billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 2, 2022

This is one of those weeks where I could complain that it’s busy… but I won’t. All things considered, the aftermath of the Lil Durk album bomb did cause something of a shakeup with the Hot 100, and if that translates to more new music, I think I’m onboard, at least for that, especially as I don’t really foresee Machine Gun Kelly having an album bomb next week?

Of course, none of this impacts our top ten, where for yet another week ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals is squatting at the very top - yeah, it picked up gains on streaming, but let’s not act like this is a dominant force on the radio beyond the fact that the top 10 is really weak right now. Hell, right behind it is ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber at #2, which is just not in a position to challenge anything because it lags in both categories and isn’t gaining more. And since ‘Super Gremlin’ by Kodak Black might have better streaming but even less radio presence, it’s stuck at #3. This is where I’m going to glare with some annoyance at ‘abcdefu’ by GAYLE at #4 - yeah, a streaming pickup is nice and the song is still selling, but radio is pulling it, and I just think her label missed a big opportunity to capitalize here. Now ‘Ghost’ by Justin Bieber could be a disruptor at #5… but unfortunately its radio also stalled out this week and it really only picked up a position because ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ by the Encanto Cast hit #6 because its streaming margin is steadily shrinking. Unfortunately, this continues to open the door for ‘Enemy’ by Imagine Dragons and JID, which is narrowing that radio margin and has streaming on the upswing, which is why it hit #7, handily keeping ahead of ‘THATS WHAT I WANT’ by Lil Nas X at #8 because its radio run finally lost its momentum. This opens a door for a new top ten entry: ‘Woman’ by Doja Cat at #9 - I’m a little surprised this actually built momentum, but whatever radio deal she had was effective in muscling it this high; hell, with ‘Easy On Me’ by Adele on the downswing at #10, this was the time to make a move, and top ten visibility does help songs get an added boost.

And speaking of downswings, our losers and dropouts, where the only one in the latter category worth talking about is ‘Sacrifice’ by The Weeknd, which really feels like it should have been bigger than it was but apparently radio never took to it. But the losers are actually quite straightforward, mostly debuts taking a dip from last week - looking at ‘Sweetest Pie’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa at 25 - but specifically Lil Durk’s album bomb, which saw ‘Ahhh Ha’ at 28, ‘Petty Too’ at 62, ‘No Interviews’ at 68, ‘Barbarian’ at 79, 'Golden Child’ at 80, and ‘Smoking & Thinking’ at 94. The one loss that was a pleasant surprise was ‘Handsomer’ by Russ and ktlyn at 56 - I’m not counting this out on making a run, it very well could… but hey, we can hope it crashes and burns, right?

Now for our returns and gains… whoo boy, country really made a stir this week, for better and for worse! I mean, our one return was ‘Come Back As A Country Boy’ by Blake Shelton at 90, and when we look at our gains, I’m not going to be happy that ‘Slow Down Summer’ by Thomas Rhett rebounded to 52, or that ‘AA’ by Walker Hayes hit 41! Thankfully a lot of the country songs were a lot better: ‘Never Wanted To Be That Girl’ by Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde at 69, ‘Flower Shops’ by ERNEST ft. Morgan Wallen at 67, ‘Circles Around This Town’ by Maren Morris at 60 - I expect a jump off the album next week - ‘Heart On Fire’ by Eric Church at 59, ‘Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)’ by Elle King and Miranda Lambert at 44, ‘Never Say Never’ by Cole Swindell and Lainey Wilson at 40, and ‘Doin’ This’ by Luke Combs at 30! Unfortunately, our non-country entries are pretty rough here: ‘Rumors’ by Gucci Mane and Lil Durk at 76, To The Moon!’ by JNR Choi and Sam Tompkins at 64, ‘The Motto’ by Tiesto and Ava Max at 51, and ‘she’s all I wanna be’ by Tate McRae at 48 - god, I wish I got the appeal of this one, at least to me McRae just can’t sell this sort of pop rock with any presence.

But of course the larger story is our plethora of new arrivals this week… and it looks like we’re going to some pretty rough territory here, starting with…

99. ‘IDGAF’ by BoyWithUke & blackbear - you know, every time I think that ‘fuckboi rap’ was a flash in the pan spurred on by YouTubers dabbling in the scene and me coining a genre term too, then TikTok e-boys came around, blackbear stuck around, and the we got BoyWithUke, who I’ve been familiar with for a while thanks to his breakout song ‘Toxic’ that’s more badly produced bedroom pop in its sound but from the flows and attitude it bleeds this genre. And wow, that’s exactly what we got here, an ugly breakup song where these two cuss out some shallow girl that did them wrong - I feel obliged to mention the ugliness is the point, it’s supposed to be nasty, but neither of these guys have anything close to charisma or presence to make this relatable. Also it goes way past any sense they liked each other to begin with, where any trace of sympathy you might have kind of exits when they say she was ugly with crappy style anyway and yet she still wants them and that she was… adopted? Forget the moral high ground or any sense of melodrama, at that point you’re not so much edgy as mewling dicks who’ll betray the confidence of a relationship to go past good taste, which doesn’t work with the breezy, ‘I don’t give a fuck’ tone song. It’s also worth highlighting that the production is terrible - gutless and cheap acoustics with insufferably grating high-pitched backing vocals where the percussion and groove might be the saving grace if the vocal mastering wasn’t painfully shallow and tinny. This song falls into the territory of Eamon’s ‘Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)’ with its sniveling fuckboi wallow, and as of now it’s one of the worst things I’ve heard in 2022. Thanks TikTok, glad to know you can still deliver absolute shit.

98. ‘She Likes It’ by Russell Dickerson & Jake Scott - it’s not a good sign when I see that song title from Russell Dickerson and just get this sinking feeling; Jake Scott I didn’t recognize, apparently he’s a pop singer who has been active in the 2010s, so I didn’t really have high expectations… and that was appropriate, because wow, this is pretty rough too. What’s bizarre is that this is the sort of song that required very little to work - it’s got a spare electric guitar loop, and Dickerson and Scott singing about all the things their girls like that they can deliver; a little presumptuous in spots but the harmonies are decent enough and this is basically a low stakes campfire song. So why did you drop the clunkiest possible bass and percussion all over it, and mix the low-end so badly that it clips the entire mix - the percussion was stiff enough, but this swamps out the song so your speakers start knocking - certainly not the little Bose he references in the song - and gives it a heaviness it absolutely does not need! It’s just an utterly bizarre choice for something that was otherwise so simple to work - it’s not one that really makes me angry or anything, although if this becomes a sleeper hit that might change, so it just becomes this weird misstep of a song. I don’t hate it… I’m just mystified they thought this was a good idea.

95. ‘Money So Big’ by Yeat - apparently Yeat is going viral on TikTok again… what’s the odds that he has absolutely nothing to say, yet again? Well yeah - once again, I’m not hearing any appeal to this guy, who despite jacking a considerable amount of his content and flow from Travis Scott says that people are biting him, brags about their women biting his dick - that sounds painful - and the sort of dead-eyed, over the top flexing where it’s hard not to tune out, Yeat just does not have the personality or firepower to make this interesting. Granted, the production is of no help - the flat synth behind the whirring slivers of bassy trap percussion, the godawful vocal mixing trying to claw for air but not giving any real punch in distortion - apparently Yeat mixes and masters his own songs, you can tell, and once again, more texture than actual melodic tone, nothing sticks with this. Honestly, it doesn’t even have the decency to go that hard; just a headache that is profoundly uninteresting, next!

92. ‘Over’ by Lucky Daye - alright, this was a nice surprise. I’ve been waiting on Lucky Daye to have his R&B breakthrough for some time now, he’s been stacking up credits behind the scenes since the 2000s and has been releasing his own projects since 2018… but since he’s cosigned through RCA, it’s taken this long for us to actually get new material. This is a song from his album this past March where he samples Musiq Soulchild… and you know, there’s a lot to like about this - Lucky Daye’s got a liquid delivery off the rickety percussion, wells of backing vocals, gentle acoustics, and for a song that’s all about being tormented by an ex who keeps giving him mixed signals weaving in and out of his life, he can sell it pretty effectively, especially when he makes the final decision after the bridge to cut her loose. I do think the ending is a little abortive, even if it works in context, but I think my larger frustration is that the song feels a little cluttered and overproduced - the sour elements in the acoustics off the more staccato backing vocals and pitch-shifted elements never quite gives Lucky Daye the space to really ride the song effectively. It leads to a track where I think I appreciate the construction a little more than it clicking as a whole; definitely good, I hope it grows more on me.

91. ‘maybe’ by Machine Gun Kelly & Bring Me The Horizon - I’ve already mentioned this in passing when I reviewed mainstream sellout a few days ago, so I’m going to aim to keep this short: yes, Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon makes this song better, but it also exposes just how awful Machine Gun Kelly sounds on this album and even if that’s the point, having the contrast pointed out so directly doesn’t help; nor does the melody that feels interpolated directly from Paramore’s ‘Misery Business’. It’s also a really sour song where in the pits of alcohol-soaked misery and depression where they’re ‘taking the last’ in the exit - which again, the ugliness is the point and even if the guitars feel crushed opposite Travis Barker’s drums, I find this brand of it easier to swallow, especially as the hook is pretty decent. Granted, decent is about the most I’ll give this - the flaws are very obvious and that sourness will make this a tough sell, but hey, Machine Gun Kelly did give Bring Me The Horizon their first charting entry ever on the Hot 100… guess there’s that?

84. ‘Tom’s Diner’ by AnnenMayKantereit & Giant Rooks - …okay, a lot of folks consider the DNA remix of Suzanne Vega’s ‘Tom’s Diner’ to be a classic, one of the most low-key but deceptively potent earworms within trip-hop, and it’s a song I really like. Naturally two German acts decided to remix this song and it went viral on TikTok… and wow, way to miss the entire goddamn point of why this song was a classic, throwing in big, bellowing baritone vocals where there’s a bad case of indie vocal fry with no commitment to maintaining atmosphere or groove as the bassline can’t stabilize effectively as the guitars and horns float around with no direction. The original ‘Tom’s Diner’ was low-key and sensual and effective, this feels more like a clumsy, farting pisstake that after the one note of shock at what these guys sound like, the song then proceeds to go for four minutes - I thought the benefit of TikTok is that this would be short! And when you realize this is even new - this cover was apparently made in 2019 - I’m left thinking we could have ignored this easily. It sucks, next!

72. ‘Ghost Story’ by Carrie Underwood - you know, given Carrie Underwood’s reputation for murder ballads, I was curious where she was about to take a song with this title; hell, I was looking to like this. And… okay, this is going to be a niche reference, but does anyone remember Jake Owen’s ‘Ghost Town’ from 2013, where he constantly felt that his ex was haunting him? Well, this is Underwood playing from that ‘ghost’s perspective, which is a pretty nifty idea and seems to have seeds where she plays into some twinkling pianos and a slightly quicker tempo, more for the romantic side of some ghost stories. But the problem is one that I’ve had with Underwood for years now: there’s no subtlety, she doesn’t modulate as a singer to set the atmosphere, and the instrumentation ramps straight into strings-backed power ballad mode without much in the way of texture. It’s frustrating because the idea is cool, and if Underwood gave this a little more room to breathe with greater dynamics - hell, if there’s a song that could afford to lean on the reverb, it is this one - I could really get into this. As it is… it’s fine, but it’s not as good as it should be.

61. ‘Computer Murderers’ by Lil Durk - hey look, it’s a deluxe cut from the Lil Durk album from last week, where he’s leaning on the diss material going after a bunch of local rappers in Chicago who have crossed him. And while I want to avoid the YoungBoy beef conversation, it’s clear Lil Durk is not shying away from this, and I’m split between whether he’s taking the bait or just riding the added attention, because neither are a good sign, especially when on this song he admits he’s still grieving but is going to swing around and open fire regardless, even if him going out so much is getting him in trouble with his girl. I mean come on, this is not worth it, and when the song feels like an overexposed, rather cheap-sounding fragment with the bells playing off the piano loop and a hook where even he sounds exhausted, I have no reason to give this any more attention - let’s move on.

57. ‘Sometimes’ by Juice WRLD - so again, I already said my piece about the second posthumous Juice WRLD album bomb a few months back, but now we’ve got a deluxe of that too with this new song charting that Juice WRLD apparently previewed on his Instagram back in December 2018 and which leaked in January 2020. And… yeah, this one isn’t doing it for me either - the one thing I’ll say is that on the refrains Juice WRLD really did show his pipes belting about how much he hates the world amidst a wallow of drugs, guns, and his own demons, but outside of that between the stock trap percussion and murky melody that gives the song no momentum, it feels like a wallow that might work for the fans - apparently it’s been a favourite for some time - but feels really tired and regurgitated, especially out of Juice WRLD’s catalog. Again, it feels skeevy how Interscope has been drip-feeding these posthumous cuts to wring out any profit, and even if the song is… fine, again, I have no reason to give this any more attention.

50. ‘Nobody Like U’ by 4*TOWN - alright, so a bit of context: this is a song from a manufactured boy band called 4*Town in the universe of the Pixar film Turning Red, which I have not yet seen but have been told it’s pretty good. I’ve also heard that many of the boy band songs are a highlight, and while the film’s timeframe and Canadian setting would place boy bands slightly out of sync with reality, that’s me nitpicking as someone who grew up in this era and yet was nevertheless curious about how Finneas of all people would deliver in singing and production. And… I feel like there’s some things to appreciate about this, but I do think it’s a bit of a miss in the fine details. It’s probably closest to Backstreet Boys more than N’Sync even despite the acoustics, mostly because by the more textured, husky vocals, the sharper minor keyboard stabs, the scratching, the poor attempt at rap, and how there’s nobody here who has the pipes or naked charisma that Justin Timberlake did; as an ensemble it feels more balanced. The problem is that in the scope of mixing and stylism, this would probably be closer to Backstreet Boys circa Backstreet’s Back in the late 90s… and FINNEAS is no Max Martin, the song just does not pop off that central melody in the same way. Not saying it’s bad - the vast majority of people would not care this much, and the target audience would not have grown up paying this much attention to the fine details over twenty years later… but if it’s supposed to be a single to sell this group, it feels a lesser album cut. Not bad… not quite great, though.

37. ‘Blick Blick!’ by Coi Leray & Nicki Minaj - I’m not embarrassed to say I had some hopes with this song. Even despite her limitations I like Coi Leray more than most, and ‘Do We Have A Problem’ is still a good Nicki Minaj song that probably deserves more attention. I did think this collab felt a little strange - their energy seems to be in very different places - and that producing credit from Dr. Luke doesn’t help - and thus… I’m not sure I like this that much. For one, it asks Coi Leray to get on sharper trap production with the eerie melody, and while Nicki is a strong enough lyricist to command something that spare, Coi Leray’s limitations are very obvious where she can’t just bounce off the production with any sense of playfulness. She sounds stiff and a little clunky, and the go-to sex bars and repeated words don’t impress me - it’s the exact same problem Playboi Carti has in that if the production isn’t there, he’s going to struggle. So what about Nicki… well, what about her, it’s one of those verses where she’s defaulting to hashtag rap in her flexing as she changes up her flow and if there was a song for her to just spit hard all the way through, it is this! I’m not sure the production is giving her much to work with either, but she’s got less of an excuse and while the punchlines are decent, they aren’t as impressive as NIcki seems to think they are given how much she emphasizes them. I dunno, apparently this is one of the big gets for Coi Leray’s debut album this year, but it feels like a swing and a miss. Not precisely bad, but I wanted to like it more.

And that might as well be the statement of this week, where the good songs were nothing exceptional and the bad ones were fucking atrocious. Let’s deal with the latter, ‘IDGAF’ by BoyWithUke and blackbear is getting the worst by a country mile while that awful ‘Tom’s Diner’ is the Dishonourable Mention. Now best of the week… ‘Over’ by Lucky Daye, if only because it feels the most refined, and Honourable Mention to ‘maybe’ by Machine Gun Kelly and Bring Me The Horizon - the hook and Oli Sykes are at least good here and for what it is, I’ll take it. I don’t expect an MGK album bomb next week, but we never know, so stay tuned for that fun experience!