Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Without Me" - Halsey (+1) -- The war is on! Halsey vs. Post Malone. Two weeks ago, Halsey dethroned Ariana on the Hot 100, only to be taken out last week by Post Malone. And now Halsey is back on top with consistent gains in all three categories, coincidentally being No. 2 in each category. The biggest gain that helped her this week was streaming, where she gained 23 percent to 47 million U.S. streams, just barely behind Post Malone's 52.8 million. What puts Halsey over the edge, now that the two are much closer on streaming, is that Halsey owns Post Malone on radio. She's at 106.6 million audience impressions while Post Malone is 63.3 million. The two are nearly dead even on sales at 41,000 downloads sold each. Post Malone has the ever so slight edge. Helping boost Halsey's streaming is a new vertical video, which does a great job at showcasing why you ALWAYS are supposed to shoot videos horizontally. Yes, you can watch the video vertically on your phone or tablet. But even that is a bit odd to me. Outside that, the music video isn't very special. She's just sitting on a stool posing sexily while singing as water starts to drip down and soak her in her mostly see-through white t-shirt. Typical Halsey stuff, right?
2- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- Post Malone is down and out this week, but I'm wondering if this war is over. Could Post Malone swing again and retake the top spot if Halsey falls a bit on streaming? I think it's possible, but I have no idea, which is why I'm intrigued to see how this plays out. Eventually I think Post Malone is going to need to grow slightly faster on radio if he wants this song to be a huge hit. Otherwise it might start to fade out when "Spider-Verse" starts disappearing from theaters.
3- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+1) -- I still don't understand the appeal of this song. I want it to fall down, yet it jumps a spot thanks to Ariana taking a bit of a tumble.
4- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+1) -- Hey look! "High Hopes" managed to jump up a spot! I was having the feeling that it was going to be forever stuck at No. 5, but Ariana's tumble as well as the song's continued dominance on the radio propels this song up a spot. Now if it can only manage to sneak past "SICKO MODE" as well.
5- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-2) -- I'm not sure why Ariana has started to tumble. I thought the song would remain consistent at No. 3 for a while since "SICKO MODE" and "High Hopes" aren't exactly tearing things up. But nope. She drops down to No. 5. Now I'm wondering if she can stay in the top five. My current bet is yes since the bottom half of the top 10 is rather unstable at the moment.
6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (=) -- Marshmello and Bastille remain camped here at No. 6. I still think the song is losing it's momentum and I keep expecting it to fall. It's just that nothing is stepping up to the plate below the top 10.
7- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- Why won't this go away? I was sick of this song 30 weeks ago and for some reason it's still around. Curses to all of you who helped in this song remain consistently stable in the top 10. Unfortunately I don't see this song disappearing in the next few weeks since Maroon 5 will be the halftime performance at this year's Super Bowl. Meaning I have a good time to go to the bathroom during the game since I won't be skipping any commercials or game time.
8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- Why is this song still around?
9- "Wow." - Post Malone (+2) -- Oh sure. Instead of getting rid of "Girls Like You," "Drip Too Hard" or "ZEZE," we instead dump "Eastide" in favor of another Post Malone song, this one being complete and utter trash. If this becomes another one of Post Malone's mega hits, I'm going to be cursing life throughout 2019. I don't know why we've suddenly knighted such a boring, lazy singer as Post Malone as a superstar.
10- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (=) -- Why is this song still around?
Rising on the Hot 100:
13- "Money" - Cardi B (+4) -- No. 7 through No. 10 on the charts right now are all pure trash that needs to be replaced. Add "SICKO MODE" at No. 3 to that list and we have a really bad top 10 right now. Yet all that's around to replace any of the songs is the most lazy, bottom of the barrel song from Cardi B? Does anyone on Earth really want another song about her rapping about all the money she has? That's all she ever really does anyways. Let's stop supporting her in this.
40- "Look Back At It" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie (+9) -- Yup, we jumped right from No. 13 to No. 40. A lot of songs remained mostly stationary on the Hot 100 this week, which is rather odd. And it's really depressing that one of the few songs that made actual gains is one from Boogie. He's not one who deserves any attention.
41- "Envy Me" - Calboy (+22) -- Ew gross. I think I just threw up in my mouth seeing this song jumping 22 spots. Are we really going to turn another horrendous hip-hop artist into a major star? Just make this stop, please?
New Arrivals:
27- "Lost in the Fire" - Gesaffelstein & The Weeknd -- Oh hey. We have a few songs to actually cover this week. Last week we had nothing. The four new arrivals were all trashy hip-hop songs. While this week provides a few more hip-hop songs for me to skip, we also have four songs that were at least worth checking out. I generally have liked The Weeknd recently, so I was hopeful about this. Until I played the song and the first line was him wanting to have sex with a girl slow with the lights on. As the song goes on, apparently this girl tells The Weeknd that she might be into girls, so his response is that she can bring her friend and they can have a threesome. Yeah, this song is pretty trashy. Gesaffelstein, a French DJ, puts a nice beat to the song and The Weeknd's vocals are solid as always. But I want him to give me substance.
33- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani -- Well here's a match that seems made in heaven. Normani hasn't been a huge presence on her own, but "Love Lies" with Khalid ended up being a huge hit, which hopefully means she has good potential as a solo artist, proving again that the girls from Fifth Harmony should all just go their separate ways. They're trash together. But on their own they're pretty good. Or at least Camila and Normani are. I haven't heard much from the others. But team up Normani with Sam Smith, a male singer whose music I have always loved, and you've got yourself a duet that's as great as it sounds. Sam Smith is a singer who does a great job at keeping his love songs gender neutral. He's openly gay, but you'd never know it if you only listened to his music. The way the song is constructed, he could be singing to Normani. Or the two of them could be singing to their own respective lovers, both being upset and hurt that said lover is pushing them away by not giving them attention. They want love tonight, but in order to get that, they find themselves dancing with a stranger rather than their lover. It's a simple song, but both of them sell the song with their vocals. They take turns selling me initially, but then at the end they sing together, blending just about as good as you can get. The song also has a decent enough bounce to it to make it a fun song to listen to rather than just being a depressing song.
69- "Nights Like This" - Kehlani featuring Ty Dolla $ign -- We have both Kehlani and Normani debuting songs on the charts this week. Make sure not to confuse the two. Normani is the excellent singer from Fifth Harmony that needs a great solo career because her voice and style warrants it. Kehlani is a pop/R&B singer who you probably forgot existed. And that's probably for the better as it also describes this song. Kehlani's vocals aren't bad, but this feels like a generic song about her longing for an ex-lover, perhaps her girlfriend Shaina Negron? I'm not sure if they're still together, but that's who the internet told me she was dating in 2017. She specifically references in this song that she is talking about a girl, which is fine. But it makes Ty Dolla $ign's verse even more useless since he's not playing the voice of the ex-lover given that he's the wrong gender of whom Kehlani is referring to on the song. His verse is a little more restrained than he normally is, leaning a bit on the pop side, actually. So it's not bad. It just doesn't have a point to it. Name recognition, I suppose.
75- "Thotiana" - Blueface -- I had no idea who Blueface was. So I gave this song a chance and lasted less than 30 seconds. Another awful hip-hop artist singing a trashy song. Which means this thug is probably going to be another superstar, right?
79- "Let Me Down Slowly" - Alec Benjamin featuring Alessia Cara -- The final song I'll be covering is another nice duet, this time between Alec Benjamin, a singer I've never heard of, and Alessia Cara, a pop singer who I really like. As I looked into this song, I learned that this was simply an Alec Benjamin solo track from last year that had been gaining traction overseas, but in order to boost its attention, he added Alessia Cara, who is more of a household name. Now this has actually come up in a few songs now, but when we pair a male and female singer in a duet, part of me longs for an actual duet where the second voice comes in and responds to the first voice, as if they're having a conversation with one another. This would've worked great in this song because young Alec is feeling vulnerable and doesn't want to be crushed by this girl, so he's asking her to let him down slowly. Show him a little sympathy. Personally I'd rather the girl just get it over with, but that's beside the point. Alec wants her to be gentle. Adding Alessia Cara would give her the chance to play the voice of the female, responding to his request to let him down slowly. But she doesn't. She also plays the voice of the person being rejected, making her inclusion mostly insignificant, done just for some name recognition. But even so, both of them have very likable singing voices and they blend well together, so if I try not to be too nitpicky with the lyrics, I could see this being a song I that I grow to enjoy if it is played. And musically this is a well constructed song, which certainly helps. It's just that I listen to this and see the potential of it being more, but I suppose I'll settle with what we've got.
80- "Jumpin on a Jet" - Future -- Future has an album that's coming out. Or is out? And just to forewarn you, I'm going to be mostly pretending that it doesn't exist. I'm not going to listen to a single song from it. And if it album bombs here soon, that'll give me a week off from this because not going to cover the king of mumble rap. I refuse to listen to even one second of that album. I'll type of the names of the songs on this list and call it good. Just like I'm doing here. I didn't listen to this. I probably never will.
99- "Splashin" - Rich the Kid -- Don't care about this either. Anyone who drools all over themselves while listening to Rich the Kid should have their music-listening privileges taken away because we don't need to give him any attention.
