We had another eleven songs hit the top 40 this past month, and as I said on the pod, there is some quality out of nowhere. But let’s start with the bottom of the barrel and work our way up.

11. Powfu ft. beabadoobee – Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head)
If you saw “coffee” in the title of the song and were hoping for an upbeat track that gave you the same feeling as the titular drink, then prepare for disappointment. This track was originally released in 2019, but not vary widely because Powfu had yet to get clearance from beabaddoobee for the use of her sample. It was re-released this year when he finally got it. However, when most people think of a sample, they think of a piece of a song used to construct another song. Here the sample feels like it’s the actual song and the sad, white-boy rapping is part of a remix, not the intended original. It’s sadboi low-fi hip hop, which I already have a low tolerance for. The same way part of the FA crew have a visceral reaction against the emo-pop of the early 2000’s. But to make matters worse, there’s no effort to make it feel like his song. It’s all her work, her chorus and he just dropped his Soundcloud verses on it. Just lazy.

As we endeavor to give you the widest reaching coverage of new music that we can here at FA, we realized that there was one section of the market that we weren’t serving: pop. Since I’ve been desensitized to pop thanks to a career in radio, I willingly accepted the short straw to bring you these charts each month. So what I’ll be doing is taking a look at all of the songs that were new to the Top 40 chart this month and giving you an idea of the songs to seek out and the songs to avoid like the plague.

1. Dua Lipa – Break My Heart
When we reviewed this album back in March, it was pretty unanimous that it was among the best released that month. You can read the full review here. This was one of the tracks that I singled out as the best on the record and that was on one listen and mostly on the production alone. This is a modern take on disco in the least annoying way possible. The rising strings in the chorus, the driving dance beat, the muted INXS sample that leads the verses, it’s a very well produced track. Now, I really like pop that features dark lyrics set to an upbeat track. Call me a downer, but it makes the artist more relatable because they can make these pop fantasies but they choose to slide in a little of their insecurities. I can get behind that. I understand unqualified music critics on random websites do that all the time. This isn’t a breakup song, it’s a fear of a break up song. It’s a song that lays out the insecurity that many of us have in relationships. The feeling that this is too good to be true, I’m falling for this person, but how am I going to fuck it up? Maybe I relate to that message too much, but it’s a twist on the pop love song. Plus, that groove is just so tight.
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On our third edition, we cover the top albums we’ve heard in April and introduce a new segment where we look at the new Top 40 tracks of the month.

In episode 2 of the audio version of the blog, the guys argue over their top five favorite albums. Poor selections will be made, feelings will be hurt, tastes will be insulted. Check out the podcast below.

Listen to “Fairly Kickass: The Second” on Spreaker.

Fairly Kickass: The Podcast comes out bi-monthly and is currently available on Spotify, Spreaker, Podcast Addict and Podcaster with more outlets coming. Get all the links over on the podcast page.