billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 15, 2023

I guess this might be the closest thing to ‘normal’ that we’re going to get on the Hot 100 - possibly for a little bit, because I’m not exactly seeing the big release that’s primed to blow everything open in the next week or two, we may have a bit of a breather here? I mean, there’s a story about Tyler The Creator’s deluxe release having an impact, but that’s mild all things considered - there’s some normalcy here, I’m inclined to roll with it!

Unfortunately, said ‘normalcy’ plays out depressively predictable on the top 10, where taking the #1 again is ‘Last Night’ by Morgan Wallen. Make no mistake, this was a win on the streaming margins and sales beating the radio, and that means ‘Kill Bill’ by SZA got stranded at #2. Credit for the right tactics here - there was a sales discount, streaming remained strong, the radio push came at the right time… but Wallen beat her on sales regardless and it was sadly quite narrow. And the sad fact is that it seems like without the short term sales discount, I’m not sure ‘Kill Bill’ has enough in the tank to sustain that competition, even if it was enough to bowl over ‘Flowers’ by Miley Cyrus at #3 where despite a good streaming week it has absolutely peaked on sales and the radio. Then we have ‘Creepin’ by Metro Boomin, 21 Savage and The Weeknd rising to #4, which I’ll chalk up to a strong radio week, which is kind of the same case for ‘Die For You’ by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande at #5, which is definitely on the downturn but has a streaming margin advantage. This opens a possibility for ‘Boy’s A Liar Pt. 2’ by PinkPantheress and Ice Spice at #6, where the streaming margins are still good and the radio margins are making noise - similar case for ‘Calm Down’ by Rema and Selena Gomez up to #7, where it couldn’t really make streaming inroads but the radio is really behind it. The last few picked up positions, but I’m less confident in them overall: ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift rose to #8 but it’s really on its way out, ‘Players’ by Coi Leray rose to #9 but the radio is peaking, and then ‘Rock and a Hard Place’ by Bailey Zimmerman back at #10, which actually is having a good radio week and streaming is stronger than you might expect - I’m still not exactly confident in the kid, but alright, this is momentum!

Which is not something I can say for our losers and dropouts - not much to speak of here in the latter category, just for me to say I’m disappointed that ‘Low’ by SZA is gone and will miss the year-end list unless she winds up pushing it as a late single and it recharts - not holding my breath here. Now the losers are a mess here, so let’s start with the debuts that fell off like ‘Don’t Play With It’ by Lola Brooke and Billy B at 86 - I’m not acknowledging the remix, it’s not good - along with ‘Eyes Closed’ by Ed Sheeran to 39 and the expected sharp fall for ‘Like Crazy’ by Jimin to 45 - that’s what happens when all you have are sales in your corner. It wasn’t exactly a great week for Luke Combs here either, as ‘Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old’ stumbled to 91 off the return and ‘Love You Anyway’ slid to 36, but country as a whole didn’t have a great week: among continued losers ‘What He Didn’t Do’ by Carly Pearce continued to 68, Morgan Wallen saw losses for ‘98 Braves’ at 96 and ‘Man Made A Bar’ with Eric Church at 73, and ‘Dawns’ by Zach Bryan and Maggie Rogers looks like it’s out of gas at 97. Outside of that… ‘All Of The Girls You Loved Before’ by Taylor Swift hit 57 on its continued slide, as did ‘Nobody Gets Me’ by SZA at 92, then ‘Painting Pictures’ by Superstar Pride looks like its momentum is gone at 74, and ‘Love Again’ by Kid LAROI just never got going at 81.

Now for returns and gains… oh boy, it’s a mess, so let’s try and brush past the former group quickly with ‘Nasty’ by Russ back at 75 and ‘Death’ by Melanie Martinez at 98 - it’s only back because of the album, it’s not going to stick around, thank Christ. No, where things get more interesting are what’s filling in the gaps: regional Mexican music and a lot of it! You can chalk all of this up to Peso Pluma and Natanael Cano getting a major push, because every song in this genre that gained had them on it: ‘Ella Balla Solo’ by Eslabon Armado & Peso Pluma at 17, ‘PRC’ by the duo at 64, ‘Por Las Noches’ by just Peso Pluma at 65, and ‘CH y La Pizza’ off the debut with Fuerza Regida at 80… yikes. And somehow it gets worse, because ‘Slut Me Out’ by NLE Choppa is getting traction on streaming and is up to 43! Thankfully, Tyler The Creator saw a major boost for ‘DOGTOOTH’ up to 33 - I don’t really care for the song, but Tyler winning is a boon - but what interests me more is the cover of ‘Fast Car’ by Luke Combs up to 32 - I can’t shake the gut feeling this is going to be some sort of sleeper hit this year, and the streaming and sales are coming along to match it, let’s just keep an eye on it.

But now onto our new arrivals… not a lot of them this week, and they’re also all over the place again, so let’s start with…

99. ‘Hot Boy’ by Nardo Wick ft. Lil Baby - the first thought I had when I saw this song was ‘huh, are they going to flip Bobby Shmurda’s hit from 2014, and that’s coming on nine years ago’… and that’s not the case with this; shame, that could have been interesting, beyond the stuttering synth bass, cheap-sounding squeaky percussion, and muted piano sample that only highlights how much of a non-presence Nardo Wick seems to be. He’s trying to do a breathy 21 Savage with the dead-eyed flexing, but there’s no atmosphere to a song this busy in its groove, and he’s got no flair or anything complexity in his bars that impressed me. Pair it with the interchangeable, increasingly antisocial flexes from Lil Baby… it’s not bad, but I’m going to forget this in record time.

95. ‘I Know’ by Kanii - alright, another song going viral from TikTok… have to be honest, reading up on Kanii I was concerned about this - he’s seventeen from Washington DC, he put out a flurry of projects the past few years, he claims to be influenced by XXXTENTACION and he’s going into the Jersey Club sound… and yeah, I can’t say I’m a fan of this. For one, the vocals sound very compressed and crushed to the top of the mix, already getting clipped by the bass around the cooing sample - it has a roughness that doesn’t surprise me when you discover Kanii mixed and mastered this himself - and his voice reminds more than it should of Tory Lanez. But I do hear the X influence - the rough production, the abbreviated song structure, the undercooked hook, the condescending petulance in the relationship drama where he’s trying to be sincere but keep things only on his terms. It comes across as adolescent and not really likable, certainly not something I’d pair with that pulsating Jersey club bass. So while I get why this works for people… yeah, not a fan.

89. ‘WHARF TALK’ by Tyler, The Creator ft. A$AP Rocky - I feel like this combination for a flexing song makes all kinds of sense - I don’t expect depth from A$AP Rocky, but he seems like he’d be a good compliment to Tyler in terms of flair and class. And yet… I’m not against Tyler singing through the entire song, but without any tighter rapping, I’m not sure he’s smooth enough as a vocalist to work well opposite those hollow synths, rattling guitars, and the sharper percussion and bassline - Rocky should not be the only person rapping on this, and that’s before we get that really awkward squawk on the outro that completely kills the mood. But that’s the weird thing with this song: it’s trying to be slick and catch some of the opulence on a yacht with expensive brands and booze, but also be a little clumsy and kind of own it, but the texture feels off, especially with those synths and Tyler’s singing, it doesn’t click for me in the same way a cut like ‘HOT WIND BLOWS’ did. Don’t get me wrong, I want this to click, but it’s another song where I get why it was cut, just saying.

82. ‘Need A Favor’ by Jelly Roll - I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that we’d get another song from Jelly Roll to chase ‘Son Of A Sinner’, a single primed for that upcoming album, or that he’d lean into the religious elements… but woof, the results don’t work for me at all! If it wasn’t for the occasional fiddle flourish it would remind me of every clunky rock act who tried to crossover into the country charts in the mid-2010s with the dullest blues rock attempt imaginable - god, we had Rag’n’Bone Man already six years ago, why are we still chasing this formula? It doesn’t help that the writing is a lot worse this time - Jelly Roll’s voice doesn’t have that warmth or gruffness and him asking God for a favour comes across weirdly sour, especially as he knows he’s probably not going to get it given his own wayward life… but come on, throw him a bone why don’t you? I guess the gospel elements and some of the warmer arrangement isn’t bad, but I had a really strong negative reaction to this - I think we got one good song out of Jelly Roll, I’m not sure this one is worth another glance… because it kind of sucks. Speaking of which…

61. ‘Void’ by Melanie Martinez - So the Melanie Martinez fans have been showing off a lot of ‘class act’ behaviour to fellow critics online - it’s one of the reasons why I have zero interest in covering Portals when I already have enough good albums on my schedule than her underwhelming, derivative trash fire. But now there’s another single that managed to chart and probably won’t after this week when the album impact fades… yeah, this is bad too, and for a lot of the same reasons I didn’t like ‘Death’. The vocals are painfully overprocessed, and while I actually think the bass and drum mixing is pretty decent, the song seems like it’s set to explode to a big pop rock chorus and it never happens - it feels desaturated and washed out, and it doesn’t do much to set up any atmosphere or a ‘void-like’ presence. Granted, this is where the writing drives this into a wall - yes Melanie, if there are rotten things inside of you, they were injected by society, and you’re the only one who can judge you - but my larger problem is that for as edgy as this song is trying to be, I can’t buy into it. It’s a pretty evocative image to lean on suicidal ideation and kneeling on a metal grater that cuts you to a point where you’re tangled in your own intestines, and I’m sorry, this is not a Cannibal Corpse album, the graphic provocation has no weight to it with this execution and production, it doesn’t fit well with any deeper vulnerability, and that’s been my consistent problem her entire career: even if this is an authentic emotion to her, she cannot sell its reality. And I’m not really interested in giving her much more grace - this blows, next!

48. ‘SORRY NOT SORRY’ by Tyler, The Creator - god, I really hope I find at least one Tyler song I like here… and I’ll say this, this is probably the closest to it, with the old soul sample flip and Tyler rapping on one extended verse where I emphasizes apologies to those who deserve it…. and giving the middle finger to those who really don’t. It reminds of a similar arc that Kendrick played across Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, where Tyler probably extends more grace to folks than some of them deserve but also has never been a role model and with his platform is going to reinforce both strengths and flaws. So I do like the genuine remorse at friends and family and ex-partners for how things didn’t work, and I like how he’s not apologetic towards the ‘fans’ who stalk him or his partner or spread lies, or those who want to claim to be friends and aren’t, or those who want him to be less pretentious or not grow up, and I think there’s a point in highlighting the unproductive envy of those who wanted Tyler to not succeed as much as he has, get out of poverty. That said, he’s got that provocateur side that wants to shove his flexing in people’s faces backed up with arguments of ‘well, you could never do it, let’s see you try’, and even if it’s very human and he’s right that he can’t save people even if he tries, I’m not sure this helps? I give him more leeway than Kendrick, and I think his flow and delivery is impressive here, but I also get why this may have been cut too, especially with songs like ‘MASSA’ on the last album that hits these notes more effectively - it’s interesting and overall good… I wouldn’t call it great.

16. ‘Fight The Feeling’ by Rod Wave - I have to be brutally honest, it’s tough for me to assess where Rod Wave’s career is going right now. The past few years have left a pretty shaky release schedule even if the quality has been consistent - which might be an indicator as to why existing issues haven’t been resolved - so I had limited expectations with this new single, even if it debuted really high and I’m otherwise a fan of Rod Wave. And… look, there’s a lot about the formula that works here, between the muted pianos and electric guitar flourishes against the trap percussion that’s actually better mastered than usual - the chipmunked sample doesn’t add much to the song, but it doesn’t detract from it either. I think what’s more telling is the focus: it’s a song directed at women who aren’t in touch with their feelings but would rather go out and party, when they don’t have everything together and yet they’re trying to fight the feeling of crying at a love song in the club. It’s an interesting moment - in a different era the genders would have been reversed for sure - but this approach reminds me a lot of the songs about sensitive girls who are holding it all together until one guy can help fix her damage, which was all the rage in the adult-alternative singer-songwriter scene for years, and while Rod Wave’s material has skirted this before, this is the first time it feels blatant. Granted, he paints the scene with just enough detail and soul that I wind up liking this more than, say, Lil Wayne’s ‘How To Love’, but it doesn’t reach his best.

That said… I think I find the most that I’ll revisit from Rod Wave, so he just barely clinches best of the week over Tyler, whereas… yeah, Melanie Martinez with ‘Void’ gets the worst, even with that bad Jelly Roll song, ‘Void’ feels more nakedly incompetent across the board. Next week… not seeing something that’s going to blow everything up, maybe it’s going to be a bit more measured and reasonable for a bit, we’ll have to see…