billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 2, 2020
…I mean, surprise? Look, we all knew DaBaby’s next project would be an album bomb, and I bet more than half of you knew the album was a rushed cash grab that at best felt repetitive and at worst was a complete waste of time. Sadly, that looks to be indicative of most of the week on the Hot 100 here - not looking great, let’s just say that - but hey, the way things are going, I don’t expect it to last.
So let’s get started with our top ten, where ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd is still holding sway at #1, mostly thanks to ruling sales and the radio so definitively that its weaker but still robust streaming keeps it solid. It’s a strong, well-rounded hit in a way that ‘Toosie Slide’ by Drake is not at #2 - yes, it’s got streaming and YouTube and good sales and even radio momentum, but he’s stuck closing a much bigger gap with a much weaker song, and virality bleeds away faster than ever these days. This puts ‘The Box’ by Roddy Ricch at #3 - streaming is still good but sales are down and radio is wavering' - and ‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa at #4 - which is fading across the board but has such big margins on the radio that it’s going to take time to fall off. This takes us to ‘Say So’ by Doja Cat at #5, which is absolutely making a radio run… but its sales are still not great and it actually lags Dua Lipa on streaming, which is not something I expected. Then we have ‘Circles’ by Post Malone actually picking up a spot to #6, even as it’s fading everywhere, but it still has enough of a margin in streaming and sales to beat out ‘Adore You’ by Harry Styles, which fell to #7 as it looks to be bleeding everywhere. Not a good sign, as ‘Intentions’ by Justin Bieber and Quavo is still holding at #8 - you can thank continued strength across the board for that - but that leads to a new arrival in the top ten, courtesy of that album bomb I mentioned: ‘ROCKSTAR’ by DaBaby ft. Roddy Ricch. I’ll get into more about this song much later on, but its streaming is enormous and they had good sales… probably won’t last, given how album bombs go, but at least one of the better songs from the album is doing well? Anyway, it knocked back ‘Life Is Good’ by Future ft. Drake to #10, which might still have insane YouTube and good streaming, but it’s not getting any higher given how the radio has plainly given up on it - good.
On that note, losers and dropouts, which in the latter category is characterized by ‘Suicidal’ by YNW Melly likely getting a year-end list slot - did not predict or see that coming - and ‘Ridin Roads’ by Dustin Lynch getting knocked off early, but the big story is that ‘Yummy’ by Justin Bieber is outright gone! It’s probably clinched a year-end list spot by its high early positioning, but it’s not nearly as guaranteed as it could be, and the fact that it failed this badly is honestly a testament to something going right this year! But given we did have an album bomb, we also had a lot of losers here - some you expect off the debut like ‘Level Of Concern’ by twenty one pilots sliding to 45, or ‘Broke In A Minute’ by Tory Lanez at 90 or ‘Die From A Broken Heart’ by Maddie & Tae at 94. Others are just continuing to collapse, like ‘Turks’ by NAV, Gunna & Travis Scott at 78, ‘you should be sad’ by Halsey at 80, and ‘Homemade’ by Jake Owen at 81. The rest, though… some of these feel like the definition of underperforming: why else is ‘Stupid Love’ by Lady Gaga sliding hard to 46, or ‘Godzilla’ by Eminem ft. Juice WRLD falling to 66, orr ‘BELIEVE IT’ by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna at 75, or ‘Come Thru’ by Summer Walker and Usher at 79. Granted, some of these did better than anyone expected and are fading a little more naturally, like ‘Catch’ by Brett Young at 52, or ‘In Your Eyes’ by The Weeknd at 55, or ‘Slide’ by H.E.R. ft. YG at 58, or ‘BEST ON EARTH’ by Russ and BIA at 62. Then we have the hard crash for ‘Slow Dance In A Parking Lot’ by Jordan Davis at 73, the expected fade for ‘Safaera’ by Bad Bunny, Jowell & Randy and Nengo Flow at 99, ‘Myron’ by Lil Uzi Vert continuing down to 88, and ‘Be A Light’ by Thomas Rhett and co. dropping to 83 - which might be more telling than you think, as it doesn’t seem like the quarantine charity songs are doing quite as well as the artist might expect.
Instead, we have DaBaby, where for our only gain ‘Find My Way’ rebounded to 33 - called it. But that also means album bomb rules are in effect, and since I already reviewed the project through On The Pulse and the majority of the project fell below the top 40, here’s the songs that aren’t the best nor worst of the week that aren’t getting full reviews: ‘CHAMPION’ at 85, ‘TALK ABOUT IT’ at 74, ‘DROP’ with A Boogie wit da Hoodie & London on da Track at 71, ‘SAD SHIT’ at 69, ‘BLAME IT ON BABY’ at 64, ‘CAN’T STOP’ at 63, ‘LIGHTSKIN SHIT’ with Future and jetsonmade at 53 - although this was close to being among the worst, ‘NASTY’ with Megan Thee Stallion and Ashanti of all people at 50, and ‘PICK UP’ with Quavo at 44.
Got that? Good, because now we’re onto our new arrivals, starting with…
97. ‘God Whispered Your Name’ by Keith Urban - so, Keith Urban has a new album coming… and I really wish I could get excited for it, but his last marginally good project was in 2013 and since he’s gone pop in really unflattering ways he’s paradoxically found a decent amount of success, so I had no expectations this was going to be good. And thus this being mostly passable was a nice enough surprise… but it’s still kind of muted when Keith Urban is stuck with an acoustic pickup that’s more texture than tone and how his attempt at gospel swell with his own backing vocals is utterly limp. Which feels like a shame, given this is a song all about how this girl’s love is basically a religious experience for him, and you’d think being married to Nicole Kidman would give you more soul and passion to work with here! As it is, it kind of reminds me a lot of contemporary Christian music - pleasant enough, but kind of limp and boring and the last thing I’d like to revisit, even if it is better than most of what he’s released the past several years.
92. ‘After Party’ by Don Toliver - I mean, credit to Don Toliver for still trying to push singles right now… but wow, this is bad! For one, I don’t like Post Malone’s warbling delivery when he does it, and Don Toliver with the benefit of Autotune trying it is somehow even worse, before you get the cluttered pileup of off-key twinkles, leaden bass, and one of the most gutless and ugly horn pickups I’ve heard in recent memory! And that would assume the damn thing is even produced well, but no, the bass starts clipping the mix and some of the vocal layers sound flat as hell, leading to a song that’s already atonal and misshapen sounding even worse! I guess the one thing I can say is that the lyrics don’t suck and there is a hook here, but that’s more because like a good Travis Scott protege the lyrics don’t matter in a wallowing, drug-addled spiral. In other words, this sounds like the headache I’ve gotten at a bad after party, and not one I’m looking to revisit at all - next!
86. ‘I Dare You’ by Kelly Clarkson - so I don’t want to sound mean by saying this, but I thought Kelly Clarkson had stopped releasing music. I wouldn’t blame her for that - her career has been derailed most of this decade and she now has own her daytime variety talk show on NBC that to her credit is doing really well! And thus I didn’t consider she’d use said show to push her music, which is why this is here… and honestly, I wish it sounded like less of a side-project. Kelly Clarkson still has a rich and potent voice and I like how the song stays in darker, minor key timbres and is clearly trying to build some potent swell off of it… shame nobody in the production team knows how to do that! What’s infuriating is that this is the same damn issue that a lot of singers with big voices have seen the past several years in pop: nobody can produce for them or give their multi-tracking the space to breathe and not sound clipped or flat, both of which happen here against the messy attempt at melody and clipped drum machines behind her, none of which have the dynamics to deliver any sort of bombast. And when you pair it with a pretty undercooked sentiment about daring you to love your fellow man - which is only a half-step removed from charty single territory - it just sounds really cheap and underwhelming. Not even so much bad as it is thoroughly forgettable.
61. ‘More Than My Hometown’ by Morgan Wallen - third time’s the charm? Yeah, Morgan Wallen’s got a new single and since both ‘Whiskey Glasses’ and ‘Chasin’ You’ fell flat for me with any sort of deeper consideration, I didn’t have expectations for this, even though from listening to interviews and his cover of Jason Isbell’s ‘Cover Me Up’ I’ve been wanting to like this guy! And with this… it might be his best yet, but it’s still not that good. For one, his voice sounds absolutely shredded and hoarse here, and not in a way that adds grit or texture to the song - indeed, something weird about the production is how watery and blurry a lot of the guitars and vocal pickups sound, which coming from Joey Moi is surprising. And he sounds so rough on the hook it sounds like he’s saying ‘bass’ instead of ‘bass’… and yet if that was the only thing that didn’t work about this hook, that’d be one thing, but then we hit the content, where he makes a choice between his girl who wants to see the world and their hometown… and he chooses the town. What’s weird is that the framing is very wistful and regretful - there’s no anger here, and that puts it similar in line to a song like ‘L.A.X.’ by Jake Owen, but not only does this song feel kind of guilt-trippy in its first verse, we do live in an era where long-distance is a thing! I’ve done it, my sister and her now husband did it for a long time when he was halfway across the country for months, the choice he’s making feels very flimsy, and gives me the impression he might have been looking for the excuse to end this. So yeah, I hate to say it but Morgan Wallen is 0-3 in my books - I keep trying to like him, but this doesn’t work.
36. ‘I’m Ready’ by Sam Smith & Demi Lovato - can somebody at Sam Smith’s label please explain what the hell is happening with this album rollout? I get that ‘radio acts’ like them need the publicity run in a way superstars or the leaner, streaming acts don’t, but they were multiple singles into a release with real hits, so why now are you delaying indefinitely with another new single with Demi Lovato, with the same title as an AJR song? Well, okay, that’s not fair: the closer comparison in sound and structure really is ‘…Ready For It?’ by Taylor Swift, in that the verses go for this thudding, blown out bass presence juxtaposed with a hook trying to be more anthemic, and while neither Demi no Sam try to rap, what’s more alarming is that it’s not sexy at all - it’s either leaden and eerie or trying for grand choral swells, and it’s really awkward as both of these artists have delivered in this lane in the past! Couple that with ending on an oddly dark note and with production that never lands the bombast… yeah, this is a complete misstep across the board and a real disappointment from them both. In other words, this is bad - next!
35. ‘@MEH’ by Playboi Carti - it’s a really bad sign of how bad this week is that I’m hoping Playboi Carti of all people will save it… even without Pi’erre Bourne on production. And this is coming from someone who at this point I think I ‘get’ Playboi Carti’s appeal - it’s about the ad-libs, the sugar rush of production, the hype of it all, and the memes… I just wish I liked any of it. And yet I’m stuck with the feeling this can’t even deliver on that promise - the ad-libs are tinny and stuck in fragments around the jjittery cascades, leaden bass, and standard trap beat, the entire production feels really undercooked and poorly blended; I’m not nearly as hyped as I want to be - forget caring about the lyrics, Playboi Carti’s voice just has no magnetism or pull for me. And as much as I don’t buy into any of the gunplay on this song at all, it starts being actively unbelievable when Playboi Carti is now saying the guy this girl is seeing is so soft, she’s a lesbian; the line is bad as it is, but somehow coming from Carti’s giggling ass, it’s even less credible. Yeah, I get now why even some of the fans weren’t all that hyped about this one… mostly because it’s kind of lousy.
17. ‘JUMP’ by DaBaby ft. YoungBoy Never Broke Again - so the last two songs we’re going through are both cuts I already mentioned in my DaBaby review in On The Pulse, mostly because I’d argue they’re the best songs on the album, with this probably being the better one. But that’s still not saying very much; pretty by the numbers flexing and shooting people where YoungBoy and DaBaby have decent chemistry and trade off bars off a minimalist squonk of production with underweight percussion. Hell, I’d argue at this point production is the much bigger issue for DaBaby than switching up his flow - if he’s only given one real pocket to work with on the beat, which isn’t all that good, what’s he supposed to do? Still, outside of one bizarre moment where he’s trying to get a girl to blow him while he’s got a condom on, this does exactly what it’s designed to do and I pretty much like it. Not great, but pretty good.
9. ‘ROCKSTAR’ by DaBaby ft. Roddy Ricch - again, I’ve already talked about the problems with this song in my album review: opposite the more melancholic acoustics, DaBaby tries to get a little more introspective and reflective of his shooting incident in the Wal-Mart in front of his daughter and he takes the gunplay a bit more soberly… but the hook doesn’t really lean into that emotion and Roddy Ricch’s verse is neither great nor coherent with the mood of the song. And getting weird or off-kilter on a hype anthem is one thing, but when you’re trying to keep a consistent serious tone, the flexing feels even more out of place and even if SethInTheKitchen’s production is better, it can’t save that much. Still, when it comes to this week, I’ll take what I can get - at least it’s better than the song of the same name from Post Malone and 21 Savage.
And that’s about all we have here, and despite the album not being good, DaBaby is still going to walk away with the two best of the week - ‘JUMP’ with YoungBoy as the best and ‘ROCKSTAR’ with Roddy Ricch as the Honourable Mention - because my god, this week sucked. ‘After Party’ by Don Toliver is easily the worst of the week as a headache-inducing mess, but Dishonourable Mention is going to Sam Smith and Demi Lovato for ‘I’m Ready’ - such a disappointment that plays to neither of their strengths, and it makes me have a lot of serious questions for whoever the hell is managing them right now, my God. Next week… I want to say that the fallout won’t be too bad… but we’ll have to see, stay tuned.