Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "God's Plan" - Drake (=) -- I warned you last week that the streaming for this song is going to fly even higher with the arrival of the music video, which affects the charts this week. But even I was shocked when I saw the official numbers. After getting 75 million U.S. streams last week, hitting that mark for the fourth straight week, "God's Plan" had 101.7 million U.S. streams this week, making it only the second week in the history of the streaming charts to get over 100 million U.S. streams, behind only the 103.1 million U.S. streams of "Harlem Shake" in 2013, which only got that much because Billboard thought it would be a good idea to consider ALL YouTube videos using the official audio of the song into their YouTube streaming formula. Think about it. Only two other songs have ever even hit 75 million U.S. streams in Billboard's short history of counting streaming, with "Harlem Shake" doing it twice. "God's Plan" has done it five times, crossing the 100 million U.S. streams mark in the song's fifth week. That's insane. To top it off, "God's Plan" has now hit top 10 on the radio charts, which includes hitting top 20 on pop radio. This song will be here for a long time.
2- "Perfect" - Ed Sheeran (=) -- Ed Sheeran still holds the top spot on radio, essentially even from last week as he only drops 2 percent overall to 138 million in total radio audience. "Finesse," though, officially moved up to the No. 2 spot on radio, so I still think that will switch spots with "Perfect" before too long.
3- "Finesse" - Bruno Mars & Cardi B (=) -- If Bruno ends up getting stuck at No. 3, I'll be happy. Though I do think he'll get No. 2. But he's definitely not going No. 1 with how strong "God's Plan" is, barring an unexpected meltdown.
4- "Havana" - Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug (=) -- For your obscure stat of the week, "Havana" has now hit No. 1 on the Adult Pop Songs airplay chart, making her the first woman since Mariah Carey on "One Sweet Day" to have hit No. 1 on Adult Pop Songs, Pop Songs and Rhythmic Songs. I don't know how much that really means since throwing that many metrics into a stat like that makes it kind of muddy and obscure, but Billboard reported it and I found it kinda interesting.
5- "Look Alive" - BlocBoy JB featuring Drake (+1) -- WHAT??? NO!!!! When I said I wanted something to replace "rockstar" in the top five, this is not exactly what I meant. This song was supposed to go away this week, not jump a spot and make it to the top five. The radio isn't touching this song and the sales are practically non-existent with Kworb reporting it only getting 10,000 sales this week, down 66 percent from 32,000 last week. So it's surge in streaming is literally the only thing keeping this alive as it jumps 12 percent to 37.9 million U.S. streams this week, which makes this yet another example that supports my opinion of Billboard putting way too much emphasis on streaming in today's chart. They need to update their formula to fix this imbalance. Why is it fair for a song to be able to hit the top five with practically no sales and no radio?
6- "rockstar" - Post Malone featuring 21 Savage (-1) -- Well, I'm glad this FINALLY fell out of the top five after 22 excruciatingly long weeks of this being in the region. But joy. Post Malone just released his new song "Psycho" featuring Ty Dolla $ign, which is currently No. 1 on iTunes, which probably means it's heading for a strong debut on next week's charts. Why are we turning this untalented punk into a superstar?
7- "All the Stars" - Kendrick Lamar & SZA (+2) -- As "Black Panther" scores the highest second weekend ever in the MCU with $111 million, topping "The Avengers," which previously held the record with $103 million, it appears that the "Black Panther" soundtrack is also feeding off that success as it now has two songs in the top five this week. And while I'm mildly annoyed that "Black Panther" is making so much money, I'm totally fine with "All the Stars" rising on the charts. It's much better than the two pieces of trash in front of it, so hopefully this can go top five soon?
8- "Meant to Be" - Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line (-1) -- I cursed this song, didn't I? Two weeks ago I expressed my desires for "New Rules" to go top five after it hit No. 6 and now this week it's out of the top 10. Last week I hoped that maybe this would go top five instead and it drops a spot instead of rising. Dang it. And that means I just cursed "All the Stars," didn't I? Sorry SZA and Kendrick.
9- "Pray for Me" - The Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar (+2) -- I was a bit surprised to see this fall last week. I mean, I know a lot of songs have second week drops. I'm usually the first to point that out. But this also had the album bump and the movie helping it and it still dropped. But oh well. It's back. And hopefully here to stay. It may have been an afterthought in the movie itself, but this is still a really good song from The Weeknd and Kendrick. If this could stay here in the top 10, that would be really nice.
10- "Stir Fry" - Migos (=) -- One more week for Migos in the top 10 with "Stir Fry"? OK. I'll accept it. I'm slightly disappointed that "Let You Down" by NF and "Love." by Kendrick Lamar now seemed doomed to peak just below the top 10, even though "Let You Down" is the new top song on pop radio. And I suppose that Kendrick currently has two other songs in the top 10 thanks to "Black Panther," so I shouldn't be too upset at "Love." getting shafted. Next week this will probably get booted in favor of Post Malone's "Pyscho." And maybe Zedd reaches the top 10 with "The Middle."
Rising on the Hot 100:
13- "The Middle" - Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey (+4) -- As I just barely noted, "Let You Down," which remains at No. 12, and "Love.," which falls to No. 15, are once again kept from hitting the top 10 and now seemed doomed to get stuck here. But "The Middle" seems to have a lot of momentum. That'll give Zedd another top 10 hit, which is usually always a good thing, and it would give Maren Morris her first top 10 hit. No, it's not with her usual country pop. But I don't care. It gives her more mainstream attention, which will hopefully boost her other songs as well in the future.
18- "Mine" - Bazzi (+4) -- If this is more than just a stupid Valentine's Day smash, I will be upset. This is barely a song and it's a pretty dumb one at that. So go away! It doesn't deserve to be on the Hot 100, let alone stealing a spot in the top 20.
20- "Lights Down Low" - MAX featuring gnash (+7) -- I'd be happier for MAX hitting the top 20 if it wasn't for gnash being lazily attached to the song for the sole purpose of pushing sales. This original song is a sweet, romantic love song. gnash being here makes no sense and in fact hurts the song quite a bit. But oh well.
23- "King's Dead" - Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Future & James Blake (+15) -- The three main "Black Panther" songs all got huge boosts this week. I still laugh that they left this one out of the movie completely. But I'm glad because it had absolutely no place in the movie. It's a dumb song with lazy writing and generic modern rap lyrics. Kendrick should be embarrassed that he put this one together, but he probably doesn't care. Let's just hold this one short of going top 10, please?
42- "You Make It Easy" - Jason Aldean (+5) -- The country world loves Jason Aldean. And I've never been able to understand why. It's not a talented country singer and this is another dull song form him.
44- "Five More Minutes" - Scotty McCreery (+7) -- Scotty McCreery in the top 50? I'm not sure I ever saw that coming after he mostly disappeared not long after winning "American Idol" back in season 10.
46- "New Freezer" - Rich the Kid featuring Kendrick Lamar (+7) -- Ew. Gross. Why are we continuing to make Rich the Kid a thing? Shame on you Kendrick.
58- "Friends" - Marshmello & Anne-Marie (+14) -- If this becomes a hit, who do we give credit to? I suppose that means Marshmello is now a mainstream EDM artist? His previous songs have done well mostly because of the artists attached to them. But Anne-Marie is a nobody here in the U.S. But if this continues to rise, I'm happy for it. I'm mostly fine with Marshmello's music. He's especially good when he works with talented pop stars and Anne-Marie is pretty good herself. She deserves this mainstream success.
60- "Whatever It Takes" - Imagine Dragons (+15) -- Can we please keep this song away? I'm already upset that it got this high. I'll be more upset if or when it goes top 50. If this gets top 10, I'll be furious. More generic, useless Imagine Dragons music? Let's instead popularize a rock band who actually cares about their music.
63- "Most People Are Good" - Luke Bryan (+19) -- I Don't care about Luke Bryan. But I suppose I understand why this is gaining traction even if I think it's personally all over the place. There's worse country songs, though. At least this song has good intentions.
72- "La Modelo" - Ozuna & Cardi B (+14) -- No. Let's not make this a thing. Ozuna and Cardi B were NOT a match made in heaven. It's just a desperate move to make Ozuna popular in the United States. He has much better songs that are actually worth something. Let's focus on those instead.
75- "Hardaway" - Derez De'Shon (+10) -- Should I remind you that this guy doesn't write lyrics? He just in the recording booth and raps whatever comes to his mind, which is why this song is such a mess. Let's send this song away and not make Derez a thing.
77- "Singles You Up" - Jordan Davis (+12) -- I fully expect this song to be a hit in the country world, so it doesn't surprise me at all to see it get a good boost this week. But again, just like the previous four songs that I just mentioned, I don't really care for it. Not such a great week for the rising songs section here.
79- "When We" - Tank (+18) -- This is the most confusing entry on the rising songs chart this week. The song can't decide if it wants to go away or gain traction, so instead it has yo-yoed quite a bit in the last month or so. After re-entering again last week and jumping nearly 20 spots this week, I now hope it yo-yos back down.
New Arrivals:
43- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani -- This is the second year that I've been doing this Billboard Analysis segment on this blog. And this week represents the least number of new arrivals that I've had to cover with just two new songs. Usually we get at least four new songs. Strange. But anyways, this duet comes to us via Khalid and Normani, the latter of whom is one of our now four girls from the group Fifth Harmony. This is Normani's first song without the group. I don't know if she's planning on doing her own solo career like Camila is, but after hearing this song I certainly think she should. But this specific song is from the upcoming movie "Love, Simon," which is a movie about a gay high school kid who hasn't come out of the closet and is struggling with that. Honestly it doesn't look that good to me. And I enjoyed "Moonlight" and "Call Me by Your Name," so it's not the subject matter. I suppose we'll see. If it gets good reviews, I'll check it out and review it on my main blog.
On that note, though, if we're making a movie about a gay high school kid, does it make sense for the lead song from it to be a heterosexual love song? I mean, I don't know the sexual orientation of Khalid and Normani, but they're definitely singing to each other in this song. Shouldn't we instead bring on someone like Sam Smith to give us a proper anthem for this movie? But oh well. I suppose I don't know the context of this song in the movie, so we'll also see if that's a real complaint or if I'm just off in left field. That's more of a random observation than anything. If I ignore the movie and focus on just the song, Khalid and Normani blend really well together. The lyrics are generic love song lyrics, so nothing special. But both artists have a lot of character and charisma in the song that make it work for me. I really like Khalid when he's on his game. And he's on his game here. And again, hearing Normani on her own makes me want her to break off of Fifth Harmony and do her own solo career.
93- "Get You" - Daniel Caesar featuring Kali Uchis -- In my investigation in finding out what this song is, why it charted this week and who these two artists are, I got a few answers. Daniel Caesar is a Canadian R&B/Soul singer who released his debut album last year with this song being the lead single to that. In fact, this song itself was initially released in 2016, ahead of that album. And Kali Uchis apparently does a lot of things with her life, but if I'm being simple, she's a Colombian singer. So why is this song here two years after its initial release? Well, I didn't discover why that is, so if you know, please inform me. This guy's album, though, is apparently critically acclaimed, which I don't really care about. But based on this song, I can see why. This isn't just an empty, phoned-in romance song with generic lyrics. This guy has a lot of passion that he brings to this song, thus I can see that he cares. And it's not a shallow song, like Bruno's whole album. He cares about this girl and he's generally surprised that he won her heart. There's a lot of realism there. The only thing I don't like is that he crosses over into the TMI realm with that second verse, but at least it's only a small part of the song and not the whole focus. And I could've used more of Kali Uchis in the song instead of just getting a third verse feature. But in whole, if you like R&B, check this one out!
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