billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 5, 2022

You know this year has already started out surprisingly turbulent that an album bomb week is actually closer to a cooldown than anything else. Because yes, YoungBoy Never Broke Again got just enough songs to slip into album bomb territory with his newest mixtape, and outside of that… looks like things have stabilized a bit, and that’s at least promising, right?

And I say that all as we have a new #1… and one where while I’m not surprised, I’m not exactly pleased here either: ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ by the Encanto Cast. If this is surprising to folks, it really shouldn’t be - the streaming margins for this song have been absolutely insane, it got a sales discount this week, and there’s not much in the way of dominant hits that can go head to head with it. Hell, I fully expect ‘Easy On Me’ by Adele to rebound back to #1, because while the song has absolutely peaked everywhere, its margins are still strong enough in every channel to beat ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’, which still has no radio. But outside of that, for once the majority of our top 10 is pretty static: ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals remains stalled at #3, without much movement in every channel, but it keeps it above ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber at #4, which might have radio inertia but loses on streaming and is in freefall. Unfortunately that opens the door for ‘Super Gremlin’ by Kodak Black at #5, which actually picked up streaming and is very much on its radio run, and that’ll likely keep back ‘Shivers’ by Ed Sheeran at #6, which has also stagnated in all channels. I’d say this opens the gateway for ‘Pushin P’ by Gunna and Future ft. Young Thug as a meme that will not die… but it slipped a bit on streaming and the radio pickups have not been all that quick, which does leave this vulnerable to be overtaken by ‘abcdefu’ by GAYLE at #8, which is surging on the radio while still having consistent strength in every category - this is not far from breaking through, just wait. But that leaves the other shift in the top ten: ‘Surface Pressure’ by Jessica Darrow got a boost thanks to the Encanto pickups to #9, and that pushed back ‘Cold Heart (PNAU Remix(‘ by Elton John and Dua Lipa at #10, where even if it’s more consistent in other channels, it’s hemorrhaging airplay so it’s definitely on the way out.

And that takes us to our losers and dropouts, where it looks pretty reasonable all things considered, with the latter category populated with the remains of Gunna and The Weeknd, ‘My Universe’ by Coldplay and BTS, and a few leftover Drake songs that I’m fairly sure nobody will complain to see gone: ‘Way 2 Sexy’ featuring Future and Young Thug, and ‘Girls Like Girls’ ft. Lil Baby - good riddance. And I can’t say our losers are surprising here either: off the debut ‘Iffy’ by Chris Brown fell to 100 and ‘Eazy’ by The Game and Kanye West hit 70, Gunna continued to see losses with ‘25k jacket’ with Lil Baby at 92, ‘Thought I Was Playing’ with 21 Savage at 88, ‘Too Easy’ with Future at 65 and ‘P Power’ with Drake at 52, and The Weeknd saw a few drops with ‘Take My Breath’ at 85 and ‘Sacrifice’ at 37. The only other losers… ‘Happier Than Ever’ by Billie Eilish making its gradual exit at 47, and ‘Whiskey And Rain’ by Michael Ray hopefully stalling out at 62 - again, good riddance.

Now returns and gains this week are a little weird, mostly because you can tell the chart is still trying to reset to some sort of equilibrium… but what the hell that even is leaves me a little concerned. I mean, who is asking for ‘I Love You So’ by The Walters back at 81, or ‘Me Or Sum’ by Nardo Wick, Lil Baby and Future at 90, or ‘I Am Woman’ by Emmy Meli at 99? Yeah, ‘Home Sweet’ by Russell Dickerson is okay at 94, but it brought back ‘Come Back As A Country Boy’ by Blake Shelton at 96! And with our gains… well, a chunk of it is just Encanto, with ‘All Of You’ by the cast at 82, ‘Waiting On A Miracle’ by Stephanie Beatriz at 48, and ‘The Family Madrigal’ at 20. But then we have ‘Message In A Bottle’ by Taylor Swift where she’s trying to power this to be a pop sleeper hit at 57, and then ‘Cold December’ by Rod Wave off the debut to 38. Unfortunately it doesn’t exactly end well here: ‘AA’ by Walker Hayes got a big album boost to 55, and ‘Fish Scale’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again caught its boost to 68… and speaking of which, we’ve got a project that just slips into the album bomb rules, so for the songs that are neither the best nor worst and fell below the top 40 - which is all of them - ‘Smoke One’ at 97, probably the best of the songs that charted, ‘Long Live’ at 87, ‘2Hoo’ at 86, ‘Know Like I Know’ at 74 - though this one was close, it’s pretty damn bad and YoungBoy should be smart enough to stop insulting dead rappers and his enemies’ families - ‘Flossin’ with Internet Money at 72, and ‘No Switch’ at 58.

Alright, this is very reasonable, let’s start with…

91. ‘Beautiful Lies’ by Yung Bleu & Kehlani - Am I the only one who thinks this is a collaboration that makes sense? I might be lukewarm at best with Yung Bleu, but pairing with Kehlani for an R&B teamup given their place in the game right now seems like it’s set up to win, especially as a later album single. And as such, the song is pretty decent - Yung Bleu and Kehlani have okay chemistry, the spare guitar with the occasional trap skitter is well-balanced, and I like the overall idea of the song, where both of them are kind of lightly toxic in their back-and-forth relationship but there’s a balance to how much they call each other out and are yet drawn back together by pretty words that ultimately wind up pretty empty. That’s a decent sentiment in which to put a smoldering R&B song… I just wish the smolder was a little better, and that might be a factor of the hook being a little undercooked, lacking a bit of variation to flesh things out. Don’t get me wrong, this is decent, but it lacks that little spark to make it great - not bad, and if it’s going to be a radio slow-burn, I don’t mind that.

89. ‘Dis & That’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - why do I get the feeling that YoungBoy Never Broke Again effectively released this mixtape as a way to air his grievances with everyone a half-step away from his usual album rollout… and if so, why is anyone giving this attention? This song in particular is a glaring example: the piano melody is smothered by the overweight bass hits and the sputtering trap percussion, there’s no real structure or flow in the song to speak of, and the entire central concept is Youngboy bitching at a Twitch streamer because he was mad Youngboy used his burner account to like this streamer’s girlfriend IG photo. This is scattered incoherently next to other diss bars where he once again takes shots at the late King Von amidst a lot of interchangeable gunplay, and I’m left thinking if this is what you’ve resorted to writing songs about, you need to find a new muse. This is the definition of reckless, pointless, and stupid - not only do I not believe YoungBoy when he says he doesn’t have Instagram, why be so goddamn defensive either way; if you’re at this stage of your career, this should be beneath your concern. Looks like the hard drugs are amplifying the pettiness, and the music is turning to crap along with it.

73. ‘Proud’ by Key Glock - so Key Glock was one of those artists that were on the periphery of rappers I knew about, but he hadn’t charted so I hadn’t really had the time to delve deeper; mostly I knew him from his association with Young Dolph and a few mixtapes they had made together. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Key Glock made a tribute song to Young Dolph… and I think it’s interesting how it plays out, because while I’ve heard better, I think this works for what it is. The dour, trap-inflected production with the thin melodic sample and Key Glock’s somewhat muted voice could convince you that the track is any other southern flex song, but drill a little deeper and you can tell that Key Glock wants to try and carry on Young Dolph’s legacy in Memphis, continue to build the label and the scene, and while he’ll flex a bit, it’s not enough to obscure how much this hurts him, especially in the moments where he describes himself breaking down, or just how it translates into his delivery. I don’t think this is quite a conventional tribute so much as a reassurance that he’s going to try and keep the legacy alive, and I can respect that - this is a good song, I’ll take it.

60. ‘Bring It On’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - I honestly have to wonder how long YoungBoy and his producers spent refining any of these songs, because just on a production basis this sounds like shit: the bass swamps everything, the rickety guitars can’t blend, the late 2000s-esque synth horn sounds dated as all hell stuck in this mix, and then YoungBoy wants to try the whisper game on top of this production to sound menacing and wow, it doesn’t work at all. That sort of delivery works with minimal production to build suspense and atmosphere, but when he’s going to leap straight into croon rapping right after, the atmosphere fails completely. And yeah, from there the content is your expected over-the-top violent gunplay where the song structure never pays off anything passing for a hook, but what I think annoys me the most is how he tries to throw in a few passing bars about wanting to be left alone and raise his kids and do it all in God’s name, they’re the ones who provoke him. When you put that on a project overstuffed with threats against plenty of people who wouldn’t otherwise have beef with you while you’re under house arrest in Utah, with disses on their family and dead friends, somehow I’m not likely to believe you, especially when the song sucks this much.

42. ‘Light Switch’ by Charlie Puth - I guess I’m a little surprised that Charlie Puth still wants to make music beyond just behind the scenes as a cowriter - if Voicenotes proved anything it was how little he liked being in front of the spotlights, but that album was also a marked improvement and it did leave me curious where the hell he’d take this next project four years later. And… you know, it reinforces a suspicion I’ve had for a long time that Charlie Puth should probably bring more folks into the studio, because while he can do it all himself, I’m not sure it’s always the best option. Yeah, the bass groove is bouncy going for this brand of light 80s funk, but with percussion as lockstep as it can feel against the splashy guitar textures, it feels weirdly stiff and small to play off that light switch sample, where you have to wonder if someone besides Charlie Puth produced it the song might have more flair or swell. And then there’s the content and speaking of things stiff and small, Puth clarifying that the ‘you got me in a tight grip’ means exactly what you think it does kind of makes me wish he had left this back-and-forth relationship metaphorical; I’m not sure I needed a song where not only is the light switch is the visual metaphor that leads to Charlie Puth getting a hand job; you’re nearly my age, dude, you don’t need to make this sound so innocent. And as such, I’m a little distant from this - not exactly a bad tune, but not one I can see getting a lot of traction unless a meme or the radio get onboard, have to say it.

So that’s a shorter week, and the best and the worst actually fall out pretty fast. For best…I’ll go with ‘Proud’ by Key Glock, with an Honourable Mention for ‘Beautiful Lies’ by Yung Bleu and Kehlani - not a great song, but it works. Worst… yeah, both are going to YoungBoy Never Broke Again here, with ‘Bring It On’ as the worst and ‘Dis & That’ as the Dishonourable Mention. Next week… I think I still have some breathing room, not much in the way of new releases seem to be on the horizon, but we’ll have to see.