Hot 100 Haus: Halsey’s ‘Without Me’

By Chris Will 5 years ago

Writer Chris Will breaks down the latest No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 of 2019.

Welcome to Hot 100 Haus, where writer Chris Will breaks down each No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 for 2019.

Hot 100 – No. 1 for the week of Jan 12, 2019:
“Without Me” – Halsey

Written by: Ashley Frangipane (Halsey), Delacey, Amy Allen, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, Scott Storch

Produced by: Louis Bell

But Why:

On October 20, 2018, just a few weeks after she released the song that would become a No. 1 smash in 2019, Halsey tweeted:

Clearly, we as a collective pop-consuming society were not ok, or at the very least, we found the fiery frustration that seeped through each and every second of “Without Me” insatiably listenable. It helped that Halsey harkened back to the crystallized, moody electronica that filled her debut album Badlands, but filtered it through the top 40 focused lens that made her R&B tinted second album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom such a goldmine of radio hits. It also helped that Halsey immediately credited one of Justin Timberlake’s oldest and most revered solo hits as an inspiration for the track, the Brit brit blasting bawler “Cry Me A River.” Last but not least, it helped that she took a page from fellow pop contemporary Ariana Grande’s book in bluntly embracing the tabloid coverage of her romantic life (in Halsey’s case, her on-and-off relationship with rapper G-Eazy) and making it the centerpiece of one of the catchiest singles of her career.

Stats On Stats: Per Billboard.com’s weekly top 10 article, “Without Me” becomes Halsey’s first solo No. 1 hit and second No. 1 overall. She first hit No. 1 as a feature on The Chainsmokers’ “Closer,“ which topped the charts for 12 weeks in the fall of 2016.

“Without Me” currently stands at No. 2 on the Digital Song Sales chart (39,000 downloads), jumps up a spot on radio songs to No. 3 (95.5 million airplay audience impressions), and drives from 12-4 on Streaming Songs (32.4 million US streams). All of these statistics contributed to her No. 1 rise.

ALERT: SUPER COOL POP FACT!! (thx Billboard) ⏤ with “Without Me,” Halsey becomes the eighth female to have multiple Hot 100 No. 1s in the 2010s, joining a masterclass of pop stars that includes Rihanna, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Adele, Cardi B, Kesha, P!nk, and Britney Spears.

Additionally, Halsey’s other current Hot 100 entry “Eastside” (with Khalid and super producer Benny Blanco) hovers just outside the top 10 at No. 11. Will Halsey boast two top 10 entries next week? Guess we’ll see (**squeals in excitement and anticipation)!

Next Week’s #1: It seems unlikely that “thank u, next” will make a return to the top spot next week, unless Ariana does something left-field like surprise dropping a remix to re-start the hit’s momentum (still think a “thank u, next” remix with Cardi would S L A Y, though is Cardi back with Offset? I can’t tell, and I’m too tired of his fukboi antics to put forth the effort to look further into this).

There’s a chance Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower” could challenge Halsey for the No. 1 spot, as it has hit a new Hot 100 peak this week (No. 3) and has also been sitting on the top of the iTunes charts for quite some time now. That would give Post his third chart-topper and Swae Lee his second (counting his hit as a part of Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles”), which would be a fun little achievement.

My guess would be that “Without Me” hangs around at No. 1 for a second week, though it would be SUUUPER cute if Gaga and Cooper’s Golden Globe win for “Shallow” gave it enough momentum to put it to the summit. It’s No. 2 on iTunes, which usually isn’t enough to put a song to a No. 1 Billboard spot, but stranger things have certainly happened.

Feel Old Yet: Halsey’s flip of “Cry Me A River” is a wistful reminder of a time when J Timbs was fresh out of NSYNC, kicking off a wildly successful solo career, and light years away from making faux-woke Bayou-pop (it’s wild that Man of the Woods came out less than a year ago, and wilder still that Timberlake still considers it a body of work he should tour for).

In fact, “Cry Me A River” hit its own chart peak just a few weeks shy of 16 years ago, topping out at No. 3 in the final week of January 2003. Hopefully, Halsey won’t still be shading the subject of “Without Me” in interviews while happily married and with children a full decade and a half after the song is released, but I guess only time will tell.

I Have Feelings: 

TWO SOLO POP SONGS FROM TWO DIFFERENT FEMALE ARTISTS ARE BACK TO BACK NO. 1S IN THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF 2019. I cannot express enough how excited that makes me, regardless of my feelings on “thank u, next” or “Without Me.” It could be a fluke, but it could also mean that diva pop is going to WRECK the charts in 2019, at least until Drake releases his next album and everyone mindlessly consumes it and fawns over it like the hip-pop hungry hippos that we all seem to be on the inside.

Halsey gets a lot of bad rep for her Serious Pop Star attitude and the way her music videos are directed, but I’ve been a big fan of hers from the get-go (since she released “Ghost” as her first song in early 2014). So, though “Without Me” isn’t even on my list of top 10 favorite Halsey songs, and I still wish that “Colors” and “Is There Somewhere” were given the global notoriety they deserve, this is still a huge win as an avid supporter. Halsey’s done an incredible job at keeping her general aesthetic as the emo front woman of the modern pop world while continually molding her experimental sound to fit a broader audience, and with this new No. 1 under her belt, it’ll be really interesting to see how/if this affects the sound of her forthcoming album.

But in truth, I genuinely do like a major portion of “Without Me.” The filtered vocals that she peppers throughout the backdrop, those guitar chords that bolster her loneliness, that part in the bridge where she borrows from “Cry Me A River,” it’s all very enjoyable. Honestly, the best part of the entire song is at the end of each chorus, where she cries out very audible pain and frustration “baby I’m the one that put you up there, I don’t know why…” It tugs at my heart strings every time, and for once not because it’s relatable. The lyric and delivery are both just THAT good.

Let us know your thoughts on “Without Me,” and look out for future installments as more tracks hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this year!

Photo Credit: Brian Ziff

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