billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 27, 2024

I said last week that the album bomb from J. Cole would be both one of the most and least consequential impacts on the Hot 100, and that appears to still be true… but I’ll admit there’s a part of me that looks at the Hot 100 right now, with the knowledge that Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department is going to wreak havoc on the charts, and then I see Future and Metro Boomin’s second album bomb was is still credible - did better than HNDRXX did back in 2017 while following the same template - I just know it’s going to be wiped away in record time, so how much of anything here is going to last… it’s an open question.

But hell, that’s not even the most insane story this week - that comes in our top ten and a new #1 that I don’t think anyone could have predicted at the start of this year: ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier! It’s not going to stick at this position, let me make that clear… but when the streaming is just so strong and there’s just enough sales and radio to fill in the gaps, it was enough to get to the top - keep in mind ‘Take Me To Church was perpetually stranded at #2 behind either Taylor Swift or ‘Uptown Funk’, and the former is coming around next week to knock him off again! And yet it was enough to creep past ‘Like That’ by Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar - I think some of the diminished impact comes from Future and Metro’s second album bomb release flooding the market, but while it has radio traction the sales just aren’t plugging in the gaps, and until we get a proper Kendrick response to Drake, the beef may be sitting on the back burner for a bit. All of this strands ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone at #3, where there’s increasingly less of a chance he can go to #1 even despite stability in all channels and a strong radio push - maybe he has a shot in two weeks, but honestly that might be a total crapshoot. But hanging right behind him is ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims at #4 - it seems like it’s hit a peak on the radio, and with sales and streaming still relatively stable, it’ll probably have a shot to stick around and at least it did get to #1. Next we have ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ by Beyonce at #5, and I’m just not sure how to gauge it right now: the radio is good but it seems to have shorter legs, and streaming and sales are both slipping actively, which leaves me wondering where the COWBOY CARTER promo is going, and we’ll get to more of that in a bit. Then we saw a slight jump for ‘Lovin On Me’ by Jack Harlow to #6 - it’s in complete freefall, the only reason it regained a position is because J. Cole’s ‘7 Minute Drill’ fell off the Hot 100 entirely, and I’m not sure which of these cases are worse in the long run. But then we have a new debut in the top ten: ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter at #7. Let’s make this clear, she’s working uphill without official TikTok promo - although the sound is all over the app through dubious workarounds - but with streaming already established and radio on the move, it looks like Island/Republic is pressing the button to finally get her promotion moving properly the old-fashioned way, it’s going to be fascinating to see if it holds momentum with her tourmate bulldozing the charts next week. On a similar note, ‘we can’t be friends (wait for your love)’ by Ariana Grande held at #8 - thank incredibly strong radio traction for this one - and on a similar note ‘Stick Season’ by Noah Kahan spiked to #9, because adult alternative radio will never let this go. Finally returning to #10, ‘Saturn’ by SZA reenters the Hot 100 - where, interesting note, the ‘official’ version of the song is now gone, so it looks like it was allowed to circulate on TikTok for a quick exception early, and then all the bootlegs showed up to sustain virality as the song builds conventional traction in all channels… why do I think this is going to be a consistent thing for a lot of artists going forward, because speak of the devil, I just checked TikTok and Taylor Swift appears to have been allowed to use her official account to add the new album because that’s a spike in traffic you wouldn’t want to fumble!

This naturally takes us to our losers and dropouts, where as expected it was chaotic, although less so than you might think in the dropouts, because a lot of this feels like album bombs replacing each other, with a few extraneous casualties like ‘Mamaw’s House’ by Thomas Rhett and Morgan Wallen getting knocked out well early, ‘Burn It Down’ by Parker McCollum maybe having a shot for the year-end list, and ‘yes, and?’ by Ariana Grande probably getting there on early chart position but it’s way dicier than I think her team could have predicted given it’s a lead-off single! Now the losers are tougher to gauge here, so let’s start with the expected album bomb casualties: ‘We Don’t Trust You’ at 86 and ‘Young Metro’ with The Weeknd at 72 by Future and The Weeknd, ‘Huntin Wabbitz’ at 98 and ‘Crocodile Tearz’ at 90 by J. Cole, and most concerningly from Beyonce, ‘JOLENE’ at 88 and ‘II MOST WANTED’ with Miley Cyrus at 47 - can someone tell Beyonce’s camp that squandering such an obvious crossover radio hit is really stupid, and she’s going to lose out if it doesn’t pick up traction? Outside of those… ‘Selfish’ by Justin Timberlake slid to 60 - it’s probably going to make a year-end list just on radio inertia here - ‘23’ by Chayce Beckham fell to 74, ‘Training Season’ by Dua Lipa hit 78 - someone contact her camp too, this run is starting to look very concerning - ‘Soak City (Do It)’ by 310babii hit 82, ‘Bandit’ by Don Toliver’ skidded to 93, and ‘Home’ by Good Neighbours lost all of its gains to 96… good.

This takes us to our gains and returns… well, just gains, there were no returns this week, and an odd crop of gains as well. Part of this is the reality that J. Cole’s album bomb impact hit higher on the charts than Future’s, which leads to songs in the midrange getting small rebounds… or in the case of ‘Tu Name’ by Fuerza Regida up to 68, ‘Back Then Right Now’ by Tyler Hubbard at 62, and the continuing surge for ‘Gata Only’ by FloyyMenor and Cris Mj to 27, capitalizing on existing momentum. But we also saw spikes for ‘Hell N Back’ by Bakar and Summer Walker at 53 - a good song built for the season under Epic, this is well timed and ‘Let’s Go’ by Key Glock surging to 59 off the return, along with some expected country pickups like ‘Bulletproof’ by Nate Smith off the debut to 64 thanks to radio and ‘Wind Up Missin’ You’ by Tucker Wetmore at 75 capitalizing on limited Morgan Wallen. The two surprises here are from ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ by Luke Combs at 29 - it seems like it has both streaming and radio traction, the sleeper hit is finally taking off even despite having clinched its year end spot - and then ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ by Chappell Roan up huge to 44! I’m honestly not sure how to contextualize her success right here outside of her streaming across the board going bonkers - it’s not like she’s got a ton in the way of TikTok either as she’s on Island which rolls under UMG… which has me wondering between her and Sabrina Carpenter who on Island is plugged in properly with Spotify in these trying times, there’s something going on there! Yes, touring behind Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo inevitably help, but that doesn’t happen without the right connections to make the momentum ramp up. But we are in large album territory for Future and Metro Boomin here, thus I’m focusing on the best, the worst, and the top twenty, and outside of those… ‘Nobody Knows My Struggle’ at 100, ‘Came to The Party’ at 99, ‘Streets Made Me A King’ at 95, ‘Nights Like This’ at 81, ‘This Sunday’ at 77 - really tough choice to cut this one, I love that sample - ‘Luv Bad Bitches’ at 73 - I like this song way more than I should - ‘Show Of Hands’ with A$AP Rocky at 71 - I’m not acknowledging Rocky here, that verse was corny as hell, ‘All My Life’ with Lil Baby at 61, ‘Jealous’ at 54, ‘Drink N Dance’ at 51, ‘Out Of My Hands’ at 41, ‘Red Leather’ with J. Cole at 39 - I’ve not seen an artist squander so much good will so fast as Cole has, and kind of a shame because thematically I like what the verse is doing here - and ‘We Still Don’t Trust You’ with The Weeknd at 22.

So now for a slightly more reasonable list of new arrivals here…

94. ‘Feel It’ by d4vd - …you know, there would be a part of me that’d feel bad for dv4d - it seems like his career has been very stop-and-start, he’s stuck on Interscope which bars him from official TikTok promo, and while this song is tied to the newest season of Invincible, this is also the first I’ve heard from him in months. If only I remotely liked his music… but even then that didn’t prepare me for taking a formerly stripped back amateurish singer-songwriter into… well, imagine Post Malone making nu-disco complete with pre-chorus warbles with a far rougher vocal mix and the feel that the entire mix was pulled out of overprocessed plastic with the slightly noisier guitar and strings given no room to breathe or pay anything off! And sure, the groove has some swing and d4vd has a better falsetto than I expected, but then we get to the pretty basic love song in the lyrics where on the second verse, the girl is apparently talking a lot about their new connection, he tells her off, and she’s now uncomfortable and confused… I mean, it fits the average d4vd song, but it confuses any vibe, and the song ends way too abortively to address any of it! To me this feels like an artist that Interscope doesn’t know how to manage so they push him into something that doesn’t match his comfort zone and the entire song doesn’t work at all - not terrible, but this feels like a cavalcade of errors, I’d skip it.

92. ‘Dirt Cheap’ by Cody Johnson - So Cody Johnson has done a lot to prove he can hang in mainstream Nashville while still keep his sound, even netting tangible charting hits, and his track record has been on the uptick, I was kind of looking forward to this, a late album single from last year. And yeah, it’s really good - predominantly anchored in spare piano and touches of acoustic guitar as the pedal steel wells up, Johnson is more than capable of meeting the organic neotraditional moment as he tells the story of land developers coming up to an old man, asking to buy him out, and he tells them no - this is the place where he raised his daughter, buried his dog, proposed to his wife, and you can’t sell those kinds of memories. And I really like how the hook subtly changes every time, adding a little more emotive detail to flesh out the story and dodge the quip that it could be seen as a bit list-driven; honestly, it’s such a 90s move that I’m entirely onboard for it. Now in reality those developers would resort to scummy tactics to disingenuously target the elderly to force them off the land at a bargain, but the sentimentality is so well-performed here, I’m just fine indulging it - it’ll be interesting to see if this gets radio traction as it feels slower and more thoughtful, but as it is, really strong song, check it out.

91. ‘I Think I’m In Love With You’ by Chris Stapleton - The problem I’ve come to have with Higher by Chris Stapleton is twofold, the first being that ‘White Horse’ goes so goddamn hard that it kind of overshadows the rest of the album, which might be why it’s taken a while for Stapleton to deliver a new crossover song. The other problem is that the vinyl is ridiculously overpriced everywhere I’ve looked especially as I wouldn’t classify this is as Stapleton’s best by any measure, but let’s focus on a song that the majority of critics like regardless, for me it’s the second best song on the album! And it’s a refreshingly simple smoky soul jam - Dave Cobb delivers a rare, impeccably balanced bassline, the drums are perfectly playful as the lush strings and Hammond organ accent the watery guitar licks, and Stapleton can holler with the best of them. If I have a critique it’s that the lyrics can feel a bit basic - Stapleton is painting with a broad brush here, hoping to tap into the ‘classic standard’ template that comes with writing songs that can feel like they’ve always been there, but when he executes it so well, it’s really hard to complain. I dunno if this’ll have the run ‘White Horse’ did, especially heading into the summer, but when a song is this great, I have to hope!

79. ‘Overseas’ by Ken Carson - …well, this has been long-in-coming. As someone who doesn’t care for Playboi Carti in the best of times, I’ve kept the acts on his Opium label a healthy distance with the general hope that they’d never chart; I’ve seen how their fans have acted in response to reviews, and while I don’t have any divorce documents they can leak, I’m sure they’d find some way to make my life interesting in the worst way possible. But in following A Great Chaos last year, the single from his upcoming project More Chaos actually managed to chart - and considering his deal is also through interscope which removes official Tiktok promo from the equation, the groundswell appears to be tangible. And… look, I’ll admit I was initially kind of intrigued by the frenetic blur of glittery synths backed by the trap hi-hat, but then the bass swamps everything with the midrange chiptune, which doesn’t really produce groove so much as an overcompressed smear, and then Ken Carson starts squawking for generic brand name porn, smoking weed, and getting head for just over two minutes for two hooks and one verse. I did roll my eyes at the end of the verse when he talked about an ex slitting her wrists when she was dumped, but no, he’s just trolling, he pretends she doesn’t exist - that’s a punchline Train had on ‘50 Ways To Say Goodbye’, does he honestly think this is cool? Look, I get the point of rage is that it goes off in the pit live, but without any crescendo or tangible vocal intensity, I’m not impressed; the production is at least trying something interesting, but I can’t endorse this.

67. ‘All To Myself’ by Future & Metro Boomin ft. The Weeknd - so here’s the funny thing: this is my second favourite song on the album after ‘Always Be My Fault’, which is pure trap goth camp and also includes The Weeknd, but that didn’t chart… and yet this is facing some remarkably stiff competition among the best of this week to be considered! And I think this is the song that really convinced me on Future’s R&B side - the liberal Isley Brothers sample against the blocky trap percussion, the guitar wailing over the watery hook, even The Weeknd who mostly spends his verse taking potshots at Drake by thanking God he didn’t sign to OVO and mocking one of his gang affiliates for making TikToks. But I think Future is what sold me on this - he’s only looking at one girl and trying to show some tangible vulnerability, and while some of it is just stock flexing, you can tell there’s something different about her in playing classy and understated and showing empathy towards him that has Future actually trying; for a Future song, the attraction is remarkably romantic, or at least Future’s attempt at it, which has some charm to it. It’s a rare moment, but it’s a sign of sincere emotional investment and maybe even maturity that we don’t get from Future often, and I think it’s a good look for him - I think this is a great song, absolutely worth hearing.

58. ‘Tell Ur Girlfriend’ by Lay Bankz - It’s going to be very interesting looking back on this era of TikTok viral acts who get traction less because the promo is there and more because the lack of serious UMG competition and Warner or Sony affiliates getting their act together. Hence we have Lay Bankz - she’s out of Philadelphia, she got signed to APG, which is under notoriously questionable record executive Mike Caren with a distribution deal through Warner, she put out an EP last summer, and this… is not on it, her first crossover success. And… there’s a part of me that wants to be kind because I think Lay Bankz has talent in her flow and ability to adapt R&B flair to a mix that… let’s be polite, doesn’t flatter it. But we can add this to the canon of songs where she and her new partner are cheating with each other and Lay Bankz wants to put it all out of in the open. Okay, nothing wrong with transparency… but I think at the end of the day she might be in the clear, because this production is so ugly that I can imagine everyone wanting to get away and fast! What is with that buzzy synth that sounds a Casio preset from the 80s with that fizzy, cheap-sounding drum machine - it sounds like a demo and a bad one, with no organic texture in the production but a mix that constantly sounds like they can’t catch the proper tempo in its two minute runtime! So yeah… this is not good - for everyone’s sake, let’s hope the virality burns out fast.

43. ‘Illusion’ by Dua Lipa - I cannot be the only one who is legit concerned about this new Dua Lipa album - I liked ‘Houdini’ a lot, and ‘Training Season’ could have worked if the hook actually had punch, but they’re not moving the way the biggest singles on Future Nostalgia did, and given that she’s on Warner and can promote on TikTok, that’s a really bad sign! And with this… yikes, this might be the weakest single to date, even if I like the sentiment at its core: Dua Lipa can see through the illusion that this guy is setting up for her, but is amused enough by the vibe and it could be worth a throwaway dance that night. But everything else about this doesn’t really work - the groove ramps pretty well, but the percussion feels weirdly thin in its skittering shuffle even when it gets a bit meatier off the guitar, but even that gets pulled into a goopy synth mess courtesy of Danny L Harle and Kevin Parker that warps and bubbles but never really lets itself take off. Or maybe it’s just the sinking feeling that the hook is weak: Dua Lipa going ‘ooh-ooh-ooh’ all over the hook doesn’t feel that sharp or interesting. I dunno, it’s just not a very interesting song, and everything about this album rollout has felt questionable - this is just forgettable, but in the long run, that’s a problem.

36. ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozey - Alright, I’ll give Beyonce some credit: I did not expect any of the new acts that she platformed off of COWBOY CARTER to pick up steam, and yet thanks to being on the right label with the right song at the right time, we have this from Shaboozey. Initially he was on Republic for his first album, but wound up on EMPIRE which gives him a little flexibility to go viral… and hey, I’m not against a good flip of ‘Tipsy’, especially if it’s not immediately obvious. And I’ll admit this gripped me faster than I probably would have liked - it initially gave me the vibe of those cross-genre flips of various rap songs that can come across as novelty at best or corny at worst, especially opening with a very familiar acoustic riff and whistle and handclap - but Shaboozey has an exasperated hangdog charisma that worked well against the choppy acoustics, plentiful fiddle, and stomping, singalong hook! This is firmly in the grand tradition of barroom bangers that I can see going off in both the country and rap establishments… and hell, when the hook is that infectious, I can really see this working so damn well! If EMPIRE pushes this properly, this becomes a huge hit in 2024… this is a ton of fun, don’t screw this up!

7. ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter - …you know, at some point Sabrina Carpenter is going to release something I’m interested in - ‘Feather’ was fine when I first covered it months ago, but I’ve had zero interest in going back to it, and I didn’t have expectations for ‘Espresso’, beyond hearing that she was jumping into a gauzy, nu-disco groove that was reminiscent of Doja Cat… which is exactly what happened, down to the gauzy vocal layering and guitars and solid bass groove, although I can’t say I was impressed by that blaring synth out of nowhere. And the central sentiment of the song has that same self-love that can underscore some Doja Cat songs - this guy is so enraptured with her, he can’t sleep because she’s like espresso - but to me it’s considerably clunkier and I think I know why: for as effortless and a-list as Carpenter wants to place herself, there’s an increasingly laboured, ‘aren’t I clever’ attitude to her writing that feels very cynical, where you get Mountain Dew and Nintendo references and I can immediately hear the commercials this will soundtrack. For comparison, I tend to be a big fan of pop stars where I can tell the effort is there to go over the top, even if it doesn’t work at all, so when I see an act try to assume that position on ‘birthright’ when the mechanism and formula behind it is so obvious, I’m not a fan, especially as I’m just nowhere near convinced Sabrina Carpenter is as likable as she’s framed to be. Maybe that’s a lingering bad taste from her Hollywood records albums, of which the most notable leap to Island is that the machine around her is working better; that doesn’t feel special to me. This… it’s fine, but like with ‘Feather’ or coincidentally my morning espresso, I’m going to forget it in record time.

So that was our week… honestly, a really damn good week, where I’m going to give ‘Feel It’ by d4vd the worst of the week and Dishonourable Mention to ‘Tell Ur Girlfriend’ by Lay Bankz mostly on production - hell, I’m shocked Ken Carson dodged it here! But for the best… man, the competition is stiff… and honestly, on the hook along I’m going with ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozey, it is that infectious, my god! Honourable Mention is a tie: ‘I Think I’m In Love With You’ by Chris Stapleton, and ‘All To Myself’ by Future, Metro Boomin, and The Weeknd - man, Cody Johnson was really close to getting here too. But next week… the Tortured Poets Department is coming, brace yourselves…