Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Shape of You" - Ed Sheeran (=) -- It's now been 11 weeks on top for Ed Sheeran. With every song that gets this many weeks, the question must be asked. Can this song tie or break the 16 week record set by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men in 1995 with "One Sweet Day"? Records were meant to be broken, so you have to think it's going to happen one day especially with how long songs are staying in the top 10 nowadays. But I don't think Ed does it. He got new competition this week from Kendrick Lamar. Bruno continues to gain on him. And Harry Styles will debut on the charts next week with a likely top five debut. The thing Ed has going for him is that radio is as big as ever. It's now crossed 180 million in weekly audience. That's going to keep this song strong for a while.
2- "Humble." - Kendrick Lamar (new) -- I'll get to my opinion on this song below, but "Humble." is the highest debuting rap song since Eminem in 2010 with "Love the Way You Lie." That's an impressive feat. It's sales next week will get cut in half and cause it to fall, but its streaming will keep it around in the top 10 for a while, I'm thinking. I don't think it challenges for No. 1, but we shall see. After falling next week it'll get a boost in two weeks thanks to Kendrick's upcoming album.
3- "That's What I Like" - Bruno Mars (-1) -- Bruno may have fallen a spot thanks to Kendrick's debut, but he's gaining in points as his radio crossed 140 million. I'm guessing he goes back to No. 2 next week. Now the question will be can he hold on well enough to catch Ed? That'll probably depend on if Ed's radio ever falls.
4- "iSpy" - KYLE featuring Lil Yachty (+1) -- KYLE is doing well with strong streaming. I can see this perhaps sneaking up to No. 3 for a week or two eventually, but the most likely scenario is that this song sticks around in the bottom half of the top five for a while instead of getting much higher. For me personally it's going to start wearing out its welcome here really soon if it doesn't start dropping.
5- "Something Just Like This" - The Chainsmokers & Coldplay (-2) -- A minor bump in the road by falling to No. 5 even though the numbers weren't super strong for a No. 3 song, but The Chainsmokers' album was released recently, which means this song will get a good boost next week that I predict will send it up to No. 3 again.
6- "Body Like a Back Road" - Sam Hunt (+6) -- What in the fetch is this song doing here? I can't say I'm super surprised considering how much momentum it's maintained, but I'm certainly not happy. Country songs never get any love in the top 10. It's been a few years since a country song even entered the region as they barely even crack the top 20. Yes, I would be fine if more of them got a bit of love. Most country songs are certainly better than most rap songs that poison the charts, so if we were to trade popularity with the two genres, I'll take country. But not this country song. This is such a stupid song with no thought put into it whatsoever. It's embarrassing that it has now cracked the top 10 and I hope it goes away. And fast. I'd almost rather have "Bad and Boujee" or Drake back in the top 10 instead of this.
7- "I Feel it Coming" - The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk (-3) -- The Weeknd held in the top five with this song for longer than I expected, so I can say it's been a good run even though I'm disappointed it couldn't break out and go higher than it did. I imagine it will stick around in the bottom half of the top 10 for at least a few more weeks.
8- "Tunnel Vision" - Kodak Black (=) -- Kodak Black is starting to wear out his welcome. I'm glad he didn't get higher than No. 6, but it's now time to go.
9- "Paris" - The Chainsmokers (=) -- "Paris" has been impressively stubborn here in the bottom half of the top 10 as it's stayed here in the top 10 despite quite a few songs getting pushed out instead of it. With The Chainsmokers' album having come out, I'd be willing to bet that it shoots up a spot or two next week and maintains this stubborn winning streak.
10- "Rockabye" - Clean Bandit featuring Sean Paul & Anne-Marie (+1) -- So happy to see this song back in the top 10! I'm not crossing my fingers, but I hope that this song can gain even more traction and be a fun summer jam for 2017!
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Mask Off" - Future (+7) -- Seriously. Why are we making this song a thing? Future has never made it to the top 10 as a lead artist and only once been in as a featured artist on Lil Wayne's 2013 song "Love Me," which also featured Drake. Yet we as a country will finally be enshrining him into the top 10 as early as next week and I'm not a happy man because this song is pretty awful. Why, America? Why?
13- "It Ain't Me" - Kygo & Selena Gomez (+2) -- What would really be cool is if instead of Future getting into the top 10, this song with Kygo and Selena jumped ahead of it and went into the top 10 instead. That would definitely be more deserving than the awful song by Future.
14- "Stay" - Zedd & Alessia Cara (+3) -- Heck, I'd even take this song ahead of Future and, despite my love for Zedd, I really think this is an empty song without much heartbeat. But I'd be content seeing Zedd in the top 10 regardless.
16- "XO TOUR Llif3" - Lil Uzi Vert (+33) -- Whoa! Why in the heck did this song jump into the top 20 following its debut last week? Granted Lil Uzi has had much worse songs in his career, but I'm still not fine with this being a top 10 hit. Let's push it back, please?
17- "Say You Won't Let Go" - James Arthur (+2) -- James Arthur slowly moves up a little bit more. I have a feeling this is just about to plateau on the charts, but we'll see if it can sneak into the top 10. I wouldn't be super upset about that.
29- "Swang" - Rae Sremmurd (+5) -- No time to panic quite yet as this could easily stall before even hitting top 20, but if we give Rae Sremmurd another smash hit, I'm going to be really angry.
34- "Look at Me!" - Xxtentacion (+8) -- I've gone on many rants with this song before, but this song's continual rise on the charts makes me the angriest. This guy is a thug that's spent the majority of the last several months in jail and could potentially be going to prison soon, yet we're giving him fame and fortune by popularizing one of his extremely horrific songs? I don't get it.
38- "The Fighter" - Keith Urban featuring Carrie Underwood (+37) -- It's been a pretty good week for country with Sam Hunt hitting top 10 and several new country songs debuting. This song skyrocketing up the charts surprised me a bit, but if this can gain enough traction to dethrone that awful aforementioned Sam Hunt song, I'll certainly take it!
40- "Slide" - Calvin Harris featuring Frank Ocean & Migos (+5) -- I'm doubting this song's overall potential. I'm not sure if it's going to become a huge hit, but I would be down with it if it did.
44- "In Case You Didn't Know" - Brett Young (+7) -- Glad to see this song making top 50. I'd call this the best country song on the charts right now and if dreams were to come true, this would gain enough momentum to dethrone Sam Hunt from the top of the country charts. Let's see if it can happen!
52- "Swalla" - Jason Derulo featuring Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign (+13) -- Not top 50 quite yet, but I'm getting the feel that this is going to turn into a decent hit for Jason Derulo. It's a catchy song, but that's all it has going for it. I'd really like to see this song burn and die.
66- "Black" - Dierks Bentley (+21) -- I can't complain yet because it's not super high, but I don't like seeing this boring country song jumping 21 spots. That makes me nervous.
76- "Yeah Boy" - Kelsea Ballerini (+12) -- I'd rather see this song jump up on the charts than Mr. Bentley. Kelsea is good enough for me to be happy about her success if she continues to get it.
New Arrivals:
2- "Humble." - Kendrick Lamar -- Thank heavens that among all the awful rappers out there that we actually have one rapper who actually seems like he cares to give the world real rap that I can get behind. And not-so-coincidentally on that note, here's a song where he's talking down to the rest of those rappers telling them to be real and humble. Because, you know, if you do so then perhaps you come up with good rap. Now thankfully, there are two versions of this album being released, the explicit version and the non-explicit version. I try not to let cursing be the deciding factor in my analysis of a rap song, but I like it when the rappers also release a clean version of their songs because the cursing in this song gets in the way of my enjoyment. But the clean version removes that distraction and helps me be able to enjoy this song. There's a really good flow and groove. The lyrics are solid. And the beat is fairly dark and super catchy. I think I like "The Heart Part 4" a little better, but I can get behind this song. I hope it goes No. 1. Although speaking of "The Heart Part 4," I'm looking at the track listing for Kendrick's new album due Friday and I'm surprised to see "The Heart Part 4" not on the album. Interesting.
53- "Craving You" - Thomas Rhett featuring Maren Morris -- Thomas Rhett is a "country" singer that gets a ton of hate from people. And I can see why. It's probably related to my purposely putting "country" in quotation marks because when I listen to this song, it doesn't sound like country at all. This specific song is more like southern rock with a twang. But compared to the likes of Sam Hunt, Thomas Rhett is tolerable. I'm not too offended by non-country "country" songs. The bigger problem here for me is that I don't really like comparing love to drugs. Thomas Rhett takes this to the extreme and it doesn't feel that romantic to me. I just don't think I would ever tell a girl, regardless of the depth of the relationship, that I'm craving her. I crave food. Some people crave drugs. Craving a girl seems like you're treating her as an object for your lust to satisfy your sexual desires. Thomas Rhett doesn't go super explicit into that with his lyrics, but that's the implications that come off and I'm not a fan. I was excited to see Maren Morris on the song, but she's essentially used as a background singer and isn't even given her own verse. That was disappointing.
59- "Everybody" - Logic -- I've decided that Logic reminds me a bit of Macklemore. Except I like Macklemore a lot more. But the styles are similar. Both are white rappers (kinda) whose rap has a high difficulty level to pull. Sometimes I feel rap is lazy and dumb, requiring not much talent, especially when some rappers like Future and Future wannabes do the mumble rap thing where it sounds like you were drunk and high when recording in the studio and thus no one can understand a thing you are saying. With this song, I can understand everything Logic says, but he's also rapping super fast with a good flow and that alone impresses me because it actually seems like it takes a lot of talent to pull off. The lyrics here are a bit interesting. Logic addresses the challenges of being half-black and half-white in the rap world as he gets criticism from both sides for being shameful to their race. Black people make fun of him for being white and acting black while white people make fun of him for being black and acting white. What's a man supposed to do? I'm not sure if I'm madly in love with it, but I appreciate the emotion here.
60- "You Look Good" - Lady Antebellum -- It always throws me off that Lady Antebellum is a country music group. The name Lady Antebellum sounds like stage name for an individual female singer as opposed to a group. That aside, I think this is the song that Thomas Rhett tried to write, but failed. Charles Kelley is telling the girl that she looks good, which is much better in my eyes than Thomas Rhett telling the girl that he's craving her. This is also not trying to be a romance song. Charles Kelley is just happy that he has a good looking girl with him and he's kinda happy with the idea that everyone around them is jealous that he has such a good looking girl. Meanwhile the balance between him and Hillary Scott with the shared vocals is actually good as opposed to Thomas Rhett leaving Maren Morris sounding like a background singer. This is also not really pure country, but instead of just sounding like fake country, this is more successful genre bending as it kinda has elements of pop, rock and country that work together quite well.
75- "Tin Man" - Miranda Lambert -- Out of our three country songs so far, this is the one that actually sounds most like a country song. And I'd say it's a pretty good country song with simple acoustics and soft vocals from Miranda. The content is interesting, too, as Miranda is having a conversation with the Tin Man from "Wizard of Oz," who we all know spends the whole movie wishing he had a heart. Well, Miranda is telling him that perhaps he should feel lucky that he doesn't have a heart because it's really painful when that heart breaks. It's a "grass is always greener on the other side" sort of mentality here. And of course you could poke holes in the logic if you thought about it too deeply, but this is a simple, heart-felt song that should be treated as a simple, heart-felt song rather than something that's trying to be deep and profound.
81- "Subeme La Radio" - Enrique Iglesias featuring Descemer Bueno, Zion & Lennox -- I try to be simple with these Latino songs. I don't speak Spanish and I don't have the cultural background to be a fair judge in my mind. And I'm not going to translate lyrics to see what it means. I do know that Enrique Iglesias' English songs have always been hit and miss for me. Sometimes he sings fun, catchy, harmless dance songs and other times his songs are extremely dirty and promiscuous. This seems like the former, but I'm not sure and I will let people who speak Spanish be the judge here, not me. I will say that the beat itself seems more slow and toned down instead of being a fast-paced dance song, which I like. I don't know why he had to bring on so many voices, though. It seems like it would've been just fine with himself and maybe one other friend instead of having four of them.
88- "First Day Out" - Tee Grizzley -- Tee Grizzly spent three years in prison for home invasion and burglary charges. Now he's out and he's signed a record deal and this is a song where he has a whole lot to say about his "First Day Out." This could've gone a few different directions. It could've been remorse for what he did and a desire to change, which would've been cool. It could've been cringeworthy rap like Xxtentacion, our other prisoner on the charts. But instead it's more like muddled, confusing nothing where he references a whole bunch stuff about everything without one major theme about anything. It's not offensive or awful, but to me it doesn't seemed focused at all and thus is just uninteresting.
91- "The One" - The Chainsmokers -- I listened to The Chainsmokers debut album "Memories... Do Not Open" an hour or two after it was released onto Apple Music because I was hopeful that they would actually give me soon good, fun songs to dance to and I mostly just got boring nothingness, which was disappointing. We'll see how many of these songs end up on the charts next week, if any at all, but this here is the first track on the album and it's just dull. Alex Taggart is the singer and the lyrics are pathetic. In the song he's admitting to being a pathetic loser who hates this relationship and refuses to do nothing to fix it, yet also admitting to being an even more pathetic loser by saying he's not going to be the one to end this broken relationship. His vocals aren't good and there's no groove to the song. And he drops a useless f-bomb just so they can have a fancy red "E" on the album.
93- "Conscience" - Kodak Black featuring Future -- I'm on record for admitting that I don't really mind Kodak Black's breakout hit "Tunnel Vision," although as you read earlier I think it's worn out its welcome and needs to go away. However, this song here is pretty awful. Kodak Black features Future, one of my least favorite rappers, and let's Future's trademark mumble rap influence him in this song. So both of them are mumbling the entire time and I can't understand a single word of it. Then when you look at the lyrics, it's your typical awful trash that you would expect from Future. This better not become a hit like "Tunnel Vision" or else I will be mad.
94- "Drowning" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie featuring Kodak Black -- Oh joy. More Kodak Black. This time he's attached to a song by the rapper with my least favorite rapper name, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie. This is not as bad as the previous song, "Conscience," but it's mostly a dumb song where both are bragging about riches and how awesome they are that they made it as mainstream rappers now, which I'm upset about. Why are we giving untalented rappers careers? Do Americans not have ear drums anymore? Why so much dumb rap music poisoning our charts? Now if I'm being objective, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie is more tolerable than Kodak Black in this. Kodak Black's verse is awful while the rest of the song by A Boogie Wit da Hoodie is simply dumb.
96- "Heatstroke" - Calvin Harris featuring Young Thug, Pharrell Williams & Ariana Grande -- When I saw the featured list on this song, my initial reaction was similar to when I saw the featured list of Frank Ocean and Migos on "Slide." Dread. Strangely enough that song actually worked out shockingly well, so in light of that I wasn't sure what to think of "Heatstroke." Unfortunately, though, this one didn't work out. And the problem here is Young Thug. Every time he's rapping the song sinks into oblivion. It's bad. Unfortunately that's most of the song as Pharrell and Ariana are mostly afterthoughts. In fact it would seem more accurate if this was Young Thug featuring Calvin Harris, Pharrell and Ariana. The sad part of it all is when it is just Pharrell and Ariana, the song is pretty fun. The two of them have good chemistry and the tropical vibe of Calvin in the background really works. But there's too little of that in the song to make me pleased overall as for the most part this is trash.
98- "How Not To" - Dan + Shay -- Again another country song this week that does what Thomas Rhett tries to do, but better. Saying "I don't know how not to think about you" is much better than "I crave you." The slight rock undertones mixed in with the mostly country vibe also work a lot better here than in Thomas Rhett's song. Although this version of the song has Dan + Shay, which ever one is doing the singing here, reminiscing over a recent breakup while being very honest about the situation. While it's nothing that I'm going to really remember long after it falls off the charts, it's a nice little country song with a lot more honesty and emotion than many country songs on the charts right now.
100- "Human" - Rag'n'Bone Man -- Last the best this week! Rag'n'Bone Man is a breakout British blues and soul singer whose debut song "Human" was released last year and hit No. 2 in the U.K. back in December in addition to hitting the top 10 in several countries around Europe, including hitting No. 1 in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czeck Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. As usual, when it comes to the great worldwide hits, we're behind in the U.S. because we'd rather listen to garbage like Future and Drake instead of good music, because yeah this song is pretty darn awesome. His voice is grizzled and angry and he's speaking all about the human condition, which really hits home. A fantastic song to jam to that makes me want to go listen to the entire album, also titled "Human." Once I've done so, I'll get back to you on how it all is. Hopefully the whole album is as good as this lead-off track.
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