Top10 Worldwide Music Collection From Concerty - April 2023

Morgan Wallen - Last Night (CANADA)

Who would have thought country music would be so popular up in the cold of Canada. However, Morgan Wallen from the US managed to break into that market, charting high on Canada’s Spotify list all month, with a poppy, catchy tune about what happened in a drunken stupor last night.

Well, despite the catchy melody, the lyrics weren’t all that pleasant: it’s about a boyfriend reflecting on a drunk fight with his girlfriend, wondering if it’s all over for their relationship for real. All things point to a hard breakup, but Wallen is confidently singing “baby somethin's tellin' me this ain't over yet”. We’ll never learn if he was right from the song, but you can take your own guess.

Bonez MC - Cinnamon Roll feat. Gzuz (AUSTRIA)

Another smaller country, Austria, also adopted a chart topper from their “big brother” speaking the same language: Bonez MC from Hamburg, Germany was quite popular in the small Central European nation with his fresh 2023 release “Cinnamon Roll”. Despite its English title, the song is actually in German. The hip hop track also features fellow Hamburger rapper Gzuz.

Sanah - Marcepan (POLAND)

Meanwhile in Poland, alt pop singer Sanah hit it big again with “Marcepan”. She was actually featured with another song of hers in one of our earliest Concerty Top 10 Worldwide articles back in July 2022 — and it’s nice to see that her popularity hasn’t deteriorated in her home country of Poland since.

“Marcepan” is an upbeat dance track with a beat featuring heavy drums and affected, nasally vocals. Take a listen and decide for yourself if you like it or not.

Ive - I AM (SOUTH KOREA)

It seems a hit new Kpop girl band can pop up any time these days. Fresh on the scene is Ive, founded in 2021. As per usual in the Korean music industry, their members were recruited as young teens by a large entertainment company (Starship, in their case) and “fomented” for years from the announcement of their upcoming formation (2016) and actual debut (2021).

The recipe worked once again, as their debut single “Eleven” topped the GAON charts in South Korea. Their latest single from April 2023, “I AM”, has also reached #1 on the Korean charts. You can take a listen below.

Junior H - El Azul feat. Peso Pluma (MEXICO)

Junior H is a young singer-songwriter out of Mexico, specializing in the so-called “corridos tumados” subgenre of Mexican Regional music. And he is thriving in that narrow niche: his new song "El Azul", with the help of rapper-singer Peso Pluma, was a hit among Mexican Spotify users all April.

Jisoo - FLOWER (SINGAPORE)

With a little break in Mexico, let’s get back to young female pop stars from South Korea. Jisoo is part of the four-woman line-up of the mega successful Kpop band BLACKPINK. However, she recently decided to also chart her own path a bit (while also remaining with the girls in BLACKPINK), and announced her solo debut album “Me”.

The first single released from the upcoming record is titled “FLOWER”. Perhaps helped by the similarity in names with the recent Miley Cyrus international hit “Flowers”, the classy, laid-back pop cut became a massive hit across Asia, including Singapore.

Naod - dum av dei (SWEDEN)

Swedish hip hop artist Naod’s new song, “dum av dei”, a pretty big hit in his home country, has a title that plays off of the 2010 hit song with the almost identical title, “Dum av Dig'' by Daniel Adams-Ray (both meaning “Stupid of You” in English). However, that’s where the similarities between two songs end: one is hip hop, the other is in the pop-soul mixed genre. The former is linked below for your listening pleasure.

Follow the Flow - Szélcsend (HUNGARY)

In the middle of Europe, Hungary, the hip hop collective Follow the Flow put out a brand new track “Szélcsend”. Admittedly, frontman Fura Csé wrote the lyrics to the song after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia. That means this song took over a year to complete - however, explicit references to the war were not left in. Since most of our readers don’t speak Hungarian, that doesn’t even matter. All they hear is a hard hip hop track with long, epic choruses.

Zola - AMBER (FRANCE)

Our April list features quite a lot of hip hop tracks - not what is usual for this Concerty column. Here’s another one for you, this one’s from France. “AMBER” is off of Zola's new 2023 album “Diamant du Bled”, and is dedicated to his college crush who he refers to as “Amber” in the song.

Davido - FEEL (NIGERIA)

Let’s end it with a song with some classic African sounds, brought to you by Nigerian Afrobeats artist Davido. His new song “FEEL” just came out earlier this year, and was very well received by Nigerian audiences.

Please also remeber to play through our Spotify playlist, featuring all the songs listed above.