billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 9, 2022

Not gonna lie, I’m starting to have more issues with the ‘back to normal’ reset weeks that occur after album bombs rather than the album bombs themselves. At least during album bombs I’ve got a way of handling them, and if there’s some consistent quality it almost becomes streamlined. Whereas here… look, it’s not all bad, but the biggest presence is the mini album bomb from Chris Brown; joy.

Now of course that doesn’t really touch our top ten, where to my surprise ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles once again reclaimed the #1… and it’s for the exact same reasons of controlling the margins on sales and streaming, even despite lagging on radio to ‘First Class’ by Jack Harlow, but he’s never been able to make up the difference and now his radio looks to have peaked. This opens the door for ‘About Damn Time’ by Lizzo up to #3 - she has better sales and ascending radio, if she can pull up streaming just a bit, she’ll have a clear shot for the #1 as I’ve been predicting, certainly moreso than ‘Wait For U’ by Future, Tems and Drake slipping to #4, even though its radio run is decent and the streaming is still there. Then we have ‘Jimmy Cooks’ by Drake ft. 21 Savage knocked off the top spot to #5, which is pretty much just here on streaming for a second week, but again, I’m not sure how much that translates into long-term traction… whereas ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush actually recovered to #6 because her streaming rebounded and it’s been shipped to radio in a big way; we’re now five weeks in and this is showing no signs of slowing down, we might have to have a conversation about this making a year-end list and that’s something I never could have expected! Then we have the expected breakthrough into the top ten with ‘Break My Soul’ by Beyonce at #7 - it’s also receiving the push in all channels, but I’m a little surprised how it feels a bit muted given Beyonce’s star power, you’d think there’d be a little more behind this, especially at radio. Then we have ‘Me Porto Bonito’ by Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone rebounding back at #8 - again, pretty much just on streaming, and also bringing along ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals to #9 because residual radio refuses to let this go, but that was enough to overtake ‘Glimpse Of Us’ by Joji at #9, which actually stayed stable on streaming but again, that’s all it has.

And that leads to losers and dropouts, which in the latter category is the majority of Drake’s album bomb, but also a few bigger tracks like ‘AA’ by Walker Hayes that absolutely clinched a year-end list spot, ‘she’s all I wanna be’ by Tate McRae which will come close, and ‘N95’ by Kendrick Lamar just never having got there. A chunk of our losers are Drake as well - ‘Sticky’ fell to 17, ‘Massive’ slid to 44, ‘Falling Back’ lived up to its name at 64, and ‘Texts Go Green’ hit 94 - but ‘U-Digg’ by Lil Baby, 42 Dugg and Veeze also fell off the debut to 82. The rest are continued losers that are hard to complain about: ‘Bam Bam’ by Camila Cabello and Ed Sheeran is on its way out naturally at 47, having clinched its year-end list spot, ‘She Likes It’ by Russell Dickerson and Jake Scott is sputtering out at 93, and ‘Music for A Sushi Restaurant’ by Harry Styles is at 96 because dear god this song is awful.

But of course in the aftermath we get our returns and gains… well, in the former we only have ‘Plan B’ by Megan Thee Stallion back at 100, but there’s a lot of gains here, and the majority of them are country! ‘New Truck’ by Dylan Scott at 87, ‘7500 OBO’ by Tim McGraw at 77, ‘Last Night Lonely’ by Jon Pardi at 74, ‘Tomorrow Me’ by Luke Combs at 66, ‘5 Foot 9’ by Tyler Hubbard at 63, ‘Rock And A Hard Place’ and ‘Fall In Love’ by Bailey Zimmerman at 61 and 46 respectively, ‘Trouble With a Heartbreak’ by Jason Aldean at 43, ‘Like I Love Country Music’ by Kane Brown at 31, and in the biggest pleasant surprise to date, ‘Damn Strait’ by Scotty McCreery at 42, ‘Something In The Orange’ by Zach Bryan holding on at 39, and ‘She Had Me At Heads Carolina’ by Cole Swindell up huge to 38! Of course it’s not all country here: ‘Love Me More’ by Sam Smith got a boost to 85, ‘I Ain’t Worried’ by OneRepublic wormed its way to 62, ‘When You’re Gone’ by Shawn Mendes recovered to 59, ‘What Happened to Virgil’ by Lil Durk and Gunna hit 58, ‘MAMIII’ by Becky G and Karol G hit 52, ‘In A Minute’ by Lil Baby rose to 51, and Doja Cat saw a nice turnaround for ‘Vegas’ to 34 - have to wonder how much this is going to hold after the movie has its run, I wonder…

But alright, let’s get to our new arrivals where it’ll be a lot less pleasant, starting with…

98. ‘Possessive’ by Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne & Bleu - alright, we have five Chris Brown songs, and I’m already surprised that he got another R&B artist to join him… not always a good sign, especially giving the former Yung Bleu the first verse. But there’s not much of a risk of one overshadowing the other here - both Bleu and Chris Brown are smothered in so much clunky autotune around this spare production and chalky beat that you realize they barely even attempt to blend their harmonies well on the hook, and given that Bleu is playing resentful, guilt-tripping ex who’s not over the girl and Chris Brown goes on the offensive and calls her crazy and that the money changed her… well, it kind of cancels out, especially as they both lean on the line that they can get possessive and aggressive, but this girl is totally into it, right? Honestly, Lil Wayne by far comes out the best - yeah, the autotune isn’t great here either, but he at least is willing to give this girl space and some modicum of respect, somehow he’s the most mature guy in the room, when did that happen? Still isn’t any good - I’m not the target audience, it’s oily and pushy in a really unpleasant way, neither attractive nor that interesting, next!

95. ‘Did Shit To Me’ by Lil Durk ft. Doodie Lo - so Lil Durk put out the deluxe edition of 7220 - I guess he was done working songs from the original, but I’m not sure adding more tracks is the fix to solve a project that already felt samey and overlong. Anyway, this is one of two debuts… and I was inclined to be skeptical, but this is generally fine. The faded melody isn’t all that interesting behind the sharper drill percussion, but it’s pretty well-produced, Durk still has a lot of intensity and for a first introduction to Doodie Lo, he’s pretty credible - his voice is haggard but has character and he’s got solid back-and-forth chemistry with Durk, it works effectively. I kind of wish the song built up to more - basically they’re calling out everyone who talks hard in rap but have never actually done anything, but that feels like tempting fate, especially given the rough few years Durk has had

92. ‘Addicted’ by Chris Brown ft. Lil Baby - hey, if he’s going to call in the big name favours, why not go for broke here, and put Lil Baby’s verse right up front, especially as that’s pretty much what we’re all here for? It’s not like the spare twinkles do much for the cheap trap percussion, but Lil Baby can write this verse in his sleep, especially as he actually talks about courting the girl and building some trust, which he acknowledges is something he needs to improve. Then Chris Brown happens, where he goes off about how he’s addicted to this pussy, and even if his flow on the post-chorus is decent, he then drops the line in his verse ‘She high off Whitney and Bobby, it’s a party’ - you know, for as much as Chris Brown has made a thing about respecting classic R&B that he wouldn’t go there, but turns out his word is as good as his slapdash, nasal rapping. You’ve heard the best of the song if you’ve heard the Lil Baby verse, don’t stick around for anything else.

91. ‘Burglars & Murderers’ by Lil Durk ft. EST Gee - alright, this time we’re getting a much more prominent piano and synth line off a much heavier roiling bass and drill percussion, that is probably most distinctive for its beat switches around the hooks that feel like a different song collided with this; it’s a bizarre change-up that I wish anyone here explored more effectively. Unfortunately we have EST Gee this time, who is getting drowned out by his own ad-libs and a flow that’s not quite as refined as it needs to be… and it’s not like the content helps, where Durk’s paranoia is ramping up alongside the gangland violence to the point where he’s watching his girl pee so there’s no faked pregnancy scare. I understand why there might be paranoia here - he came up from nothing and doesn’t want to see his fleeting success stolen by the streets, women, or the feds - but between that line and the hook about turning burglars into murderers… again, I feel like this is tempting fate in the wrong direction. And the song’s not good enough to excuse it.

79. ‘WE (Warm Embrace)’ by Chris Brown - so this was planned as the second single, it was being advertised as one of the smoother tracks from the album, and it samples an early 90s R&B song written by Teddy Riley, that’s enough to get me in the door. Hell, he doesn’t even swear on the song, and when you get the supple popping percussion and liquid synths and guitar rollick, this is the sort of groove that Chris Brown should honestly use a lot more. The problem is that his vocals are so overprocessed that the song never develops any sense of intimacy - this is a bedroom ballad and it’s never played with any subtlety, because Chris Brown is still the guy who’ll conclude his bridge by saying after they’re done making love, she needs to clean it up; charming. Look, this had potential… shame Chris Brown fumbled the execution.

78. ‘Psychic’ by Chris Brown ft. Jack Harlow - You would think that Jack Harlow would have the good sense to avoid working with Chris Brown - his career still seems to be on the upswing and this is not a favour he needs to deliver - but Brown did show up on Jack Harlow’s major label debut in 2020, so now with this… how does Chris Brown’s vocal mastering still sound goddamn plastic, even beyond getting smothered in autotune? It just feels glaringly out of place on a track with more restrained melody and percussion where overstuffed with screechy overdubs he’s trying to overcompensate… and then there’s his lyrics, where he thinks this girl catches everything that he’s doing and might be psychic… and seems weirdly peeved that she’s defensive in the first verse? Brown, with your history, I reckon she’s got every reason to be! Thank God Jack Harlow seems to understand the vibes of this song - he’s pretty good at this low-stakes hookup mode and his eye for detail and subtle flexes effectively lets him steal the song. Not enough to save it, though.

76. ‘Call Me Everyday’ by Chris Brown ft. Wizkid - I guess I’m not surprised that this is the Chris Brown song that charted the highest - Wizkid’s international presence would draw that audience, especially with Afrobeat becoming more popular stateside. But hell, Chris Brown is barely a presence on this song: I would put money on this being Wizkid’s originally with Brown even adopting an accent to try and play for a similar vibe… and I’m a little conflicted on whether it works. For one, the production is very minimalistic, with the spare guitar and touches of saxophone before expanding on the outro, but the beat feels a little uneven and jerky, which kind of works of Wizkid’s more restrained delivery. But this also might be the first case of where Chris Brown outshines him - he’s bringing a bit more charisma and expressiveness, and forcing himself to stick closer to Wizkid’s lane in content prevents him from embarrassing himself. So of all of the Chris Brown songs this week, this is probably the one that’ll have the most legs - where Chris Brown is imitating another sound and there’s already been better afrobeat hits in recent months, next!

72. ‘From The D 2 the LBC’ by Eminem & Snoop Dogg - so let me put aside all of the NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club bullshit around the branding of this song - it’s gross, it’s so obviously a grift in order to drive attention to bullshit schemes that given how much crypto has collapsed makes everyone still associated with it feel behind the times. No, what I was intrigued by was the reunion of Snoop Dogg and Eminem - they had tension for stupid reasons and if we could get a late career return to ‘Bitch Please II’, I’d take it! Granted, this is Eminem producing and not Dr. Dre, so I did have lower expectations… which might be why for some baffling reason we got this blown out drill percussion with a crushing bass groove off the faded, haunted sample that’s louder than the vocal line! And that’s kind of a shame, because while Eminem drops into his triple time by the end of the verse and it’s fine - it’s like a gimmick, and he’s not really saying much either beyond flexing and various pot references - Snoop actually goes off on his verse, with the sort of fast and tight flow you almost forget he can deliver effortlessly, especially as he bends it ever so slightly to add some menace. It kind of sucks that the branding of the song is terrible because the actual song is pretty decent; kind of think it should be a little smoother, but for something late career for the both of them, I think I’ll take it.

67. ‘Late To Da Party (FUCK BET)’ by Lil Nas X & YoungBoy Never Broke Again - okay, it’s possible for a few things to be true at the same time. It’s absolutely true that Lil Nas X can have beef with BET for getting agitated about the faux-Satanism and him kissing one of his dancers at his performance last year, and if you want to dig into some underlying strands of homophobic religious conservatism that exists within BET’s executives… well, you can argue there’s something there. It’s also true that many of these award shows only have cultural capital because we choose to invest in it, and for Lil Nas X who has leaned on his chart accomplishments and Grammys to then flip the script here to troll can feel disingenuous even if he does have a point. Granted, this would all be easier if this song didn’t suck, arguably one of the clunkiest things Lil Nas X has put on record with minimal melody, overweight percussion, and basically a running shitpost of flexing and sexual references designed to prod at any respectability politics, including shitting and farting. Also YoungBoy is here for stock flexing, and I’d argue it muddies the message even more - there’s a difference between homophobic institutions and the open calls to violence and goading dogshit YoungBoy has been putting on record the past six to eight months, making that equivocation in the subtext is reckless as all hell. But in truth, a song like this is self-defeating - you want to say you don’t care and tell them to fuck off, you don’t have to make this and prove you care a hell of a lot more.

60. ‘Carolina’ by Taylor Swift - I feel like this is a little stranger than it actually is - the story is that Swift apparently discovered that they were adapting the 2018 novel for a movie, and she was such a fan of that book that she got together with Aaron Dessner to make a song for the soundtrack, a pretty big name tied to a film that otherwise had flown under the radar for me. So when I now say this is a really damn great song where you can tell Swift was really working to nail the homespun, creaking Appalachian sound with more abstract writing that’s closer to Ethel Cain or older, darker indie folk acts than someone like Lana Del Rey, it’s a little surprising that she placed it on a soundtrack where if you’re not a diehard fan, you’d probably miss it! It’s textured, understated, shows that Swift understands the land itself is as much of a character in the novel than the actual murder mystery at its core - which thematically is something I’ve always liked in this sort of storytelling - and just enough visceral details creep in to highlight the tactile, southern gothic dread. So yeah, all of this is up my alley, but if you were looking for another teaser after folklore and evermore, this delivers, check it out!

22. ‘Left And Right’ by Charlie Puth ft. Jungkook - at this point I’m not even surprised; of course Charlie Puth’s biggest debut in recent memory comes with a collab with a member of BTS, it’s a pretty easy way to get some chart traction on sales alone! But fine, the song… in a word, it’s not a bad self-contained idea for a song, but it feels a little rougher than it needs to be. Yes, some folks are going to be shocked by how Puth uses the hook to shift from left to right channels to emphasize this person’s lingering presence in their mind, but that works best when you have headphones or a properly configured system and I’m not sure how well it translates outside of that, and even then it’s a bit of a gimmick, especially when you look outside of that and there’s not much here. Yes, Puth and Jungkook have decent chemistry and the hook is good, but Puth as a producer has always cut corners so the rougher edges in the percussion and guitar don’t especially blend well - doesn’t really match the horny vibe of the verses - and the vocal mixing isn’t as sharp as it should be. There’s a part of me that wants to call it novelty, but it’s not quite weird enough - not bad, but it’s more of a curiosity, not something I’m going to return to much.

And that ends off a pretty odd week, where for the best Taylor Swift runs away with it with ‘Carolina’, but Honourable Mention is going to ‘From The D To The LBC’ by Eminem and Snoop Dogg, basically on Snoop’s verse being sharp as all hell. Worst of the week… Dishonourable Mention is a Chris Brown tie, with ‘Addicted’ with Lil Baby alongside ‘Possessive’ with Lil Wayne and Bleu, and that’s because the worst of the week is ‘Late To Da Party (FUCK BET)’ by Lil Nas X and YoungBoy Never Broke Again, the sort of bad diss record where I feel like they lost by default. Next week actually promises to be pretty quiet - we have to hope, right - so stay tuned for that…