Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X (+14) -- Gear up, ladies and gentlemen. This is your smash viral dance hit of 2019. I'm a bit surprised this shot up all the way from No. 15 to No. 1 this week, but I was expecting it to get to No. 1 eventually because this has been all over streaming. This week it surged up 60 percent to 46.6 million U.S. streams and that number is only going to get higher as there's a remix out featuring Billy Ray Cyrus that's getting more traction than this original song. That remix was released on April 5 and will impact next week's charts. I don't know if Billboard is going to give Billy Ray a featured credit on next week's charts, but they're combining the totals for the two versions which means the streaming numbers are going to be absolutely massive. I could see the numbers doubling next week. The song also has a good sales push, up 83 percent to 22,000 downloads sold, which in our weak age of sales is good enough for third place on that chart. The song hasn't broken onto the radio charts, but it'll get there eventually. It jumped quite a bit compared to last week.
As far as my opinion of the song, if you haven't heard that yet, I still think this is a dumb song. It combines rap and country, but everything wrong with both genres. The only semi-decent part of the song is the beat behind the song, but I learned just barely that's because they sample the song "34 Ghosts IV" by Nine Inch Nails. That's a pretty sweet instrumental song from NIN's 2008 album "Ghosts I-IV." I mean, credit Lil Nas X's team for picking a good sample, but it's also kinda sad that they only good part of their song is borrowed from someone else. It's just a lazy atrocity. But whatever. It is what it is. It's actually a slight upgrade from our previous No. 1. And Billy Ray adds a bit of personality with the remix even if he doesn't completely fix the song.
2- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+1) -- I find it interesting that if "Old Town Road" hadn't skyrocketed to No. 1, it would've been "Sunflower" getting back to the top this week, proving more consistent across the board than Ariana, Halsey and Post Malone's other song. I would've liked that. But alas it wasn't meant to be. I don't know how long "Old Town Road" will be entrenched at that top spot, but it's going to be here a lot longer than Post Malone is.
3- "7 rings" - Ariana Grande (-2) -- I'm not surprised that Ariana fell. She had her eight weeks at top that would've been 10 had the song's run not been interrupted by "Shallow" and "Sucker." So this was coming. It was a very weak No. 1 last week. I wasn't expecting "Old Town Road" to be the song to dethrone her, but I wasn't expecting her to get another week at the top. And honestly I'm happy this song is no longer at the top. Yes, the idea of Ariana at the top is a fine idea, but this specific song is pure trash. It's a bad Cardi B impression and I'm not even a fan of Cardi B.
4- "Wow." - Post Malone (-2) -- I can now breathe a sigh of relief. After this song jumped up to No. 2 following the boost from the music video and the remix, I was dreading the idea of it going No. 1, which is exactly what I thought was going to happen since I was guessing this song would have more staying power than the other songs in the top five, all of which seemed to be on their way out as they've been here a while. But it turns out that this isn't even the highest Post Malone song this week. Good. Let's keep it that way. At the very least, I'm confident that "Old Town Road" is going to keep this song at bay even if it rises above "7 rings" and "Sunflower" in ensuing weeks. And I'd consider that a win because I'd much rather have "Old Town Road" at top than "Wow."
5- "Without Me" - Halsey (-1) -- Halsey seems to be the loser of all of this. She's now three spots below "Sunflower," while also being below "7 rings" and "Wow." I don't imagine that she'll be around much longer either as this song seems to be finally losing a lot of steam. Despite that, though, she still currently holds the crown for top song of 2019 according to my personal tracking. Although if the distance between her and Post Malone's "Sunflower" remain this large, that might not last too long. "7 rings" is also gaining on that list, but Ariana doesn't seem to have a whole ton of staying power at the moment, either. Especially not if she kills herself again with her new song "Monopoly," which I'll get to later on the new arrivals section.
6- "Please Me" - Cardi B & Bruno Mars (-1) -- Another loser is Cardi B and Bruno. This song has had enough momentum to keep it around for a while, but I was thinking that this was eventually going to rise above the other songs here in the region simply because it's a newer entry. But that doesn't seem to be the case. It's looking at a premature exit from the top 10 as well, which I'm happy with because I think this is a bad combination of two overrated stars.
7- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (new) -- I was secretly hoping that this would debut at No. 1 along with Billie's new album, which easily grabbed the top spot on the Billboard 200 with 313,000 equivalent album units sold, which is the second highest total for an album this year, behind only Ariana's album. Even though this song couldn't quite debut at No. 1, I'll happily take a No. 7 debut. That makes it Billie's first top 10 entry in her young career, a mark definitely worth celebrating. I do worry about her staying power on the Hot 100 because the radio just hasn't gotten on board, which is not too surprising because her songs aren't super radio friendly. But I'm hoping that streaming and sales can prop her up enough for this to at least stick around somewhere on the Hot 100. If not, so be it. At least she got her top 10 hit and her album bomb this week. There's a total of 14 Billie Eilish songs on the charts this making this the... "Billieboard Hot 100"! Of those 14 songs, eight of them are new entries this week from her album and I'm excited to talk about them because I'm a huge fan of the album. This song here is especially infectious, which is why I want it to do well!
8- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (+1) -- This is a good turn around for the Jonas Brothers as they leapfrog "Happier," "Middle Child" and "Thotiana" thanks to this song's radio push, which looks strong enough to keep this song around. However, despite jumping three songs, it's overall rise is only one spot due to Lil Nas X and Billie Eilish, but still this is a good win. I think this proves that the song is here to stay.
9- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (-3) -- Some would say that it's about time that this song finally collapses. Although given the song's recent history, I'm not going to call it done until it's out of the top 10. This is the song's 26th week in the top 10 and I could honestly see it either stick around at No. 9 or No. 10 next week or even rise a spot.
10- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (-3) -- Here's something positive. "Middle Child" clings onto a spot in the top 10 this week, but both "Thotiana" and "Going Bad" are out of the region after taking turns showing back up in the top 10. I was nervous that one or both of those songs would end up sticking around, but that doesn't appear that it'll be the case. Now I don't know what songs are primed to enter the top 10 next week. We don't have a whole lot of strong contenders, outside maybe Ariana's new song "Monopoly," so I'd be willing to bet that "Middle Child" will still be around next week.
Rising on the Hot 100:
15- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (+2) -- If this song can manage to crack the top 10, that would make me very happy. But it's not rising super fast, so I'm not betting on it at the moment. It seems like one of those songs that could end up getting stuck between No. 11 and No. 15. A positive note is that the four songs ahead of it at the moment ("Shallow," "Eastside," "Thotiana" and "Going Bad") are all going in the opposite direction, so if "Dancing with a Stranger" remains consistent enough, it could eventually rise naturally. There's also a lot of songs in the top 10 that aren't super strong, so it's quite possible that this could get there. But we'll take this one week at a time, because at any moment this could peak and slide down with the rest of them.
25- "bury a friend" - Billie Eilish (+16) -- And the rest of the songs in this section are all Billie Eilish, which makes me super happy. These are all of her previously released songs that got a boost from her album release, with these first four being on the album itself and the final two getting a boost despite not being on the album. "bury a friend" initially surged up to No. 14 on its first full week of charting and has never really recovered since. Again, I'm not surprised. This is not a song that will perfectly jive with your mainstream audience. But I'm still madly in love with it. This is the style of creepy and weird that makes me extremely amused when I play it for people and watch their reaction. I think it'll make an excellent Halloween song which is great because we don't have a whole lot of those. But outside of the fun shock value, when you actually explore this song you will find a song that is deep and layered with a whole of dark and emotional themes, especially when you learn that Billie wrote this from the perspective of the monster under her bead, which she admits might be herself at times.
29- "when the party's over" - Billie Eilish (re-entry) -- From what I'm gathering, this is the song that will be getting the radio push from the album, which I suppose makes sense since this is one of the more "normal" songs from the album. It's slow and mellow, but it's not without its emotional punch. It's also one of the two "older" songs that still made it onto the album. This was released back in November and thus fell off the charts after not getting a huge push. But if they are promoting this to the radio, perhaps that means it'll stick around? And yeah, I'm totally cool with that. I really want SOMETHING of Billie's to catch fire on the radio because that'll help her longevity on the charts.
31- "wish you were gay" - Billie Eilish (+53) -- This is still not one of my favorite songs from the album. Given the fact that it's also fallen a lot faster than "bury a friend," it appears that the rest of the world isn't connecting as strongly with it, either. However, it's still a cleverly written song and shows a genuine amount of honesty from Billie. It's definitely a song that has grown on me to the point where I feel it will stick with me for a long time even though it's not quite on the level of her other songs. But that's more of a compliment towards her collection of songs as a whole rather a negative commentary on the song itself. It's also one of the songs that will remind you that she's just a 17-year-old girl as this has a lot of honest teenage girl sentiments to it as she's looking for excuses as to why this boy doesn't like her that's not her own fault.
41- "you should see me in a crown" - Billie Eilish (re-entry) -- Yes, I am including Billie's re-entries, because, well, why not? This is an even older song than "when the party's over" as this debuted on the charts back in August, which is why I was a bit surprised that this was included on the album. But hey, it very much fits the tone of what she's going for with the album. It was the second song of Billie's to chart last year and I almost liked it just as much as her first entry. Speaking of which...
85- "lovely" - Billie Eilish & Khalid (+11) -- Here is said first entry. Still clinging onto a spot on the Hot 100. This debuted back in June and has been up and down the charts ever since. Its peak is at No. 64 and it's only accumulated 22 total weeks on the charts, but still we're 10 months later and here it is. Every time it falls off the charts, it seems like it's back on a few weeks later. I don't know how long this roller coaster ride is going to last, but it's been one of the more impressive runs for a song that never hit the top 50, which is really unfortunate. And no, this song is NOT on the album. In fact, it was written for the second season of "13 Reasons Why." But it got a boost from the album anyways. This still remains my favorite Billie song and was No. 3 on my list of favorite songs from last year, so I'm obviously glad that it's still around. It's such a beautifully tragic song that's extremely relatable. Billie and Khalid mesh really well. And speaking of Khalid, we'll see plenty of him next week as his sophomore album dropped on Friday and is set to impact the charts next week.
94- "ocean eyes" - Billie Eilish (re-entry) -- Also not a song from the album. In fact, this is one of Billie's earliest songs that is still around. It first charted a few months ago in December, but Billie first wrote and released this in 2016, when she was just 14 years old. Thus you can forgive it due to it being written by an even younger Billie, before she was famous. It doesn't give the same impact as her more recent songs. But still, I dare you to find a 14-year-old girl who can put out a song that's this beautiful. It's well written. Her voice is great. The song itself sticks with you, which is why it manage to re-enter the charts again, despite it being three years since it was initially released.
New Arrivals:
7- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish -- With this being Billie's big debut, I listened to this shortly after it was released on March 29, before I listened to the rest of the album. I was standing in my room by my bed when I pressed play and I immediately started dancing around the room. So yeah, this is such a fun, infectious song. I've already listened to it so much that I find it a bit crazy that it's only been around for just under two weeks. It already has 52 million YouTube views and I'm pretty sure I contributed at least 50 million of those. Billboard reported that it got 34.7 million U.S. streams (no, not all of the YouTube views count towards Billboard's streaming numbers -- only the U.S. views), so I'm pretty sure I also contributed a lot towards that via my Apple Music account if each listen equals a stream. No, this is not as emotional as something like "lovely" or as deep as something like "bury a friend," but it's a song where Billie is having a lot of fun, which is evidenced by her wacky music video where she is doing all sorts of weird things and strange dance moves. This is one of her songs where I feel like she's saying, "Screw the world. I'm going to go do whatever the heck I want. The song is fairly simply lyrically. She's bragging about how tough she is to this guy while questioning his toughness at the same time. The only real negative I have is that I'm not a huge fan of the last 44 seconds. I get that she's going for her creepy, weird style here, but I think the song ends perfectly at the 2:30 mark. And that's going by the album version of the song. The music video includes the 13-second album intro "!!!!!!!," so the perfect ending for the video is the 2:43 mark. That's when I cut off and hit replay.
35- "xanny" - Billie Eilish -- I was slightly nervous when I saw the title of this song because usually when a song is named after a drug it means the artist is about to sing about drugs. Maybe it's all these rappers who have conditioned me to think that way because almost all of them love rapping about all the drugs they're doing and in all this flex rapping, xannies, aka Xanax, are one of the more popular drugs to rap about. As it turns out, this song is the exact opposite of what all the rappers rap about because Billie is singing about how she doesn't understand why people do drugs. She said in one interview that she's never done drugs and never smoked anything. She said that this song isn't necessarily "don't do drugs," but rather is "be safe." She doesn't want her friends to die. Coming off of "bad guy," this is definitely a drastic change of pace. This is a slower, drawn out song that almost feels musically stretched. You're not going to dance to it or play it at parties. But she has a lot to say here. In a world where everyone else seems to be rapping about how awesome drugs are, it's really refreshing hearing a song from a crazy pop singer where she slows down and tells people how drugs are NOT awesome or how she doesn't want to be around all this second-hand smoke and doesn't to kiss someone with cigarette breath. So no, I probably won't play this as much as some of her other songs, but I really appreciate this song.
43- "my strange addiction" - Billie Eilish -- Now we go from an anti-drugs song to Billie's strange addiction, which is funny because this wasn't planned out this way on the album. While "bad guy" is track 2 and "xanny" is track 3, meaning those two do follow each other, "my strange addiction" is track 9, so this is a complete coincidence. Although if we're talking about strange addictions that Billie has, the answer here might be "The Office" because this song samples "The Office." I was rather amused at that. Apparently Billie has watched the show at least 12 times. Thus when she was writing this song, she was reminded of an episode in season 7 titled "Threat Level Midnight" where Michael Scott shows everyone a movie he made, so her and her brother (her co-writer for the album) pulled the audio and used it in her song. Both were surprised when they actually got the green light to use it, so here we are. Out of all the songs on the album, this is one that doesn't have a whole ton to say. In reality, the strange addiction is simply a guy she's trying to get over, but can't. But the samples from "The Office" make this quite amusing and entertaining to me.
44- "Racks in the Middle" - Nipsey Hussle featuring Roddy Ricch & Hit-Boy -- Listen, from the bottom of my heart I was devastated when I heard that Nipsey Hussle had been shot and killed about a week ago on Sunday March 31. Granted, I've never heard of him until I heard of his death, but still I mourn the loss of a human life. From all the reaction that Twitter gave, especially the NBA community, I have no doubt that he was a great individual who didn't deserve to be senselessly killed by someone who was apparently an associate of his. In fact, Wikipedia tells me that him and Roc Nation were scheduled to meet with the LAPD on April 1 to talk about what they could do about gang violence in South Los Angeles. But he got shot and killed the day before. And thus I knew that his musically would end up on the charts this week as often happens when someone who is loved dies or gets killed. And I welcome that. I have no complaints that his music is here. But I have to be honest and say that I tried checking out his music, but it just wasn't my thing. Granted, he's usually a step above his featured acts in these songs in terms of rapping skills, but I still wasn't a fan. It has a lot of similar issues as a lot of other rap music that rubs me the wrong way and him being killed doesn't change the fact that it's not my style. That makes for an awkward conversation here, so instead of diving into the details, I'll just let his fans have this time while I personally will step aside without diving too deep into these individual songs outside what I've already said here.
46- "all the good girls go to hell" - Billie Eilish -- We're back towards the beginning of the album here and this is a song that's playfully dark. I don't know if Billie is particularly a religious person, but this has her playfully twisting a lot of Christian symbolism and acting quite snarky towards the "good girls." In my view, this feeds off of "bad guy" in that she's not presenting herself as the hero of her songs. Nor does it seem like she has much of a desire a perfectly behaved little girl. She proved in "xanny" that she does have a smart brain, but her personality is such that she's a bit wild and crazy. She has do desire to behave or act like everyone else. She's going to be herself without thinking too much about what people think of her. Thus this leads to a lot of dark and twisted undertones and she's honest about what's going on in her brain. In "bury a friend," she refers to herself as the monster under her bed or the monster under your bed, so there's this unsettled feelings towards herself that she showcases in her songs. I think in this song she might be looking at the good girls as people who aren't living life to their fullest. They're acting like they think they're supposed to act rather than being true to who they are. So Billie is using this twisted religious symbolism to tell people that she's not going to be the perfectly behaved good girl because that's not fulfilling to her. I can see people taking this song and analyzing it too closely by concluding she's evil and Satanic. I'd roll my eyes at that, but like with a lot of her stranger stuff, I could see why this wouldn't connect with everyone.
53- "i love you" - Billie Eilish -- There's two tracks on this album that didn't chart. The first is the 13-second intro titled "!!!!!!!." Obviously that didn't chart because it's not really a song. Just an entertaining bit to open the album. The second track that didn't chart is the album closer, titled "goodbye." That is a song, but it's a short two-minute track where she essentially says farewell and does a quick summary of some major album points. I bring that up here because that means "i love you" is the final full track on the album. Track 13 of 14. In fact, the last three songs form a bit of a sentence as they are "listen before i go," "i love you" and "goodbye." My first couple of times through the album was more of a quick listen and when I did that, I knew that this was a song that I was going to have to explore in more depth later on because this is a slower ballad that is nearly five minutes long. Doing that deep dive uncovers a song that isn't super complex. It actually is a lot like "my strange addiction" in that she's talking about a romance that she doesn't want to have, but can't help herself to. However, this is a much better song that "my strange addiction" because she spends more time telling this emotional story between the two of them while not rushing anything. I think the length of the song is very appropriate because listening to the entire five minutes is what gives the full effect. It's a beautiful song in a very bittersweet way.
59- "God's Country" - Blake Shelton -- We interrupt the Billie Eilish show to quickly to give you a quick country song from Blake Shelton. Lyrically this isn't anything super special. It's not really a religious song. Blake is just saying this is God's country and they're grateful to be living in it. He doesn't elaborate too much and thus it feels a bit empty on its own. Perhaps if it was included in the right trailer or movie, it would fit perfectly as some sort of soundtrack song. But I do like Blake's passion here. This is a country song with a lot of energy. Listening to the song made me feel like I was in a Baptist church where preacher shouted, "Jesus lives!" Then the rest of us followed that up by "Hallelujah!" Personally I prefer my sermons to have a little more substance to them then that, which is why I say this isn't really a religious song. Just more of an exciting anthem about them being in God's country. But hey, it's not bad. There's a lot of boring, lifeless country songs today and this will at least avoid being lost in that.
62- "ilomilo" - Billie Eilish -- If you're wondering how to pronounce this one, it's "ee-low-mee-low." The idea behind this is based on some sort of puzzle game from 2010 where a player must unite Ilo and Milo, two round characters on opposite sides of the game. It requires teamwork to bring them together. Thus here we have a cute little love song. I think there's a lot more emotion in "i love you," but "ilomilo" has a fun bounce to it. There's also a few moments where her brother Finneas provides a bit of backing vocal, which I think works well. There's not a whole lot to say about this as it's quite simple, short and not too deep or layered like some of her other stuff. But it's a nice song.
63- "listen before i go" - Billie Eilish -- Billie has a lot of sad and depressing songs on her album mixed in with her fun, upbeat song. This song might be the saddest of them all. And it's not just the lyrics or the slow, drawn-out tone to it, but also the sound effects in the background. You can hear the sirens in the distance to start things off, but as Billie starts singing about being on the rooftop, you can hear the voices of the people below sounding worried. Then there's a bunch of rain clouds and we hear some thunder, giving us a dim picture in our mind as she's singing about how she's going to be leaving soon, so if you need to see her, you better hurry. Slowly the sirens in the song become louder and louder, as if someone called 9-1-1 after seeing her on the roof about to jump. The song closes with her saying that sorry can't save her now, but then she tells this person to tell her friends she loves them and will miss them. Then the sirens get really loud as does the commotion down below as if she jumped. So yeah, this is sad and dark, much like a Lana Del Rey song. Billie did say that she doesn't think you have to go through something in order to write about something. So I wouldn't say that this means Billie is suicidal herself. Much of her music is from a different voice than her own. But she is singing about depression and what depression can lead to, which is why I think this song has the potential to hit home for a lot of people. As a singer and songwriter, Billie is very honest with her lyrics. That's one thing I keep saying. Thus she cuts deep here in singing about depression and suicide.
65- "Double Up" - Nipsey Hussle featuring Belly & DOM KENNEDY -- See my previous comment about Nipsey Hussle.
70- "Monopoly" - Ariana Grande & Victoria Monét -- For some reason I wasn't expecting this to chart this week. I was ready for it to show up next week. But in looking at the day the music video was released, April 1 is when it dropped, which means it got four days of tracking this week as the tracking week starts on Friday. I must've just seen this video in the trending section a few days after it was released, hence my surprise. But regardless, here it is. I'm also surprised to see yet another Ariana Grande single that has nothing to do with a previous album. I mean, she released two albums within six months of each other. And now two months after the second album's release, she has a another new song that has nothing to do with the previous two albums? What is this girl doing? I have no idea. I also had no idea who Victoria Monét was until this point. This is her very first charting single as a singer, but I learned that she's helped Ariana with the writing on quite a bit of Ariana's albums, so this is two friends collaborating for a single. If the song is good, then it's whatever. But I'm getting the feeling that it's quantity over quality for Ariana. She doesn't seem to be caring much about each individual songs. She's just decided to release as many as possible as fast as possible. She's throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks.
And that's the problem with this song. This feels super rushed as if it was thrown together last second just for the heck of it. The music behind the vocals is super simplistic, but instead of feeling done purposely because the song warranted simplicity, it just feels like they didn't have the time to think of something and thus lazily threw together a quick backdrop. She's also just flexing and bragging about her recent success, stating that even though she had to give 90 percent that it was worth that. That being a specific reference to "7 rings," which she had to give up 90 percent of the song's royalties to Rodgers & Hammerstein as a result of interpolated "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music. This is also another hip-hop infused pop song wherein Ariana and Victoria don't really commit to either genre which results in it being extremely subpar in both standards. So yeah, this song sucks.
79- "8" - Billie Eilish -- The final new song from Billie this week is the... uhhh... "eighth" new song of hers to chart. Titled "8." And yes, it is track 8 on the album. So while the former might be a coincidence that "8" is the "eighth" song to track, Billie does a lot of fun things with numbers throughout the album, one of those making "8" track 8. Outside that, the other unique element of this song is that she's again speaking from a different point of view. While the casual onlooker might listen to this song and comment about how hurt Billie is feeling, she wrote this song from the perspective of someone she hurt. I won't quote her exact words, but she essentially said there was a moment where she was really rude to someone, but later felt bad about it. The only way she could deal with it was to put herself in that person's shoes and right a song from their perspective. So that adds a bit of depth to a song that is otherwise one of the lesser songs of the album. She switches back and forth from her normal voice to what sounds like some sort of digitally altered voice that's more high-pitched. And I don't think that really worked for me. It felt like a creative choice that didn't quite connect. And yeah, it's just a song about her being hurt. Again, she's not talking about herself. Billie is the one who did the hurting here, so I appreciate how the song got put together, the final result just isn't quite that interesting. But overall, as you can tell from this post, I really dug this album. I imagine I'll be turning to it quite often!
82- "Last Time that I Checc'd" - Nipsey Hussle featuring YG -- See my previous comment about Nipsey Hussle.
87- "Suge" - DaBaby -- No thanks.
93- "Dedication" - Nipsey Hussle featuring Kendrick Lamar -- See my previous comment about Nipsey Hussle.
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