billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 11, 2020
So here’s the frustrating thing: my instincts are to call this week on the Hot 100 pretty normal… but what even is normal in 2020 for the Hot 100, where album bombs are back in spades and the #1 has rotated in flagrantly artificial success and while I’m not about to call the year bad it’s certainly felt like a total mess? And yeah, some of that feels indicative of the times, but it’s left me struggling for predictions on how the rest of this will turn out.
I mean, look at our top 10, where for another week ‘ROCKSTAR’ by DaBaby and Roddy Ricch holds the #1. This is easy to predict - strong in all channels, especially streaming, and it’s on a radio run - but then we go to our #2: ‘WHATS POPPIN’ by Jack Harlow, now credited with the remix from DaBaby, Tory Lanez, and Lil Wayne? I knew this was going to keep ascending but I didn’t expect it this fast… although the margin that ‘ROCKSTAR’ has in sales and airplay might keep it on top even if ‘WHATS POPPIN’ blows up on streaming. But then, steady as ever, ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd is at #3 - sales are down and it is losing radio, but it had a good week on streaming so it’s relatively fine given its margins. What did surprise me a bit was the drop back for ‘Savage’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce at #4 - it’s weird, it picked up spots on the radio because songs above it are collapsing, not because it’s particularly strong, and while I thought ‘Roses (Imanbek Remix)’ would make a play beyond #5, a bad sales week and unimpressive streaming isn’t going to boost a good radio run. What’s more telling comes in ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj holding at #6 and ‘Intentions’ by Justin Bieber ft. Quavo falling to #7, because all the both of them really have is radio and now that’s tanking. This opens up room for ‘Watermelon Sugar’ by Harry Styles to actually break into the top 10 at #8, thanks to a radio tear and surprisingly good streaming for a pop song, and I can see this holding for the next couple weeks barring a serious disruption. Then there’s ‘Blueberry Faygo’ by Lil Mosey holding at #9 - it’s also got radio and streaming just with nothing close to momentum, it’ll be fine - and also breaking into the top 10: ‘We Paid’ by Lil Baby and 42 Dugg, which broke this high thanks to the video and streaming and nothing else - it’s not going to last in the top 10, and I’m mostly okay with that.
On that note, losers and dropouts, and we had a few big ones this week: clinching their year-end list spots we have ‘I Hope You’re Happy Now’ by Carly Pearce and Lee Brice and ‘everything i wanted’ by Billie Eilish, and falling shorter than I’d like, ‘Level of Concern’ by twenty one pilots. But on the topic of underperformance, that’s pretty much the story for most of our losers - outside of ‘After A Few’ by Travis Denning going to 67 as it concludes its radio arc, how else can you explain the continued collapse of ‘TROLLZ’ by 6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj at 54 - it was at #1 two weeks ago - or ‘Shotta Flow 5’ by NLE Choppa at 100, or ‘Go!’ by Kid LAROI and the late Juice WRLD sliding to 80. Then off the debut ‘Black Parade’ by Beyonce slid to 71, and to round things out, ‘BELIEVE IT’ by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna finally looks like it’s heading out at 85 and ‘X’ by the Jonas Brothers and Karol G hit 98.
But I’ll admit where I’m struggling is with our gains and returns this week - yes, ‘3 Headed Goat’ by Lil Durk, Lil Baby and Polo G is back because of the video at 68, but our gains are a weird group. For one, our country gains are ‘More Than My Hometown’ by Morgan Wallen at 82, ‘Done’ by Chris Janson at 63, and ‘Got What I Got’ by Jason Aldean at 52 - honest question, why are these the tracks Nashville thinks anyone wants to hear right now? I can basically say the same thing for the continued gain of ‘Like That’ by Doja Cat and Gucci Mane to 51 - at least I get why ‘Savage Love’ by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo is up to 31, it’s got the sort of hook that never goddamn goes away! But to round this out… ‘Bang!’ by AJR is up to 86 off the debut. Folks, 2020 has been rough enough, we don’t need to give AJR a real hit here, especially off the radio, okay?
Anyway, we’ve got a decent list of new arrivals ahead, and we’re starting in country with…
99. ‘I Called Mama’ by Tim McGraw - this is the sort of song that I actually have more complicated opinions on than I thought I would. Because on the one hand, it’s exactly the sort of country song I’d like to hear from Tim McGraw: textured guitars, organic percussion, plentiful pedal steel and organ to flesh out the melody, McGraw himself sounds good and the message of cherishing your family for how little time you might have them, especially in times like this, that’s powerful stuff. The problem is that I’ve been listening to Tim McGraw for decades now, and there are a lot of parallels to ‘Live Like You Were Dying’ - maybe a bit less self-focused, but it hits a ton of very similar notes. Now the subtle, quiet restraint of this is potent, but will I remember it in the same way as one of Tim McGraw’s biggest power ballads? Tough to say, but either way I’m nitpicking: it’s really damn good, and his sense of sentimentality is part of his charm; I like this, check it out.
96. ‘Rags 2 Riches’ by Rod Wave ft. ATR Son Son - …you had to pick the song I like the least on the album. Really, Rod Wave, we’re going with this over ‘I Remember’, really? Now it’s not like I don’t see the appeal of this - it’s got the most basic and repetitive hook, and even if the bass beat is totally blown out and swamping the track, it’s still catchy. But it’s also barely a fragment of a song - one verse that’s not particularly coherent in its ‘more money more problems’ arc, and even if Rod Wave sounds okay, it’s just a lot less than I know for a fact he’s capable. Still, it’s not bad, it just feels unfinished and I’m disappointed he’s choosing to push it. And on the topic of disappointments…
93. ‘Lovin On You’ by Luke Combs - well, it’s not the worst song on the album, but really, you’re pushing this instead of ‘Six Feet Apart’ when that might be all the more prescient to these times? It’s just a classic example of bad management; yes, folks aren’t really fond of quarantine songs, but look at the state of the country, sometimes they might help instead of an interchangeable love song! Yeah, the saxophone sounds cool blended opposite the saloon piano and pedal steel and while the handclaps sound really limp - and the vocal mixing on the final hook sounds really canned - this is an easy slice of neotraditional country on texture alone is easy for me to like. But again, it’s Luke Combs’ management playing it safe and I know for a fact he’s better than this. Hell, even if this is fine, you want the prime example of one of his recent collaborators taking a real risk…
92. ‘Stick That In Your Country Song’ by Eric Church - so I’ve actually already reviewed this song - go check my Instagram, @SpectrumPulse, where I actually discussed this in some detail. And while it has grown on me since it dropped - Eric Church sounding righteously pissed as he completes the heartland rock tradition to more subversive Americana along with a Sturgill Simpson-esque middle finger to Nashville - I can also say that Simpson’s recent misadventures in rock mixing also hurt this song; Church’s vocal placement should be louder opposite that roaring guitar and the more soulful backing vocals. Still, for as kick-ass as this is, I just know Nashville radio won’t have the stones to touch it, so any success this’ll have will come from streaming or sales. Might be worth keeping in mind if we want that middle finger to keep rising, just saying.
77. ‘Past Life’ by Trevor Daniel & Selena Gomez - it makes too much sense that Trevor Daniel - one of the most flagrant Post Malone ripoffs I’ve heard in recent memory - is working with Selena Gomez, an artist who has been at her best when sliding her personality into whatever electronic groove can suffice. So rock bottom expectations for this remix were a given here… and yet I’ll say this is a fair bit better than I was expecting, mostly because Selena Gomez leans into her subtler, more restrainted delivery and actually sounds really good. And I like the content too - unlike the solo version of the song, this actually shows both partners reflecting on using each other and trying to look for something better to come. Hell, I’d be inclined to say the only real problem I have here is some production and that warping acoustic sample cribbed from an unreleased Lil Peep song, not helped by some of the flat synth touches, but between the piano work surrounding the sharper trap snares and thicker beat, it mostly makes up for it. In other words… for a trap pop song, this is surprisingly good, I might be okay if this sticks around.
75. ‘Know My Rights’ by 6LACK ft. Lil Baby - so 6LACK put out an EP recently… and I’ll be honest, I’ve been waiting for his work to really grip me or rise above the average, as I know he’s got the potential, but I’ve struggled to find the songs that would really put him over the top. And I couldn’t imagine that teaming up with Lil Baby on a dreary trap flex song would be the necessary step… and it turns out I was right with that, because this is a slog. A leaden trap beat off indistinct guitar, a hook where it sounds like 6LACK would rather be anywhere else as he says he works harder than everyone else - maybe not a good thing for your song to feel as much like work - and Lil Baby comparing the girl blowing him to Hannibal Lecter. He also claims he’s top five which I’m not about to dignify in any category outside of Billboard chart success - man, he’s just tanking all that goodwill I wanted to give him, man. Nah, if anything this isn’t bad so much as a forgettable slog - next!
49. ‘Wash Us In The Blood’ by Kanye West ft. Travis Scott - so Kanye’s album rollouts are getting worse and given the music has fallen far short the past few years, I think I’m obliged to not care - he’s not running for president, he’s filed none of the paperwork and has no ground game, this is a cheap ploy to get him to trend and somehow y’all bought it! Regardless, he’s got a single with Travis Scott, mostly buoyed to chart position thanks to sales, with some even hailing this as a return to the Yeezus sound… and look, as someone who defends more of Yeezus than I probably should, this does not rise to that project - for as much as Kanye accuses the labels of only wanting ‘calm-ye’, he sounds pretty level-headed and kind of flat in his delivery across most of the song, which is also how I’d characterized the clanking patter of the drums and the warbling synth behind him. Hell, I’d argue Travis at least sounds better positioned in the mix, especially as for the first verse Kanye’s behind this robotic filter, but the problem, as per usual, is the content, where Kanye juxtaposes getting ‘washed in the blood’ of Jesus as salvation from street violence and drug dealing. Which to me seems a little off about addressing the real systemic issues in America right now, and the sense that Kanye’s priorities might be a different place only intensifies by his final verse where he’s complaining people chop up his interviews and he calls them fake news… so we see where his priorities are. It’s not even that this song is particularly weird - once again, you can draw a comparison to Death Grips doing even this more restrained approach better - but it bugs me how much Kanye coaxes his own grievances through religious and historically charged language, especially when the song isn’t good. Next!
33. ‘How You Like That’ by BLACKPINK - look, I keep trying to find the inroad with BLACKPINK, I’ve heard a decent number of their singles now and given how much that collaboration with Lady Gaga didn’t work I wasn’t sure what we were about to get with this… and wow, this isn’t good either! And it’s actually pretty easy to pinpoint the two problems: one, despite having decent chemistry and okay verses about building themselves out of a bad breakup, the hook is trying to lean into the ‘look at you, then look at me’ flex and I’m fairly certain that meme has been dead for years! More to the point, they’re doubling down on the obnoxiousness with flattened squonks of synth that sound like teased farts and have nothing close to real impact, especially when BLACKPINK are just going to reference themselves on the outro! Maybe the group is just not for me at this point, but even as an aspirational girl power song, it’s aggressively annoying… so yeah, can’t call this good, especially when we can follow it with…
28. ‘Girls In The Hood’ by Megan Thee Stallion - the one thing I like a lot about Megan Thee Stallion is that not only does she know the past of rap music, she’s willing to flip, sample, and recontextualize a lot of it for new music; old school samples and swagger married to a performer who can live up to it. It was a big reason why I really like ‘B.I.T.C.H’. and following it with an Eazy-E flip here… yeah, it works! The one thing I like is that while there’s more trap percussion fleshing out the ‘Boyz-N-The-Hood’ keys and guitar, Megan has that aggro energy to command the track, sound just as filthy, interpolate an old-school flow, and yet trim it back from the overlong storytelling that contains smacking bitches and fart jokes - people forget the original Boyz-N-The-Hood was nearly six minutes long. And I like that Megan is starting to show a little more unique lyrical personality here - the Naruto reference was a nice touch, even if it felt pretty brief. I will say it’s a little bullshit to discover that Eazy-E’s daughters haven’t been able to sample his body of work where Megan can - that’s label chicanery in a really depressing way - but as it is, I like this a fair bit, solid song.
And that rounds out a week that was honestly a lot better than I was expecting, to the point where picking the best is tricky. I’m going to go with ‘Stick That In Your Country Song’ by Eric Church at the top… but I’m going to say Megan just edges out Tim McGraw with ‘Girls In The Hood’ here, and it’s close. Worst of the week… I’m giving BLACKPINK the Dishonourable Mention for annoyance with ‘How You Like That’, if only because ‘Wash Us In The Blood’ by Kanye and Travis Scott hits the worst, because for everything it’s trying to it, it either underperforms or fails. Next week, though, it looks like we’re going to get a posthumous Pop Smoke album bomb, so stay tuned for that…