billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 25, 2020

So I predicted the second posthumous album bomb here last week. I didn’t predict it like this - not only was Juice WRLD’s album bomb for Legends Never Die bigger than that of Pop Smoke, but also hit a lot higher on the Hot 100, which means not only will I wind up talking about more of it, but it triggered the sort of chart impact and collapse for a lot of songs for which they might not recover… in other words, next week this could become very interesting, if not altogether good.

And unlike Pop Smoke, this had major implications on the top 10… well, not the #1. ‘ROCKSTAR’ by DaBaby and Roddy Ricch has a solid lock there despite getting unseated on streaming and sales thanks to solid YouTube and consistently good radio. And this is where the Juice WRLD conversation starts immediately, because all of his songs that hit the top 10 got there on streaming and a smattering of YouTube, with only ‘Come & Go’ with Marshmello really having the sales to shove it higher to #2. This boosted it right past ‘WHATS POPPIN’ by Jack Harlow, DaBaby, Tory Lanez and Lil Wayne at #3, which is pretty consistently strong but still lags on the radio to make that next push… whereas ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd fell back to #4 because its radio and sales are finally on the downswing. Then we got another Juice WRLD song with ‘Wishing Well’ at #5 - same deal as before - and then ‘Savage’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce at #6. I’m a little disappointed this isn’t going to make one last push, but it’s losing across the board, looks to be on its way out soon. Then we have another Juice WRLD song with ‘Conversations’ at #7 - again, same deal as before, just a bit less - and then we get ‘Roses (Imanbek Remix)’ by SAINt JHN, which might be slowing in its gains but is still pretty robust across the board. And then we round things out with two more Juice WRLD songs - yes, that’s five in the top 10 - first with ‘Life’s A Mess’ with Halsey from last week surging to #9, and at #10, ‘Hate The Other Side’ with Marshmello, Polo G, and Kid LAROI. Again, it’s tough to evaluate how much any of this will last - I don’t suspect it will, but with album bombs that hit near the top of the charts, they have more staying power.

Speaking of which, our losers and dropouts, and this is where things get ugly, because in the latter category, there were a lot of losses. No, I’m not happy ‘Pu$$y Fairy’ by Jhene Aiko was forced off, but frankly it was allowed to overstep its run for too long as it was, but along the way the album bomb also took out ‘Dior’ by Pop Smoke, ‘High Fashion’ by Roddy Ricch - both of these have year-end list spots - ‘After A Few’ by Travis Denning, ‘Yo Perreo Sola’ by Bad Bunny, ‘Flex’ by Polo G and Juice WRLD, and ‘In Between’ by Scotty McCreery. But the bigger story is our losers - and congrats, another full third of the charts took hits this week! Most of these are more predictable, though, most notably the debuts from Pop Smoke that took hits: ‘44 Bulldog’ to 99, ‘Aim For The Moon’ with Quavo at 89, ‘Gangstas’ at 83, ‘Mood Swings’ with Lil Tjay at 79, ‘Something Special’ at 75, ‘Got It On Me’ at 59, ‘The Woo’ with 50 Cent and Roddy Ricch at 48, and ‘For The Night’ with Lil Baby and DaBaby at 32. Then we had consistent losers from last week - ‘GOOBA’ by 6ix9ine at 100, ‘3 Headed Goat’ by Lil Durk, Lil Baby and Polo G at 97, ‘Here And Now’ by Kenny Chesney at 96, ‘THE SCOTTS’ by Kid Cudi and Travis Scott at 69, ‘Stuck With U’ by Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber at 66, ‘Be Kind’ by Marshmello and Halsey at 62, and ‘Toosie Slide’ by Drake at 54. Now the other losses are actually bigger hits that might rebound or find themselves forced off for good, so starting from the bottom up… ‘Walk Em Down’ by NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch at 58, ‘Die From A Broken Heart’ by Maddie & Tae at 53, ‘Chasing You’ by Morgan Wallen at 49, ‘Sunday Best’ by Surfaces at 45, ‘Bluebird’ by Miranda Lambert at 44, and ‘The Bigger Picture’ by Lil Baby at 43. Then we had ‘The Box’ by Roddy Ricch at 41, ‘Life Is Good’ by Future and Drake at 39 - yes, this is still around - ‘Hard To Forget’ by Sam Hunt at 37 - yes, this also is still here - ‘The Bones’ by Maren Morris at 36, ‘One Margarita’ by Luke Bryan took a bit of a hit 31, and to round it all out… ‘Rain On Me’ by Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga at 28, ‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa at 27, ‘We Paid’ by Lil Baby and 42 Dugg at 26, and ‘Intentions’ by Justin Bieber and Quavo out of the top ten at 21.

Now given we are in an album bomb situation, you’d think any gains or returns would be directly tied to that, and while that might be true for ‘Righteous’ and ‘Tell Me U Luv Me’ by Juice WRLD, the latter featuring Trippie Redd back at 15 and 38 respectively - along with ‘Past Life’ by Trevor Daniel and Selena Gomez at 90 because it’s making a radio run - our gains tell a different story. I already mentioned ‘Life’s A Mess’, but we saw more pickups here: in country we had ‘Lovin On You’ by Luke Combs up to 87 and ‘One Big Country Song’ by LOCASH at 60 - as if I couldn’t get more of a frustrated migraine - and then ‘Rags2Riches’ by Rod Wave continuing to surge at 52. Then we had ‘Party Girl’ by StaySolidRocky up to 25 in the run-up to an album I guarantee the majority of you didn’t know was dropping soon, and as expected, ‘Savage Love’ by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo cracks the top 20 at 19. Oh, I just know some folks are going to be exceptionally irritated this is now a hit… but thankfully I’m still not sick of it just yet, so I’m okay with this. But as we are in an album bomb situation, here are the songs that fell below the top 40 and don’t qualify as best or worst of the week from Juice WRLD: ‘Man Of The Year’ at 51 - the rap rock sound had promise even if the lyrics made me wince - ‘Can’t Die’ at 50, ‘I Want It’ at 47, ‘Screw Juice’ at 46, and ‘Up, Up & Away’ at 42.

Okay, and with that, our new arrivals, starting with…

91. ‘Tap In’ by Saweetie - alright, I had said this before and I’ll say it again: I thought ‘My Type’ was fine for the sort of basic kiss-off that it was and Saweetie had enough personality to carry it off a nostalgic sample. What I didn’t know is if she could deliver a follow-up - and discovering that a certain Kemosabe-affiliated abuser tied to Doja Cat stepped up to produce this further diminished any enthusiasm I might have for this… which might be apt, because you can tell Saweetie is trying hard to replicate Megan’s swagger and content opposite the obvious sample and just not quite matching up in the same way. Yeah, the bassy gurgle roil might make this apt for your average strip club, but without much melody beyond the whistles and Saweetie’s brash energy, I can still say this isn’t impressive or memorable. Next!

86. ‘My Affection’ by Summer Walker & PARTYNEXTDOOR - oh look, one of my least favourite acts of the current wave of R&B dropped an EP and she got the next two new entries, the first with PARTYNEXTDOOR. And I have to give them credit for some of the sloppiest vocal mixing I’ve heard in a while - PARTY sounds flat and buzzy, Summer always uses too much autotune, and the pickups clash in a really jarring way when they’re trying to harmonize, especially when you tack on an underweight trap skitter and muted keys sliding across the back, which only picked up some cooler synth embellishments by the outro. The one thing I can kind of give some credit to is the content, where Summer highlights her come-up and how after getting shunned before the guy wants them, and then PARTY comes around to highlight her hypocrisy by playing the other man and highlighting his comeup. But as a whole… eh, the tune and content aren’t good enough to get over woeful production, so let’s move on to…

84. ‘Let It Go’ by Summer Walker - okay, a song like this is why I highlight Summer’s weaknesses as a singer - when your primary instrumental is a pretty warm guitar pickup and slightly more textured percussion - at least until that fizzy tap and keyboard embellishment comes in - a more obviously synthetic vocal timbre can clash awkwardly; it’s Kehlani’s problem all over again, and Kehlani at least projects more presence consistently and doesn’t stick primarily in her lower register. And it leads to her delivery and articulation feeling very mushy, which doesn’t help the thematic arc of the song, where she’s trying to quit a bad relationship and get over all those toxic ties holding her back once she found something real - a song like this should feel a bit more decisive, for lack of better terms. At least the instrumental is a bit better, but this still doesn’t have much of a hook - can’t recommend it.

73. ‘Be Like That’ by Kane Brown, Swae Lee & Khalid - okay, this is not quite as weird or bad as it might seem initially - yes, Kane Brown is a mainstream country act, but he’s worked with Khalid in the past and Swae Lee isn’t too far afield of that, and this was primarily pitched to pop radio, so I was intrigued how this would turn out. And… honestly, from that point of view, this isn’t terrible? The guitar rollick and hook isn’t bad, and even if the trap groove feels kind of lightweight, it’s got enough foundation for Khalid to sound more on-point than he has in some time, and he and Kane Brown’s harmonies are actually decent - hell, cut Swae Lee’s verse, which feels halfhearted, kind of out-of-place in its brighter mood, and its beat switch into even thinner percussion, and you could have a solid pop song here. Hell, the content might work better too - they sound like they’re looking for excuses to dump this girl, but can’t quite move themselves to do it, and there’s a certain grudging camaraderie in the low-key vibe that clicks. So yeah, it’s not a great song, but it’s just catchy enough that I can see this sticking around on pop radio at least… not bad, though.

35. ‘Fighting Demons’ by Juice WRLD - so we’ve got nine Juice WRLD songs to get through here… and here’s the truth, going through most of these there’s a formula to what we’re going to expect when it comes to self-destructive drug abuse and the occasional flex and relationship drama - to his credit, at least in terms of subject matter this project is closer to what I tolerated on Goodbye & Good Riddance. Unfortunately, for a song with a promising title this is a dud, and given these songs were finalized posthumously, I blame his management for letting through a line like ‘money gives me an erection, but that don’t mean it’s gonna be everlasting’. I almost don’t even need to add that the bass beat swamps the entire mix and the trap beat sounds cheap and even if there’s a decent melody, the writing still feels caught in the weird zone of trying to flex but also show angst, and it just falls painfully flat. So yeah, not good - next!

'34. ‘Stay High’ by Juice WRLD - okay, the reason this charted as high as it did is a sharper trap groove that’s blended a little better against the hazy blur of melody and a solid hook as Juice WRLD’s bars are a bit sharper on the verses. The problem is that the second verse can’t possible match the faster intensity of the first, which shows the difference between hunger and satiating satisfaction - the latter of which doesn’t quite connect as well on a hook where he’s trying to stay high to avoid darker thoughts. Still, it’s better - not as good as Tove Lo’s song of this name, but still.

22. ‘The Adventures Of Moon Man and Slim Shady’ by Kid Cudi & Eminem - …what. No, seriously, what is this collaboration? I get that these two might have more parallels than you’d think - they both operate in their own world with fandoms that are excruciatingly annoying - but a collaboration like this does not make any sense whatsoever. And yet, this kind of works. I’m not going to say it’s great - it feels like it’s missing a proper crescendo from either artist to ramp their bars into a climatic moment, especially with the hazy strings and sandy percussion that imply a lot of menace, but not much in the way of payoff. And that’s kind of the case with both artists going so low-key with their delivery and stringing together punchlines - it feels oppressive in its sound that’s not really much of an adventure so much as knuckling under and finding however they can survive, with Kid Cudi referencing his recovery from serious depression, to Eminem referencing the pandemic and police brutality where it doesn’t feel corny. Now granted, both artists have their fair share of questionable punchlines, but they go by at such a clip that the only thing that bothers me is how Em’s usage of ad-libs feels kind of forced, a concession to the time, but one that’s still a bit awkward for him. But as a whole… for me this is okay. Not bad, but not great either.

16. ‘Bad Energy’ by Juice WRLD - we’re back to Juice WRLD with blocky percussion against the faint guitar touches for the melody, a weirdly petulant inflection on the first verse, and a decent bit of multi-tracking on the hook where he’s trying to purge himself of bad memories and thoughts so he can heal himself through his bars. And yeah, the rampant drug abuse probably doesn’t help, but at least by the end of the song there’s some decent arranged elements that give ths a good conclusion - not altogether memorable outside of the hook, but it’s passable.

14. ‘Titanic’ by Juice WRLD - I’m honestly a bit perplexed why this is one of the Juice WRLD songs I liked a fair bit of the album, and I think it comes down to mood. The faint gurgles of melody that build into the rounded trap groove that feels competently mastered, Juice WRLD staying primarily in a sour minor key in his self-destruction but not in a way that feels diffuse or thrown off by an outright flex. Yeah, he’s managing and acknowledges his blessings, but there’s something to the atmosphere of knowing that it’s all falling apart anyway that the mood kind of nails. I’m not going to say this is particularly great, but combined with a solid groove, I don’t mind this - good stuff.

12. ‘Blood On My Jeans’ by Juice WRLD - see, this is the sort of half-formed Juice WRLD song I was worried about, half because it feels like the ad-libs and mixing is cribbed from Lil Uzi Vert, half because on his song about abusing more drugs and shooting people he opens up with a dick joke that kind of kills any sense of atmosphere, and the verse is all flexing and clinginess to a girl, the same sort of incoherence that made Juice WRLD such a frustrating artist in the first place. I would say the production had promise with that frail acoustic guitar, but then it gets crushed by the grainy trap pickup and the song just doesn’t have much of the same tune. In other words, this ain’t good - next!

10. ‘Hate The Other Side’ by Juice WRLD & Marshmello ft. Polo G & Kid LAROI - so there are two Marshmello collaborations with Juice WRLD on this project, with this being the first - and I’ll be blunt, this barely feels like a Juice WRLD song and I would have excluded it if only because he just has the hook here! It feels like a favour to Polo G to get the placement or especially Kid LAROI, with whom I’m still thoroughly unimpressed. More frustratingly it’s everyone on a gunplay song, which Polo G can lend some pathos… and Kid LAROI goes back to internal angst and doesn’t fit with anything. It’s not helped by the production either, where Juice WRLD’s vocals sound compressed and the trap beat feels overstated, with the bass flooding the mix especially opposite those guitars. In other words… thank Polo G for saving this, but it’s not all that good either.

7. ‘Conversations’ by Juice WRLD - this is one of those tunes where I question why the hell Juice WRLD’s vocals were placed over this production, with that prominent beeping melody and terribly mixed trap beat - it’s synthetic and clunky in a way that would never flatter his delivery, and the vocals just sound awkward stacked against this even before the incoherent brand names and how he’s apparently running out of patience with the devil as he’s trying to stave off those darker emotions with drugs and brand names. Apparently this song has been around for a while and the producer has been fighting to get it released amidst all of its leaks… not sure why anyone would go to bat for this, just saying.

5. ‘Wishing Well’ by Juice WRLD - see, this is a song that reflects a lot more of where Juice WRLD’s artistic tendencies were going and actually shows promise with that guitar rollick and piano line giving a little more momentum behind the trap beat and snaps. Yeah, the content is still pretty stale in its angst and drug abuse, especially with the pitch-shifting on the second verse, but the hook is at least good… but this is one of those songs where the pill references are so prevalent that I have to ask why Juice WRLD’s handlers assembling this album in post leaned on them so much, especially after his death. It’s not the worst thing in bad taste I’ve heard on a posthumous album, and I do think this song is fine… but it’s jarring, to say the least, at least here.

2. ‘Come & Go’ by Juice WRLD & Marshmello - let’s not mince words: this might have been Juice WRLD’s best hook, and even if the mix has the overcompressed edge of Marshmello - where of course he had to slam one of his drops in and it’s as melodically bankrupt as ever - that guitar has a lot of raw punch that I honestly wish Juice WRLD had used more instead of dropping those melodies behind swamped out trap textures. Hell, it’s my biggest indictment against so much of modern emo rap that pulls from punk - bring the texture and edge along, if you go rap-rock more often than not it works! And the content helps here - Juice WRLD is once again miserable but he’s clinging to his relationship as something that actively makes him better, where even amidst the drugs he’s going to keep fighting. And honestly, that’s a potent note, and if there’s going to be a song this week that sticks around from this project, I hope it’s this one.

So yeah, this week weirdly felt easier to assemble than I was expecting… mostly because it was not that bad. ‘Come & Go’ by Juice WRLD and Marshmello takes the best with ‘Titanic’ as the Honourable Mention, and for the worst…I have to go with ‘Blood On My Jeans’ by Juice WRLD as the worst with ‘Fighting Demons’ as the Dishonourable Mention. Next week, though… the fallout. Stay tuned!