billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 9, 2024

There’s a part of me that wants to consider this week “normal” - pretty consistent top ten behavior, residual fading of album bombs, a reasonable allotment of new arrivals. That part of me is warring with the reality that as the UMG / TikTok standoff continues, if you dig even a little deeper there’s very little I can qualify as ‘normal’ here, which is the lingering asterisk that’s going to hang until this dispute is resolved… and given that both seem to be settling in for the long haul to the detriment of the majority of those signed to a major label, especially given Universal’s ownership of publishing, it’s going to be a consistent factor I’m going to keep bringing up in all of my reporting here. It’s not the only factor - every song and artist on the charts have their own unique circumstances, and promotion tends to be most relevant in the initial push of a song before radio gets involved, and even then certain acts and genres don’t fit neatly into that strategy - but behind the scenes that are a lot of frustrated artists and promotional teams that don’t want to say more in fear of rocking the boat and losing their budgets.

Thankfully, I can be much louder here, so let’s start off with the top ten, and once again ‘Texas Hold’Em’ by Beyonce is at #1… although it’s not likely for much longer. The inroads on sales and streaming aren’t quite holding up, and while there’s a massive radio push, it’s not closing the margin fast enough. Contrast this with ‘Carnival’ by Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign, featuring Rich The Kid and Playboi Carti up to #2, which is making a play for the top spot on pretty much just streaming and it can probably get there next week, the margins are that close. I don’t expect ‘Lovin On Me’ by Jack Harlow to make much of a play at #3 - it’s close to a radio peak and streaming and sales are in decline, and I don’t think ‘Beautiful Things’ by Benson Boone at #4 is really a contender here, given that while streaming is still solid, his radio gains are nowhere as close as they need to be. This opens a slightly more interesting door with ‘Lose Control’ by Teddy Swims at #4: he’s pulling out all the stops with multiple versions to boost sales, streaming is down a bit but still considerable, and his radio is on a hot streak; he’s probably the biggest challenger here, so it’ll likely come down to how much Warner wants to overpower Kanye’s quasi-independent operation. Now we get our only debut in the top 10, and a bit of a headscratcher: ‘Saturn’ by SZA at #6. Obviously here thanks to streaming and nothing else, but I established last week that despite being on TDE and RCA, Universal owns SZA’s publishing, and yet ‘Saturn’ is still on TikTok in various forms! What’s interesting is that it seems to be the only “official” SZA song on TikTok right now, and that to me screams that someone cut a deal behind the scenes in order to preserve SZA’s momentum; maybe this is under a different publishing arrangement, maybe Punch finally made the right phone call - either way, it’s going to be extremely interesting to see who else gets special attention in the weeks to come. Then we have a quick boost for ‘I Remember Everything’ by Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves to #7 - not a great streaming week but it still has so much volume there it’s not getting unseated - and that held over ‘greedy’ by Tate McRae at #8, which is clearly on the downswing on radio and getting rotated out. And on that note, while these are both older songs naturally exiting, the fact that ‘Snooze’ by SZA fell to #9 with weakness across the board and especially ‘Cruel Summer’ by Taylor Swift slid to #10 is more glaring evidence of how the ties to Universal are getting messy.

This takes us naturally to losers and dropouts… and again, I don’t want to make this all about the label drama in the latter category, especially as ‘Good Good’ by Usher, Summer Walker and 21 Savage is getting rotated out naturally and clinching its year-end list spot… but it certainly feels like a factor for Drake given his ties to Republic under Universal, as both ‘First Person Shooter’ with J. Cole and ‘IDGAF’ with Yeat are both gone too. And for the losers… well, we still have residual Kanye album bomb decline as expected, with ‘Burn’ at 63, ‘Fuk Sumn’ at 82, and ‘Back To Me’ at 97, ‘Hiss’ by Megan Thee Stallion naturally falling to 86, and ‘16 Carriages’ by Beyonce is continuing its b-side losses at 74. But the rest here are quite revealing: ‘Forever’ by Noah Kahan continuing to slide hard to 91, ‘Contigo’ by Karol G and Tiesto losing a lot off the debut to 90 - they were the anomaly last week, but no TikTok promo means it’s received no traction, which is also true for ‘Training Season’ by Dua Lipa falling hard to 61, and perhaps most revealing and concerning: ‘yes, and?’ by Ariana Grande at 28. The Mariah Carey remix worked… for about a week, and given that she’s on Republic which rolls up to Universal and the song hasn’t really gotten the radio traction the way one might hope… yeah, Yeat was an early casualty of this TikTok/UMG feud, but Ariana Grande is primed to be a much bigger one.

So what’s now filling in the gaps? Well, let’s look at those returns and gains and… look, I wouldn’t keep bringing up the label shit if it didn’t feel so damn obvious. In the former group, ‘MY EYES’ by Travis Scott back at 100 and ‘prove it’ by 21 Savage and Summer Walker at 98, both of those are under Epic, which rolls up to Sony, and ‘Scared To Start’ by Michael Marcagi at 95, he’s under Warner, it makes sense. And the gains are also very consistent with this: from the debuts last week ‘Whatever She Wants’ by Bryson Tiller to 22, under RCA, ‘End Of Beginning’ by Djo up to 35 is under AWAL, and ‘Tu Name’ by Fuerza Regida to 83, and off the return ‘Where It Ends’ by Bailey Zimmerman is up to 81 and he’s under Warner Nashville - getting shipped to radio probably helps as well. Speaking of which, the one Drake song that saw success was ‘You Broke My Heart’ because it got shipped to radio too - for a forward-thinking and business-savvy artist often riding streaming, the fact that Drake is pushing airplay is extremely telling. And for continued gains, ‘Soak City (Do It)’ by 310babii is at 59 - he’s on EMPIRE - and ‘I Can Feel It’ by Kane Brown is up to 55 and he’s on RCA Nashville. The one exception I don’t really have a clear answer for is ‘Coal’ by Dylan Gossett up to 73 - he’s tied to Mercury / Republic, the song is no longer on TikTok, it might be a case of one last viral boost before it collapses because Nashville radio isn’t really onboard here, although apparently it’s just been remarkably consistent on Spotify and that’s held over losses above it, I can believe that.

But now it’s time for the new arrivals… and spoiler alert, the UMG/TikTok feud is spilling over here too, and I just know the impact to some of these is going to piss you off, starting with…

99. ‘Easy’ by LE SSERAFIM - So we’re starting this off with a tricky situation, because not only is this the first song from this k-pop group to cross over to the Hot 100, they’re under SOURCE and YG Plus but also distributed by Geffen/Interscope… but this song is still on TikTok. And this is where I want to stress there’s a limit to how much I know about behind-the-scenes label rights arrangements and policy, especially when it comes to international acts and where jurisdiction falls - there’s going to be weird edge cases all over the map, quite frankly I’d prefer to stick to the music, as while I’ve been aware of this group’s worldwide success for a few years now, this is the first song of theirs I’ve really taken in. And… I have to hope this isn’t a good introduction, because this is rough - the vocal mixing is really slapdash when it’s not run through pitch-shifted filters, the trap percussion sounds grainy as hell, the melody is this offkey blurry fragment, and it all sounds alarmingly cheap. And yet I can’t even say there’s much energy or wild verve to sell it - for a song all about trying to sell how they’re so talented they make it look easy, effortless can both mean the appearance of sticking the landing with poise and… well, just a lack of effort. I don’t want to say it’s the latter… but man, I don’t see the hype with this.

96. ‘Let’s Go’ by Key Glock - alright, from what I’ve heard from Key Glock thus far, I’m not against a new song slipping onto the charts, especially as he’s backed by the late Young Dolph’s label Paper Route Empire and can muster some virality from this cut from his album last year. And honestly, there’s not a lot to say with this one: the content is flexing, brand name porn, gunplay, and telling his girl to take the plan B so she doesn’t get pregnant - charming - over a pretty decent sample loop and grinding trap percussion that’s decently mastered but still sounds cheaper than it probably should, as the song barely clears two minutes. If Key Glock brought a bit more intensity I’d probably like it more, but as it is… just okay.

77. ‘Wine Into Whiskey’ by Tucker Whitmore - I can’t be the only one who is starting to get a bit skeptical whenever I see a country act with no other songs besides the one that went viral on TikTok… and then look at all the indie country acts I review and wonder why they don’t catch the same sort of fire. But whatever, this is the one song we have from Tucker Whitmore at the moment, where I somehow have a bigger presence on YouTube, and… wow, someone really wants to rip off Morgan Wallen: the painfully canned vocals, the desaturated electric guitar, the flimsy percussion… I want to be kind because this guy is independent, but the limited production budget really shows through here. And that’s a shame because I generally like the writing, where Whitmore is the guy on the other side of a breakup watching his ex drink away her pain for trying to help change or fix him and it really backfired; I like that the song doesn’t let him off the hook or try to shoot back with condescension, it’s just a bad situation all around. I dunno, there’s a seed of quality in the writing that I’d like to see go further, but I’m not sure the execution is there - decent enough, not great, at least not yet.

76. ‘Don’t Let Me Go’ by mgk - You know, I was going to comment on all of Machine Gun Kelly’s recent antics - that tattoo, changing his stagename to just ‘mgk’, trying to pivot back into rap because his label couldn’t do nearly enough when he went pop punk - Tickets To My Downfall is a case study of Bad Boy and Interscope screwing up royally, it’s frankly inexcusable - but then I realized that mgk is under the UMG umbrella and is trying to roll out new music; someone please get this man competent management, this is getting embarrassing. But alright, the song… look, I’m more forgiving of mgk than most, it’s not always the best strategy to go for the vulnerable spare ballad to open up your album run - reminds me more than it should of ‘lonely’ by Justin Bieber - but mgk is a decent rapper and the storytelling feels heartfelt, talking about depression and addiction and the bad relationship he had with his religious father and even Megan Fox’s miscarriage when they were trying to have a baby. The song is just brittle and sad with its piano loop and clicking percussion, but it’s also raw in a way that mgk seems to recognize will not be embraced by everyone - most people refuse to read between the lines on an mgk album - which leads to an ambiguous hook on whether he wants that attention or not. So as a whole… look, I’m the guy who went on at length exploring the mess of mainstream sellout, I can call this pretty good - I also have no illusions it’s going to work for the majority of folks or stick around - it happens.

62. ‘Old Days’ by Lil Durk - …you know, if we are looking for rappers who could capitalize on UMG being out of the picture, anyone signed to Alamo could make a move - hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rod Wave get in the mix as well. But Lil Durk is ready with the lead-off single for his next album… and this is one of those tracks that I really wish I could praise more but for one bad decision. Because I like the content here - against the faint wheedling melody, Durk raps about those lost to the streets where he’d rather connect with his family, or help bring some order to Chicago like what Meek has tried in Philadelphia, where he knows that the killers have to be the ones who fight for peace instead of the rappers who play up conflict, push back against those who have dishonored themselves or drive up provocation without understanding that life. Hell, after the second verse Durk just stops rapping and he talks about systemic police brutality and how there’s no point to the bloodshed anymore, where he wants to lead an effort to rebuild. And this is great stuff - Durk’s writing in this territory has gotten smarter over the years, and man, he can sell the pain and resonance of being willing to work to make it better… so why the hell did Southside mix the bass like total ass? This isn’t a banger, why have your beat clip the mix and distort your own words - it doesn’t feel like metacommentary on drill, it’s a production mistake! So yeah, outside of that, I like this a lot… man, it should be great, though.

56. ‘Love On’ by Selena Gomez - And going back to artists who probably shouldn’t be pushing new music while they’re under Universal, we have Selena Gomez at Interscope pushing another single. I’m torn on whether her name has enough radio clout to sustain traction with this - that and the video are the only reason this is charting at all - but it’s here and… oh no, someone thought it’d be a good idea to push towards nu-disco for Gomez and it doesn’t work at all. First off, I’ve been saying this for years, Selena Gomez’s limited vocals are best complimented by production that fits her within it, not something she has to command, so nu-disco is already questionable before you bring in The Monsters & Strangerz as the production team for these canned synths that can’t sell elegance, filmy percussion, and a bassline that frankly needs a performer who can ride it effectively. That is not Selena Gomez especially when you take a look at the lyrics where right from the intro they feel overwritten in trying to stuff words into a love song that’s trying for sensuality and doesn’t remotely stick the landing - ‘turn my love on’ is already a rough turn of phrase, but lines like ‘screaming “yes” in quotations’, ‘timestampin’ when you fell in love’, and trying to convince someone to ditch an expensive dinner to make out her car doesn’t remotely work for the vibe. If it wasn’t for the fact that they spent money on a music video I’d be convinced they were dropping this now to clear a contract or something, and even as someone who likes Selena Gomez… this sucks, pass!

54. ‘Holy Smokes’ by Bailey Zimmerman - I was wondering when Bailey Zimmerman was going to start pushing that next album - with Morgan Wallen’s TikTok promo out of the picture, Zimmerman being on Warner Nashville gives him an opening for a new lead-off single… and what is it with people I’m rooting for not deliver up to their best? Granted, I see the logic with this one: reminiscing on a teenage love song with a bunch of biblical imagery, it’s playing the same formula he had with ‘Religiously’ which was a way bigger hit than it had any right to be, and when you pair it with solidly balanced organic production, I get why it would work. But something is missing - maybe it’s the over-polished mix especially around the vocals that doesn’t work when you have a voice as craggy as Zimmerman’s, maybe it’s the lack of a full punchline on the bridge to add another layer of dimensionality. I like it more than ‘Religiously’ - not hard, it’s one of the weakest songs he’s ever cut - but I don’t like seeing Zimmerman’s edge being de-emphasized, especially when in modern country today that grit matters. As it is… it’s okay, but it’s not special.

6. ‘Saturn’ by SZA - So I know SZA is teasing that LANA album - and suddenly given the questions around her publishing I think I understand why it may have been quietly delayed time and time again - but this is apparently the lead-off single for it, and given what we’ve seen this week, let’s get at least one unqualified good to great song? And thank god it is, where we see a return to the glossy ethereal, immaculately produced vibes of ‘Good Days’ but with a heavy splash of gauzy synths around the reverbed guitars and gorgeous backing vocals to play up the spacey themes. Which is funny because the actual text of the song screams frustration and - pardon the pun - alienation: she’s bored and frustrated with a world that promises success and nirvana and really hasn’t delivered, but what’s interesting is that she’s also keenly aware so much of this is in her own head and driven by her actions; the second verse in particular references both sides of karma that she hasn’t received, good or bad! I think what this song yearns for is passion, which is why Saturn as a symbol makes sense - in Roman myth it was linked to fertility and bounty, and when you pair it with some literal longings to escape earth for a distant beautiful planet, it makes sense. I don’t think this is better than ‘Good Days’ - there’s something so intricate yet organic about its sprawl that captured something in its moment that felt unlike any other - but if this production style is a hint for LANA… yeah, colour me excited, this was really damn good!

And yeah, easily runs away with the best of the week, with Honourable Mention… I’m gonna say ‘Old Days’ by Lil Durk, although mgk was a lot closer than you might think. Worst of the week is ‘Love On’ by Selena Gomez which doesn’t work at all, with Dishonourable Mention going to ‘Easy’ by LE SSERAFIM - I’m fairly certain they have to be better than that single, let’s hope better songs chart. Next week… I sadly don’t expect anything from ScHoolboy Q given he’s on Interscope and we’re not so lucky to get an album bomb, so we’ll have to see…