Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Shape of You" - Ed Sheeeran (=) -- Ed Sheeran now joins an exclusive club in Billboard history as in the 58-year history of the Hot 100, "Shape of You" is only the 34th No. 1 hit out of the 1,061 total No. 1 hits to reign for 10 weeks. Although that mark dampens a bit when you learn that 32 of those 34 10-week hits have come in the last 25 years when the Nielsen SoundScan caused songs to stay on the charts for longer. It's also the 8th time it's happened since 2013, so it's expected once or twice a year and Ed gets the glory of doing it first this year. Still impressive. As far as our countdown for Ed to be dethroned, Bruno is gaining on Ed, but not super fast. Ed is way ahead on radio still and significantly ahead in streaming even though both songs are even in sales. An interesting spoiler watch for both of these songs is that of Kendrick Lamar, who debuted high this week and is looking to debut even higher next week as "Humble" is currently tracking to sell over 100,000 in sales, which should easily put it at No. 1 on that chart and I'm guessing it'll get super high on streaming as well.
2- "That's What I Like" - Bruno Mars (=) -- If we're looking at numbers, just for fun, this week Ed has 85,000 in sales, 173 million in radio audience and 46.2 million in U.S. streaming. Compare that to Bruno, who has 79,000 in sales, 119 million in radio audience and 30.1 million in U.S. streaming. So yeah, it's that radio audience that is the big glaring number that makes me think that Bruno is going to have a hard time catching Ed.
3- "Something Just Like This" - The Chainsmokers & Coldplay (+4) -- Streaking up to No. 3 is The Chainsmokers and Coldplay. This matches "Don't Let Me Down" for The Chainsmokers' second highest charting song and is Coldplay's second highest charting song as well as Coldplay has only gotten higher with their lone chart-topper in "Viva La Vida." But if I'm being honest here, this is a really weak No. 3 hit and is only here because the floor completely fell out with the songs ahead of it. I shared the numbers of the top two songs. How about the numbers here? 59,000 in sales, 59 million in radio audience and 18.3 million U.S. streams. Radio is rising pretty fast while the other two are essentially staying even. So yeah, don't think this is heading to No. 1 anytime soon. If it has more longevity than the two songs ahead of it and nothing else shows up, then perhaps eventually.
4- "I Feel it Coming" - The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk (+1) -- Similar story here as to our previous song. Although it's numbers are mainly just holding steady, but since our two other songs from the top five from last week collapsed, this naturally just rises a spot and now looks like it will hang out around No. 5 or so for a while, which I'm happy with. I've been expecting it to drop, so I'm glad it hasn't.
5- "iSpy" - KYLE featuring Lil Yachty (+7) -- Here's a surprise. "iSpy" hit No. 10 two weeks ago, then dropped out. I kinda thought it was done. But it got a huge streaming boost on a week where a lot of songs collapsed, so now KYLE gets his first ever top five while Lil Yachty gets his second after hanging out here with D.R.A.M. last year on Broccoli. If we have to have a dumb rap song in the top five at all times, I suppose this is a decent place holder. Better than "Bad and Boujee," that's for sure.
6- "Bad and Boujee" - Migos featuring Lil Uzi Vert (-2) -- Speaking of which, I'm glad to see that the floor fell out for this song and it got booted from the top five. Now let's see it leave the top 10 altogether!
7- "I Don't Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)" - Zayn & Taylor Swift (-4) -- Our other song from the top five last week that feel even harder this week. If this only has a few weeks left, it means that it'll finally be time to give you my list of top 100 songs of all-time as this is the last remaining 2016 holdover that I've been waiting on.
8- "Tunnel Vision" - Kodak Black (-2) -- With "Band and Boujee" and "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" taking huge hits, I expected this to sneak into the top five, but it looks like it fell hard as well, which I'm fine with. This is not the worst song, but had it stuck around for too long, it would've quickly worn out its welcome.
9- "Paris" - The Chainsmokers (+1) -- I said last week that, despite falling to No. 10 last week, that this song would still be around this week and might even gain a bit. Turns out I was right! Go me!
10- "Passionfruit" - Drake (-2) -- After Drake's monster week last week, he had a HUGE fallout this week, which was expected. A lot of his songs are still around, but they all took major hits, which will make our next section quite loaded. "Passionfruit" is the song that wasn't effected as much, which I suppose I'm fine with. No Drake is the best, but this was a tolerable song outside that completely horrendous opening. Although I wonder if Drake is actually going to spend any time promoting this. "One Dance" still never got an official music video last year and none of the songs from Drake's recent album even have the audio on YouTube, let alone a lyric video. If Drake doesn't care to promote his songs, I guess that's fine with me. But if I'm being objective, it would be smart of him to at least put something up. A music video might help him get another top five hit if he wants it.
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Rockabye" - Clean Bandit featuring Sean Paul & Anne-Marie (+2) -- The Drake invasion last week kicked a lot of songs down and out, thus we only had three rising songs on this list. With Drake collapsing this week, everything rose back up and we have 34 songs on this list that had significant rises. That's a lot. So let's quickly jump through these. We start with "Rockabye" getting close to a top 10 return? I would love that! It got there a few weeks ago because of the iTunes discount sale and if it now has enough traction to get back in, I'll be a happy man. This is a great song that needs to catch on even more than it already has.
12- "Body Like a Back Road" - Sam Hunt (+4) -- Why is Sam Hunt not falling?!?! Country songs NEVER get this high and they certainly never hit the top 10. Why is such an awful song changing that? What about Sam Hunt's music is appealing to so many people and helping it crossover to the non-country crowds? I don't understand.
13- "Chained to the Rhythm" - Katy Perry featuring Skip Marley (+6) -- The iTunes discount is in full force for Katy Perry right now and I thought that would be enough to get this song back into the top 10, but it fell short. That's unfortunate. I really like this song. It would be the wrong terminology to call this song a flop on the charts, but it's looking like a disappointing lead-off for Katy Perry. Thus continues the curious trend of many of our pop superstars from a few years ago no longer being able to find as much success in today's music world. I'm guessing streaming has a lot to do with that.
15- "It Ain't Me" - Kygo & Selena Gomez (+5) -- I really hope this can get top 10. I want Kygo to finally hit that mark!
17- "Stay" - Zedd & Alessia Cara (+4) -- I suppose I'm fine if this continues to rise, although I won't be disappointed if it gets stuck before hitting top 10.
18- "Mask Off" - Future (+6) -- No! Future needs to go away!
19- "Say You Won't Let Go" - James Arthur (+3) -- I don't feel like this is shaping up to be a top 10 hit. And if it does so, I think it will just barely sneak in. It seems more realistic for this to hang around here in the teens, which seems like a fitting landing spot.
24- "Location" - Khalid (+8) -- This song continues to impress me. Khalid has gone from no-name to now having a top 25 hit. How high is this song's ceiling? Will this land around in the teens or can this actually sneak into the top 10?
34- "Swang" - Rae Sremmurd (+7) -- No more Rae Sremmurd, please! Let's just hope this rose this week just because of the Drake fallout and won't go much higher.
36- "Rolex" - Ayo & Teo (+6) -- This, too. I really hope this gets stuck in the 30's.
37- "Million Reasons" - Lady Gaga (+9) -- Lady Gaga, on the other hand, I would love to see have more traction. But this goes back to what I was saying with Katy. Katy and Gaga don't have as much power today as they did five years ago.
38- "Dirt on My Boots" - Jon Pardi (+5) -- This is whatever. Not as bad as Sam Hunt, but not as high either.
42- "Look at Me!" - Xxxtentacion (+24) -- Dude. This punk was arrested in July of last year for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. He posted bail in October, then got arrested later in the month for false imprisonment, witness tampering and aggravated battery of a pregnant woman. He was released on bail just last week. I'm assuming a trail is coming up here soon. Meanwhile his absolutely horrendous song continues to rise on the charts while he's been sitting in jail? Why? I don't get it. Let's get rid of this song on the charts and send him to prison instead of giving him a successful career for doing awful things and writing awful songs. We have a messed up society.
44- "Despacito" - Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee (+8) -- I don't think this is going much higher. Latino songs typically have a lower ceiling than country, but I'm curious to see how far this can go.
45- "Slide" - Calvin Harris featuring Frank Ocean & Migos (+10) -- Let's send this rising up the charts! It's a collaboration that I thought I would hate, but I really kinda like!
46- "Water Under the Bridge" - Adele (+7) -- Alas, Adele only rises because of the Drake fallout. I know she doesn't really care to promote her songs because she is content with what she already has. And that's cool and all. But I was really hoping this song would have more success than it actually did. The world could use more Adele.
47- "Party" - Chris Brown featuring Usher & Gucci Mane (+9) -- Back up into the 40's? This song has been wandering around from 40 to 60 for the longest while. I'm glad it hasn't been able to break that and is only up this week because of Drake, but it would be nice if it officially died.
50- "Both" - Gucci Mane featuring Drake (+8) -- No! Just... no!
51- "In Case You Didn't Know" - Brett Young (+16) -- Can we just replace this song with Sam Hunt's song? I'm glad to see this jumped 16 spots. This is a good country song that I would be happy for it if it continued to gain success.
54- "Redbone" - Childish Gambino (+17) -- I'm also happy to see this gaining again. Although I'm wondering if this is the song's peak, but if it broke out and got top 50 that would be cool!
55- "Hurricane" - Luke Combs (+13) -- This is whatever. I'm not super offended at this song's rise, but this is just a bland country song.
57- "Heavy" - Linkin Park featuring Kiiara (+22) -- You think I would be happy for Linkin Park. But no, let's collectively get together and kill this song. Encourage Linking Park to go back and make the type of music that we all loved them for.
62- "Any Ol' Barstool" - Jason Aldean (+12) -- Another dumb country song. I'm not surprised to see it rise, though.
64- "Shining" - DJ Khaled featuring Beyonce & Jay Z (+22) -- No. Sorry Bey fans, but this Beyonce and Jay Z song that's masked as a DJ Khaled song because he sings a line or two is trash. It needs to die.
65- "Swalla" - Jason Derulo featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign (+33) -- I saw this one coming. And it's sadly probably going to continue to rise. I just hope it doesn't give Jason Derulo another top 10 hit.
67- "Play That Song" - Train (+10) -- The final jump for Train? I feel this song is about to sputter out and die, but gets one last jump after Drake's fallout.
69- "Road Less Traveled" - Lauren Alaina (+18) -- This is a surprise. I didn't think Lauren Alaina would be able to gain traction. And I suppose this is better than a lot of other country songs now. Again, I would prefer this over Sam Hunt, but I'm not madly in love with this, either.
70- "Deja Vu" - J. Cole (+10) -- I was hoping we'd be done with J. Cole by now. Let's put him out of his misery, please?
71- "Moves" - Big Sean (+12) -- Yuck. This needs to officially die.
72- "Hometown Girl" - Josh Turner (+20) -- This is only in the 70's, so I'm fine with it. Better this than others if it has to rise.
73- "Selfish" - Future featuring Rihanna (+12) -- I've been expecting this to get traction. Future featuring Rihanna sounds like a win in today's world, yet this sputtered out for a few weeks after its release. Out of all the recent Future songs, this is the one I'm least annoyed with, so it's whatever.
77- "Losin Control" - Russ (+14) -- No. 77 isn't anything to write home over, especially not a week after the Drake collapse, but I'd be fine if this song did well on the charts.
80- "Call on Me" - Starley (+10) -- I like this song as is, but did I mention that the remix that is super popular is really good?
81- "The Weekend" - Brantley Gilbert (+12) -- Another dumb country song. Let's just hope that this doesn't get much higher than No. 81.
New Arrivals:
22- "The Heart Part 4" - Kendrick Lamar -- Kendrick Lamar is a rapper that people have been hyping up for quite some time, hoping and praying that he can achieve mainstream success on his own instead of only finding success upon being attached to some pop song. I admit that I haven't dove too deeply into Kendrick, but after listening to this I can definitely see why. Most rap these days I can hardly get through a single song. Forcing myself to listen to all of Drake's album last week was practically torture. This song I voluntarily listened to twice in a row just before typing this. The song immediately grabbed me with a nice, little groove to start things off that remained in the background throughout. Then we had a decent hook that I liked and finally got to the meat of the song, which is where I was shocked and taken aback with how thoughtful, emotional and passionate the two verses are. Most rap these days is either boring and lifeless or full of sleaze and trash. But this here is really dang good. It packs an emotional punch and it his a ton of depth to the lyrics that I can tell had a lot of thought put into it. If all rap was like this, I would like the genre a lot more. Dare I compare this to... Eminem? That's what it reminded me of and I'm sure Kendrick fans would appreciate the comparison.
49- "XO TOUR Llif3" - Lil Uzi Vert -- After listening to Kendrick's song, I was nervous about going straight to this, especially with this extremely unintelligent title. How do I even pronounce that and what does that mean? And why in the heck is Lil Uzi Vert spelling life with two l's and a 3? Turns out this isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The production is fine and Lil Uzi starts out good, but my big problem here is that shortly into the song, Lil Uzi starts mumbling everything and if I weren't reading the lyrics, I'd have no idea what the heck he was saying. I don't like mumble rap. The content of the song isn't bad, but I also feel like there's something a lot better hidden somewhere in there that doesn't quite come across how Lil Uzi wants it to. Overall, not as bad as previous Lil Uzi efforts, but not that great either.
61- "Speak to a Girl" - Tim McGraw & Faith Hill -- I actually really like Faith Hill and I don't hate Tim McGraw, so I was curious about this collaboration. The message here is Tim and Faith are both instructing the audience how to treat a girl. She needs your respect and love. She needs you to be her friend. It's important to drop your pride and also realize it's not your money that she wants. I mean, these things are definitely important principles that are good to know if you don't already. It's important to know how to treat a woman or talk to a girl, but I don't necessarily feel a ton of passion or emotion here. And I don't know why there's two of them singing here. They aren't talking to each other or giving alternate points of view on this. They're just doing the Glee style of singing where multiple people take turns singing a song that really only needs one voice. I don't know if cheesy and cliche is the right term, but that's kinda where I'm going with this. There's other country songs with worse vocals and worse messages than this, but I just chalk this up to another boring country song.
66- "Still Got Time" - Zayn featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR -- Our former One Direction member has certainly taken his career to interesting places. I mean, kudos for doing something different, but that's all the kudos he's getting from me because the specific direction he's taken is an unpleasant one. Not that I liked One Direction, but Zayn went from below average boy band to hurt-my-ears awful. The song itself has a nice groove to it and you might think it's going to be something surprisingly good from Zayn, but then he starts singing and all that flies out the window. There's actually some debate about what some of the lyrics are, but I think that debate is funny because I don't think Zayn even knows what those lyrics are because he mumbles through most of the song. The jist of what he's trying to get across to this girl is that he's telling her that she should stop worrying so much about finding love and just enjoy life. He kinda mumbles his way through that chorus without adding any depth or passion to it, but then to make it worse our Drake wannabe, Mr. PARTYNEXTDOOR comes in and completely contradicts everything Zayn says as he is begging this girl to come be his girlfriend, so I don't even know what the point of this song is.
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