#sam hunt

My Yellowstone fanfiction, Bruised Men Don't Stay Lost is now complete.

"Night In" by Brittney Spencer

DV:

There's no way this is a real building, right? The kitchen with its 15 foot ceiling, the living room with its bisexual lighting, it's internally consistent but still wild. On the other hand: it's easy to have a night in when your place looks like the coziest club around. Anyway, as someone who loves to go out but not always, I strongly support a song for the introverts. And I appreciate that (video aesthetic obviously aside) "Night In" actually sounds like it's a comfortable evening ahead. I'm reminded of "House Party," perhaps obviously, but there Sam Hunt is like, "Let me bring the chaos of the club to your quiet home" and here Brittney Spencer is like, "We're gonna have fun in the lowest of keys." It's catchy and sweet and she sings the shit out of it, which is nice: staying in doesn't have to be boring, no matter what the outdoor kids want you to think.

MG:

[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Ed Sheeran, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar, The Chainsmokers, Migos, The Chainsmokers, Sam Hunt, Imagine Dragons, Post Malone. End description]

More information about this blog here

It's easier more than ever to see the effects of streaming on the pop charts. As electropop and club music become a distant memory, the pop music of the late 2010's works better with individual listening. As mentioned before, streaming works better for album listening, much more than the iTunes era which encouraged the purchasing of individual songs (which was great for singles artists, but not necessarily for albums). Some artists were able to hack this system. For example, Drake's Views (featured on the previous poll) was notable for having 20 songs on its tracklist -- which is a lot for a pop release. Unlike the iTunes era or even the CD era before, longer albums with shorter songs flourish more in the streaming landscape.

Streaming also helped to continue blurring the line between genres and audiences. Without going too much into it (because this is a topic I could ramble on about endlessly), genres were not handed down to us from Mount Olympus or something. Genre is a tool of marketing, and the lines drawn between them can have a variety of cultural, racial, economic, gender, religious, and other variables between them. These lines were more prominent in previous years before streaming made it easier to access just about every kind of music at once. This is when we start to see the rise of a concept known as the "monogenre". In order to cater to as wide an audience as possible, everything starts to sound like everything. A little rock, a little indie, a little trap, a little tropical house, a little festival EDM. There were also those who criticized the streaming era in how it promotes a more "passive" listening style, since playlists and algorithms could continue playing ad infinitum without the listener needing to seek out new music themselves. While I certainly see the evidence of that on the charts, I don't think this tells the complete story.