billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 17, 2022

You know, after the past two very short weeks, I was actually looking forward to a meatier episode, especially around an album I haven’t covered - little did I know that apparently a bunch of other acts were just waiting to pile on as well, so it’s not just Metro Boomin here, it’s Morgan Wallen and more holiday stuff and… well, who knows how much of it will be left with SZA next week, but we’ll get to that.

In the meantime, our top ten, where as I predicted, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey finally got her #1. Now there’s a real challenger with SZA coming, but Mariah has streaming and holiday radio pretty locked up, and with ‘Rockin Around The Christmas Tree’ by Brenda Lee at #2, ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ by Bobby Helms at #3, and ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’ by Burl Ives at #4, the holiday bulwark is in. But this takes us to our first new entry, cutting through courtesy of an album bomb on streaming, ‘Creepin’ by Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, and 21 Savage. We’ll get more into the song itself later on, but given that all it has is streaming right now, I don’t really expect it to last. It did knock back ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift to #6 - it took body blows on streaming, but the radio is absolutely there, and if there’s a song that’ll last to the new year, it’s probably this one. I can’t really say the same for ‘Unholy’ by Sam Smith and Kim Petras, which slid to #7 because the radio seems to have peaked and it’s in freefall on streaming, in contrast to our second new top ten entry which is pretty much just streaming: ‘Superhero (Heroes & Villains)’ by Metro Boomin, Chris Brown, and Future; yes, we’ll get into this one later too. To round things out, ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! picked up some streaming traction to rise to #9, and ‘Rich Flex’ by Drake and 21 Savage slid to #10 because while it still has notable streaming, the radio is taking its sweet time to get onboard, and it might be too late.

That takes us nicely to our losers and dropouts, and I’ll say this for late year album bombs: they really do clean out the Hot 100 for an upcoming year, because we have some notable exits: ‘California Breeze’ by Lil Baby, ‘About Damn Time’ by Lizzo, ‘Sunroof’ by NIcky Youre and dazy, ‘Jimmy Cooks’ by Drake and 21 Savage, ‘I Ain’t Worried’ by OneRepublic, ‘Titi Me Pregunto’ by Bad Bunny, and ‘Vegas’ by Doja Cat - sidenote, it’s total bullshit that the Oscars are disqualifying ‘Vegas’ from Best Original Song because of the ‘Hound Dog’ sample and interpolation because the Academy is woefully behind the times with hip-hop, as per usual. But we have a sizable chunk of losers here too, so let’s through the album bomb remnants first: from Taylor Swift ‘Maroon’ fell to 93, ‘Midnight Rain’ hit 88, and ‘Bejeweled’ hit 86, and from Drake and 21 Savage, ‘Pussy & Millions’ with Travis Scott dropped to 82, ‘Major Distribution’ hit 77, ‘On BS’ hit 75, ‘Circo Loco’ hit 73, and ‘Spin Bout U’ hit 70. Then we had a few country losses: ‘Don’t Come Lookin’ by Jackson Dean fell to 96, ‘Half Of Us’ by Thomas Rhett and Riley Green hit 91, and ‘Something In The Orange’ by Zach Bryan faded to 41. And now, the rest: ‘No Se Va’ by Grupo Frontera hit 97, ‘Golden Hour’ by JVKE hit 54 - I did think this would have more staying power - ‘Just Wanna Rock’ by Lil Uzi Vert hit 51, ‘Wait For U’ by Future, Tems and Drake hit 50, ‘Tomorrow 2’ by Glorilla and Cardi B hit 47, ‘Made You Look’ by Meghan Trainor hit 46, ‘Super Freaky Girl’ by Nicki Minaj hit 40, ‘I Like You (A Happier Song)’ by Post Malone and Doja Cat hit 39, ‘Lift Me Up’ by Rihanna hit 35, and ‘Under The Influence’ by Chris Brown hit 33. Not gonna lie, if some of these got forced off with SZA next week, I wouldn’t be complaining.

Now we don’t have any returns this week, and the only two gains we had are ‘Someday At Christmas’ by Lizzo rising off the debut to 81 and ‘Heart Like A Truck’ by Lainey Wilson hitting 79, but let’s be real: we’re in album bomb territory for Metro Boomin here. And given that he has fifteen songs on the Hot 100, we’re going to be covering the ones that are either best, worst, or in the top 20. Outside of that… ‘Lock On Me’ with Travis Scott and Future at 72, ‘All Of The Money’ with Gunna at 66, ‘Feel The Flyaaaah’ with A$AP Rocky and the late Takeoff at 59, ‘I Can’t Save (Interlude)’ with Future and Don Toliver at 55, ‘Walk Em Down (Don’t Kill Civilians)’ with 21 Savage and Mustafa at 52, ‘On Time’ with John Legend at 48, ‘Trance’ with Travis Scott and Young Thug at 42, ‘Raindrops (Insane)’ with Travis Scott at 31, ‘Niagara Falls (Foot Or 2)’ with Travis Scott and 21 Savage at 27, ‘Umbrella’ with 21 Savage and Young Nudy at 23, and ‘Too Many Nights’ with Don Toliver and Future at 22 - thought that was pretty close, Don Toliver is great on this album.

Alright, that makes things a bit easier - still have a lot of debuts, though, so let’s get started with…

100. ‘Escapism’ by RAYE ft. 070 Shake - so the big headline is that this is the breakthrough of both of these artists on the Hot 100… except that’s a lie, 070 Shake wasn’t credited on ‘Ghost Town’ by Kanye West but was absolutely there as arguably the reason anyone remember that song! But the bigger story is RAYE - British singer-songwriter and if you follow their charts she’s been racking up credible hits since 2017, so I was intrigued when this crossover went viral… and I get it, there’s a lot going on here. The instrumental for one is going for broke somewhere as it creaks and bends across wailing strings that remind me a lot of The Weeknd, drum switch-ups that sound phenomenal, bass that nearly swamps the mix, and the feel that at any point it’s going to fall apart, which during 070 Shake’s verse and the outro it nearly does, reminding me a lot of songs from The Weekend’s After Hours. And it earns that drama - the sort of post-breakup rager where she’s seeking escape through alcohol, drugs, and sex, whatever numbness she can claim, with 070 Shake playing someone who’s already faded and a cautionary tale that you’re not going to really escape. I guess if I have a hang-up it might come with RAYE herself - the song nails the lurid details and her throaty delivery works, but her inflections don’t always work and I feel like the song needed a more explosive climax to really pay this off. Still, it is impressive and pretty damn good, happy to see it here.

(no audio because nobody really cares)

98. ‘Blue Christmas’ by Kane Brown - hope y’all weren’t sick of the Amazon holiday originals, because we’ve got another one this week, and since nobody cared enough to cross-post it on any other site, I got my once-per-year free trial and got it myself; I respect every artist who pulls this nonsense a little less every year. And for Kane Brown… look, he’s competing against Elvis’ version, and this doesn’t remotely measure up, mostly due to a complete misunderstanding of tone. Elvis could at least sell the warbling doo-wop / country angst with a mix that I still find overarranged, but nothing compared to the pluckier guitars and sleigh bells and a pedal steel dumped over the vocal runs - Kane Brown just doesn’t have the depth of sincerity to make this work, at least not here, and listening to him try to match Elvis’ range is just sad. In other words, this isn’t any good, next!

92. ‘Santa, Can’t You Hear Me’ by Kelly Clarkson & Ariana Grande - okay, credit to these two, this song was released without any exclusivity back in 2021, just an acknowledgement that teaming up could boost their presence in the holiday canon. So fine, now it’s finally here… and I kind of get why it took this long to get over here. The horns are bright, Kelly and Ariana have good vocal chemistry trying to out belt each other, the sleigh bells are chipper against the swells of organ, but again, it’s an issue of tone - for a song all about what Santa has not delivered them, likely a lover, there’s no subtlety or credible angst in a composition sold this broadly and this plastic. So… okay, a bit better, but I get why it took a while for anyone to really care about it.

83. ‘Wild Flower’ by RM with Youjeen - you know, I’ve found myself liking more of what BTS have done solo than as a group, and now we’ve got RM, who recently released an album with enough named credits in R&B that makes me want to give it a proper chance in my nonexistent spare time! This is the one song that broke through with singer Youjeen, who is a k-pop star in her own right as the lead singer of Cherry Filter, and with this… I was pretty impressed, yet again? As one of the rappers in BTS RM has a low, raspy intensity in his delivery that led me to translate the lyrics reflecting a lot of frustration and alienation, especially from fame and how his circumstances have felt confining and inauthentic, he’s seeking a balance for his darker impulses. And Youjeen stepping up for the chorus delivers really well - she commands that hook and even if I think some of the power is lost in translation, her delivery is impressive as hell. If I have an issue here, it might be production - the blocky, blown out drums against the airy, operatic swell that collapse to a guitar-backed trap beat feel lacking the texture and firepower to put this over the top properly. But otherwise… I do appreciate this going for broke… really damn good, I dig it!

68. ‘La Jumpa’ by Arcangel & Bad Bunny - so the last time I talked about Arcangel was back in 2020 for a song he did with Sech that I thought was total crap… so now he’s back and teaming up with Bad Bunny, because of course he is. And yeah, this isn’t remotely good either - I’m actually a little shocked how much I don’t like this, so let’s start with Arcangel’s snivelling delivery doesn’t work well to sell his flexing against the sandy percussion and oily pulse of the synth that even tries a drill switchup that could have had promise. I’d argue Bad Bunny does more with it - or at least rides it more effectively - but then we get to the content where both of these guys are behaving like total assholes! Between Arcangel wallowing in ignorant flexes all targeted against the listener, where he calls his flow a mixed salad and says he ‘takes them apart like Legoland’ - there’s a brand of obnoxiousness that he can’t remotely sell - to Bad Bunny making a bunch of basketball references and saying he doesn’t normally brag like this… before a weird potshot at Derek Jeter, saying he makes too much money to take care of folks, and then a lot of rather explicit sex references that I don’t need to hear from him. Couple with the half-assed interpolation of ‘Titi Me Pregunto’ where this doesn’t have anything close to the punch… yeah, this blows!

57. ‘Days That End In Why’ by Morgan Wallen - okay seriously, did anyone ask for a sampler of loose singles released by Morgan Wallen from out of nowhere? All three of them charted this week - kind of a mini-EP to hold folks over and distract from… well, everything he’s done this year - so starting with this one… I’ll give him some credit for a pretty good lyrical flip for the hook with the ‘days that end in why’ as he tries to figure out why his relationship imploded and he’s drinking himself into a stupor to get over it. And with the gentle fizzy percussion around the pealing pedal steel and brighter acoustics, there’s a good tune and idea here I wanted to like… but Morgan Wallen doesn’t good at all here! I don’t know if it’s the slightly rougher vocal pickup or how fried his voice sounds, but this is something he could nail in his sleep and it’s not as good as it should be. And given he didn’t write it… yeah, I’m not that impressed.

53. ‘Around Me’ by Metro Boomin ft. Don Toliver - I’ll say this, if there’s one person who got out of the Metro Boomin project unquestionably looking good, it’s Don Toliver - swimming amidst warbling but husky autotune, he’s playing in a similar lane as Travis Scott but with a better command of melody he works against the eerie warbles of synth, really well-balanced trap percussion, and speaker-shaking bass. But it works for the atmosphere of darker paranoia and depression that permeates this song - the atmosphere is fantastic, and Don Toliver underplaying his desperation creates a really potent mood that works all through the beat switches. Honestly… I think this is my favourite song on the album, just a really great tune, check it out!

49. ‘Tennessee Fan’ by Morgan Wallen - okay, this is going to be kind of convoluted: a couple months ago I reviewed in Billboard BREAKDOWN the Megan Moroney song ‘Tennessee Orange’, and I mentioned in passing a connection to Morgan Wallen - it’s been ambiguous what the hell it is, I don’t want to speculate. Anyway, now we’ve got another song about college football and the girl switching teams to be a Tennessee fan… but hang on, in ‘Tennessee Orange’ she was a fan of Georgia, now in this song the girl is reportedly a fan of Alabama, and why do I think nobody’s paying this much attention to the fine details as I am? Now I’ll repeat what I said back then, I don’t have the college football gene, but I do get how big it was when Tennessee beat Alabama in a big high scoring game this year… but it’s not like either of these teams are making the playoff, it just feels oversold to root so much of the song in that! Kind of a shame because otherwise this is pretty decent - more gentle and warm in the acoustics, even if the chord progressions feel lifted straight from ‘Home In My Mind’ by Scotty McCreery, and Wallen’s voice sounds a bit better… but there’s still a weird possessive angle to the lyrics I’m not wild about here. So again, I get the appeal… I’m not just as into it.

43. ‘Metro Spider’ by Metro Boomin & Young Thug - I was on the fence whether this was bad - Young Thug casually falling off a stock trap beat where with the vocal samples blended opposite the bells they’re clearly trying to rip off Kodak Black’s ‘Super Gremlin’, a song I absolutely can’t stand… but then I made the mistake and started paying attention to what Thugger was saying. ‘I don’t trust women, so I thank God I had some daughters’ - I’m not sure that life lesson brag is structured as well as he thinks it is, especially as he talks about pimping women a few lines later - a load of brand name bragging, drug abuse and fucking your wife in a one night stand, opulence where he just sounds bored, a mention of dropping an album in 2022 when that clearly did not happen, and then talking about turning this woman into a sex slave, where he’s now rebranded himself as ‘SEX’ coming off of 'Trance’ with Travis Scott, and that was Prince’s thing! In other words, I have no time for this - next!

37. ‘One Thing At A Time’ by Morgan Wallen - okay, who the hell let Thomas Rhett into the studio with Wallen, where he’s got a plucky, washed out groove that sounds borrowed from disco complete with some really flagrant autotune and dubious vocal mixing? It’s an awkward fit for Wallen, who isn’t tight enough of a singer to pull this off, and that’s before we get to the content where he’s only quitting drinking and drugs or his ex who appears to be at this bar… and why do I get the impression he’s going to quit neither? It feels like there’s an attempt at swagger that I just don’t remotely buy - it comes across as more douchey than anything, and that’s a side of country that brings out the worst in Morgan Wallen. So yeah, I don’t care for this either.

8. ‘Superhero (Heroes & Villains)’ by Metro Boomin, Future & Chris Brown - okay, so I did hear the full album so I might as well talk about its central conceit: the juxtaposition of heroes and villains and how it’s more two sides of the same coin, and how can we really tell and they quite literally quote Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight on this song. The problem with this conceit is what sort of villainous equivocation gets created, and this song is probably the most glaring example of where it goes off the rails. Now the majority of the song is Future rambling over a shuffling trap skitter and subtle bassy rumble off the distorted horn and twinkles - brand name flexing, drug abuse, we’ve heard all of this from Future but some of his punchlines are decent - but then the song shifts to a detuned piano and snippets of Jay-Z sampled from ‘So Appalled’ with The Dark Knight Quotes, and Chris Brown going off about how he’s the only one and those who don’t want to see him win are the real villains here. And at this point, I could bring up Rihanna again - or highlight Karrueche and the other women Brown has put through the ringer and everyone conveniently ignores - but what’s gross is how he’s just playing into it and Metro Boomin’s framing lets him off the hook, implying a lot more complexity than there actually is. So I’ll take the first half with Future, skip the rest.

5. ‘Creepin’ by Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage - let’s get this out of the way first: the hook is a very obvious interpolation of ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ by Mario Winans, a one-hit wonder from 2004 that samples The Fugees and Enya and that he produced himself. I’m not as bothered by the interpolation - we’re at the era where the 2000s will be strip-mined for obvious samples, it’s happened for decades, the results are going to be hit-and-miss - and The Weeknd is capable of pulling off the verses and hook, but I think the bigger problem is that Metro Boomin took a terrific, stripped down mix and production and swallowed it with autotune and bassy reverb. Yes, it’s a modern update and I like the synth and strings additions, but the added backing vocals and brittle trap percussion just don’t have the crisp minimalism that made the original Enya sample so effective, even if the drum switchups sound terrific. And it does set up into 21 Savage’s frustrated intensity on his verse where he goes off on the girl screwing him over - when 21 sounds like he cares, I’m often interested. I’m not remotely surprised this is the biggest song from the album so far - I’d put money on this being a hit, especially with a hook that worked nearly twenty years ago and still clicks now - and I’m okay with it, solid song.

But this week wound up weird… for the best, I’m giving it to Metro Boomin for ‘Around Me’ with Don Toliver, but RM and Youjeen is going to snag the Honourable Mention for Wild Flower. Worst of the week is ‘La Jumpa’ with Arcangel and Bad Bunny - Arcangel just brings out the worst in whoever he’s with - with Dishonourable Mention to Metro Boomin and Young Thug for ‘Metro Spider’. Next week, SZA is going to wipe the majority of this off the map, so stay tuned!