Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grane (=) -- Ariana captures her sixth week at No. 1 thanks mostly to her large streaming numbers. Said streaming numbers are down 14 percent overall compared to last week to 43.5 million U.S streams, but said number is still significantly ahead of Halsey, who is down 1 percent to 31.9 million. As that margin continues to decrease, Halsey's chances of dethroning Ariana increase as Halsey is ahead in both sales and radio play. In overall chart points, Halsey is up 2 percent while Ariana is down 7 percent. I imagine it'll continue to be a close race in the next month or so. I'll be intrigued to see how this plays out.
2- "Without Me" - Halsey (=) -- Yeah, I mostly covered both of these songs in that last paragraph. I'll just add here that I'm glad our two ladies are taking control of the top two spots. Neither song is all that wonderful, but both songs are miles better than the Travis Scott song that is right below them and it's also good to see some ladies doing well on the charts in a very male dominant era for the Billboard charts as a whole.
3- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- I'm glad this song continues to get held back by Ariana and Halsey. Now it would be even better if it could start to fall so we don't have to be subjected it anymore in the top 10.
4- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+3) -- I'm not sure how much this song is being boosted on its own merits as compared to how much it's being boosted by the movie that it plays in the background of. The soundtrack for "Into the Spider-Verse" debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 this week, so I'm guessing that played a big part in "Sunflower" soaring even higher this week. All of that means I question the long-term potential for this song on the charts, but if this song does well as result of the movie continuing to do well, I'll accept that since the movie is absolutely fantastic. This song isn't that memorable. But it's also harmless.
5- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (-1) -- Marshello and Bastille get bullied down a spot thanks to "Sunflower," but they still manage to hang on in the top five. It's been an absolutely solid run for this song, so I have no qualms with its run seeming to be coming to an end. It's done way better than I ever thought it would.
6- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (-1) -- I am a bit upset that this song hasn't been able to do better. The radio has things right at the moment as this remains the top radio song for a fifth week. But streaming and sales just never got on board on the same level, which is unfortunate.
7- "All I Want for Christmas is You" - Mariah Carey (-1) -- Here's a surprise. I expected Mariah Carey to break into the top five this week with this Christmas song, but instead she backtracks a spot? Well, as it turns out, she did gain 21 percent in overall chart points. But said gain wasn't enough to get her past the songs ahead of her while "Sunflower" gained 35 percent in overall chart points. Hence the fall. Now for this song and all of the other Christmas songs (there's now 20 of them on the charts), there's technically one more week for them to perform and said week will include Christmas and Christmas Eve, which is obviously huge, but it's also only going to be a partial week with Christmas coming in the middle of the tracking week. So we'll see what transpires next week, but for now I'm glad that all the songs are here.
8- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (+1) -- "ZEZE" and "Drip Too Hard" both refuse to go away, which is really annoying. They also continue this odd trend of flip-flopping positions every week. This week it's "ZEZE" in the No. 8 spot thanks to Kodak Black's new album, which thankfully only debuted three new songs towards the bottom half of the charts. Not that I would've covered them, anyways. I've been avoiding all the album bombs these last couple of months. But it still gives me joy to see him failing in compared to his peers.
9- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (-1) -- Who still cares about Lil Baby and Gunna? And who are the annoying punks that are still streaming this awful piece of trash?
10- "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" - Andy Williams (+3) -- IT DID IT! THIS SONG HAS REACHED THE TOP 10! I was legitimately worried that it was not going to make after the last week or two saw this song struggling to break into the top 10. But it did it! And now we have two Christmas songs in the top 10 and a whole bunch more right below. This is just the sixth Christmas song to ever reach the top 10 and it's well deserved as this is an absolute Christmas classic. In regards to Andy Williams, this is his first top 10 entry since 1971, making it 47 years since he was last year, which breaks a record for the longest gap between top 10 hits for an artist, a mark that was previous held by Dobie Gray at 30 years thanks to his own version of "Drift Away" in 1973 and Uncle Cracker's cover in 2003, which credited Gray in a featured role. Andy Williams also also sets the record for the longest span of Hot 100 top 10 hits as his first top 10 entry was in 1959, just over a year after the formation of the Billboard Hot 100, meaning there's very few that are eligible to break that record in the near future. The only person that I can think of that could break that record is if Elvis Presley's holiday classic "Blue Christmas" were to debut and hit the top 10. But that's currently No. 20 on the Holiday 100, so it didn't quite have enough momentum to chart on the Hot 100.
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" - Brenda Lee (+7) -- Just below the top 10 is Brenda Lee, who finally bests her previous high, which was No. 14. Now if only we had another full week of Christmas tracking, perhaps this could join Mariah and Andy in the top 10. That would be cool. But for now, I'm just happy to see so many Christmas songs in the top 20 as there's six of them this year. And, as I previously mentioned, there's a total of 20 Christmas songs on the Hot 100 this week with even more new arrivals adding to the already impressive long list.
12- "A Holly Jolly Christmas" - Burl Ives (+9) -- Last week Burl Ives snuck ahead of a Brenda Lee, but this week she jumps back ahead, leaving "A Holly Jolly Christmas" as the fourth highest charting Christmas song this week. Now in a perfect world, Brenda and Burl would be able to replace Kodak and Lil Baby in the top 10, giving us four songs in the bottom half of the Hot 100. But as it's a partial week for Christmas songs next week, I'm not sure that's possible.
13- "Jingle Bell Rock" - Bobby Helms (+2) -- Making it three in a row right below the top 10 is "Jingle Bell Rock." And being that it's now after Christmas, I hope all of you had a great time rocking the Christmas night away.
17- "The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)" - Nat King Cole (+7) -- Welcome back to the top 20, Nat King Cole! Prior to this song, the last time Nat King Cole was in the top 20 was in 1963 with "That Sunday, That Summer." It's a great thing that these rules for Christmas re-entries allows for us to have Nat King Cole back in the region.
27- "Last Christmas" - Wham! (+4) -- A great Christmas for Wham! and the late George Michael. I wish he were still with us to celebrate his song's success, but sadly he passed away two Christmases ago. And we all still miss him.
28- "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" - Gene Autry (-1) -- OK, I know this is *supposed* to be a region for rising songs, but I said previously that I'm going to be following all the Christmas songs. So Rudolph got pushed down a spot because of "Last Christmas." Oh well. I still wanted to include it here, anyways. Maybe next year I'll include a new section just for Christmas songs.
32- "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" - Dean Martin (=) -- Dean Martin *almost* hits top 30. He also didn't quite get his version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" to debut as that sits at No. 22 on the Holiday 100 this week. But hey, it was Dean's first year back on the charts, so that alone is a huge success.
33- "Sleigh Ride" - The Ronettes (+8) -- This was one of last week's new entries and it still makes me happy to see that "Sleigh Ride" has now become a part of our yearly Christmas tradition. Hopefully we can bring it back again next year.
34- "Feliz Navidad" - Jose Feliciano (+8) -- This was also a returning entry from last week that gains a bit this week. "Feliz Navidad" entered the charts last Christmas season for the first time, so it was good to see it come back again this year and hopefully it will be able to remain a Christmas tradition on the Hot 100.
35- "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)" - Gene Autry (+5) -- Last week's surprise entry for me gains five spots this week. This is one of those Christmas songs that I didn't know quite as well, so I enjoyed the experience of giving it a closer look and I really appreciated the implementation of Christian themes together with mainstream Christmas because it shows we can have both.
48- "White Christmas" - Bing Crosby (re-entry) -- OK, I'm not sure if this was a part of last year's crops of returning Christmas entries. All I can gather in my research of the song is that it peaked at No. 12 back in 1962 and has now spent a total of 14 weeks on the charts. But regardless of whether or not it has been here recently, this is certainly a song that belongs here as it's reported that this song has sold over 50 million copies, making it the highest-selling single ever, Christmas or not. So yeah, you can easily call this the most iconic Christmas song ever. According the the ASCAP, this is also the most recorded Christmas song ever with over 500 versions of this song existing. And of course this song deserves the honor. Bing Crosby's Christmas music is some of my favorite. He just has such a great voice that makes his music perfect for everyone. And this is such a delightful tune. Me and snow don't always get along, but I do like for it to look like Christmas on Christmas. This year I was dreaming of a white Christmas because it was mostly a green Christmas with occasional patches of white. But this song isn't just about wishing for snow, it's pleasantly wishing people to have a great Christmas, which is why it's so delightful to listen to.
56- "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" - Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus (+24) -- Well, we're done with Christmas songs in this rising songs section, but there's a total of seven new Christmas songs below in my new arrivals, so go down there for more Christmas talk. Given that there's so much Christmas songs right now, the inevitable truth is that this section will be quite busy when all of them sadly disappear. I can only hope for good songs to replace them. And this is certainly one of the best candidates.
61- "Talk to Me" - Tory Lanez & Rich the Kid (+13) -- I barely even remember that this song exists. I guess it's time to be paying attention now?
73- "No Stylist" - French Montana featuring Drake (+12) -- It's because of Drake, isn't it?
80- "Ella Quiere Beber" - Anuel AA & Romeo Santos (+13) -- I'm not sure if this song will last. A lot of these songs on the bottom half of the charts are rising big because of the recent album bombs that dominated this specific region. This wasn't an awful song, but it was forgettable and I really hope we don't make Anuel AA a thing here in the states.
81- "Beautiful Crazy" - Luke Combs (+16) -- Finishing the rising songs sections with a pair of country songs. "Beautiful Crazy" is one of the more forgettable and generic country songs. Luke Combs did slightly better with "One Number Away" earlier in the year.
84- "This Is It" - Scotty McCreery (+12) -- I'm sure there's a lot of people that will be happy to see Scotty McCreery doing well on the charts. I've just never understood his appeal. He was one of the more boring contestants on "American Idol" in the year he won. I wasn't a fan of him then and I've never really enjoyed much of his music since and this song is no different.
New Arrivals:
24- "imagine" - Ariana Grande -- So this just in. Ariana has a new album coming out. Her fifth studio album "thank u, next" is scheduled to be released January 25, 2019, just five months after the release of "Sweetener." This is weird to me because the first thing I think about when albums get released this close to each other is that the artist is thinking about quantity over quality. I would rather see Ariana focusing on making good music rather than throwing out as many songs as possible just to see what sticks. But I suppose I'll take things as they come. "thank u, next" the song I think is a passable song has a really nice sentiment to it. It doesn't strike me as a song that necessarily deserves to be a No. 1 hit given that there are a lot of songs from Ariana that are a lot better. It feels more like a lifetime achievement award than anything. But if I ignore that, I think it's totally fine. However, "imagine" feels like more of a lazy effort. There's not much to this song. She's just imagining a perfect life with this guy. There's two quick verses that are boring musically and a chorus that feels cut and pasted from various other generic pop songs about love. The only time Ariana does anything interesting with her voice is in the outro, which is Ariana repeating the line "Can you imagine it?" for well over a minute. Cut the outro out and Ariana only had enough content to get the song barely passed two minutes. So if this is the type of music we're getting from this upcoming album, I'm not that excited. I'm hoping for the best, though.
41- "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays" - Perry Como -- Now that we've got Ariana's new song out of the way, it's time for our string of seven new Christmas entries, five classic entries and two modern entries. We start here with Perry Como, a singer who I honestly don't know much about outside he has a great, classic voice and some amazing Christmas songs on his resume. "Home for the Holidays" was a song composed by Robert Allen with lyrics by Al Stillman. I'm not sure of Como was the first to record a version of the song, but his recording was the most popular and was released shortly after it was initially released. Like many of these songs, the lyrics here are simple as it gives the sentiment of exactly what is suggested in the title, that of there being no place like home for the holidays. And although that's a simple sentiment, it's also a powerful one that rings true. Because there really is nothing like going home for the holidays to spend some quality time with family and friends. And although I have no problems with this Como version being here, the Carpenters also have a rendition of this on their Christmas album. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could get the Carpenters to return to the charts one of these Christmas seasons?
42- "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" - Perry Como & The Fontane Sisters -- We get a double dose of Perry Como this week as he also gets his version of this Christmas classic to chart. Two weeks ago when "Let It Snow" debuted, I was wondering if we were going to get this song as well because those are the two songs that I immediately think of when it snows. Because of that, this song is probably one of the Christmas songs that I sing most often. I also have fond memories of the song, especially when it comes to my mom's siblings singing it together for family get togethers. They do a few things with this will be positively ingrained in my memory forever and all of my uncles have voices that fit this perfectly. So yeah, there's a lot of nostalgia for this song. As I stated in my previous entry, a lot of these Christmas songs have simple lyrics powered by relatable sentiments rather than complex verses and choruses. And while there's nothing wrong with that, there's a lot of lyrics to "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." A lot more than some of your classic Christmas songs. There's also a few different parts that are musically creative. Those two elements combine to make this a really fun song to sing while caroling. The only nitpick I have with this specific version is that I like Bing Crosby's version better. But that's nothing against Perry Como and The Fontane Sisters. They do just fine with this song.
45- "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" - John & Yoko / The Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir -- OK, first of all with this song, I'm not a huge fan of using "Xmas" instead of "Christmas," although I'm not going to throw too much of a fit since this stylization originated not with the idea of using the X to replace Christ, but rather because the X stood for the Greek letter "chi," which is the first letter in the Greek word for Christ. The second thing with this song is that it's a very unique Christmas song to be charting. It's a lot of fun seeing John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the charts in 2018, but this song isn't them just casually wishing everyone a merry Christmas... and a happy Christmas, too (both lyrics are in the song). This song was written in 1971, during the Vietnam War. John and Yoko were begging for the war to be over, using the template of Christmas in more of an ironic way. There's a happy, positive feel to the song, which stands as a dream of what life could be like without any war or violence. The music video for the song has a lot of gruesome, sad war images that'll make you cry while watching, knowing that many people aren't having a merry Christmas. But maybe they could if we didn't have such a violent world. Anti-war songs were very popular in the 70's and I appreciate them because they often had a lot of emotion and meaning to them rather than just being empty songs.
47- "Wonderful Christmastime" - Paul McCartney -- Speaking of former members of The Beatles, it's not very often we have John Lennon AND Paul McCartney getting new songs on the charts. Call that a wonderful Christmas gift from Billboard to the world. Unlike John and Yoko's song, this song doesn't have any added political layer to it. It is what you think it is when you're casually listening to it. It's another one of those simple Christmas songs that characterize most of our Christmas tunes this season, but Paul McCartney as one of the all-time greats brings a lot of character and charm to the song. And the instrumentals behind the lyrics and vocals provide the perfect amount of levity to make this song work. It makes a simple song feel well thought out and genuine, thus giving audiences listening a very positive feeling. You can understand why this has became a holiday classic ever since its release in 1979.
50- "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" - Darlene Love -- Well this is fun. We have so many Christmas songs on the charts this year that one has snuck in that I'm really not that familiar with. I mean, it's quite possible that I've listened to this song many times. I mean, I even have this exact version and the Michael Buble version on my Christmas playlist. But the songs itself has just not stuck in my memory before. There's also popular covers by the likes of Mariah Carey and U2, so maybe I should be embarrassed? However, listening to this version made me rather pleased. Darlene Love has a lot of soul to her voice and her belting the lyrics out are quite powerful. Then we have the saxophone part that stood out to me, giving this a classic 60's groove to it. I'm not sure why my brain missed this one, but I'll be certainly paying attention to it from now on because this fits right in with "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and "Jingle Bell Rock" as a fun, groovy Christmas song to balance out the calm music.
58- "MoshPit" - Kodak Black featuring Juice WRLD -- I'm finishing the year off strong by completely ignoring the three Kodak Black songs that charted this week.
68- "Cozy Little Christmas" - Katy Perry -- I was wondering if we were going to see this song on the charts this year. I've seen the charts in the bubbling under section, but I didn't think it was going to find its way onto the Hot 100. If you're curious, the reason why we haven't had more Christmas songs below the top 50 is because the Billboard rules are such that an older song can only chart if it has significant gains in multiple metrics and has enough points to make the top 50. "Cozy Little Christmas" doesn't meet those specific qualifications, but it made it because it's a new song, so the rules don't apply. Without even listening to the song, I do commend Katy for her attempt at writing a new Christmas song since all most artists do is cover all of the older classics. The problem here is that she released this as an Amazon Music exclusive. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I deactivated my Amazon Prime account this year, which means I don't currently have access to this. There is a 45 second clip of the song on Katy's YouTube account and I liked what I heard there. But I suppose I'll get back to you in the future when I get a chance to listen to the full song?
74- "Testimony" - Kodak Black -- I'm finishing the year off strong by completely ignoring the three Kodak Black songs that charted this week.
87- "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max -- We have one more Christmas song to get to, but first we get to pause and discuss a new single from pop singer Ava Max, who was born Amanda Ava Koci. I'm not exactly sure where she came from as this is her very first hit on the Hot 100, but this is an example of a song where the rest of the world caught on long for the United States jumped on the bandwagon. This has hit No. 1 in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland and Scotland. The song starts off rather jarring with a scream that I wasn't expecting, but it sets the tone for the lyrics of the song as Ava is describing a girl that is sweet, but psycho. She'll make you go crazy, but you won't be able to keep away. There's not a whole lot of depth to the song beyond that, but the song is ultimately super infectious. It has a really catchy, semi-electronic groove to it and Ava's voice is excellent. This is the type of pop song that I would hope becomes more popular as we move forward. If you couldn't tell, I am beyond sick of this hip-hop revolution that has poisoned the charts in 2018, so I'm hoping we can turn a page and get more songs like this to be popular. After I finish this post, I'm going to dive into my list of favorite songs of 2018. As such, I kinda wish this song charted a week later so that I can give it time to grow on me. I think it has the potential to become worthy of my end-of-year list, but it'll have a huge disadvantage by only being on my mind for a day or two when I create my 2018 list. But hey, we'll see if it can sneak onto the list anyways.
88- "Gnarly" - Kodak Black featuring Lil Pump -- I'm finishing the year off strong by completely ignoring the three Kodak Black songs that charted this week.
90- "The Christmas Song" - Lauren Daigle -- Our final Christmas song of the year (most likely, anyways) surprisingly comes from Lauren Daigle. Like with Katy, she was able to chart below the top 50 because this is a new cover of the song, thus the rules for all of the older Christmas songs don't apply. The other surprising thing is that Lauren Daigle released a full Christmas album this year titled "Behold," but this song was NOT on that. Yet it's the only one to chart from her. I'm not sure how she pulled that one off, but hey. This also makes it the second version of "The Christmas Song" to chart this year with Nat King Cole of course being the other one. Perhaps it's not fair to compare Lauren Daigle to Nat King Cole, so I'm not going to do much of that. Obviously Nat King Cole's version is much better. Lauren uses a little too much voice, if you know what I mean. She slows the song down and includes a lot of vibrators and it doesn't work as well. But hey, I have a hard time being too picky when it comes to Christmas music. This might not be the version of this song that I'll turn to first, but it's still a good song and given that Lauren is a good singer, it's hard to give a good singer a good song and have it turn out too bad. This is still a solid cover of this song. This might be the only ever week that this specific cover of this song is here on the charts, but I'm not upset that it's here. In fact, I hope we see more of Lauren in 2019 and beyond.
91- "Envy Me" - Calboy -- Speaking of the hip-hop revolution that I spoke of on my "Sweet but Psycho" entry right above Lauren Daigle's song, here's a prime example of that. Who is this guy and why should I care about him? I listened to about a minute of him mumbling something about his life and was already done with this guy. On the chorus he's talking about him having the keys, him being able to ball like the NBA and people envying him because he has money. And I don't know, I have a hard time buying rappers' empty flexing when it's their first ever hit on the Hot 100. Some of these guys talk as if they're as popular as Drake before they've even really become popular. So why should I envy yet when I know nothing about him? He says people are gravitating to this song because it's real and people respond to that. Sure, I can respect that. But I'm going through these lyrics trying to find WHAT exactly is "real." It's just the same dumb nonsense that I hear in every stupid hip-hop song. So he needs to do better than that in order to get my attention. And some people wonder why I hate this genre. I try not to. But when all I get is crap like this, what's there to like?
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