billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 18, 2021

So this is your fault. And no, I don’t just mean those of you who follow this series, I mean the ‘you’ as in society at large. You’re the ones who have enabled the silent majority dominance of Drake to a point where discerning audiences realize he might just be going through the motions, but how much do people care? It’s popular beyond adequate measure and moreover, Drake has mastered the ability to provide consistency and has manipulated his relationships with streaming to ensure the playlists are well-stocked to deliver it. It’s Amazon, it’s Wal-Mart, it’s ‘art-as-product’ in its most flagrant way, and while I’ve seen music critics wring their hands about ‘chart integrity’ and ‘what really counts as a hit’, the truth is that Drake is working within the bounds of this system and Billboard has no problems enabling him, so maybe it’s a much bigger question about the society that enables this to keep happening. And I’d be remiss not to mention that so much of this is dependent on subjective appeal and I’ve been more forgiving of album bombs if I’ve liked the music more, but this is of a different kind - not the active listening, ‘this is the best thing ever’ from the diehard stans, although those do exist and have been a bit lukewarm on this, but the tolerance of passive listening, the ‘it’s good enough, I don’t care enough to change the song’ - in other words, it’s a lot like how the majority engages with radio, complete with old fashioned payola to ensure streaming placement, except it’s just for one artist who has just enough stylistic variety to fill every placement. The more things change… I guess we should all be grateful that radio proper hasn’t gotten onboard with this, but somehow I just think that’s a matter of time.

I bring all of this up because looking to the top ten, there’s very little to actually say - Drake broke records by grabbing nine of the slots, almost entirely driven on streaming, which means that they likely won’t last at the very top, but given how I’m not hearing what’s flooding in to challenge him, it’ll probably last longer than what many will want - this was a thing with Scorpion in 2018 too, his albums dissipate over time. So if we want to rattle through the list here… ‘Way 2 Sexy’ with Future and Young Thug at #1 - congrats to Future for getting his first #1 - ‘Girls Want Girls’ ft. Lil Baby at #2, ‘Fair Trade’ with Travis Scott #3, ‘Champagne Poetry’ at #4, ‘Knife Talk’ with 21 Savage and Project Pat at #5 - congrats to Project Pat for his highest charting single, and then ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber holds on just enough courtesy of strength across the board to get #6. Then from there it’s ‘In The Bible’ with Lil Durk & Giveon at #7, ‘Papi’s Home’ at #8, ‘TSU’ at #9, and ‘Love All’ with Jay-Z at #10.

But now we get to the real quandary: losers and dropouts this week. In the latter category it’s actually surprisingly light - Kanye’s album bomb did a lot of work there, and most of what got swept away were his debuts, alongside songs that clinched their spots like ‘Heartbreak Anniversary’ by Giveon and ‘Forever After All’ by Luke Combs, along with songs that’ll fall short like ‘Come Through’ by H.E.R. and Chris Brown, ‘brutal’ by Olivia Rodrigo, and ‘AM’ by Nio Garcia, Bad Bunny and J Balvin. But here’s the issue: nearly half the Hot 100 are losers this week, and I really don’t want to rattle through another clump of names… especially when the songs that didn’t move much at all are more interesting to me, that they survived. So I’m going to focus on them, most of which are holding some vestige of stability low on the charts. I already mentioned ‘Stay’ at #6, but courtesy of radio and sales we also saw ‘Beggin’ by Maneskin at 39 and ‘Leave Before You Love Me’ by Marshmello and the Jonas Brothers cling to 40. Then holding up momentum we have ‘Happier Than Ever’ by Billie Eilish at 42, ‘Pepas’ by Farruko at 45, ‘A-O-K’ by Tai Verdes at 60, ‘Wockesha’ by Moneybagg Yo stabilizing at 62, which is also true for ‘Whole Lotta Money’ by BIA and Nicki Minaj at 68 and ‘Love Again’ by Dua Lipa at 69 - nice. There are a few others - ‘Todo de Ti’ by Rauw Alejandro at 73, ‘Volvi’ by Aventura and Bad Bunny at 77, ‘Woman’, ‘Get Into It (Yuh)’, and ‘Ain’t Shit’ by Doja Cat at 80, 88, and 97 respectively, ‘Gyalis’ by Capella Grey at 82, ‘Don’t Go Yet’ by Camila Cabello at 93, and ‘Baddest’ by Yung Bleu, Chris Brown, and 2 Chainz at 100. But in the one thing that tends to remain stable during streaming album bombs is country radio, so here’s the songs that held their own: ‘If I Didn’t Love You’ by Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood at 43, ‘Things A Man Oughta Know’ by Lainey Wilson at 51, ‘Country Again’ by Thomas Rhett at 52, ‘Chasing After You’ by Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris at 53, ‘Cold Beer Calling My Name’ by Jameson Rodgers and Luke Combs at 56, ‘I Was On a Boat That Day’ by Old Dominion actually rising to 61, ‘Memory I Don’t Mess With’ by Lee Brice at 70, ‘Cold As You’ by Luke Combs at 76, ‘Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)’ by Elle King and Miranda Lambert at 79, ‘My Boy’ by Elvie Shane at 89, ‘Single Saturday Night’ by Cole Swindell at 90, ‘You Should Probably Leave’ by Chris Stapleton at 92, and ‘Thinkin’ Bout You’ by Dustin Lynch and Lauren Alaina or MacKenzie Porter at 94. Hell, this even translated into our two gains this week: ‘You Time’ by Scotty McCreery up to 72 and ‘Buy Dirt’ by Jordan Davis ft. Luke Bryan at 74. The rest of the songs are losers… or new arrivals.

And that’s where I have to re-examine my album bomb rules, where I actually went back and checked and my original plan was to only focus on the best, worst, and songs that land in the top 10 - given that we have nine new Drake songs just there this week, that would be a fair bet, especially as Drake’s entire album debuted in the top 40! And again, I’ve already reviewed the album and there’s really not much to say for many of these songs and this is going to be a headache to edit regardless… but I’m going to stick to my own rules and work to keep this as pithy and short as possible and cover all of it; if he’s going to play his game, the gloves are coming off when I play mine.

But we’re not actually starting the new arrivals with him, funnily enough…

87. ‘Blue Notes II’ by Meek Mill ft. Lil Uzi Vert - only Meek Mill would do this, throw out a song to go toe-to-toe with Drake on what would be a herculean task to break through… and he did, although I’d probably put more credit on the Uzi feature as per usual. I do find it very funny that his first line is him saying that he’s not in competition with his homies – even if a lot of the veiled references throughout the verse make me think there’s more lingering tension than I think will go realized – but truth be told, I think Meek kills this song. His flows are sharper and a bit more focused, he can ride the original liquid guitar rollick and trap beat pretty effectively, and while the framing of his hustle can feel a little undercooked as per usual, when he references his time in jail and his desperate struggle to get free, there’s a sense of real stakes that Uzi kind of undercuts with his by-the-numbers flexing. I don’t think it helps that Uzi’s contributions feel tacked on and not delivered with anything close to the same intensity, and that the song doesn’t have a hook, but otherwise… I like it more than the first ‘Blue Notes’, I’ll give him that.

35. ‘The Remorse’ by Drake – yeah, it’s just Drake from here – if y’all want to clear out, I understand. But we’re starting with the album closer, where Drake flips the chipmunked vocals of Anthony Hamilton against a lumbering tale of his come-up and his inability to repay his friends, so much so that he feels like Bernie Sanders when he’s tried. And yet on a song where he says everyone else’s music is watered down, I don’t think there’s a stronger argument for taxing the uber-rich than this brand of condescending faux remorse; it gets worse with every listen.

32. ‘Fucking Fans’ by Drake – ah, the badly produced deep cut featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR uncredited which features more of the tired Rihanna concern trolling between the lines where he admits to shamelessly fucking fans; that doesn’t make her look crazy when she finds out, Drake, it makes you look pathetic. And I stand by the fact that she should slap you.

27. ‘Get Along Better’ by Drake ft. Ty Dolla $ign – the waltz cadence with the organ and vocals from Ty Dolla $ign are fine – the rest of the song features really inconsistent vocal production, flubbed high notes, and Drake trying to pull a ‘no hard feelings’ to an ex where he now gets along better with her friend… something undercut by the petty potshots in each verse, go figure.

26. ‘Fountains’ by Drake ft. Tems – this is more Tems’ song than Drake’s, and while I’m sure she’s grateful for the cosign on this blubbery slice of Afrobeat, I’ve heard Drake hop on the ‘hot new sound’ to guarantee crossover before, especially when he’s so obviously phoning it in.

25. ‘You Only Live Twice’ by Drake ft. Lil Wayne & Rick Ross – this was actually intended as the sequel to ‘The Motto’, and in that spirit it sounds nothing like ‘The Motto’ and Rick Ross and especially Lil Wayne go off with their verses. Drake, meanwhile, uses his verse to make Chris Brown references and take shots at Swiss Beatz using an Alicia Keys reference. She should slap you too.

24. ‘Yebba’s Heartbreak’ by Drake & YEBBA – in the grand tradition of Drake ‘putting an artist on’, the majority of the album gets overshadowed by a piano-driven soulful interlude that doesn’t even feature him. Outside of the album context, it’s a decent interlude – within the context it frames the women as head-over-heels for Drake’s schtick, which is actively testing my patience.

22. ‘IMY2’ by Drake ft. Kid Cudi – there’s no excuse for the vocals to be this compressed and clumsily blended when the vibe is trying to be this hazy and blissful, and including vocals from Juice WRLD feels cheap. Also Drake trying to pair his magnanimous attempts to win a girl back on a victory lap to then take potshots at those jealous about his commercial success who just want to get even… alongside everything else on this album? Yeah, even if you reconciled with Cudi, this is a push at best.

18. ‘Race My Mind’ by Drake – how is your vocal production this messy consistently across this album, even within this song – is it because half of these songs leaked months if not years ago and you just had to repackage the roughs? Also, even if the keys sound pretty, the drums sound like shit, and Drake negging this girl even as he says he doesn’t care what people say about him proves that he cares way too much about people ‘racing his mind’; amusing when you consider just many would run laps around him.

16. ‘7am on Bridle Path’ by Drake – no joke, when I was going through new arrivals I literally forgot this exists – not a good sign when one of Drake ‘time at location’ songs inspires that response. And then I relistened and I’m like ‘oh right, this is the one where the production is decent but Drake has to try too hard to get his Giannis bar off and drops a homophobic slur in Spanish and his own flows feel increasingly awkward as he’s trying to punch back at Pusha-T and Kanye and claim he never lied and doesn’t name drop a few bars before referencing LeBron and once again not landing a single punch…’ and then I remember why I forgot about this one again.

14. ‘Pipe Down’ by Drake – this is Drake looking to make ‘Child’s Play’ part 2 with a chipmunked sample that grinds my nerves and Drake trying to tell this girl to shut up because she’s not ride or die enough because he’s on her ass like back pockets. At this point I don’t care who this is about, just whoever this is ensures Drake experiences the subtle joys of sounding, because this is fucking terrible.

12. ‘N 2 Deep’ by Drake ft. Future – okay, points for that guitar line and a pretty cool switch into the darker vibe that comes with trying to get a girl to hook up but who is throwing his own lines back in his face; kind of makes me wish The Weeknd contributed more than just uncredited backing vocals before it drops into a washed out What A Time To Be Alive reject with Future. It’s pretty much the only time the intended ‘satire’ from Drake has some teeth, ergo I can actually tolerate this.

11. ‘No Friends In The Industry’ by Drake – I can recognize when somebody rewrites their own song at the last minute, where this is basically the flow from ‘Energy’ but with fewer quotables and rougher production where we get him complaining about Kanye and Pusha-T and ‘no friends in the industry’… despite being on an album full of said friends. And no, Drake, you’re not remotely prepared to die behind the verses because every shot here is bloodless, limp, and you would have died three years ago – the open question is whether or not we’d have been better for it.

10. ‘Love All’ by Drake ft. Jay-Z – yes, Drake got the better Jay-Z verse, tacked on after this song leaked last year, mostly where he takes shots at his former business associates and actually seems pretty engaged. Shame Drake mostly wastes it with complaining and subliminals that have nothing close to the impact, which might match the dreary sample and production but none of the energy. Also Jay-Z calls out folks beefing online as a poor way to move – you’d think Drake would have taken notes.

9. ‘TSU’ by Drake – I don’t believe for a second that 40 and Drake’s crew didn’t know they were sampling R. Kelly here – you have to get clearances and send a royalty check, we’re not that stupid. Instead we get the chalky percussion where Drake piles on wealth to “support” this girl with supposedly only the lightest strings attached after the beat shifts and the vocal production gets audibly worse. And why does have an undercurrent of secretive ickiness I can’t shake?

8. ‘Papi’s Home’ by Drake – this is the song where Drake and an uncredited Nicki Minaj address all the artists biting their style against an oppressively annoying chipmunk sample – and you can tell he thinks this Barney Stinson routine is funny especially with that line about the girls in the bathroom doing something that’s not Pepsi and that mass text line, but I can’t be the only one where it doesn’t quite swivel around to being charming even if he is taking the piss. Not sure you have room to stand on dissing pop features with your string of verses for Rihanna and The Weeknd, either, but in reality this feels like a parody – and that’s not a compliment.

7. ‘In The Bible’ by Drake ft. Lil Durk & Giveon – here’s a fun question: why didn’t Drake just give the full song to Giveon who is at least trying to add balance to the storytelling, and why do Drake’s vocals sound so grainy against this more spacious production? And how the hell does he think he can get away with calling this girl a hypocrite given this album and his career? And why do I think at least some of this is a veiled sub at Kanye due to the bible reference?

5. ‘Knife Talk’ by Drake ft. 21 Savage & Project Pat – okay, I actually like this song too… but that’s because this is obviously a leftover from SAVAGE MODE II thanks to Metro Boomin’s more refined production and a more direct murderous impulse. It’s not great by any means – you can tell the lack of a truly driving hook kept this off the album, but if you’re looking for a track on this disaster of an album with some actual menace, this delivers.

4. ‘Champagne Poetry’ by Drake – ah, the album opener, where the chipmunk sample drags and Drake meanders through his “effortless flows” and getting some criticism in Toronto given some of his optics missteps. But this is a victory lap, where is now demanding proper compensation and where he finds a new part of himself to explore… where having this album feels like he started at his navel and went no further. Clearly that’s worth popping the champagne.

3. ‘Fair Trade’ by Drake ft. Travis Scott – god, leave Charlotte Day Wilson away from your bullshit, Drake, especially when you make your clanking warble complaints about how nobody can properly catch you but you’re losing friends along the way… all on a song where you have Travis Scott dropping the same dazed hedonism as usual. Yeah, Travis’ verse is better than what he gave Kanye, but outside of the more ominous production that doesn’t fit with the rest of the song, I’m not sure any peace has been found, so I think the trade may have fallen through.

2. ‘Girls Want Girls’ by Drake ft. Lil Baby – another song where I wish the guest star had the good sense to avoid this like the plague, but this is the track with the infamous moment where Drake calls himself a lesbian for the hookup amidst very spare production and one of his laziest hooks to date. And I keep hearing people say, ‘oh, he’s just joking around, he’s not fetishizing lesbians’, and I have four responses to that. 1. Nothing about this song feels comedic, especially in the late-night vibes it’s trying to set, 2. There’s no other jokes in the song beyond standard flexing, 3. Drake actually had a line about this on that godawful ‘Every Girl’ posse cut with Young Money in 2009, and 4. It’s a joke until every douche in a Toronto night club tries to pull it off… because they know Drake wasn’t really kidding about shit.

1. ‘Way 2 Sexy’ by Drake ft. Future & Young Thug – Now I’m more willing to bet this one is a joke, given the Right Said Fred sample that Future plays up against that painfully grating synth, but outside of the video, there’s no coherent punchline in their verses to build off of it… because this is the same flex they pull off all the time so going ‘over-the-top’ has no real meaning! Again, it feels like it’s trying to be a parody – look at the video - but not one with any real teeth outside of it, the goofiness that comes from a corporate retreat that is playing for the lowest common denominator. At least Young Thug tries to flip the script a bit by ceding control to the girls’ ravenous affections, but just like the last song, it’s a joke that I know guys will want to claim unironically and it will be insufferable in record time. If Lil Dicky made this song, y’all wouldn’t be so quick to defend it.

And that’s the week – dear lord, that was incredibly annoying. And while the worst of the week fall out easily – that’s ‘Pipe Down’ as the worst of the week with ‘Fucking Fans’ as the dishonourable mention – the best of the week wind up kind of tricky. I’m going to give ‘Knife Talk’ with 21 Savage and Project Pat the Honourable Mention… and the best of the week to ‘N 2 Deep’ with Future tied with ‘Blue Notes II’ by Meek Mill ft. Lil Uzi Vert – neither of them are all that good, but they at least accomplish what they’re trying to do. Next week, the fallout from this shit, stay tuned!