The Week Begins With Controversy
Sexxy Red & Bruno Mars – “Fat Juicy & Wet”: What a diverse trio of songs from the world’s most-streamed artist. “Die With A Smile” with Lady Gaga and “APT.” with ROSÉ both went #1, while this R-rated “strip club anthem” (his description) has fueled lots of conversation among program directors about its lyrical content. iHeart supposedly refused to add the song at all until it got the radio edit censoring the word “Wet.” No parent wants to be embarrassed driving a bunch of 7- & 8-year-olds to school with sexually explicit raw material blasting on the car radio.
After five days of airplay, Sexxy Red & Bruno are #24 at Rhythmic, #26 at Hip-Hop radio, and #39 at Top 40. The song has iHeart support at Rhythmic and Hip-Hop. So far, most of iHeart’s CHRs are taking it slow, although it is receiving double-digit spins at KIIS Los Angeles and Wild 94.9 San Francisco. At CHR, the spin leaders are Audacy and Cumulus stations, but other stations are waiting to see with the rest of the ‘biz does with it, or firm on sitting this one out.
We saw this same situation three years ago when “Super Freaky Girl” by Nicki Minaj came out but eventually went #1 on Top 40 and Rhythmic. “Fat Juicy & Wet” debuted at #21 on Spotify, not high for a Bruno Mars song. It’s now #37. Either everyone is afraid of it or no one is really digging it. So far, Liveline hasn’t played or received any requests for it. Let’s revisit it next week.
Tate McRae – “Sports car”: So far, McRae has had two undeniable hits. “Greedy” is still her most played song at radio, sixteen months after its release, and 2020’s “you broke me first,” her debut #1 hit and still her most-streamed song on Spotify.
She’s had a lot of other generic feeling CHR chart songs that didn’t take hold—“She’s All I Wanna Be,” “Uh Oh,” “Exes” and more. The previous single, “It’s ok I’m ok” peaked at #8 on Top 40 and #20 on Billboard. It did make Liveline’s weekly Top 20 on several occasions but never got a consistent foothold there. It debuted well on Spotify but quickly disappeared from the top 200.
The third track from her upcoming third studio album “So Close to What”, due February 21st. “Sports car” came out January 24th and saw some good debut numbers on Spotify this week. As of this writing, also after five days, it’s #9 on Spotify in America and #24 Global. It’s #32 on Top 40 this week. So far, we’ve received two requests, similar to “It’s ok I’m ok” in its first day.
Buried Treasures of The Week
Miley Cyrus – “The Climb”: It rarely plays on the radio anymore, but I did happen to hear it last week on top rated Hot AC WWBX/Mix 104.1 Boston. It sounded GREAT and all I could picture is a car full of 20-30 year old girls singing along to it. It’s one of our most-requested Golds on Liveline, ever. Peaking at #4 on Billboard, #5 on Top 40, #5 on Hot AC and #1 on AC in 2009, this song continues to be the motivational anthem for anyone who grew up on Hannah Montana and that prime era of Disney Channel.
Zendaya – “Replay”: She’s now engaged to Tom Holland, with a wedding planned for this year. Aside from that, there’s really no explanation for this song’s ostensible comeback. In the past two weeks, we’ve had more than a dozen requests for it, which is a lot for any Gold, but especially one that never cracked the Top 20 when it was new 11 years ago. Her acting career has truly taken off, with productions like “Dune”, “Challengers” and “Euphoria”. It’s actually a pretty good song for her former Disney Channel audience now in the prime target of Top 40’s 25-34 demo.
Glad to see the mention to “The Climb”, watched Hannah Montana: The Movie about a week ago, and the part where she sang this song, wow, what a moment. The song has not aged a bit, such a truly powerful tune that deserves more recurrent airplay, it is very beloved.
Do not see FJ&W doing much on CHR, probably a Top 20 peak, we’ll see if it ends up taking off on streaming. For Ms McRae, hopefully she scores a hit this time, very infectious song I must say, so far numbers are very promising and it would be a great add to play in the upcoming weeks.
The production on “Replay” is phenomenal, pretty solid song too. I never had anything against Zendaya as a recording artist but I think maybe her singing voice was a bit too plain to stand out. I’m happy to see she’s become so successful as an actress though.
One of my friends likes it but I’m gonna bet on “Fat Juicy & Wet” being a dud and a rare misfire for Bruno. It’s worse than every Sexyy Red hit I’ve heard (and nearly every Bruno hit) and just comes across as a “WAP” redux with an even more labored-over clean edit. My initial reaction to “WAP” was basically, “Eh, not either artist’s best work but I guess it’ll be a smash” and I did roll my eyes a bit at NPR liberals going on and on about how, “Hey, did you know that blues was about sex too?” But the results spoke for themselves, even with minimal radio support it was the kind of song people quoted in public and had endless gleeful laughter over. There are no “big Mack truck” lines on this one. Again I did find “WAP” rather overrated but it’s basically an intellectual beacon and a masterpiece compared to this, which has inspired mockery on social media pretty much on arrival and is sure to reinflame the “minstrel act” accusations that both acts have faced here-n-there (not that that’s ever stopped y’all before). This is very obviously the kind of song that’s attempting to be a cultural lightning rod but I’m just not seeing that bear out, the fascist propaganda ghouls are too busy trying to justify society being torn down to have their customary whine over it either. And I don’t believe for a second it would go off in a strip club, nor that that corny man has actually been in one any more than my boring self has. But good luck to them, I guess.
“Greedy” was undeniable and I loved “You Broke Me First” too (you all playing it as a summer hit instead of a winter one when it was actually popping on streaming was unforgivable) but yeah, everything else she releases has been a mixed bag for me. I think it’s the Camila Cabello’d vocals that prevent me from getting on board. Please throw away whatever market research is telling y’all that people still really want to hear “singing” like that.
I heard The Climb played on Classic Adult Hits Big104 Augusta – Bangor not too long ago.