billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 20, 2021

Ah yes, the part of the year where I’m nearly positive we’re starting a new Billboard year, but can’t be precisely sure until year-end lists come out surrounding what Billboard ultimately will include. But it certainly feels like a new year - an album bomb from Summer Walker sweeping away a lot of the lower entries, which will likely be followed in the next few weeks by a few other major impacts, and a few other songs breaking through where it’s an open question how long any of them will stick…

And yet if we go to our top ten, Adele’s ‘Easy On Me’ remains entrenched at the #1, with robust strength in every channel and making a headline run for the top radio spot. And right now I wouldn’t put money on ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber holding up much longer - peaked on the radio, slipping in other categories, it’s Adele’s closest competition and with what’s coming, I don’t have much faith in its staying power. Next is ‘INDUSTRY BABY’ by Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow at #3 - radio seems to be leveling off, but streaming will remain solid enough to hold steady, and it was still enough to keep above ‘Bad Habits’ and ‘Shivers’ by Ed Sheeran at #4 and #5, where the former held on radio inertia but the latter has better sales and seems like it has more traction. Then we have a new debut at #6: the collab we were all surely waiting for, ‘One Right Now’ by Post Malone & The Weeknd. Right now the radio has thrown a lot of weight behind this to support strong sales, but the streaming seems a little flaky, which might not be a good sign longer-term. It at least got over ‘Fancy Like’ by Walker Hayes at #7, where somehow people are still buying this even as it seems like the radio has yanked all support. And that leads to our next new top ten debut: ‘Smokin Out The Window’ by Silk Sonic at #8. Now I’m curious about how well this’ll perform - it’ll get an album boost next week to help with sales, and the streaming is already strong, but it looks like the radio was slow to get to this one, and that could be troublesome if the traction doesn’t keep up. Finally to round things out we have ‘Need to Know’ by Doja Cat at #9 where streaming took a hit and radio seems to be slowing, and ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals at #10, which doesn’t look like it’s going to be going anywhere courtesy of the radio, even as streaming is finally flagging a bit.

But since it’s an album bomb week, we’ve got a pretty robust list of losers and dropouts. Most of the latter case are weaker songs below the top 50 handily swept away, but we did get a few larger cuts like ‘Come Through’ by H.E.R. ft. Chris Brown, ‘Whole Lotta Money’ by BIA and Nicki Minaj, ‘My Boy’ by Elvie Shane, ‘Wockesha’ by Moneybagg Yo, and ‘Love Again’ by Dua Lipa - man, that song got robbed in the states. But a solid third of the Hot 100 are losers, primarily lower down the Hot 100, so working our way from the top down… ‘traitor’ by Olivia Rodrigo at 34, ‘Who Want Smoke??’ by Nardo Wick ft. G Herbo, Lil Durk & 21 Savage at 35, ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X at 42 on its way out, ‘My Universe’ by Coldplay and BTS at 43, ‘Wild Side’ by Normani and Cardi B at 53, and ‘Gyalis’ by Capella Grey at 58. Then we have ‘Sharing Locations’ by Meek Mill ft. Lil Baby and Lil Durk at 62, ‘I Was On A Boat That Day’ by Old Dominion at 64, ‘Fair Trade’ by Drake ft. Travis Scott at 66, ‘Knowing You’ by Kenny Chesney at 67, ‘Take My Breath’ by The Weeknd at 70, and ‘Moth To A Flame’ by Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd at 71, which is just not catching fire at all. Then we have ‘A-O-K’ by Tai Verdes at 72, ‘Bubbly’ by Young Thug ft. Travis Scott and Drake at 74, and then a trio of country songs with ‘Tequila Little Time’ by Jon Pardi at 78, ‘Memory I Don’t Mess With’ by Lee Brice at 79, and ‘Til You Can’t’ by Cody Johnson at 82. Next there’s ‘Woman’ by Doja Cat at 83, ‘Overpass Graffiti’ by Ed Sheeran at 85 losing off the debut, ‘Big Energy’ by Latto losing all its gains at 86, ‘Hurricane’ and ‘Praise God’ by Kanye West at 87 and 96 respectively, and ‘Cold Beer Calling My Name’ by Jameson Rodgers and Luke Combs at 88. And to end this all off, ‘Baddest’ by Yung Bleu, Chris Brown, and 2 Chainz at 90, ‘Jugaste y Sufri’ by Eslabon Armado and DannyLux at 91, ‘For Tonight’ by Giveon at 92, ‘Maybach’ by 42 Dugg and Future at 93, ‘Too Easy’ by Gunna and Future at 94, ‘Volvi’ by Aventura and Bad Bunny at 95, ‘Poke It Out’ by Wale and J. Cole at 98, ‘halff of my hometown’ by Kelsea Ballerini and Kenny Chesney at 99, and ‘2055’ by Sleepy Hallow at 100.

Now to be expected, we didn’t get any gains this week - hell, the only return we got was from Summer Walker’s album bomb was ‘Ex For A Reason’ with JT at 33. But since album bomb rules are in effect - in other words, I’ll be covering the songs that placed in the top 40 or wound up as our best or worst, the songs that fall out of that category are as follows: ‘Dat Right Here’ with The Neptunes at 77, ‘Broken Promises’ at 76, ‘Screwin’ with Omarion at 73, ‘Session 33’ at 68, ‘Closure’ at 60, ‘Switch A N*gga Out’ at 59, ‘4th Baby Mama’ at 56, ‘Circus’ at 54, ‘Insane’ at 52, ‘You Don’t Know Me’ at 50, ‘Constant Bullshit’ at 49, ‘Toxic’ with Lil Durk at 45, ‘Reciprocate’ at 44, and ‘Throw It Away’ at 41.

Alright, now for our still hefty list of new arrivals:

97. ‘Super Gremlin’ by Kodak Black - so context for this: apparently Kodak Black has a crew, and this is a solo joint to drive up some hype for that crew’s upcoming mixtape. Frankly I’m still shocked there’s an audience that cares enough to seek this out… mostly because this is pretty bad. Yeah, the chipmunked sample riding the hook isn’t my thing, but it becomes obvious this feels like a leftover Lil Baby beat and Kodak has nowhere close to the melodic chops to ride the hook effectively. Granted, his flow is messy, his bars barely connect, his gunplay references are stale, there are multiple poop references, he brags about taking fake drugs - which is really stupid - and by the end of his second verse he’s dropping the r-word and I’m done with this. Frankly, even trap should be moving on from Kodak Black at this point, next!

89. ‘Jumpin’ by NLE Choppa ft. Polo G - I’m still surprised that NLE Choppa finds ways to get back to the Hot 100, more because it’s always seemed like his career is more precarious, but he was able to get the Polo G feature here similar to getting Roddy Ricch, so maybe he’s got good connections. Anyway, this is bad - a bleary melody behind all the trap whirs and money machine sound effects as NLE Choppa stutters through flexing on his hook with absolutely zero energy, which only barely picks up on his one verse where he has such lines like ‘reaping the benefits like he an immigrant’ and ‘play with the cash and I’m on your ass / like the pockets on the back of your pants’. But fine, NLE Choppa’s music has been pretty stupid before, Polo G could drop a guest verse and save it… providing he bothered to get on beat at all, where him crooning his gunplay feels shockingly off - seriously, was he planning to rap on a different song or something? Honestly, just incompetent all the way down, not a fan at all of this.

81. ‘Slow Down Summer’ by Thomas Rhett - I guess Thomas Rhett is done working singles from that last album, so here we get a piano-driven pop country cut complete with snap beat and trap progression for a mix that compresses everything into the most fizzy and overmixed slurry I’ve heard in awhile, complete with some flagrantly synthetic autotune on the backing vocals. I mean, I’m not surprised he wasn’t sticking with the neotraditional pivot on that last album, but to go straight into the cheapest appropriation of modern pop that already feels dated is kind of shocking. Yeah, the strings don’t sound bad when you can hear them fighting out of the mix, and I don’t mind the lyrical sentiment of trying to preserve warm weather… but this was dropped in early November, which feels a little late for this window, and any added melancholy of a potentially lost relationship just never materializes. It honestly just sounds really flimsy and absolutely a backslide for Thomas Rhett… so no, this isn’t good either!

80. ‘Sad Girlz Luv Money’ by Amaarae & Moliy ft. Kali Uchis - okay, I’m not surprised this went viral - I covered the Amaarae album last year, I knew it wasn’t for me given a lot of the vocals and flighty subject matter, and while this wasn’t one of the few songs I liked from the album, getting Kali Uchis for the remix makes a lot of sense. Granted, my larger issue with this is more with Moliy’s delivery than Amaarae’s similar but slightly more reserved voice, but when you add Kali Uchis’ huskier tone, a more robust verse and percussion line, she’s kind of perfect for the misty, late night atmosphere behind the flex. It still doesn’t really add to more when it comes to the content, but it feels a little more grounded and moody, there’s generally more to like, and Kali Uchis does nail her verse. Still not all the way there, but I get where and how this works - fine enough.

48. ‘Unloyal’ by Summer Walker & Ari Lennox - …so this is an interesting quandary: of the Summer Walker songs, this one might be one of the most openly antagonistic, where they diss their partner, where they’re sick of being ignored and mistreated and if that means they’re not loyal, so be it, because it’s not like they don’t have the money or clout to be on their own and the guy is pretty trash anyway - the Kevin Samuels’ reference from Ari Lennox was absolute gold. So it’s a pretty flagrant song, even by R&B standards - and I think it’s the best on the album by a considerable margin. A lot of that you can put down to the production - the hollow tapping groove playing off the wheedling guitars, the sinuous bass playing off the percussion, and even if I think Summer Walker is a limited vocalist who pales in comparison with Ari Lennox, that sax solo does a lot to make up the difference, especially splashing off the organ. So yeah, this is a good song - I’ll take it.

26. ‘Mafia’ by Travis Scott - I’m going to avoid talking about the Astroworld incident in this episode - not because I don’t have opinions on it, but it’s a more layered and complicated subject that frankly has me astounded that Travis Scott still tried to push and promote the two singles he dropped here! Now this one has J. Cole uncredited on the hook - a little surprised that it didn’t chart higher as a result - but beyond that… wow, this is pretty flimsy at best. Dreary piano, stale trap percussion, Travis' flow reminding me way more than it should of Future, and considering most of it is probably directed at his partner, the flexing just feels painfully underweight and forgettable. Maybe it’s because this is so obviously a b-side it didn’t do as well, but I’ll forget this exists in record time.

25. ‘Bitter’ by Summer Walker & Cardi B - okay, so skipping over the majority of the Summer Walker album bomb leaves us with two tracks very early on the project, with this as the opener - and it’s kind of a misnomer about Cardi B being on the track, she really just delivers a monologue at the end where she tells Summer Walker to fuck those gossipy drama bitches. Kind of flies in the face of the majority of the album ahead, but honestly I’m not sure the song really works in Summer Walker’s favour here either - the majority of it focuses on dissing some bitter woman who isn’t as wealthy or independent, a messy woman whose kids are with her mom but she still wants child support and can’t even take a proper instagram photo even as she’s in your business on the Shade Room… but not only is this album just as messy and melodramatic, midway through the first verse she’s calling out her producer and ex London On Da Track for potentially screwing this other woman, and something gives me the impression she’s not interested in keeping the mess that quiet! And again, he’s her ex now, so if he did go to this bitter woman, she got what she wanted - and when you couple it with some clumsily produced vocals with no consistent fidelity, shambling percussion that eventually breaks into a stock trap groove, and the obvious vibe of trying to rip off Jhene Aiko… yeah, I reckon I know where the bitterness really is.

13. ‘No Love’ by Summer Walker & SZA - maybe it’s just me, but it seems like a really stupid idea for Summer Walker to recruit considerably stronger women in her own lane for this album - she did it once with Ari Lennox, and it’s just as obvious with SZA here, especially when SZA’s verse has a more robust flow and plays into the vibe a little more decisively, which is the two of them throwing up the middle finger to their ex and if they were to come back into their lives, all they’d want to do is just fuck and move on. Which from SZA, I’d buy… Summer Walker, though, the reason why London might be calling is because he’s a producer and writer with whom you’ve worked extensively, and you have a child together, and you’ve called him out by name multiple times on record and have made it clear you’ve got lingering feelings! She’s a lot less convincing here, and the production once again does them few favours - the vocal mixing feels really thin where they’re damn peaking the mix, and while the bassline is good, it doesn’t obscure how the groove feels weirdly leaden behind the desaturated pianos and clunky hook. Again, I know I’m not the target audience for this, but I’ve also heard this done a lot better - not bad, but not great either.

11. ‘Escape Plan’ by Travis Scott - …am I the only one who is getting a Drake vibe off of this? I’m sorry, the Travis Scott music that I remember liking had way more effective atmosphere than this, where the wheedling, uneasy melody lurks behind the stock trap percussion and we get more than bargain barrel flexing. Yeah, the tempo is a little quicker and the bars string together a little more effectively, but for as lavish as the flex might be, it doesn’t translate to the music being remotely more interesting. Again, if this is setting up some Dystopia mixtape, the only one it’s exposing is extreme wealth inequality and how the uber rich can be boring as tar just like anyone.

8. ‘Smokin Out The Window’ by Silk Sonic - finally, a song that is absolutely fantastic as I’ve already referenced my review of the album… but also one that indicates a different high wire act that Silk Sonic are attempting. While their previous songs were more lightweight and playful and openly looking for sex, this is a breakup song, where our hapless gentlemen feel like they’re being used in this relationship, have to go get high and relaxed somewhere else, before they finally cut the girl loose back to the streets, framing it as ‘I’m setting her free’. That can be a really touchy vibe to sell, but thankfully you’ve got two of the best in the industry selling it with the twinkling R&B groove with some great splashes of horns that ramp up the groove on the second half of the hook really nicely, Anderson. Paak playing the melodrama for completely ridiculous effect, and Bruno Mars playing the histrionics to the point where he sounds legit heartbroken ending it, even if it’s probably for all the right reasons, especially with how far he pushes his falsetto on the final hook! It’s the sort of song that could play for glorious cheese… but also could swivel right around and work like a charm. Again, fantastic song from a fantastic album that I can only hope lands some real impact next week, we’ll have to see.

6. ‘One Right Now’ by Post Malone & The Weeknd - am I the only one seeing a whiff of desperation around the collaboration here? Not from The Weeknd - his career is still rock solid all over the charts, but Post Malone seems to have had a rough time getting any sort of traction in recent months, and thus going for the big name collab for that next album… I dunno, I saw what happened to ‘Motley Crew’, and this hasn’t quite seen the swell of attention I was expecting. And it’s interesting that this is also a flagrantly retro breakup duet, this one pulling from sharper early 80s synthpop, but it’s considerably less likable, even if I think the coursing low-end groove is actually pretty solid. Partially because that amidst the warping waves of synth and autotune I’m not convinced that The Weeknd or Post Malone have good chemistry, but also because they come across as a lot more dickish, mostly because the power dynamic feels off. With Silk Sonic, both the guys are kind of hapless and over their heads, whereas both men here have to be in constant control and borderline imperious as they brag about how much lifestyle they bought this woman, and how she’s now a stain on their legacy and they already have another girl on the way! In the former case there’s a sense of stakes and emotional drama, this is just is sour and it doesn’t match well with the groove. So yeah, Post Malone is 0 for 2 here… did not care for this either.

And that was this week… it wasn’t very good, if you can’t tell, but at least the best and worst fall out easily. And to my amazement Summer Walker dodged the worst of the week, with that going to ‘Super Gremlin’ by Kodak Black with the DIshonourable Mention to ‘Jumpin’ by NLE Choppa and Polo G - honestly, these two both suck and at any given moment you could swap things around. Now our best… ‘Unloyal’ by Summer Walker and Ari Lennox is getting the Honourable Mention behind ‘Smokin Out The Window’ by Silk Sonic, but the story next week will be the rest of that album likely impacting the Hot 100… alongside Taylor Swift’s reissue of Red, it’s going to be wild here.