…am I the only one who thinks something strange is happening with the Hot 100 right now? I wouldn’t say it was anything that felt too far afield, but while last week was near-complete garbage – and the fact that a disturbing amount of it appears to be sticking around does not bode well – but this week seems rather slapdash, and I have a hard time seeing much of this sticking around beyond a brief blip on the radar before the holiday season sweeps a chunk of it away.
Granted, the one place that appears to be safe is our top ten, where for yet another week ‘rockstar’ by Post Malone and 21 Savage is at #1. Now I’ve said this song might be facing trouble for a while now… but with the release of a music video that’s blown up on YouTube it may have bought itself more space in the margins, especially as it’s still been doing well on the radio. Yeah, ‘Havana’ by Camila Cabello and Young Thug is doing better there and is dominant in sales, but until it can make up at least a little more ground in streaming, it’s going to be stranded at #2. That’s not an issue for ‘Gucci Gang’ by Lil Pump, which is only here because of streaming, with radio lagging hard and the second YouTube falters I can see this being trouble beyond #3. Then we have ‘Thunder’ by Imagine Dragons at #4, which rules the radio and had a particularly good sales week… but it did seem to hit a peak on the radio, so it could be vulnerable going forward, especially with ‘Perfect’ by Ed Sheeran rising up to #5 on good sales, a considerable radio pickup, and more streaming than you’d expect. It puts it above ‘Bodak Yellow’ by Cardi B down to #6, but considering how it’s been bleeding in radio and sales, that’s to be expected – what surprised me a bit more was ‘Too Good At Goodbyes’ by Sam Smith down to #7, but despite a good week on the radio it took serious losses in streaming and sales. Then we saw a modest recovery for ‘Feel It Still’ by Portugal. The Man to #8, but I’d argue that’s more due to bigger losses falling past it than its strengths… although you could make that argument given that it did have a slight sales boost and it didn’t quite decline as quickly on the radio as expected. Next is a returning entry to the top ten, ‘Sorry Not Sorry’ by Demi Lovato at #9, mostly because of a good sales week and a slight radio stabilization, it was up and down all week – and following with it is another returning entry with ‘What Lovers Do’ by Maroon 5 and SZA at #10, with even better sales and good radio making up for miserable streaming, it might have some traction here.
What doesn’t have traction are our losers and dropouts, and we had a few big ones in the latter category, as 2017 starts to sweep its hits away. ‘What Ifs’ by Kane Brown and Lauren Alaina, ‘Crew’ by Goldlin ft. Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy, ‘Something Just Like This’ by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay, and finally ‘XO TOUR LLIF3’ by Lil Uzi Vert. And following that trend, our losses are pretty predictable too, with a particularly rough week for country, with ‘Every Little Thing’ by Carly Pearce continuing down to 84, ‘Fix A Drink’ by Chris Janson draining to 78, and ‘When It Rains It Pours’ by Luke Combs down to 51. Then we have the expected big dip after the debut for ‘Walk On Water’ by Eminem and Beyonce to 55 – I really don’t see it sticking around, despite my general liking for it – and then a considerable loss for ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ by Taylor Swift to 44, because with reputation still not on streaming services, the trajectory for Taylor off this record looks bleak indeed.
And speaking of bleak, our returning entries and gains… and look, I have a hard time feeling excited about any of this, especially when our solitary returning entry is ‘Glorious’ by Macklemore and Skylar Grey back yet again – seriously, who the hell has ever cared about this? But if you’re trying to trace what’s going on with our gains… look, it’s a mess. The most considerable boost off of huge sales and radio traction is ‘Wolves’ by Selena Gomez and Marshmello up to 20, and thanks to a streaming recovery ‘Bank Account’ by 21 Savage rebounded to 15, but from there off its debut we have ‘Gummo’ by 6ix9ine thanks to streaming because apparently America doesn’t have problems playing one-dimensional edgelord junk made by a child sex offender! Now thankfully our other gains never get quite that bad – ‘Betrayed’ by Lil Xan went to 69 off its debut, ‘Meant To Be’ by Florida Georgia Line and Bebe Rexha doesn’t belong on country radio but a good sales week put it at 42, ‘Rubbin’ Off The Paint’ by YBN Nahmir went to 52 thanks to streaming, and ‘Mayores’ by Becky G and Bad Bunny went up to 74. Now it’s not all bad news here: ‘Too Much To Ask’ by Niall Horan might not be a great song from that record but I’m not complaining it went up to 87, or that Hailee Steinfeld, Florida Georgia Line, Alesso and Watt continued to push ‘Let Me Go’ to 53 on surprisingly decent sales, or that ‘Lemon’ by N*E*R*D and Rihanna rebounded hard up to 63 thanks to radio traction of all things! But for me the real story is the boost for ‘Candy Paint’ by Post Malone up to 66, which is starting to make streaming gains – and look, for as much as Post Malone has been getting some justly deserved backlash for his dumbass comments this week, I still hope this becomes a hit, it’s the best hook and production he’s ever had, and if we’re going to let ‘rockstar’ sit at #1 for seven weeks now, we can give this a chance, right?
Whatever, let’s move onto our list of new arrivals, of which… I’m not even going to try and look for logic here, let’s just start with…