Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (=) -- Drake gets a seventh week at No. 1 this week with "In My Feelings" and a 26th week total with all three of his hits this year, which means he's officially been No. 1 this year for half a year. If anyone cares about that 2004 Usher record for most weeks at No. 1 in a year, Drake is now two weeks away from tying it, which seems inevitable at this point. But the most interesting story for me is what I focused more on last week. The song has continued to lose a lot of momentum as it falls another 16 percent to 59.4 million U.S. streams while also crashing on sales, down 21 percent to 30,000 downloads sold. The fall on sales means that its six-week reign on top of the digital sales chart is over as Cardi B's "I Like It" takes that crown. These numbers put the song within striking distance to be taken over, especially since the only lead it has is streaming. It's radio is still strong, but Cardi and Maroon 5 are both ahead of it on radio and, as I just said, Cardi is ahead on sales. So as streaming keeps falling, Drake gets more and more vulnerable to be replaced.
2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- I didn't actually think this was a possibility until this week, but if Drake's streaming numbers continue to plummet, Maroon 5 could actually take the Hot 100 title. The song is still No. 1 on radio for some unknown reason outside Adam Levine selling his soul to the devil to force a song that I don't think anyone likes into getting played like crazy. And with streaming and sales numbers remaining consistent, a takeover could happen. And I already have a headache just thinking of that.
3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (=) -- On the other hand, I don't see Cardi returning to the top with this single, even if Drake continues to plummet. Both Cardi and Maroon 5 are remaining annoyingly consistent across the board, but Maroon 5 is remaining consistently slightly ahead of Cardi. And he has a huge lead on radio still. But Cardi probably doesn't care about this since she is a featured act on the Maroon 5 song.
4- "FeFe" - 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj & Murda Beatz (=) -- Thankfully this song still has not charted on the radio songs chart, meaning I don't think this can stay here forever. And it's certainly not going to pass the three songs ahead of it without any radio. But for crying out loud, can people STOP streaming this song? Maybe some sort of intervention needs to occur to get rid of this song because 6ix9ine doesn't belong anywhere close to the Hot 100, so the fact that he's cemented into the top five at the moment is a crime against humanity and an awful stain on the current state of music.
5- "Better Now" - Post Malone (=) -- I have more pressing things to worry about than a boring Post Malone song remaining here. I'd rather have this here than the previous three songs, so take that for what it's worth. But don't look too far into that, either, because I also want this song to be gone.
6- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (=) -- Juice WRLD remaining consistent and getting enough on sales and radio to make sure he sticks around. And I'm fine with this. The last few weeks this was the best song in the top 10. At the moment, it's currently the second best in the top 10 now that Ariana has shown up again.
7- "No Tears Left to Cry" - Ariana Grande (+5) -- We'll have plenty to talk about with Ariana's new album in the new arrivals section as she charted six new songs from her 15-track album, "Sweetener." With three previous songs having already charted, that means she's now had nine tracks from the album chart. But the biggest thing that this did for Ariana was push her two singles back to the top 10. And I imagine it will be for this week only, but I'm glad that this song is back, even if it's just for a week. It's not the best ever Ariana song because the lyrics are fairly hollow comparatively, but Ariana's voice on this is fantastic and it's a song that deserved much better than it got.
8- "God is a Woman" - Ariana Grande (+22) -- I knew this song was also primed to get a huge boost this week, although I am slightly surprised that said boost was big enough to propel it into the top 10. I'm not complaining to much, though. It's alright and certainly more tolerable than most of the stuff here. I'm just tired of Ariana singing about how sexy she is and that's all this song is. However, this song hitting the top 10 means Ariana has hit a career milestone with this being her 10th top 10 hit on the Hot 100, all in a lead role. So that's cool.
9- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-2) -- This won't drop fast enough. The rest of Travis Scott's songs are thankfully mostly all gone, but this one is stubbornly sticking around. But hey, at least it's not rising. Although I hope I didn't just speak too soon.
10- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (-2) -- I'm not convinced that this song is going anywhere. Both of Ariana's songs, and probably Travis Scott's songs, will probably drop below it next week, meaning this could jump up to No. 7 next week. But if I'm wrong and this does get booted out by something, I will be the first one singing all of the praises as this is a trashy piece of garbage that needs to be disposed of.
Rising on the Hot 100:
15- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+2) -- I'm a bit surprised to say this, but "Youngblood" hitting No. 15 this week makes for the highest charting single for the group on the U.S. Hot 100. For some reason I thought they got higher, but "She Looks So Perfect" peaked at No. 24, "Amnesia" peaked at No. 16 and "She's Kinda Hot" peaked at No. 22. They've done great over in the U.K., Australia, and surrounding countries, but here in the states we've only been so-so to them, which is good. "Youngblood" is probably their best song, so I'm not too upset at it doing well. Although best 5SOS song is admittedly not saying much when it comes to my personal opinion of them.
18- "Nonstop" - Drake (+3) -- Can we not make this song a thing? We've already got too much of Drake. Having this song attempted to be the successor of "In My Feelings" is not what we need right now. I want a break from everything Drake at the moment.
28- "I Like Me Better" - Lauv (+11) -- I'm not expecting this song to get too much higher, but I'm certainly not complaining as I'm ecstatic to see it hit top 30. It's one of those songs that's simply a lot of fun to dance to is it has a extremely catchy groove to it.
29- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+5) -- College football season has began to kickoff and I've already heard lots of this song on ESPN. We'll see if I'm sick of it in four months after hearing in commercials everyday for the whole football season, but for now I think it's a solid football anthem, so I'm fine with it being here. And again, this is better than everything on this band's recent third album, so it makes me a bit happy to see a decent Imagine Dragons song on the charts.
31- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+17) -- I'm not quite ready to be done complaining about Benny Blanco having an artist credit here, but I'm happy for Khalid and Halsey. Both of them are hit and miss for me, but somehow they combined together to make a really enjoyable song.
40- "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" - Luke Bryan (+7) -- Slowly rising up the country charts, probably due to the extremely catchy chorus on the song. I'll accept it for now because this won't get too high.
45- "I'm a Mess" - Bebe Rexha (+6) -- Welcome back to the top 50, Bebe! Although I'm not sure this a completely deserved entry this time around, so if this sputters out and gets stuck somewhere in the middle of the top section of the Hot 100, I won't be offended. That would seem about right, but we'll see where things go from here.
49- "Break Up in the End" - Cole Swindell (+29) -- Did I talk about this song last week? I think I did. I'm having a hard time getting this song stuck in my memory, so have to re-listen to it every week, which is strange because every time I do so I'm reminded that it's a decently sweet country song about a guy who would still do everything again in this relationship even if he knew they'd break up in the end because he still enjoys the memories of them together. And that was a really long run-on sentence, but so be it.
56- "You Say" - Lauren Daigle (+21) -- Here's a huge surprise. I was excited enough that this song even charted. We rarely get Christian pop on the mainstream charts, so it was good to see this here, even if it was just for a few weeks. And that's the direction it looked this this was headed as it kept falling after its debut. But now it saw a huge uptick, which makes me wonder if this can actually gain some real momentum. That would be fantastic. Let's play this all over pop radio because it's about time some good music catches on with the mainstream.
57- "Drew Barrymore" - Bryce Vine (+34) -- Are we really going to make this song a thing? This was a confusingly awful thing that I was ready to forget about. I was not ready for it to have a huge surge on the charts following its debut last week. Jumping 34 spots is a huge sign for success, which has me scared.
68- "Lean Wit Me" - Juice WRLD (+16) -- Which subpar Juice WRLD song is this? Oh. The one where he's blaming all of his drug problems on this girl. I'll pass. But at least he doesn't glorify the drug use in the song, which is what every other rapper does.
71- "1942" - G-Eazy featuring Yo Gotti & YBN Nahmir (+14) -- The strange week for rising songs continues, this time it's another song for the worst. I completely forgot this song existed and I was hoping that we would be done making G-Eazy a thing.
73- "That's on Me" - Yella Beezy (+13) -- I guess in the hip-hop world, all you need is a memorable line and the whole community is satisfied, regardless of what else is in the song. So Yella Beezy repeats the line "that's on me" over and over in his song and that was good enough to get him a hit. Because no one in the hip-hop community has any musical sense when it comes to their taste in music. Oh, was that too harsh? I would be sorry, but just look at the state of the Hot 100 right now and tell me that I'm wrong.
74- "She's Got the Best of Me" - Luke Combs (+21) -- The best song so far this year from Luke Combs. Although I highly doubt anyone will remember any of these singles in a year or two. Just filler for country radio. But at least this is tolerable filler.
82- "Best Part" - Daniel Caesar featuring H.E.R. (+12) -- For the final rising song on the rising songs chart, we have the collaboration you didn't think would happen from two artists that most people still probably don't know exist. But hey, these are two rising stars that I wouldn't mind getting more mainstream attention, so even though this song is extremely cheesy to a fault with its lyrics, if the song gets these two more attention, then it will totally be worth it.
New Arrivals:
22- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande -- We have 11 new arrivals this week and six of them come from Ariana with her new album. I didn't think she would get enough of a streaming presence to pull off an album with her new album. But she proved me wrong. Kinda. Only one of the six new songs debuted in the top 50 and most of them barely made it on, meaning they're probably going to be all gone next week. But hey, when it comes to album bombs, or partial album bombs, it certainly can get much worse than Ariana, so I was fine with exploring "Sweetener." I was planning on doing so anyways. Even though Ariana is very hit and miss for me, I love her voice enough to search for the good Ariana songs in her albums. And we're starting off on a great note with "Breathin," which is a song with actual substance as she's talking about anxiety and how to move forward with that. Ariana speaks about her struggles with anxiety in the verses, then tops that off in the chorus with the sentiment that you just gotta keep breathing even when it doesn't feel like you can keep breathing because life is too much. I think sometimes we forget that celebrities are real human beings with normal issues. Just because you have fame and fortune doesn't mean you are immune to the challenges of life, so I appreciate Ariana opening up about that in this song. Songs like this are much more interesting to me than her singing about how sexy she is.
55- "Sweetener" - Ariana Grande -- Here's the title track of the album. And I like the sentiment behind this song that's expressed on the chorus. When life deals you cards that are bitter, become the sweetener that you are to bring the bitter taste to a halt. Sure, that's as about as cliche as it comes. I mean, hasn't everyone heard the saying that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade? But hey, there's a reason why that's such a common saying and that's because it's a good mindset to have. Life sucks. But do your best to make the most of it despite the current situation you may be in. The problem here is when we get past the chorus, we head off into the post-chorus and verses where the song is tainted by Pharrell and his sound effects that get on my nerves. It also becomes extremely choppy in the process. So it's a song with a great start and good potential that ends up derailing thanks to Pharrell.
62- "Everytime" - Ariana Grande -- Ariana said on Twitter that "Everytime" drifts in and out of being in her top five favorite songs from "Sweetener." And I understand the sentiment of that drifting because I think that this song is an alright pop song. After listening the the song "Sweetener" just now, this felt like a breath of fresh air because it was void of Pharrell and his echoes and just had Ariana singing about her relationship problems with this guy. But that's also the problem. It's just Ariana singing about her relationship problems and it feels very run of the mill. At least with "No Tears Left to Cry," which also has similar subject matter, Ariana impressively belts out her famed vocals that makes her so great. But "Everytime" feels very safe, thus falling into the realm of not being all that great, but not being bad enough for me to be upset with it.
63- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille -- Nothing made me more pleasantly surprised this week than seeing Bastille show up on the charts. I absolutely love their first album "Bad Blood" as well as the extended version "All This Bad Blood." I listened to that album so much back in 2013 when it was released. But they haven't really shown up since. At least not here in the states. In fact, this is only the third time they've charted on the U.S. Hot 100. Of the previous two entries, "Bad Blood" only peaked at No. 95, which unfortunately means they could be labelled as a one-hit wonder with "Pompeii," which peaked at No. 5. Although a more accurate label would be to say they are popular in their home country of the U.K. rather than here in the U.S. because they've had all sorts of success over there. Moral of the story is that it's great to have them back on the U.S. charts, although with this being a Marshmello song, I'm not sure how much the whole band contributed to this track. It's probably more of a Dan Smith collaboration with Marshmello, he being the lead singer of Bastille. As such, it's not fair to compare this to Bastille's main stuff and more appropriate to compare it to Marshmello's discography. As a DJ, Marshmello has always been sufficiently enjoyable, even though there are other DJs that are probably more deserving of receiving the spotlight that he has. But if Marhsmello is going to bring a voice on with him, Dan Smith of Bastille is an excellent choice. Marshmello's production is very typical of the rest of his stuff, meaning it's sufficiently enjoyable, but Dan Smith definitely makes this song as he brings enough energy to the lyrics to make it worth the listen. And if it puts Bastille in the spotlight leading up to their third studio album later this year, I think that's a good thing even if the song isn't the most memorable thing ever.
65- "Promises" - Calvin Harris & Sam Smith -- Speaking of DJs who probably don't deserve as much spotlight as they've gotten in their career, we have the latest track from Calvin Harris, who has always released your typical formulaic dance track that does enough to make you have fun on the dance floor, but not enough for the songs to have much of an impact on your life outside the dance floor. When it comes to these dance songs, though, half of the battle is selecting who to feature as the vocalist. Like Marshmello's "Happier," this song is a winner because of the vocalist, Mr. Sam Smith. Calvin Harris doesn't give him a whole lot to do with the lyrics, which is also a typical Calvin Harris thing as lyrically he almost always goes the extremely simplistic route, but Sam Smith makes the most of those lyrics, making this a great song to listen to in the background while you do other things with your life. With that, the problem here is that this feels more like a club hit than a dance song. I was waiting for the typical Calvin Harris beat and drop, but that never happened. This song has more of a mellow groove to it that consistently rolls on, but lacks a big bite that it would need to really get you moving. Thus if you're at a dance party, this is the type of song that would fit best during the dinner section of said party and not when you're dancing. But Sam Smith's excellent voice is a great one to have playing in the background, so in that sort of context this song works great. But if you're expecting more of a main event song, this song lacks the fire to deliver, which could be seen as disappointing.
72- "R.E.M" - Ariana Grande -- Our fourth new Ariana song is a rather dreamy one. It's really smooth and relaxing, thus making the title "R.E.M" rather fitting. Although full credit for this one can't be given to Ariana as this is a remix of a discarded Beyonce song that missed the cut on her 2013 album. Pharrell took that song and reworked it a bit. Plug in Ariana's vocals and boom. I'd call this a success. Sampling and remixing old, rejected can often work out well. There's not a whole of creativity points to be given out here, but I think this is a well crafted song that makes good use of the romantic side of Ariana's voice without diving too deep into the sensual, sexy side of Ariana. There's enough of a tease to make me accept this that I think is different than her blunting shouting, "I'm a sexy goddess!" from the rooftops like on "God is a Woman."
77- "Blue Tacoma" - Russell Dickerson -- Russell Dickerson was one of the bright spots from country music last year with his song "Yours," even though the song itself was from 2015. Yet given the fact that he released his debut album "Yours" in October of last year, I'm surprised it took this long to get a second single from that album released. Although when it comes to the song "Yours," I think I gravitate mostly to the wedding edition of the song, which takes the lyrics and strips down the instrumental to make it a romantic wedding song. The heavy southern rock vibe of the original version isn't quite as great. I bring that up because "Blue Tacoma" doesn't have a wedding edition to make it sweet and romantic. Nor does it have lyrics that would fit a wedding song. Just a guy singing about his truck and his girlfriend, which feels very cliche when it comes to country. And the instrumentals around the song are very much like the instrumentals around the original recording of "Yours." Hard and loud with too much drums and heavy guitars that are leaned on too heavily when it comes to modern country. Russell has a nice enough voice to make this song more tolerable than the other cliche country singers and he avoids the heavy twang that makes those songs even more facepalm-worthy. But still, this is just another country song about a dude driving his truck with his girl, thus making this feel more average than special.
78- "Chanel (Go Get It)" - Young Thug featuring Gonna & Lil Baby -- This song's title and credited artists literally tell you all you need to know about my opinion of this song. But in case you happen to be new this week, I hate rap where the only subject matter is the rappers rapping about how rich they are. I also hate mumble rap that I can't understand. So of course I'm going to hate a song by three thugs mumbling about all the expensive luxury brands that they'd be willing to get their girls. That's literally all this song is and you can deduce all of that from the title of the song combined with the fact that this is Young Thug. I'm done here.
87- "Goodnight N Go" - Ariana Grande -- Much like the fourth Ariana Grande song, "R.E.M," Ariana again loses points here for a lack of creativity as this song is essentially a cover of the Imogen Heap song "Goodnight and Go." The thing is, though, where I thought "R.E.M" was a solid reworking of the rejected Beyonce song that managed to stay in the teasing realm rather than the sensual realm, "Goodnight N Go" is the opposite. When I figured out this was a cover, I listened to Imogen Heap's original and WOW! That's a fantastic song. A girl has a fun night with a guy, but then he leaves and she feels a bit of a tortured obsession as she loves him quite a bit, but he's no longer there. Imogen's voice and tone match the content perfectly. Meanwhile Ariana's cover is decent, but is quite a bit subpar in comparison. Imogen fits the song much better than Ariana does. And when it comes to the idea of teasing vs. sensual, this is where Ariana crosses the line because she adds a verse not in the original that is bluntly sensual, saying she wants this guy on top of her, doing certain things to her. Thus Ariana switches the song from Imogen's original sentiment of innocently wanting a guy you had a good time with into her life to a song where Ariana has a more lustful desire in wanting this guy back. That's disappointing. So my recommendation here is to go listen to Imogen's original and just forget that this cover exists. Although I will say Ariana's outro is beautiful, especially the very last line of the song.
88- "Made for Now" - Janet Jackson & Daddy Yankee -- When it comes to collaborations, Janet Jackson and Daddy Yankee is probably one of the last collaborations on Earth that I would've ever thought of, so when I saw this on the charts, I was more intrigued by the idea of what this would sound like rather than being excited that Janet Jackson in back on the Hot 100 for only the second time in the 2010's, with her other charted song from this decade being "No Sleep" in 2015. Unfortunately, playing on the title of the song, Janet wasn't a singer made for now. At least not when it comes to music. She was made for the 80's and 90's when she could be herself and release the song she wanted, then see it soar into the top 10. Not counting "We Are the World 25 for Haiti" in 2010, Janet hasn't charted any song in the top 10, as a lead or featured artist, since 2001. So this song sounds like her awkwardly trying to fit in to 2018 by teaming up with Daddy Yankee for a song. The result is a good enough effort. It's a catchy song that sees Janet and Daddy Yankee playing well off each other for a combination that works surprisingly well. But when it comes to a song from a Jackson, this doesn't feel up to par as it's kinda empty and lifeless in terms of content while just being a fun dance track. Granted, I've never been quite as high on Janet as I have her older brother Michael, but still.
99- "Pete Davidson" - Ariana Grande -- My first question for this song was who is Pete Davidson? Oh, he's a comedian who's been on Saturday Night Live since 2014. Since I don't watch SNL, I wouldn't know who he is. Sorry. More importantly to this song is that Pete Davidson is Ariana Grande's fiance. They apparently got engaged in June of this year, about a month after Ariana ended her two-year relationship with Mac Miller. That's awfully fast, but such is the case with celebrity relationships sometimes, I suppose. I also suppose it's a nice sentiment for Ariana to write a song that's specifically dedicated to her fiance, but in judging this song, it's not much of a song. It's barely over a minute long. One verse. One chorus. The verse is a quick bit about her saying how grateful she is to have him in her life. The chorus, which comprises over half of the minute-long song, is simply her repeating that she's gonna be happy. If she had come up with a full-length song, then maybe there would've been something here. But as is, this is about as close to nothing as you get. And I'm surprised it charted over "Blazed," which officially credits Pharrell (even though he's there, but uncredited, in a few other songs) and "Borderline" which features Missy Elliott.
