billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 8, 2024
This is the sort of week where I’m not surprised there wasn’t much activity - it’s pretty normal in terms of fluctuations, all things considered - but I’m left feeling that there should have been more. Maybe it’s tied to how album bombs don’t really leave as quickly as they used to, especially if they don’t have a ton of competition, but it felt a bit uncanny how all of Billie Eilish’s new album stayed on the Hot 100, or simply how much of Taylor Swift is still here! I’m not sure if it says anything in the moment, given we’re talking a-list pop stars, but this has been a trend lurking for some time, and I’d like to see how long all of this lasts without major competition, especially as I don’t see the album bomb to replace them any time soon.
But in the mean time, our top ten, where ‘I Had Some Help’ by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen is still at #1, and I have to wonder if there’s some tangible subtext lurking behind that title, because man, the industry really wants this to stick to the very top - the sales are good and it’s doing well on streaming, but this has seen one of the most aggressive radio pushes I’ve ever seen, where they’re going to force this into public consumption as hard as they possibly can… mostly because right behind it is ‘Not Like Us’ by Kendrick Lamar at #2, which rules streaming. It’s not selling quite as well - not surprising for a diss track a few weeks removed - but the radio gains have been substantially slower for an A-list act who has a cultural smash… gee, I wonder why Universal doesn’t want to let their cash cow get bled out by the mainstream public, although the way he’s going, he’s doing it to himself! Although truth be told, ‘Million Dollar Baby’ by Tommy Richman is chasing him pretty aggressively with better sales and just a little behind on streaming and the radio, and in a similar note ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ is also picking up major traction in both channels and is dominant on sales - a handy discount courtesy of the album release is likely going to put this in a contender position, although it’s likely not gonna take the #1. Then we have ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter at #5, and yeah, she has better radio momentum than the last three songs and sales are decent… but she just can’t break through enough on streaming, or build enough radio to offset it. And this leads to a new debut in the top ten: ‘Pink Skies’ by Zach Bryan at #6 - I guess I just have to become used to seeing Zach Bryan debuting in the top 10, it’s still uncanny to me as someone who was reviewing him in 2020 when the mainstream traction hadn’t kicked in yet, but big sales and streaming are already here, even if true to form the radio has no clue what to do with him. Then we had ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims hold #7 - which has enough of a cushion on top on radio to sustain losses there, especially if sales were okay - but I think ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier at #8 can challenge, which outside of an iffy sales week he has real traction on both streaming and radio, I can see positional gains! It was enough to get over ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone at #9, which spent the week fluctuating near the top on radio without much else, but it at least held over ‘LUNCH’ by Billie Eilish which slipped off the debut to #10, and where things get a little awkward because while radio and streaming are strong, TikTok has decided they like ‘BIRDS OF A FEATHER’ more and that could well hold better streaming traction in the weeks to come, which complicates any industry push.
That naturally takes us to our losers and dropouts, the latter of which mostly point to Taylor Swift album cuts that were never going to stick long-term and the short revival of ‘Spin You Around’ by Morgan Wallen, but the big story to me is a really bad week from Drake, as his big cosign 4batz saw ‘act ii: date @ 8’ exit the Hot 100, likely just scraping onto the year-end list; ruinous timing on 4batz’s part thanks to dropping in the middle of the beef, but the music being crap doesn’t help matters. And it does continue into our losers, as from Drake ‘Family Matters’ slid to 59 and ‘Push Ups’ fell to 91 - yes, ‘meet the grahams’ by Kendrick Lamar also hit 93, but it’s a song that shouldn’t have lasted a month on the Hot 100 anyway, Drake was purposeful in picking beats that could play on the radio and it’s not saving him! So outside of them - and ‘on one tonight’ by Gunna falling to 99 - the larger story is a fight between two album bombs, and let’s start with Taylor Swift still seeing losses: ‘Down Bad’ at 41, ‘Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me’ at 58, ‘But Daddy I Love Him’ at 65, ‘So Long London’ at 68, ‘My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys’ at 71, ‘Florida!’ with Florence + The Machine at 77, ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’ at 79, ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ at 80, ‘loml’ at 92, and ‘The Alchemy’ at 98. But there’s a story in how consistent Billie Eilish’s streams have been, and while she saw losses, her entire album stuck to the Hot 100 for a second week, and not every song lost - that says a lot! But to work our way down from the top, ‘WILDFLOWER’ at 27, ‘L’AMOUR DE MA VIE’ at 34, ‘BLUE’ at 47, ‘THE GREATEST’ at 50, ‘SKINNY’ at 53, ‘THE DINER’ at 62, and ‘BITTERSUITE’ at 73.
Now you’d think there’d be a lot of gains or returns to fill in the gaps… but truth be told it’s kind of all over the place, as the only one of the latter is ‘Tu Name’ by Fuerza Regida at 100, and we didn’t need that one back. But it is evidence the regional Mexican sound still has some lifeblood, compared to in our gains where ‘Gata Only’ by Cris Mj and FloyyMenor still has traction at 32 playing to stale reggaeton. Outside of that, we’ve got some country gains near the bottom - off the return ‘Wondering Why’ by the Red Clay Strays hit 87, ‘Wind Up Missing You’ by Tucker Wetmore rose to 78, ‘We Ride’ by Bryan Martin hit 69, and there was a big jump for Chris Stapleton with ‘I Think I’m In Love With You’ at 49 - with the Dua Lipa remix being shipped to radio, I can see this being a sleeper hit this year, it’ll be interesting. Outside of those… ‘Stargazing’ by Myles Smith got a jump to 51 thanks to streaming, ‘Wanna Be’ by GloRilla and Megan Thee Stallion looks to be getting traction across the board, so it might be a hit and give Meg’s upcoming album a bit of a boost as her singles can’t build momentum, and ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ by Chappell Roan finally got the space to rise to 31 - radio has been slow to get onboard, but streaming is there, and that’s promising if she can keep that groundswell going!
Anyway, we’ve got a healthy enough list of new arrivals here, so let’s start this off with…
96. ‘Attitude’ by Don Toliver ft. Charlie Wilson & Cash Cobain - this is the sort of collaboration that I was actually kind of intrigued by - I don’t really care for the most recent Don Toliver material but pairing him with Charlie Wilson could be really cool, and Cash Cobain is on the come-up right now, if he’s got a song that can distract from that atrocious collab with J. Cole, the better! Unfortunately, the buzz I also heard about this track was that it doesn’t really work at all… although I think explaining why that’s the case is kind of tricky. Starting with the production, it liberally samples Charlie Wilson’s adlibs on the Snoop Dogg / Pharrell collaboration ‘Beautiful’, a 2003 that I’ve never liked mostly because of the painfully weedy mix and especially that guitar, so stripping it down the vocal alongside a more polished bassy drill groove is a decent idea, even if trying to add that frail woodwind/keyboard melody doesn’t really give the song much momentum or focus. But then Charlie Wilson comes in for an interlude and frankly blows everyone else off the song - he sounds great and invigorated and… wow, Don Toliver and Cash Cobain aren’t even close to that level of intensity as they ramble through their flexing and talking about stealing your girl. I think some of this might have been helped if the song felt coherently structured - don’t bring in the bridge and interlude so early so Charlie Wilson doesn’t immediately overshadow the verses - but this just feels like a mess. Not a terrible one, but not all that compelling either.
95. ‘your place’ by Ashley Cooke - okay, full disclosure, I was not familiar with Ashley Cooke. Apparently she’s on Big Loud, she independently released her debut in 2022 and built enough traction to get signed and the album re-released, her sophomore album was last year and twenty four songs long, and I heard precisely zero buzz for it in a strong year for country - not a good sign - and despite this being released last July, it’s only now hit the Hot 100. And listening to it, I get why - it’s a pretty basic song about telling off some ex who is trying to still be involved in her life that she needs space and her place is no longer his. It’s not a bad sentiment, but the execution feels a bit underwhelming to me - pleasantly warm modern country production with a few glittery electric guitar passages, not reliant on any obvious synthetic elements, but it feels kind of sterile all the same, and Cooke isn’t really an impressive or distinctive singer; maybe it’s the vocal placement being a little deeper in the mix, but she doesn’t bring a lot of character besides some general exasperation, which is appropriate for the song but just isn’t that interesting. I think I’m starting to understand why there wasn’t much buzz for this, next!
84. ‘After Hours’ by Kehlani - We’re now coming up on Kehlani’s fourth album, and I’m still not convinced their potential has been fully realized. Granted, a lot of that was due to issues I had with them continuing to work with Pop & Oak long after their production got stale, and thus seeing that Kehlani was working with new people for this single was encouraging… a little less so relying on a very obvious Nina Sky sample from 2004, but at least I like that song from high school a little more. And I actually quite like the flip here - it’s a nice foundation to structure the bouncier groove with the watery synths and choral vocals, so even if I think the vocal mix still feels a little slapdash and they could have done more to flesh out the rather limited fidelity of the old drums, Kehlani is game to bring a lot of energy for a basic but generally steamy club hookup song where they’re looking to take it to the next spot. It reminds me a lot of the breezy pop/R&B that Tyla had on her album this year, but that might not be a great comparison for Kehlani, at least in terms of obvious production limitations - this song should feel more lush than it does, especially going into the summer. Overall I reckon this will work, I think it’s a good song… but it should be better.
83. ‘The Craving (Jenna’s Version)’ by twenty one pilots - look, I didn’t expect a twenty one pilots album bomb, especially for a record that has advertised itself as reconnecting to the duo’s lore, even if that didn’t really happen. But I was hoping we’d get more than this, the acoustic ballad version of a song for Tyler Joseph’s wife, and not one of his stronger ones; I said this in my review of the album, this is no ‘Formidable’ - hell, it’s not even a ‘Tear In My Heart’. I don’t think the arrangement does anyone a lot of favours - a very spare ukulele as the primary accompaniment, I’ve heard plenty of lightly twee relationship songs in this template, and outside of a slightly darker timbre in general, I can’t say this does much to differentiate itself, especially as soon as Joseph dips into his falsetto and whistling. The writing is… fine, I guess - trying to satisfy each other’s needs, understanding that good intentions aren’t enough, hoping that she can recognize when he’s battling his demons so some grace can be granted, especially as they try to ride it out with each other… it has the bone-deep feel of a longterm relationship where they’re trying to convince themselves the embers of passion are still there, and while Joseph is hoping he doesn’t take more than he gives, the balance feels unsteady. I dunno, I understand there’s an emotional core here, but this feels very limp to me - not a fan.
72. ‘Si No Es Contigo’ by Cris Mj - I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised that after ‘Gata Only’ picks up more traction than I could ever expect we’d get more from Cris Mj… I also shouldn’t be surprised it’s not very good, with Cris Mj showing precisely zero distinct personality as he’s stuck midway behind the lead whistling melody and clumsily mixed stock percussion. It’s kind of a shame because there are parts of this beat I like - the lead melody has a gentle elegance that’s pretty catchy and when the percussion gets a little more textured or sandy it’s actually quite pretty - but Cris Mj is such a gaping void of presence and his horniness isn’t particularly interesting, although that line about asking to get ‘taken advantage of’ on the second verse raised an eyebrow, even if I assume I’m missing something in the translation. Overall, let me know if the remix brings on someone interesting, next!
44. ‘U My Everything’ by Sexyy Red ft. Drake - It’s incredibly annoying to be lumped in among the folks who don’t really like Sexyy Red, especially as I have reasons beyond the bargain-barrel sexism - I have no problem with her content, but I think she’s incredibly limited in the execution, as her flow isn’t that good and I don’t see a higher ceiling. Now reportedly her new project has been getting more mixed reviews than some of the acclaim she got for Hood’s Hottest Princess, with a lot of the most negative opinions being tied to this song… and I get it, because who the hell told Sexyy Red that she should sing? And I thought she was a mediocre rapper, her melodic flows and singing are sloppy and offkey to a distracting degree, it sounds like something she’d release as a parody or pisstake, and alongside that faux opulent melody backed by Tay Keith’s very metallic percussion, it’s a very rough fit. Then we get the content, which is trying to be more like a love song - does anyone want that from Sexyy Red, where I’m almost wondering whether this is just a joke because I don’t buy any sincerity… not helped by Drake showing up as the guest star. Look, I get that Drake is trying to get ahead of the memes, win back the internet - Kendrick mocked him on ‘euphoria’ for standing next to Sexyy Red, Drake plays into it and even grabs the AI ‘BBL Drizzy’ beat to try and steal the thunder of that too, play it all as a big joke, and while his flow is competent, it' proves Kendrick’s point especially when Drake spends so much of his verse bragging about all the surgery he can buy this girl as he fucks her on other islands besides Turks! It just exposes how unfunny the joke at the root of this is, in the same way that ‘Way 2 Sexy’ wasn’t fucking funny three years ago, it’s a played out punchline! The line that’s most revealing on the verse is ‘why you love me, still a mystery’… because I have no idea why someone listens to this and thinks that Drake isn’t humiliating himself with bad punchlines like ‘I’ll turn librarian for you, I’m bookin’ that shit’ or ‘you think I’m a bachelor, girl, I swear / you ain’t got your masters, but I stay breaking your back in the master bedroom’; if you’re making even the slightest implication about Sexyy Red’s master recordings in the double entendre, it’s tacky and gross. Yeah, if crap like this causes both acts to quiet down for a while, I’d be just fine with it - this sucks, next!
22. ‘BAND4BAND’ by Central Cee & Lil Baby - …you know, we didn’t have to let Central Cee crossover, right? Put aside all the grime acts that the US ignores for better or worse, why is this guy getting the big label push and notable cosigns from rappers that should know better - glaring right at J. Cole here! But fine, in the grand tradition of tedium recognizing its own, here we have Central Cee with Lil Baby and… okay, I’ll say this, it doesn’t sound as nakedly cynical as I expected - Central Cee and Lil Baby actually do trade bars on the hook, and the chalky UK drill production is pretty slick and well-produced, that melody has some menace. The problem is that once you expect these guys to actually say something, there’s very little here - they’re competing on how much money they can flex, Central Cee is perpetually complaining that his luxury isn’t quite as convenient as he’d prefer, and the most interesting thing Lil Baby says amidst the flexing is implying there might be a chance for he and Gunna to peace it up. Outside of that… I think the production carries it, but I’m not going to care in record time.
6. ‘Pink Skies’ by Zach Bryan - So it looks like Zach Bryan is gearing up for the next album, with the frankly excellent title The Great American Bar Scene, and this appears to be the lead-off single that’s getting label attention. And not gonna lie, if it wasn’t Zach Bryan, I’d be shocked they’re pushing this at all, because as a single it’s an odd choice: the ramshackle acoustic interplay between the mandolin, banjo and guitar, the blaring harmonica against the clattering drums, Bryan’s husky and low-key singing with more backing vocals, the mix peppered with warm fragments of sampled atmosphere, it’s a song that feels built to feel like home with every rough edge. And that only accentuates the quiet heartbreak at the core - the kids are older and are back for a funeral, where they’re cleaning up the old family house and the memories come pouring back to hopefully obscure where some might be at now, be they yuppies or living rough. There’s a lot of speculation that Bryan is singing about his mother who passed away, but honestly it’s effective regardless of that personal connection, heartfelt enough that it sticks the landing as a pretty solid self-produced Zach Bryan ballad. Not sure I’d call it one of my favourites, but the textures are so appealing that I’m almost won over on sound alone - really damn good song.
And hell, best of the week… not that it was facing much competition, with the Honourable Mention going to ‘After Hours’ by Kehlani. Worst of the week… yeah, ‘U My Everything’ by Sexyy Red and Drake, what a fucking disaster, beating out ‘Attitude’ by Don Toliver, Charlie Wilson, and Cash Cobain which the more I think about it should have been much better. Next week… again, not a lot of album competition, so it might just be singles fluctuation and that new Eminem single, so stay tuned for that…