billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 3, 2022

You know, for what counts as a cooldown week I was expecting this to be a little slower than it is, but I guess in the aftermath of album bombs that when they start to fade away… well, a bunch of smaller stuff fills in the gaps, at least until the next one - which given next week will either be J.I.D or more likely DJ Khaled. Fun stuff.

Anyway, in the reset towards normalcy, let’s start with our top ten, where once again ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles has reclaimed the top spot. I don’t think it’s a secure #1 - mostly here thanks to still consistently strong radio and just enough streaming, but it’ll work at least for now, and can edge out ‘About Damn Time’ by Lizzo at #2 because despite leading the radio, she has weaker streaming. But now we have competition from ‘Bad Habit’ by Steve Lacy up to #3 - the streaming is ridiculous here, and as soon as it closes the gap on the radio, it could be a contender… man, I did not see this one coming. But right behind it is ‘Running Up That Hill’ by Kate Bush at #4 - yeah, the radio is still remarkably good, but the only reason it overtook ‘BREAK MY SOUL’ by Beyonce to #5 is the gap in streaming, where Beyonce is lagging more than folks would have you believe. Then we have the next rising contender with ‘Sunroof’ by Nicky Youre and dazy at #6, where the radio is wavering but that’s pretty much all it has, and that places it in stark contrast with ‘Super Freaky Girl’ by Nicki Minaj tumbling off the #1 to #7, where it’s getting the radio push, but perhaps too late to really hold the top spot. Finally we have three songs that are stubbornly not moving: ‘Wait For U’ by Future, Tems and Drake at #8 squatting on radio and streaming that will not die; ‘Me Porto Bonito’ by Bad Bunny and Chencho Corleone at #9 on a majority of streaming which can be tenuous long term, and ‘I Like You (A Happier Song)’ by Post Malone and Doja Cat at #10 because the radio won’t stop promoting this… joy.

Anyway, onto our losers and dropouts, where in the latter category the majority of it is album bomb stuff but we did see a few expected songs falling off, like ‘Get Into It (Yuh)’ by Doja Cat clinching its year end list spot alongside ‘Sweetest Pie’ by Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa falling off again, and ‘Take My Name’ by Parmalee and ‘Damn Strait’ by Scotty McCreery fighting it out for the very bottom; it’s going to be depressing as hell if goddamn Parmalee pulls this out and McCreery doesn’t, what a shame. Anyway, the losers we can all chalk up to album bombs, with ‘CUFF IT’ by Beyonce continuing to slide to 91, and from Rod Wave, ‘Alone’ at 47, ‘Yungen’ with Jack Harlow at 78, and ‘Sweet Little Lies’ at 94.

Now the much bigger story this week comes in our returns and gains, and hoo boy, in the weeks after so many album bombs, we’ve got a lot of both… and I can’t say I’m all that happy with the majority here. I mean, in returns we’re starting off with ‘Vette Motors’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again at 98, ‘2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)’ by Lizzo at 95 - it’s getting a radio push, it will be bigger - ‘Music For A Sushi Restaurant’ by Harry Styles at 93, ‘Country On’ by Luke Bryan at 85, and ‘Wild As Her’ by Corey Kent at 84. Then we have the ‘Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52’ by Bizarrap and Quevedo back at 82 - it’s still dominant globally, I’m not surprised - followed by yet another return for ‘Hotel Lobby (Unc and Phew)’ by Quavo and Takeoff at 80, ‘All Mine’ by Brent Faiyaz at 79, and ‘Neverita’ by Bad Bunny at 72. The big story with returns is ‘Die For You’ by The Weeknd finally being allowed to return at 71 - it’s an album cut from Starboy that’s been going viral for months now and was allowed to chart globally for months after getting a late video release on Starboy’s fifth anniversary; a little odd for such a late comeback to be allowed, but I guess I’ll take it, it’s a decent song although not the deep cut I’d prefer from that album. Now for the gains… which are all over the damn place and we should start with country because the stability of Nashville radio makes them the easiest to explain: ‘What My World Spins Around’ by Jordan Davis up off the debut to 86, ‘Thought You Should Know’ by Morgan Wallen at 81, ‘Ghost Story’ by Carrie Underwood at 74, ‘She Likes it’ by Russell Dickerson and Jake Scott at 73, ‘Pick Me Up’ by Gabby Barrett at 69, ‘Truth About You’ by Mitchell Tenpenny at 65, ‘With A Woman You Love’ by Justin Moore at 64, and ‘Rock And A Hard Place’ by Bailey Zimmerman at 29. Then we have the more interesting pickups: ‘Dah Dah DahDah’ by Nardo Wick is now surging at 48, along with ‘Victoria’s Secret’ by Jax up to 52, and while I’m groaning, ‘Despecha’ by ROSALIA is continuing to rise steadily up to 67 and let’s not forget ‘Unstoppable’ by Sia up to 55. Thankfully there is some quality in our gains here: ‘Free Mind’ by Tems at 56, ‘Last Last’ by Burna Boy at 63, ‘Until I Found You’ by Stephen Sanchez at 76… hell, I’ll even take ‘Puffin On Zootiez’ by Future at 77. And to round this out… ‘Sleazy Flow’ by Sleazyworld and Lil Baby at 53, and ‘La Corriente’ by Bad Bunny and Tony Dize picked up a bit 87 - neat.

And now, the surprisingly sizable list of new arrivals, that has to start with…

100. ‘La Bachata’ by Manuel Turizo - so the last time I talked about Manuel Turizo was back in 2018 when he was a guest presence on an Ozuna song and somehow had less charisma - so now he’s got a song about bachata about a year late to the trend, and… honestly, I didn’t dislike this the way I thought I would. Yeah, he’s late to bachata, but balanced against the more fidgety percussion, thicker bass, and more rollick to the groove off the gleaming keys, it produced a more eclectic vibe. Unfortunately it doesn’t really match the content at all, which when translated is a post-breakup song where Turizo is tormented and bitter to the point where he’s hoping she falls in love and then is dumped so she can feel like he does; it’s petty in a way that doesn’t match the chipper bounce of the song or how heartfelt Turizo is selling it, so overall it just feels strange. I’m not going to call it bad, per se… just odd.

99. ‘Soul’ by Lee Brice - well, about time this is charting stateside - it’s always a little funny when country songs from the US break through in other countries before the Hot 100, and Lee Brice has been running this up the Canadian charts for the past while. Granted, this is a song from November 2020 that’s only coming through now… and it’s another strange one, anchored in a brittle acoustic line, a blend of programmed percussion, fake snaps, and live drums that can’t escape how weirdly canned the entire mix feels, especially in the vocals, and how the lyrical conceit is how he likes this girl’s… soul despite verses being considerably hornier. I get the weird thing that Lee Brice is trying for the country soul thing Brett Eldredge has been doing, especially with the baritone vocals, but doesn’t have the warm organic production to sell it. Honestly it’s more goofy in the incompetence than outright bad… but come on, if Nashville is going to start pushing this and not Brett Eldredge’s newest singles, something has gone very wrong, because this isn’t remotely good.

97. ‘Snap’ by Rosa Linn - and in this strange week, we’ve now got a song from goddamn Eurovision, fantastic. So okay, Rosa Linn is an artist from Armenia, she actually had a single with Kiiara of all people last year, but this has been her worldwide breakthrough… and wow, this sounds like something that would have come from the 2012 pop folk scene with its acoustic guitars, snaps, gang vocals and millennial whoops, this early 2010s revival is really coming back despite getting so much mockery last year, albeit with some weird synths on the back end! Now I don’t dislike this sound, and it’s honestly better produced than I expected, especially as Rosa Linn is a decent enough singer to back the double sentiment of trying to snap away feelings of an ex and being pushed to the limit. But the problem is tone: the song is too warm and jaunty to sell the sense of exasperated tension a song like this needs, I don’t get a sense that it’s all going to cut loose and fall apart. Honestly, if this hadn’t picked up traction on Eurovision, I can’t imagine this getting much attention… unless this trend has legs - not bad, but I think we’re better off moving on.

96. ‘29’ by Demi Lovato - you know, if there was going to be a song to break through for Demi Lovato, it was going to be this one, and it’s a good thing that it’s really damn good. Targeting their ex Wilmer Valderrama, it rips into him for dating them off and on and manipulating them throughout their relationship when they were 17 and he was 29 - this guy apparently likes dating younger women with a significant age gap, because he gets older, they all stay the same, and it’s predatory and gross. But Demi is also smart enough to frame the song as one point them thinking it was their fantasy, and now coming to the sharp realization it never was - it’s direct, it’s furious, it works well with the sour guitars that pick up some explosive presence on the hook and isn’t it something to take a pop punk approach to this sort of dynamic given this genre’s sordid reputation… and I wish the song had better production. I’m sorry, but this is an issue all across HOLY FVCK and it’s just as true here with everything overcompressed and nothing having the sinuous, raw firepower to really explode - Oak has no business working in rock, and a better producer could have knocked this out of the park. So yeah, this is very good - not great nor my favourite from the album, but it’s absolutely worth your attention.

92. ‘Half Of Me’ by Thomas Rhett ft. Riley Green - so apparently Thomas Rhett put out an album earlier this year - I didn’t cover it, I think I’m out of things to say about Thomas Rhett’s brand of gentrified pop country and even his fans weren’t entirely behind this one, but now he’s got a single featuring Riley Green, who I kept expecting to have a mainstream breakthrough the past few years and it hasn’t really happened. So with this… for god’s sake, this is ‘Beer Can’t Fix’ part 2, but minus the novel relief and catharsis that came when that song dropped in 2020! Yes, it’s got more of a breezy neotraditional vibe courtesy of the sandy percussion, pedal steel, and warmer guitars, where Riley Green would be the one to drop the Alan Jackson reference, but when it feels like such a flagrant retread it’s hard to ignore how flimsy the entire song feels; I’ve heard beer commercials with more substance than this! So yes, on some level this is harmless… but it’s also pointless and not something I’m about to care about, next!

90. ‘Don’t Come Lookin’ by Jackson Dean - you know, if half of Music Row would stop plugging the airwaves with interchangeable white guys who churn out mostly anonymous music and maybe look to the wealth of interesting talent all around the indie set, I might complain a little less. Anyway, Jackson Dean got his start opening up for a lot of the modern bro-country set, got signed to Big Machine, dropped an album last year that completely missed my radar, but this song wound up on Yellowstone so it might be worth hearing… and you know, this could have had potential? I don’t mind the bluesy swagger and slightly nastier guitars playing off the blocky percussion, even if there’s a weird lack of good bass or lyrics that have any real bite to them in the posturing to go wander off and kick ass. But that’s the weird thing: Jackson Dean is a stunningly anonymous and flat singer, he doesn’t convey any danger or grit, so you wind up with a track that could have been cut by Brantley Gilbert in 2014 that’s about as toothless. Honestly, compared to the truly hard-hitting southern rock and blues rock that’s been released the past five years, this feels like soundtrack filler… and not all the interesting to boot. Maybe not bad… but man, I’m going to forget this quickly.

88. ‘54321’ by Offset - you know, at this point it feels like Offset is a bit adrift away from Migos: I’ve long thought he’s had the ability to go solo after he put out Father Of 4 three years ago, but at this point he’s feuding with Quality Control over the rights to his solo music - apparently he bought them back in early 2021, now QC is trying to claim control of this, lawsuits have been filed and a whole shitshow is erupting across social media. In any case, this song was produced by Baby Keem and is basically one extended verse… and I’m just not impressed with it. Putting aside the fact that this is a song that seems to be telling off girls for looking at him given he’s married, it’s the same braggadocious triplet flows we’ve been hearing for years now, and the buzzy patter of the production doesn’t really add much here without any real hook - it’s a fragment that somehow still feels underwritten with some of the repeated bars. Yeah, the synth touches at the end were nice, but not enough to elevate this to much - can’t say it’s worth a listen.

32. ‘Where It Ends’ by Bailey Zimmerman - so this is Bailey Zimmerman’s third single to nab a spot in the top 40… are we getting an album at some point, or is this just going to be riding virality until it all gets played out, because I think there’s a window for something here! Anyway, this is the newest single… and you know, for as bitter as Zimmerman can be in his failed or failing relationship songs, this might be one that really sticks for me, riding the breezy but minor key guitars where after giving an ex a chance she lies again and he has to finally cut her off. ‘Fall In Love’ was sour, ‘Rock and a Hard Place’ was exhausted, this one is closer to feeling righteously pissed, and with the echoing bells and banjos and guitar solo it almost got around how overprocessed the hook feels or how I can’t shake the feeling that there’s some Chad Kroeger vocal inflections in the melody and this could have been cut by Nickelback twenty years ago. Anyway, I think I’ve come around on Bailey Zimmerman, and this is another good song - I’ll take it.

22. ‘Pink Venom’ by BLACKPINK - I’m still annoyed that ‘Lovesick Girls’ wasn’t a proper hit in 2020, just laying that out now. Anyway, this is the newest big single from BLACKPINK - may get a bounce from the VMAs, we will have to see - and… this is one of those examples of a song that because I grew up and remember the 2000s and a decent amount of 90s hip-hop that the recontextualization feels wonky. Yes, it’s not right that when I hear the traditional South Korean instruments I’m reminded a Scott Storch beat, but you wouldn’t pick these melodies or open the song with a Biggie reference if you weren’t trying to evoke some of that 2000s era in rap music in slamming hip-hop beats together, especially when it resolves on such a flat hook with the oily synth behind it. And while BLACKPINK have a better command of English than many of their k-pop peers, especially on the second verse where the flows are good, it’s hard to escape how this song hits the same badass card without much variation that we’ve gotten from a lot of their flex singles… which is fine but doesn’t feel as unique as it could have, especially with the hook feeling like such a dud. In other words, there’s pieces of this that I like a lot, but also pieces I really don’t - it doesn’t make the song either good or bad, just frustrating, and that’s hard to recommend.

And that leaves behind a pretty weird week on the Hot 100 here. Best… I’ll say ‘29’ by Demi Lovato, by ‘Where It Ends’ by Bailey Zimmerman is close behind as the Honourable Mention. Worst, on the other hand… there isn’t a standout dud to me, so I’m going to give it to ‘Soul’ by Lee Brice for just not working at all, with Dishonourable Mention to ‘Don’t Come Lookin’ by Jackson Dean because there was at least potential for a song like that to kick more ass and not feel so anonymous. Next week, though… we could be in for the DJ Khaled album bomb, we’re not lucky enough to get one from J.I.D, so let’s stay tuned and see if I’m proven wrong…