billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 10, 2022

Yes, I know, another slow week courtesy of holiday music - and following in the new holiday tradition I don’t think anyone wanted, it has to do with Amazon holiday singles, which always serves to remind me that Amazon has a streaming service that actually ranks third behind Apple Music and Spotify and ahead of TIDAL. I guess the good news is that Metro Boomin will likely get an album bomb next week and SZA will follow right after that, so the charts will get more interesting… just around the time the holidays get busier, just fantastic.

Anyway, our top ten, where to my shock ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift actually held the #1! And even though she’s losing ground on streaming - that’ll be what’ll kill this song in the next few weeks - good sales and strong radio are holding the line. Now again, I don’t expect this’ll last: ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey is up to #2 and ‘Rockin Around The Christmas Tree’ by Brenda Lee is up to #3 slashing into that margin, so much so that they rolled over ‘Unholy’ by Sam Smith and Kim Petras at #4, which is at the top spot on radio but just can’t make any greater inroads. And hell, right behind it thanks to streaming are ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ by Bobby Helms at #5 and ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’ by Burl Ives at #6, both of which handily knocked back ‘Rich Flex’ by Drake and 21 Savage at #7 which might have streaming but just can’t get any radio going, and ‘Bad Habit’ by Steve Lacy, which has radio but is very much slipping into decline. Finally, breaking into the top 10 we’ve got two more holiday songs picking up big gains: ‘It’s The Most Wonderful Time’ by Andy Williams and ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham!, where Metro Boomin is going to have a fight to get through this streaming bulwark!

This takes us to our losers and dropouts, where as you’d expect the rush of holiday music has seen a few, although mostly taking care of album bombs we did wee ‘The Kind Of Love We Make’ by Luke Combs knocked off along with ‘Hotel Lobby (Unc and Phew)’ by Quavo and the late Takeoff. And while over a third of the Hot 100 is losing, most of it are residual album bomb cuts so let’s tear through those first. From Taylor Swift, ‘Lavender Haze’ at 52, ‘Bejeweled’ is at 70, ‘Midnight Rain’ is at 71, ‘Maroon’ at 73, ‘Karma’ at 78, ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’ at 80, ‘Snow On The Beach’ with Lana Del Rey at 83, and ‘Vigilante Shit’ at 97, and from Drake and 21 Savage, ‘Spin Bout U’ at 53, ‘Circo Loco’ at 56, ‘On BS’ at 58, ‘Major Distribution’ at 59, ‘Pussy & Millions’ with Travis Scott at 64, ‘Privileged Rappers’ at 75, ‘Broke Boys’ at 79, ‘BackOutsideBoyz’ at 81, ‘Hours In Silence’ at 88, and ‘Jumbotron Shit Poppin’ at 92. The rest almost feel a bit trivial, most of them confined to the top half of the charts: yeah, ‘Half Of Us’ by Thomas Rhett and Riley Green fell to 68 and ‘Hold Me Closer’ by Elton John and Britney Spears slide to 67 and ‘Wait In The Truck’ by HARDY and Lainey Wilson hit 65, but the rest look more like established hits that are just getting muscled out by big holiday returns. So with that, ‘She Had Me At Heads Carolina’ by Cole Swindell at 50, ‘Sunroof’ by Nicky Youre and dazy at 47, ‘Jimmy Cooks’ by Drake and 21 Savage at 46, ‘I Ain’t Worried’ by OneRepublic at 45, ‘Titi Me Pregunto’ by Bad Bunny at 44, ‘Wait For U’ by Future, Tems and Drake at 40, ‘Vegas’ by Doja Cat at 38, ‘Tomorrow 2’ by Glorilla and Cardi B at 37, ‘Made You Look’ by Meghan Trainor and ‘Just Wanna Rock’ by Lil Uzi Vert losing all of their gains to fall to 36 and 35 respectively, ‘Something In The Orange’ by Zach Bryan at 28, ‘Super Freaky Girl’ by Nicki Minaj at 26, ‘Wasted On You’ and ‘You Proof’ by Morgan Wallen falling to 32 and 25, and ‘Lift Me Up’ by Rihanna hitting 22.

So what takes their place? Holiday music, and a lot of it - starting with our returns, outside of ‘Forget Me’ by Lewis Capaldi clawing back to 98, we have ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ by Darlene Love at 23, ‘Santa Tell Me’ by Ariana Grande at 24, ‘It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas’ by Michael Buble at 29, ‘Deck The Halls’ by Nat King Cole at 30, ‘White Christmas’ by Bing Crosby at 31, ‘Jingle Bells’ by Frank Sinatra at 33, ‘Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer’ and ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ by Gene Autry at 34 and 39 respectively, ‘You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch’ by Thurl Ravenscroft at 42, ‘Blue Christmas’ by Elvis at 43, and ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town’ by the Jackson 5 at 49. And now for the gains, which are all holiday returns from last week, and outside of the top ten which we already discussed, ‘The Christmas Song’ by Nat King Cole is at 12, ‘Feliz Navidad’ by Jose Feliciano is at 13, ‘Sleigh Ride’ by The Ronettes is at 16, ‘Underneath The Tree’ by Kelly Clarkson hit 17, ‘Let It Snow’ by Dean Martin hit 18, and ‘It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas’ by Perry Como hit 19.

So yeah, a lot of holiday activity… and only two new arrivals again! Given the work I’m putting into handling main channel stuff, let’s just focus on these, starting with…

96. ‘Someday At Christmas’ by Lizzo - so this might sound wild, but here it goes: with her brand of upbeat enthusiasm and flair for the dramatic and theatrical, it makes complete sense for Lizzo to make Christmas music at some point, in the case a cover of a Stevie Wonder song from 1967. It’s been covered a decent amount but oddly not quite as much as you might think… but given its lyrics focusing on a desire for ending wars and equality among people, it sadly doesn’t surprise me much. So for Lizzo’s cover, it leans more into soul textures, leaning away from the bells and grandeur for a mix that unfortunately doesn’t feel as lush as it could - a real problem with modern holiday music - but man, Lizzo is working her ass off to sell it effectively. I think the performance elevates this into quality, and while I wouldn’t call it a favourite holiday tune, it’s still good.

91. ‘Last Christmas’ by Lauren Spencer-Smith - it feels like it’s going to be a note of trivia in years to come that Lauren Spencer-Smith had two minor hits this year, so I’m not surprised she’s trying to follow up that momentum with a cover of Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’, which is one of the rare synthpop holiday classics. So let’s get the obvious out of the way: even if you can tolerate the really messy autotune and vocal tracking, Lauren Spencer-Smith is not as good of a singer as George Michael, and stripping the song down to a piano ballad reminds me of Calum Scott’s godawful cover of Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’. Part of the power comes from the pop dancefloor texture, stripping it down to a straightforward ballad takes away the emotional complexity, where Spencer-Smith just can’t vamp like George Michael and it comes across like she doesn’t grasp the drama he once sold. So… no, I don’t think this is good.

And yeah, obvious worst of the week, Lizzo is getting the best, it does fall out quickly! Next week things will be more interesting courtesy of Metro Boomin, so please stay tuned for that!