billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 1, 2020

You know, if this was two years ago, a week like this would have been excruciating - two dozen new songs on the Hot 100, the results of two album bombs that wreaked havoc across the chart, one from an album I already reviewed and didn’t like and the other from a project that also sparked a lot of messy emotions, it’d be draining to say the least! But since album bomb rules are in effect - I’m covering the best and worst plus the songs that broke into the top 40, it makes this week a little easier - thank god for that.

Of course, when you look at our top ten you might question how much impact these album bombs really have, especially in comparison with those past from artists like Ariana Grande and Drake - because ‘The Box’ by Roddy Ricch just has nothing to worry about yet again at #1, thanks to ruling streaming, a consistent sales, and real radio pickups - seriously, its margins are massive here! This means the bigger threat might have been to ‘Life Is Good’ by Future ft. Drake, because while it’s not that far behind on the radio, it just can’t rack up the same numbers on streaming and its sales just collapsed this week altogether. But this leads us to the first real evidence of the album bomb: at #3, ‘Godzilla’ by Eminem ft. the late Juice WRLD. Now like every song driven off posthumous attention, it likely won’t last that long, as the radio isn’t touching it and great sales will collapse, but that streaming and YouTube is genuinely remarkable. It blew right past ‘Circles’ by Post Malone down to #4, as it looks like radio hit a peak and it’s starting to slip slightly in other categories, which might just as true about ‘Memories’ by Maroon 5 at #5 as the airplay meanders and the sales have started to fall off sharply. On the other side, though, we have ‘10,000 Hours’ by Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber rebounding to #6, which you’d think would fall off given many of the same symptoms - which thankfully don’t seem to be true for ‘Dance Monkey’ by Tones and I up to #7 which has better sales and streaming and is finally starting to narrow the radio margin - but it’s more because of the long-awaited collapse of ‘Someone You Loved’ by Lewis Capaldi, slipping to #8 as the radio is in outright freefall and that’s the majority of what it has. To round things out, ‘ROXANNE’ by Arizona Zervas held at #9 - rough sales week offset by good radio growth, which might as well hold similar for ‘Lose You To Love Me’ by Selena Gomez slipping to #10 as her album boost fades and her streaming collapses.

And now we have losers and dropouts, and the part of every album bomb week that always remains immensely frustrating - a full quarter of the chart being pushed down. Let’s start with the songs outright forced off for good: ‘On Chill’ by Wale ft. Jeremih, ‘Talk’ by Khalid, ‘What If I Never Get Over You’ by Lady Antebellum, ‘Lover’ by Taylor Swift, ‘Playing Games’ by Summer Walker, ‘Heat’ by Chris Brown ft. Gunna, ‘Remember You Young’ by Thomas Rhett, ‘Leave Em Alone’ by Layton Greene, Lil Baby, City Girls and PnB Rock, and possibly even ‘Nice To Meet Ya’ by Niall Horan and ‘Camelot’ by NLE Choppa. But now for our list of losers proper… well, we’ve got the songs continuing to collapse like ‘Hot’ by Young Thug ft. Gunna at 42, ‘Truth Hurts’ by Lizzo at 43, ‘Futsal Shuffle 2020’ by Lil Uzi Vert at 59, and ‘OUT WEST’ by JACKBOYS ft. Young Thug, as well as the badly timed debuts like ‘Sum 2 Prove’ by Lil Baby falling to 33 and ‘Rare’ by Selena Gomez collapsing to 81. Then we had gains utterly decimated, with ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat falling to 92 and ‘Make No Sense’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again at 98, although he didn’t have a good week with ‘Bandit’ with Juice WRLD also falling to 47. And then from there, it’s all over the place: ‘Panini’ by Lil Nas X at 39, ‘One Man Band’ by Old Dominion at 46, ‘TOES’ and ‘VIBEZ’ by DaBaby at 65 and 69 respectively, ‘Heart On Ice’ by Rod Wave down to 72, ‘Start Wit Me’ by Roddy Ricch and Gunna at 74, ‘No Idea’ by Don Toliver at 77, ‘SUGAR’ by BROCKHAMPTON at 78 - don’t worry, it should rebound - ‘BEST ON EARTH’ by Russ & BIA at 79, ‘U Played’ by MoneyBagg Yo ft. Lil Baby at 82, ‘Take What You Want’ by Post Malone, Travis Scott and Ozzy at 94, and ‘Easy’ by DaniLeigh at 99. And to round everything out, our country losses, with ‘More Hearts Than Mine’ at 86, ‘I Wish Grandpas Never Die’ by Riley Green at 87, ‘Make Me Want To’ by Jimmie Allen at 88, ‘What She Wants Tonight’ by Luke Bryan at 90, ‘We Back’ by Jason Aldean at 95, and ‘I Hope You’re Happy Now’ by Carly Pearce and Lee Brice at 97.

Now the flipside to album bomb weeks is that we don’t normally see many gains or returns, and that’s true too - ‘Nobody But You’ by Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani returned at 76 because of the video, and the only gains are ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd finally getting a proper push to 21 and ‘Tusa’ by Karol G and Nicki Minaj of all things continuing up to 55, because out of nowhere it picked up both streaming and radio - why, nobody knows! But now for the album bomb entries that are not getting coverage this week, because Halsey couldn’t crack any new arrivals -again, kind of disconcerting for her long term - from Mac Miller they are ‘That’s On Me’ at 100, ‘Surf’ at 91, ‘Everybody’ at 80, ‘Woods’ at 75, ‘I Can See’ at 68, ‘Complicated’ at 63, and ‘Circles’ at 48. And, in the larger and more frustrating story, from Eminem we got ‘Stepdad’ at 93, ‘Lock It Up’ ft. Anderson .Paak at 89 - about time he got here, shame it’s not on a better song - ‘No Regrets’ with Don Toliver at 84, ‘In Too Deep’ at 71, ‘Premonition’ at 67, ‘Leaving Heaven’ ft. Skylar Grey at 61, and ‘You Gon’ Learn’ with Royce at 52.

But now to our now reasonable list of new arrivals…

83. ‘Marsh’ by Eminem - So yeah, this is fucking terrible. The one-dimensional piano off the badly mixed clunker of the beat, how he thinks his toilet is talking to him and describing a girl’s vaginal tarantula, how he can ‘outrap Reynolds’, how he has to explain the ‘Puff on a joint’ line, the ugly Trippie Redd implication, the Beavis & Butthead lines after the dropping shit line, the ‘get dough like Ed Sheeran, so call me the gingerbread man’, and let’s not forget how the entire song is structured around an asinine conflation of ‘marsh’ in his name to both wetlands and Martians, all around ugly autotuned adlibs that you’d think for as much as he’s gone in on the current generation he’d avoid! I’m not even sure the fans of this album liked this turd, so let’s just move on.

64. ‘Hand Me Downs’ by Mac Miller - so here’s the song I probably liked the most of the Mac Miller songs I’ve heard thus far, mostly thanks to the gentle acoustics and watery touches off the spare drums and bass that open into Baro Sura’s hook - and I know this sounds crass, but juxtaposed against Mac’s singing, he’s a lot more potent, especially when Mac slips into a rap flow that just sounds more comfortable for him on the second verse as he confesses his love that helps pull him away from self-destructive tendencies in which he’s probably gotten a little too comfortable running right to the edge. And yeah, I’m not crazy about the double entendre pun on the hook - it kind of pulls you out of the song, as does that wheedling sound through the outro - but it’s probably the cut that clicks the most for me and outside of maybe ‘Good News’ I can hear the longest appeal. So yeah, good song.

58. ‘Pu$$y Fairy (OTW)’ by Jhene Aiko - I mean, if there’s a way to get attention to that upcoming album… whenever it drops, calling a single ‘Pu$$y Fairy’ would certainly do it! And unlike most of Jhene’s recent songs, it at actually has more of a pulse with some well-blended skittering trap percussion that somehow still sounds pretty organic amidst the liquid guitar and piano tones and her gentle cooing. Now for as good as that is, let’s not deny that Jhene is quietly just as toxic as many of the men she flirts with - I like my free time, sometimes I need that - but I can also say that the loose glamours that she weaves are much more loose and appealing to make comfortable with that hypnotism. It’s a sex song that doesn’t need to be dark so much as sounding fun, and Jhene’s got such a knack for playful charisma that its flagrant horniness on main winds up as kind of sweet. So yeah, maybe I’m an easy mark for this, but this is the sort of R&B I can get behind… in more ways than one.

57. ‘Black Swan’ by BTS - so I guess BTS has attained enough cultural penetration that we’re going to get consistent charting singles from them, even if they don’t last too long once the sales fall away? Well, while I liked ‘Boy In Luv’, ‘Black Swan’ is not nearly as fun, mostly because someone told the boys that a murky, trap groove with oily layers of keyboard and offkey guitar would fit them and was absolutely wrong. Sure, it’s more tonally consistent, but the autotune tacked on leeches away their personality and kills any sort of build-up or punch, and while it might match the subject matter of the song in highlighting the dreary bleakness of stopping the dance, beyond baiting the fanbase what is the deeper appeal? It’s not fun, and while it’s not the worst of k-pop I’ve heard, I’ve got zero incentive to hear more of this.

38. ‘Blue World’ by Mac Miller - man, I’m really trying to like what I’m hearing from this posthumous Mac Miller album, but without the emotional connection to gravitate towards the heartfelt core of the writing, I go into a track like this with its dubstep-adjacent glassy warps and low buzz off the spare percussion and slurred over vocals, and it just doesn’t resonate whatsoever. I guess I can appreciate the generally relaxed nature of the writing as he meanders through a lethargic and wistful moment together driving with his girl - heavily implied to be Ariana - as he staves of deeper temptation, just for a moment of respite in a blue world, but that added tension in the synth choices and a lack of firmer groove just doesn’t let me embrace the vibe as deeply. Don’t get me wrong, I hear the appeal… but this still isn’t clicking, sorry.

36. ‘Unaccommodating’ by Eminem ft. Young M.A. - serious question: did anyone outside of New York City care that much when Young M.A. put out an album last year, espcially as separated from her breakthrough single as it was? I don’t mean to be crass here, but as someone who never bought into the hype, to see the extended media attention enough to boost her profile so that Eminem gets onboard is weird, especially if you’re outside of a very specific hip-hop circle. But she’s handling the first verse and while it’s fine enough, for Em to go off on other tracks about rappers not on beat when Young M.A.’s flow is as clunky as it is… very telling. But outside of an okay trap groove, then Eminem comes in with vocals not mastered as cleanly as Young M.A.’s with cringey puns, ableist slurs, hideous autotuned adlibs, and one of the worst blowjob references since ‘Whistle’. Honestly, even if he’s self-aware about the corniness, all of that bothers me more than the goddamn terrorism references that bookend each verse, and make this a lot less enjoyable. But it gets worse, because next up is…

31. ‘Those Kinda Nights’ by Eminem ft. Ed Sheeran - I’m willing to circulate a petition to get Eminem to stop mastering his own vocals, stop rapping about his previous projects, and stop making awful “romance” songs with Skylar Grey and Ed Sheeran, because wow, this is a turd. Why are you trying to take this back to the D12 days of sexually harassing strippers, cringy dad jokes, hooking up with a bi girl and then stringing too many bad punchlines riding off it, with the turd on top being the Marshmello line - although given how tinny Ed Sheeran’s vocals sound in his Weeknd impression, you have to wonder if he helped mastering this damn thing! And again, I’m not ‘scandalized’ by this so much as it’s repetitive, Em’s done this too many times before and done it better, and even layered over a trap beat it’s got the ugly feel of if Pistol Dave from the song of the same name from Epic Beard Men and Slug was doing it with zero subtext - in other words, considerably worse. So no, this is awful by all accounts - one of the worst on the album too, next!

28. ‘Darkness’ by Eminem - so let me give Eminem some credit here for a second: this is easily the most ambitious song on the album, with its interweaving narratives juxtaposing a hotel overdose and the Las Vegas mass shooter against a pretty inspired flip of ‘The Sound Of Silence’ - Eminem sounds focused, the build-up is effective, it’s the sort of song that I’m honestly surprised Eminem doesn’t try to make more often in his middle age. But I described my problem with this when I reviewed the album and it comes with how disingenuous the ending feels, where it’s described that ‘nobody really knows’ why these destructive atrocities take place… and even giving Em the benefit of the doubt here in how his artifice never quite mirrored his own reality, I have to call bullshit. We’ve seen manifestos, we’ve seen these sorts of toxic ideologies leak back towards the mainstream, and if there’s someone who should get that murderous or self-destructive context and parallel among white guys, Em, it’s you. It feels like a cheap excuse and a slap in the face to his own damn legacy to try and memory hole that now… but for an album running away from broader accountability, it’s no damn surprise. Leaves the song sadly hollow, though.

16. ‘What A Man Gotta Do’ by Jonas Brothers - so let me say this: it was a pleasant surprise to see the Jonas Brothers pretty much ditch any further single rollout Happiness Begins, with this single dropping without warning and appearing to have a bit more of a budget thanks to connecting with Ryan Tedder who is going to try and give this choppy acoustic-driven cut some groove and propulsive swell. Hell, if I’m being honest, in comparison with every other single the Jonas Brothers have dropped, this might be the one that drills into the bouncy Disney-adjacent nostalgia in its composition most, and it actually winds up being pretty fun, even if you can tell that the programmed percussion and groove is stiffer than it should and the lyrics were clearly thrown out in a half hour in its flagrant retread of ‘Sucker’. I really do wish that they had given the guitars some sizzle instead of relying on horn presets, but for this sort of disposable pop… look, this is fine, maybe even catchy enough to have staying power, but the Jonas Brothers doing a choppy George Michael imitation doesn’t impress me much, and I’d really like them to discover a tune at some point. You know, just saying.

3. ‘Godzilla’ by Eminem ft. Juice WRLD - so did you all know that Eminem apparently broke a Guiness World Record for the number of words he crammed into the final verse of this song? Here’s my response: to paraphrase the Radical Douche, this only really impresses folks who think a book is good because it has lots of pages, because if you’re not saying much of anything with those words, I don’t care! And that’s the big problem with ‘Godzilla’ as a whole: aside from a blubbery low synth that kind of reminded me of ‘STAR’ by BROCKHAMPTON but nowhere near as charming thanks to all the squeaky tones around it, and a hook from the late Juice WRLD that really could have deserved a better recording for as weak as it sounds, the rest of the song is braggadocious verbal masturbation that gets even worse by how infernally convinced Em is that his bars not faintly embarrassing. The third verse with the prostate exam line, the cheesecake pun, ‘like a liar’s pants I’m on fire’, ‘I got them passin’ out like what you do when you hand someone flyers’, how he just starts going offbeat for no reason at that speed as he calls himself an inflatable, but the most telling line is how he calls himself Attila. And I just laugh because if we want a band that’s the definition of oversold cringe masquerading as provocation, especially these days, it’s Attila. Telling on another song that isn’t close to good.

And that’s our week… yeah, not a lot of quality to work with here, but Mac Miller will clinch the Honourable Mention with ‘Hand Me Downs’, leaving Jhene to easily snag the best with ‘Pu$$y Fairy’. The worst… well, I’ll say this, I thought ‘Those Kinda Nights’ with Ed Sheeran would have this on lock, but then I remembered ‘Marsh’ as being thoroughly unlistenable in every way, so it’s getting the worst of the week with ‘Those Kinda Nights’ as Dishonourable Mention. Next week, the fallout of all this, and I expect it’s going to be messier than you’ll expect…