billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 25, 2024

You know, after a few pretty intense weeks on the Hot 100, it’s nice to have a bit of a cooldown, let things stabilize a bit, let the dust settle. And yes, I know exactly how funny that is on a week with another brand new #1 and a small album bomb, but in both cases, it feels manageable, the sort of routine chart business of which you become accustomed after doing this for ten years - I can handle Gunna without any issues, especially as I’ve already reviewed the new album, and…

Well, let’s get to it: our new #1, a collab that everyone should have seen coming given how much promo is thrown behind it: ‘I Had Some Help’ by Post Malone, featuring Morgan Wallen. And I can recognize when the industry really wants something to smash in and become a hit, try to recoup some of the money they gave Drake given the body blow delivered to his career thanks to the beef - TikTok and UMG have patched things up, both of these artists roll up under that umbrella, they have a lot of common ground across their audiences, and thus alongside the big sales and streaming breakthrough, you’re seeing some of the most aggressive radio promo in a long time, at least for this week. This was built to overpower any larger beef conversation… but here’s the thing, ‘Not Like Us’ by Kendrick Lamar is firmly at #2 with good sales and great streaming, and the radio promotion is already moving here; it’s doesn’t have the momentum through traditional channels in the same way because radio stations are going to look sideways at some of the accusations being made on a diss record even if it’s a cultural phenomenon folks can dance to… but if the public continues to stay behind this, or Morgan Wallen and Post Malone see a slip on streaming… this could get very interesting. This strands ‘Million Dollar Baby’ by Tommy Richman at #3, where he actually saw sales gains and streaming is still really strong, but radio is so slow to pick up a relative unknown that I don’t see this making serious inroads. Compare this to a nice boost for ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozey at #4 - streaming is rock solid, it actually has better sales, and the radio has finally started to get its act together - I don’t think it’s going to contend for the top spot, but we have a strong hit and a really good song, I cannot complain! Unfortunately only the former is true for the next two rising on the list: ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone at #5 which looks to have finally peaked on radio and sales are on the downturn, and ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims at #6, which actually has better sales and somehow is still getting radio, but loses on the streaming margin. Then we have a slight slip for ‘Like That’ by Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar at #7 - honestly, the fact that it’s holding its own thanks to streaming and continuous radio pickups speaks to Kendrick’s commercial longevity in this beef… which frankly is astounding in his own right, I’m shocked that he’s seen so much momentum in this pipe specifically. Hell, it’s held over ‘Fortnight’ by Taylor Swift and Post Malone at #8, which slipped rather sharply mostly because it just doesn’t have that same established momentum as everything else - and given that it’s a rather low-key single, that’s not entirely surprising either. And yet it still held over ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter at #9 - I know a lot of diehard pop fans are incensed that this isn’t bigger right now, and… look, the streaming is on the upswing and it’s picking up radio, just slower than you might expect and the sales aren’t really there; I can recognize momentum, but it might take time and a bigger push to get higher. Finally we have ‘Too Sweet’ by Hozier bouncing back to #10 - I’m still amazed this had a window to hit #1, but streams are up and sales are good and the radio momentum is only picking up steam, this looks like it’s going to be a proper radio hit with some legs this summer, that’s cool to see!

On the flipside, we have our losers and dropouts, and in the latter group… well, ‘Never Lose Me’ by Flo Milli comfortably has a year-end list spot, the others expose some missing potential: ‘Mmhmm’ by BigXThaPlug, ‘Training Season’ by Dua Lipa, ‘One Of The Girls’ by The Weeknd, JENNIE and Lily Rose Depp, and most depressingly ‘II MOST WANTED’ by Beyonce and Miley Cyrus - make no mistake, it has radio, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any concentrated push and that’s a complete missed opportunity. Granted, when we go to our losers, some of that missed potential is also showing up for ‘Texas Hold Em’ by Beyonce sliding to 49 and ‘Illusion’ by Dua Lipa at 70… the proper industry push is just not manifesting here. Then we have the expected slip of the beef records… although it is telling that Drake is seeing sharper losses here as ‘Push Ups’ fell to 48 and ‘Family Matters’ hit 19; yes, ‘meet the grahams’ by Kendrick Lamar is at 23, but that’s not a record that should be on the Hot 100 at all, the fact that it lasted another week is kind of insane! Then we had the expected Taylor Swift album bomb losses… although not as many as you’d think, her songs are remarkably stable right now: ‘imgonnagetyouback’ at 72, ‘I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)’ at 74, ‘The Black Dog’ at 80, ‘Clara Bow’ at 83, ‘The Prophecy’ at 93, and ‘How Did It End?’ at 98. The rest are kind of all over the place: ‘Wildflowers and Wild Horses’ by Lainey Wilson just has never gotten proper traction so it’s now fading at 78, ‘Tucson Too Late’ by Jordan Davis wobbled again at 81, ‘Hell N Back’ by Bakar and Summer Walker slid to 82 - I know it’s an older song but with the right push this could be a stateside hit this year - ‘Bandit’ by Don Toliver lost all of its gains at 86, ‘Tell Ur Girlfriend’ by Lay Bankz fell to 91, ‘Outskirts’ by Sam Hut hit 95, and ‘Cinderella’ by Future, Metro Boomin and Travis Scott is at 99; frankly, I’m stunned it’s still around.

This takes us to our gains and returns this week, where I’m not really surprised by either of the latter: ‘I Think I’m In Love With You’ by Chris Stapleton is getting a remix with Dua Lipa so it’s back to 100, and ‘prada dem’ by Gunna ft. Offset is back at 60. Speaking of which, in our very limited list of gains we also saw Gunna’s ‘whatsapp (wassam)’ spike to 62 off the debut last week… unfortunately alongside ‘Miles On It’ by Marshmello and Kane Brown at 24 because it looks like it has sales and streaming traction, just lovely. And speaking of bad news, ‘Cowgirls’ by Morgan Wallen and ERNEST is picking up to 31 because apparently Nashville radio wants to get back to moving utter garbage, charming! Now we are on the very edge of album bomb territory for Gunna and I’m not about to make any exceptions here, so outside of the top 40, best, or worst… ‘back in the a’ at 94, ‘collage’ at 76, ‘hakuna matata’ at 67, and ‘on one tonight’ at 54.

Alright, this cleans things up a bit, and we still have a decent-sized list of new arrivals, starting with…

90. ‘Lose My Breath’ by Stray Kids ft. Charlie Puth - …why do I get the sinking feeling that between this and ‘Left and Right’, Charlie Puth has decided that his method of getting back on the charts is flimsy and generally embarrassing k-pop collabs? Now for everyone’s benefit this is not a flip or cover of the original late-period Destiny’s Child song - a song that I’ve never really liked with such busy drumline percussion and where the Jay-Z cowrite is very obvious in hindsight - but this song feels very 2000s R&B as well and not exactly to its benefit with the skittering percussion, more textured kick, very brittle acoustics, beatboxing and vocal production that remind me a lot of the early 2000s boy bands before R&B thoroughly took over. And as such, Charlie Puth is an odd inclusion because while alongside Jungkook the song had balance, here’s he’s just part of the chorus and you can tell how he doesn’t quite have the same chemistry; he’s here for the cosign and little else. Outside of that… the few harmonies we get from Stray Kids feel very touched up and synthetic, the lyrics are pretty flimsy, and while this is in my nostalgia window… I’m pickier when it comes to this, I’m not that impressed.

77. ‘Stargazing’ by Myles Smith - The buzz I’ve heard around this song has been… odd, to say the least, mostly because Myles Smith hasn’t been on my radar; he’s out of the UK, he put out his first EP in late March this year, this is the first crossover… and wow, someone really wants to recapture the folktronica EDM of the early 2010s, from the cycling acoustics, lightweight percussion, pianos, millennial whoops, and Smith bringing a voice that reminds me of a huskier Chris Martin. Now let’s make it clear, I’ve liked that sound for years - I know it got thoroughly commodified and turned into indie mush, but the best tracks that shot for the fences could pick up a lot of groove and power and… I’m dunno, I feel like there’s another gear that’s missing? Yes, the broad imagery of falling in love feeling like stargazing, that final realization that she was always there, that’s the sort of material that can fit this, but when you notice that the vocals are never quite allowed to be that craggy and textured, or how there’s no actual drop to go to eleven, it feels like punches were pulled; even when Avicii was working with Coldplay he got that right! I’m not about to complain about this, it sounds fine… but again, this is a sound I like, it takes a little more to really impress me here. 3*/5

75. ‘La Durango’ by Peso Pluma, Junior H & Eslabon Armado - so last week I highlighted how the regional Mexican sound would persist on the Hot 100, with sporadic success for everyone except the name hitmakers… and what do you know, Peso Pluma is back with another single for his upcoming album, albeit with features that I’m not sure were really needed; I’m just not hearing any notable personality or texture that Junior H provides, the frontman of Eslabon Armado has a little more flavour but not more distinctive. Granted, Peso Pluma is sitting on a pretty thick cushion of reverb against the horns and jittery acoustics that actually sounded credibly ominous as the song opened up but didn’t really pay much of it off. But that’s also my larger issue when I translated the lyrics - basically a flex spending time with old friends, titled after a car where there is a credible threat to copycats and those attempting to jack his style, which is mildly amusing to me because a lot of the regional Mexican acts that have crossed over crib a lot from each other… and honestly not much more beyond that. The production is better overall, and I’ve come to appreciate more acts in this lane… but I also wouldn’t call this a favourite, okay at best.

66. ‘neck on a yacht’ by Gunna - …yes, I know, it’s already become a meme, I get why the Gunna fans think it’s fly to get blown on a yacht, my follow-up question is how on earth that makes sense for production this chilly and metallic as the watery synths ebb off the bells and trap percussion; you’d think a song with this much opulent flexing would try to lean into a summer vibe, not this! And then amidst the boring flexes we get lines ‘like Titanic they want me to sink’ - famously, nobody wanted that - followed by the second verse where he talks about choking a girl while smacking her ass, or the lines about his jacket that apparently drags on the floor… but on a later line he says it’s cropped; dude, you’re the one flashing all the luxury brands, if you can’t keep it straight, why I am expected to care? It’s not the worst song on the album - that probably goes to ‘treesh’ for me which thankfully did not chart - but I can’t remotely endorse it, not good.

39. ‘Boa’ by Megan Thee Stallion - No joke, I honestly thought we would have gotten a proper Megan Thee Stallion album rollout by now as she leans into the snake iconography, but apparently whoever her handlers are might be taking their time to ensure a proper hit lands, because ‘Cobra’ just didn’t stick despite being an excellent song, and for as great as ‘HISS’ was… it wasn’t built to stick around, even if it did kick off so much verbal warfare this year and remains one of the strongest diss tracks! This… I’ll be honest, I’m not sure it’s better than either, but I can hear it working: the flip of Gwen Stefani’s ‘What Are You Waiting For’ is actually pretty nice especially as that bassline is really good to balance the trap percussion, and she targets those who chase the TikTok clout rather than actually being for hip-hop culture; it’s going to be interesting whether that’s a brag that has staying power outside of Kendrick, because I think Meg can take it there, the question will be whether she’s embraced in the same way. The rest of the song is pretty solid - I thought the flow to open up the second verse was a bit slow to get the punchlines going, whereas the first was tighter and I think landed more shots; the double entendres and subs are landing, the question will be whether this has staying power. I think on groove alone it could get there, but in the mean time… yeah, another really good song, I dig it!

26. ‘one of wun’ by Gunna - so this was the title track, the highest charting Gunna song this week… and okay, with that shuddering warble behind the trap percussion it’s a little catchier, but then the melodic phrase vanishes alongside any interesting emotion in Gunna’s delivery as he rattles through brand names and flexing. I think the general premise that Gunna thinks he’s ‘one of one’ is the most ludicrous - dude, nothing about your content, your flow, or much of your vibe is remotely unique - but then we get his bragging that he’s the ‘best dressed at the Met Gala’ - he has better style than most, but no - he mentions the girl ‘uses him for sex’ - okay dude, whatever works for you, according to him he’s got ‘no lil bitty shrimp’ down there - and then that he’s fucking her at the gym; dude, we’re there to work out, there’s no consistently comfortable surfaces, and nobody wants to see that! Moreover I can’t help but notice how many times Gunna is into gripping the necks of girls while fucking them, and I have no confidence this guy is careful enough to not see repercussions there… but even then, he sounds like he’s bored doing all of this, and if you don’t care, why should I? The best Gunna songs have opulence or some degree of character to make up for his shortcomings, this song just highlights them - not interested.

1. ‘I Had Some Help’ by Post Malone ft. Morgan Wallen - And here we have the big one, the sort of collab that the second I saw Post Malone hanging out in Nashville I knew this was coming. I’ve also heard generally mixed reviews all over the map for this, with a whole lot of shrugs compared to the hype to take this to the very top… and yeah, that’s kind of my reaction too, but I’m also left thinking that for all the ingredients being combined, this should hit harder than it does. The guitars and pedal steel are very mainstream Nashville friendly, but the bassline and louder percussion almost reminds me of a pop rock song, and that’s before Louis Bell’s reverb-touched mix especially around the vocals pushes it firmly into Post Malone’s comfort zone… and incidentally giving Morgan Wallen a halfway decent vocal mix for once. And then there’s the content, where these guys describe a relationship on the skids with the general sentiment of… ‘yeah, it takes two for things to fall apart here, I had some help in the collapse and it was you’; kind of odd to set this up as a duet between Post Malone and Morgan Wallen when they don’t really have much interplay, and lyrically it’s odd they don’t commiserate together, so the energy feels weirdly off-balance especially as they’re not singing about each other. I do appreciate the quicker tempo and I get how the hook will work, but this reminds me a lot of that string of big duet collab singles in 2020 where I’m not remotely convinced there’s staying power outside of the industry push, I’m not sure there’s enough here to get people back for more. It might get another week on the top… but I can’t call this special or even all that interesting.

And that was the week… shame it wasn’t more interesting, but at least it’s easy to process. Gunna’s getting both of the worst entries, with ‘neck on a yacht’ as the worst and ‘one of wun’ as the Dishonourable Mention… and I think Meg The Stallion runs away with the top spot and ‘Boa’, with Myles Smith and ‘Stargazing’ getting the Honourable Mention… tough to find a ton of quality here, what can I say. Next week we have the Billie Eilish album bomb - interesting to see where that ends up hitting, we’ll have to wait and see…