billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 12, 2021

Hey look, it’s a cooldown week in between album bombs, about time! It’s also one where we’re not seeing the dramatic drop-off of songs from one of said album bombs, and that speaks to a surprising amount of sticking power that might make impact from other big releases not prove as disruptive… and considering I’m just not sure how much that Lil Baby and Lil Durk collab project will do next week, the summer is already pretty interesting out of the gate!

But we’re going to start with our top ten, which was mostly a case of stabilization and ‘Butter’ by BTS holding the #1. As expected, sales are huge and there was a streaming dropoff, but when you already have some radio in your corner, you’re going to just win the margin, in this case over ‘good 4 u’ by Olivia Rodrigo who is dominating streaming - which is a little odd to me, it doesn’t seem like an obvious playlist placement, which could mean that format is starting to diversify the template a little more - and has solid sales, but the radio run she’s on just wasn’t enough to beat BTS’ sales margin. Again, this makes things weird for ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa ft. DaBaby at #3 - it’s been consistently good in every channel, but just not enough. It does hold over ‘Leave The Door Open’ by Silk Sonic at #4, which is still on top and not flagging on the radio, which is just enough to compensate for lagging sales and streaming… and even then it’s holding over ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande at #5, which peaked on the radio but is still up in other channels, and ‘Peaches’ by Justin Bieber ft. Daniel Caesar and Giveon at #6, which is also on a radio run but can’t make up the margin there or in sales. Then we have ‘Kiss Me More’ by Doja Cat ft. SZA at #7 - again, it’s good in every channel especially streaming, but I keep expecting a run on the radio that is taking a little too long to kick into gear - and then falling back a step after the album bomb we have ‘deja vu’ by Olivia Rodrigo at #8, which despite huge streaming is just kind of stalling out on the radio. And that might also be the case for ‘Astronaut In The Ocean’ by Masked Wolf, which is only up to #9 thanks to strong sales, the radio just isn’t giving him that extra boost. Finally, re-entering the top 10 mostly thanks to the radio getting in gear too late to really matter, we have ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X at #10 - the streaming and sales just aren’t there, and unless he’s going to start playing the remix game again, I don’t see the run happening.

But now let’s get to our losers and dropouts, and what might surprise you is that there weren’t many of either. The biggest of the latter was ‘Streets’ by Doja Cat, and it was on its way out anyway having clinched its year-end list spot, but where things get interesting are our losers - you’d think post-album bomb we’d see big dropoffs for both artists, and indeed, Olivia Rodrigo saw losses for ‘enough of you’ at 27, ‘1 step forward, 3 steps back’ at 38, ‘jealousy, jealousy’ at 42 and ‘hope ur ok’ at 52 - but that’s it! Most of her losses were not significant and the songs basically stuck, mostly courtesy of streaming, whereas J. Cole playing in the same arena saw ‘pride.is.the.devil’ with Lil Baby at 45, ‘amari’ at 65, and ‘95.south’ at 94 - most of the rest of his album bomb is just gone by now! The rest are either debuts that are sliding - ‘Gang Gang’ by Polo G and Lil Wayne at 61, ‘Maybach’ by 42 Dugg and Future at 80, and ‘Twerkulator’ by City Girls at 82 - or a continued failure to gain traction, which is ‘Seeing Green’ by Nicki Minaj, Drake, and Lil Wayne at 67. Also there’s ‘Hold On’ by Justin Bieber making its early exit at 97, it’s going to be gone in record time.

Now this means there’s not much that fills in the gaps here… and what we did get is all over the damn place. I mean in returns we got ‘The Business’ by Tiesto and ‘Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)’ by Elle King and Miranda Lambert, and while I like both songs, neither of them have been able to build sustained traction on the year! But when you look at our gains, I’m not exactly surprise to see a weird spread with a fair amount of country like ‘Blame It On You’ by Jason Aldean at 63, ‘Settling Down’ by Miranda Lambert at 47, and ‘Gone’ by Dierks Bentley up big to 36. But we do have some pop filling in the gaps as well: ‘Telepathia’ by Kali Uchis reaching a new peak at 34, ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals regaining strength at 25, and ‘Way Less Sad’ by AJR at 77 - this is likely going to wind up a hit in 2021, mark my words. The one surprise for me was ‘Leave Before You Love Me’ by Marshmello and Jonas Brothers up off the debut to 72 - I’m not really complaining given I do like the song despite myself, but given the run it’s already starting on the radio, it could be a thing this summer too, maybe?

But in the meantime, we actually had a pretty quiet week of new arrivals, starting with…

99. ‘Outside’ by MO3 & OG Bobby Billions - it’s never a good sign when I have to open the conversation by saying that one of the rappers - MO3, who I was not familiar with - was gunned down last November, and he won’t get a chance to see this remix catch success… which unfortunately got its added traction thanks to Blueface swapping out MO3’s verse for one of his own. Thankfully we’ve got the original credited… and it’s actually pretty damn good - the synths build nicely into the piano and sax, and while the trap groove feels a little stale, MO3’s verses are soulful and fits with the gospel vibe with the choir behind him, and OG Bobby Billions’ tired melancholy works well too. I do question how much it works to have so much of the content to be extended threats, especially on the hook, but I get the emotional throughline in trying to cling to religion despite the bloodshed… even if on the second verse OG Bobby Billions saying he’s doing it for the bills kind of blows a hole in the moral quandary here. In more than a few ways this reminds me of Rod Wave or Morray, in that the content could have used a little more refinement, but the presentation is so good that I have to recommend it regardless - potent stuff, rest in peace.

81. ‘Voice of the Heroes’ by Lil Baby & Lil Durk - so this was a team-up I was not expecting, but considering both rappers have taken leaps when it comes to more thoughtful, conscious material, hearing about a full-on collab album did have me curious where they’d go, with Lil Durk being ‘The Voice’ and Lil Baby being ‘The Hero’ if we’re following their mythology. And it makes sense - Durk is more street level and sees a lot more of the violence and thus can speak to it, Lil Baby is more aspirational but also kind of reluctant to take more of that banner, it’s an arc that makes sense and I think they both have good enough emotive flows and production to make it work with the bells and the sharper trap whirs behind them… even if I think the hook is kind of heavy-handed. And that is where I kind of fall on the song - in setting the stage, I think there was more everyone here could have done beyond Durk trying to balance his angst with drugs and sex, and Lil Baby just going to the exhausted flexing to get out the street - this is the song where they were primed to look for more, and we don’t quite it. It’s still promising, and I’m looking forward to covering that project, either on Billboard BREAKDOWN or On The Pulse… but I’m not wowed, at least not yet.

75. ‘Drinkin’ Beer. Talkin’ God. Amen.’ by Chase Rice ft. Florida Georgia Line - can I just say no and walk away from this? Seriously, there is no excuse for Chase Rice’s hit-making career to have lasted in 2021, especially given that it’s basically being propped up by Florida Georgia Line who I thought were imploding throughout their past year! But nope, there’s that cheap snap and clap beat and clunky percussion punching up the hook with some of the clumsiest integration of Tyler Hubbard’s vocals that only make the synthetic cracks show through - for a song that’s basically a campfire tune, not lean into restraint and a more organic tone, you’ve already got that more liquid guitar line on the verses! But get into the content and you realize this is yet another checklist song where even as the world spins further out of their control, they can sit back, drink beer, and talk about God and hit the conclusion, ‘well, maybe everyone up in Heaven is just like us’. I might question some of the framing on ‘Outside’, but there’s more catharsis on that than this brand of dumb complacency - it’s just inert, and it winds up feeling cynical to ring up another hit on checking buzzwords alone. In other words, this blows - next!

66. ‘Todo de Ti’ by Rauw Alejandro - hmm, I guess Selena Gomez might have opened the door to this Puerto Rican singer and rapper charting solo more often in the States - I’m more familiar with him courtesy of the global charts and he’s been active since the mid-2010s, but this is his breakthrough on the Hot 100… well, it’s not really what I was expecting. For one, it leaps straight onto a gauzy, synth-inflected disco groove you’d be more likely to hear from Doja Cat or Dua Lipa, and he’s got the tightness in his delivery to ride it reasonably well, even if I don’t find him all that potent of a presence on the mic. But yeah, the groove is legit great, so I did have some hopes for the content… only to realize it’s prime horndog territory talking about a girl where it gets bizarre to juxtapose verses about everything she has with a melodic interpolation from Fergie’s ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’! But that’s relatively minor - it’s certainly more distinctive in this lane, and I’m curious how much staying power it’ll have - pretty decent stuff.

64. ‘Tell Em’ by Cochise & $NOT - hey, look what seems to be going viral on TikTok - seriously, you get two more relatively unknown Florida rappers and Denzel Curry can’t catch a break here? Anyway, Cochise might be one of the most flagrant Playboi Carti ripoffs I’ve heard in awhile with a side of Lil Uzi Vert - and that goes down to the underwhelming synths drizzled over a trap beat that doesn’t quite hit as hard as it could, and $NOT dropping a deeper but pretty bargain barrel verse here too. And I’m a little baffled as to why this is catching anyone’s attention - say what you want about Uzi, even when he’s bad he’s at least a little offensive about it, or has a bit more colour in his content, whereas this feels painfully basic; maybe a bit better produced but that’s not saying much when it doesn’t go off. I mean, I get why it’s popular, but I’ve heard a lot better than this.

62. ‘Killer’ by Eminem ft. Jack Harlow & Cordae - so I’m not against this collaboration on principle - I think Jack Harlow is a bit better than he gets credit, and I’ve liked what Cordae’s been doing since 2019, so if Eminem is going to use his platform to elevate both acts on their lyrical game, that’s promising to me! And credit where it’s due, even if you can tell they’re in the ‘oh god, I got a verse with my idol’ mold similar to Joyner Lucas on ‘Lucky You’, they both showed up for their brands of flexing off the production from d.a. got that dope for a groove that’s actually pretty damn solid - it’s a bassy west coast bounce, and both Harlow and Cordae sound great over it! But then there’s Eminem - I get that he’s chasing his own speed records when it comes to double and triple time, but it sacrifices his natural expressiveness and intensity when he has to drop into a monotone where it sounds like he was recording in a different studio, and he winds up compromising the vibe. I won’t deny that he’s less corny here and I appreciate him talking things out with Snoop, but between the cold sore line where he goes on about a lot of comparisons to STIs, and then calling someone a ‘bum-bum’ because their ‘shit is so ass’… honestly, between that and talking about money on his hook, it reminds me way too much of mid-2000s Em, where he was clearly bored and coasting on talent. And that sucks, because I’m sure Cordae and Jack Harlow won’t say anything to the contrary, but they deserved a better performance than this - in other words, they were the best parts of this song, which should be better than it is.

But that was our week - not bad, per se, but it does make me sad that the best song here came with ‘Outside’ from the late MO3 and OG Bobby Billions - I actually checked out some of MO3’s songs and he was a potent rapper and singer, he deserved to see some of his success. The worst is going to Chase Rice and Florida Georgia Line for ‘Drinkin Beer, Talkin God, Amen’ - country is having an incredibly uneven year when it comes to quality, and this is another entry in the bottom rung of it, ugh. Next week I’m expecting an album bomb from Lil Durk and Lil Baby - might be a little smaller or lower down the charts, the buzz has seemed a bit muted, we’ll have to see…