Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "7 Rings" - Ariana Grande (new) -- Is 2019 going to be the year of the Ariana? In principle I don't really have a problem with that. For some reason, Ariana has found favor with the streaming gods, which is now why she's had two No. 1 debuts in less than three months as "7 Rings" debuts with 85.3 million U.S. views, just below the 93.8 million total of "thank u, next," which was the highest weekly streaming total ever for a female artist. The reason why I think that in principle this is a good thing is that we are seeing a female pop singer dominate the Billboard charts, proving that "thank u, next" wasn't just a fluke. If Ariana can do this, then perhaps other female pop singers can begin to also find favor with the streaming gods. And maybe pop music in general can see a bit of a revolution. But I specifically say "in principle" because this song is just pure trash. It doesn't hurt my ear drums or offend me. But it makes me facepalm at Ariana. Just... why? My detailed opinion of the song is below.
2- "Without Me" - Halsey (-1) -- Poor Halsey. She just can't catch a break. After her little duel with Post Malone over the last few weeks, she was set to repeat at No. 1, accumulating a third week at the top total. But then she's denied again thanks to the monster debut of "7 Rings." And if Halsey is going to win back the crown, she's going to have to hope that "7 Rings" falls faster than "thank u, next." The latter spent seven total weeks at No. 1. If "7 Rings" repeats that feat, "Without Me" will be long gone. At least in terms of having a chance to go No. 1 again. It'll probably be in the top 10 somewhere in seven weeks from now since the radio loves this song.
3- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- Like Halsey, Post Malone and Swae Lee will probably be here a while with "Sunflower." It just appears that their time at No. 1 is officially in the history books. Halsey seems to have gained a solid footing on the song and now Ariana is also ahead. But still. "Spider-Verse" continues to do well at the box office and the radio has also seemed to latch onto the song, allowing it to maintain longevity beyond the run of "Spider-Verse" in theaters.
4- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (+1) -- Ariana's other song in the top five also gains, and now she's forming a Halsey and Post Malone sandwich as she now surrounds both of the songs. But I've gotta wonder how long both of Ariana's songs can last? Yeah, if streaming continues to favor them, then they can co-exist. But is radio going to play both songs consecutively? Usually that's not how that rolls. If the radio decides to pick up on "7 Rings" instead of "thank u, next," that could cause this song to tank. Or maybe both songs with cannibalize their own radio play, causing neither to perform as great as they could've. But we shall see. Drake did well with both "God's Plan" and "Nice for What" overlapping, so maybe I'm over-analyzing this.
5- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-2) -- Do you know what? I'm not even going to praise the fact that this song fell two spots. It's not falling fast enough. And because Travis Scott is going to infest all of our ears by showing up at the Super Bowl halftime show, this song is set to get a good gain in two weeks. I just want this song gone.
6- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (-2) -- I was happy that Panic! managed to get over the hump and hit No. 4 after being stuck at No. 5 for a long time. But now it falls out of the top five again. It's still No. 1 on radio, though, and has been for 10 weeks.
7- "Happier" - Marhsmello & Bastille (-1) -- With Halsey debuting at No. 1, this falling one spot essentially means it stayed put when compared to last week. So it's being a little more stubborn than I thought as I initially assumed it was about to start tanking.
8- "Wow." - Post Malone (+1) -- This song is positioning itself rather well with the three songs above it (and perhaps four if Ariana hurts herself) not having a whole lot of positive traction at the moment. And that makes me upset because why do we have to have another trashy Post Malone song around?
9- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-2) -- This can't fall fast enough.
10- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (-2) -- At least "ZEZE" fell out of the top 10 this week. Now we need BOTH of those songs to go away. I mean, really? Who is still listening to this song? And why?
Rising on the Hot 100:
14- "Going Bad" - Meek Mill featuring Drake (+3) -- This is not the top 10 entry that I want. Yet apparently we haven't got enough of Drake, so he's helping Meek Mill rise up the charts, set to be the next big rap hit in the top 10.
29- "Twerk" - City Girls featuring Cardi B (+25) -- Ew, gross. Why in the world did this song rise so high? Please let's not make City Girls a thing.
40- "Backin' It Up" - Pardison Fontaine featuring Card B (+5) -- More good news for Cardi B fans as she's not going away. Instead she's continuing to push other useless acts that no one cares about up the charts due to her presence.
43- "Crushed Up" - Future (+16) -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
57- "Jumpin on a Jet" - Future (+23) -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
New Arrivals:
1- "7 Rings" - Ariana Grande -- The problem with this song? It feels like it was a song written for Cardi B, but accidentally got sent to Ariana, so Ariana recorded it just for the heck of it. Like, seriously. Cardi B's "I Like It" took a classic song and essentially interpolated it with a modern trap twist as Cardi listed off all the fancy things she likes. The only reason it was somewhat catchy is because the original song it used is fantastic. My personal evaluation of it was that it barfed all over the original. And that's exactly what Ariana is doing here. She took a classic song from "The Sound of Music" and turned it into a modern trap version of the song as Ariana lists off all of her favorite things, which is mostly her flexing about all the riches and fancy jewelry she has. The song really has no point to it outside Ariana deciding to dip super low to sing a song about empty flexing. The real shame is that "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music" DOES have a point to it. Julie Andrews is listing off all of her favorite things to help cheer her up. When life gets hard, think of all the good things that you have going for yourself and that'll make you feel better. Like Cardi B barfing all over the original version of her song, Ariana is doing nothing but barfing all over "The Sound of Music," which is upsetting because that's one of my favorite musicals.
26- "MIDDLE CHILD" - J. Cole -- Apparently this song debuted at No. 26 with only a couple of days of tracking. On Apple Music it's currently ahead of "7 Rings." I don't know if that means anything in regards to its actual streaming numbers this next week, but if it can somehow manage to dethrone Ariana, that would be excellent. I'd rather have a decent rapper at top than a pop singer pretending to be Card B. While I can't say that I love J. Cole or this song, I've found him to be one of the more tolerable rappers recently. He actually seems like he cares about his music and especially his lyrics. With "MIDDLE CHILD," he's telling us that he's in the middle of two generations and plans on essentially being the bridge between the old rappers from back in the day as well as fitting in with the new crowd. And yeah, he's doing some flexing by telling us that he's the greatest and he's going to destroy everyone. But there's actually substance to his verses. It sounds like he put thought into what he wanted to say and was writing things that he felt passionately about. And when he raps what he wrote, he has good flow and musically the song sounds pretty good. So yeah, I'm happy with this.
38- "Keanu Reeves" - Logic -- Hey, Keanu Reeves has a movie coming out later this year. It's called "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum" and I'm super excited. Oh wait, we're talking about a Logic song? Yeah, it sucks. He's the one, like Keanu Reeves. That's the only Keanu Reeves connection there. The rest of the song is just him flexing about how awesome he is with a lot of cheesy lines thrown in all over the place.
47- "First Off" - Future featuring Travis Scott -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
65- "Never Stop" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
68- "Secreto" - Anuel AA & Karol G -- I don't know why we've started to make Anuel AA a thing. And I don't know who Karol G is. But I'm going to wager a bet that the secreto translates to secret. So the two of them are talking about a secret they have. I actually don't care enough to translate the lyrics, especially since Anuel AA is really boring and Karol G doesn't add a whole lot of personality. The cover art for this single has a naked woman in it, so I'm also going to bet that this boring song is probably a dirty song that's not worth anything anyways. But that's all just a guess. If your desire to dive into this song is any higher than mine, feel free to explore it and tell me if I'm right or wrong.
71- "Mixed Personality" - YNW Melly featuring Kanye West -- I have no idea who YNW Melly is, but he collaborated with Kanye West, so I'm skipping this.
76- "Temptation" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
79- "Rocket Ship" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
81- "Pure Water" - Mustard & Migos -- Why in the world would you name yourself Mustard? Out of all the rap names I've seen, that's a contender for the strangest. Now he needs to find whoever decides to name themselves Ketchup and do a collaboration. But I'm also not giving him the time of day because Migos are the fellow collaborators. And I don't do Migos. I blame it on my misophonia. And the fact that they suck.
83- "F&N" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
91- "On My Way to You" - Cody Johnson -- I don't know who Cody Johnson is. But I looked at this and guessed that it was a country song. I searched the song on Apple Music and saw the cover art of a man wearing a cowboy hat, so that seemed to prove my theory. "On My Way to You" sounds like an extremely generic title for a country song, so was this going to be just another boring country song by a dude worth forgetting about? Well, kinda. He's talking about all the hard times he's had and all the beers he's drank on the way to getting to this girl. So nothing special there. Sounds like the type of lyrics that any old country singer could've written. But this guy does actually have a decent voice and the music itself is more mellow. So it's a bit of a relaxing country song that I could totally accept if it started playing. Though I'm probably not going to remember it once it leaves the charts.
95- "Murder on My Mind" - YNW Melly -- Why has this become an acceptable topic to sing about? Everyone who glorifies murder in a rap song should be arrested, not given a musical career. But OK, fine. Freedom of speech. But still. Why is this appealing?
96- "GIRL" - Maren Morris -- Speaking of country, Maren Morris is a country pop girl that I mostly find myself enjoying. Although after her monster success that was "The Middle," in which she jumped on with Zedd and went pure pop, I have been wondering what she's planning. Is she going to go back to her country pop style or is she going to completely turn into a pop girl? While I suppose we won't fully know that answer until her new album comes out this year, I really don't hear much of any country in this. I'm going to classify this as a pop song. And as a pop song, this works pretty decently. Maren is talking to a girl, helping to encourage her to pull herself together and realize that everything is going to be OK. As I was listening, it initially sounded like she was speaking to another woman, but I began to wonder if this woman she was referring to was actually herself, as if she was speaking in the third person. In looking it up, I found Maren's commentary on the song and... yeah. It's kinda both. She initially was writing this to a female friend in the music industry. But then she realized the lyrics were more about herself. So it works both ways. It's a song with enough emotion to connect with me and decent enough vocals from Maren. While not a masterpiece by any means, I'd say it has a little more depth and character to it than "The Middle."
98- "Face My Fears" - Hikaru Utada & Skrillex -- I'm always a bit nervous seeing Skrillex on the charts. While he always has the potential to be amazing and creative with his music, more often than not his music becomes noise to me. He can sound very robotic and grating. But Hikaru Utada is a singer I knew nothing about. Turns out she's a Japanese-American who's a big deal over in Japan. She started singing in a trio with her parents in the early 90's. She released her debut solo album in 1999 and his since released a total of eight studio albums, all but one of which hit No. 1 on the Japanese album charts. She's also released a whole lot of singles in Japan that have hit top 10. But this is her first trip over to the American charts. After listening to this, I was rather captivated by how beautiful her voice was. And the song started off as a piano ballad of sorts before Skrillex jumps in. Luckily Skrillex is more restrained than normal, thus not overpowering the song with robotic noises, but giving it enough energy to compliment Hikaru. And actually, there's two versions of this song. A Japanese version and an English version. In both versions, she repeats the line "Let me face my fears" in English. I don't speak Japanese, but I think the Japanese version in a prettier song. I like the combination of the Japanese lyrics sprinkled with a little bit of English, rather than the whole thing being an American song. The song isn't super deep, but it's really pretty. Skrillex is fine in the song. But mostly it made me want to go look up more of this girl's music because I'm predicting that I'll love it. Final note on this is that it looks like it's a song from "Kingdom Hearts III," which is why it charted. Makes sense, I guess.
100- "Call the Coroner" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!
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