billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 31, 2021

It’s odd that an album bomb week is one I can say feels like a nice cooldown, but that is what we have here - yes, there’s a posthumous Pop Smoke project that impacted the charts, but nowhere as big as Shoot For The Stars was last year, which allows for a bit of an equilibrium to set in, at least for a little bit…

Except for our top ten, and where our new #1 is just outright funny: ‘Butter’ by BTS. Seems like the fanbase chose to redirect the majority of their sales efforts towards this song with the reasonable assumption that it would have the best chance of holding up despite its stagnant radio and limp streaming; so congratulations spending money for another week enriching a complacent record label buying the same copy of a song thanks to breaking ISRC rules so you can make the Billboard charts look like an absolute joke to anyone paying attention which paradoxically devalues the accomplishment you’re trying to pursue! But where things get more interesting comes next week… because Lil Nas X has pulled out all the stops for ‘Industry Baby’ with Jack Harlow, who also happens to be on Columbia, the very label with whom BTS has a distribution deal. Now ‘Industry Baby’ is not guaranteed the #1 by any stretch, especially with radio sluggish to get onboard… but we now have one of Columbia’s flagship artists competing against an act where the label has invested a fair bit less time and effort, because it’s just a distribution deal and the stans put in all the work! And keep in mind Lil Nas X worked all of these tricks before BTS did for ‘Old Town Road’ in 2019, so if it’s at all close and a certain fanbase chooses some counterproductive tactics, like harassing journalists and critics who report on this - hi - or targeting the CEO of Columbia Records for showing support to Lil Nas X, as if pissing off the record exec tied to the label of your favourite act is a galaxy brain move to get more promo… well, it’ll be interesting. Because if ‘Butter’ still winds up at #1 running on increasingly shaky international fundraising for domestic purchases of a song, of which I could make a parallel to the layering and integration most commonly seen in money laundering, moving funds from outside the system inside to appear legitimate, you honestly think Lil Nas X won’t expose some of this to a broader public than just the chart nerds? Columbia’s already made their profit and appear benevolent supporting Lil Nas X, every other label has been mostly quiet about this but have been looking for excuses to pounce, and if a well-liked industry figure rips down the veneer, especially as Billboard remains either hapless or willfully broken… it’s almost like some of us saw this coming and will just pick up the popcorn.

Now that’s all a fun hypothetical, but it leaves ‘good 4 u’ by Olivia Rodrigo once again stranded at #2, and while this song is pretty strong in all channels, I’m not sure there’s going to be that move to take the #1 again - I keep forgetting that she debuted at #1 this year, I dunno why. Then there’s ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa ft. DaBaby up at #3 - it rules the radio and actually got a bit of a streaming bump this week - followed by ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber at #4, which is currently racing up the radio to compensate for dipping on sales even as it rules streaming - if there’s another song that could challenge for #1, it’s this one. That strands ‘Kiss Me More’ by Doja Cat ft. SZA at #5, where its weak sales drag it back from getting any higher with consistently strong streaming and radio, and yet it holds over ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran still at #6; this one mystifies me as it has traction in every channel… but just not quite enough to really make a move. Then there’s ‘Permission To Dance’ by BTS falling off the #1 to #7 - again, all this really has is sales, but with the fans redoubling their efforts behind ‘Butter’ I’m frankly surprised this got as much as it did - but it held up over ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X at #8 where the sales might have tanked and the radio peaked, but it’s still got enough inertia to hold. Then ‘deja vu’ by Olivia Rodrigo picked up to #9 as its radio is shockingly stable, but it’s more because ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande is on its way out naturally at #10, no surprises there.

Next, our losers and dropouts - not much in the latter category, with ‘Calling My Phone’ by Lil Tjay and 6LACK comfortably getting its year-end list spot while ‘Breaking Up Was Easy in the 90s’ falling short - I like good news. And our losers are an interesting spread - first let’s talk about the continued collapses for ‘Red Light Green Light’ by DaBaby at 79 - well-deserved - along with ‘Build A Bitch’ by Bella Poarch at 96 and unfortunately ‘WUSYANAME’ by Tyler The Creator featuring YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Ty Dolla $ign at 91. Then we had the losses off the debuts: ‘Motley Crew’ by Post Malone broke to 23, ‘Whole Lotta Money’ by BIA ft. Nicki Minaj fell to 30, ‘Memory’ by Kane Brown and blackbear slid to 70, and ‘NDA’ by Billie Eilish hit 75 - her label can start working a single any time now, her album is not that far away from dropping here! Then we had a few Olivia Rodrigo slips like ‘jealousy, jealousy’ at 99, ‘brutal’ at 88, and ‘favorite crime’ at 68, and the rest… ‘Twerkulator’ by City Girls just can’t get traction at 94, same for ‘Straightenin’ by Migos at 72, ‘Ski’ by Young Thug and Gunna looks to be fading naturally at 74 - this has lasted way longer than I thought it would - and ‘Wants and Needs’ by Drake ft. Lil Baby hit 47 as it’ll probably land its year-end list spot with a departure in the next week or two.

Then we have our returns and gains: I’m going to skim past ‘Am I The Only One’ by Aaron Lewis riding its sales to claw back to 93 - the only channel where it has any traction, we can relax here - but we only have two gains this week. The first is ‘Need To Know’ by Doja Cat up big to 46 thanks to a considerable streaming push, and ‘Waves’ by Luke Bryan at 61 which is quietly building up quite the summer Nashville radio run; which is pretty much a regular occurance for him at this point. What’s more interesting is that the entire Pop Smoke album bomb fell below the top 40 - which hopefully is a sign that the label can quit with the posthumous pushes that feel so damn cynical - so of the songs that are not among the best nor worst, ‘30’ with Bizzy Banks at 97, ‘Demeanor’ with Dua Lipa at 86 - the hook is awful and Pop Smoke doesn’t fit at all, but Dua Lipa really does save it - ‘Manslaughter’ with Rick Ross and The-Dream at 82, ‘More Time’ at 80, ‘Woo Baby’ with Chris Brown at 64, and ‘Bout A Million’ with 21 Savage and 42 Dugg at 54; sidenote, 21 Savage could easily do drill, he’s got the control and tightness for it.

But now for our new arrivals…

89. ‘Love Again’ by Dua Lipa - I mean, took it long enough. So at this point, if you’ve been following any of my Dua Lipa content since I reviewed Future Nostalgia, this was exactly the song I wanted them to push, not as a first single but easily a second or third from the album. The fact it’s being dropped this late in the run is disappointing, mostly because I think this song is excellent, with an elegant grandeur with the strings clashing off the White Town sample, playing into whirling minor tones and a razor-tight groove, especially in the percussion. And I like how Dua Lipa sells the song - the tired exasperation at feeling like she was past this relationship, but there’s still enough of her that’s bought in and goddamnit, if that’s the case she’s going full throttle. It’s just a terrific, extremely well-structured pop song with incredible atmosphere and some of the best production she’s ever had in this lane, and while even with radio I have no expectations this’ll do well, let’s just hope it does.

87. ‘2055’ by Sleepy Hallow - I’ll be honest, I’m kind of shocked that of all the one-and-done trap acts I see on the Hot 100, it’s Sleepy Hallow following up his ‘Deep End Freestyle’ last year with a second song… and honestly, it’s not that bad. Yeah, the guitar loop paired with the leaden, overweight percussion is pretty bog-standard by now, but it’s actually a little better mixed than I expecting, especially with how heavy the bass is, and Sleepy Hallow’s deeper vocal timbre does stick out off a decent enough hook. And while the content can feel pretty bog-standard too - girls, guns, drug abuse, you know the picture - the mood of the song which is just tired and exasperated, looking for escape and not really finding it, I get why it caught a snippet of virality. So while I’m not going to say this is great or even that it’s gonna last, I do not think it’s bad - I’m fine with this.

71. ‘Mr. Jones’ by Pop Smoke ft. Future - you know, there’s a part of me that wants to be charitable here with Pop Smoke, but in the attempts to recast his sound as that of the next 50 Cent reminds me entirely too much of where 50’s material turned to crap in the mid-2000s, especially whenever it got to be around women. So naturally this version has to include Future for a bunch of boring brand name porn, but it’s Pop Smoke that kills this song for me - he sounds half-asleep against the trap beat and weedy sample that’s fidgeting behind the mix, which might have texture but is nowhere near as opulent as Future seems to think it is. But again, the problem is the hook: Pop Smoke leaves this Atlanta strip club and tells a girl that she can’t be a bartender because her ass isn’t fat enough and she needs to get a tummy tuck as well - oh, and if you want any money you have to go fuck all his friends, no matter how much it hurts, and you shouldn’t complain about it hurting because cash is what’s really important here. It just feels mushy and gross, in a way that’s not all that interesting because Future does it all the damn time - so tedious and disgusting, the sort of song that only exists to get a name feature on the album. I think Counting Crows deserves an apology for this, next!

50. ‘Holy Smokes’ by Trippie Redd ft. Lil Uzi Vert - You know, after NEON SHARK there was a part of me that wanted to at least try and root for Trippie Redd, find something that sticks with me even it was inconsistent as all hell. And yet after ‘Miss The Rage’ and now this, I find myself thoroughly regretting that - and what frustrates me is that we have to start with the production; why are we getting a set of synths imported from the mid-2000s and with none of the blending and atmosphere that Trippie Redd used to be good at, paired with a clunky, stuttering basslline that forms this weird pocket with the hi-hats that neither Trippie Redd or Uzi sound good against? I get the brighter attempt at a colourful groove, but the cheap, sugary presentation also places Trippie and Uzi at the front of the mix where you can tell they’re struggling to find a way to ride this, Trippie especially as he tries to flex and threaten his enemies. Uzi you can tell is a bit more comfortable, but he still sounds guttural and opens his verse saying he fucked your girl and her friend in front of her - and am I the only one who finds this just passe at this point? The ‘screwing your girl’ thing was played out when I turned it into a meme and Uzi is just not interesting when he does it. So yeah, I get why to some this might work on the level of ‘it slaps, get over it’, especially with that bass, but for me it just feels really incompetently structured and clunky; to me, this is another dud.

49. ‘Tell The Vision’ by Pop Smoke ft. Kanye West & Pusha T - alright, let’s make this clear: Kanye is more name and squawking ad-lib attached to this song than having actually contributed much - my guess is that he probably helped bring in the gospel samples that crop up alongside the swampy drill guitar, shuddering percussion, and thunderclaps, which do serve as some nice contrast on exactly the sort of production that worked for Pop Smoke, even if the most he does was flex about his come-up and the steaks he can now eat alongside the expected gunplay. But I’ll be honest, the reason this song swings around into actual quality is Push, whose trademark sneer is so perfect for this sort of percussion that the menace is palpable. Now I won’t say it’s Push’s most lyrical verse - I don’t think it’s as layered as his best, he’s definitely coasting on atmosphere and anticipation, although the passing shot at 6ix9ine is always welcome, but that was short-circuited by Push saying his own work is on the way… which again, has me thinking most of these guest stars were using this posthumous album as their own marketing - I don’t care if Steven Victor managed both Pop Smoke and you, Push, there’s a time and place for this. That said, his verse is handily the best part of the song opposite the production, and with that… yeah, it’s good, I’ll take it.

14. ‘Wild Side’ by Normani ft. Cardi B - you know, this many years removed from Fifth Harmony, I’d really like an answer at when RCA was going to start a proper push behind Normani’s career or when she’ll ever be allowed to drop a proper debut album, especially as she’s had charting singles with real potency - often with collaborators to get her to the top ten but ‘Motivation’ broke the top 40 and deserved way better promo than RCA was willing to give it! And while I could rant about this for a while - everything tied to SZA’s situation with RCA makes my blood boil - getting a Cardi B feature for a proper lead-off is doing this right, so I had expectations for this… and I dunno, I feel like this should be better. Don’t get me wrong, I think both Normani and Cardi B delivered with a lot of sultry, explicit content - Normani isn’t trying to oversell her delivery even with all the ad-libs scattered across the song, and Cardi’s singing is surprisingly good on the final hook after her raunchy verse, but the guitar melody from the Aaliyah is so reserved and hazy behind the swampy bass and rattling snares that even for this sort of stripped back sex jam there could have been a little more tune to it. It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong, but I wish Normani had more to work with here - this should be better.

So yeah, shorter week for once, but the best and worst fell out pretty fast. In the latter category… yeah, ‘Mr. Jones’ by the late Pop Smoke with Future nabs that, while Dishonourable Mention goes to ‘Holy Smokes’ by Trippie Redd and Lil Uzi Vert, mostly because there’s a part of me that gets where this works more than ‘Mr. Jones’. But on the flipside, ‘Tell The Vision’ by Pop Smoke ft. Kanye West and Pusha T will get Honourable Mention, as ‘Love Again’ by Dua Lipa easily takes the top spot. But next week… we'll have to see if the ‘Industry Baby’ makes this interesting.