Hot 100's summit in January and reigned for eight weeks, and the chart's new No. 1 "Save Your Tears," by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande, after it first reached the top 10 in February.
Runner-up hip-hop/rap, with a 29% share in Q1 2021, has declined continuously quarter-over-quarter for the past year, dropping from 35% of the Hot 100's top 10 in Q4 2020, 41% in Q3 2020 (tying on top with pop) and a leading 48% in Q2 2020.
Pop and hip-hop continue passing the baton as the Hot 100's top primary genre. While pop holds the lead a quarter of the way through 2021, the genres tied at 41% for all of 2020. In 2019, pop took the title (48% vs. 34%), after hip-hop led in both 2018 (59% vs. 24%) and 2017 (34% vs. 29%).
Meanwhile, R&B/soul surged to a 21% share of all Hot 100 top 10s in Q1 2021, vaulting from 4% in Q4 2020. It claimed 6% in Q3 2020 and 13% in Q2 2020. Notably among the genre, "Leave the Door Open" by Silk Sonic, the duo of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, debuted in the top 10 in March on its way to No. 1 .
They're instrumental in hits. Nineteen instruments can be heard in Hot 100 top 10s in Q1 2021, with three continuing a heavy prominence: drums/percussion, non-bass synth and synth bass, with each played in over 90% of hits in that span.
Still, atypical sounds found their way to the Hot 100's top 10 in January-March, including harp (on Drake's "Lemon Pepper Freestyle," featuring Rick Ross), organ (Justin Bieber's "Holy," featuring Chance the Rapper) and sitar (CJ's "Whoopty").
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