billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 14, 2021

This is one of those weeks where I feel like there should be more of a punch than there actually is - I mean, there’s an album bomb from one of the biggest artists in the industry right now… kind of. And after months of frustration, there’s a new #1 that finally broke through this week, that’s got to mean something, right?

Yeah, let’s start there in our top ten, where we have ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber going to #1 - I did call it as the next big challenger, but I didn’t expect it to break through the way it did with a sales boost and a streaming surge and the radio throwing real weight behind it. The problem for me is that I think this is pretty lousy, a sloppily produced clunker with lyrics that annoy me to no end from two acts that owe their entire careers to the industry, Bieber especially in recent years and Kid LAROI pretty much always, given the nepotism that got him here. You’d think for everything I’ve heard about a certain fanbase holding the #1 to ‘take a stand against the industry’ they’d actually gear up to fight two of the worst modern acts from it instead of blocking their own labelmate from getting there, but then again, this has never been about the quality of the music but chart gamesmanship, so unless one of the margins implodes we’re going to be stuck with this for a bit! Now in theory this would be a good time for ‘good 4 u’ by Olivia Rodrigo to catch a second wind - the radio is still very stable and a well-timed sales boost might do it… but the streaming margin is collapsing, so it’s probably too little, too late, at least for now. Then picking up a spot we have ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa at #3 - DaBaby has been officially taken off the song pretty much everywhere, so even as the radio starts its decline, it’s got enough to hold its own. And now we have ‘Butter’ by BTS at #4 - again, not surprising when the sales margin collapsed this would fall back, and I want to clear something up here: my frustrations with this song were never about the band or the song’s actual quality, and always more tied to label exploitation and unnecessary dodgy sales tactics, and the fact that if Columbia cared to work this properly, it wouldn’t collapse once the sales fundraising slowed down, so it would likely have wound up a lesser but more sustainable hit. It wouldn’t have had as many weeks at #1 but it still would have gotten there - history doesn’t tend to care how long a song is at the top unless there’s something behind it - and hell, if it had the proper reinforcement on radio and streaming it might have been strong enough to block ‘Stay’ this week and we’d all be better off, because ‘Butter’ is the better song! Then creeping up behind it we have ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran breaking #5 - the benefit of stability in all channels, it’ll last longer even if the song isn’t good - followed by ‘Kiss Me More’ by Doja Cat ft. SZA at #6, because streaming and radio are still rock solid. Then we have the expected falloff for ‘INDUSTRY BABY’ by Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow at #7 - they’re starting to push it on radio but the streaming peak is lost and the sales aren’t there - but holding steady behind it we have ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X at #8, where it’s declining but not really quickly. Then there’s ‘deja vu’ by Olivia Rodrigo getting an unexpected boost to #9 - the radio still really likes this - and scratching back into the top 10 we have ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande - also on its way out, more due to losses around it and streaming being remarkably stable.

Speaking of that, our losers and dropouts this week, and there were some notable ones in the latter category: ‘Wants And Needs’ by Drake and Lil Baby comfortably clinches its year-end list spot, and what will likely fall just short we have ‘Settling Down’ by Miranda Lambert, ‘Gone’ by Dierks Bentley, and ‘Ski’ by Young Thug and Gunna - also ‘brutal’ by Olivia Rodrigo, but without a real push that’s not surprising. And given it is an album bomb week, we did have a fair number of losers here. Disappointingly ‘You Should Probably Leave’ by Chris Stapleton lost all his gains from last week to 89, ‘Blame It On You’ by Jason Aldean continues to fall at 75, as does ‘Wild Side’ by Normani and Cardi B - man, that did not catch on at all. Then off the debut we saw ‘If I Didn’t Love You’ by Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood crash to 52, ‘Don’t Go Yet’ by Camila Cabello hit 63, ‘Not Sober’ by Kid LAROI ft. Polo G and Stunna Gambino at 77, and ‘Over The Top’ by Smiley ft. Drake at 78. The rest are characteristically scattered - ‘Fiel’ by Los Legendarios, Wisin, and Jhay Cortez hit 97, ‘Hats Off’ by Lil Baby, Lil Durk, and Travis Scott fell to 94 - I’m shocked it’s lasted this long - ‘happier’ and ‘favourite crime’ by Olivia Rodrigo fell to 93 and 86 respectively, ‘AM’ by Nio Garcia, J Balvin and Bad Bunny hit 85, ‘Ball If I Want To’ continues to be rotated out at 73, and ‘Single Saturday Night’ by Cole Swindell looks like it’s getting rotated out by Nashville radio at 40. The two songs I want to highlight, though, are ‘Permission To Dance’ by BTS at 27 - again, sales have been pulling back and nothing is fueling it - and ‘Way Less Sad’ by AJR at 81, which I honestly thought was going to be a hit; kind of surprised it stalled out.

Now as expected the returns and gains are much smaller, and Billie Eilish is the main focus here: beyond ‘Outside’ by MO3 and OG Bobby Billions climbing back at 98, we saw Bille bring back ‘my future’ to 91 and ‘Lost Cause’ to 84, and when we go to gains as expected ‘NDA’ rebounded to 59. But that’s still not a lot of activity here, and if I’m at her label, I have to start seriously questioning the rollout strategy that left this album bomb underperforming. Outside of those, there’s not much in our gains - ‘Waves’ by Luke Bryan is getting one last push at 35, ‘2055’ by Sleepy Hallow continues to rack up gains at 53, ‘I Was On A Boat That Day’ by Old Dominion also kept rising to 64, and off the debut ‘Pepas’ by Farruko got some traction at 66 - not sure if it’s going to last, but I’m happy at least that is getting some momentum.

But since under my rules Billie Eilish did not get enough charting entries to qualify for a proper album bomb, I’ve got to cover all of them - albeit briefly, I did already review the album at length on its own - and that leads to a reasonable number of new arrivals here, surprisingly starting with…

99. ‘From The Garden’ by Isaiah Rashad ft. Lil Uzi Vert - you know, I was legit shocked to see Isaiah Rashad chart on the Hot 100, for the first time ever in his career off his most successful charting project to date. Yes, it’s here because Uzi contributed a guest verse, but it’s one of those cases where he’s using his bizarre popularity for good, so I’ll allow it here… and man, I wish this was good. Or let me rephrase that, I wish this was interesting - Isaiah Rashad has always had a hedonistic side so I’m not surprised it runs through his triplet flows with the sex and brand name references, even if he’s got that undercurrent of quiet desperation that runs through it, but it feels like a tinge of what makes him interesting in comparison to playing off the bass-heavy trap groove with limited tune that drops in after the opening sample. Honestly, this is the sort of hype song with Uzi dropping his standard verse of which feels a little interchangeable, and while it’s pretty well produced and it’ll go off live… I dunno, I’m not sure there’s enough here that’ll entice folks to hear more, and that’s a little disappointing.

96. ‘You TIme’ by Scotty McCreery - look, I’ve been rooting for Scotty McCreery longer than I probably should, but I do think he’s a talented singer and he’s knocked a few songs right out of the park, so I was intrigued about this… even if it’s coming off of his next album called Same Truck. Hate to say that was a bad sign for this, which unfortunately just winds up feeling kind of generic - the shuffling drum machine patter playing off the more liquid guitar lines, the over-polished slickness of the mixing especially of the backing vocals, the increasingly basic boyfriend country crooning for which McCreery is more charismatic than most - and indeed, he keeps this generally likable - but man, you can tell this is what a label executive swore would sell for him, and I just know he can do better. Not bad, per se, but I’m going to forget this in record time.

95. ‘Gyalis’ by Capella Grey - okay seriously, what’s with all of the Juvenile samples going around recently, has his catalog suddenly gotten way cheaper to sample from? Anyway, this is from a Bronx rapper who seems to be catching a bit of Tiktok virality for a song that can’t crack two minutes… and yeah, you can kind of tell this is more fragment that fully composed song, with no real hook as our frontman meanders from singing to rapping in ways that remind me a lot of both Drake and A Boogie wit da Hoodie with a lot of patois to boot. Not denying that he has a pretty good voice from beneath all the autotune, but it’s stuck behind some really cruddy bass mixing - and I’m not really enamoured with the content either, where he’s trying to play the bad boy casanova type by stealing girls and I’m not quite sure he can sell it yet. This is one of those songs where you can tell Capitol signed this guy on potential and New York buzz and while the fragment is not precisely bad, I’m gonna need more before I take this all that seriously. As it is I’m not impressed.

90. ‘Halley’s Comet’ by Billie Eilish - I’m going to try and keep this pretty short with the Billie Eilish cuts, especially as I already reviewed the album at length, but even with that there’s not much to say about this one - a pretty sweet but sleepy, intimate piano-driven, distant love song with a slightly more basic composition that even with its change-up and the touches of guitar doesn’t help the album’s momentum and can’t really stand alone. Again, it’s fine but it’s probably my least favourite cut on the album - most of the time I skip this one.

87. ‘Baddest’ by Yung Bleu, Chris Brown & 2 Chainz - hey, remember Yung Bleu from that song with Drake he had earlier this year? Did you remember that he dropped a project, with this seeming like the one song that picked up traction? Well, this is a collab with Chris Brown where he opens up by calling the girl a ‘sexy motherfucker’ and lyrically it goes downhill fast from there, mostly because this is another watery trap song trying to rely on a very aggro appeal where Yung Bleu tells the girl not to give him any attitude or his dick will get soft, even as he says he’s going to fuck her angry despite being a good mood, and then he comes so fast by the end of the verse she has to duck and cover. And by then you’re almost grateful that 2 Chainz shows up to embrace the silliness of all of this, where he says her booty stickin’ out, they gotta walk around it - he at least seems to get the vibe that he’s treating these women to a good time, whereas Yung Bleu and Chris Brown are trying way too hard to be macho unironically where Yung Bleu pretty much admits he’s only getting attention because he’s successful now - boy, can’t imagine why! The problem is that our leads clearly think they’re being smooth off the watery groove and trap knock and the overcompressed vocals - someone get Chris Brown with an engineer that actually gives his vocals some space to breathe properly - so it’s not really as fun as it could be - it just winds up crass and clunky. So yeah, it’s not offensively bad, but it’s not good.

80. ‘I Didn’t Change My Number’ by Billie Eilish - this is one of the songs on the album for which I wasn’t quite sure how to process - I knew I liked it courtesy of Billie playing so well with the spare atmosphere and the pulsating bass off the spare drums, but the jittery warble coursing around her that ramps into a more angular shudder was an odd choice, especially with as many samples of her dog growling across the song which really does amplify that sense of unease. But when it comes to being a breakup song it’s effective - she doesn’t have to change her number to fully drive home to her ex that she’s pissed and is finally listening to all of her friends who called this guy bad news. It’s a nervy, anxious, but effective song - not quite a personal favourite, but still good, especially in the context of the project… but not quite as much as…

72. ‘Oxytocin’ by Billie Eilish - you know, for as much as Billie Eilish showcased more open sensuality as a part of her image in this album rollout, it was the sort of thing I didn’t really feel the need to discuss - the music is ultimately way more important, it would look weird me doing so. And yet with this track in particular it’s hard to get around… because not only is it the central theme of the content, but wow, she made this sound hot as all hell, with her breathy vocal layering playing off the stalking bass and jagged percussion which hits the precise balance between sexy and bone-deep creepiness as her distorted shouts lurk in the background. It reminds me of the more gothic side of trip-hop or the brittle edges of house especially with that stuttering echo of synth, and I mean that as a compliment - this’ll kill in live at an evening festival set or any nightclub, just a great goddamn song. If you’re not shipping this to the dance charts yesterday, make this a single.

70. ‘Billie Bossa Nova’ by Billie Eilish - I think I like more what this song does in context than the actual composition itself - it’s a pretty spare, guitar-driven lounge track with clipped percussion and a very languid feel that could very well fit as hotel elevator music especially with the hazy swells of backing instrumental. But that makes sense - this is a song where she’s describing the anonymous hotel hookups she had to indulge while on tour, where the seedy allure is part of the point, and Billie is a great enough performer to make it still pick up some legit smooth jazz smolder, especially as the piano slips in for the outro. Again, not really a go-to for me from the album, but I did like a decent bit, as well as…

69. ‘Getting Older’ by Billie Eilish - there’s a lot going on with this song that I really like - yeah, it’s a song that details her frustrations growing into newfound fame and how she might someday wind up bored with her success that keeps her ‘employed’ - all of the folks who will never sniff her level of fame just threw up a bit - but the fact that the picture including stalkers, the disconnect that comes with everything sounding rehearsed given how much time she’s had on camera, and literal abuse within the industry… yeah, her tired trepidation makes sense, especially when it comes with the reality that one’s artistic passions will change naturally over time. But I will say the very spare twinkles and beat behind Billie don’t really do much to elevate the song’s composition - for an album opener, it’s a very slow burn and it feels like it’s missing the climax to push it into proper greatness. Still really good, but I do think it could afford to be a bit better.

37. ‘Volvi’ by Aventura & Bad Bunny - you know, I’m not surprised that Aventura is back with Bad Bunny here - they’ve been trying to recapture that crossover success a few times now, and reportedly this was a strong selection… and man, I wish I could agree, but there’s not much about this I like. For one, the production can’t get away from the stock, stiff percussion, only accentuated by the staccato guitar plucks, which doesn’t really flatter either Romeo Santos or Bad Bunny even across a few of the moments where the percussion ramps up. And I can’t say I really vibed with the content either - again, I’m probably losing something in the translation and I won’t deny there’s some poetry to Romeo Santos’ clinginess to want this girl back post-breakup, but then Bad Bunny comes in a lot more aggressively and it’s the same sort of ‘steal your girl ‘ machismo that really doesn’t come across as attractive, especially when you realize he’s talking to an ex who is with someone else! And wait, Romeo Santos says on his second verse that money isn’t everything, but then wants to flex about going back to Aventura, which seems to be playing in the same territory! I dunno, I get why the melodrama might have some appeal, but I wasn’t a fan of this - next!

14. ‘Skate’ by Silk Sonic - well, about damn time we got another song! No idea if or when Silk Sonic will drop a proper album - even if I get the sneaking suspicion it’ll either be a surprise drop at the end of the Grammy eligibility window this year or delayed until next year - but I did love ‘Leave The Door Open’ and this follow-up is performing well… and let me start by saying this is a ton of fun and I absolutely get why some might say this is better than their first single, but I’m not sure I’d agree. For one, they swapped out retro soul for retro disco, albeit with an impeccably organic approach to the lush backing arrangement, bass groove and textured drums and congas, and in terms of content… well, it’s literally what it says on the tin, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak trading cheesy one-liners as they try to pick up a girl at a roller rink. Now it’s really damn good in that environment - these too are way too charming to fumble this, and how the bridge slips across keys is utterly sublime… but the song feels a little limited in its scope, at least to me. Maybe this has to do with my own research into disco and how folks would make weird novelty pivots out of anything in that era if they could get away with it - and this is kind of in that territory, even with roller rinks coming back in it feels a little niche - but novelty doesn’t have to be bad if the song is a lot of fun, and this is. So yeah, Silk Sonic nab another really damn good song - you can drop the album anytime, gentlemen, I’m waiting!

11. ‘Happier Than Ever’ by Billie Eilish - And we’re ending off with one of the best songs on the album, currently primed as the next single… but I have to be honest, this is one that should be better than it is, and it comes down to production, specifically of the electric guitar that crashes in for the angry final payoff - maybe we’ve found the limit of what FINNEAS can really do, but that tone feels blown out, fuzzy in the wrong ways, and blocky without the explosive punch it really needs. Now Billie can mostly sell this vocally, she’s got the pipes to drive home some righteous fury, and the slow build-up from vintage soft-focus acoustics into something with roaring intensity is pretty impressive - and likely to satisfy that Interscope executive that hopes Billie can compete with Olivia Rodrigo in making pop rock - and just how much she airs out the toxic selfish recklessness of this ex feels cathartic as hell… but again, a little more raw firepower all around would have sealed the deal, and this isn’t quite there. Still great song, and if this is going to be a single… well, I still like ‘NDA’ and ‘Oxytocin’ more, but I’m fine with it.

And while we’re on that subject, this was a pretty damn good week - ‘Oxytocin’ is getting the best, with ‘Skate’ by Silk Sonic handily taking the Honourable Mention, although I was tempted to tie with ‘Happier Than Ever’. Worst… I wouldn't even call them outright bad so much as deeply embarrassing, but ‘Baddest’ by Yung Bleu, Chris Brown, and 2 Chainz is taking the worst of the week, with ‘Volvi’ by Aventura and Bad Bunny as the Dishonourable Mention - just could not get behind that production. Next week… well, the fallout, so stay tuned for that!