billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 10, 2022
So no, we’re not that lucky to get a J.I.D. album bomb this week - he didn’t get a single song on the Hot 100 this week, despite his album being amazing, it’s a letdown. Instead, we got DJ Khaled dropping ten songs on us… joy.
And yet it might not be the biggest story of this week, especially when we look at our top ten. Yes, ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles is still holding the #1, thanks to radio and streaming, but there is a song that seems to be challenging: ‘Bad Habit’ by Steve Lacy up to #2, holding steady on enormous streaming… although the radio growth does not seem to be robust enough to make this a serious competition. But it did overtake ‘About Damn Time’ by Lizzo, which saw a radio dropoff and not enough sales to make it up. Still held over ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush at #4 - it’s got enough streaming and radio to hold but it’s probably reached its peak - and that opens up the door for ‘Sunroof’ by Nicky Youre and dazy at #5, which has all the radio momentum… but can’t muster a push anywhere else. But now we have the big story: debuting at #6, ‘Hold Me Closer’ by Elton John and Britney Spears. I’ll get into the song’s quality later on, but it’s here thanks to big sales, surging radio, and enough streaming to make this a contender - I don’t think we’ll be getting rid of this any time soon either. Hell, it leapfrogged over ‘Super Freaky Girl’ by Nicki Minaj stranded at #7 - the streaming is solid, but she’s just not making up the radio fast enough, whereas ‘I Like You (A Happier Song)’ by Post Malone and Doja Cat picked up a spot to #8 because it keeps steadily closing those radio margins. Hell, it jumped over ‘BREAK MY SOUL’ by Beyonce, but that might be an issue of that song getting rotated off the radio faster than you’d expect to #9, and even then it held over ‘Wait For U’ by Future, Tems and Drake at #10, which seems like it’s here more on radio inertia and the streaming gradually fading than anything else.
And on that pleasant note, our losers and dropouts, where in the latter category I’m certainly not complaining that ‘Super Gremlin’ by Kodak Black is finally gone and ‘Cooped Up’ by Post Malone and Roddy Ricch looks like it could miss the year-end list. But it’s an album bomb week and we have a lot of losers, so off the debut ‘Pink Venom’ by BLACKPINK fell to 53 and ‘Where It Ends’ by Bailey Zimmerman hit 72, with returns ‘Hotel Lobby (Unc and Phew)’ by Quavo and Takeoff hitting 94 and ‘Bzrp Music Sessions Vol 52’ by Bizarrap and Quevedo at 100. Then we have the one continued loser with ‘Alone’ by Rod Wave falling to 76, but we have a lot more gains that lost traction, like ‘Pick Me Up’ by Gabby Barrett at 80, ‘She Likes It’ by Russell Dickerson and Jake Scott at 84, ‘Ghost Story’ by Carrie Underwood at 85, ‘Until I Found You’ by Stephen Sanchez at 87, ‘Puffin On Zootiez’ by Future at 91, ‘Thought You Should Know’ by Morgan Wallen at 96, and ‘La Corriente’ by Bad Bunny and Tony Dize at 99 - and while we’re with Bad Bunny, ‘Despues de la Playa’ hit 74 and ‘Tarot’ with Jhay Cortez hit 83. Now for the rest… ‘ALIEN SUPERSTAR’ by Beyonce fell to 90, ‘bad decisions’ by benny blanco, BTS and Snoop Dogg hit 89, ‘Whiskey On You’ by Nate Smith hit 82, ‘FNF (Let’s Go)’ by Glorilla and Hitkidd hit 73, ‘Hot Shit’ by Cardi B, Kanye West and Lil Durk hit 60 - I honestly thought this had left the charts - ‘Sticky’ by Drake hit 56, and ‘Like I Love Country Music’ by Kane Brown fell to 52.
But now onto our gains and returns… where we had no returns and only one gain for ‘Wishful Drinking’ by Ingrid Andress and Sam Hunt, which I’ll chalk up to a small album boost. No, the story is DJ Khaled’s album bomb, so for the songs that are outside of the top 40 and are neither the best nor worst… ‘Let’s Pray’ with Don Toliver and Travis Scott at 86, ‘No Secret’ with Drake at 78, ‘It Ain’t Safe’ with Nardo Wick and Kodak Black at 77, ‘Party’ with Quavo and Takeoff at 66, ‘Keep Going’ with Lil Durk, 21 Savage and Roddy Ricch at 57, and ‘Use This Gospel (Remix)’ with Eminem and Kanye West.
Alright, so for the list of new arrivals proper…
98. ‘Wait In The Truck’ by HARDY ft. Lainey Wilson - I had heard about the subject matter behind this song before I actually listened to it - not so much that it was controversial, but more that this was the sort of darker storytelling about domestic violence you don’t often get in mainstream country these days. Not that it hasn’t existed before, which is why HARDY’s press run around this song kind of annoyed me in highlighting how transgressive this is, but alright: a bluesy slow-burn organic country song where HARDY finds Lainey Wilson on the side of the road, she had been abused, he goes and shoot the abuser, and then goes to jail, played as straight and solemn with the gospel choirs as you can get. And yet for as much as I feel I should like, there’s a lot that doesn’t work, starting with HARDY and Lainey Wilson being miscast - Wilson is a way more powerful vocal presence than HARDY’s muted rasp, the equilibrium of the song is off-balance and can’t help but remind me of songs where the woman takes it into her own hands like ‘Goodbye Earl’ or ‘Karate’ by Brad Paisley or any number of Carrie Underwood or Miranda Lambert songs. I’d call it more realistic than those power fantasies… but then drill into the lyrics on how HARDY just smokes one of the abusers’ cigarettes like a cool badass and gives himself up to go to jail rather than, I dunno, running, or not getting shot by the police at the scene of the crime, so it reveals itself as a masculine power fantasy of a different era and for a different audience. And… fine, it mostly works for that, but let’s not make this more than what it is.
81. ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ by David Guetta & Bebe Rexha - let’s not mince words about this: it’s a song that was first debuted back in 2017 that only now is getting a release because both of these artists are desperate for any kind of hit, and the Eiffel 65 sample will get them some vestige of meme traction. But once you recognize that, there’s nothing else to it - the original ‘I’m Blue’ has more unique flair than Bebe Rexha’s nasal delivery of the bland party lyrics on the hook, the buzzed out synths feel painfully dated, and outside of getting that keyboard line stuck in your head again, there’s not a shred of anything here worth caring about, the laziest kind of sampling. It’s completely soulless, it’s no surprise it took this long to get a proper release, and even if you weren’t alive for the original one-hit wonder meme, you can do much better than this.
71. ‘Golden Hour’ by JVKE - you’d think artists would stop naming songs after someone with a much bigger profile already laid claim - in this case Kacey Musgraves with a Grammy-winning album that only came out in 2018 - but hey, might as well grab a little clickbait traction. Anyway, JVKE is a singer-songwriter type who has gone viral so many times on YouTube - specifically on YouTube shorts - that I’m a little surprised we’re only hearing from him now. And with this… there’s a part of me that’s reminded of Bazzi with the abortive song construction, basic content, cadences cribbed from hip-hop and R&B, and cheap-sounding production especially in the percussion, and yet why isn’t this quite working for me? Well, part of it is how the second he started belting or getting into a more expansive range the effects piled in - aka what happens when someone used to an intimate setting has to go bigger and can’t pull it of - but also how they don’t really blend well with the very pretty strings and pianos that are trying to build that orchestral feel; I feel like there was subtlety required to make this song work especially with that reference to Frank Ocean’s ‘blonde’ where that just didn’t materialize. Now to be fair, this feels more amateurish than outright incompetent - there’s a sincerity to some of the clunkier lines that could work - but that also means it doesn’t really work. I get the audience that’ll love it, but that’s not me.
55. ‘Juice WRLD Did’ by DJ Khaled ft. Juice WRLD - Okay, enough. I was about done with the Juice WRLD posthumous cuts last year, but the fact this is even here is borderline offensive; the only reason this is on the album is the hook from Juice WRLD where it’s built off of DJ Khaled’s catchphrase, and considering this song was first teased in 2019 and then fully leaked in 2020, it’s here now because DJ Khaled wants something self-aggrandizing under the guise of a tribute. But as I’ve said before, if the Juice WRLD song isn’t any good, even casting it as a tribute leaves a bad taste, from the slapdash gunplay and flexing on the verses - the very worst side of Juice WRLD - where he calls his gun horny and we get the line ‘I blow up like a turban on top of my head’. Coupled with the limp oily guitar behind the whirring trap beat and the overcompressed vocal leads, this song just feels gross - let Juice WRLD rest for God’s sake, and leave behind this trash.
37. ‘Gatubela’ by Karol G & Maldy - I don’t think it’s been recognized enough that Karol G has had a remarkable 2022 on the Hot 100 - two credible hits with ‘MAMIII’ and ‘Provenza’, and I like the latter, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she’s looking to notch another one, this time with Puerto Rican reggaeton act Maldy, who you might recognize as the other half of Plan B, a long-running reggaeton duo with Chencho Corleone and I’m only realizing this group goes back to the early 2000s! Anyway, with this… ehh, I’m cooler on this, half because of the stock, blocky reggaeton percussion against the chintzy keys and rattling guitars with some questionable mastering, half because the song’s explicit horniness doesn’t really go anywhere interesting, but mostly because Maldy is such a squawking, obnoxious presence that he doesn’t fit with the vibe at all. Apparently this was put up on a Spanish actress’ IG before anyone was notified of a proper release - my guess is that was intentional by the label, but I have to wonder if this could have been held back or buried as an album track, because I’m not impressed.
36. ‘Beat The Odds’ by Lil Tjay - I want to make this explicitly clear, in case it hasn’t been talking about the feuds that I’ve seen on the charts the past few years: I understand how this escalates - mostly courtesy of dipshit teenage white boys who’ll never have a stake in any of this but are happy to egg on street level violence, who do you think Adam22’s audience is - but I don’t want to see any artists get killed, especially those who are trying to escape the streets. So yeah, it was worrying to see Lil Tjay get shot and have to make a slow recovery, and I’m happy that he looks like he’s going to get back to music… but then I hear this and it doesn’t sound like he’s learned anything from it. I get the reality of always having to have the gun on you - and blasting the vlogs that amplify the sensationalist drama of it was right - but he’s still talking about shooting his opps, and the killers around him, and there’s little in the way of thinking deeply about who might die; he beat the odds… for now. And when you pair it with a somber piano instrumental with brittle percussion, it’s less about survival and more about delaying the inevitable, so while I get why this song could work for some… I really don’t want to hear it.
31. ‘Big Time’ by DJ Khaled ft. Future & Lil Baby - you know, I’ll give Future this, somehow for the luxuriant and overcompressed production that DJ Khaled wants to throw everyone on, Future’s vocal lead actually sounds better in the mix than the majority of his peers, even if the bass swamps the mix and the snares openly clip everything. Outside of that… it’s stock flexing from everyone here, although I’m still chuckling at Future opening the song with ‘Rainbow Audemar, ‘cause my bitch bisexual’ - his brand of queer acceptance on this and ‘GOLD STACKS’ earlier this year is just wild. Otherwise this is not worth caring about, next!
29. ‘Beautiful’ by DJ Khaled ft. Future & SZA - this has been widely held as the best song on the album by a lot of folks… and I kind of get it? The live drums against the piano and chipmunked sample that’s not too shrill, the fact that Future and SZA’s vocal leads actually sound decent in this mix, and the flexing throughout the mix is actually well-balanced, mostly courtesy of Future and SZA both recognizing their own toxic tendencies and balancing each other out, which is a nice touch that I generally like on songs like this. Granted, it still has mugging adlibs from DJ Khaled that keep this away from being better but honestly, I’ll take what I can get.
17. ‘God Did’ by DJ Khaled ft. Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend & Fridayy - of course, the other song that’s been placed on a pedestal by so many fans is this one, most notably for the Jay-Z verse that broke the side of the internet that worships New York and New York rap media. And before we get to that verse, let’s talk about everything else, because this is overstuffed - you could have easily chopped a verse off, likely from Rick Ross who I actually think matches the production and vibe but doesn’t really hit the same notes of ‘greatest of all time’ that Lil Wayne and Jay try to push, and John Legend feels perfunctory on this song. But then the beat ramps up as Jay-Z steps in… and let me put aside all of the bullshit Jay-Z has said the past few weeks about how he doesn’t like to be called a capitalist and uses a lot of disingenuous nonsense to skate around it; you’ve wanted to be a billionaire for a longtime, Hov, you lost that underdog card at least a decade ago. But for what this verse is trying to do… yeah, it’s good; Jay-Z sounds engaged, the juxtapositions between legal and illegal businesses are well-executed while highlighting he still knows so many tricks that many don’t listen to pick up on and win legitimately, where now his aim targets governments and tax avoidance - and he doesn’t want to be called a capitalist, cute - but he’s also the sort of careful rapper who can eviscerate anyone who dares go against him, where even he’s amazed by the sheer heights of his success. Hell, in particular I like the global perspective he takes, especially in referencing UK MCs where he sees that potential, it adds some international flavour to top-of-the-heap flexing where I might get the appeal, but I don’t find it that interesting nor aspirational - I prefer Jay-Z’s personal content, and outside of references to old friends and colleagues he’s saved or empowered, this isn’t really that. I’m not gonna deny that it’s impressive, but that verse does overpower the song that otherwise had more potential, so while this is good, it’s not great or transcendent, at least to me.
6. ‘Hold Me Closer’ by Elton John & Britney Spears - you know, it’s not that I don’t like Elton John working with the new generation coming up in pop - he’s a living legend, it’s cool to see him throw support behind newer acts and give them the benefit of his clout - but chopping his own songs into these Frankenstein mashups feel cynical in a similar way to when folks sampled the Michael Jackson / Paul Anka sessions - they didn’t work at the time, trying to make them work now is awkward especially when the promotion is determined to erase that history and make them a thing based on name alone. It’s the reason ‘Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)’ with Dua Lipa doesn’t work for me at all, and now with a collab with Britney Spears, we get ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’, ‘The One’, and ‘Tiny Dancer’ mashed together. And… no, this also doesn’t work at all - the disco groove and strings and pianos are pretty, but they can’t mask the incredibly mushy and overprocessed vocal leads; Britney’s best material utilizes tightness and there’s none here. But the larger problem is the same as ‘Cold Heart’ - it takes a forgotten Elton John song and tries to mash it with classics, and a great mashup should never drag a composition down to its worst parts. I can respect the sentiment and what it means for Elton John to do this for Britney - the song still sucks.
So that was our week… honestly, kind of rough if DJ Khaled claims the best and honourable mention, with ‘Beautiful’ with Future and SZA getting the top spot followed by ‘God Did’ with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, John Legend and Fridayy. But he’s also getting the worst of the week for ‘Juice WRLD Did’ with the late Juice WRLD - just stop with the posthumous cuts, at this point it’s gross - with a tie for Dishonourable Mention going between ‘Hold Me Closer’ by Elton John and Britney Spears with ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha. Next week… I reckon we’re in the clear so it’ll just be the fallout, we’ll have to see…