billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 28, 2023

I’ve been reflecting on how much activity makes for a good week on the Hot 100, or at the very least a good episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN, and I’m not sure what it says that I saw this week with notable changes in the top 10 and a healthy list of new arrivals and thought, ‘…yep, looks about normal, at least to me’. This for the record covers the tracking week that has led folks to say 2023 is starting off faster than last year… I’m still not sure I agree, given how it’s felt like discourse about all of these new arrivals has ebbed away remarkably quickly, but hey, time will tell on this turbulence, right?

Anyway, our top ten, where we have the first major news: debuting at #1, ‘Flowers’ by Miley Cyrus. And putting aside any thoughts I have on the song which we’ll get to, credit to Miley’s team, they nailed this rollout - dominant on sales and streaming with a well-timed video, plus pushing this hard to the radio, it got her a second #1 hit nearly a decade after ‘Wrecking Ball’. It also blocked ‘Kill Bill’ by SZA from seizing that spot, as she got handily beaten across the board - granted, I trust her streaming viability and she’s finally got radio behind her, but that might be a tough margin to chase. And that knocked back ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift to #3 - dominant on radio, sure, but it’s probably peaked there and streaming and sales are starting to fall off. And I do think that opens a door for ‘Creepin’ by Metro Boomin, 21 Savage and The Weeknd up to #4 - streaming is solid and radio growth is robust, it could easily close that margin! It overtakes ‘Unholy’ by Sam Smith and Kim Petras down to #5, but it’s starting to fall off gradually across the board… unfortunately opening the door for ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha at #6 where the radio is still on the rise, thankfully with nothing else behind it! Right behind it is ‘Die For You’ by The Weeknd at #7, also running for the most part just on radio, which isn’t really something I’d say for ‘Rich Flex’ by Drake and 21 Savage at #8 - radio growth is there, but it’s slower and more to compensate for streaming taking a dip, once again not fast enough. But then we have a second top 10 debut and one that did surprise me a little: ‘Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53’ by Bizarrap and Shakira at #9 - we’ll get into what this is much later on, but frankly ridiculous sales and streaming smashed this in, and honestly, I don’t quite expect it to last into the next week. Finally, ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles held up at #10 - it’s just on the downswing everywhere, just a matter of time before it rotates out.

Speaking of which, our losers and dropouts, where we definitely saw some bigger tracks make their exit - a few leftovers from album bombs like from Drake and 21 Savage with ‘On BS’ and ‘Pussy & Millions’ with Travis Scott, as well as ‘Bejeweled’ by Taylor Swift, but also ‘Hold Me Closer’ by Elton John and Britney Spears, ‘Fall In Love’ by Bailey Zimmerman, and ‘Son Of A Sinner’ by Jelly Roll. The loser list is pretty reasonable, though - a few leftovers from SZA with ‘Used’ at 93 and ‘Special’ at 95 and for Metro Boomin with ‘Too Many Nights’ with Future and Don Toliver, continued losses for ‘Down Home’ by Jimmie Allen to 86, the evaporation of all the gains for ‘Half Of Me’ by Thomas Rhett and Riley Green to 73, and then a few drops for ‘Star Walkin’ by Lil Nas X to 65 and ‘Lift Me Up’ by Rihanna at 39 - I guess radio moved off faster than I expected there.

And now for our returns and gains… well, return, as Shakira and Ozuna brought ‘Monotonia’ back to 83, I’m guessing just as a peripheral to the Bizarrap session. But I’m a little surprised by the gains here - ‘Snooze’ by SZA caught a sharp boost to 32 thanks to a big streaming spike, we’re still seeing continued gains for ‘Players’ by Coi Leray to 54 and ‘here with me’ by d4vd at 66 - I’m shocked folks seem to be getting onboard - and off the debut ‘Ditto’ by NewJeans rose to 85. That’s probably the most significant one here - normally k-pop songs fall off after a week, so seeing this one get traction alongside some of our other new arrivals will be something to watch.

But now onto those new arrivals, unfortunately starting with…

100. ‘King Snipe’ by Gucci Mane & Kodak Black - so here’s something… well, not interesting, but very revealing about this single from Gucci Mane’s newest album: it’s basically a Kodak Black song, as he has two verses and the hook with Gucci Mane only contributing one, but Gucci is the only thing remotely tolerable about this so I think he wins out! Serious question, why the hell are we still giving Kodak Black any runway, because he’s godawful on this song, even more than usual: his first verse sounds sloppy as hell with the implied threat that if someone raises their voice in his house he shoots them and because he didn’t have a dad he’s got to get off his own dick, he’s jacked - absent fatherhood works so well in a masturbation joke - his hook doesn’t have any punch beyond saying he likes to torture people and acknowledging his girl is cheating on him but he doesn’t care to find out with who or why, and on his third verse he drowns himself in autotune to sound like Future - charming. What I find most notable is that outside of the bargain barrel fake strings and sterile trap percussion, Gucci Mane is now in full elder statesman mode and actually sounds more intimidating avoiding the murder talk - you’d think after Kodak’s faux redemption arc last year, he’d get the hint! Lousy song, skip it!

98. ‘Heart To Heart’ by Mac DeMarco - wait, what? What the hell is Mac DeMarco doing on the Hot 100? For those of you who don’t know, Mac DeMarco has been a reasonably well-received stoner / slacker singer-songwriter in the indie scene who I reviewed once in 2014 but honestly wasn’t really my thing. I knew he was building up a fanbase - hell, he dropped an instrumental album last week - but this is not from that. No, this is from his 2019 album Here Comes The Cowboy because it went viral on TikTok - I’m not sure if it’s connected with how the song is a sober, slowburn tribute to Mac Miller, it wouldn’t surprise me - and… yeah, it’s not bad, but like with so much of Mac Miller and Mac DeMarco, it doesn’t click for me. And it’s tough to pin down why - the writing is simple but effective, DeMarco’s mournful delivery fits opposite the spare drippy mix with the prominent bass, but then you get these flat, minor key synth whirs that don’t really fit with the minor progressions already in the lead melody. It creates a tonal clash that feels intentional, but doesn’t hit the way it should for me. I guess everyone grieves in their own way - again, I don’t think it’s bad - but for me… let’s just move on.

94. ‘Human’ by Cody Johnson - I was a bit concerned that after ‘Til You Can’t' Cody Johnson might have a tough time following that momentum - Nashville loves to give acts with established fanbases outside one minor hit before ignoring them into the dirt - but it turns out we’ve got a second here from his 2021 double album. And I might actually like this more - tastefully warm and acoustic with plenty of pedal steel and fiddle as Johnson leans on Texas country, but I think it’s the lyrics that really do it for me, where he could play into a lot of hard-living cowboy swagger, but with this woman in his life he’s trying to be more expressive and empathetic, with the open admittance that he’s going to screw it up but is trying to be better. It’s a really presented sentiment, and when you realize Johnson also is intending the song as metacommentary about making this sort of music instead of empty sloganeering… yeah, I like that, it shows real growth and maturity. This is a damn good song - hope it catches on too!

91. ‘OMG’ by Newjeans - alright, the last NewJeans song really caught me off-guard with its understated sound and approach in k-pop, I was definitely intrigued to see that next step, especially as some have said this is even better. I think I disagree with that - it feels more conventional in its flashier synths, clanking trap percussion where the arrangement feels distractingly busy this time before metallic pitch-shifted voices get shoved in before the bridge, and even if I still like the harmonies, the song feels considerably clunkier, even if it’s just a pretty simple, over-the-moon teenage love song. Granted, a lot of the reasons I liked ‘Ditto’ was because it felt so different than a lot of k-pop, so I get why more folks like this more… ehh, it’s not bad, but I don’t see it sticking.

76. ‘VIBE’ by TAEYANG ft. Jimin - we’re actually sticking with k-pop for a bit longer, and this one requires a bit of context. For those who don’t know, the lead artist TAEYANG is part of the group Big Bang, but he’s had a pretty active solo career since 2008 - for context, he’s only two years older than me, he’s been putting out records since he was a teenager. This is his first solo cut since 2018, he’s teaming up with Jimin of BTS, and… it’s interesting, I’ll give them that. It starts off as a smoother, liquid R&B-inflected cut with the 90s chime flutter, but then that heavy bass drops in with flashy buzzes of synth and rollicking guitar and clattering percussion that reminds me more of new jack swing! I’m not sure it’s a fusion that completely works - TAEYANG and Jimin have good chemistry selling a playful love song, but I feel like they’re trying to work off a better groove than they have, which is blocky and could afford a bit more sinuous presence, get a little looser. Granted, some of this might be a factor of the more modern triplet lyrical structure, and the more listens I gave this, the more I can hear how it works. Not sure I’m all the way there, but I’d call this good.

75. ‘Nonsense’ by Sabrina Carpenter - okay, before we get to the song itself, we need to talk about the idiocy around why it’s here. Starting around the end of last year, Spotify was allowing labels to pay for placement on their Spotify radio service - this is not new, paying for a playlist spot has been industry routine for years now, and this was actually something Spotify used to do in the mid-2010s, but in what was supposed to be a randomized selection of songs linked to a specific artist, this is just digital payola outright. This has led to a bit of an industry shitshow because certain labels began dumping money into this system to the disgruntlement of other labels, and has created a headache for Billboard because the autoplay functionality distorts how one defines the split between paid and free streams - it’s likely the main reason the charts are so damn late. And guess whose management began pushing this strategy along with Tiktok and a proper radio push after this song was released last July - yep, I guess without Olivia Rodrigo drama Sabrina Carpenter’s team has to pull out all the stops! And that’s disappointing because otherwise, this is… okay, not good, a pretty flagrant early Ariana Grande ripoff with overly synthetic vocal layering, cheap-sounding percussion, and a liquid guitar pickup that honestly feels closer to pedal steel! But what annoys me are the lyrics - it’s another love song, but one looking to hone in on the awkward, clumsy feeling of being so in love you can’t think or talk straight; it’s trying to be cute and meta on how chunks of the lyrics don’t make sense, but Carpenter keeps cramming in meta references and it starts feeling calculated - it’s a song about writing a song that references jumping an octave and that she thinks is catchier than chickenpox, where by the outro she outright admits how wacky the writing process became. And I normally like songs that get meta, but this feels like she takes away from what could have been a sincere moment - the sort of ironic self-awareness that’s a lot less playful than she thinks it is. It’s just feels mediocre and the bad business around it doesn’t help - let’s hope it doesn’t become a proper hit.

58. ‘On Wat U On’ by Moneybagg Yo & GloRilla - this collab just seems incredibly obvious - both are from Memphis and have a similar bruising vibe with rougher flows, and GloRilla has been stacking up the cosigns, so why not an obvious one from her hometown? And they actually do more with this than I was expecting - yeah, the production’s kind of underwhelming with the piano loop and brittle trap percussion, but the two have more interplay on both the hook and verses as they complain about bad relationships. It’s actually kind of funny because both of them would probably be better off single for as much cheating and open violence is happening, but the sex is just that good, and I like that both of them recognize it’s a real problem! If I have an issue, it’s more that both rappers are technically limited, and there’s some pretty obvious clumsiness, but outside of that… it might a little trashy, but this is pretty good, I dig it.

9. ‘Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53’ by Bizarrap & Shakira - and speaking of a trashy situation… so last year football star Gerard Piqué cheated on Shakira, and they separated. I’m not sure I can quantify how unbelievably dumb that is - I mean, it’s SHAKIRA, what’s wrong with you - but it got ugly, and in January this year, Shakira went on the offensive, hopping on the newest Bizarrap music session. This has actually been a bit contentious - Bizarrap built his reputation platforming smaller acts getting their start, not megastar pop divas, but it reminded me of how Drake uses Soundcloud to drop loosies and diss tracks, which is what this is. And it’s got some teeth to it - Shakira plays vindictive but dismissive anger pretty effectively as she grapples with this split, between the close proximity to her in-laws to the messy custody battle, to trying to get out of Spain and back to the US, all with the same lingering confusion I have towards someone who dumped Shakira for a 22-year-old! And I like how much she references her music, which took a backseat while she was married because this guy seemed painfully insecure about it - I can imagine we might get more coming. If I have issues with this, it might actually come with the production - it feels a little dated with the club boom synths and lockstep beat where Bizarrap tries to switch it up a few times and the clattering trap transitions aren’t as sharp as you’d hope. I dunno, for as effective of a kissoff as it is, this sort of public drama doesn’t always have a shelf life - I can take or leave this song, let’s hope there’s a Shakira album coming.

1. ‘Flowers’ by Miley Cyrus - and we’re not done with the public drama, because here’s Miley now leaning into the subtext of this being about her ex-husband Liam Hemsworth, and hold on a second, didn’t they divorce back in 2019, that was an album cycle ago, are we seriously digging back into this now? I get still having baggage from it, but leaning on that for the lead-off single feels odd to me. Granted, this song feels lacking in ideas as a whole - the watery disco rollick with the very obvious ‘I Will Survive’ interpolation as a post-breakup self-esteem song, with the most notable lyric being the reference to their house literally burning down in 2018. But if you’re going to interpolate such a recognizable disco standard, you’ve got to bring some firepower to it - pardon the pun - and I don’t think this gets there: the mix is murky, the tempo is a little too slow, but the larger problem might be Miley. To put it bluntly, she sounds checked out - she’s got a voice that has sharp keening presence that made her a natural fit for rock, but here she sounds bored, where it’s almost like she’s trying to convince herself she can be on her own. And given how uneven Miley’s music can be… I’m hoping this is just a one-off dud and fades fast, because it’s not good.

So yeah, this was an awkward week, kind of a damp note to end things on, but it’s not the worst here - that’s going to ‘King Snipe’ by Gucci Mane and Kodak Black, with ‘Nonsense’ by Sabrina Carpenter getting the Dishonourable Mention. The best… ‘Human’ by Cody Johnson runs away with that, but I’m giving Honourable Mention to ‘VIBE’ by TAEYANG and Jimin - call it a lingering fondness for new jack swing, but I dig it. Next week, the fallout from all of this that could well be slower than expected, stay tuned…