billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 7, 2021

I’m not sure how to start this episode. I was planning on keeping it pretty routine - a big top 5 debut from Lil Nas X, a reasonable number of new arrivals, a bit of a breather before Billie Eilish smashes into the charts next week. That was the plan - but then, utterly unprompted and unprovoked, because a certain song held an additional week at #1, the BTS Army decided, ‘hey, that Spectrum Pulse guy said ‘Industry Baby’ could challenge for the #1 last week, let’s go harass him on social media for several hours!’ And while I had written a pretty lengthy piece here exploring the pathology of all of this, especially given a lot of the army are self-confessed grown ass adults, and sure as hell could not take the volume or intensity themselves if it was turned the other way and they weren’t hiding behind flimsy anonymity, I realized it wasn’t worth it, especially for the fans who actually just like the song independent of fame or success, or folks like me who know that BTS doesn’t have to resort to sales gimmicks to be successful as they proved last year with BE. But hey, if your response to your favourite act having success on an increasingly meaningless chart and the label laughing to the damn bank as a result of it is to then go harass the music critic and journalist who reported on the act’s questionable sales tactics a month ago - like he’s been doing consistently for years now for every act and label - you might have bigger problems than me here.

And that effectively opens up the top 10, which is the only reason why ‘Butter’ by BTS is still at #1 - although off of pure data, those margins are shrinking. That said, I think it’ll be safe for another week or because while ‘Industry Baby’ by Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow debuted at #2 courtesy of enormous streaming and YouTube, maintaining that momentum can be tricky especially when the radio is slow to get onboard, which is exactly what I predicted last week, funnily enough. Also helps, of course, that Lil Nas X is playing the good company man and not saying anything to undermine or expose the sales tactics on Columbia, but whether or not he could make a credible challenge is really a conversation of momentum especially if the radio is not onboard. And I’m starting to think the window for ‘good 4 u’ by Olivia Rodrigo has closed - it’s at #3, radio momentum is slowing hard, I don’t see it making a final push without a remix or a discount. Honestly - and I hate to say this - ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber will probably be the one to penetrate beyond #4 - streaming is rock solid, sales are stabilizing, and the radio is getting behind it as well, just wonderful. It blew past ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa ft. DaBaby, which fell to #5 as the radio starts to implode, but that’s more because DaBaby has his homophobic episode at Rolling Loud, which is a fine way to get your remix yanked from promotion even after his publicists finally got their shit together to draft an apology. It did hold over ‘Kiss Me More’ by Doja Cat ft. SZA at #6 - which did surprise me, given that it caught a sudden radio boost as well, just couldn’t quite narrow that margin on sales to keep up with solid streaming. Then there’s ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran at #7… and again, I’m not sure what to think given how consistent this is in every channel and how much the industry is pushing it, you’d think it would have taken off at least among the silent majority audience by now. Next we’ve got ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X at #8 - solid streaming rebound even as it looks like it’s getting rotated out on the radio - and then riding sales and nothing else we have ‘Permission To Dance’ by BTS at #9 - have to admit, I’m legit shocked this hasn’t dropped out of the top 10. Finally we have ‘deja vu’ by Olivia Rodrigo at #10 - again, radio is crazy stable on this one, it still hasn’t fallen off.

This takes us to our losers and dropouts, and basically the latter category is all of Pop Smoke’s album bomb taking with it ‘drivers license’ by Olivia Rodrigo handily clinching a year end list spot and ‘pov’ by Ariana Grande, which I want to say is just on the cusp of getting in there. But there wasn’t a lot of losers here - off the debut we had ‘Wild Side’ by Normani and Cardi B drop to 45 and ‘Holy Smokes’ by Trippie Redd and Lil Uzi Vert just crater at 98, and seeing continued losses we have ‘Motley Crew’ by Post Malone at 33, ‘Ski’ by Young Thug and Gunna at 91, and ‘NDA’ by Billie Eilish at 87 - it’s going to rebound next week, no worries here. The rest of our losers are actually all in country - ‘Minimum Wage’ by Blake Shelton just never took off at 96, ‘Settling Down’ by Miranda Lambert is getting rotated out at 66, but the big surprise was ‘Blame It On You’ by Jason Aldean at 65 - this fell a lot this week, probably rotated out for the newer song, but we’ll get to that.

Now you’d normally see a lot of returns and gains this week, but in reality it just feels like the charts resetting… and maybe a little for the better? I didn’t really care for ‘Working’ by Tate McRae and Khalid back at 97, but it’s nice to see ‘Next Girl’ by Carly Pearce rebound to 86. But country as a whole had a good week in gains - yeah, not all victories here with ‘Drinkin’ Beer, Talkin’ God, Amen’ by Chase Rice ft. Florida Georgia Line at 32, ‘Country Again’ by Thomas Rhett at 52, ‘I Was On A Boat That Day’ by Old Dominion at 77, and ‘Cold Beer Calling My Name’ by Jameson Rodgers and Luke Combs at 78, but if along the way we get ‘My Boy’ by Elvie Shane at 82, ‘Chasing After You’ by Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris at 48, and ‘You Should Probably Leave’ by Chris Stapleton at 79, I count that as a net positive. Hell, our non-country gains were ‘2055’ by Sleepy Hallow up to 63 - again, I don’t mind this even if I’m a little surprised it caught traction - and ‘Love Again’ by Dua Lipa at 73; it’s got some radio traction, it’d be nice to see this get moving.

Now we do have a healthy list of new arrivals filling in the gaps… unfortunately they have to start with…

100. ‘Still Chose You’ by Kid LAROI ft. Mustard - so did y’all know that Kid LAROI is on his third release of Fuck Love? Better question, why do Grade A and Columbial think continuously churning out a project with the same name is a feasible strategy long-term and not a recipe for oversaturation? Anyway, he had two songs that hit the Hot 100 this week, with this as a collab with Mustard so at least that gave me some expectations with the production… and let me start by saying that on the surface, this seems okay. I mean, it’s still anchored in Kid LAROI’s squawking delivery and basic but incoherent approach to relationships, where he wants to sell that it’s a big deal he chose this girl while on each verse highlighting how she’s a drag on his real problems and he should have known better than to even try. But the piano-backed groove and bounce from Mustard seems alright… until you realize it’s rooted in a pitched-down sample of the song ‘By Any Means’ by Jorja Smith, a #BlackLivesMatter protest song released in the height of last year. So not only is the sampling excruciatingly quick, it’s an attempted recontextualization of a Black activist protest song by a whiny white boy to complain about women and then lie about coming from the bottom - the reason he has a record deal in the first place is nepotism, come on! There’s just a level of ick to the details that even if I like the groove, I don’t like how it’s framed and contextualized - and Kid LAROI continues to suck. Next!

92. '5500 Degrees’ by EST Gee ft. Lil Baby, 42 Dugg & Rylo Rodriguez - so full disclosure, even though I covered EST Gee earlier this past year when he hopped on Lil Baby’s song and I did like the track, I don’t really remember it all that well, certainly not enough for his newest project to be on my radar and debut a few tracks this week, this one stacked with features, no hook and featuring a very obvious Juvenile sample against the really cheap sounding percussion. But I have to wonder if stacking the verses with so many features and little structure really helps him here, because in comparison with everyone here, I’m not sure EST Gee is saying anything that stands out among the gunplay and drug running, especially leaving Lil Baby to have the last verse. Honestly, it just feels like way less than the sum of its parts and winds up kind of forgettable - let’s move on.

90. ‘Memory I Don’t Mess With’ by Lee Brice - so okay, I remember shocking a lot of folks with putting ‘One Of Them Girls’ on my year end list of my favourite hits last year, so I resolved to keep an eye on where he was going with his next few singles, especially pulling from that same album last year. This is his newest and… yeah, I like this too! I think it’s a bit percussion dominant with how the drum kit feels so burly and strident, but I guess I should feel more grateful it’s mostly organic with the liquid electric tones and crisp strumming balancing off of his huskier vocals. And I really like the idea behind the song, where he encounters an ex that left him with so many good memories but it didn’t work for whatever reason, so he knows if he spends any more time with her he’ll rekindle those feelings. And I like how the song isn’t angry or bitter, it’s just kind of wistful and understanding how that’s a part of life, where the slightly more scattered imagery works on the verses to create that picture. It brings some grounded maturity that Lee Brice has been embracing a lot more of recently, and he’s proving really good at it - and this wound up pretty damn good as a result, glad to see it here.

89. ‘Lick Back’ by EST Gee - so it’s important to highlight that there’s a second version of this song on the album that has Young Thug and Future on it and feels fleshed out into more of a song. This is just one extended verse that runs under two minutes with your standard trap groove and haunted melody that I actually think sets the vibe pretty effectively, especially with the touches of Spanish guitar… and it makes me wish that what charted had a little more detail and meat to the bones beyond a pretty rote drug-running track. I think what hurts EST Gee is that while he does the basics well, he doesn’t really add more to his formula just yet, so while this has production enough to work, it’s missing anything more. Not bad, but at least in this state, not really memorable.

88. ‘Better Believe’ by Belly, The Weeknd & Young Thug - I’m always perplexed whenever I see Belly on the charts, especially in the US - don’t get me wrong, he’s certainly well-connected given the features he gets and he’s had a smattering of hits the past fifteen years in Canada, but outside of maybe ‘Might Not’, I haven’t seen that proper breakthrough moment yet. Now pairing him with The Weeknd and Young Thug is a recipe to get there… and why do I think this is more of The Weeknd’s song here, given he opens the song with the longest verse and handles the hook, especially with the middle-eastern touches of woodwinds and twinkling synths playing around the rumbling trap beat from Zaytoven? That’s not saying that Belly can’t handle his verse - he sounds forceful and he’s got the swagger to match The Weeknd’s flexing, certainly better than whatever Young Thug thinks he’s doing - but I think the focus could be better placed, especially when the hook is pretty damn sticky. I dunno, this is already a top 25 hit in Canada and I can see it sticking with the right promo… and I don’t mind that as it is decent, but I think this should be a little better than it is.

81. ‘Pepas’ by Farruko - oh look, a latin song that’s not massively overloaded with guest features - and from Farruko, that’s a bit of a surprise! And I’ll admit initially I was getting onboard with this - the more textured and developed percussion groove playing off a good bassline, some splashes of mariachi trumpets, the vocals bringing a lot of rollicking intensity and personality especially when he stacks up a crowd for the hook before the drop, even if it’s all just for a dumb party cut. But then that drop happens - and yeah, the trumpet sounds fine if a little shrill, but why did someone tell Farruko that keening fart of a synth stolen from an EDM song from a decade ago was a good idea? Honestly I was set to really get on board with this before that damn synth comes in, it just overpowers a song that could have been legit great. As it is… man, this’ll go off in a live setting especially at a club, but I wanted to like this a lot more

57. ‘Over The Top’ by Smiley ft. Drake - was there some sort of call that we were going to be getting an influx of Toronto talent on the Hot 100 this week out of nowhere? Because Smiley is a Toronto MC who got the coveted Drake cosign and very spare production from Tay Keith with the sharp trap groove and piano - good luck with whatever happens to your career next, the abandonment is often very real here. And while I know the intro of the song has been a bit of a meme in some circles… well, I hate to say it, but I think I might just prefer Drake on this, because Smiley does not impress me - there’s a bit of an odd valley girl feel to how it constantly sounds like he’s pitching up his delivery at the end of every line like he’s asking a question, and it gets annoying pretty quickly. It doesn’t help that his content just doesn’t feel interesting - a pretty standard come-up flex with some gunplay and a lot of brand name porn - whereas Drake is at least trying to sound sharper with his references to not dancing anymore, not retiring and settling some more scores, as well as that bizarre line about asking to be buried with a tan, because it’s part of his brand. Now I do get the feeling this is just catchy and memetic enough to become at least a minor hit, but outside of that… man, I wish Drake would put on better artists.

42. ‘Don’t Go Yet’ by Camila Cabello - there’s a part of me that had no idea where Camila Cabello was going with this, especially given that when her boyfriend Shawn Mendes made a project about their relationship late last year, it may have tanked his entire career. And given her own spotty record with singles, I didn’t have high hopes for this… so colour me surprised that this isn’t bad at all. In fact, nailing down what works here is actually kind of interesting, because Ricky Reed’s more colourful approach to production in bringing in all the horns and timbales and congas gives this song the most flavour that Camila Cabello has had in years, especially getting away from the reverb saturation of Romance. And I think the vocals are better produced as well - yeah, her delivery sounds fried as per usual and she’s always going to be a limited singer, but the more extensive backing vocals add some support and you can tell in hitting the higher notes she sounds a little better than on previous projects! Now I definitely think the tinny acoustics are not a great choice to place right at the front of the mix, and you can definitely tell this song is cribbing openly from the formula Shakira laid down in the early 2000s - and Camila Cabello is no Shakira - and the lyrics are trying to keep her partner around are nothing to write home about… but this might be the most I’ve liked a Camila Cabello song since ‘Havana’. So yeah, this is fine - I wouldn’t mind this sticking around, good song.

41. ‘Not Sober’ by Kid LAROI ft. Polo G & Stunna Gambino - I mean, second time’s the charm, and Polo G tends to care about his guest verses, so this has a hope of not sucking? Well, it’s better, but not by much, and if anything a song like this highlights the risk of making angsty cuts when everyone is on a different page. Polo G’s verse feels the most grounded, given the sharp contrast between the streets and his newfound success, which Stunna Gambino is trying to drill into but it feels less developed and rich… and Kid LAROI is complaining about girls and friends who double crossed him and he’s a lot more open about how much he’s drinking. And while he references Juice WRLD’s passing in his verse… I’m sorry, but I get no pathos from this kid, it just feels so painfully flat, even if the hook is catchy opposite the increasingly stale piano and cheap trap beat. I guess at this point I just feel like I’ve heard this song done better a dozen times from better acts - we don’t have to keep Kid LAROI around, you know? Just saying…

15. ‘If I Didn’t Love You’ by Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood - the first thought that immediately came to mind when I saw this was ‘oh, it looks like we’re going back to 2011 when duets were all the rage to pick up on Lady Antebellum’s success’, and where funnily enough both of these artists had hits doing so. Carrie Underwood had the better one with ‘Remind Me’ with Brad Paisley, mostly because the two of them are friends and have good chemistry, but ‘Don’t You Wanna Stay’ with Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson was always a dud to me where there was none of that warmth or connection, which was my big concern here. And man, this feels like a cut from that era - the overblown electric guitars that don’t really match with the pedal steel, the synthetic effects that don’t click, the fact that both of them are belting so much over the hook and… look, the chemistry is not here, and I blame Jason Aldean for the most part. You can tell they’re trying, sure, but in terms of pure charisma Underwood is on a different level and Aldean can’t get away from his stoic / baked potato delivery. And the tone of this just feels wrong - it’s playing a past relationship where both partners yearn to reconnect as the spark is still there even as they want to move on, but there’s no sense of intimacy or context as to why they broke up in the first place - it feels very generic and vague in a way a song like this shouldn’t be. A prime comparison is ‘I’d Give It All For You’ from the off-Broadway musical Songs For A New World that shows the distance the partners had to travel before they realized the reconciliation was worth it - or hell, the Lee Brice song from this week showed more maturity and texture in a similar emotional state. Really, this feels like an American Idol song - makes sense why Carrie Underwood can somewhat sell it - and I get why this has an audience, but… man, this feels flat to me. Not really a fan.

2. ‘Industry Baby’ by Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow - and now for the main event - and boy, there was hype going into this song, especially from folks lukewarm on Lil Nas X but really getting onboard with this as a more fully composed and fleshed out piece than the fragments he usually drops. And… I’d mostly agree with that, although my first observation was ‘wow, this sounds like a T.I. song from the mid-2000s’ with the lumpy trap beat and horn loop and swaggering melody to the hook that by the end kicks into a full drumline, where discovering that Kanye West was a co-producer doesn’t even surprise me. I guess the weird thing with this brand of 2000s revivalism is that I grew up with it and I remember this stripped back, horn-inflected braggadocious sound the first time, and I wish both Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow did more with it, especially in the content. There’s a couple good lines I like - I like just how confident and in your face Lil Nas X is willing to get with how he wants this to peak effectively on the charts, trying to will it to success on force of will, and Jack Harlow has always had the laid-back swagger to nail a verse on a song like this; plus after the week I’ve had, ‘All these social networks and computers / Got these pussies walkin' 'round like they ain't losers’ certainly feels more resonant! But I dunno, there’s a part of me not as on-board as I’d like because it feels like it’s carrying its hit status by birthright - which is very Nicki Minaj and a parallel between her and Lil Nas X that absolutely makes sense, but it feels a little static to me; I dunno, I guess I just prefer rooting for the underdog where popularity doesn’t matter. I dunno, this is another song I wanted to like more than I do - it’s got moments and feels like a fully fleshed out idea, but for me it’s just good, not great.

And that’s our week… honestly, feels weird to go through these and with ‘Memory I Don’t Want To Mess With’ by Lee Brice easily snagging the best of the week… and you know, for Honourable Mention… this could easily be a crapshoot between Lil Nas X and Camila Cabello, but I’m giving it to ‘Pepas’ by Farruko - this song is one remix to fix the synths from just slapping incredibly hard, especially with as good as the crescendos are! Now worst of the week falls out faster: ‘Still Chose You’ by Kid LAROI and Mustard is easily the worst of the week, with Dishonourable Mention… I’m going to say ‘5500 Degrees’ by EST Gee ft. 42 Dugg, Lil Baby, and Rylo Rodriguez for completely failing that Juvenile sample and not delivering anything worth caring about. Next week… yeah, Billie Eilish album bomb coming, stay tuned!