Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "God's Plan" - Drake (=) -- Remember how I mentioned that Drake received the fourth highest week of streaming ever last week, behind only the first two weeks of "Harlem Shake" as well as the debut of Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do"? Well, said streaming numbers for Drake went UP by 1 percent, from 82.4 million U.S. streams last week to 83.3 million U.S. streams this week. Sales crashed like expected the ball is just getting rolling with radio at just 35 million in total audience, but as long as those streaming numbers are sky high, this isn't going to budge. The fact that those streaming numbers were consistent from last week tells me that this is indeed here to stay. "One Dance" by Drake ruled for 10 weeks. I think "God's Plan" could match or beat that. We'll see what I'm thinking two months from now if this does indeed reign for that long, but for now I'm fine with it. "Perfect" and "Havana" had their time at the top and I would rather not see "Finesse" hit No. 1. For Drake standards, this is a pretty good song.
2- "Perfect" - Ed Sheeran (=) -- Radio is what's keeping Ed Sheeran alive here at No. 2 as "Perfect" remains at No. 1 on the radio for a fifth week with 150 million in total audience, which is down just 1 percent from last week, meaning overall it's remaining pretty consistent. Unless it randomly starts tanking on radio, which I don't see happening given how radio friendly this song is, this song is going to stick around and very slowly depart from the top 10 over the course of the next several months. Remember, "Shape of You" broke the record for most weeks ever in the top 10, so that's how much staying power Ed Sheeran is capable of.
3- "Finesse" - Bruno Mars & Cardi B (+2) -- Bruno and Cardi performed this song at the Grammy's, which is the reason for this song getting a good boost this week. Although when I say Bruno and Cardi performed it, I really mean Bruno performed it while Cardi danced around on stage for most of the song, given that she's not really part of the song. She gets a thing at the beginning and a thing at the end because Bruno wanted to mooch of her to get more sales for this mostly lazy and dull song that she adds nothing to. And as I mentioned, I'm glad "God's Plan" is around right now because I'm counting on it to prevent Bruno and Cardi from going No. 1 because this song doesn't belong in the top 10, let alone as the king of the Hot 100. The faster that we get get rid of Bruno and his piece of crap music, the better. He won best album at the Grammy's, which really befuddles me because that album is a worthless piece of trash. The worst best album winner in the history of the Grammy's.
4- "Havana" - Camila Cabello (-1) -- It would really be nice if Camila would slide back up to No. 3. I was enjoying our current combo of Drake, Ed and Camila in that top three and I'm sad it got ruined with "Finesse." Maybe "Finesse" will drop back down after that Grammy's boost. That's probably just wishful thinking on my part, though.
5- "rockstar" - Post Malone featuring 21 Savage (-1) -- Why are people still streaming this song? This might be one of the most confusing things in the history of music as to why such a dull, boring, empty song as "rockstar" has this much staying power. This will be pretty high up on my list of all-time most popular songs once I update that on my Excel file later this year and that's an absolute shame.
6- "Bad at Love" - Halsey (=) -- You know, if it means kicking "rockstar" out of the top five, I'd be fine with this jumping up a spot. That's how desperately I want "rockstar" gone. But if I come back down to Earth, a better solution would be to kick both out.
7- "New Rules" - Dua Lipa (+1) -- Hey, I found that better solution! Let's let Dua Lipa into the top five instead of "rockstar" and "Bad at Love." She's someone who actually DESERVES to be here. She's someone who actually has talent.
8- "MotorSport" - Migos, Nicki Minaj & Cardi B (+3) -- I'm not surprised to see this return to the top 10. In fact, in thinking about it, I'm almost surprised that it didn't go a bit higher. The reason being is Migos debuted their new album "Culture II" recently, which took effect on this week's charts. There are 11 new Migos songs to talk about in the new arrivals this week, bringing Migos' total songs on the charts this week to 14, tying a record for groups previously set by The Beatles in 1964. While it's certainly blasphemy to mention Migos and The Beatles in the same sentence, let's just remember that The Beatles doing this 54 years ago was unheard of at the time while rappers today getting their whole album or half of their album on the charts happens like every month now.
9- "Say Something" - Justin Timberlake featuring Chris Stapleton (new) -- Our top debut of the week sees Justin Timberlake get his second top 10 debut from his new album. He was releasing one song a week until his album dropped, which is why we're getting so much of him. That album was released this past Friday and he also performed at the Super Bowl this past Sunday. The album bump should help a few of songs on next week's charts. In addition to that, several of Gaga's songs had sales numbers through the roof after her Super Bowl performance last year, so it wouldn't be surprising to see JT find similar success, too. All in all, it should be a decent week for JT next week. After that it'll be interesting to see if he can manage to find traction with any of his songs. And thanks to JT, Chris Stapleton now celebrates his first ever top 10 entry after previously peaking as high as No. 20 with his song "Tennessee Whiskey."
10- "Thunder" - Imagine Dragons (-1) -- Only one more week for "Thunder" in the top 10? Please? This week saw Drake's "Diplomatic Immunity" tumble hard down to No. 55, which was expected. In addition, G-Eazy's worthless piece of garbage "No Limit" fell from No. 10 to No. 13. "Meant to Be" is camped out at No. 11 while "Let You Down" and "Love." are at No. 14 and No. 15 respectively. I would love to see any one of those replace "Thunder" next week. "MotorSport" will likely depart again as well after the album boost goes away next week and "Say Something" will also most likely take a second week tumble. So maybe all three of these songs will enter next week? That's probably wishful thinking on my part, but it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Rising on the Hot 100:
12- "Stir Fry" - Migos (+40) -- Migos didn't actually effect the rising songs as much as I thought they would this week. Only three of their new songs were top 50, so it's mostly the bottom half of the Hot 100 that they disrupted, which should make next week fairly eventful in this section. But of course it is no surprise to see "Stir Fry" get a huge boost with the album. It's one of the better songs Migos has done, so I'm not upset to see it this high. I'll be interested to see if it will maintain the momentum and go top 10 next week or topple a bit after the album boost goes away. I don't want to get too carried away in saying I want this song to do well, but again it's one I don't mind, so if it goes top 10, I'll accept it. But if it falls and never reaches top 10, I won't be upset.
17- "I Fall Apart" - Post Malone (+2) -- I'll definitely be upset if this gets too much higher. Post Malone whining like a little baby that his girl left him is super annoying, especially when he clearly only sees females as objects for his lustful gratification. In a day where we're trying to be so progressive, I don't understand why rappers are allowed to get away with so much awful sexism as most rappers like Post Malone think girls only care about fame and riches when it comes to their views of guys. If I got a dollar for every time a rapper sang about stealing your girl because your girl would rather be with said rich rapper, I would be a very rich man myself.
32- "Never Be the Same" - Camila Cabello (+5) -- Is this song going to be able to slowly climb up and replace "Havana" in the top 10? I'm not sure, but I would be happy with that because it opens the door for other Camila songs to be successful as well. Even though this isn't my favorite song from the album, I'm finding myself rather enjoying Camila's solo career as I thought the album as a whole was pretty decent.
33- "1-800-273-8255" - Logic featuring Alessia Cara & Khalid (+13) -- The phenomenal Grammy's performance is definitely what boosted this song this week. And well deserved because this was one of the highlights of the night. I am kinda sad that P!nk, Kesha and Miley got no love from the Hot 100 this week as their performances were also excellent. What's also awful was what the dude in charge of the Grammy's said. He said female artists need to step up their game and then they'll get more praise from the Grammy's. That's a load of crap because females DID step up their game in 2017. We just gave them no attention, which really saddens me. Anyways, that doesn't have much to do with Logic's song, but considering the Grammy's connection, I had to take this moment to get those thoughts out. I'm happy for Logic. This is probably the last week this song gets mentioned, so it's been an amazing run.
41- "Mine" - Bazzi (+15) -- I'm not sure why this is going up, but I blame Valentine's Day. Hopefully that means this stupid meme will cease to exist in a couple of weeks once Valentine's Day is in the rear view mirror because I'd rather not this song be a thing.
45- "Outside Today" - YoungBoy Never Broke Again (+6) -- Why did we let YoungBoy into the top 50? He's not even very talented when it comes to rap standards. There's a lot of awful, boring rappers today and he's one of the worst among them and also has a really annoying rapper name that I'd rather not type up every week.
56- "Wait" - Maroon 5 (+32) -- Funny story. If you read my post early last week, you may have noticed that I initially put this in the new arrivals section without realizing this was actually a re-entry. You see, it actually debuted back in November when Maroon 5's album was released, but I had totally forgotten about it and thus when I listened to it last week, it felt like a new song. That's how horribly forgettable Maroon 5 has become. They haven't done anything worthwhile in like 15 years. I really wish we could join together and collectively reject this worthless group, then perhaps the radio would end their love affair with this group because that's the only thing helping them.
62- "Broken Halos" - Chris Stapleton (+23) -- It's a good week for Chris Stapleton as thanks to JT, he gets his first top 10 entry. And thanks to the Grammy's, this song gets a boost. I believe he won best country album, which doesn't upset me necessarily, but also doesn't have me jumping for joy. I think he has a cool beard and he's probably a nice guy, but I've never really cared to much for his music and I don't care too much for this song in particular, so it's mostly just whatever.
New Arrivals:
9- "Say Something" - Justin Timberlake featuring Chris Stapleton -- I see the title "Say Something" and I immediately start singing the song of the same title by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera, a song that probably has more depth to it than this song. But I enjoy this "Say Something," nonetheless. When JT did his intro video, many people thought he was leaning more country with this upcoming and they got excited. Then he released "Filthy" and "Supplies" as the first two songs and people were confused. "Say Something" is more along the lines of what people were probably expecting. The song doesn't have any depth to it, but that might be the point this time around. "Everybody says say something; I don't want to get caught up in the rhythm of it" followed by "Maybe I'm looking for something I can't have" and "Sometimes the greatest way of saying something is to say nothing at all." So the song is simple, but it says enough. The song has a wistful tone to it, which plays nicely to its country pop groove that is rather upbeat and catchy. I said earlier that Chris Stapleton has never really done much for me, but there's a first for everything as he plays alongside JT rather well. The two of them bounce off each other really well throughout the song, enhancing the other's performance. This is definitely the best of the three songs. I haven't listened to the full album yet, but I'm hoping that it's more along these lines than the other two.
18- "Walk It Talk It" - Migos featuring Drake -- If you've followed these weekly posts long enough, you'll know that I hate Migos. Their style of short, disconnected phrases I find lazy and their sound effects and echoes are extremely annoying. Yet I surprised myself by actually enjoying "Stir Fry." So my goal with these 11 new songs this week from "Culture II" was to see if there was even one song on that song's level. And given that I also enjoy Drake's "God's Plan," could this song be it? Nope. The song is nearly five minutes long and most of that is Quavo repeating the title of the song over and over. Each of the four get their own verse and all the verses are awful. They're just bragging about how they can walk the walk and talk the talk, which is funny because they can't do either. Their rap is awful and their lyrics don't make any sense.
23- "The Middle" - Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey -- My girl Maren Morris collaborating with Zedd? That seems like a match made in heaven. A song to get Zedd back on track after disappointing songs with Alessia Cara in "Stay" and Liam Payne in "Get Low" last year. I think the reason why "The Middle" works for me while those other two really didn't was because of Maren Morris having a lot more personality in the song than Alessia and Liam. I like her vocals a lot better than the other two and her country pop style fits well into this EDM song, even though we drop the country part of that here and focus on this being much more pop. But if that helps her better crossover into the mainstream, I'm OK with that as this is already the highest charting song she's been a part of. There's not a lot of depth here and thus the song isn't anywhere close to the quality of Maren's own "Dear Hate" or "I Could Use a Love Song" from last year, but this is upbeat enough to get me excited about it's high debut and hopefully it can climb even higher. Joining the party in helping Zedd mix the song together is the electronic duo Grey, consisting of brothers Kyle and Michael Trewartha. They previously charted in another disastrous Zedd song in 2016 with Hailee Steinfeld in "Starving," so it's good they get some redemption here. They did have two songs in 2017 chart on the EDM charts, "Crime" featuring Skott and "I Miss You" featuring Bahari. Both songs are decent, with "Crime" being the better of the two, so go check those out while you're at it.
28- "You Make It Easy" - Jason Aldean -- Hey look, it's a country singer singing about how this girl makes loving her easy. How unique and original! Yeah, Jason Aldean is a country artist I don't care for. None of his songs are interesting at all. This is as cliche as it gets when it comes to country songs about girls. At least it's not offensively bad or sexist, but it's just boring. And his comparison at the beginning of the song is rather perplexing. "Like a rainy Sunday morning makes me wanna stay in, twisted up all day long, you're my inspiration, girl. You take me places, put the words right into these songs." Say, what? Did he just say that her love is equally as strong as his desire to sleep in on a rainy Sunday morning? I suppose that works, but if he was going for a romantic comparison to start things off, that seems like an odd choice. Not something that I think would work as a pick-up line, if you know what I mean. You'll just confuse the girl.
36- "Narcos" - Migos -- I've been meaning to watch the show "Narcos" on Netlfix, which tells the story of Pablo Escobar, who was the wealthiest criminal in history until his death in 1993 as he had a net worth of $30 billion thanks to him being a notorious drug lord and the "King of Cocaine." Yet it this song, Migos are comparing themselves to Pablo, saying they have as much dope as Pablo and cut throat like Pablo. Yeah, I'm not sure this is a good comparison for them to use. Rappers rapping about doing drugs is the laziest and dumbest thing for them to do because I don't think you can ever write an intelligent song while you're high on drugs, which it seems like they did with this song. And I don't get why people enjoy listening to songs written by drugged up rappers rapping about doing drugs. Unless said listeners are high on drugs themselves. If doing drugs is your thing, then I guess you'll like this song.
48- "BBO (Bad B------ Only)" - Migos feat 21 Savage -- It's funny, in the previous song "Narcos," part of Migos' rap is how their rap is real because they're not mumbling. Yet the next song I'm covering is them featuring the king of mumble rap. Real intelligent. But we go from rapping about drugs to rapping about their desire to sleep with all the bad girls. Specifically, hitting the girl for a minute and then passing her onto the next person in their group. Speaking of passing, I'm going to take a pass on this song.
52- "Notice Me" - Migos featuring Post Malone -- From drugs to sex to bragging about how people are going to notice them because of how rich and famous they are while they're wearing their expensive jewelry. Didn't I mention somewhere in this post how rappers rapping about how rich and famous they are is also one of the dumbest things and one of my current pet peeves? NO ONE CARES! And if that's all you can rap about, you deserve to be sent home and have all your money taken away.
53- "Supastars" - Migos -- Sleeping with girls. Buying the brand new cars. In other words, the last two songs combined. With even more echoes and sound effects this time around. What's next?
64- "White Sand" - Migos featuring Travis Scott, Ty Dolla $ign & Big Sean -- Oh no, our next song is where Migos invited all their annoying friends to join them? So instead of three people rapping, we have a group of six. And yet somehow this manages to be less annoying than the other songs because Ty Dolla $ign and Big Sean actually sound like they're rapping on the first two verses and Travis Scott does a decent job covering the choruses. Quavo isn't a huge part of the song and Offset and Takeoff don't join in until the third and fourth verse. And no coincidence is that those two verses are the worst here? Lyrical content is about, well, drugs. I think. It's one of those songs that I don't understand much because lyrically there is zero flow and connection. But white sand is cocaine, so once you figure that out it's just six guys doing drugs.
73- "Gang Gang" - Migos -- This song is Takeoff and Quavo. No Offset. Which is interesting because they're rapping about doing things as a gang. But the whole gang isn't a part of the song. Takeoff manages to be slightly less annoying when he starts things off, but then Quavo comes in and destroys what he almost had going, even though the lyrical content is garbage yet again.
75- "New Freezer" - Rich the Kid featuring Kendrick Lamar -- Amidst all of this Migos crap, we have to pause for a second to discuss... this. From Rich the Kid, a Migos wannabe who does all of the annoying things I hate about. Lots of sound effects and echoes. Lyrics that make no sense. He even throws in and endless number of "drop tops" in the song. A song titled "New Freezer" just oozes with unintelligence. He says that his (girl) is too foreign for him and needs a visa, so he doesn't need her, which sounds both racist and sexist. Then he just raps about how rich he is and how many (girls) he's going to (sleep with). Parentheses are me censoring his lyrics, of course. And almost the worst part of this is that Kendrick Lamar is in the song. That's offensive because Kendrick Lamar is actually a good rapper who I expect good things from. Yet he agrees to do THIS? Stooping down to the Level of Migos and this Rich the Kid punk? Ouch! Get this away from me! This just might be worse than all of the Migos songs debuting this week and that's saying something if you couldn't tell.
83- "Higher We Go (Intro)" - Migos -- The introduction to the album. It's four minutes long and is slow and boring as tar. I only got through a minute of this song, but that minute felt like the full four minutes. Most of the lyrics is their typical awful stuff and the chorus is them asking us to beg and plead for the culture. Well, the only begging and pleading that I'll be doing is for Migos to go away and get out of my life.
85- "Auto Pilot" - Migos -- This title probably describes their mindset while writing this album as there's nothing unique or interesting on any of these songs. Same awful stuff that is as unoriginal and lazy as heck. With this song, though? A lot choppier than normal even for Migos standards with a lot more sound effects than I care for. And guess what? Quavo says that he didn't graduate, but he knows chemistry is a science!! Oh man!!! I'm so proud of him for learning that!
87- "Emoji a Chain" - Migos -- Make an emoji a chain? I don't even understand what that means, not even after reading through the lyrics. And I'm not even sure Migos know either. The main theme I'm getting from this song is how rich they are. So I pass. I read through the lyrics, but the song itself was so annoying that I only lasted 30 seconds.
92- "El Farsante" - Ozuna -- I had a hard time finding a satisfactory English translation for this song. I think Ozuna is begging this girl to come back to him because he's not interested in loving anyone else, despite the fact that he's not been very good at loving her when they were together. "Farsante" translates to phony or fake and he's referring to himself as "el farsante" in this song while saying he wants her back. I think I got the gist of that, even if I may be off. But I do like Ozuna's vocals in the song. He sounds quite sincere it whatever it is he's saying. The song also lacks the typical Latino dance beat, which I found a bit refreshing as this is more of a slower, melodic Latino song from Ozuna. If this song goes anywhere, I'll have to talk to some of my Latino friends to get a real translation for it, but for now I give it a pass. I certainly like it more than "La Modelo" from Ozuna earlier this year and at least as much as "Escpate Conmigo" and "Criminal" that he was a part of from last year.
94- "Most People Are Good" - Luke Bryan -- This is certainly a sentiment that I would like to believe from Luke, but I'm not so sure sometimes. There are a lot of good people in the world, though, even if "most people" being good can be up for debate. Nevertheless, this is a nice thing Luke is singing about in this song, so I don't really mind this. Although I do think he has a hard time keeping focused as Luke claims he believes a lot of things in this song. He believes kids should stay young and innocent. He believes kids should spend more time playing outside. He believes we should forgive. He believes most mamas are saints. He believes Friday nights are better when you go to a game. He believes you shouldn't be ashamed of who you love. He believes you shouldn't judge the world based on the nightly news. So yeah, a lot things he believes, thus I don't think the song has a whole lot of focus. Luke is just rambling on about things. But all good things. So this is decent enough when it comes to country.
96- "CC" - Migos featuring Gucci Gang -- And the grand finale for Migos this week, at least with the songs that showed up, is their good friend Gucci Gang joining them. And all they do is talk about fame and riches along with all the raunchy stuff their doing with various girls along the way. I made it nearly two minutes through this song this time, but I stopped this one because I got bored and I'd had enough with their filth. I don't think I even made it to Gucci's verse, but it's not like I cared to hear any of his garbage. When I first started with this section, I mentioned that my goal is to find even one song that was upbeat and fun like "Stir Fry." I went through all 11 songs... and failed. I'm just glad I didn't have to listen to the other 11 songs from the album that didn't chart this week or in past weeks. "Stir Fry" and "MotorSport" and the 11 songs from this week make up the 24 total songs that add up to 105 minutes of "Culture II." And I definitely know that 50 percent of it is pure trash. And all I have to do is look at the titles of the other songs to predict that they'd all be trash, too.
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