Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (=) -- Fending off a powerful surge from Taylor Swift this week is "Old Town Road" as the song tallies a fifth week at No. 1. Helping the song keep Taylor Swift at bay is consistently strong numbers across the board with 104 million U.S. streams (down 9 percent), 78,000 downloads sold (down 12 percent) and 67.7 million audience impressions on the radio (up 22 percent). I'll give you Taylor Swift's numbers in the next comment, but the quick version is that she had a whole ton of first week sales, but was significantly behind "Old Town Road" in streaming and radio. Helping "Old Town Road" at least a little bit was a second remake, this one adding Diplo to the mix, making the song country, rap and EDM as they studios behind this try to milk everything they can out of this. Diplo wasn't given featured credit this week probably because his remix didn't add a ton to the overall total. I don't see that version very high on many charts when it comes to streaming and what not. But it is the version that amuses me the most and is probably the version that will be played at dance parties. Again, the remix doesn't change the awful lyrics and the idea of yet another remix makes me roll my eyes, but adding an EDM dance beat makes it super catchy, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.
2- "ME!" - Taylor Swift featuring Brendon Urie (+98) -- I'm kinda disappointed that this wasn't No. 1 this week because I wanted to see a song rise from the very bottom slot to the very top slot. That would've permanently given Taylor the record for the highest rise on the Hot 100. The best someone could do is tie it. That said, a 98-spot jump on the Hot 100 is the new record. The previous mark was set by Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You," which rose 96 spots (97-1) in February 2009. Again, Taylor Swift charted last week because she released the song on a Friday. The sales and streaming charts run Friday to Thursday while the radio charts run Monday to Sunday, which means Taylor got three days of radio play that counted to last week's charts. Across her first full week of tracking for all metrics, her sales led the way as she scored 193,000 downloads sold, the highest weekly sales total since her own 2017 single "Look What You Made Me Do" got 353,000 downloads sold in its first week. Holding Taylor back was her 50.7 million U.S. streams and 54.1 million in first week audience impressions on the radio. Any other week in 2019, numbers like that would be good enough for No. 1. But not when "Old Town Road" is still putting up crazy numbers. And finally, if you missed my opinion on this song last week, I don't really like it. It reminds me too much of her singles from her album "Red."
3- "Wow." - Post Malone (-1) -- I suppose it's good seeing this song drop a spot, but that's only because of Taylor Swift rising to No. 2. With Taylor likely to take the usual second week dip, this could go back to No. 2 next week, so it's not yet showing signs of letting up, which is really annoying for me. I want it to go away.
4- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (+1) -- Continuing to be boosted by its No. 1 spot on the radio charts, with the numbers there only increasing at the moment, "Sucker" is positioned rather well at the moment. I could see this eventually rising to No. 2 because it looks like the consistent radio is going to keep this song around for a while.
5- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-2) -- Taking a bit of a tumble this week is "Sunflower." Its still maintaining decent enough numbers to stick around for a bit longer as I don't see this dropping out of the top 10 anytime soon, but this drop does signify that its numbers are starting to disappear. The song has outlived its movie by quite a bit, which is an impressive feat and still maintains the top song on my personal tracking of the top songs of 2019.
6- "7 rings" - Ariana Grande (-2) -- Also taking a tumble this week is Ariana. Personally I would love to see this fall even faster. If this could drop out of the top 10 within a few weeks that would be excellent. And I do think the song is declining faster than both "Sunflower" and "Without Me," but it falling out super fast would require other songs below it to be a bit stronger, which isn't quite happening at the moment.
7- "Without Me" - Halsey (-1) -- Compared to "Sunflower" and "7 rings," Halsey's song didn't have as bad of a week, only dropping one spot because of Taylor Swift shooting up to No. 2. Thus I think it'll be interesting to see which of these three songs ends up departing earliest. Halsey still seems to be the most vulnerable being here at No. 7.
8- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (-1) -- Contrary to the three previous songs, I don't think "Dancing with a Stranger" is on its way out. I think it has consistent enough numbers to eventually sneak higher than "Sunflower," "7 rings" and "Without Me." It just wasn't strong enough this week to overtake either of them just yet. I just hope that as the three other songs depart the top 10 they don't accidentally take Sam Smith with them because this deserves to stick around for quite a bit longer.
9- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- It really makes me happy to see Billie continue to hang here at No. 9 thanks to her consistently strong streaming numbers. But the song really needs to start getting traction on the radio if its going to stick around for much longer. Streaming can't hold it for too much longer. Although I really hope that it does. This is easily the best song in the top 10 right now.
10- "Talk" - Khalid (-2) -- I have no idea what this song is going to do in future weeks. Last week it randomly shot up to No. 8. But instead of continuing that momentum upwards, it drops two spots this week, getting pushed down by Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. So who knows what this is going to do. I mean, I wouldn't mind keeping this song around. Thanks to the uncredited help from Disclosure, very weak lyrics and not much effort from Khalid gets swept under the rug due to a sweet groove and a catchy beat that matches perfectly with Khalid's vocals. But if it means getting "Sweet but Psycho" into the top 10, which is again stuck at No. 11 this week, I will gladly sacrifice this song.
Rising on the Hot 100:
18- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+2) -- Not a whole lot of movement between No. 11 and 20 this week, which means our rising songs section gets topped by "High Hopes," which rises two spots thanks to it holding on better than some of the other songs that are on a downward spiral. I don't expect to cover this song very much in future weeks, but I happily added it this week because I still think it's a great song. Much better than the newer Panic! song that also shows up in this section this week.
27- "Suge" - DaBaby (+19) -- This is gross. Why are we making DaBaby a thing? The positive things about dumb new artists like this is that this dude will be a trendy name for a little bit, but will disappear back into obscurity before too long because he certainly proves with this song that he has no talent.
31- "Here with Me" - Marshmello featuring CHVRCHES (+6) -- I can certainly get behind this song. With not a lot of strong movement in the teens and 20's, I can see this song slowly sliding higher as other songs above it continue to fall. And I'm fine with that. It's a pretty good Marshmello song. For CHVRCHES standards it's not very good, but if it gives them mainstream recognition then I think that's a positive thing.
33- "Whiskey Glasses" - Morgan Wallen (+15) -- A generic country song shooting up the charts for some reason. I'll take a pass on this.
34- "God's Country" - Blake Country (+9) -- Don't tell anyone, but this song is quite the head banger. This came on the radio when I was in a car this week and said car had a great stereo system. So, OK, fine, I can tolerate this. I usually resist when it comes to dumb country songs with no substance, but this has a strong enough beat behind it to make it quite exciting in the right situations. So I'll get behind it.
38- "Eyes on You" - Chase Rice (+6) -- I can also get behind this. Although for opposite reasons than "God's Country." This is sweet and toned back. When country songs have a good romantic feel to them, and sound like they genuinely come from the heart, that's the type of country songs that I get behind.
46- "Good as You" - Kane Brown (+6) -- We got two positive country songs in a row, but we couldn't quite get to three. I've never been able to get behind Kane Brown. I just don't find him very interesting.
49- "Walk Me Home" - P!nk (+13) -- I don't know if this is a boost solely from P!nk's album release or a sign that this song has real traction behind it, but I'm glad to see this hit top 50. I love myself some P!nk and this song is quite enjoyable. Although if I'm being perfectly honest, I listened to most of her recent album, and although her vocals are great as always, I think the album as a whole has some serious problems in the writing realm as I kinda got bored of it. If the songs chart individually, I can probably get behind them, but together as a whole it didn't feel like a cohesive album. It just felt like a collection of potential P!nk singles and they were all too similar to each other to be interesting to be played all in a row. But there were some songs that stood out. The one with Chris Stapleton charted this week, so we'll get to it down below.
65- "Before I Let Go" - Beyonce (+10) -- Last week I said that I would let Beyonce fans enjoy this one. Personally I didn't like the idea of Beyonce writing and directing a documentary about herself, which is where this comes from. It sounded extremely egotistical and the only people that seemed to enjoy it are the hardcore Beyonce fans. Everyone else trashed it, so I stayed away. But since it stuck around for another week, I gave it a listen. This is a live track from a live album. I actually don't like listening to live albums. It's fun being in the live audience during a concert, but hearing all the cheering and screaming in my ear buds is not appealing to me. As far as the rest of the song goes, her vocals are way too over the top and the lyrics are about her partying and having a good time with something about her not wanting to let this boy go, so nothing about this connects with me. Are you surprised? It kinda confirms that I would not enjoy her self-made documentary that this comes from.
66- "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" - Panic! At the Disco (+14) -- Sure. Let's push this higher. I'll take an average Panic! song over most other songs that chart these days. At least it's a sign that they might be getting staying power on the charts rather than simply having one song explode and that's a positive sign for future singles.
86- "Shotta Flow" - NLE Choppa (+10) -- With a song title and artist name like this, I'm gladly ignoring. It only barely managed to qualify for this section and it's all the way down at No. 86, so I'm not going to panic yet.
New Arrivals:
67- "Floating" - ScHoolboy Q featuring 21 Savage -- Why does ScHoolboy Q capitalize the H in his name? Does he think that makes him cool? Or lit? Is it fire? I don't know, what else can I ignorantly say to make fun of stupid rappers?
69- "Baila Baila Baila" - Ozuna, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, Farruko & Anuel AA -- Well this is a headache. I can handle some of these guys on their own. I've even liked some of the stuff they've done. But all together it's just too much and anything with Farruko and Anuel AA just makes things worse. Google Translate claims that "Baila" means "Dance." I try not to go too far in my usage of Google Translate, but translating that title seems to be a safe bet. So if they want to make a simple dance song, then fine. But still, too crowded. As it turns out, there is an original version of this that is just Ozuna. That one is fine. Ozuna and Daddy Yankee would also be fine if it was just them two. J Balvin joining the game is a little too much and Farruko and Anuel AA completely send this song crashing into the ground. While I don't know exactly what they're saying, I'm guessing it's something to do with dancing, but yet it doesn't feel upbeat enough to be a good Latin dance song. In exploring this slightly in more depth, I learned it samples "Once Dance" by Drake, which is the problem. By Drake standards, that song isn't too bad. But by dance music standards, it's certainly not up to par, so that's a bad song to base your dance song off of if you want to make it successfully upbeat and catchy.
85- "CHopstix" - ScHoolboy Q & Travis Scott -- Another song from ScHoolboy Q? Did he release a new album or something? Ask me how much I care about that if he did. Also, does this dude capitalize every H in all of his song titles? What's with that?
90- "Light It Up" - Marshmello, Tyga & Chris Brown -- I'm fine with Marshmello. He's not my favorite DJ, but listening to him is the music equivalent of watching a brainless action film. There's often no substance, but it can be fun with the right mindset. That said, key to Marshmello is who he collaborates with. Joining up with Tyga and Chris Brown is a bad idea. Tyga is singing monotone the whole time, which I'm not sure appeals to anyone. It doesn't fit well in an upbeat dance song. And I'm not sure this is rappy enough for Tyga fans to like this. All it accomplishes is making Chris Brown actually sound like he's trying because he's at least singing different notes in his verses. But yet don't get me started about what he's saying in those verses because that completely negates everything else positive. Also, for a Marshmello song, there's not a lot of Marshmelloing going in, if you know what I mean. He puts together a light beat in the background that's barely noticeable. If you had played this song for me without ever telling me that it's a Marshmello song, I may not have ever known.
92- "Power is Power" - SZA, The Weeknd & Travis Scott -- I wasn't sure what to think of this one. I generally like SZA and The Weeknd CAN be good if he's trying hard enough, but Travis Scott is a dumpster fire, so what's going to win out here? Turns out I pressed play on my Apple Music and a "Game of Thrones" logo came out, which means I'm completely out of my league here. I watched half of one episode of "Game of Thrones" and quit because there was too much sexuality and nudity and I didn't want to pay VidAngel the money to watch an edited version. So I have no idea how this fits in context, nor would I understand if someone tried to explain. I can feel that there's a lot of "Game of Thrones" references in the lyrics, but I don't know what those mean. Just a lot of generic references to power and war that don't connect with me on its own. Musically its fine, although it reminds me of a combination of "Pray for Me" and "All the Stars" from the "Black Panther" soundtrack because, you know, SZA and The Weeknd do those. Except those two songs are both better than "Power is Power" and Travis Scott isn't even in the same universe as Kendrick Lamar in terms of talent. So I guess this is fine, but context would help and that context I don't have. All I know is that fans online are rallying against "Game of Thrones" season 8, especially the most recent two episodes, for reasons that also wouldn't make sense to me.
94- "Knockin' Boots" - Luke Bryan -- I almost forgot about this one. Luckily I caught it before I shared this to my Facbook and Twitter, even though I'm typing this after I published it. My stats say that three people have read this post, so whoever those three are missed my thoughts on this song. Luckily there's not much of note here, so said three people didn't miss anything. Just Luke Bryan twanging his way through a generic country song where Luke is singing about him driving to his girl's house to experience the birds and the bees with his girl. If it sounds cheesy to put it that way instead of bluntly stating this is a country sex song, well, that's the words he used. Even, in theory, if I'm looking too far into that, a country song about him wanting to spend time with his girl is also boring, especially when there's no heart and emotion put into it. He's just writing cliche country lyrics that he knows country radio is going to eat up. And musically the song isn't very interesting, either.
96- "Love Me Anyway" - P!nk featuring Chris Stapleton -- I mentioned above that I listened to P!nk's new album recently. That's not completely true. I listened to about 70 percent of it before I got bored. I didn't quite get to this one initially, but I have now. And, well, this is another example of the vocal talent from both P!nk and Christ Stapleton elevating a song higher than it has any right to be based on the writing. There's two short verses that have P!nk generically asking this guy if he could love her despite all of her flaws. The second verse finishes at the 1:20 minute mark in the song, leaving us with the remaining 1:58 of the song being repeating the chorus which mostly consists of the two words, "Could you?" Chris Stapleton doesn't even get his own verse. He's just there to harmonize with P!nk and give the echoes on the choruses. So he feels underutilized in the song, which feels incomplete to begin with. But he does a great job in the smaller than he deserved role that he got. I suppose they were going for simple with this song, but I thought it could've used a bit more substance. But still, the vocal talent here is fantastic and the two of them do a great job at harmonizing. Because of that, this is not a bad song. But "Walk Me Home" is much better. I also liked the song "Happy." That was really good. But "Love Me Anyway" feels like background noise.
98- "Stop Snitching" - YG -- I didn't remember much about YG heading into this song, so I figured I'd press play. Five seconds in he had already sworn 15 times, so that's as long as I lasted. And that's the end of that story.
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