billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 12, 2020

Full disclosure, I don’t predict much that happened this week to last, because we could very well get a double album bomb next week from both Big Sean and 6ix9ine. Granted, how much either will truly resonate across the Hot 100 is a bit sketchy at this time, mostly because the Soundcloud waifu has seen his sales projections plummet, and I don’t know if this Big Sean album has enough buzz as a whole to blow through, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen.

My point is that I don’t know how much of this week matters… well, except the top ten, where to my astonishment, ‘Dynamite’ by BTS got a second week at #1. And I place almost all of this on sales still being enormous, plus the radio being decent - the streaming dropped off significantly, and if there’s a vulnerability for the song being overtaken, it’s probably here. And it’s probably going to come from ‘WAP’ by Cardi B ft. Megan Thee Stallion at #2, with just obscene streaming and YouTube numbers and good sales and a radio run - frankly, I’m shocked it didn’t go back to #1, but I guess BTS just won out in the sales margin - the discounting of the song probably helped. Now the majority of the top 10 didn’t move at all this week - ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’ by Drake and Lil Durk is at #3 because streaming and radio make up for sales crashing, ‘ROCKSTAR’ by DaBaby and Roddy Ricch is at #4 because while it has radio inertia and slightly better sales it’s now on the way out, and pretty much the same story for ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd at #5 except slightly better airplay and little else. Then we have ‘Watermelon Sugar’ by Harry Styles actually rising to #6 on one last radio push - sales and streaming have tanked, this is all it has left - but ‘WHATS POPPIN’ by Jack Harlow and crew might even be worse off at #7 because all it has is slipping streaming and its radio peaked. But now we have good news: entering the top 10 and hopefully staying a while, ‘Mood’ by 24kGoldn ft. iann dior is at #8, and it looks to be a strong hit: the sales and YouTube are not huge, but the streaming absolutely is and its radio run has picked up big momentum - if the timing is played right, I can see this going to the top five at least, and this is probably the most I’ve been excited about a trap song in a long time, so I hope it does! The last two… eh, ‘Savage Love’ by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo is stuck at #9 as the sales losses are compensated by the radio run, and ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi is at #10 for basically a lot of the same reasons - good radio, worse sales.

Now when you look outside of all of this… again, with losers and dropouts it’s a little tough to predict. The only major dropout is ‘The Box’ by Roddy Ricch finally finishing a shockingly strong run, and our losers are kind of scattered. Also on the way out we have ‘Savage’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce at 30 and ‘death bed’ by powfu and beabaddoobee at 36, and we’re seeing continuing losses for ‘7 Summers’ by Morgan Wallen at 56 - that’s dropping off fast - ‘Why We Drink’ by Justin Moore at 76, ‘Done’ by Chris Janson at 94 and ‘Girl Of My Dreams’ by Rod Wave at 100. Then we have the return of ‘Need It’ by Migos and YoungBoy Never Broke Again falling to 88, and the gains for ‘I Called Mama’ by Tim McGraw and ‘I Love My Country’ by Florida Georgia Line evaporating at 82 and 62 respectively - not a good week for country, I have to say! Finally… again, it’s basically unsupported so ‘my future’ by Billie Eilish is at 78 - wow, this just looks like it might become a throwaway and not a lead-off single, which is interesting and telling in its own way, we’ll have to see how Billie and her team move after this.

Now there were no returns this week, but we did get a few gains… although I’m not really seeing any trend with them. ‘Tap In’ by Saweetie is continuing its radio run to 21, ‘One of Them Girls’ by Lee Brice has big Nashville radio to 33, ‘Rain On Me’ by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande got the VMAs boost to 34, ‘Lemonade’ by Internet Money, Gunna, Don Toliver and NAV saw some streaming traction at 54, ‘Hawai’ by Maluma got a boost off the debut to 60, ‘my ex’s best friend’ by Machine Gun Kelly and blackbear saw a similar spike off the return to 68, and ‘ily’ by surf mesa and Emilee is up to 70 because the radio needs filler… that’s all I’ve got with that one, I’m a little shocked it’s still around.

But okay, we’ve got an even more manageable list of new arrivals here, so let’s start with…

99. ‘Ain’t Always The Cowboy’ by Jon Pardi - oh look, for his late album single Jon Pardi picks one of the best songs on his 2019 project, how about that? Heavily rooted in fiddle and pedal steel that’s got some organic presence, and even if the bass is a little neglected in favour of the slightly scuzzier guitars - and Pardi’s vocals still aren’t stellar, as I think his flat nasal timbre can start to get a bit grating - it’s the sort of tones I like hearing in mainstream country. And the content is good too - it’s a breakup song, but one where Pardi is actually okay with her leaving - he’s made peace with it, they’re splitting probably for the right reasons, and I think he appreciates just bucking the stereotype of the heartbreaker cowboy. In other words… yeah, just a really damn solid song - great stuff, happy it’s a single, check it out!

90. ‘Lets Link’ by WhoHeem - another week, another forgettable slice of trap boosted by TikTok… but on the standards of songs pushed by that platform, this might be one of the worst in recent memory. For one, it’s an overmixed mess - some nursery rhyme chords smothered by the snaps, record scratches, gang vocals, and then a bassy trap beat too, but this could have worked if WhoHeem wasn’t a pretty bad rapper. He can barely stay on beat and his stop-start delivery doesn’t flatter how exaggerated he’s trying to be - he’s trying to use personality to overcompensate for not being in any pocket, and when you realize he’s spending the entire song trying to convince a girl to leave her boyfriend because she’s apparently such a bad bitch already - so why would she get with you, especially when you don’t really display any attractive qualities? Yeah, this is not good - thankfully once TikTok gets bored of this, we’ll be able to move on.

83. ‘Expensive’ by Ty Dolla $ign ft. Nicki Minaj - so is Ty Dola $ign actually going to release this Dream House project or drip feed singles with big name guest stars and keep pushing it back when the singles don’t catch? I’m not even the biggest Ty Dolla $ign fan and I’m a little shocked how sporadic his momentum seems to be - not helped by how he doesn’t seem to capitalize on it - but hey, he got the Nicki Minaj stimulus package for this one, and… am I the only one who thinks this sounds a little like a DJ Mustard riff in its groove? Swap out synths for the guitars they pitch-shift around and it’s surprisingly close, albeit with a few more trap skitters woven in… which I don’t think is a bad thing, for the record, the production is about as opulent as it needs to be here. And I think for the eight bars Nicki provides, she’s fine here - it’s empty brand name flexing, but Nicki can sell that. Hell, I think my problem might come with Ty Dolla $ign - the song doesn’t really let him cut loose, it’s too tight for that, and given we only get two verses, it feels weirdly short and undercooked, especially given the empty content. I dunno, it’s fine, but I don’t think this is a single that moves the needle, at least for me.

79. ‘Blastoff’ by Internet Money ft. Juice WRLD & Trippie Redd - am I the only one who is starting to get kind of sick of every scrap of Juice WRLD material being tacked onto otherwise forgettable collaborations for the hit? If you’re looking at a trend all damn year, it’s been one of them, especially when this song has been teased going as far back as 2018! And let’s make this clear: Juice WRLD is the only thing that makes this close to tolerable and this is not one of his better verses: it’s slapdash, the rhyme is clunky, and all the vocal leads sound compressed against this weedy guitar loop and trap skitter. But the problem is Trippie Redd, and while I’ve been on the record saying I’ve not bought into his appeal, some of the lyrics here are just awful: ‘do everything I say like your majesty’. ‘Tryna get in that pussy, baby, that’s mac and cheese’. ‘Fuck that bitch and then dip, I got them chips to receive’. Again, I have to ask what woman wants this, because it’s not like Trippie Redd is an impressive singer or vocalist on this thing, because outside of those lines it’s the same bland melodrama and gunplay we’ve been hearing from him for years now. This sucks, and I’ve stopped caring - next!

57. ‘Starting Over’ by Chris Stapleton - so it looks like we’re getting a new Chris Stapleton album coming soon with this as a lead-off single produced by Dave Cobb and his wife on backing vocals. Honestly, I’m more surprised that it debuted this high, but I guess if Chris Stapleton has that mainstream traction now, I’m not about to complain. And this song is really damn nice - a bit jauntier than what we normally get from Stapleton with the prominent and slightly faster acoustic line and very subtle touches of organ sliding across the back of the mix, but what I like is that the song doesn’t feel as bone-dry and brittle as the From A Room albums were - it’s warmer, Cobb actually micced the bass well for once, and Stapleton doesn’t need to howl to give the song his unique presence, mostly through his writing. And I like the element of forgiveness that comes through here - it’s a long and difficult road to pull oneself out of stasis, but if you want to roll the dice and try again, he’s open to it, and the song has enough understated hope to really stick the landing. So yeah, we’re easily two for two when it comes to country this week, because while I think Stapleton has a few better songs, this is still really nice - I’m excited for the album, and in the meantime, check this out!

38. ‘Over Now’ by Calvin Harris & The Weeknd - this makes both more and less sense than you’d think. For one, Calvin Harris has been experimenting a bit more outside of flashy EDM and that’s territory The Weeknd has dabbled in… but on the other hand, I see The Weeknd on collaborations and while ‘Blinding Lights’ is still cleaning up in the top 5, he could push other singles from the album - even if he’s not going to push ‘Faith’, there’s still quality there! But okay, this collaboration… well, Calvin Harris is certainly getting back to the advances he was making off of Funk Wav. Bounces, this time with some sharp-edged 80s funk with the glassy synths, sharp bass, weedy guitar rollick, and super-tight percussion line, and I do think The Weeknd is comfortable here. But at the same time, if like me you appreciate The Weeknd on songs that feel huge and cinematic, this is considerably more low-key and restrained. Which, sure, makes sense for a breakup song where it’s clear neither of them were good for each other and they need to move on and stop abusing themselves, but this feels like a coda to a more interesting and dramatic story, and as such I’m a bit cooler on it. A good enough song where the two meet in the middle - or really, The Weeknd getting some consistency from Calvin Harris - but both can do better.

13. ‘Ice Cream’ by BLACKPINK & Selena Gomez - and again, I feel like this makes more sense than you’d think. Let’s be honest, how many of you are still going back to what Selena Gomez put out in January - and more importantly, doesn’t January feel like half a lifetime ago? So I understand if she wants to get her name on a big single and help enable BLACKPINK’s continued stabs at American crossover, it makes sense. What I didn’t mention is that this song is a headache and a half, cowritten by Ariana Grande and Victoria Monet, which leaves me thinking either of those two might have better luck selling this than BLACKPINK or Selena Gomez, the latter of whom does not need to be here and really is outshone in terms of vocals by the girl group in every way. But even then, BLACKPINK does not have a vocal talent with the range of Ariana Grande, but this song has moments where they try to reach higher notes and it comes across really like they’re forcing it… which is pretty much the vibe I get throughout the entire track. The airless squonk passing off as a melody off the bassy trap clatter, the slightly compressed vocals, and especially the lyrics, where they try to work the ‘ice-cream-is-sexy’ metaphor long past the point where it stops making sense. The ‘I’m sweet for you, put me in a cone’ line is bad enough, but what really grabbed my attention was Selena Gomez saying ‘catch me in the fridge, where the ice be’ - between this and the ‘burnin’ toast in the toaster’ does she just have a thing for appliances or something? I’d say this reminds me of Rihanna’s ‘Birthday Cake’ in terms of clattering annoyance and an overexposed sexual metaphor, but I think ‘Milkshake’ by Kelis and produced by the Neptunes is probably closer in quality and artists who should know better than deliver crap - to me this screams of writers getting stuck on one idea and not scrapping it instantly before it got out of control… which was midway through the first verse.

So yeah, it’s bad, but it’s also only getting the Dishonourable Mention because Internet Money decided to get Trippie Redd and the late Juice WRLD on ‘Blastoff’ for a song that might just be worse across the board - BLACKPINK I can see spinning around to ‘so bad it’s hilarious’, not so much with ‘Blastoff’. The best are both going to country songs… and it was actually close, but I’m giving ‘Starting Over’ by Chris Stapleton the slight edge over ‘Ain’t Always The Cowboy’ by Jon Pardi on vocals, even if they’re both great songs. Of course, how much any of this’ll matter after album bombs likely coming next week, we’ll have to see…