billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 24, 2020

You know, it used to be that a cooldown week was a bit more normal for the Hot 100 - you get some time to take a deep breath and take stock of things, just regular routine. You didn’t feel like you needed it, and this year… believe it or not, in between 21 Savage’s album bomb and the one likely to come from that Ariana Grande album in a few weeks, I’m going to take the scant respite I can get.

But let’s be real: that’s not the story this week. Nope, that’s in our top ten, where to my great delight, ‘Mood’ by 24kGoldn and iann dior has taken the #1. Let me stress that the fact this took the top spot at all is indicative of the weakness of the position and the definition of a lucky opportunity to squeeze in, but I also can’t deny that ‘Mood’ was set up to succeed across the board. And it feels like a #1 that got there more organically - it’s not dominant in any one channel but consistent in all of them, especially radio - as much as the charts are a hodgepodge statpad, this climbing to the top feels more organic overall - which is nice to see for a song I still really like! It hits me in the same way I know Lil Tecca’s ‘Ran$om’ worked for some folks, or ‘Blueberry Faygo’ from Lil Mosey - sugary pop trap, the definition of disposable melodrama, but leaning into the fun of it, and I’m thrilled it blew up the way it did. And hell, ‘WAP’ by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion is right behind it at #2, as it’s still a streaming monster especially on YouTube, even if the radio’s getting rid of it fast. As much as I don’t like it, it’ll probably be overtaken by ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’ by Drake ft. Lil Durk at #3… or will it, it’s a question of whether better radio will beat its lag in streaming and sales. Then we have ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd return to #4 again, mostly thanks to another good sales week and how it still rules the radio, but let’s be real, it only recovered because two songs previously above it fell off hard. That’s right, ‘Dynamite’ by BTS fell to #5 and ‘Savage Love’ by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo ft. BTS went to #6 - this is why relying so heavily on a sales margin will kill you when it ebbs, because ‘Dynamite’ is slow to catch up on radio, ‘Savage Love’ is falling off there, and neither have consistent streaming! The rest of our top ten feels like an expected recovery - ‘ROCKSTAR’ by DaBaby and Roddy Ricch is at #7 as it fades in all channels, ‘I Hope’ by Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth is at #8 because of good sales and a really strong radio week, ‘Watermelon Sugar’ by Harry Styles recovered to #9 because even though it’s bleeding radio, it’s still significant there, and would you look at that, ‘Lemonade’ by Internet Money, Gunna, NAV and Don Toliver actually cracked the top 10 thanks to streaming - and with no strong radio or sales, that’s about as far as it’ll likely go, gotta say it.

Now to our losers and dropouts… well, it’s one of those weeks where the losses are nearly all from the album bomb and the only dropout of significance is ‘Rain On Me’ by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande, which I predicted anyway. Outside of that - and the drops for ‘I Called Mama’ by Tim McGraw to 81 and ‘Don’t Stop’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Young Thug off the debut to 53 - our losses are all from 21 and Metro Boomin: ‘Mr. Right Now’ with Drake to 24, ‘Runnin’ to 36, ‘Glock In My Lap’ to 63, ‘Rich N*gga Shit’ with Young Thug to 74, ‘Slidin’ to 88, and ‘Many Men’ to 94.

But to compensate for all of that, our list of gains and specifically returns was massive - it really just feels like the chart snapped back hard to equilibrium, which doesn’t say a lot about the staying power of SAVAGE MODE II, but that’s a different conversation. First let’s start with the returns from the bottom up: ‘You Got It’ by VEDO at 100, ‘One Too Many’ by Keith Urban and P!nk at 99, ‘La Jeepeta’ by Nio Garcia, Anuel AA, Myke Towers, Brray and Juanka at 97, ‘3 Headed Goat’ by Lil Durk, Lil Baby and Polo G making yet another return at 96, ‘Put Your Records On’ by Ritt Momney at 93, and ‘Dollaz On My Head’ by Gunna and Young Thug at 91. Then we have ‘Smile’ by Juice WRLD and The Weeknd making an improbable return at 89, ‘Good Time’ by Niko Moon at 84, ‘U 2 Luv’ by Ne-Yo and Jeremih at 80, and ‘Big, Big Plans’ by Chris Lane at 78. The only song I see having persistent traction here is ‘Better Together’ by Luke Combs at 69, as it’s getting pushed as a single - we’ll see how that goes. But again, a full third of the chart picked up gains, so let’s highlight the one debut that picked up: ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa and DaBaby got a nice boost to 54. Then we had all the losers that rebounded, for better and worse: ‘Caramelo’ by Ozuna to 90, ‘Blind’ by DaBaby and Young Thug at 83, ‘Kacey Talk’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again at 82, ‘Do It’ by Chloe x Halle at 77, and ‘Relacion’ by Sech, ROSALIA, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin and Farruko at 75. Then we had ‘Greece’ by DJ Khaled and Drake back at 71, ‘The Bigger Picture’ by Lil Baby rebound to 68, ‘Martin & Gina’ back to 67, ‘Hit Different’ by SZA and Ty Dolla $ign at 66, ‘Starting Over’ by Chris Stapleton at 64, ‘Everywhere But On’ by Matt Stell at 62, and the pleasant surprise of ‘Diamonds’ by Sam Smith back at 59 - told you it’d rebound! And then to round out our rebounds we had ‘Wishing Well’ by Juice WRLD at 52, ‘I Should Probably Go To Bed’ by Dan + Shay at 44, ‘Rags2Riches’ by Rod Wave at 39, and ‘Said Sum’ by Moneybagg Yo at 33 - and it got a sizable remix, so it’s probably rising more soon. Now for the rest here… okay, ‘B.S.’ by Jhene Aiko and H.E.R. at 76, ‘Un Dia’ by J Balvin, Dua Lipa, Bad Bunny and Tainy at 73, ‘OK Not To Be OK’ by Marshmello and Demi Lovato at 70, ‘Ain’t Always The Cowboy’ by Jon Pardi at 61, ‘You Broke Me First’ by Tate McRae up to 57, ‘7 Summers’ by Morgan Wallen at 56, ‘Hawai’ by Maluma at 55, ‘Love You Like I Used To’ by Russell Dickerson at 51, ‘24’ by Money Man and Lil Baby at 49, and ‘Pretty Heart’ by Parker McCollum at 47 - did not expect to see this get so high, hope it’s a good foundation for him to build more in the future. And to round things out, ‘Happy Anywhere’ by Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani at 45, ‘One Beer’ by HARDY, Lauren Alaina and Devin Dawson finally with momentum at 41, ‘Some Girls’ by Jameson Rodgers at 34, ‘Kings & Queens’ by Ava Max holding at 32, ‘What You Know About Love’ by Pop Smoke at 29, and ‘ily’ by surf mesa at 28.

Now all of that only barely obscures the fact we only have three new debuts this week… and I think that means a return of an old segment is in order. I felt like bringing back the World Hit… and look at that, Billboard now has global charts so I can go there and grab the first song I otherwise really like on that list. Now ‘Head & Heart’ by Joel Corry and MNEK is a decent pop/house cut, it’d probably be my take… but I have the feeling it could well cross over similar to ‘Breaking Me’… so I’m going to do an Ideal Hit instead specifically surrounding a song that should have been pushed a month ago.

Let’s not mince words here: this is a Griselda song that could crossover yesterday - pairing Conway The Machine with Armani Caesar both coming off good albums, with a great minimalist bassy tap with a deceptively catchy melodic loop from Murda Beatz, and both of them doing some luxury rap flexing but in a way that’s all about riding the groove. That’s one reason I tend to go back to this in comparison with a lot of trap which doesn’t contain that low-end momentum and a melody that plays with it - and it’s also why I think this is a smash that just needs the right push. Now the biggest indictment of the song is that it feels like a Drake flip, especially in how Conway sets up some of his flow on the first verse - but he doesn’t stay there and given that he’s got three verses on the song, one could easily be swapped out on a remix for the man himself, and then you’ve broken two Griselda acts on one song and Drake gets to pretend he’s ahead of the game yet again! As I’ve always said with Ideal Hit, this is intended to highlight how a song like this could be huge - the production is good enough to be flipped for any number of remixes but you need real talent to ride it which gives it organic groundswell, and pair it with a great video and maybe even the right TikTok trend - I’m convinced Griselda could be more memetic with the right flip - and this becomes a hit. Folks in that camp who are listening, y’all have an easy break here, I’d love to see it go off.

So to our pretty thin list otherwise, let’s start with…

98. ‘Sofia’ by Clairo - …oh, now this is a bit surprising… or at least it would be if I didn’t know the push behind her was coming, be it from TikTok or some telling artist development moving behind her. For those who don’t know, Clairo is a bedroom pop artist who released her debut album last year that received decent enough reviews - honestly, I’m kind of kicking myself I didn’t cover it - but when I discovered that Rostam Batmanglij formerly of Vampire Weekend did all the production and peeled through her back-end parental connections, it snapped into focus just how well-connected and primed for success Clairo was, especially when you dig up how often she’s featured on other songs. Which… I’m not going to go all out on the ‘industry plant’ accusations so much as make two observations: one, even in 2020 with beabadoobee breaking through the majority of “bedroom pop” rarely breaks outside of its subculture, it’s very telling in the industry who is selected to get artist development and who isn’t. But with what I think is some TikTok attention, she’s charted… and wow, it’s got the feel of bedroom pop primed for mainstream crossover. The slightly scuzzy guitar that quickly slips behind the percussion - supplied by Danielle Haim of all people -and faint gloss of synth that goes for the homecooked genre mashup, with the cushion of reverb wrapped around her vocals until they’re allowed to go lo-fi, and the guitar allowed to get blown out and distorted for a quick solo passage. It has the feel of calculating the lack of polish, and that’s only an observation that’ll come from someone who knows that sound and I will blame Rostam for that way more than Clairo… mostly because for her part, she sounds really good. Earnest, genuinely sweet in her first flutters of longing for her crushes on Sofia Coppola and Sofia Vergara… and I guess at the end of the day you have to hope a rising tide lifts all ships and this crossover can help others in the community she cites behind her? It’s a hope - not one that history consistently supports, but in the meantime, this is decent, I guess. If you’re curious, give it a listen.

95. ‘hole in the bottle’ by Kelsea Ballerini - honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised this is the next single Kelsea Ballerini is pushing - country is trending more towards a neotraditional sound, so why not grab the song with some of the most twang off the record but with enough rickety, contemporary sounding pop production to fit in, especially with that very on-the-nose sample that opens up the track. And I have to be honest, with such a traditionally country chord structure it feels a little awkward to add such galumphing, slightly over-emphasized production, but it’s one of those cases where the song is all about getting plastered on wine to try and avoid dealing with your feelings post-breakup, and ergo I’m a little more forgiving of this choice. And as such… eh, it’s fine enough, but I’d argue ‘half of my hometown’ would have been a surefire success, especially with Kenny Chesney backing her up there. I should also note that about a month back Kelsea Ballerini released an acoustic remix album of all her last project, and the remix of this is more acoustic and has better vocal harmonies - gives me a bit of a Pistol Annies vibe, and it’s a nice touch. Honestly surprised it wasn’t pushed, it probably could have done well too.

58. ‘Baby, I’m Jealous’ by Bebe Rexha ft. Doja Cat - this team-up makes sense for the wrong reasons… because on some level it has felt like all that hype and momentum Doja Cat had earlier this year started to fade. And that’s not fair - her album dropped late in 2019, she’s been riding out singles with varying success, she might be on the right path… maybe it’s just how none of it has felt substantial, which makes pairing her with Bebe Rexha feel oddly timed, a team-up to give both of their careers a jolt? But okay, maybe the song is good…and I don’t think I can finish that sentiment, because this is bad in a rather awkward way. Not on the production side - which is a step up for Bebe Rexha in that the guitar has some brighter rollick opposite the darker synth groove, and if the tempo was a bit quicker I could probably appreciate it. No, it comes with our ladies here, overcompressed vocals and all, and I’m starting with Bebe Rexha because this is a continuation of her issues from Expectations - overselling the self-critical melodrama but not able to make it fun, which is why this entire song circles the curdled feeling of being jealous for reasons she knows are bullshit! It’s a song that stews in itself - and jealousy is not an emotion that leads to a cathartic wallow - but then comes Doja Cat, who plays the hot girl who stole Bebe’s guy… but turns out he was trash anyway so again, there’s no need here. But the emotional focus feels muddy - just telling Bebe Rexha that her man was trash for looking at Doja Cat is not going to make her insecurity go away - in fact, it might only amplify it! Or maybe it’s just how they have little to no chemistry in their delivery and Bebe Rexha tries to rap on her second verse and it sounds awkward as hell! But even beyond that, for a pop song I don’t see this sticking - it doesn’t have radio right now as it is, but it’s sour and jerky in a way that flatters nobody, and given how much money they obviously threw behind the video, that’s a bad sign.

So yeah, pretty obvious worst of the week, even though we didn’t have much to consider here. Best… honestly, ‘hole in the bottle’ mostly holds up for what it is, so I’m going to give it the slight edge - more thanks to the ballerini remix, if I’m being honest. Next week… we may have another breather before Ariana Grande takes over everything, we’ll have to see.