Wednesday, July 25, 2018

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - July 28, 2018

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!


Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:





1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (=) -- I'm just going to be blunt and say we have a lot of dumb people in this country. A random comedian filmed Drake doing some random dance moves and now the whole country is mimicking those exact dance moves. When it comes to internet challenges, at least the "Harlem Shake" videos or the Mannequin challenge were kinda fun in concept. But copying Drake's dance moves? How did that even catch on as a trend? Why would there even by one person who thought this would be a cool thing to do. But yet in a baffling turn of events, this challenge has blown up to become so popular that "In My Feelings" broke the record for most streaming in a single week with 116.2 million U.S. streams. The previous record was held by "Harlem Shake" with 103.1 million. This is just utterly ridiculous. But you better get used to this song being here because this huge number of streaming has translated to huge sales and radio numbers as it leads the sales chart with 115,000 downloads sold and is close to the top 10 on radio (it jumped from No. 29 to No. 14 this week) with 60 million audience impressions. I don't even hate the song, but I'm furious at how popular such a stupid internet challenge. But yet this is the same country where real human beings filmed themselves doing the Tide Pod challenge, so why should I be surprised?

2- "I Like It" - Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny & J Balvin (=) -- The real loser after the "In My Feelings" challenge is Cardi B, who is celebrating her second weekend at No. 1 on the radio charts with 112.4 million in total audience while still having excellent sales and streaming. It should be No. 1, except for the "In My Feelings" challenge has completely poisoned the internet, which means Cardi will probably only get that one week on top of the Billboard charts. But I personally am not crying too hard, especially because this will probably spend a long time camped at No. 2, which is not a bad consolation prize. Despite my frustration with the challenge itself, "In My Feelings" is a better song. Cardi just took a classic song and barfed all over it with her ugly nonsense.

3- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- Are we over this, America? I can see the appeal of Drake and Cardi B. I don't see the appeal of a boring Maroon 5 song and I'm extremely concerned as to why this is still getting a ton of radio play. If the radio in my car started working, I'd probably re-break it if this song started spamming my radio like it is for many people across the country.

4- "Nice for What" - Drake (=) -- Drake is lucky for now that the bottom half of the top 10 is fairly silent right now because that gives him another week in the top five with "Nice for What." I don't know how long this is going to last, though, because this looked like it was going to be on its way out before the album dropped and gave it new life.

5- "Boo'd Up" - Ella Mai (=) -- As long as we make sure to ignore that unlistenable remix of this song that adds Nicki and Offset, I'm totally fine with this hanging around in the top five. The song is losing a bit on streaming and has its sales evaporating, but it finally cracked the top 10 on radio. It's currently the second best song in the top 10 right now behind "Nice for What" in my opinion.

6- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+1) -- I'm still convinced that the streaming update is what hurt this song a bit in the last few weeks even though I don't have any proof of that. But it's now trying to work its way back into the top five and I wouldn't mind having it be in that region. It finally debuted on the radio charts this week and is even picking up a bit of steam on pop radio, so that boost could help it stick around for longer as streaming alone wasn't going to get it very far.

7- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+5) -- After Billboard falsely reported this getting back to the top 10 last week before quickly correcting it, the song has officially returned to the top 10 this week after debuting at No. 7 back in May when Post Malone's horrible album debuted. Now listen, this isn't as bad as most of Post Malone's other songs, so it's whatever, but I still hate how pop radio has completely fallen in love with Post Malone because that makes absolutely no sense and just means that this song is probably going to stay here in the top 10 for a long time. I just hope it stays far away from that No. 1 spot because Post Malone is one of the least deserving people that the music gods have knighted as a superstar.

8- "No Tears Left to Cry" - Ariana Grande (=) -- I like how this song has still managed to stick around even though I'm kinda sad it wasn't able to break back into the top five after debuting at No. 3. Radio is starting to slip away, though, and Ariana's new song "God is a Woman" has debuted at No. 11 this week, which means I don't know how much longer this will be around.

9- "Psycho" - Post Malone featuring Ty Dolla $ign (=) -- Post Malone is remaining pesky with this song as I've wanted it to go away ever since it arrived. And now that it's appearing to finally lose momentum, it's still managing to stick around at the bottom section of the top 10. With "Better Now" having arrived in the top 10, hopefully that means "Psycho" will finally be gone soon.

10- "God's Plan" - Drake (-4) -- After a 26-week run in the top 10, "God's Plan" might have officially hit the end of the line. On that note, the only two songs that have remained in the top 10 longer after debuting in the top 10 are Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" (33 weeks) and The Chainsmokers' "Closer" (32 weeks), so it's certainly been an excellent run. Let's hope it gives way next week in favor of Taylor Swift's "Delicate."


Rising on the Hot 100:





12- "Delicate" - Taylor Swift (+3) -- Taylor Swift's return to grace is almost complete. In a sad turn of events, her album "reputation" nearly ruined her reputation, but thanks to the single release of "Delicate," Taylor has topped pop radio and is No. 2 behind Cardi B in overall radio presence, which makes me really happy. Hopefully that translates into a top 10 appearance next week. Given the radio numbers, I'd be shocked if it didn't.

13- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (+5) -- Unfortunately this is the other song that's probably heading into the top 10 next week and I really don't know why this has caught fire. It's really a horrible song from Tyga, who is someone no one has cared about before now. The Offset feature is probably why it's soaring so high and that's annoying because I hoped that we were over the Migos losers.

18- "Friends" - Marshmello & Anne-Marie (+2) -- It's nice seeing this song get a bit of a resurgence after peaking at No. 11 not too long ago, then falling down before it could crack the top 10. I'm really sad that it missed out on that top 10 and now unfortunately it seems that it's too little, too late for it to return. But maybe it will continue to hang out in the teens and 20's.

19- "Perfect" - Ed Sheeran (+3) -- Man, this is a stubborn little song. I mean, it had a great run and I still enjoy it, but I keep thinking that it's about to start falling, yet it somehow managed to arrive back in the top 20, which is rather impressive. We'll see how long it manages to stick around, but I don't imagine it will be too long.

32- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+8) -- There's plenty of songs in the 20's and 30's that rose a few spots and I'll continue to keep track of those in the coming weeks to see which ones are able to break through, but for now the biggest mover in this region is 5SOS, with a song that I think is decent when compared to the nonsense that they've released in the past, so I'm alright with it.

39- "Big Bank" - YG featuring 2 Chainz, Big Sean & Nicki Minaj (+7) -- Of course it wouldn't be a normal week without an awful rap song with a bunch of untalented punks rising on the charts due to our country's horrible taste in music.

45- "I was Jack (You were Diane)" - Jake Owen (+5) -- Not much movement for country in the top half of the charts, which doesn't have me upset. But we do have Jake Owen breaking into the 40's. I'm not quite sure what the ceiling for this song is, but I imagine it'll keep going and I'm totally fine with that.

50- "Jumpsuit" - twenty one pilots (+10) -- I was wondering how high twenty one pilots was going to fly this week after debuting last week following what I don't think was a full week of tracking. Jumping up 10 spots isn't huge, but it's a decent start. I hope this continues to go because the country could really use an excellent twenty one pilots song to provide more life. Their other new song also charted this week.

57- "Take Back Home Girl" - Chris Lane featuring Tori Kelly (+13) -- Last week all the Drake songs that debuted in the top 50 when the album dropped fell hard to the 50-60 range. Now in the second week after the album bomb, those same songs that settled in this region last week fell even further this week, with the only remaining songs now at the very bottom of the charts. That's why you see a whole bunch of songs this week rising high right below the top 50. That's also why you'll see a ton of new arrivals in this same region in my next section. It's the charts continuing to reset themselves back to normal. Unfortunately we begin with an underwhelming country song that could've been a whole lot better had Chris Lane known how to properly feature Tori Kelly.

60- "Jackie Chan" - Tiesto & Dzeko featuring Preme & Post Malone (+28) -- Can Tiesto finally get his major U.S. breakthrough after years of success overseas? That'd be cool. Unfortunately it has to be with a remix of a really awful Preme song that featured more lazy lyrics from Post Malone. But hey, if this can help Tiesto have more success in the future, I guess I'd be fine with that. At least it's not the original song that's charting.

62- "Coming Home" - Keith Urban featuring Julia Michaels (+15) -- Certainly not a bad effort from Keith Urban. Although this trend of featuring female pop singers on country songs, but NOT using them much in the song, needs to end. Either feature them in the song or don't. Don't just give them a couple of lines just so you can use their name to boost your sales. Bebe and FGL proved that a good, equal balance makes for a solidly entertaining song, so let's give these girls more to do.

63- "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" - Backstreet Boys (+18) -- It brings so much joy to my heart seeing the Backstreet Boys rising on the charts. When this charted for a week, then disappeared, I thought it was done. But seeing this group gain actual momentum with a really fun song is quite exciting.

64- "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" - Luke Bryan (+17) -- This song played at a social gathering that I went to last week. That caused the song to get stuck in my head for a day or two, which I found super annoying. I guess that means kudos to the song for being catchy, but that doesn't mean I'm going to support its success.

65- "Growing Pains" - Alessia Cara (+21) -- Alessia Cara is taking a slightly slower route to the top as I would've thought that her success previously would've helped this debut a lot higher, but nonetheless I'm glad to see that this song has now had multiple weeks of great traction. Let's hope that this continues so that we can get this song up towards the top of the charts where it belongs.

66- "Solo" - Clean Bandit featuring Demi Lovato (+32) -- It's great seeing Demi rise good on the charts this week, but dang it that girl needs to get her life together. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw her trending on Twitter yesterday after a reported drug overdose. This not too long after she released her other single confessing that she's no longer sober. Thankfully the latest report is that she's stable after being hospitalized. Now I'll be looking forward to the news of her being released and fully recovered because I don't know if I could handle news of her passing away so young. She's too beautiful and talented to suffer that fate. We love you Demi! Us fans of yours are here to support you, so recover and get better. A lesson to everyone else: fame, fortune and popularity doesn't automatically release one from their demons. So whoever you are and whatever your social status, do your best to fight your demons and get the help you need from those around you that love you.

70- "Hotel Key" - Old Dominion (+17) -- Back to the music now, it doesn't make me happy to see Old Dominion climbing the charts with another one of their boring country songs. I feel like a lot of people are fans of these guys, but I have no idea why.

75- "OTW" - Khalid, Ty Dolla $ign & 6LACK (+22) -- I wish there was a version of this song without Ty Dolla $ign and 6LACK because then that would be a song worth supporting. Khalid's portion of the song is excellent, but it gets tainted with the two rappers come in. Balance this out with another talented singer and you've got yourself a song.

78- "Medicine" - Queen Naija (+12) -- It would be cool to see Queen Naija find success on the charts, but at the moment I'm not super confident as to how well this song can actually do. If she does break out, eventually she'll need to pick new subject matter outside just singing about her awful ex, but for this song it works well enough.

81- "Cry Pretty" - Carrie Underwood (+10) -- Carrie Underwood is always acceptable in my books. This isn't my favorite Carrie song that's charted this year, but it's probably the one that mainstream country is more willing to pick up and play, so I hope it happens because this is much better than a lot of the current country songs.

83- "Sin Pijama" - Becky G & Natti Natasha (+16) -- Becky and Natti have so much personality in this song that I totally don't mind seeing this on the charts. Although if you know Spanish, you might naturally raise an eyebrow at this because the lyrics are a bit scandalous, which is why I also wouldn't be upset if it failed to gain traction. But I do like both of these girls as singers.


New Arrivals:





11- "God is a Woman" - Ariana Grande -- I'm not quite sure what to do with this one. This song enters the same realm as Hozier's "Take Me to Church," which uses religious symbolism for sexual metaphors. Hozier has a great voice and the music of the song itself is fantastic, but he's certainly not asking the person to literally take him to a worship service on Sunday. Thus the song leaves me conflicted because I love the music, but the lyrics rub me the wrong way a bit. Same thing here with Ariana. Her song here has nothing to do with religion itself. She's telling you that if you come touch her and sleep with her, when the experience is finished, you'll believe that God is a woman. Or rather, the experience will be so wonderful that you'll believe that she's so amazing that she's practically a goddess. Yes, Ariana is a very attractive young lady, but I often find myself rolling my eyes at some of her music because she knows she's very attractive and she uses it to her advantage. Sometimes I feel that her high level of self-confidence overflows into self-obsession as she loves singing sexy songs and making sexy music videos. Granted she's dang good at it as she has a very beautiful voice that she often uses in a seductive way that's much more convincing than most other female singers. But more often than not, I'd rather see her stop singing about how sexy she is and give us something with more substance. But yeah, her vocals in this song are excellent as is the music itself, but her content here makes me facepalm, so again I'm not sure what to do with this.

On a slight tangent from the song itself, she's created a hilarious meme in the music video of this song. At 1:38 in said video, we cut away from Ariana sexily staring into the camera and briefly focus on a gopher that starts screaming and it cracked me up. I'm not sure why it's there, but nearly every comment in the comment section of the video is a joke about that gopher. So check it out and give yourself a good laugh.

44- "Summertime Magic" - Childish Gambino -- Earlier this year Donald Glover rocked America with his music video for "This is America," which I'd still argue is one of the best and certainly most effective music videos I've seen. Not too long after, he charmed the world with his portrayal of Lando in "Solo: A Star Wars Story." And now he's back a couple months later with a duo of summer songs, "Summertime Magic" and "Feels Like Summer." The latter didn't chart this week, so for now I'll discuss the former. In regards to "This is America," the only criticism I have is that the song itself isn't as effective on its own without the video, thus the point of the song is the social commentary via the video. "Summertime Magic" is the opposite. There is no music video. It's just meant as a song. Specifically it's meant as a relaxing summer song as opposed to a song with strong emotional weight. And man, Donald Glover just can't go wrong. Whether he's giving social commentary, acting in a film or giving us a relaxing summer, he's excellent at all of it. A Jack of all trades when it comes to the entertainment industry. "Summertime Magic" is a very simple song where Glover moves very slowly and patiently through his lyrics, yet providing us with enough of a groove to make us enjoy the experience. It's a song that makes me want to go find a beach, relax in one of those comfortable beach chairs and listen to this song while the waves hit the sand.

53- "You Say" - Lauren Daigle -- How's this for timing? On the same exact week that Ariana releases her new song using Christian metaphors as sexual symbolism, Christian singer Lauren Daigle charts, giving us an ACTUAL Christian song on the charts. I have no idea how or why this got here. I don't even know how long it's going to last because Christian songs rarely crossover onto the Hot 100. But I'm so glad it's here. Lauren's voice is fantastic and she uses it to passionately sing about being accepted by God despite how unworthy she often feels. In the very first verse she talks about how she feels like she's not enough and that she'll never measure up because she often is scared that she's nothing more than a sum of her highs and lows. But then she reaches out to God and asks for a reminder of who she really is, in which she gets the assurance from God that she is strong, she is loved and that He is there for her when she's falling short. Sometimes gospel songs can get fairly generic and borderline cheesy, but this is a song that brings a lot of power and emotion with meaningful lyrics combined with fantastic vocals and beautiful piano melody. Sometimes I wonder why I do this project each week when most of the songs that chart these days are awful. But it's songs like this that remind me why I do this. The discovery of songs like this fill me with joy. I'm now excited to go listen to Lauren's 2015 album "How Can It Be" and I'm also looking forward to her new album "Look Up Child" later this year.

56- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid -- If you're wondering who Benny Blanco is, he's a songwriter and producer known for, well, a lot of stuff. He's worked with Katy Perry, Britney Spears, 3OH!3, Kesha, Mike Posner, Taio Cruz, Wiz Khalifa, Gym Class Heroes, Rihanna, Sean Paul, OneRepublic, Maroon 5, Iggy Azalea, Ed Sheeran, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber and a whole lot more. Why this is his first time ever showing up as a credited artist on a song is something I don't know the answer to. He doesn't provide any vocals on this song. He just wrote it and produced it, like he did with all the other songs. This is essentially a Khalid and Halsey track that Benny Blanco engineered. A lot of credit to him for it because he's crafted a pretty good song that makes great use of both artists. The lyrics are fairly simple as Halsey and Khalid are reflecting on a prior romance between them when they were young. The song isn't perfectly clear as to the state of said present day romance, but it almost gives me the feeling that it ended at one point, but now the two of them have the desire rekindle their love. Khalid I tend to enjoy and he does a great job here. Halsey I was worried about because she has delved into a lot of mediocrity recently, but she works well with Khalid and thus they balance each other out, resulting in a fairly enjoyable song. 

68- "Wasted" - Juice WRLD featuring Lil Uzi Vert -- I'll still defend Juice WRLD when it comes to "Lucid Dreams," but I wasn't necessarily excited to listen to a song that sees him teaming up with Lil Uzi Vert. Yes, Juice WRLD still seems to have a better grasp on how to write a song that's tolerable in terms of the melody as well as coherent vocals, but I'm not really in the mood to deal with a song about drugs in the same week that Demi Lovato nearly died of a drug overdose. STOP RAPPING ABOUT DRUGS!!!!!! Granted, Juice WRLD isn't promoting or glorifying drugs like Lil Pump did last week, but he doesn't exactly condemn them either as he's rambling on about all the drugs he's doing while still being mad at his girl. And he calls her Medusa with a little bit of Pocahontas? What the heck does that even mean?

71- "Desperate Man" - Eric Church -- If you're a fan of country and/or you like country swing dancing, I could see you having a ton of fun with this song at a party. This song has a strong groove to it that makes you want to get up and dance around, but the lyrics have me a bit confused. Eric Church is talking about how he's a desperate man and lists off all the manly things he's done to prove it. I was assuming that he was going somewhere with it and my guess was that it was to make some sort of move at a woman that he wanted to be with. I suppose that would work out if you're swinging around on the dance floor with your partner, even though for me that would feel a bit cliche. But he surprised me by not going that route. In fact the problem is that he doesn't go anywhere with it. He's just saying that he's a desperate man and he lists off the manly things he's done. I suppose you could connect the dots for him, but I felt a bit miffed that he didn't finish his thought himself. I would've appreciated some sort of arc in the song because as is it just feels like a partial song with a good groove and I'm not sure that's quite enough for me personally.

72- "Hopeless Romantic" - Wiz Khalifa featuring Swae Lee -- Wiz Khalifa dropped an album and thankfully the world doesn't care enough about Wiz Khalifa for him to successfully album bomb. In fact, his new album, "Rolling Papers 2," was only able to chart two songs. That makes me the biggest winner because Wiz Khalifa is nothing more than a stoner who is known for writing stoner anthems. I'm not a stoner and thus I don't like stoner anthems, so why would I ever bother with this punk? The only good thing he's ever done was write the tribute song to Paul Walker for "Furious 7," that of course being "See You Again." But that's it. That said, out of the two songs that dropped, this was the one song that I was thinking may have the most potential since it's an actual title and features Swae Lee, who has been known to be a decent artists every once in a while. Lucky for me, it's Swae Lee that does the bulk of the work in this particular song, thus it feels like Swae Lee featuring Wiz Khalifa would've been more appropriate. Swae Lee isn't bad in this, but his problem is that he's boring. There is a decent thought here as Swae commiserates about how he always seems to be chosen by the romantics that are hopeless. He couldn't done something with that and it may have been interesting. But he doesn't. Thus is why the song ends up being boring. It gets a few points docked by Wiz Khalifa's one verse where he basically asks the girl if she wants to have sex, but before she says yes, she has to tell him that he's the best in order to boost his ego. Thankfully that's all we get from Wiz in the song, though.

73- "Fr Fr" - Wiz Khalifa featuring Lil Skies -- Out of the two Wiz Khalifa songs that charted, this is the one that had me the most worried. Turns out I was right to worry because there's absolutely nothing to this song. Wiz couldn't even come up with a title. He talks in the chorus about how he's "for real for real," so I guess that's where the title comes from. But the song is just him talking about how he's for real, bragging about the money he has while telling us his adventures with smoking. Because that's what he does, remember? He's a stoner. And somehow the song manages to go from bad to worse when Lil Skies shows up and takes the same content, but proves how useless and untalented he is. I suppose that this makes Wiz Khalifa look a bit better, but I would certainly prefer Swae Lee lazily droning on with a brief Wiz appearance than this nonsense. I'm super glad that I don't have to listen to the other 23 songs on this album because I'm sure that they're all crap.

79- "Nico and the Niners" - twenty one pilots -- Here's the other new song from twenty one pilots' upcoming album "Trench." I really loved "Jumpsuit" and I went into detail last week about that while hoping that I'd also be able to talk about this one because twenty one pilots has put together something that has kinda blown my mind. Recently twenty one pilots hid a secret link on their website to another mysterious website that fans found. Said website is dmaorg.info/found/15398642_14/clancy.html. This chronicles the story of a fictional character named Clancy who lives in a fictional city named Dema, which is led by nine bishops who work to keep the inhabitants inside the city walls. With the help of a group called the Banditos, Clancy is eventually able to escape. Apparently the whole album is going to tell this story, which is an allegory for depression. Without any of that context, I still think you can enjoy "Nico and the Niners" well enough, but once you dive into this mythology they've created with this city, much of the specific lyrics in the song will make a whole lot more sense and thus the song transforms from a simple song with a catchy groove into a deep song that is only a small piece of a bigger puzzle that we have to wait until October 5 to see. I'm really excited to dive into this album when it comes out to see what more they have hidden here.

84- "Broken" - lovelytheband -- This week continues to be a fairly fascinating week. Much like I had no idea how Lauren Daigle managed to chart, I also have no idea how lovelytheband managed to chart. This is a brand new alternative rock band that formed in 2016 and are planning on releasing their debut album, "Finding It Hard to Smile," on August 3. I'm not sure exactly what this band did to please the music gods, but it certainly worked as they now have their first single from this upcoming first album charting on the Hot 100. I'm happy about this. Instead of having an endless amount of subpar new rap and country singers, lets bring on more random bands like this to the charts. "Broken" is a simple love song, but it also tries to be a realistic love song as the lyrics on the bridge state, "Life is not a love song we like; we're all broken pieces floating by; life is not a love song we can try; to fix our broken pieces one at a time." Then, talking to the person on the chorus, he says that I like that you're broken, broken like me. So this is a simple song about two broken people coming together. I like it. I hope it does well and that we can get more music like this on the charts.

85- "Hooked" - Dylan Scott -- In our previous song, lovelytheband attempts to take an honest look at a love story and it works for me. It feels like a genuine story they're trying to tell or a real conversation that they're trying to have. I bring that up because Dylan Scott does quite the opposite with this country song as he loads it up with every cliche in the book that feels like the exact opposite of genuine and real. He took one look at this girl and he was madly in love with her. None of it feels like it was based on an actual experience that he had. It just feels like he wrote country lyrics down on a paper without much thought. Add in plenty of cliche twangs in his voice and southern rock beat that makes this not even feel very country and we have ourselves another boring country song from another boring country dude.

87- "Ocean" - TK Kravitz featuring Jacqueez -- This is the second song titled "Ocean" to chart on the Hot 100 within the last month. The last one was "Ocean," by Martin Garrix featuring Khalid, which charted at the end of June. I certainly prefer the Martin Garrix and Khalid version much better. I suppose we're calling this one R&B and neither TK Kravitz nor Jacequeez have much personality here as they slowly drag their way through this latest sex song to chart. I was going to chalk this up to being boring and dull, then move on with life. But I have to mention that they get quite graphic on the verses after boring me on the choruses. So this ends up as a gross and boring sex song sung by two singers with zero personality. Yeah, I'll take Martin Garrix instead.

90- "1942" - G-Eazy featuring Yo Gotti & YBN Nahmir -- The last thing we needed on the charts is more G-Eazy and his boring friends. Apparently this song comes from the movie "Uncle Drew," which is a really dumb sports move that hit theaters recently. I definitely don't remember this song from it, nor do I care to be reminded where it played. Probably just random, dumb hip-hop to play in the background during some random scene because we can't have basketball without hip-hop, right? Anyways, you should be well aware of the fact that I hate it when all rappers can do is brag about how famous they are. That's exactly what this is as these three artists take turns bragging about the brand names and jewelry they're sporting while also talking about the girls they are with. I checked out rather quickly. I didn't even care to stick around to see which of these three stinks it up the most because glancing through the lyrics suggested to me that they're all equally as bad in this song.

92- "I'm a Mess" - Bebe Rexha -- Bebe recently dropped her new album "Expectations" and I've been meaning to get around to it, but there's a lot of albums that I haven't gotten around to this year, so we'll see when it happens. I was a bit surprised to learn that this is a debut album for Bebe. Up to this point, she's been content with EPs, non-album singles and featured turns on other artists' songs. With "I'm a Mess" acting as my introduction to the album, I suppose this is a decent start. I like the sentiment of realizing that she's not perfect, but embracing that because we all have insecurities and imperfections that make us human, but I kinda wish that there was a little more passion and energy here. Bebe has an excellent voice that I've heard her use plenty of times, yet in this song she's more or less playing it safe vocally while the song itself doesn't do her any justice either. If she wants to write a song about her being a mess, I would love to hear the pain in her voice as she wears her emotions on her sleeve while singing, but she never really gets there, thus I'm left thinking that this song could've been a whole lot more. I hope she has some stronger songs hidden on that album because I'm still very interested in diving in and exploring this debut album of hers.

94- "Remind Me to Forget" - Kygo featuring Miguel -- Kygo is a DJ that I really love. Miguel is an R&B singer that has never completely blown me away, but is certainly much better than a lot of people in his genre, so a Kygo and Miguel collaboration seemed like it should work rather well and it absolutely does. Actually this song debuted back on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart back in March, so it's been a long journey for it in crossing over to the Hot 100. In the song Miguel brings a lot of soul as he is reminiscing over a relationship that has left him scarred. He knows he should forget, but he's having a hard time doing so. The song doesn't necessarily dive super deep, but Kygo comes in and provides a solid tropical house sounding beat that compliments Miguel well, making the song feel quite upbeat and happy despite Miguel's lyrics being a bit dreary. In terms of Kygo's discography, he has plenty of other songs that are a lot stronger and more memorable, but this is fun, relaxing beat with good vocals from Miguel that certainly grows on you the more you listen to it.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - July 21, 2018

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:




1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (+5) -- The Drake surge from last week is over, but yet it's Drake at No. 1 again with his third No. 1 hit of the year? Yeah, this really shocked me as I was totally expecting "I Like It" to return to the top. Not "In My Feelings," which was the fourth highest-charting Drake song last week. I guess that just means I wasn't following the sales and streaming numbers since my last post because this song has been going insane with 71.1 million U.S. streams and 89,000 sales, which is easily the top of both categories. But why? Well, as it turns out, the comedian Shiggy posted a video on his Instagram of Drake performing a random dance routine during a live performance and that quickly evolved into what is now known as the "In My Feelings" challenge where the whole is dancing like Drake. Because, you know, why not? We live in such a stupid age that the second someone says internet challenge, everyone has to try to get their 10 seconds of fame. But eh. Whatever. While I may be extremely annoyed by how this got No. 1, the song is one of the better Drake songs from the album. Not as good as the other No. 1 hits, "God's Plan" and "Nice for What." There's also two or three others from the album that I would also put higher. But this is decent. Better than Cardi B's song actually. I think I'm done with Drake at No. 1, though. It's time for him to share the spotlight. Or maybe the overexposure will hurt his future. I'll go for that.

2- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (+1) -- I almost feel bad for Cardi B. She's still surging in all three categories and with the Drake album bomb out of the way, she was ready for what would've probably been a lengthy run at No. 1, especially after taking the crown on the radio charts this week, dethroning Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey with "The Middle." Now the big question will be how long does this "In My Feelings" challenge last? If it causes the song to hold the top spot for as long as "God's Plan" (11 weeks) or "Nice for What" (8 weeks total on four different trips), then Cardi Be may just have to settle with that one week she got at No. 1.

3- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (+2) -- Another interesting thing going on right now is that rap has been No. 1 for 25 consecutive weeks with Drake, Drake, Childish Gambino, Post Malone, XXXTENTACION, Cardi B and Drake again. As much as I would love for that streak to end because too much rap domination scares me, I certainly don't want this wannabe song to be the one to break that streak, so let's keep the rap streak going for now. I'm still baffled as to why this is still here. I mean, I'm aware of the numbers behind it. But why is it getting those numbers? What is the appeal of Maroon 5 in general at this point? And why do people care about a song that sounds like lazy album filler from an already boring band, that's barely even a band?

4- "Nice for What" - Drake (-3) -- I think it's safe to say that "Nice for What" will not be getting a fifth separate trip to the top 10. The song's fun reigning has come to end. But what a strange run it had. After said run, it totaled eight weeks at No. 1, which is fairly impressive. Drake himself has now accumulated 20 total weeks at No. 1, which is approximately two-thirds of the year. That's way too much Drake. But at least they've been enjoyable Drake songs that have reigned.

5- "Boo'd Up" - Ella Mai (+6) -- It's really happy seeing that Ella Mai managed to survive the onslaught of Drake last week. I was a bit nervous that she would be a casualty of war. But not only did she survive, she managed to come out higher than ever, locking down her first ever top five hit as an artist, which is impressive for her first ever hit on the Hot 100. I'd like to say it's Billboard's updated streaming rules that helped her, but it's actually more likely that the song was boosted by a remix which adds Nicki Minaj and Quavo. What an awful duo to add to a perfectly good song. But hey, at least it's not the remix that's credited on the Hot 100 at the moment because I still support the original, but I won't touch that remix. I got 20 seconds in and I was done.

6- "God's Plan" - Drake (-2) -- I'm not sure how much life this song has left in the top 10. It was a week or two away from disappearing altogether before the album dropped and gave it a good boost. Even though most of Drake's song's completely floored out when it comes to their streaming numbers this week, "God's Plan" managed to hang onto enough residual streaming from the album to stick around probably for at least a little bit longer. I mean, if it collapses and is gone next week, my feelings won't be hurt because it's been here for 25 weeks and will almost assuredly will be the top song of the year. But I'm guessing it will have at least a couple more weeks in the top 10.

7- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+9) -- You can say that Drake killed Juice WRLD's momentum as this was at No. 3 and challenging for No. 1, but I actually think it was Billboard's new streaming rules that hurt it because streaming was, and still is, the only thing holding this song up. As a reminder, Billboard now gives more weight to paid streaming services over non-paid services. So all that crap that Spotify automatically throws onto everyone's playlists, regardless of if they asked for it or not, now counts less. I think that's a great thing. I still like "Lucid Dreams," but if fake streaming was giving it an extra push, then maybe it doesn't deserve to be that high.

8- "No Tears Left to Cry" - Ariana Grande (+7) -- Another song that I'm glad to see has survived the Drake onslaught. Although this song seems destined to hang out in the bottom half of the top 10 rather than finding its way back into the top five. I'm not sure why Maroon 5 has cemented a place in the top five while Ariana can't get back, but such is life. Ariana's new song "God is a Woman" seems to be gaining a lot of traction at the moment and is set for a debut next week. I'm not going to predict a top 10 debut, but I imagine it will be somewhere in the top half of the charts.

9- "Psycho" - Post Malone (+3) -- Part of me was bracing for Post Malone to return to the top five this week after Drake's disappearance, thus I'm glad to see that he could only manage to rise three spots despite a whole bunch of Drake songs falling below it. That means the momentum for this song is finally slowing down. Unfortunately, though, that doesn't mean we're done with Post Malone as "Better Now" is rising rather quickly.

10- "SAD!" - XXXTENTACION (=) -- Much like Post Malone only rising three spots, X remaining equal this week isn't as good as it normally is because that means it's starting to lose its momentum. Which makes sense. Usually when a song gets boosted following the death of a singer, that song lasts one week before falling back down. The fact that "SAD!" has managed to maintain its momentum for multiple weeks is impressive in its own right. This is probably it's final week, though.


Rising on the Hot 100:





12- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+12) -- With Drake's album as a whole tanking this week in its second week, which isn't that surprising, we have a whole ton of rising songs this week. In fact we nearly have the whole top 50 in this section this week, so let's go through these quickly. "Better Now" was initially reported as being No. 10 this week by Billboard on Monday, before they quickly corrected that. That means it's probably a good guess that it'll be in the top 10 come next week.

13- "The Middle" - Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey (+6) -- It was a great run for "The Middle" in the top 10, which appears now to be over. It also had a great run at the top of the radio charts, which means you've probably heard this song endlessly if you listen to pop radio. An even better run for "The Middle," which is still ongoing, is that it's No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart this week for a 24th week. Since that chart's inception in 2013, only two songs have been No. 1 for longer: "Closer" by The Chainsmokers and Halsey with 27 weeks and "Wake Me Up" by Avicii with 26 weeks. That means "The Middle" only needs four more weeks at No. 1 to set the new record. Can "One Shot" by Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa, the current No. 2 song on the chart, catch it in time?

14- "Meant to Be" - Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line (+8) -- The run for "Meant to Be" in the top 10 also seems to be officially over. It got 19 total weeks in the top 10 so that's a solid run for a country pop song. It also almost has the record for most weeks on top of the country charts, currently held by Sam Hunt's "Body Like a Back Road."

15- "Delicate" - Taylor Swift (+8) -- Taylor survived the Drake onslaught to now rise up to No. 15. I hope she can crack the top 10 and keep going. She deserves some success.

17- "Yes Indeed" - Lil Baby featuring Drake (+9) -- I'm glad that this song hasn't been able to resurface in the top 10. "Look Alive" by BlocBoy JB and Drake got 13 weeks in the top 10. I'm glad "Yes Indeed" only managed two weeks.

18- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (+21) -- You'll notice that hip-hop didn't have the greatest week when it comes to this rising songs section. I think credit to that goes to the new streaming rules that give more weight to paid streaming. Unfortunately, though, that hasn't hurt all hip-hop as for some reason this piece of trash continues to rise high. I can only hope it gets slowed down before getting to the top 10.

19- "Mine" - Bazzi (+6) -- Even though this song has camped out in the teens for what seems like forever, I'm glad that it never was able to break into the top 10.

20- "Friends" - Marshmello & Anne-Marie (+13) -- I thought that this would hit top 10 after getting all the way to No. 11. I'm a little sad that it wasn't able to break through and give Marshmello his first top 10 hit. It would've been Anne-Marie's second after she was also featured on Clean Bandit's "Rockabye," which got to No. 9 in the U.S.

22- "Perfect" - Ed Sheeran (+7) -- It's impressive that "Perfect" has managed to stick around in this general area for so long. Whether or not you like the idea of this song being one of the top songs of the year is one conversation, but surprisingly this song never got old for me. I still think that it's fairly sweet, even though it's been played a lot.

23- "In My Blood" - Shawn Mendes (+8) -- Not the best week for Shawn Mendes considering that it seems like this song had more momentum in prior weeks. I'm feeling that this song is doomed to not get top 10, which I'm not shedding any tears over. Although I wouldn't have been upset with this going top 10.

24- "Tequila" - Dan + Shay (+10) -- I don't know how much higher this song will be as I'm not sure this song has the pop crossover necessary to be as huge as "Meant to Be" or "Body Like a Back Road." It seems to be that high-20's or maybe somewhere in the teens is where this will peak. I certainly hope so anyways.

25- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+21) -- This week we have to pay close attention to the songs that rose 20 spots or more because those are the real winners. And this is one of them. This is a song that has been under the radar for a few months now and I'm happy to see it gaining momentum because I think this would be a solid addition to the top 10 if it can keep this momentum going.

26- "Never Be the Same" - Camila Cabello (+9) -- I'm a little sad that Camila didn't put more effort into pushing this song. It seems like she went for "Sangria Wine" a bit too early and that blew up in her face with it only being a one-week appearance on the charts. Now to see where Camila goes from here because there's still plenty of songs from her new album that would work as singles, in my opinion. "Something's Gotta Give" is my favorite, but "She Loves Control" and "Consequences" would also be good to see as singles. We'll see what she does, though.

27- "Whatever It Takes" - Imagine Dragons (+13) -- I'm not happy to see this rising, but it is what it is. I'm just glad it missed out on getting into the top 10 because it would be awful if it got as popular as "Believer" and "Thunder."

29- "One Kiss" - Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa (+16) -- As I said previously, "One Kiss" is close to passing "The Middle" for the top spot on the Dance/Electronic charts. But will it get there before "The Middle" breaks the record? It has four weeks to play spoiler.

30- "Apes---" - THE CARTERS (+13) -- I'm happy to see Beyonce and JAY-Z's collaborative album failing, because I thought it wasn't very good based on the songs that showed up on the Hot 100 from the album. Now if we can get this song to dropout that would be good. Both artists are capable of much better.

31- "Back to You" - Selena Gomez (+18) -- I'm glad to see this song rise 18 spots, because that means there's actually a chance for it to gain more momentum going forward. I would love to see this song in the top 10. If it ends up peaking in the 20's or 30's, that will be sad because Selena deserves so much better.

32- "Look Alive" - BlocBoy JB featuring Drake (+12) -- Now I'm having nightmares of when this song wouldn't leave the top 10. I'm glad those days are over.

33- "I Like Me Better" - Lauv (+19) -- Is it just me or have pop songs this week had an especially great week? Could it be that the new streaming rules have hurt hip-hop and helped pop? That would be a great thing, but I suppose we'll have to wait and see if there's long-term effects that balance Billboard more.

34- "Moonlight" - XXXTENTACION (+13) -- This is only here because all of the Drake songs fell hard. I don't expect that I'll be bringing it up again in the future.

35- "Get Along" - Kenny Chesney (+18) -- Some good boosts for country as well this week. This I'm not upset at, but we can get some better country songs to rise if country is also getting helped out by new streaming rules.

36- "Be Careful" - Cardi B (+12) -- Cardi gets another boost, but with how strong "I Like It" is still performing, I don't think this song will have a serious shot to get too much higher in the immediate future.

37- "Simple" - Florida Georgia Line (+17) -- Florida Georgia Line has always been hit and miss for me, but this is in the hit side of things as I think this is a lot of fun as they go for a poppy, folkly feel to it.

39- "This is America" - Childish Gambino (+11) -- It was nice having Childish Gambino around, but as this was always more about the video rather than the song, it makes sense that this wasn't a long-term player.

40- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+26) -- I'm not madly in love with this song from 5SOS, but I'm also not upset at it. It's a decent song to have around and is a step in the right direction for this group. I haven't bothered to check out their new album yet, so I don't know what else they have up their sleeve.

41- "Mercy" - Brett Young (+23) -- Brett Young seems to have serious traction with this song. I'm not surprised because he's rightfully gotten a lot of attention due to his previous singles. This one isn't that great, but is benefiting from his prior success. Or maybe I'm just crazy by not being impressed. Either way, I wish I was happier for this.

42- "Sit Next to Me" - Foster the People (+17) -- I sometimes forget this song exists, but it is a decent song, even though not as good as "Pumped Up Kicks" from back of the day. I still like seeing Foster the People around, so I hope this song continues to rise.

43- "Te Bote" - Casper Magico, Nio Garcia, Darell, Nicky Jam, Ozuna & Bad Bunny (+18) -- I think the only reason this song is around is how many people got shoved into it. I can only hope its life on the charts isn't much longer.

46- "Big Bank" - YG featuring 2 Chainz, Big Sean & Nicki Minaj (+21) -- Out of all the hip-hop songs to have a great week, I'm upset that this is one of them. But given the names on this song, I'm not surprised to see it rise. People love 2 Chainz, Big Sean and Nicki Minaj for some odd reason.

47- "Changes" - XXXTENTACION (+8) -- Another song from X that I don't expect to see around for much longer. It's just here because the floor disappeared from Under Drake's feet this week.

48- "Bed" - Nicki Minaj featuring Ariana Grande (+33) -- I suppose I'll take this over any other Nicki song. I mean, if "Rich Sex" were here instead of "Bed," I'd be throwing a fit. As is, this is more of whatever for me. Still not great seeing it around, though.

49- "One Number Away" - Luke Combs (+16) -- This is better than "Beautiful Crazy" and "Must've Never Met You" for Luke Combs, but I'm still not going to be too high for Luke.

50- "I was Jack (You were Diane)" - Jake Owen (+19) -- I'd much rather celebrate the success of this country song hitting the top 50. A good spin on a classic hit.

52- "Drowns the Whiskey" - Jason Aldean featuring Miranda Lambert (+18) -- It's because Miranda Lambert is featured on this song, right? Do people listening to this song realize that Jason Aldean shafted her by relegating her to backing vocals? And in the process, wrote another lazy, boring country song to go with it?

61- "Life Changes" - Thomas Rhett (+14) -- I'm not upset at Thomas Rhett having success with this song. It's a pretty decent effort from him, which is more than I'm usually able to say when he comes out with a new song.

86- "Growing Pains" - Alessia Cara (+13) -- It took a long time typing up all these songs in this section. I'm glad things slowed down a bit and I didn't have to type up the whole Hot 100 this week. But out of all the songs to get a good boost on the bottom half of the Hot 100, I'm glad this was one of them because I would love to see Alessia continue her success with this song. Our female pop singers deserve to have more spotlight.


New Arrivals:





53- "WIFI LIT" - Future -- I guess Future was feeling jealous that Drake was having all this success, so he decided to release an album of his own right after. Or mixtape, rather. Technically this is his 18th mixtape as he's only done six studio albums. It's all the same thing, though. Just a collection of awful Future songs. So whatever you want to call it, it's titled "BEASTMODE 2," a sequel to his 2015 mixtape "Beast Mode." In my opinion, he should've waited a bit and he could've optimized his success instead of having this lost in the shadow of Drake. But Future doesn't care about that type of stuff or else he wouldn't have released two albums within a week of each other last year. The winner of all of this poor marketing is me because I only have to cover four of these songs instead of all nine. My biggest problem with Future has always been his style of mumble rap that he popularized. If you love rap, then that's fine. But mumble rap is not something I've ever been able to comprehend the appeal of. Why listen to music that's incoherent mumbling? It doesn't make sense. This song falls mostly into that. I can understand it, but barely. Just autotuned mumbling with a flute sound in the background this time around. The lyrics you can understand are just him bragging about how rich he is, specifically talking about the WiFi he keeps lit while flying his private jet 20,000 feet above ground. I mean, who cares about this?

60- "Jumpsuit" - twenty one pilots -- Before we get to the rest of Future and the other uninteresting stuff from this week, we have the one song I was excited about. The return of twenty one pilots following their huge breakthrough fourth studio album "Blurryface" in 2015 that gave us hits such as "Stressed Out" and "Ride." They then got a third huge hit in 2016 with "Heathens" from the "Suicide Squad" soundtrack. Their fifth studio album "Trench" will be released in October and "Jumpsuit" is the lead-off single to that album. And yeah, this song rocks. There's moments in this song where I feel like flying like the golden eagle on the album art with how smooth and restrained the song is at times. It just soars high at those moments. But then the heaviness of the song is unleashed and it's like the eagle in the air taking a huge dive before stopping and gliding again. The construction of the song is just so awesome and the lyrics are very subtle, yet strong as he talks about how he hates the pressures of a new place and often crumbles under their weight, suggesting a fairly unstable emotional state or possibly lead singer Tyler Joseph using his music to deal with life and vent about various struggles he's going through without shoving them down the listeners throats. The song is topped off by the last 30 seconds where Tyler Joseph shows off his vocal prowess with a hint of well balanced screaming while the instrumentals leave the listener on a very heavy note as well. Thus the song ends leaving you with quite the rush of adrenaline that makes you want to go listen on repeat. I wish more songs like this would chart. Perhaps if this song finds success, it can open more doors.

65- "31 DAYS" - Future -- The second song from Future's mixtape. And this one is way more incoherent than the first one. With "WIFI LIT," at least I can understand what he's saying in his mumbling. In "31 DAYS," not only is he using his typical brand of autotuned mumbling, but he's mumbling extremely fast, so the song is literally just noise, backed up by the most basic production you can get in long, blocky verses. Looking at the lyrics is almost useless because it's all nonsensical. But I looked at them anyways and I still can't understand this song. Something about being with a girl for 31 days and a whole bunch of other random crap. I'm beginning to think he started recording this mixtape the second Drake dropped his album and got it out a few days later.

71- "CUDDLE MY WRIST" - Future -- Cuddle my wrist? What the heck, Future? Why not tell the girl to cuddle with all of you and not just your wrist? Oh. Because you have a lot of jewelry on and you want to brag about it. Makes sense. But it still causes me to roll my eyes. I'll give kudos to this song for having a chorus and verses, thus maintaining some semblance of structure. But said chorus is just him repeating the title of the song and that's the only part of the song I can understand. The rest is just incoherent mumbles. The lyrics of said incoherent verses are just about of name brands and other bragging about wealth. Have I ever told you that's the most boring subject to rap about?

73- "Millidelphia" - Meek Mill featuring Swizz Beatz -- I wondered when Meek Mill would show up on the charts. Granted, he had plenty of songs charting last year, none of which I cared for, but I knew that more was coming from him following his release from in April. I remember that date specifically because it was breaking news on SportsCenter that Meek Mill was being released from prison and immediately flown to the Philadelphia 76ers playoff game that night. Why ESPN ever cared about this is beyond me as it had little to do with sports. It just made me facepalm at the coverage. But yeah, Meek Mill has had a lot of legal issues following a 2008 arrest where he was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and assault a police officer when he was 18. Then he's had all sorts of issues with breaking his parole that has had him in and out of prison since. He got arrested again last year after allegedly assaulting two pedestrians in an airport. Yet at the same time, he's been trying to fight the criminal justice system because he claims unfair treatment from some of the officers and judges handling his case, which is why he got out of prison momentarily despite a sentence of two to four years being handed out this past November. He's out pending the outcome of the appeal. All of this I don't really care for as I have a hard time feeling bad for a thug who can't stay out of prison because he doesn't know how to behave himself.

Yet despite me not caring, I bring all that up for the sake of context behind this song because understanding all of that will help one understand the references here because that's what he's driving home here. Meek is back and he's lashing out against the unfair justice system and all of the people who would rather see him locked up. Again, I don't really care for all the drama behind this. If he violated his parole for the upteenth time and is guilty of assault, then throw the man in prison until he has learned his lesson. That said, the song itself is really intense. It has a dark, heavy production and Meek actually brings an intensity to his lyrics and delivery that are highlighted quite well with the chanting throughout this song. Anyone who is a fan of Meek is going to love this song and I certainly don't blame. It is possible that Meek also has decent timing here because after listening to a bunch of lazy autotuned mumbling from Future, it's a bit refreshing hearing a a rapper with decent rapping skills and excellent delivery. The genre is still not my cup of tea and I'm not really on Meek's side with the legal stuff, but this song I can respect. There's a whole lot worse on the charts this week.

76- "RACKS BLUE" - Future -- Thank heavens that this is the final Future song this week. Of the four, this is the best one, although that's not a very high bar to jump over. This is the best of the four mainly because it's the most coherent and has a nice little piano melody in the background. And it's the one song that seems like he's trying to say something about his life rather than mumbling about how rich he is. Although I don't think his thoughts he's trying to say are fully realized and there's still plenty of flexing in the song about his riches, so it's not a complete pass by any means. It just happens to be a hair better than the other three piles of trash that charted this week.

79- "Dangerous" - Meek Mill featuring Jeremih & PnB Rock -- Meek surprised me with his intensity and passion in "Millidelphia," but the big question here is can he bring that same intensity to a second song or does he have only one powerful anthem in him? Unfortunately it's more along the lines of the second option there because this song is a lot less interesting musically. It does provide a good balance to "Millidelphia" as it's softer and more melodic, but there's just not much passion here from Meek himself as he's just talking about him being with a girl. Meek's first verse has him talking about how dangerous the girl is in this new relationship while is second verse is more self-centered on what he brings to the table. Granted, it's still much better than anything Future brought to the table this week, but I'm not that into it. The best part of the song, though, is actually not Meek Mill. It's Jeremih and PnB Rock as they as combine for a very smooth, melodic intro that also balances quite well on the choruses. I'd almost rather take Meek completely out of the song and listen to a version of this with just the two of them. That might be pretty good.

83- "Drug Addicts" - Lil Pump -- Ladies and gentlemen, we've just hit the lowest of lows when it comes to the music industry. Granted, rappers rap about drugs all the time. Also, musically speaking, this isn't as annoying as Lil Pump's own "Gucci Gang" or as awful as pretty much anything 6ix9ine has released, but 17-year-old Lil Pump has now released a song explicitly about how him and everyone in his gang are all drug addicts and he spends the whole time rapping about how amazing it is do drugs, how long he's been doing drugs and how he doesn't care what anyone says about it. And that, kids, is the exact type of mindset that will cause you to drop dead of a drug overdose before you turn 30. I don't know what this is a response to or why he chose to explicitly release a song about how awesome it is to do drugs, but for the sake of his family and friends closest to him, I really hope this isn't his mindset in real life. If it is, I hope he changes his life around. And more importantly, I hope all of the punk teenagers listening to this aren't influenced by him to develop the mindset that drugs are cool. That's what scares me the most and that's why this song is absolutely despicable.

88- "Jackie Chan" - Tiesto & Dzeko featuring Preme & Post Malone -- I was wondering when this song was going to show up. This debuted on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart back in early June and has been dominating there ever since. Currently it's at No. 4 on that list. Now the reason why I was wondering when it was going to show up was not because of Tiesto and Dzeko themselves, but because of the Post Malone feature and the world is in love with Post Malone right now for some reason. In actuality, this song is a remix. The original was released earlier this year and is a Preme song featuring Post Malone. And it's a really horrible song that I'm glad didn't chart on its own. What Tiesto and Dzeko did was take the vocals from that song and insert them into their own production. Yeah, that means the dumb lyrics and lazy delivery from our two vocalists are the exact same. Post Malone talks about meeting a girl who isn't ready for a relationship, so he orders sushi from Japan and now she's ready to kick it like Jackie Chan. Well, I don't know if Post Malone knows this, but Jackie Chan is actually Chinese, not Japanese, which is why these lyrics are stupid. And Preme isn't much better as he's just lazily talking about wanting to get with the girl. But what takes this from awful to tolerable is the production from Tiesto and Dzeko whose dance beats in the song are off the charts and super fun. I just wish they would've picked a different song to remix so that I could be happier that they're around on the Hot 100.

96- "Kream" - Iggy Azalea featuring Tyga -- Remember when Iggy Azalea was actually a thing? It seems like so long ago. And it is surprising how she became so huge with songs like "Fancy" and "Black Widow" while featuring on Ariana Grande's "Problem," all top five hits in 2014 with "Fancy" going No. 1, but then completely disappearing off the face of the Earth. It's not that she hasn't tried. It's just that every time she tries to release a new song or feature on someone else's song, no one seems to care. Poor Iggy. Truth be told, I'd prefer her over Nicki and Cardi, although that's not really saying much. And with this latest attempted comeback, she's certainly not helping herself out as this sounds like an embarrassingly awful Nicki Minaj ripoff song. And I don't even like Nicki. She's as raunchy as Nicki while singing about sex and money like Nicki does, but has no personality at all and just sounds desperate. I mean, you listen to this and "Fancy" back to back and suddenly "Fancy" sounds like a classic in comparison. If this new direction is what Iggy is attempting with a comeback, maybe we should just continue to ignore her or send her back to Australia until she figures out how to do this thing called music.

Thursday, July 12, 2018

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - July 14, 2018

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:




1- "Nice for What" - Drake (+5) -- It's the Drakeboard Hot 100 this week as Drake's new album "Scorpion" impacted the charts with insane streaming numbers that resulted in the whole 25-track album appearing in the top 60. Given that "Nice for What," "God's Plan" and "I'm Upset" had already debuted, that means 22 new songs to talk about in my new arrivals section. As pertaining to the top 10, it's no surprise that the previously released singles got a huge boost. It also came at no surprise that four new songs debuted in the top 10, meaning that Drake has a total of seven songs in the top 10, which is an all-time record previously held by The Beatles in 1964 with five. However, The Beatles still stand supreme with their domination because they got five songs in the top 10 long before streaming was ever a thing, so it's an apples and oranges comparison here. The Beatles also remain supreme because their five songs monopolized the entire top five, whereas Drake only has three songs in the top five and four songs in the bottom half of the top 10. So regardless of what report you hear about Drake topping The Beatles' record this week, don't be too impressed because what The Beatles accomplished in 1964 is still way more significant.

Regarding "Nice for What," it now celebrates an eighth total week at top on its fourth different trip, making for quite the unique journey as no other song has had four separate trips to the No. 1 spot. I mentioned a few weeks ago that this could happen, but last week I actually thought it was going to be "Nonstop" as that song's streaming numbers were the best from "Scorpion," meaning that this was slightly surprising to me, but "Nice for What" gets the top spot because it actually has radio and sales and not just a whole bunch of streaming, so it makes sense in hindsight.

2- "Nonstop" - Drake (new) -- As I just said, I thought that "Nonstop" was going to debut at No. 1 this week, but it instead has to settle for No. 2. I'll get to my thoughts on the song, along with the whole album, down below, but I'm honestly confused as to why this is the song from "Scorpion" getting the most streaming because it's not the best song from the album by a long shot. It's not awful, but it's not what you would expect from a No. 1 hit, or a top 10 song for that matter, so I'm glad it didn't debut at No. 1.

3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (-2) -- After hitting No. 1 last week, Cardi B gets bullied by Drake down to No. 3. But I fully expect Cardi to be back at No. 1 next week. Despite the two-spot fall, it rose in all three metrics. That consistency across the board will do wonders for it moving forward, despite my personal reservations. It's biggest competition was "Lucid Dreams," but that song tanked this week and I think it's due to Billboard making an adjustment on streaming this week by giving more weight to paid streaming over free streaming. Thus hip-hop in general took a big hit this week. Although we'll have to wait a week or two to see what the real impact of that is and what was simply Drake's album bomb destroying the hip-hop momentum momentarily.

4- "God's Plan" - Drake (+5) -- I'm also not surprised to see "God's Plan" take a big jump this week to No. 4. But given that it was No. 9 last week and on the brink of falling out of the top 10, I imagine that next week it will be gone from the top 10 as the charts adjust back to normal following the Drake album bomb. There is a chance that it sticks around, though, if there is still some residual streaming left over from this week.

5- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-1) -- On the surface you can look at this and celebrate that this song fell a spot. But if you look between the lines you'll notice that this is actually the second highest non-Drake song, meaning that this could soar up to No. 2 next week, which has me completely baffled because this song is completely useless on its own, no better than a below average album filler on an already dumb album, but is made worse by Cardi B's verse which doesn't connect at all with the rest of the song. But for some reason it's turning into a 2018 sensation. Someone save us.

6- "In My Feelings" - Drake (new) -- This is an acceptable addition from Drake. I'll dive into a bit more detail down below, but I'm fine with this being here. I don't know why he didn't list City Girls and Lil Wayne as featured credits because they're now snubbed out of top 10 entry on their resumes.

7- "I'm Upset" - Drake (+19) -- Yes, I'm going to say this again, but I can't help myself. I'm upset that this song is here. But I don't think it'll be here next week.

8- "Emotionless" - Drake (new) -- Mariah Carey also got snubbed out of a top 10 entry as the only reason why this song is somewhat acceptable is the Mariah Carey sample that plays throughout the song. It's her song "Emotions" that is used. Drake essentially pressed play in the studio, then talked over it as he explained why he kept his child a secret from the world. It's a fine message, but there's not much of a song here.

9- "Don't Matter to Me" - Drake featuring Michael Jackson (new) -- This is the most intriguing entry of all the new Drake arrivals as Drake now gives Michael Jackson his 30th top 10 entry of his career. Drake, on the other hand, soars up to 31 top 10 entries with all of his new entries this week. That gives him the most top 10 entries out of any male solo artist in history and ties him with Rihanna for third most all time as the two of them are behind only Madonna (38) and The Beatles (34). In this process, Drake passed Michael Jackson (30), Mariah Carey (28), Stevie Wonder (28), Janet Jackson (27) and Elton John (27). Having Drake pass all of them feels blasphemous, but whatever. None of them had the power of streaming to help them or were in the peaks of their careers when this album bomb trend became a thing, so I'm not as impressed with all these records Drake is setting. On that note, Drake now ups his total number of Hot 100 entries to 186, which is second only to Glee Cast with all of their annoying covers when that show was a thing. Give Drake a year or two and he'll pass their total of 207. That's what, one more album bomb? As far as this actual song, I have a lot to say about it down below. Short version is I'm split. I love Michael's part, but not Drake's.

10- "SAD!" - XXXTENTACION (-8) -- The strangest thing has happened to me with this song this past week. It's been stuck in my head and I can't get it out. I still don't think it's that great of a song, though, mostly because it feels incomplete. But I'm also still fine with it being here given the situation with X's murder.


Without Drake's Songs on the Hot 100:



Just for fun, I thought I'd share what the top 10 would look like this week if we completely removed all 27 Drake songs from the Hot 100. In the parentheses is their current position this week. Now it's not a guarantee that all of Drake's seven songs disappear from the top 10. I mean, his album last year disappeared from the charts pretty quickly after the album bomb, but this year could go either way. But it will be interesting to see how closely next week's top 10 resembles this list right here.

1- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (3)
2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 ft. Cardi B (5)
3- "SAD!" - XXXTENTACION (10)
4- "Boo'd Up" - Ella Mai (11)
5- "Psycho" - Post Malone ft. Ty Dolla $ign (12)
6- "No Tears Left to Cry" - Ariana Grande (15)
7- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (16)
8- "The Middle" - Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey (19)
9- "Meant to Be" - Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line (22) 
10- "Delicate" - Taylor Swift (23)


Rising on the Hot 100:





75- "Life Changes" - Thomas Rhett (+17) -- It's not surprising that we don't have much of a rising songs section this week with 22 new Drake entries. Next week will be quite interesting to see what recovers as I fully expect a very long list of rising songs to discuss next week. There's only two songs that survived Drake's onslaught this week and they're both country songs that shot up super high. It makes me wonder how high both of them would've jumped without Drake. Normally I'm upset about a Thomas Rhett song doing well, but this one I'm fine with. Not overly ecstatic, but this is more tolerable than most of his stuff.

79- "Take Back Home Girl" - Chris Lane featuring Tori Kelly (+19) -- This is also another country song that I don't mind. It's fairly harmless. I just wish Chris Lane would've given Tori Kelly more to do rather than just use her for background vocals because she's a treasure and I want more of her on the charts. This could've been another "Meant to Be" situation, but instead it's just a simple, harmless country song with hints of Tori Kelly scattered in the background. 


New Arrivals:





2- "Nonstop" - Drake -- We have 22 new songs to cover from Drake as his entire "Scorpion" album is all on the charts this week. The album is 25 songs total with "God's Plan," "Nice for What" and "I'm Upset" having debuted earlier this year. Given that 22 new debuts is a ton to cover, I'm going to be as brief as possible with these songs so that I'm not typing this up all week. I still enjoy "God's Plan" and "Nice for What," so I'm hoping to find a few more decent songs, but with Drake it's always been quantity over quality, so I'm not crossing my fingers here. And we're not off to a good start here as "Nonstop" is really boring. There's two long Drake verses where he's lazily bragging about how cool he is. He mentions that he's a hard hitter in part of that, which is funny because this song doesn't hit hard at all. It's very soft. There's a chorus in between the two verses that almost gives this song life, but there's not enough here to make it interesting. It just sounds like he spent five minutes putting this song together. Thus I'm not sure why this is the song that got the most streaming from his album this week.

6- "In My Feelings" - Drake -- I'm not sure why this song isn't listed as Drake featuring City Girls and Lil Wayne. City Girls is a new rap duo from Miami and I'm sure those two girls would've appreciated credit for a top 10 hit. And adding a Lil Wayne feature may have given more attention to this song. But it is what it is. This song has a catchy chorus from Drake where he's talking to several different girls, asking if they still love him and it's balanced by City Girls and Lil Wayne giving more variety to the song with various samples included. There's still not much depth to the song, but it's catchy enough with a variety of different sounds to make it acceptable.

8- "Emotionless" - Drake -- This Drake song samples Mariah Carey's "Emotions." And that's the only reason the song is interesting. Because that's a really good song with some strong vocals from Mariah. But the reason why this song is bad is that it feels lazy. All Drake does is talk to us while Mariah is singing in the background. He's not even really singing or rapping and there's very little background music of his own that he adds. It sounds like he stepped into the studio, pressed play on Mariah's song, then talked to the world about why kept news of his child secret, which is a controversy that Pusha T created by calling Drake out for hiding his kid. So now Drake is out to explain his reasoning, which makes perfect sense to me. He wanted to keep a low profile with his child because of the state of the world right now. So I can comment on the controversy, but I'm here to talk about a song and there's not much of a song here. I'm not going to give Drake credit for creating a good song when all he did was press play on a Mariah song and almost nothing else.

9- "Don't Matter to Me" - Drake featuring Michael Jackson -- This is the song that immediately caught my attention when I saw Drake's new album. Michael Jackson featured on a Drake song? What strings did Drake pull to make this happen? What Michael Jackson song was he sampling and how does it fit in with Drake's vocals and lyrics? If Michael Jackson were still alive today, would he have any interest in joining Drake on a song? I suppose we'll never know the answer to that last question, but the Michael Jackson song used is a previously unreleased track that he recorded with Paul Anka back in the day, but it was ultimately shelved. I'm not sure how Drake got his hands on it or who from the Michael Jackson party allowed this to happen, but I've listened to this several times in a row now and I'm unsure what to think of it. It's more mellow and relaxed than other Drake songs and it seems like Drake put more effort into the vocals in an attempt to match Michael's style, but he didn't do much with his lyrics in the verses that he wrote around the Michael Jackson chorus. Said chorus is phenomenal because Michael is the best, but I leave the song feeling a bit empty because Drake doesn't do enough to compliment Michael. I come away wishing that there were a Michael Jackson only version of this song where there's some actual substance in the verses from Michael or Paul Anka rather than just Drake complaining about a former relationship in mediocre-Drake fashion. But then we have the question that maybe this song was shelved for a reason. Perhaps Michael didn't feel good enough about it to release it on an album. But I don't know. It's certainly not the worst song on the album and if the song did extremely well, it would kinda be cool to see Michael in the limelight again in 2018 for old-time sake with a new song.

13- "Mob Ties" - Drake -- With the Michael Jackson track out of the way and the rest of these songs being below the top 10, I might spend even less time on the rest of these songs unless I find a song that catches my attention. Which is certainly not this song. Drake is saying he's sick of all these people, either his haters or his competition. I'm not sure which because he doesn't elaborate too much. That and he spends the song mimicking Migos' sound effects and echoes, so I tuned out fairly quickly. I'm not sure why Drake thinks he needs to copy Migos to fit in when he's doing much better than they are and most rappers are trying to copy Drake these days. All it does is make for an extremely annoying song with no substance as he doesn't care to elaborate.

14- "Elevate" - Drake -- This song is co-written by PARTYNEXTDOOR and has some echoes courtesy of French Montana. In case you were curious. The song has a bit of a haunting undertone to it, so if Drake had anything interesting to say here, this could've made for a good song, but he's just reminiscing about how he became so famous and tells us that he's been super busy in the studio thinking about all the money he's going to be making by releasing so much music. Yup, that's Drake for you. Release as many songs as humanly possible in order to make all the money possible. Don't worry about the lyrics because no one cares about those anyways. That's the Drake mindset. He also says he's thankful that God has been working stronger than Satan in all of this as if it's all God's will in helping Drake become so famous. If Drake having a hugely successful rap career was all a part of God's big plan, don't you think God would've helped Drake come up with lyrics and music that actually meant something?

17- "Survival" - Drake -- Here's the opening track on Drake's. And if I had listened to the album in order, I would've immediately rolled my eyes and dreaded the whole project because Drake starts us off my reminded the world how cool he is and that Drake's Mount Rushmore would be himself four times with different expressions and more of how he's on top of the world. Oh, but he can't get too far into it on this song because this is just the intro. And again he reminds us that it was God's plan to make Drake better and more popular than all the other rappers. If you couldn't tell, I'm calling blasphemy on all of that. I don't know why Drake is so popular, but it wasn't God's working. Oh yeah, this song is also just one long verse.

18- "Can't Take a Joke" - Drake -- Drake is trying to laugh with his bros, but they can't take a joke. Whatever that means. Maybe it's him trying to lightly toss aside all his haters and the diss tracks aimed at him. They're all taking things super seriously but he's just laughing it all off because they don't matter. Despite all the hate he gets, he's on top of the world. Which is unfortunately true. At least this song has a bit of a structure to it with two verses and the chorus repeated twice instead of just a boring structure with him rambling on about nothing. That's the best compliment I can think of though. This is not horrible, but it's just a boring song with little substance.

20- "Talk Up" - Drake featuring JAY-Z -- This is the other song from the album that I was slightly curious about when I saw the track listing. Is it possible that Drake could collaborate with JAY-Z and come up with something interesting? Uh, nope. Not this time around, anyways. I will say that the production is darker on this song, so if we had a rapper who knew how to be dark, this could've been ominous. But Drake doesn't do dark. He just does boring. Thus I was listening to the music behind the song and thinking it kinda works, but then I was listening to Drake rap and I was bored because Drake is boring. JAY-Z comes in and does the second half and his voice fits the ominous tone much better than Drake's voice does, but I guess when you collaborate with Drake, sometimes Drake's boringness robs off on you because JAY-Z came up with absolutely nothing in terms of content. Just more bragging about how on top of the game he is. Because we were all dying to hear that for the 1,000th time.

21- "8 out of 10" - Drake -- That's a score that I'm not giving this album. Or this song. That's way too high. That's also one number off when it comes to how much of the top 10 he controlled this week. It was 7 out of 10, not 8 out of 10. Silly Drake. But no, this song is actually saying that he could've come into this with his intensity level at a 10 and completely destroy this Pusha T and Kanye West feud with an out of this world diss track, but he intentionally dialed it back. In which case, 8 out of 10 is still way too high as this is closer to a 1 out of 10. I don't follow these stupid music feuds between artists, so I don't care about this. Drake is also stating that, despite all the hate he gets, everyone still is listening to his tracks, which I would somehow love it if that would stop because someone this boring shouldn't be this popular.

27- "Sandra's Rose" - Drake -- For better or for worse, this song made me laugh. Instead of a bunch of boring nonsense, Drake comes up with a whole bunch of cheesy lines that he shoves together in one song. I don't even want to start listing any of them because there's too much. Almost every line is something absurd and ridiculous. The main theme is that he's Sandra's rose. Who is Sandra? His mom. He's his mom's rose. That's adorable. And it's nice that he loves his mother and is proud that he helped pull her out of poverty. But that's just a small part of the song. The rest of the song is just so hilariously ridiculous that I forget the bit of him talking about his mother.

28- "Summer Games" - Drake -- This song surprised me. Drake is quality over quantity and, as you can see, thus far it's not been so good overall. But this one might be the best one overall thus far. Drake actually doesn't do much rapping in this song. He sounds more like The Weeknd with a melodic pop-sounding voice that fits him much better than his dull rap voice. The song itself has a simple electronic beat to it that captured my attention right away. I expected to be bored when Drake himself came in, but his voice fits the tone of the song well and they combine for a mellow, relaxing groove with a touch of sadness as he discusses a relationship that fell through. No, there's not a lot of depth to it and the themes are quite similar to the Michael Jackson song, but him matching his voice with the tone of the song makes this one work. We've actually had a few songs thus far from the second half of the album, which is where this is from, and those are the ones I've given a pass to while most everything that has been crap has been the first part of the album. Am I discovering a theme here?

30- "Blue Tint" - Drake -- So much for this theory that the second half of the album would be better. If he's trying to tell some sort of weak story in this album, in our previous song he talked about not being with this girl again and in "Blue Tint" he says he's back with her. Or stuck with her as he says later, unsure how stable she's going to be. In other words, any problem in whatever relationship is going on is all her fault. Future jumps on in a few spots on this track to mumble and make noises at us that he claims is music and the rest of the song is paper thin and dull. He does manage to get in a random jab in at our current president, even though that has nothing to do with the song while making sure to again remind us that he's on top of the rap game.

32- "Jaded" - Drake -- We're back to the broken-hearted part of the album where Drake is complaining about a former relationship before they get back together again in "Blue Tint." With this song Drake is going for a slow and smooth R&B feel, but it's just slow and anything but smooth. The music is very minimalistic, but to a fault, making this a very boring song about Drake blaming this girl for doing everything wrong while making me personally think Drake was actually the one at fault, but just doesn't want to admit it because he's too prideful to take any blame.

36- "Is There More" - Drake -- I wish there wasn't more. But yeah, we still have to deal with more songs. This is the final song on the first half of the album, thus it's fitting that it's called "Is There More," because there is. But holy fetch is this song trash. There's some strange noises going on in the background while he drones in a very blocky, monotone way that doesn't sound like singing or rapping. He's just talking as if this was a song he recorded at the end of a very long day and he just didn't care about doing anything with it. I don't even really no what it is he's rambling on about here because there's no focus here with anything he's saying.

37- "That's How You Feel" - Drake -- We're back to the second half of the album after taking a minor detour to the final song of the first half. And we're back to talking about this girl that Drake may or may not want to be with. I'm not even sure where this fits in our chronology of him complaining because it sounds like this is at a point where they're together, but Drake feels like she's not feeling the same about this relationship as he does. That's all there is to the song outside some random samples of a live Nicki Minaj performance that feels out of place. This is another song where Drake leans more R&B and he pulls it off better than in "Jaded" and the song has more rhythm and flow than in "Is There More," but there's still not much to this song.

38- "Peak" - Drake -- This is the first song from the second half of the album. If I was listening to this album in order, then this would be a much needed shift from "Is There More" as Drake transitions to a more R&B and pop feel in this second half. More rambling about relationship issues as that appears to be the whole second half of the album. In this edition of that complaining, he's throwing in a whole bunch of British references, including a "Rest in Heaven, Diana" line right from the beginning. I'm not sure how that all fits in unless the girl he's talking about is from the UK. Musically the song tries to do something interesting partway through, but doesn't quite get there and thus we are left with another off-kilter R&B song that tries to be smooth, but ends up more boring with an unbalanced flow and more lyrics that are simply dull.

41- "After Dark" - Drake featuring Static Major & Ty Dolla $ign -- I honestly thought this song would be much higher up than No. 41 given that Drake actually gives featured credit to his featured artists in this song, one of them being Static Major. If you're drawing a blank on Static Major, he died in 2008 after a medical malpractice in a hospital visit before he was able to release his debut album. He's most well known for his featured credit on Lil Wayne's "Lollipop," which was released two weeks after his death. And now he shows up again on this Drake song, making this the second posthumous feature that Drake has included here, following the Michael Jackson song that debuted at No. 9. I'm not sure where Drake takes the Static Major sample from, but it's mainly just a ploy to get attention, in my opinion, as he essentially found a brief clip of Static singing the phrase "after dark" that's repeated throughout the song. This is also Drake rambling on about this broken relationship, which makes it boring after hearing the same lyrics in every song. The difference is we get a more desperate tone from Drake as he's begging the girl to come back to him so that he can prove himself. Another difference is that the smooth R&B feel actually works this time around as opposed to Drake missing the mark on several other R&B attempts in the second half of this album. So this is nothing to write home about, but it's passable.

A humorous element about this song is that at the end he includes a montage from a radio station in Canada, making it seem like one of those songs riffed from the radio back in the day. Part of this bit from the radio station has the dude give out the number to call in, which made thousands of people call into this station after the album was released out of pure curiosity to see if it's real or fake. And it's real. 93.7 WBLK in Toronto. The number is 716-644-9393 if you feel like giving them a call. The radio station responded to Drake very appreciative of the huge spike in attention.

42- "Finesse" - Drake -- I don't like Bruno Mars' song "Finesse," but it's much better than this song. I don't know if that's a surprise or not. It feels like a broken record in saying what these lyrics are about. It's the same relationship roller coaster. Although this is Drake saying how much he is in love with this girl, so it appears to be before all the fiasco of breaking up and complaining, then getting back together and possibly breaking up again. Or whatever. I don't know if Drake really planned all of this out. He just probably wrote a whole bunch of romance songs for some reason. While "After Dark" that I just talked about hits the R&B rhythm quite well, this is another example of Drake completely botching it as this song is extremely boring.

51- "Ratchet Happy Birthday" - Drake -- If you ever play this song for me on my birthday, I just might thrown the whole cake at you because this is quite the cringe-worthy happy birthday song as Drake uses a happy birthday backdrop to say how much he loves this girl, like on "Finesse," but also subtly insulting her by mentioning how unemotional she is. Because that's a nice thing to sing to a girl on her birthday. And the chorus of happy birthday begins with "It's your brrrrrrrrrr..." in annoying Migos fashion.

56- "Final Fantasy" - Drake -- We're almost done with Drake. Just one more song after this and we're free until his next album bomb, which will probably happen next year. This here is by far the worst song on the album because Drake spends the whole song graphically describing all of his sexual fantasies with this girl. I don't know if it was supposed to sound sexy, but he describes this fantasy in a dull, monotone style, which makes this sound creepy as if he was a sexual predator planning on going after this girl. I know this isn't what Drake was going for, but he just misses the mark so hard with what he was aiming for that this is what it ends up sounding like. And what an insult to people who like the Final Fantasy games. Drake names his song after that, but it has nothing to do with the games and is instead a gross sexual fantasy song.

57- "March 14" - Drake -- Drake finishes the album with a song that's not really a song nor a rap. He's just kinda talking to us with some noises in the background that sound like drunk fairies while detailing the story of his child, which seems to be a main theme of this album. Pusha T called Drake out regarding this secret child and now Drake is opening about that and how he's a single dad  because he has a child, yet is not in a relationship with said child's mother. What's the significance of March 14? I don't know. He doesn't say. Thus your guess is as good as mine. I can appreciate his take on this whole controversy regarding his child. But this is not a song. It's one long verse of him talking to us. So I'm not giving him any credit with the lyrics.

Now that all 25 songs from "Scorpion" have been covered on this blog, 22 new songs this week plus his three lead-off singles, my final grade for the album is a D+, which is higher than the D I gave Drake's album "Views" last year and also higher than albums this year from Post Malone, Logic and Cardi B. That's because there are several good songs scattered throughout on the album, but it's all quantity over quality, so you have to sort through a whole bunch of messy, boring nonsense to find the few songs that are actually worth listening. That's Drake for you. Are you surprised?

63- "Karma" - Queen Naija -- We're done with Drake this week, but we're not done with new songs from the Hot 100. We have five more songs from artists not named Drake. And we start off with another song from Queen Naija? I didn't see this one coming. Her song "Medicine" was a very enjoyable angry track aimed at her ex-husband after the YouTube couple split. But being that she was a YouTube personality and not a professional singer, the song disappeared rather quickly. Until recently when it resurfaces on the Hot 100. And now we get a second single from her. Does this mean she's going to make the transition into a legit musician? Because I would like that. This girl has potential. Although eventually she's going to have to pick a new subject to sing about because this is another angry song aimed at her ex as she details a lot of the things that he did wrong in the relationship and warned him that what goes around, comes around. Her voice is still really good and she has some emotion packed into this song. But it does feel like she repeated a lot of what she already said in "Medicine," so I don't know how much more of these I will continue to give a pass to if she keeps on going with them, but for now I'm fine with it.

76- "Kiss Somebody" - Morgan Evans -- New country song from a new country singer. I feel this guy has a name similar to a hundred other country singers, which is why I thought I new him, but nope. This is new. Apparently he had a debut album back in 2014 that like two people listened to and now this is a song released in July 2017 for his upcoming second album. I casually read over that and assumed that said release date of the song was this month. But no, we're in 2018, which means this song is a year old. I'm not sure why it's just now entering the Hot 100 or where that second album is, but I don't really care enough to figure out because this is another bland, generic country song from a guy who sounds just as bland as every other boring country singer in the business right now. However, as I was listening more to this song, I started to feel like this was a bit conniving. He's talking about drowning your sorrows after losing someone by drinking, which is nothing new, but then he started saying that if drinking doesn't work out, then go kiss somebody, thus planting the thought into this person's head, after which he suggests she come and start kissing him. In other words, he's trying to take advantage of a girl who is lost in her sorrows by suggesting they start making out. That actually didn't sit super well with me as I thought about it.

86- "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" - Luke Bryan -- Perhaps Luke Bryan should learn to wear sunscreen. His whole summer with this girl is sunrise, sunburn, sunset, repeat. He says they lit July on fire, but it appears that July lit them on fire. Anyways, as opposed to Morgan Evans sounding like a creepy man you should avoid after he's attempting to take advantage of a brokenhearted girl, Luke Bryan is simply chronicling a simple summer with a girl. This is a harmless song with a bit of a catchy chorus. I could see country fans gravitating towards it. But there's not enough in the song to make me really care about it. Instead I find myself asking weird questions like where did Luke get money from that summer? Did he not have a job or anything else to do with his life rather than spending every waking moment in the sun? Not that those details matter, but sometimes overly simple songs don't work well for me.

93- "Hotel Key" - Old Dominion -- Hey look! We have an Old Dominion sighting! I haven't seen them since they bored me with "No Such Thing as a Broken Heart" and "Written in the Sand" last year. "Hotel Key" comes from the same album, so you know I was stoked for this. And you should also know that sometimes I use a lot of sarcasm, especially when it comes to country singers or groups that have not piqued my interest with their music. And yeah, "Hotel Key" doesn't work for me, either. Just Matthew Ramsey from Old Dominion singing about a one-night stand he had with a girl. The two of them didn't care about three little words unless those were "Do not disturb." In other words, they didn't care about love or about each other. They just wanted to have sex in a hotel room at night after spending the day leading up to that drinking and smoking. They wondered if anyone would miss them if they ran, but then it's stated this isn't a story that ends that way. And he doesn't really say how the story ended because that's the final verse of the song. He just repeats the chorus a few times after that. I guess the twist ended is that she kept the hotel key, inferring that they never saw each other after that. So yeah, boring story that I didn't need to hear from a boring country group singing a boring song with boring music around it.

99- "Growing Pains" - Alessia Cara -- We've finally made it to the end of this long week of new arrivals. We finish off with the one song I was excited about when I looked at this long list. Alessia Cara. I like her and so does pop radio, so hopefully she can provide a bit of life to the charts. This song here is fairly simple as she's talking about the growing pains that are keeping her up. It's the lead-off single to her new album coming soon and it feels more like an introduction to that album with more details to come in later songs. But I don't know, this is been such a an awful week with so much Drake and the three previous country songs not helping things, that this feels like a nice breath of fresh air. Finally there's a song that I can feel happy about. I think the beat in the song is subtle, but it also has a nice little groove to it with an excellent vocal performance from Alessia that matches the more painful tone of the song. So yeah, I enjoy this and it makes me excited for what Alessia has in store for us later this year.