billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 15, 2024

One thing I can appreciate about an otherwise normal week on the Hot 100 is that it’s defined by its contrast - the past and future, the old and new, the reactionary and progressive, all of which drives up discourse in the comments section and if I don’t read it, I won’t get a splitting headache! Truth be told, I think the charts are going to be relatively stable for a decent bit until the next album bomb, so the question will be if any tracks landing this week get further momentum…

But before we get to that, our top ten, where for another week, ‘I Had Some Help’ by Post Malone ft. Morgan Wallen held the #1… although at this point, it’s more precarious than even. Yes, it’s strong in streaming, but not at the top, and if it wasn’t for a strident radio push, it would not have held against competition and probably won’t next week. And that’s because our #2 is our big debut: ‘Houdini’ by Eminem. I’ll save my comments for much later, but dominance on streaming and sales means that he barely needed any radio to debut this high - although the streaming case is interesting, I have to wonder if his long-entrenched monthly listener bulwark was so huge that this song was going to land big regardless of quality. Whatever the case, it did beat out ‘Million Dollar Baby’ by Tommy Richman at #3, where the radio push really kicked into high gear alongside stable streaming - in a different time this would have gone to #1, but the second quarter of 2024 has been an absolute gauntlet to chase the top spot, almost historically so compared to the last two years! And thus I’m still a little shocked ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozey is at #4 - the radio push has felt a little slower, and while streams are rock solid, I think its continued edge is coming on sales. Compare this to ‘Not Like Us’ by Kendrick Lamar at #5, where the radio growth has kept steady and it has better streams, but as the beef has concluded the sales have fallen off sharply, and I wouldn’t put money on this being a continued challenger - frankly, I’m shocked it’s had this much momentum for so long! Then we have ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter at #6 - I could make a point of highlighting how this has stabilized on streaming and sales despite continued radio growth and thus likely won’t get higher, but given her next single has a chance to challenge for the top spot, I reckon she’ll be just fine here. Then we have ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier at #7, which just keeps getting more radio and had a good sales week to compensate for streams mostly being flat, but that was enough to get over ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims at #8, where the falloff has been gradual enough he probably doesn’t care, especially with the next single debuting this week. Next we have ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone at #9 - has a margin on streams but loses it on sales and the radio, it’s also on the decline - but it was just enough to hold over ‘Pink Skies’ by Zach Bryan at #10, which saw a drop on streams and sales, but considering the radio isn’t touching him at all, the consistent strength there feels revealing!

Compare this to our losers and dropouts, where we didn’t get that many of the latter this week - outside of ‘Bandit’ by Don Toliver leaving again, and both ‘meet the grahams’ by Kendrick Lamar and ‘Push Ups’ by Drake showing their historical place in the beef by rotating out, the biggest exit is ‘redrum’ by 21 Savage, a song I still like but amidst the rest of the rap delivered this year, it’s mostly faded to the background! Speaking of which, when we go to our losers both ‘euphoria’ by Kendrick Lamar slid to 33 and ‘Family Matters’ by Drake fell to 69 - the positions still being indicative of who won, it’ll be interesting to see if any last long enough to clinch a year-end list spot. Then we have ‘Si No Es Contigo’ by Cris Mj sliding off the debut to 82 and ‘Texas Hold’Em’ by Beyonce continuing its steady decline to 65 - she’s already got the year-end list sewn up, she’s fine here and could start pushing other singles at any time - which takes us to ‘Where It Ends’ by Bailey Zimmerman hitting 43. I expect this is going to be off the charts soon given that radio is pulling back, kind of a shame because it’ll probably miss the year-end list and I like the song, but them’s the breaks. Finally, we have Billie Eilish album bomb cuts decaying naturally: ‘L’AMOUR DE MA VIE’ at 47, ‘THE GREATEST’ at 62, ‘SKINNY’ at 68, ‘THE DINER’ at 73, and ‘BITTERSUITE’ at 89.

This takes us to our returns and gains… well, one return, ‘Spin You Around’ by Morgan Wallen crept back 95, I don’t have much faith it’s going to stick for long. The gains are again more interesting, because I’m not seeing much of a pattern beyond - of all things - Gunna having a good week with ‘on one tonight’ at 88 and ‘one of wun’ at 31! I’m more interested in our continued gains, like ‘Wondering Why’ by The Red Clay Strays picking up to 76 and ‘Stargazing’ by Myles Smith continuing to rise at 41, but the big story is ‘Wanna Be’ by GloRilla and Megan Thee Stallion at 15 - chalk this up to a massive surge on streaming and even some radio, although it may be a case of the Cardi B remix doing some heavy lifting. Speaking of Cardi, ‘Enough (Miami)’ looks to have finally gotten a boost at 64, although any radio she has isn’t stable, and outside of her… ‘Si No Quieres No’ by Luis R Conriquez and Neton Vega hit 53, ‘Scared To Start’ by Michael Marcagi hit 60, and most frustratingly, ‘Illusion’ by Dua Lipa is at 59… there’s enough radio to make this a thing, oh joy.

And that’ll take us to our new arrivals, where unfortunately we have to start with…

98. ‘Let Your Boys Be Country’ by Jason Aldean - …you’d think after ‘Try That In A Small Town’ failed to really move the needle for Aldean’s career, as the album backing it in November wound up his worst performing project, that they might abandon him altogether. Unfortunately Jason Aldean is still one of the largest breadwinners on Broken Bow and that means a second single is going to get pushed to Nashville radio regardless. And… look, it’s tempting to go digging for dogwhistles here, it’s not like Aldean has earned that, but this is a nothing of a song - the sterile fake handclap, the overpolished percussion, all the filmy backing vocals, the blocky major key riffs, and the checklist of basic country things that Aldean wants boys to be allowed to do. It’s basically a stock Jason Aldean song down to the barely perceptible right-leaning bent, where he’s not even saying that boys have to do this, or listing anything they shouldn’t do. In other words, it’s too boring to get mad at or remotely care about, next!

94. ‘The Door’ by Teddy Swims - This is going to be the test for Teddy Swims to see if his pop cache has any sustainability… whether or not this becomes that second hit. And given that I’m generally lukewarm at best on ‘Lose Control’, I was curious to see where this would lead… and okay, I hear the appeal a lot more here, I like this! A big factor is that groove - a solid bassline, gentle percussion to supplement it, with slight touches of guitar and arranged swell lingering to amplify the swagger, perhaps a shade too much reverb for this brand of soul, but in capturing that 2010s pop soul vibe, this is effective and Teddy Swims is one hell of a singer. But what might clinch it for me are the lyrics: it’s rare that a breakup song carries this much swing, but there comes a point in a bad on-and-off again relationship even when you’re head over heels you need to create the exit and end it, and the blur of anger and relief nails that feeling of catharsis really well, especially in the comedown from the bigger histrionics on the verses. So yeah, really good song, if you’re not sold on Teddy Swims this might be up your alley… give it a shot!

90. ‘Nasty’ by Tinashe - There’s a lot I could say about Tinashe returning to the Hot 100 for the first time in eight years… but truth be told I don’t think I’m the best person to say it. For those who remember the rather contentious reviews, I’ve never been a big Tinashe fan, but in retrospect I think I can probably lay a lot more blame on RCA for mishandling her the way they do so many R&B acts, and thus when she went indie… full disclosure, while the reviews seemed to be positive, I wasn’t that interested in hearing more. But then this went viral on TikTok, which became her first independent single to really take off, and… I get it, but this doesn’t do a lot for me. Tinashe’s flat ‘I’ve been a nasty girl’ delivery doesn’t have the flair to be that sensual or playful, and by the time the bass thrum matches the faint melody and drum machine, it feels like an old formula that’s catchy, but not that impressive. I think some of it is also the lyrics, which have the vibe of Tinashe thinking she’s hot as all hell and looking for someone to match her vibe, and when you’re only lukewarm on the vibe, the energy doesn’t quite get there. This is okay, I get why it’s working on TikTok… just not for me, I guess.

80. ‘Hot to Go!’ by Chappell Roan - And now onto a note that I think is considerably more positive, this is the first of two Chappell Roan songs to land on the Hot 100, and as someone who loved her album from last year, this is an absolute delight for me. Now I will say this is not one of my personal favourites - we’ll get to the one that is - but I still generally like how campy and silly it is, flipping a pizza delivery pun to imply horniness! And when you get that chintzy synth and glittering cymbals and new wave guitar sparking over the hook, alongside just how hard Roan is vamping, I get why folks are making the Cyndi Lauper comparisons. I also get a lot of theater girl vibes spilling over, but that works for me in showcasing a popstar who genuinely cares and who probably is trying harder than anyone expected; the fact this song is not more embarrassing is a testament to her talent. So yeah, this is a lot of fun… but not as much as….

75. ‘Red Wine Supernova’ by Chappell Roan - This was one of my favourite songs of last year, not just the hits, so it almost feels unfair to just rattle off everything that utterly rules about this and that I still love to this day! I love those rattling acoustics that ramp into the bassy synth and bounce into a vibe that’s so ragged even as the synths spill over into the glitter-smeared hook that ramps into the perfect gallop for the second half! I love the call and response between Chappell Roan and her backing singers with more harmony than you’d ever expect - we’re still in pure camp mode, but when the hook has her stretch into an elegant choral register before she rebounds into the more playful verses and bridge, it’s pure magic! And the writing… it’s queer, it’s unapologetically horny, and most importantly it’s fun, it captures the vibe that remembers sex can be a little goofy, especially when the infatuation translates to something more raucous. It’s hedonistic, splashy, remarkably quotable to the point that I’m shocked TikTok hasn’t utterly run away with it, the sort of pop song I’m so thrilled has finally hit the Hot 100. Dear god, find a way to make this a proper hit!

2. ‘Houdini’ by Eminem - …ugh, do I have to? We could end this on Chappell Roan, not Eminem sampling the Steve Miller Band’s ‘Abracadabra’ - a song I don’t think even the fans of that band like - for this tired retread of ‘Without Me’ that misses so much of what made that song actually good! So speaking as someone who can rap all of ‘Without Me’ from memory, what I think gets lost of people is how that song was considered something of a sequel/retread at the time of ‘The Real Slim Shady’, which I also know by heart and consider to be a better song. And… let’s start with the obvious, the production sounds canned and chintzy, but unlike the garish crossover singles that worked, this feels so damn tired, maybe anchored in how Em still can’t sing on the hook or how the production just can’t emphasize any flair or colour. And it feels stiffer too - there isn’t that fluid low-end bounce the same way, not helped by Eminem’s increasingly bad habit of sounding jittery and self-impressed with every punchline; it’s not as laboured as it’s been in the past, but it’s still annoying especially when it compromises the flow. Then we have the content, where I’m not offended by any of this - I get the feeling the album is going to finally take the piss of Slim Shady and end it, this may work better in that context, where it seems like between the lines many of the jokes feel like at his own expense and they don’t really have the timbre of feeling reactionary; the old Slim Shady would have made the bad gay jokes, he says it on the bridge, but he follows it with the line ‘how many little kids still want to act like me’, or the guy who calls himself white trash and wears a bud light shirt. Honestly, as much as I think Eminem wants to goad people into censorship or ‘getting cancelled’, I don’t see enough people getting angry enough to care when you can tell his heart isn’t really in it the way it was twenty years ago - I’ve seen more millennials on Tiktok yelling about Em getting cancelled… than anyone trying to cancel Eminem. My issue is that the jokes just aren’t very good: trying to suck up to Megan Thee Stallion with a ‘shooting a feat’ bar, the participation trophy line on a throwaway second verse, the really forced R. Kelly line, all the trans jokes that just feel really tryhard, trying to bring back Paul yet again - still probably better than anything Paul was doing at Def Jam in the late 2010s but that’s a different conversation - this does not have the weight of when there was legit censors including the Secret Service that targeted Eminem in 2003 and in 2017; yes, Trump’s team went after Eminem! And while there may be a deeper underlying critique of nostalgia here for Slim Shady with this song being a self-fulfilling prophecy - Em’s done that before on Encore - it just doesn’t make for a good song, and I have no real reason to seek it out.

And yeah, I’m going to say it’s the worst of the week running purely on disappointment, because I hear the potential seeds… but no, I can’t back this. Best of the week is Chappell Roan with ‘Red Wine Supernova’, an absolutely wonderful song that I hope sticks around! Next week… looks like Sabrina Carpenter is challenging for the top spot, and maybe along the way something from Charli xcx can break through, we’ll have to see…