billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 22, 2024

Alright, for what it’s worth, given a very tumultuous first half of 2024, I think the charts are now back to some modicum of normal… at least for one week, because I think there’s a very real possibility we see album bomb activity from Luke Combs next week because he can do that now - possibly Don Toliver as well - but as we head into summer, even if the Hot 100 is busy it’s the normal kind of busy minus any major release or industry upheaval or career-shattering beef. And as someone who is really trying to keep to a schedule with some big projects coming up before the midyear, I’ll take whatever additional breathing room I can get!

Of course, it still felt eventful, and that starts in our top ten, where to my surprise ‘I Had Some Help’ by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen actually held the #1 spot! This is most a factor of stable momentum and established presence - streaming held up and it’s only continued to pick up traction on the radio even if sales slipped a bit, and that was just enough to hold for this week, although likely not for the next. And that’s because of our new challenger debuting in the top 10: ‘Please Please Please’ by Sabrina Carpenter at #2. I’ll talk about the song more later on, but she saw the biggest impact on streaming with reasonably good sales… but this is where the radio already servicing two of her songs hurts her because pushing a third doesn’t tend to work for all but those with A-list name recognition. Now with enough streaming next week, it probably won’t matter… but it could be a factor, all I’m saying. And for a prime example, we have ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter at #3, where she saw a symbiotic boost on streams with actually better sales, and the radio which is just continuing to grow; with the right push this maybe could have gotten to #1 on its own, but Carpenter’s label appears to want the sure bet rather than any more major surprises. Then we have ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozey continuing to hold well at #4 - thank great sales, a streaming boost, and radio that is now finally onboard in a big way for it - and that was enough to hold over ‘Million Dollar Baby’ by Tommy Richman at #5, which actually saw streaming losses even as its radio traction is now through the roof! We have a slightly similar case for ‘Not Like Us’ by Kendrick Lamar at #6 - though it has better streaming, the radio has been considerably slower to fully embrace it to nobody’s surprise - which then takes us to ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier at #7, where the radio is still ridiculously strong, but streaming and sales are starting to slip downwards, so this may not get any further with the competition around it. But it did hold over ‘Houdini’ by Eminem at #8, where despite good sales the streaming dropped sharply and the radio push has been a little sluggish; I’m certainly not going to complain. Then we have an entry into the top 10 that did make me chuckle: ‘BIRDS OF A FEATHER’ by Billie Eilish - turns out the label wasn’t quite prepared for this to be the song that went viral, so they were slow to ship it to radio, but with streaming being so damn solid, I can’t imagine they’re going to complain! Finally, ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims is clinging to #10, because while streaming is actually pretty solid which will slow its descent, the radio and sales have fully tipped into the downswing, it’ll take its time with an exit.

Which naturally takes us to our losers and dropouts, and in the latter group it was all Taylor Swift losing this week with deep cuts, as ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’, ‘Florida!’ with Florence + The Machine, and ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ all exited the charts… yes, I’m a little exasperated ‘Florida!’ hasn’t been pushed for a glorious summer run, but none of us are that lucky. And that also translates to our losers, because Taylor also saw a bunch of losses here: ‘I Can Do It With A Broken Heart’ at 44, ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me’ at 72, ‘Guilty As Sin?’ at 80, ‘But Daddy I Love Him’ at 85, ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’ at 86, and ‘So Long, London’ at 88. And alongside her we also got album bomb losses for Billie Eilish - ‘BLUE’ at 66, ‘THE GREATEST’ at 81, ‘SKINNY’ at 90, and ‘THE DINER’ at 91 - and the expected fade for the beef tracks, with ‘euphoria’ by Kendrick Lamar at 47 and ‘Family Matters’ by Drake at 98. The rest are a mixed bag: ‘Enough (Miami)’ by Cardi B lost all of its gains to 75, ‘Carnival’ by Kanye West, Ty Dolla $ign, Playboi Carti and Rich The Kid tumbled to 82, ‘obsessed’ by Olivia Rodrigo just never got going at 92, and ‘Si No Es Contigo’ by Cris Mj continued down to 93.

This takes us to our returns and gains… and honestly, it feels like an increasingly strange group here! Worst among them is ‘the boy is mine’ by Ariana Grande getting the industry push to return at 64 - ‘supernatural’ is right goddamn there, what are you doing - but when we switch to our gains I’m not exactly thrilled by Tucker Wetmore getting a bump across the board, with ‘Wind Up Missin’ You’ at 63 and ‘Wine Into Whiskey’ at 78! But it’s hard to complain about the rest: ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Koe Wetzel is seeing a little traction to 35 likely tied to another debut this week, ‘Nasty’ by Tinashe is seeing real traction at 69 off the debut, and most pleasing ‘HOT TO GO!’ by Chappell Roan at 68 - this also came alongside ‘Red Wine Supernova’ seeing traction, this could be a larger thing across the board, that’s exciting!

And it takes us to our new arrivals - got a healthy list of them, so let’s get this started with…

100. ‘Hang Tight Honey’ by Lainey Wilson - The exasperating thing about Music Row’s habit of slow-walking singles up radio is that we can get a new song from Lainey Wilson and I have to check to see if it’s from a new album or just a late push. Apparently this is the lead off single of that new album, reportedly pushing more of a rock direction with just Jay Joyce behind the boards… and with that blockier drum mix and the vocals pushed a bit deeper in the mix than you might prefer, you can absolutely tell Joyce is involved, even the choppy acoustics, charging bassline, revving spikes of electric guitar, and fast enough tempo keep the groove moving, although that four bar bridge trying for a bit of funk kind of stalls out. As for the content, it’s a road song, where Lainey Wilson is playing raucous parties but can’t wait to get home to her partner, and it always makes me chuckle that it’s former third-string Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Duck Hodges - looks to be a fan favourite in more ways than one. Either way, I think the production might cut back on this song’s overall staying power, but it’s a fine enough lead single - not great, but certainly likable.

97. ‘Never Let Go’ by Jungkook - The more Jungkook solo cuts I see, the more I wonder if we’re ever going to get that BTS reunion to swamp the Hot 100 again - apparently it’s targeted for 2025 after all the military service time is completed - but in the mean time we have this, which is a deliberate love letter to the fans and a plea for them to hold on for them to reunite. And… yeah, it’s fine: Jungkook’s English diction has gotten a lot sharper with time and his willowy voice balances well against the fluttering and bleeping synths, acoustic touches, supple well of bass, and gentle gallop of tapping drum machines. I think where the song slightly loses me is the hook - the stuttered ‘go’ feels like the wrong word to emphasize in a plea for folks to stick around, and when the vocal line feels so touched up around it, I don’t have the same connect. For those in the ARMY who have stuck around this long, it might have more resonance… for me, just okay.

96. ‘Beautiful As You’ by Thomas Rhett - You know, I’ve been reviewing Thomas Rhett in some form for over ten years, from his bro-country days to the overpolished and generally bland boyfriend country he makes now… he’s now extremely in his comfort zone, and that works on Nashville radio, but I can’t help but think he’s long been eclipsed and passed over. So when I hear him working with obvious pop songwriters like Julian Bunetta and John Ryan who I know more for working with One Direction, I knew his little neotraditional adventure was long over, and this song proved it. And let’s make this clear: the only reason this’ll wind up on Nashville radio is because it’s from Thomas Rhett, because this is a pop song: being predominantly anchored in piano, the lockstep drum machine, the sampled vocal flourish that sounds like something you’d hear in a mid-2010s Justin Bieber song… that brittle acoustic guitar does not make this country! And then there’s the lyrics - I would just call this another dull Thomas Rhett love song about his wife, and I did appreciate the detail that he should stop asking why this girl is with him already, but I’m not sure how that makes up for saying that she’s ‘the dream, even if we countin’ girls in magazines’, which feels both more dated and clunky than it should. Look, I could get a lot more annoyed about how this is getting shipped to radio on lingering nepotism and flying in the face of genre conventions, but there’s a lot less of whatever Thomas Rhett is doing hitting the charts these days, this is borderline bubblegum. Besides, I’d rather keep my anger for…

77. ‘All My Life’ by Falling In Reverse & Jelly Roll - I think I’m about done making excuses for Jelly Roll, because a few passable songs and a good redemption story don’t make up for falling into bad habits, or in any way working with Ronnie Radke! Apparently there’s a new Falling In Reverse album dropping this year - I’m not going to cover it, because I have better things to do, but apparently with nearly the entire band replaced since the last album, I had no idea what this was going to sound like… and after listening to it, it’s just Kid Rock, catching that brief window where there was a brief crossover between the country and rap rock sound with any actual edge or intensity sandblasted away. The guitars are overcompressed, there’s no groove, the drums sound airless and clunky even as they try to sneak a drum machine inside, there’s scratching and whooshing effects dumped all over the mix, the breakdown is fucking embarrassingly weak, and Jelly Roll sounds like he’s absolutely slumming it alongside Radke’s obnoxiously fake twang. And the content… look, I know Jelly Roll has found catharsis in the redemption arc, can’t party too hard forever, but a limp, half-formed apologetic structure from Radke feels screamingly insincere, especially with so much of the melody in a summer-ready major key. I can’t call this offensively bad but that’s because there’s so little to it, it feels so obviously cynical to cash in on a working relationship - it’ll have one good sales week and then vanish, good riddance.

73. ‘360’ by Charli xcx - It would be just my goddamn luck that the song I like least on the new Charli xcx album is the one that charts. Which is not saying that it’s bad, but it’s an example of Charli’s style just not connecting nearly as strongly as I’d prefer, mostly through production choices that just get on my nerves - that little squirming glassy synth near the very top of the mix hits precisely the right frequency to feel unsettling and gross - and not intentionally - especially alongside that fat bass synth and lead reverbed melody. Outside of that, the song is fine - it’s a bad bitch flex where Charli draws comparisons to Julia Fox and Gabbriette, toying with the balance between glamour and trashy, playing up the brat dichotomy with the ‘666 with a princess streak’, referencing sewer sluts, the legacy of her work with AG Cook, it’s definitely targeting a specific ‘it girl’ presentation. If I have critiques beyond that, it might be that the song is talking a bigger game than the sound backs up - it feels a bit too minimalist and prim to really sell any darker edge, especially given the era it’s recalling - and no, that production choice is not getting there in creating atmosphere - and while she knows on some level she’s striking a pose, it doesn’t feel as special or vibrant to me. I know this album is getting hyped to the moon and back… this doesn’t do it for me.

70. ‘Purple Gas’ by Zach Bryan & Noeline Hofmann - the fun thing with Zach Bryan coming up from indie country is that he appears to have remembered his roots, and he’s more than willing to use his platform to put people on, including folks that I should honestly know more of, which takes us to this track and Noeline Hoffman. She’s out of southern Alberta, she’s an up-and-coming singer-songwriter, she’s received extremely positive buzz from a few festival appearances, enough that she got on Zach Bryan’s radar with this song she wrote, and while has a few others on her YouTube channel, this is her only song on streaming. And it’s pretty good - very spare acoustics with some gentle bass and drums, and it’s written from the perspective of a struggling young Canadian farmer - ‘purple gas’ is a reference to a specific dyed gasoline out on the prairies which is discounted for farmers or ranchers - normally just called purple - and the song has a lot of those homespun details to try and make it work with a stiff upper lip and barely a prayer, especially when you’re out on those plains, there’s barely any hills, and it looks like it all goes on forever. As someone who grew up out west, the appeal of a song like this definitely clicks… but I would struggle to call it great, mostly because for as much as Hofmann has a really pretty voice, her volume level is a shade lower than Bryan’s, and I don’t think it contributes to the best chemistry between them. It’s certainly likable - Zach Bryan has a lot of momentum to get songs that feel this deliberately uncommercial to chart - I just wouldn’t call it one of his best. Hope this is a burst of traction for Hofmann, let’s see where this goes…

58. ‘The Man He Sees In Me’ by Luke Combs - I’ll probably have more to say about Luke Combs’ most recent Father’s Day album that dropped last Friday next week, he’s probably going to see some light album impact if not a bomb. But in the mean time we have this, deeply neotraditional with the mandolin and dobro alongside the gentle acoustics, as Combs sings about his desire to be as good of a father as his sons see in him, and maybe if they have kids some day they’ll follow in those same footsteps. And I really like the sense of detail and emotional honesty here, where kids see you as someone who can do everything and even if you can’t live up to that expectation, you desperately want to, and hope that effort shines through - I don’t have kids, but I have a young niece and nephew and I get that emotional resonance a lot. I’ve heard some critics say that the vocal mixing is a little too touched up for their tastes - it’s the sort of thing that you’ll likely not notice, but if you do it’ll either bother you or you won’t care, and I’m more in the latter category even if a more organic pickup might flatter Combs more. But that’s the definition of nitpicking - absolutely great song, can’t wait for more from this album to chart!

49. ‘Close To You’ by Gracie Abrams - You know, there’s a part of me that wants to make the ‘nepo-baby’ conversation about Gracie Abrams more of a thing - daughter of JJ Abrams, opening for Olivia Rodrigo closely followed by opening for Taylor Swift and first charting with a big Noah Kahan collab, to say nothing of her producer connections behind the scenes - but truth be told, her brand of hushed indie pop has been very easy for me to ignore, and even if the door is opened for you, eventually you’re going to need to do something with it. Her 2023 debut album was predominantly produced by Aaron Dessner and I didn’t have to care about it one bit, so now with this song produced with Sam de Jong, who I know most for producing a lot of really mediocre pop music - Alec Benjamin, Wrabel, Duncan Laurence, both the bad Pale Waves and MARINA albums - I had rock bottom expectations, especially when I discovered this was a song first teased from as far back as 2017. And listening to it… yeah, I hear why, because this both sounds like nothing I’d expect from Gracie Abrams… and also a song that really wants to be Melodrama-era Lorde with the faster patter of the fizzy drum machine, pulsing synth, hushed vocals, hazy vocal snippets, and aching for a dancefloor connection, although I’d also cite a healthy dose of 1989-era Taylor Swift here too in the vocal inflections on the hook. Now on the surface I’m open to this - we didn’t get nearly enough Melodrama-era Lorde for anyone’s taste - but it also reveals the big weakness of Gracie Abrams: she doesn’t have nearly the personality or charisma to sell this. I reviewed the entire era of whispering millennial girls in pop music in the 2010s, and even the weaker ones had energy if not much staying power, whereas this feels very wispy, completely unable to sell the melodrama in its content that’s very obviously trying for Lorde but has nothing close to her intensity. So no, it’s not precisely bad, but it has me looking for the better version of this pop pivot - might not be a good sign, all I’m saying.

29. ‘High Road’ by Koe Wetzel & Jessie Murph - I swear to God, Koe Wetzel is going to surrender all of his interesting personality to crossover, and the fastest way to get there is working with Jessie Murph and her walking void of charisma! What the hell happened to his sense of humour and edge that he’s playing this gutless country rock that sounds like it belongs in the mid-2000s, where the guitars and drums are crushed into mush, but even then the first hook where Wetzel takes the lead is fine, a bad relationship song where they’re taking the ‘high road’ in order to get fucked up and forget; generally lightly toxic, but if you’re on a downward spiral it makes sense. Then Jessie Murph shows up, her put-on twang sounds awful, and the song has to bend over backwards to fit her processed vocal on top of Wetzel’s, stripping any spare texture that we got, and even when they try to harmonize on the hook I don’t get any chemistry! What’s worse is that while Wetzel is more abstract in his sour musings, Murph just outright says both are cheating on each other and that’s the natural extension of their ‘high road’… and man, it doesn’t work, it’s trying to pull a ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ in her getting more to the point, but that song worked by having a proper emotional bait and switch with Kimbra cutting through Gotye’s whining, not just ‘everyone is an asshole’. Couple that with a very underwhelming instrumental passage… yeah, this absolutely sucks… and it’s radio friendly enough to work, I can see this being a hit of the worst kind. Brace yourselves.

2. ‘Please Please Please’ by Sabrina Carpenter - ..it’s not even that I dislike Sabrina Carpenter, it’s that her brand of pop doesn’t stick for me, and for as laboured as the writing can feel to try and be memetic, it should work better than it does. I’ve watched ‘Espresso’ run the sanitized Doja Cat ‘Say So’ riff into ‘song of the summer’ territory where I feel like I’ve remember the quips more than the song itself, and now this is going to challenge for the top spot with a Jack Antonoff production credit, believe it or not! And… yeah, I don’t really like this either, and for once it’s actually a bit tough to pin down exactly why. Basically it’s a song about how she doesn’t want her boyfriend to get drunk and embarrass her in public, with a lot of not-so-subtle implications that she’s talking about her actual boyfriend Barry Keoghan and that she’s playing fast and loose with how true any of this is. It’s not a bad idea for the vintage pop song this wants to be, but there’s a lot of distinctly Sabrina Carpenter flourishes that just don’t click. She’s trying to be “ironic” with saying that she has good judgement and good taste - I’m not sure I buy that, I heard those 2010s albums - but with the air of self-love that you can tell she really believes it, where all the cutesy deflections are hiding legit frustration and anger that this guy better not fuck up her image or her songs will devastate him - the way she says ‘motherfucker’ on the hook captures a certain Lana Del Rey-esque intended venom. And that’s the thing: while singing, Sabrina Carpenter is a good actress, she can paint a scene, maybe add a little flair to appear subversive… but she’s not a great actress because I can always tell when it’s an act in service of ego and artifice, which is frustrating because her songs never have the flair to be great melodrama compared to the pop stars who will go for broke. And honestly, I don’t think the production really helps her here: the fluttery 80s synths, chintzy electric guitar, and frail acoustics and drums from Jack Antonoff feels weirdly busy, small-scale, and cluttered, but also giving Carpenter just enough space that I can hear some questionable vocal mixing, following his tradition of giving pop acts a little too much space to reveal themselves for better or worse. I dunno, this song has theater girl energy but unlike say Chappell Roan utterly refuses to admit it, or is actively trying to ironically disavow it, and even if folks are enamored by the artifice and performance… I’m still not convinced nor impressed.

So that was our week… kind of all over the place, but let’s get the worst out of the way quickly where ‘All My Life’ by Falling In Reverse and Jelly Roll is getting the Dishonourable Mention… because ‘High Road’ by Koe Wetzel and Jessie Murph is the worst of this week on disappointment and dread alone - I can hear it becoming a hit and that’s a goddamn nightmare and a half. Best of the week is much more agreeable, with ‘The Man He Sees In Me’ by Luke Combs just snagging the top spot past ‘Purple Gas’ by Zach Bryan and Noeline Hoffman. Next week… well, the fallout from all of this plus a fair bit more, we’ll have to see…