The Song Of The Week is Juice by Lizzo.
Juice, a great follow-up to last year's also brilliant and partially slept on Boys, is three minutes and fifteen seconds of total not-from-concentrate joy. Look at her smiling face! Is smiling going to be the big pop trend of 2019? Obviously Lana's got an album coming out, but apart from that?
Additional notes:
- As noted earlier today, Fleur East's Favourite Thing falls into Unexpected Belter territory. It's good to have her back.
- Norwegian warbler jens used to make rock music but had an awakening and now counts Charlie Puth and Lauv among his influences. Any Other Way doesn't sound like much for the first minute or so but by its second half the song reveals itself to be an absolute monster.
- Frankly Chaka Khan's Hello Happiness just hammers home the idea that 2019 is the year of the Pop Smile.
- In light of Mark & Miley's latest version of Nothing Breaks Like A Heart Popjustice is happy to temporarily lift its ban on acoustic versions. The pair are currently unveiling new versions of this song at the rate of about one a week and with any luck this will continue through 2019 — if you missed the Boston Bun or Dimitri From Paris mixes please listen to them now, they're very good.