billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 17, 2022

…hey, I guess sometimes we’re due for a cooldown week? Have to admit these days they’ve become harder and harder to predict, mostly because album bombs persist in weird ways and it’s tough to judge what rebounds and returns will actually break through. Right now I’m just grateful we got it, especially given what could well be coming in the next few months in terms of major name releases, and that’s just based off of the ones we know!

But anyway, our top ten, where ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles once again squats at #1, and I guess this is what happens when you’re just dominant on radio enough that good streaming keeps up your margin, because compare this to ‘Bad Habit’ by Steve Lacy stranded at #2 - yes, the streaming is really damn strong, but he’s got less than half of Harry Styles’ radio presence here, and that’s a tough margin to beat, even with Billboard’s wonky weighting. Speaking of which, riding its own strong radio and a considerable sales boost, ‘Late Night Talking’ by Harry Styles has rebounded into the top 10 up to #3 - it’s always had some streaming, but not enough to make it a serious player, this feels like a one time thing, especially as the sales were more driven off a physical vinyl campaign, not one through iTunes. But hey, it was enough to get over ‘Sunroof’ by Nicky Youre and dazy at #4, which is even more reliant on radio, as well as a slip for ‘About Damn Time’ by Lizzo to #5, which seems to be on the decline on the radio anyway. At least they held up over ‘I Like You (A Happier Song)’ by Post Malone and Doja Cat at #6, where the radio is entirely onboard but now streaming is starting to pick up too! Hell, that was enough to put it over ‘Super Freaky Girl’ by Nicki Minaj stranded at #7, which has consistently strong streaming but is just not picking up the radio like you might expect. This leaves vulnerable to another new top ten entry: ‘I Ain’t Worried’ by OneRepublic at #8. I mean, I’m not surprised this is here - a little disgusted, but it’s been big on the radio and streaming is now getting behind it as well, just dandy. Hell, it pushed ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush all the way to #9 - yes, I know it’s on the way out, but still - and that introduces yet another top 10 entry: ‘You Proof’ by Morgan Wallen, where thanks to radio and streaming getting onboard in earnest, this cheap, undercooked snap-and-trap beat got dumped on us and looks like it’s got a bit of traction.

Well, let’s move past that to get to our losers and dropouts, where alongside all of the DJ Khaled dropouts ‘Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)’ by Elton John and Dua Lipa is gone, finally! But looking at our losers, the majority are debuts from last week: from DJ Khaled ‘God Did’ with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend and Fridayy fell to 43 and ‘Beautiful’ with Future and SZA hit 73, ‘Beat The Odds’ by Lil Tjay fell to 68, and ‘Hold Me Closer’ by Elton John and Britney Spears stumbled to 23. Outside of those… continued losses for ‘Pink Venom’ by BLACKPINK at 67 and ‘Sticky’ by Drake at 69, along with ‘Wishful Drinking’ by Ingrid Andress and Sam Hunt losing any album traction to 61 - I really hope her promotion doesn’t stop after this one song, there’s better on the album.

But in most weeks after an album bomb, we got a lot of returns and gains, and in the former category… basically the bottom end broke through without much quality: ‘Country On’ by Luke Bryan at 97, ‘Snap’ by Rosa Linn at 93, ‘Soul’ by Lee Brice at 89, ‘Don’t Come Lookin’ by Jackson Dean at 88, and ‘Music For A Sushi Restaurant’ by Harry Styles at 87, why won’t this song just die! And speaking of disappointments, the one debut that picked up gains this week was ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha to 46, and while we’re on the topic of annoyance, ‘Bones’ by Imagine Dragons went to 48, ‘Despecha’ by ROSALIA went to 63, ‘Truth About You’ by Mitchell Tenpenny rose to 54, and rebounding from losses ‘Whiskey On You’ by Nate Smith went to 71 and ‘She Likes It’ by Russell Dickerson and Jake Scott rose to 74! Thankfully our other recovered losers are better - ‘Until I Found You’ by Stephen Sanchez at 75 and ‘Pick Me Up’ by Gabby Barrett at 70 - and the rest are at least tolerable if not good: ‘2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)’ by Lizzo at 78, ‘Last Last’ by Burna Boy at 53, ‘Die For You’ by The Weeknd at 52, ‘Left And Right’ by Charlie Puth and Jungkook at 37, and mostly happily, ‘Something In The Orange’ by Zach Bryan at 32! Now let’s ‘Oklahoma Smokeshow’ out of the Bubbling Under charts and we could be building something here!

But now onto our reasonably list of new arrivals, starting with…

100. ‘Sin Fin’ by Romeo Santos & Justin Timberlake - this is the sort of song where I’m disinclined to be charitable to anyone here - the last time I talked about Romeo Santos was 2018, also around the same year Justin Timberlake nuked his career from orbit, so while Santos seemed to be very excited to work with a personal hero of his, I also recognize the continued attempts to make Justin Timberlake a thing again, especially hopping on the bachata trend. Which is all exasperating because this song is actually pretty decent - the acoustic work plays off the more textured percussion really effectively, I liked the electric guitar work, the vocals all sound a bit overcompressed but the interplay is really pretty, and there’s a sensuality to the lovestruck confession that feels sincere. So yeah, much to my surprise this is better than I expected - pretty good even as a Latin pop song, I’ll take it.

99. ‘Billie Eilish.’ by Armani White - let’s not mince words: if the only way you can get attention to your music is to clickbait the title of your song based on a much bigger artist, do you really have something worth offering? What’s annoying is that this has happened before with that Post Malone song from Sam Feldt, and now we’re getting one from Armani White, who actually seems to have some projects the past few years but this is the TikTok single that got traction. And more amazingly it doesn’t use Billie like rappers normally use the names of white girls as a metaphor for cocaine - it refers to her T-shirt choice… and that’s really about it for a stock trap banger with a vaguely Middle-Eastern inspired melody, thudding bass, and Armani White’s flexing. What’s frustrating is that he actually seems to have some personality - he’s got charisma and can flip his flow in slightly kooky ways, I’d probably be fine hearing him doing something beyond a TikTok flip that can barely sustain ninety seconds! So no, I’m not going to call this bad… but I feel like I should have been introduced to this guy in a different way, I’d like him more.

98. ‘Static’ by Steve Lacy - let me get this straight - Steve Lacy has a bonafide hit on his hands, and you’re going for the next single, and you’re going with this? Not ‘Helmet’ or ‘Sunshine’? And somehow this feels even more like a fragment - there no hook, just a single verse, some doo-doos, and damn guitar chords to end off the song, it’s more an intro to the album than anything else? It’s also not especially likable - I’m already not impressed with Steve Lacy’s singing given how flat he can sound, but this song is targeted at a girl doing a lot of drugs and whose boyfriend might not be giving her everything she wants… and hey, he can fill that void! And I get that the song is at least partially ironic - he sounds like a mess himself, none of this is healthy and he knows it - but it’s also not nearly as low-key charming as he thinks, and I’m just not nearly enthused. I’d skip this.

91. ‘Calm Down’ by Rema & Selena Gomez - full disclosure, somehow wires got crossed in my head and I originally thought Rema was Remi Wolf and I thought it was really cool she finally got a breakthrough. I was very wrong with this - Rema is a Nigerian Afrobeat artist who I actually really liked working with fka twigs on Caprisongs, and he put out this song back in February and then got the Selena Gomez crossover stimulus package. And I like this too - the cyclical guitar behind the sharper percussion with swells of strings and synth give the song a soothing patter that works for Selena Gomez’s limited vocals. It’s just a really sweet romantic slow burn that almost earns opening up Selena Gomez whispering ‘vibes’ as the song opens up, especially by the final verse where it’s very honest about how it might not last, even if they might want it. So yeah, I know I give more passes to Selena Gomez than most, but this is a damn good song, check it out!

77. ‘Romantic Homicide’ by d4vd - okay, how to explain this… apparently this guy was at one point a Fortnite YouTuber and then caught some TikTok virality with this song, where as of recording he has less subscribers on his music channel on YouTube than my main - this is getting weird. Anyway, thank TikTok virality for this fragment of a song, where we get a post-breakup song where he killed his ex in his mind and was able to move on - somewhat - and we have some astoundingly shitty percussion to back up the hazy of muddy guitars and painfully weak crooning. This feels like the sort of song that you’d never otherwise hear because it got rejected for the fuckboi pop rap playlists that play XXXTENTACION cuts without rapping, but thanks to TikTok it has streaming, and while there can be some charm with amateurish songs, this doesn’t have it. It’s bad, next!

42. ‘Talk’ by Yeat - there’s a very real chance we’ll have to deal with a Yeat album bomb soon - as of yet I haven’t been able to fully find something from him that I like, so we could be ih rough territory, but anyway, this song… and this isn’t getting there either. The trap percussion feels painfully cheap as the synths drop a sour fizz over half-heard melodic touches - the atmosphere is just goopy - Yeat has no power as a vocalist, trying to imitate Travis Scott by way of Young Thug at his most boring, and for as much as this brand of ‘rage’ music is supposed to get me turned up, it’s too leaden and underpowered to get anywhere. It’s not even bad, per se, it’s just painfully tedious - and considering the emotions it’s trying to evoke, that’s where it fails.

25. ‘Detox’ by Lil Baby - I have to be honest, despite the fact that I’ve generally become more tolerant of Lil Baby over the years, I’m not all that enthused for a new album. Part of is that My Turn felt overlong and not particularly interesting - and it hasn’t felt like Lil Baby’s changed much since then - so with this new single breaking really high… well, there’s parts I like? The trap production is well-balanced with the blend of keys, guitars and the choral vocal sample, and Lil Baby has a good enough flow to ride it. The problem is that Lil Baby still feels limited as an MC - he’s once again focusing on his hustle to make even more money to provide for his girls and crew to the point of damn near exhaustion where he has to detox from said girl, and I have to wonder if any of this is making him happy. He sounds exhausted to play and work this hard, and while I get the ambition, if you don’t enjoy it in your lane I’m not sure this is going to be enough to be memorable or sustainable, especially when you reference ‘p’ on the hook which was a meme that should have died the second Gunna put out his album. Overall… yeah, it’s fine, but Lil Baby has made a lot of songs like this, and I’m not sure what helps this stand out.

Anyway, that’s our week… it started okay before turning to crap, but thankfully we’ve got enough: best goes to ‘Calm Down’ by Rema and Selena Gomez with Honourable Mention to ‘Sin Fin’ by Romeo Santos and Justin Timberlake - I know, I’m surprised about it too. Worst… ‘Romantic Homicide’ by d4vd, with ‘Talk’ by Yeat as the Dishonourable Mention, I really look forward to when Duke Deuce brings back crunk proper and we don’t have to worry about these undercooked rage acts anymore. Although with a likely album bomb, it probably won’t be next week, fair warning there…