billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 5, 2020

…you know, sometimes Billboard can still surprise you, for better and worse. Because everyone and their mother could have predicted that BTS would have a small album bomb courtesy of their new EP and Megan Thee Stallion would underperform expectations a bit - and I hate that that was such an easy prediction to make - all amidst the tide of Christmas music, but to me the bigger story was the arrival of a bunch of new songs from the upcoming Morgan Wallen album, not just because it surprised me, but because I’ve been suspicious of the hype pushed behind this guy for a while and maybe this’ll give me a chance to assess how much traction he genuinely has.

But before we get to that conversation, our top ten, where becoming the first band in chart history to debut at both the top of the Hot 100 and the album charts, BTS takes the top spot with ‘Life Goes On’. Now I don’t want to completely rain on this parade, but I do feel it’s worth noting that this was an easy peak to take courtesy of a consistently weak #1, and this is also a position I don’t expect will last as the huge sales will dip, especially as the streaming isn’t there outside of YouTube and it has no real radio - ‘Dynamite’, this is not. So it dethones ‘Mood’ by 24kGoldn ft. iann dior, pushing it to #2, but to be fair that’s not all that surprising: its radio was wavering all week and despite far better streaming, it was never going to have the sales strength to hold back a serious challenger. Speaking of that, 'Dynamite’ by BTS also rebounded back into the top 10 at #3, because it still does have that radio presence and got a nice sales boost as well… even as streaming lags hard. Then we have ‘positions’ by Ariana Grande at #4, where despite great streaming and frankly ridiculous radio traction, it still has a sales gap that’s holding it back. Then we have ‘I Hope’ by Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth stumbling back to #5, where it looks like it finally hit a radio peak and may be on its way out - nice. What won’t be is ‘Holy’ by Justin Bieber ft. Chance The Rapper, which despite all turmoil around it held at #6 which made even deeper radio inroads and didn’t take insurmountable losses in sales and streaming - if this can hold against holiday music, it’ll last out the season, just watch. What probably won’t is ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’ by Drake ft. Lil Durk at #7, which might have seen a bit of a second wind on the radio, but it won’t hold against such streaming losses here. Then we have another new entry: ‘Monster’ by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber at #8! Now I’d argue this is set up to be a hit because of the consistent strength in all channels, which includes early radio, but by how much is an open question - I’ll get into this when I discuss the song, but suffice to say Shawn Mendes’ album rollout is raising concerns, I’ll say that. To round things out we have ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd making its slow exit in all categories dropping to #9, and ‘Lemonade’ by Internet Money, Gunna, NAV and Don Toliver dropped to #10 because great streaming isn’t going to prop up haphazard radio forever - not a great sign.

And on that note, our losers and dropouts - and we had a lot of them in the latter category this week, let me tell you. Running just through the big ones, ‘Got What I Got’ by Jason Aldean, ‘Adore You’ by Harry Styles after damn close to a year on the Hot 100, ‘The Woo’ by the late Pop Smoke, 50 Cent and Roddy Ricch, ‘Mood Swings’ by Pop Smoke and Lil Tjay, ‘Everywhere But On’ by Matt Stell, ‘Heather’ by Conan Grey, ‘24’ by Money Man and Lil Baby, ‘Runnin’ by 21 Savage and Metro Boomin, ‘Tap In’ by Saweetie, and ‘Kacey Talk’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again. But what’s notable is that on a week where three albums impacted the charts plus Christmas music, we had a lot of losers too… although not as many as you might think, given a lot of Future/Lil Uzi Vert songs swept away. Hell the only one that survived was ‘Drankin N Smokin’ at 90, along with the debut of ‘Holiday’ by Lil Nas X down to 55. Then from there we had our gains falling back like ‘Starting Over’ by Chris Stapleton down to 52 and ‘hole in the bottle’ by Kelsea Ballerini slipping to 87, along with continued losers like ‘So Done’ by Kid LAROI at 100, ‘Popstar’ by DJ Khaled ft. Drake at 96, ‘Some Girls’ by Jameson Rodgers at 93, ‘Took Her to the O’ by the late King Von at 73, ‘Forever After All’ by Luke Combs at 53, and ‘Hawai’ by Maluma at 35 - man, was that remix with The Weeknd just the kiss of death for that song, it’s falling fast! Then we have other songs faltering: ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi at 28 making its long-overdue departure, ‘ily’ by surf mesa ft. Emilee at 33, ‘Watermelon Sugar’ by Harry Styles at 36, ‘Come & Go’ by Juice WRLD and Marshmello at 60 - really trying to get rid of those summer songs - ‘Love You Like I Used To’ by Russell Dickerson at 50, ‘you broke me first’ by Tate McRae at 63, ‘pov’ by Ariana Grande at 64 - TikTok can’t save this forever - and to round things out we have underperformers like ‘Tyler Herro’ by Jack Harlow at 77, ‘Franchise’ by Travis Scott, Young Thug & M.I.A. at 78, and ‘U 2 Luv’ by Ne-Yo and Jeremih at 88. Now there’s two songs I’ve excluded that I think will rebound, either next week with ‘Midnight Sky’ by Miley Cyrus at 76, or the week after with ‘Wonder’ by Shawn Mendes at 57, although in that last case… well, we’ll get to it.

Now as you’d expect, there’s not many gains this week: I already mentioned ‘Dynamite’, and ‘Whoopty’ by CJ is continuing its bizarre chart rise up to 66 - we can kill this at any time, people, it doesn’t need to be one of the non-Christmas songs to chart this winter! But while we’re here, we saw the expected spikes for ‘Rockin Around The Christmas Tree’ by Brenda Lee at 21 and ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey at 14 - it’ll be within the top 5 in record time, just watch. But that’s the thing: outside of ‘Girls In The Hood’ by Megan Thee Stallion riding her album back to 80 and ‘Back To The Streets’ by Saweetie & Jhene Aiko riding the video back to 85, our returns are all holiday music, and there’s going to be more coming! ‘Let It Snow’ by Dean Martin at 49, ‘The Christmas Song’ by Nat King Cole at 48, ‘Feliz Navidad’ by Jose Feliciano at 45, ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! at 42, ‘It’s The Most Wonderful TIme Of The Year’ by Andy Williams at 37, and ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ by Bobby Helms at 31 - again, it feels earlier every year, but it’s back in force this time, and it’ll make album impacts tougher to penetrate, just watch.

But it’s not going to stop a loaded week full of new arrivals, all of which just happened to slip beneath my album bomb threshold… so let’s get started with…

99. ‘Cover Me Up’ by Morgan Wallen - okay, if you want a prime reason why I’m so conflicted with Morgan Wallen, it’s the presence of this cover. For those of you who don’t know, it was originally written by Jason Isbell on his 2013 album Southeastern - and that album was among my top 50 of the 2010s. So I know that Wallen has good taste in looking to cover it even before he got famous… but he’s stuck in comparison with a fantastic song from one of my favourite country acts in the past decade, so it’s a tough conversation. Now let me make this clear: it’s not better than Isbell’s version: Joey Moi is not the same tier of a producer as Dave Cobb in terms of subtlety, and if I’m looking for a criticism of this version it’s that: it’s brighter and Wallen is a traditionally “better” singer than Isbell, but it’s also clunkier and it doesn’t have that raw edge that gave the original such bite to match the excellent writing. Yes, the pedal steel solo was a nice touch, but there isn’t the edge of recovery and deep-seated pain that made Isbell’s song so personal - it doesn’t feel as lived-in coming from Wallen, and that does hurts its impact. That’s said, it’s still an indie country classic by every standard and Wallen’s cover is legit - he doesn’t elevate the song, but he doesn’t kill it either, so it’s still great.

97. ‘Bichota’ by Karol G - I guess this is another single for that eventual Karol G album that might drop at some point… and am I the only one feeling underwhelmed again? The melody is so muted, the sandy reggaeton percussion feels like it’s muted from landing heavier impact, and while Karol G can croon just fine opposite it, she feels a bit unsupported here. And considering this is a ‘bad bitches coming out to tear things up at the club where she’s hot and twerking’, it feels weird how reserved and oddly stiff the entire song is. It’s just oddly sleepy and feels weirdly lonely - which might fit the times, but not the vibe she’s trying to create, and neither factor makes the memorable. So yeah, not feeling this - next!

94. ‘Circles’ by Megan Thee Stallion - so we’re starting with a stylistic switch-up that I actually think is really flattering for Megan - even if I’m not crazy about chipmunking samples in bounce, here the vocals from Jazmine Sullivan work well opposite Megan’s more curt delivery playing off the sharper percussion. It’s just more upbeat and clattering and plays off how well Megan can get in the audience’s face. And it works playing off the sample - where it that highlighted a dysfunctional relationship that never seemed to end, Megan is all about breaking those circles while containing the inner turmoil of a wild year, and even if I’m never crazy about artists complaining about social media, Megan makes it feel a bit more level and real, which is a big help. I’m not going to call this revolutionary for Megan, but in diversifying her sound, this is a good step, and a good song.

92. ‘Do It On The Tip’ by Megan Thee Stallion ft. City Girls - I feel like this should hit harder than it does. Megan teaming up with the City Girls seems so obvious that you know exactly what song you’re going to get before you even hear it… the problem is that once you get exactly what you expect, there’s little else to make it all that special, especially given how limited the melody is opposite the leaden bass that made me wish there was a little more groove to match Megan’s flow here. It also highlights just how limited City Girls are opposite Megan when it comes to flow and attitude - they just can’t match her attitude and personality, to say nothing of technical construction of their flows. Granted, the way the beat shifts into the trap hi-hats leaves everyone feeling a bit clumsy in switching things up, and even if I think Megan’s got some decent wordplay in her flex, nothing really rises above to impress me much outside of a solid tacked-on third verse. Again, I got what I expected… maybe I should have just expected more.

86. ‘Pain Away’ by Meek Mill ft. Lil Durk - I have to be blunt here: did any of you remember that Meek Mill put out an EP? It seemed like it came and went, I heard very little hype for it outside of this crossover with Lil Durk… and after hearing it, I know why, because against the sharper whir of the hi-hat, loud snares, and bassy roil with echoing pitch-shifted vocals, Meek Mill sounds painfully stilted and off-rhythm with his blunt delivery, which unfortunately highlights just how limited he still is. And that’s kind of a bummer because I want to like the content - Meek is again talking about the sacrifice that comes with losing trust in his friends and hoping the money will compensate, with the veiled subtext being it probably won’t, and the bloodstained verse from Lil Durk highlights the grisly consequences he has to mete out while hoping for more. Overall it just feels clunky and desaturated in a way I wish it wasn’t - I get how this could work and I actually think Meek Mill is fine on the hook, but beyond that it doesn’t hold much for me.

83. ‘Livin The Dream’ by Morgan Wallen - look, maybe it’s weirder for me because I’ve barely bought into Morgan Wallen as a star, but when he makes a ‘more money, more problems’ song where he complains about the road life and fame and actually manages to sell the misery of it more than any glamour, it becomes a weird listen for me. If anything it reminds me of the half-drunken, barely concealed misery of ‘Whiskey Glasses’ especially in the swampy production off the organ and squonking guitar passages and weirdly muffled percussion and canned-sounding vocals. If he was looking to make a song that makes fame sound miserable, he certainly succeeded in that, but songs like this rely on feeling some sort of sympathy for the artist, and I don’t really have that connection with Morgan Wallen. I respect the intention and I think in a warped way it works… but man, it’s not a song from him I’ll want to hear again.

82. ‘Shots Fired’ by Megan Thee Stallion - I’m a little torn on whether it was a good idea for Megan to lead off her album dealing with Tory Lanez shooting her, because it kind of puts a pin in the dramatic storytelling where she could have easily raked him over the coals longer and harder. My guess is she wanted to head this off early and ‘Shots Fired’ does that - in the obvious flip of ‘Who Shot Ya?’ by Biggie, she rips into Tory and her former friend who took his money to keep quiet. And honestly, Megan can sell this - she sounds righteously pissed, she can blend in her usual flexing while having fresh subject matter, and she lands some hits on Tory Lanez being a fuckboi reliant on remixes and flossing to stay relevant. I will say I thought the Breonna Taylor reference was a little forced - yes, I see the parallel when it comes to getting justice, but it doesn’t fit into the rest of the song cleanly both in terms of flow and content, especially as Megan has not really been political in her music. Still, I’ve been on Megan’s side for a decent bit, and this is a good song to support it.

72. ‘Dis-ease’ by BTS - we’ve got six BTS songs to get through alongside Megan’s and Morgan Wallen’s, and I probably have the least to say about them, but I will say this was the one I found most interesting and wanted it to work the most. The slightly old-school rap groove with the guitar rollick and reliance on more rapping as the quasi-g-funk synths squeak behind them has potential, and the song is easily the most sour on the EP as the boys talk about frustrated discomfort in both their art and the world at large. And man, I wish they had the texture to back this up - give the drums a bit more crunch, the groove a bit more body to support the scratches, even with the trap drop this could have worked. As it is, I do think this is good, but for as much as BTS does everything in house, this is one they could have outsourced, and I reckon it’d have been better for it.

71. ‘Cry Baby’ by Megan Thee Stallion ft. DaBaby - I was getting annoyed with DaBaby leaning on the ‘baby’ puns as early… shit, whenever Lil Baby started doing it, so basing so much of the instrumental and adding multiple lyrical references to it here wore out their welcome in record time… a shame, because otherwise these two have a lot of chemistry and this could have been good. Yeah, it’s the same sort of sexual tension the two of them have had on ‘Cash $hit’ and ‘NASTY’ and the bass is clunky as hell here, but both of them are focused and have a lot of charisma so they can be players effectively, especially as Megan remarks that some girl trying to take Megan’s dude is actually a relief, she’s got more on the line! I dunno, this feels more gimmicky than it should be, and given that both of them don’t need to rely on gimmicks at this point, that’s a problem.

70. ‘Telepathy’ by BTS - okay, two more BTS songs, this one trying to get a bit more splashy and funky with an obvious Bruno Mars influence to the R&B production and groove… and again, this is where the production feeling so gummy and clanking in its presentation can bite them, especially smothering so many of their vocals in autotune. It doesn’t accentuate any subtlety so much as coming across blaring and in-your-face, and I guess given the song is intended as fanservice, it might serve that audience well… but this was the low-point of the EP for me, and even if I wanted to say the groove was good, everything else isn’t.

69. ‘Fly To My Room’ by BTS - okay, this shows the boys getting into their R&B crooning lane off a very spare melody and sharp drum machine… and yes, I still think the vocals are overproduced for the sort of intimacy they’re trying to cultivate, especially with the hook coming in off the sharper keys. But there’s still something to the frustrated, confined daydream of the song where the wistfulness does translate decently, where even the trap switch-up for the verse kind of fits for the outsized personality. Yeah, I think I would have preferred a bit more subtlety, but given BTS doesn’t do that, this is generally fine in my books.

54. ‘Prisoner’ by Miley Cyrus ft. Dua Lipa - I will have more to say about Miley Cyrus’ album in my next episode of On The Pulse, dropping on my main channel later this week, but this is a collaboration that made sense to the point of feeling a little obvious - let’s make an 80s-modern blend and bring on one of the biggest names doing that this year and interpolate one of the same samples she did, ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton John! Couple that with Watt on guitar and bass and a cowrite from Jon Bellion, it’s a song set up to explode… and I wish it did a little more. Yes, Miley and Dua Lipa have great chemistry and the song has smolder where it’s implied they’re a prisoner to their own lusty horniess in the lyrics - which feel a step away from being more interesting, but a song like this doesn’t need to try that hard in that department, provided the style is there. And man, I wish the guitars has more presence and bite - yes, this was always going to sound a little more slick because of Dua Lipa, but if you’re going for retro 80s pop rock, let the guitars have some bite to back up the groove and punch up the melody, or it’s just going to feel a little undercooked, and that’s my frustration with this. It’s still good… but I hear what this could have been, and that frustrates me a bit, that’s all.

46. ‘Still Goin Down’ by Morgan Wallen - okay, last two Morgan Wallen songs… and this is a bro-country song across the board. Joey Moi’s fizzy production that seems a little too compressed and clunky, especially in the percussion, the list-driven songwriting surrounding ‘everything still going down in the country’ where even if you reference that it’s a cliche, it’s still utterly stale! Yeah, the guitars are more liquid and you can tell Morgan Wallen at least believes what he’s selling, but there’s a reason list-driven writing in country became formulaic and this is that all the way down. It’s not even that I’m not a fan, I doubt I’ll even remember it.

25. ‘Somebody’s Problem’ by Morgan Wallen - and speaking of bro-country… why does this feel like the intersection of that and modern boyfriend country tropes with the gentle acoustics and sandy touches around the percussion as Morgan Wallen tries to croon through some frustratingly generic descriptors that this girl will be ‘somebody’s problem’, and that somebody could be him. Here’s my problem, and it’s the same one I had with Florida Georgia Line relying so heavily on twang: it’s tough for Wallen to sell the sentimental moment like this, especially when he’s more focused on the tanlines and blue eyes and tank top and her car. It’s not a ‘One Of Them Girls’ situation because the woman in that song actually does things and play coy with Lee Brice, and there’s more dynamics, where this just feels like a bro-country stock photo, and not a particularly good one. Next!

22. ‘Stay’ by BTS - so there was a comment on my BTS review that given the extremely tight parasocial relationship k-pop stans have with their favourite bands that there’s going to be an emotional resonance between them that’s hard to contextualize to those on the outside looking in, and I have two comments on it: that it can be true with any diehard fandom, and also when BTS makes songs like this addressing the fans directly and saying it’s all going to be okay, isn’t it skirting closer to an actual relationship? I guess not because it’s still indirect and primarily rooted in product, but when you have a song like this that is pure fan reassurance they’ll always be there, I can accept that the fans might get more out of it than I will. Granted, the warping synths and glossy drop reminds me more of an early 2010s EDM cut than anything else plus trap drop, which only further add to the distancing factor, but the vocal production is a bit smoother and I can see this going off in the right environment so I do get how it could work. Not great - again, the production budget doesn’t help this feel as big as it could - but still fine, I don’t mind it.

13. ‘Blue & Grey’ by BTS - this is probably the most I’ve liked a BTS song since ‘Boy With Luv’, and for different reasons! For one, the content is more personal and introspective, balancing out the depression that comes with lockdown alongside artistic burnout, and how they can often feel like one and the same, especially when you feel a real obligation to your fans and to help support them! It’s one reason I brought up that parasocial relationship, because BTS shows the other side and it’s pretty refreshing to hear that level of humanity from an overpolished k-pop boy band. And it helps the production strips things back to center that - spare guitar and strings might be a cheat code here, but leaning into a more restrained subtle approach really works for them. So yeah, this is a great song - if BTS leaned into this across the board, I’d be just fine with it.

12. ‘Body’ by Megan Thee Stallion - this song got so much hate on the timeline when Megan dropped the album and I’m not sure why - yeah, the hook is repetitive to a memetic level and most of the production is just Megan moaning enticingly, did either somehow become an issue from her, it’s both familiar and pretty well executed all the same! Yeah, the Tiger King and quarantine references date the song, but Megan’s still more creative in her flips and her bisexual side really comes out on the third verse… along with confirmation that Megan would indeed fuck her clone. Look, I wasn’t too good for ‘WAP’, and while this isn’t quite as funny or immediately sticky - don’t think about that too hard - I think it works for exactly what it is, and I’m fine with it. Good song, come at me - not like that.

8. ‘Monster’ by Shawn Mendes & Justin Bieber - okay, I’ve been building up to this the entire episode about Shawn Mendes, so let’s get to it: I don’t know if I’m just disconnected or this hype cycle has missed me entirely, but Shawn Mendes is putting out an album on Friday, and it could very well underperform given how much questionable visibility he’s had, with ‘Wonder’ not doing all that well and this collab… look, my hope was originally that Mendes would replace Bieber, not work with him! And maybe if the two of them worked well together or had a good composition behind them, that’d be one thing… but let me be blunt, Justin Bieber completely takes over and ruins this song, it’s legit jarring. I’m not against Mendes trying a more soulful vibe with the guitars and the slight fuzz over that weedy sample leading into the spare drums, and there’s potential in Mendes questioning the legit fear of becoming ‘the monster’ by too many people who center him in a parasocial relationship; that’s a point of anxiety I can definitely share here! But then Bieber shows up with his failed rhyme and attempt at a faster cadence where he did previously get ‘put on a pedestal’, self-destructed as a result, and now is in an uncertain place where he’s trying to move on… but that doesn’t reflect reality at all! For one, Bieber wasn’t really on a traditional pop star pedestal as being one of the most hated acts of the early 2010s, and then he self-destructed of his own accord, and now with ‘good intentions’ he’s trying to act magnanimous, as if he’s trying to be the ‘bigger man’ with this and wonder if he’ll lose that pedestal? Not only does this not match Mendes’ mood, it destroys any sense of good faith in the confessions, and it makes a track that already feels creaky and undercooked just turn out really sour. So yeah, if this is your second single pushing your album, Shawn Mendes… it might not be the rancid turd of ‘Treat You Better’, but my god this is bad - skip it!

1. ‘Life Goes On’ by BTS - I mean, I’m not surprised BTS went with this as their single after ‘Dynamite’ - it’s more restrained, it plays to the vibe of the EP… but man, it feels limp for me. The squawking chipmunk vocal sample behind the leaden beat with the clap and muddy acoustics and popping mouth sounds, it feels overmixed and trudging in a way that might intentional but doesn’t lend it much colour. And yeah, I get the appeal of having the majority of the hook in English to hit for that crossover market, but I’m still not wild about the vocal mixing there - it’s runny and liquid in an awkward way and i just don’t feel anything towards it, similar to the band’s other obvious attempted crossover moves. It’s more just there than actually interesting, and while it did go to #1, it won’t last.

But outside of that… yeah, long as hell week here, but I’d argue there’s more good than bad. Hell, while ‘Monster’ by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber runs away with the worst of the week, I’m giving Dishonourable Mention to ‘Still Goin Down’ by Morgan Wallen more for being tedious than outright terrible. And the best of the week is legit great: Honourable Mention to Morgan Wallen’s cover of ‘Cover Me Up’, with the best of the week going to ‘Blue & Grey’ by BTS - yeah, I’m dead serious, it was a great little song, happy to hear it. Next week, the fallout from all of this and to see if Miley can penetrate even further - stay tuned!