billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 21, 2023

It’s strange that as a music critic who follows the Hot 100 on the side that I can make this statement: 2023 is starting off pretty slow. Part of this is that more often I’m a critic of albums and there haven’t been big releases yet compared to previous years, but also because the Hot 100 tracking week has some lag compared to daily radio or sales or streaming charts - it’s a compiled aggregate, so to pop stans that want real-time data and who have already moved onto the coming singles battle mostly likely over next week, they would say the Hot 100 is more competitive right now, certainly over last year and at least on streaming. And while that’s probably true in the micro, in the big picture these do not have the wider cultural impact of, say, last year when Gunna and The Weeknd went head to head with album bombs in the first week of January. Call this laying down some perspective to see not just fandom competition, but the constructed music ecosystem as a whole - all of these metrics are manipulated by larger, often inept actors in these systems; competitive slapfights over who get the top while ignoring the larger movements is how the systems reinforce their power and relevance and move further from change.

And now to chronicle the actions in this stupid broken system, the top 10, where ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift held onto the #1 and it was a close race despite dominating sales and ruling the radio. This is because she’s losing streaming, and ‘Kill Bill’ by SZA has so much streaming and YouTube that it’s making a serious play, but could well be blocked next week beyond #2. This overtakes ‘Unholy’ by Sam Smith and Kim Petras, which has solid radio but is now definitely on the downswing in all channels, which opens the door for ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha at #4, which doesn’t remotely have the streaming but the radio and sales are really solid. Speaking of serious radio gains, we have ‘Creepin’ by Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, and 21 Savage up to #5 - really damn good streaming and the radio is fully onboard, I would not count this out a potential massive hit, where it overtook ‘Die For You’ by The Weeknd at #6, which is just chugging along with radio stability. Both of these overtook ‘Rich Flex’ by Drake and 21 Savage at #7 which is making its radio run, but is starting to slip on streaming and I’m thinking the timing might have just been misplaced in the promotion here. Then we have two older songs knocked a bit back as they rotate out on airplay, ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles at #8, and ‘Bad Habit’ by Steve Lacy at #9… and this opens the door to a song I never thought would hit the top 10: ‘Something In The Orange’ by Zach Bryan. It’s got no tangible radio, but the streaming is so ridiculously strong that it’s just holding sway, I’m actually a little floored it’s lasted this long!

And on the flipside, we have our losers and dropouts, and there’s a few bigger ones in the latter category, mostly old songs from 2022 that got their year-end boost before dropping off, like ‘Wasted On You’ by Morgan Wallen, ‘Jimmy Cooks’ by Drake ft. 21 Savage, and ‘Billie Eilish.’ by Armani White. It feels kind of similar for the few losers we have here, like ‘About Damn Time’ by Lizzo sliding back to 42 or ‘Down Home’ by Jimmie Allen slipping to 73. Also ‘Bejeweled’ by Taylor Swift is losing all momentum at 91, and ‘Gato de Noche’ by Nengo Flow and Bad Bunny is now fully cratering at 75 - good.

Now to our pretty robust, if scattered list of returns and gains, and we’re going to start with the latter because some of these can be predicted, like ‘Escapism’ by RAYE and 070 Shake continuing to surge to 28, or ‘Bebe Dame’ by Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera picking up to 31. But then we saw the quick boost for ‘Half Of Me’ by Thomas Rhett and Riley Green up to 63, and the rest are debuts picking up traction whether we want them or not. Have to be honest, I’m not exactly thrilled that we’re seeing surges for ‘The Color Violet’ by Tory Lanez at 70, or ‘Shut Up My Moms Calling’ by Hotel Ugly 76, or even ‘Here With Me’ by d4vd at 77 and ‘Players’ by Coi Leray at 78. But the more interesting story comes in our returns, of which, yeah, ‘Miss You’ by Oliver Tree and Robin Schulz is back at 94, but that’s not what I want to discuss. No, it’s ‘Sure Thing’ by Miguel back at 49 - a minor hit from 2010 that actually made the bottom of the year-end charts in 2011, now getting a resurgence in viral traction. Now I like this song - it was a late cut from my list of the best hit songs of 2011, mostly because it feels like a prototype of ideas he’d expand on Kaleidoscope Dream and that pitch-shifted voice doesn’t fit the vibe at all - but I have to wonder if Miguel will try to capture on this moment of weird nostalgia'; he’s been drip-releasing EPs the past few years which is why you haven’t heard anything from him, but the last full album was in 2017; especially given how much of his R&B sound was rooted in liquid guitar weirdness and Prince imitations, I think he’d fit pretty well right now.

But now to another sparse list of new arrivals - see what I mean when I say the charts feel slow - so let’s start with…

100. ‘You Didn’t’ by Brett Young - I feel like I should be way harsher on Brett Young than I often am - his brand of boyfriend country is often saccharine and he’s not a very distinctive singer or lyricist, but there’s often been a gentle organic warmth to his sound that many of his peers just don’t have. Granted, that’s been slipping a little, and with this late single first released in summer 2021, my expectations were lower…. but goddamn it, he did it again. Granted, it’s still got some sentimentality in the warmer acoustics and waltz cadence and Young’s polished delivery where he’s trying to add a bit more soul that he can’t really sell, but when you get to the lyrics, it turns out this is a breakup song where he fell in love with her, but she didn’t, and while he’s very dejected about the whole thing, he’s got to move on with some maturity. And… yeah, if you’ve been in mature relationships that go awry, there’s some weight to a scene like this in which at least for me, there’s some pathos - I’ve been here. And with Brett Young being in his early 40s - man, he looks good for his age - it feels lived in and real. I like this, good stuff.

97. ‘That’s What Tequila Does’ by Jason Aldean - whereas here we have a Jason Aldean late single from his 2021 album with such obviously fake handclaps, warbling bass and an acoustic guitar melody borrowed from early 2000s R&B that doesn’t match at all with the attempted electric guitar flair - seriously, what the hell happened to the percussion on this song, it feels like someone just barely programmed a drum track at all? And it leads to a totally incoherent atmosphere - this is a post-breakup moment of misery where tequila brings back those memories and keeps him at the bar, but the entire song feels structured to be anthemic especially as Aldean tries to belt… but it’s totally muted and powerless, a tonal disaster. And maybe it’s just me, but as someone who will sip tequila slow on occasion, this isn’t a vibe that I associate with that liquor - bro-country would normally go to beer or whiskey, so this just feels awkward. A bad idea, the definition of a late single only getting traction thanks to lulls in January… this sucks.

96. ‘Ditto’ by NewJeans - I have a hypothesis that since Blackpink was making inroads into the American market - which sputtered hard last year - and that TWICE was certainly on the right path to get there - nowhere fast enough for my liking - there was space for even more k-pop girl groups and hence we have NewJeans, who dropped their debut EP last year and have been racking up singles success elsewhere around the world, with this being their US charting breakthrough. And… this wasn’t what I was expecting, with the more clattering, breakbeat-adjacent percussion around the ethereal melody and more reliance on vocal harmonies - it’s more subtle than a lot of k-pop crossovers are, and for a song that’s all about lovestruck yearning and the desperate hope the other person reciprocates, the understated vibe kind of works. I think I’d personally prefer a little more melody in the instrumental, flesh out the composition a bit more, but this is a cute little track… I dig ti.

93. ‘Black’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - so I had concerns when YoungBoy Never Broke Again left Atlantic - I suspected he’d go independent and promptly vanish off the Hot 100 altogether, but what happened might be worse, as he signed a new deal through UMG with Motown, while still maintaining his own subsidiary label. This would be okay… but part of YoungBoy’s cultural ubiquity is how he could album bomb the Hot 100 and monopolize the conversation, but whether it’s the eight projects he released last year to say nothing of the feuds, or how outside of Lil Baby Motown artists don’t tend to album bomb the charts - Migos used to, but not really in the 2020s, if YoungBoy lost his promotional contacts from Atlantic, he’s not guaranteed that streaming dominance. Hence we have only one song from that album he dropped on January 6 - the song two days early outside the tracking week - and… he’s hopping on synth-heavy rage production with one single verse with a cut just over two minutes. Now as someone who doesn’t really care for rage beats, I actually don’t mind this - the grinding synth tone is lower and better balanced against the bassy trap percussion, and YoungBoy has the intensity to handle it - the problem is that he has nothing to say once again beyond talking about all the things he wants and fucking girls with increasingly sloppy rhyming. The only thing new here is the production, and while it could be interesting, Youngboy doesn’t step up to add more.

But he’s not going to get the worst of the week, that’s going to Jason Aldean with ‘That’s What Tequila Does’, with the best going to Brett Young for ‘You Didn’t’ - that was a nice little surprise there, have to say. Next week… well, we’ll have an interesting battle with Shakira and Miley Cyrus entering the fray, stay tuned…