billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 9, 2021

You know, I closed the last episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN off basically mentioning in passing that we could get an album bomb from YoungBoy Never Broke Again… and oh wait, there was a big single from BTS coming, that was going to be a thing too. But it was in passing, I’ll fully admit that at the time I had open doubts how much of either would make an impact… and come this week, they’re the major stories, albeit for different reasons.

Now when we look at the top ten and our new #1 - that being the collab single ‘My Universe’ by Coldplay and BTS, and where I think it’s relevant that this is primarily attached to Coldplay’s upcoming album as a promo single - I should have just expected that BTS would throw all the fundraising behind this and ride titanic sales to push this to #1, which they did. Now I could speculate by pointing out this is a collab single with Coldplay having the primary billing and ergo it’s probably not built to last, albeit this being Coldplay’s first #1 since ‘Viva La Vida’… but the radio has been slow to get onboard, so I don’t know whether this’ll hold up to the sheer inertia of songs like ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber at #2, which is so entrenched on streaming and ruling radio that I can easily see this recover. Then we have ‘INDUSTRY BABY’ by Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow holding its own at #3 thanks to a sales boost, even better streaming and slowly cutting into that radio margin, and that was enough to hold over ‘Way 2 Sexy’ by Drake ft. Future and Young Thug at #4, which rules streaming and is on the radio run, but its margins don’t quite look as robust as they might seem - again, I’m just not sure this is a long-term contender. Then squatting at #5 we have ‘Fancy Like’ by Walker Hayes, which for some ungodly reason people are still buying and now radio has turned this into a thing - again, I don’t think this is going to make a run either, but we sure as hell aren’t getting rid of it. It held up over ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran at #6, where it picked up some gains on streaming but its radio was really uneven this week and folks still aren’t buying much of it… just enough to hold over ‘good 4 u’ by Olivia Rodrigo at #7, pretty much just here on radio which is definitively on the downswing. The last few songs here are pretty self-explanatory - ‘Kiss Me More’ by Doja Cat and SZA is clinging to #8 even as the radio trickles away, ‘Knife Talk’ by Drake ft. 21 Savage and Project Pat holds #9 as its streaming slips away, and somehow back in the top 10 we have ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa, basically here because it still has radio inertia even this long into its run!

This is in contrast to our losers and dropouts, most of which was Lil Nas X’s album bomb, but we also cuts like ‘Skate’ by Silk Sonic get knocked off prematurely, but the surprise was ‘Arcade’ by Duncan Laurence slipping just below the cutoff and going recurrent - I still think this probably makes the year-end list, but it’s going to be closer than I expected! And looking to our losers, a lot of it is album bomb material, so let’s start with Drake: ‘Champagne Poetry’ at 54, ‘No Friends In The Industry’ at 60, ‘In The Bible’ with Lil Durk and Giveon at 72, ‘TSU’ at 84, ‘Love All’ with Jay-Z at 87, ‘N 2 Deep’ with Future at 88, ‘Pipe Down’ at 96, and ‘Papi’s Home’ at 97 - and for good measure ‘Moon’ by Kanye West ft. Kid Cudi and Don Toliver hit 100. Then we had Doja Cat taking a few losses with ‘Get Into It (Yuh)’ at 94 and ‘Woman’ at 75, and the one Lil Nas X song that held on off the debut being ‘THATS WHAT I WANT’ at 24. The rest are really scattered - ‘Butter’ by BTS slid to 36 as the sales funding was rerouted, ‘Leave Before You Love Me’ by Marshmello and the Jonas Brothers is exiting gracefully at 39 - along with ‘Thot Shit’ by Megan Thee Stallion at 73, both of which should clinch the year-end list handily. Then we had a few country peaks ebbing back, prominently ‘You TIme’ by Scotty McCreery to 63 and ‘Things A Man Oughta Know’ by Lainey Wilson at 45, along with ‘Waves’ by Luke Bryan falling back to 70 because we’re heading into the fall. And to round things out, ‘Sharing Locations’ by Meek Mill, Lil Baby and Lil Durk hit 71 - this will rebound providing he gets an album bomb next week - ‘Rumors’ by Lizzo and Cardi B fell to 74 - maybe this just got hit with bad timing but I feel like this was set up to be way bigger than it is - ‘2055’ by Sleepy Hallow hit 78 as virality fades, and ‘Volvi’ by Aventura and Bad Bunny slid to 85.

Now we don’t have much in the way of gains this week, as per the expected album bomb, and with that YoungBoy Never Broke Again saw pickups for ‘On My Side’ to 37 and ‘Life Support’ to 48. But we also saw pickups for ‘Love Nwantiti (Ah Ah Ah)’ by CKay at 50 - I can see this having staying power, even I don’t care for it, and depressingly ‘Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)’ by Elton John and Dua Lipa is in the same boat at 46, because radio and sales are both onboard. The only two songs that kind of surprise me here are ‘Wockesha’ by Moneybagg Yo up to 20 - probably because of the remix with Lil Wayne and Ashanti, but it did have a good sales and streaming week and radio is stable - and finally ‘Memory I Don’t Mess With’ by Lee Brice at 43, which has quietly picked up a lot of radio presence, go figure - it’s probably going to wind up caught between years, but it’s still a good song, I’m not complaining. But since we have no returns and a hefty album bomb to work with, here’s our list of YoungBoy Never Broke Again songs that fell below the top 40 and are neither the best nor worst of the week: ‘Baddest Thing’ at 92, ‘Rich Shit’ at 83, ‘Forgiato’ at 80, ‘Sincerely’ at 67, ‘Break Or Make Me’ at 62, ‘Smoke Strong’ at 61, ‘50 Shots’ at 59, ‘Nevada’ at 58, and ‘Hold Me Down’ at 53.

So with all that, let’s start our new arrivals off with…

99. ‘Toxic Punk’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - it was a tossup between this and ‘Rich Shit’ as the worst YoungBoy song that charted this week, but they both represent the same thing: an obvious play for another artist’s sound let down by the fact that YoungBoy doesn’t exactly utilize what he has to make the emulation work. On ‘Rich Shit’ he’s trying an extended Young Thug impression against a barebones instrumental, and here he’s trying… well, something close to Juice WRLD and it’s a mess. The bass, percussion, and vocal mixing is muddy, the guitar is swallowed, and YoungBoy is trying to caterwaul over all of it as he’s an unloved toxic punk - and this was the lead-off single, with the branding vaguely referencing Cyberpunk 2077 and not really leaking into the single verse between hooks that don’t go as hard as he thinks. The paranoia and drug abuse is there, but it’s so sloppily executed that you can’t even put yourself in the mind state of the fact that the police were literally called on him and he’s releasing this album from jail. In the meantime… yeah, this ain’t good at all.

98. ‘Chosen’ by Blxst & Tyga ft. Ty Dolla $ign - this was only a matter of time - this song has been charting all over the world before now, and with Tiktok juicing the virality, here we are. For those who don’t know, Blxst is a California rapper who’ll sing as much as he raps, this is a single from his debut EP that dropped about a year ago, and wow, this reminds me way too much of the pop rap crossovers of the early 2000s. The relaxed guitar groove, the focus on the hookup trying to split the difference between macho and sweet, all of which is slightly compromised by the one guest rapper who makes it a little too forceful - thanks Tyga, I remember a decade ago when you couldn’t sell this - you were a worse rapper then, but I think I like you less now. Thankfully Ty Dolla $ign sounds good even if he’s a little forceful with the NDA, and I do think this hook is pretty strong, even if this is all about stealing someone’s girl, but I think my largest issue might come in the production - the vocals feel a bit more tinny and compressed against the cheap-sounding snare, it has the feel of needing its hook to snag any sort of longer virality, and riding on that alone. And while it’s not a bad hook - it’ll be enough to make this a minor hit at least - I’m not sure there’s much more to like.

91. ‘For Tonight’ by Giveon - at this point, I’m legit curious where Giveon’s momentum is going to take him, because he’s had legit R&B hits this year, big cosigns, and crossover hits, and now seems to be heading into album mode with this as his single. And… why am I getting such a strong early Sam Smith vibe to this? The piano, the heavy percussion, the influx of reverb, the throaty vocals, the more basic chord structure, how the production is trying to feel so stately and classy with the touches of strings and cleaning up any trace of textured atmosphere, backing a secret hookup with the weight of history in their failed connection before. Honestly, I was surprised how much I felt turned off of this - it feels really safe and stale in a way I was hoping Giveon wouldn’t turn out to be, and even if the writing is decent… no, I didn’t really care for this.

69. ‘I Can’t Take It Back’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - so I said this briefly on Twitter, as someone who has found some songs I legit like from YoungBoy, I wanted to use this album bomb opportunity to dig into what makes him work - I know all the reasons he doesn’t , at least for me, but he’s got the sort of popular appeal to top the album charts while in prison, so what’s here? Well, this is probably my favourite of those that charted this week, mostly because while there’s rough edges in the production from TnTXD, enough of it is smoothed out and refined to deliver something that feels real but also distinctive, albeit kind of reminiscent of Rod Wave. The squawking delivery is there, as is the half-formed, careening structure where hooks barely separate from verses and the most striking moments don’t feel well-accentuated, but that kind of works for a song where YoungBoy is clinging to the flex for dear life against all the killers who want him dead, where the success just leaves him numb and that might be the bigger tragedy. It’s similar to a lot of the reasons I like Polo G, who sounds more sober and structured on a song like ‘RAPSTAR’, but I can see why to some this feels more authentic. And here… yeah, I get this - good song, I’ll take it.

40. ‘No Where’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - and I’d also argue this is a pretty good cut as well - YoungBoy leans into his slurred, shambling melodic impulses for a more intimate relationship picture where he promised some girl too much and wants just her to stick around because feelings are involved, but when it’s clear she wants more and other things, he lashes out. It’s a muddy, mostly confused song that kind of makes sense when you’re too high to make good relationship decisions and too paranoid to want to leave the house - often for good reason, so when matched with the guitar and lumbering trap beat, it’s another song that mostly makes sense. I say mostly because that abortive bridge where he throws in a flex about his cars doesn’t need to be here, but for someone projecting as hard as YoungBoy does, especially to avoid fully contextualizing vulnerability, it also makes sense. So yeah, I don’t mind this either… unlike…

38. ‘Too Easy’ by Gunna & Future - …can I just say it sounds like exactly what you think it would except with some of the worst-sounding cheap percussion in recent memory backed with an oily synth, no coherent atmosphere, and two guys who sound perpetually bored of all of their wealth and fucking? I don’t understand why anyone is drawn to such a victory lap, especially one that doesn’t even sound fun and that both men have hammered into the ground for years now - it’s barebones, generic, and now doesn’t even go hard enough to excuse it. Folks, I get that Future had a run five years ago, and the Gunna memes were a thing, but this sucks - we can all do better.

32. ‘Your Heart’ by Joyner Lucas & J. Cole - not gonna lie, when I saw this team-up, I had rock-bottom expectations - my frustrations with J. Cole are well-documented, and Joyner Lucas has pissed away so much goodwill in the past few years that again, no expectations. So colour me surprised that this is actually a pretty intriguing song, specifically because it plays into archetypes of both characters where you’re not really expected to sympathize with either. It’s framed as a breakup song, where Joyner Lucas is being miserable because he got dumped because this girl changed and wants to go wild and then string him along… and then J. Cole comes in as his conscience to say, ‘no, you were slimy, ran her through the mud, likely cheated, and you’re saying she has bullshit, you have just as much if not more’. I actually kind of admire how the song plays into the self-aware framing, and getting J. Cole to be the hectoring ‘moral’ voice is kind of inspired, especially given that the song plays off the watery guitar loop and thicker shuffling bass knock that gives Cole more of a melodic foundation for his backing vocals to ratchet up his intensity. I dunno, it feels a little more like a concept piece rather than a fleshed out song - a third verse to add more detail, maybe show interplay between Joyner and J. Cole, and while Joyner highlighted comparisons to Eminem and Dr. Dre’s ‘Guilty Conscience’ in the video he directed, I’m not sure that’s a comparison he should want to make. Still, the fact they actually pulled off is kind of impressive… yeah, I’ll stick up for this one.

28. ‘Bad Morning’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - so in going through these YoungBoy songs, I think I somewhat ‘get’ the appeal - shambling, kind of raw, emotional in a confused way that feels authentic, where the paranoia is very real given his persistent gang connections and the production is allowed to be a clumsily mixed mess because that contributes to the feeling. Now I think there’s a larger and messier conversation about all of this - especially because, again, this was released while YoungBoy was in prison and it feels all sorts of sketchy how Atlantic has raked in streaming revenues from YoungBoy projects where it sounds like he’s imploding and can’t quite quantify the full picture. But this is the album opener… where he talks about how he can’t quit any of this, hoping the drugs and women take away the pain and the organ, guitar, and piano collide in the trap beat, but all the while he drives around with guns and literally says he’s got nothing else he wants to do with his life but take narcotics. Yeah, I remember when Layne Staley of Alice In Chains said something similar a few years before heroin killed him - that’s not just a bad morning, that makes me think something much worse is going on, where winding up in jail is only a piece of this puzzle. As for the track… well, it’s alright, if pretty damn bleak if you read into it, but right now a song like this reminds me way too much of Ole Dirty Bastard’s story told in ‘Who Killed Russell Jones’ by B. Dolan - and that’s not a good thing.

1. ‘My Universe’ by Coldplay & BTS - you know, it genuinely frustrates me that I literally can’t listen to ‘Butter’ without thinking about all the bullshit from last summer - way to just utterly ruin the emotional appeal of the music, stans, well done - but again, so little of this is actually about BTS themselves, and I still found a way to like ‘Permission To Dance’ despite all of that, so with hearing that this was apparently good, I was really hoping I could like this a lot, especially with Max Martin throwing a cowrite and production credit behind it. And look, for a song like this, coming from a Coldplay fan who has always preferred their rock material to their synth-inflected pop stuff which has always felt so cynical, this had an uphill battle for me… which is why I’m happy to say it’s pretty damn good. Full disclosure, it’s not close to being among my favourite Coldplay or BTS songs, but I think this is about as good of a collab as we could have expected - the groove is tight, the guitar rollick is well-balanced, BTS is really well-integrated to flesh out the prechoruses and bridge and the backing vocals while letting Chris Martin’s distinctive tones hold the hook, as an ethereal pop love song it works for what it is, even if I think that breakdown at the very end is utterly pointless and could have easily been replaced by a proper guitar solo - hell, the Chainsmokers got that right. I think if I have a frustration with this song, it’s how it doesn’t really soar the way it could: for a song that’s going for this sort of splashy scope and the sheer earnestness of everyone involved - look, I’m trying to buy in here - this should sound way bigger than it does, I’d be curious to see what BTS could do with production that actually has a budget. But yeah, a pretty damn good song, I’m just fine with this.

So that was our week… and I have to admit, I’m kind of stunned looking at our best… because that’s going to ‘Your Heart’ by Joyner Lucas and J. Cole, who found a good concept and really nailed the execution, with Honourable Mentions as a tie between ‘My Universe’ by Coldplay and BTS and ‘I Can’t Take It Back’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again. But he’s also winding up on the other side of things, with ‘Toxic Punk’ as a Dishonourable Mention with ‘Too Easy’ by Gunna and Future as the worst of the week - the laziness and crap production killed that one for me. Next week… Meek Mill album bomb, maybe? We’ll have to see - and what happens at the very top - quite soon…