billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 22, 2021

…so, you might all be wondering why this episode is late. Well, for once it actually has nothing to do with me, as Billboard themselves had to delay their Hot 100 charts for additional auditing and examination of specific channels, which resulted in the charts getting delayed and a specific fanbase melting down. We’ll get into why in a bit, but I will say for an otherwise pretty dry week in between album bombs, it did make things interesting - and gave me a Tuesday night off for once, which I did appreciate.

Anyway, our top ten, and where the controversy is: ‘Leave The Door Open’ by Silk Sonic has returned to the #1. Now as I said last week, what would wind up on top was a margins game, and that absolutely popped up here, as its dominant radio and slightly stronger YouTube just edged out its competition… which is ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa ft. DaBaby at #2. This song was actually projected to go to #1 based upon its sales advantage, strong radio, and better streaming, but according to Billboard and external projections, the edge Dua Lipa lost came in sales, where it has been rumoured there was bulk international buying using US VPNs, as well as bulk buying from other websites. Now I said this on Twitter, this sort of gamesmanship I usually tend to mock regularly, but for artists whose record deals can have incentives built in for #1 hits, and labels who want that added run of publicity, to say nothing of fanbases who wanted Dua Lipa to get her first #1, this is contentious, and I would expect demands for transparency in these audit processes or a rules change to be coming down the pipeline sooner rather than later. And at #3, ‘Peaches’ by Justin Bieber ft. Daniel Caesar and Giveon, which outside of a pretty convincing radio run is falling back in and of itself! All of this knocked ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande off the top to #4, mostly thanks to sales and streaming falling back and radio peaking - the top spot was clinched there, it can ebb away naturally. It’ll probably get passed by ‘Kiss Me More’ by Doja Cat and SZA soon at #5 - streaming is still rock solid, and while radio gains are slow, they’re picking up where they need to… which unfortunately is true for ‘Astronaut In The Ocean’ by Masked Wolf up to #6 because the sales and streaming are holding their own and the radio is moving, albeit slower. This put it over ‘RAPSTAR’ by Polo G at #7, where streaming is still strong but the utter lack of sales and radio really being slow to get onboard will hold this back from getting higher… and that takes us to the upcoming story in the next week: debuting at #8, ‘interlude’ by J. Cole. It’s pretty much just here on streaming, which will be the story of the album bomb coming next week, and while I’ll get into the actual song later on, I will say it’ll be interesting to see which of J. Cole’s tracks achieve higher chart penetration, because even if I’m middling on the album, I think it does have some cuts that could see surprising traction. But it also meant that ‘Without You’ by Kid LAROI and Miley Cyrus got elbowed back to #9 as it couldn’t quite pick up enough sales and radio to close the margin, and ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X slid to #10 because even if radio seems to finally be getting on board, he’s got one hell of a margin to close to get higher.

Now given that this is a transitional week, when we go to our losers and dropouts there aren’t many surprises - in the latter category we saw ‘Somebody Like That’ by Tenille Arts make an early exit, along with ‘Go Crazy’ by Chris Brown and Young Thug which easily clinches its year-end spot. And our losers are pretty easy to predict as well, with album bombs like from DJ Khaled fading off the debut with ‘I Did It’ with Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Baby and DaBaby at 88 and ‘Let It Go’ with Justin Bieber and 21 Savage at 94, and for Moneybagg Yo ‘Shottas (Lala)’ at 72 and ‘Go!’ with BIG30 at 100. Also off the debut we saw ‘Country Again’ by Thomas Rhett at 95 and ‘Botella Tras Botella’ by Gera MX and Christan Nodal continue to slip to 89, but the surprise for me came with Billie Eilish: ‘Your Power’ fell pretty hard off its debut to 29, and ‘therefore i am’ took a hit as well at 45… not great for momentum, although radio being slow on the former and softening on the latter might be the bigger culprit here.4

Now as in the majority of transition weeks, I have no expectations of any of the gains and returns here, especially in the latter category with ‘Chasing After You’ by Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris at 90 and ‘Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)’ by Elle King and Miranda Lambert clawing back at 98. But it’s more suspect in our gains - AJR pushed ‘Way Less Sad’ to 85, ‘Hello’ by the late Pop Smoke and A Boogie wit da Hoodie is at 84, ‘Arcade’ by Duncan Laurence is riding slow radio growth to 78, and ‘Wockesha’ by Moneybagg Yo got a big streaming spike to 42 - it looks like this is starting to pick up a lot of virality, but I’m not quite sure from where right now. Honestly, what might wind up the most stable are the gains for ‘Blame It On You’ by Jason Aldean up to 71 and the boost of the debut for ‘Single Saturday Night’ by Cole Swindell at 80 - country radio tends to withstand album bombs pretty effectively, we’ll have to see here.

Now thankfully we’ve got a pretty reasonable list of new arrivals here, starting off with…

96. ‘Minimum Wage’ by Blake Shelton - okay, before everyone either gets excited or grabs a pitchfork, this is Blake Shelton, if you’re expecting him to either make a song arguing for a higher livable wage or hop on the bandwagon of chains who are complaining about how people don’t want to come back to shitty jobs when they could find better options or have collective bargaining power, you can relax. The title of the song implies more going on than there actually is, Blake Shelton is one of the most profoundly cynical artists working in Nashville and him taking a risk in content is pretty much out of the question. If anything, this feels closer to what Chris Stapleton already did better with ‘Millionaire’ a few years back, the ‘I’m dirt broke but being in love makes a man feel rich on minimum wage’. And the funny thing is once you reset your expectations and realize controversy is off the table, the song actually winds up pretty decent - Blake Shelton has more charisma and presence than so many of his peers, and even if the handclap feels pretty flimsy and you can tell most of his groove section was lifted wholesale from Eric Church, especially the booming kickdrum and wiry guitars, the sharper piano line does a lot to underscore the melody that kicks into a more organic and neotraditional tone where Shelton has always sounded comfortable. Because again, with the success of more acts picking up twang and organic instrumentation, Shelton is just going back to a lane where he’s run plenty of times before - and with a veteran’s comfort, this winds up good; I’ll take it.

82. ‘What You Need’ by Don Toliver - this might surprise some of you: ‘Lemonade’ by Internet Money, with the big hook from Don Toliver that was the best part of that song? Yeah, it grew on me a decent bit, and even if I think Don Toliver has some questionable melodic instincts, he does take more risks than many of his peers and that’s the big reason I really wanted to give this a chance. And… okay, outside of the fact that the content is utterly empty in buying this girl brand names and drugs to they can have sex, I think where this loses me a bit is the slower tempo and weaker groove. The organs and pianos behind the reasonably well-mixed trap percussion are fine but what made ‘Lemonade’ work was how Don Toliver could play into the energy of the guitar melody, whereas this feels more lethargic and sleepy, and he’s not exactly bringing much to lift it up. Hell, when he tries he’s almost peaking in the vocals and they drop a filter to prevent that from happening. I dunno, for a lead-off single this feels underweight - not hooked on this one, at least not yet.

74. ‘All I Know So Far’ by P!nk - look, I like P!nk as a singer a lot - I used to like her as a pop star and artist over a decade ago but that’s faded as she’s gotten a fair bit older and made less interesting music. Which happens, sure, but it didn’t give me expectations, especially considering the disaster of a song she made with Keith Urban. And thus… yeah, there’s not much to say about this one. Greg Kurstin ramps up the choppy acoustics and thicker low-end to give it some swell - even if the vocal mixing sounds a bit iffy - and as much as P!nk can really sell the self-esteem anthem sincerity in a song dedicated to her daughter trying to give her advice to ‘be herself’ and fully experience her emotions, I feel like P!nk could write this in her sleep and it wouldn’t stick out. She’s definitely made worse versions of this song, but this isn’t memorable or special - next!

56. ‘Never Left’ by Lil Tecca - …okay, he basically just sets me up with that song title to say, ‘I wouldn’t have noticed if you were here or gone either way’… but the truth is that Lil Tecca has had difficulty building any sort of staying power. And even if I wound up mostly liking ‘Ran$om’ long after it was cool, this was a kid I didn’t expect to have more success… and if he’s thinking this’ll be what gets him there, I’m not remotely convinced. The wispy tropical instrumental with the lumpy trap percussion, the basic flow that highlights just how derivative he is, admitting on his first verse that he bought his swag, the fact that nothing else he mentions is remotely interesting or memorable, it’s not even that it’s bad so much as it feels like it barely exists. At least the pop trap I like has hooks - this isn’t worth thinking about, let’s move on.

53. ‘Higher Power’ by Coldplay - I was hearing some interesting buzz about this one, that it was going in more of an 80s-inspired direction a few years late to being on the trend, and had Max Martin as a cowriter and producer… and look, the Coldplay that I truly loved is long gone and their last album was handily their worst, so going back on the pop pivot with the glossy tapping synths that by the time we get to the final hook build a little swell and clattering new wave drums… I mean, it’s not a terrible idea, but until the last hook Chris Martin sounds utterly checked out, even more than in the mid-2010s! When it comes to this sort of upbeat synthpop you want to embrace the scale and whirling energy, whereas this sounds utterly lacking in commitment to get there, down to the basic ‘I’m in love and dancing with you’ that I don’t buy for a second that Martin actually believes, which might be why they try to drop so many different backing vocals to add flavour to it! You can tell Max Martin is trying to add that pop focus and melodic punch, but that works when he has an act who is going to commit to the moment, and Coldplay just don’t sound like they’re there. I mean, it’s fine… but I remember an era when this band was better than fine.

11. ‘Miss The Rage’ by Trippie Redd & Playboi Carti - what is it this week and giving me easy song titles to make quippy remarks - I don’t miss the rage, it’s bad for my blood pressure! But anyway, this is the sort of collaboration that makes entirely much sense as a lead-off single to a new Trippie Redd album, because apparently that one for which I specifically made a solo review he’s just going to ignore and keep plowing ahead… and yet, this is the single that nearly made the top 10 by cribbing from the Whole Lotta Red formula with a grainy sample and badly mixed bass, and that’s before they tack on some chipmunked vocals in the background. And from there… look, there’s just not much to this, especially when you have a song this leaden and heavy that doesn’t flatter either artist on it. I thought there was potential with Trippie Redd going trap rock, and if you give Playboi Carti something with gloss and bounce it has potential, but an instrumental like this drags everyone down, especially as Carti describes eating out a woman with the sort of detail that makes none of it attractive. And look, I get this is supposed to sound raw and DIY and if it slaps than nobody cares about everything else it does wrong, pulling from that Soundcloud rap approach despite both acts being long past it, but there’s a difference between raw heaviness and a lack of dynamics or competent mixing, so yeah, I’m not on-board.

8. ‘i n t e r l u d e’ by J. Cole - you know, I spent a lot of time reviewing J. Cole’s The Off Season on my main channel - if you haven’t seen it, check out the review, as YouTube recommended it less than 15% of the time - but I didn’t actually talk much about this song… because as much as it’s a ‘flex’ to have a single be an interlude on your album, it comes with the fact that there’s just not a lot to say about it. It’s a single verse bracketed by some samples from producer Tommy Parker before the sandy trap percussion slides in and J. Cole goes off about the violence he sees in the streets, where his grind got him out of it but he still sees the impact. And while you can tell he’s annoyed with stream trolling by dropping a potshot at double disk releases, the most interesting concept is referring to Jesus Christ teaching about turning the other cheek and how that doesn’t seem like adequate advice to J. Cole in the streets, especially as he wonders if any of Jesus’ crew was getting killed. And I can answer that question firmly as yes, as John The Baptist was executed on a whim of King Herod’s wife, and if you read any biblical apocrypha or understand the history of Roman occupation of Judea, there were plenty of people who wanted Jesus to strike back against Roman oppression, become King of the Jews, including Judas Iscariot, and not only did Jesus not want any of that, he wound up being brought before Pontius Pilate on that charge which he would reject again, and get killed anyway! So when J. Cole thinks he’s making a profound statement by highlighting Jesus, Nipsey Hussle and Pimp C were all killed at 33, great men taken before their time, it’s exasperating he sees the tragedy but goes no further… because this is just an interlude, and it feels like the punch was pulled.

And the funny thing is that outside of that frustration, it’s still the best piece of music here, it’s getting best of the week, but the capacity was there for more. Worst of the week is ‘Miss The Rage’ by Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti - sorry, no groove and bad mixing and underweight presentation has it wind up as a dud for me, it happens. Next week, it’s all J. Cole, and it’s likely to debut high enough that my album bomb rules will be insufficient and I’ll wind up covering all of it - stay tuned for that!