billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 30, 2022

…you know, I’m not surprised this week wound up slower - the Brent Faiyaz album bomb evaporated and since there was very little primed to replace it - and Atlantic didn’t turn on the label machine to help Lizzo get a streaming album bomb - we got a lot of returns and only a few gains. And considering most of it doesn’t look that good, that might as well be the running indictment of the Hot 100 this year.

But speaking of Lizzo, let’s flip to our top 10, where as predicted, ‘About Damn Time’ got that sales boost to ride the top spot on radio to the #1. Whether it’ll hold that spot is a little up in the air - it’s not going to face a ton of competition, but ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles is still pretty robust in all channels at #2 even as it’s starting to fade, it’s going to be competitive here. Then we have ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush up to #3 - yeah, there was a slip on sales and streaming here, but with the frankly wild radio push it’s getting to narrow the margins, it’s going to be fascinating how it holds up the next two weeks. This pushes ‘First Class’ by Jack Harlow to #4, but given how much it’s slipping in radio, this isn’t entirely surprising. Then we have ‘Wait For U’ by Future, Tems and Drake holding at #5 - it spent the week wavering on radio even as it held fast on streaming - and then ‘Me Porto Bonito’ by Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone at #6, which saw a spike on streaming, but still has no radio to really speak of - kind of impressive it’s held this long off of one channel. But that means it is vulnerable to the surge of ‘Break My Soul’ by Beyonce, rising to #7 off strong radio… even if the sales and especially the streaming look pretty damn shaky. But hell, it was enough to muscle over ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals at #8, where it looks like the radio is finally fading more consistently - and that sets it up against ‘Late Night Talking’ by Harry Styles, making its return to the top 10 at #9 as its radio is pretty damn strong… even if that’s all it has. Finally there’s ‘Jimmy Cooks’ by Drake and 21 Savage - it pretty much has streaming and nothing else, that’s why it’s fading to #10.

And on that note, losers and dropouts - got a healthy crop of the latter this week, the majority falling short of any year end list like ‘When You’re Gone’ by Shawn Mendes, ‘Hold My Hand’ by Lady Gaga, ‘Circles Around This Town’ by Maren Morris, and even ‘To The Moon!’ by JNR Choi and Sam Tompkins, although that one might be close. But there were honestly more flat dropouts that losers - the only remnant of the Brent Faiyaz album bomb is ‘All Mine’ at 89, and outside of that… ‘7500 OBO’ by Tim McGraw stalled at 80, ‘Like I Love Country Music’ by Kane Brown took a hit at 37, and ‘Master Of Puppets’ by Metallica fell to 50 - it’s not going to have the same run as ‘Running Up That Hill’ is, and given how that song is built and how considerably less accessible it is, that should be no surprise.

No, the bigger story is our returns and gains, and there’s a solid number of them. In the former camp, ‘La Corriente’ by Bad Bunny and Tony Dize is at 99, ‘Right On’ by Lil Baby is at 97, ‘Until I Found You’ by Stephen Sanchez hit 92, ‘Bones’ by Imagine Dragons hit 86, ‘Best Thing Since Backroads’ by Jake Owen rebounded to 83, and ‘See Wat I’m Sayin’ by Moneybagg Yo jumped to 77 - apparently it’s getting a small radio push, that surprised me! And for our gains… well, the big surprise for me was the continued surge for ‘Bad Habit’ by Steve Lacy to 14 thanks to massive streaming pickups; not sure how long it’s going to last outside of the proximity of the album, but it is worth noting! The rest are a little smaller - off the debut ‘Last Last’ by Burna Boy got a boost to 72, ‘Ghost Story’ by Carrie Underwood got a slight rebound to 82, and ‘Son Of A Sinner’ by Jelly Roll saw a jump to 61. But the rest… ‘F.N.F. (Let’s Go)’ by Glorilla and Hitkidd went to 66, ‘New Truck’ by Dylan Scott rose to 71, and ‘Unstoppable’ by Sia hit 78, just dandy.

Now as I said, we have a pretty limited list of a new arrivals… unfortunately we’re starting with…

100. ‘Pick Me Up’ by Gabby Barrett - full disclosure, I thought I’d have to be dealing with a lot more Gabby Barrett than we have, especially after her near-mainstream breakthrough. But that hasn’t really happened, and instead we’ve got this cut that dropped months ago from the deluxe edition of her album and… honestly, this is fine. The ethereal blur of guitars around the more defined rollicking groove is pleasant and well balanced, and while Barrett isn’t a singer that impresses me - the very forward vocal production doesn’t help - for this sort of straightforward love song she underplays and it’s not a bad sound. The one bad line is on the second verse - ‘You and Jesus will fix my soul’, which just feels oversold for this sort of track, the similar questionable vibe that permeated ‘The Good Ones’, but this song doesn’t slip into the uncanny valley in the same way, it feels sincere. So yeah, I might not be a fan of hers, but this is probably the best thing I’ve heard from her - decent song.

96. ‘Arson’ by j-hope - alright, the last j-hope song I heard actually made me intrigued to see if he was going to break any more tracks onto the Hot 100 as a solo act, and now with this… I get why it’s gotten some attention, but it’s rough in a way it shouldn’t be. I don’t mind the lyrics here - translated it’s highlighting the costs and risks of ambition, and how much does j-hope want to push his limits, and his restrained, barking, staccato delivery works to amplify that tension. But the bassy roil off the rougher drums for a sharper knock doesn’t have much in the way of tune even as the percussion shifts up - it feels like we’re missing a melody line that would really add some flair, and it doesn’t show up outside of a very muted synth near the back; he got Clams Casino to produce this and while the texture is there, the tune isn’t. Just feels incomplete to me - not a bad vibe, but it should be better.

94. ‘At The End Of A Bar’ by Chris Young & Mitchell Tenpenny - this collaboration just depresses me - Chris Young used to make good music over a decade ago, and now he’s stuck with one of the most obnoxious d-listers in Nashville for an album cut and it’s not the only Mitchell Tenpenny song debuting this week! The difference in vocal talent is obvious - Tenpenny has the fried register of a Brantley Gilbert ripoff by way of HARDY - but I think my larger issue is the production: it’s trying to go for country rock bombast that was a thing ten years ago, and the instrumentation mostly feels organic… until you realize there’s no real low end or groove to this, so it feels weightless in the same way a lot of Chris Young’s material has since 2015, not helped by utterly generic writing that references 90s country but can’t do anything with it. I can’t in good faith call this bad… but I also won’t remember or care about it.

90. ‘Free Mind’ by Tems - hey, it looks like Tems is finally breaking through with music on her own, that’s nice to see… with a song from 2020, fun stuff. And… I mean, it’s alright, I guess? The very spare keys off the spare clatter and ethereal vocal samples as Tems tries to find what she needs to cleanse herself of stress and find peace of mind. However I couldn’t escape the feeling that I should like this more than I do - maybe it’s the breathy sample that feels like a little too much of the highs are left in, maybe it’s the questionable mastering all across the song where Tems’ voice feels a bit too loud against the rest of the music, straining to push the atmosphere rather than setting it. It just doesn’t feel as meditative as it should, trying to force it rather than letting it happen, at least until the end where it smooths out and finally gets there. I dunno, I get why so many are so excited this is now charting, but I’m not as onboard, hate to say it.

85. ‘Truth About You’ by Mitchell Tenpenny - this is the sort of song that sneaks up on you because at least initially it seems passable - yeah, Mitchell Tenpenny is charitably a limited singer who owes his career to his grandmother once being the CEO of Sony Music, but there’s some warmth in the banjo and pluckier elements, the song feels pretty organic, even if some of the writing can feel kind of clunky if you’re paying attention to the rhymes. But dig a bit deeper and you realize this song is gross: it’s basically a post-breakup track where this ex is now spreading rumours about Tenpenny and he’s threatening to spread the ‘truth’ about her if she doesn’t shut up. And in theory, I get the emotions behind this song - I’ve had bad breakups, and I’ve had friends where exes have tried to ruin their reputation with bullshit. But if you’re going to frame this song in a major key and say that you want the best for everyone, it feels incredibly disingenuous to run on a threat that he knows the real truth instead of, you know, taking the high road and not saying anything! Compare this to ‘Next Girl’ by Carly Pearce, where the power of that song came with everything she’s saying with the caveat that she was burned and jaded, which is more realistic to how breakups work than this ‘well, I know the real truth’ nonsense when bad breakups always have two sides to the story. The second verse seems to imply that for as controlling as she may have been cheating with an old boyfriend, but this is a song that doesn’t have the balls to actually say it, playing the exact same game she is with rumors but we have to take Tenpenny’s word that he’s telling the truth, and he’s not a good enough performer or writer to be credible, mostly because I’m most familiar with this guy for his 2018 song ‘Bitches’ that plays to the exact same petty misogyny with an ex-girlfriend; this is just the sanitized version. And when you go into the comments of the video and realize just how many people are framing this as tied to the Johnny Depp / Amber Heard trial, it becomes noxious on an entirely different level, reflective of the society that asks us to ignore the history of both men to play the laziest of toxic masculine enablement. This is trash all the way down, fuck this.

84. ‘2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)’ by Lizzo - oh, I’m not going to make any fans with this one… because of all the possible Lizzo songs that could have been pushed, this is not one I like. Yeah, Max Martin gives the fizzy groove some propulsion off the seedy organ and Lizzo sounds like she’s having fun, but the synths sound weirdly cheap and especially when the key change comes through… I feel like it was supposed to put this into another gear, and it just doesn’t for me, really frustrating. Then there’s the content - Lizzo references ‘Truth Hurts’ but this song has nowhere close to that song’s attitude or confidence, where most of the second verse has her with someone who does seem to like her for who she is right now and she’s questioning whether she can accept it; not a bad sentiment and as a single I’d argue it works better away from the larger context of the album. But as an empowerment anthem it feels more built for Lizzo herself than anyone else, which can make the entire experience a little underwhelming if you don’t directly relate to it. So yeah, it’s fine… probably would not have been my choice for the next single, though.

And that ends this week… god, this is messy, and we’ll just throw ‘Truth About You’ by Mitchell Tenpenny as the obvious worst of the week, nothing comes close to this shit. Best of the week, though… the obvious choice is Tems, but the song doesn’t resonate as much as I want it to, and that means I think it’s going to go to ‘Pick Me Up’ by Gabby Barrett - yes, there’s an awful lyric there, but the production, groove, and hook are good, I’ll give her that. Next week… we might get another quiet week before Beyonce crashes in, we’ll have to see.