Illustration by Bianca Bosso.
Drake made us realise something over the weekend. His inclusion of Ratchet Happy Birthday on Scorpion aimed to be the birthday anthem we've been waiting for but he just missed the mark. Just.
The truth is, we haven't really had a birthday anthem since 50 Cent's In Da Club and even then we're partying "like it's your birthday" meaning it's not even your goddamn birthday.
We know what Drake was trying to do with Ratchet Happy Birthday. It's the most Instagrammable title on the entire album and it should've given us an anthem that would've thumped out of speakers every day there was a birthday which is every day of the week but it just doesn't do that.
The beat of the song doesn't hit until well after the minute mark and at that point he's already lost the title of birthday anthem. If you're going to include the word 'ratchet' in the title of the song then you've gotta go Kesha or T-Pain levels of wild and Ratchet Happy Birthday is just a little bit...sad? At points, Drizzy sounds like he was wheeled in by Hallmark to come up with birthday card slogans and was then forced to sing them for an ad.
Drake is the best candidate for the next birthday anthem which makes this missed opportunity even harder to swallow. HYFR is a turn-up anthem, Jumpman is a celebratory chest-puff and Worst Behaviour gives us everything the Ratchet Happy Birthday suggests it could've been.
We're just going to have to admit that the best man for the job is just too sad now to give us what 50 gave us.
Many have tried their hand at the birthday anthem. Katy Perry channelled '90s sunny pop on Birthday but failed to take over the charts, Selena Gomez went with in-the-face attitude on her track Birthday but it's just far too annoying and Kings Of Leon made us want to fall asleep before the birthday cake with their track Birthday.
Rihanna has come to the closest to giving us an anthem with her track Birthday Cake but she ruined it when she popped Chris Brown on it, taking it from a one minute jam into a full-length song. And even on that song, it's not even her birthday which means she's made the same mistake 50 did. We're not going to count RiRi out though.
In fact, we've thought about it and there's only two people we're going to task with making the birthday anthem for this generation. We've crunched the stats and decided that there's two popstars that party harder than the rest and are now obliged to make us the banger we need. Charli XCX and RiRi, we're looking at you both.
Charli XCX is the ultimate party popstar. She's not shy about declaring her love of champagne and she's also got some legendary party stories. Songs like After The Afterparty and Boys are huge party anthems but she fails to mention that one word we need - 'birthday'.
It's not a birthday without Rihanna coming through the speakers. Work, We Found Love, Pour It Up, Cheers (Drink To That and plenty more (but we're going to stop there because you get the point) are suitable for the job but we need her to say birthday. In the first line.
If Charli and RiRi could deliver these by the end of the year so that we can make our choice of which one will take 50 Cent's crown that would be great.
Thank you. And thanks for nothing, Drake. You fucked it.
