billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 24, 2024

There are some weeks where this job is manageable or fun - this is probably not going to be one of them. Hell, I could have had my hands full with just Beyonce releasing a pair of country songs or Noah Kahan seeing more persistent success, but let’s be real, that’s not why the majority of you are peeking in. No, for those of you who saw my video around Kanye West and Vultures on my main channel, you’re wondering how on earth I choose to cover it here - if you haven’t seen that video, it’s only a minute long on my main channel, I highly recommend you check it out because it’s going to provide some illustrative context to what is going to happen here. Specifically, I want y’all to take a look at the comments section as well, because it sure ain’t pretty - it’s probably not going to be pretty down here either, a warning in advance to be civil - because at this point, I think a larger, reasoned exploration of that response is long-overdue.

But before we get into all of that, let’s keep to routine, our top ten, where holding for another week we have ‘Lovin On Me’ by Jack Harlow at #1, but likely not for much longer: he dominates radio and streams are still good, but the challenger is now firmly in sight: debuting at #2, ‘Texas Hold Em’ by Beyonce - huge sales, strong streaming, and radio is already revving up, it’s probably going to #1 next week, and while I’ll have my thoughts on it later on, I’d consider that a net positive! Not so much for our next debut in the top 10: ‘Carnival’ by Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign, with uncredited features from Playboi Carti and Rich The Kid, at #3. It’s here on streaming with a smattering of sales, but given that radio is not going to touch this, even if the album has legs I don’t see this lasting at all. Unfortunately, that also means there’s another credible challenger waiting in the wings: ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone at #4 - he’s got a ton of streaming, had a good sales week, and there’s radio traction, we’re likely not getting rid of this one any time soon, joy. Hell, I’d take ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims over this down at #5, which might be reaching its peak as streaming slipped and radio growth has been unsteady. But it was enough to hold over ‘Cruel Summer’ by Taylor Swift at #6, which along with ‘Snooze’ by SZA at #7 is just in open freefall across the board, where SZA has more stable streams but Taylor has the radio margin. Then we have ‘I Remember Everything’ by Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves at #8 - again, rock solid streaming but radio has never touched it - but it held over ‘greedy’ by Tate McRae at #9 which had a weirdly good week on the radio to compensate for its streams falling into the toilet. Finally - and this is a big one, finally entering the top ten: ‘Stick Season’ by Noah Kahan. It’s by no means his best song, but it’s now his biggest hit as the streams are there and the radio is firmly behind him; I can imagine this has a run all through the spring, and especially with his album’s ridiculous longevity on the charts… look, even if I don’t like him, I called this guy as a crossover star when I reviewed him in 2022, we aren’t getting rid of him easily.

This takes us naturally to our losers and dropouts, and since we are regrettably in an album bomb week, there’s a lot of them! A lot of big songs too, so handily clinching a year-end Hot 100 spot we have ‘White Horse’ by Chris Stapleton, ‘fukumean’ by Gunna, ‘Lil Boo Thang’ by Paul Russell, ‘My Love Mine All Mine’ by Mitski, and then likely falling just short we have ‘Strangers’ by Kenya Grace, ‘500 lbs’ by Lil Tecca, and ‘Que Onda’ by Calle 24, Chino Pacas, and Fuerza Regida. And we have a lot of losers here too, so let’s start off with the debut of ‘Bandit’ by Don Toliver collapsing to 78, which neatly follows the ongoing losses of ‘Monaco’ by Bad Bunny at 97 - might as well add ‘Perro Negro’ with Feid at 99 - ‘FTCU’ by Nicki Minaj at 71 - also might as well tack on ‘Everybody’ with Lil Uzi Vert falling to 40 - ‘Spin You Around (1/24)’ by Morgan Wallen at 70, ‘Igual Que Un Angel’ by Kali Uchis and Peso Pluma at 69, ‘Think U The Shit (Fart)’ by Ice Spice at 62, and ‘Hiss’ by Megan Thee Stallion at 48 - frankly, I’m shocked it’s lasted that long. Then we had the gains that fell back sharply, like ‘vampire’ by Olivia Rodrigo at 43, ‘On My Mama’ by Victoria Monet at 44, and ‘exes’ by Tate McRae at 49, and the rest is all over the damn place. Let’s start with Drake, who didn’t exactly have a good week with ‘First Person Shooter’ with J. Cole at 47 and ‘IDGAF’ with Yeat at 88, and neither did Jelly Roll with ‘Need A Favor’ falling to 50 and ‘Wild Ones’ with Jessie Murph at 45. And outside of that, working from the bottom up… ‘prove it’ by 21 Savage and Summer Walker at 98 - let’s tack on ‘nee-nah’ with Travis Scott and Metro Boomin as well at 80 - ‘Mmhmm’ by BigXThaPlug at 96, ‘We Don’t Fight Anymore’ by Carly Pearce at 92, ‘Different Round Here’ by Riley Green and Luke Combs at 90, ‘Bellakeo’ by Peso Pluma and Anitta at 87, ‘Harley Quinn’ by Fuerza Regida and Marshmello at 85, and ‘Act ii: date @ 8’ by 4batz at 81. Then we have the revival of ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ by Sophie Ellis-Bextor sliding to 73, One Of The Girls’ by The Weeknd, JENNIE and Lily Rose Depp at 72, ‘World On Fire’ by Nate Smith at 56, ‘Selfish’ by Justin Timberlake at 37, and ‘yes, and?’ by Ariana Grande already down to 31 - this single is really underperforming, the fact they’re rushing a Mariah Carey remix to bolster it has me a lot more worried about that Ariana Grande album than I expected to be!

Now naturally on an album bomb week we don’t have as much in terms of returns or gains, but there are a few. It makes sense that ‘Yeah!’ by Usher, Lil Jon and Ludacris made a big return to 20 after his super bowl performance - no complaints, this song is an absolute classic - and I’m quite pleased to see ‘She Calls Me Back’ by Noah Kahan and Kacey Musgraves back at 91, if only for a week riding Noah Kahan’s boost, which also translated to the gains with ‘Northern Attitude’ with Hozier climbing to 75. What initially caught me offguard was the continued boost for ‘Standing Next To You’ by Jungkook to 61… but he had a good sales week and you can recall a remix of this song with Usher got tacked onto his album and that’s been shipped to radio and is thus far doing okay. Would that Usher have been the album bomb we got, but no… and you know, for a change of pace, let me go back to my old album bomb rules for Vultures, where if you have more than eight songs debuting, I only talk about those in the top 40. So outside of that list, we have ‘Do It’ at 52, ‘Paid’ at 53, ‘Keys To My Life’ at 55, ‘Paperwork’ at 64, ‘Beg Forgiveness’ at 65, ‘Hoodrat’ at 67, ‘Problematic’ at 79, ‘Good (Don’t Die)’ at 93, and ‘King’ at 94.

So with thankfully easing some workload here, we still have a ways to go before we get to Kanye, so let’s start off with…

100. ‘Sunday Service’ by Latto - I’m just appreciating the irony that Latto charted this week with a song that on title reminds me of one of the few late-period Kanye associations I actually like - and hell, she doesn’t have Dr. Luke anywhere near this either, we’re starting on an upswing, which continues with that pretty good bassline behind the textured groove, the production is a bit short on melody but it’s pretty well-assembled. Shame that Latto really doesn’t do much with it - this is arguably a blend of flexes, running through guys who can’t get over it, and easy subs at Nicki Minaj because… well, she’s an easy target. But her flow has never been as elastic or interesting, and the clunkier change-ups remind me just how far behind she is compared to Megan Thee Stallion or Doja Cat - the production is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and given that the hook isn’t as punchy as it should be… eh, not bad, but not that special either.

89. ‘Yeah Glo!’ by GloRilla - I’m still not quite sure how much runway GloRilla will have off of her breakthrough a few years ago - it’s already been a bit longer than I’ve expected and I’m frankly a bit surprised this is charting at all. But honestly, I get why this works: GloRilla’s flow has tightened up a bit, and she’s got the raw bruising contempt to roll over the haters alongside the flexing - I wouldn’t call it all that distinct, but she can sell it better than most. And to my pleasant surprise the production steps up too - that menacing bassline, the scratching behind the sharper percussion, the faded melody, this is a working formula for her especially when the multi-tracked hook has some punch; very obviously playing to a similar mid-2000s formula and I wouldn’t call this super distinct, but there’s been improvement - I think this is decent.

86. ‘You’re Gonna Go Far’ by Noah Kahan - so if you’re wondering why two new Noah Kahan songs debuted this week, it’s because of the second reissue of Stick Season that contains all of the remixes he’s put out the past year or so, which caused a gradual bump. And thus I’m a little annoyed because this song was on the first rerelease of Stick Season with just Kahan solo, but the remix on the second rerelease has Brandi Carlisle on it - welcome to another completely missed opportunity. Whatever, this is Noah Kahan making his spare folk version of Morgan Wallen’s ‘More Than My Hometown’, where the girl is about to chase bigger dreams outside of their small town and leaving him behind… and where Wallen went for some introspection and how he’s the one who can’t leave, Noah Kahan dumps a metric ton of passive-aggressive projection on this girl that despite every moment where he wishes her well and isn’t angry, he seems very acutely aware that of course she’ll come back; ‘we’ll be here forever’, even despite acknowledgements the town is kind of shitty! The third verse is what really soured me on this, from the ‘we’re overdue for a revival’ to when she says she’s going to try and make a difference, he drunkenly shuts her down - I know there’s emotional truth in his response or the awkwardness of the first verse, but it feels so self-serving with the overpolished mix and the faux-anthemic hook that it doesn’t feel real in the same way any number of Lori McKenna albums about small town decay and those who leave them behind do. For what it’s worth, the Brandi Carlisle remix is better - she’s a way better singer, the harmonies on the hook are really nice, and she takes the third verse and adding another dejected voice for that perspective helps the communal feel of a town left behind rather than the confines of a relationship. But yeah, it’s not the worst thing Noah Kahan’s released, but I have no interest going back to this.

39. …actually, stop there… because as I said in my video last week, I’m not reviewing Kanye West or Vultures - I haven’t even heard the album and I have zero incentive to do so. Hell, I haven’t properly ‘reviewed’ a Kanye album since 2018, and I arguably shouldn’t have done with ye given everything I’ve learned about those Wyoming sessions behind the scenes, the album that he wanted to call Hitler at the time! But I was more forgiving for Jesus Is King and Donda when they had their album bombs, but there are consequences for crossing certain lines, and he has not earned the benefit of good faith on my channels. And thus what I’m going to do instead for the other ‘entries’ in which there would normally be a Kanye West / Ty Dolla $ign track, I’m going to examine not just the backlash I’ve received, but the context behind specific arguments because I find the mindset very revealing. But before we get to that…

38. ‘16 Carriages’ by Beyonce - You know, there’s a part of me that wants to start the Beyonce-country discourse now just to get it out of the way - I don’t mind that she’s here, she’s long had roots in Texas, she’s a good enough performer to sell it and she’ll curate the right people around her - probably a lot of Black folks in country who deserve more attention Music Row doesn’t tend to give. But I also know that like with house music in 2022, Beyonce will tour and curate within the sound to fit her and then leave to do something else, and there’ll be nuance missed, and let’s not act like she’s breaking down barriers within country music when this will not drive institutional change and there are plenty of Black folks making country now that will be here before and after Beyonce, and it would suck to see their history subsumed into Beyonce’s personal narrative. Now that I’ve pissed off even more people, I have to come here and say that despite liking Beyonce making a ‘touring is hell’ song rooted in how many years she’s been on the road, with some decent guitar and organ texture and where I actually really like her vocals… god, this groove is a mess, an attempted lumbering stutter of a clap where by the back half of the song buzzy synths are dropped over everything and it feels really overproduced. It feels like the song can’t get going or build any rollick for an anthemic moment, it’s just really clunky. I don’t think it’s bad by any means… I’m just not wowed by it.

34. ‘Who are you’ - so this was easily the most common remark thrown at me off of that video, and while I could be hyper-literal and say ‘hi, my name is Mark Grondin, I’m the host of Spectrum Pulse and Billboard BREAKDOWN, where we talk about music, movies, art and culture, where I’ve been discussing music since some of y’all were in kindergarten’ - which is very possible, given my oldest public writings on Kanye West go back to 2010 - that’s not what that comment is about. No, I expected this as soon as the video caught escape velocity, broke outside of my audience/algorithm bubble, and impacted a public that probably has never seen me - which is understandable, especially given the blunt language I used, if all you’re used to is praise, it would be shocking. But these fandoms are not all stupid - the underlying question is ‘who are you… to be saying this about him, who we’ve placed on a pedestal, and you’re not a fan, how dare you impugn his reputation’. To them this is about power and who is allowed to question it, because the more questions and critique they face, the more fragile their idol may become. Which takes us naturally to…

33. ‘It’s not that deep’ - So this is the first deflection I think it’s worth caring about, because immediately it’s a contradiction: you praise this guy as an absolute genius and icon… but it’s not that deep, it’s just entertainment, don’t you dare look behind that curtain! Now there are a whole subset of casual listeners who don’t care about anything beyond ‘new Kanye album, it probably sounds cool’, of which I think there’s a responsibility for me as a critic to ask them to think a little more deeply about what they choose to consume, but they also don’t care enough to make this argument in my comment section. This is for the stans that do, and want to brush aside any critique of what Kanye says and does and platforms because if they think that deeply about it, they may be forced to confront something about themselves they don’t like; they had an emotional reaction to art, that emotion matters to them, by reapproaching that art with new information the emotional response may change. Might as well include the ‘he’s trolling’ line of thought, of which at this point I’ll reiterate my stance: what a lot of folks say ironically to get a rise out of people, they believe unironically, and the money spent counts the same either way. Of course, we can’t forget the people who use this argument disingenuously, who absolutely know this shit with Kanye runs deeper, and this argument is just built to waste my time, as well as…

30. ‘Separate the art from the artist!’ - You know, I have to wonder if left-leaning postmodern philosophers Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault ever truly, deeply considered the nightmare that would come from consumers bastardizing ‘Death of the Author’ and ‘What Is An Author’ in order to justify consumption; it’s a limit that can come up with postmodern philosophy in terms of impacting material conditions, especially when your deconstruction gets commodified, a big reason why there’s tension between postmodernist and socialists. But that’s the thing: the majority of people neither know nor care about that distinction in theory, this isn’t a classroom with academic rigors and assumptions of good faith critique, so conversations of ‘separating the art from the artist’ in this setting takes a different meaning: absolve me of any sense of moral guilt for continuing to buy or stream or enjoy art made by bad people, so I don’t have to think about any consequences. So it becomes a plea for ignorance, but again, note the contradiction: as a critic and expert with a platform there’s an expectation for depth and rigor for which I strive, which includes the necessary context of an artist’s impact on a work… up until I don’t validate your moral opinion of that artist, where the separation is then demanded. I could then highlight that a deeper examination of Kanye’s art often betrays exactly what he believes, or that in a performance medium the artist’s personal method can be intrinsic to understanding or appreciating a work, or - and this is the loaded one - that by accepting the artists’ deep flaws in connection with the work and examining your emotional response to them with that added context you might face tangible introspection that challenges what you believe, but I did an entire video essay three years ago examining this in detail. In reality this is a plea for ignorance, that I shut up if I know what’s good for me, so before we get to the impact of that…

28. ‘Forever’ by Noah Kahan - so this is the sole original track of the second rerelease - no surprise it charted this high - and… look, it’s hard for me to say much about this one, it starts as a very spare, frail acoustic love song where with all the vocal overdubs it has the feel of copying Justin Vernon’s notes. And you know, that’s fine - those are good notes to copy, the harmonies are pleasant, Kahan does have a knack for detail to paint this love story, and I didn’t mind how the song built a bit more stomping rollick for the second verse and the final hook. It’s also saccharine as all hell and if, say, Ed Sheeran released this, it would probably get dunked on a lot more for superficial reasons… but look, Noah Kahan annoys me when the sour side of his writing doesn’t feel earned, when he plays it straight down the middle he’s not particularly interesting, but it’s hard to get angry about it - it’s fine… so now getting back to something that very much isn’t…

26. How you use your platform - this is an argument I’ve seen from two sides, the ‘if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ made by liberals who care more about manners and constraints of discourse rather than what’s actually being said - a dangerous path to normalization and giving Kanye credit he does not deserve based on ‘well, he’s rich and has a platform, surely he knows what he’s talking about’ - and those who recognize that by speaking on this at all, I’m potentially exposing more people to bad ideas, so don’t give it any oxygen at all. I’m going to focus on the latter group because there is some merit to the argument - I don’t cover National Socialist black metal for that exact reason - but this is where platforms and power dynamics matter: NSBM is a ugly niche subgenre populated by the absolute dregs of the scene, that music is intentionally ugly and will likely never impact Billboard charts. An album of this size and magnitude is different and really a no-win scenario: if I choose to cover it regularly, it becomes a normalizing cover for what is being said and what it represents; if I ignore it entirely, I get spammed with comments asking me to cover it, and more importantly, I cede my voice and platform to a reckless media environment that will only give it more coverage. So with the power and platform y’all have given me, my moral imperative is to speak out, poison the toxic positivity, take the backlash. And I’m pretty consistent in this too, and there’s nuance in the edge cases - I don’t cover NSBM, and I never have. Yes, I reviewed ‘Try That In A Small Town’ by Jason Aldean on Billboard BREAKDOWN and in my worst list of 2023, but it was done in the context of someone who has roots in a subgenre and the expertise and knowledge to excise the grift effectively than the shallow liberal pile-on, it’s why I cover those painfully cringey white nationalist dipshits when they chart for one week on Billboard BREAKDOWN before getting tossed aside, there’s a knowledge of their disposability - the constructed nature of the charts and by extension this show tends to act as a broad-based equalizer and normalizer. But I don’t review their albums - I didn’t review the Jason Aldean album that had ‘Try That In A Small Town’ on it because I knew it would tank and I was right, and it goes from there: I never reviewed a full 6ix9ine album. When the allegations came out around Melanie Martinez I stopped covering her. My one review of XXXTENTACION was more a deconstruction of his fandom than a proper review - hell, that’s been how I’ve approached Kanye West album reviews since 2019! Hell, I’ll give you two examples you might know about: the first being that I don’t think I can cover another Sia album given what happened with Music the movie; there are some things I consider beyond the pale. Here’s another: I’ve never covered a modern Nas album… because I believe the allegations from Kelis. Am I perfect here, god no - I probably should not have covered Marilyn Manson in 2017 especially when the album sucked, I definitely shouldn’t have covered R. Kelly’s album in 2013 or Chris Brown’s in 2014/2015, but I’m willing to give myself a bit of grace in mixed-to-outright-negative discussions of art on my first few years on YouTube rather than a grown-ass man in his mid-40s spewing hate to a far larger audience. Which naturally takes us to…

23. ‘Whataboutism’ - This is where you’ll get the arguments of hypocrisy from people, where ‘oh, you’ll review these rappers in gangs but not Kanye West spewing misogyny and antisemitism and all manner of conspiratorial nonsense’. And this argument… just flat out sucks, because it relies on the shallowest of equivocations and more sustained ignorance. It requires them to not know about all the times I bring up gang violence when the songs chart on Billboard BREAKDOWN or in the album reviews, where there is a systemic complexity in examining artistic response and a difficult conversation I will try to have - but those making this argument deliberately don’t want to have the conversation about what Kanye has said and done, so if I chose to honour the equivalency they made to make the review and necessarily bring all of that up, as I’ve consistently done, why would you want me then to stop talking? And this is where we have to talk about degree and proportionality: the vast majority of the critique of music is subjective, inconsistent to time and place and critic and system of morality, and there are absolutely shades of grey. Hell, I could bring up more that you haven’t even considered, like how Kanye is well known in the industry for using ghostwriters and ghost producers, to say nothing of all of his collaborating producers, so how much of this moral impetus falls on him? The point here is that there is a spectrum in discussing this, and by necessity complexity… but when you combine Kanye West’s power with his reach and fame and influence, you have an outlier, a position where extenuating circumstances are in play, and another contradiction the stans have to hold: if he’s on that pedestal, should he not be judged more harshly in the usage of his power given its impact… or because of that power is he granted a larger pass? I thought with great power comes great responsibility? This is all combined with the reality that Kanye is no longer even playing by the rules of his own game in terms of sample clearances - which is why the albums kept getting pulled off of streaming - and the expectation that he should just be given a free pass when I know for a fact that such a pass would never be extended to the legends of rap these stans don’t even recognize who were far more exploited by the industry and fucked up sampling laws than Kanye ever was. But the reality here is that so much of this is tied to prosperity gospel rhetoric, where righteousness compounds but a single sin on your soul weighs the same regardless of what it is - in good faith it’s the root of all this whataboutism, and the free pass given to anyone looking to ‘express their values’ by consumption, because under capitalism that’s where the value is! Which takes us to…

3. ‘Why even bother’ - I know there are a lot of folks who have chosen to say nothing rather than engage at all, it’s too much of a hassle… and believe me I get it, if you don’t have a larger platform to potentially affect change I get it even more. This is also where you’ll encounter the folks who say I’m doing it for clout or money, as if the $2 I got from that short was some massive boon, and if I really was cynically doing that, I would have made long-form content exposing a bunch of those acts at length alongside their art and would have made bank doing so… alongside probably cultivating an audience I couldn’t stand. So yes, I consider this an extreme situation and have taken rare measures to accommodate it, and I won’t be bothering for those two planned sequel albums that I doubt even get released - I will be saying my piece now and moving on. Because there’s a difference between measured considerations of how to use one’s platform and acknowledgement of when I get it wrong past and future… versus going off the deep end and never admitting fault or fallibility, and every contradiction that defies reason that the fanbase has argued to maintain that power. Because the reality here is that this is about power, and a fanbase that would rather worship it than question its usage. And that makes sense: fascism is inherently contradictory, relying way more on the nostalgic aesthetics of strength than its fragile reality, where tangible success is subsumed under petty grievances and bitter grudges, where the vendettas run more on emotionality than logic because words don’t stop a boot or bullet. And art at its core is a conversation that runs on emotion to make these sentiments tantalizing, to not think about it, and heighten the phantasms of those who buy in - and at this scale, if I have been granted a platform, I have a responsibility to handle this, not by granting my platform his ideas, but describing their reality and then why people believe and defend it so you can recognize it too. And truth be told, I’ve seen worse backlashes - look at the summer of 2021 for a very memorable example - but when I see the rhetoric being used around this album, where if it came from anyone else it would be getting nowhere near the defenses and y’all know that, which only further belies me taking exceptional measures… it has me concerned on a deeper level. But hey, I think it concerns you too: after all, if you call this grandstanding or virtue signalling, and facts don’t care about your feelings especially when the evidence is plain as day, why are y’all so angry? Because truth be told, I gave you way more grace than you probably deserved or will return - think on that.

2. ‘Texas Hold Em’ by Beyonce - and thank god we’re ending this off with a Beyonce song that I actually like… where if even she’s now making stomp-clap folk music including a goddamn whistle pulled straight from Edward Sharpe, we’re firmly in nostalgia for the early 2010s and that feels uncanny as hell! And in this case it’s a pretty straightforward hoedown built for line-dancing - a solid acoustic line balanced by Rhiannon Giddens on banjo and viola, and Beyonce can sell this swagger in her sleep, even if I think the percussion and vocal layering are a bit too polished to nail that earthy feel. Then there’s the lyrics - I find it interesting that Beyonce is still loose enough that despite how imperial she can be, she can still party hard and it feels more convincing with her in country than when she tried to push trap. Granted, 2010s trap Beyonce has always felt hit-and-miss to me - I think it comes down to performance, as I’ve always liked her richer organic tones that are flattered here, but there is still something of a pose. In fact - and this is going to sound like heresy - in principle this reminds me a little of Kesha’s ‘Timber’ in playing to a bouncy country dance song where you can tell she’s comfortable in the space for a great time but she’s not firmly rooted there. And that’s fine - ‘Timber’ is a great song, and this is pretty damn good too, I’ll take it.

And yeah, I think it runs away with the best of the week, with ‘Yeah Glo!’ by GloRilla as the Honourable Mention. Worst of the week and Dishonourable Mention… let’s be real, it would have been something from Vultures where a combination of bad Kanye bars and worse production pissed me off, but I haven’t heard the album so I’ll leave it up to the unfortunate souls who heard the damn thing to pick what they think my worst of the week would be - leave suggestions in the comments, it’d be a nice distraction from the hellscape of discourse I unleashed. Next week… hopefully something more normal, stay tuned for that!