Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- A sixth week at No. 1 for Maroon 5. This time the band fends off a push by Travis Scott in a race that's more of a lose/lose situation for me as I want both songs to disappear. In addition to being on top of the Hot 100 for six weeks, the more concerning thing is that "Girls Like You" rules the radio charts for a 14th week. "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls has the record at 18 weeks. And I'm scared because I don't know what song is going to catch it in time for the record to be broken. I mean, the numbers for the song are falling in all categories, including radio, but nothing is rising fast enough to catch. So I guess we'll just have to sit here and painfully wait for something to show up.
2- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+5) -- This is gross. And I also have to correct a mistake I made last week. I thought the video for the song impacted last week's charts, hence I was glad that it didn't make a difference. But I was mistaken. The video impacted this week's charts, which is exactly why it got such a huge boost. I can only hope that said boost is just a one-week thing and it'll fall back down next week. The sad thing is that streaming isn't the only category where this is gaining. It also has a lot of traction on radio and sales. I have no idea why this song is becoming so huge. I guess people with no taste are drooling all over themselves by hearing Travis Scott and Drake rap about how awesome they are, as if each artist hasn't ever done that on every previous song.
3- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (=) -- I think that this song is doomed to just sit here and rot at the No. 3 spot until something steps up and overcomes it. Because at this point it's not going to get enough momentum to stop Maroon 5, which is unfortunate.
4- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+2) -- Here's a hopeful thought. Can "Happier" be the song that finally topples Maroon 5 on both the Hot 100 and the radio charts? It's at No. 5 on radio, but up 21 percent to 74.6 million in total audience. Comparatively, Maroon 5 is down to 116.1 million in audience, a 3 percent overall fall from last week. So there's still a huge gap there, but I'm hoping for "Happier" to be able to top "Girls Like You" within three weeks, before it breaks the 18-week record. So let's cross our fingers for that. If that does happen, it probably means "Happier" goes to No. 1 on the Hot 100, which is fantastic. But I'm more concerned about that radio chart.
5- "Better Now" - Post Malone (-1) -- Like Juice WRLD, Post Malone also seems to be about to completely fade away. I'm not shedding any tears, even though I wouldn't have been opposed to this song doing a bit better. It's certainly a lot better than that Maroon 5 trash. But hey, Post Malone is back in the top 10, so he's not crying either.
6- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (-4) -- I'm happy to see this song fall from that No. 2 spot. But I'm nervous that it's still in the top 10. I don't want this to be like "SICKO MODE," which ended up hanging out in the bottom half of the top 10 for a while until the world decided to make it a bonafide hit. Let's get rid of this song.
7- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+2) -- I think I've given up on trying to predict what this song is going to do. It's bounced around all over the place in the bottom portion of the top 10. If this can get into the top five and stay there, I will be happy.
8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- Why did this get stuck at No. 8 this week. That's extremely concerning. Can we please get this song OUT of the top 10 while completely rejecting these two nothing rappers who shouldn't even have a song charted in the Hot 100 as a whole?
9- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (new) -- Here's the big new song of the week. I'll have lots of thoughts down below. If you don't want to read them, then the short version is that this song is fine. It's not offensive by any means, but it's extremely paper thin in terms of content and I have no idea how it's going to fit into the movie outside being a random post credits song that has nothing to do with anything. I also am having a hard time seeing this sticking around in the top 10, but I suppose we'll see. The movie comes out in December.
10- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+4) -- It's great to see this song back in the top 10. Although I'm not sure how long it will last because this song has not been able to maintain consistent traction on the charts. I'm also wondering if the boost into the top 10 has anything to do with Khalid's new EP "Suncity," which has several songs on this charts this week. "Love Lies" is not on the EP. But maybe it got a boost anyways with people checking out Khalid's new project?
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Taki Taki" - DJ Snake featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B (+5) -- I suppose this song is gaining real momentum rather than just getting a boost from the video. If it can manage to replace "ZEZE" or "Drip Too Hard" in the top 10, then I suppose I'll be fine with it hitting the top 10. Although it more realistically will probably replace "Sunflower" or "Love Lies." It's a song that I can more easily ignore the lyrics and enjoy the beat since most of it is in Spanish. But my conscience won't let me ignore what said lyrics translate to, so I can't get behind this.
12- "Without Me" - Halsey (+11) -- If this song had fallen after its debut, I don't think anyone in the world would've realized it was gone. But now that it's here knocking on the door to the top 10, I suppose it's alright. I'm not offended by its existence, I just think Halsey could've put a little more emotion and effort to a post-breakup song.
16- "Mo Bamba" - Shek Wes (+5) -- I'm not surprised at all to see this song in the top 10. I'm just really upset that Shek Wes has tricked the world into thinking he actually wrote a song worth listening to. The good thing is that I don't think this has enough momentum to become a monster hit. If it gets into the top 10, it seems like the type of song that won't spend too much time in the region.
20- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+2) -- Hey look, Halsey now has two songs in the top 20! And if we're going to push a Halsey song on the radio right now, I would prefer this one because her and Khalid have a good groove going in this song, with a surprising amount of chemistry.
21- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+6) -- Oh please! Can we get this song into the top 20 next week and then push it even higher? It would give me much pleasure if this could even get to the top 10. It's been such a frustrating year for the charts, so it would be so nice if I could catch a break for a change.
34- "Better" - Khalid (+37) -- Not a super exciting song from Khalid, but this one is definitely here because of Khalid's EP. Because it's included on it. That means it's primed to fall back down next week, which I'll be happy about.
37- "She Got the Best of Me" - Luke Combs (+7) -- I don't mind this stick around. Although I have to admit that it's not the most memorable song. Most weeks I have to re-listen to it to remember what it is, then I'm reminded each week that it's alright. Take that for what it's worth.
41- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+11) -- Can Ariana's new single gain traction? I'd be fine if it did, but her previous two songs, even though they charted high, didn't have much momentum behind them and this song seems a bit weak. I hope her luck changes because I would like it if this song stuck around.
52- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+11) -- It's alright. Another country song that doesn't blow me out of the water, but is fairly harmless. So it's whatever.
53- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero (+23) -- I'm continually upset that this song continues to gain momentum. The next huge rap hit from a nobody rapper that shouldn't have a career, but because our country has horrible taste in music, this continues to climb the charts.
56- "Lose It" - Kane Brown (+10) -- Thanks to Quavo and Lil Baby last week, there's now two songs that have charted this year on the Hot 100 called "Lose It." This is certainly the better of the two. Although I'd categorize this as a boring country song that no one is going to remember once it disappears.
80- "Noticed" - Lil Mosey (+12) -- Not time to panic yet since this is only at No. 80. But it's another awful rap song from a nobody rapper. Make this go away.
New Arrivals:
9- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee -- OK, I'm certainly excited for this movie. There was a five minute preview at the end of the credits for "Venom" that was really good. Plus all the trailers have been intriguing. And the idea of a Spider-Man multi-verse where each of the universes has a different version of Spider-Man who all come together is a fascinating idea. But I'm struggling to figure out how this song has anything to do with the movie. It's a paper-thin love song where Post Malone and Swae Lee have had enough of this girl and are essentially giving up. If this was Peter Parker being down on his luck as pertaining to Mary Jane or Gwen, I could see that. But Peter Parker isn't the main focus of this movie. It's a young Miles Morales and I don't think there's a love interest for him. But I could be wrong. So my initial reaction is that this is a song included because Sony is desperate to include two popular artists in the soundtrack to hopefully get the movie more attention, yet said artists didn't really know what to write about, so they came up with something extremely basic that might fit in an animated Spider-Man movie directed at kids. I guess I'll see in December how this fits, but I don't know if this song will still be around. If I take a step back and focus solely on the song while ignoring the context, the song is totally fine. These two rappers are collaborating to do a pop song and it's a nice enough tune that's catchy enough to be included in the background of a scene or play as the credits roll. But the problem is exactly as I've said. It's a paper thin song with no depth to it at all, so I have a hard time seeing myself remembering the song.
26- "Fine China" - Future & Juice WRLD -- If you didn't know, Future and Juice WRLD collaborated for a new album titled "Future & Juice WRLD Present... WRLD ON DRUGS." But it's OK if you didn't remember because the world barely acknowledged it. In a year where album bombs are the norm, they could only manage four tracks out of 16 to chart. This was their big hit from that album and thankfully it could only manage to debut at No. 26. All Juice WRLD ever raps about is him being upset at his girl leaving him and I got tired of it some time ago. This song has him comparing his girl to fine china, specifically thousand dollar plates. Then he gets super graphic about what he's going to do with her, then finishes the thought by confessing that if she leaves him, he's going to kill her. Ummm... yeah, that's real love there Juice. Threats like that are a great way to keep your girl, let me tell you. Yes, that was sarcasm. It's true that Future is also in this song, but he's more of an afterthought as he quickly mumbles his way through a lazily-written verse that feels shoehorned in the end. Yeah, this is not a Future song. It's a Juice WRLD song and it's one of his worst so far.
54- "Money" - Cardi B -- What's Cardi doing? She released her album earlier this year and now she's already abandoned that? Because this new song is not from that album. And I really don't know the purpose of her releasing it as all the song is about is her saying that all she needs and wants is money. As if that's unique subject for her. I guess the unique spin is now she has a baby, so she needs money. But that seems like more of an afterthought in the song. So she could've released one of her other 10,000 songs about money rather than wasting her time putting this together.
65- "When the Party's Over" - Billie Eilish -- Here's the one song I was excited about from this week. I actually watched the music video when it was released just five days ago on October 25. It's a bit of a strange video. Billie is sitting there in a white room with her white outfit. Then she drinks a glass of what looks like black ink. Then that black ink starts leaking out of her eyes as she's crying. At the end of the video, the camera pans down and suddenly the black ink is everywhere, almost as if Billie has exploded into black ink. As I said, a bit strange. But that's Billie for you. She's just a 16-year-old girl and she enjoys her shock value with her videos. The song itself is pretty haunting and held back. Billie is speaking of an instance after a party where she wants this person to just let her go and leave her alone, but it's apparent that said person won't, so she feels exhausted and spent. It's a simple song, but effective. I've been continually impressed by this girl's style and voice, thus I'm excited for whenever she decides to release this debut album of her's because I have a feeling that I'm going to really enjoy. I can't say this song grabs me quite on the level of her previous two charted songs, "Lovely" and "You Should See Me in a Crown," but it doesn't need to. It's simple and effective in its own right. Now if she could get one of these songs to gain traction, that would be nice.
72- "Jet Lag" - Future & Juice WRLD featuring Young Scooter -- For Future and Juice WRLD's second song together, they recruit Young Scooter, a self-proclaimed drug dealer, and the three of them brag about doing drugs and dealing drugs. So yeah, a song that glorifies drug use. I'm done here.
82- "Astronauts" - Future & Juice WRLD -- Another song about these two doing drugs and spending money on fancy things. Is that all these two have with this album?
83- "Saturday Nights" - Khalid -- Now it's time to dive into this new EP from Khalid. It's only seven tracks and 21 minutes, so if you like Khalid, you've probably already finished listening. But I'll talk about the three new songs that showed up, starting with "Saturday Nights." Khalid has a nice voice and often his songs have a decent groove to them, but he does have a habit of sometimes sounding a bit bored while singing about a song with no depth to it. And that's why I like this song because there seems to be more meaning to it than your typical Khalid song as he's describing the life of a girl he's met who has a horrible life that Khalid chronicles. Khalid realizes that her parents treat her like crap and thus is encouraging her by saying he likes her more than her parents do. This initially feels sweet and romantic and Khalid has enough of a groove here to make it work. However, I do second guess the song a bit because it sounds like Khalid doesn't really know as much as he thinks he does. I don't know if I like the idea of him claiming he loves her more than her parents do, because that's rarely the case in real life. It sounds like empty claims he's making just to win her over. There's also vibes in this song that said girl is a stripper that he met in the club, which does make it feel even a bit more cheap. But if I don't think about it too hard, the song is pretty nice. So perhaps I'm being a bit overly analytical here and should just enjoy the song.
88- "Suncity" - Khalid featuring Empress Of -- The thing that bothers me most about this song is that Khalid forgot to use his space bar when he typed this song name. "Sun City," not "Suncity" is a nickname for El Paso, Khalid's hometown. It's nice that he wrote a song about wanting to be with this girl and go back to his hometown in the process, but the stylistic choice is a little annoying. About the song itself, though, the other annoying part is that Empress Of, a Latin American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, whose full name is Lorely Rodriguez, is relegated to backup vocals. Granted, she provides a nice vocal balance to Khalid throughout the song, which helps push the song forward, but it would've been nice if she had her own verse. I was waiting for that as I feel like the song was setting up for that. But it never happened. Outside that, the song is a bit overly simple. There's not as much depth or story to it as "Saturday Nights," but it's effective. It's nothing out of this world, but if it were to become a single, I would welcome it as a nice, balanced pop song.
89- "Vertigo" - Khalid -- This is the final Khalid song of the week and I think this is the best one of the three that charted from his new EP. Khalid seems to bring more emotion to the table with this one as he discusses how hard life has been for him, but how he's going to keep pressing forward, even if the toughest parts of life are in front him. I almost wish the song had a bit more depth to it because I find myself questioning if his life is really this hard or if these are just lyrics to please the listeners. Sometimes I think there's a lot of pop singers who sing about subjects that they feel their audience will connect to rather than singing about something that they are really going through in their own life, which is why I wanted Khalid to be a bit more personal with the verses. But I'm not complaining too much. This is a solid effort from Khalid where his vocals and smooth style really connect with me. I can see myself really enjoying this one.
91- "Yacht Club" - Lil Yachty featuring Juice WRLD -- We've been quickly cruising through Future and Juice WRLD's new album this week and we have one more to go from that. But this is not the one. This is from a new Lil Yachty album, which had even less impact on the charts, despite having featured credits throughout the album from the likes of Lil Baby, Cardi B, Offset, Trippie Red, Kevin Gates and Gunna. Thankfully I don't have to deal with all that, especially since I've already had to deal with Future and Juice WRLD's album. That would be too much and I would've probably skipped it. As is, we have two songs and this one is a lot more tolerable than anything from Juice WRLD's new album. It has a nice instrumental part to it that meshes well with both of these vocalists. Juice WRLD's chorus that he starts out with is pretty decent. At least in sound. Content is a whole different story. As is when we get to the extremely long verse, which sees Yachty and Juice taking turns singing lines and neither of them adds enough personality to keep my attention as the biggest flaw of this song is that it's really boring. And the content is just empty flexing from two rappers who sound like they were bored in the studio. So this isn't offense. There's just not much to it.
92- "Make It Back" - Juice WRLD -- The fourth and final song from Future and Juice WRLD's album. This one is slightly more tolerable than the other three, maybe the lack of Future has something to do with that, but it's still Juice WRLD talking about how he ignored school by doing all of his drugs. Now he's bragging to all his teachers about how much money he has, while also bragging about wasting it all on sneakers, jewelry and fancy outfits. The song is not even two mintues long, so it feels like an afterthought to this thing. Listen, I only listened to these four songs and barely got a quarter of the way through most of them, so I don't know if the project has some sort of anti-drug message included in there. If it does, feel free to let me know. But all I got was four songs about glorifying drug use and that's despicable. If you let your kids liberally listen to all of this rap music, then here's my warning that you better watch out because all of these songs are horrible influences to this younger generation. Unless you're fine with your kids doing drugs. If so, I suppose that's on you. But I think it's despicable.
93- "Kiss and Make Up" - Dua Lipa & BLACKPINK -- Here's a strange collaboration. Dua Lipa and BLACKPINK? Granted, when it comes to K-Pop groups that I've heard, BLACKPINK is one of the better ones. The only have four members instead of a hundred each, which is a much more reasonable number. And all the girls in it do a great job of balancing each other out and having a purpose in the group, whereas something like BTS could remove 80 percent of their members and the songs would be the exact same. But with this specific song, I don't know if it really makes sense to have all five voices in this song, Dua Lipa and the four girls from BLACKPINK. The song is extremely simple as Dua wants to kiss and make up while having this individual's body all over her's. It's not a song that needed five voices, especially since they're all saying the same thing. It would've been better balanced with a single voice from a male pop singer instead of countering with the girls from BLACKPINK. So the idea behind this song doesn't make a lot of sense and the execution shows as all the girls spend the whole song tripping over each other instead of providing a good balance. It's not awful, per se, as I'm usually a whole lot more forgiving towards pop music, especially since Dua Lipa is a great vocalist who is often on point with her music. But this is not a song from her that I'm going to remember, which is unfortunate.
98- "Get Dripped" - Lil Yachty featuring Playboi Carti -- While "Yacht Club" was semi-tolerable, but ultimately empty and boring, this is more of what I expect when Lil Yachty shows up. An awful song that needs to get out of my life. I can barely understand these two as they mumble at me with their choppy bars and annoying sound effects. And of course this is more empty rap flexing that had almost zero thought go into it. Based on both of these songs that charted, it's apparent that Yachty really didn't have much to say with this album, so I'm glad he couldn't get the other 13 songs to chart and I hope I never have to listen to any of them.
100- "Burning Man" - Dierks Bentley featuring Brothers Osborne -- Dierks Bentley I don't really care for. All I've heard from him are empty country songs that I've already completely forgotten about. But what turned my head when I saw this song was the featured credit of Brothers Osborne, who are responsible for "It Ain't My Fault," a song that I grew to absolutely love. So could Brothers Osborne teaming up with Dierks be enough to make this a good country song? The answer is a resounding yes. No, this is not quite as infectious as "It Ain't My Fault," but it still has a fiery groove to it thanks to some excellent guitar work from John Osborne. As far as the vocals go, we have TJ Osborne trading off with Dierks Bentley and I will admit that the two blend a little too well together as I had a hard time figuring out exactly where one one stopped singing and the other started. But both of them follow the guitar flow quite nicely in what results in a nice groove. I don't think the lyrics are necessarily anything to write home about, but they're satisfactory for what the song is going for. This song barely snuck onto the Hot 100 this week at No. 100 and I'm hoping its able to climb higher.
