billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 10, 2021

I expected this week to be messier than it is - mostly because about half of the predicted disruptions didn’t really happen. Granted, part of this was me being prepared to cover Rod Wave - he’s literally in the next episode of On The Pulse on my main channel, dropping in a day or two - but another part was that he was the only album bomb that really hit the Hot 100, and I was expecting a little more.

Granted, that’s not even the biggest story this week: that is the top ten and another debut at #1: ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X. Now I have opinions on the song that’ll come much later, but I will say that Lil Nas X did deliver a masterclass in outrage marketing, which is different than trolling but can look the same depending on how much you’ve bought into him as an artist. And while I was initially convinced he’d be a quick two-hit wonder, this proves he’s got some staying power - sales are good, streaming and YouTube are ridiculous… but he doesn’t have radio at the moment, and how long this song will stick where it is really is dependent on how much traction his label allows him to get. In this case you can at least understand why ‘Peaches’ by Justin Bieber ft. Daniel Caesar and Giveon has some sustained traction at #2, because even as sales are down, streaming and a big radio push are going to make this a hit. This makes things a bit awkward for ‘Leave The Door Open’ by Silk Sonic, because while the sales are solid and the radio growth is just wild, it did take a hit on streaming, and that might be a tougher margin for a song like this to make up. And on that note, ‘Up’ by Cardi B at #4, where she saw hits on both sales and streaming and her radio traction isn’t exactly consistent - I don’t know when that album is coming, but this could be a problem in the next month or two. Then we have ‘drivers license’ by Olivia Rodrigo at #5 - it might rule the radio but it’s definitely on the downswing - and ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd at #6, which has another wind on the radio, but it’s not showing in other channels. Then we have ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa and DaBaby at #7 - mostly courtesy of a nice streaming boost given its airplay inconsistency - but it likely held its spot because ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd is finally in outright collapse at #8. Then in the one indication of its album we saw ‘Mood’ by 24kGoldn and iann dior rising to #9 - this will not last - and ‘What You Know About Love’ by Pop Smoke hold on at #10, even as its radio success seems to be evaporating.

And on that note, losers and dropouts! Now given that it’s an album bomb week again we did have a few bigger ones: cut short of the year-end list we have ‘Beers and Sunshine’ by Darius Rucker, ‘Sand In My Boots’ by Morgan Wallen, and maybe ‘Good Time’ by Niko Moon - it’s right on the border as it looks right now, could fall either way - and clinching its spot there’s ‘Better Together’ by Luke Combs. And while we got a decent number of losers, most can be linked to ongoing collapses or project releases fading naturally. In the former category, ‘Girl Like Me’ by the Black Eyed Peas and Shakira hit 100, ‘Buss It’ by Erica Banks dropped to 87, ‘Real As It Gets’ by Lil Baby and EST Gee hit 82, ‘Monsters’ by All Time Low, blackbear and Demi Lovato hit 80, and ‘Lemon Pepper Freestyle’ by Drake and Rick Ross fell to 70… probably can tack on ‘Wants And Needs’ with Lil Baby to 34 in that camp as well. Then we had Justin Bieber falling back naturally: ‘Anyone’ at 36, ‘Hold On’ at 46, and ‘As I Am’ with Khalid at 72. The rest… ‘Headshot’ by Lil Tjay, Polo G and Fivio Foreign fell off the debut to 68, ‘Just The Way’ by Parmalee and Blanco Brown fell to 60 as country radio rotates it out - same for ‘Down To One’ by Luke Bryan at 74 and probably true for all formats with ‘Body’ by Megan Thee Stallion at 81, and ‘The Business’ by Tiesto at 86 just not catching on… shame, I still kind of like that song.

Now as expected we did not get much in the way of gains or returns - ‘Clouds’ by NF is back at 93 likely due to that mixtape, and ‘Hellcats & Trackhawks’ by Lil Durk got a video so it’s back at 76. The only two gains we got were from Rod Wave this week, with ‘Street Runner’ surging to 16 and ‘Tombstone’ up to 11! That was considerably bigger than I was expecting - they are the two best songs on the album - but given he’s very much in album bomb territory, here are the songs that fell below the top 40 and are neither the best nor the worst this week: ‘Sneaky Links’ at 98, ‘What’s Love??’ at 94 - this was one was close to Dishonourable Mention, not gonna lie - 'Shock Da World’ at 96, ‘OMDB’ at 89, ‘How The Game Go’ at 88, ‘Pillz & Bills’ at 85, ‘All I Got’ at 71 - nearly an Honourable Mention here - ‘Blame On You’ at 65, ‘Gone Till November’ at 61, and ‘SoulFly’ at 55.

And for the rest… well…

69. ‘Big Purr (Prrdd)’ by Coi Leray & Pooh Shiesty - okay, I get why this exists - they’re not on the same label but they might share management or the connection with Lil Durk and why not have two up-and-coming artists work together, that makes sense, right? Well, if this is the best they can pull together, I’m thinking this was a mistake all the way down - for starters, why are we getting these dark pianos and strings that are trying to sound so ominous especially for a song that leans on a lot of sexual references? I guess it might be implying rough or angry sex, but that relies on there being chemistry or credible tension between both acts, and neither of them deliver - both sound actively disinterested, but more distractingly, neither are riding the hook all that well at all! I get it with Pooh Shiesty doing his bargain barrel Gucci Mane impersonation, but what’s Coi Leray’s excuse, she’s shown she’s got a lighter touch than this! Again, she’s proven that the Playboi Carti thing she’s doing can work for me and she’s got charisma to make a song like this work… but this is a real dud - pass.

63. ‘Don’t Forget’ by Rod Wave - so you might be surprised that I’m not covering many of the Rod Wave cuts this week - honestly, even without the album bomb rules there’s not a lot to say about a good formula repeated a few too many times, especially when the singles really are the best songs on the album. But if I was to find a third option, it would be this song: leading off with a sample from the late Pimp C that Benny The Butcher later sampled on a song of his own, with a sharp guitar line and better production overall in terms of balancing the trap production. More importantly, it feels like a fully composed song, with the spacing of the single verse, the interludes, and samples giving him the structure to swing around a pretty solid hook multiple times, especially as he can then explore the weird, discombobulated feeling of being alienated from mainstream success as he tries to rep his hood… one that won’t rep him back or recognize the grind, especially with the struggle to say something real and not just being a cartoon character for the industry to use and abuse. There’s a frustration and loneliness to the song that Rod Wave can sell with a slightly gruffer delivery, and while I think the next step is to drill a bit deeper into the complexity of the scene, this still get the emotional resonance really effectively. So yeah, again, really good song, hope of the non-hits this sticks around.

51. ‘You All Over Me (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)’ by Taylor Swift ft. Maren Morris - not going to mince words, this is was the part of Taylor Swift rerecording old material that worried me a bit, mostly because while the old hits had nostalgic charm, these could wind up as b-sides that were more curiosity and easter eggs for the diehard fans than songs that really held up. This was a song cut from Fearless, but to realize it she did get Maren Morris for backing support and Aaron Dessner of The National co-producing, so this could be interesting to say the least… and maybe ‘interesting’ is the wrong word, because while this is good, it’s absolutely a b-side and I get why it got cut. Now to Swift’s credit this is credible and I reckon this sounds better now than it would have in 2008 - she can sound wiser and more world-weary, Aaron Dessner’s soft-focus percussion and gentle touches to the country instrumentation feels warm and subtle, the harmonica is left just ragged enough to be a nice touch, and I like the content of her reflecting on an ex that she’s not over and has left a pretty sizable mark on her life. That said… why is Maren Morris even here? There’s no interplay, their vocal tones don’t quite mesh… and I don’t want to call it queer-baiting because I don’t know her own situation, but it’s a charge that’s been leveled before, the fanbase picked up on it fast, this was from an era where her material was predominantly autobiographical, and why else is Maren Morris even here? Still, it’s good, but again, it feels like a b-side, not something I’m likely to revisit.

49. ‘Hard For The Next’ by Moneybagg Yo & Future - look, we don’t have to keep making Moneybagg Yo a thing - when he’s not unlikable, he’s tedious, and pairing him with Future at this point is both obvious and just did not bode well for the song. Now to their credit, it’s not as bad as I was expecting - obviously I’m not a fan of the chipmunked Ginuwine sample but it’s a good melodic foundation for this sort of trap… although why they kept bringing it back with more grain on the pickup I have no idea. And Moneybagg Yo only has the line ‘go ape shit about you, primate’ as if we need bad hashtag rap to come back, but at least across his verse he sounds a little more interested in his girl. My problem lies with Future - you don’t come across debonair when you jump into women’s lives, buy them expensive brands, and then just ghost them after sex, especially when you sound so bored doing it and you already have seven kids by six different women! To me the entire song is about him building toxic, increasingly one-sided relationships wherever he goes, and reality has proven it’s not working all that great for him… especially as this is more of his song than Moneybagg Yo’s and we’ve heard this routine many times before. If anything, it’s just generic by this point - not as bad as I was expecting, but not especially good either.

22. ‘Richer’ by Rod Wave ft. Polo G - okay, I hate to spoil a point I’m going to make when I review the album, but it needs to be highlighted here: you have your one collaboration on your entire project, that’s bound to debut well because of Polo G… and yet it’s one of the weakest songs on the album? The bass swamps out the mix, the percussion sounds cheap as hell, the vocal blending is full of obvious punch-ins, the fidelity doesn’t match between their verses, and when it comes to content… it’s ‘Rags2Riches’ part 2 with a more annoying hook and proof that when Polo G doesn’t take the extra step in his content, he’s frustratingly generic. If I were to guess with this, it was either an old song cobbled together in post for this album to have a featuring credit, or nobody put much effort in because it was bound to be a hit on name alone - might be some of both, but either way, what a disappointment. This could have been great instead of mid - at best.

1. ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X - so I’m not going to talk about the video here - at this point of the hype and backlash cycle we’ve seen the most memetic moments and to deconstruct the blend of mythological, religious, and sexual iconography would require a decent bit to work through. I do think the backlash was massively overblown: given that Christian conservatives seemed to completely miss how the subtext of the video was in being rejected from their kingdom because of his sexuality, he was going to claim it and his agency by any means necessary and then kill that devil that scandalizes them so - which is a parallel but not really the same thing thematically fka twigs was doing with her pole dancing around magdalene, so I’m happy that didn’t blow up into a thing. That said, I am amused by how over the top the presentation of everything here is in comparison with the song, which falls in the line of a snarky trap ditty where he’s chasing a guy who might be disinterested or out of his league or hiding the truth about his affection for Lil Nas X. And the wry charm to the song is certainly there with the swampy vocal blending, handclaps, and touches of Spanish guitar… ehh, it’s good, but it might take a bit to fully grow on me, and I have to wonder how much of the video was built to oversell a song that feels a little thin… which funnily enough has been my issue with Lil Nas X since the beginning. Still good, though, I can say that.

Now this takes us to our best and worst of the week… and since we only have six here, I’m going to skip on Honourable and Dishonourable Mentions, mostly because between certain ties I’d wind up selecting every song and that just feels weird. So best is going to Rod Wave for ‘Don’t Forget’ - don’t worry Lil Nas X demons, I’m sure ‘Montero’ will grow on me a bit, it’s just not there yet - and worst is going to ‘Big Purr (Prrdd)’ by Coi Leray and Pooh Shiesty, where Coi Leray needs to find management that will not lump her into mediocre trend chasing and hopefully a better career than her father had. Next week… I think it’s just going to be fallout because Demi Lovato is not likely to get an album bomb, we’ll just have to see.