billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 4, 2020
This week does not feel as tumultuous as I was expecting. Yes, part of this is the result of so many album bombs hitting the Hot 100 in quick succession, which has meant that many of the dramatic gains and losses have had their impact blunted, but some of it also comes with expectations being met, not exceeded. Yeah, The Weeknd did very well and had some considerable achievements… but I did see the majority of it coming and it’s not like the album is so great that its mere presence elevates the Hot 100 to a new standard - yes, replacing Lil Uzi Vert is an upgrade, but again, I’ve seen better.
Granted, this conversation does start on a high note thanks to our top ten, where as I predicted, ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd finally took the #1 spot. It kept up the radio momentum, sales were really strong, and it finally got the on-demand streaming boost it needed… the big question is whether this is sustainable, and that’s tough to say. Radio and sales are likely to hold up, but streaming is a slightly different question, which brings us to ‘The Box’ by Roddy Ricch at #2. Now I’ve predicted this would fall off for a few weeks now, but it still has radio momentum to spare and frankly disgusting amounts of YouTube, even if the sales have dropped. What I’d argue is the most interesting conversation comes with ‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa at #3 - it rules the radio but not by a huge margin and it seemed to hit a small peak there this week, and I’m just not sure she’s got the streaming saturation to beat out her competition here. Case in point, on the back of streaming even as the radio fades, ‘Heartless’ by The Weeknd has surged back into the top 10 at #4 - I doubt it’ll last, but it’s still sizable! All of this leaves ‘Circles’ by Post Malone in a weird spot at #5 - it’s losing in all categories, but just has enough inertia to stick around, which doesn’t seem to be a luxury ‘Life Is Good’ by Future ft. Drake has down at #6. Again, YouTube and streaming are huge, but the radio is tanking and I’m not sure this’ll stick longer. This takes us to ‘Adore You’ by Harry Styles holding at #7, which is really just here on a radio surge - that’ll protect it from album bombs - and sadly that’s also the case for ‘Intentions’ by Justin Bieber ft. Quavo at #8, except overall, it’s got more traction across the board. Then, making her unfortunately tepid entry into the top 10, ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat at #9 - pretty consistent across the board, it’ll stick around - and finally, ‘ROXANNE’ by Arizona Zervas stumbling down to #10, which is not surprising as it’s just tanking across the board.
On that note, losers and dropouts… and really, the only one worth talking about is ‘Good As Hell’ by Lizzo clinching her year-end spot, because while I still kind of like ‘I Wish Grandpas Never Die’ by Riley Green, it was never going to make a serious run, as has been the case for ‘We Back’ by Jason Aldean and ‘Futsal Shuffle 2020’ by Lil Uzi Vert. This takes us to our losers… most of whom are album bomb collapses, so let’s start with Lil Uzi Vert: from Eternal Atake we had ‘P2’ at 70, ‘That Way’ at 73, ‘Baby Pluto’ at 74, and ‘Lo Mein’ at 87, while from Luv vs. The World 2 we had ‘Myron’ at 54, ‘Bean (Kobe)’ ft. Chief Keef at 86, and ‘Yessirskill’ with 21 Savage at 93. Then we had the remnants of Lil Baby’s album bomb that still aren’t gone: ‘Woah’ at 42, ‘Grace’ with 42 Dugg at 85, and ‘Heatin Up’ with Gunna at 91, along with some residual slide for Bad Bunny having ‘La Difficil’ at 100 and ‘Si Veo A Tu Mama’ at 92. Outside of that… well, we had the continued and expected losses for ‘B.S.’ by Jhene Aiko and H.E.R. at 76, as well as the fading virality of ‘Suicidal’ by YNW Melly and Juice WRLD at 35 and ‘Godzilla’ by Eminem ft. Juice WRLD at 38. And outside of the slow fade for ‘Lose You To Love Me’ by Selena Gomez at 47, we also saw the bizarre jumps from last week with ‘Homemade’ by Jake Owen and ‘Oprah’s Bank Account’ by Lil Yachty, Drake and DaBaby fall back to earth at 50 and 75 respectively.
Now granted, given many of our returns and gains will likely be what survives the album bombs, I’m not exactly enthused by what we got left. Yes, ‘After Hours’ by The Weeknd is back at 22 and ‘homecoming queen?’ by Kelsea Ballerini rode her album boost to 65… but was anyone asking for ‘OUT WEST’ by JACKBOYS and Young Thug to come back at 78, or ‘Into The Unknown’ by Idina Menzel and AURORA back at 97. Hell, the only reason I think ‘Heartless’ by Diplo and Morgan Wallen returned at 90 was people mixing up the titles with The Weeknd. Speaking of that, in our gains we already talked about ‘Heartless’ at #4, but what shocked me was the amount of success for debuts and continued gains - which yes, I’m happy ‘I Hope You’re Happy Now’ by Carly Pearce and Lee Brice is rising to 64, but seeing it with ‘Slow Dance In A Parking Lot’ by Jordan Davis at 49 or especially ‘Sunday Best’ by Surfaces at 62? Similar case with our debuts picking up: I like ‘Does To Me’ by Luke Combs and Eric Church at 63 and ‘Savage’ by Megan Thee Stallion getting a huge boost to 20 thanks to monstrous sales and a lot of streams, but did it have to bring ‘death bed’ by Powfu and beabaddoobee to 59, or ‘Supalonely’ by BENEE and Gus Dapperton to 71, or ‘Beer Can’t Fix’ by Thomas Rhett and Jon Pardi to 68? Even our returns leave me with questions: yes, I like ‘Come Thru’ by Summer Walker and Usher at 88, but along with it we got ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi at 77! Finally there’s ‘Know Your Worth’ by Khalid and Disclosure at 82… I have no further comments other than no expectation this’ll last. But we are in an album bomb situation for After Hours, so the songs out of the top 40 and neither best nor worst, which gives us ‘Until I Bleed Out’ at 80, ‘Repeat After Me’ at 69, and ‘Save Your Tears’ at 41.
But now to a surprisingly manageable list of new arrivals, starting with…
95. ‘the other girl’ by Kelsea Ballerini & Halsey - I mean, it’s the obvious single choice? Look, I get why this song is being pushed: Halsey has had consistent success with ‘you should be sad’, Kelsea Ballerini’s label wants the obvious crossover, and if they’re going to do it by reimagining Reba McEntire and Linda Davis’ ‘Does He Love You’ with the same morally complicated framing, that’s something I could really appreciate. Now, this is not that - what could be - but I do appreciate the attempt, mostly in sketching both girls and how their attention is most on each other, but not precisely blame, and the two women have decent chemistry… unfortunately, we’re stuck the lumpy bass beat, faded buzzing effects, and overmixed percussion that holds back from a decent melody coming to the forefront, so the entire track winds up overproduced and sour, and with nothing close to a real climax and somehow sounding less country than ‘you should be sad’!. It’s still good, and I like the fact they’re trying for more storytelling… let’s just hope for competent production next time around.
94. ‘Walk Em Down’ by NLE Choppa ft. Roddy Ricch - well, this is one way NLE Choppa can actually get a hit. Granted, I’m not sure this is what will get there - the percussion is really overmixed off the rubbery beat and faded acoustics, and NLE Choppa is still not an interesting presence in his rote gunplay, especially given how squonky the second half of his hook is. This would be where I’d look at Roddy Ricch’s verse… and I’m just not as impressed. His jittery melodic flips work when they play off production that flatters the kooky weirdness, whereas here he’s stuck with a thicker beat and just sounds off, and the flubbed rhymes don’t help. As it is… it isn’t bad, per se, but like most forgettable trap, I don’t see this stick around much.
55. ‘Roses (Imanbek Remix)’ by SAINt JHN - well, about damn time this got here. So, for context the original ‘Roses’ first dropped in 2016 and wasn’t all that good - going back to it now it sounds like a Bryson Tiller riff with sharper trap snares, muddier vocals, and a slightly more gothic vibe in its swampy flexing. This remix pitches up the vocals, adds a sharper pulsating electro synth to slightly diminish the trap elements, and it’s got some sinuous presence to it… I probably like it a little more, but it also winds up feeling kind of anonymous through the remix? It’s not like ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’ where the remix really recontextualized and improved the original arrangement, this is just taking a pretty rote trap/R&B song and turning it into a pretty rote electronic cut. Not bad, but I’m not likely to go back to it.
45. ‘Faith’ by The Weeknd - honestly, I’m not surprised this song didn’t fall within the top 40, but it is the best cut here that’s not either of the lead-off singles, mostly because it tilts most into the atonal gothic darkness that’s surprisingly missing from a lot of the songs on this project, especially with that sharper pulsating grooves courtesy of Illangelo and Metro Boomin and The Weeknd’s flagrant heel turn into the pitch darkness he’d been trying to deflect most of the album. Hell, the loss of faith on the song is actually a pretty solid anchor to that gothic presence, especially with his thicker multi-tracking, and careening into the murk right after ‘Heartless’ and before the manic searching of ‘Blinding Lights’… yeah, terrific song, and while we’re on the subject…
39. ‘Escape From LA’ by The Weeknd - the most telling thing about this song is that it’s less about the girl than it might seem - The Weeknd might be trying to frame her as the symbol of shallow debauchery that runs rampant through Los Angeles and the explicit references to Bella Hadid makes the TMI nature obvious, but you could also argue LA is a creature of temptation in her own right, and that he’s still succumbing to her, even down to the end and that cheats him out of being a better man. It’s potent stuff… which makes me with the instrumental was a little better - I like the faded warp of guitars deep in the background, but this is a slow-paced dirge even with the trap groove coming up and shuddering into moments of tension, but even with the switch-up from elegance into pitch-blank failure, I wish the percussion didn’t feel as muffled and drained of energy, which becomes the warping vibe for the rest of the song. Otherwise… yeah, really potent stuff, unlike…
32. ‘Snowchild’ by The Weeknd - not gonna lie, The Weeknd making another desaturated coke song where the hi-hat is more prominent than any melody can feel a little tiresome, especially when the song doesn’t have much in the way of momentum and the song devolves into an extended flex with some questionable lines: the double rhyme of Swayze, the ‘futuristic sex, give her Philip K Dick’, and how disposable it all feels in the end… yes, I get that it’s the point to seem tedious and played out, but there’s got to be a way to make the song interesting or sharper while getting that point - maybe dialling a bit back on the Autotune would have gotten there. And while we’re on the topic of questionable percussion…
28. ‘Too Late’ by The Weeknd - ah look, the worst song on After Hours… and I’m not even going to say it’s terrible, but it’s between the flat synths and incredibly cheap sounding grainy tap that’s clearly pulling from UK garage and not doing it well, especially with the slurred over delivery and influx of vocal filters, it’s not pleasant, especially when the content starts feeling increasingly redundant trying to split the difference between trying to cling to this girl and acknowledge it’s too late to salvage anything. And that’s before the airhorn cuts through and you’re expected to get hyped to a song with no momentum. Yeah, not good - next!
25. ‘Hardest To Love’ by The Weeknd - every synthesizer on this song sounds like it’s imported from the soft-focus late 80s and early 90s side of R&B - broken up by the whirring shudder of drum n’ bass percussion, but when you’re sticking with major chords it sets a very distinctive vibe that feels more than a little saccharine for this album. And this is the tone for The Weeknd I find the least interesting: he’s trying to be the better man and let her down easy because he’s hard to love and he’s kind of amazed she’s still here… I’m not going to call it self-serving and it does capture a mood, but it’s a pop side that falls a little flat for me and has even less lyrical personality than usual. And while we’re here…
24. ‘Scared To Live’ by The Weeknd - and following on that same timbre, we get a big swelling power ballad where he dumps for good and tries to tell her not to be scared to love again, even as he tries to spin the relationship with one last desperate bit of positive energy. And… yeah, it’s better because it goes bigger and The Weeknd has the personality to sell it, but again, these synth and keyboard tones are not far removed from easy listening in a different era, and the Phil Collins gated drums aren’t changing that impression! Not bad, but not great either.
21. ‘Alone Again’ by The Weeknd - the lead-off song from the album… and I’ll admit, this is also not one of my favourites, mostly because of The Weeknd. He slurs through the song against the watery, twinkling cascades, he’s clearly trying to imitate the muddy effects of a drug overdose to set the scene in the darkest side of this hedonistic wallow… but I thought the potency of the best Weeknd songs was striking a balance between the danger of his debauchery and its reckless nihilistic cool, and here that balance spills way too hard into the former… except then we get the vaguely soothing tones of the flattened blare of synths which tries to tilt for darkness and then never sticks the landing… it just kind of fades out. I dunno, I get why it was trying to start the album like this, but for me, it doesn’t really stick. Again, not bad, but not really good either.
16. ‘In Your Eyes’ by The Weeknd - I’m not surprised this is being pushed as the next single - it’s got the big saxophone, it’s easily the poppiest song on the project, it’s about him trying to dance away the pain and want to be with this girl who’s also got that similar deep-seated pain but he’s not going to let it define her despite her lies. And sure, it’s a really good song as a result and will be a strong single… but let’s not say thiat isn’t safe or that The Weeknd isn’t delivering a pretty rote performance, because there’s not a lot of intensity or sharper flair in either his singing or the writing or the production! It’s good, but when he plays it this safe, it’s a step away from great, at least for me.
But that was our week - pretty agreeable over all, if the worst of the week winds up being ‘Too Late’ with ‘Walk Em Down’ by NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch as the Dishonourable Mention. The best… yeah, both are going to The Weeknd here with ‘Faith’ as the best of the week and ‘Escape From LA’ as the Honourable Mention - ‘In Your Eyes’ was close, but I think the writing is a little sharper on the escape. Next week… let’s see how much Dua Lipa can penetrate in the fallout, stay tuned!