billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 29, 2023

I’ve said for a while that the week after an album bomb - that’s not immediately followed by another one - are always the toughest to get through. Yes, the chart reset might be appreciated, and you get a firmer idea on what can sustain momentum, but the new songs that fill in the gaps are not guaranteed to be great or special or true upstarts - a lot of them are just filling space until something bigger comes around. Unfortunately, that’s not the biggest story this week… and if you’ve been aware of the hellscape of online music discourse right now, you already know what’s coming.

So let’s get to it, the top ten and a new #1, one that I honestly should have seen coming but didn’t: ‘Seven’ by Jungkook of BTS, featuring Latto. We’ll get into the song’s quality later on, but its win here was on the margins - it won thanks to streaming and getting just enough sales, and even there it was outsold and lost on YouTube and the radio. And the song that nearly beat it is also new: ‘Try That In A Small Town’ by Jason Aldean at #2 - again, we’ll have to get into this one more later on, but given how badly it lost on streaming, it is unlikely that this will last at this position in the top 10 where ‘Seven’ probably has a little more runway. And even then, ‘Last Night’ by Morgan Wallen isn’t going anywhere - it’s slipping a bit on streaming and the radio may be peaking, but it has so much inertia that it’ll likely hold beyond #3. Then we have ‘Fast Car’ by Luke Combs at #4, which is selling better and rising on streaming and the radio… but it needs to close the margin and that will be a tough sell. Then we have ‘Calm Down’ by Rema and Selena Gomez at #5 - it actually had a pretty good streaming week as the radio seems to be starting to slip very slowly - and ‘fukumean’ by Gunna rising up to #6 on dominant streams even as the radio has been unsurprisingly slow to get onboard. It actually rose over ‘vampire’ by Olivia Rodrigo at #7, which slipped on both sales and streaming and while it’s getting a Herculean push on the radio, this might not be catching on the way I think it was intended. Compare it to ‘Cruel Summer’ by Taylor Swift up to #8 where the radio push is even stronger and that matches strength across the board - in the right circumstances, this will get even higher. Finally we have ‘Flowers’ by Miley Cyrus at #9 - it’s on its way out as expected - and ‘All My Life’ by Lil Durk and J. Cole at #10, where it seems like it’s starting to run out of gas in all channels.

That takes us to our losers and dropouts, where as expected the Speak Now album bomb is fading fast, also taking ‘TQG’ by Karol G and Shakira which will comfortably make the year-end list, and’ Waffle House’ by the Jonas Brothers, which absolutely won’t. And that cascaded into our losers too, where from Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) we have ‘I Can See You’ at 33, ‘Enchanted’ at 65, ‘Back To December’ at 76, ‘Mine’ at 81, and ‘Sparks Fly’ at 95. Outside of that, the only other two losers were from Lil Uzi Vert’s album bomb, with ‘Flooded The Face’ at 70 and ‘Endless Fashion’ with Nicki Minaj at 99 - good riddance.

Now we have our returns and gains… and in the latter group, over a third of the Hot 100 picked up traction, and it wasn’t just rebounds either. So let’s try to segment this in some capacity and start with the one new arrival that got traction: ‘LALA’ by Myke Towers up to 48, along with the one return that got traction being ‘Shake Sumn’ by DaBaby at 67, good Lord. And since we didn’t get any continued gains, we had some predictable spikes like ‘Barbie World’ by Ice Spice, Nicki Minaj and Aqua at 27 - can also put ‘Princess Diana’ in here at 49 - or ‘Un x100to’ by Grupo Frontera and Bad Bunny at 32, or ‘Put It On Da Floor Again’ by Latto and Cardi B at 42, or ‘Area Codes’ by Kali at 46, or ‘Pound Town 2’ by Sexyy Redd, Nicki Minaj and Tay Keith at 78. Then we had some big spikes for Morgan Wallen - ‘Thought You Should Know’ at 30, ‘Everything I Love’ at 72, ‘Cowgirls’ with ERNEST at 73, and even ‘Stand By Me’ with Lil Durk at 59. But the regional Mexican surge was also in full force: from Peso Pluma we had ‘TULUM’ with Grupo Frontera at 50, ‘Lady Gaga’ with Gabito Ballesteros and Junior H at 51, ‘BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 55’ with Bizarrap at 69, and ‘Bye’ at 74, then from Fuerza Regida we had ‘Sabor Fresa’ at 45 and ‘TQM’ at 56, and to round it out from Yahrtiza Su Esencia and Grupo Frontera ‘Fragil’ hit 71. Then there were the country songs: ‘Next Thing You Know’ by Jordan Davis at 28, ‘Dancin In The Country’ by Tyler Hubbard at 36, ‘Bury Me In Georgia’ by Kane Brown at 40, ‘Love You Anyway’ by Luke Combs at 41, ‘Your Heart Or Mine’ by Jon Pardi at 53, ‘You Me & Whiskey’ by Priscilla Block and Justin Moore at 58, and ‘Watermelon Moonshine’ by Lainey Wilson at 60. It was also a decent week for Post Malone - ‘Chemical’ bounced up to 43 and ‘Mourning’ hit 55 - but it was also a good week for David Guetta, with ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ with Bebe Rexha still here at 31 and ‘Baby Don’t Hurt Me’ with Anne-Marie and Coi Leray at 57. Finally… whatever’s left with ‘Peaches & Eggplants’ by Young Nudy and 21 Savage at 52, ‘What It Is (Block Boy)’ by Doechii and Kodak Black at 54, ‘Daylight’ by David Kushner at 61, ‘Popular’ by The Weeknd, Playboi Carti and Madonna at 66 - how the hell is this still around - ‘Oh U Went’ by Young Thug and Drake at 68, ‘See You Again’ by Tyler The Creator and Kali Uchis at 82, and ‘Fight The Feeling’ by Rod Wave at 83.

If you can’t tell by now, I’m not especially pleased by a lot of our gains… and when you look at the returns, it’s not much better, with ‘Girl In Mine’ by Parmalee at 100, ‘Calling’ by Metro Boomin, Swae Lee, NAV, and A Boogie wit da Hoodie at 98, ‘Save Me’ by Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson at 91, ‘Ain’t That Some’ by Morgan Wallen at 90, ‘Jaded’ by Miley Cyrus at 88, and ‘TRUCK BED’ by HARDY at 75, good lord this is bad! Thankfully, we have two returns that are at least interesting to talk about, the first being the revival of ‘ICU’ by Coco Jones, now featuring Justin Timberlake. Have to be honest, I haven’t really gone back to the song much since I covered it, and Timberlake hopping on a remix a little too late for it to matter doesn’t add that much that feels special; still feels awkwardly produced to me, so adding Timberlake’s brand of overproduction doesn’t exactly help. But the real pleasant surprise was the remix of ‘Dial Drunk’ by Noah Kahan, now featuring Post Malone at 39… and I think this is absolutely great, they have a lot of ramshackle complimentary energy where if Noah Kahan is barely on the rails, Post Malone is flying off of them, it reminds me a lot of the chemistry between Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone on ‘Ridin’ and that’s high praise. And now considering the song has streaming groundswell and has been sent to radio… come on, let’s make this out of nowhere surprise something that works on the Hot 100 in 2023!

But we have to go to our new arrivals now, and we have a lot to get through before discussing the top, starting with…

97. ‘Johnny Dang’ by That Mexican OT, Paul Wall & DRODi - I knew about this coming for about a month now, and I’m still not sure I believe it - how in the Nine Hells do we have a song with Paul Wall on it in 2023? For those who don’t remember - because it was nearly twenty years ago - Paul Wall is a Texas rapper who had a brief run in the mid-2000s with a few minor hits and a guest star on Nelly’s ‘Grillz’ in 2005. He’s actually stayed active and I imagine his cosign might have gotten That Mexican OT and DRODi through the door… and they’re actually pretty good for it, as That Mexican OT has a great rollicking double time flow and DRODi isn’t far behind; yeah, the content is nothing to write home about in terms of drug dealing and flexing, but the attitude feels distinctive, especially against the spare echoing melody and the filmy percussion that’s probably sounds a little more flimsy than it should. If anything, the weakness of the song might be Paul Wall himself - his flow is a little better than I remember it, but he’s got nowhere near the comfort of precision of his peers, and if it wasn’t for that final hook I might have been left disappointed. Overall… I wasn’t looking for a Texas rap revival anytime soon, but if this is indicating something is brewing, I’m interested? It’s pretty good?

96. ‘Thang For You’ by Rylo Rodriguez ft. NoCap - it’s not a good sign that I first covered Rylo Rodriguez back in 2021 and basically remember nothing of him, so I didn’t know what to expect with this… can’t say I was pleased with the pitch-shifted Snoh Aalegra sample when we can’t even get Snoh Aalegra on the Hot 100 proper, but the watery melody sounded pretty, a little reminiscent of the 90s… and then Rylo Rodriguez came in with some of the ugliest autotune around his nasal voice in what sounds like a Future imitation, and it doesn’t remotely match with production this soft! Thankfully NoCap sounds a little better on vocal production alone, but then we get to the content and it’s weirdly harder to follow than it should be? Rylo Rodriguez seems to be post-breakup with this girl who had other partners and he still has messy feelings towards her, but they also might still be fucking… although one line references her being on her period and another has her pregnant by another guy, the timeline is messy! NoCap is a lot more forceful and direct in trying to profess his affection by buying her things - although I wonder if the framing has him as the other man in this case - but his verse also has weird slowdowns and gaps to drive emphasis and I’m not sure they work as strongly as they should? I dunno, this is more weird than bad… I won’t return to it, but I don’t dislike it either.

93. ‘Angels Don’t Always Have Wings’ by Thomas Rhett - So Thomas Rhett put out a greatest hits album… I remember covering his first record in 2013, this is getting exhausting. But anyway, this is the tacked on track you often find on one of these greatest hits compilations… and in this case, I think I can call this a failure of execution rather than bad all the way down. The writing is fine, a story about a relationship where Rhett clearly fucked up but she stuck around to make things better, and Rhett is clearly trying to sell this like he really means it, including going into a falsetto that he reportedly was very insecure about… for good reason, it’s pretty rough. But I don’t think the production works either - it’s trying for ethereal, liquid guitars and pedal steel and organ behind the waltz cadence, but the percussion sounds so stiff and programmed against the clicking acoustics that it just doesn’t have the flow it should. Honestly, it sounds like Thomas Rhett trying to rip off a low rent Dan + Shay song, and he’s at least better than that! So yeah, don’t care for this one, next!

92. ‘Quema’ by Ryan Castro & Peso Pluma - okay, I might have some frustrations with regional Mexican music on occasion, but you know what’s been worse? Peso Pluma choosing to make or guest star in the sort of stale, played-out reggaeton with as many production issues, this time with Ryan Castro on a song that wouldn’t have sniffed the Hot 100 without his name. Yeah, the woodwinds in the back don’t sound bad, there’s a melodic hook here, and the percussion is more competently mixed than I expected, but it’s not like there they’re saying anything remotely interesting from translating the lyrics. I understand that Peso Pluma has wanted to not get pigeonholed, but his debut album showed he could expand his sound without doing forgettable gunk like this, let’s move on.

86. ‘Turn Yo Clic Up’ by Quavo & Future - so here’s a question: who is honestly looking for a new solo Quavo album? I’ve never liked much of anything Quavo has done away from Migos - the massive album bombs didn’t help - and so him teaming up with Future isn’t surprising, but I didn’t have expectations for this. And… you know, I was a bit surprised how much I liked the production with the bleeping synth against the piano chords and spare percussion, and Future probably has the most southern flair in his voice that I’ve heard in a while - honestly in this register he sounds pretty good with it, and the tossed off diss at Russell Wilson made me chuckle. The problem is that outside of Future’s weird presumptuousness when it comes to his exes, this is still a song with an overly long hook from Quavo where on his verse he comes off like an asshole, where if the girl tells him to pay for the pussy, he takes her shopping and tells her to shut up, seems to think he’s doing her a favour, and then makes a poop joke. I don’t dislike this song, there was potential… but damn, Quavo without Offset at this point is a big miss, this should be better.

84. ‘Save Me The Trouble’ by Dan + Shay - okay, last time I reviewed a Dan + Shay song I was hoping to dig into how they would fit in the shifting archetypes of country music… and it turns out the song was old and that didn’t matter. This is a newer song… and I don’t know why I thought they’d attempt to change even going with that title, because while this feels more organic and they’re leaning on the harmonies a lot more - along with more pedal steel and bombast to my surprise - it still feels more plastic than it should with all of the overdubs. And then there’s the lyrics, where apparently this girl is interested in Dan + Shay, but if she’s gonna love and leave them, given that they are such romantics they’re trying to brush her aside; it feels like it has all the problems that ‘Honey, I’m Good’ was accused of having, which is just a bizarre framing especially when sold so sincerely. The one thing I’ll give them is that it doesn’t feel as flimsy or underpowered as they can be, and I’m a sucker for those boy band harmonies… but man, this is an odd one, have to say.

77. ‘Rush’ by Troye Sivan - no jokes here, when I first saw Troye Sivan back on the charts, I could have sworn that he had put out more music and just fallen off my radar since I reviewed his 2018 album… but no, it turns out this is coming from his first album in five years, and it looks like his label situation is stable too, which feels kind of mindblowing in this era. Anyway, with this single, he’s going for something closer to vintage house with the textured bass groove and faint synths on the prechorus and hook that feel very 90s… and honestly, given how his voice has deepened and fades across the hazy mix, and he’s leaning into the queer club vibes in the dancefloor hookup, I actually think it’s a pretty solid vibe! I wouldn’t call this exceptional or precisely anthemic in the way the best house in this lane can be, but it does what it’s trying to do so well that it’s very easy to like, and I know it’ll go off in the right environment. Pretty damn good song, check it out!

63. ‘S91’ by Karol G - Sometimes I forget in spite of myself that Karol G put out an album this year and got an album bomb of considerable size, so I shouldn’t be surprised that she debuted this high with this song which is not a single, but something she just wanted to drop for the fans, with the title inspired by Psalm 91 from the Bible… which is a little weird for a song about celebrating her success and saying that nobody can take it from her which plays more in minor tones. But honestly it’s pretty effective in that lane: the quicker tempo on the rougher percussion that has a decent trap switch-up against that guitar line - reminds me a little of ROSALIA, and that’s not exactly a bad thing - and Karol G is a really good singer at nailing that sultry, slightly imperious presence as she sees those who try to follow in her wake. It might be almost too understated for its own good - there’s a part of me that thinks this could have actual staying power if it went a little harder - but as it is… yeah, this is a pretty damn good song too, check it out!

47. ‘Overdrive’ by Post Malone - Okay, I’ll say it: it’s weird that Post Malone thus far has been one of the bright spots of the Hot 100 in 2023. I liked ‘Chemical’, I really liked ‘Mourning’, and his presence on the ‘Dial Drunk’ remix was inspired, I am actually looking forward to that upcoming album. This… feels a little more like an album cut with its understated orchestral backdrop, hazy pop hook, and oddly tired feel where the instrumental interlude is basically whistling. Now that fits what this song is - he’s living his life way too hard, and he’s trying to find something that would be cool for someone where he otherwise feels so uninspired, which is not exactly a good sign for a cut that otherwise feels undercooked, but the gentle twanging guitarline is almost pretty enough for me to excuse it. Probably the weakest of the singles released thus far, but not bad by any means.

34. ‘What Was I Made For?’ by Billie Eilish - so the first time I encountered this song was when I saw the Barbie movie, and it was a remarkably emotional moment in the final act which I’m not going to spoil, but raises a real question of what it means to be a symbol of empowerment when nothing really can change. And I can see why Billie Eilish might find resonance there, especially amidst creative struggles and questions of her own purpose where if she’s framed as a role model while struggling to capture a feeling… well, how much power and change will translate from that. And yeah, framing it in a delicately atmospheric piano ballad might be an easy template for her, but Finneas is still one of the best in capturing that heartbreaking intimacy and sense of scale and her delivery against the gentle shimmer of the mix is simply goddamn stunning especially as the overdubs open across the final hook. I don’t know what to say, folks - the song crushes in the context of the film, and on its own, it’s still powerful as hell, she keeps doing it. Absolutely great in all forms, and while it probably won’t get pushed, it should… unlike…

2. ‘Try That In A Small Town’ by Jason Aldean - so one thing I’ve learned with how big country music has been in 2023 is that a lot of folks especially on social media do not know much about country, especially pop fans or music journalists who took every excuse to ignore it. Ergo, a lot of y’all are new to the Jason Aldean experience, seemingly confirming everyone’s worst impressions of Nashville and country music… but it’s always been more complicated and much uglier with Aldean, who holds views less representative of country than many think but more than others want to admit, and also is a brand unto himself that’s kept his largely “indie” label BBR afloat for over a decade and cannot be easily deplatformed, and probably would have gone away naturally as his albums continued to underperform if you just ignored him into oblivion - his entire PR team quit after the drama between his wife and Maren Morris last year, he was on the way out! But that would require y’all knew or cared enough about country music to not jump on obvious bait, and he played outrage marketing like the fiddle that of course is not on this song. Because let’s be real, it’s a stodgy Jason Aldean cut where the bassline had promise but most of the percussion sounds programmed, the clap is painfully mechanical and the choppier riffs are trying to imitate Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ on the embarrassment of a solo, nobody gives a shit about the sound, the discourse has been about the content. And the content of this is vile, plain and simple - it plays to the same sort of reactionary horseshit that’s been an undercurrent of Aldean’s sound since the late 2000s and now is just out in the open in all the blustering threats made against folks who would commit crime they could ‘get away with’ in a city but in a small town face a different sort of violence, which in the music video picks up some codified racial and lynching undertones given that courthouse, and no, I don’t buy it was unintentional in any location scouting for said video given what the song’s about. There will be some who will think I’m making too much out of the vigilante violence endorsed in a song like this - they’ll play whataboutism with hip-hop as if I haven’t spoken repeatedly about the violent turf wars driven to charting success the past several years, or they’ll claim it’s just art and point to other songs with similar regressive tendencies or even lynching text/subtext like ‘Beer For My Horses’ by Toby Keith and Willie Nelson because police violence tends to be given a greater pass - and in my opinion probably shouldn’t have, even if that song has more excuses in the veins of heightened stylism and even then I’d argue it’s a product of the ugly Bush-era conservatism of the early 2000s and it’s aged badly! And at that point, I could highlight that Aldean’s not from a small town, or didn’t even write this song, and how all of it feels like such a performative put on, but I don’t need to - calling out his hypocrisy doesn’t work because he doesn’t care to engage in that discourse, and ergo you shouldn’t either! And thus what I’m angry about is that this song was already failing on Nashville radio because Music Row sure as hell doesn’t like this sort of controversy, and yet because some centrist liberal journalists and TikTok didn’t bother to care about country as a whole to recognize this, or how to leave this shit to rot with the rest of Aldean’s career and every other lazy bit of reactionary outrage bait because the dunk is what matters, it became a thing, even if I’d put money on this falling off the charts in record time. Leave the disinfectants to the professionals, and as one of those professionals who has to deal with it… yeah, fuck this, and leave Aldean and his ilk to get more heatstroke at concerts after playing golf all day in front of increasingly shrinking crowds.

1. ‘Seven’ by Jungkook ft. Latto - You know, I’m not surprised that the BTS army swung in for a save here to edge out Jason Aldean… but I wish it was from a member that had more artistic flair and inspiration, all the more glaring since I’ve covered more solo BTS projects. Counting the days of the week when you describe how you’re fucking someone every day is just painfully lazy songwriting, especially with the hazy guitarloop behind the 2-step garage percussion and weirdly ugly synth, and it’s not like Jungkook and Latto have any chemistry at all - Jungkook is trying to be a little more romantic even on the explicit version of the song, whereas Latto’s brash presence and reference to ‘Big Energy’ in her verse… which is really just a Mariah reference, I’d argue it doesn’t work. Bizarrely this was a song that was cowritten by Jon Bellion - so I guess that explains why it’s even remotely catchy - but it feels like radio filler with little coherent personality, not bad but not remotely worth caring about, and it annoys to no end that BTS and its members’ biggest hits have often been when they’re at their least interesting.

So that was our week that went way too goddamn long. Worst is obvious, ‘Try That In A Small Town’ by Jason Aldean, but for Dishonourable Mention I’m going to give that to ‘Angels Don’t Always Have Wings’ by Thomas Rhett with that rough falsetto and production. Best of the week is actually a lot harder… well, okay, ‘What Was I Made For’ by Billie Eilish has it, but I’m giving a tie for the Honourable Mention: ‘Rush’ by Troye Sivan, and ‘Johnny Dang’ by That Mexican OT, DRODi, and Paul Wall… yes, I’m serious with that one. Next week… I imagine the Barbie soundtrack might make an impact, but outside of that we might have a bit of breathing room, we’ll have to see.