billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 4, 2020

…look, I’m on what passes for vacation right now, so if the Hot 100 is going to oblige me with a pretty easy week, I’m going to be all over that - not saying it’s a good week, although there are more surprises here than I think will noted, and some might even be promising.

But now back to some regularity with our top ten, where to nobody’s surprise, ‘ROCKSTAR’ by DaBaby and featuring Roddy Ricch took control of the #1 again - the sales matched great streaming and his radio run is not slowing down, and with that YouTube video set to impact the charts soon, this might be a lock for a bit. Granted, I still think that ‘Savage’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce has a chance to challenge again, mostly because she’s stable across the board and with the right video, this could make a move. Then we have ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd at #3, which still has remarkable staying power even with its radio starting to slowly drip away… but it’s going to face an eventual challenge from ‘Roses (Imanbek Remix)’ by SAINt JHN at #4, which is making a move on streaming and surging on the radio. Sadly, right behind it is ‘Intentions’ by Justin Bieber ft. Quavo at #5, which might be finally losing on the radio, but it’s got enough momentum in other channels to weather challengers. Then we have ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj at #6, which is basically clinging to the radio that’s bleeding away and I don’t expect it to last much longer… which takes us to the expected fallback for ‘The Bigger Picture’ by Lil Baby at #7. Let me make this clear: for as sharply political as this song is, even if its modest radio run works, I do question how much of a top ten presence it’ll have, even if the streaming is utterly gigantic - I want it to stick around and I think it’ll pick up spots in the next few weeks… but I don’t want to oversell it. What I think will likely have a lot more success is ‘WHATS POPPIN’ by Jack Harlow, breaking into the top ten at #8 off the back of a few big remixes. Now unlike most I never outright disliked this guy, but I have a hard time buying into his hype: yeah, he’s got Tiktok behind him and a real radio run to support good streaming… but it’s a little tough for me to predict how consistent this’ll be once the remix fire starts to fizzle a bit. It’s got momentum, but it’s been kind of sporadic. And that’s honestly what I’d add to our next top ten arrival: ‘Blueberry Faygo’ by Lil Mosey at #9, which might have the streaming, but its radio hit a brick wall this week and I’m not sure how much sustainabiity it has in the top 10. Finally, re-entering the top ten we have ‘Circles’ by Post Malone, because while its radio is fading, it’s just not fading fast enough.

On that note, our losers and dropouts. In the latter category, there wasn’t much - ‘Heartless’ by Diplo and Morgan Wallen looks like it’ll fall short of the year-end list and ‘Ride It’ by DJ Regard fizzled out, but our losses are a bit more intriguing - mostly as a consistent indictment of the astroturf 6ix9ine has used to get hits, with ‘GOOBA’ continuing to collapse at 50 and ‘TROLLZ’ with Nicki Minaj having the largest falloff in Hot 100 history from #1 to 34. Outside of a nice bit of schadenfreude there, it was pretty routine: ‘Level Of Concern’ by twenty one pilots and ‘In Your Eyes’ by The Weeknd continue their falloff at 90 and 80 respectively, and off the debuts last week ‘Go!’ by Kid LAROI and the late Juice WRLD went to 65, ‘Shotta Flow 5’ by NLE Choppa collapsed to 83, and ‘Tommy Lee’ by Tyla Yaweh and Post Malone fell to 88.

Now I’m a little more interested in our gains and returns this week, mostly because to fill in the gap, Nashville is making moves here, because not only is ‘More Than My Hometown’ by Morgan Wallen back at 97, we also saw pickups for ‘Why We Drink’ by Justin Moore at 73, ‘Cool Again’ by Kane Brown at 78, ‘One Of Them Girls’ by Lee Brice at 81, and in a pleasant surprise ‘One Night Standards’ by Ashley McBryde at 87. We also saw ‘Done’ by Chris Janson get a spike off the debut to 76, but after that quarantine-breaking concert he pulled, the title of this song might wind up being applicable after all. Outside of that… already talked about Jack Harlow, and I’m not going to be happy that ‘Like That’ by Doja Cat and Gucci Mane picked up to 72, or that ‘Mamacita’ by the Black Eyed Peas, Ozuna, and J.Rey Soul rose to 62, even if it might be more linked to the album spike than anything. What intrgues me the most is ‘Savage Love’ by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo rising big off the debut to 43 - I predicted this could stick around, but it’s gaining traction fast thanks to streaming, and if that continues… well, we’ll be able to test if overplay makes this as annoying as I think it will.

But again, we have a short list of new arrivals here… and it doesn’t start good, because

99. ‘Bang!’ by AJR - so here’s the problem about your review of a band becoming a meme: you become the first person informed whenever they release new material, so I’ve been aware of this song’s fortunes for a while now, especially given its slow climb off the release a few months ago. I’ve also heard rumblings that this is actually a finale song for AJR, that the group was going to be taking a step back or even breaking up off this track… from their social media, we’re not that lucky as the brothers seem to still be active, but ‘Bang!’ is still an awkward, uncomfortable song - and even if that was intentional, it doesn’t make for a good listen. The utter lack of groove in slamming trap snares against that warped electric piano and trumpet line that makes song feel lumpy but weirdly underweight - if there’s a group that desperately needs outside production help, it’s AJR, especially when you look at the vocal line tacks on both autotune and chipmunk backing vocals! And again, the awkwardness is part of the point - this is a song about finally transitioning from childhood to adulthood and trying to find long-overdue maturity - but their signifiers of maturity are quinoa, budgets, and taxes, a hokey cliche of what it means to be an adult. I’d argue the bigger problem is that for a group looking to ‘go out with a bang’, this song has no impact whatsoever - it’s rickety and clumsy and all the horn blasts only highlight how lacking in true impact it is. That said, when it comes to AJR songs, this is not their worst by any margin… but it feels like a Neotheater extra that nobody needed nor wanted - in other words, bad. Next!

96. ‘Pretty Heart’ by Parker McCollum - I remember covering Parker McCollum way back in 2017 and I’ve been keeping an eye on his slow but steady groundswell out of the Texas country scene, mostly courtesy of signing to UMG. This is his breakthrough single off of that, and… man, I really wish this was more distinctive. Now this isn’t bad - McCollum is a warm and charismatic presence and in comparison with most mainstream country the live percussion does compliment a pretty basic melody, especially when after the second hook he’ll let the guitar solo wail into the organ. And I don’t mind him actually playing the remorseful guy who wound up wrecking this relationship, especially as for what he can say, she was in the right and he screwed up. That said, there’s a weird lack of distinctive punch to this mix which leads to the song feeling weirdly undercooked - it’s not all that distinctive or memorable, and I know McCollum can make better music than this. Not bad, but I’m going to struggle to remember this.

94. ‘One Shot’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again ft. Lil Baby - okay, I’ve come around on YoungBoy Never Broke Again and with Lil Baby’s newest hit I’m willing to get on board with him as well - again, maybe something clicked there, maybe this new collaboration could have promise, even if it is tied to that new Fast & The Furious movie… and honestly, I can’t say it stands out much. Another faded, fluttery melody off the piano foundation and a blocky trap beat, the flow and rhyme construction from both aritsts are questionable - and showing how Roddy Ricch’s formula is a lot harder to replicate than they might think - and the content is a pretty bleak downward spiral where they take a lot of drugs and have to kill people. I will say that the one version of this song I found on Tidal was partially censored in a weirdly choppy way, which makes sense given the connection to the action movie franchise, but not only does that half-neuter the song, do we have any idea when that movie is actually coming out thanks to the quarantine? It just seems like a weirdly timed release of a pretty mediocre song… yeah, can’t get behind this one, sorry.

92. ‘My Truck’ by Breland - how is it that this is the second bad song I heard via reputation before actually listening to it this week? So okay, Breland is a country-trap act signed to Atlantic and has been pushing this song for the past couple of months and of course it has a Tiktok connection; there’s also a Sam Hunt remix, in case you wanted to make your day slightly worse. That said, I’m not against country trap in principle… but man, if you’re going to do it, it should sound better produced than this! Why are the drum machines so flat and lacking in punch, with only the bass sounding decent against the guitar? And why does Breland think it’s a good idea to go into his falsetto when he actually sounds fine without all the forced affectations and skrrt sound effects? And then the content… look, he says his haters can come after anything of his except his truck and there’s a root to those sentiment in country that has parallels in trap… but it’s so basic and undercooked that to me it feels like a similar novelty to what Blanco Brown tried last year. In other words, if this lasts it’s going to be because of Tiktok - nothing else.

57. ‘Bleed’ by A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie - this is going to sound harsh, but it’s amazing how quickly I forget about A Boogie whenever he’s not charting - probably a testament to having never written anything all that memorable in his career, but now he’s back with a new single from the deluxe reissue of that project he dropped earlier this year… and whoever told him trying to pull from the more unstable drill grooves was a good look for him was smart should probably be thrown off a short pier! Can someone tell me why A Boogie’s failure to ride any sort of groove through the first verse and most of the hook works at all - he’s offbeat in a way that’s actively distracting, but can’t disguise how many rhymes he’s flubbing or how the autotune rarely sounds good, or how the piano melody and warping second verse don’t sycopate well with the trap skitter. But none of that makes his content all that interesting - paranoid gunplay, brand name references, the feel he can’t trust anyone in his crew, and how he’s now openly lifting and repeating his own punchlines, like that Margielas reference! The most likable part of this song probably is the production - kind of damning, as it was intended for a Pop Smoke collaboration where A Boogie likely would have still come up short, because this is pretty bad too - next!

37. ‘Black Parade’ by Beyonce - let me say this first and let you down easy: Beyonce is not covering My Chemical Romance; I’d be fascinated to see what that would sound like, but this is not that, released on Juneteenth in order to celebrate black-owned small businesses. And let me put my increasing list of frustrations with Jay-Z and Beyonce’s brand of capitalism aside and the easy acknowledgement this is not for me… I still think this is decent. I’m a little surprised that Beyonce didn’t use more of a live drumline for the trap-inspired percussion and it’s exasperating that she dated the song by referencing the pandemic explicitly and I’m not crazy about Beyonce doesn’t bring much intensity to match the horns and groove… but this is more of a celebration and flex and she can lean into that effectively; she’s got the charisma to carry this almost effortlessly, and her presence is the best part of the song, especially playing off the ad-libs and vocal harmonies. That said, there is some distance I have to a song like this because the flex can only hit if you’re comfortable working within the power structure, so the moments that are trying to be more revolutionary don’t quite connect… but that’s probably me overthinking a loose outgrowth of what Beyonce was doing on EVERYTHING IS LOVE.

And that being said, it is the best song we got this week - slim pickings but it happens. Worst of the week though… you know, I’d say AJR has this in the bag with ‘Bang!’, but ‘Bleed’ by A Boogie made it closer than it should have been; if it wasn’t for semi-decent production, it would have the worst hands down. Next week… see, I dunno, a lot of album releases have just dried up, so who knows what’s going to slide in…