#riserayss

content warning: language, discussion of family trauma, abusive parenting, dubious business practices and dated Eddie Murphy comedies

Rundown

As always, we start this week with our notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 (that’s what I cover) after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This episode, we bid farewell to: “Body to Body” by BTS, “NO BATIDÃO” by ZXKAI and slxughter, “Be by You” by Luke Combs, “Release the Pressure” by Calvin Harris and Kasabian, “The Great Divide” by Noah Kahan (I assume this’ll be back soon with his album release – right now, it’s below “Stick Season”), “Soda Pop” by the “Saja Boys” (the voices of Andrew Choi, Neckwav, Danny Chung, KEVIN WOO and samUIL Lee) from the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, “I Run” by HAVEN. featuring Kaitlin Aragon, “MAYBE.” by SIENNA SPIRO and finally, “Stargazing” by Myles Smith (more on him later).

So, let’s talk about Justin Bieber. At the first Coachella weekend, Bieber spawned a lot of social media attention for a remarkably casual approach to playing his greatest hits. The Biebs scrolled through YouTube for a 20-minute passage of his performance, greeting the Coachella audience with a projection of his laptop as he sung along to his classic hits, early YouTube covers and even some funny videos and memes. For an artist, one of the first artists, whose life and career was documented nearly entirely online – warts and all – celebrating his career this way, by performing a semi-duet with a YouTube video recorded before he’d even hit puberty, I’m sure that was meaningful for his fans, especially as you hear the stark differences in voice and appearance that is all online for everyone to see and under the same name. A lot of frustrations can be raised about Bieber’s “growth” as an artist but that’s not exactly what a career’s evolution is always about. It’s about change so evoking what has and hasn’t stayed the same, having a reflection of the past playing behind the present, who decides through the laptop YouTube scrolling what the future will be… it’s super interesting. You can read what Mike Callander, a lecturer in music industry at a university in Melbourne, had to say about how the performance played with expectations of live shows here. Unfortunately, I can’t find an official upload of the full set.

How this matters for this series is what impacted the charts and we mostly see his hits from last year, “DAISIES” and “YUKON” from the SWAG album, appear in the top 40 at #15 and #26 respectively. “DAISIES” spent a week at #1 in 2025, the week after its debut, whilst “YUKON” peaked at #12 a couple weeks later. Reaching a brand new peak is “Beauty and a Beat” featuring Nicki Minaj from his 2012 album Believe. The song spent 25 weeks on the UK Singles Chart across 2012 and 2013, reaching a peak of #16 in November 2012 the same week Robbie Williams’ “Candy” debuted at #1. The song has grown to become one of his most iconic, having already been a worldwide hit at release, and returns to the chart this week, for the first time since it left, at #11. It’s far from my favourite Bieber song – I prefer his R&B stuff generally and the aching 2012 of it all has really dated EDM tracks from this time… not that a Nicki Minaj verse isn’t enough to do so nowadays – but I get that people have nostalgia for this one and he did perform it during his viral set. I kind of wish it was “Baby”, just to see Ludacris back on the chart.

Elsewhere, Sabrina Carpenter had a little resurge herself as Man’s Best Friends tracks “Nobody’s Son” and “House Party” re-enter the chart. “Nobody’s Son” is back at its peak of #68 whilst “House Party” takes its great music video (that I cannot present any appropriate comment on) to #20, a little shy of the song’s #17 peak on release. If you have a couple million, you can buy that mansion, by the way. If you really happen to like these blog posts and have a couple million, you can buy me that mansion. As for notable gains, we only see boosts for “Self Aware” by Temper City at #51, “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter at #43 and “Free Your Mind” by Prospa and Cloonee at #39 (Hell, yeah, I hope the momentum sticks for that one).

Our top five on the UK Singles Chart is a clunkier bunch this week, nearly all gaining – it starts with “Babydoll” by Dominic Fike at #5 (joy), followed by “Homewrecker” by sombr at #4, “FEVER DREAM” by Alex Warren at #3, “Dracula” by Tame Impala at #2 and of course “Rein Me In” at the top. With no further ado, let’s get into the new songs.

New Entries

#74 – “Worry” – LONOWN and riserayss

Produced by LONOWN and riserayss

Okay, I’ll bite: who the Hell are LONOWN and riserayss? LONOWN is definitely not “le known” to me but he’s been active since at least 2017, working to pioneer the supposed “angelcore” genre, something that artists on LONOWN’s ARCADIA label are the creators of. According to their website, of course. Who are ARCADIA? Well, they’re “an international art community dedicated to the creation, promotion and development of progressive electronic music” and their website feels like I’m travelling through the portal that gets me to the Metaverse. An artist under the label, Øneheart, charted before in 2023 but LONOWN isn’t just an artist signed to the label, he’s the founder.

Hailing from Saint Petersburg, Russia, LONOWN works mostly in the ethereal electronic genres of wave and witch house though also the less atmospheric, more minimal electroclash, which is probably what this track from October of last year fits into. Despite how I just described the genres, this song definitely keeps the ethereal nature of wave in mind behind the throbbing synths and basic percussion that has a really satisfying clap – sounds like it peeks through the nightmare of the rest of the mix and then slowly lowers itself into it as more gooey synths float around it, it’s great. Alexey Tokman, or riserayss, as well as Asenssia, both also from Russia, have their vocals pitch-shifted and chopped up and flickered around the mix in a way that reminds me a little of how vaporwave acts treated vocal samples or even how Clams Casino flips Imogen Heap. The louder lead synth is a little much in the distortion department but I like how soon it’s countered and how it stops to give a fragment of vocal time to breathe, only to again consume it, with a clear verse-chorus structure that is a little obfuscated by the distortion and how you can barely make out the vocal. It’s not in Russian either, it’s just a re-sung sample – according to Genius, riserayss handles the bridge but the main loop is Asenssia interpolating a sample flip of Mariah Carey’s 1995 album cut “Underneath the Stars”, which ARCADIA confirmed was a replacement of the original flip after the vocals were changed in March. Presumably, this was done to avoid sample clearance issues after the song got viral, which I also presume came from TikTok, given the existence of an “ultra slowed” version (and a slowed version with more streams than the original!), so I can’t be that surprised something like this is charting at all, but I do like it! It may be worth checking out more from this label if this is what “angelcore” sounds like.

#58 – “My Mess” – Myles Smith

Produced by Peter Fenn and Myles Smith

This is Luton folk-pop singer Myles Smith’s new single, a very personal track about his fractured home life in his youth and how the oppressive way he was raised has led to difficulties in making decisions and maintaining relationships in adulthood, taking the interesting approach to own that trauma as “My Mess” that he needs to sort out, despite being pretty clearly treated abusively and having expectations to deal with shit he did not need to at such a young age. Because of his inability to remove himself from the burden of that trauma, despite the desperate attempts he describes in the second verse, he becomes a little stuck – unable to open up but followed by memories he’d rather keep shut closed in the past. There’s a lot to this song and the framing of it as his problem is the one we probably don’t want to hear but is the most realistic – at some point, shit happens, growing up is hard and the adult life is harder, you have to be your own person, it’s not easy, it is what it is.

Sadly, this song ended up being realised as an acoustic guitar-led ditty with multi-tracked vocals in the chorus (that feels a little clunky, the words don’t hit as much as they should, he kind of just flails into it) and an underdeveloped bridge that does do a great job at making that overwhelming reminder that this is his life and what happened to him can’t be fixed but can’t be dwelled upon feel like it’s inescapable, but also just leads into a nothing outro and doesn’t have that much variance in the vocal delivery of that one line, that mantra, to feel like it means more than it would on paper which… isn’t much, honestly. It’s the shame that the repeated lines feel the most fleeting and lacking when the verses give the kind of detail I find makes a song like this interesting and the framing could give way to much more nuance than this pop song structure allows for. I don’t like the song and it’s not the first time more personal content has been handled… strangely by Myles’ songs, but I don’t think how he deals with the subject matter in his music is going to be 1.) always reflective of how it is in his life and 2.) worth harshly criticising. It seems more important that he got this off of his chest so if he can do what he loves doing and make some new fans (or royalties) off of it, why not? I’m glad he can finally open up – I wonder if the scope of his audience and the knowledge that so many of them have likely gone through similar trials is what permeates the brain fog and allows for this kind of vulnerability.

#57 – “Boston” – STELLA LEFTY

Produced by Joe Reeves

As opposed to STELLA RIGHTY, the Reform candidate for the Rhondda Valley. Jokes aside, Ms. LEFTY has been active since at least 2024 and is now on the Scream 7 soundtrack, which is… maybe worse than being associated with nothing at all, actually. Even worse is to be associated with a billionaire executive, by the by. I found an article about this that I disagree with on most points – “[If] you can sing, you can sing. Cream always rises to the top.” (sure, buddy, the most talented artists always win out, that’s why D-Block Europe have 30 top 40 hits) – but does give you some heartwarming (your mileage may vary) detail on how Stella Lefkofsky (or LEFTY for short) gets emotional when she “sing[s] to her old man” and because of how close they are, she writes and sings about him frequently. All of this, of course, sounds like straight-up paid promo when you realise that the article’s author, Grayson Weir, nearly exclusively writes about sports otherwise. He may have a thing for wording his milquetoast articles in ways that stumble into mocking their subject, like his headline that calls a female basketballer an “Israeli sharpshooter”. Technically the truth but also Jesus, Grayson, think about how that sounds. Also think about how it sounds that a billionaire’s daughter, whose music he promotes to investors on LinkedIn, is one of the fastest rising artists in “country-indie-pop”. Mr. Eric Lefkofsky is the co-founder of Groupon, who were found to be in “widespread breaches” of UK consumer protection laws in 2012, and is currently the CEO of Tempus AI, who want to apply new AI technology into healthcare. Read more about how scrutable Tempus’ leadership and business model is here in a report by Spruce Point. If you don’t want to risk investing in Tempus, hey, how about we invest in Stella?

I can’t believe I’m fucking saying this already but the story of “Boston” actually starts in 2022 with the release of “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan, which had a long rise as a sleeper hit and eventually spent seven weeks at #1 on the UK Singles Chart in early 2024. It is still charting today in its 124th week. See, what should have tipped you off about Stella’s background is that she was able to clear this interpolation – Kahan gets a writing credit here on a decently faceless love song with basic piano and some infusion of country guitar that fits against Stella’s lighter tone that thematically is perfect for that youthful feeling of being so in love that you feel you’re never going to hop off that metaphorical train to Boston. What, did you expect me to say that this was a talentless nepo baby? No, I like the song, she can sing (though nothing here is too crazy thanks to the song’s relaxed tone) and it’s produced – aside from a vocal glitch at the start – like it has some backing behind it. I even think it has some unique framing in that she’s in love but it’s unclear if the partner is – “I like it when you’re nice to me” is an awfully passive way of singing about being in love and being treated well and it gives an almost uneasy sense to this relationship dynamic. I can’t rag on the song too much – firstly because of its quality and secondly because you can be a billionaire’s daughter and completely fail in music even when everything is going for you to even just astro-turf that success. She’s not exactly portraying herself as something she isn’t and it wouldn’t matter if she was because that’s what being a popstar is. As a wise* man once said, “Tearing something down is easy; building it up is hard. Maybe it’s time to stop taking the easy way out.” You know who said that? Eric Lefkofsky.

#54 – “Mr. Know it All” – Teddy Swims

Produced by Julian Bunetta, Ammo and John Ryan

Teddy Swims likes to consider himself the Jack Black of soul music. Well… at least it’s not R&B’s Donell Rawlings. “Mr. Know it All” is his new lead single with a surprisingly lowkey, liquid groove with a great pattering of drums and Gotye-esque counter-melody of strings, all appearing in an intro that treats you to Teddy’s unconfident cooing and a faint, repeated yell of “Woo!”, it’s all much more filtered and intriguing than I would expect from someone who’s mostly done pop-soul throwbacks to this point. The song tells a story of Teddy coming back repeatedly to a relationship that always ends up in some kind of heartbreak but can’t keep himself out of it, even if he predicts it all from a mile away. The vocal treatment (and approach overall) doesn’t allow for the straightforward belt of his I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy material, instead having him murmur a little in the verses under layers of multi-tracking that doesn’t explode that much coming into the chorus. I mean, why should it? What overwhelming emotion can be felt if you know how it feels to have your heart broken, know that it’s coming, know that you’ll come back, know that the cycle will repeat, probably know all the dirty laundry that comes with every rerun of the same old drama? Hell, he even begins to make comical analogies comparing the relationship to pulling dominoes from a coffee can and a tennis ball through the ceiling fan because he sarcastically bets her that she’ll “never end up fallin’ back in [his] hands”, which is just hilarious. I love “I can't act like I don't keep dressin' for the storm then blame the sky” too – with a name like “Mr. Know it All”, I really shouldn’t have been surprised by how lighthearted it is, especially once we get closer into Teddy’s bread and butter with the final chorus’ string swell and plenty of vocal riffs. If I have much of a complaint, it’s that the nasty guitar in the outro should have been there in the bridge! I know it’s a length-optimising 2020s pop song but come on, this is a song that deserves a solo, it would branch the over-the-top sensibilities of the lyrics and build with the cooler suspense of the verses pretty well. As it is, I still really like this. Maybe you should have brought those snappy one-liners to the roast battle though, Teddy. Next time.

#50 – “Be Her” – Ella Langley

Produced by Ella Langley, Ben West and Miranda Lambert

Alabama darling Ella Langley is currently sitting on top of the US charts and doing damn well here in the top 20 with “Choosin’ Texas”, so it was only a matter of time before another single from her newly-released album Dandelion (#7 on the UK albums chart) scraped onto the chart, with this one already having made the top 10 Stateside. Co-written by audio terrorist and prolific country songwriter Hardy, “Be Her” is a song about desperately wanting to be someone else, though that someone else probably isn’t a real woman Langley adores but instead of a better version of herself. An impossibly perfect version of herself Langley longs to reach, the chorus is unusually simple for country tracks, mostly repeating the clever “I just want to be her so bad” / “it hurts so bad” refrain, with the breath of the “H” sound really hitting, it sounds breathless, I love the delivery on this entire song. The lyrics too – “She drinks wine by the glass, not by the bottle” is a brilliant straightforward opening line. This woman Langley details isn’t exactly a contradictorily perfect person either, you can have these multitudes (with serious self-controol), and that’s what makes her lack of access to that version of herself hurt so much, that she feels she’s doing something wrong by not being that person. You see the kind of person you want to be all the time when you think about your life or any interaction you have, but you can’t just be that person without sacrificing being the person you already are, and sometimes temptation to smoke or drink, non-commitment to a partner, loss of faith in God and God forbid, a little over-embellishing, is part of that person.

The neo-traditional country sound, with a couple washed-out moments that implement faint chatter and organic sound underneath the wistful guitar, especially that beautiful outro, mostly works like a charm for this theme, aside from the drums from Aksel Coe. I’m sure Coe’s drumming is fine – he did “Choosin’ Texas”, as well as Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange” and ROLE MODEL’s “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” – but it’s mixed like a block on this and is pretty distracting in the verses. I know, nitpick, but it is a pretty essential component of the song that makes it drag a little. It doesn’t drag that much for me, thankfully, mostly due to how the song is written – I really appreciate how what is essentially a second hook is added after the second chorus to develop the song beyond your expectations of its structure, giving it a counter-refrain out of what could just be a one-and-done-bridge that is much slower and a little closer to conventional country music hooks. It fleshes out the track, it’s close to great for me, I really should listen to the rest of that album.

#32 – “RUNWAY” – Lady Gaga and Doechii

Produced by Bruno Mars, Andrew Watt, Cirkut and D’Mile

In the 1996 version of The Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy plays respected biochemist Professor Sherman Klump who falls in love with Jada Pinkett Smith, gets roasted by Dave Chappelle and turns to science to “fix” his obesity and give him a renewed sense of confidence. His weight loss formula transforms Klump into the asshole womaniser Buddy Love. In the film’s climax with the best CGI PG-13 body horror and comedic acting 1996 can offer, Klump comes alive within Buddy, and Buddy’s final words before he fully transforms back into his overweight self are: “No matter what, no matter what, you got to strut”. Now, I fucking love The Nutty Professor and I think the false confidence exuded by Buddy turning into a mantra for embracing and accepting who you are is one of its most endearing qualities. It was only a matter of time before someone used that quote in the context of a queer anthem. I just didn’t expect it to be Bruno Mars.

Now, I can’t confirm that the pitch-shifted voice at the start is Bruno but he’s credited with writing, production and backing vocals… and he just seems like the type to remember The Nutty Professor’s self-fight scene. It definitely doesn’t seem like Lady Gaga’s wheelhouse – this is one of the least Lady Gaga songs she’s ever released, with her smoothest moments being when the echo is turned way up and she sounds like the kind of immense diva vocal that would be used in this vintage ballroom house sound, with Bruno’s throwback tendencies exploring yet another scene that he actually effectively modernises here. I’m always pretty impressed by Bruno and D’Mile as perfectionist producers and the vocal production especially is great, from the Bruno-Doechii layering that stacks up for the hook to the reverbed-out Gaga that I mentioned earlier and the stuttering that leads into the bridge-turned-outro. Said outro is really where the production shines as instead of running the chorus back, we get what is practically an instrumental to ride out and show the alien texture of the synths in full detail, as every little shift in the instrumental – like those great little Daft Punk-esque guitar licks – is punched up by the drums.

Lyrically, it’s basically just about being that bitch for lack of a better phrase in semi-cheesy ways that don’t go out there as Doechii could but hit that ironic/iconic dichotomy just the same. I assume they couldn’t stray much from the fashion runway theme though it would have been nice to go super “Vogue” and start making more direct references. Oh, yeah, this is for The Devil Wears Prada 2, a sequel to the 2006 film that I only knew was coming out because I saw the trailer before The Moment. I’ve not seen the original either. I am going to see the Michael Jackson biopic of all things next week though so maybe you’ll get a bonus review about that. I wish I could claim going to the cinema ostensibly for this blog as a “business expense”, but it would mean I have to only ever see biopics, documentaries and whatever movie Bebe Rexha is soundtracking for the rest of my cinema-going life. God forbid they put Hazbin Hotel in cinemas too.

#14 – “Pinky Up” – KATSEYE

Produced by dwilly, “hitman” bang and Frants

I have not been able to keep up with KATSEYE and the drama surrounding them, but I did try for this review. One of the members Manon has left the group or at least gone on hiatus from it starting in February. Sporadically appearing in some photoshoots with them and mentioning that she has negotiated “agreements” with the group and management, it appears that Manon was ultimately excluded from “PINKY UP”, its video and the upcoming EP that features it. Manon was present at Coachella but not with the group, instead with Ice Spice and at Justin Bieber’s afterparty, apparently… which is hilarious, I would do the same. Fuck singing, let me do shots with the Biebs. Especially if I have to perform KATSEYE songs because yeesh. Weirdly for a group whose only character thus far has been “annoying”, there’s a notable difference between the manic and confrontational “Internet Girl” and “Pinky Up”, a plodding stock drum loop behind stuttered vocals and blobs of electropop synth that are prominent enough in the mix but very much just go with the motions, a bit quieter than they should be compared to the rhythm section (especially the heavy bass) and not really giving me much melody to work with, just being there to jerk side to side and keep existing, keep working, stay awake, until you get a group vocal leading into a “drop” that lasts for barely any time before the song ends and can appropriately be described as BLACKPINK’s leftovers. Sounds like this beat may need to take a temporary hiatus.

Conclusion