Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (=) -- I'm a bit surprised that Ariana was able to keep the top spot this week since songs that debut high usually take a big second week dip, but I'm not too surprised because "thank u, next" made No. 1 last week with only five days of tracking, so this week qualifies as the song's first full week of tracking. In doing so, the streaming is huge, increasing this week 63.4 million U.S. streams, up from 55.5 million last week. The sales crashed in half, but since sales are a lot lower overall than they used to be, the 43,000 sales it got this week was easily enough to stay at the top of the sales chart. The tricky thing for the song's long term potential will be radio play. While it was up significantly compared to last week's debut, Ariana's "Breathin" is now top 10 on radio and gaining strong traction. Usually artists don't have two radio hits at the same time. When all is said and done, I'm totally happy with this song being No. 1 this week, especially given what ended up in the runner-up spot.
2- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+1) -- Yeah this is gross. I want this song to fall, but Travis Scott boosted it with an iTunes discount, which helped it this week. It also still has monster streaming and is also top 10 on radio for some strange, unknown reasons. Without Ariana, this would've been our No. 1 hit this week, so we dodged a huge bullet.
3- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+1) -- I was really wanting this to go No. 1 this week because I think it would be fitting for a song called "Happier" to be No. 1 on the week of Thanksgiving. But alas it was not meant to be. The fantastic news this week is that it DID go No. 1 on radio, dethroning Maroon 5's "Girls Like You" after the latter song's 16-week reign, which is tied for the second longest reign on the radio charts, behind only the 18-week run of Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris." I had accepted the awful reality of that record being broke, which is why I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that "Happier" stopped it short of the mark. Now "Happier" has stalled out a bit on sales and streaming, which is why it hasn't been able to get over the hump to that No. 1 spot, but consistent radio will keep it around and if Ariana and Travis eventually slip, said consistency could still give it the No. 1 spot. It's anyone's game at this point for the near future.
4- "Without Me" - Halsey (+2) -- So far in the top five we have "thank u, next," "Happier" and now "Without Me." Follow that up with "Girls Like You" up next and that means we have four pop songs in the top five and only one rap song? That's solid news. Maybe we can have a bit of a pop revival after the rap genre has had such a strong stranglehold on the charts of late. "Without Me" isn't the greatest pop song in the world, but it's certainly acceptable. And it's also the highest Halsey has hit on her own. She previous reigned for 12 weeks at top with The Chainsmokers on "Closer," but that was with her as a featured role, not a lead act. This is a great sign for her career moving forward.
5- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-3) -- It brought me so much happiness to see that this song completely tanked this week, falling down to No. 5 when I totally expected it to stay at No. 2. And as I previously mentioned, I'm super glad that the song fell short of tying or passing the radio record set by "Iris." Imagine a world where "Girls Like You" got that record. What a travesty that would be. It's bad enough that it hit second place on that list. It would give me even more joy, though, if this began a downward spiral for the song. The faster that this leaves the top 10, the better.
6- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (-1) -- It's been a solid run for "Lucid Dreams." It fell a spot this week, but at least it didn't completely crash like Post Malone's "Better Now," which you may have noticed is completely gone from the top 10.
7- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+2) -- Why is this still around? What appeal does this song have to people? I really don't get it.
8- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+4) -- Out of all the great things that have happened so far, Panic! At the Disco hitting the top 10 is easily the greatest feat this week. This is the second ever top 10 entry for the band after "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" hit No. 7 in 2006 and what a well-deserved entry this is. I should note that referring to Panic! At the Disco as a band is no longer the most accurate statement since Brendon Urie is currently the only official member of the band, but eh, whatever. Whether it's just Brendon or a group of others with him, this has been one of my favorite songs of the year, which I thought meant it was doomed to do nothing on the Hot 100. But oh how happy I am to be wrong because having a song like this around certainly makes the top 10 a much better place. The song is struggling a bit on sales and streaming as it's mostly boosted up by strong radio, currently No. 3 behind "Happier" and "Girls Like You," so I'm not sure what the song's potential is, but I'm hoping that the radio is strong and consistent enough to keep it around.
9- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (-1) -- Well, at least this isn't rising. But it needs to fall faster because the world doesn't need this around.
10- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- Why is this still No. 10 this week? Let's get it knocked off rather than letting it stubbornly stay in.
Rising on the Hot 100:
13- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+2) -- This song has managed to stick around in the teens for the majority of the college football season. I still hear it all the time in advertising and it still works great as a college football anthem. It's also now a part of Imagine Dragons' new album, which totally shocked me by coming out this month. They just barely did an album last year and now they already have their next one? If I get around to the album, I'll let you know what I think. But there is one new song from it on the charts this week that I'll discuss below.
14- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+7) -- Can Ariana manage to get two songs into the top 10 here soon? I would totally be down for that happening. As I noted earlier, this song's radio is get huge traction, entering the top 10 this week. And the recently released music video has helped its streaming numbers in a big way. So all signs point to continued momentum for this song.
28- "Lose It" - Kane Brown (+25) -- I was wondering where country went these last few weeks, so I'm not surprised to see the genre finally get a good week. Several of them got good rises this week, plus we have four new country songs that charted, so I'll be covering those down below. In terms of this song, I'm not surprised to see it doing well simply because a lot of people love Kane Brown for some reason. But I'm personally not impressed. This song doesn't offend me. It just bores me.
36- "Tequila" - Dan + Shay (+8) -- If we're going to have a Dan + Shay song do well, can we have it be "Speechless" and not "Tequila"?
38- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+7) -- Oh hey, speaking of "Speechless." Yeah, this is the superior Dan + Shay song. It still doesn't knock my socks off, but for country standards, this is decently solid.
52- "Topanga" - Trippie Redd (+38) -- A Trippie Redd album dropped, giving this song a huge boost and adding four additional new songs to the charts. And as you'll quickly find out, I couldn't care less.
75- "Burning Man" - Dierks Bentley featuring Brothers Osborne (+17) -- OK, this is a country song that really deserves to find success. I can nitpick it a bit, but this is one of the better country songs to chart this year and I give a lot of credit to Brothers Osborne, an act that I really need to check out more because both times they've shown up on the charts, I've been impressed.
77- "This Feeling" - The Chainsmokers featuring Kelsea Ballerini (+18) -- This song was performed live at halftime for Monday Night Football this week and it was a solid performance, mostly because Kelsea Ballerini is awesome. The Chainsmokers themselves looked and sounded a bit lost, but overall I'm fine with this doing well. It's a step in the right direction for The Chainsmokers and a great choice of a featured credit.
83- "Consequences" - Camila Cabello (+14) -- OK, this is a good first sign. I have a bad feeling that this song is going to fail because of Camila's strange release patterns with her songs this year. But I really hope I'm wrong because I want this to catch on and be a hit. It's one of my favorite songs from Camila's album.
New Arrivals:
16- "BAD!" - XXXTENTACION -- You know what? I'm getting really sick of people taking advantage of the death of XXXTENTACION to get sales and streaming money, whether it be other rappers or his own team looking to continue to release songs. I don't want to see any more of his songs show up on the charts with him in any role. And if they continue to show up, I will boycott them. Starting with this one. I refuse to listen to it.
44- "Armed and Dangerous" - Juice WRLD -- I'm also getting really tired of Juice WRLD. Yes, I'll still defend "Lucid Dreams" as a good song, but at this point I'm calling that lightning in a bottle that he hasn't been able to produce again and probably never will. I'm also tired of this trend that rapping about killing people is the cool thing to do. It's not. I don't condone murder and neither should anyone. Juice WRLD doesn't even sound vicious or angry on this song. He's just lazily rapping about murder in a very nonchalant sort of way because it's the cool thing to rap about and he's jumping on the bandwagon. I don't actually believe that he's murdered anyone or even believes what he's singing about. I suppose that's a good thing that I don't think he's a violent criminal who deserves life in prison. But it's a dumb thing that he's following stupid trends by releasing meaningless songs just to get more money since the world made him a thing. Because, yeah, that's all this song is. He's bragging about murdering people and flexing about how rich he is. I find absolutely nothing interesting about that.
55- "1400 / 999 Freestyle" - Trippie Redd featuring Juice WRLD -- There's four new Trippie Redd songs debuting this week from his new album. And I don't care to listen to any of them. Based on this title, I'm guessing this is a freestyle rap. If you have talent, freestyle is impressive. If you are as bad as Trippie Redd, freestyle rap is beyond garbage because the songs end up being even more incomprehensible and unfocused. If this isn't freestyle, OK. I don't care either way.
73- "Love Scars 3" - Trippie Redd -- Nope. Not going to listen to this song.
79- "Bad Liar" - Imagine Dragons -- I was rather shocked to see Imagine Dragons releasing yet another album this month. Their last album was released just last year. It adds to my theory that Dan Reynolds and the band no longer care about quality. They're just churning out a whole bunch of songs and albums for the sake of quantity. That's my initial thoughts on the album release, anyways. I suppose I can't judge this album specifically until I listen to it, but I'm not excited to dive in. However, I do still enjoy "Natural" because it's a fitting college football anthem and there's also a new song called "Zero" that plays during the credits of "Ralph Breaks the Internet." That song is very unique for the band and I really hope it charts.
"Bad Liar" doesn't have context for college football or for "Ralph Breaks the Internet," so I wasn't confident it was going to be great, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the song. I think my biggest problem with Imagine Dragons lately is they've been churning out empty, meaningless songs that felt and sounded very lazy. This song, though, feels like it actually means something to Dan Reynolds as he dives into how much he's struggled this year with the failing relationship with his wife. It was announced back in April that they were getting a divorce, but a recent interview suggests that they are back together again? Regardless of the final outcome, it's obvious that there's been tension and that's what he's singing about here. The content of these lyrics suggests he's finally come to terms with the idea that he's never going to be enough for her, so instead of lying to her that he will be better, he's being honest with himself and perhaps with her that he might not be what she wants him to be, so he's letting her go. There's actually a lot of power in that. This is also a more held back, mellow song where the soft instrumentals fit the tone and feel of the song instead of being a heavy rock song that conflicts with the lyrics. Adding to it all is that his wife (or ex-wife?) Aja Volkman is the one providing backing vocals in the song. That's a solid touch. So yeah, I'm pleasantly surprised with this. Solid effort from Dan Reynolds here. Maybe I should be more optimistic about the album as a whole?
89- "Negative Energy" - Trippie Redd featuring Kodie Shane -- I'm not going to listen to this Trippie Redd song, either.
91- "Sixteen" - Thomas Rhett -- OK, now we're going to finish this week off with a string of country songs, beginning here with Thomas Rhett. Now mostly I'm fairly Negative towards this guy because he doesn't put out a whole lot of quality. Most of his songs are empty and forgettable. But I didn't mind the song "Life Changes," so maybe there was hope here? And, well, yeah, this isn't bad either. The song has a nice mellow groove to it that feels like he actually tried to put out a meaningful song rather than churning out the factory-built country-pop songs that he usually produces. And I like the sentiment here of reflecting back to your childhood and wishing you were 16 again. What I didn't like is how he doesn't commit to that. If this was specifically a song about him wishing he were 16, I would enjoy that to some degree. But in verse two he starts singing about wishing he were 18, then in verse three he's singing about wishing he were 21. I think the song would've been better if he were to commit to a lane here. But as is, this isn't awful, so I'll accept it.
93- "Good Girl" - Dustin Lynch -- For some reason I thought Dustin Lynch had charted this year, but nope. "Seein Red" and "Small Town Boy" were last year. "Good Girl" is his first song from this year. I didn't mind the former, but wasn't a fan of the latter. "Good Girl" falls into the latter category as well being that it's a forgettable song. This is one of those factory-built country songs I was talking about. Dustin is talking about how happy he is that he's got a good girl. He doesn't tell us much about her or dive into their relationship. And there doesn't seem to be any emotion or originality in the song, so this doesn't sound personal at all. It just seems like a basic, formulaic country songs that any of these singers could produce when they ran out of ideas.
95- "Last Shot" - Kip Moore -- This is also the first song this year from Kip Moore. The difference here is that last year Kip Moore's song was "More Girls Like You," which is an absolutely fantastic country song. In fact, it's still the song that I start singing every time I see Maroon 5's "Girls Like You" on the charts. "Last Shot" comes from the same album as "More Girls Like You," which was released last year. That makes me wonder why it took Kip Moore so long to release another single from the album. As soon as that song started fading, logic says he should've released this one, which is another solid country song. Now in fairness to the other guys, the lyrics here aren't the most inventive. This is still basic country stuff. But the difference here is that Kip Moore has a whole heck of a personality as he sounds like he cares rather than sounding desperate for a hit. I also really love his voice. I don't if husky is the right word, but that sound combined with his passion and the upbeat tune make this a very enjoyable song to listen to even if it doesn't have quite as catchy of a groove as "More Girls Like You."
96- "Millionaire" - Chris Stapleton -- Chris Stapleton did have a song this year, but it wasn't with him in a featured role. It was him joining with Justin Timberlake on "Say Something," which I thought was solid. I'm also not quite sure why he didn't take advantage of the moment and release a single shortly after that song, especially since "Millionaire" comes from his 2017 album "From A Room, Volume 2." So the song was already there and ready to be released. It just took Chris and his team a long time to send it out to the radio. And like both Dustin Lynch and Kip Moore, Chris is singing about his love for a girl. But again, the difference in quality is the emotion and passion behind the song. Dustin doesn't sound like he cared about his song, while Kip and Chris do. And Chris specifically is singing this slowed down love ballad that he's singing with his wife Morgane Stapleton as she's providing the backing vocals here. That's the second time that's happened this week, which is an interesting coincidence as singers don't usually bring their spouses on with them. But in both cases this works. When it comes to a love ballad, the most important thing is for the couple to sound like they love each other. Chris and Morgane pull that off. I suppose Chris doesn't get credit for the lyrics as this is a cover, but he does get credit for singing it well.
98- "Toxic Waste" - Trippie Redd -- An accurate description of Trippie Redd's music. So why would I waste my time?
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