billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 27, 2021

I feel like I’m being pulled in two directions here. On the one hand, one massive album bomb from a record-breaking rerelease from Taylor Swift… of an album that last time I heard it, I didn’t really like it! And it’s paired with a minor album bomb from Silk Sonic… that didn’t get as much traction as it should have. But hey, at least this allowed a relatively clean slate for the Hot 100, where we honestly didn’t get that many losers because Summer Walker took out a bunch of them last week… and whatever will be left will likely fall to Adele’s album next week!

And this big story crosses into the top 10, because we have a new #1: ‘All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)’, and by that she means the extended ten minute song that breaks a record for the longest track to ever top the charts. Now I’ll get more into the song itself much later on, but I do appreciate Taylor Swift breaking all conventions surrounding song length and what can be a hit - even if the industry is likely to just consider it a one-week anomaly on obscene streaming and sales, because coming back next week with strength in all quarters we have ‘Easy On Me’ by Adele at #2 - it’s nearly taking the top spot on the radio, and with the album bomb coming, it’s going to take that spot. Really, ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber at #3 doesn’t stand a chance to make more of a move - despite holding the top radio position it’s losing traction in all channels, and while ‘INDUSTRY BABY’ by Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow only slipped to #4, its own radio stability is compromised. What isn’t is ‘Smokin Out The Window’ by Silk Sonic up to #5 - now I’m under no illusions this is going to last here unless the streaming traction continues, but it’s got some radio momentum this week, and while it’ll probably be slow going, I’m holding out hope this becomes a hit, it’s only growing on me with every listen. It rose past both ‘Bad Habits’ and ‘Shivers’ by Ed Sheeran at #6 and #7, the former making a slow radio exit while the latter loses a little traction going up the charts, but then we hit ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals up to #8 - apparently the radio has really thrown a lot of weight behind it, so it’s not going away either! Next up is ‘Need To Know’ by Doja Cat at #9 - stable, but its radio traction seemed to peak this week - and to end things off because the radio is finally getting rid of it, ‘Fancy Like’ by Walker Hayes - not a minute too soon with this one!

Next we have our losers and dropouts - and again, Summer Walker already did a lot of damage here, so in terms of big dropouts the majority of what we have are her album bomb, ‘traitor’ by Olivia Rodrigo, ‘I Was On A Boat That Day’ by Old Dominion, ‘A-O-K’ by Tai Verdes, ‘Memory I Don’t Mess With’ by Lee Brice, ‘Hurricane’ by Kanye West, ‘Volvi’ by Aventura and Bad Bunny, and ‘Baddest’ by Yung Bleu, Chris Brown, and 2 Chainz - and most of these were on their way out anyway! And that’s true with the majority of our losers here too: ‘Fair Trade’ by Drake and Travis Scott at 86, ‘Tequila Little Time’ by Jon Pardi at 89, ‘Bubbly’ by Young Thug ft. Drake and Travis Scott at 91, ‘Moth To A Flame’ by Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd at 96, ‘Til You Can’t’ by Cody Johnson at 97, ‘Woman’ by Doja Cat at 98, and ‘Take My Breath’ by The Weeknd at 99. Then we have what’s left of Summer Walker’s album bomb, with ‘No Love’ with SZA at 56 and ‘Ex For A Reason’ with JT at 92, and then losing off the debut we’ve got ‘Escape Plan’ by Travis Scott at 71 and ‘One Right Now’ by Post Malone and The Weeknd at 19. Outside of that, ‘Chasing After You’ by Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris looks to be making its way out at 35 - had its peak, time for Music Row to give it a slow exit.

Now we only got three gains this week - somehow ‘Super Gremlin’ by Kodak Black caught a small boost to 82, and ‘Thinking Bout You’ by Dustin Lynch and Mackenzie Porter got a mild jump to 30, but the bigger story here is Silk Sonic, with ‘Leave The Door Open’ rebounding nicely to 23, and ‘Skate’ even coming back to the Hot 100 at 75 - yes, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey is back too at 36, but that’s a demon we’ll have to deal in a few weeks, not now. But the even bigger story is Taylor Swift’s album bomb, where she debuted a record-breaking twenty-six songs on the Hot 100 - and most of them are below the top 40, thank God! So, in accordance with my rules and discounting the songs that fell below the 40 and are neither my best nor worst, here’s that album bomb: ‘Starlight’ at 90, ‘Come Back… Be Here’ at 87, ‘Sad Beautiful Tragic’ at 85, ‘The Lucky One’ at 84 - I used to hate this song, but it’s gotten a bit better with age - ‘The Moment I Knew’ at 83, ‘Forever Winter’ at 79, ‘Begin Again’ at 77, ‘Holy Ground’ at 76, ‘Babe’ at 69 - Antonoff’s production makes this Pat Monahan cowrite better than Sugarland’s version, I’ll say it, ‘Stay Stay Stay’ at 67, ‘The Last Time’ with Gary Lightbody at 66 - very nearly an Honourable Mention because they actually got the full crew back including Jacknife Lee on production and Lightbody and Swift’s voices blend way better as adults - ‘Everything Has Changed’ with Ed Sheeran at 63, ‘The Very First Night’ at 61, ‘I Almost Do’ at 59, ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back To Together’ at 55, ‘Treacherous’ at 54, ‘22’ at 52, ‘Better Man’ at 51 - yeah, this arrangement is better than the Little Big Town version, I can admit that - ‘Run’ with Ed Sheeran at 47, and ‘Message In A Bottle’ at 45.

God, that was way too much - and we still got more new arrivals, starting with…

94. ‘La Fama’ by ROSALIA ft. The Weeknd - I’m always surprised to be reminded that ROSALIA and The Weeknd have worked together before on that remix of ‘Blinding Lights’, because otherwise I could be easily convinced this is a collaboration that’d work incredibly well, beyond the fact that this would be all in Spanish. And yet this was not what I was expecting - it’s remarkably spare, leans into a rollicking bachata progression with the melody predominantly in a chopped up vocal sample, more textured percussion, and only hints of The Weeknd’s swampy atmosphere creeping in by his verse to support his willowy tones which are an unsurprisingly good fit for the vibe. Now I don’t think either have as much interplay as I was hoping, but I do like the melodramatic conceit of the lyrics where they both have to deal with the succubus of fame, and they both play well in a more seductive vibe. But the song feels like it’s missing something - maybe more to play off the bass, a little more tune outside of the sample… not bad, but missing that bit to pay off the collaboration.

81. ‘Fly As Me’ by Silk Sonic - alright, we’ve got some great songs from Silk Sonic here - all of which outside of ‘777’ hit the Hot 100 this week - and this is one I like a great deal but I’m not remotely surprised a pop audience hasn’t grabbed. This is primarily a splashy Anderson .Paak joint with a killer funk guitar and riding on impeccable swagger with a lot of horn embellishments, terrific drumwork, and more than a few silly flexes that soften the sheer egotism of the hook - they even get off their own ‘spelling is fun’ third verse that builds into a pretty explosive final hook riding the organ and bass! Honestly, what it reminds me of the most is ‘Come Down’ from Anderson .Paak’s own Malibu back in 2016, which also deserved to be a massive hit - this probably won’t be, but it’s great nonetheless.

78. ‘Put On A Smile’ by Silk Sonic - I go back and forth on whether this or ‘Smokin Out The Window’ are my favourite songs on this album, and make no mistake, it’s goddamn close. ‘Put On A Smile’ is them making a slow burn blues-inflected number post-breakup where they have to feign happiness amidst a heartbreak they initiated - a vibe that tends to be a real winner for me regardless of genre - and when you pair it with the pealing guitar, the slow patter of textured percussion, a terrific strings arrangement, and then a key change? I mean goddamn, this sort of stylized melodrama is something both men can knock out of the park, and this is a total winner. Honestly might wind up on my year-end list of my favourite songs of 2021, not just the hits - we’ll have to see!

73. ‘Blast Off’ by Silk Sonic - so this is the album closer for Silk Sonic and I’ve seen it get a decent amount of criticism for not quite paying off the rest of the project. Which to me feels a little off because when it comes to something that leans on psychedelic soul riding on glossy synth, supple bass, guitar with a bit more snarl, and a haze of weed smoke where they’re just making magic in that studio, Silk Sonic nail that opulent, silky swell that of course lets them shred another solo! It’s the sort of encore the collab that highlights how they might be short on the scene, but will fly back to their home planet with a great taster. Maybe not one of my favourites on a stacked album, but this still rules - great song.

68. ‘After Last Night’ by Silk Sonic ft. Thundercat & Bootsy Collins - ah, who can’t appreciate a fantastic post-sex jam full of simmering liquid bass courtesy of Thundercat, lush strings, chimes, terrific vocal harmonies off the horns, and a relentless horniness that has them throw their phone away in exaltation on the first verse and then regret doing it on the second verse as the spacey synths splash through! Yes, it’s silly, and for some it might be a little too reminiscent of a ‘Dick In A Box’, but that ridiculous cheese complete with shredding guitar solo is the entire appeal, and hell, who would not want to have sex that makes you feel like this? So yeah, this is also fantastic, also only not among my favourites of this album because this project is goddamn stacked! Either way, I’m thrilled this is here.

53. ‘Doin This’ by Luke Combs - so am I the only a little amused that amidst the shock waves of album bombs, Luke Combs can just drop a song in the middle riding hype from the CMAs, with perhaps the most tossed-off title of his career? But I have to appreciate that this song doesn’t feel tossed off - it’s a song where Combs responds to a question of what he’d be doing if he wasn’t successful, and his answer is blunt but painted with the sort of texture that I really liked: he’d be playing the indie circuit, still trying to make it work, and he sells with as much passion and fervour to make me believe he absolutely would and has no shame in admitting it. It’s a sentiment that feels authentic because Combs is showing himself to be one of the guys to uplift the indie country crowd with his platform, and when he pairs it with some great acoustic texture opposite the guitar sizzle and pedal steel, it feels real. I don’t know what Combs is promoting with this song, but if this is a sign for the future, I’m encouraged - because this is great too.

49. ‘Bad Man (Smooth Criminal)’ by Polo G - …was it a contractual obligation from the Jackson estate for Polo G to mention who he was sampling in the song title? Better question, why the hell is Polo G putting out a bloated deluxe edition of his last album set to release this year, which feels like flooding the market? Even better question, why did you sample it and then only use it as the foundation with some pretty rote gunplay that can’t even run for two minutes? Seriously, I’ve seen TikTok hits have more put into them, and while Polo G can ride the coursing groove and the sharper trap percussion well, it feels more like a pop swing that a record executive convinced him was a good idea rather than something that matches Polo G’s sound or vibe. In other words…. again, it just feels wasteful, especially when it’s not good.

46. ‘I Knew You Were Trouble (Taylor’s Version)’ by Taylor Swift - it was never going to be the country songs that would be the issue for Taylor Swift’s remakes: it was going to be the pop songs, especially the ones so indelibly dated to a specific time, and wow, ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ remains as crap as it was nine years ago! Now I’ve gotten over my old issue with this song - the whole ‘if you knew he was bad news from the start, why go for it’ because there can be some romanticism in chasing the wrong person for the wrong reasons where it might make more emotional sense, it’s melodrama pure and simple - the problem is that it’s really bad melodrama with some of Swift’s most amateurish writing in her career that has her squeaking to fill up syllables on the verses and spawned endless goat remixes, and a more adult-sounding voice now is not helping. More to the point, would it have killed them to bring back Max Martin if only just so the drop doesn’t sound like overcompressed ass - this era of dubstep has aged really awkwardly as it is, so when the drop somehow gets worse, you know you’re in trouble. So yeah, it sucked in 2012 and 2013, it still sucks now, glad we all got that reminder.

43. ‘Nothing New (Taylor’s Version)’ by Taylor Swift ft. Phoebe Bridgers - …look, I get why Taylor Swift didn’t release this in 2012 - ‘The Lucky One’ has a lot of parallels that makes it clear that the subjects of legacy and longevity were clearly on her mind - but if she actually did write this then, I’m still a little surprised that she didn’t, because this is outright excellent. Yes, getting Phoebe Bridgers to play the young new star who has at least been partially inspired by Taylor is a win, but there’s a lot to like in the lyrical details regardless: the men who tell people to have fun while they’re young and then target them, and then sigh and say ‘oh, they’ve been through it’, those who thought she was precocious when she was young but immature and dramatic just a few years later, and how the music industry muscles women out for someone younger and prettier along the way; Taylor might be the exception, but that’s the point, she is the exception. I should also highlight the arrangement with coproduction from Aaron Dessner - the spare acoustics, fragile strings, and the intense intimacy of everything off the touches of pianos, it’s perfect for this sort of half-drunken moment of revealing honesty that Swift has only polished in the years that followed. So yeah, if there’s a reason to get this rerelease, it might be this.

25. ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ by Taylor Swift - full disclosure, this is a song that got nearly got there for me back in 2012 - the gallop of the pop country groove was potent as hell, I liked the comparison structure that builds into the colours of the hook… but god, that stuttered repetition of ‘red’ just killed it for me, even with the overpolished sparkle coming off the bridge as the guitars and strings opened up. And unfortunately, this highlights that persistent issue with the remake of Red that some of the pop touches have aged pretty poorly, so even if Taylor Swift sounds better and the mix has more presence and colour, it feels like it’s being tugged back to the old choices that didn’t work nine years ago. So this one was never bad, but I still think it’s a missed opportunity to not make this sound better.

22. ‘I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version)’ by Taylor Swift ft. Chris Stapleton - I bet folks will look at the credits of this song and will think I’d have to like this. After all, it’s got Chris Stapleton on backing vocals and is coproduced by Aaron Dessner and look, this was a cowrite in 2012 with Lori McKenna, coming off of her best album Lorraine in 2011, which proves that Swift has some legit great taste and has for nearly a decade. And yet… I don’t really think this works, mostly for the same reasons ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ doesn’t work with the benefit of history and Swift’s older-sounding voice. This was made for a petulant kissoff, likely targeted at Jake Gyllenhaal years later with his connections and his hipster taste… oh wait. That’s the frustrating thing, Swift playing the every girl even by the time of Red was starting to wear thin, and a kissoff like this kind of exposes it both then and now. And I have to say, I don’t think the actual arrangement works that well either - the harmonicas are cute, but the groove never really locks in and Chris Stapleton on backing vocals without letting him bring some firepower or soul feels like a waste. I’m not saying this is bad - it’s cute, and the writing is good, but I’d be a lot more interested in what Swift would write with Lori McKenna now rather than in 2012, I’ll say that.

20. ‘Already Dead’ by Juice WRLD - Let’s cut to the truth of this: it’s gross. It was just a matter of time and in 2020 it looked a little better, but it looks like Juice WRLD’s exploitative label situation is now in the XXXTENTACION-cash-in stage of releasing songs from fragments. Is it even worth me commenting on the piano loop, cheap stock percussion, or cruddy vocal mixing on the prechorus, or should we just focus on the horrible lines on the second verse where he’s ‘only here by popular demand / I’m staying alive for the fans’, or the focal line on the hook ‘Bitch I’m already dead / I’ve been dead for years’.? You just know some sleazeball at Grade A or Interscope thought those lines were money given his passing, but given the song was in the works in 2018, it takes drugged out numbness and replaces it with the cheapest and most tasteless punchline possible, one he likely never intended. So yeah, this is trash - and Juice WRLD deserves better.

18. ‘State Of Grace (Taylor’s Version)’ by Taylor Swift - I mean, i guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the album opener is going to be one of the highest debuts - that’s what it’s like with these sorts of album bombs - but considering this is a cut that leans heavier on rock elements, I was curious how they’d interpolate the production. Obviously Swift is a more expressive singer for this sort of sweeping, lovestruck song - on the original she was buried halfway behind the backing singers - but I have to say, I do like how the drums sound considerably more crisp and the guitars just ring out as brighter with a little more feedback seeping into the mix. The entire song feels more airy but also packs more of a punch, which is a neat balance to hold… but there’s a reason why this song doesn’t usually come up in conversations about this album, it’s the sort of opener that lacks that extra gear to put it over the top and kind of remains underwhelming even with the new mix. Certainly better, but I don’t think I’m going back to this one.

1. ‘All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)’ by Taylor Swift - and now we’ve got the big one, the song that to many diehard Taylor Swift fans they’d call the best in her catalog… and Swift chose to provide the extended version of the song along with a short film to flesh out the story and trigger an onslaught of death threats at Jake Gyllenhaal. And here’s my opinion on the original version of the song: it’s pretty good. It wasn’t my favourite from Red in 2012, it’s still not now, even if I’d argue that the weight of history and Swift’s improvements as a singer give it more weight as she traces through the relationship with so many personal details; I appreciate how tactile the song feels, I like that Swift wants to go back before this heartbreak but can’t, because that’s how some relationships will change you, and I appreciate how so many moments of history can’t be forgotten by either of them. But let’s be blunt: 'All Too Well’ still has that odd sense of adolescence in its poetry and framing where with maturity Swift would improve to write songs like ‘champagne problems’ - that’s part of what gives the song its power, don’t get me wrong, but it felt limiting in 2012 for me and nine years later, that hasn’t changed. Now for the extended cut, where she actually went to get Jack Antonoff to coproduce for a more spacious arrangement… and that’s a real blessing and curse, because while Antonoff is a good producer that gives the percussion more space on a mix that can carry a song of this length, to paraphrase my colleague Rodrigo Pasta, he’s not good at filling that space with more in the composition - take between the chorus and the first bridge, if there’s a place to add some strings or horns or some more distinctive melody, that’s where you do it. But the entire mix feels lacking some of that organic texture that worked for the original, just some of that burnished warm that makes me think Aaron Dessner might have been a better choice for this, especially around the backing vocals. And then the extra verses… honestly, a bit hit and miss? I don’t mind that the song is much sharper in its targeted takedown of Gyllenhaal, especially citing the details about faking feminism - which is still all too common of the hipsters of that era - and charming her family only to let her down by not showing to her birthday - which leads to a great musical pause moment on after the fourth verse - but by the time we get to the sixth verse and the extended outro, you’ve already landed the haymaker and it pulls the song back to the meandering that inspired Liz Rose to help pare the song down. So the extended version is good, like the original, but new strengths also reveal new weaknesses… but it’s not my favourite Swift song, I stand by that.

So this was a lot, but I will say it was a pretty damn good week all things considered. The worst is obvious, ‘Already Dead’ by the late Juice WRLD with Dishonourable Mention to ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ by Taylor Swift. Unfortunately Swift is stuck against Silk Sonic for the best of this week, because ‘Put On A Smile’ is getting the best… but for Honourable Mention I’ll have a tie between ‘After Last Night’ with Thundercat and Bootsy Collins with ‘Nothing New’ by Taylor Swift Phoebe Bridgers. Now to watch it all get swept away next week by Adele and then the holiday onslaught, so stay tuned!