Welcome to Sleeper Hit Support Group, a column diving into the song currently occupying the bottom spot of the Billboard Hot 100.

In a pop landscape that asks more questions that it answers, I'm setting out to answer three questions about each of these songs: how it got here, if the song is good, and where it's going. In this 100th spot we'll find unlikely ascents, falls from grace, and resurgences of hits from bygone eras.

Today, we're looking at the stomp-clap-hey revivalism of Noah Kahan's "Dashboard."

How did it get here?

In my notes app, I've kept a list of artists that are "none of my business" – I don't necessarily dislike them, I just don't really care to know much about them. Noah Kahan is on that list. Today, that changes.

In a week where nearly half the Hot 100 was populated with Drake songs, I feel lucky to be marked safe from writing about him again for yet another week. I know my good fortune will soon run out, so I must cherish the opportunity to learn.

29-year-old Noah Kahan has been writing songs since he could form complete sentences. He was a kid from New England who loved The Beatles and Green Day, writing songs on guitar since age 10. Like many stars his age, he got "discovered" from posting his songs to YouTube and SoundCloud, and was immediately brought into the major label fold by signing with Republic Records at age 17, right before graduating high school.

Kahan's first tour was opening for one-hit-wonders (however they are quite popular in their native Germany) Milky Chance, and he bounced between NYC, Nashville, and LA in his days as what he called a "low priority artist."

The label threw Kahan on a Quinn XCII single in February of 2019 in preparation for the release of his then-forthcoming debut record. The song sucks.

The debut record in question, Busyhead (which would go on to name his mental health-focused charity), came out the following June to pretty much no success. The Julia Michaels collaboration "Hurt Somebody" was able to get some traction of of Michaels' name recognition, but not enough to move the needle.

As the pandemic set in, Kahan moved back in with his family in Vermont while his parents were in the process of getting divorced. Connected to the teenage version of himself that wrote songs purely for enjoyment and catharsis, he shacked up with a local producer to write an EP called Cape Elizabeth, which did not garner any attention outside of his small but dedicated fanbase. The song "Maine" has become a retroactive fan-favorite, which isn't surprising considering how similar it sounds to Kahan's most popular songs.

Still, Kahan was not out of the woods just yet (figuratively, not literally – he made it back out to LA by the end of 2020). His sophomore record I Was / I Am also flopped (to nobody's shock, the top liked review on AOTY reads: "bro really think he 21 savage 😭😭😭"). His popularity did not scale from his debut, playing several of the exact same venues from the Busyhead tour.

It was soon after this that he'd find the blueprint for his artistic identity: being a plaintive guy that doesn't let you forget he's from a small town in New England. "Stick Season," the song that'd go on to title his breakout third record, blew up on TikTok before it was even released. After writing it in October 2020, he would continually post himself performing the song's first verse. Over the next two years (!) he'd post snippets from other parts in the song, and eventually, other songs on the record leading up to its October 2022 release.

"White guy with a guitar" has become a storied American archetype over the past ~70 years, with Bob Dylan as its north star. The issue with a lot of these guys is that they are just not interesting people. Kahan even went as far to admit it about himself in a Times profile: “I was an unknown singer-songwriter in a sea of white-guy singer-songwriters.”

So for a white guy with a guitar to find himself in the big leagues, they need a song so irresistible that it compensates for everything the individual lacks. For Kahan, "Stick Season" is that song. It peaked at #9 in April of 2024, nearly two years after its initial release.

I remember passing by Kahan's set at Lollapalooza the one time I went in 2023. I was on my way to nab a good spot for Carly Rae Jepsen when I was struck by just how huge his crowd was. He made some crack about being depressed (as he often does) and began playing "Stick Season" to close out the set. The volume of the collective crowd singing along to the chorus drowned out Kahan's singing. I had maybe vaguely heard of him at that point in time, but that was a forced reckoning with just how huge he'd gotten.

The momentum of Stick Season sparked the release of two deluxe versions of increasing length. Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever) came eight months after the base album in June 2023, featuring six new songs and an extended version of "The View Between Villages," the base record's closer. The real launchpad, though, came from 2024's Stick Season (Forever), which adds one new song and eight collaborative remixes with the likes of Post Malone, Kacey Musgraves, and Hozier.

The sweeping success of the Stick Season musical universe landed Kahan a Best New Artist Grammy nod for 2024's ceremony (he was beat out by R&B singer Victoria Monét) and a leveled-up arena tour behind the deluxe albums.

So how do you follow up the record that made you a superstar? Talk at length about the trials and tribulations that come with the superstar territory. Kahan put out a Netflix documentary 11 days before the release of Stick Season's follow-up, The Great Divide. The documentary follows the end of the Stick Season album cycle with two sold-out shows at Fenway Park in Boston, and sets up this air of culture shock and disillusionment among Kahan and his loved ones. Around the time the documentary wrapped, he moved back to Vermont after getting married to his wife Brenna.

The Great Divide came out this past April, with the album's lead single and title track debuting/peaking at #6 after its music video premiered during a Grammys commercial break (like Lady Gaga's "Abracadabra" and SZA's "Saturn" before it).

With all that said...

Is the song any good?

Uhhhhhhh.... Not really? Even after further familiarizing myself with Kahan, I still just don't find his music to be any of my business. I am not from New England; I've maybe spent a collective 16 hours in the region while on a road trip. Even so, there is demonstratively an audience for Kahan. All 21 songs on the record (including deluxe bonus tracks) debuted on the Hot 100. He's graduated to baseball stadiums for his tour this summer – most of which have sold out.

I really don't want to dunk on Kahan; I have no reason to. This song and the album it appears on is just plain boring. One of the most consistent critiques levied at Kahan is that his music is derivative of itself, and "Dashboard" in particular proves those critics right.

"Dashboard" is the THIRD song IN A ROW on The Great Divide that grapples with Kahan's disenchantment with his rapid rise to prominence, and how leaving Vermont didn't solve his problems. Despite being nearly four minutes, the song runs out of things to say by the halfway mark. He calls himself an "asshole" six times, with each consecutive use of the word feeling more phoned in than the last. There is nothing interesting going on musically, and I don't think I'd be missing much if I never heard this song again.

Where is it going?

The more research I do on Kahan the more confused I get. A lot of Kahan's interviews for this album cycle, especially his Rolling Stone cover story surround the notion that he does not like being famous and his position as an "unlikely superstar" given his humble beginnings. But a Rolling Stone cover story about not enjoying fame and a Netflix documentary about not enjoying fame seem oxymoronic at best and deceptive at worst.

I cannot tell if this narrative is genuine or being imposed on him for the sake of providing intrigue to the record, but it works like a single-use plastic regardless. If he keeps making these huge, major label records, it becomes an increasingly less believable narrative crutch. If he means what he's saying and disappears after fulfilling whatever contractual obligations lay in front of him, then there is no longer a story to tell. Perhaps there are only so many things to say about the L.L. Bean Mystique of New England.