billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 6, 2024
This is my tenth year of Billboard BREAKDOWN… and there is a very real possibility that this is the busiest week I’ve ever had to work with. Not just the album bomb from Future and Metro Boomin that had a lot of top 20 impact, but also the deluxe tracks from GUTS by Olivia Rodrigo, plus the Hozier EP charting against all odds, plus even more! That many new songs unleashes havoc upon the Hot 100, where I’m honestly not sure what will last come next week, and with the lingering UMG / TikTok controversy, it’s hard for me to make any consistent predictions especially given we likely have a Beyonce album bomb coming next week!
So let’s not waste time - this episode is going to be long as hell as it is - the top 10, where in debuting at #1, we have ‘Like That’ by Future and Metro Boomin, featuring Kendrick Lamar. Let’s make this clear, Future and Metro Boomin broke through pretty much exclusively on monstrous streaming, but the few that got the highest also had sales, and this was the big one, closely followed by ‘Type Shit’ by Future, Metro Boomin, Travis Scott and Playboi Carti at #2 which really just had streaming. Then we have ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone, and I would feel bad for him to be so thoroughly blocked if the song wasn’t terrible - there was a bit sales push, the radio was strong, and outside of new debuts he would have won on streaming! It was enough to beat that one week from ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims, which fell to #4 as streaming slid back and radio growth seems to be slowing a bit. But this takes us to our next debut in the top 10, and one that I didn’t see coming at all: ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier at #5! We’ll talk more about Hozier’s revival later on, but between the streams and sales, this is Hozier’s best performing song since ‘Take Me To Church’ a decade ago, and it’s mind-blowing how well it’s performed, especially as right behind it we have more Future and Metro Boomin with ‘Cinderella’ featuring Travis Scott at #6! This puts ‘Lovin On Me’ by Jack Harlow at #7 in a very odd place - streaming is in the tank and radio is falling fast, so he was going to lose positions anyway, the question will be how much this downward momentum picks up! Then we have still more Future and Metro Boomin with ‘We Don’t Trust You’ at #8 and ‘Young Metro’ with The Weeknd at #9 - look, this is the most I’ve liked a Future album in years, I’m a little stunned it’s doing so well but I think at the moment I appreciate being along for the ride! Finally, ‘we can’t be friends (wait for your love)’ by Ariana Grande slid hard to #10 - she’s got traction in every channel, I just don’t think any radio growth was going to beat what Future and Metro brought to bear.
This takes us to our losers and dropouts and my god, there’s a lot of the latter: if you wanted a purge of the Hot 100 of a lot of old songs, this will be what does it! Let’s list off the big ones that clinched year-end positions: ‘vampire’ by Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Pretty Little Poison’ by Warren Zeiders, ‘Save Me’ by Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson, ‘What Was I Made For?’ by Billie EIlish, and from Morgan Wallen, both ‘Thinkin’ Bout Me’ and ‘Last Night’ are finally gone, thank God! And not for nothing, this also had the impact of wiping away a lot of minor hits that may never recover: ‘FE!N’ by Travis Scott and Playboi Carti, ‘Harley Quinn’ by Fuerza Regida and Marshmello, ‘Perro Negro’ by Bad Bunny and Feid, ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’ by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, ‘nee-nah’ by 21 Savage, Travis Scott, and Metro Boomin, and from Peso Pluma, ‘Bellakeo’ with Anitta and ‘Igual Que Un Angel’ with Kali Uchis. Now moving onto the losers… oh great, over a third of the Hot 100… and I kind of want to call out all of them because we’re going to need a level set by the end of this. So the only song that survived off the debut was ‘Enough (Miami)’ by Cardi B to 44, and in the list of all the gains lost we have ‘End Of Beginning’ by Djo at 21, ‘Never Lose Me’ by Flo Milli at 29, ‘Selfish’ by Justin Timberlake at 46, ‘Get In With Me’ by Bossman Dlow at 63, ‘Bandit’ by Don Toliver at 77, and ‘Tuscon Too Late’ by Jordan Davis at 97. Then let’s get to our continued losses, which outside of ‘act ii: date @ 8’ by 4batz and Drake at 31, are all pretty much Ariana Grande: ‘the boy is mine’ at 60, ‘yes, and’ at 61, ‘supernatural’ at 80, ‘bye’ at 86, and ‘eternal sunshine’ at 87. And for the rest… well, Dua Lipa saw losses for ‘Houdini’ to 42 and ‘Training Season’ at 71, Nicki Minaj saw losses for ‘Everybody’ with Lil Uzi Vert at 66 and ‘FTCU’ at 82, and Xavi lost momentum with ‘La Diabla’ at 56 and ‘La Victima’ at 96. Then working from the bottom up, ‘Home’ by Good Neighbours at 95, ‘You Broke My Heart’ by Drake at 94, ‘One Call’ by Rich Amiri at 92, ‘Spin You Around (1/24)’ by Morgan Wallen at 91, ‘Sensational’ by Chris Brown, Davido & Lojay at 89, ‘Breathe’ by Yeat at 85, ‘I Can Feel It’ by Kane Brown at 84, ‘Where It Ends’ by Bailey Zimmerman at 79, and ‘Surround Sound’ by JID, 21 Savage and Baby Tate at 78. Finally, ‘One Of The Girls’ by The Weeknd, JENNIE and Lily Rose Depp at 74, ‘Mamaw’s House’ by Thomas Rhett and Morgan Wallen at 68, ‘Soak City (Do It)’ by 310babii at 64, ‘Wildflowers and Wild Horses’ by Lainey Wilson at 59, ‘exes’ by Tate McRae at 57, ‘Wild Ones’ by Jessie Murph and Jelly roll at 55, ‘Yeah Glo!’ by GloRilla hit 49, ‘Is It Over Now?’ by Taylor Swift at 47, ‘Paint The Town Red’ by Doja Cat at 43, and ‘TRUCK BED’ by HARDY at 39.
Now thankfully we have no returns, and the only gain we have is ‘Gata Only’ by FloyyMenor and Cris Mj for some ungodly reason to 83, but the story here is the album bomb from Future and Metro Boomin, which absolutely qualifies for my rules surrounding discussing the best, worst, and top 20. Outside of those… well, working from the bottom up we have ‘Where My Twin @’ at 62, ‘Seen It All’ at 54, ‘WTFYM’ at 52, ‘Ain’t No Love’ at 41, ‘GTA’ at 40, ‘Everyday Hustle’ with Rick Ross at 38, ‘Runnin Outta Time’ at 36, ‘Fried (She A Vibe)’ at 33, ‘Magic Don Juan (Princess Diana)’ at 27, and ‘Claustrophobic’ at 24.
But that leaves a ton of new arrivals - because neither Olivia Rodrigo or Hozier fall under my album rules, we’ve got over twenty entries to cover, so with all of that…
99. ‘Girl I’ve Always Been’ by Olivia Rodrigo - I’ll admit to being a little surprised that the deluxe re-release of GUTS has performed as well as it has, but I’ve also heard a lot of really positive reception, even from the folks who were more lukewarm on the original album last year, so I did have some high hopes for these songs… and I’ll be damned that this was a pretty fun introduction. The warm acoustic strumming and bright cymbals that anchor Rodrigo playing to a huskier delivery in a playful kissoff has the vibe of a campfire song, and while Rodrigo certainly gets to vamp on the second verse, you can tell this has the feel of a looser throwaway. That said, I actually really like the observations of the guys in this song, where you watch the manipulative side slide from tears to just anger as they keep trying to say Rodrigo has changed while she really hasn’t - they just never knew her that well. It feels a little short for my tastes - a bridge could have really kicked this up a notch - but otherwise, this is fun, nice stuff.
98. ‘Empire Now’ by Hozier - I’m frankly floored that we got as many Hozier songs to chart this week as we did - yes, that’s only three, and it’s three more than I expected! So starting with this… I’ll give this to Hozier, it does tap into some of the darkness that I wish filled out more of his last album: the heavier bluesy twang of the guitars and ominous bass, even before the pre-chorus adds a warping effect that almost reminded me of dubstep slamming into a handclap as the strings swell up; it reminds me a lot of the blues rock that predated Hozier in the early 2010s, and while he can command it effectively, this is perilously close to commercialcore. And that’s a frustrating observation about a song rooted in reflecting on Ireland’s century of freedom from the British Empire - without getting into the Troubles, of course - and how imperial forces should be resisted, and there’s real hope for a better world despite it all. I wish there was a more pronounced groove to this, but for the cinematic scale of the song, I think it’s effective and Hozier’s a strong enough singer to make it work - really good song.
93. ‘Best For Me’ by Joyner Lucas & Jelly Roll - …I remember when I thought Joyner Lucas had a real chance of crossing over as a rapper in the late 2010s. I’ve made an effort to avoid covering him since, mostly because the quality went off a cliff, but I did hear that this new song actually had some quality; apparently not a return to form because according to those I know who still follow him the album was another trainwreck, but it did have me curious. And… on some level, I think I understand what Joyner Lucas is attempting here, a return to the distinctly flawed back-and-forth perspectives, this time from someone watching a friend struggle with addiction and the other from said addict struggling to get clean and bucking against the person preaching at him. And… look, the frustrating thing with Joyner Lucas is that the shallow moralism of the story never takes that next step, and here it feels like a very individualized narrative, where there’s more focus on hurt feelings and talking past each other than the deeper roots of addiction; the collapse of the friendship is the emotional core and that’s effective, and there are traces about how religion and will get wrapped up in sobriety programs, but a little more grounded detail could have really made this work… and that’s a shame when the rest of the song is pretty rough. The pedal steel accenting the thicker clatter of drums is nice, but Jelly Roll’s hook is rough; he’s in this mewling register that doesn’t carry any grit, and it’s a weird choice because as someone who lived this life, you’d think he’d want to accentuate that passion and it’s not here. So by Joyner Lucas standards, this is one of the better songs he’s made a long-ass time… but outside of that context, I think it’s just okay.
90. ‘Scared Of My Guitar’ by Olivia Rodrigo - I wish I liked Rodrigo’s spare ballads more than I do - it’s not that they’re bad, but the awkward edges in her writing can be more obvious with spare instrumentation. And thus… I’m kind of floored by how great this song is: it’s just spare acoustics accenting the piano with a little bit of arranged strings on the bridge, and Rodrigo mostly underplays until a few belted moments that perhaps could have been reined in, but the song really takes its time to accentuate those emotions. But it’s the lyrics that are the standout here: stuck in a relationship where it’s easy but the fire is going out and she’s second-guessing because maybe it’s a problem with her - hell, she can’t help but blame herself, this guy has done nothing wrong! But it’s not love, and the fear that she’ll never find something better or that it’s good enough is what keeps it going, but she can’t lie about it in her art, and that’s the quaking fear she can’t escape what she knows is true, the other side of being the confessional artist is that sometimes what you wind up creating reveals a lot you don’t even initially realize, and the implication scares the shit out of you. If you can’t tell, I’ve been in circumstances similar to this before, and thus this kind of hit me like a ton of bricks - this is the sort of maturity of which we’ve only seen glimpses from Rodrigo; one of her absolute best, if there’s a reason to check out that rerelease, I think it’s this.
88. ‘Wildflower and Barley’ by Hozier & Allison Russell - so here’s a collab that intrigued me - for those who don’t know, Allison Russell is a Canadian folk artist who has been seeing some real traction in the Americana scene in the 2020s, especially for her sophomore album The Returner last year that netted her a Grammy and coincidentally featured Hozier on its closing track. And after touring together, I shouldn’t be surprised that they cut this, a song that Hozier wrote back in 2020… and you can kind of tell, it’s got a winsome, contemplative vibe looking at empty fallow fields, looking for new crops to be sown and bring new life out of the earth. And that translates with the birdsong around the spare acoustics that open into the more textured percussion and thicker rumble of bass, where the harmonies feel pretty natural… but I’m not particularly wowed by this. It’s very earthy and pastoral, certainly pleasant, but it doesn’t really do much beyond that vibe, and I was hoping for a bit more. Not bad, just not very special.
75. ‘Stranger’ by Olivia Rodrigo - Okay, two songs in, Olivia Rodrigo has set a bar for herself, I’m excited for this next song… and I’ll admit it’s a bit more lightweight, but there’s a lot of warm, acoustic bounce that has me wondering where the hell Dan Nigro’s been hiding this side of his production the past few years! But again, Rodrigo is showing more maturity post-breakup in the sheer relief and joy of having finally moved on properly - the heartbreak has mended, there’s a part of her life tied to the relationship that she remembers fondly, but ultimately he’s just a stranger she knew everything about for a time, time to move forward. And there’s a part of me that really likes how breezy and borderline conversational it is - Rodrigo can make songs feel immense, but she’s got a knack for those smaller scenes and subtler emotions that I think deserve as much attention, and this has a lot of charm especially as the reverbed electric guitar and percussion flesh out the background. A little twee, for sure… but this was fun, I like this too.
73. ‘Corazon de Piedra’ by Xavi - Look, I do feel bad for Xavi - it feels like he’s working uphill due to the UMG / TikTok nonsense even with all the momentum he has, and he’s got at least one song I like thus far, so I had some hope for this… and man, there’s some whiplash in listening to acoustic riffs that have some charm and songwriting with maturity and then coming to this, where the rattling guitar and bass careen off Xavi dumping all over the girl who left him - he’s clearly “over” her, already deleted her number and photos from his phone, and there are plenty of women lining up to take her place… until we get the final hook where he admits he always loved her, she never understood that, and maybe good luck going forward? The emotional swing that he’s trying to pull off after a pretty obnoxious song is questionable, and I don’t think the delivery ever fully sells it; the rattling guitar twang is way too bright and prominent, the vocals seem shoved back, and that bass gallop at the end seems to set up a change but we never get it! It’s far from the worst regional Mexican song I’ve heard, I still think Xavi has a lot of promise… but this doesn’t quite stick the landing, can’t say I like it.
72. ‘Punteria’ by Shakira & Cardi B - so here’s something funny: I got a request on social media to review the newest Shakira album with the comment, ‘no, it’s not good, but can you please cover it anyway?’ - kind of a shame because I like Shakira, but it’s not a good way to get me to care about a new album if you don’t even think it works! But hey, she teamed up with Cardi B, there has to be a lot of potential there, right? Well, yes and no - with that pulsating compressed groove and the big buzzy synths, it has the feel of someone trying to make a nu-disco song in 2011, or playing to one of the pop crossovers that Doja Cat was making three years ago, and not exactly a high quality one either, as the lyrics when translated feel pretty lightweight and disposable for a love song, especially as Cardi’s verse feels very forgettable. Where I will give credit is that Cardi B is very fluent in Spanish - I’m always a little surprised she doesn’t dip into that more often - and her singing is at least passable alongside Shakira, and they have decent chemistry. I think where it falls short for me is that it’s not funnier or weirder - both of them have the capacity to make this a lot more interesting, but we have decades of Shakira collabs that are rarely as interesting as they should be, so not exactly surprising either. Not bad, but it should be better.
70. ‘I Like The Way You Kiss Me’ by Artemas - One thing that’s somewhat gone overlooked with the UMG / TikTok feud is that in the right circumstances, there are opportunities for independent acts to jump into the mix with TikTok virality… which is always a bit of a crapshoot, but if you can take advantage of diminished competition, it might be worth a try. Hence we have Artemas, an English singer-songwriter who dropped his self-released debut tape earlier in the year and then had this - which wasn’t even on the mixtape - catch fire. And I’ll be honest, I’m a little shocked this sound crossed over, because with that pulsating low-end 80s synth and reverbed snarling guitars and grainy master, it sounds like something that I’d find on Bandcamp in the vein of Korine or House of Harm than on the charts in 2024! Granted, it’s a very slapdash version of that throwback synthpop - the vocal mixing in particular feels really filmy, and the lyrics are rough, giving me the vibe of a trashy fuckboi rap song where he will hit and quit and her attraction to him satiates the ego - but the tempo is fast enough that I can imagine this working alongside some of the modern variants of this sound, and the lyrical style might be contemporary enough for the crossover. But that’s the rub for me: I’ve heard this done much better, and this Rex Orange County-wannabe trying to sell darkwave is not going to win me over. If you want this, go check out Korine, their album Tear last year was excellent… don’t bother with this.
69. ‘La People II’ by Peso Pluma, Tito Double P & Joel de la P - So I liked Peso Pluma’s debut album last year more than I thought I would - the regional Mexican sound isn’t really my thing and I don’t know how much longevity it’ll contribute to across the Hot 100, but he showcased a breadth of sound and mostly improved production that gave me the impression he might have some staying power, especially as his label backing lets him keep UMG at arms length at the moment. So this appears to be a sequel song from that last album - and I did not like the first one at all - and wow, I don’t like this at all either! Why do the horns sound so gutless and filmy right at the front of the mix, where the accordion tries to add some foundation to the brittle acoustic foundation and it feels like the production has no body at all! It’s distracting to the point where I almost can’t hear the squawking vocals all about drug trafficking that really don’t add up to much; I have no idea why Peso Pluma thinks this content flatters his skillset, it really doesn’t. As a whole, this feels like an underproduced step backwards, I really don’t like this at all, skip it.
58. ‘So American’ by Olivia Rodrigo - okay, only two more Olivia Rodrigo songs before we get the wave of Future and Metro Boomin, thus far the record is really in her favour here - really has me questioning why these weren’t on the album proper! Now here, I’m a little less impressed - the pulsating bassline, frenetic drums, and gauzy reverbed guitars really remind me a lot of modern indie rock, and Rodrigo is a good fit for it, but I also know she’s got the ability to give her guitars more muscle and this feels distractingly thin. The lyrics don’t exactly do much for me either - being anxiously head-over-heels for her new English boyfriend, with a couple of quippy observations that she’s so ‘American’ compared to him, you can tell this is a track that’s going to run on momentum rather than substance. It’s decent enough - Rodrigo’s got the energy to sell lovestruck exuberance, and the rougher vocal pickup helps the vibe, but overall… ehh, she’s done better.
45. ‘Slow It Down’ by Benson Boone - …oh right, we have to deal with this first. Look, I didn’t like ‘Beautiful Things’ at all and I’m willing to argue that a significant portion of its success is the lack of tangible competition from UMG-affiliated acts, the last thing I wanted was more songs to get traction! So with this… let’s deal with the elephant in the room right now, I don’t know why Boone’s producer is letting his screechy voice hang so unsupported and compressed in the middle of the mix, doubling down on a comparison to Lukas Graham should be the last thing he wants! This doesn’t have the excruciating hook of ‘Beautiful Things’, but the fact that he spends the entire hook in his forced falsetto with only that spare staccato organ isn’t helping, but by the time we get the increased arranged bombast of the outro… man, someone really wants to be Harry Styles. Then we have the content which… okay, this is marginally better, he meets someone in the big city chasing dreams that aren’t really going according to plan and she’s inexperienced in love, he wants to help her slow it down and get comfortable - I don’t know why he thought his over-the-top screaming would be the best mechanism for that, but then on the second verse he reveals he’s just as insecure and overthinking of everything, and they can get through this together! Look, I don’t care for this guy, I think this song is bad, but the more I’ve heard from him, the more I get the impression the industry hacks around him are doing him no favours, and that might include his production team. And given that his album is dropping this Friday… yikes, this could get ugly.
20. ‘Slimed In’ by Future & Metro Boomin - okay, the majority of the remaining songs here are from Future and Metro Boomin, I’ve already reviewed the album and this episode is going to run long as it is, I’m going to try and breeze through as many as I can, thank God Future really isn’t known for much in the way of content. This was never one of my favourites with the wispy melody lingering behind the thicker trap rumble and chalky hi-hats, and Future defaults to a lot of brand name bragging and passing shots at Drake - when you recognize that any reference to sick or dead dogs is for Drake, the lines about stealing all your hoes get a little more pointed in his direction, even if Future still has lines about chaining her and training her which don’t help matters. This was one of the songs after the monstrous opening stretch of the album where I was more lukewarm until ‘Runnin Outta Time’… take it or leave it here.
14. ‘Obsessed’ by Olivia Rodrigo - the last Olivia Rodrigo song, the one that seems to be intended as a late single, where Rodrigo makes the smart decision to double down on darker, noisier guitars with a stalking bassline as she stares daggers at her partner’s ex-girlfriend where she lets the insecure jealousy consume the song. Now to Rodrigo’s credit, she gets how messy all of this is, from the social media stalking to the borderline homoeroticism - she knows this is all a very bad look and can’t get out of her own way, and none of this feels like glorification so much as creeping dread; ‘bad idea, right’ nailed the head rush of ambiguity, this is explicitly Rodrigo playing the heel. And that’s fine - Rodrigo can play that slightly unstable Stepford smile, we knew that going back to ‘good 4 u’ - but I still wouldn’t put this among her best, especially amidst the context of more refining writing on the other deluxe cuts where she could have more with this, or at least delivered a hook as great as ‘good 4 u’. As it is… it looks like this is getting the push that ‘get her back!’ should have received, and that’s a shame - it’s fine, but she’s done better.
13. ‘Ice Attack’ by Future & Metro Boomin - I think the story behind this song might better than the actual track - a portion of it actually originated in sessions with Drake and Metro Boomin going back years, with leaks going back to 2022, and it has the feel of a bait-and-switch, where the funereal trap opener and flexing takes a sharp and sour turn into a rumbling trap banger. The flexing isn’t much to write home about beyond some increasingly aggressive sex references - to quote, going ‘banoodles on the dog ass ho’, which I think Future expected to be more of a thing than it’s been - but his darker intensity does care this to be at least okay. Not my favourite, but I was never invested in this particular leak finally getting released, I know others will be way more hyped for it.
9. ‘Young Metro’ by Future & Metro Boomin ft. The Weeknd - This might be my favourite song on the album, and only partially because Metro Boomin ramps up the ominous, gothic bombast with the faster trap percussion and gunshots, where Future switches up his flow and flexing mid-verse and makes it very clear just how much certain people owe to his sound; yes, this is also a sub at Drake and not for nothing it reminds me a lot of when they worked together in the mid-2010s. But where this song hits a different level is out of nowhere on the bridge, you start hearing adlibs and vocal runs from The Weeknd as the synths rise up and the tension surges with every gunshot; it’s enough to make you wish The Weeknd himself would contribute more than a few words, but he doesn’t need to, especially in the context of a song between the flexing highlighting what was borrowed, which Drake would absolutely know. Coupled with The Weeknd absolutely nailing the bleak nihilism underscoring the entire track, this is Future’s formula working at its best; absolutely excellent song, thankfully followed by…
8. ‘We Don’t Trust You’ by Future & Metro Boomin - the title track, the album opener, and when I realized that we were dealing with something else in Future’s catalog entirely. The mournful keys, the Undisputed Truth sample flip that opens into the synth horns, the haunted oily trap whirs, and the blend of venom and bitterness that underscores Future’s hook, and that’s before he starts unloading jabs at Drake on the second verse. Are they particularly detailed or cutting, not really, especially as Future continues with the flexing, but I’d argue it mostly works because of Future’s performance and setting the stage for the reality of a burned friendship where a collapse of trust and goodwill has pushed Drake and Future into opposite corners… and Future has the money and clout to at least be in the same arena. Do I think Drake could outrap Future and probably has mountains of dirt on him, almost certainly… but Future’s producer connections, skill with melody, and complete lack of moral character or anything to lose makes him dangerous, and that loaded implication really manifests here. Another great song, one of my favourites here.
6. ‘Cinderella’ by Future & Metro Boomin ft. Travis Scott - Do you think Travis Scott realizes that by working with Future on this album, he’s probably never going to get a Drake feature ever again, especially given that Travis owes some of his biggest hits to Drake? Granted, for a flexing track that mostly seems absent any subs, Travis probably didn’t think that far ahead - that seems of character for him - especially for a song that doesn’t do that much for me. The fluttery harp and fizzy percussion around the mournful key before the trap percussion come in are generally pretty - quite the contrast to Future saying he ‘pisses Codeine on peasants’ - but by the time we got to Travis’ verse amidst the empty hedonism, I think I preferred his Kid Cudi-esque humming adlibs to anything actually being said in this song. Couple that with some iffy synth choices… yeah, didn’t really care for this one.
5. ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier - It’s utterly wild to me that Hozier debuted at #5 this week - I have no illusions it’s going to last, especially with Beyonce’s album bomb, but when I was so annoyed last year that David Kushner was getting the push that Hozier probably deserved, I did not expect that Hozier’s EP would actually see some chart penetration while Kushner vanished from memory. And finally, Hozier decided that he would bring back some goddamn groove with the sinuous bassline and guitars rising around the bells of the hook - and when I heard the sleazier guitars cut across the post-chorus, even if Hozier was still in his falsetto more than I preferred, I was entirely onboard! And for the content… it’s not fully a return to Hozier’s hornier side, but it’s in the right ballpark by leaning into Hozier living harder and more reckless and more hedonistic, you don’t describe someone’s mouth like ‘Heaven’s Gate’ if you’re not implying oral on a different level. The conceit that she’s ‘too sweet’ is interesting because it implies someone who lives their life for easy, middle-of-the-road pleasures that might not have the same complexity, and that’s not where he is, and while I could read something into the metatext of a fanbase that enjoys the prettier side of his art and who got really mad at me when I was wishing Unreal Unearth got more raw and potent, I think there’s something to the narrator playing a little more dangerous that shows there’s an significant chunk of Hozier’s audience that really wants that too! I’m not sure I’d put this at the peak of his best songs - he played this template before, especially on the self-titled, and there’s something about the production that reminds me a bit too much of conventional 2010s blues rock that became commercialcore - but this is in the right direction and I think it’s legit great; excellent song!
2. ‘Type Shit’ by Future & Metro Boomin ft. Travis Scott & Playboi Carti - You know, Future, you didn’t have to put Playboi Carti on this. I’m not surprised he’s here - it’s a streaming cheat code at this point from an audience that will run up the numbers on anything he does. But you already have those bells and that synth from Metro that sounds plenty malevolent behind the crisp trap percussion as the horns erupt, and that’s before Travis Scott delivers one of the better beat switches and crescendos from him I’ve heard in years; even if Future’s content is just playing to flexing and veiled threats, saying he can swing all manner of women who look like Meg The Stallion - one of a few more subs at Drake given his stupid potshots at her - the end of his verse makes it clear what’s coming if Drake moves against him and Atlanta at large. And Carti’s verse… the deeper vocal inflection doesn’t work, he has to go back to the original beat and his flexing is generally aimless, and some of his lines just feel corny in the wrong way, he doesn’t get the atmosphere at all. On the production alone, this had the potential to be one of my favourites on the album… as it is I think it’s good, but it should be better.
1. ‘Like That’ by Future & Metro Boomin ft. Kendrick Lamar - Where paradoxically here, my big objection to this song might be the production; it’s grown on me a bit since the release, especially thanks to when Metro chops it up after the big verse, and I appreciate what he’s doing by sampling Eazy-E, but that tinny synth horn sampled from Rodney O & Joe Cooley against the stalking piano and tinny synths has never clicked for me. And Future’s verse… it’s utterly sleazy, but I think if he wanted to really back up the big verse, I would have liked more of the subs we know he was throwing across the album, and the hook is kind of lacking in energy. But of course, the story here is the verse from Kendrick Lamar - I was going to say from out of nowhere, but let’s be real, Kendrick has been throwing shots at Drake for about ten years and they’ve been trading subs ever since, honestly to the point where I thought this beef would never manifest. The unfortunate reality is that I don’t think this beef is really going to rev up - Kendrick’s shots were predominantly at Drake with some well-connected internal references hitting him and his camp, with a few passing J. Cole for the trouble which could easily pull him in as well… and it doesn’t look like any responses have come up, especially with Drake’s largely humiliating attempts to keep this on social media. Now this could easily change at any time - sides are squaring up, J. Cole is in album mode, and independent of TDE, I get the impression that Kendrick has been looking for this fight since ‘Control’ in 2013. But the fact that this went to #1, the second diss record this year to do so, gives me the impression that at least the audience wants it, and you play it safe to your peril. And I could easily expand this conversation for another hour, dissecting the next step… but this has just been the first round, and we haven’t yet seen the second, although with Future and Metro Boomin prepping another project I expect more is in the cards. But for the one song… look, it’s good, but I think we’ll need more to fully judge it.
And that’s our extremely long week… good lord, this was a lot. Thankfully best and worst fall out fast: in the latter category it’s going to ‘La People II’ by Peso Pluma, Tito Double P, and Joel de la P, with Dishonourable Mention to ‘Slow It Down’ by Benson Boone. The best… you know, I was tempted for a tie between ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier and ‘Young Metro’ by Future, Metro Boomin and The Weeknd, but they have the Honourable Mention with Olivia Rodrigo utterly stealing the show with ‘Scared Of My Guitar’ for what might be one of her best songs and easily her best ballad, what a song. And next week… Beyonce’s bringing COWBOY CARTER, we’ve got a lot more coming, stay tuned!