Tag: music blog

Choosin’ Texas (Ella Langley, 2025)

Matthew ELeave a comment

Choosin’ Texas – Ella Langley (2025). #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Longest-running #1 song in the history of the Hot 100. Song of the summer for 2026 (citation needed). #1 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.K. Certified platinum in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. The English-speaking world, give or take!

This is a pleasant little country song that somehow captured people’s attention this year and thereby achieved unprecedented success. It’s pretty good. I don’t love it; Langley leans on too many of the words and drags them out too long, and it slows down the whole enterprise. That’s not a criticism of her; she’s doing what the song needs her to do. It’s a song with a lot of drags in it. There’s no help for it. But it’s still a pretty good song.

I promise you the next paragraph is not about current politics.

Like all right-thinking people I have no time for all the mythology around Texas, like, everything’s bigger and better there, and the people are tougher, or whatever it is. And there are so many songs that lean into that. I mean, I’m sure it is a beautiful place, and I’m sure that a lot of the people of Texas are super great. I agree that it’s special! Just like every other place on the big blue marble! Anyway, I was worried that this was going to be one of those kinds of songs, like a Texas-chauvinistic anthem, and it’s not. That’s not what it’s doing at all. So that’s fine.

The lyrics are clever. “I wasn’t a match for that kind of spark”? That’s pretty good is what that is. There are allusions to other singers and songs, which I always like. Langley has a nice voice. It’s a solid effort all around.

But the discussion at the moment on the soshs is about whether it’s reasonable to expect people to have heard “Choosin’ Texas” or not. A lot of people haven’t. I hadn’t, until a couple of days ago. I had heard of it, and figured I might do well to check it out. But here’s the thing: all the people who are saying they haven’t heard it? They have heard of it. You can tell they have, because they’re involved in a conversation about it. Which means that the system is working.

Even today, with curated playlists and the continued withering of mass media and shared culture, you can’t hide from the blockbuster country hit. A song this successful should be well-known outside the boundaries of its genre, and it is! So there’s no problem!

Mr. Brightside (the Killers, 2003)

Matthew ELeave a comment

Mr. Brightside – the Killers (2003). #10 in the U.S. and U.K., #5 on a couple of Canadian charts. Diamond in the U.S. and Canada, 12 x Platinum in the U.K. An anthem of the Millennial generation, I guess, sort of, maybe. Billboard best song of 2005. Most successful single never to top the British charts.

I don’t like this goddamn song. I don’t really want to not like it–it’s got a very promising title, sounds like it could be a superhero name, always a good sign–but I don’t. There’s just something about rock music of the 21st century that tends to sound draggy and dreary. I don’t know what it is. But it’s exacerbated here by the way the singer holds a monotone on some of the prominent lyrics. Maybe it gets the effect they were going for but it makes it particularly unpleasant for me.

I don’t like the song so much that I thought I just didn’t like the Killers at all. This was reinforced by some of their Christmas music that I simply couldn’t make friends with for any reason. But since then I’ve heard some more Killers music, both Christmas (“Christmas in L.A.”) and regular (“Human”), that I do like, so, fine. The Killers can stay. But they have to leave this number outside.

Probably the reason why so many people like it so much is the same reason I don’t like it so much: the radio played it to death. I remember hearing it of a morning on our clock radio and thinking, “Every morning?” It was too much. Why couldn’t they pick something pretty? And another thing: the little rhyme trick they pull where it makes you expect the singer to say “and she’s touching his dick” is only clever the first ten thousand times you hear it. Do you realize how serious this is? This song has got me speaking out against cheap tricks. I’m ashamed of myself, I really am.