Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Nice for What" - Drake (+1) -- I've never been happier to see Drake at No. 1 as "Nice for What" gets its third stint at top. It initially debuted at No. 1 and stayed there for four weeks. It got dethroned by Childish Gambino for two weeks before going back to No. 1 for two more weeks. Last week it was Post Malone's "Psycho" that took the top spot, but this week Drake fights back and regains the top spot, thanks mostly to streaming as Post Malone actually leads Drake in both sales and radio. Although both sales and streaming numbers crashed for Post Malone this week, likely due to the effects of the iTunes discount wearing off. But still, neither song is particularly strong as "Nice for What" rules with 20,000 in sales, 31.6 million U.S. streams and 87.5 million in radio audience, none of which are particularly strong for a No. 1 hit. And those numbers aren't getting any higher. That means Drake is vulnerable to the likes of Cardi B's "I Like It" and/or Juice WRLD's "Lucid Dreams," the strongest contenders at this point.
2- "Psycho" - Post Malone featuring Ty Dolla $ign (-1) -- I would like to see Post Malone gone from the top 10 altogether, but I'll take him only getting that one week at top as a minor victory. Although that's not much of a consolation prize given that this song is still one of the top songs of the year and only gaining steam the longer it camps here in the top five. I'm so confused as to how such a boring, lazy song can be loved by millions, even when it comes to pop radio. That's 2018 for you, I suppose.
3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny, J Balvin (=) -- With Drake and Post Malone wavering at the top with weak numbers, Cardi B appears to be in the best position right now to take that top spot away from them. She's actually ahead of them in streaming and in the same ball park in regards to sales. The thing holding her back for the moment is radio as Drake and Post Malone are both still very high on radio. Cardi is gaining on radio, but is still significantly behind and her margins on streaming aren't quite high enough for that to make the difference. But given that this song has gained enough traction to cement its place in the top five for the perhaps unforeseeable future, it's probably only a matter of time before Cardi gets this song over the hump and into that top spot.
4- "God's Plan" - Drake (+1) -- Thanks to a bit of a dip from Maroon 5, Drake recovers a bit with "God's Plan" as it jumps to No. 4. Although I don't think it'll last long as this song is still on the downward track after an excellent run in the top five. If Maroon 5 doesn't jump back ahead, Juice WRLD might push Drake back down.
5- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-1) -- I suppose I'm happy that Maroon 5 fell a spot this week, but the horrible news is that this song is gaining strong on radio. Sales are collapsing following its huge sales numbers last week, but that YouTube video is still going strong, meaning the streaming is still pretty consistent, but given how in love the radio has been with Maroon 5 over the last five years or more, those country-wide DJs are salivating that they now have a new Maroon 5 song to overplay for the next six months or so, which completely crushes me as I have no idea what the appeal of this song is. It's boring album filler made worse by a Cardi B feature that does not fit the tone of the rest of the song, thus screaming desperation on the part of Maroon 5.
6- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+3) -- This is our top song on streaming this week with 38.8 million U.S. streams. The reason why it hasn't jumped into the top five as of yet, despite those large streaming numbers, is that the radio still hasn't touched this song as it still hasn't charted on the radio songs chart and is completely M.I.A. in regards to pop radio. The sales are also pretty weak, but not completely awful comparatively, but if this song is going to contend for a No. 1 spot and make a case to stay in the region for a long period of time, the radio is going to have to do something. Streaming can hold it up for a while, but after a month or two if it still has no radio, this song will start to collapse. But that's just a quick look into the future. I'm still happy this song is around and I'm hoping radio will connect with it because I'd certainly rather have this infiltrate pop radio than Post Malone, Cardi B or Maroon 5.
7- "Boo'd Up" - Ella Mai (-1) -- Same story here with Ella as with Juice WRLD. Streaming for this song is still pretty consistent, currently at No. 5, but sales have collapsed and the radio still hasn't quite caught on as it's No. 16 on the radio charts. Hence is why it drops a spot this week. And it's pop radio that's the problem here as it hasn't crossed over there at all, which is kinda surprising to me. Pop radio has fallen in love with Post Malone and Drake, but they refuse to pick of Ella Mai? I mean, her song seems more pop friendly than those two artists. We'll see if that changes in the coming weeks.
8- "The Middle" - Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey (+2) -- Following the departure of Kanye West and Childish Gambino's song completely collapsing, the bottom half of the top 10 sees some interesting recoveries that I don't know if I saw coming. After this song collapsed to No. 10 last week, I was wondering if it was doomed to disappear given that sales and streaming aren't that high, but that strong radio total is good enough to help it maintain consistency as it's still the top radio song for a sixth week and hasn't wavered much overall, down just 1 percent from last week.
9- "No Tears Left to Cry" - Ariana Grande (+4) -- It's great seeing Ariana back in the top 10 after she got bullied out last week. She's actually seen pretty consistent numbers overall, but the best news is that pop radio has officially fallen in love with this song as it's No. 4 on pop radio and No. 7 overall on the radio charts, while having decent numbers on streaming and sales. So hopefully this resurgence will help this song stay in the top 10 and perhaps contend for a spot in the top five. I would really love that as this is probably my favorite song in the top 10 right now.
10- "Meant to Be" - Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line (+2) -- This was actually the most surprising for me this week. After Bebe and FGL bowed out last week, I thought their run in the top 10 had come to an end. No hard feelings as it's been quite the run for this song. It never quite hit No. 1, but it had 11 weeks in the top five and now has accumulated 19 weeks total in the top 10. Those are solid numbers for a country pop hit that I still find catch and fun.
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Yes Indeed" - Lil Baby & Drake (+4) -- I totally forgot that this song was booted out of the top 10 last week, thus in hindsight I'm really glad it was Ariana and Bebe that snuck back into the region, leaving Lil Baby and Drake momentarily in the dust. I'm not confident that it'll stay that way, but with no radio and no sales, this is a streaming only hit, so that gives me hope this this won't stick around for long.
14- "Walk It Talk It" - Migos featuring Drake (+3) -- While Migos and Drake only managed one week in the top 10 with this song, this has managed to remain just under the top 10 for quite some time now. I'm just glad that it's been held back from returning because this is an annoying, useless piece of crap with no effort put in.
15- "Mine" - Bazzi (+8) -- Believe it or not, this song is actually No. 2 on pop radio and has been around the top for quite some time, so I'm surprised that this never hit the top 10, but certainly not disappointed as this is still more of a dumb internet meme that's barely even a full song. Let's keep it out of the top 10, please?
16- "In My Blood" - Shawn Mendes (+4) -- Kanye's album bomb kinda threw off Shawn Mendes' groove, but he's trying to recover as this song jumps back to No. 16 this week. I suppose I wouldn't mind if this song hit top 10, which still seems strange for me to say. Although I would prefer it if "Youth" is the song of is that becomes a bit hit.
17- "Perfect" - Ed Sheeran (+4) -- A momentary boost for Ed Sheeran as the charts reset after the Kanye album bomb. It's still surprising to me that I never got sick of this song.
20- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+14) -- A better song than both "Psycho" and "rockstar," although with Post Malone that's not saying very much as this song is tolerable at best. If it steals momentum away from "Psycho," than I suppose that's a good thing, but I won't be happy if this becomes equally as big.
22- "Back to You" - Selena Gomez (+9) -- I'm pushing for this song to become big. Or at least crack the top 10. The momentum for Selena continues to grow as this is now close to being a top 20 hit. I just hope it doesn't get stuck in the top 20 because as this really deserves to be a smash hit on the radio. Stop playing those dumb hip-hop songs on pop radio and start playing real pop music.
24- "rockstar" - Post Malone featuring 21 Savage (+5) -- A momentary boost for Post Malone as the charts reset after the Kanye album bomb. And thank havens because I still hate this song.
25- "Delicate" - Taylor Swift (+12) -- Taylor stalled a bit last week, as did most songs in the top 50, but I'm glad to see her recover again this week, continuing her upward momentum. This has hit top 10 on pop radio, which is excellent. It's good seeing Taylor finally gaining traction with a single from "reputation." That album really isn't that bad. She just released the wrong singles at first that rubbed people the wrong way, so it's good to see her correcting that and finding real success.
27- "Havana" - Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug (+6) -- A momentary boost for Camila as the charts reset after the Kanye album bomb. Although I really wish that Camila would've put more effort into promoting "Never Be the Same" because I wanted that to become equally as big as this song, but it sputtered out as she instead gave "Sangria Wine" a push. I still enjoy the latter, but I'm apparently the only one on the planet to do so as the song collapsed after its debut and still hasn't resurfaced on the Hot 100. So whatever Camila is doing is not working, which is unfortunate.
30- "One Kiss" - Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa (+8) -- I'm mildly surprised that this song hasn't risen faster. It seems like a solid summer hit that radio should be clinging onto, but it hasn't quite gained as much traction, even though it's doing decently well on pop radio. There's still plenty of time, though, and a top 30 appearance is encouraging.
32- "Tequila" - Dan + Shay (+9) -- The biggest country gainer this week. I'm not overly upset at this as I suppose this is a harmless country song. I've also never been emotionally invested in this, either, as I feel this is mostly an average, run of the mill country song about a guy complaining about losing his girl.
34- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+8) -- Here's a song that seems to be quietly flying in under the radar. While Camila has been struggling to find a follow-up hit after "Havana," our second Fifth Harmony girl is making her case as a solo artist and I'm also rooting her on. I'm not going to say I'm madly in love with this, but her and Khalid have solid chemistry on this song, making this a solid romance duet. If Normani does pursue a solo career, I think she has a ton of potential, perhaps even more than Camila.
35- "New Rules" - Dua Lipa (+5) -- Another song getting a momentary boost following the Kanye album bomb. Although I would really love for Dua to gain more success as she's a pop singer that deserves more attention.
36- "Te Bote" - Casper Magico, Nio Garcia, Darell, Nicky Jam, Ozuna & Bad Bunny (+7) -- Can we all agree to ignore this messy, crowded, lazy Latino song? I would love for it to go away.
38- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (+21) -- For the second straight week following its debut, Tyga and Offset get a huge boost. And I have no idea why as this is a useless piece of trash. The rap community really has me confused as to why they drool all over themselves over garbage like this.
41- "All Girls Are the Same" - Juice WRLD (+8) -- The Juice WRLD song I don't care for. And apparently neither does the rest of the world as this is still down at No. 41 while "Lucid Dreams" is becoming a smash hit up there at No. 6 already.
46- "I Like Me Better" - Lauv (+7) -- It's excellent seeing this song hit top 50. It's already top 10 on pop radio, which makes me really happy. I hope it can continue to gain traction in other areas because I would love to see this get much higher on the charts.
48- "Get Along" - Kenny Chesney (+8) -- Is it bad that I already completely forgot about this song from Kenny? Not that I've ever really cared for him. I suppose there could be worse songs out there in the country world.
49- "Up Down" - Morgan Wallen featuring Florida Georgia Line (+9) -- Like this. I've given FGL more leniency than the probably deserve, but this song is pretty awful and I would love for it to go away.
53- "Woman, Amen" - Dierks Bentley (+13) -- It's a good week for country as this is our third straight song on this list. But it's also a bad week in terms of quality because this is our third straight song that's completely forgettable, which doesn't give me much hope for the immediate future of country radio.
63- "Mercy" - Brett Young (+11) -- Fourth straight country song and the fourth straight country song that I don't really care for. Which is unfortunate because I mostly like Brett Young as I really enjoyed his previous two singles. But this just falls into bland, empty country song territory.
79- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+17) -- A harmless rise towards the bottom of the charts. There's not much to this song in terms of content, but musically speaking I suppose it's passable. So I'm neutral towards this. If it becomes a hit, then I probably won't be too upset. But let's wait and see because No. 79 still isn't anything to write home about.
New Arrivals:
39- "Reborn" - KIDS SEE GHOSTS -- Here's the third seven-track album produced by Kanye West in his five-week series this summer. We started things off two weeks ago with Pusha-T, continued last week with Kanye's own album and now this week we have Kanye and Kid Cudi's collaborative work, wherein they call themselves KIDS SEE GHOSTS instead of simply saying Kanye West & Kid Cudi. In case you're wondering, next week will be Nas and we'll finish things off in two weeks with Teyana Taylor. Although I'm not sure how those final two artists will do as Nas's album hasn't been that big these past few days on streaming and Teyana Taylor has yet to chart on the Hot 100, so I'm not sure how much people are aware of her with this second studio album that will be released tomorrow. I guess we'll take those as we come. As far as Kid Cudi goes, I'm not super familiar with his music. He was really big from 2008 to 2010 with his first two albums, but hasn't done much since that has been impactful on the charts. However, he did have a song called "Revofev" that was used in the advertising for "Kill the Messenger," a movie I really loved and that song was perfect for the movie's trailers and thus I've loved the song ever since. So I did have some hope for this album, despite it being him AND Kanye West instead of just him.
As far as this song goes, this is the fifth track of the album and even though I went into this album with a bit of hope, the previous four songs on this album are empty. The first two tracks have potential, but ultimately go nowhere while the next two tracks are pretty awful without any focus or direction. This fifth song is probably the best song thus far and is the closest to actually resemble a fully realized song with a total length of 5:24. Kanye's verse talks about all of his troubles and it's the best that Kanye has done recently with simply giving his emotions of what he's gone through without purposely trolling the world with his controversial statements. And I actually really like Kid Cudi's verse as he gets fairly raw and emotional with his own struggles. However, Kanye's verse is only 30 seconds long and Kid Cudi's verse comes close to 40 seconds like. Which means four of the five minutes of this song is Kid Cudi's chorus where he says he is reborn and moving forward. And it's a good, catchy chorus. But there's just too much of it. I would've preferred more in terms of content and less of the same repeated chorus that takes up the last two minutes of the song, the first minute and a half of the song as well as 30 seconds in between verses. So this is a much better effort from these two, but still not quite there for me.
42- "4th Dimension" - KIDS SEE GHOSTS -- The third track from Kid Cudi and Kanye's album. The first two tracks, "Feel the Love" and "Fire" had some potential with the setup and the framing, but ultimately went nowhere. With this third track, I have absolutely no idea what these two were thinking. In fact, I'm pretty sure that they weren't. The song starts by sampling an old 1936 Christmas song by Louis Prima called "What Will Santa Claus Say," which is a fun, groovy swing song. But then after the sample, Kanye and Cudi take turns going in strange, random directions that have nothing to do with the sampled song, made creepier by an interlude between the two of them consisting of a really creepy laughter. This song is disconnected, disjointed and I no longer want to think about it. So I'm just going to move onto the next song from the album.
47- "Feel the Love" - KIDS SEE GHOSTS -- Here's the opening track from this album and it starts with a lot of potential actually. Kid Cudi is handling the chorus of the song and it's a decent chorus with him repeating the line "I can still feel the love" over some decently catchy music. But the problem is that it doesn't go anywhere. There's only one rap verse and that's neither Kid Cudi nor Kanye, but Pusha T. And all Pusha T is talking about is drugs, girls and how he's better than everyone else. He has decent flow, but the content is boring and I don't know how it fits in with Kid Cudi's chorus. After that verse, the only thing that happens throughout the rest of the song is Kanye making gun sounds while Kid Cudi's line is repeated. So the framing of the song is just fine, but there's just no content here. It's like buying a nice picture frame, but hanging it on the wall with no picture inside it. I'm not quite sure what to do with it.
62- "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" - KIDS SEE GHOSTS -- The fourth track from Kid Cudi and Kanye's album, this song being a sequel to last week's song "Ghost Town" from Kanye's album "Ye." Thus this warrants a quick revisit of that song, which was extremely disjointed. We had PARTYNEXTDOOR saying he wants to smoke marijuana and relax on Sunday, a stretched out line from Kid Cudi, Kanye reminiscing that one day all this controversy will go away and finally a long outro where a random rapper named 070 Shake talks about not feeling pain anymore after putting her hand on the stove and feeling nothing. Why we needed a sequel to this is beyond me, but here it is. And it's not quite as disjointed as "Ghost Town," but I mostly find it boring. We start with an excerpt from a speech by Marcus Garvey saying that man in the full knowledge of himself is a superb and supreme creature of creation. After that, the rest of the song is a combination of Kanye, Kid Cudi, Ty Dolla $ign and Anthony Hamilton taking turns bragging about how they're free and they don't feel pain anymore. That's it. And yes, they stretch out the word free like in the title, but more. So it sounds like they're saying "I feel freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...," which gets really annoying after just one instance, but it continues for three and half minutes, as if they were all smoking marijuana while recording this song in the studio.
67- "Fire" - KIDS SEE GHOSTS -- The second track from Kid Cudi and Kanye's album. Following on the heels of "Feel the Love," this has these two heading in a positive direction. Instead of Kid Cudi sticking to the chorus and Kanye making sounding effects, while letting Pusha T handle the only verse that has nothing to do with anything, both Kid Cudi and Kanye actually have a verse on "Fire." But each of them only takes the time for a 30 second verse where both of them talk about troubles they've had or not caring about their haters. Framing the verses is a lot of instrumentals that are pretty good and an outro from Kid Cudi that serves as the song's only verse wherein Kid Cudi asks heaven to lift him up after all these scars he's received. Then the final 30 seconds is some sort of guitar riff that's a complete shift in tone, almost as if it was added on in post-production by accident. So the idea here is nice, but as a whole this is still very surface-level stuff. If Kid Cudi were to cut Kanye off the song, use his outro as an actual chorus and dive deeper with perhaps a few more verses, while keeping the same instrumentals, this could've been a good song. As is, though, it's more like an unfinished project that barely crosses two minutes thanks to that strange guitar riff at the end.
69- "Cudi Montage" - KIDS SEE GHOSTS -- To finish off the album, we have this seventh and final track called "Cudi Montage." I don't know what type of montage this is or why it's even referred to as a montage. Perhaps it's just a montage of everything else he's done on the album so far? Because, yeah, this song is rather boring. At the very least, Kid Cudi does a good job on this album providing interesting music and catchy choruses even if the songs themselves are a bit underdeveloped. This song has a boring chorus with no catchy beat with recycled themes from this album as if they were trying to drive it home on the final track, but ended up lazily copying themselves, with an added verse of Kanye trying to talk about world peace, of which in totally flubs the idea with absurd content despite a potentially interesting subject matter. You know, basically the story of Kanye West. So overall, this album had moments of potential, but ultimately it's all squandered with underdeveloped songs and Kanye ruining everything whenever he tries to say something he deems important. It's not awful, but I'm not impressed. I don't think the world is going to remember this album in a couple weeks.
73- "Kids See Ghosts" - KIDS SEE GHOSTS -- Here we have the sixth track from the album, which is the title track. "Kids See Ghosts" by KIDS SEE GHOSTS from the album "KIDS SEE GHOSTS." A lot of kids seeing ghosts. In other words, this has to be good or else this whole thing was a waste, right? Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the first half of this song. This has a dark beat to it which fits the dark title of kids seeing ghosts. Then we have the subtle ghost whispers while Kid Cudi rather depressingly talks about how kids see ghosts sometimes and I found myself really intrigued because I wanted to see where this was going. But then the whole thing is ruined by Kanye jumping in with his longest verse yet on this album where he dives deep into all the Kanye stuff that we've all hated him for these past weeks, months and even years. And the results are what we all knew this whole time. Kanye is an idiot. Yet he thinks he's not. He thinks he has a lot to say to his haters that will make them understand. But he doesn't. This song just makes you want to punch him in the face and cross your fingers that he just goes away and leaves the rest of the world alone.
84- "Lose It" - Kane Brown -- After listening to all of the "KIDS SEE GHOSTS" album, the intro to this song was rather refreshing. It was an upbeat, fun country song that I was enjoying. Unfortunately I specifically mentioned the intro was refreshing because then Kane Brown comes in with his deep, twangy, boring voice and I was brought back down to Earth knowing this was just another boring country song. I was open to it getting better. And I will still say that the beat is pretty good. But the content is as boring as Kane's voice. He sees a girl and she's so amazing that it causes him to lose it. Because we've never seen that in a country song before. He tells the girl that she has no idea what she's doing to him and when she approaches, he tells her that he just wants them to lose it tonight. Which had me facepalm. But at least he's not as explicit with his sex references as our next two songs from Nicki Minaj and Lil Skies.
88- "Rich Sex" - Nicki Minaj featuring Lil Wayne -- Eh, em. Do I need to even say anything here? Nicki is an awful rapper. I've never liked her. This song is exactly what you expect when you look at that title. She's talking about riches and sex. Except it's really gross and graphic. If this type of music is your thing, well then I'm sorry. I'm just not into listening to Nicki graphically describe how amazing it is to have sex with her.
90- "I Know You" - Lil Skies featuring Yung Pinch -- Yung Pinch? Really? On a song with Lil Skies? If this is what the world of music is coming to, I want no part of it. All this song is about is these two rappers rapping all about their newly found fame and how all these girls just want to sleep with them because their famous. But serious. Is anyone interested in listening to two rappers who the world barely knows bragging about how famous they are? This is almost as bad as the Nicki song, and makes the Kane Brown song feel extremely tame and clean. Turns out that I'd rather go back and relisten to the "KIDS SEE GHOSTS" album then revisit these final three songs.
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