billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 4, 2021

And here I thought the summer lull would continue into this week. But no, instead of the Lorde album bomb that didn’t happen at all, we have two smaller album bombs this week with neither big enough to qualify under my rules, plus a bunch of other scattered songs, and none of it will likely matter because the way DONDA by Kanye West is racking up streaming, it’s going to bulldoze the charts next week, even outside of the limited tracking window!

Hell, the one place that seems mostly unaffected is the top 10, where ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber continues to squat at #1 - it’s worth noting that thanks to sales being up, streaming still rock solid, and an absolute radio tear, I don’t see what breaks this in the near future, even with an album bomb coming! Now ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran is trying to make a run at #2 - it still has radio momentum, better sales, and streaming is actually up, but it just can’t make up anything close to the margin. And ‘good 4 u’ by Olivia Rodrigo seems out of contention at #3 - streaming might be stable and it rules radio, but it absolutely feels like it’s peaked. The surprise for me came with ‘Kiss Me More’ by Doja Cat and SZA up to #4, but I put that more up to Lizzo falling out of the top 10, because even as streaming is stable, radio is starting to decline. This opens a way for ‘Industry Baby’ by Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow to make a run beyond #5, given that its streaming is strong and radio finally seems to have gotten its shit together, but again, it’s got a hill to climb, especially given the weeks ahead. That strands ‘Levitating’ by Dua Lipa at #6, propped up on a decent sales and streaming week even as radio continues to stumble, and actually sees ‘Butter’ by BTS at #7, mostly thanks to a slightly resurgent sales margin as the radio just tanks. The last three here all picked up gains mostly because of the fallback of ‘Rumors’ - ‘deja vu’ by Olivia Rodrigo at #8 thanks to radio that’s slowly slipping away, ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ by Lil Nas X at #9 with slightly better streaming but sharper radio losses, and ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande at #10, which is clinging to okay streaming and a far slower than expected radio falloff.

And on that charming note, losers and dropouts, which in the latter group is chock-full of acts with just not enough to get year-end list placement, the most borderline being ‘Blame It On You’ by Jason Aldean and ‘my.life’ by J. Cole, 21 Savage and Morray, although I’d also throw ‘Straightenin’ by Migos in there with ‘favorite crime’ by Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Hats Off’ by Lll Baby, Lil Durk and Travis Scott, and ‘Ball If I Want To’ by DaBaby. Trust me when I say there’s more of these mid-range losers coming with the album bombs ahead, and for this week those losers mostly pepper the low-end of the Hot 100. Yes, off the debut ‘Rumors’ by Lizzo and Cardi B fell to #17, as did ‘Paralyzed’ by Sueco at 87, but then we have our continued losers like ‘Volvi’ by Aventura and Bad Bunny at 55 and ‘Permission To Dance’ by BTS at 97. Then we have a slew of country losers: ‘Glad You Exist’ by Dan + Shay at 36, ‘You Should Probably Leave’ by Chris Stapleton at 76, ‘My Boy’ by Elvie Shane at 81, and ‘You Time’ by Scotty McCreery at 85. And as for the rest… well, ‘RAPSTAR’ by Polo G is making its graceful exit at 40, ‘Motley Crew’ by Post Malone continues to just tank at 64, ‘You’ by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae slid to 82, ‘Come Through’ by H.E.R. and Chris Brown hit 83, and ‘AM’ by Nio Garcia, J Balvin, and Bad Bunny at 98 - expect there to be a lot more here in the next two weeks, just watch.

And thus as expected, not much really came back into this when we look at returns and gains - yes, ‘brutal’ by Olivia Rodrigo is back at 89, but it’s not going to hold against the album bombs ahead, and speaking of which, Trippie Redd saw both ‘Holy Smokes’ with Lil Uzi Vert and ‘Miss The Rage’ with Playboi Carti back at 78 and 79 respectively. And we only saw two gains this week: ‘Chasing After You’ by Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris remains a slow burn on streaming and radio at 34, but what surprised me was ‘Beggin’ by Maneskin up to 29, mostly thanks to a radio and sales push that actually seems to be working? I dunno, I’ll believe this lasts when I see it longer term.

Of course, that means the big story is our sixteen new arrivals… none of which will qualify for exclusion under album bomb rules so I might as well get started with…

99. ‘Time Heals’ by Rod Wave - so I’ll freely admit that given that I don’t cover the vast majority of deluxe reissues, I had no clue that Rod Wave had more songs… and honestly, I kind of wish he didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I liked SoulFly, but I wasn’t expecting much of a change-up in sound and just getting more of the same didn’t really enthuse me… and even though I mostly like this, I still get that feeling that it should be better. I will say the blend of liquid keys and guitars that have a bit of an early 90s timbre to them against the trap groove feel a little better produced than usual, but Rod Wave is back in the lane of ‘grinding but all the girls and haters are trying to take advantage of his good nature’, and honestly he needs to add more detail to keep it interesting. I don’t think his gruffness is the best delivery here either so… at least the production is better, shame about the rest of this.

96. ‘Tick Tock’ by Young Thug - I find it really funny that Genius is referring to this song as Young Thug’s leadoff single for his sophomore album, as if he hasn’t been churning out so many damn projects across the 2000s that are albums in any other name. Regardless, here is that song and… okay, I can hear the potential, but this is one of those songs that for everything good there’s plenty that doesn’t work. Yes, Young Thug sounds focused for once in a Lil Wayne vibe and his bars feel pretty sharp… and he spends most of the song in his upper register without much of his old flair. Yes, the lead synth melody is catchy… and the percussion feels weirdly blown out and chalky, once again showing Dr. Luke’s continued struggles in this brand of trap as a producer. And I’m not really impressed by the content either - beyond the brand name porn, Young Thug is comparing four black women to a kit-kat and saying that he doesn’t flush the toilet after a shit. So no, this had potential, but I can’t say I’m going back to this.

94. ‘Demon Time’ by Trippie Redd ft. Ski Mask The Slump God - oh god, if this is the brand of blaring late-2000s synths making a comeback, I think we could be in for a rough few years, especially given how sloppily mixed the percussion is. I get why this is coming back - thanks nostalgia cycle - but you’d think we’d have learned what worked from this era and have a coherent groove in some form, not just Trippie Redd hollering in old Soundcloud rap fashion about shooting people, doing drugs, and flexing. Thank god Ski Mask is here to effectively step in with a wild enough personality to fit this production and manic vibe with his anime references and careening flow. No jokes, he saves the song from being ungodly annoying - and he still can’t make it precisely good, hate to say it.

93. ‘What’s Wrong’ by Rod Wave - okay, this is a little better - more of a pattering slow burn with the watery guitars and more restrained trap groove that actually fits Rod Wave’s downbeat delivery, as he flips into a faster flow to describe the poverty of his come-up that doesn’t match the phony happiness of everyone around him that doesn’t match the heartbreak he feels. Now this is still standard for Rod Wave, especially by the time he opens up to belt for the hook, and the song still feels more like a fragment than an actual full piece… but it’s not bad. Don’t mind this at all.

92. ‘Danny Phantom’ by Trippie Redd ft. XXXTENTACION - …can we not be done with this? Look, I get that Trippie Redd had a fraught connection with XXXTENTACION and has paid tribute on posthumous cuts multiple times since, but it’s been over three years, this is a remix of a song from 2018 that at one point had Quavo and Ski Mask on it, and it’s starting to feel gross. Especially because the overmixed synths, messy percussion, influx of chipmunk adlibs, and the fact this is a glorified fragment that makes me wonder if this was all really worth it - yes, the other ghost is X, but the posthumous verse sounds undercooked and has lines like ‘just like the knicks, play with my balls’ and then calling other rappers irrelevant. Look, I didn’t like X in the best of times, but at this point it just makes my skin crawl to see shit like this - not good, next!

91. ‘Get Ready’ by Rod Wave ft. Kodak Black - and speaking of features I didn’t need, this was the other reason I wasn’t hunting for a deluxe reissue of Soulfly, because we’d get this. I should start by saying that I’m not wild about this bassy production either - the trap percussion is trying to pull some soulful swell but the melody is completely drowned out until the hook - and Rod Wave’s comeup story once again feels a little sour with his gratitude juxtaposed by an obvious shot at Morray, which really doesn’t feel needed given how he hasn’t been able to really launch himself off Street Sermons. And then there’s Kodak Black… and I’ll be fair here: I don’t hate his verse. I think it feels composed, sober, and kind of honest about the fact that his wave seems to have peaked and he’s not commanding the same attention anymore, especially given his legal struggles have kept him out of the limelight. The problem is by ending his verse referencing that case, I’m reminded of those sexual assault charges and I’m wondering why Rod Wave and his camp thought it was a good idea to bring him onboard here. It’s just a bad look given that Kodak’s career is floundering at best - he put out an album in November 2020 that had a Tory Lanez feature of all things where I don’t remember seeing any hype - and I’m just left disappointed; this could have been better.

90. ‘I Guess I’m In Love’ by Clinton Kane - okay, I remember this guy - he had that ‘Chicken Tendies’ song from earlier in the year that had more thought and depth than I think anyone expected and I had wished he could stick around. Well he now has a second song… and sadly, it’s not quite as interesting, but it’s hard to dislike. The pianos and low strings play into his husky delivery decently well, and you can tell he’s genuinely into this girl, and I appreciate how it flips the ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ angle back on himself - she likes the stuff about himself he doesn’t, he overthinks and implodes but she can provide that support, and he’s happy to fill in when she might be a bit indecisive in return. I dunno, the sense of honest intimacy is doing a lot of legwork to fill in an otherwise pretty basic love song… but I can say this is good. Nice stuff.

86. ‘MP5’ by Trippie Redd ft. SoFayGo - alright, let’s put aside the fact that the weedy glitchy synths and trap beat are a disaster of bad mixing with limited groove where I have to think this sort of ‘rage’ approach is something that needs to grow on me like hyperpop did. Or that Trippie Redd is yowling about his normal guns and cars and there’s a bunch of 2000s kids sitcom references, and that SoFayGo just sounds bowled over by this instrumentation and is trying to rely on overlong adlibs when he’s not ripping off Lil Uzi Vert. No, the line that immediately broke my brain was him calling his haters ‘square’, and then to ‘divide em by pi’ - the only way this is in the same ballpark as sense is that pi times the radius squared is the circumference of a circle, and given he’s talking about something rolling in the next line… but that doesn’t make sense, because if they’re the square, to get on his level they should be multiplied by pi, not divided, and why am I wasting time with this when the easier explanation is that Trippie Redd probably doesn’t understand geometry! Look, the song has an okay hook - the howlingly annoying production ruins it and the content doesn’t help - next!

75. ‘Visiting Hours’ by Ed Sheeran - I’ll admit I had no idea what to expect for Ed Sheeran’s next single, mostly because ‘Bad Habits’ felt as hollow and devoid of what makes him interesting to be the obvious label cash-in. So with that in mind and with the album formally announced, I was more curious than setting expectations… and this might be the third funeral song that Ed Sheeran has knocked out of the goddamn park. ‘Afire Love’ remains in my opinion his best song in 2014, he followed it with ‘Supermarket Flowers’ in 2017, and now this is dedicated to a dear friend and acclaimed music promoter in Australia, where this song debuted at his state funeral. What I find so striking is that guitar tone that opens up the song sounds like it’s a pedal steel, which gives this a borderline country folk tone especially given how the piano matches with the acoustic guitar, and even if Sheeran’s falsetto on the hook isn’t my thing, when the heavier choral vocals and autotune slips in for punctuation and the second hook and then followed by the horns… yeah, it gets me. What strikes me is that a song like this plays to Sheeran’s strengths - he’s heartfelt and earnest, he can sell wondering if heaven has visiting hours, the sort of person who will remember the smallest of details like a favourite wine, which adds the texture you need to make these lyrics work, where there’ll be bombast but he still lets the loneliness sit for the final moments. Or in other words… I’m legit shocked how hard this hit for me, as this might be his best song since ‘Castle On The Hill’ - maybe earlier. It’s also the second time that Asylum and Atlantic bungled the lead off single rollout for the song that was way better - thankfully, there’s still time to fix that.

73. ‘One Mississippi’ by Kane Brown - You know, I’ve talked about Kane Brown ‘going back to country’, whereas in truth he’s always been on the poppiest side of things - I’d be more interested in seeing him take a more neotraditional tone, I think he has the voice for it. And even with the obviously programmed percussion clashing with the live drums, this is a step in the right direction, especially with that prominent fiddle against the massively overpolished whooshing effects all over the hook - Dann Huff has a habit of doing this and he never seems to get called for it. But I like the rollicking groove on a pretty solid hook for a breezy drinking song, which kind of works with the content where it’s all about two people always meeting at the bar and bouncing off each other, sometimes going home together, sometimes going their separate ways. It’s loose and playful and I like how it plays into that - so yeah, for this brand of pop country, I’m onboard, good song.

69. ‘Don’t Go’ by Skrillex, Justin Bieber & Don Toliver - …I would have been fine with just Don Toliver and Skrillex. But seriously, the only reason this charted was because of Bieber, who with the fluttery, overdeveloped trap groove against the acoustic guitar - which reminds me way too much of Pharrell, especially with that whistle - seems to be trying to make a Justin TImberlake song and he seemed credible… until he had that godawful COVID line on his second verse where he tries to rap and it kills the atmosphere in one fell swoop. Thankfully Don Toliver restores some of the feeling and he and Bieber have decent chemistry flowing into the bridge, but this is a song that’s trying to ride on JB being JT for two thirds of the track, and I’m not remotely convinced he can do it. Now given 2000s nostalgia, I’d put money on this being a hit if it survives all the album bombs, but otherwise… I think my original point stands. But while we’re in album bomb territory…

67. ‘Betrayal’ by Trippie Redd ft. Drake - is it fair for me to say that all of this chaos with the DONDA release is partially Drake’s fault, prompted by this stupid feud and egged on by this verse that probably gave Trippie Redd’s project more attention than it deserved? Apparently Drake was added last minute to this over-caffeinated blur of bass, trap percussion, and fizzy synths, and man, you can tell - his flow is blocky and half-formed, and his passing shots at Kanye don’t even match the vibe of the song, which is supposed to be exuberant and wild - at least Trippie Redd got that with his flexing! Hell, it’s probably the first time I’ve actually liked this form of ‘rage’ production because the groove is solid and the melody compliments it… it’s just let down by Drake bringing his bullshit into it. So yeah, I was almost onboard - almost.

60. ‘Already Won’ by Rod Wave ft. Lil Durk - my general rule with Rod Wave is that I don’t expect much with him and guest stars, especially those for whom he should work well like Polo G and Lil Durk. But man, with that piano supporting that 90s R&B twinkle nearly had me at the beginning… until the bass swamps out the entire mix and Rod Wave is stuck trying to cut through it, and it’s very telling that Lil Durk’s vocal clarity is able to rise above all of it. It’s a shame because I actually really the sentiment - both are tempted to get lost in their own thoughts or misery, but when they reflect on where they came from, they have already won by finding this success, and they shouldn’t let it overpower them. It’s a good message - shame the bass mixing cripples the execution, but hey, I at least respect the effort.

56. ‘Rich MF’ by Trippie Redd ft. Lil Durk & Polo G - and speaking of this collaboration duo… I mean, come on, they’re on so much this year, if Trippie Redd didn’t get them that’d be the surprise. It’s also one of the few cases where I can actually get behind this production - the creeping piano line balancing off the heavier trap rumble, it keeps it simple and focused and gives Trippie Redd some actual groove to support his gunplay, brand name porn, and fucking. So great, we’re back to the standards - and like with most material aiming for pure violence, Polo G sounds like he’s itching to throw in some more conscious content and his verse feels weirdly empty without it, which gives us Lil Durk who nails the menace better than everyone else here. I dunno, for Trippie Redd this feels like a concession to his guests and I’m not sure it does enough to make this really stand out from the crowd beyond just being decent - the rage beats might be earsplitting and annoying, but they have more personality. Case in point…

49. ‘Matt Hardy 999’ by Trippie Redd ft. Juice WRLD - so if you’re counting, that’s two posthumous artists Trippie Redd got to chart this week - I was going to say two verses but this is a song apparently that Trippie Redd had been working on with Juice WRLD since late 2018, now with the new blaring synth and badly mixed percussion before he drops into an organ and gooey synth line from out of nowhere. And to be blunt, this is the version of Juice WRLD I never liked, the braggadocious side that talked about hanging people like the KKK, and girls giving him titty, and pissing on women like R. Kelly, and then referencing iCarly as he talks about all of these women being fake and plastic! And I could highlight that tends to be the type these guys go for - and when Trippie has a verse where he talks about girls giving his dick a licky while he pisses and shits, I have to wonder if they’re getting even them - but when we get the beat switch at the end trying to be melancholic it just feels off, the sort of attempt at ‘tribute’ that just doesn’t fit at all. So even if all of this feels like a shot of dopamine into the skull of teenage white boys, even as someone who was one I can’t remotely endorse this. This is trash, and not even in the fun way.

48. ‘Summer Of Love’ by Shawn Mendes & Tainy - …I mean, I’m not surprised he’s not pushing any more singles from Wonder, I’m frankly a little stunned he managed to nab the collab to get this back at all, perhaps at the worst possible timing given the chart chaos to come. And with that… the song is okay? The fizzy knock that Tainy gives Mendes is generally okay, but the very minimal melody that kicks into that really ugly pluck is not a flattering look. And Mendes is not exactly the most enticing performer to get me to care about his relationship with Camila Cabello, especially when he’s got lines like ‘I’ve been taking mental pictures / for when I miss you in the winter’ - is she going somewhere that we don’t know about, or do you think being involved in what looks to be a godawful Cinderella movie will force her to go into hiding? But in truth, this is just really damn forgettable - it’s once again riding on our interest in this couple and the lightning of ‘Senorita’ doesn’t seem to be catching twice. So yeah, not interested.

And that ends a really long week - god, what a mess, but we do have two definite standouts with ‘Visiting Hours’ by Ed Sheeran easily taking the best with ‘One Mississippi’ by Kane Brown - the good hook just edges out Clinton Kane here. But the worst of the week… oh fuck this, it’s a Trippie Redd tie with ‘Matt Hardy 999’ with the late Juice WRLD and ‘Danny Phantom’ with the late XXXTENTACION, followed by the Dishonourable Mention ‘MP5’ with SoFayGo. But next week… yeah, we’re going to have to deal with Kanye. Stay tuned.