billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 18, 2020

Am I wrong to think that this week turned out surprisingly well? I mean, worst case scenario is that we get a Sam Hunt album bomb and the collective quality and intelligence of the Hot 100 drops below sea level, but that didn’t really happen. Instead, to my pleasant surprise, the album bomb we did get was from Rod Wave of all people, and given that I already reviewed and liked that album, it makes this discussion a lot easier!

Of course, that doesn’t directly apply to our top ten, where we do have a new #1 and to many what would be our biggest story: ‘Toosie Slide’ by Drake debuted at #1. Now we’ll get to talking about whatever nebulous quality the song has near the end of this, but it’s here thanks to big sales and on-demand streaming and the sort of frankly ridiculous radio push… but not YouTube. That might be indicative of listeners not getting onboard with the attempt at virality in the same way, but Drake does have the industry behind him and watching how this song performs will say a lot about how much staying power he’ll have. Either way, it pushed back 'Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd to #2, but I still think this song is competitive - the airplay surge has not slowed down and sales/streaming are still really goddamn strong, he’s poised to push through if ‘Toosie Slide’ falters. I don’t think the same holds true for ‘The Box’ by Roddy Ricch at #3, though - it’s got the streaming and radio, sure, but not the sales, and its YouTube margins are shrinking. Then there’s ‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa at #4, which looks like it took a hit across the board, but not in a hugely significant way, and especially on the radio it’s got enough inertia to hold steady, at least for now. What did hold steady - and probably shouldn’t have - is ‘Life Is Good’ by Future ft. Drake at #5, which thanks to a robust YouTube margin, consistent streaming, and stable radio held its position - joy. What did fall back was ‘Circles’ by Post Malone to #6… of which I’m not surprised, it’s losing in all categories and will probably be sliding out sooner rather than later. Next is ‘Adore You’ by Harry Styles down to #7, as it looked like its radio push hit a hard peak - telling, especially given how relatively weak its sales and streaming are, which is not the case for ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat falling back to #8, which just had an excellent radio week - again, even though it lost position, it didn’t lose strength across the board. Sadly, that looks to be the same for ‘Intentions’ by Justin Bieber ft. Quavo at #9 - he might have slightly more robust on-demand streaming and sales, but that’s not enough to compensate for Doja Cat’s YouTube or radio push. And finally, ‘everything i wanted’ by Billie Eilish is holding onto #10, pretty much on wavering radio all week - unfortunately, this is not built to get any higher here.

So this takes us to our losers and dropouts… and here’s the thing, I would say the Rod Wave album bomb caused damage here, but in truth it just knocked out a bunch of smaller cuts and remnants of old album bombs, along with ‘Woah’ by Lil Baby - net positive here. And I find it really hard to complain about our losers as a result too: yes, ‘Break My Heart’ by Dua Lipa took a step back to 39 off the debut, but so did ‘Turks’ by NAV, Gunna and Travis Scott to 46, and ‘BELIEVE IT’ by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna at 58. Then we had the gains cut short by Lil Baby with ‘Emotionally Scarred’ falling to 85 and a hit to ‘Grace’ with 42 Dugg at 100, along with sharp hits to ‘After Hours’ by The Weeknd continuing to 90 and ‘Underdog’ by Alicia Keys’ skidding to 79 - told you that song didn’t have momentum. And as for the rest of our losers… look, the best of them is probably ‘you should be sad’ by Halsey sliding to 52 as it underperforms, and then we go to ‘Suicidal’ by YNW Melly and the late Juice WRLD at 43, ‘Homesick’ by Kane Brown fading to 48, ‘What She Wants Tonight’ by Luke Bryan dropping back to 62, ‘P2’ by Lil Uzi Vert collapsing to 92, and most satisfying, ‘Yummy’ by Justin Bieber at 94. The way this is going this is going to be a flop single and potentially not even be a solid lock for the year-end list - if it gets there at all it’ll be driven off of early succcess and nothing else!

And given that this is an album bomb week, we didn’t see a lot of gains… and most of them I wasn’t exactly enthralled by either. ‘Catch’ by Brett Young up to 29 on radio momentum? ‘death bed’ by Powfu ft. beabaddoobee bumped up to 33 thanks to quiet streaming growth, which is even more true for ‘WHATS POPPIN’ by Jack Harlow up to 36? The only significant problems I can see here are ‘Hard To Forget’ by Sam Hunt getting the album boost to 40 - gross - but the more worrisome song in my regard is ‘If The World Was Ending’ by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels picking up a slower boost to 83. In this day and age, that song is built to become a sleeper, I’d keep a wary eye on how quickly it slides up, because that’s how it became a hit in other countries. But on a different note, we did in fact get an album bomb from Rod Wave, the majority of which actually fell below the top 40. If you want to see more of my opinions on the project, check out the last episode of On The Pulse on my main channel, but for individual songs… ‘No Weakness’ hit 99, ‘Thug Life’ is at 95, ‘Ribbon In The Sky’ hit 84, ‘The Greatest’ is at 78, ‘Pray 4 Love’ is at 67, and ‘Fuck The World’ is at 64.

Anyway, our list of new arrivals, which minus the album bomb is a little more scarce but let’s get started with…

93. ‘Here And Now’ by Kenny Chesney - I’ll be honest, I’m legit shocked it took us this long to get a new Kenny Chesney single for this upcoming album. ‘Tip Of My Tongue’ dropped in the middle of the summer last year, and we’re only now getting follow-up for the album dropping less than a month? Anyway, this is the newest song and it’s certainly got more of a fast-paced country rock vibe as he muses not on his past adventures or an uncertain future, but on the here and now. And look, outside of some questionable cymbal mixing, it’s organic and actually a pretty propulsive song… but am I the only one that thinks the hook just lands on an odd note and that the timing of its radio push feels off? Does anyone really want to be thinking most about the present right now, just asking - hell, you can argue he’s focusing more on other times because there’s detail in the writing about them, unlike the present. I’m not saying this is bad, but it’s midtier Kenny Chesney as he’s definitely done better. Just okay, that’s all.

81. ‘Bluebird’ by Miranda Lambert - well, I guess she did have to push something from Wildcard after all… granted, I think I’m in the minority of not really remembering nor caring about that last badly produced Miranda Lambert album, but here we go with ‘Bluebird’ and… look, I’ll repeat the same sentiments I had about the album. The percussion feels clunky and doesn’t match with the blurry haze of elecritic guitars that don’t drive the melody - thanks Jay Joyce - and while the mandolin strums texturing the song, especially leaning into the final hook had potential… until it slips into a quicker drum machine that doesn’t fit the vibe at all. It’s frustrating because Miranda has proven she can handle the dream country vibe this song is attempting, but Joyce has nowhere close to the subtlety to deliver it… which unfortunately matches the writing way too well. And look, I appreciate the sentiment of always having more in wait, that she’s gonig to keep on evolving and she’s going to find a way out through her art - which if you’re me and see that at metatext about a conflicted album release, it’s a nice bit of abstraction, but Miranda Lambert is a writer who can cut way more deeply even on slow-burns that are more metaphorical, and while she sounds pretty here, she also sounds checked out. Again, it’s not bad… but man, it should be a lot better.

77. ‘I Remember’ by Rod Wave - so there are two Rod Wave songs I want to highlight, and this is the first - and let’s blow through the quick structural issues: two hooks, a single verse, a song with a melodic foundation this good courtesy of the piano and sweet guitar lick could have used a lot more to work with, even with the pitch-shifted whistling coos behind him. But he makes a lot out of the verse, reflecting on past losses including the incarcaration of his father, lost friends, the uncle that pulled him off the streets, and all the betrayals of friends and lovers that still led him to the streets, where even his mother will tell him off from jail to get him to take responsibility. It’s a pretty bleak reminiscence, but it’s sold well and Rod Wave keeps the mood consistent. In other words, this was a highlight of the album for me - really strong stuff.

76. ‘Tycoon’ by Future - I’ve stopped reading Future press releases - mostly because at this point I have zero faith that he’s going to deliver content rises above the norm, and The WIZRD was absolutely a disappointment in that regard. And given ‘Life Is Good’ has continued to get worse with every listen, I didn’t expect anything with this… which might have been the right idea, because once again we’re stuck with a bassy slice of melancholy with the barest melody in a swampy blur of guitars as Future muses through paranoia, gunplay and brand name porn. Again, my big issue with Future at this point is a lack of tuneful or interesting content, and ‘Tycoon’ is neither, especially with such monotonous delivery. Yes, Future is now saying he’s off lean in the first verse, but when you discover he hasn’t done it in years, I stop caring, because this is really forgettable.

74. ‘Thief In The Night’ by Rod Wave - so this also wound up as an album highlight for me - yes, even despite the chipmunk fragments and fluttery keys off the pretty standard trap beat and underweight structure, and I will admit it’s less detailed than ‘I Remember’. But what I like about this song comes in the substance - the back and forth of the relationship that reflects the hard give-and-take to the streets, and as much as she hurt his feelings, she’s going to demand that heavier accountability, and when it doesn’t work, she’s gone - and what hurts him the most is knowing it’s inevitable and how it won’t be his first time facing this heartbreak, especially given where he is now. And when you factor in how well Rod Wave is able to balance his switch-ups on the verse… yeah, really solid song, I dig it.

71. ‘Be A Light’ by Thomas Rhett ft. Reba McEntire, Hillary Scott, Chris Tomlin & Keith Urban - so I’ve danced around conversations about music released right now to inspire hope in the midst of a rough time of isolation, mostly because we’re all the thick of it right now and if it helps someone, that’s a net positive, especially if sales money is going to charity… but I’ve always been leery of charity singles as acts of quasi-self promotion and most of them don’t tend to be that good, so I had a lot of skepticism going into this cut from Thomas Rhett that he wrote last year and then brought in Reba, Keith Urban, Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum, and Chris Tomlin, who is most well-known for making contemporary Christian music. It just raises uncomfortable questions, especially given how the evangelical subculture in the U.S. has behaved in the midst of a pandemic ignoring social distancing and some megachurches still encouraging tithing, and when you have a song that’s as underwritten and empty as this feels beyond vague upbeat and overproduced pablum, your mind wanders to that place. And I get why Thomas Rhett didn’t release this last year - it’s really undercooked in the composition, the production feels sterile, and unlike the truly potent charity collaborations, this feels really forgettable and flimsy. Now again, if this brings you hope or some sort of happiness, I don’t want to blunt that - it’s not for me and that’s fine - but when I can compare ‘We Are The World’ positively to this, you may have slipped up, just saying.

22. ‘Find My Way’ by DaBaby - hey, did you know DaBaby is dropping an album this Friday? I mean, credit for taking advantage of the time, but I said this back when I was covering the KIRK album bomb, DaBaby could really run the risk of overexposure the way he’s shoveling out songs, and outside of isolated moments he hasn’t really shown the consistent evolution beyond a tried-and-true formula to really wow me - raw charisma can only take you so far. Regardless, here’s a new single and… is DaBaby singing here? Let me start by saying that he’s not nearly as awkward doing so as I expected on the hook, especially given how blown out the bass rumble is in swamping out those guitars - which is actually the same sample as ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S.’ by Marshmello and Anne-Marie of all things… until you get to the last two lines of the verse and he slides off beat trying to croon and suddenly all my usual issues with DaBaby barely being on beat are back at the forefront. Now again, this isn’t precisely a bad lane for him - showing a little more vulnerability as she gives him some relief from responsibilities… but of course he can’t stay in that territory so she’s someone who didn’t level up like him and he wants to screw both her and her friend and it’s just a little tiresome to see him creeping towards improvement and never getting there. Yeah, it’s catchy, but if DaBaby thinks this is evolution… can’t say I’m impressed.

1. ‘Toosie Slide’ by Drake - you’d think after ‘Nice For What’ Drake would have stopped. Seriously, I had no belief he could top that, so why in the Nine Hells is he making and releasing a dance record now, beyond the obvious, ‘I might as well monopolize the cultural conversation and TikTok videos, what else are people going to do’? And Drake’s absolutely been tacky with his dance challenges before, but even at his worst he’s sounded like he cared - ‘One Dance’, for as badly produced and faintly embarrassing as it was, is more interesting and catchy than this failed drone experiment with its self-referential, half-formed verses, standard trap beat, and faded synth and a post-chorus that kills any sense of momentum. And the assertions that this is too ‘deep’ for us is nonsense - he’s trying to spin his usual paranoia into wiinning this girl over on the first verse, and the second verse seems like an undercooked warning where he talks about all the pressure he’s putting on himself; you’d think if that was true, there’d actually be something to the damn song! This doesn’t even feel new or memetic in an interesting way, which leaves me thinking this could fall off fast, and while he’s got the industry built to make this a hit, it doesn’t guarantee a sustainable one.

Also, it sucks, and it’s by far the worst of the week, with Dishonourable Mention going to ‘Be A Light’ by Thomas Rhett and crew for being the worst sort of milquetoast charity record - and when you have as much talent as this one did, that’s a big problem. Best are both going to Rod Wave, with ‘I Remember’ as the easy standout but ‘Thief In The Night’ right behind him. Next week… too early for the DaBaby album bomb to come, so maybe a cooldown. Who knows…