billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 7, 2023

So as far as I can tell, this’ll be the last week that holiday music is squatting on the charts - this is the tracking week that overlaps over Christmas, and it’ll be next week when the expected chaos of everything old flooding back in because Billboard turns their recurrent rules on and off when they feel like it… but we’ll burn that bridge next week. In the meantime, it’s going to be another slower episode… albeit a stranger one.

Well, outside of our top ten, that is. Literally the top seven songs are all holiday cuts, starting with ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey still at #1, ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ by Brenda Lee at #2, ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ by Bobby Helms at #3, ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! rising to #4, overtaking ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’ by Burl Ives at #5, then ‘It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ by Andy Williams at #6 and a bump for ‘Feliz Navidad’ by Jose Feliciano to #7. That overtook ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift at #8, but given she’s sitting at the top on the radio with year-end roundup momentum, she’s probably set to take this back to #1. Right behind her is ‘The Christmas Song’ by Nat King Cole and then holding up the rear is ‘Unholy’ by Sam Smith and Kim Petras at #10, also pretty much based on the radio.

This takes us to our losers and dropouts, and really it’s just the lower third of SZA’s album bomb, along with ‘All Mine’ by Brent Faiyaz. Hell, if you want the story of our losers too, outside of ‘Superhero (Heroes & Villains)’ by Metro Boomin, Chris Brown and Future at 55, it’s all SZA again: ‘Gone Girl’ at 100, ‘SOS’ at 97, ‘Special’ at 92, ‘Ghost In The Machine’ with Phoebe Bridgers at 89, ‘Used’ with Don Toliver at 86, ‘Seek & Destroy’ at 81, ‘Love Language’ at 77, ‘Snooze’ at 74, ‘Blind’ at 67, ‘Low’ at 65, ‘Nobody Gets Me’ at 59, and ‘Shirt’ back down to 52!

So you might ask what could possibly replace all of this… well, it’s kind of a mess, if we look at our returns and gains. On the one hand you get the holiday returns as expected: ‘Home For THe Holidays’ by Perry Como back at 41, ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ by Michael Buble at 48, and ‘Christmastime Is Here’ by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. But then you have the leftovers creeping back that are primed for major pickups next week because they have inertia and all the holiday music above them is going to evaporate. Where it’s least likely is with ‘La Jumpa’ by Arcangel and Bad Bunny at 99 off of YouTube, but with ‘Forget Me’ by Lewis Capaldi at 98 or ‘Pick Me Up’ by Gabby Barrett at 96 courtesy of already having a radio presence, I’d call it outright likely. The one exception is ‘No Se Va’ by Grupo Frontera at 93, but that’s tied into some of the strangeness of the Hot 100 this week, so we’ll come back to it. Now if we look at the gains, the dichotomy between holiday music and pop seems also present, with ‘This Christmas’ by Donny Hathaway rising to 37, but ‘Hold Me Closer’ by Elton John and Britney Spears up to 82? I’d put that more on year-end countdowns and while the effect will likely be the same, it might not pick up any newfound momentum.

But this takes us to our new arrivals: only three of them, and they’re all in Spanish - I apologize in advance for inevitable bad pronunciation, because contrary to popular belief I do try to get them right - usually it’s a combination of not growing up with Spanish at all combined with my teleprompter and occasionally multiple pronunciations when I do my research, and I guarantee that even if I got it right my accent while doing so would make it sound wrong to a native speaker, there’s no winning here. But enough of my bitching, let’s start with…

91. ‘Bebe Dame’ by Fuerza Regida & Grupo Frontera - alright, here’s a question: why is it that the Grupo Frontera songs that go viral on TikTok do so with the live version of the song? The vocal mixing is worse, the dynamics of the mix just feel ever so slightly off, like a demo that wasn’t completed properly, and while the accordion and groove here feels fine, I’m nowhere near as enamoured or impressed with this as I feel I’m supposed to be. Part of this is translating the lyrics, where in an effort to rebuild a broken relationship we get a strident confession of love that feels clingy and oversold at best and kind of presumptuous at worst; there’s no subtlety or flair to this poetry, even post-translation, it’s braying and horny and it’s not remotely flattering. I’ll accept that I’m not the target audience for this, but I can also recognize something that maybe had enough ideas for a TikTok and nothing else - mediocre.

83. ‘Que Vuelvas’ by Carin Leon & Grupo Frontera - okay, so this one feels a little different - Carin Leon is an established act in regional Mexican music, he’s put out several albums, and it looks like the connection with Grupo Frontera this time feels a bit more professional, even if the production still feels way too much like a live mix down to the canned drum mixing and wonky vocals. To Carin Leon’s credit, he’s got more distinguished and distinctive vocal personality and against the accordion the writing comes off better too - another plea for someone to return and receive all the love, but the sort of message that for as many times as he’s tried to write it down, his pride prevents him from actually reaching out. It’s a decent detail, and while the production keeps me from getting onboard fully… there’s more to this I like, I can appreciate it.

62. ‘Gato de Noche’ by Nengo Flow & Bad Bunny - so it turns out I’ve mentioned Nengo Flow before - he was on the first of Bad Bunny’s album bombs in 2020, where he and Lil Baby went head to head. I didn’t really remember that song - it didn’t stand out as neither the best nor worst of that overloaded week - so I didn’t really have expectations beyond everyone riding Bad Bunny’s coattails these days, especially here where Bad Bunny has the intro, the hook and one of two verses. And unfortunately the stock blocky reggaeton percussion against the washed out synth doesn’t exactly make for an interesting song regardless, so we’re stuck going to the content… and it’s a particularly angry sex song where this girl seems to have moved on but she’s still screwing Bad Bunny on the side - Nengo Flow’s nasal, flexing verse isn’t that interesting, he easily gets overshadowed here. I think it’s not helped by smugness being such a bad fit for Bad Bunny’s delivery especially when there’s no added layers - the gloating just doesn’t work for me. It’s not as bad as when Bad Bunny was with Arcangel, but it’s not particularly likable when it’s not forgettable, I’d skip it.

So while it’s a short week, the best falls out quickly with ‘Que Vuelvas’ by Carin Leon and Grupo Frontera, and the worst… I’m giving it to Bad Bunny and Nengo Flow for ‘Gato de Noche’, if only because I’ve got expectations for Bad Bunny now and this isn’t remotely living up to them. Next week… well, the holiday music will be gone and the charts in turmoil, and hopefully it’ll be interesting, stay tuned!