Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "God's Plan" - Drake (=) -- Drake celebrates his seventh week at No. 1 this week with 81.8 million U.S. streams. That weekly total is behind only Bauer, Drake, Bauer, Drake, T-Swift, Drake and Drake while being just ahead of Drake and Drake. Yeah, all of those Drakes are from the previous six weeks of this song. It's insane how much streaming this song has gotten. The song also jumps up to third place on the radio songs, meaning if the streaming ever goes away, the radio will be there to keep the song afloat. I don't know when this song is going to disappear, but you better get used to it being here because it's going to be here for a long time still. And it's closest competition took a faceplant this week, so I have no idea what's going to rise to the occasion of dethroning this song in the next couple of months.
2- "Perfect" - Ed Sheeran (+1) -- Ed Sheeran rises back up to his No. 2 spot with Post Malone's minor collapse. Yet Ed finally gave way his radio crown this week to the song that'll come right after this. Despite that, though, the radio for this is still really strong and its sales and streaming were enough to keep it ahead of Bruno again, making it so "Perfect" has now been at No. 2 for seven weeks in 2018. As a reminder, "Shape of You" set the record for most weeks in the top 10 for any song. I'm not predicting "Perfect" matches or breaks that, but it's definitely looking like this is still going to have a lot of staying power in the top 10 for quite some time.
3- "Finesse" - Bruno Mars & Cardi B (+1) -- Bruno finally topped Ed Sheeran on radio, but still wasn't able to sneak past him on the charts. But in claiming this top spot on radio, Bruno now has eight career radio No. 1s, passing Usher for most ever radio No. 1s among male acts and third all time, behind only Rihanna (13) and Mariah Carey (11). Keep in mind that the official radio songs chart has only been around since 1991.
4- "Psycho" - Post Malone featuring Ty Dolla $ign (-2) -- After debuting at No. 2 last week, Post Malone takes a second week tumble as his streaming drops 24 percent to 41.8 million U.S. streams, which accounts for most of the song's chart points given that radio and sales have refused to contribute much thus far, which I'm totally fine with. I don't want to be too quick in my celebration here, because there's a good chance that this recovers and stays in the top five for a long time. But man it would be really nice if this song continued to tumble instead of gaining traction. The world doesn't need any more Post Malone. And on that note, can we all stand up and sing praises to the music gods that "rockstar" is GONE from the top 10?
5- "Meant to Be" - Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line (+2) -- I've been singing this song all day for the last two days since discovering that it finally broke into the top five this week. Doing so has got the song permanently stuck in my head, which I'm fine with. It's Bebe's first ever top five hit and FGL's second appearance after "Cruise" featuring Nelly in 2013 also went top five. The cross appeal for both country radio and pop radio is turning this song into a radio monster, which could mean that this will camp out here for a while. I couldn't be happier for Bebe. She's been searching for a genuine monster hit and it looks like she's finally found it. Hard work pays off.
6- "Havana" - Camila Cabello (-1) -- It's been a great run for Camila in the top five, so I'm not sad that this song finally fell out of the top five and will most likely start tumbling down the charts now. Well done Camila. Now she has her next hit, "Never Be the Same," showing up in the top 20 this week, so perhaps she can replace herself in the top 10 a few weeks down the road.
7- "Look Alive" - BlocBoy JB featuring Drake (-1) -- With radio still refusing to come anywhere close to this song, it's certainly satisfying seeing it slide down the charts. After this DIDN'T go away in its second week, I got really nervous that it was going to stay around for a while. Now I'm getting a little hope back that this might actually go away.
8- "The Middle" - Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey (+3) -- Much applause for Maren Morris in achieving her first ever top 10 hit! She has Zedd to thank for this as he's the one who got this one here. But hopefully that'll give Maren more mainstream recognition because she's a great country pop artist who deserves more attention. For Zedd, this is his fourth top 10 hit, following "Clarity" featuring Foxes, "Break Free," an Ariana Grande song that featured Zedd and "Stay" with Alessia Cara. "Clarity" is obviously the far superior song of the bunch, but I do enjoy this one a lot more than I did "Stay" last year, so I'm glad we have another decent song in the top 10.
9- "Pray for Me" - The Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar (=) -- I'm nervously monitoring this song right now as this is the third week that this song has spent at the No. 9 spot and I have no idea if it's going to take a tumble and drop out or if it's going to gain some traction and make it's way back up. I certainly hope it's the latter because I would like for this song to stick around. It's a solid track from "Black Panther" with great effort from both The Weeknd and Kendrick. It would be a shame if this got replaced by some other awful rap song that doesn't deserve to be here.
10- "Stir Fry" - Migos (+2) -- With no additional song taking advantage of the weak top 10, Migos essentially defaults back into the region and I'm fine with that when it comes to this song. This still remains the only Migos song that actually enjoyed as this constantly gets stuck in my head, which I still find strange. But hey, if Migos were to put out any additional songs like this, maybe I wouldn't hate them as much. But I doubt it'll happen as the rest of Culture II that I was subjected to was typical awful Migos.
Rising on the Hot 100:
16- "Ric Flair Drip" - Offset & Metro Boomin (+20) -- There was a music video for this song that impacted the charts this week. Hence the huge jump. Let's just hope that's all the help this song gets, because if this gets any higher, I might start panicking. Remember what I just said about "Stir Fry" remaining the only Migos song I've enjoyed? Yeah. This is typical awful Migos. Except it's just Offset on this song.
18- "Mine" - Bazzi (+2) -- I'm happy that the Valentine's Day surge for this dumb partial song went away as I was happy to finally see that this stalled out. Slight raise this week that pushes it into the top 20. But I'm not too nervous at this point. I'm confident that this won't get a whole lot higher than it currently is right now.
19- "Never Be the Same" - Camila Cabello (+5) -- As "Havana" is finally looking like it's ready to give up the ghost and start tumbling, it's good to see this follow-up single for Camila gaining traction. I hope this goes top 10, continuing Camila's winning streak.
23- "King's Dead" - Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Future & James Blake (+5) -- "Pray for Me" seems stuck at No. 9 right now and "All the Stars" fell out of the top 10, so I was a bit surprised to see this song take a rise a few spots, nearing the top 20. I can't say I'm too happy about it as it's by far the worst of the three major "Black Panther" tracks.
34- "Whatever It Takes" - Imagine Dragons (+9) -- It's really frustrating for me to see this song continually increasing on both sales and radio. I was really hoping we could forget about Imagine Dragons and simply call 2017 a huge mistake when it came to their music. But we're continuing to push their dull, bland music up the charts in 2018.
48- "Plug Walk" - Rich the Kid (+7) -- We gave Rich the Kid another top 50 hit? That's an embarrassing moment for the world of music. What did he do to deserve this honor. I'm at least glad that "New Freezer" stalled out after hitting the 40's. I can only hope that this song does the same and doesn't get much higher than it currently is right now.
60- "This is Me" - Keala Settle & The Greatest Showman Ensemble (+27) -- Yeah, this is here because this was performed at the Oscars and somehow a lot of people loved that performance, even though I was not impressed at all, which has been the case from day one when it comes to this awful musical. But guess what? After this bad performance of this bad song... IT LOST! "Remember Me" from "Coco," which is a thousand times better than "This is Me," rightfully won best original song. Meaning that the Oscars finally got it right after screwing it up almost every other year.
79- "When We" - Tank (+12) -- I have no idea what this song is doing. It keeps bouncing up and down on the charts. It feels like there's a lot of indecision. So allow me to put my foot down and say that we should reject this song and send it off to the Billboard graveyard where it belongs.
New Arrivals:
17- "Sad!" - XXXTENTACION -- What's truly sad is that we're letting this guy still have a career after that thing he called an album last year was complete trash. And was 11 songs that totaled 21 minutes. Well, now he's branching out this year with an album that'll be titled "?." And he's really branching out as it'll be 18 tracks that total 37 minutes. So the average song length will be about the same. There'll just be more of these partial songs. We'll get to the full thing when it comes out, but there's two songs released from it this week. And this song is, well, surprisingly not awful. Apple Music has this album listed as pop, which surprised me. But then I listened, and yeah, this is not really hip-hop or rap. It doesn't hurt my ears like a lot of his songs did last year. And it's nothing like 6ix9ine yelling at me about how many people he's going to murder and rape. This is just X being sad about a girl committing suicide. At the same time, though, there's not much to it. He has one short verse, then repeats the chorus six times, somehow getting the song to 2:46. It would be interesting if he actually explored the topic more and gave us something that felt more like a complete song instead of a quarter of song stretched out to nearly three minutes.
22- "Top Off" - DJ Khaled featuring JAY Z, Future & Beyonce -- This song is officially listed as featuring JAY Z, Future & B. I assume DJ Khaled's keyboard broke before he submitted the song, so I finished it for him. B is Beyonce. First and foremost, that intro by JAY Z. Like the first three seconds of this song. What the heck? Did Beyonce tickle him right after pressing record and they just decided to keep it in? Did he stub his toe on something? Anyways, after that DJ Khaled once again informs us that "We the best music!" followed by "Another one!" Then he lets his three friends take turns bragging about how rich they are, with Future specific saying that he took the top off the Maybach, a luxurious German car manufacturer that's a sub-brand of Mercedes-Benz. Then he has to mention that he's not going to stop by the police. The rest of the song is, just, yeah. They're rich. And they love bragging about it. With Future, I don't really expect any more from him as he doesn't have an ounce of talent in his body when it comes to rap. But JAY Z and Beyonce I'm definitely disappointed with because they're capable of much better than this lazy trash that exists in this song. And DJ Khaled, as usual, is not in this song outside his usual few lines. Nothing to say there.
43- "Everyday" - Logic & Marshmello -- Logic and Marshmello? Are we putting ketchup on our ice cream? These two don't go together. Logic isn't the type of rapper to throw in EDM beats with his rap and Marshmello doesn't usually collaborate with male rappers. He usually sticks with female pop stars, mainly. And that's what he should stick to moving forward. There's not much Marshmelloing going on in this song and they don't really fit together quite well. And Logic, who has done interesting things in the recent past that I've really appreciated, spends this song rather lazily rapping about how he works hard everyday. He doesn't even have his typical sharpness or flow with him. It just feels phoned in, which is ironic considering the song is about him working hard. Maybe he's worked so hard in the past that he feels justified in being super lazy for this song? I don't know. But it doesn't work for me.
46- "No Excuses" - Meghan Trainor -- I feared the arrival of this song and at the moment I'm laughing that Meghan could only manage a debut barely in the top 50. We'll see who gets the last laugh in the end. My history with Meghan Trainor is an excruciatingly painful one. Every one of her previous singles she's tried to sing about something important and empowering for females, but misses the mark by a mile and only manages to sound arrogant and annoying in the process. To her credit with this new single, she doesn't make me fume with her lyrics and her voice isn't annoying. But I pressed play on this a week ago and my big thought was, "That was it?" This song is empty. There's nothing to it. She makes vague references to this guy being disrespectful to her then spends most of the song repeated over and over that he must have her confused with someone else and that there's no excuses. Whatever that means. We get no specifics about any of these. Just vague, generic lyrics that mean nothing. I'd probably prefer this over just about everything she's released previously, but that's not saying very much because I'm cheering for this empty song to be a flop.
47- "Changes" - XXXTENTACION -- The second song from X this week. Check out these lyrics: "Baby I don't understand this; You're changing, I can't stand it; My heart can't take this damage; And the way I feel, can't stand it." That's the whole song. He repeats those lines five times, with a bridge in between where PnB Rock repeats the line "Girl, you're making it hard for me" six teams. This is accompanied by one note from a piano punched over and over throughout the two minutes of length. Again, this has more of a pop feel than a rap feel. And it's not awful. But there's just nothing to it. When I can repeat the entire lyrics of a song and give an analysis in one short paragraph, that's pretty sad. If X had actually written a full song and discussed in detail this relationship he's referring to here, I might be down for that. But as is, this felt like it was written in five minutes. So again, I don't know why we're giving this guy a career.
80- "X" - Nicky Jam & J Balvin -- Not a lot of life here for Nicky Jam and J Balvin. And not enough distinction between the two, so it feels like the collaboration was just for more name recognition and not because they each had a distinct purpose or sound on the song. I think if I just casually listened to this, it might be hard to tell that there are two singers and/or when the transitions are. When it comes to these Latino songs, since I am not a Spanish speaker, I try to make my main focus on the music itself and this song fits in that awkward place where it's not fast enough to make for an upbeat dance song and not slow enough to be a romantic slow song. You'd either have to be creative with your dancing or you'll be awkwardly standing around on the dance floor, waiting for the next song to show up, hoping that it has more life. Because this is kinda dull. Decent background noise, I suppose. But nothing more. I tried looking into the lyrics a bit and at first glance it would appear they are about as lifeless as this song itself.
91- "Stranger Things" - Joyner Lucas & Chris Brown -- I have a friend that keeps telling me I should look up Joyner Lucas. But I've kept being disobedient. And hey look who showed up this week! It's Joyner Lucas! But he's with Chris Brown, which didn't sound like a good sign. So I figured I'd look into his other stuff a bit to see more of what he's like before trying out this collaboration. Doing so taught me that the song "I'm Not Racist" is... really long. But his style and flow reminded me a bit of Eminem, who he references in that song. And the lyrics actually meant something, which is good. So do yourself a favor and go listen to that song so that you can have a proper introduction to him because this current song with Chris Brown is a piece of trash. Just like you'd expect from Chris Brown. He's just bragging about how rich and awesome he is. Then it switches to Joyner and although his rap and flow is much better than Chris, he's also just bragging about how awesome he is. So this song is really dumb. But hey, maybe it'll help Joyner to chart with some of his other music.
96- "Tempo" - Chris Brown -- Another Chris Brown song? This one comes from his 45-track, 158-minute long album last year titled "Heartbreak on a Full Moon." And yeah, I haven't cared to dive into that because an album that long from a rapper with no ounce of talent in him is obviously all quantity and no quality. Luckily America mostly rejected it as very few songs from the album even charted. But hey. I'll give this song a chance because it's here. And it's not an offensive song, per se. Probably even better than that piece of trash with him and Joyner that I just covered. The problem here is that there's nothing to this song. Chris just wants to switch up the tempo with this girl. You can probably guess what he's referring to with that, but guessing is exactly what you'd be doing because he doesn't bother to give any details. Which is almost a good thing for Chris because the songs where he does go into detail are always awful and gross. So I prefer an empty song from Chris over a disgusting song. But still. That's all this song is. Empty. Exactly what you'd expect from a song on a 45-track album.
98- "Sativa" - Jhené Aiko featuring Swae Lee or Rae Sremmurd -- Swae Lee OR Rae Sremmurd? No. Swae Lee IS Rae Sremmurd. Or at least half of Rae Sremmurd with Slim Jxmmi being the other half. So it's stupid and redundant to credit both Swae Lee AND Rae Sremmurd on the same song. At least saying "or" is not as bad as some other recent Rae Sremmurd songs. Like "Hurt to Look," which is credited as Swae Lee FEATURING Rae Sremmurd. But it's just him on the song. Not both of them. It's like Swae Lee doesn't think people know that he belongs to Rae Sremmurd, so he's decided to list both on these songs. With that rant out of the way, how is the song? Well, that's complicated. Sativa is another word for marijuana or weed. The song is about Jhené and Swae smoking weed. That's pretty much it. Vocally, I do like both of them and I think they play off each other very well. And musically this feels very relaxing and euphoric. Kinda like they were trying to put to music what it's like to smoke weed. So I don't hate this. But I also don't like songs that are only about smoking weed. I wish there was more substance here, so I can't get behind this.
99- "I Lived It" - Blake Shelton -- We almost went this whole week without any new country songs. But Blake snuck one in there right towards the end. And in a week full of mediocrity at best, I found this song to be nice and relaxing. Nothing groundbreaking or amazing. But it was nice to listen to someone who seemed to have some sort of concept of how to write a song. With this song, Blake is very relaxing telling us about how live was when he was growing up. I was thinking to myself that this was nice. Then on the chorus he says that I might think he's crazy and I might not believe him, which had me confused because I did believe him. So there was a slight disconnect there, but overall not bad at all. A decent song from Blake that's above average for him.
100- "Broken Clocks" - SZA -- Coming in at the very end of the charts is SZA, who is quickly becoming a rising star in the R&B and Pop world. She's a singer who has a lot of talent and I really want to love her, but I suppose R&B just isn't my thing, which is what she's doing on this latest single from her 2017 album "Ctrl." I really liked her in the song "All the Stars" on the "Black Panther" soundtrack. But admittedly her portion is more pop. "Broken Clocks" just kinda drags for me. I think the tempo could be increased a bit to give it more of a flow because otherwise it feels like I'm walking through mud. Her voice is great, as always, but the content of the song also doesn't interest me. She's talking about how she's still sad about this breakup and how her life is more boring and monotonous at the moment. If you love SZA and R&B is your thing, then you'll probably love this song and get mad at me for not appreciating it. But oh well. It is what it is.
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