Day 67: Hypersonic Missiles by Sam Fender

He’s set for a good year. After bursting onto the scene last year, Sam Fender has gone from strength to strength. From the FIFA 19 soundtrack to winning the BRITS Critics Choice Award, he is setting himself up for a seismic 2019. And this all starts with his first new music this year, in the form of this single, Hypersonic Missiles.

Having grown up in North Shields in North East England, this has helped shape some of his previous songs. A guitar-forward singer-songwriter for this generation, Fender often brings in a cacophony of instruments to amplify his songs to stadium anthems. He is a graduate of the BBC Sound of 2018 list, a notorious list that has picked up some of the biggest stars in the world before your grandma knew who they were. With fellow alumni that year including newly chart-topping Lewis Capaldi and global sensation Khalid, Fender is silently working hard, constantly touring and releasing music that he feels is right.

Hypersonic Missiles falls into that category and is certainly a big anthem to kickstart 2019 (albeit a week into March). His slightly roughened but powerful vocals kick off immediately with a guitar to lead him to the first hook where the drums and bass really get going and you are instantly transported to summer 2019 with Sam Fender in front of you on a stage in the sunshine. It seems a perfect fit for festivals, and he’s given people enough time to master that “this is a high time for hypersonic missiles” before they’re drinking Dark Fruits in a field.

For such an upbeat song, he is tackling some serious stuff. He talks about being in a rat race, ruled by the American corporate machine and blissfully unaware of “kids in Gaza” and other global tragedies and issues that are less important than eating McDonald’s. Oddly, he seems to be inciting war, claiming that for all of this, maybe it is time for those titular missiles. Play God was in a similar vein, and it’s this subject matter that Fender isn’t afraid to shy away from that sets him apart from his peers and what will, many years down the line, see him still on that festival stage, with fans still screaming his meaningful lyrics back at him.

Spotify Playlist Link: https://spoti.fi/2CKuVex

Day 45: Selfish by Future ft.Rihanna

A great collaboration for you on Valentine’s Day, though not the most romantic song that you’ll ever hear! Rihanna joins Future on Selfish. From Future’s 2017 album HNDRXX, it is a song that reevaluates a past connection and, to be honest, feels like the anthem for many people in the run-up to this year’s Valentine’s Day, desperately searching for a date.

There is very little instrumental in the song, which for Rihanna’s solos makes for a beautiful RnB track that makes her incredible vocal range the focal point of the song. Future’s verse is accompanied with a few more trap drums and a substantial dose of autotune, as has been the standard for the Atlanta trailblazer over the years, but the blend between verse and chorus and back into verse is smooth and isn’t a noticeable distraction from the song.

It’s no wonder that the song (and indeed the album as a whole) is melancholy and gloomy. Future released the album less than a year after his very public split from fellow artist Ciara, whilst this follows Rihanna’s eighth studio album, ANTI. The album comes from a similar, emotional place and the collaboration in this song is a perfect storm that has created a moody slow jam that might just be the perfect soundtrack for your Valentine’s. I hope you are listening to Luther Van Dross. But if not, then you could most certainly do worse than Selfish.

Spotify Playlist Link: https://spoti.fi/2CKuVex

Day 19: Hear Dis by Chip ft. Stormzy

Quintessential grime beef is the dish of the day this Saturday, with Chip and Stormzy coming hard for Bugzy Malone. HARD.

The track was released on Chip’s Rap vs. Grime mixtape in 2016 as a reply to a number of shots fired by Tinie Tempah on his Junk Food mixtape. Stormzy did actually feature on some of the tracks that included the disses but didn’t realise what he was getting in the midst of, so used Chip’s track to fire some of his own shots towards Cadell, Wiley’s half-brother (the subject of a little-known track called Shut Up). What resulted was three minutes and twenty seconds of pure fire.

It’s all verse and is as aggressive and fiery as you need from a grime diss track. Stormzy introducing himself on the beat with “Eeerm, you cunt” says it all really. The pair show solidarity with each other and state their admiration for each other’s lyricism, a dig at Tinie and his cheeky omittance of his subliminals at Chip on Peak and Been The Man (the tracks Stormzy featured on).

This is refreshing evidence of the grime artist Chip can be. A highly publicised and controversial venture into the world of pop. His tracks Oopsy Daisy and Champion (featuring Chris Brown, hence the American artist’s namechecking on this track) are now infamous and are viewed by a lot of the community as selling out. The pop venture was the subject of another heavyweight grime beef Chip was involved with between himself and Manchester grime artist Bugzy Malone, with it being mentioned repeatedly in Relegation Riddim.

This is a return to the Chip that broke through over a 140 bpm instrumental though, and the inclusion of grime royalty in Stormzy makes this an unbelievable track, even long after it is relevant as a diss track. A tough feat, but one that has been navigated successfully.

Spotify Playlist Link: https://spoti.fi/2CKuVex