billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 12, 2020

So there are two stories this week, one that I was predicting from last week and the other… I’ll be honest, I forgot, and it’s a bad look on me. The first is the continued onslaught of holiday music - it’s already overtaken the charts to an alarming degree, and I think Billboard is just content for this music to become recurrent properly so they don’t have to build an genre-based exception… which means we’re only three or four years away from this not happening except for the biggest of it, yay! But the second story… yeah, it’s a bad look that I forgot Bad Bunny can really land significant album bombs, I’ll admit it; I’ll probably get more into why later on, but suffice to say I should have seen it coming.

But for now, let’s talk about our top ten, where there’s evidence of both our stories but not at the very top, where ‘Mood’ by 24kGoldn and iann dior takes back the #1. Basically it’s here because even as its peak wavers on the radio, it’s still consistently strong across the board… but it’s also a weak #1 and it’s going to be broken probably next week by ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey, which is up to #2. She’s got the sales, she rules streaming and YouTube, and holiday radio is a thing - the #1 is inevitable, just stay tuned for it. Frankly, I’m just kind of surprised that ‘positions’ by Ariana Grande is holding up at #3 courtesy of good radio and alright streaming - i guess her sweeter delivery might be accessible around the holidays, but I still expect her to be eclipsed by ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ by Brenda Lee, which is up at #4 for a lot of the same reasons as Mariah, just with less YouTube. But then we get our second story: thanks to the album boost leading to great streaming, and radio finally gaining traction, ‘Dakiti’ by Bad Bunny and Jhay Cortez is up to #5 - again, I’m not sure how long this’ll last beyond the album boost, but the song has had stronger legs than I’ve expected, so it could well stick around. Then we have a surprise pickup for ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’ by Drake ft. Lil Durk to #6 - I’d say maybe just a good radio week given how bad its streaming looks, but it might be more because ‘Holy’ by Justin Bieber ft. Chance The Rapper slipped to #7, which has okay sales and is making more of a radio run, but its total collapse of streaming is preventing more gains. Either way it held over ‘I Hope’ by Gabby Barrett at #8, where it’s on the wrong side of its radio peak and the sales aren’t going to save it… especially when ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ by Bobby Helms is up at #9 with way better sales and streaming! Finally, clinging onto the top 10 we have ‘Dynamite’ by BTS - it might still have a lot of sales, but the radio has peaked and it’s on the downswing.

Speaking of that, losers and dropouts - and yeah, there was a decent number of them! ‘One Beer’ by HARDY, Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson, ‘One Of Them Girls’ by Lee Brice, ‘Pretty Heart’ by Parker McCollum, ‘Some Girls’ by Jameson Rodgers - rough week for country here - ‘Come & Go’ by Juice WRLD and Marshmello, also ‘Wishing Well’, ‘Franchise’ by Travis Scott, Young Thug and M.I.A., ‘U 2 Luv’ by Ne-Yo and Jeremih, and thankfully ‘Popstar’ by DJ Khaled and Drake that godawful cover of ‘Put Your Record On’ by Ritt Momney. But yeah, this was an album bomb week with the assistance of the holidays that led to a lot of losers, so starting with the debuts slipping we had ‘Life Goes On’ by BTS falling hard to 28, ‘Still Goin Down’ and ‘Somebody’s Problem’ by Morgan Wallen at 86 and 84 respectively, and ‘Monster’ by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber tanking to 38 - yeah, I’m not sure he’s got the album bomb coming to save him, given that ‘Wonder’ fell hard to 77. That leads to the rest of our continued losers, where ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi is at 42, ‘ily’ by surf mesa and Emilee is at 43, ‘Watermelon Sugar’ by Harry Styles is at 50, ‘Hawai’ by Maluma fell to 54, ‘Love You Like I Used To’ by Russell Dickerson is at 61, ‘Starting Over’ by Chris Stapleton is at 62, ‘Forever After All’ by Luke Combs at 68, ‘pov’ by Ariana Grande at 80, ‘Took Her To The O’ by the late King Von at 88, ‘Tyler Herro’ by Jack Harlow at 91, and ‘hole in the bottle’ by Kelsea Ballerini at 98. And then for the rest getting pushed out… well, ‘Back To The Streets’ by Saweetie ft. Jhene Aiko slid to 96 off the return, ‘Good Time’ by Niko Moon is at 93, ‘Golden’ by Harry Styles is at 92, ‘Don’t Stop’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Young Thug fell to 89 - I’m frankly surprised it’s held on this long - ‘Throat Baby (Go Baby)’ by BRS Kash is at 85, ‘7 Summers’ by Morgan Wallen fell to 76 - wasn’t there supposed to be a radio push for this eventually - ‘What You Know About Love’ by Pop Smoke at 52, and ‘Lonely’ by Justin Bieber and benny blanco at 46. Finally, to round out some more notable losers, ‘Said Sum’ by Moneybagg Yo is at 44, ‘WAP’’ by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion is at 33, ‘More Than My Hometown’ by Morgan Wallen fell to 32, and ‘Savage Love’ by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo hit 29.

All of those losses… just to be replaced by holiday music. Seriously, go to our returns, that’s all it is: ‘There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays’ by Perry Como at 47, ‘It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas’ by Perry Como and the Fontaine Sisters at 45, ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ by Darlene Love at 41, ‘Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer’ by Gene Autry at 40, and then Michael Buble’s cover of ‘It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas’ at 39! But we’re not done: ‘White Christmas’ by Bing Crosby at 37, ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ by Gene Autry again at 36, ‘Happy Holidays / The Holiday Season’ by Andy Williams at 34, ‘Underneath The Tree’ by Kelly Clarkson at 30, ‘Sleigh Ride’ by The Ronettes at 23, and my personal favourite, ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’ by Burl Ives at 24. But we’re still not done, because while I’ve mentioned all our gains in the top 10, ‘It’s The Most Wonderful TIme’ by Andy Williams is up to 12, ‘Feliz Navidad’ by Jose Feliciano is at 16, ‘The Christmas Song’ by Nat King Cole is at 18, ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! is at 21, and ‘Let It Snow’ by Dean Martin is at 22. The only other gain is ‘Midnight Sky’ by Miley Cyrus at 57, because her album boost just did not happen outside of this and ‘Prisoner’ staying relatively stable. But again, our other story is Bad Bunny’s album bomb, all of which fell below the top 40, so outside of the best and worst of this week… ‘La Droga’ at 94, ‘Hey Cobre’ at 81, ‘El Mundo Es Mio’ at 79, ‘Booker T’ at 78, ‘Te Deseo Lo Mejor’ at 74, ‘Haciendo Que Me Amas’ at 72, and ‘Te Mudaste’ at 60.

Got all that? Good, because we’re going back to holiday music in our new arrivals starting with…

95. ‘Favourite Time Of Year’ by Carrie Underwood - …so two of these Christmas songs are in a similar state to that of a John Legend Christmas song from last year: they’re Amazon exclusives that charted on sales and the only reason I heard them was courtesy of leaks I found elsewhere. The first of these songs is from Carrie Underwood, and I’m not sure of the origin of this one - the metadata I did find was kind of iffy, but it makes sense for Carrie Underwood to cut this, so how is it? Ehh, it’s got the unfortunate cheapness of production I’ve come to expect from Carrie Underwood for how formless so much of the instrumentation sounds outside of the drums, which doesn’t do anything to flatter her voice… but she’s also sounds like she struggling a bit to belt as much, the production around her vocals feels uncomfortably crisp. Beyond that… look, we’ve heard these quick ‘Christmas is here’ songs, often pushed by pop country acts, and this is middle of the pack at best - if it wasn’t for Carrie Underwood’s presence, nobody would care, and even she’s not great on this, next!

87. ‘Maldita Pobreza’ by Bad Bunny - so this is a side of Bad Bunny I really like, because he flips the flex of a significant chunk of the album and this song in particular to something much more interesting: he emphasizes all the fine things he wants to get his girl… except he has no money and is driven towards violence to get what he needs, which leads to a bloody disaster, even as she pulls up to his funeral in that Ferrari he wanted to get her. And it’s not just a traditional reggaeton vibe that he flipped, but the overall tone of the production as well - the sharp guitar chords playing off drums that seem closer to a rock progression that ramps up the groove, and when passages flip into a trap breakdown, it feels surprisingly cohesive, especially when the second verse gets as manic and dark as it does, especially with that harmonica echoing over the gunshots to end the song. Easily my favourite on the album, highly recommended - really good stuff.

83. ‘Rockin Around The Christmas Tree’ by Justin Bieber - yeah, this is the other Amazon exclusive, and forgive me for saying that I’m sick and goddamn tired of thinking about Justin Bieber in 2020, he’s already consumed entirely too much of my time and attention. Now for what it’s worth, the washed out production leading into guitars shows more of a budget than I would have expected, and there’s even a pretty decent guitar solo… but we’re stuck with a more soulful arrangement and Bieber trying his R&B inflections and man, it’s falling flat here. I’ll give him credit for actually sticking the landing on the final high note… but look, I don’t see this unseating Brenda Lee’s version, and he already has ‘Mistletoe’ as his holiday contribution - he should stick with that.

75. ‘Under The Mistletoe’ by Kelly Clarkson & Brett Eldredge - the cover surprises me less than I thought it would - Kelly Clarkson’s already got a Christmas song charting and given the soulful crooner direction Eldredge has been going in especially off Sunday Drive, this makes complete sense and I was hoping it’d be good. And… I’m a bit disappointed, but not to the point where I think this is bad. It falls into the territory of Christmas love songs where they might have a history and want to reconcile, which isn’t a bad place to work from… but the execution leaves something to be desired. For one, the production with the big horns and splashy soul elements feels really overstated, clearly designed to back up Clarkson rather than play for something more tasteful, and then she just overwhelms the song as a result. There’s no subtlety, there’s no balance, the song just feels overdone and the weird lack of chemistry between them really feels noticeable as a result. Eh, this had the potential to be better - it’s fine, but I don’t see it lasting.

65. ‘Dicked Down In Dallas’ by Trey Lewis - …I had people want me to do a meme review for this, and that’s not gonna happen; yes, it got big off of TikTok and then exploded everywhere - you can stop giggling now, because let’s not act like this is a meme of any viability or has any of the inherent strangeness that would make it fit in that lane. To demystify this a bit, ‘Dicked Down In Dallas’ was a profane inside joke amidst a bunch of Nashville writers and then Trey Lewis cut the song. For the artist himself, apparently he has an album and this is a good way to get buzz for it, but making a song that might as well be a second rate Hot Country Knights song or a fourth rate Wheeler Walker Jr. song doesn’t impress me; this is not nearly as good as ‘Asphalt’ or ‘You Make It Hard’, let’s be real. Partially because this isn’t a fun song especially in the sour, minor chord hook and ugly production which the key change can’t redeem - this is a guy who’s miserable his ex left him and he’s assuming she’s getting fucked all across the United States, where he then tacks on assumptions of daddy issues. I get that TikTok probably reclaimed this from the ugly veneer of slutshaming that runs rampant through it, but without that context it’s not fun nor clever - this fits in the same territory as the worst sort of bro-country but with all the profanity they wouldn’t put on record, it’s not that far removed from the worst of Brantley Gilbert or Sam Hunt. So there might be a part of me that respects the honesty of a cut like this… except to the point where I just know a bunch of dudes will buy into it a little too hard in the same way they did ‘Hot Girl Bummer’, and this is just as noxious. Let this go soft and go away - ugh.

64. ‘Yo Visto Asi’ by Bad Bunny - so we have two more Bad Bunny songs here, and this is another example of the rap rock touches he was embracing across the album, especially in the percussion, and while they didn’t always work and I’m not convinced they’re great here, I do think this is a really damn solid song… even if you can tell some of it’s a brand name flex. But really, that’s more interwoven into how Bad Bunny has faced scrutiny over how he’s dressed and his own creative eccentricities here, and this is his kiss-off - translated into one of the most overpoweringly macho subgenres there is. Really solid song for what it is, and it was nearly an Honourable Mention for me… except-

53. ‘La Noche de Anoche’ by Bad Bunny & ROSALIA - I’ll admit I was surprised to discover that this is the first collaboration between ROSALIA and Bad Bunny, because they make a lot of sense together and play off each other pretty well, especially on this song where they look back on a killer night before and recognize they caught feels, and that could well lead to more along the way… which they’re both hesitant about, as they’ve been burned before. But the possibilities linger, and that drives the song’s intensity, especially as both are conscious of their fame and what a connection like this could for them… shame that despite having good chemistry, the production doesn’t quite give them much to work. Like much of the album, it leans a bit more downtempo and melancholic with the washed out warbles of melody against the blocky reggaeton percussion. Yeah, it matches the mood, but I think they could have done a little more with it, even if I still think this is pretty good.

Ergo, when I’m going through the best and worst of this week… well, Bad Bunny is getting all of it, with the top spot for ‘Maldita Pobreza’, but I’m giving a tie for Honourable Mention to ‘Yo Visto Asi’ and ‘La Noche de Anoche’. Worst of the week… Dishonourable Mention is going to Carrie Underwood for ‘Favorite Time Of Year’, just for the stale disappointment that it is, with the worst comfortably going to Trey Lewis’ ‘Dicked Down In Dallas’ - I’ve seen the defenses of this song, there’s a lot better country comedy than this. Next week… well, I doubt Shawn Mendes will pull it all together, but I could be wrong, we’ll have to see.