DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - September 29, 2018

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (+1) -- Two reasons to be happy that this song is No. 1 this week. First, Drake is no long No. 1 after spending a record-breaking 29 weeks at No. 1 this year. Second, a rap song is no longer No. 1. It's been 34 straight weeks that rap has been No. 1 in one form or another. I was more than ready for both of those streaks to end. Outside those two reasons, I'm not celebrating this, nor am I giving it much notice. If you want to know all the fancy accolades that Maroon 5 set by getting No. 1, feel free to look up Billboard's weekly article by Gary Trust. He lists a lot of them, as he does whenever we get a new No. 1 hit. For me I've simply concluded that Adam Levine sold his soul to the devil in order to get this here. Or, as I like to say, he made a deal with a crossroads demon. My "Supernatural" friends will understand and appreciate that. But seriously, what other explanation is there for why this boring, lame song from a lazy band who stopped being creative years ago is now No. 1? I don't understand. Yeah, I understand the numbers behind it. It's because of radio. And initial streaming numbers exploded because of that music video. But I don't understand why said numbers are so high or why they've stayed so high. This needs to go away and quick because I'm going to start getting increasingly angrier the longer this stays.

2- "In My Feelings" - Drake (-1) -- Objectively speaking, this is still a better song than "Girls Like You." But as I just said, I'm glad this is not No. 1 anymore because Drake has spent way too long at No. 1 this year. Specifically, the radio numbers for this song are crashing hard while the sales and streaming continue to deplete. I wouldn't be surprised to see this start a plummet down the charts.

3- "Killshot" - Eminem (new arrival) -- You know, I'm not even going to be upset at this. I've been begging for a new top three for weeks now after our previous top three annoyingly got stuck for way too long. This might be a subpar Eminem song and I'm genuinely surprised it debuted this high. But I'll take subpar Eminem over Drake, Maroon 5 and Cardi B completely monopolizing the top three. This will be gone next week, but at least it shook things up for now. And with the way Cardi B dropped this week, it won't be her that replaces Eminem next week.

4- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+1) -- It will mostly likely be Juice WRLD that jumps up to No. 3 next week? That's encouraging. This song got to No. 3 before, but then Billboard shook up their formula and immediately caused the song to tank a bit. But now it's made it's way back up and I'm not complaining. I'm not madly in love with the song, per se, but it's a welcome breath of fresh air when compared to most other songs that have occupied the top five as a whole in recent months.

5- "Better Now" - Post Malone (-1) -- I'm also not upset that Post Malone remains in the top five, although he remains destined to camp out around the bottom half of the top five as he can't get any higher. I don't know how long this is going to last. I keep expecting it to slowly start to slip away, but with Eminem set to drop away from the top five next week, I'm guessing that this will go back up to No. 4 again next week, continuing it's see-saw between No. 4 and No. 5.

6- "I Like It" - Card B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (-3) -- I was filled with much joy earlier this week when I looked up the top 10 countdown and saw that Cardi B had finally plummeted out of the top five. Now if Drake and Maroon 5 could follow suit, that would be greatly appreciated. Although again, objectively speaking, this will probably sneak up to No. 5 next week because I don't expect "Killshot" by Eminem to last multiple weeks in the top five. But at least this won't be the No. 3 song again.

7- "I Love It" - Kanye West & Lil Pump (-1) -- Why is Kanye West's Pornhub anthem still here?

8- "FeFe" - 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj & Murda Beatz (-1) -- I'm also happy that this song is slowly slipping. But the fact that it never should've got here in the first place makes me still upset that it's remained here for so long. I could tolerate one week in the top 10 because we have a bunch of dumb teenagers in this country who slobber all over themselves whenever they here the sexual predator that is 6ix9ine either yell at them or mumble at them. But why it remained beyond that has me furious.

9- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (1) -- Seeing all these awful songs drop one spot is encouraging because it means that they might eventually leave the top 10. But they need to drop faster and be replaced by quality songs in the process.

10- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+1) -- Listen, I'm glad that Tyga's "Taste" fell out of the top 10. But did it have to take Khalid and Normani's "Love Lies" with it? I was hoping that we could have both "Youngblood" AND "Love Lies" in the top 10 this week. Not just one of them. But OK, fine. I'm happy that 5SOS got into the top 10 because this is at least a decently enjoyable song, which makes it a huge step above just about everything else in the top 10 right now. The next step will be to get this song higher up, and drag "Love Lies," which is down at No. 11 this week, up with it, so that we can replace this horrendous top 10 with songs that are at least tolerable. Because most of the top 10, for almost the entire year, has been excruciatingly painful to deal with. When we look back at 2018, it will definitely be seen as one of the worst years for popular music by those who actually care about quality music.

Rising on the Hot 100: 

13- "Lucky You" - Eminem featuring Joyner Lucas (+5) -- This is genuinely surprising. After album bombs, most songs progressively tank each week. That's exactly what I expected to happen to Eminem. And it did happen with every other song from the album that debuted. But this song rose back up to No. 13 this week after falling to No. 18 last week? Is it because Eminem released the music video, causing it to get a one-week rise or is this going to legitimately gain traction outside the debut? I would love for it to be the latter, because this was one of the better songs from "Kamikaze," but I suppose we'll wait and see what this actually does in the coming weeks.

15- "Nonstop" - Drake (+2) -- I'm not happy that this has gained enough traction to hang out in the teens for the last few months. But at least this has struggled to get back to the top 10 after it debuted there. The last thing the world needs is more Drake in the top 10. So let's make sure we keep it out of the top 10.

36- "I'm a Mess" - Bebe Rexha (+7) -- There's surprisingly not a lot of movement below the top 10 this week as we jump straight from Eminem and Drake just below the top 10 to Bebe at No. 36. I'm not super ecstatic that this is doing well, but I'm not super upset either. It's more of a forgettable song from Bebe, who is capable of much better. But it doesn't bother me, either. So bring it on.

42- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+12) -- I'd certainly take a more forgettable Bebe song over this. I'm not happy that Sheck Wes has gained enough traction to hit the top 50. Let's please not make him a thing. The less new awful rappers that we reward with successful careers, the better.

50- "She Got the Best of Me" - Luke Combs (+7) -- It's an off week for country songs this week as only song qualified for my rising songs section, but that one songs sees Luke Combs hit top 50 with this song that doesn't particularly make me upset. Yet at the same time I do have a hard time remembering it exists, nor am I going to remember it after it leaves the charts. But it could be worse.

67- "Thunderclouds" - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present... LSD (+11) -- I'm happy to see this song rising on the charts. But it's not rising super fast at the moment and I'm not convinced that it's going to become a major hit. But I keep seeing that commercial it's featured in quite a bit, so it's remained stuck in my head for the majority of the time that it's been released. And I'm OK with that. It's a fun song.

69- "That's On Me" - Yella Breezy (+12) -- When I saw that this song rose 12 spots this week, I had one reaction. WHY?

New Arrivals:

3- "Killshot" - Eminem -- OK, if you followed me when I covered "Kamikaze" two weeks ago when it charted, then you'll know I was rather amused with all of his shots towards today's rappers. Because they almost all suck, yet they somehow manage to infest the charts anyways because kids these days don't know what music is. In other words, I feel Eminem's pain even though I wasn't necessarily madly in love with his album from last year. Specifically, when he fired at Machine Gun Kelly, I had a ball Machine Gun Kelly is crap, which was proven by his awful comeback towards Eminem. But now Eminem needs to man up and let it go. Seeing him fire back at MGK a second time after MGK fired at him felt like he had the maturity of a 10-year-old arguing with a kid who insulted him. Even putting that aside, Eminem is usually a master lyricist with great flow and great rhythm to his rap. He has none of that hear. His string of insults this time around are almost as cringeworthy as MGK's last week. And his flow feels choppy and disconnected. I usually enjoy listening to Eminem's fire and passion, but this one hurts my ears almost as much as all the other rappers that Eminem spent his album complaining about, so now I just want both Eminem and MGK to sit in the corner and take a timeout because neither are acting like grown adults.

28- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna -- I'm really mad at Drake for making Lil Baby a thing after including him on the track "Yes Indeed" earlier this year. But I was happy to see that song only manage to get two weeks in the top 10 instead of camping out there all year. And Lil Baby has tried so hard to be relevant on his own, only to come up short every time. But yet here he is again, teaming up with Gunna, who he featured on his song "Life Goes On" back in June. A fact I only remember because I keep track of all the new songs each week in an Excel file on my computer, so I have the luxury of quickly looking it up. I'm really mad that this debuted all the way up at No. 28 and I hope it just falls because this is a prime example of why rap is so awful in 2018. Here you have two lazy rappers coming up with a generic song about them being rich and famous, listing off all the luxury brands they own and bragging about the drugs they're doing and the girls they're sleeping with. There's absolutely zero creativity here and zero talent as they mumble their way through the whole thing. I only understood what they were saying because I was reading the lyrics on Genius as I was listening. If this were to drop off in a few weeks, no one would remember it existed. Even if it became a huge hit, no one will remember it by this time next year.

30- "Wake Up in the Sky" - Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black -- I'm going to be doing a lot of repeating myself this week just by looking at some of these songs, so perhaps I'll keep these brief. If this were Gucci Mane and Kodak Black on their own, there'd be nothing to say here. Gucci's name says all you need to know about him and his style, while Kodak has never done an interesting thing in his life. The only thing that makes this thing even somewhat intriguing is that they dragged Bruno Mars along with them. But I'm one of those weird people who doesn't care much for Bruno's Grammy-winning album, so I wasn't convinced. Yeah, sure, Bruno is a better singer than Gucci and Kodak because he enunciates his words, but all he's singing about his being drunk, smoking and bragging about how "fly" he is. He does that on the chorus in between Gucci and Kodak throwing in their verses full of nothing interesting. If Bruno's name in this turns this into a huge hit, I'm going to be furious.

38- "New Patek" - Lil Uzi Vert -- In case you didn't know, Patek is a brand of luxury watch. Can I be done here? Or should I remind you that bragging about how rich you are is one of the laziest things that a rapper can do. Throwing in all the luxury brand names has never been interesting to me and never will. And Lil Uzi Very has never been an interesting rapper. So I'm going to be done now, because you get the point.

45- "Better" - Khalid -- After enduring through those last four songs, it was great seeing Khalid show up on the charts to give me a quick break from all the madness. Yet I didn't keep my hopes up too much because if I'm being honest, I'm a bit hit and miss with Khalid as a whole. When he's on, he's on. But sometimes he has poor choices of who to collaborate with. And other times he doesn't collaborate with anyone. Which is normally not a bad thing, but Khalid on his own without a good singer to balance him out has a tendency of become boring. And that's what this song is. It's boring. Khalid is extra mumbly because he has no one to sing with and it sounds like he got bored while recording after deciding to record a naturally slow song. And there's not really any substance here as is shown by the generic title of "Better." Recent examples of great Khalid is his collaborations with Normani and Billie Eilish respectively.

47- "Falling Down" - Lil Peep & XXXTENTACION -- This caught me by complete surprise. I didn't ever expect to see these two back on the charts, let alone on a song together. Lil Peep died of a drug overdose late last year and X was shot and killed earlier this year. So where in the heck did this song come from? Well, apparently Lil Peep and a dude who calls himself iLoveMakonnen recorded a song called "Sunlight On Your Skin" before Lil Peep died. After Lil Peep did, this song was remixed with X instead of iLoveMakonnen. Now that they've both died, iLoveMakonnen released this song as a sort of tribute to both of them. Which is fine and all, except apparently a lot of people in Lil Peep's camp where vehemently against this version because they felt that Lil Peep never would've worked with X due to what X stood for and all the allegations and crimes surrounding him. That makes this version really awkward to talk about because I'm not sure what to think about all of that. What do I say about a song featuring two late artists, one of whom potentially wouldn't have authorized this if he were still alive? What I will say is that I listened to both versions and the original song, "Sunlight On Your Skin" is actually a pretty good song. This version with X makes the song worse because iLoveMakonnen fits with Lil Peep way better than X does. So I'm going to recommend you listen to "Sunlight On Your Skin," while in the meantime I'm going to awkwardly step away from this and hope that I don't have to address it again in the future.

76- "Pretty Little Fears" - 6LACK featuring J. Cole -- With the awkwardness behind us, we're back to business as usual, this time talking about an artist whose name drives me crazy. He pronounces his name BLACK, but spells it 6LACK because apparently it's cool to replace the B with a 6 for some strange reason. Maybe because a 6 looks like a demented lowercase b. That aside, is the song good? Well, kinda. I feel like 6LACK is trying to rap/sing about something that he cares about rather than lazily talking about fame and riches like all of his other colleagues. The problem is that he's not super clear about what he's trying to say. The song is slow and chopped up. I think 6LACK is talking to a girl and wanting her to talk to him, but he doesn't do a great job with spelling things out. But then the second half of the song is J. Cole, who successfully does in the second half what I think 6LACK was trying to do in the first half as J. Cole is talking to his wife, wanting her to talk to him and express all of her fears since she's had a pretty rough time of late. That was really beautiful and J. Cole nails it. So I give high praise to the second half of the song, but I'm more bored with the first half of the song. 

96- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero -- Another new rapper to deal with. I know nothing about Flipp Dinero, but after listening to this, I don't think I want to know much about him. He's yelling at a girl, telling her to leave him alone. So he comes off as a crybaby in the sound. And he sounds like he lost his voice when he recorded this in the studio. So I'm thinking that I would love for Flipp to go away and, well, uh... leave me alone.

97- "Best Shot" - Jimmie Allen -- I thought I was going to get away with not covering any country songs this week when I saw the lineup. But turns out Jimmie Allen is indeed a country singer, so country snuck one in this week. What I appreciate about this song is that it's not jam packed with an overabundance of heavy drums and guitars that don't match the lyrics. There's no mention of getting drunk or drinking at a bar. And Jimmie doesn't have a deep country twang. Instead this is a nice, smooth song where Jimmie is singing about a girl, but he sounds sincere about it and the soft, mellow music behind him actually matched the romantic tones to go with it. So I can see myself potentially enjoying this song as a nice background song during some sort of fancy event. The problem here is that the song is a bit too simple in terms of the lyrics. There's not much of a story behind the romantic words he's saying and I don't even know if he's singing about his wife, his girlfriend or a random girl he has yet to talk about. There's two very short verses surrounded by the chorus that repeats several times and a bridge towards the end that makes this such a basic love song that I could've written the lyrics and have it be generically talking about anything and any relationship. So I would've liked a bit more lyrically, but as a whole, this isn't bad at all.

100- "Noticed" - Lil Mosey -- Sure. Why not. Let's end the week with another untalented rapper who is rapping about... something. If you simply listen to the song, you'll have no idea what he's saying because he's implemented a combination of mumbling and incoherently pronouncing words. The beat in the song is alright. And apparently this is Lil Mosey remixing a previous song he had, which was also called "Noticed." But a semi-decent beat behind the song doesn't change the fact that Lil Mosey is just another garbage rapper worth throwing in the trash. Which means he's probably going to catch fire and be the next big thing. But let's hope not. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that we now have another "Lil" to deal with. Seriously, if I get any new rapper who names himself "Lil ______," I'm going to go crazy.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - September 22, 2018

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (=) -- A whole bunch of accolades for Drake this week as he breaks the tie with Usher to become the artist who has spent the most amount of weeks at No. 1 in a single year while at the same time getting a second single from this year to hit 10 weeks at No. 1, both coming from his album "Scorpion." And I don't give one iota about all of that because I just want Drake gone. And I don't hate "God's Plan," "Nice for What" or "In My Feelings." In fact, I enjoy the former two and the latter is tolerable if I ignore the complete idiocy that got it to be No. 1. But man, 29 weeks at No. 1 and it's only September. There's been 39 Billboard weeks in 2018 so far, so that means nearly 75 percent of the year we've had a Drake song at No. 1. And I was ready for that to be done a long time ago. Good thing is this song's reign is about over. Its radio was consistent, but streaming and sales plummeted again, causing it to fall 14 percent in overall chart points whereas Maroon 5 only fell 7 percent in overall chart points. I don't know how much margin is left, but I don't think it's very much.

2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 (=) -- You know, if it means getting Drake to be done sitting at the top of the charts, I'll accept a dumb Maroon 5 song at time momentarily. But not for long. I still don't think this song even belongs anywhere close to the top 10, so I'm mad that it's become one of their biggest hits ever. It makes no sense.

3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (=) -- Drake, Maroon 5 and Cardi B have been camped out in the top three for longer than I care to keep track of. Something needs to break this bland trio of songs up. But something that's actually worth something. I mean, is it too much to ask for to have a good song at the top of the charts?

4- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+1) -- I'm so desperate for the top three to be broken up that I'll gladly cheer on Post Malone right now. I think I've officially gone mad. But hey, a celebration is warranted that 6ix9ine tanked and is out of the top five.

5- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+2) -- I'm even happier that this song is back in the top five. Nothing else from Juice WRLD is proving to be worth anything, but I still stick to the fact that "Lucid Dreams" is a good song. And I'll take what I can get.

6- "I Love It" - Kanye West & Lil Pump (new) -- Wait, we have an "I Like It" and an "I Love It" in the top 10 right now? Quick, someone write a song called "I Want Some More of It" so that we can complete the trio! Actually, though, I have a better idea. Let's just get rid of this. It's the anthem for the first annual Pornhub awards that was co-created by Kanye, the world's most annoying troll. And no, I'm not making that up. More on that down below in my new arrivals section.

7- "FeFe" - 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj & Murda Beatz (-3) -- The next three songs need to die already. I'm happy that this tanked this week and fell out of the top five, but it never belonged anywhere close to the top 10 in the first place, so it would be nice if we could get rid of it altogether.

8- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+1) -- Travis Scott and Drake lazily droning on about nothing interesting. And it's still in the top 10 after debuting in the region several weeks. Again, at least Drake isn't getting any official credit for this. And at least it hasn't been able to get back to the top 10 after debuting at No. 4.

9- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (+1) -- You know the top 10 as a whole is awful when this song is no longer the most awful and disgusting song in the top 10. Yet that doesn't make me any less annoyed that this is still around.

10- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+1) -- Hey, a glimmer of hope. I was annoyed that this got pushed out after only one week in the top 10. Now if this could climb higher than the four songs ahead of it, at the very least, that would be excellent. Let's encourage good music and not trashy music.

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+2) -- As is typical the week after an album, last week being Eminem, we have a lot of songs showing up in the rising songs section as the charts reset themselves before whoever is next with an album bomb. Headlining the list is 5SOS hitting the infamous No. 11 spot, the spot where many good songs have come to die because for some reason this is a hard hill to climb in order to officially crack the top 10. But if they pull it off, I will be more than happy for them because, as you can see, I am not very happy with most of the songs in the top 10 at the moment. "Youngblood" would give us another song that's more tolerable.

12- "No Brainer" - DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper & Quavo (+3) -- It brings me much joy that this song hasn't had nearly the same amount of traction as this gang's track last year. But seeing it sneak closer to that top 10 for yet another time makes me nervous. Stupid radio won't let this die because apparently we love bland pop songs with even blander rap verses attached, all put together by an untalented producer who thinks a pile of crap like this is quality music.

15- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+5) -- I've been rightfully mean to Imagine Dragons, but their college football anthem would be a welcome addition to the top 10 if it manages to get over the hump. Right now I'm thinking it might hang around in the teens for a bit.

19- "Back to You" - Selena Gomez (+3) -- I can only hope that Selena gets a lot of love and attention. I suppose I can celebrate this song being in the top 20, but wouldn't be an even bigger breath of fresh air if we had a great song in the top 10?

23- "Trip" - Ella Mai (+9) -- Instead of Selena, though, we're probably going to welcome in a more annoying pop/R&B song instead. I want to be happy for Ella Mai because I want to see more female singers doing well, but this is just not a good follow up to her decently enjoyable hit "Boo'd Up."

28- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+6) -- I might forever complain that Benny Blanco is attached as a credited artist on this song, but I'll be happy if this song can maintain some momentum. Let's give Khalid a second top 10 hit.

29- "SAD!" - XXXTENTACION (+7) -- It's interesting seeing this song still hanging around here. No, it's not getting a second wind. It's just stubbornly floating around here in the mid-section of the Hot 100 and just so happened to get a rise after Eminem fell off.

35- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+11) -- Am I allowed to say that I'm happy to see this song rising on the charts, or is that diving into bad pun territory? Either way, this is not the best thing that either Marshmello or Bastille has put together, but it's a decently enjoyable hit. And I'm all for helping forward the careers of both parties.

41- "Broken" - lovelytheband (+7) -- I find it fun seeing a little, indie rock hit doing well. This is also not the most amazingly fantastic song that this genre could put out, but I'll totally accept a decently enjoyable little indie rock hit over just about everything rap or hip-hop related right now. So if we can continue to have more variety on the charts, that will be very much welcomed because I hate seeing the world of popular music being drowned out by awful rap music.

42- "Beautiful" - Bazzi featuring Camila Cabello (+5) -- I want to be more excited about this because I like Camila. But the dude she's partnering up with this time around in Bazzi just doesn't have what it takes to please me, so I'm not going to support this.

44- "You Say" - Lauren Daigle (+28) -- I feel like standing on the rooftops and shouting "Hallelujah!" I was happy with this song simply getting a week or two on the charts, but to now see it with a whole bunch of momentum after now officially becoming a top 50 hit is something worth celebrating. In a day where awful rap has plagued the charts, and we even have the Pornhub anthem in the top 10, I'm glad that there's at least some hope for the music world as people are accepting this beautiful Christian hit.

45- "Barbie Dreams" - Nicki Minaj (+18) -- What is this doing here? I thought we were over this Nicki Minaj thing this year after her album vastly under-performed. But now "Barbie Dreams" is sailing back up the charts? Let's hope this is only a one week thing.

48- "Hooked" - Dylan Scott (+12) -- Not the best week for country, but Dylan Scott managed to hit the top 50, which I don't think is a good thing.

54- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+19) -- I realize why I was initially intrigued when I saw the title of this song. "Mo Bamba" looks a lot like "Mambo." As in "Mambo No. 5." But no, this is not anything close to that. Instead it's just another awful rap song by a new rapper who needs to get away from the Hot 100. Let's not make Sheck Wes a thing.

62- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+12) -- I would really love to see this song become a hit, but it's just not getting enough traction at the moment. Let's hope this changes because imagine how awesome it would be to have this at the top of the charts? It would take me back to the days where fun. were able to top the charts. But no, this song is probably too good for 2018. We salivate over the awful rappers mumbling about how rich they are while rejecting good music.

66- "Smile (Living My Best Life)" - Lil' Duval featuring Snoop Dogg & Ball Greezy (+14) -- Hey, when it comes to rap music doing well, I'll certainly take this song over nearly everything else. It's not quite my cup of tea, but I'll get behind a chill Snoop Dogg song.

67- "Lose It" - Kane Brown (+15) -- Does anyone care about Kane Brown? If he were to disappear from mainstream country, would anyone realize that he's gone?

69- "The Way I Am" - Charlie Puth (+19) -- Yeah, sure, I'll get behind this doing well. Like everything Charlie Puth puts out, the content of this is nothing that special, but this at least has a decent groove to it in terms of the music. If it came on the radio, I might dance around a bit in my car instead of moaning about another bland Charlie Puth song, so that's a step in the right direction.

72- "Promises" - Calvin Harris & Sam Smith (+14) -- Sam Smith is capable of a lot better and Calvin Harris doesn't quite do enough of his typical Calvin Harris stuff, but this song is still excellent as background noise at whatever get together you're having and would be a pleasant radio hit, so I'm certainly pushing for it to do well.

78- "Thunderclouds" - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present... LSD (+16) -- After covering this song on last week's charts, I quickly learned that this is the theme song of a certain phone commercial. And I saw that commercial all the time as I watched my sports stuff. I think it's one of ESPN's favorite commercials to play at the moment, so I've heard this song a lot this week. The result of that is it being stuck in my head all week. And you know, I don't have an issue with that. This is a pleasantly enjoyable song even if it doesn't dive as deep as Labrinth and Sia have been known to in the past. I still don't like that group name, though.

New Arrivals:

6- "I Love It" - Kanye West & Lil Pump -- Without knowing anything about the context of this song, I listened to it and hated it. I mean, are you surprised? What would you expect from a Kanye and Lil Pump collaboration? Two music who the world needs to discard, yet somehow have a huge following of people who worship their garbage. But yeah, when you look at the context of this, Kanye admitted in a interview with Jimmy Kimmell that his attitude towards women hasn't changed after having daughters and that he still watches Pornhub. After that, Pornhub reached out to him and gave him a premium lifetime membership to show their gratitude. One thing led to another and before we know it, Kanye became the co-creator of the first annual Pornhub awards, which happened recently, and this is where this song and video debuted. So this song is literally a Pornhub anthem where Kanye and Lil Pump talk about being rich and screwing girls. And I think they had a competition to see which of them could drop more f-bombs in the song. And now it's a top 10 hit. If that's not the perfect example of the deterioration of modern day popular music, I don't know what is. What's worse is that there's now a "I Love It" challenge that might keep this around for a while.

13- "Rap Devil" - Machine Gun Kelly -- We all knew this was coming, right? When Eminem dropped his surprise album "Kamikaze," which I covered last week, the track "Not Alike" was specifically a song where Eminem ripped into MGK and I was so amused by it that it had me rolling over in laughter. And I mean that as a good thing for Eminem because who cares about MGK? It felt therapeutic for me to hear Eminem slamming him for an entire song. If you want to know who the real rap god is, go listen to "Not Alike," then go listen to this song, "Rap Devil," because this is MGK's weak attempt at a response. I mean, take the whole beef aside and just listen to the flow and the intensity from both rappers. Eminem has fire and passion as he spews his hatred towards MGK and the rest of the modern rappers that plague the industry. MGK just sounds bored and flat. He doesn't have flow. He doesn't have energy. The song is nearly five minutes long and I stopped halfway through simply because I was bored. That coming after I was curious to see what MGK had to say. But I just couldn't get through the song because I was so bored, so I read the rest of the lyrics. And then we get to the insults. All of them feel flat and empty as if MGK was doing this out of obligation and didn't really know how to respond, so he came up with a bunch of crap that he barely believe himself. "Now to see if "Killshot" by Eminem charts next week, which is the response to "Rap Devil." That song is not that good, either. But it's still better than this.

33- "Self Care" - Mac Miller -- I was expecting some Mac Miller to chart this week. What I thought was going to happen was some re-entries of older songs of his. But instead we have three songs from his most recent album, released last month in August before he passed away earlier this month. This is where things get tricky. Like I said with XXXTENTACION when he got shot and killed, I will never celebrate the passing of a human being. I find it extremely tragic when someone gets killed, regardless of how I thought of them beforehand. In Mac's case, I find it tragic anytime I hear that someone died of a drug overdose. And I do my best to be sensitive towards it because I know there's a lot of good people in the world who simply can't overcome their demons. Mac has struggled with drug abuse for a long time and I would've loved to hear a story of him overcoming that, but unfortunately he succumbed to his demons and it cost him his life. That's why I hate it when rappers glorify drug use in their lyrics because this is what drugs do. They kill people. To those blaming Ariana Grande for his death, I don't even know how to respond because that's the most atrocious thing I've heard. She broke up with him back in May because she was tired of the toxic relationship they were having because he could keep his crap together. If that resulted in a downward spiral that led to his overdose this month, there's no one to blame but Mac Miller.

All that said, I'm also not going to suddenly worship a person or their music just because they passed away. I'm devastated that he overdosed and died. I truly am. But that doesn't make me like his music. I've never liked his music and I've always seen him as an overhyped, untalented rapper. And "Self Care" just sounds like he's not fully there. The music itself does more interesting things than most rap songs and he's not lazily rapping about drugs, riches, or fame. It sounds like he's trying to come up with personal, cohesive lyrics, but I just don't think it worked. He doesn't have very good flow and it sounds like he was stumbling all over his words when he recorded the song as there's lots of mumbling. I hate to say it, but it sounds like he was drunk or high on drugs in the studio during the record, so I find this song tragic because of that. I probably would've trashed this song if it had charted before he died and his death doesn't change my opinion of it.

70- "Hurt Feelings" - Mac Miller -- The second of three Mac Miller songs to chart from his album "Swimming" following his death. And I would really love to praise one of these songs and mourn with people who truly miss him. And like I said with "Self Care," I'm honestly devastated that he's gone. But this song is another miss for me. When in doubt, just bathe your lyrics in a whole bunch of yeahs and whoas, right? That's the whole introduction to this song and he has lots of yeahs scattered throughout. The song itself is pretty mellow, but the lyrics don't really match the mellow tone as he's just saying he's not going to change who he is to better his career. Sure, I can celebrate the idea of being yourself, but I think it feels more hollow and empty here. And again, he's not up to par with his flow or tempo. It just feels like he's lazily wandering around the outline of what he was supposed to do when the song was written, so it doesn't feel like cohesive execution here. The song also feels like a minute or two too long. I got really bored while listening. The pacing of the song wasn't right. I'm not jumping to conclusions as to why the song ended up this way. I just don't like the final result.

91- "Come Back to Earth" - Mac Miller -- OK, this song title is sad. And I'm wondering if that's the reason why this song specifically charted this week. Many people hope that Mac Miller will come back to Earth. And I share that sentiment. Although I don't think this song specifically is like a Chester Bennington situation where you look back on his final album after his death and the lyrics look like a suicide note. This song feels more optimistic. He realizes all the challenges he's faced, but now he feels like he's swimming instead of drowning. That in hindsight is kinda tragic in it's own way. Out of the three Mac Miller songs to chart, this is the better of the three. But I feel like in this instance it's a bit overly simplistic. Now it's the opening track on the album, so perhaps it doesn't need to be more than a simple introduction to what he wants to say for the rest of the album, but standing on its own it's a song that barely crosses two minutes after a chorus, a verse, then a chorus. And in that, the lines feel really stretched out to the point where if he rapped it at normal speed, the song might barely cross one minute. I suppose I'll take this over the other two songs being way too long, but I think there's a balance that could've been found that he doesn't quite get either way.

94- "Vaina Loca" - Ozuna & Manuel Turizo -- I think last time I covered an Ozuna song, I was in a big hurry and didn't care to translate it. This time around I took my time with that. I did my usual thing of listening to the song in Spanish in order to gauge how I feel, then I went exploring to figure out what I listened to. I'm generally pretty nice to Ozuna as I find his music fairly soothing. This song here is about the same. I don't know who Manuel Turizo is, but him and Ozuna have a nice balance in this song, even though I don't really know if both artists were needed this time around. The song isn't super upbeat, but few Ozuna songs actually are. This has the typical Latino groove to it, but it's a more mellow song that will probably be effective as a slower, change of pace song on the dance floor. It's pretty basic, but decently effective. Speaking of basic, from what I gather from the lyrics, it's also fairly basic. Guy is in love with a girl and wants to be with her. Nothing deep or emotional. But nothing risque either as it sounds pretty innocent. If you're into Latin dancing, you're probably not going to remember this song specifically after the night is over, but if it plays during the dance, you'll probably enjoy the moment, so I'll call it satisfactory.

95- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay -- This duo again. For the record, whichever one of them takes the charge with the lead vocals does have a pleasant voice that I'll take over most of the boring twangy stuff that I get from most other country artists. I've just not been that interested in any of the content in their songs. When they commented on this song on their Twitter, they commented that both of them got married last year and they wanted to write a song about what it was like seeing their brides walking down the aisle. That's actually a nice sentiment that I'll take over their lame drinking song "Tequila." Being that the two songs are on the same album confuses me. One song is about how happy they are to have seen their brides walking down the isle while the other is them singing about how lonely they are after the girl has left them. And that's the problem with some of these country artists. A lot of their lyrics feel run-of-the-mill and impersonal. Which is why this song has a leg up on the rest because it actually sounds like a song where they care about the lyrics they wrote. And it is kinda sweet hearing them singing about how speechless their wives make them. I think the song could've had a little more too it as it's fairly basic. She makes him speechless. That's it. That's the song. And it's also not as romantic as it could be in terms of the music. It could've been a soft piano ballad, but instead it gets into your basic country nonsense with the heavy drums and guitars that don't fit the tone of the song. But as a whole, the song is harmless, so I'll accept it.

96- "Electricity" - Silk City & Dua Lipa -- I saw the name of this song and I had one expectation for it. It needed to be electric. And I know that sounds dumb, but when your song is called "Electricity," there should be some, well, electricity. And that shouldn't be too hard considering the fact that Silk City is a duo consisting of Mark Ronson and Diplo. Yes, I've lost track of how many groups that Diplo has formed, so I kinda facepalmed when I heard of yet another one. But anyways, the two of them teamed with Dua Lipa on vocals should be a winner, right? I mean, we have the creator of "Uptown Funk" combined with a veteran DJ and a great pop vocalist. Yet the team-up results in a song that is decent. There's a pretty good groove to it, but the second I think the song is about to explode, it tapers down and even mutes Dua's voice a bit, leaving me slightly underwhelmed. But even with that, the song is inoffensive. Dua's voice is good even though whoever wrote her lyrics didn't get her much to sing about. And there's enough of a groove that would probably make me enjoy this song as good background music. It's no "Uptown Funk," but I'd still be curious to see what else Mark Ronson and Diplo have up their sleeve when they release their debut Silk City EP. I hope there's something with a little more fire and energy than what they brought here.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - September 15, 2018

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (=) -- Last week Drake tied Usher for the record of the most career weeks at No. 1 for a male solo artist. This week Drake takes that record, even though there's still a long way to go to grab the overall title among all artists, group or solo. And in a not so good week for Usher, Drake also ties him for the most ever weeks spent at No. 1 in a single year. One more week at top and Drake will take that as well, which is completely absurd. At this point, who is still enjoying seeing Drake at No. 1 when he's bet at No. 1 for over half of the year already? Last week I thought it was possible that we would have a close race for the No. 1 spot as Maroon 5 was closing in on Drake in terms of chart points, but Drake's numbers actually eased up and the bleeding slowed down, meaning he only fell 4 percent in overall chart points while Maroon 5 increased by 1 percent. So the margin is closer between the two, but not close enough for a take over this week.

2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- If Maroon 5 does take over for Drake at the top, I'm not sure what I will feel. Yes, I'm sick of having Drake at top as 28 weeks at No. 1 this year is WAY too long, but "In My Feelings" is still a better song than "Girls Like You" and it would be an absolute travesty if this country let a group as boring and average as Maroon 5 take No. 1 on the most prestigious music chart.

3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (=) -- In fact, the top three being stuck like this is really painful. I've never been a huge fan of any of these three songs and I don't know what our country's fascination with them is. Can we please rotate these songs out and bring something new in?

4- "FeFe" - 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj & Murda Beatz (+1) -- As much as I hate the top three songs, let's bite the bullet and keep them there so that we don't let this piece of trash get any higher. Why we've even let 6ix9ine be such a big thing is beyond me. The dude needs to be rotting in prison, not being knighted as a super star. At least his new song this week didn't debut in the top 10 to replace this, but the fact that he got yet another song to chart is an insult to music.

5- "Better Now" - Post Malone (-1) -- Oh sure, the second I officially admit I'm pulling for Post Malone, he gives way to 6ix9ine yet again. To be clear, I'm not the biggest fan of this song. But it's the most tolerable song in the top five at this moment, which is a pretty pathetic statement to the top five as a whole. For the top of the charts to be cemented with these five songs is really embarrassing.

6- "Lucky You" - Eminem featuring Joyner Lucas (new) -- Two new Eminem songs in the top 10 this week as his surprise album "Kamikaze" gets all of its songs to chart on the Hot 100. I'll have plenty to say about this down below, but the short version is that I really like this song and I wish it would've debuted higher. Given that this is an album bomb week for Eminem, I don't expect this to stay around next week.

7- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (-1) -- Juice WRLD gets pushed down by Eminem, which is totally acceptable. Although if Eminem falls down after the debut, it would make sense that Juice WRLD climbs back up to his No. 6 spot that he's been in for a while. And I'm fine with that. I still think this is a good song and I would rather it be in the top five over everything in the top five at the moment.

8- "The Ringer" - Eminem (new) -- Again, lots of thoughts down below on Eminem's new album, but I also like this song. In fact, "Lucky You" and "The Ringer" are the two best songs from the album, in my opinion, so I'm glad the best songs charted the highest. And I only hope they can gain traction and stick around, but I have doubts that they will since most songs fall off after an album.

9- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-2) -- Speaking of songs falling off after an album bomb, I'm really upset that this HASN'T disappeared yet. This is one of the worst songs of Travis Scott's recent album that wasn't very good to begin with. At least I can gloat that Drake gets no official credit for this sticking around after being the sole reason for this song being here in the first place.

10- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (-2) -- It won't go away. This song is awful and shouldn't be here, but it annoyingly has managed to stick around. And it will probably yo-yo back up a couple of spots when Eminem falls off next week. The most annoying thing is both this and "SICKO MODE" survived Eminem while "Love Lies" by Khalid and Normani got shoved back down to No. 11 this week.  

Rising on the Hot 100:

13- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+2) -- Not a lot of songs rising on the charts with Eminem's album bomb, but four of them managed to sneak up given that it was only 11 new Eminem songs as opposed to the 20 mark that Drake and his wannabe followers have gotten this year in their album bombs. Surprisingly I wouldn't mind at all if 5SOS managed to claim their first top 10 entry with this song, but just ask Taylor Swift and Khalid how hard it can sometimes be to get over the hill and make it into the region, so there's no guarantee that this song does so.

20- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+4) -- It makes sense for Imagine Dragons to slowly continue to climb since ESPN plays the song every other commercial during football games and in the days leading up to it. If Eminem falls off next week, I imagine that this will get quite the healthy boost.

32- "Trip" - Ella Mai (+22) -- I'm not so happy about Ella Mai get a 22 spot jump this week. I suppose I'm not super surprised since she's managed to sneak into the mainstream thanks to her monster hit "Boo'd Up." But "Trip" is a lot more annoying and not a very well constructed song, so I'm kinda cheering for this to get stuck in some quicksand here soon and sink back down.

46- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+13) -- I honestly what sure what this song was going to do following its debut. I kinda expected it to not last very long. But even though this is nothing compared to what Bastille did on their first album, I think this is an acceptable song to be around and if it gets Bastille more mainstream recognition leading up to their next album, I think that's a win for everyone.

New Arrivals:

6- "Lucky You" - Eminem featuring Joyner Lucas -- Eminem released a new surprise album and all the songs from it charted this week. Being that I'm actually a fan of Eminem, I went through this album in order. This here is the third track, following "The Ringer" and "Greatest," so feel free to go read my thoughts on those two songs first. Or don't. It's up to you. But in "The Ringer," Eminem referenced a select few rappers who have his personal stamp of approval and one of them is Joyner Lucas. Personally I don't know much about Joyner, but I was impressed in this track that he was about to keep up with Eminem. He takes the first half of the song, telling his story about always wanting the recognition but never getting it, which Eminem counters by telling how he's always had the recognition. I think the two opposite perspectives do a good job of balancing some interesting themes. But then Eminem points out how none of this means anything to kids these days as they go on listening to their mumble rap with rappers who don't have the physical ability to stay focused on a single topic rather than listening to actual talent. And if you want to compare talent, go take a listen to anything out there today on the Hot 100, then listen to this. Eminem's speed, flow and focus is intense and incredible. And it's also incredible that Joyner is just as impressive.

8- "The Ringer" - Eminem -- Today on this Billboard Analysis, we're talking about Eminem's new surprise album "Kamikaze" and I'm going through these songs in order that they appear on the album rather than the order they appeared this week on the Hot 100. This is how the album begins and I find it extremely amusing. On my personal Facebook page, I said that this album is Eminem acting like a crybaby because people hated his album "Revival" from last year and I commented that I wasn't sure what this would actually accomplish when it comes to the people who hated the album. I don't think he's going to convert anyone to his music or make them appreciate the album more by writing a new surprise album where he purposely and harshly insults everyone who criticized him. But given that I didn't hate "Revival," I find this track rather amusing because he expresses my exact thoughts when it comes to the modern music industry. Rap has completely infested the Hot 100 due to its sheer dominance in streaming. It's like no other genre gets streamed. Yet it's almost all crap. Rappers with choppy bars who mumble about how rich and famous they are as well as bragging about stealing your girl. I hate it. And so does Eminem apparently. And he's frustrated that his album got panned while all of these other music critics praise the heck out of these other rappers who have no idea how to rap. So hearing him blast the industry with how awful modern day rap is made me super happy. Now the catch is, while I didn't hate "Revival," I also didn't love it. I think Eminem was a bit scattered and the album was overly long. But I would still take everything on "Revival" over well over 90 percent of other rap music today, so I'm still mostly with Eminem on this.

12- "The Fall" - Eminem -- The eighth song (and tenth track) from Eminem's album, coming right after "Kamikaze," which charted just after. And this is a song where Eminem got a bit of heat from Twitter with his use of a homophobic slur during the song, albeit censored out in both the clean and the explicit versions. I feel this is a very Eminem thing to do. He feels he can say whatever he wants, regardless of how insensitive it is, just because he's Eminem. And he shouldn't be able to get away with something like that. Granted, this whole album is chalk full of insults, but there's certain insults that probably should be avoided in 2018. That said, I do like the shade he throws at these rappers today, specifically saying they're all just copying Migos and Drake, who aren't very good to begin with. I also like the contrast Justin Vernon, who provides uncredited vocals, brings to the table. Eminem is violent and aggressive while Vernon's parts are smooth and relaxing. It's provides an excellent balance. The second verse is him attacking Budden and Tyler the Creator, who I don't know too well, so I don't have a huge emotional investment in that one. And finally in verse three Eminem finishes by lashing out at the Grammys. And yeah, is there anyone that really cares about the Grammys? Can you even remember who won the major awards last year? Exactly.

16- "Kamikaze" - Eminem -- The seventh song (and ninth track) from Eminem's album, directly following "Not Alike." This here is the title track of the album, thus not surprisingly it's the one where he focuses most on this whole project, which is all about how "Revival" wasn't well received and his reaction to that. This song actually doesn't dive super deep into this hate and rage that Eminem is feeling over his poorly received album, but it might be the most fun song on the album with a chorus that is bouncy and carefree as Eminem says he's planning on Kamikaze into everything, using one of his worst songs "Fack" to purposely shove everything into people's faces. He does go into detail in the verses about why got into rap and his frustrations with rap today, but the chorus dominates the song and I think it has a lot of off-the-wall energy to it that might get this stuck in my head. He got a bit too raunchy for my taste towards the end, which is why I'm docking it a bit in my book, but otherwise I think this is a pretty fun song.

23- "Greatest" - Eminem -- This is the second track on "Kamikaze." I will initially admit that upon first listen that I got extremely distracted with a line towards the beginning when Eminem raps that "you better bring more men than the Latter-day Saints," which I took as Eminem referencing the large amount of missionaries in the Church, which as of April conference was reported to be just over 67,000. And yeah, they have to bring "more men," a play on words of "Mormon." So I got a kick out of that reference. Oh, but the rest of the song. Eminem here is talking about how he's the greatest in the world. And normally I don't fully appreciate people pridefully bragging about how awesome they are, but in this case Eminem brings a lot of fire to the table as he continues to slam the modern rap industry, which an especially harsh slam on Drake. While it's true that Drake has had a whole ton of sales, Eminem points out that it's because he doesn't stop putting out music. Eminem points out that Drake has 10 million albums sold because Drake puts out 10 million albums. Which is another frustrating thing to me as well. Most of these rappers don't care about quality. It's all about quantity. I mean, why should I care about their music when they don't care about their music? They just put out a bunch of empty, cliche crap just so that they can get more sales and money. And if you don't think that's true, just listen to the actual lyrics of these songs because 90 percent of rappers' lyrics today are all about how rich they are. So money is all they care about. It's all the references like this on the song that make me enjoy this.

24- "Not Alike" - Eminem featuring Royce da 5'9 -- This is the sixth song from Eminem's album, following "Stepping Stones." As I explain on "Normal," it's the eighth track on the album due to a two track skit in the middle. This is also the second of three featured artists from the album and I know less about Royce da 5'9 than I did of Joyner Lucas, so this is even more unfamiliar to me as far as he goes. And I'm not sure I'm into his verse towards the beginning, even though it's not bad by any means. I think by the time Eminem gets going, I was so amused by what he was doing that I forgot about the first half of the song because this whole thing is Eminem ripping into Machine Gun Kelly for being a fake, wannabe rapper. Eminem essentially claims that the only thing the two of them has in common is that they're both white rappers, but MGK is complete trash while Eminem is one of the few who actually knows how to rap. And I love it because no one cared about MGK. At least they shouldn't because he's a worthless piece of trash. I also loved how Eminem is completely making fun of the Migos style of rap in repeating random words that have no correlation because I have no idea how that style of rap got so popular or why people even enjoy listening to it.

30- "BEBE" - 6ix9ine featuring Anuel AA -- In case you needed an example of why Eminem is so mad right now, he got completely rejected last year with "Revival" while the country is currently praising 6ix9ine by knighting him as a new superstar. And none of that makes any sense. Even if I wasn't head over heels in love with "Revival," anything from that album is a masterpiece compared to everything that 6ix9ine has put together. And why he can't come up with real song titles is beyond me. I'm annoyed with his gibberish names for his songs. But at least in this song I have the pleasure of not being able to understand what he's saying. And not because of him mumbling. That would be awful. But I mean he's singing in Spanish. Yeah, that surprised me when I pressed play on this. I don't know who Anuel AA is, but apparently he's some sort of Latino artist. And hey, if I'm comparing this to all of 6ix9ine's other music, he's not yelling at me and he's not lazily phoning it in like on "FeFe." But I know enough Spanish to be able to understand the line "Yo soy tu criminal," so apparently this is just the same nonsense he's always done. Just in a different language. He's talking about a girl being a daughter of Lucifer because her boyfriend loves her, but she is cheating on her boyfriend. With him, 6ix9ine. And he's going to go kill the boyfriend so they can be together. Because that's what 6ix9ine does. Sing about murder. And we're giving this guy a career?

39- "Normal" - Eminem -- All the way down here at No. 39 is the fourth song from "Kamikaze," following "The Ringer," "Greatest" and "Lucky You." Actually it will be track five on the album, but that's because in between "Lucky You" and "Normal" is a bit called "Paul" where Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg calls him and leaves a message saying that this idea of the "Kamikaze" album isn't a good one. After "Normal," we have a track called "Em Calls Paul" where Eminem responds. Neither of those charted, thankfully (they aren't songs), so I'm just going to stick with calling this the fourth song. And, well, I'm not sure what the specific purpose of this song is. Eminem usually spends some time singing about relationships and that's what he's done here. He's saying that he just wishes he were in a normal relationship rather than the poisonous one he's in right now. And I gather this is actually a fictional story that he's recounting here, not a reflection of an actual relationship? Anyways, the song is fine, but I'm more interested in Eminem throwing shade on the rap industry rather than him doing this random song.

42- "Stepping Stones" - Eminem -- Here's the fifth song from Eminem's album "Kamikaze," track seven as it follows the two skit tracks that surround "Normal." With this track I learned that Eminem was once a part of a rap group called D12 before he became as famous as he has been for the past decade or two. I think this song is constructed rather nicely. Sometimes I get bored of rap that is all rap with no verses. Some of my favorite Eminem songs are his songs where he collaborated with a pop singer who balances the rap out with a chorus in between his verses. While there's no featured artist here, this song has three verses separated by a chorus and I think it flows quite nicely. The subject matter itself is Eminem apologizing to this group for using them as stepping stones and leaving them in the dust. I guess he felt that he never made amends and so he's attempted to do that now so that his conscience will be clear. At the same time, the final verse is him talking about how the group is officially over and done, as if some of the members had contacted him to see if he wanted to get back together with the group. If that's true, Eminem's perspective of closing that door is probably a good one as it would be them feeding off of Eminem's fame to get them on the map, which Eminem doesn't feel is the right move, especially since he's barely doing well himself. Like "Normal," I don't know what purpose this serves in the context of the the album as a whole or if the song will be remembered in the future due to the very specific nature of it, but on its own, it's a decent Eminem track.

49- "Venom (Music from the Motion Picture)" - Eminem -- The 11th and final song (and 13th track) from Eminem's album. This is the track that I don't necessarily think should be on this album because it has nothing to do with anything. Granted, I don't think "Normal," "Nice Guy" and "Good Guy" have anything to do with the album, either, but this was a track written for the "Venom" movie that comes out next month that I feel Eminem just attached here on the end just for the heck out it. I think he should've just kept it on the "Venom" soundtrack that I'm sure will come out eventually. I'll have plenty to say about the movie "Venom" on my main blog next month. Right now I'm not super excited as I think it could be a disaster, but I feel the enjoyment of this song in particular will depend on the context of it in the movie, thus I can't judge right now, but I envision it will be acceptable as background music during the movie. Eminem usually does a fine job in fitting in when he does movie soundtracks. Better him than most others in the business right now. But this song on it's own doesn't stand out very well. It just kind of exists. Lots of references to Venom, the Symbiote and all that fun stuff, but no overarching theme that hits things home or message that stands out.

54- "Feels Like Summer" - Childish Gambino -- I'm surprised to see this song chart this week. Not that I'm upset. Just surprised. Earlier in the summer Childish Gambino released a double single of summer songs, "Summertime Magic" and "Feels Like Summer." The former charted and did alright. But this one didn't chart. But now it did. I feel it's a bit late now for a summertime groove since summer is over, but my thoughts on this song are similar to my thoughts on the other song. It's a relaxing, fun summer groove. Gambino doesn't go super deep like he does with "This is America," but rather he decided to chill and relax. On that note, he does have subtle references to wanting the world to change, but I don't know if this was intended to be a social commentary and I don't think it needed to be. I don't know if this will stick around, but if it did gain traction, I totally wouldn't be upset. The world could use more Gambino at the moment.

65- "Nice Guy" - Eminem & Jessie Reyez -- Coming in towards the end of the album, we have the ninth song (and 11th track) from "Kamikaze." And, well, we have Eminem's angry rants against modern rap for most of the album. Then we have this. I'm not even sure what to call this. This calls back to "Normal" where Eminem takes a break from the themes of Kamikaze and complains about his relationships not being normal. But in this case we have Jessie Reyez being extremely annoying and loud, perhaps on perhaps, which is countered by Eminem acting all mopey about how much his life sucks. Maybe this was supposed to be sarcastic or something. I don't know. But whatever this was, it doesn't fit at all with the themes or style of the album. It's the awkward black sheep of the album and I don't like it.

67- "Good Guy" - Eminem featuring Jessie Reyez -- Part II to "Nice Guy"? This is the 10th song from the album (and 12th track) and I will say this is much better "Nice Guy," partially because Jessie Reyez comes in only briefly at the end rather than being featured throughout the song. Also, this isn't a strange, exaggerated song. It's a normal song. Although it still plays into the themes of Eminem not liking his relationship status and as I've said a few times now, when Eminem is complaining about his relationships on this album, that's something that I don't really care for too much. I'm entertained and amused by his take down of the rap industry, but I don't really care for this. And given that this is essentially how he closes off the album, as the song from the "Venom" soundtrack is all that remains, it's disappointing that he couldn't come up with one final conclusion to this whole idea of him being upset at the industry right now for praising all of this crappy rap while destroying his recent album.

94- "Thunderclouds" - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present... LSD -- OK, let's talk about this group name real quick. LSD? Really? I do not approve of this. It's just strange. But hey, but if we're going to have Labrinth make a comeback, Sia is a better partner to team up with as opposed to Nicki Minaj, who he joined up with three weeks ago. And Diplo acting as a writer and producer to help the two out makes for a trio I can get behind. It's just a strange name. But the song is pretty good. I always love Sia and her and Labrinth blend well together to talk about the uncertainties of a relationship, yet how they shouldn't be afraid of these thunderclouds. Despite what fairy tales my make things out to be, life isn't always rainbows and butterflies when you're in a relationship with your partner. Life is going to be rough and that's normal. You just gotta remember that and work together when the hard times hit. I will say that I think this song is a bit more surface level in terms of those themes. Both of these artists have dove deep into the emotion with songs like this in the past, so I know they're capable of hitting an absolute home run, thus it's mildly disappointing seeing them stick to the basics, both in terms of lyrics and vocals. But it's a nice song, nonetheless. And if we're going to get more from this newly formed trio, I'm excited to see what else they have in the works.

97- "Hangin' On" - Chris Young -- We couldn't escape the week without introducing one new country song to the world, I suppose. I'm not super versed into Chris Young, but he sounds like every other boring country singer with "Hangin' On." He meets a girl while he's drinking in the bar and he praises her to the high heavens with how amazing she is. We have tacked on the heavy guitars and drums, with twangy vocals from Chris Young, to make me extremely bored. It's not sweet and romantic. The instrumentals don't fit the tone of the lyrics. There's absolutely no depth to this love story. Sure, it's nothing offensive. But it's also nothing special. It just feels like a basic, formulaic, run of the mill country song that I'm going to immediately forget the second it leaves the charts.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - September 8, 2018

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (=) -- One Usher record tied this week. The other Usher record set to be tied next week. This week, Drake ties Usher's record for most total weeks at No. 1 among solo males across an entire career with 47 weeks. Among all acts, Mariah Carey has the record with 79 weeks followed by Rihanna with 60, The Beatles with 59 and Boyz II Men with 50. Notably, though, Mariah Carey spent all 79 of her weeks as the lead act, whereas both Drake and Rihanna piggybacked off of others for a good chunk of theirs. I'd also still claim that The Beatles getting 59 weeks at No. 1 is more impressive than all of these acts because they did so in the 60's when most No. 1 hits only lasted a few weeks at top. We didn't have any song hit 10 weeks at top in the history of the Hot 100 until Debby Boone did it in the 70's. Even knocking Mariah and Boyz II Men a bit, they're the first acts to really take advantage of the Nielsen SoundScan, which became a thing in the early 90's and caused all songs to stay in the top 10 for a lot longer. So take Drake's accomplishment with a grain of salt. The other record he might set next week is a bit more impressive as Usher's record of 28 weeks at No. 1 in a single year is in jeopardy. Drake has now spent 27 weeks at No. 1 in 2018, which is over half the year. But actually it's not a guarantee that Drake makes it as we could have a non-Drake No. 1 next week. Let's talk about that in the next entry.

2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- I've noted over the last several weeks that "In My Feelings" has been tanking in all categories. It's been high enough that said tanking hasn't made a huge dent in it's lead, but now it's catching up to Drake. According to Billboard's weekly article, "In My Feelings," fell 14 percent in overall chart points while "Girls Like You" was a lot more consistent by only falling 3 percent. If we crunch the numbers, Drake has 50.5 million U.S. streams, down 15 percent, 26,000 sales, down 14 percent, and even tanked on radio, falling 12 percent to 93 million in total audience. Comparatively, Maroon 5 has 29.7 million U.S. streams, down 5 percent, 28,000 sales, down 6 percent, and 127.6 million in total radio audience, down 1 percent. So Drake has streaming while Maroon 5 has radio. But as Drake continues to plummet harder, especially in streaming, Maroon 5's consistency and super strong radio could win them the crown. If not next week, then possibly within the next few weeks. Unless, of course, Eminem has something to say about it. I have no idea what his exact streaming numbers are, but he's been killing it this past week with his surprise album drop in "Kamikaze," which is set to impact the charts next week.

3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (=) -- All that talk leaves Cardi B in the dust as she's consistently behind both Drake and Maroon 5 in all categories. But who cares. All these songs have long overstayed their welcome, so the faster they drop, the better. And even if one or two of them remain consistent, if one of them starts actually tanking, I'll take that as a win. This song has gotten stuck in my head quite a bit, but that's because the original that Cardi is puking all over with her version is quite excellent.

4- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+1) -- It might seem strange, but seeing Post Malone rise up to No. 4 made me happy this week. But that's mostly because it kicked "FeFe" down one spot. At this point, I'll also take "Better Now" over any of our top three songs. So yeah, I'm cheering on Post Malone. Take note of that in your journals because it might not happen ever again. I haven't necessarily had a change of heart regarding the song itself. It just happens to be the song in the top five that doesn't drive me crazy.

5- "FeFe" - 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj (-1) -- Here's a frustrating stat. "FeFe" is on the verge of knocking out Drake on the streaming charts. "In My Feelings" is No. 1 with 50.5 million U.S. streams. "FeFe" is second with 48.6 million U.S. streams. As far as why people are still streaming this awful song, I'm about as lost as ever. It's one of those instances that makes me want to advocate removing streaming from Billboard's formula because the streaming charts are absolute garbage.

6- "Lucid Dreams" - JUICE WRLD (=) -- If we're going to be streaming rap songs, why don't we spend more time streaming this one than "In My Feelings" and "FeFe"? Let's at least get "FeFe" out of the top five and let "Lucid Dreams" back in.

7- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+2) -- This went UP this week? I was enjoying its gradual descent while hoping it would descend quicker. But the fact that it seems to have now gained traction with it's continually monstrous streaming numbers makes me sick to my stomach. At least I can laugh at the fact that Drake gets nothing added to his already bloated career with this song. It's almost more him in the song than Travis Scott, but Travis decided to not list him as a featured credit. Good on you, Travis.

8- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (+2) -- I knew this would happen. Ariana's songs were both going to fall and Tyga was going to rise. I was only wrong in the sense that I thought this would also pass up Travis, but unfortunately for me, BOTH songs still exist in the top 10. Let's work on fixing that, please?

9- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+2) -- And this is where I take a huge sigh of relief. Finally we have another good song entering the region. This gives me a little ray of hope that, amidst the treacherously awful 2018 when it comes to the top 10, good things can still happen. Khalid and Normani gel so well in this song and I'm happy for both of them. After learning on Tuesday that this song finally cracked the top 10, I've been singing it in celebration all week, not minding at all that I've now had it stuck in my head pretty good. I was nervous that this would be another casualty of a song peaking at No. 11, but not being able to make it over the edge and into the top 10. Due to the fairly average streaming and sales numbers, I don't know how high this song can get, but the radio is what got it here as it's No. 5 on the radio charts with 88.2 million U.S. streams. This is Khalid's second top 10 hit and first as a lead act. It's also Normani's first entry as a solo artist after spending time in the top 10 as a part of Fifth Harmony. Speaking of Fifth Harmony, she's the second from that group to get a solo top 10 hit after Camila. And the group continues to prove that they should officially disband as their music is much better when the individual members are off on their own.

10- "God is a Woman" - Ariana Grande (-2) -- I found it slightly surprising that "God is a Woman" lasted another week in the top 10. I thought both of Ariana's songs were doomed on the week following the album bomb. If you were to tell me that one of the songs were to survive, I would've predicted that "No Tears Left to Cry" would've been the one granted an extra. But we'll see where this goes from here. It's the lesser of the two major hits, but I wouldn't be too disappointed if it managed to stick around.

Rising on the Hot 100:

19- "Back to You" - Selena Gomez (+4) -- I'm happy to see this song finally get to the top 20. I would hope that it gets much higher because this is an excellent song from Selena, who has recently proven to be an excellent artist with her last few singles. I don't know why this hasn't gained more traction, but because it hasn't, I'm not super confident in it's potential to get over the hump, but I really hope I'm wrong.

20- "Big Bank" - YG featuring 2 Chainz, Big Sean & Nicki Minaj (+4) -- What's the appeal of this song? I don't understand. I'm glad that it has a lot less momentum at the moment than it did several weeks ago, but it still don't like it being around.

24- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+5) -- With college football season in full speed ahead, I hear this song like 100 times a day when I turn on ESPN. So far I'm not sick of it quite yet, but get back to me when we're in November and we'll see where I'm at.

35- "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" - Luke Bryan (+5) -- I haven't glanced at the Country charts this week, but I'm guessing this song is now heading for the top spot on that chart. I'm neutral as far as that goes. It's not a song that makes me upset, but in a year from now I don't think anyone is going to remember this.

36- "Life Changes" - Thomas Rhett (+7) -- If Thomas Rhett is the one that gets to the top of the country charts, I might be happier. But at the same time, is this really country? Let's let real country songs top the country charts. But hey, as more of a pop song, this is one of the few Thomas Rhett songs that I think really works, so I'm good for this.

39- "I'm a Mess" - Bebe Rexha (+6) -- As a solo artist, I think this is the highest Bebe has ever gotten. She's piggybacked off of various others to make a name for herself and now she's proving that she can do it on her own. Overall I'm happy about that. But let's come back with a better song next time, please.

44- "Beautiful" - Bazzi featuring is Camilla Cabello (+6) -- Bazzi is an incompetent song writer. His voice is fine, but his lyrics and song construction are awful, so if we could not make him a thing, that would be great. This is better than "Mine," but there's a lot of wasted potential here and I'm still confused as to what the heck Camila is doing with her career at the moment.

46- "Drew Barrymore" - Bryce Vine (+11) -- I want to have the luxury of forgetting this song existed, so if we could stop making it a thing and let me forget, I would love that.

52- "W O R K I N  M E" - Quavo (+44) -- I was really happy when this song plummeted into the 90's last week. But now it jumped all the way up to the 50's and could become a hit? Let's hope not. I would rather have this fall back down.

54- "Trip" - Ella Mai (+13) -- I want to be happier that Ella Mai is getting a second hit, but I'm really not. I'm not a fan of this song. I find it rather annoying.

66- "Side Effects" - The Chainsmokers featuring Emily Warren (+15) -- I probably would've forgotten this song existed had it not gained any traction. As is, it's not a frustrating song from The Chainsmokers like most of their attempted singles recently have been. But they're still not quite back to what they used to be. I suppose that makes this a step in the right direction.

67- "Ring" - Cardi B featuring Kehlani (+18) -- When I covered Cardi's album bomb back in April, I labelled this as the best song on the album. Thus it's almost surprising that she picked at as her next single, if that's what this is. I'm used to her and other rappers taking the opposite route by picking the trash as their singles. So yeah, I'm fine with this doing well. Maybe I'll have more to say if it continues upwards.

76- "High Hopes" - Panice! At the Disco (+14) -- Can we PLEASE make this into a hit? This is one of my favorite songs of the year so far. When I did my mid-year top 10, I put this at No. 6. Then I've had to watch it mostly sputter out after being released, but seeing it come back and now gain a bit of momentum gives me some hope.

80- "Lie" - NF (+17) -- I don't mind NF as a rapper. If you're asking me who my current favorite rappers are right now, I might consider throwing his name out there simply because he's one of the few guys that don't annoy me. But this isn't one of his better efforts, so I'm not sure what to think of this. We'll see if he can actually turn this into a hit, though, because he's kinda struggled finding a follow-up hit.

New Arrivals:

11- "IDOL" - BTS featuring Nicki Minaj -- I've moved past the point of being shy or hesitant about this, so I'm going to be blunt. BTS might have the most annoying fan base in the history of music fandom. And it's made it so that I borderline hate the band because of it. Especially because there's like 900 of them in the group and they never have anything interesting to say. So even without the annoying fandom, I don't think I would be impressed. Get rid of 90 percent of the band and their music is the exact same boringly mediocre K-Pop stuff. And now they're collaborating with Nicki? Yuck. Although surprisingly, their typical BTS dance beat is a better fit for Nicki than anything Nicki has done on her own, so if I ignore the lyrics, this is a better song than I was expecting. But based on the English portions of the song that I can understand, BTS doesn't seem to be talking about anything and Nicki's verse at the end is her usual crap. So this song has a decent beat, but it's nothing that is worth millions of Koreans drooling all over themselves for. If we're going to make K-Pop a thing, let's bring back BLACKPINK or some other group.

69- "I am Who They Say I Am" - YoungBoy Never Broke Again featuring Kevin Gates & Quando Rondo -- An untalented thug rapper who needs to disappear from the spotlight and have his musical career die? OK, fine, I don't know if that's what "they" are saying, but that's what I'm saying. According to the song, "they" are saying that he's a thug from the trenches, never had a heart, drug dealer, contract killer, loyal from the start, and fake among other things. OK, that's not much different from my version. But still not interesting. And he's owning up to it. OK. Why should I care? Truth is I don't, so YoungBoy can go away and leave me alone.

72- "Unica" - Ozuna -- OK, I got this out way late due to Labor Day throwing me off my groove (charts get released a day later than usual when there's a Monday holiday) and my work week from Wednesday to Friday being pretty intense, so I'm being lazy with this one and not translating the lyrics right now. As far as the beat, it's a typical Latino dance beat. Ozuna has a smooth voice and is pleasing to listen to, so as an American who doesn't know Spanish, I'm fine with this being around.

82- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes -- I don't know who Sheck Wes is, but his first word on this was a curse word. Then all his bars ended with him elongating the last note in annoying fashion with lots of annoying sound effects. And I think there was more curse words than non-curse words in the songs. And when we didn't have curse words, we have lazy rap lyrics about everything you could probably guess. So yeah, I didn't last long with this song. I think I only got 45 seconds in before I had enough.

83- "Smile (Living My Best Life)" - Lil' Duval featuring Snoop Dogg & Ball Greezy -- I got super distracted when I searched this song on my Apple Music. The cover art is a Mr. Rodgers parody thing. I don't even know what to think about that. It left me speechless in the literal sense of that. So then I had to start the song over. I don't know when the last time we had a Snoop Dogg song on the charts, but he's typically good at being relaxing and chill and that's what this song is. I'm not familiar with Lil' Duval or Ball Greezy, but the three of them combine for a song that's relaxingly carefree and chill, encouraging people to smile and live your best life. I don't have a huge problem with it outside I think it curses too much. I know there's a clean version on Apple Music and that's the one I listened to, but that version has a lot of censoring that's distracting. Take all the language out and I might thing this is a really good song worthy of listening to.

86- "Drunk Girl" - Chris Janson -- This song I'm conflicted about. At first look, it's another bland country singer with a song called "Drunk Girl." Bland country artists singing about drinking is the lamest thing when it comes to country music. It feels derivative and lazy. But then I pressed play and this song is a piano ballad that has Janson matching the good piano with great vocals. And it almost made me want to say this song was surprisingly good. But the content of this ballad is him still talking about a drunk girl. But it's not exactly what I was thinking of as it's him telling us that if you see a drunk girl, you should reach out and take her in order to help fix her life up. In other words, do some service. Help someone out who is struggling. And that's nice. But I don't know. There's still a bit of disconnect here and I can't put my finger on it. More substance perhaps? Because this is still a bit thin. Different phrasing? I'll have to think about this and get back to you if it does well because I'm conflicted at this moment.

87- "The Way I Am" - Charlie Puth -- So we have YoungBoy saying that he is the way everyone says he is and now we have Charlie Puth with a similarly titled song? Interesting coincidence there. The big problem I have with Charlie Puth, that I've always had, is that his songs are always bland and full of nothing. Some have said he's gotten better. I haven't seen it. Shawn Mendes has improved a bit, but Charlie Puth has still been boring to me. But I'll give him a bit of credit here because this has a few interesting things in it, namely a guitar riff throughout that has a good groove and his voice flies parallel to that guitar part to give this song a unique groove compared to his other bland pop songs. There's still not a whole lot of substance here because I think Charlie loves because as basic and vague as a he can, but there are moments where he tricks me into thinking he's getting personal as he talks about being the way he is without worrying too much about what anyone else. I left the song wishing he would've elaborated a little more than that, but as is I'm not going to stubbornly play a hate game forever. This song has more of a groove to it than I think Charlie has ever had in his songs, so if the radio picks up on this, I won't be upset.

90- "Happy Now" - Zedd & Elley Duhe -- Being happy is a theme recently with some of these new songs. Bastille and Marshmello released "Happier" last week. Snoop Dogg and friends released "Smile" this week. And now we have Zedd and new girl with "Happy Now." OK, I can get behind this. Looking at all the new songs, this is the one that intrigued me the most because I love Zedd. Most of the time. Even when he's not on his game, he's usually fairly tolerable. And in this situation I think he again delivers, with a lot of help from Elley Duhe. I'll look into her more later, but she provides some excellent vocals in this bit of a sad, happy song. Much like Marhsmello and Bastille last week actually. Elley is singing about a boy who seemingly broke her heart and she's upset about it, asking him sarcastically or bitterly if he's happy now. Zedd provides enough of a light beat to lift the song to appropriate heights for the more melancholy tone. I will say that I have high expectations for Zedd every time he releases a new song because he's delivered to such great heights in the past, with "Clarity" being a classic example. "Happy Now" isn't quite a grand slam, but it's a fairly decent home run that I'm happy about. It certainly shines above everything from this week.