So back to the chart proper we go, and while of course now it’s Christmas time, at least chartwise, I’m going back a month because otherwise every fu
cking other record is a Christmas one, and that’s not what this is about. Plus I’m out of sickbags. So, this time the RNG brings me a number even lower than 33, this being 38.
And this year, a month ago, we find this at that position.
Title: “Under the Influence”
Artist: Chris Brown
Nationality: American
Genre: R&B/Pop
Written by: Ayoola Oladapo Agboola, Chris Brown, David Adedeji Adeleke, Tiffany McKie
Original release date: September 6 2022
Highest chart position (at time of writing): 7 (UK) 14 (USA) ***
Chart position (at time of writing): 38
Progress, if any, at time of writing: Descending
From the album: Indigo
What do I know about this artist? Not much; some link to Whitney Houston I think, something about domestic violence? Not my kind of music though I have heard the name. Oh I see it wasn't Whitney Houston, it was Rihanna. Leave me alone: I'm old and to quote Mr. Hall, out of touch. If | was ever in touch, that is.
What do I think of this single? You know, it’s not terrible. I could do, as ever, without the autotune (Trademark Registered to Hell Music Plc.) but it’s a slow, grinding sort of almost ballad with a measured beat and not a terrible amount of boasting or preening. Don’t quite get the Codeine aspect to be honest; he does mention Robitussin at the beginning (who would have ever thought a cough bottle for kids would feature in a chart single?) but other than that, kind of a standard bump’n’grind love song. Wouldn’t be completely averse to hearing it again. Surprisingly decent.
What have I learned about this single? That it’s about having sex under the influence of Codeine, which if you ask me is a strange drug to choose. I know it’s addictive but was he just bored of writing about snorting coke or shooting heroin? Apparently it was what’s called a “sleeper hit”, having been initially recorded for release on the expanded version of his album in 2019, but then going viral for some reason and thereafter entering the charts. It made Brown the first r&b artist in history to have over fifty hits in the top forty, it says here.
My rating: A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxyk1glEq4
*** Got higher (no pun intended) in the dance charts or something, but I'm only taking the mainstream ones into account here.