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Fire's Chill Pick - July 2025

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  Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Don’t want you, need you, yeah, I need you to read this piece. Welcome to Fire's Flaming Hot Takes, where we got a new Chill Pick, this could be everything that, that you love, sounds so good. Every spin makes me want more yeah-okay I wanna die at that intro. Anyways, what’s this month’s chill pick? Oh yeah, and I guess spoiler warning for this article if you haven’t seen Kpop Demon Hunters because I will be including some (mild) plot points in this article. Saja Boys - Soda Pop Release: June 20, 2025 Genres: Dance-Pop, K-Pop, Film Soundtrack, Funktronica, Future House I don’t think it’ll be contentious whatsoever for me to say that 2025 has been one of the absolute worst and most dead years of pop music that I can remember. I’ll have a lot of not very kind things to say in my worst list at the end of the year, but in short, this year has been, to quote Sean Fay-Wolfe, “2024’s victory lap”. Most of the biggest songs of the year are either long-dead 2024 ...
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The 11/10: How Personal Resonance Intertwines With Our Musical Opinions

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  The 11/10: How Personal Resonance Intertwines With Our Musical Opinions Hi everyone!! I truly can’t believe it’s been 4 years since I started Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes. It’s been such a wild ride, I was only a rising junior in high school when I first started and now I’m a...rising junior in college...Full circle moment or something. But anyways, what this article essentially is is me trying to explain and dissect my weird thoughts on a rating I have awarded some songs. Without wasting any more time, let’s get this started!! I: Objective 10s vs Subjective 10s Okay, this first section will be brief and might seem unrelated to the concept of an 11/10, but it’s important for me to define and distinguish an objective 10 and a subjective 10 because I will reference these later in this article. On the surface, an “objective 10” doesn’t really make sense; there’s no such thing as objectivity in music so this feels like a bit of a nonsense term. However, to me, I define an “objective 10”...
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Fire's Chill Pick - June 2025

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  Hi guys!! It’s the monthly Chill Pick article!! What am I serving up this month? Well, how about some...hot cakes (haha get it I’m so funny)? Olivia Ridgely - Hot Cakes Release: May 28, 2025 Genres: Pop, Indie Pop This is the 4th time Olivia Ridgely formerly known as Ridgely formerly known as Claire Ridgely is getting a song featured in my Fire’s Chill Pick segment, third only this year. I still love “All I Ever Wanted”, “Blu”, and “Lucky” and think Olivia Ridgely has an underrated knack for quietly scathing songwriting. And “Hot Cakes” falls into a similar category, even if I will say it doesn’t quite measure up to her best. Olivia Ridgely uses the term “hot cakes” as a metaphor for how her partner treats her, something enjoyable for a brief moment but ultimately discarded. She appears to be dating a guy who only sees her as a cheap rebound after a breakup and Olivia Ridgely is burned by being seen as so disposable. It makes the “Claire, how long did you cry for?” lyric feel lik...
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The Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 1978

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  The Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 1978 Hi everyone!! It’s Fire from Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes and it’s that time finally!! After a week of finals hell let’s celebrate with the top 10 best hit songs of 1978!! As I stated in my worst list, 1978 was disco at its absolute peak in the mainstream. More than a third of the Hot 100 YE in 1978 was disco. The remaining songs were either saccharine adult contemporary or rock that either had to adapt to the disco craze or take a gamble and stay in its comfort zone. So as with my worst list, there’s a decent sense of diversity with the songs on this list. As you all know, the songs eligible for this list had to debut on the YE Hot 100 for 1978 or if they made a previous YE, place higher on the 1978 YE or be in the YE top 20. So with that, let’s get this night started with our honorable mentions!! HM #1: John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John - You're The One That I Want (YE: #13, PEAK: #3) John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John had two collaborations...
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The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1978

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  The Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1978 Hey everyone!! It’s Fire from Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes here with another year-end list. Today we’re looking at the top 10 worst hit songs of 1978!! 1978 is a year that I’d probably describe as the peak of disco in the mainstream. The release of Saturday Night Fever in December 1977 propelled the genre to dominate pop music all year. More than a third of the Hot 100 year-end for 1978 was disco fluff. It seemed to spell a very bright future for the genre and guaranteed a bright future of many more disco hits in the years to come, until Disco Demolition happened in 1979 (and I was definitely very wrong in my attempt at a nuanced take in those lists about the event not being fueled by racism and homophobia, it was absolutely fueled by those hateful viewpoints). The year also showcased adult contemporary that seemed to be focus group-tested specifically for people who hated the dominance of disco and classic rock acts being forced to adapt to one of...
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