billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 11, 2020

It’s weird to say that we got a ‘regular’ week on the Hot 100. Hell, given that Dua Lipa didn’t quite get the album bomb burst that I was expecting / hoping for, this week might actually be the first return to routine in about a month… not sure how I feel about it, but given that the major album release schedule seems to have slowed and suffered delays and I could use the extra time, I’ll take what I can get here!

So let’s start off with our otherwise pretty static top ten, where to some surprise ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd still has the #1 - again, some of this is a margins game because he did lose the top spot on streaming overall (not on-demand), but more than made up for it in the sales and radio push, where he actually did take the #1. The big question is how sustainable this is, which takes us to ‘The Box’ by Roddy Ricch at #2 having gotten back the top streaming position thanks to YouTube… but its radio pickups are limited and it really doesn’t have the sales to compete. This is where I thought ‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa would make a play beyond #3, but she didn’t get much of a sales boost and while her streaming helped, she ultimately did get knocked off the top on the radio - I thought she’d have a shot with her margins to drill deeper, but again, maybe she just doesn’t have that organic groundswell in the same way? Then thanks to ‘Heartless’ by The Weeknd falling out of the top ten, we had a bunch of modest recoveries: ‘Circles’ by Post Malone at #4, because even with radio in freefall it can have a good sales and streaming week; ‘Life Is Good’ by Future ft. Drake at #5, because even as it bleeds radio it still has good streaming, and ‘Adore You’ by Harry Styles up to #6, which is riding a big radio push and that’s about all it has. That doesn’t seem to be the case for ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat up to #7, which is also making the radio run with the benefit of streaming, but I’m not sure she’s got the sales for that added boost, which is a little surprising given the kind of act she’s been marketed as - but frankly, I’m just thankful she edged past ‘Intentions’ by Justin Bieber ft. Quavo stuck at #8 on radio margins, given that this actually has stronger sales and streaming - again, it’s gonna stick around. Then making her perennial return to the top ten we have ‘everything i wanted’ by Billie Eilish back at #9 - best on the radio but still pretty consistent as a whole - and ‘Someone You Loved’ by Lewis Capaldi, because even as it spent the entire week bleeding, it’s not bleeding fast enough.

On that note, losers and dropouts… and here’s the thing, following from last week there’s just not much in the way of major failures outside of the expected departure of a bunch of Weeknd songs and ‘Lose You To Love Me’ by Selena Gomez. And even in our losers, we didn’t have much: from The Weeknd’s album bomb we had ‘In Your Eyes’ at 42, ‘After Hours’ at 61, and ‘Save Your Tears’ at 85, and from Lil Uzi Vert’s remnants we got ‘Myron’ at 63 and ‘Baby Pluto’ at 98. Beyond that… well, ‘What A Man Gotta Do’ by Jonas Brothers fell to 94, and even if I think this is passable, it s a flop single.

Where things actually get interesting are in our gains and returns, where in the latter category we got as many as debuts this week. And most of them have the feel of lesser songs creeping back to fill in the gaps: ‘July’ by Noah Cyrus and Leon Bridges at 100, ‘The Man’ by Taylor Swift at 90, ‘Ridin’ Roads’ by Dustin Lynch at 88, ‘Safaera’ by Bad Bunny, Jowell & Randy, and Nengo Flow at 86, and I’d probably even include ‘Underdog’ by Alicia Keys here given how it has underperformed. Outside of that… ‘Yo Perreo Sola’ by Bad Bunny made a big return to 53 off the video, ‘Loyal’ by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake is at 60 thanks to the album boost, as is ‘Physical’ by Dua Lipa at 77 - shame that one’s probably not gonna stick around, it should. But as expected, we did see a lot of gains… and they’re also kind of all over the place again as things reset to equilibrium. From the debuts last week the Imanbek remix of ‘Roses’ by SAINt JHN is at 39 and ‘Walk Em Down’ by NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch is at 57, and the revival of ‘Heartless’ by Diplo and Morgan Wallen got a considerable boost to 68. Hell, country as a whole had an odd week: ‘Chasing You’ by Morgan Wallen spiked to 36, ‘Nobody But You’ by Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani rose to 32, ‘Slow Dance In a Parking Lot’ by Jordan Davis rose to 37, ‘Catch’ by Brett Young rose to 40, and ‘Beer Can’t Fix’ by Thomas Rhett and Jon Pardi got the boost to 56 - at least ‘More Hearts Than Mine’ by Ingrid Andress rising to 44 makes sense, she got an album boost, but still! What I’m more alarmed by is the rise for ‘Sunday Best’ by Surfaces to 52 - this is becoming a hit, people, can we nip that in the bud fast? Outside of those… well, it’s telling ‘Make No Sense’ by Youngboy Never Broke Again went to 83 - that’s a title that might epitomize these gains - along with ‘Emotionally Scarred’ by Lil Baby at 73, ‘death bed’ by Powfu ft. beabadddoobee at 43, ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi at 66, and ‘Blueberry Faygo’ by Lil Mosey getting the big spike to 19. Thankfully, there is some quality still here: ‘Heart On Ice’ by Rod Wave got a promising boost before the album to 30, ‘La Dificil’ by Bad Bunny rose to 87, ‘Know Your Worth’ by Khalid and Disclosure is up at 71, and much to my pleasant surprise, ‘Come Thru’ by Summer Walker and Usher is at 67 - can we make this a hit, that’d be really cool, just saying!

But now onto our rather scattered list of new arrivals, starting with…

96. ‘If The World Was Ending’ by JP Saxe ft. Julia Michaels - I mean, a song with this title, with this guest star in particular, can I just say the joke wrote itself and keep moving? Hell, the funniest thing is that this has been charting worldwide and in Canada for the past few months now and the U.S. is only now getting it, and the general sentiment in the content is that exes would meet up if the world was ending around them - sounds like the wrong message right now, that’s all I’m saying! Unfortunately, even despite a potentially okay premise, this is not particularly interesting nor good - JP Saxe’s willowy but conversational delivery is not impressive, where even Julia Michael’s husky delivery and questionable diction is more interesting against the faded keys and fractured atmospherics, but I think my larger issue is that if you have a situation where the world is ending, you’d try to add a little more drama or bombast or urgency in the instrumentation? I get the very ‘twee indie movie’ sentiment of keeping it all tasteful and lowkey, but I can’t imagine there being a change in tone if there wasn’t the apocalypse, and that strikes me a missed opportunity. Eh, I get the sentiment, but it’s more boring than bad, next!

93. ‘Last Time I Say Sorry’ by Kane Brown & John Legend - am I the only who saw this title and thought, ‘this is immediately more forceful than either man can credibly deliver’, especially for a stripped back ballad that was filmed mid-quarantine from their houses? Well, that was a good instinct, because in reality it’s running on the hopes that it’ll be the last time either man say sorry to their girl because they’ll show that they can do better… and yet somehow I get the feeling that both will have no qualms with saying it again and it being taken well, so the drama is kind of lukewarm here, especially with the by-the-numbers composition, clear production, and backing strings that sound really flimsy. And why make this a duet - not only does it lessen the intimate feel of the writing, you almost start thinking John Legend and Kane Brown are singing to each other, and that could have made this interesting! As it is… again, it’s too milquetoast and forgettable to really dislike or care about, so let’s just move on.

91. ‘Hard To Forget’ by Sam Hunt - look, I already spent over twenty minutes tearing this album to shreds on the main channel and I dedicated a fair amount of time to this disgusting song in particular. Horribly sequenced coming after the opening ballad that may have shown promise, Hunt then squanders a Webb Pierce sample by gutting it over a trap beat and badly mixed guitars as he thoroughly convinces himself his ex is trying to stay in the picture, given that he sees her everywhere and she hasn’t come to pick up her clothes yet and she’s dressing sexy at the party they’re now both at - clearly she wants all of Sam Hunt’s penis! Now if I was forgiving, I would say this song is trying to embrace a darker comedic tone - he’s clearly delusional, it’s all a big joke at his expense, that’s why the bastardized tone is so upbeat - but that would require subtext in the writing or something in his delivery to display that, where instead Sam Hunt plays it for self-satisfied yukks at the bar for sympathy; let’s not question, of course she’ll be back. Yeah, I said it earlier, this is gross - next!

81. ‘I Love My Country’ by Florida Georgia Line - so I’m going to try and give Florida Georgia Line the slightest benefit of the doubt here: they’ve never been really political, they’re probably just looking to buoy spirits by pushing this as a new single with a new producer and new cowriters after pitching Joey Moi, they’re still on the hunt for an identity, and I’m Canadian anyway so I’ve never grasped the nationalist jingoism that comes from down south. But that would assume this is even trying that hard - instead we get the same mugging bro-country that Florida Georgia Line has been peddling for nearly a decade, beefing up the guitar lead to try and hide how much weaker the groove is off the blur of drums and drum machines - and that’s before we get a rap verse! What’s jarring is how soulless this song is - it’s another checklist of country cliches, so even if you were looking for the patriotic spirit, you won’t get it; you’d get more from ‘Chicken Fried’ by the Zac Brown Band! Factor in how the song is a blazing ripoff of ‘Short Skirt Weather’ by Kane Brown and you have a failure across the damn board - this is album filler on the cutting room floor at best, and still is pretty bad - pass!

78. ‘After A Few’ by Travis Denning - what is it about country this week… anyway, for those of you who don’t know, Travis Denning has been writing songs behind the scenes for Chase Rice, Jason Aldean, and Justin Moore before striking out on his own, and this song was first released in January of last year. And yet in the swathe of boyfriend country the past year, I’m not really surprised this took a while to get over - what is surprising is how this is actually decent! Yeah, the guitar leads are a little flat and the mix doesn’t have much in the way of dynamics, but Denning has some bite and presence to his delivery and for a minor-key song where he dreads the repeated cycle of winding up back in bed with his ex after a few drinks, he’s pretty credible, especially as the song actually winds up sounding more organic! I’m not going to call this great - honestly without better production it feels a bit generic and flat - but it’s not bad stuff. Probably the best of the country I’ve heard this week. Probably not a great sign, though.

23. ‘BELIEVE IT’ by PARTYNEXTDOOR & Rihanna - I’ve seen some people try to hype up PARTYNEXTDOOR’s big return as evidence he can go toe-to-toe against The Weeknd among Canadian R&B… and no, a half-formed Rihanna feature does not get you that crown, PARTY, no matter how much Twitter and Joe Budden hype it up. Hell, I’m more convinced this song got hype because of scarcity of material for both artists, not against that basic guitar loop and cheap-sounding lumpy beat, or any sort of dynamic or interesting performance from PARTY. And if you get Rihanna, why sing over her so much and use her as a glorified backing presence, because you are not nearly as interesting as she is! What’s frustrating is that this song is set up for interplay, with him basically trying to get her to buy into him opposite her hook, but between the awkward apologies and how he references other girls want in the picture, it feels increasingly disingenuous, and not the sort of thing PARTY can credibly sell as balancing it all. In other words… look, I was underwhelmed when PARTY was writing for Drake, let alone pushing a solo run years too late, so I’m not believing this. Next!

21. ‘Break My Heart’ by Dua Lipa - look, I’m disappointed too, I really wanted a Dua Lipa album bomb to slide in and raise the chart quality with potential bonafide hits - or at the very least get ‘Love Again’ on the Hot 100 - but ‘Break My Heart’ is a good consolation prize all the same. And it’s a pretty good song too, leaning into her natural exasperation and insecurity of potentially falling for someone who could hurt her, especially when she’s used to having more power and flexibility here. It’s the lack of information that gets to her, and it matches the fluttery instability of melody playing off the sharper rollick in the bass and guitar. I will say that as a single, it feels a little safe and not as flashy or potent as the best song on the album, and like most of the album it leans heavily on the groove that’s not always well-supported by the tune… but still a good song, I’ll take it.

17. ‘Turks’ by NAV, Gunna & Travis Scott - I’m not sure there’s a way to make me less interested in the content of a song than say it’s from NAV, Gunna, and Travis Scott, only one of whom I tolerate in the best of times! And given we’re stuck with a Wheezy trap beat opposite a muddy blur of textures that isn’t nearly as atmospheric or potent as it could be despite some opening promise, none of this is a good sign. So NAV… flexing and then calling Toronto useless - which, dude, if it wasn’t for this city I doubt your buzz would even exist - even as he claims he’d be to replace… I doubt that. Then there’s Gunna feeding and fucking your girl on a verse where the most interesting element is Wheezy dropping his producer tag in the middle of the verse, and then Travis raps a pretty empty verse about girls and cocaine. Look, the most to really highlight here is the production which I’ll admit is passable - probably the most likable or interesting thing about the song - and the flows are actually on point, but if nothing interesting or witty is being said, it’s hard for me not to check out. It’s passable, sure, but is it memorable? We’ll have to see.

Anyway, that was our week - Dua Lipa easily takes the best with ‘Break My Heart’, and I’m giving Honourable Mention to ‘After A Few’ from Travis Denning - I’m as surprised as anyone. Worst is easily going to ‘Hard To Forget’ by Sam Hunt, with Dishonourable Mention to ‘I Love My Country’ by Florida Georgia Line for failing to even be interestingly bad! Next week… we’re in uncharted territory, because I don’t expect any major burst for Rod Wave and I sure as hell hope Sam Hunt isn’t going to get a surge, so we’ll have to see…