“Too Sweet” by Hozier, Saturday, November 30, 2024

This year, Hozier pulled off an improbable feat. Ten years after the Irish singer’s hit “Take Me to Church” peaked at number 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100, Hozier topped the chart with the single “Too Sweet,” making him a two-hit wonder. A few years ago, Chris Molanphy on the Hit Parade podcast examined just how rare the phenomenon is to have a second hit years after the momentum of the first hit. The bluesy track was released as an extension to Hozier’s third studio album, Unreal Unearth, inspired by Dante’s Inferno, particularly the sin of gluttony. I’m sure musicologists could explain why Hozier made a comeback ten years later. Was it the feature on a remix of Noah Kahan’s “Northern Attitude” last year? The folk rock singer’s breakthrough last year brought several charting songs, including the collaboration with Hozier, which scored a #37 Billboard Hot 100 hit. There was certainly a resurgence of back-to-basics rock this year and last with hits from Teddy Swims and Benson Boone. 

I TAKE MY WHISKEY NEAT, MY COFFEE BLACK, AND MY BED AT THREE. I’ve talked a lot about the cultural moment that female pop stars are having. The pop charts have been filled with female-empowerment anthems—songs celebrating sex positivity, questioning patriarchy, and exploring same-sex attraction. However, last year’s resurgence of country music reminded chart analysts that the “white male” demographic is still a powerful force in music, and as the election showed last week, in politics. The hits by Post Malone, Morgan Wallen, Teddy Swims, and Hozier—besides all being presumably straight white males—brought back an older sound to music—blues, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, and country, compared to the processed sounds of hip-hop and pop. On a closer look at the list of Hot 100 number ones, another thing stands out: it’s been a very conservative year in music. The year’s biggest song is a country song by an African American artist, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” (Tipsy), this week on its nineteenth week atop the chart, showing that the old sound, with updated auto-tuning, rules the charts. Shaboozy’s hit adds to the country reign of Morgan Wallen and Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” on the chart. While these artists may or may not be politically conservative, the top songs feel like they resonate with conservative America more than the more progressive acts like Chappell Roan or Charli xcx who haven’t charted as high as the more traditional-sounding acts. 

IF YOU’RE DRUNK ON LIFE, I THINK IT’S GREAT. When Hozier’s “Take Me to Church” became a hit after its release in 2014, the song was accompanied by a music video depicting a same-sex couple. The lyrics of the song used religious language to compare a lover, according to the lyrics, a female lover, to the Christian god. The lyrics could be interpreted as blasphemous to Christianity or even pagan, evoking sexual love as a kind of worship. All of these factors made the song a bit shocking for 2013-14. Fast-forward to 2024, and Hozier’s music is anything but controversial. “Too Sweet” is lyrically interesting with the singer’s use of images, but nothing could be interpreted as sacrilegious or “pushing a liberal agenda.” As a rock song, “Take Me to Church” was instrumental in starting conversations around same-sex marriage and Christianity’s hypocritical bulwark against the right to marry. Of course, Hozier wasn’t alone in the cultural conversation. Gay people had become so visible in culture, not just on TV but in every facet of society, in every metropolitan area and rural community. Of course, homophobia didn’t disappear; it may have gotten stronger, which might explain the decline in human rights in the past ten years. What Hozier’s music represented in 2014 was the ability to question his religion-imbued upbringing in the Catholic Republic of Ireland, which was relatable to the largely Protestant Evangelical America. But “Too Sweet” isn’t a song that seems to be overtly questioning society’s narrow-minded values. It’s not so straightforward, but it sounds masculine with lyrics suggesting traditionally masculine traits such as drinking “whiskey neat,” served at room temperature without anything diluting the alcohol’s flavor. He drinks black coffee—the kind that some say “puts hair on your chest.” However, most of the song is spent talking about the subject, potentially a love interest who has healthier habits like waking up to watch the sunrise and living more spontaneously. The song works on two levels. It’s a bro-bar song and it’s a thinking-man’s ballad. The speaker’s plain lifestyle is a preference and on the surface it sounds like that preference is didactic to the listeners. Yet, the speaker’s habits aren’t healthy and the subject of the song feels like some kind of muse for the speaker as if that person’s sweetness is threat to the speaker’s austere lifestyle. Hozier’s two hits are ten years apart and they seem quite different thematically. We’re in a different time musically—a more conservative one, at least when it comes to music made by men. Time will tell if we’ll get back to a time of greater nuance in music.