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Tag: Good Luck Babe!

  • These Can’t All Be The Songs of the Summer: Summer Hit Showdown

    These Can’t All Be The Songs of the Summer: Summer Hit Showdown

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    Each new song is claiming to be
    the song of the summer. This is not random TikTok singers doing their obligatory self-promo with the tried-and-true hook: “Did I just write the song of the summer?” But don’t blame them. Blame the labels that are vying for a number-one hit. Blame TikTok for making songs viral overnight. Or blame each and every one of us who exclaims “song of the summer!” whenever our favorite songs come on the radio. There’s even a Spotify playlist power ranking all of this years contenders.

    Everyone’s seeking the perfect summer soundtrack. I make a new playlist once time April hits (overeager, I know) with all the songs I have on repeat for the season. It ranges from UK Drill to Alt-Pop bangers. If you don’t have Central Cee and Clairo playing back-to-back this summer, what are you even doing?

    But yet, come summer one song stands out as
    the song of the season. It’s the song that’s on everyone’s mind and everyone’s playlist. It’s the song everyone requests at parties, that plays every hour on the hour at the club, and the song we find ourselves humming mindlessly at the pool and on the beach.

    Some years, it’s obvious. But this year, we’re spoiled for choice.

    Dare I say it: we’re having a Summer 2016 Replay. For Gen Z and younger Millennials, Summer 2016 has taken a mythical quality online. Fall and Winter were when everything started to go wrong — some even say the killing of Harambe that May was the catalyst to all the ceaseless tragedy that’s happened since. If you’d told us then what the world would look like now, I would
    not have believed you. It was the rise before the fall. It was a summer of possibility, incredulity. And it was a summer of really good music.

    Leading up to Summer 2016, we had new albums from Beyonce (
    Lemonade), Rihanna (ANTI, her last project), Drake (Views), Justin Bieber (Purpose), and Ariana Grande (Dangerous Woman). Those albums gave us summer hits like “Sorry,” “Work,” “One Dance,” “Controlla,” “Love Yourself,” “Into You,” and so. Much. More. Not to mention, right at the end of summer, Frank Ocean finally dropped “Blonde” and changed music forever. He ushered in the genre-less, experimental sound to mainstream music and is on the inspo board of everyone you love, I promise.

    The radio was also blasting singles that still get regular play at clubs. Mike Posner’s “I Took a Pill In Ibiza,” “This is What You Came For” by Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa’s first hit “Hotter than Hell,” “Cheap Thrills” by Sia, and “Panda” by Desiigner. Doesn’t that take you back?

    Since then, no other summer has matched the vibes and the soundtrack of Summer 16. Last summer was the summer of cinema — with
    OppenBarbie taking over the box office and the planet. It was the summer of the girl, too. But summer 2024 is promising to have it all.

    The summer festival circuit is in full swing with lineups that people are actually excited about and performances that are making and reigniting stars. Chappell Roan at
    Coachella blasted her way to success, going from a niche, “gay famous” singer to a mainstream hitmaker. Lana Del Rey is so back in a big way after headlining Coachella with a special appearance from Billie Eilish. Billie released her best album yet, full of summer bangers and ballads alike.

    But we can’t talk about Summer 16 without talking about Sabrina Carpenter. “Espresso” has been sitting pretty at the top of the charts since spring. It’s everyone’s hyperfixation song. It’s been played and played and I’m not even close to tired of it. While Sabrina has been writing music for years, her 2023 album
    emails I can’t send has been a gamechanger for her career. Her mainstream success was slowly climbing with hits like “Nonsense” and “Feather” but nothing can compare to the level of fame she’s seeing in the wake of “Espresso.”

    Out of nowhere, the lead single from her upcoming album became the unexpected song of pre-summer. But as we head into the season’s later months, can it keep up its momentum? Only time will tell. We’re spoiled for choice this summer with a bevy of hits from artists of every genre. Of course there are expected summer stars like Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, and Post Malone, but other more surprising contenders are vying for the Song of the Summer Title.

    Here’s what we think of all of summer’s most infectious songs:

    Espresso — Sabrina Carpenter


    The perfect summer anthem. “Espresso” is a feel-good bop that I can listen to on repeat. I doubt I’ll ever get tired of it — no wonder it won’t exit the Billboard chart. The only thing keeping it from being the definite song of the summer is that it came out in early Spring. But don’t worry, Miss Sabrina has more than one card up her sleeve.

    Please, Please, Please — Sabrina Carpenter

    After announcing her next album, Sabrina released her latest single, “Please, Please, Please,” alongside the video with her boyfriend, Barry Keoghan. “Don’t embarrass me, motherf*cker,” she croons in the song — talk about relatable. Taking a different tone than “Espresso” but no less infectious, Sabrina’s close-to-Country crooning displays that she’s a versatile star who won’t be banging out versions of the same song forever.

    I Had Some Help — Post Malone ft Morgan Wallen

    Speaking of Country Music, Post Malone’s country era is going swimmingly for the former-rapper with his new song, “I Had Some Help,” featuring Country star Morgan Wallen. Post Malone is no stranger to songs of the summer with hits like 2017’s “Congratulations,” 2019’s “Circles,” and his
    Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse song “Sunflower” in 2019. This summer, he’s switching up genres but still racking up streams. Be prepared to hear this at every barbecue, beach house, or lake house or this summer.

    II Most Wanted — Beyonce and Miley Cyrus

    When Beyonce released her own Country album, it came with the infectious hit, “TEXAS HOLD EM.” The song’s opening line, “This ain’t Texas,” was on the tip of my tongue for months. Now that the album’s finally out, the surprising hit is her unexpected collaboration with Miley Cyrus, “II Most Wanted.” Miley had the song of the summer last year with “Flowers” and teaming up with Beyonce on this emotional ballad is pure magic.

    Nasty — Tinashe

    Tinashe has been toiling for years aiming for a hit, and now she finally has one. A true TikTok song, this summer anthem went viral in a hilarious video of TikTok user Nate Di Winer when he posted a video of himself dancing to Hey Choppi’s “Blind.” Tinashe took the video’s success, overlaid her own video and audio over it, and it went crazy-crazy-viral. The rest is history. Now it’s a sneaky, sleeper hit of the summer. And the TikTok sound “I’ve been a nasty girl” is sure to outlive it and head into the golden days of Autumn — at least.

    Million Dollar Baby — Tommy Richman

    We can’t talk about TikTok songs without mentioning Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby”. No, not the 2004 brutal boxing film starring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman. It’s a viral hit that instantly became an earworm. Who is Tommy Richman, you might ask? The 24-year-old singer and rapper is brand new to the scene — and what a debut. I wish it
    really was 2016 so everyone’s Instagram captions could be “Million Dollar Baby.” Simpler times.

    Too Sweet — Hozier

    TikTok is also responsible for Hozier’s first #1 hit in the US. Hozier’s been bringing his Irish accent-tinged voice to the charts since his massive debut single, “Take Me to Church.” But it took a post-album EP to skyrocket him to #1. After releasing
    Unreal, Unearth in late 2023, Hozier dropped a 4-song EP this April with some extras that didn’t make the album. And thank goodness he didn’t let these songs languish because “Too Sweet” is the folksy summer anthem we need.

    Good Luck Babe! — Chappell Roan

    The gays won with this song. Chappell Roan has been belting out her ballads and bops of yearning since her extended album promotion in 2020. Finally,
    The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, her debut album came out in late 2023 but it took until her 2024 single “Good Luck Babe!” to get people to tune in. But now that the masses are listening, they cannot stop. This unapologetically queer hit has transcended the gay pop genre and is a chart-topping summer anthem for all of us entering our eras of yearning.

    LUNCH — Billie Eilish

    Speaking of unapologetically queer, this new Billie Eilish era is unmatched. Billie’s brand-new album,
    HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, is a masterpiece and already gaining Grammy buzz. Album of the Year? Probably. And she deserves it. She traverses genres and moods with this album, managing to create a sound that’s refreshingly unique and a album that feels cohesive despite its leaps and bounds. “LUNCH” is the sapphic song of my dreams, and “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” is a pop ballad that shows her range and her ability to create pop songs that last forever. [Read our full review of HIT ME HARD AND SOFThere.]

    Cinderella — Remi Wolf

    Remi will always be on my summer playlist so it’s exciting to hear her getting mainstream play. “Me and the boys in the hotel lobby,” is an infectious hook. And paired with her belting the chorus, it’s a textured song that I want to scream along to in my car with the windows down. [Read out interview with Remi Wolf at Spotify’s Lorem party
    here.]

    Houdini — Dua Lipa

    Queen of Vacationing. Queen of Red Carpets. Formerly, Queen of Summer. After 2017’s “New Rules” made her a certified pop girl, and “Levitating” was the post-covid anthem, we all expected Dua to have the Song of the Summer with hits from her latest album,
    Radical Optimism. Although hits like “Houdini” and “Training Season” have charted moderately well, they didn’t seem to stick. The vibes are good though, earning them a spot on my summer playlist despite everyone falling asleep on the job.

    Houdini — Eminem

    While Dua’s “Houdini” remains in the middle of the charts, Eminem’s return to music with his song, “Houdini” is climbing up the charts. It debuted at number #2 and is reaching for #1. This is his best showing on the charts in over a decade and bodes well for his upcoming album,
    The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce). The song is classic Slim Shady controversy bait. If cancel culture were actually real, Shady would be canceled for this one for sure — there’s a line about Megan Thee Stallion being shot (can rappers leave her alone?) and calling everything “gay.” But it’s catchy so it’s definitely going to stay in the charts for a while.

    Not Like Us — Kendrick Lamar

    By far, the most buzz-worthy rap hit is Kenrick Lamar’s diss track, “Not Like Us.” One of the final songs in the weeks-long saga that was his beef with Drake, it’s the final nail in the Drizzy coffin. You know you lost a rap war when one of the diss tracks becomes the song of the summer. Ouch!

    BAND4BAND — Central Cee, Lil Baby

    Wanna know who else is beefing? The US and UK rap scenes. The collaboration from Central Cee and Lil Baby isn’t bringing the two countries together, but tearing them apart. Each side is claiming their country carried the song. The British claim Lil Baby doesn’t sound as tough or “hard” as Cench, while Americans are making TikToks dancing to Cench’s verse in Bridgerton-like garb. I just want everyone to have fun. After Central Cee teamed up with Dave for my personal favorite song of
    last summer, “Sprinter,” they could never make me hate him.

    places to be — Fred Again.. Ft Anderson .Paak and CHIKA

    I wanna hear this at the club. I wanna hear this on a rooftop. I wanna hear this while sprinting through a field or rolling down a hill or doing something else to fix my inner child. “places to be” is fun, refreshing, and sounds like the endless possibilities of summer. [Read our review of Fred Again..’s Stanford show here.]

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    Langa Chinyoka

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  • From “I Kissed A Girl” to “Good Luck, Babe!”: Queer Yearning and Regret Gets A More Layered and Genuine Upgrade in Pop Song Form

    From “I Kissed A Girl” to “Good Luck, Babe!”: Queer Yearning and Regret Gets A More Layered and Genuine Upgrade in Pop Song Form

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    In 2008, Katy Perry caught her big break with “I Kissed A Girl” (made all the more retroactively cringe because Dr. Luke co-produced it). After years of failed attempts at trying to “crack the industry,” complete with an early iteration as a Christian singer (her first release was a gospel album called Katy Hudson), Perry found that going “in total defiance of God” was the better route when it came to attracting an audience. Hence, the lead single from her first “real” album (it’s sort of like how no one counts Lana Del Ray a.k.a. Lizzy Grant as a “real” LDR album) being “I Kissed A Girl.” Otherwise known as: the ultimate straight girl tease. 

    Although the song was widely embraced at the time (as evidenced by its chart position at number one on the Billboard Hot 100), it still didn’t go without its criticism, even then. For example, of Perry’s “cosplaying” at bicuriousness, Sal Cinquemani of Slant remarked that “its appropriation of the gay lifestyle exists for the sole purpose of garnering attention—both from Perry’s boyfriend and her audience.” In other words, her lack of “authenticity” was a major source of contention. Playing the queer card not because she genuinely felt it in her bones, but because it was “salacious” and “scandalous” (indeed, looking back, 2008 wasn’t as endlessly modern as it thought it was, election of a Black U.S. president or not). A way to garner simultaneous titillation and outrage.

    This included the Kinga Burza-directed music video, which also served as the first bona fide visual from Katy Perry as Katy Perry (not Hudson). Sure, “Ur So Gay” (clearly, Perry has a thing with homosexuality) got a music video accompaniment as well, but it was little more than Barbie and Ken dolls acting out Perry’s venomous lyrics, giving the chance for Katy Barbie to stare judgmentally at the “so gay” guy’s 00s-era social media profile, which looked like a mashup of MySpace and Facebook called, what else, “facespace.” Interspersed shots of Perry playing guitar against rough-hewn animation of a blue sky filled with puffy white clouds has the faint echo of Jill Sobule’s own surrealist, cartoony “I Kissed A Girl” video from 1995 (featuring none of other than Fabio as the hetero love interest, well-known at that time for his romance novel covers). And yes, Sobule was well-aware of Perry effectively “stealing” her song concept and making it far less genuine (not least of which was because Sobule is actually bisexual). There are even lyrics in Sobule’s single (e.g., “I kissed a girl, her lips were sweet/She was just like kissin’ me”) that Perry mirrors in lines like, “I kissed a girl and I liked it/The taste of her cherry ChapStick” and “Soft skin, red lips, so kissable.” 

    As for her inspiration, it’s been said that a little drunken “tee-hee-hee” beso with Miley Cyrus inspired it, but Perry herself has stated a few times that a teenage crush of hers did, an “older friend.” Not to mention the lore that Scarlett Johansson’s lips also inspired it. At one point, Perry insisted she had never actually kissed the girl who served as her “creative stimulator” (“I never kissed her or anything. In retrospect, she was my muse for that song”) while, at another, she said, “I did kiss her. I was totally obsessed with her. She was beautiful—porcelain skin, perfect lips.” Whatever the case, it’s clear Perry’s heart isn’t in this song, that it’s total pandering to the straight male fantasy of two women kissing. 

    Enter Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” sixteen years later. A complex, densely layered tale of Roan enduring the kind of shit Perry probably would’ve pulled on a legitimate gay or bi girl. Granted, the person detailed in Roan’s tale really is queer, and is simply trying to deny it. Perhaps later on, she’ll even attempt likening it to “a phase,” if anyone should ever find out. Like her straight husband, who Roan prophesizes about in the verse, “When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night/With your head in your hands, you’re nothing more than his wife/And when you think about me, all of those years ago/You’re standing face to face with ‘I told you so.’” Ouch. It’s certainly not likely that Perry will have that issue, waking up next to Orlando Bloom and continuing to dress in pinup-inspired attire that harkens back to the 50s and 60s a.k.a. the height of when compulsory heterosexuality reigned supreme (to that point, it seems no coincidence that the Stonewall riots happened at the end of the 60s). 

    Attire that she also wears in the video for “I Kissed A Girl,” heavy-handed with the “symbolism” of Perry cradling a pussy cat in her arms while viewers are treated to an overhead shot of her lying “seductively” on her bed. This while she sings, “This was never the way I planned/Not my intention/I got so brave, drink in hand/Lost my discretion/It’s not what I’m used to/Just wanna try you on/I’m curious for you/Caught my attention.” The ingrained sense of internalized homophobia that Perry was raised with is rampant in these lyrics. This much is made even more glaring when Perry adds, “It’s not what/Good girls do/Not how they should behave.” Roan, too, has her own issues with being a “fallen good girl,” but she addresses them in a manner that isn’t overtly coming from a straight girl playing at queer. 

    Although Roan’s first single with a music video, “Good Hurt” (released in 2017), might have been nebulous to listeners who didn’t yet hear the official word of Roan’s queerness, “Good Luck, Babe!” leaves no room for “gray areas” (only gay ones) on the sexuality front. And it continues Roan’s tradition of queer aesthetics in her music videos (established with “Casual” and “Red Wine Supernova”). Something that would have been anathema to her during her younger years. For, just as Perry did, Roan grew up in a strict religious household. And Roan’s own austere upbringing informs many of her songs and videos. For example, when she mocks the “God Hates Fags” line with a sign on someone’s lawn in the “Red Wine Supernova” video that reads, “God Hates Magic.” Moments later, a female magician “poofs” that sign into a rose as an instantly turned-on Roan watches from afar (much to the dismay of the old neighbor woman to whom the sign belonged). Roan’s genuineness when it comes to getting across the magic and electricity of a relationship or sexual encounter with another girl in most of her songs, not just “Good Luck, Babe!,” obviously blows “I Kissed A Girl”’s minge out of the water (side note: the presence of water is also a not-so-coincidental staple in Roan’s videos, including “Die Young” [a title that has to be a nod to one of her influences, Kesha] and “Casual”). 

    And yet, it’s clear she’s still haunted by the repression and oppression of her past. Case in point, featuring a song called “After Midnight” on her debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, that opens with the lines, “My mama said, ‘Nothing good happens/When it’s late and you’re dancing alone’/She’s in my head saying, ‘It’s not attractive/Wearing that dress and red lipstick’/This is what I wanted/This is what I like/I’ve been a good girl for a long time.” Of course, we know what happens to “good girls” who keep their lid screwed on too tightly for too long: they explode. Which is what Roan did after what can be called her “clean-faced Adele” period that pervaded music videos like “Good Hurt,” “Die Young” and “Sugar High.” But once she let the influence of drag culture fully take over, so, too, did her unbridled embracement of queerness. 

    “Good Luck, Babe!” is a new apex of that embracement for Roan, who stated that the song is about “wishing good luck [regardless of being facetious] to someone who is denying fate.” And, more to the point, someone who is denying fate by denying their own sexuality. Something that Roan herself knows all about having grown up in an environment where, as she admits, she was conditioned to believe that “being gay was bad and a sin.” After her move to L.A., that perspective changed drastically (just further proof for the religious zealots that California is for pinkos and queers, and will turn everyone else into the same). 

    Having been on both sides of queer—denial and embracement—Roan speaks with a wisdom that is pure and true when she tells the erstwhile object of her affection on “Good Luck, Babe!,” “You can kiss a hundred boys in bars/Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling/You can say it’s just the way you are/Make a new excuse, another stupid reason/Good luck, babe (well, good luck).” The “good luck,” obviously, is filled with sarcasm, for Roan knows better than anyone that to suppress your sexuality is to suppress your entire identity. It is nothing like the “I was so drunk”/“experimenting just for kicks” vibe of “I Kissed A Girl,” wherein Perry’s own ideas of compulsory heterosexuality are manifest in lyrics such as, “It felt so wrong, it felt so right/Don’t mean I’m in love tonight” and “Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent.” 

    Incidentally, an article about Roan’s success and first album mentions Katy Perry specifically as an early influence: “She was enthralled and scandalized by the pop music of the late 00s and early 10s, such as Kesha [fun fact: Roan’s real name is Kayleigh Rose as Kesha’s is Kesha Rose], Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.” Kesha, appropriately enough (considering she was under Dr. Luke’s thumb at that time), actually appears in the “I Kissed A Girl” video among the gaggle of girls “frolicking” with Perry as rose petals and white feathers (from the requisite cliché pillow fight, duh) cascade down all around them.

    The “twist” at the end, however, is that it was seemingly just a dream, with Perry waking up next to her boyfriend in bed. Unless, in truth, it describes the exact scene Roan talks about when a queer girl keeps trying to play it straight her whole life. But, na, that just ain’t the case with Perry.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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