DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - June 29, 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- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (=) -- Taylor Swift and Drake were the latest challengers to "Old Town Road" this week, yet neither artist were quite strong enough in their debuts, giving "Old Town Road" its 12th week at No. 1. Four more weeks to tie the 16-week record for most weeks at No. 1, currently a tie between "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito." Five more weeks to dethrone the two songs. Taylor Swift actually presented the biggest challenge for "Old Town Road" this week as Billboard reports that it was a 1.8 to 1 margin between the two songs in terms of chart points. The last eight weeks have seen "Old Town Road" lead by at least a two-to-one margin over the No. 2 song. Taylor Swift managed to get the closest because "Old Town Road" fell 8 percent in streaming to 91.6 million U.S. streams, fell 16 percent in sales to 59,000 downloads sold, and fell 3 percent in radio to 95.8 million audience impressions. Meanwhile, Taylor debuts at No. 3 on streaming with 39 million U.S. streams, No. 1 on sales with 79,000 downloads sold (her record-extending 17th No. 1 on the sales charts) and No. 50 on radio with 24.2 million audience impressions. Yeah, strong sales for Taylor and decent streaming, helped greatly by her music video, while starting off solid on radio. But a good sales week isn't good enough on its own to dethrone "Old Town Road," which is still strong across the board. Next up to challenge "Old Town Road" is "Señorita" by Shawn Menes and Camila Cabello, which has already built up 83 million YouTube views on its official video in four days. But with Lil Nas X's album having been released and set to give "Old Town Road" yet another boost next week, there is no chance that "Señorita" pulls off the upset.

2- "You Need to Calm Down" - Taylor Swift (new) -- If "Old Town Road" had not existed, we'd have quite the array of No. 1 hits these past 12 weeks, which would've included "Wow." by Post Malone, "ME!" by Taylor Swift featuring Brendon Urie, "If I Can't Have You" by Shawn Mendes, "I Don't Care" by Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber, "bad guy" by Billie Eilish and now "You Need to Calm Down" by Taylor Swift. If the latter two songs never end up at No. 1, that will break the record for the most No. 2 songs that a No. 1 hit has prevented from getting to No. 1. Previously, "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams in 1991 and "Theme from 'A Summer Place'" by Percy Faith and His Orchestra in 1960 held off five No. 2 hits each. And yeah, poor Taylor Swift would now have two No. 1 hits in 2019 had it not been for "Old Town Road." Oh well. She'll get over it. I think her biggest concern at the moment shouldn't be with how high she debuts, but her ability to maintain traction. "ME!" is already long gone from the top 10 and I'm not currently convinced that "You Need to Calm Down" is going to do much better.

3- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (-1) -- Billie gets knocked down to No. 3 this week thanks to Taylor, but her numbers for "bad guy" are actually going up. The song remains No. 2 on streaming, up 13 percent to 43.8 million U.S. streams, remains stable at No. 4 on sales, up 1 percent to 21,000 downloads sold, and continues its charge on radio, up 16 percent to 58.6 million audience impressions, good enough for Billie's first top 10 on radio at No. 9. So yeah, with Taylor destined to plummet after the debut, I think Billie is going to rise back up to No. 2. Eventually. "Señorita" is probably going to take No. 2 next week, but Billie will probably have more long-term traction than both songs.

4- "Talk" - Khalid (-1) -- The same story for Billie is true for Khalid. He's not doing quite as well on sales and streaming, but he tops the radio for his second straight week, up 8 percent to 114.7 million audience impressions. Again, his chart positioning might waver a bit with whatever happens to Taylor Swift next week as well as the debut of "Señorita," but Khalid is going to be around for a while.

5- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (=) -- It's probably not the journey that these two expected when they collaborated, but at least they've been able to maintain some stability on the charts, which is something that Taylor Swift and Shawn Mendes have not been able to do with their respective debuts, so overall this is not a bad run for this song so far. I'm not 100 percent certain how this song will fare going forward, but it's impressively managed to hang on to its spot in the top five.

6- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (-2) -- The brothers got a boost last week thanks to their album, but now they fall back down to Earth this week, but still maintain a respectable spot on the charts at No. 6. I don't know how much longer this song has since its radio is slowly starting to decline, but its been a great run for the Jonas Brothers in their comeback single. Now the trick for them is to get a second single to actually stick.

7- "Money in the Grave" - Drake featuring Rick Ross (new) -- If this were last year or the year before, a debut from Drake would've done a lot better than No. 7. Alas, this debuts at No. 4 on streaming with 31.4 million U.S. streams, a decent sales week with 17,000 downloads sold, and, well, not much of anything on radio. So not bad for an average rap song these days, but well below Drake standards. Perhaps he's starting to suffer a bit from over-exposure? If so, good. Drake was never that talented to begin with and the fact that he became such a superstar has been baffling to me.

8- "Wow." - Post Malone (-2) -- Due to debuts from Drake and Taylor Swift, "Sunflower" has been pushed out of the top 10 this week, leaving just "Wow." as the only Post Malone song. "Sunflower" leaves that top 10 currently still standing as the top song of 2019, which is impressive for a song that only managed one week at No. 1. "Old Town Road" seems destined to eventually top "Sunflower," but "Sunflower" has at least six more weeks. As far as "Wow." goes, let's hope that it's on its way out, too.

9- "Suge" - DaBaby (-1) -- I'm encouraged that this song didn't rise at all. I'm upset by the fact that it's still here.

10- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (-1) -- I'm also upset that the Chris Brown and Drake team-up only dropped one spot after its debut last week. Hopefully it will go away next week.

Rising on the Hot 100:

14- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+3) -- Even though I'm not the biggest fan of this song, I understand the appeal behind it. And if it can manage to knock anything currently between No. 7 and No. 10 out of the top 10, I will consider that a win.

24- "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" - Panic! At the Disco (+7) -- Crazy enough, this still isn't the highest charting Panic! song on the Hot 100 right now. "High Hopes" is camped at No. 23. But perhaps next week that will change as this song continues its slow rise up the charts. I can see this getting into the top 20 sooner rather than later, but I don't know if it will get any higher than the teens. In other words, I don't see this ever becoming a top 10 hit. But hey, I've been wrong before. And we certainly have much worse.

25- "Rumor" - Lee Brice (+11) -- I forget this song exists. Lee Brice has impressed me in the past. But not with this song.

51- "The Git Up" - Blanco Brown (+15) -- As I stated last week when this debuted, I can see this quickly becoming the huge dance craze of 2019. If I'm correct, it won't be too long before everyone knows how to do "The Get Up." And I'm fine with that. This is a fun, harmless dance song.

52- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+13) -- This needs to go away.

67- "Shotta Flow" - NLE Choppa (+14) -- This also needs to go away.

81- "Otro Trago" - Sech featuring Darell (+19) -- Out of all the Latino songs to debut recently, this is not the one I want to see gaining traction. Please, anything else.

New Arrivals:

2- "You Need to Calm Down" - Taylor Swift -- I take no credit for this next thought, but when this song debuted, one of my friends pointed out that it sounds a lot like "Sunflower." Since that, I've not been able to get that idea out of my head. Now of course lyrically the two songs are nothing alike, but if you sing "Sunflower" in your head while listening to "You Need to Calm Down," the two connect perfectly. Someone could do a mashup of these two songs and it would work rather perfectly. After laughing about this, my next thought was that "Sunflower" is a much better song. Musically, I still stand by that. "Sunflower" is a much catchier song that will get stuck in my head for weeks. And again, I give credit to Swae Lee for that. Post Malone's section is as boring as tar and he gets way too much credit for the song while people actually forget that it's Swae Lee's singing that they're all jamming out to. Meanwhile, "You Need to Calm Down" is a song that just kinda exists for Taylor Swift. I look back at her discography and this is not a song that I don't think I'll remember that much.

However, when the music video premiered a few days after the song debuted, it added a little more complexity to the song. Yes, I caught the line "'Cause shade never made anybody less gay" when I first listened to it, but it was the music video that helped me fully connect to the idea that this song is targeted at all the people not a part of the LGBT+ movement. Specifically Taylor is throwing shade at all the people throwing out negative energy to the LGBT+ community, telling them that they need to calm down and shut up. This is a nice sentiment, I suppose. But I don't think Taylor really sticks the landing. It's a much better music video than it is a song. Without said music video, I don't think the song makes much of an impact. Instead of being super specific and direct, she just finds various ways to kindly and vaguely tell people to calm down, despite trying to sound like she has attitude with her vocal delivery. Thus this doesn't cut deep at all. And before I heard said line about shade never making anybody less gay, it almost sounded like she was attacking people who were harassing her personally as opposed to taking a stance against LGBT+ hate crimes. So she's trying to make a statement with the song, yet neither the song nor the statement really jumps off the page. We could also probably get into the idea of Taylor Swift, a straight woman as far as I know (unless she's coming out as bisexual with this song's release), singing an LGBT+ anthem, but given that I don't feel qualified to comment on that as a straight male, I'm going to side step that and let other people discuss. Though I would be curious to know what my friends from the LGBT+ community think about this.

7- "Money in the Grave" - Drake featuring Rick Ross -- Two weeks ago I said that Drake should release a celebratory anthem if the Raptors win the NBA title in hopes that a song like that might get enough traction to dethrone "Old Town Road." Well, Drake released a double single following the Raptors' victory with an NBA Finals trophy as the artwork, but the song has nothing to do with the Raptors, basketball, or Drake being excited about the win. In fact, Drake sounded quite bored as he lazily sang about money and riches. That was disappointing. I listened to about half of this song on the day it was released and that was enough for me.

35- "Omerta" - Drake -- I listened to half of "Money in the Grave." After being disappointed with that, I didn't bother with "Omerta."

75- "Down Bad" - Dreamville featuring JID, Bas, J. Cole, EARTHGANG & Young Nudy -- Oh man. I know none of this guys except for J. Cole. But with names like that, I'm going to just skip this song and move onto the next one.

80- "Sanctuary" - Joji -- Remember this guy? I didn't. I thought it was a new artist. But no, it's the guy who got "Slow Dancing in the Dark" to chart earlier this year. I had forgotten about that song. And Joji is the guy that used to be Filthy Frank or Pink Guy on YouTube. He started the "Harlem Shake" craze. Oh yeah. That guy. With that context in mind, how is his second charting song "Sanctuary"? Well, like "Slow Dancing in the Dark," it's slow and melodic, with a slight electric groove to it. I also don't know how memorable the song is going to be moving forward. There's nothing really special to it, both musically and lyrically. But it's also perfectly harmless. If this were to gain traction, I'd be fine with it. I'm curious to see if Joji can actually manage to get a breakout single and vault himself into musical stardom. That would be a cool story.

92- "Rescue Me" - Marshmello featuring A Day to Remember -- Marshello has had some interesting collaboration choices recently. He's gone back and forth from featuring mainstream artists to then teaming up with less mainstream acts. On the latter side of things, he most recently got CHVRCHES to get their first Hot 100 debut and now he does the same thing with A Day to Remember, a metalcore/pop punk band that have had six studio albums and have shown up plenty on the alternative charts and rock charts, but not on the U.S. Hot 100. And I know very little about them, so I'm not going to try to sound all fancy with this one, but Marshmello also has a habit of taking bands or artists like these and watering them down with his typical bland EDM stuff. I often enjoy the music as harmless fun, but I'm not sure what ADTR fans are actually going to think of this, but Marshmello did appear to bring the whole band on board this time instead of just recruiting the lead singer for the vocals an already-produced Marshmello beat. We get lead singer Jeremy McKinnon starting things off what actually sounds like real guitars and drums mixed in with Marhsmello's EDM mix. The lyrics aren't anything special. Jeremy is singing about how finding this person helped rescue him. We've heard stuff like that a thousand times and this doesn't bring anything new to the table. But musically it is an interesting rock/EDM mix that I think is enjoyable enough. Again, I have no idea how this compares to ADTR's other stuff. Maybe it ends up being offensive and blasphemous. But I'm going to play the ignorant card here because I don't feel like lying and saying I've known this band my whole life. Perhaps I'll check them out later, though.

97- "It's You" - Ali Gatie -- I'm not sure where this guy came from. But yeah, when I saw this charting, I thought it was a new female singer on the charts. But no, it's Ali as in Prince Ali from "Aladdin," not Ali is in short for Alexandra. I'm guessing he has some sort of Middle Eastern heritage based on the artwork for this single including some Arabic lettering and the fact that he looks like he's from there, but he's actually from Toronto and has started to become popular via places like SoundCloud, TikTok and Spotify. Now he breaks out onto the Hot 100 for the first time. And this song is certainly acceptable. It's a simple pop love song that's fairly stripped down. He's singing about falling in love with this person while begging said person to not break his heart. So yeah, that's nothing special. I probably won't rave over this guy as being my new favorite singer, but I'm certainly always accepting of new people being brought onto the Hot 100 if they have talent and this guy certainly does. I like his voice. I like his style. And this is song that I would put on in the car in order to introduce people to a new artist. If the radio wants to pick up on this and make this guy a breakout star, I think that would be cool. He reminds me a bit of Khalid and I say that as a compliment.

100- "The Ones That Didn't Make It Back Home" - Justin Moore -- All these country singers often blend together for me. I see a name like Justin Moore and I'm not sure if it's a guy who charted something last month or a guy who hasn't charted anything in three years. Turns out Justin Moore is the later. He made it onto the country charts in 2017, but hasn't crossed over to the Hot 100 since 2016. In 2015 he released the song "You Look Like I Need a Drink." That was my "Ah ha!" moment with this song. Because that line confuses me. Anyways, the title "The Ones That Didn't Make It Back Home" did sound like it had potential. It could be a military tribute of sorts. And that's exactly what this is. It's a tribute to soldiers who didn't make it home... done in very generic country style, making me conflicted over the song. Justin Moore brings his heavy twang and cowboy hat to a song with a strong southern rock beat that sounds like every other country song I've ever heard. If this had more of a toned back, mellow beat to it that fit more of a somber tribute, I think I could get behind this one. But as such, it has nice lyrics, but that's about it. But even then, mixed in with the tribute to lost soldiers is a lot of generically country stuff. So I'm not going to ever gravitate towards this song, though I don't think I'll be angry if it sticks around.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - June 22, 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- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (=) -- The countdown to the record continues this week as "Old Town Road" gets its 11th week at No. 1. The all-time record for most weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 is 16 weeks, held by "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito." Just five more weeks to tie the record and six more weeks to beat it. Surprisingly, this is the first week that "Old Town Road" has actually shown signs of weakness as it drops 14 percent in streaming to 99.9 million U.S. streams and 18 percent in sales to 71,000 downloads sold. Those streaming numbers narrowly miss the 100 million U.S. streams mark, which is the first time its fallen below that mark in nine weeks. Granted, even though the song did take a hit this week, it's going to need to continue like this and have another huge debut come out and steal its throne in order for it to fall short, and neither of those are guaranteed. Interestingly enough, last week I mentioned that if the Raptors win the NBA title, Drake should release a single to celebrate that gets big enough to top "Old Town Road." I had no hints that said thing was going to actually happens. The Raptors did win the title and Drake did release a double pack of singles that are set to hit the charts next week. Both songs suck and have nothing to do with the Raptors winning, outside the cover art being an NBA title trophy, but one of the songs, "Money in the Grave" has been No. 1 on Apple Music and Spotify for most of the week, so its set to have a great streaming debut. Is it going to be enough? I doubt it. But we'll see. Taylor Swift is going to take another jab at the top with "You Need to Calm Down." Personally I'm skeptic of that even making a top 10 debut.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- Billboard in their weekly article didn't actually provide numbers for how far behind "bad guy" is of "Old Town Road." Although I'm not sure it matters at this point. Unfortunately Billie has zero chance of topping "Old Town Road" in time unless "Old Town Road" randomly falls off the face of the earth in the next month. I'm just happy that Billie continues to be at this runner-up spot.

3- "Talk" - Khalid (=) -- I'm also still happy to see Khalid at No. 3 this week. This song is now the top song on the radio, so congratulations. That's Khalid's first radio No. 1.

4- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (+1) -- The Jonas Brothers' new album "Happiness Begins" was released on June 7, impacting the charts this week. That's the reason for this song boosting up to No. 4. It also helped "Cool" jump up a bit. The only new debut from the album was "Only Human." I'll be talking about that down below. I don't have a huge desire to go listen to the full album. I'll just take the singles as they come.

5- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (-1) -- Ed and Justin slip down just one spot, although that's more or less because of "Sucker" getting a boost from the album release. I could see the two songs swapping spots again next week because I don't know how much life "Sucker" has left in it, at least when it comes to the top five.

6- "Wow." - Post Malone (=) -- Post Malone remains stationed at No. 6 and No. 7 this week. And we really need to figure out a way to get this song out of here.

7- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (=) -- I've actually had this song stuck in my head for a good portion of the last few days. On Monday I re-watched "Spider-Verse." And I also listened to Taylor Swift's new song, which sounds a lot like "Sunflower." Those two things combined to getting this song ingrained in my head. And I'm fine with that. But for the record, I give almost all of the credit on this one to Swae Lee, not Post Malone.

8- "Suge" - DaBaby (=) -- Glad this didn't rise any. But let's get it to fall back down.

9- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (new) -- Excuse me while I throw up.

10- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (-1) -- "Sweet but Psycho" sadly got pushed out of the top 10 this week and "Dancing with a Stranger" is probably not too far behind. Both songs have been heavily reliant on radio, which makes me glad that at least the radio has their priorities straight at the moment.

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Pop Out" - Polo G featuring Lil Tjay (+11) -- This is gross. But it probably has enough momentum to push "Dancing with a Stranger" out next week. That means I have to deal with "Suge" and "Pop Out" both being in the top 10.

12- "If I Can't Have You" - Shawn Mendes (+2) -- After notching a top five debut, Shawn Mendes is slowly trying to climb his way back into the top 10. And he has a good chance of getting there, I think. He's currently doing better than Taylor Swift's "ME!," which doesn't seem to have a whole lot of momentum at the moment.

17- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+4) -- I'm totally fine with this song doing well. In fact, I would prefer it over "Suge" and "Pop Out" by a mile.

22- "Beer Never Broke My Heart" - Luke Combs (+16) -- This isn't going to get too much higher. "Whiskey Glasses" and "God's Country" both shot into the top 20 within the last few weeks, but then stalled out as expected. In order to breakthrough to the top 10, a country song needs some serious crossover with pop radio and I have huge doubts that this song is the one to get that.

31- "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" - Panic! At the Disco (+8) -- Believe it or not, "High Hopes" is actually still higher than this song. It's currently camped out at No. 21. "Hey Look Ma" is slowly closing the gap, though, to be the highest charting Panic! song. Although it doesn't look like it has a ton of momentum. I'm doubting that this comes to be anywhere close as popular as "High Hopes." And it doesn't really deserve to be.

33- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+15) -- Was there some sort of country thing recently that shot up a bunch of country songs or is it just normal country radio turnover time?

34- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (+9) -- I have no idea why this song jumped up nine spots this week. But I'm really glad that it has. It's impressive that this song has managed to gain a life of its own beyond "A Star is Born."

44- "Cool" - Jonas Brothers (+15) -- This song has actually been hanging around towards the bottom of the charts after it collapses following its debut. But instead of falling off, it's slowly started to work its way back up, which is really unfortunate. However, as I said with "Sucker," this jump is only because of the album release. I expect that this will fall back down a bit next week.

65- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+28) -- Gross.

68- "Rearview Town" - Jason Aldean (+20) -- Again, was there some sort of country thing that boosted these songs. Because that's a large jump for three different country songs.

89- "Trampoline" - SHAED (+10) -- I've had this song stuck in my head all week ever since its debut last week. Part of the week I even forgot which song it was that I was singing. The chorus of the song just got subconsciously stuck in my head to the point that I was singing it all week without even thinking about it. That's a great sign moving forward through this year. Songs that stick around in my head are the songs that end up being highlights of the year. So if you haven't yet heard this song yet, do yourself a favor and fix that. And if this song becomes huge, know that I loved it ever since it charted in mid-June. I would love to be able to include it in this section every week.

New Arrivals:

9- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake -- I usually cover songs that debut in the top 10, even if they suck. But for crying out loud this is Chris Brown. He doesn't deserve even one stream from me.

62- "Even Though I'm Leaving" - Luke Combs -- Wait, Luke Combs is leaving! Hallelujah, praise the Lord almighty! Oh wait... he just wrote a song about him leaving. Dangit. Yeah, you can tell that after "Beer Never Broke My Heart" how I excited I was to check out a new Luke Combs song. And, OK. This song is significantly better than that one. It's a mostly toned back that talks about a child being scared of his daddy leaving. But Luke assures his son that even though he's leaving, he's not going anywhere. Which... mostly makes sense. Although I really was curious to know where it is that Luke is going. He just says Uncle Sam is taking him away and he can't call or anything. I suppose if I thought hard enough about it or looked it up on Genius, I could figure it out. But eh. I have other songs to get to and stressing over Luke Combs lyrics that he doesn't make clear enough is not something I really care to do.

66- "The Git Up" - Blanco Brown -- I had no idea what to expect with this when I saw it on the charts. I don't know who Blanco Brown is and just looking at the song title, I wasn't sure what genre this was. When I pressed play, I couldn't help but laugh. This is one of those instructional line dance songs where the whole song is dance instructions. No, not like "Gangnum Style" or "Macarena" where a dance was created to go with the song. This is like "Cha Cha Slide" by Mr. C, aka DJ Casper. There's already a viral challenge via TikTok and YouTube and a video with Blanco Brown himself giving instructions on how to do his dance. I mean, of course there is. Normally I get mad at these music challenges because none of them make sense. But this one is kinda built for that. This song is meant for dance parties where everyone gets together and does the line dance with Blanco Brown as he tells them what moves to do. Part of me thinks this got popular because of "Old Town Road," because it's kind of a country/rap mix, but it's mostly just deep, twangy country vocals with shouts throughout. But said shouts aren't annoying like Migos rap songs. Thus I can't get mad at this. The song itself has no depth in the lyrics, but it's not meant to have that. It's not dirty. It's not offensive. It's just a song for people to have fun with at dance parties as they all dance together for a few minutes. And it has all the ingredients to be a mega hit in 2019. If it blows up like I think it might, just remember that you heard it here first in mid-June.

69- "Callaita" - Bad Bunny & Tainy -- I saw this title and got excited because I thought I knew what that meant. But it turns out I wasn't quite right. I was thinking of "cállate," which means "shut up." Essentially. I use that all the time when I want people to be quiet. But that's not quite what "callaita" means. Google translate didn't help me out very much until I looked up the actually words of the song and learned that Bad Bunny is singing "ella e' calla'íta," which Google tells me means "she is quiet." Anyways, this is probably where Google Translate is not a very good tool. It's something along those lines. But I got close. As far as the song goes, yeah I'm not interested. Bad Bunny just mumbles his way through Spanish songs. His music sucks. And I can't understand his lyrics. But I translated the whole chorus and this song is apparently trash anyways.

83- "Heaven" - Avicii -- Featuring the vocals of Chris Martin. But Avicii never liked to draw attention to big name artists. He wanted his songs to be about the music, not about the person he was collaborating with. So Chris Martin isn't officially given a featured credit. But this song specifically came about due to the Coldplay sessions when Avicii was working with the band. They've already had several songs together, but this was a song that never fully materialized until after Avicii died. It was a mutual decision by both camps. Chris Martin wanted to get it done and so did Avicii's team. So they made it happen. As far as Avicii's new posthumous album, I really like it. It doesn't seem like something done to get money. It's seems like a labor of love. People wanting to finish an album that Avicii didn't quite finish himself before he died. As far as this song goes, having it called "Heaven" brings an extra layer of somber feelings for obvious reasons. Chris Martin sings the lyrics, "I think I just died and went to Heaven," which makes me want to burst out in tears. Although I don't think the song was necessarily intended on being a song that reflects on Avicii's life. It's a love song. Chris Martin sings that he's feeling down in the dumps with life, but when he meets this girl, he feels like he just died and went to Heaven because he's now been lifted up by her love. So had this song been released before Avicii's death, I still think it would've been a great song. But with the added tragedy that was Avicii, it becomes something even more.

Now although I'm glad to see this song charting, the song from the album that I really want to chart is "Heart Upon My Sleeve" featuring Imagine Dragons because I have a lot to say about that one. But I'll save said thoughts for when it does chart.

87- "Please Tell Me" - Future -- Future released an album? Glad to see that it barely made an impact on the charts. He can take his mumble rap and go burn in musical Hell.

92- "Amor Genuino" - Ozuna -- No question with this title. Genuine love. And given that Ozuna is way better than Bad Bunny, I actually listened to this whole song. No, I didn't understand it any better. But it's a much more relaxing song. It's a piano ballad from Ozuna. About halfway through the song, it starts to speed up a bit and I'm wondering if it's going to transform into an all-out dance song, but then it slows back down and ends on a sweet note. I'm assuming these lyrics and romantic and sweet. If they're not, Ozuna certainly does a great job of making them sound romantic. No, I won't do a deep dive with this, but as an outsider looking in, this works well for me on a first listen.

93- "Only Human" - Jonas Brothers -- We've gone one for two so far on the Jonas Brothers' new album. "Sucker" is a fun song. "Cool" is a pretty bad song. "Only Human" manages to land somewhere in between, but leaning more towards "Sucker." I wouldn't say it's an instant smash hit like "Sucker" was. And the lyrics aren't anything to write home about. But I suppose the Jonas Brothers have never really been known for their lyrics. They know their target audience and the give said audience exactly what they want, so props to that I suppose. I'm just not a part of said target audience, so I personally need a bit more if I'm going to rave about a song. Where "Only Human" works is the wide variety of instrumentation. Genius has listed credits for all sorts of various brass, winds and percussion that fit together quite well to make a decent groove. If we get an actual second single from this album following "Sucker," I would prefer this over "Cool" any day of the week.

98- "XanaX Damage" - Future -- Nope.

99- "Government Official" - Future -- Nope.  

100- "Otro Trago" - Sech featuring Darell -- Our third Spanish song of the week. And if we're playing this title game again, I didn't quite get this one. "Otro" is obviously other or another. But what does he want another of? Oh. A drink. "Another Drink." That's the title. That's not an encouraging start, but I went into this more open minded because I didn't know the styles of Sech or Darell. And Apple Music informed me that the song is explicit? That's also not a good sign. That means the lyrics are probably bad, even though I can't understand them. To be honest, though, Sech's parts were just fine. If it was only him on the song, I think I could be fine with this in judging him by his vocals and the beat of the song. But then Darell comes in and starts spitting at me. That's the best I could describe it. When he takes over the verse, it's completely trash. Like one of our punk rapper friends who has no idea how to sing. Thus the extremely conflicting tones and red flags that tell me that the lyrics are probably awful just combine to make a song that I would rather see disappear from the charts.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - June 15, 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- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (=) -- It's now double digits at No. 1 for "Old Town Road" with 10 weeks. I was hoping to avoid this conversation for as long as possible, but now it needs to be brought up. "Old Town Road" is only six weeks away from tying the all-time record for most weeks at No. 1, which is currently a tie between "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber and "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men, both having reigned 16 weeks. And here's what scares me. The numbers for "Old Town Road" AREN'T BUDGING. Usually when a song gets to 10 weeks at No. 1, you can see signs of weakness and thus you can predict that it doesn't have much longer left. But "Old Town Road" has now had nine straight weeks of 100+ million U.S. streams. This week it was essentially even compared to last week with 115.6 million U.S. streams. It's up 7 percent in sales to 87,000 downloads sold and is up 3 percent in radio with 98.3 million audience impressions. Billie Eilish in second place has 39.9 million U.S. streams (up 3 percent), 23,000 in sales (up 16 percent), and 44.1 million in radio audience (up 15 percent). So she's gaining a lot faster in the latter two categories, but "Old Town Road" has nearly three times as much streaming, four times as much sales and twice as much radio. There's six weeks for those margins to change. Billie Eilish isn't going to do it and neither is anything else in the top 10 right now. So what is? We need a huge debut from someone and so far all the big debuts in the last month or two haven't even come close. I mean, where's Drake when you need him? Maybe if the Raptors win the NBA Finals this week, he can write some sort of celebration song that becomes huge.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- I just talked about this song's numbers in the previous section. The short recap here is that it's way too far behind "Old Town Road" to catch the song in time, but I love how it continues to soar on radio and is even doing really well in sales while holding steady on streaming. It looks like it's going to be hanging around in the runner-up spot for a while, which I'm ecstatic about. If this winds up being one of the top songs of 2019, I'll be one happy person.

3- "Talk" - Khalid (=) -- Khalid also staying strong in the third spot. I'm not sure if he's going to catch Billie, but having these two songs in the spots right below the top alleviates the pain of "Old Town Road" refusing to die.

4- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (=) -- This song staying at No. 4 is a good sign that maybe this will be able to stabilize after all? I don't know, we'll have to see what happens in future weeks. I'd certainly be surprised if an Ed Sheeran and Just Bieber collaboration quickly faded away.

5- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (=) -- Rounding out the top, well, yeah, everything is just stuck right now. And I'm totally fine with all of that, except for that top song, of course. This sort of thing often happens where the top five just gets cemented in for a while. And things certainly could be a lot worse. Although when things do get stuck like this, I often struggle with new, creative things to say each week.

6- "Wow." - Post Malone (+1) -- Post Malone's two songs really confuse me. They keep flip-flopping. Logic says that "Sunflower" is going to drop out first because it's been around for longer, but at this point I don't know. Perhaps the two songs will just continue to dance around like this until new songs push them out.

7- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- I'm sure Post Malone continues to enjoy his spot of top song of the year thus far. Although if no one kicks out "Old Town Road," at some point that's going to pass "Sunflower," but it still has a couple of months before we talk about that.

8- "Suge" - DaBaby (+1) -- I'm still upset that this song is in the top 10. It's like a little cockroach climbing up the wall. Someone needs to smash it so it can go away.

9- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (-1) -- I like having this song around. I hope it can hang on for a few more weeks even though it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of momentum at this point.

10- "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max (=) -- Consistently staying at No. 10 makes me content here. I'm mostly just glad it finally made it. But I would love it if this song would be able to sneak up a few spots, especially since several of these songs in the bottom half of the top 10 don't seem super stable at the moment.

Rising on the Hot 100:

21- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+5) -- The teens are about as boring as the top 10 this week, so our top riser that is included is here at No. 21. And I have no problem with this. I had a feeling that this could connect in a big way for a lot of people.

22- "Pop Out" - Polo G featuring Lil Tjay (+5) -- Gross. Let's please not let this in the top 10. We already have one cockroach there this week.

32- "Look What God Gave Her" - Thomas Rhett (+12) -- I'm never surprised to see a Thomas Rhett song rising on the charts. But I'm not typically super happy about it. Occasionally he surprises me with a good country pop song, but not this time around.

47- "Miss Me More" - Kelsea Ballerini (+5) -- Now that's more like it! If we're going to push a country song, let's show Kelsea Ballerini more love. It's great to see her enter the top 50 this week. I think this song is a lot of fun with a lot of personality. 

57- "Love Someone" - Brett Eldredge (+15) -- Nope, we're back to boring country here.

58- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+15) -- I don't know if I should be surprised or not to see this song doing well so far. Sometimes these worldwide hits don't crossover well, but this is an excellent pop song that I think fits perfectly for pop radio, so I'm ready to see it go even higher.

64- "Knockin' Boots" - Luke Bryan (+10) -- More boring country.

66- "Girls Need Love" - Summer Walker & Drake (+13) -- Oh hey. Did anyone remember that this song exists? Given that it's Drake, I'm surprised that it hasn't caught on more, but I'm not overly disappointed. To me it makes sense that this has struggled to catch on as it's been unable to get past the bottom half of the Hot 100.

New Arrivals:

15- "Never Really Over" - Katy Perry -- Here's a fun story. One of my friends recently met Katy Perry. I saw that and thought it was super cool. But then I have to turn around and talk about Katy Perry's new song, me having not met Katy Perry. But it made me think. What would I think of this song if I had met Katy Perry? I know when I interviewed Colbie Caillet for her "Malibu Sessions" album during my Deseret News internship I ended up loving the album. But there was a personal bias there. And I was sad that Colbie didn't even get a single song from that album to even chart. Anyways, all of that aside, this song is fine. It feels like Katy trying to go back to her previous style before whatever the heck that "Witness" garbage was. I mean, "Never Really Over" is miles ahead of "Swish Swish" and "Bon Appetit" in terms of quality. But I don't know. I don't really gravitate towards this song too much. Maybe part of that is I have no idea who Katy is singing about. It's your basic, generic breakup song where she can't get herself to get over this guy, but Katy is currently engaged to Orlando Bloom. So it kinda feels like Katy simply wrote something that she thought would connect with people rather than writing something personal. It's upbeat and poppy enough for me to be fine with it if it plays on the radio. And musically there's several things that I kinda like. But I don't know. If I'm looking over Katy's discography 10 years from now, I don't know if it's a song I'll ever really turn to or remember existed, if that makes sense.

16- "Press" - Cardi B -- I'll make you a deal. If this gains traction and enters the top 10, I'll give it a listen. As is, I know what I'm getting out of a Cardi song and it's not my thing.

54- "Mother's Daughter" - Miley Cyrus -- Here's something random, but after watching the recent season of "Black Mirror," I really want Miley to release a heavy metal album. That performance at the end of the episode was pretty boss. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I apologize. I probably said too much. But I had to throw that out there. But back to real Miley and not "Black Mirror" Miley, this girl has had one of the strangest careers. Each new album or EP is a much different experience and I'm often on a different side of the fence each time. I loved country Miley and I would love to see her stay in that lane, but this latest 6-track EP titled "SHE IS COMING" seems to call back to her 2013 days where she was completely off the rocker. I listened to the whole thing and wasn't really impressed. I will say that this little project does feel more refined and mature rather than her doing things just for the sake of attention. But it's still not my favorite type of Miley. It is strange to see her dad doing better than her on the charts right now and thus I'm not surprised to see her throw something together so we can have two Cyruses on the charts. But "Mother's Daughter" just doesn't really stick with me. It's better than some of the other songs from the EP and if you like "Bangerz" Miley, you'll like this. But I'll stick to "Malibu" and other songs from "Younger Now."

67- "Call You Mine" - The Chainsmokers & Bebe Rexha -- Kudos to The Chainsmokers for their persistence, right? The world seems to have moved on from them, but yet they're trying their best to stay relevant with a constant stream of releases featuring big name artists. They just can't get anything to stick. Although if they're going to continue to try, Bebe Rexha is a good voice to add as she typical meshes quite well with EDM songs. Before she broke out into the mainstream, I knew her as the featured vocals on songs like "Take Me Home" by Cash Cash or "Hey Mama" by David Guetta. With "Call You Mine," she's definitely trying her best with the song and lyrically this has more depth or detail than your typical song from The Chainsmokers, so she definitely carries this song to being acceptable, but The Chainsmokers didn't do her very many favors with the song that they've crafted around her. When we get to the point in the song where I feel we should've dropped hard and made this a fun song, the song simply eases into a sort-of-drop and feels very basic everywhere else. I don't think The Chainsmokers put much effort into this and I miss the days where they actually cared to craft awesome music that was fun to dance to. If this were to stick around, I'd have no problem with that. But I don't think it will. And I also don't think I'll miss it too much.

70- "The Search" - NF -- If you couldn't tell, I skip a lot of rap these days. But NF is someone I'm curious enough to check out. I don't know if he's necessarily the most memorable rapper, but I enjoyed "Let You Down" in 2017 and I appreciate the fact that he hasn't given into all the stupid rap tropes from popular rap these days. He simply just raps and he raps about things he cares about. He kinda reminds me of a lower scale Eminem. Now "The Search" is one big verse that goes on for four minutes and I don't know how much direction it has as a whole. It feels more like him freestyling his feelings about life. But he has great flow and a decent rhyming scheme. The song also has a really good beat to it. These things combine to make a rap song that is actually fun to listen to, which is something I rarely say about rap music these days. Although there is a point in the song where he says, "You can call me what you wanna, but never call me forgettable." I had to stop the song and laugh for a second. He is kinda forgettable. But I'll take decent, yet forgettable over most other rap.

91- "Shut up About Politics" - John Rich featuring The Five -- Haha. Now there's a relatable song title. I actually like politics and I enjoy being involved, but it does get rather exhausting at times. Many friendships have been ruined over differences in political views, so yeah I get it. Oh, the song? Yeah, sorry about that. I'll get myself back on track. I had no idea what to expect here because I had no idea who these two acts are. I was kinda disappointed to press play and discover that I was listening to a generic country song. I'll admit, though, that the song is amusing enough to be entertaining. If you're ever in a room with people in a heated discussion about politics and you want to move onto something different, you could just press play on this song. You might even get a laugh from others. No, the song has no substance or depth outside that. John Rich is just telling people to shut up about politics and come drink whiskey with him. That's it. In researching this John Rich guy, I learned he was a member of the country group Lonestar back in the 90's, but left the year BEFORE they released "Amazed." Lonestar went onto become a huge sensation in the 2000's while John Rich was one half of the due Big & Rich, an act that has only broke the top 50 of the Hot 100 once. How's that for timing? This is John Rich's second solo appearance on the Hot 100. The other one, "Shuttin' Detroit Down," peaked at No. 75 on the Hot 100 in 2009.

92- "La La Land" - Bryce Vine featuring YG -- "La La Land" is still a great movie and I will defend it against the haters. If Bryce and YG were singing about said movie, then props. But I highly doubt it. I've listened to this Bryce dude before and I've had enough.

93- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca -- Problem No. 1. He used a dollar sign in place of an s. Problem No. 2. He starts his name with Lil. No, I don't know who this guy is, but given these two problems, I don't want to know.

94- "Enemy Arms" - Trippie Redd -- Definitely no.

97- "Raised on Country" - Chris Young -- Hmmm... raised on country I was not. Talk like Yoda, I sometimes do. If you were raised on country, then you will probably love this song because it purposely hits every single country trope there is. Kudos for being self-aware, both in style and in the lyrics. I can see this being huge because of that. But it's not my thing. Too many cliche country things crammed into one song.

99- "Trampoline" - SHAED --  Like "Shut up About Politics," I also had no idea what to expect here given that I don't have any idea who SHAED is. Unlike "Shut up About Politics," though, I was pleasantly surprised when I pressed play. SHAED is not a he or a she. It's a them. They're an electro-pop trio. Twins Spencer and Max Ernst began making music, I'm guessing from a young age, but officially formed a duo in high school. After years of not much luck, they eventually went onto forming the rock duo The Walking Sticks in 2011. Chelsea Lee, who had dated one of the brothers, joined them in 2013. They eventually completely changed their style and changed their name to SHAED in 2016. And now in 2019, they have charted their very first single on the U.S. Hot 100. Of course it only makes sense that this first charted in other countries. It's done well in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland. It was also used in a commercial for Macbook Air in October 2018. So that's your history lesson regarding this group and song. I just learned all of that myself so I felt like sharing. As far as my thoughts on the song itself, it has a beautiful simplicity to it. I love Chelsea Lee's vocals and the two brothers do a good job of crafting a groovy song around those vocals. I don't know if the lyrics are anything groundbreaking, but Chelsea singing about jumping on a trampoline and comparing that to life puts some solid imagery into my head and the whistles of the song fit quite well. So yeah, this is one of those fun, relaxing electro-pop songs that makes me want to go listen to what else SHAED has done. This is also why I love doing this each week. Even though I have to wade through a lot of nonsense, occasionally I stumble over something like this that makes it all worth it.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - June 8, 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- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (=) -- Well, the streaming for this song is down 12 percent compared to last week when the official music video boosted it even more. The problem, though, is that said streaming total is STILL over 100 million U.S. streams for the eighth straight week now. I don't get why this song is being streamed this much. It's ridiculous. What's worse is that sales and radio are both up from last week as well, so who knows how long this will be here. I want something new, but that's not going to happen any time soon.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (+1) -- Even though "Old Town Road" is going to be No. 1 for what seems like another decade, at least we have an excellent runner-up this week. Streaming and sales remain steady for Billie while the radio continues to gain momentum. The song is up 29 percent on radio to 38.2 million audience impressions, good enough for a 35-22 jump on the radio charts this week. That continued momentum will most likely keep her put at this No. 2 spot for a while, which is great.

3- "Talk" - Khalid (+2) -- I think we've found our top three trio of songs for the time being. And I'm totally cool with two of the three. It helps ease the pain of "Old Town Road" becoming one of the most dominate songs in the history of streaming.

4- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (-2) -- Ed and Justin don't have as much momentum with this song as they would probably like, which is why they got pushed down by both Billie Eilish and Khalid. And I'm not super confident in this song's ability to stick around in the top five. Luckily the four songs right below it at the moment aren't super strong, either, but we do have two new songs next week from Katy Perry and Cardi B respectively that some people think will debut in the top 10. Those songs could be strong enough to push this song down. We'll see how that pans out next week.

5- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (-1) -- We'll also have to see what happens with the Jonas Brothers. They're remaining stable with this song thanks to strong radio, which they earned a fifth week at No. 1 on those charts this week. But that's pretty much all they have at this point, which is why they're slowly starting to slip away. However, I could see a scenario where the song jumps ahead of "I Don't Care."

6- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+1) -- Here's a twist. The two Post Malone songs switch spots. This probably has less to do with "Sunflower" gaining traction and more to do with "Wow." losing traction. That's a win in my books. "Sunflower" I'm still fine with. "Wow." I want gone.

7- "Wow." - Post Malone (-1) -- See previous comment.

8- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (=) -- Sam Smith and Normani hang on to this No. 8 spot. However, I don't know how much longer they will be able to do so since, like the Jonas Brothers, radio is all they have.

9- "Suge" - DaBaby (+5) -- Excuse me while I go throw up. Seeing this song here doesn't surprise me by any means. But it also doesn't make me happy. The song has powerful streaming and decent enough radio that it could stick around, which is an awful thought. I'd rather see it quickly peak and disappear like "Thotiana" by Blueface.

10- "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max (=) -- It's great to see Ava Max here for a second straight week. She doesn't have a whole lot of positive momentum with this song, so I don't know how much higher this will get, but the good thing is that it is stable enough to hang around in the general area. She held off a debut from Young Thug, which landed just below the top 10. And with "Suge" shooting up high, it was Taylor Swift that took the hit and fell out of the top 10 and not Ava Max. We'll see what happens with Katy and Cardi next week, but hopefully this song can stick around and rise a few spots.

Rising on the Hot 100:

16- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+2) -- With the two album bombs from last week tanking this week, especially the Tyler, The Creator album, lots of songs are in this section this week. "Happier" leads the charge even though it's not really rising. It's just a whole lot more stable than some of the other songs that disappeared.

17- "Whiskey Glasses" - Morgan Wallen (+9) -- We now have two country songs in the top 20 and now I'm curious to know how high they can get. Even the best country songs end up peaking in the teens. Very rarely do you get one like "Body Like a Back Road" that creeps into the top 10. Can Morgan Wallen do it? I hope not. But I suppose it wouldn't be any worse than "Suge" in the top 10.

19- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+3) -- I will gladly put "High Hopes" back on this list, even if it's only for this week. I still enjoy the song. I never got sick of it.

20- "God's Country" - Blake Shelton (+4) -- Here's our second country song in the top 20. This is the first time Blake Shelton has hit the top 20 since 2013, so that's a big milestone for him. And like I just said with "Whiskey Glasses," I'm not sure that either of these songs will get a whole lot higher than this, but if I had to choose one of them to do well, it would most certainly be "God's Country." At least it's a fun country song.

22- "Con Calma" - Daddy Yankee & Katy Perry featuring Snow (+5) -- We'll have plenty to talk about with Katy Perry next week. Maybe her new song will even give this one an added boost. But ever since Daddy Yankee added her onto this song, this has slowly crept up the charts and now its knocking on the door to the top 20. I imagine it will get there as soon as next week and I'm fine with that. This song isn't anything special, but it's a fun pop song. Out of all of these Latino artists, Daddy Yankee is one that at least knows how to put together a fun groove and Katy fits in with him well enough.

26- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+12) -- I have no qualms with this song doing well. I can see the appeal and I will gladly accept it, even if it's personally not my cup of tea.

40- "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" - Panic! At the Disco (+7) -- This is the lesser of the two Panic! songs in this section right now. Maybe that's why the song isn't getting a ton of momentum at the moment. But I'll still accept this. A second rate Panic! song is still better than a lot of the songs doing well right now.

44- "Look What God Gave Her" - Thomas Rhett (+5) -- This is a no from me.

47- "Close Friends" - Lil Baby (+12) -- I don't like seeing this one in the top 50.

53- "Go Loko" - YG, Tyga & Jon Z (+39) -- I don't think I've listened to this one yet. And I still don't care to. I know what I'm getting out of YG and Tyga and it isn't good.

70- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+10) -- We'll have to wait and see if this song is actually gaining momentum or if it's just rising due to the album bomb thing. But I would love for this to do well. Also, I watched the music video just now and I noticed Peter Capaldi from "Doctor Who" is in it. So I had to look up their relationship. And no, it's not a father/son thing. But the two are second cousins once removed. So that's cool.

72- "Love Someone" - Brett Eldredge (+11) -- "Someone You Loved" gets followed by "Love Someone." That's a fun coincidence. I'm not a fan of this song, but it's not super high yet, so no complaining at this moment.

75- "24/7" - Meek Mill featuring Ella Mai (+12) -- Was this from Meek Mill's album bomb that I avoided? Probably. Now Meek Mill and Ella Mai probably aren't the worst combination, but I still don't feel like covering this just yet.

78- "Talk You Out of It" - Florida Georgia Line (+11) -- This is a no from me.

80- "Calma" - Pedro Capo & Farruko (+16) -- I'm also going to give this one a nope.

83- "All to Myself" - Dan + Shay (+10) -- OK, fine. I'll give people this one. It's only in the 80's, so we don't know if it's going to be a country hit just yet, but it's alright.

85- "Baila Baila Baila" - Ozuna, Daddy Yankee, J Balvin, Farruko, & Anuel AA (+14) -- Yeah, this one's a whole lot worse than that other Latino song I just gave a nope to. Let's not make this song a thing. The only reason there's so many voices on this song is to get more money and all of them will probably unashamedly admit to that.

New Arrivals:

12- "The London" - Young Thug, J. Cole & Travis Scott -- Glad we dodged this bullet. I was worried this would debut in the top 10. Thankfully it didn't because it would've kicked out "Sweet but Psycho." And no, I don't care enough to cover this song.

34- "Cross Me" - Ed Sheeran featuring Chance the Rapper & PnB Rock -- I like Ed Sheeran and I'm totally fine with him and Justin's collaboration, even if the two sound a bit too similar. But Ed collaborating with these two sounds a whole lot worse, but I gave it a chance anyways and... yeah. I'll just stick with "I Don't Care." There's not a whole lot of depth to this song, which is alright, I suppose. Ed Sheeran isn't necessarily known for his mind-blowing lyrical content, if you know what I mean. But he's usually able to have enough passion and charm for me to enjoy his music and this one I just don't care about. Ed is just telling whoever that if you cross his girl, you cross him. That's pretty much it. The song samples PnB Rock rather than having him write new stuff and that mix was fun enough. But then Chance the Rapper comes in and craps all over everything, which doesn't help a song that wasn't too interesting in the first place.

48- "Easier" - 5 Seconds of Summer -- I've never been a huge fan of this group, so I never expect a whole lot when a new song of theirs shows up. However, I did enjoy "Youngblood." That song had a really strong groove and great vocals that it became really infectious. "Easier" on the other hand lacks that. Musically it's a very simple song, which I suppose fits the title of the song. At the same time, though, it makes it less interesting and not very catchy. Thus we have to pay attention to the content where he's just describing a fairly confusing relationship. He doesn't know if it's easier for him to stay with this girl or leave the relationship. He seems to like here, but there's a bit of a disconnect and he's unwilling to change anything. Listening to that, I have a solution. Man up and try to make it work. Try to make yourself a better person. But no, he's not going to do that. Instead it just sounds like immature whining from a guy who wants everything given to him in a nice, pretty platter and I don't connect with.

59- "Isis" - Joyner Lucas featuring Logic -- Why in the frack are these two singing about Isis? That was my big question going into this song. Part of me was hoping for something deep or emotional, but nope. They're trying to instill fear into people by comparing themselves to a terrorist group while bragging about the terrible things they're doing. Because, you know, all rappers have to make themselves sound vicious and intense, right? Yeah... no. Now I have liked Joyner Lucas in the past with his Eminem collaborations. He has talent as a rapper, which he shows here, but that's still not going to make me forgive the content of the song. And yeah, when Logic comes on, he tries to make himself sound cool and hip, but he's not. I just laugh at him. Perhaps there might be some interesting lines here and there, but the overall feel just gives me a bad feeling.

76- "Some of It" - Eric Church -- I'm not super well versed on Eric Church. This is his first song charting this year and he only had one least year, that being"Desperate Man," which was alright. So I didn't really know what to think going in. The first word of the song was "beer," which didn't help things get off on the right foot for me, especially with his twangy voice. Because, you know, it's not country without a twangy voice singing about beer, trucks and girls. But eh, this ended up being alright. It's a more toned back, mellow country song where Eric is singing about how life isn't always that great and wonderful. Beer don't keep. Love's not cheap. Trucks don't wreck themselves. Mama ain't a shrink. Dad ain't a bank. God ain't a wishing well. You get the point there. That's how he starts off the song. Then his chorus essentially says that, despite this, there's something to some of it. Which kinda, maybe, sorta connects with me? I don't know, the song doesn't have a lot of certainty to it. Instead there's a lot of beating around the bush. Maybe that's the point. But it also makes me kinda not really connect with it all that well. And if you felt that this paragraph was confusing with all the extra words I threw in to make myself sound uncertain, that was the point.

94- "Bacc at It Again" - Yella Beezy, Gucci Mane & Quavo -- Don't care. Especially since they spelled "back" wrong. Purposely misspelling words like that really annoys me.

96- "HP" - Maluma -- I don't know what Maluma is singing about with this song. I can't even translate that title because it's just two letters. Is it video game life? Like "Health Points"? Is he singing about Harry Potter? I have no idea. And yeah, I'm purposely being dumb here. At least there's not 5,000 others joining Maluma on this song, but I mostly judge these by how they sound and this song doesn't have much of a groove to it. Maluma sounds bored, so why should I put any effort into translating his lyrics when I don't even have any direction to go with, given a title that vague? 

97- "Rearview Town" - Jason Aldean -- Unlike my comments about Eric Church's song, I can be straight forward with this one. I don't like Jason Aldean as a country artist. I don't understand why everyone thinks he's so great. I'll give him some credit here for being somewhat held back here, but there's nothing interesting about this song. He's leaving his town and all the bad memories behind him. That's it. And if you've ever heard me complain about these boring country songs, just cut and paste those comments.