DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - March 30, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! This is a weekly post where I cover three main sections of the charts: the Billboard Hot 100 top 10, the songs rising on the Hot 100, and the new arrivals. As pertaining to the rising songs, in order to be included, a song has to rise at least two spots between Nos. 11 and 20, five spots spots between Nos. 21 and 50, or 10 spots between Nos. 51 and 100. As pertaining to new arrivals, I used to dedicate myself to covering every single song that debuted, but that started to burn me out, especially with the high number of album bombs, so I've been a lot more selective recently and so far I've received no complaints. However, if I skip a song that you want to hear my thoughts on, feel free to let me know. I'll occasionally mix things up depending on the week, like throwing in a notable re-entry into the rising songs section, but generally this is what I go with. Most of the data I give you comes from Billboard.com, usually Gary Trust's weekly article. If I pull from elsewhere, I'll generally let you know. With all of that out of the way, let's dive in and see what this week has to offer!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "7 Rings" - Ariana Grande (=) -- It's been seven weeks for "7 rings" at No. 1. If this was the song's final week at the top, that would be rather poetic, but for some reason I don't think that's going to happen. The song isn't rising much higher in overall points, but it's also not falling to fast. It rose 3 percent on radio, fell 1 percent on streaming and fell 12 percent on sales. So in a slow week it's maintained enough consistency across the board and as long as there's no other song stepping up to the plate, Ariana will remain camped out here on top. Also, I did get a complaint about that "7 rings" music video that I've been using as the preview cover for this post. I typically use the music video for the top song of the week for that preview and I didn't think much of it with Ariana's video, especially since it's not that bad when it comes to Ariana standards. Sexily staring into the camera while making sexy poses is kinda her thing. She's obsessed with how attractive she is, and she loves using that sex appeal to sell her music and get views on her videos, which I roll my eyes at. But even though I didn't think it was that bad, I switched it to the audio video instead. If anyone else ever has any problems with the music videos I post for this blog, just let me know.

2- "Without Me" - Halsey (+1) -- Halsey and Post Malone continue to play this back and forth game with their songs. This week Halsey is ahead. Who knows, next week it might be Post Malone again. But at this point I don't think either of them are going to make a return to the top, unless the floor collapses on Ariana. 

3- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- See previous comment. In terms of overall points on my personal Excel sheet, Halsey remains ahead of Post Malone on the yearly chart for 2019. I'm fine with both of these songs sticking around. Sure, I would love change, but in this case that would probably not be a good thing given the other songs around it at the moment. 

4- "Wow." - Post Malone (+1) -- For a second straight week, Post Malone has two songs in the top five. I don't mind "Sunflower," but "Wow." is the song that needs to burn and die. It got a remix with two additional thugs and also had a music video release. So I suppose I'm glad that both of those combined didn't get this any higher. But if this could just drop back down, that would make me happy.

5- "Please Me" - Cardi B & Bruno Mars (-1) -- Cardi and Bruno aren't quite going in the right direction of they're wanting to sneak ahead of the songs above them. In terms of pure timing, this song should rise up to No. 1 since "7 rings," "Without Me" and "Sunflower" have been around for a while and "Please Me" is fairly new. But it's not looking like it has a whole ton of traction here, which I'm fine with. 

6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+1) -- Again, I am continued to be surprised by the staying power of this song. It rose back up to No. 6? That's crazy! I need to start keeping track of how many weeks it's been in the top 10 because I'm sure that number is getting pretty high and it looks like it has the staying power to stick around for, like, forever. 

7- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (+2) -- Another surprise here, but I am thrilled to see "Shallow" jumping up two spots. I assumed it was going to start fading away after the Oscar boost several weeks ago, but a surge on radio is keeping this around. That's fantastic! Keep playing this song for as long as you want radio stations! 

8- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (-2) -- This is also going in the wrong direction if the Jonas Brothers want to stick around long term. It's gaining momentum on radio right now, but is it going to get enough of a radio push to have it stick around in the top 10? 

9- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (-1) -- I say this each week, but I don't mind having "Middle Child" around. I'm not going to cry too hard if it falls out, but I'd rather have this than either "Wow." or our next song "Going Bad" if we have to have a rap song in the top 10.

10- "Going Bad" - Meek Mill featuring Drake (+4) -- I'm not surprised. And I suppose if it was either "Thotiana" or "Going Bad," I suppose "Going Bad" is the slightly better pick. But hey, this song's entrance into the top 10 means that "SICKO MODE" got kicked out and fell one week shy of tying Ed Sheeran and Maroon 5 for the longest stays ever in the top 10. In fact, "SICKO MODE" fell down to No. 13 this week. So I'm going to consider this a win for this week. But don't expect that sentiment to last. 

Rising on the Hot 100:

20- "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max (+2) -- There were a lot of songs between Nos. 11 and 19 that rose one spot, but since my rules are to only include a song if it rises two spots between Nos. 11 and 20, I'm happy to be putting "Sweet but Psycho" as my top riser this week! I'm glad that this song has cracked the top 20 and looks to be having enough consistency on the charts to at least stick around. Now if it can continue to go higher, I will be happy. If it eventually gets top 10, that'll be a huge win for me! But at least I can celebrate that it's now top 20!

32- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X (+19) -- OK, I give in. I avoided this song for two weeks, but now that it's in the top 50 and looks to be a sensation, I gave it a chance. And, well, this is weird. It's a country rap song. Lil Nas X is doing flexing like you're typical rap song, but he's rapping slowly with a deep twang and flexing about riding his horse and having a Gucci cowboy hat. He also seems rather proud of the fact that he cheated on his girl. He summarizes the whole idea of the song on verse two where he says, "My life is a movie; bull ridin' and boobies." So yeah, this is a strange combination of the things I don't like from both genres combined into one dumb song that's so shallow that it doesn't even make it to two minutes long. I don't find it particularly awful. Just weird. However, the worse thing about it is HOW it got popular. This is going to make me sound old and completely disconnected from the younger generation, but apparently there's this thing called Tik Tok that I've never heard of. You can take songs and create stupid dancing videos to them. And apparently enough people got obsessed with making dance videos to "Old Town Road" where they jump and turn into a cowboy or cowgirl that the song went crazy viral. So this is essentially one of those viral internet challenges that drive me crazy because everyone needs their 10 seconds of fame. 

34- "Pure Water" - Mustard & Migos (+6) -- Go away Migos. 

47- "Millionaire" - Chris Stapleton (+6) -- Apparently I really liked this song when I first listened to it. Then I forgot it exists. So I re-listened to it and reminded myself that it's a good country song. I'll try my best to remember this going forward because I appreciate it when good country songs do well.

48- "Con Calma" - Daddy Yankee featuring Snow (+6) -- Daddy Yankee got this song into the top 50. Is he now going to try to release a remix with an English-speaking star to push it higher? He's done that in the past, but it's actually been a while. Perhaps he'll be content with simply letting the song play as is.

49- "Put a Date on It" - Yo Gotti featuring Lil Baby (+7) -- Go away.

50- "Act Up" - City Girls (+13) -- Let's please not make these girls a thing. 

54- "Who Do You Love" - The Chainsmokers featuring 5 Seconds of Summer (+10) -- Eh. I'm fine with having this around. Apparently that's about the attitude the country is having right now as well because this is doing alright, but not great.

57- "Pure Cocaine" - Lil Baby (+15) -- Gross.

59- "Bad Liar" - Imagine Dragons (+11) -- Apparently this song is getting a push as a single. It's funny, I had a friend message me and ask me what I thought of the song because it's being played everywhere where he's at. That confused me because it wasn't even on the charts at the time. And, well, here we are. My thoughts on this are that I think this is a solid Imagine Dragons song. I don't know if it's particularly memorable, but given that I've been really disappointed with practically everything they've put out recently, it's nice to have a song of there's around where I can at least tolerate and somewhat enjoy the song.

66- "I Can't Get Enough" - benny blanco, Tainy, Selena Gomez & J Balvin (+31) -- Poor Selena is getting trapped into this mess of a Latino dance song thing. 

68- "Undrunk" - FLETCHER (+17) -- This is a positive sign. I went into this song thinking it was going to be another pointless country song. Turns out it's not even country song at all. It's a solid pop song from a new female pop singer. So yeah, if this does well I will be very happy. A huge boost this week is a great sign moving forward. 

84- "I've Been Waiting" - Lil Peep & ILoveMakonnen featuring Fall Out Boy (+12) -- No. Boycott this. Songs taking advantage of dead artists just for the sake of money should be discarded. I don't even care that it has Fall Out Boy on it. They should know better. 

New Arrivals:

55- "Numb Numb Juice" - ScHoolboy Q -- Don't care. 

62- "Sally Walker" - Iggy Azalea -- You know I actually enjoyed Iggy Azalea back in the day. "Fancy" and "Problem" were catchy songs where she showed off a lot of personality. But then she essentially fell off the face of the Earth when it comes to the music world. She was never able to replicate her success and perhaps a good part of that was her lack of quality. She quickly went from superstar to punch line. "Sally Walker" is apparently the lead-off single to her second studio album, which I'm surprised it's taken this long to put out. She released an EP last summer and several non-album singles in the past five years, but not a second album. Given her recent history, I'd be surprised if this song lasted more than a few weeks on the charts. Iggy is trying to replicate "Fancy" a bit with the beat, but she has no personality when it comes to her rapping and the content is completely void of anything. In fact, it sounds like she's trying to do her best Cardi B impression and fails miserably at that. 

96- "Slow Dancing in the Dark" - Joji -- Here's an interesting story. Joji is the stage name of George Miller, who is a Japanese singer, rapper and entertainer. I'm not an expert on all things YouTube, but he started his career as a YouTuber, most well known for his character of Filthy Frank. He also did comedy hip-hop under the name of Pink Guy. With that in mind, y'all probably know more about Filthy Frank and Pink Guy more than I do, but the Filthy Frank personality was the one who inspired PewDiePie, the most subscribed to YouTuber. Filthy Frank was also the very first person to release a "Harlem Shake" video, so yeah he kinda had a big influence on YouTube to put it lightly. But he has since retired from YouTube to focus on his music career as Joji. As Joji, he released his first studio album this past October and now "Slow Dancing in the Dark" is the first song from that album to chart, meaning he has successfully made the transition.

So that's fascinating and all, but how's the actual song? I think those who have been following this guy for years will certainly love this as there's an emotional attachment to the artist and his content. But I don't have that type of connect. I do like the imagery of slow dancing in the dark. Often when you're slow dancing with someone, it can be a romantic, intimate moment, but I've also been a part of dances where the DJ is playing the music a bit loud, so you can't have any conversations with the person you're dancing with, so you kinda just quietly dance. Even if we were to remove that element from that, dancing in the dark implies you can't see the person, so this is references a bit of an impersonal relationship that Joji is a part of. He seems to be pleading with this person, but there's not as strong of a response as he would like. So I like the lyrics and I think the music is put together well, but vocally speaking I think Joji gets a bit drowned out. He doesn't always enunciate super well. There's a bit of mumbling in certain parts and I don't know if the mixing of the song is done super well. So I don't have quite as strong of a connection to this as I would like, but I think this is a great start for Joji and I would love to see this stick around. Maybe I should go check out that album of his.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - March 23, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! This is a weekly post where I cover three main sections of the charts: the Billboard Hot 100 top 10, the songs rising on the Hot 100, and the new arrivals. As pertaining to the rising songs, in order to be included, a song has to rise at least two spots between Nos. 11 and 20, five spots spots between Nos. 21 and 50, or 10 spots between Nos. 51 and 100. As pertaining to new arrivals, I used to dedicate myself to covering every single song that debuted, but that started to burn me out, especially with the high number of album bombs, so I've been a lot more selective recently and so far I've received no complaints. However, if I skip a song that you want to hear my thoughts on, feel free to let me know. I'll occasionally mix things up depending on the week, like throwing in a notable re-entry into the rising songs section, but generally this is what I go with. Most of the data I give you comes from Billboard.com, usually Gary Trust's weekly article. If I pull from elsewhere, I'll generally let you know. With all of that out of the way, let's dive in and see what this week has to offer!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "7 rings" - Ariana Grande (+1) -- In a fairly unsurprising turn of events, Ariana is back on top with "7 rings." She's now totaled six weeks at No. 1 with "7 rings," meaning she would've had eight total right now had it not been for her getting interrupted by "Shallow" and "Sucker," two very welcomed interruptions, I would add. At least for me. Having Ariana back on top is boring for me, especially since this isn't a very good song. I'd rather see "Sunflower" or "Without Me" sneak back up to the top, which is certainly possible depending on how well the three songs hold. "7 rings" is certainly not a strong No. 1 hit this week as the song is losing significantly on sales and streaming while its also beginning to lose momentum on the radio. Though its still strong enough in all three categories to retain the top spot until our next big sensation shows up.

2- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+2) -- Again, I would be delighted to have this song jump up to No. 1. I don't know if it has a whole lot of gas left in the tank, but it remains here because it's a lot more stable than some of the other songs that have been flying in and out of the top five. And depending on how Ariana holds up, this could default to No. 1 based on said strong legs. But I do feel we're in for a new rotation of songs at the top here soon.

3- "Without Me" - Halsey (+2) -- Still the top song of the year according to my Excel charts. Like "Sunflower," Halsey rises up to No. 3 based solely on consistency. "Without Me" is powered strongest at the moment by radio, as the song celebrating its third week on top of that chart. Although said radio lead is not getting any stronger. In fact, it's down 1 percent to 100.6 million audience impressions, meaning something could easily overtake it. It's just that nothing is stepping up to the plate at the moment.

4- "Please Me" - Cardi B & Bruno Mars (-1) -- Bruno and Cardi seem to be stabilizing a bit after getting a huge boost from the music video last week. Although the fact that Post Malone and Halsey shot back ahead of them is not the best sign for this song moving forward. I still think this is going to be here for a while, though, simply based on how popular these two are. Although I'm not going to be happy about it.

5- "Wow." - Post Malone (+2) -- This is gross. I was happy to see that this song wasn't gaining that much traction and was actually on the brink of falling out of the top 10. But it's benefiting greatly from the weakness of the rest of the top 10 and now has snuck its way into the top five. Billboard brought up some sort of dance routine from a random Florida man that went viral as one reason why this song got a boost this week. Again, that's gross. And now there's a remix on the way featuring Roddy Ricch and Tyga that could help it? Because, you know, an already useless and lifeless trap song definitely needs more awful rappers joining in on the crap-fest, right?

6- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (-5) -- This was totally expected. The Jonas Brothers weren't going to hold that top spot for longer than a week. But now the test for this song will be what happens moving forward. Is this going to continue to fall and become a forgotten about Jonas Brothers song that only had a No. 1 debut based on the hype of a Jonas Brothers reunion rather than the quality of the song itself? Or is the song itself going to actually catch on and help this gain traction? I suppose I won't be too upset if the former is the case, but given what our alternatives are, I would certainly be happy if this song stuck around. It has little depth to it, but it's a fun tune that's better than most of the songs around it in this region at the moment.

7- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+1) -- I'm continually impressed at this song's longevity. Sure, it may have risen a spot due to "Shallow" falling, but that also means it's stable enough to not fall yet. Granted, there's not been a whole lot of competition below the top 10 at the moment, but still. I would've thought that this song was going to fall out a long time ago. Maybe more artists should go do "Fortnite" concerts?

8- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (+1) -- If we have to have a rap song in the top five, can't we discard "Wow." as the utter trash that it is and replace it with "Middle Child"? This is far from a masterpiece, but it's way more tolerable than most other rap music.

9- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (-3) -- I don't know how much longer this song has in the top 10, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. After it exploding to No. 1 following the Oscars, I thought it was going to drop back out of the top 10 the next week, but it's now lasted an additional two weeks, perhaps being helped by a radio surge. If said radio play is strong enough to keep it around, I'm happy.

10- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- GO AWAY ALREADY!!!!!!!!! Seriously, if you're still streaming this song... WHY? Not only has it had the best run ever for a rap song in the top 10, but it's now just one week away from entering into a three-way tie with Maroon 5 and Ed Sheeran for the longest run ever in the top 10. It's had 32 weeks, which matches the run of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers and Halsey, as well as "How Do I Live" by LeAnn Rimes. PLEASE let's get this song OUT OF HERE. For crying out loud, I'll take the return of "Thotiana" or "Going Bad" instead of another week of "SICKO MODE."

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Thotiana" - Blueface (+2) -- Well, I'm certainly glad that this song's momentum stalled out. That gives me confidence that it's not going to explode and become a monster hit. The radio isn't really touching this thing yet, so once the streaming dies out, this is sure to evaporate, which is good. Although as I just said, if this is the only song capable of stopping "SICKO MODE," I'll take it.

14- "Going Bad" - Meek Mill featuring Drake (+2) -- It's been an impressive run for this song. It debuted in the top 10 forever ago and took a nosedive the next week, but it's managed to hang around in the teens for what seems like forever. I'm surprised it hasn't rebounded back into the top 10 yet because, you know, Drake. But I'm certainly not upset. We can keep this song out of the top 10.

18- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (+2) -- What really needs to catch fire is this song. It's slowly rising up in the top 20, but we need to help it pick up the pace so it doesn't get stuck in the teens. I would love for this to occupy a space in the top 10 because it really deserves.

19- "Better" - Khalid (+2) -- I suppose I'll accept this song to. I'm not crazy about it. Khalid has done a lot better, but I'll certainly take it over the likes of "Thotiana" or "Going Bad."

27- "Robbery" - Juice WRLD (+7) -- This song rises because of Juice WRLD's album bomb, which I am happily ignoring this week. Although he only got four new songs in the Hot 100, so it wouldn't take much time to go through it. But still, any rapper that gets an album bomb is most likely going to get ignored by me. Juice WRLD's very first entry on the charts via "Lucid Dreams" is one that I supported. But that was a just a one-hit wonder in terms of quality Juice WRLD. He's been crap ever since, so now he's entered into the realm of me deciding to completely ignore everything he does.

38- "Hear Me Calling" - Juice WRLD (+18) -- See previous comment.

40- "Pure Water" - Mustard & Migos (+11) -- When this song first debuted, I made fun of the idea of there being a new rapper calling himself Mustard. Turns out this Mustard is none other than producer DJ Mustard rebranding himself as Mustard. That's hilariously awful. I mean, DJ Mustard is not the best producer name, but it's a lot better than simply Mustard, so why the change? What that also means is that this is simply just a Migos song with Mustard continuing this dumb trend of producers giving themselves featured credit. Being that this is just a Migos song, it's also one that I will continue to ignore because I don't do Migos.

42- "Talk" - Khalid (+7) -- You know, if we want to replace "Better" with "Talk," I'm totally down with that. Khalid teaming up with Disclosure has produced a decently enjoyable tune here. But as it turns out, Khalid has a new album coming out April 5, so he's doing some great promoting for that. We even have another new entry this week to discuss down below from that upcoming album, which is titled "Free Spirit."

51- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X (+22) -- I ignored this song when it debuted last week and I'm ignoring it again. If this becomes a huge hit, maybe I'll give it 30 seconds one of these weeks. But it's not top 50 yet, so I'm not even going to bother.

56- "Put a Date on It" - Yo Gotti featuring Lil Baby (+34) -- I don't even know what this is or why it's here. With these two artists attached, I most definitely have no desire to give it the time of day, so make this go away.

59- "wish you were gay" - Billie Eilish (+15) -- I've been a bit conflicted with this song ever since it debuted. Not that I buy into whatever controversy might be brewing. As I explained last week, this is not a homophobic song. In fact, it's a very unique way of expressing disappointment in a failed relationship that's very much personal to Billie. I just haven't connected with it on the same level as some of Billie's other songs that she's released. But hey, I've been waiting for something of Billie's to gain traction with the mainstream. "bury a friend" had a huge debut, which made me happy, but then has unsurprisingly failed to gain traction as that's not quite what you call a radio-friendly tune. Can "wish you were gay" be that mainstream hit for Billie? I'd be down with that. Even though I say the song hasn't connected with me as much as her other songs, that's more of a compliment on her previous material than anything. The song has been stuck in my head for the majority of the last two weeks, so I'm far from being against it. And I'm still super stoked for her album that gets released at the end of the month. I'm definitely going to give it a listen the first day it's released.

63- "Act Up" - City Girls (+14) -- Let's please not make these girls a thing. There other song stalled out before it was able to get too high. Let's hope this song stalls out, too.

New Arrivals:

41- "Empty" - Juice WRLD -- Don't Care.

47- "Fast" - Juice WRLD -- Don't Care.

65- "Maze" - Juice WRLD -- Don't Care.

75- "Here with Me" - Marshmello featuring CHVRCHES -- I did a bit of exploration on this song before diving in because I was pretty sure this was the first entry on the U.S. Hot 100 for the synth-pop band CHVRCHES. I was correct on that, but I was trying to figure out exactly what songs of there's I had heard because this is certainly not my first exposure to CHVRCHES. I failed in pinpointing exactly what songs of there's I'd heard, but I learned they hail from Scotland initially and compose of Lauren Mayberry on lead vocals with Iain Cook and Martin Doherty doing a lot of the work on the synthesizers and other instruments they work with. According to Wikipedia, Cook does piano, guitars, and bass while Doherty does samplers and helps with lead vocals on occasion. Both men do synthesizer work. And Lauren does drums and percussion in addition to lead vocals. They also have three studio albums that they've released, with their first coming in 2013. This all combines for a very good sound. I sampled from their three albums before jumping into this Marshmello collaboration and I love what I heard, especially the song "Miracle" from their 2018 album "Love is Dead." I've downloaded all three albums in my Apple Music and plan on exploring them even more once I'm done with this post as a whole. The band stated they take a lot of influence from David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Iggy Pop, Eurythmics as well as a lot of other bands and singers from that era. Unsurprisingly, they've been really popular in the home country of Scotland, as well as the U.K. as a whole and other European countries. Hopefully this Marshmello feature gives them more U.S. exposure.

As far as this specific song, they're evidently a lot better on their own rather than being attached to a Marshmello song, but if we judge this on Marshmello standards rather than CHVRCHES standards, this certainly gets a pass. Lauren's vocals fit quite well with Marshmello's beat and she has Iain Cook with her on guitar in the song. But as with most of Marshmello's music, this is more like popcorn fluff. Harmless entertainment that works perfect as background noise, but Marshmello never attempts to go super deep or emotional with his music. It's like comparing summer blockbusters to the Oscar-worthy dramas in the movie world. Summer blockbusters are perfectly enjoyable, but it's the awards-worthy dramas that hit deep. If you're in the mood for some Marshmello, this is acceptable. It's upbeat and fun. But if you want some more richly rewarding musical experience, go check out CHVRCHES' solo stuff. 

77- "My Bad" - Khalid -- On the Apple Music description of Khalid's upcoming album "Free Spirit," Khalid says that he played it safe with his 2017 album "American Teen" because he didn't know what the world wanted to hear from him. That makes sense because "American Teen" was his breakout album. He wasn't a thing before that. But now that Khalid is one of the big superstars of our day, he says this album is going to be heavy and dark. And that's all fine and dandy. We'll judge that when the album comes out on April 5. But if he has material like that on this upcoming album, he's certainly not choosing to showcase it with his lead-off singles. "Talk" is a fun song because of Disclosure's beat, but it has nothing to say. He's telling this girl they need to talk about this relationship they're in. And "Better" is a boring song with even less to say. He's just saying he feels better with this girl and wishes that she wouldn't hide their relationship. And "My Bad" has him being a stubborn grouch. Him and his girl got in an argument and he says he refuses to talk to her. So yeah, this is a strange definition of "heavy" and "dark." It's more boring and lifeless. He's talking about basic relationship stuff, but is unwilling to dive very deep at all. I think Khalid has a good voice and is talented, but he's one who requires a bit of direction in order to make the best of said talent. Pair him up with the right people and he can do great things. But on his own, he has the potential drop boring stuff like this, thus I don't know how much talent he has when it comes to song writing or discerning what the best path for him is, but maybe it's just personal preference on my part. He's always hit or miss for me and this is a miss.

85- "Undrunk" - FLETCHER -- I don't think "undrunk" is a word. Most people say sober. Anyways, with that off my chest, this looked like it was a country song from what I was guessing was another random country loser with no talent. Turns out that I couldn't be more wrong. This is a 25-year-old female pop singer. Her name is Cari Elise Fletcher, but she goes by her last name and types it all caps. She starred in the 2010 film "How Katie Howard Found Herself," a movie that I don't think anyone saw, and was on the first season of X-Factor in 2011, but didn't make it very far. So why is this here? I have no idea. She's released a couple of EPs and several singles, but this is the first time she's charted anywhere. So is it any good? Well, it's alright. She actually has a really good voice, but I am a sucker for female pop singers, so take that for what it's worth. In the song she's saying that she wishes she could she wishes she could get un-drunk so she could un-call you. She would then un-love you. She would un-kiss the room full of strangers, so she could un-spite you and un-lose her temper. But then she admits that one thing she can't undo is you. So that's where she's going with the "undrunk" thing. No, it's not a word. But she's making up a whole lot of "un-" words and it has a decent groove to it. The song is nothing super special. It's your typical breakup song sprinkled with a clever bit of word play. But it's totally acceptable.

88- "Rumor" - Lee Brice -- I initially THOUGHT we were getting a country song with "Undrunk." I was wrong. But we ARE getting a country song here from Lee Brice, who has impressed me in the past with songs like "I Drive Your Truck" and "Boy." "Rumor" comes from his 2017 self-titled album that also has the song "Boy" on it, which charted early in 2018. Based on that, I'm surprised he hasn't had more of a rollout with this album. You don't often see singers release an album, then only release a single once a year from it. But whatever. "Boy" is a song I liked because it's Lee singing to his little boy, telling him all the things he's going to do in his life. It's a really sweet song. And "I Drive Your Truck" has him singing about a brother who has passed away. But "Rumor" has no emotional depth to it, which is why I found it to be disappointing and am thus more confused as to why he's releasing it as a single right now instead of a few months after, or even before "Boy." But why even choose this song as a single in the first place? It feels like album filler. He's singing to a girl and telling her that there's a rumor going around town about him and her, then asks her if she wants to make that rumor true. And that's it. He has a nice voice and the music isn't overdone like a lot of country these days. But it's still a song that I'll forget about a week or two after it disappears.

91- "Flaws and Sins" - Juice WRLD -- Don't Care.

92- "Calma" - Pedro Capo & Farruko -- If you're like me and you don't remember who Pedro Capo or Farruko are, well, Pedro Capo is brand new to the U.S. charts, so I'm as lost as you are there. But Farruko is one of the artists responsible for the Latino song "Krippy Kush" that I try to forget exists. I'm mad at myself for even reminding myself that it did exist because it was completely gone from my brain until I got a little overly curious here. I was hoping that this new song from him was a little more... uh.. calm? And it absolutely is. Thanks to Pedro Capo, this is a beautiful. It's very smooth and romantic. And my very unprofessional way of translating the lyrics clued me in on the idea that the lyrics are about as sweet and innocent as Pedro Capo's voice. The song really does have a calming influence on the soul. HOWEVER, the problem here is when Farruko comes in. He's extremely annoying and loud and ruins all momentum that the song has. Lucky for us, though, there's an original version to this song with Padro Capo only and that song is gorgeous. The song that charted here with Farruko is a remix. The remix isn't any good, but the original version that didn't actually chart is great.

96- "I've Been Waiting" - Lil Peep & ILoveMakonnen featuring Fall Out Boy -- I get all my Lils mixed up. But Lil Peep is the emo rapper who died in 2017. And yet we're STILL releasing posthumous songs from him by his label and a bunch of others who are using his death as a means to cash in on his post-death popularity. I don't see this as people honoring Lil Peep. I see this as people cashing in on his death. Because of that, I'm skipping this song. ILoveMakonnen is trash anyways.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - March 16, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! This is a weekly post where I cover three main sections of the charts: the Billboard Hot 100 top 10, the songs rising on the Hot 100, and the new arrivals. As pertaining to the rising songs, in order to be included, a song has to rise at least two spots between Nos. 11 and 20, five spots spots between Nos. 21 and 50, or 10 spots between Nos. 51 and 100. As pertaining to new arrivals, I used to dedicate myself to covering every single song that debuted, but that started to burn me out, especially with the high number of album bombs, so I've been a lot more selective recently and so far I've received no complaints. However, if I skip a song that you want to hear my thoughts on, feel free to let me know. I'll occasionally mix things up depending on the week, like throwing in a notable re-entry into the rising songs section, but generally this is what I go with. Most of the data I give you comes from Billboard.com, usually Gary Trust's weekly article. If I pull from elsewhere, I'll generally let you know. With all of that out of the way, let's dive in and see what this week has to offer!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (new) -- This is how much I know and care about the Jonas Brothers. I had no idea there was three of them. I just thought it was Nick and Joe since those are the two that have actually found success on their own. Now I could pretend that I know all about them by going and listening to all of their previous songs, then comparing this new song to all of them. But if I know fans of boy bands well enough, I know that they don't care about my opinion, so I'm just going to be me. What I do know is that Nick's solo stuff has not impressed me and neither has Joe Jonas with that extremely annoying "Cake by the Ocean" song with his attempted band DNCE. But are the Jonas Brothers as a group better than the sum of their parts? For that, read my opinion down below. For now, I'll just talk about my surprise that this debuted No. 1. I knew this was coming. I think the whole world has figured out that the Jonas Brothers are back, even if you don't care about music. But I didn't know this was going to debut at No. 1. But it do with 88,000 first week sales, 43.7 million first week streaming and a decent radio debut with 22.6 million audience impressions. So they definitely figured out a secret to getting their first No. 1 hit. Disappear for several years, then make a loud re-entrance. But can this last? Well, possibly. Most boy band songs are extremely frontloaded. One Direction would always have huge debuts, then fall off the face of the Earth afterwards. But if "Sucker" can manage to catch on with the general public by getting some real radio traction while holding steady enough on streaming and sales, I could see this staying in the top 10. It's been a great year for pop songs so far. We've had six different No. 1 songs in 2019, five that exclusively rose to No. 1 during the year, and they've all been pop. So that's a positive sign, I think.

2- "7 rings" - Ariana Grande (=) -- Ariana has now been held back from No. 1 for two straight weeks, despite consistently good numbers, thanks to "Shallow" last week and "Sucker" this week. If the Jonas Brothers end up being frontloaded, Ariana could go back to No. 1 next week and that wouldn't surprise me. But we'll see how much traction the Jonas Brothers really have. I think the next few weeks will say a lot.

3- "Please Me" - Cardi B & Bruno Mars (+11) -- I have no idea what this song is going to do moving forward. It debuted at No. 5 two weeks ago, but last week it fell down to No. 14 after a typical second week drop. But now it shot back up because of the music video's release. Songs also have a habit of falling the week after a music video release, so this in theory could be heading right back down, but we'll see if it can gain traction moving forward. For the sake of everyone's sanity, or maybe just my own, I kinda hope it sputters out. We don't need this gross sex song hanging around. But what does my opinion mean here? Bruno won best album at the Grammy's for writing nothing but empty sex songs. That's kinda his thing and I guess the girls love it.

4- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (=) -- It was a good week for "Sunflower" as this song managed to jump ahead of Halsey's "Without You." But it stays put at No. 4 because of rises from "Sucker" and "Please Me." But this is a positive sign moving forward for the song as its now showing that it might have better legs than Halsey's song and even survive beyond the reign of its movie.

5- "Without Me" - Halsey (-2) -- Not as a great of a week for Halsey, but she's still in good position. Despite only having two non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 this year, "Without Me" is still the top song of the year according to my numbers, which speaks volumes to the song's staying power. I imagine its not quite done yet.

6- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (-5) -- It was a great week with "Shallow" at No. 1. I thoroughly enjoyed it while it lasted. But alas I knew it wasn't going to stay for longer than a week. The fact that it only fell to No. 6 instead of falling out of the top 10 altogether is a good win. Despite falling off in streaming and sales, it actually rose on the radio charts a bit, which makes me happy. The song is apparently all over the radio in other parts of the world. I'm not sure why it's taking us so long to get on board.

7- "Wow." - Post Malone (+1) -- Another small win for Post Malone as "Wow." also had a decent week, rising up a spot to No. 7. But this is not really a win for me as I would rather see it fall out of the top 10 altogether. But at least it's not getting top five. No if you'll excuse me, I have to go find some wood to knock on.

8- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (-2) -- I was surprised at how long this song stuck around at No. 6. I expected it to fall a lot faster after it's "Fortnite" boost, but it stuck around. And it's still not falling out of the top 10 quite yet.

9- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (-4) -- The music video boosted J. Cole last week. And now he'll have to rely on the song itself catching on for this to stick around. Personally if we have to have a rap song in the top 10, I'd rather it be this one.

10- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=)-- WHY IS THIS STILL HERE? It's now set a record for the longest top 10 stay EVER for a rap song at 31 weeks. That 31 week mark is tied with "Uptown Funk," only one week behind LeAnn Rimes' "How Do I Live," which held the all-time record for nearly 20 years until "Closer" tied it in 2017, and two weeks behind joining a tie with "Girls Like You" and "Shape of You" for the current all-time record. Even for those who like this song, is this really deserving of being called the most popular rap song in history? Because now you can make that argument.

Rising on the Hot 100:

20- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (+2) -- Not much is happening directly below the top 10 in turns of movement, but we do have Sam Smith and Normani sneaking into the top 20. I don't have much confidence at this point that the song will get a whole lot higher. But I hope it can benefit enough from songs ahead of it falling down. This deserves a spot in the top 10.

37- "Girls Need Love" - Summer Walker & Drake (+50) -- Are we really going to turn this song into a hit? Drake lazily jumping on an average song is still causing his fans to salivate? I don't get it. The world needs to be done with Drake.

49- "Talk" - Khalid (+6) -- Khalid's collaboration with Disclosure now moves into the top 50. I'm good with this. Now if Khalid could just list Disclosure as a featured act, maybe I'll do better at remembering this song because otherwise "Talk" is a pretty generic title. About as generic as the lyrics of the song themselves.

50- "Mixed Personalities" - YNW Melly & Kanye West (+6) -- Make this go away. I suppose I can be happy that this is only at No. 50, but this was really close to dropping out altogether, so I'm upset that it's now sticking around. The less Kanye West, the better.

68- "Shot Clock" - Ella Mai (+13) -- I'm a bit surprised that this hasn't gained much momentum, given how much the country fell in love with Ella Mai last year. But hey, I've only found her average at best, so maybe if she stalls out it will force her to come up with better music or else risk being forgotten about.

69- "Down to the Honkeytonk" - Jake Owen (+11) -- And now we have a handful of country songs on the rise, starting with this song from Jake Owen, which I'm honestly surprised hasn't climbed faster. This seems like the type of country song that would catch on like wildfire. It's infectious enough for me not to be bothered if it did, but I'm also not going to lose any sleep if it falls.

70- "Eyes on You" - Chase Rice (+18) -- This is a country song that I can get behind. Chase seems like he was actually trying to write a nice song instead of creating generic country. Granted, it's nothing unique in terms of content, but sometimes the delivery can make a big difference, which is definitely the case here.

76- "Make It Sweet" - Old Dominion (+13) -- This song debuted back in January and I already forgot it existed. I've never really cared for Old Dominion and this song does nothing to help their case. But hey, what do I know?

78- "Good as You" - Kane Brown (+17) -- I also don't care for Kane Brown and he's never done anything to make me feel otherwise. But the country crowds love him for some strange reason, so I'm not surprised at all to see this gain a boost after its debut.

87- "Faucet Failure" - Ski Mask the Slump God (+13) -- Don't care for this.

New Arrivals:

1- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers -- The reason I'm not usually a fan of boy bands, especially modern ones, is twofold. First, the content of the songs are usually just generic love songs pandering specifically towards teenage girls. Second, a lot of them just take turns singing the lyrics instead of trying to harmonize and create something interesting musically. If you have any sort of band or song with multiple people doing vocals, I think you should take advantage and have each member contribute something rather than take turns singing a song that is essentially written for one voice. So with this song, I was wondering if the Jonas Brothers would rise above that. Surprisingly they do. At least on some levels. Content-wise, this isn't anything special. "I'm a sucker for you" are the main lyrics and you can guess exactly where that's going. But musically Nick and Joe on vocals actually feed off of each other quite well. They don't just take turns singing the main melody. They bounce off each other throughout the song as if they're having fun singing together and they also spend a lot of time harmonizing. I was impressed. The song also has a really catchy groove to it that I can see being quite infectious for the masses. Personally I'm looking at the credits for the song on Genius and I'm seeing Ryan Tedder's name everywhere as writer, producer, programmer as well as doing backing vocals and guitar. So that would make a lot of sense as to why the song itself as well written. Ryan Tedder knows how to please a crowd with an upbeat tune. For the life of me I can't figure out what Kevin Jonas contributed to this song, though. Maybe in live performances he's doing backing vocals and guitar, but he's only listed as one of the six writers for the song and literally nothing else. But regardless of that, consider me impressed here. I guess that the Jonas Brothers as a group are much better than the sum of their parts. At least that's the case on this song.

39- "I" - Lil Skies -- Don't care.

52- "Look What God Gave Her" - Thomas Rhett -- I never know what to think going into a new Thomas Rhett song. I mostly find myself unimpressed, but every once in a while he throws out a surprise. In this case, he's got another miss on his hands. The song is catchy enough as a country pop song, that leans very heavily on the pop side of things as this is about as far away from country as it gets. Not that that bothers me personally. I can enjoy a simple pop song. But Thomas Rhett just has nothing to offer here outside going on and on about how attractive she is. This is nothing about who she is as a person or how good it is to be with her. It's all about how hot she is. Thus the song feels a bit shallow in conception, but also boring in execution as Thomas Rhett doesn't sound like he cares at all about this song. Just churning out another factory-produced country song that could've been sang by anyone, but Thomas Rhett takes it and turns it into a boring pop song with no life or flavor to it.

56- "Hear Me Calling" - Juice WRLD -- Don't care.

74- "wish you were gay" - Billie Eilish -- Another sneak peak into Billie's album coming out later this month. And you've gotta at least give the girl credit for being creative and unique. About the album, she said that if you had 14 people in a room all listening to it, she wants every one of them to enjoy at least one song from the album. And she appears to be determined to not being generic and boring in this approach, which I love. This song is a bit curious as I'm not sure quite what to think of it. And I also have no idea what the internet is going to think of it. The message here is that she's singing this to a guy and she says she wishes he were gay. This is not a gay love song. It's a song where Billie is a bit upset at the fact that a guy she loves doesn't love her back. And thus to help her pride, she says she wishes he were gay because that means he has a legit excuse to not love her. It means she did absolutely nothing wrong if he is not attracted to women at all as opposed to him not liking her because she's not pretty enough or doesn't have a good enough personality. Thus when it comes to songs about unrequited love, kudos to Billie for thinking outside the box instead of creating a generic song about not feeling loved. It makes the song sound honest. There's also a fun thing with numbers going on in the song. She subtly counts down from six to one, then from twelve to six, a number on each line. That's something I didn't catch until I watched her video about the song on her channel. The tone of the song is also mellow and depressed, which fits the message. I just, well, I don't know. It's just different and maybe I need more time to ponder on it. That's all.

75- "Whip" - 2 Chainz featuring Travis Scott -- Don't care.

77- "Act Up" - City Girls -- Don't care.

83- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X -- Don't care.

85- "Whiskey Glasses" - Morgan Wallen -- Skipping over a bunch of these other songs, we now land on a song that I also almost skipped. Nothing like a country singer singing about drinking whiskey to turn me off. But eh, I'm not to the point where I feel like skipping country songs. So I gave this a listen anyways. And I didn't last to long before the song became exactly what I feared. He's so upset that his girl broke his heart that he's going to drink all the whiskey he can. And the song is about as twangy, annoying, and grating as it gets. So yeah, this is trash. Let's move onto our final song that I'll bother talking about. Because I ain't touching 2 Chainz.

93- "I Can't Get Enough" - benny blanco, Tainy, Selena Gomez & J Balvin -- I saw this song and I immediately got "Just Can't Get Enough" by The Black Eyed Peas. Even though that song has plenty of your typical Black Eyed Peas garbage in it, it's extremely effective in terms of being catchy. Maybe one of their better ones on that level. This song did catch my attention because I've had this strong thing for Selena's music recently. Although all the names around her didn't give me a ton of encouragement as she herself couldn't fix that "Taki Taki" song, either. But still, I was interested enough to go into this with an open mind. And unfortunately, the big problem here is that I decided to listen to "Just Can't Get Enough" right before listening to this one and I don't know who to blame, but this song is extremely flat and boring in compared to that one. Selena sounds great with her vocals, but she wasn't given much content to work with and the song itself is way too slow. Then when J Balvin comes in, he sounds completely uninterested in everything. The song is supposed to be about the two of them loving each other so much that they can't get enough of each other. Yet the strong lack of chemistry between the two of them makes it more realistically sound like they don't even have a desire to go on a date, which makes the song all that more depressing. When you are singing a love song, the chemistry is the most important thing and they have none. And if you're confused as to why there are four credited artists here, benny blanco and Tainy are producers. Vocally, this is a Selena Gomez and J Balvin song.

94- "Rule the World" - 2 Chainz featuring Ariana Grande -- Don't care. 

100- "Momma I Hit a Lick" - 2 Chainz featuring Kendrick Lamar -- Don't care.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - March 9, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! This is a weekly post where I cover three main sections of the charts: the Billboard Hot 100 top 10, the songs rising on the Hot 100, and the new arrivals. As pertaining to the rising songs, in order to be included, a song has to rise at least two spots between Nos. 11 and 20, five spots spots between Nos. 21 and 50, or 10 spots between Nos. 51 and 100. As pertaining to new arrivals, I used to dedicate myself to covering every single song that debuted, but that started to burn me out, especially with the high number of album bombs, so I've been a lot more selective recently and so far I've received no complaints. However, if I skip a song that you want to hear my thoughts on, feel free to let me know. I'll occasionally mix things up depending on the week, like throwing in a notable re-entry into the rising songs section, but generally this is what I go with. Most of the data I give you comes from Billboard.com, usually Gary Trust's weekly article. If I pull from elsewhere, I'll generally let you know. With all of that out of the way, let's dive in and see what this week has to offer!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (+20) -- I knew this was going to get a boost this week after that magical performance from these two at the Oscars that now has the whole internet shipping them as a couple. No, that's not going to happen. Bradley Cooper is very much committed to his girlfriend of whom he has a child with. But you know you absolutely owned the performance when you trick the whole world into thinking you're in love after performing a love song on stage. Yeah, I'm among the millions whose heart was completely melted after watching that. I've since contributed a good percentage of the video's now 33 million views that was uploaded to Lady Gaga's channel the next day. I was also nearly in tears when Gaga gave her acceptance speech later in the show after "Shallow" won her the Oscar for best original song. What an amazing journey she's had throughout her career. I am still a bit bitter that Bradley Cooper didn't win anything. I mean, Rami Malek won an Oscar for lip-syncing Queen, but Lady Gaga has emphasized countless times that Bradley Cooper sang everything himself live on set. And he's not a musician by trade. It's a travesty. But whatever. I'm glad "A Star is Born" was able to be recognized in some form.

What I wasn't expecting was for "Shallow" to vault up to No. 1 this week. I was thinking high teens or maybe a top 10 appearance if it was lucky. I was ready to talk about it in the next section. But then I saw the sales estimates mid-week and I was stunned. It came in at 115,000 downloads sold, the first week that any song has had over 100,000 in sales since Drake back in July. That last stat is kinda depressing. From February 2007 to September 2015, the top selling song had at least 100,000. Now you see how much streaming has taken over the industry, making sales nearly irrelevant. But back to "Shallow," after seeing those sales estimates, I suddenly thought, "Can it do it? Can this dethrone Ariana?" And, well, here we are! For statistical purposes, "Shallow" is the 17th best song winner at the Oscar to also claim the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100, but the first since Eminem's "Lose Yourself" in 2002-2003. So it used to happen a lot more, but it's a lot more rare nowadays. Despite not winning anything at the Oscars for himself, Bradley Cooper now gets the last laugh as he gets to add chart-topping musician to his impressive resume. This is Lady Gaga's fourth No. 1 on the Hot 100 and first since "Born this Way" in 2011. "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" were her other two. Granted, this isn't going to stay at No. 1 next week, but I can enjoy this while it lasts, right?

2- "7 rings" - Ariana Grande (-1) -- Ariana gets bumped down to No. 2 this week, but she'll regain her top spot after the Oscar boost for "Shallow" disappears, which is what I'm expecting to happen next week. While "Shallow" is No. 1 on sales, "7 rings" still maintains the top streaming spot as she only falls 1 percent to 43.9 million U.S. streams. The song also gains 13 percent on the radio, up to 80.8 million audience impressions, good for No. 4 on the radio charts. So this song isn't going anywhere anytime soon, even though Ariana's other songs have all continued to fade away. Even though I'm not a fan of this song, or most of the new album, I hope that Ariana's success paves the way for other female pop stars. I'm specifically holding out hope for Billie Eilish and Ellie Goulding, both of whom have new albums coming up.

3- "Without Me" - Halsey (-1) -- We have three ladies occupying the top three spots, with Bradley Cooper joining the party, of course. And all three ladies are sharing the love. "Shallow" is No. 1 on sales, "7 rings" is No. 1 on streaming and "Without Me" is now No. 1 on the radio, ending the 14-week run of Panic! At the Disco's "High Hopes," which also sadly falls out of the top 10 altogether this week. This means that Halsey is well positioned to stay here in the top five for quite a bit longer.

4- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- I was wondering of "Spider-Verse" winning best animated feature, as well as the movie being released on digital, was going to help "Sunflower" sneak past "Without Me," but that ended up not being the case. Which is alright. I'm not madly in love with one song over the other. Both are perfectly tolerable and I'm glad their holding their own in the top five right now because things could be a whole lot worse.

5- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (+6) -- J. Cole rides the wave of his new music video release to get back into the top five. That means he might fall back down next week unless he can manage to cling onto that streaming momentum to stick around. The radio still isn't doing much with this song and the sales aren't all that impressive, either. So streaming is all J. Cole has at the moment. And, yeah, I'll be rooting for this song. Despite how the rest of our Hot 100 looks at the moment, our top five is pretty solid at the moment as "Middle Child" is one of the more tolerable rap songs around.

6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (=) -- "High Hopes" fell. "thank u, next" fell. "SICKO MODE" fell. But "Happier" stayed put, which surprises me because I thought this would fall a lot faster than those other three. I guess its still holding onto a lot of the momentum following its "Fortnite" boost a few weeks ago.

7- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-3) -- Ariana is down to two songs in the top 10 right now and its soon to be only one. Perhaps "thank u, next" can sneak in a few more weeks in the bottom half of the top 10, but there's now nothing holding it up as "7 rings" has started to completely take over on radio.

8- "Wow." - Post Malone (+2) -- While not gaining the traction I thought it would, Post Malone has still positioned himself fairly well with "Wow." as its not completely ready to disappear. It has a lot more traction than a lot of the songs around it, which is unfortunate because I would love to see this song get taken out in the landslide of songs that are about to fall out of the top 10.

9- "Thotiana" - Blueface (+4) -- This is not surprising at all. This song has a ton of momentum and I'm not sure why. The only thing that explains this is that everyone who listens to rap music is completely desensitized towards their genre and will listen to whatever Spotify and the other streaming services throw into their playlists. Streaming is all this song has and I'm not convinced that much of it is coming from people being naturally gravitated towards this song and searching it out on their own. Call me a conspiracy theorist when it comes to streaming if you want, but I'm convinced that the record labels paid a bunch of money to the streaming services for this song to be artificially thrown onto every rap playlist. I mean, have you listened to this song? Not only is there nothing redeemable about it, but there's also nothing that separates it from the rest of the hip-hop music that floods the industry today. And it's not like anyone had any idea who this Blueface dude was before this song showed up. And in case you were wondering, his real name is Johnathan Porter. Why didn't he just use that? Why Blueface? And why does every new rapper have to come up with an awful rap name to make themselves sound stupid and cheesy? And what in the world does "Thotiana" mean anyways? Sounds like gibberish to me.

10- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-3) -- How about this for good news? We might only have one more week left of "SICKO MODE" in the top 10! How this song managed to now get a 30-week run in the top 10 is something that I'll never understand. Just because it has a semi-decent beat when compared to other rap songs means it gets arguably the best run ever for a rap song in the top 10? It makes no sense.

Rising on the Hot 100:

24- "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max (+5) -- I'm glad that I again get to bring this song up. It's not rising as fast as I would like it to, but I'm at least happy that it's holding steady on the charts because that means more and more people are slowly discovering this song and loving it enough to help keep it around. That means this is the type of song that has the potential to last in pop culture a lot longer than when it disappears from the charts. Speaking of Lady Gaga, Ava Max reminds me a bit of younger Gaga from back in her "Poker Face" days, mixed in with a few other pop artists.

38- "Taki Taki" - DJ Snake featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B (+6) -- The only Taki Taki I care about is BYU's former linebacker Sione Takitaki, who had an excellent showing at the NFL combine this past weekend, meaning he has a solid chance at being a day two selection at the upcoming NFL Draft next month. Don't care much about BYU football or the NFL Draft? Well, I don't really care much for this song, so we're even. Sure, it's catchy enough to be tolerable, but it's also mostly forgettable.

45- "Twerk" - City Girls featuring Cardi B (+7) -- These girls released their music video for this song fairly recently, which is what I'm guessing helped them regain traction for the song. It probably doesn't take a whole lot of thought to predict the type of music video this is. In fact, they sent out a challenge to find the world's greatest twerker, which makes me feel like they're about five years too late with that movement.

46- "Take It from Me" - Jordan Davis (+13) -- Jordan Davis is not a talented country song, so why are we giving him this much exposure on country radio? I mean, we could be pushing Kacey Musgraves, but instead we get things like this. I don't understand.

53- "Close Friends" - Lil Baby (+20) -- Did this somehow get a boost this week because of Gunna's album bomb? I hope that's the case, because that means it'll fall back down.

59- "Con Calma" - Daddy Yankee featuring Snow (+33) -- I didn't expect this song to jump 30+ spots this week. I was unsuccessful in figuring out why it happened. It wasn't a music video release as that was back in January, before the songs charted. But whatever the case, I'm totally fine with this. It's another fun Latino dance song.

66- "Who Do You Love" - The Chainsmokers featuring 5 Seconds of Summer (+19) -- A nice recovery from The Chainsmokers this week after tanking last week following the debut two weeks ago. I'm not upset if this becomes big, but both parties have done much better, so I'm also not going to be upset if it manages to not gain traction.

69- "Burn Out" - Midland (+14) -- Again, we only gave Kacey Musgraves one week on the charts, but we're pushing these guys up the charts instead? And you wonder why country gets a bad name. All the good country music rarely gets much recognition.

73- "Worth It" - YK Osiris (+14) -- I fully expect this to become a big hit and I'll kinda understand why. This is not awful at all when compared to a lot of the other trash. But for me personally, this gets more annoying the more I listen to it.

New Arrivals:

49- "Legacy" - Offset featuring Travis Scott & 21 Savage -- Don't care.

54- "Walk Me Home" - P!nk -- I'm always down for a new P!nk song. Looking this song up also helped me learn that P!nk has a new album coming out in April titled "Hurts 2B Human" and now I'm pumped. P!nk is the unique type of singer who can sing about anything and cause me to love it just by her voice and her presence. She even covered a "Greatest Showman" song last year and caused me to love it. So yeah, of course I'm going to enjoy this song. I'm trying to pinpoint exactly the type of song it reminds me of and it's not coming to me. Someone in the comments of the YouTube video brought up "Nancy Mulligan" by Ed Sheeran. I can see that. That one is a bit of an Irish, folky song, which is kinda the vibe I'm thinking. A slower folk beat is the first thing that initially came to me. P!nk pulls that style off perfectly, as she does with everything. The lyrics are simple. She's reflecting on a time where things were much better in her life, but is still glad she has the one constant with this person in her life. But she brings enough passion and emotion to sell the lyrics as something she cares about. How is the rest of the world going to respond to this? I don't know. But I hope it catches on. We could all use a bit more P!nk in our lives.

64- "Clout" - Offset featuring Cardi B -- Don't care.

65- "How Did I Get Here" - Offset featuring J. Cole -- Don't care.

70- "Outstanding" - Gunna -- Did you hear that the scarecrow got promoted? They told him he was outstanding in his field!

72- "Be Like Me" - Lil Pump featuring Lil Wayne -- Don't care.

74- "3 Headed Snake" - Gunna featuring Young Thug -- Don't care.

75- "Wit It" - Gunna -- Don't care.

86- "Lick" - Offset -- Don't care. But also amused that Offset only got four songs to chart from his album out of a possible 16.

87- "Girls Need Love" - Summer Walker & Drake -- I almost jumped over this one because I saw Drake's name and I'm tired of Drake being everywhere. But I decided to give a shot because I had no idea who Summer Walker is and I wanted to give her a chance. Turns out this is a song from last year that is just now charting because of this remix that adds Drake. In regards to the original, I will see that Summer Walker has a great voice with plenty of emotion, but the song itself doesn't do her many favors as its a really slow R&B song that'll do a great job of putting me to sleep if I listen to it too much. Adding Drake to it doesn't do anything to fix it or hurt it. He's just kinda there. Although he does try to match her style by going R&B rather than flying though on autopilot like he does with every other feature he's given. So I give him points for trying. But I still think the song is boring and the lyrics themselves feel pretty basic, so this is a song that I can see myself having a hard time remembering in the future.

91- "Speed It Up" - Gunna -- Don't care.

94- "I Guess I Just Feel Like" - John Mayer -- Here's a lesser known fact. I've often got annoyed at John Mayer's song titles. In my opinion, a song title is supposed to represent what your song is all about. But I have no idea what I'm getting myself into when John Mayer turns his song titles into cliffhangers like this. "I Guess I Just Feel Like" ... WHAT? Finish your sentence! Or maybe he's just done that once with "Say," which should really be titled "Say What You Need to Say." Either way, that was my first thought when I saw this song on the charts. My second thought was that it feels like it's been a long time since we've seen John Mayer on the charts, so seeing him was a nice surprise. After looking it up, I learned that the last time John Mayer really had success on the charts was his 2009 album "Battle Studies," which produced "Who Says," "Heartbreak Warfare" and "Half of My Heart," the latter of which hit No. 25 in 2010 and was also the last time he got that high. He's had scattered success between 2012 and 2016, but nothing huge, and hasn't had anything chart since 2016. So I don't know if that bodes well for his future. The world might be done with John Mayer, unfortunately.

Personally I think this song is nice enough, though. I've never been completely enamored with John Mayer, but I've also had a hard time disliking anything he's done. And this song fits into that range. It has a sweet electric guitar solo at the end and a nice instrumental break in the middle. The song has a somber tone to it that has John Mayer mostly losing hope in the future. It's a song about reminiscing on the past and how great things were back then, but how the present is grim and the future doesn't look bright. It doesn't quite connect with me, but I also have no real problems with it. In other words, it's a lot like most of John Mayer's stuff, which means his die-hard fans will probably be happy with this. 

95- "Good as You" - Kane Brown -- We'll end this week with a super popular country singer who I've never been able to understand. Kane Brown has never struck me as a guy who's that great of a singer and he never really has anything interesting to say. I'll give him credit in this song for having restrain. This could've been another one of those generic, twangy, country rock songs where the music doesn't match the tone of the lyrics, but he keeps this is a simple song about a girl. But at the same time, though, it's just a song about a girl. It doesn't feel like there's any passion or emotion behind the song. He loves a girl and he wishes that he could be as good as her, so he's going to do his best to try. And that's it. I feel like these are lyrics that we've seen a thousand times before with country music and Kane Brown doesn't make much of an effort to help this song stand out. It's just another factory-produced country song that checks every box in order to be accepted on country radio so Kane Brown can some money from it.

97- "Same Yung N----" - Gunna featuring Playboi Carti -- Don't care. But can I complain again at the fact that rappers are allowed to freely use the n-word without anyone blinking an eye? And it's not just black rappers. I see these punk white rappers throwing around the word, too, and still no one gets mad at them. 

100- "Faucet Failure" - Ski Mask the Slump God -- Everything about this title and artist name screams bottom of the barrel trash. Let's hope No. 100 is as high as it gets.