billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 13, 2021

I guess this is what we can call a quiet week. Now that’s not surprising - the release schedule is pretty dry right now especially for mainstream acts, we’ve got the Drake three pack next week, and there’s nothing wrong with catching a breather… but I will say it’s a bit surprising that of all the weeks where Billboard is late uploading the charts, I’m a bit surprised it was this one.

Well, I’m not about to waste much time, so our top ten… and ‘drivers license’ by Olivia Rodrigo is still at #1, basically with the sales and streaming traction translating to the top spot on the radio… but man, those margins have shrunk considerably, this could fall away at any time and I do consider it vulnerable if Drake is targeting a #1 debut. That would mean going past ‘Up’ by Cardi B at #2, which is running streaming with good sales and has considerable radio traction… but again, this is all a margins game, and I still think this hasn’t seen its peak. But then we have ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd back up to #3… and look, I still love the song, but the fact that it’s spent a solid year in the top 10 kind of blows my mind, mostly because of how slow its exit has been. Compare this to ‘34+35’ by Ariana Grande ft. Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion holding at #4, but given how it lost traction on streaming, it’s holding its position rather than actual traction, and the stronger evidence of that comes with ‘Go Crazy’ by Chris Brown and Young Thug down to #5 as it looks like the radio is trying to finally rotate the damn song out, and aggressively at that. This may open up room for ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd at #6… except it looks like its radio hit a peak this week and the streaming has stagnated, which is just an earlier stage of what we got for ‘Mood’ by 24kGoldn and iann dior at #7, where its streaming and radio are just contracting outright. Then we have ‘Calling My Phone’ by Lil Tjay and 6LACK at #8, and yes, the streaming is still really strong… but it has no radio traction or any significant sales, so again, it’s more the weaknesses below it than any strength of its own, which is why ‘What You Know About Love’ by Pop Smoke crept back into the top 10 at #9 despite wavering radio all week. And even then, I could also probably blame that on ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa holding its spot at #10 despite its radio losses.

My point is that the chart is really in the right state to be broken wide open, so even if we don’t have much in the way of losers and dropouts, they could easily be coming. In the latter category, the only real stories are the underperformance of ‘Afterglow’ by Ed Sheeran and ‘Monster’ by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber, the latter of which still fascinates me given how much I was convinced he had career traction before this album. Unfortunately our losers are nowhere near as interesting - mostly predictable, as ‘Lonely’ by Justin Bieber and benny blanco skids to 41 and ‘Body’ by Megan Thee Stallion at 56 head towards an expected exit, ‘Wasted On You’ and ‘Somebody’s Problem’ by Morgan Wallen hit 62 and 93 on their way out, and ‘Drankin N Smokin’ by Future and Lil Uzi Vert lost any fleeting momentum to #94. Finally to round things out there’s ‘hole in the bottle’ by Kelsea Ballerini at 89 - as I predicted last week, it’s getting rotated out for the year, and had a pretty decent run while we’re at it.

But where our losers were predictable, I’m not really making heads or tails about our returns and gains here, where the only one in the former category is ‘Bichota’ by Karol G at 100 coming back yet again, likely thanks to its persistent international presence. But we saw a lot of gains off the debut last week, and while I won’t complain about ‘The Business’ by Tiesto at 81 or ‘Telepatia’ by Kali Uchis at 39, I’m a lot more reticent about ‘Track Star’ by Mooski at 66, or ‘Hello’ by the late Pop Smoke and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie finding traction at 85. And it’s not a good sign when the best of our other gains is ‘My Head and my Heart’ by Ava Max at 45, because otherwise we have ‘One Too Many’ by Keith Urban and P!nk somehow sticking around to 75, or ‘Astronaut In The Ocean’ by Masked Wolf continuing up to 49, or in the most inexplicable case, ‘Beat Box’ by Spottemgottem spiking to 15 because it suddenly got a major push on streaming and sales… likely thanks to the Lil Durk remix, because he just does that.

But from there we have a pretty small sized list of new arrivals - a lot of country here, funnily enough, starting with…

99. ‘Gone’ by Dierks Bentley - …I mean, there’s a part of me that looks at this song and thinks, ‘would it have been so hard to push Hot Country Knights to radio, try and drive some traction that way’, but I get the impression that Bentley has an unspoken agreement with his label that they’ll let him goof off and make the best material of his career so long as he swings around and makes something that’s more commercially accessible. So of course all that rich organic neotraditional warmth is swapped out for a clunkier mix with thin acoustics and a weirdly jerky hook that seems like it places Bentley’s vocals a bit too far back, and I’m left wondering what the tone of this is supposed to be. It’s taking the implied break-up, go-off-the-beaten-path approach with a lighter hand, but it’s also hard to ignore how this song resembles Alan Jackson’s ‘Gone Crazy’, especially with its central line on the chorus, and this is far from that level of quality. I mean, I don’t dislike it, but I also don’t really care about it - and for a new Dierks Bentley single, that’s a problem.

96. ‘Nobody’ by Dylan Scott - the last time I talked about Dylan Scott was around 2017-18, who had two singles with a completely forgettable chart run, half because his music was completely unremarkable and trend-chasing, half because he was on Curb Records and likely found all of his momentum stalling out given that label’s pedigree of ruining careers. But thanks to the success of Lee Brice it seemed like Curb started turning things around, and that means giving another chance to other names on their roster, with a song Scott first dropped two years ago - and hey, if you want something that wants to chase a half-step behind Kane Brown and sounds like utterly generic boyfriend country complete with fake handclaps and more focus on percussion that actively brings in trap elements than much in the way of melody, Dylan Scott delivered? The frustrating thing is that this guy does have a unique, thicker lower register that kind of seems like it would fit alongside Brett Eldredge, but the production and writing just gives him nothing to work with. So yeah, it just winds up as forgettable as always… but do you want to hear someone who has all of this but somehow is worse?

92. ‘Breaking Up Was Easy In The 90s’ by Sam Hunt - I think what annoys me the most with this song is how it’s got such an obvious lay-up and it squanders it in the shallowest way possible - par for the course with Sam Hunt, but you could structure a song like this off of the great country breakup songs of the 90s, add a little more framing to your nostalgia. But for as much as that’s the most recognizable line of the song, it doesn’t really match the sentiment of Sam Hunt stalking this girl on social media, hypothesizing on everything she might be doing and why she’s not ‘behind you’, and then calling yourself just a ‘product of the modern generation’ - but here’s the thing, brooding assholes are not exclusive to the 2020s, and with that the entire song just feels really petulant. And even that could work… if anything in the composition or delivery could sell it! The pedal steel and major chord progressions make the song feel brighter than it needs to be, but it’s also trying to slow down and wash itself out and be ‘serious’ for the half spoken word verse that match with nothing off the overpolished and underweight drum machine knock. There’s just no atmosphere to it, it feels flat and phoned in - pardon the pun - and considering how miserable some Sam Hunt songs can be when tries, that says something that he bungles it! That said, it’s not the worst song from Southside, and if he’s not going to push ‘2016’, this was probably his best pick for a single - it’s not remotely good, but it could have been worse.

90. ‘Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home’ by Elle King & Miranda Lambert - I’ll admit I was kind of surprised when I first saw this collaboration - I knew Elle King had connections in country since she worked with Dierks Bentley on ‘Different For Girls’, and from what I’ve heard of her stuff, Miranda Lambert would be an pretty obvious collaborator. Not that’s not to guarantee this would work - initially I was reminded of when Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood teamed up for their underwhelming bad girl team-up with the heavier percussion focus and questionable blending, but this song feels more fully formed than the questionable draft that was ‘Somethin’ Bad’ - King and Lambert have better chemistry and can lean into the rougher rollick of the song more effectively, even if the skittering banjo and acoustics and what could well be millennial whoops make me think this could have worked five to ten years ago and it makes me wonder if this has had a longer development than we’ve realized. But I also like that the song leans into groove and genuine momentum, and there’s enough recklessness in their drunken antics that feel anthemic but also real in a way that lend the song some stakes. Shame that none of us can really go out to make this a barroom staple… but it’s timed for its ascent when we might, and I’d be just fine with that - really damn good song.

74. ‘Only Wanna Be With You’ by Post Malone - I remember when the timeline lost their shit when they heard that this cover exists, but in concept this doesn’t surprise me at all - I’ve often had the feel that Post Malone would be just fine making laid back, guitar-driven, comfortable bar music if he could see success from it in the way Hootie did in the 90s, and both acts have… let’s call them distinctive voices, so did the cover work? Well, putting aside the fact that Post Malone did this as a brand integration with Pokemon and he swapped out the Miami Dolphins reference for the Dallas Cowboys - look, I like Dak Prescott getting his money, but it’s an overpayment for a good not great quarterback that should have been worked out two years ago at least - the cover is okay… at best. Let’s be real, Post Malone’s warble does not have the warmth or presence that Darius Rucker’s voice does, and you can also tell that watt was getting a little too fast and loose with clean production and more synth integration, which doesn’t really match with the down-home, barroom vibe of the song. Granted, I don’t love the original song that much - it’s not a Hootie track I seek out, it’s fine without being all that great or memorable, and I’m not sure Post Malone elevates it, or does enough for the cover that I care all that much. I dunno, this feels like a gimmick that won’t last on the charts more than anything - just doesn’t give me much to work with.

64. ‘AP’ by Pop Smoke - you know, there was a part of me set to go off about how people have really started milking Pop Smoke’s posthumous verses… but this does feel a little different to me, tied into a movie that Pop Smoke played a role called Boogie where he also contributed to the soundtrack. Granted, given my mixed reaction to a lot of Pop Smoke songs, I didn’t have the highest expectations for this… and that might be fair, because while this feels like less of a mainstream concession than Pop Smoke’s posthumous project from last year, it’s a brand of trap and New York drill that doesn’t give me much to work with. Yeah, the shuddering bass and buzzed out percussion is a sound he can work and his voice has always been kind of impressive, but the content is nothing distinctive in shooting people, flexing, and getting blown. It’s not bad, per se - it doesn’t have some of the lines on ‘Dior’ I never liked - but it makes me wonder how much more of this approach for Pop Smoke will have staying power, especially if they push for more posthumous projects. Not bad, but not especially memorable.

And that ends a pretty short week, and one where the best and worst fall out pretty fast: Best of the Week goes to ‘Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)’ by Miranda Lambert and Elle King, and ‘Breaking Up Was Easy In The 90s’ by Sam Hunt nets the worst - again, it might be a better cut on the album, but that doesn’t make it tolerable. Next week we’ve got Drake and maybe even that Bruno Mars / Anderson .Paak collaboration that has promise, stay tuned for it…