billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 28, 2023

Another week, another massive album bomb as the 2023 Billboard year winds down for a close… and hopefully it’ll be better. I haven’t actually reviewed the Bad Bunny album - in my general experience they all tend to run long and tend to be better for scattered singles rather than full projects - but it’s also not the only story this week, and I’ll admit I’m both shocked and a little disappointed by the other one.

And it takes us to our top ten, where over four years late, ‘Cruel Summer’ by Taylor Swift has reached the #1. Pretty convincingly too - she took the last of her radio momentum and paired it with a big streaming boost and a discounted single release to get the sales to put it on top, and… I mean, it’s a great song, a part of me is happy that this went to #1 and a historical blunder was reversed, but Swift is also one of the biggest artists in the world, and I don’t like seeing her pull out the gimmicks especially when it’s a old song just to add another chart-topper to the pile; she shouldn’t have to do this, that’s my point. She did overtake ‘Paint The Town Red’ by Doja Cat at #2, which had a rather uneven radio week even as its streaming was quite strong, but again, she didn’t have that added margin. And right behind her was ‘Snooze’ by SZA at #3 - the streaming got a bit of a boost, but with this sitting on top on stable radio, this isn’t really going anywhere. Then we saw ‘IDGAF’ by Drake and Yeat fall back to #4 - yes, I know the Yeat fans were really fighting for this one to get traction and it dominated streaming, but that didn’t really happen, mostly because radio was nowhere to be seen. Then we have our first new arrival: ‘Monaco’ by Bad Bunny at #5 - chalk this one up to streaming, no surprises that’s pretty much all it has. But right behind it is ‘I Remember Everything’ by Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves returning to #6 - again, radio still isn’t getting onboard, but I think with streaming this strong, it’s hard to care? Instead we have ‘Fast Car’ by Luke Combs at #7, which does have radio but it’s definitely on the downswing and I don’t think its streaming is going to catch up. Then we have Drake again with ‘First Person Shooter’ with J. Cole falling off the #1 spot to #8 - again, predominantly on streaming although this did get shipped to radio and I can’t help but feel it’s going to struggle without a strong hook - but holding up the rear we have two Morgan Wallen songs: ‘Last Night’ at #9, because while the radio is trying to get rid of it the streaming is still there, and ‘Thinkin’ Bout Me’ reentering at #10 - not quite its original peak, but it’s on the radio upswing and streaming has just been slow to catch up.

This takes us to our losers and dropouts, and given this is our second album bomb week in a row - and most of Drake’s album bomb didn’t fully leave - this is where you start seeing the more noticeable exits, all the more telling in the last weeks of tracking of this Billboard year! The biggest of our dropouts is probably ‘Seven’ by Jungkook and Latto, though I’m almost certain it’s clinched its year-end list spot already, but getting knocked short we have ‘TELEKINESIS’ by Travis Scott, Future and SZA, ‘Deli’ by Ice Spice, ‘Tourniquet’ by Zach Bryan, ‘Mi Ex Tenia Razon’ by Karol G, and with the best news, ‘Popular’ by The Weeknd, Playboi Carti and Madonna! Now as expected, Drake is the biggest loser this week so let’s rattle through all of that first: ‘Virginia Beach’ at 15, ‘Slime You Out’ with SZA at 21, ‘Gently’ with Bad Bunny at 49, ‘Calling For You’ with 21 Savage at 56, ‘Daylight’ at 60, ‘8am In Charlotte’ at 63, ‘What Would Pluto Do’ at 66, ‘Fear Of Heights’ at 68, ‘7969 Santa’ at 81, ‘Members Only’ with PARTYNEXTDOOR at 82, ‘Bahamas Promises’ at 84, ‘Drew A Picasso’ at 85, ‘Tried Our Best’ at 86, ‘Amen’ with Teezo Touchdown at 88, ‘All The Parties’ at 89, and ‘Another Late Night’ with Lil Yachty at 95. But he wasn’t the only loser - for instance, off the debut ‘Wild Ones’ by Jessie Murph and Jelly Roll tanked down to 76, and the rest are following continued losses from last week so it looks like momentum has just sputtered out. ‘Everything I Love’ by Morgan Wallen at 96 looks like it’s got its year-end list spot secure, where ‘Hey Driver’ by Zach Bryan and The War and Treaty fell to 87, ‘LALA’ by Myke Towers hit 91, ‘Turks & Caicos’ by Rod Wave and 21 Savage hit 98, and ‘TRUCK BED’ by HARDY fell to 100, and they’re probably going to fall well short. Outside of those… ‘get him back’ by Olivia Rodrigo is just not getting traction at 79, ‘3D’ by Jungkook and Jack Harlow hit 93 and honestly I think that probably deserves a little better - something I’m not inclined to say for ‘SkeeYee’ by Sexyy Red at 94 or ‘Better Place’ by *NSYNC at 99.

Now for our returns and gains… and it’s an odd week, and let’s deal with Bad Bunny first - ‘Where She Goes’ returned at 54 and probably sealed its year-end spot, and ‘Un Preview’ got a nice boost to 47. But what’s interesting to note is that our gains are concentrated in the upper half of the Hot 100 because Drake saw big losses and Bad Bunny didn’t land enough songs up there to hold positions. Now this does allow great songs to capitalize, and given they didn’t lose much last week we saw big gains for ‘My Love Mine All Mine’ by Mitski at 35 and ‘Water’ by Tyla at 46, and I’m not gonna complain that ‘Dial Drunk’ by Noah Kahan shot back to 33 to seal its year-end position or that ‘Anti-Hero’ by Taylor Swift will hold at 25 and not go recurrent. That said, when you look at what saw gains as an indictment of the year… this is painfully uneven, starting with Jelly Roll having ‘Save Me’ with Lainey Wilson at 37 and ‘Need A Favor’ at 23. Then there’s ‘All My Life’ by Lil Durk and J. Cole at 27, ‘Used To Be Young’ by Miley Cyrus at 26 - she also saw ‘Flowers’ back to 18 - ‘Barbie World’ by Ice Spice, Nicki Minaj and Aqua at 19, ‘Greedy’ by Tate McRae at 17, ‘Dance the Night’ by Dua Lipa at 13, ‘vampire’ by Olivia Rodrigo at 12, and ‘fukumean’ by Gunna at 11! I understand this is only a late year snapshot of what was hits in 2023… this is a pretty rough list, all I’m saying! But again, we are absolutely in album bomb territory thanks to Bad Bunny with nineteen new songs charted, and thankfully a lot less of them in the top 20. So, not counting the best nor worst and outside of the top 20 - and apologies again for my bad Spanish in advance - ‘Acho PR’ with Arcangel, De La Ghetto and Nengo Flow at 83, ‘Thunder y Lightning’ with Eladio Carrion at 80, ‘Vuelve Candy B’ at 70, ‘No Me Quiero Casar’ at 65, ‘Mercedes Carota’ with YOVNGCHIMI at 57, ‘Vou 787’ at 53, ‘Gracias Por Nada’ at 52, ‘Seda’ with Bryant Myers at 38, ‘Baby Nueva’ at 34, ‘Telefono Nuevo’ with Luar La L at 32, ‘Cybertruck’ at 30, ‘Mr. October’ at 28, and ‘Nadie Sabe’ at 22.

Alright, that’s a lot… so let’s get to our new arrivals and again, we’re not starting with Bad Bunny and his album bomb…

92. ‘Worth It’ by Offset & Don Toliver - it’s actually quite funny that the only songs that aren’t from Bad Bunny are from Offset and his new project which… I’ll admit I haven’t sought out either, I’ve never been wowed by solo efforts from Migos and both of his debuts come with guest stars and are early on the album. So here… I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I dig this a decent bit - that chunky bassline and softer guitar around the chalky but jingling percussion is a nice touch that pushes Offset into a more melodic lane that works well alongside his better flow, and Don Toliver’s hook is really strong. Now I don’t love the content - there’s a paranoid edge back and forth with this girl, the open question whether she’s really worth his attention, and the mistrustful edge adds a tension that doesn’t exactly fit well with all the flexing. I dunno, the atmosphere is moody, but the sour energy doesn’t compliment it as well as it could - I’ll still call this good, but it should be better.

78. ‘Baticano’ by Bad Bunny - one thing you’ll notice about this Bad Bunny album is how “dark” it is - not just in how much Bad Bunny sounds kind of angry and miserable across this thing, which makes the length truly tiresome, but also how the synth tones and heavier grooves are intended to create a much more nocturnal vibe. But I think this is the only one where the undertones become truly hellish and I mean that as a compliment - that chilly synthline, the scuzzy reverb enhancing a haunted feel, the spare low-end, the dirty trap switch-ups that never dominate the song but add enough variance for the darker melody to come back well, and then Bad Bunny fully sinking into the debauchery; this is blackout dance music intended to get nasty to where the go-too-far explicit side starts to work to his advantage, especially as the Biblical guilt begins to sink in at the very end. It reminds me of The Weeknd at his darkest, and that’s a compliment - if more of this album had been in this lane, especially around October, more than the literal song called ‘Mr. October’ that was trying to cultivate some of these vibes, I’d probably like it more!

61. ‘Los Pits’ by Bad Bunny - funnily enough, I thought this was the worst song on the album even before I saw the weird sub thrown at Shakira of all people - the synth and warped sample sounds like it’s offkey and dying - a major issue with the majority of the melodies across the album, they’re really ugly and accentuate this unpleasant, petty vibe - the clunky snap beat gives Bad Bunny nothing to work with, and Bad Bunny sounds about as lazy as possible, where he even mentions he could be doing more with deeper themes… but that doesn’t bring in the money. But god, he sounds miserable doing this, where all the flexing just picks up this noxious tone, where all the preening horniness has this dismissive angle where he’s confident he’s just going to get everything he wants, and that makes him a lot less likable even before the shot he took at Shakira, implying that while men cry, they keep cashing in, a flip of a Shakira line from this year where she responded by challenging him to actually make music with her. That, I could imagine being really good… unless it’s of a tone like this, because this is just bad, skip it.

48. ‘Say My Grace’ by Offset ft. Travis Scott - and here’s the second Offset song, this time with Travis Scott stepping in for the assist - probably why the trap percussion is so sharp to back the grand, borderline symphonic orchestration, the production is legit impressive, there’s bombast here to sell lines where both Offset and Travis mentioning Takeoff’s passing, you’d think they’d use that to get to something real… and yet I can’t say it does. Offset seems to be focusing on systemic violence until you get complaints about being canceled if he speaks his mind before the threats and brand name porn show up, and Travis’ hedonism is still really flimsy, there’s just not much worth caring about there. And when you have a hook about ghosts from your past getting in the way of you eating now… there could have been so much more to sell this, especially with production this potent. It’s fine, I guess, but I wanted to like it more.

24. ‘Hibiki’ by Bad Bunny & Mora - comfortably my favourite song on the album, mostly because it has a fucking pulse! Admittedly I wasn’t that fond of that contorted melody that opens the track, but when Mora comes in alongside the pulsating beat and percussion switch-ups, even with that weird trap flip midway through Bad Bunny’s verse that lasts about one line, there’s a little more swing and punch to this! And yes, it’s a lot of horny debauchery for the club, but Bad Bunny at least sounds more engaged and I can imagine someone having a good time with this, even if I think it’s a far cry from the highest energy jams Bad Bunny has released before. So yeah, this is solid… no idea if it’s gonna last, but I’ll take it while I can.

20. ‘Perro Negro’ by Bad Bunny & Feid - okay, I think I get why this one broke this high despite being nestled in the track list, and not just because I generally like Feid’s presence. Yeah, it can feel like a stock reggaeton knock, but the beat feels punchier and picks up a rougher texture amidst the murky wells of synth, and I think the hook is decent. Granted, it’s more a mechanism for Bad Bunny to go all in on this girl who has just dumped her boyfriend to the point of wanting to demanding she tell her dad he wants him as a father-in-law, that he wants to get her pregnant, and that she has a face like a pretty pussy… charming. Feid thankfully is a little more restrained in his entreaties, and he does have the final word on the song… but I really get the feeling this is coasting on familiar production, I can’t call it a favourite.

14. ‘Fina’ by Bad Bunny & Young Miko - so the last time I was talking about Young Miko was when she was backing up Feid, funnily enough, but now Bad Bunny has brought her onboard for another whirring slice of Latin trap with that oily sample and bass that clips the edges of the mix. And… I’m sorry, while Young Miko can compliment Bad Bunny’s energy with her own desire to seduce this girl and she blends well into the Tego Calderon interpolation, she’s so deadpan that Bad Bunny just completely steamrollers the rest of the song with his own horndog energy. Maybe it’s how the sample just feels weirdly ugly alongside all of this, or how the song just kind of runs out of gas by the time that sloppy refrain comes around… yeah, I really didn’t care for this, next!

5. ‘Monaco’ by Bad Bunny - I’m a little surprised that this was the Bad Bunny song that ended up charting the highest. Yes, part of it is being placed this early on the album, but the oily mixing of the trap percussion that swamps the low end against the more classical melodic sample produces a really sour clash of tones. And while that fits for the content, which is Bad Bunny flexing on everyone down to dissing rappers who become podcasters and bragging about everyone he rubs shoulders with now, the vibe eventually starts curdling, especially juxtaposed with the sample of an old Charles Aznavour song from the mid-60s about a man who wasted his youth on fleeting pleasures, which I don’t think Bad Bunny subverts as well as he thinks here. Now I don’t think this is bad - I certainly appreciate the bombast of it all - but it’s not exactly as fun as I was hoping - might as well be the story of this Bad Bunny album, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s our week. Worst is easy, both are from Bad Bunny with ‘Los Pits’ getting the worst of the week and ‘Fina’ with Young Miko getting the Dishonourable Mention. Now the best is more interesting: ‘Hibiki’ with Mora is actually going to tie for the top spot with ‘Worth It’ by Offset and Don Toliver, with ‘Baticano’ taking the Honourable Mention. Next week… it’s going to be a lull before Taylor Swift runs over everything, but we’ll have to see what that actually looks like, so stay tuned!