billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 6, 2024

…look, sometimes you can hope for weeks where the Hot 100 stabilizes or at the very least is more manageable as you try to catch up on your schedule past a holiday weekend, and then you get let down because in the predictable aftermath of three mini-album bombs, we get a swarm of somewhat disconnected tracks flooding onto the charts in order to compensate. There are stories within that - Peso Pluma seeing some muted impact, Gracie Abrams seeing more impact that she probably deserves, a few revealing new arrivals - but if you had told me that this week was going to wind up busier than last week… well, suffice to say I wouldn’t have been too pleased, but hey, have to spend my vacation doing something, right?

Alright, enough complaining - top ten, where returning to the #1 we have ‘I Had Some Help’ by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen. This isn’t that surprising - the sales are solid, the radio keeps running up the score, and while streaming saw a slight dip, it’s got a healthy enough margin that it wasn’t really that impacted, so much so that it might face tangible competition next week. And that - I can’t believe I’m saying this - is coming in the form of ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozey at #2, which is dominant on sales, eclipsed ‘I Had Some Help’ on streaming, and is currently trying to chase down that radio margin; the race for #1 might wind up closer than I think anyone expects! I would say that ‘Not Like Us’ by Kendrick Lamar could also make a play beyond jumping to #3 thanks to that concert, which drove up his streaming and sales in a big way… but radio growth stalled out this week in a big way, which is not a promising sign unless that music video drops and blows everybody’s mind. It did have enough to comfortably pass ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter at #4, where the radio growth was good but the streaming took a dip and she’s not making up the margin on sales alone, which takes us to ‘Please Please Please’ slipping back off the top to #5, as she lost the top spot on streaming and sales fell back; considering the radio is nowhere close to making up any margins, I don’t see this being a contender for a while, if at all again. It was enough to push back ‘Million Dollar Baby’ by Tommy Richman to #6, where he’s still doggedly running up the airplay numbers, but streams and sales are down, which could really shrink its viability especially if the ‘second’ single is already getting pushed. Then holding steady we have a trio of predominantly radio cuts: ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier at #7 is still consistently the strongest thanks to a somewhat wavering radio peak and better sales, but then we have ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone at #8 which actually just edges him out on streams even if radio is in freefall, and that just held over ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims at #9 as its radio descent feels a bit slower, but it’s losing on both sales and streaming margins. Finally we have ‘BIRDS OF A FEATHER’ by Billie Eilish at #10, where the radio appears to be moving… but streaming is just solid against stronger competition, there might be a ceiling on this song’s growth if it can’t capitalize on losses above it.

Which naturally takes us to our losers and dropouts, and there’s a few notable ones in the latter group. Again, outside of album bombs fading we did see ‘Agora Hills’ by Doja Cat and ‘Wild Ones’ by Jessie Murph and Jelly Roll both comfortably clinch year-end spots, where ‘Enough (Miami)’ by Cardi B exits prematurely and both ‘Spin You Around’ by Morgan Wallen and ‘Get In With Me’ by Bossman Dlow look to have fallen short as they slide into recurrency; also ‘Carnival’ by Kanye West, Ty Dolla $ign, Rich The Kid and Playboi Carti is finally gone, good riddance. But the losers are more all over the place than you might expect, so let’s handle album bombs first - from Don Toliver last week we had ‘Bandit’ collapse to 100 and ‘Brother Stone’ with Kodak Black mercifully fall to 97, from Billie Eilish we had ‘CHIHIRO’ at 54, ‘WILDFLOWER’ at 75, and ‘L’AMOUR DE MA VIE’ at 84, and from Taylor Swift… well, only just ‘Guilty As Sin?’ hitting 98; a bit pedestrian alongside ‘Texas Hold’Em’ by Beyonce landing down at 90. Oh, and I guess Luke Combs saw some expected losses off of his small album boost last week as well, with ‘Remember Him This Way’ at 71 and ‘The Man He Sees In Me’ at 96. The rest… well, ‘BAND4BAND’ by Central Cee and Lil Baby dipped to 39, ‘I like the way you kiss me’ by Artemas looks to have clinched its year-end spot as it slips to 58, ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Koe Wetzel continues to lose hard at 64, ‘I Think I’m In Love With You’ by Chris Stapleton and Dua Lipa is still underperforming at 80, and ‘Halfway To Hell’ by Jelly Roll hit 87… a lot of these are continued losses, speaks to a moment getting rotated out.

So what is going to replace it? Well, going to our returns and gains, we did see a nice bounce back for ‘we don’t fight anymore’ by Carly Pearce and Chris Stapleton at 92, likely a helpful radio boost tied to her album’s release, alongside ‘Hang Tight Honey’ by Lainey Wilson coming back to 89. But we didn’t really have many gains here, with probably the most disappointing coming for ‘the boy is mine’ by Ariana Grande to 29 thanks to a huge streaming revival, probably thank the remix for that, alongside ‘Devil Is A Lie’ by Tommy Richman bouncing up to 35 off its debut. But thankfully that’s balanced by the continued growth for Chappell Roan, as ‘Hot To Go!’ continued up to 38 and ‘Pink Pony Club’ off the debut hit 66 - she’s still seeing more gains with more songs coming, it seems to be a genuine phenomenon… yes, I’m tempted to make the pun, I’m a little better than that at least for now!

But we have a frankly stacked list of new arrivals to fill in the gaps - can’t waste time, let’s start off with…

99. ‘La Patrulla’ by Peso Pluma & Neto Vega - So here’s the complicating factor in talking about the few songs that Peso Pluma broke through with his album impact this week: of course it was going to be less than the album bomb impact with GENESIS, but it's trickier to gauge if it’s a sign his momentum is shrinking or that of the regional Mexican sound’s Hot 100 crossover, especially as he didn’t see nearly as much breakthrough on the global charts as I was expecting. Granted, the buzz has been mixed by even folks who like the sound, and thus starting with a song that apparently already existed solo from Neton Vega in some form… well, already not a good sign the farting horns carry so much of the melody beyond the brittle acoustics and thicker bass. More distracting is how much both Peso Pluma and Neton Vega sound suffocated in reverb just on the vocal tracks that blunts their delivery - I know Peso Pluma’s voice is an acquired taste, but it’s the cheapest way possible to soften his rough edges and it feels awkward alongside the rest of the cleaner pickups. And the content… honestly it’s more disjointed, highlighting a comeup with references to evading traitors amidst police and gang attention, but the hook is trying to connect with a girl and there’s no transition to really make that connection. Couple that with the rather abrupt ending… yeah, I’m not hearing it here, not terrible but certainly not memorable.

94. ‘Risk’ by Gracie Abrams - So I don’t have a lot of kind things to say about Gracie Abrams and her come-up - see my coverage of ‘Close To You’ if you need a refresher - but hey, she charted two songs this week off the strength of the album, and this was the one that didn’t get the Taylor Swift stimulus package so maybe it’s more interesting? Well, funny thing about Taylor Swift, because this sounds like nakedly cribbing from her lyrical cadence and quicker patter and even vocal inflections and backing vocals when this song tries and mostly fails to explode - Aaron Dessner can keep the mix sounding largely tasteful, but when your primary instrument is a spare acoustic guitar and the song never builds more muscle even with that snare ramping on the final hook, you wind up looking like a pale facsimile of a better artist. It’s not helped by Abrams sticking in her hushed indie girl voice when Swift actually has the power and expressiveness to sell something like this, a song all about convincing herself to take the big risk and chase this guy, and I’m not even against this all being in her head where she’s psyching this up, but you’d think that’d be an excuse to push a little harder, add more details and flair, and this just doesn’t have it. It’s not a new observation that Gracie Abrams can often attempt to build catharsis by calling on nostalgia but relying moe on textural signifiers than the power to make things work - just like her father JJ Abrams does in his movies - but man, it feels really obvious here; I wouldn’t even call this bad as thoroughly mediocre, next.

91. ‘Vino Tinto’ by Peso Pluma, Natanael Cano & Gabito Ballesteros - Okay, one misfire for Peso Pluma, he’s got two more folks to work with this time, maybe it sticks a little better… and not gonna lie, those grimy synths that bookend the song were at least intriguing, Peso Pluma has proven he’ll experiment! But then the farty horns and painfully brittle acoustics come in with not even any cool bass flourishes and the vocals are still swaddled in reverb and the mix all still sounds like it’s being performed in a tin can, and I find hard not to throw up my hands. And the lyrics… it’s more celebratory this time in getting away from street life, which as Natanael Cano mentions on the second verse very much was the backup plan, and I get how some of that old tension can linger, but the vibe just can’t pay off any of that possible drama outside of aspirational flexing. Again, it’s hard for me to consider this outright bad when it falls in line so quickly with so many other interchangeable regional Mexican tracks, but when the experiments aren’t working… yeah, not a good sign. Want to know what is?

82. ‘Casual’ by Chappell Roan - Put aside the fact that alongside ‘LUNCH’ by Billie Eilish, this is the most lesbian cunnilingus has ever gotten charting representation on the Hot 100, the fact that Chappell Roan has five charting songs on the Hot 100 is nothing short of astounding… and honestly, I think this is her best yet. This was one of my favourite songs of 2023, even moreso than ‘Red Wine Supernova’ - the slow gloss of the synths alongside the thrumming bass and gentle acoustics and clattering percussion, all to support the sort of messy, aching love song where as her partner insists that it’s no big deal and all just casual, Chappell Roan doesn’t believe it, but tries to go along for the ride anyway, pardon the pun. And the truth is that it’s not simple - her friends think she’s playing dumb to stick together, she feels gaslit trying to play cool when there are feelings there, but even those are tainted with anger and mistrust and the feeling she’s putting in the work for more and not being treated as such - you can only play the ‘chill girl’ for so long before it all comes crashing down, where it all could have worked if they communicated. But I think where this really clicks in the nuance of the performance - Roan is used to cutting loose with exuberance and flair and while the song eventually ends there, her richer alto allows her to sell the world-weary acknowledgement that if this is all it’s gonna be, just get me off… if you even can. I’m frankly stunned that this was the ballad that crossed over for Chappell Roan - maybe it being so explicit was a win for TikTok crossover, or maybe folks just acknowledged a really great song… but this fucking rules, the highest of my recommendations.

81. ‘feelslikeimfallinginlove’ by Coldplay - I know I’m pretty much the only person who walked away from Music of the Spheres thinking it wasn’t nearly that bad, maybe even being curious for Coldplay to expand on the subject, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to get that, so instead we have this new lead-off single for an upcoming album Moon Music. And… honestly, I’m a bit conflicted, because sonically this soft-focus fuzzy electro-pop isn’t far removed from that album with maybe a trace of Ghost Stories, especially with how fractured the guitars feel at least until the more elegant burst on the second half of the song - it’s not peak Coldplay because the thicker guitar and strings embellishments might have come in a bit earlier, but it’s an example of how to do this sort of ‘taking the risk to fall in love’ song a little better - take notes, Gracie Abrams. In fact, while I think the lyrics are a little too simplistic for my taste with all the la-la-las filling up space, Chris Martin is a singer so earnest that he can sell taking the chance to let his defenses drop, even if he seems to know it’s doomed to fail - there’s some dynamics in the performance that sets up the drama and allows him to make that choice anyway, the same template but with more character in the execution! I’d struggle to call this more than decent - I certainly have higher standards for Coldplay - but at least for now, this is fine, I’ll take it.

76. ‘Nights Like This’ by The Kid LAROI - …wait, really? We’re still giving Kid LAROI chances, especially for a song stuck on that album from 2023 that I thought we all made the correct choice to ignore? Well, TikTok virality will sneak up on anything, even a song that utterly wastes some pretty nifty atmosphere from Clams Casino with the rougher fidelity drums and gauzy synths for a cut that can’t even run ninety seconds, where Kid LAROI wallows in angst as he tries to get this girl to come over - possibly an old flame, where more details might provide some insight but when you can’t even run for a minute and a half, there’s nothing to articulate or flesh out the picture. And considering the haze and Kid LAROI trying to push into his wheezy falsetto where he sounds borderline unrecognizable… yeah, this isn’t worth more attention, skip it.

70. ‘Kehlani’ by Jordan Adetunji - so let me get this straight, Kehlani puts out a messy but undeniably commercial project with singles that could have crossed over for this week, where indeed ‘After Hours’ saw a bit of a boost… but instead of getting any of those, we got a song using her name by a relative unknown going viral on TikTok and charting instead? Okay, Jordan Adetunji is a UK drill act - born out of London, currently operates out of North Ireland - and on this song… come on, he doesn’t even sample Kehlani for that faint vocal fragment behind the louder guitars echoing the drill percussion, that’s Summer Walker! But it becomes clear that this isn’t really about Kehlani at all, he’s using their name as a fill-in for the bad bitch he’s trying to compliment, and then rattles through a bunch of names at the end of the hook as the whole choir that he wants - and from there his intentions get kind of messy, as the first verse seems to just want to give money and stack compliments, whereas the second is looking for more sex, where he claims he’s choosy - what, between Kehlani or any of the other R&B singers you rattled off on the hook - and that of course he’s man enough to handle this. And not to question that, but this heavier production is doing a lot of heavy lifting for his very limp, boyish tenor, where he just comes across as juvenile and out of his depth - yes, I know Kehlani cosigned this, but they’re looking for any crossover spark, if this gets traction, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them hop on a remix. In the mean time… yeah, I’m not impressed by this - check out ‘Tears’ by Kehlani with Omah Lay, much better song than this.

69. ‘Reloj’ by Peso Pluma & Ivan Cornejo - alright, last of the Peso Pluma cuts, and borrowing a song title from Rauw Alejandro and Anuel AA, we have what seems to be a slower cut with no hook but a more gentle acoustic rollick, with the same reverb slathered all over Peso Pluma’s vocals which in contrast with the horns just sounds awful, with Peso Pluma’s intro and verse before Ivan Cornejo has his verse, albeit with a touch of piano and more atmospheric guitar work between them. Honestly, it’s a little startling how much better Cornejo sounds compared Peso Pluma just by letting his voice show all of its texture… but that’s a slim edge for a post-breakup commiseration that shows no chemistry between the men and Peso Pluma sounding utterly unconvincing in trying to imply he’s moved on. I think my larger issue is that given this song runs nearly four minutes, it starts feeling like a real slog without a distinct hook or something to anchor it, a wallow that’s just not produced or performed well enough for me to care that much. Not the worst I heard from this Peso Pluma album… but if these three songs are indicative of the overall quality, I’m not surprised we didn’t get the album bomb this time.

63. ‘Girl, so confusing’ by Charli xcx & Lorde - The funny thing with this song is what might have been. ‘Girl, so confusing’ was always one of my highlights of brat because it’s Charli xcx getting petty and frustrated with her assumptions that there is tension between her and Lorde. The media has drawn comparisons between them for a decade for a similar look despite making very different music - that picture they took with Carly Rae Jepsen promising the best supergroup that never happened probably doesn’t help - but it goes deeper into how their careers were managed and marketed and personal awkwardness; Lorde was allowed to have mystique and operate on a different schedule than Charli who, truth be told, has been way more experimental in her craft than Lorde has since they both broke out, and if Charli is trying to profess solidarity with fellow pop stars… well, it’s not the first moment of tension on the album, accented well by the watery hyperpop gloss and keyboard flutters courtesy of AG Cook that breaks into a scuzzy, grinding synth bass. And thus I really like how Lorde responds to this on the remix and just… clears up the misunderstandings with some degree of maturity - Lorde was facing her own public overexposure, her own fight with anxiety, which had her shields up at all times with a hard energy that could be misconstrued as hurtful, and I like that amidst the swirl of fame and constructed narratives and irony, Lorde taps into the humanity at the core and they squash all of it. It does dampen some of the more intriguing moral ambiguity of the album, but honestly Lorde is such a great fit alongside Charli and they have good enough chemistry that I’m just fine with this remix - legit great song, very pleased to see this all work out!

57. ‘Parking Lot’ by Mustard & Travis Scott - …Mustard, after you popped out with Kendrick, you didn’t have to go work with Travis Scott, who has been playing both sides for a few months now while the music hasn’t been remotely good, especially not for a single for your next album! Now to Mustard’s credit, his embrace of more soulful watery sampling has the cooing vocals just below chipmunk which is a pretty good balance for how Travis rides the brittle trap skitter, pianos, and rumble of the bass - the production is easily the biggest selling point of the song to me, it’s not like Travis is delivering much in the way of content! His flows are generally pretty sharp, and maybe it’s just me, but against this production you could do better than the stock flexing, lazy dick jokes on the hook, a Dr. Seuss reference within the first bars of the first verse, and on his second verse, he talks about laying so much pipe with the girls he should quit his job to be a plumber - dude, would it kill you to try harder? I’m not even saying this is bad, but this sort of production normally demands a bit more tact rather than Travis seems to be capable of delivering, dropping what could have been a really damn good song to just merely decent.

53. ‘You Look Like You Love Me’ by Ella Langley ft. Riley Green - I kind of feel like I should have heard more buzz around Ella Langley than I have, especially as this is her debut charting single. She’s had some traction backing larger acts in and around Nashville for some time, recently for HARDY and Morgan Wallen, her debut EP came out last year - I remember hearing her name but the EP was never requested for a review - and this is a single for her upcoming debut later this year. And… honestly, this is a lot more charming that I thought it would be, a very traditional-feeling country flirt between a guy and girl at a bar where she initiates and he’s very receptive; it could easily fall into your stock barroom hookup but it’s playing to a much older template, and the fact they’re both so game for it is nice, especially given how warm the guitars, accordion, saloon piano, and pedal steel are. If I have a critique, it’s that I can hear just how much the vocals are touched up - honestly a shade too clear and prim to match the production, for a song otherwise so organic the synthetic vocal mix is not nearly as charming… but that is nitpicking, and overall this is fine, I don’t mind it at all.

47. ‘TGIF’ by GloRilla - okay, maybe the project from earlier this year was just intended as a mixtape to build momentum - to me that feels like a bit of a misstep in the marketing, Ehhthang Ehhthang is really damn good and is notching credible hits, to the point where I think you could probably get another two off it - but okay, I’m open to a proper big leadoff single with the video and everything. And… I mean, it’s alright, but it feels like a crescendo that’s missing the payoff, with the quaking bass and horns around the faded strings - I know Memphis rap can be more minimalistic, but if there’s a song that’s missing hi-hats or a snare to really explode, it’s this one. I also can’t say I love the content either - I like GloRilla’s swagger and presence as a bruising rapper, especially as her flow has steadily improved, but for a ‘come out and party hard, it’s Friday’ vibe, the energy of the song feels more sour with the complaints about the haters online and stealing dudes from other women - I don’t like it when guys do it, I can make the same comparison! I also wish there was a little more wit to it - once you get past the flex it feels pretty basic, and I know GloRilla can do more than that. So… yeah, I’m not wowed by this, and I really wanted to be, let’s keep moving.

36. ‘Us.’ by Gracie Abrams ft. Taylor Swift - Literally as I was writing this, I saw an article from Uproxx with the title “Gracie Abrams Shouldn’t Be Reduced To Her Famous Dad And More Famous Bestie”, which… you know, I’d be willing to buy into that if said article said much at all about her music other than touting her popularity and other industry connections and chart positions based off of streaming and proclaiming that her popular success is totally not based off of Taylor cosign, especially when it comes to seeing her live. My rebuttal is that it’s more nuanced, not all just one thing or another - I’ve said this before, Abrams had help to get through the door but staying there requires skill, and yet it’s very revealing that her highest charting song to date is with Taylor Swift backing her up… and doesn’t really work because in addition to Taylor Swift just not having much chemistry with Abrams and her voice just sounding much fuller and more expressive, the song doesn’t really work. It has the overwritten feel of the frustrating b-sides of Swift’s evermore and Tortured Poets Department Anthology, where there are interesting ideas but the composition doesn’t pay them off strongly - they’re commiserating about a former bad relationship where they’re still obviously holding a candle for said exes, but the details imply more interesting things about this guy that are often left obscured within language that’s trying to sound deeper than it is. Kind of ironic given how they frame this older guy who gives them a book about Robert Bly - basically imagine a more poetic predecessor to Jordan Peterson - but fails to live up to any masculine archetype, especially going back to an ex… which is the longing reminiscence at the core of the hook of the song, which flies in the face of the acknowledgement of history’s failings on the verses! It’s one of those cases of an ambiguity tolerated for oneself but not for the ex in question outside of the structure of the relationship, which Swift is a good enough writer to swerve away from but even then would be fine if I thought the composition worked at all! The acoustic line is brighter and faster as the piano and synths rise around the hook with the misty overdubs and strings, and as the drums come in the groove feels more overworked and busy rather than paying off any crescendo, and when you couple that with how the lyrical meter on the hook feels clunky and how everyone stays in their breathy upper register, likely so Swift doesn’t immediately overpower Abrams… it doesn’t really work. Honestly, it has the feel of Abrams trying to write a modern, more literate Taylor Swift song, mimicking vocal inflections and weird poetic details and all, but she’s straining to connect the dots and Swift can only help so much, which has me wondering why I just go listen to the original act who does this considerably better. I’m more inclined to call it a failed experiment than outright bad… but if you want the example of what a real tortured poets department misfire sounds like, it’s a lot like this.

34. ‘Si Antes Te Hublera Conocido’ by Karol G -Alright, onto something hopefully more straightforward, that being a new Karol G album in the cards and this being the lead-off single. And… okay, I did not expect Karol G to start going into merengue with the jaunty keys alongside the textured, popping percussion that picks up a stiffer knock to the point where it’s attracted some criticism for cribbing notes from Shakira and especially Rosalia, the latter of which… yeah, I hear it, especially in that groove it does remind me of ‘Despecha’. But that was also a Rosalia song I didn’t really like, and I can’t say I’m that impressed with this either - the instrumental doesn’t really vary much, and then you get to the lyrics where it seems like Karol G is musing on ‘what might have been’ with a guy she sees dancing… with his fiancee. And I’ve seen folks try to spin this as just idle daydreaming on Karol G’s part, and I don’t agree - she sounds pretty committed to getting this dude one way or another - or hell, just getting with both of them at once - because she gets so horny seeing him that she’s just waiting for that one mistake to really pounce as she imagines wedding bells, and that’s an odd fit for something otherwise so jaunty and pleasant! I know this is supposed to be playful, but the context doesn’t really translate - maybe it comes across better if you’re fluent in Spanish - so as it is… just kind of strange to me, that’s all.

12. ‘Pour Me A Drink’ by Post Malone ft. Blake Shelton - And we’re ending this week with Post Malone… teaming up with Blake Shelton, who hasn’t had a proper charting hit in a couple of years but has enough industry clout that his cosign will inevitably lead to Nashville radio crossover. Truth be told, ‘I Had Some Help’ has felt only more insubstantial the past few weeks… and honestly, I think I find this a bit better? It’s distinctly weird to hear Louis Bell and Charlie Handsome produce a song with legit steel guitar and a prominent fiddle - it reminds me a lot of the brawnier side of 2000s country that split the difference between the neotraditional and more contemporary - and then to hear Blake Shelton not sound as crisp or clear as you’d normally expect on Nashville radio, nestled a little deeper in the reverb swells of the mix; not a bad thing, just a little strange. And Post Malone can nail hangdog exasperation in his sleep, especially if he’s complaining that a Dallas sports team lost in overtime - I’m imagining it’s the Cowboys over the Mavs - and given that he has pretty decent chemistry with Shelton, it serves as a very obvious 2024 version of ‘It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere’ by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett… not as good, but in the same ballpark of cross-generational drinking songs. So overall… yeah, generally fine I guess - this Post Malone country record is going to be an interesting one, I’ll leave it at that.

And that was a very long week… best is easy, ‘Casual’ by Chappell Roan with ‘Girl, so confusing’ by Charli xcx and Lorde as the Honourable Mention. Worst… see, most of this week was less outright bad than just mediocre overall, so… ‘Nights Like This’ by Kid LAROI feels like the worst of them, with Dishonourable Mention as a Peso Pluma tie between ‘Vino Tinto’ with Gabito Ballesteros and Natanael Cano, and ‘La Patrulla’ with Neton Vega, just so much that doesn’t work here. Next week… I’d like to think it’d slow down a bit but I’m clearly not that lucky, so… maybe a mix of Camila Cabello and Meg Thee Stallion? We’ll have to see…