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.
