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.
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