Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Without Me" - Halsey (+1) -- As was eventually expected based on the trajectories of both songs, Halsey has dethroned Ariana Grande to capture the top spot on the Hot 100. Halsey accomplishes this by being consistent in all three categories with excellent sales, formidable radio and solid streaming whereas Ariana has been slipping quite a bit in streaming ever since capturing the highest weekly streaming total ever for a female artist and it finally caught up to her. With Halsey gaining the No. 1 spot, this is her first No. 1 hit as a lead artist after previously spending what seemed like an eternity on top as a featured act in The Chainsmokers' "Closer" back in 2016. Halsey being No. 1 also means female pop singers have taken control of the charts early on in 2019, which is good news for both female singers and for the pop genre, both of which I think is a good thing after our masculine-heavy 2018 provided mostly rap music festering on the charts. How long it keeps this way before the trends of 2018 take over again is yet to be seen, but at least I can have hope for the year, right?
2- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-1) -- Despite giving the crown up to Halsey, Ariana is still in great position right now. Even though streaming and sales are sliding, she still has excellent totals on the radio, which means she's likely to remain here in the top 10 for quite some time after ruling for seven weeks.
3- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+2) -- The potential spoiler for our female-led 2019 is right here with Post Malone and Swae Lee as "Sunflower" seems to have excellent traction right now. And although both artists would technically be labeled as rappers, it'd be stretching it quite a bit to refer to this specific song as rap. I'd call this pop, meaning pop music has controlled the top three in both weeks of 2019 so far. It's a bit empty when it comes to pop, but it's fairly catchy and was solid background noise in "Spider-Verse." I'm glad it was able to climb to the top three because that meant it prevented Travis Scott from jumping back up.
4- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- With Mariah Carey dropping off the charts in record fashion due to all the holiday music disappearing (going from No. 3 to being gone from the charts is the biggest dropout in the history of the Hot 100, with the previous high being Prince's "Purple Rain," which showed up for a week at No. 4 following his passing), Travis Scott staying put is an overall loss because it means he fell below "Sunflower." This is good news. Better news would be him falling faster.
5- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+1) -- Thanks to continued radio dominance, as "High Hopes" has now led radio songs for seven weeks, Panic! At the Disco returns to No. 5 following Mariah's departure. Now if the song could sneak ahead of "SICKO MODE," that would be excellent.
6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+1) -- I still think "Happier" is on its way out. But with the Christmas songs gone this week and nothing else giving a legit challenge as of yet, Marshmello and Bastille will enjoy a momentary boost back up to No. 6.
7- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (+7) -- Unfortunately the disappearance of the Christmas songs meant that Maroon 5 snuck back into the top 10, jumping all the way up to No. 7. Also, I would be willing to guess that the radio stations' end-of-year playlists and/or iTunes gift cards from Christmas helped boost the performance of this song. Said factors always boost old songs from the previous year for a week or so in January. Hopefully that means we can get this song to fall back out here soon because I was thoroughly enjoying it being gone.
8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gonna (+4) -- And these two songs are back in their 8-9 spot after the Christmas songs prematurely kicked them out. That's unfortunate. I was hoping that when the Christmas songs disappeared we could get some new entries and not these two awful rap songs. I mean, who is still listening to "Drip Too Hard" and "ZEZE"? More importantly... WHY?
9- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (+6) -- See previous comment.
10- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+13) -- Maroon 5 showing back up in the top 10 is also why Post Malone's "Better Now" is back momentarily. Although in this case I don't mind this song being around. It's not great by any stretch of the imagination. But it grew on me a lot last year to the point of me being able to tolerate its existence, which is something I totally didn't do with "Psycho" and "rockstar."
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+10) -- OK, with 23 Christmas songs falling off the charts, as well as the Kodak Black and A Boogie wit da Hoodie album bombs also sliding, it means that practically every song on the Hot 100 had a huge gain this week, so instead of spending my whole week commenting on every song, I'll just let you browse through this list while I provide super short replies for each song. Next week we'll get to see what's ACTUALLY rising. So we'll start with this one, in which case I have to say... GOOD!
12- "Wake up in the Sky" - Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black (+6) -- BAD!
13- "Wow." - Post Malone (+34) -- YIKES!
14- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+10) -- GOOD!
15- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+2) -- WRETCHEDLY AWFUL!
16- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+6) -- GOOD!
17- "Money" - Cardi B (+2) -- BAD!
18- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+9) -- STILL GOOD. BUT OLD!
19- "Taki Taki" - DJ Snake featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B (+11) -- FORGETTABLE!
20- "MIA" - Bad Bunny featuring Drake (+11) -- BAD!
21- "Going Bad" - Meek Mill featuring Drake (+15) -- BAD!
22- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero (+11) -- BAD!
23- "Trip" - Ella Mai (+15) -- ANNOYING!
24- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+17) -- TOLERABLE!
25- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+21) -- GOOD!
26- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (+13) -- I DON'T LIKE IT!
27- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+21) -- GOOD!
28- "Beautiful" - Bazzi featuring Camila Cabello (+22) -- UGLY!
29- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (+23) -- PHENOMENAL!
30- "Better" - Khalid (+21) -- BORING!
31- "She Got the Best of Me" - Luke Combs (+23) -- TOLERABLE!
33- "Close to Me" - Ellie Goulding & Diplo featuring Swae Lee (+27) -- GOOD!
34- "You Say" - Lauren Daigle (+25) -- GREAT!
35- "Uproar" - Lil Wayne (+21) -- ACCEPTABLE!
37- "Best Shot" - Jimmie Allen (+24) -- TOLERABLE!
38- "Swervin" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie featuring 6ix9ine (+19) -- BOYCOTTED!
39- "Drunk Me" - Mitchell Tenpenny (+25) -- TOLERABLE!
40- "Be Alright" - Dean Lewis (+23) -- GREAT!
41- "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max (+42) -- GREAT!
42- "Sixteen" - Thomas Rhett (+37) -- DECENT!
43- "Talk to Me" - Tory Lanez & Rich the Kid (+29) -- DON'T TALK TO ME!
44- "Backin' It Up" - Pardison Fontaine featuring Cardi B (+25) -- GO AWAY!
45- "Burning Man" - Dierks Bentley featuring Brothers Osborne (+35) -- GOOD!
46- "Dangerous" - Meek Mill featuring Jeremih & PnB Rock (+16) -- BORING!
47- "Good Girl" - Dustin Lynch (+42) -- BAD BOY!
48- "Beautiful Crazy" - Luke Combs (+33) -- BORING!
49- "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" - Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus (+29) -- GREAT!
50- "This Feeling" - The Chainsmokers featuring Kelsea Ballerini (+34) -- GOOD!
51- "Consequences" - Camila Cabello (+24) -- GREAT!
52- "Girl Like You" - Jason Aldean (+35) -- DUMB!
53- "Last Shot" - Kip Moore (+43) -- GOOD!
54- "Look Back at It" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie (+12) -- BOYCOTTED!
55- "Arms Around You" - XXXTENTACION & Lil Pump featuring Maluma & Swae Lee (+22) -- DISGUSTING!
56- "Armed and Dangerous" - Juice WRLD (+20) -- BAD!
57- "This is It" - Scotty McCreery (+43) -- BORING!
58- "Calling My Spirit" - Kodak Black (+16) -- BOYCOTTED!
59- "You" - Jacquees (+26) -- BORING!
60- "No Stylist" - French Montana featuring Drake (+30) -- BAD!
64- "Ella Quiere Beber" - Anuel AA & Romeo Santos (+28) -- BORING!
66- "Envy Me" - Calboy (+32) -- BAD!
68- "when the party's over" - Billie Eilish (+14) -- GREAT!
71- "Lost in Japan" - Shawn Mendes & Zedd (+28) -- GOOD!
73- "lovely" - Billie Eilish & Khalid (+18) -- FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!
74- "Fine China" - Future & Juice WRLD (+23) -- GAG-WORTHY!
New Arrivals:
32- "Baby Shark" - Pinkfong -- Let me get this straight. A song about baby sharks meant for very young kids went crazy viral because of the Baby Shark Challenge, a challenge wherein millions of grown adults and celebrities dance like the kids in the video, causing the song to get 2.1 BILLION views on YouTube (and counting) and a spot on the Hot 100? I mean, what am I supposed to say about this? The song is fantastic... for its targeted audience of two-year-olds. For anyone older than that? No. Just... no. And if there's one thing that bothers me more than the festering invasion of hip-hop songs on the charts, it's songs that get popular because of ridiculously stupid internet challenges. So I can't fault the song itself. But the challenge, you better believe I'm furiously mad at. Any grown adult who participated in the Baby Shark Challenge should be banned from YouTube. Because said people are probably the same stupid crowd that falls for every new internet challenge just so they can get their two seconds of internet fame. If we get rid of all them, then the internet will be a much better place. That said, if you want a song to annoy a family member or friend, then look no further. This song is in the same exact category as "The Gummy Bear Song," if you know what I mean.
75- "Take It from Me" - Jordan Davis -- One of the trends you may have noticed in the previous section was that it was an excellent week for country. And that continues in the new arrivals with several new country songs, starting with Jordan Davis. The previous song I knew from him last year was "Singles You Up," which was alright. But "Take It from Me" is what you call generic country. He doesn't get personal or specific. He's just talking broadly about a girl he's with and things they're going to do. He wants to skip the party. He's going to offer a t-shirt for her to sleep in. She's just what he needs and he has what she wants. Yada yada yada. The type of boring nonsense that could've come from any one of our bland country singers.
76- "What Makes You Country" - Luke Bryan -- On our second country song, Luke Bryan takes another song from his 2017 album and turns it into a single. This is the opening track of the album and I suppose it's a decent opening track to a country album as Luke Bryan sings about all the things that make him country. The message of the song is that all country people are different and you should be proud of whatever it is that makes you country. I can see this being a huge hit among the country crowd because it does great job of pandering towards that target audience. Luke tries to do something that's more unique and specific than what Jordan Davis just did. But I don't know. I got kinda bored of him simply listing off random country things he's done in his life that make him a country boy. I guess I'm just not a country boy.
80- "Down to the Honkytonk" - Jake Owen -- More proof that I'm not a country boy because I didn't really know what a honky-tonk was. I just heard the word used on a lot of country songs over the years, with "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones being the first that comes to my mind. Apparently a honky-tonk is a country bar where all these country people go to drink beer, listen to their country music and pick of their girls or guys. Suddenly everything in the world makes sense. And you know what? I am so glad that I learned from Jake Owen that he goes to the honky-tonk. He claims that he might not be famous when all is said done, but he'll still go to the honky-tonk. And yes, if you sensed a bit of sarcasm, then bingo! This song gives me nothing. I did like "I was Jack (You were Diane)" from last year, but in this song Jake just delivers nothing. I will say, though, that the deep notes Jake hits starting at 1:45 into the song are fairly impressive and make for a fun chorus. And the song is a lot more catchy than the previous two songs. But lyrically it still delivers nothing.
82- "Love Someone" - Lukas Graham -- Here was a surprise. It's been a while since we've seen Lukas Graham on the charts. I wasn't sure if they were ever going to come back or if "7 Years" was going to wind up as a one-hit wonder for them in America. And yes, I do say "them" because Lukas Graham is a band, not an individual. They're named after frontman Lukas Forchhammer, who is a fantastic human being. I actually interviewed him over the phone during my internship for the Deseret News and it was one of my favorite interviews and the only one during those four months where the moderator had to stop us because we went too far over our allotted time. So yeah, I might be a little biased here than your average person hearing this. But that's alright. "Love Someone" comes from their third album, "3 (The Purple Album)" and is a rather sweet love song. When Lukas sings about him loving this girl, I felt it in my soul because I know how much he cares about his family. He had just become a father when I interviewed him and he was super genuine when he told me that his young family meant more to him than anything, so to hear him singing about his girl in this song feels so sincere and that's what I think makes it different than your average love ballad. It's not just written to appease a target audience. It sounds like it was written from the soul. Again, I might be biased here. I don't know how the rest of the world will take to this. But I certainly hope it does well. But if not, it'll always be a song that I'll remember.
83- "Love Wins" - Carrie Underwood -- Speaking of love songs, we got a second one in a row thanks to Carrie, a country girl that we can all get behind. Although I suppose when I say "love song," in this instance I mean songs with the the world "love" in the title because this isn't really a romance ballad. It's a song about the principle of love and how it's love that can help unite the world. There's a lot of emotion in this song as Carrie beautifully and sadly sings about all the tragedy happening around the world. Her petition to you and me through it all is that we keep believing because humanity was meant to be there for each other rather than being pitting against each other via hate and violence. I don't know, I can be a sucker for an empowerment anthem like and Carrie has the charisma to sell it. I've been a huge fan of her's since day one and she never ceases to disappoint me. Is this here an actual country? Well, no. Not really. It's more of a pop song. But country-pop has always been her thing.
86- "Ruin My Life" - Zara Larsson -- Another surprise on the charts. Zara is one who I fell in love with rather early with songs like "Lush Life" and "Symphony," the latter of which being a Clean Bandit song that Zara had featured vocals on. But if I'm being honest, she's had a hard time sticking the landing for me since. She just doesn't quite have it on every song, which makes me sad because her potential is sky high. "Ruin My Life" starts out really strong, making me think Zara was about to soar into a beautiful pop ballad. But then to my disappointment, the song hits the chorus and kinda sputters out with an overly repetitive, fast-paced tempo that didn't really fit with the first part of the song. She also started dropping f-bombs left and right, which felt a bit jarring. I had to go find the clean version on Apple Music, which does exist. It's the one that I think she should've had as the actual version as it's much better. But it still doesn't hit the heights that it could've. This remains we remain on the potential side of Zara's career that I still think exists. I guess I just have to be a little patient with her for the moment.
87- "Body" - Loud Luxury featuring Brando -- More surprises this week, this time with two acts that I had no knowledge of. I was scared that they were two new hip-hop artists to plague the charts again, but turns out that this is a dance song that was initially released in 2017, but is just now hitting the Hot 100 here in a America after being a pretty big worldwide hit in several countries. In terms of a dance track, it's upbeat and catchy enough to get you grooving, which is I guess what a dance track should do. But I was waiting for it to really drop and go wild, but it kinda just plateaus after the initial build, so it's not too exciting. Lyrically it's super thin, which is acceptable in a dance song if you have a good beat. But it's nice if you have something to work with. This is just Brando singing about him "losin' all my innocence" with this girl's body on him. So yeah, maybe it's good that he didn't dive deeper into this specific subject?
91- "Here Tonight" - Brett Young -- We're back to our country kick as its a huge week for country, if you couldn't already tell. When it comes to Brett Young, I'm not quite sure what to do with him. "In Case You Didn't Know" connected really well with me. "Like I Loved You" was decent as well, but "Mercy" was fairly boring. So he might just be someone who conjured up one really good country song rather than someone who's actually a good country singer. I hope not, though, because his voice is better than your average country dude and his songs feel more genuine than most. "Here Tonight" falls into the "alright" zone. It's nothing offensive by any means. It's a nice song with a sweet message. But it also doesn't quite hit the emotional punch that it could've as it's a bit shallow. Just another country love song rather than being something special.
92- "Burn Out" - Midland -- I'm not really sure what to say here. Midland has been a group that has released a few things, but have not captured my attention. I appreciate the slower, more mellow tone that fits with the lyrics of being burned out after having a lot of bad luck with a relationship, but that's all that really impressed me. The rest of it is just generic country. The lyrics are paper thin as we are given very few details on this relationship outside the fact that it didn't work. He's on top of the world and now he's not. The vocals are very twangy and dull. So despite the instrumentation being alright, it's a song that really made me bored as I got halfway into it.
93- "Solo de Mi" - Bad Bunny -- I've not been very impressed with Bad Bunny to say the least. He's becoming the Latino version of Drake, someone who gets featured on every song because he's super popular and will help sales rather than being a talented singer who adds quality to the music. Whenever he hops onto a verse, I typically find myself waiting for his portion of the song to finish so we can move onto the rest of the song. But with him all by himself, there's nothing else to anticipate. I didn't bother translating the lyrics here, but I'm not expecting them to really mean anything. Even with that out of the picture, he doesn't enunciate very well as this borderlines on mumbling. There's a soft Latin beat, but it's not a super exciting one and Bad Bunny himself sounds lonely and bored here, which caused me to be even more bored.
95- "Roses" - Benny Blanco & Juice WRLD featuring Brendon Urie -- Juice WRLD and Brendan Urie? That sounds like mixing mushrooms and ice cream. Juice WRLD made one good song, but it's been a rather steep nosedive ever since. Meanwhile, Brendon Urie is on fire, so why would he ruin that by jumping on a track with Juice WRLD? The Benny Blanco thing doesn't mean anything to me. He's a producer who has spent a lot of his life producing, but is just now deciding to give himself featuring credits on his songs for some strange reason. As you might expect, the combination doesn't work, especially since this is primarily a Juice WRLD song. He's just singing about how much life sucks now that he doesn't have this girl in his life, something that he's done on nearly every song I've heard from him. His shtick got old really fast. In the midst of his commiserating, he goes and describes all the awful things he's going to do and it's some really poor writing. Brendon Urie comes in and gives a more tolerable sound to the song, but it feels like he's just singing Juice WRLD's lyrics. There's no reason for him to be on the song as he doesn't provide any sort of alternate voice. It's literally like Juice WRLD wrote another dumb song, but instead of singing the whole thing himself, he asked Brendon Urie to sing the second verse. The combination fails and thus I will discard this as yet another awful Juice WRLD song.
98- "Make It Sweet" - Old Dominion -- One final country song this week, this time coming from Old Dominion, who sneaks onto the Hot 100 at No. 98. Much like with most of Old Dominion's music, this just doesn't have a whole lot of life to it. It's not particularly bad. The music is alright and the lead vocals by Matthew Ramsey are a lot better than some other country singers. The song also has a decent groove. But if the song left the charts next week, I will have completely forgotten that I ever listened to this. It kinda baffles me when you have a band of five people, but yet the best you can come up with is nothing more than your average generic country lyrics. It's like they sat in the writing room, but no one could come up with anything, so they just bagged the session and quickly threw together the same stuff they've done in the past.
100- "idontwannabeyouanymore" - Billie Eilish -- Billie Eilish has become queen of the bottom half of the Hot 100. I keep waiting for her to break out with one of these songs and have a giant hit that shows up everywhere. And maybe that'll will happen in 2019. But for now she just manages to get a lot of her old songs to show up on the bottom half of the Hot 100, hang out for a while, then leave. "idontwannabeyouanymore" is another older song from her 2017 EP "don't smile at me," which means it's another song that she wrote and released when she was 15 or 16. I'm mildly annoyed that there's no spaces in the title. It's seems like a teenager thing to do, which makes sense given her age. But outside that, this is another solid song from Billie. When I was creating my list of favorite songs of 2018 out of all of the songs that debuted on the Hot 100, there was a lot of her songs that I considered. Only one made the final cut, that being "lovely," but several more could've at least hit the honorable mentions and this is another one that slides into that region. It's nothing particularly special, but considering it's a song from a girl that young, it's pretty impressive and still very enjoyable to listen to, so I'm a fan. I'm just anxiously waiting for her to release a new album.
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