billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 12, 2022

So believe it or not, I don’t like being generally perceived as negative - it happens naturally because I’m a critic and I don’t always force the smile, but I try to avoid putting my valuable effort and time into hating things, it’s counterproductive. So when I come here and say this week on the Hot 100 looks to be pretty damn bad in a year that thus far looks to be pretty bad, you know we’re dealing with rough territory here.

And we have to start with our top ten, and our new #1 that I predicted and wished I didn’t: ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals. I can respect the extended chart run, and how it dominates radio and has solid streaming… but let’s be real, in the majority of climates this is not a strong #1 and I have precisely zero expectations it’ll hold. Hell, the only reason it got here is because ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ by the Encanto Cast despite having strong streaming never got radio going, so it slid to #2. Frankly, I’m still rooting for ‘abcdefu’ by GAYLE at #3 - she’s got strength across the board, it’s really just a margins game until she can break through here! Thankfully she held back ‘Super Gremlin’ by Kodak Black at #4, riding a short boost thanks to his album release that couldn’t quite drive his radio much higher to support streaming, and while it held over ‘Stay’ by Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber at #5 - mostly because that song’s streaming has stalled out and is slowly collapsing on the radio - I chalk the success of both of these to ‘Easy On Me’ by Adele starting to crash hard off radio losses down to #6. Unfortunately the last four in the top 10 didn’t move at all - ‘Ghost’ by Justin Bieber at #7 can’t make up traction in the radio, nor can ‘Shivers’ by Ed Sheeran at #8 even if it has slightly better streaming, which is also true for ‘Bad Habits’ at #9 even as its radio second wind falls short, and ‘Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)’ by Elton John and Dua Lipa stalled out at #10 as its radio is in freefall.

Speaking of which, our losers and dropouts, and there’s really not many. In the latter category we’ve got ‘Who Want Smoke??’ by Nardo Wick, G Herbo, Lil Durk, and 21 Savage falling short of the year end list, but where things might get interesting is if ‘All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)’ managed to scrape enough points to get through - my math has it falling short, but it’ll be very close. And then there’s our losers, the majority of which come from new arrivals losing traction like ‘Nail Tech’ by Jack Harlow at 41 or ‘banking on me’ by Gunna at 74, or just continued losers from last week like ‘Don’t Play That’ by King Von and 21 Savage at 97, ‘Bussin’ by Nicki Minaj and Lil Baby at 94, ‘Worst Day’ by Future at 84, and ‘The Joker And The Queen’ by Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift at 75 - again, I’m really not complaining about these! Hell, what surprises me more are ‘Still D.R.E.’ by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg clinging to 63 or how ‘Oh My God’ by Adele is continuing to tank at 62! The last few break down to Encanto songs finally making their exits - ‘All Of You’ from the cast at 89 and ‘Waiting On A Miracle’ by Stephanie Beatriz at 71 - and two three person collabs sliding down, with ‘City Of Gods’ by Fivio Foreign, Kanye West and Alicia Keys falling to 70 because no unauditable stem player sales or plays are going to count for this - good - and ‘Better Days’ by NEIKED, Mae Muller, and Polo G on its way out at 60 after clinching its year-end list spot; sidenote, I’ve yet to encounter anyone who remotely cares about this song.

But what about our gains and returns… well, what about them, the only one of the latter is ‘Slow Down Summer’ by Thomas Rhett which is in precisely the wrong season to make any sense right now but is still back at 88. And it’s not like I’m seeing much in the way of logic behind our gains here: in country we’re seeing pickups for ‘Beers On Me’ by Dierks Bentley, Breland and HARDY at 42 and ‘Doin This’ by Luke Combs at 37, odd boosts for ‘The Motto’ by Tiesto and Ava Max at 73 thanks to radio traction and sales and ‘Boyfriend’ by Dove Cameron at 55 which is becoming a streaming thing, and then ‘Numb Little Bug’ by Em Beihold is steadily becoming a 2000s retro sleeper hit at 54, especially with its streaming and sales traction - as soon as the radio gets onboard proper, this is going to be bigger than I think anyone expects. But the big boost came off the debut for ‘Ahhh Ha’ by Lil Durk at 19 thanks to massive streaming and nothing else - I already went in with a lot of detail surrounding my issues around all of this, and unfortunately we’ve got the response to handle this week, joy.

But before we get to that directly, we do have a reasonably short list of new arrivals, so instead let’s start with…

100. 'Rocking A Cardigan In Atlanta’ by Lil Shordie Scott - oh look, another song running off of TikTok virality from a near-complete no name, surely this’ll be distinctive or not another undercooked fragment… oh wait, that’s exactly what this is. What’s most distinctive about this probably comes to this guy’s voice, somewhere between 645AR, Playboi Carti, and Mickey Mouse, it’s immediately grating and basically hangs unsupported with a cheap sounding trap beat and piano loop, clearly going for a cartoonish vibe, but it reminds me more of that Zack Fox project from last year where the one joke was the exaggerated cliche of rappers being extra in silly ways, and here there’s somehow even less, calling himself Mr. Tardy Man and Mr. Frat Boy alongside a lot of bland flexing and stealing your girl. Clearly this one-note meme is the peak of humor, and not thoroughly played by one of the most annoying voices I’ve heard in recent memory. Not funny, not good - next!

95. ‘To The Moon!’ by JNR CHOI & Sam Tompkins - okay, let’s unpack this: JNR Choi is a UK drill rapper who is mostly unremarkable in his delivery and content, Sam Tompkins hopped on a hook / interpolation of Bruno Mars’ ‘Talking To The Moon’, which has quietly picked up a pretty sizable following on its own, mostly as a pretty great early Bruno Mars song, and the song is at least somewhat popular because the phrase ‘to the moon’ is tied into cryptocurrency trading and the NFT space. And I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that none of it works, but what is surprising is how it’s not even interesting in its failings - JNR Choi reminds me of many interchangeable UK drill acts with autotune attempting to cover his poor Pop Smoke impression and says nothing here remotely interesting, and Sam Tompkins can’t remotely match Bruno Mars’ presence or pipes before his melodic presence is crushed behind the weirdly muted clatter of percussion. Honestly, it just sounds cheap, with the drill elements taking away firepower instead of adding it. My bet is that this only got traction thanks to the running, unbacked, hypercapitalistic nightmare grift cult of cryptocurrency, kind of perfect that a song this thuddingly uninteresting is that anthem.

90. ‘I Wish’ by Kodak Black - honestly, I was expecting there to be a lot more from Kodak Black to chart beyond the two songs he debuted this week. Granted, off the top of my head I can’t recall a Kodak Black album bomb that really tore through the charts - hopefully that means longer-term ‘Super Gremlin’ is a fluke - but alright, for this song… call it a case of low expectations, but I don’t think this is that bad. The production based off of a Ray J sample isn’t all that interesting with the tumble of acoustics behind the chalky trap percussion that doesn’t build to a proper hook, and I still think Kodak Black is a pretty mediocre rapper in terms of structuring flows and delivery, but on the surface I can at least grasp the sentiment of wanting to get away from the streets for good, get off drugs, and maybe go straight so he can take his son to Disney, there’s more tangible remorse and a desire to do better. But it kind of flies in the face of the rest of his bars stacked up with drug abuse, old grudges, and threats - it would almost be tragic if it wasn’t Kodak Black. Whatever, I don’t think there’s enough here worth remembering, so let’s move on to…

81. ‘Usain Boo’ by Kodak Black - is there anyone who thinks this sounds really messy? The painfully cheap sounding trap groove with no body or solid blending, the rattling acoustics tumbling off rhythm against the chipmunked vocal and where Kodak slurs through his usual flow where he barely fits within any pocket here without any hook? It leaves me a little bewildered that he chose to give this a video when it feels so awkwardly formed… but then you realize this is his song where he’s trying to flex and attract women with his triumphant posturing, which gets more than a little questionable when you realize he’s accusing Megan Thee Stallion of ripping him off and then saying how he bucks the feds. Given that last year he pleaded down to assault and battery in his sexual assault case - and not his first given his charges all across the US - I don’t think this is the flex he thinks it is, especially as his garbled Usain Bolt connection translates to the line ‘I’m comin’ fast when I’m in there’. So yeah, this is worse… but not as bad as…

79. ‘I Hate YoungBoy’ by YoungBoy Never Broke Again - I mentioned last week that Youngboy had responded to Lil Durk’s ‘Ahhh Ha’, and given that I was praying it wouldn’t chart, I really do not want to have to rehash this increasingly stupid, pointless, and counterproductive beef, especially as YoungBoy has consistently been the aggressor to go to increasingly vile places, especially in referencing King Von. So this is his counterattack, where he goes at Lil Durk and his affiliates, which include Apple Music and Gucci Mane, the latter of which is ballsy because Gucci Mane has been known as one not to cross under any circumstances, even if I find him a mediocre rapper. But at this point… this might be one of YoungBoy’s sloppiest cuts to date, where he seems very much aware that all of this is a bad idea from multiple people in his camp calling this out, and he doesn’t care who he hits. There are shots at Gucci Mane, and Lil Baby, and Lil Boosie, and a whole lot of women between them, and Lil Durk’s father who just got out of jail, and YouTubers who comment or take sides, and now only does it feel flailing and desperate, there’s not even good wordplay to redeem it! And when you have lines where it suggests that your baby moms don’t want to have anything to do with you, and you have no real friends, and the drug abuse has ravaged your consciousness as your flow deteriorates and your mixing gets considerably messier, it stops being intimidating and starts looking pitiful. The one point worth examining is how YoungBoy points out Apple Music boosts Lil Durk, but there’s no play to call out the moral hypocrisy boosting street mayhem so much as him complaining that because he’s alienated his label and streaming contacts, he doesn’t get that same support. And as much as I could say that’s what happens when you fuck with those who have deeper pockets and connections - and Gucci’s response was a warning shot in that direction - if I was Lil Durk and Lil Baby or indeed anyone targeted in this beef, I’d leave YoungBoy to scream into the void. Don’t sink to this level, you can ignore the trash.

76. ‘I’m Tired’ by Labrinth & Zendaya - okay look, I don’t have time to get into my essays of thoughts on Euphoria - seriously, if I had a few solid weeks I could churn out one hell of a video essay on that last season, but one thing I can speak on pretty quickly is the music… where I’ve generally been mixed to underwhelmed all damn season. I could put some of that to Drake being an executive producer on the show, but truth be told there have been a lot of opportunities for Labrinth to really deliver standout work and I’ve just not been all that impressed. So even if they get Zendaya’s vocals for the dramatic flip on the back half of this song, flipping the darker gospel clatter with the spare beat off the organ highlighting Zendaya’s character succumbing to her demons to then trying to find the will to keep living. And… yeah, Zendaya can sell this in the outro and the mix uses negative space to emphasize the loneliness well, and at least it’s not that godawful song that Dominic Fike’s character provides in the season finale, but I think my issue might be Labrinth, who I’ve always thought has a good voice and texture and presence, but there’s something about his delivery that never quite connects, just some missing charisma to really click. Maybe it’s because I’ve been hearing him as a supporting producer and singer on electronic music for years now, but I think Zendaya could have handled this on her own. Otherwise… it’s fine, but I can’t say I’m all that gripped by it, and really that’s only based off the context of the show. Without that… I’m not sure it would get there, just saying.

43. ‘Freaky Deaky’ by Tyga & Doja Cat - you know it’s a bad week when i’m praying for a Tyga and Doja Cat collab to actually be decent and it’d handily clinch the best of the week - and that’s with the sort of Dr. Luke production credit that has me thinking he just slaps his name on anything coming out of Kemosabe where I suspect he’s barely touched this at all. And speaking of people I don’t want to touch this at all, Tyga has two verses on this and is all over the post-chorus with the sort of rote verses where you get hashtag rap like ‘let me slide in it, Wayne Gretzky’, or how he calls this girl ‘gnarly’, and then references the last song he did with Doja Cat - at this point she’s a considerably bigger star than him, I have no idea what he adds and why she couldn’t have handled this herself! Hell, she takes the hook off that slinky guitar lick and the snap beat, and her one verse is actually pretty funny, because she has comic timing down to a goddamn tee. It still doesn’t have as much flair or personality as she could - you could push ‘Get Into It (Yuh)’ more anytime, that song is great - but I also know the sort of hook that’ll stick in your brain ridiculously well, and as corny as Tyga is here, for this sort of pop rap he’s not a dealbreaker and Doja Cat is sweet enough to make this work.

So yeah, easily ‘Freaky Deaky’ is the best of the week, not particularly close at least for me. The worst… yeah, ‘I Hate YoungBoy’, where I’d say that the title sets up my punchline but truth be told I don’t hate him - I’m disappointed that I even lightly cared, and I want this stupid feud to end without bloodshed. Next week… I don’t see ‘Heat Waves’ getting another week on top, but we also could have that YoungBoy / DaBaby collab album impacting the charts next week, so we’re not nearly out of the woods yet. Stay tuned for that…