billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 2, 2023

So the past few weeks have been kind of messy on my end discussing the Hot 100, for very obvious discourse-related reasons that have been exasperating to trudge through, I’m happy that this week is going to wind up as slower in response. And while I think my analysis has been sound, these have been draining to assemble - it’s had the feel of trying to drag folks kicking and screaming to a place they don’t want to go, made all the more frustrating because 2023 has been a pretty rough year on the Hot 100. But I also think it runs deeper - I’ll have more to say about this in the coming months, but I think there’s a paradigm shift happening when it comes to the charts that is worth following closely… and you know, for what it’s worth, the music industry is handling it worse than I am!

Case in point, our #1 for a second week in a row, ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’ by Oliver Anthony - and man, he’s had a rough few weeks in which I feel increasingly vindicated, and it also speaks to the paradigm shift I’m referencing, but more importantly, the sales and streaming are behind him in a big way, and even when the sales drop off next week, the one big correction I’ll make is that I’m more inclined to say his presence is indicative of a trend rather than pure novelty. But again, he’s not going to hold the #1 for another week - and I would say this opens the door for Luke Combs and ‘Fast Car’ at #2 thanks to good sales and strong streaming and dominant radio… but I’m also fairly certain Zach Bryan may roll right past him next week to take the top spot, and what’s funny is that while I feel bad for Luke Combs, knowing his feelings about indie country and that scene, he’s probably not even going to be mad about it. Then we have ‘Last Night’ by Morgan Wallen at #3 - it still has a lot of streaming despite having lost the top spot, but the radio is rotating it out fast - and then ‘Cruel Summer’ by Taylor Swift at #4, where I think she may also wind up blocked in making her play because there’s just too much of a margin to overcome on radio and sales especially when streaming saw a downturn. Then we have a legit surprise for me: ‘Paint The Town Red’ by Doja Cat at #5 - apparently someone at RCA realized it might be worth supporting your bankable star especially when she has streaming traction, so the radio got flipped into gear; again, she’s running into a gauntlet of competition, but it will be entertaining to watch. All of this kind of leaves ‘Calm Down’ by Rema and Selena Gomez on the downswing - radio is starting to fade, no surprise it fell to #6 - and ‘fukumean’ by Gunna held at #7 because while streaming took a bit of a dip, the radio is now getting behind this one; I have no idea how they’re censoring that title, it’s probably stupid. This coincides with a dip for ‘vampire’ by Olivia Rodrigo to #8 - thank radio for this one, because the streaming is not where it should be - and we wind up with two songs from Barbie holding up the rear with ‘Dance The Night’ by Dua Lipa at #9 as the radio adores it, and ‘Barbie World’ by Ice Spice, Nicki Minaj and Aqua at #10 because streaming is really behind this one even as the radio slows down.

This takes us naturally to our losers and dropouts, which in the latter case the story is ‘songs falling well short’, which includes ‘ICU’ by Coco Jones, ‘Memory Lane’ by Old Dominion, and ‘Mourning’ by Post Malone; kind of a shame on that last one. Now we don’t have that many losers this week - mostly because a fair amount of Karol G’s minor album bomb stuck around, with only ‘S91’ sliding from off the return to 69, and while we’re talking album bombs, from Travis Scott we saw ‘MY EYES’ at 91 and ‘TOPIA TWINS’ with Rob49 and 21 Savage at 96. Outside of that, off the debut ‘bad idea, right?’ by Olivia Rodrigo slid to 23 and ‘The Painter’ by Cody Johnson lost hard to 94, but the more telling losses to me came with ‘You, Me & Whiskey’ by Priscilla Block and Justin Moore to 78, and ‘Baby Don’t Hurt Me’ by David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray at 66 - in both cases, it looks like the radio got yanked, and I’m not really complaining!

Now for returns and gains, in which we did get a lot of returns but I question how much they’ll last given that we have an album bomb coming next week, and the majority were low down on the charts: ‘Turn Yo Clic Up’ by Quavo and Future got a bit of a boost pre-Quavo album to 83, ‘Good Good’ by Usher, Summer Walker and 21 Savage saw a boost to 90, ‘El Amor de Su Vida’ by Grupo Frontera and Grupo Firme bounded back to 97, ‘Fight The Feeling’ by Rod Wave climbed back to 98, and ‘Girl In Mine’ by Parmalee is back at 100. But what I find most interesting are the preemptive spikes for Zach Bryan, because not only did ‘Burn, Burn, Burn’ return to 99, in the gains we also saw ‘Dawns’ with Maggie Rogers spike up to 76 - honestly, I’m a little surprised it didn’t get included on the new album, it wouldn’t have been a bad choice to boost its numbers! As for the rest of our gains, ‘Amargura’ by Karol G saw a nice lift off the debut to 85, and ‘Jaded’ by Miley Cyrus continues to see sporadic success at 64, but I think country is seeing more of a story here, because not only did ‘Your Heart Or Mine’ by Jon Pardi see a spike at 47, ‘Pretty Little Poison’ by Warren Zeiders saw a considerable boost off his debut to 59 - and in a follow-up for this guy, he’s apparently known more for a stripped back sound and approach that’s closer to Zach Bryan but he got the label treatment to sound more polished and they’re throwing some weight behind him; going to be interesting to see how he holds up compared to next week because Music Row may have miscalculated their approach here, all I’m saying!

But thankfully that leads to a more reasonable week… unfortunately starting with…

93. ‘Summer Too Hot’ by Chris Brown - …you know, I was going to go on a rant about how Chris Brown just never goes away, where even if we think we got a break one of his dated-ass album tracks recharts for the majority of the year? Well, this is the lead-off single for a new album, and… am I the only one who finds the mix on his to be a total mess? Besides the awkwardly tuned bubbly bass hits and the fizzy percussion that clips against the mix oversaturating any of the melody outside of Chris Brown’s overproduced vocals, it the entire song feels cheap and off-balance in a distractingly awkward way, especially for a song that’s attempting to run Nelly’s ‘Hot In Herre’ gimmick with summer at large as if sex is going to cool her down. And this is all juxtaposed with Chris Brown continuing to write about sex as if he’s a scatterbrained horny teenager instead of being around my age - I get that this is more intended for the strip clubs, but man, in a year where we’ve gotten some pretty terrific R&B outside the mainstream, the fact the radio is still wasting time with this is just depressing - next!

77. ‘Fuck You Thought’ by Lil Durk - so who feels like outside of the Morgan Wallen and J. Cole collabs, that Lil Durk album didn’t do that much as a mainstream breakthrough, or at least didn’t quite put him on the level one might expect? I’m not surprised that he’s pushing a deluxe edition - mainstream rap is having a down year, why not capitalize on the gap with a fragment that’s gotten a bit of virality - and… I guess for the more vicious side of Chicago drill it’s not bad with the sharper percussion, balanced against the faint pianos and synths that almost remind me a bit of g-funk that spray over the outro. But then you realize that this is the sort of diss track where Lil Durk is taking aim at a number of folks - a lot of folks think that’s a reference to the Gunna song, especially with lines in the second verse, but it seems like there’s more lines about other crews that don’t have his clout and may have been linked to King Von’s death, and platforms that put on some of these crews. The frustrating thing is that the song doesn’t feel direct - likely done to avoid litigation, but it winds up leaving the wordplay feeling directionless, especially given how many rhymes get dropped without reason. Overall, I’ve heard Durk make this material before, and I’m not surprised he’s bringing back the more violent subject matter… but I dunno, in a way this feels like a step back, I can’t say I’m a big fan.

68. ‘Barely Holdin’ On’ by Polo G - hey, uhh, Polo G? I’m intrigued about that new album, but you know you don’t have to be working with Dr. Luke, right? Especially given that a lot of his production in and around trap tends to suck? There’s five other producers on this including Southside, did we really need his cosign for a pretty stock blend of rickety guitar, faint pianos, and brittle percussion? The thing is, it’s more generic than outright bad - Polo G once again does a good job selling resigned exhaustion in the face of all the death around him, where he’d prefer to just stay inside and not engage… so perhaps it’s not a good idea to stalk your opps on Twitter and go shoot at him, even if you’re ultimately remorseful and direct the second verse more at families who lose folks? It’s frustrating as someone who likes Polo G and who has wanted him to get free of this nightmare that he either winds up back here or works with total hacks… or both. As it is… it’s not bad, I guess, but it’s not a great sign for that upcoming album, have to say…

61. ‘Standing Room Only’ by Tim McGraw - okay, full disclosure: I’ve not checked for a new Tim McGraw album since 2017 and the album he put out with his wife Faith Hill that I didn’t think was any good. I know he put out one in 2020 that didn’t get great reception, apparently his new album dropped last Friday and does feature a cowrite with Lori McKenna… but that’s not the song we got, instead it’s the single released last March that’s only crossing over now. And… look, the problem I’ve had with Tim McGraw in recent years comes back to production - the pedal steel is crushed into the increasingly thin guitar and keyboards - especially in what barely passes for a solo - the percussion feels painfully thin, there’s no bass worth mentioning, and the vocal multi-tracking is synthetic in an increasingly distracting way. And then there’s the content, which is all about trying to live a good life and focus on what matters so that you’ll leave such an impact that it’ll be standing room only at your funeral - aside from the weird egotism of that flex paired with production that reminds me way too much of contemporary Christian music… Tim McGraw already made this song nearly twenty years ago, it was called ‘Live Like You Were Dying’, and it was so much better than this because it felt personal and real. This… doesn’t, and while there’s a few okay lines about focusing on emotional vulnerability and family, the soul just isn’t there. It’s not terrible, but I’m in no hurry to check out any new album, all I’m saying.

26. ‘Call Your Friends’ by Rod Wave - so look, I like Rod Wave - a little less than I used to, not helped by his artistic progression feeling very haphazard - but if there was someone to look forward to this week, it’s him. And… okay, sonically this is not out of character for Rod Wave; the subtle piano blending into the melancholic guitars as the brittle trap percussion slides in, and given that it’s only one verse and the hook, he’s still light on song structure. But I’ll be damned if he doesn’t pull together some poignant observations, especially in how his own vices have led him astray down path, from being separated from his children’s mother to buying a Rolls Royce with his own money for the flex and he doesn’t even really like it. More to the point I like how he digs into question of confidence, not in just what his flexing is trying to prove, but also how he wishes someone would just give him a call to ask him how he is and not for a favour or a scheme that could use his buy-in, where he doesn’t even hold grudges, he’s just lonely. I dunno, when Rod Wave gets a little more cerebral and sincere… yes, it annoys me he doesn’t go there more consistently on a full project, but the moments we get can be really good, and I do think this is one of them.

So yeah, he runs away with the best of the week here, and the worst is going to Chris Brown for ‘Summer Too Hot’. Next week… we could be getting a Zach Bryan album bomb, potentially even a new #1; the competition is gonna be fierce and I’m legit intrigued to see how it all spills out!