DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - August 3, 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 did it. "Old Town Road" broke one of Billboard's most prestigious records, that of most weeks spent at No. 1 on the Hot 100. "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men set the record back in 1996 with 16 weeks. That record impressively lasted 23 years. About two years ago, "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber tied the record. But now "Old Town Road" stands on its own at No. 1, while "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito" now have to settle for runner-up. How did "Old Town Road" pull this off?

- First, streaming. In my eyes, this was bound to happen eventually. We live in a day where streaming dominates the music industry. One of the consequences of this is that streaming causes songs to last longer on the charts. The average amount of time that a song spends in the top 10 is significantly larger than it even was 10 years ago. Thus it makes sense that when songs last longer on the charts, records like this are going to be broken. It's very similar to box office records being broken in part due to the increasingly rising price of movie tickets. Honestly, I'm surprised that it took this long for Mariah and Boyz II Men's record to get broken. "Old Town Road" just happened to be the song to hit the sweet spot with streaming. But mark my words, this new record by "Old Town Road" won't last 23 years. Not in today's music world.

- Second, Billy Ray Cyrus. Lil Nas X's original was doing just fine on its own, but it was when the remix with Billy Ray Cyrus got released that the song skyrocketed to 143 million U.S. streams in a single week. Had Lil Nas X never released any remixes of this song, it would've faded away fairly quickly, just like your typical internet meme that explodes for five seconds then disappears. Honestly, Lil Nas X's song isn't very good, but Billy Ray Cyrus brings the perfect amount of energy and flare to make it really infectious. So yeah, Billy Ray Cyrus is huge part of why this song is so big.

- Third, the other remixes and music videos. It's no secret that Lil Nas X completely played the system here. After the Billy Ray Cyrus remix, there was a remix that added Diplo. Then two weeks ago, there was a remix with Young Thug and Mason Ramsey that was released to counteract the "bad guy" remix. And again this past week, there was yet another remix with one of the boys from BTS that will impact the charts next week. That's five versions of the song all counting towards one set of numbers. Plus, on Lil Nas X's YouTube channel alone, there are eight different music videos for the song, and that's not even counting a couple before the Billy Ray Cyrus remix that I know existed at one point that no longer seem to exist. He even uploaded a "Week 17 Version" music video last week that I'm using on this post, and an "Area 51 Video" the week before. All eight videos on his channel account for a total of 685 million views, albeit most of them come from two videos, the official Billy Ray Cyrus remix audio and the "Official Movie." Is it fair that Lil Nas X purposely and continually boosted his weekly numbers with new videos and new versions of the song? Well, that can be debated. He didn't do anything against the rules. But it's certainly not as impressive as one version of one song with one video exploding on its own for 14-16 weeks at No. 1. Without all the remixes and videos, "Old Town Road" would've been dethroned weeks ago.

- Fourth, cross genre appeal. Although I personally contend that "Old Town Road" is mostly just a hip-hop song disguised as a country song with Lil Nas X doing a country twang and making country references, the country/hip-hop crossover is certainly unique enough to expand the audience beyond your typical hip-hop song. If you can bring multiple fan bases who like different genres of music together to listen to one song, that's certainly helpful. This has certainly also crossed over to more than just the country and hip-hop worlds. Mainstream pop has also jumped on board.

- Fifth, Nine Inch Nails. Because, remember, this song samples "34 Ghosts IV" by Nine Inch Nails, an instrumental piece from their 2008 project "Ghosts I-IV." Go listen to that song and you'll realize that the whole backbone of "Old Town Road" hinges on that instrumental created Nine Inch Nails. They practically took that song and put lyrics to it. So of course I have to credit Nine Inch Nails.

- Sixth, the song is infectious. All of these elements combine to create a song that easily sticks in your head and never leaves. The other week I was at a campout with family and I learned that a lot of my young nephews (the oldest being 12 years old at this specific campout) love this song. Granted, none of them really know exactly what they're singing (perhaps that's a good thing -- it's not a clean song), but the fact that the music itself is catchy enough to even have young kids singing and dancing to it is telling. But is the song going to stand the test of time or is it going to be a song where we look back in 10 years and wonder what the heck everyone was thinking? I predict that it's the latter. But hey, I dare you to sing "One Sweet Day" off the top of your head. That's a song that exploded due to the collaboration of Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men, two of the most popular acts at the time. But it also kinda faded into existence. It's not a song you think of when you are recalling all of the impactful 90's tunes, nor is it a song that you think of when looking back on Mariah Carey's personal discography. In fact, look at the list of songs that made it to 12+ weeks at No. 1. There's a lot of songs there that no one really remembers or would like to try to forget existed. So perhaps being No. 1 for a long time isn't everything. I mean, "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen didn't even chart on the Hot 100 until he passed away in 2016. So how much does all of these really mean anyways? 

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- Oh, there's other songs on the charts this week? I guess I'll get to them, too. Looking at the specific numbers this week, both "Old Town Road" and "bad guy" expectedly came crashing down a bit following their respective remixes from last week. "Old Town Road" fell 13 percent in overall chart points while "bad guy" fell 9 percent. That narrows the lead for "Old Town Road" from 1.3-to-1 last week to 1.2-to-1 this week. With the BTS remix "Seoul Town Road" set to impact next week, an 18th week for "Old Town Road" seems guaranteed. But keep in mind, it's only U.S. sales and streaming that counts for the U.S. charts. If everyone in Korea swarms to the song, that will ultimately mean nothing for it's U.S. Hot 100 numbers. However, once "Seoul Town Road" fades away, the reign of "Old Town Road" will be over by either "bad guy" or perhaps the song coming next in the top 10.

3- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (+1) -- "Señorita" is certainly positioned rather well, which is great news for Shawn and Camila as they've both had recent struggles getting their respective songs to stick. "Señorita" has appeared to have stuck and could even challenge for No. 1 fairly soon if it can catch up to "bad guy."   

4- "Talk" - Khalid (+1) -- Khalid, on the other hand, is on his way down. He pretty much only has radio at this point. Granted, that radio is still huge. But it's peaked. And the only reason why this song rose is because "I Don't Care" came crashing down.

5- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+1) -- A few weeks ago when this leaped into the top 10, I thought it was immediately going to jump into the top five. However, it got stuck a bit for a weeks, but now it's here. I don't know exactly how high this is going to get, but I do think it'll stick around for some time.

6- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (-3) -- This song got a boost last week from the arrival of Ed Sheeran's collaboration album. Thus it expectedly came crashing back down this week. It's still had a decent run, though, so Ed and Justin should be happy.  

7- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug (=) -- Good news for Post Malone that the bleeding on this song stopped this week after falling harder than I expected last week. Now will this song start to gain positive momentum and stick around? As much as I would love for Post Malone to FINALLY disappear from the top 10, this song I don't mind. So I'd be fine with it staying.

8- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (=) -- This is still here because the contenders below the top 10 aren't very strong at the moment.

9- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (=) -- "Old Town Road" is rightfully getting all the attention right now. But "Sunflower" is also on record watch. It has now earned its 32nd week in the top 10. The all-time record is a tie between "Shape of You" and "Girls Like You" with 33 weeks. One more week in the top 10 and that record is tied. Two weeks and "Sunflower" gets the record. It's vulnerable right now, but it's quite possible.

10- "If I Can't Have You" - Shawn Mendes (+3) -- This is great news! I mean, not that I care too much about this specific song, but our entire trio of awful rap songs ("No Guidance," "Suge" and "Money in the Grave") are all gone this week thanks to Shawn Mendes leapfrogging all three. This also marks the first week that this song is back in the top 10 after debuting at No. 2 about three months ago. And Shawn now joins the club of artists who have had at least two songs in the top 10 at the same time. 

Rising on the Hot 100:

14- "The Git Up" - Blanco Brown (+4) -- I thought this song would be a lot bigger after it initially was surging up the charts. But it got stuck in the teens and now is trying to claw its way into the top 10. I still expect it to get there, especially since plenty of songs in the top 10 right now aren't super strong, but it'll end up being a longer journey.

19- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+4) -- I'm upset that this song is in the top 20.

20- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+6) -- I'm happy for this song, though.

23- "The London" - Young Thug, J. Cole & Travis Scott (+5) -- I still don't think I've listened to this song. And I've had no reason to.

37- "My Type" - Saweetie (+10) -- Cardi B 3.0 is doing pretty well.

41- "All to Myself" - Dan + Shay (+10) -- OK, I'm not too upset at this. This is alright.

44- "GIRL" - Maren Morris (+8) -- I don't think I've been able to talk about this one too much as it's climbed up the charts at a snail's pace, but it finally cracks the top 50.

51- "Cash S---" - Megan Thee Stallion featuring DaBaby (+10) -- Cardi B 2.0 also doing well.

55- "Callaita" - Bad Bunny & Tainy (+12) -- Gross.

60- "One Thing Right" - Marshmello & Kane Brown (+22) -- Eh. OK, I guess.

New Arrivals:

29- "How Do You Sleep?" - Sam Smith -- That's an excellent question. Most days I just have so much to do that I just don't have any time to sleep. Like typing up this post this week. I mostly want to just sleep right now, but I need to get this done. OK, the actual song now. When I saw the title, the other thing I thought of was that this was probably going to be a breakup song of sorts where Sam Smith asks his lover or former lover how they sleep when they've done something wrong to Sam. And that's exactly what this is. Thus it's a fairly generic song, but I'm always a sucker for Sam Smith's music. He just has such a good voice and he puts a lot of passion into it. Thus he takes a song that's fairly generic lyrically and manages to turn it into a song that feels like it actually means something to him as opposed to coming off an assembly line from the pop music factory. What threw me off, though, were the weird electronic sounds that happened throughout. They didn't fit into the song very well. I had to go look up who was the responsible party and the answer was ILYA, a Sweedish songwriter and producer whom I've never heard of before. But apparently he's written and produced a lot of hit songs over the years. This one was just a strange mix. But even so, Sam Smith still sells it to the point where it's certainly listenable.  

42- "Baby" - Lil Baby & DaBaby -- This is amusing. Of course Lil Baby and DaBaby would collaborate to create a song called... "Baby." When I saw that I straight up laughed. Of course I'm not going to listen to it, though. Why would I?

52- "China" - Anuel AA, Daddy Yankee, Karol G, Ozuna & J Balvin -- I almost skipped this one on principle. These Latinx singers just have no shame. It seems like every week we have a new song with like 10 of them on it just so they can sell more copies of the song. There's no reason to have this many. But since I looked over this list and none of the names really bother me, and there's no Bad Bunny (had I seen his name, I would've skipped this), I gave it a listen. And then I was reminded that I actually don't like Anuel AA, who does most of the singing on this and thus this got on my nerves real fast. Anuel AA was really annoying and the song itself was way too long, thus the overly repetitive nature of these Latinx songs started to get on my nerves and none of the other acts did enough to save this. So no, I don't plan on purposely ever returning to this song.

69- "The Archer" - Taylor Swift -- It's not looking good for Taylor Swift right now. Not only did her first two promotional singles, "ME!" and "You Need to Calm Down" both nosedive after their debuts, but her third promotional single debuts all the way down at No. 69. Granted, this was released on July 23, a Tuesday, meaning it hasn't had a full week of tracking yet. But still, a Taylor Swift song with three days of release should be doing a bit better than this. People just aren't gravitating towards her songs right now. The lower quality of them certainly doesn't help with that. As someone who defended "reputation," I haven't been able to do the same thing here with these three songs. Now this is certainly the best of the three songs here. It's a slower song that's a lot more mellow than the other two. These are the types of songs that Taylor excels best at. Instead of trying to be loud and in your face or making some sort of statement, she's able to take a step back and focus on the emotions in the song while using her voice to make it work. The biggest problem here, though, is that the song doesn't really build to anything. It starts off soft and thus had me intrigued, but I ended up fairly bored at the end of the song as it slowly puts you to sleep instead of giving you the feels. And some of her word choice is a bit off. Like I don't know if the Humpty Dumpty stuff at the end really fit at all. And I don't know if the concept behind the song is all that unique, either. Taylor doesn't do quite enough to make it stand out. But still, out of the three current Taylor songs from this new album, this is the one I'd accept the most.

76- "Brown Skin Girl" - Beyoncé, SAINt JHN & Wizkid featuring Blue Ivy Carter -- Beyoncé pulled off a Kendrick Lamar just recently. She wrote/recorded music for a Disney released movie and also wrote an album inspired by said movie. Kendrick Lamar did this for "Black Panther" and Beyoncé, of course, for "The Lion King." In both instances, Kendrick and Beyoncé's music for the movie was mostly ignored while their albums inspired by the movie have little to do with the actual movie. In Beyoncé's case, I think she did great with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," but was shocked when her new song "Spirit" was background noise for 20 seconds instead of a featured new song. Now I suppose I can't judge her whole new album, but this song that's on this "Lion King" inspired album has absolutely nothing to do with "The Lion King" outside the African undertones in the music. The lyrics and vocal style don't fit at all. But it's whatever. I didn't like the new "Lion King" anyways, so I'm not offended. I do think it's cool that Beyoncé let her nine-year-old daughter do the intro to this song, although it would've been better with just her and not her and SAINt JHN, whose stylized name there drives me crazy. And that's the only part SAINt JHN has here, so why add him to the song? Outside that intro, almost the first half of the song is all Wizkid. He's alright, but not great. I was wondering when Beyoncé was going to decide to show up in her own song. When she does, she slays it. She brings a lot of passion to these lyrics she's singing about. And it feels very personal. I just wanted more of her and less of Wizkid.   

82- "Hate Me" - Ellie Goulding & Juice WRLD -- OK, we need to have a talk about this one. Given that I'm subscribed to Ellie's YouTube channel (she's one of the only musicians that I'm subscribed to), I've been closely following her single releases that I'm assuming is building towards a fourth album. So far she's had four songs. Two of them have been really good and the other two have been acceptable, but not great. In an annoying turn of luck, the two really good ones, "Flux" and "Sixteen," have NOT charted on the U.S. Hot 100 (they did chart in the U.K.), but it's the other two that have charted. "Close to Me" with Diplo and Swae Lee ended up performing quite well, peaking at No. 24. And now we have "Hate Me" with Juice WRLD debuting at No. 82. But still no "Sixteen" and still no "Flux." And we probably never will get them, which is unfortunate because I was ready to put them on my list of favorite charting songs from this year. But nope. Instead I have to deal with this Juice WRLD collaboration, which is a team up that just sounds awful on paper. Luckily Juice WRLD does a decent enough job. His part is poppy and upbeat enough to fit in with Ellie, but it's still not the best collaboration and the song doesn't have a lot of energy or emotion, which is unfortunate because Ellie has such a good voice that she often does a great job of using to her advantage to kick in the emotion, but she's just doing nothing on this song, like she's trying to come down to Juice WRLD's level so that his fan base will enjoy the song and get it to chart. It worked. But for crying out loud, "Sixteen" and "Flux" are so much better. She actually does use her voice and emotion in those two songs. Why can't we get those songs to chart?

90- "Mood 4 Eva" - Beyoncé, JAY-Z & Childish Gambino featuring Oumou Sangare -- Our other "Lion King" inspired song from Beyoncé. And it also has almost nothing to do with "The Lion King" outside sounding like an African beat. This time around, Beyoncé organized the song better. She features herself on the song and combines with her husband JAY-Z, which makes total sense. However, the problem this time around is that both Beyoncé and JAY-Z overdo it. They don't connect very well as a couple on the song and they feel very loud and annoying rather than soulful and energetic. It was also nice of Beyoncé to bring her "Lion King" co-star Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, onto the song. But she doesn't bring him in until the 3:30 mark in the song when there's only a minute left. He sings a quick bridge and is done. I felt cheated. So no, I'm going to pass on this one. Sorry. "Brown Skin Girl" is a good song that's poorly organized. "Mood 4 Eva" is just underwhelming. On that note, I'm not really that interested in listening to this new album from Beyoncé, but if you have listened to it and there's songs you like, point me to them and I'll give those a chance.

94- "Ballin'" - Mustard featuring Roddy Ricch -- Nope.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - July 27, 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 did it. "Old Town Road" tied the record for most weeks at No. 1 with 16 weeks, entering what is now a three-way tie with "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito." Thus we now have seven acts among those three songs that hold the record, that being Lil Nas X, Billy Ray Cyrus, Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber. Getting to the record this week was a bit of a dramatic turn of events as one of those current record holders, that being Justin Bieber, decided he wanted to do his best to keep his record, so he jumped on a remix with Billie Eilish, which nearly did the trick. Said remix of "bad guy" helped the song increase 32 percent in overall chart points, which would've done the trick, except that "Old Town Road" also countered with yet another remix that featured Young Thug and Mason Ramsey. Said remix didn't have as big of an impact on "Old Town Road" as it only increased 13 percent in overall chart points. But yet said increase was just enough for it to maintain a 1.3-to-1 lead over "bad guy," compared to a 1.5-to-1 lead the week before and a 1.9-to-1 lead two weeks ago.

Now the big question is can "Old Town Road" break the record by staying at No. 1 for another week? On that note, Billboard pointed out a very interesting statistic that both "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito" also had a 1.3-to-1 lead over the No. 2 song in the final week of their reign. That might suggest a pattern wherein history repeats itself a third time and "Old Town Road" also stops at 16 weeks. However, the kicker here is that with both "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito," it wasn't the No. 2 song that stopped them. With "One Sweet Day," it was "Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" that vaulted 5-1 while with "Despacito," Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" charted 77-1 after its first full week of tracking. In the case of "Old Town Road," there's no song at the moment that's set to soar up to No. 1 or debut at No. 1, so it's all on "bad guy." In which case, it will be a story of which song falls harder next week, given that both songs are set to tumble a bit in points in the week following their respective remix. Billboard suggests that it's "bad guy" that's set for a harder tumble. But at the same time, "Old Town Road" has already been in a bit of a free fall whereas "bad guy" has a lot left in the tank. So even if the flip-flop doesn't happen next week, the weeks are certainly numbered for "Old Town Road." If nothing else rises to the occasion, Billie may finally get her time in the spotlight with her first ever No. 1 hit.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- See previous comment for my "Old Town Road" vs. "bad guy" competition. There's not much else to add here. Love or hate the Bieber remix, it didn't account for enough of the song's overall points for Bieber to get officially credited on the song by Billboard. So this is still a solo Billie song here we're talking about. Bieber just gave her a huge boost this song. If you missed my comments last week on the Bieber remix, I don't hate it. Obviously his version is pretty pathetic, but I find it more amusing than anything. And it's just one verse. I also think it makes total sense that Billie would accept the opportunity to collaborate (because I'm assuming it was Bieber's camp that reached out, but I've heard nothing official) because she is a teenage girl after all. With how different and mature her music is, sometimes we forget that. Until you go watch an actual interview with her. Then you realize she's just a crazy teen.

3- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (+3) -- The other story this week that will get buried under news of "Old Town Road" tying the record is that Ed Sheeran's new album "No. 6 Collaborations Project" impacted the charts this week. It didn't make as huge of an impact as I was expecting, with only four new songs charting. But that's been the story of 2019. There hasn't been a whole ton of album bombs that completely messed up the charts. I find that rather refreshing. In fact, I think Billboard should implement a rule that an artist can only chart a certain number of new songs in a given week (either three or four?) so that album bombs never fully happen. But we'll get to Ed's four new songs. In the meantime, the other thing the album did was boost "I Don't Care" up to No. 3, which is what I think I said would happen last week.

4- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (+1) -- A great week for "Señorita" as it leapfrogs both "Talk" by Khalid" and "Goodbyes" by Post Malone. Next week it'll probably move up to No. 3 behind "Old Town Road" and "bad guy," although I don't imagine it will get much higher than that. But who knows. It appears that the song is indeed maintaining traction on the charts, which is good news for both artists, who have had a bit of a struggle recently getting their songs to stick around. It's also good news for me personally. Even though I don't think the song is the best, it's an enjoyably catchy pop song that I'm perfectly fine with holding a spot in the top five.

5- "Talk" - Khalid (-1) -- "Talk," on the other hand, appears to be slowly slipping down as all it really has at this point is radio. Granted, radio is still massive as the song maintains the top song on the radio charts with 133.3 million audience impressions, but said number has finally seemed to peak as it was even when compared to last week. That's still big enough to keep the song around for a while longer.

6- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+1) -- Although I'm still a bit surprised that "Truth Hurts" hasn't yet cracked the top five after it appeared destined to do so two weeks ago, I'm now going to guess that next week is the week. "I Don't Care" is going to come crashing back down next week following this week's album boost, while as I previously just mentioned, "Talk" continues to slowly slip away.

7- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug (-4) -- I knew this was going to come crashing down this week. That's what often happens in a song's second week following a huge debut. But I am a bit surprised that this fell all the way to No. 7. I was expecting it to just drop a spot or two to No. 4 or No. 5. But the fact that it fell all the way to No. 7 means I'm currently unsure about the song's future. Recently Post Malone has been on a hot streak with his singles sticking around. I assumed that was going to again be the case here, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what it does next week.

8- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (=) -- I don't expect "Sucker" to be in the top 10 for much longer after an excellent run, but so far none of the songs below the top 10 are rising fast enough to push it out, so the Jonas Brothers sneak in another week.

9- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (=) -- Like "Sucker," "Sunflower" also sneaks in another week, mostly because there's no strong competition below the charts. That means we have to start a record tracker here as "Sunflower" earns a 31st week in the top 10. The current record, which is sadly held by Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" and Maroon 5's "Girls Like You," is 33 weeks. I don't think "Sunflower" will break the record, but if there continues to be no competition for the top 10, it wouldn't be the craziest idea that "Sunflower" gets three more weeks.

10- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (+2) -- Again, another "out of the frying pan, into the fire" situation. We got rid of "Suge," but we brought back "No Guidance." "Suge" is now at No. 11 while "Money in the Grave" is at No. 12. Until we get a new song or two rising high enough to crack the top 10, these three songs might just rotate in and out. Hopefully we can soon get rid of all three of them for good.

Rising on the Hot 100:

16- "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" - Panic! At the Disco (+2) -- Climbing ever so slowly up the charts is Panic! At the Disco, getting closer to becoming a top 15 hit. However, I'm still not convinced at this point that the song is going to be a song that kicks out one of our current top 10 songs. It seems to be destined to hang out in the teens. But if it can remain a bit more steady than the current songs that are stagnant in front of it, it's certainly a possibility. Yet it might just fall with those songs.

19- "Beautiful People" - Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid (+21) -- Another song that is benefiting from Ed Sheeran's album release impacting the charts this week. I don't think this song will stick around, though. It should be a lot better than it is.  

25- "Cross Me" - Ed Sheeran featuring Chance the Rapper & PnB Rock (+16) -- I hope this song doesn't catch on. This is easily the worst of Ed's new songs.

26- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+10) -- Rising another 10 spots this week is once again surprising and impressive. Now the song is at the point where it's a lot harder to just jump 10 spots each week. Just ask "The Git Up," which has stalled out in the teens. But I'm glad this song is here and will welcome it to the top 20.

41- "Knockin' Boots" - Luke Bryan (+7) -- Our top country riser of the week. I personally don't care about the song, though.

43- "Some of It" - Eric Church (+6) -- I also don't really care about this song too much. It's not awful. But it's also not particularly memorable.

47- "My Type" - Saweetie (+20) -- I'm not surprised at this one rising high. Cardi B 3.0 seems to have found a strong connection. Cardi B 2.0 might be jealous at this point.

50- "Clout" - Offset featuring Cardi B (+12) -- Speaking of Cardi B, the original one herself also makes an appearance. On a song I don't think I've ever cared to listen to.

61- "Cash S---" - Megan Thee Stallion featuring DaBaby (+13) -- Oh, here's Cardi B 2.0. So she's not too jealous. But she also probably wishes her song was a top 50 hit.

87- "Only Human" - Jonas Brothers (+13) -- The Jonas Brothers are pushing this as their next big single? OK. I guess I'm not mad at that. Better this than "Cool." But I still highly doubt that this will catch on as strong as "Sucker."

New Arrivals:

37- "Antisocial" - Ed Sheeran & Travis Scott -- Four new Ed Sheeran songs to talk about this week. There was a total of 11 possible new songs to chart as it's a 15-track album and he had previously released four songs to promote the album. So it's a not as big of an impact from Ed, who saw all of "÷" chart back in 2017. But maybe that's because this is more of a collaboration project rather than a full-out new album. I'm personally expecting him to release his next mathematical symbol album before too long. He's also previous done "+" and "x." That means "-" is next, right?

Anyways, onto this actual song. Out of all four new songs from Ed, this is the one that had me the most nervous. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I've never understood the appeal of Travis Scott. He's just another one of those dumb rappers to me. But whatever. Can him and Ed deliver a competent song? The answer is a no. Like with most of these tracks on this album, Ed's trying to make his best impression of the artists he's collaborating with. So this feels like Ed trying to be Travis Scott. And it's not a style that really fits him. He's not really rapping, but it's also not his traditional pop style. He's somewhere in between, to the point where Travis Scott fits right into the song when he gets his verse, but both of them are just talking about them being... antisocial (surprise). It fits right in with "I Don't Care" and "Beautiful People" in terms of lyrical content, but it's the one that has the least to say, which is saying something since those other two songs don't really have much to say either. So again, it also fits right into Travis Scott's style, who is a rapper who also has very little to say. If you like Travis Scott, then maybe you'll like this? But given that I don't, this song is a complete miss for me.

53- "South of the Border" - Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello & Cardi B -- If the point of this album is to collaborate with a bunch of artists that Ed has always wanted to collaborate with, then adjust his style to fit with their's, then this is a collaboration that had me a bit intrigued, given that Camila Cabello is on the track. The Cardi B thing had me nervous, though. After listening to the song, I guess it makes sense that it would sound exactly like "Señorita" or Ed Sheeran's own "Shape of You." That's kinda Camila's thing. The good thing about this song is that Ed and Camila have a solid bit of chemistry. In a better written song, I'd be totally down for a collaboration between the two of them. But speaking of "Shape of You," this sounded a lot like that song to me, but with a whole lot less energy. I'd even prefer "Señorita" over this. And when it comes to hook-up songs, this is lyrically about as basic as you can get. Then the song gets a bit awkward when Cardi B shows up. Ed is singing to Camila and Camila is singing to Ed. At least that made sense. But Cardi B sounds like a fly on the wall, commenting on their relationship. It was weird. This whole thing for Ed Sheeran makes me feel like he put a lot of effort into getting people together to collaborate with him, but put no effort into the content of what he wanted to sing about, which makes this disappointing.

57- "Remember the Name" - Ed Sheeran featuring Eminem & 50 Cent -- The third new Ed Sheeran arrival sees him collaborate with Eminem, which makes sense. It's not the first time Ed Sheeran and Eminem have been on a song together. The most recent time I can think of is "River," which is Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran from Eminem's album "Revival" in 2017. Seeing 50 Cent is a bit of a surprise, though. Believe it or not, 50 Cent hasn't had a song chart on the Hot 100 since 2012. The final result between these three is more amusing than anything. On this album, Ed is trying to mimic the artists he's collaborating with. So instead of this being a song where Ed does his usual pop thing while Eminem adds in his rap flavor, this is Ed trying to rap like Eminem. But since Ed is not a rapper, this happens in slow speed. When Eminem comes in, he seems to be trying to meet Ed in the middle as to not completely burn him when it's Ed's song and album. Thus neither end up doing the other favor, so I can't really so in good conscious that this is any good, especially since 50 Cent is relegated to the third verse rap feature, with nothing to add. But I also can't hate this song. It sounds like the three of them are having fun. And since Ed seems to be focusing on the collaborations rather than quality music with this album, they got together to sing what sounds like a parody of something that Eminem or 50 Cent would've released 10-15 years ago. If it's meant to be taken seriously, it fails miserably. But I don't think that was the intention. That's at least not the way I take it. It's a fun, dumb song. Three guys just goofing around.

83- "Tip of My Toungue" - Kenny Chesney -- Before we get to Ed's final song, we have to wade through quite a bit of other stuff. This is the first of a few country songs. And the opening lyrics of this song are "I love the dimples in the small of your back." That's a really awkward compliment. Now this is just a guess, but I don't think many girls, in hearing that, will have their heart melt. The way the rest of the lyrics play out thus makes Kenny sound weird and creepy rather than romantic, the latter of which is what I'm guessing he was going for. Outside sounding creepy, there's nothing else that sets this song apart. Just a generic country song with creepy lyrics.

89- "Baguettes in the Face" - Mustard featuring NAV, Playboi Carti & A Boogie wit da Hoodie -- With a lineup like that, I'm sure you already knew I was going to skip this song. I do have to comment on how strange of a title that is. I'm hoping it doesn't mean what I think it does, but given the artists involved, it probably does.

90- "Like a Rodeo" - Kane Brown -- After skipping the song with Mustard and friends, we then move onto our next generic country song. The benefit that this song has in retrospect is that it's not weird and creepy. But that's the best compliment I have. Kane is comparing love to a rodeo, which I imagine has been done a thousand times, especially with our cowboy-wannabe country artists, singing with their deep southern twangs while wearing their cowboy hats. That in mind, and considering that Kane Brown is about as boring as it gets, this song is exactly what you think it is.

92- "Time" - NF -- I'm not really sure what NF is doing at this point. His recent songs that he's released, while not awful, have also failed to impress me. In searching for this one, I learned that he has a new album called "The Search" coming this Friday. This is the final track on that album, whatever that means. NF is not a rapper that drives me up the wall. Generally speaking, he doesn't get on my nerves as his style is the type of rap that I can tolerate and even enjoy when the lyrics aren't terrible. But that's the problem. He's singing about a broken relationship that's bad mainly because of him. At least there's the self-awareness there that he's the toxic one who's doing everything wrong. But then he acts a bit conceded because he confidently, or arrogantly, says that everything's going to be fine because he's changing and he just needs time. She's going to be perfectly happy with him, even though apparently she's nothing but miserable at the moment. I don't know, something like this is better than all our untalented rappers who do nothing but flex rapping. And NF can actually rap. But he needs to come up with content that I can get behind because this is just nonsense.

96- "Southbound" - Carrie Underwood -- Our third country song of the week, but one I can actually get behind due to the artist behind it. Carrie has a country-pop style that I've always enjoyed. In general, I find I like female country singers much better than male country singers. Out of the female country singers that I've enjoyed, Carrie's always been one of my favorites. "Southbound" comes from her 2018 album "Cry Pretty," which caught me off guard a bit because the other two singles she released from that album were released last year, so if she hasn't given up yet on the album, the spacing is a bit odd. Also, in regards to timing, this is a relaxed, care-free summer song, meaning she should've released this at the beginning of the summer, not towards the end of it. But that aside, this is a fun enough song. Carrie's not going for the deep emotions or the powerful vocals. This is her change-of-pace song. It almost feels more like album filler rather than something that deserved a push as a single, which is probably why it's a Carrie song that I won't remember too much when I'm in a mood to listen to some Carrie music, but in the right setting I can see myself enjoying this.

98- "Spirit" - Beyoncé -- Oh, we're getting into "The Lion King" now? I posted my review of that earlier this week. The short version is that I wasn't impressed. But I listened to this song well before I watched the movie. I thought it was just fine. I was a bit confused, though, because it was generic enough that I couldn't see where or how it would fit into the movie. I was excited to see Nala get her moment, just like Disney gave Jasmine her moment in "Aladdin." I was especially excited that they got Beyoncé to voice her because that means Nala's moment was going to be great. At least that's what I was hoping, which is why I was a bit disappointed that "Spirit" didn't seem to have much depth to it. Even though I'm not familiar with the Broadway version of "The Lion King," my friends pointed out to me that "Shadowland" would've been a great song to include in the movie. Beyoncé would've owned that song and it would've been an excellent movie moment. So I had a few reservations regarding this song in the movie, but I was curious to see how it would play out. Thus you can see my surprise when "Spirit" was played for like 20 seconds in the background while Simba and Nala were running back to Pride Rock. That's it. They cast Beyoncé in their movie, but didn't even give her the spotlight. I was stunned. It's parallel to when Marvel hired Kendrick Lamar to write music for "Black Panther," but then used his songs as background noise for a few scenes rather than featuring them in the movie. If I separate the song from the movie, "Spirit" is fine. It's even pretty good. But it's not good enough for me to remember on its own merits and since the movie barely even used it, I'll have successfully forgotten about it in probably a week or two.

99- "Best Part of Me" - Ed Sheeran featuring YEBBA -- We had to get all the way to the end before getting to Ed's final song that barely qualified for the Hot 100 this week. If we were going to get a fourth song to chart, I certainly wouldn't have picked this one. Not making the cut was collaborations with Young Thug, Ella Mai, H.E.R., Meek Mill, A Boogie wit da Hoodie and Skrillex. But those all fail while the song with YEBBA makes it. Strange. I had to look up who YEBBA was. I learned that YEBBA is a she. And her name is Abbey Smith. I looked at that for a second and then facepalmed hard when I realized that YEBBA is Abbey spelled backwards. That's as if I became a singer and used MADA as my stage name. Why not just Abbey or (gasp) Abbey Smith? Oh well. Turns out this girl can sing, which is probably why Ed choice to collaborate with her. Even though this is her first charting song on the Hot 100, she signed onto Ed's label in 2017, so perhaps he heard her voice and wanted to give her some spotlight. The fact that she's a great singer means that, in collaborating her, Ed did his best to give a great vocal performance, which puts this song right in his wheelhouse. Yes, Ed does have plenty of upbeat pop songs, but in my opinion he's at his best when he's writing his soulful romance ballads, which is what this is. Sure, there's not much depth here, but there's actually a lot of passion. When you take a simple love song and add a lot of passion to, plus you have two singers who can sing their soul out, that's a winner in my books. And that's probably why I think it's the best song of the eight songs from the album that I've now listened to. And maybe that's why it charted over those other songs.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - July 20, 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 (=) -- "Old Town Road" captures its 15th week at No. 1, breaking free from the log jam of songs that got stuck at 14 weeks (there's seven of them) and is now just one week away from tying the all-time record for most weeks at No. 1, which is currently a tie between "Despacito" and "One Sweet Day." With Post Malone falling short this week (his new song "Goodbyes" debuted at No. 3) and no huge debuts set for next week (I don't think anything from Ed Sheeran's new project is set for a top 10 debut), one would think that "Old Town Road" is locked in to get week No. 16 at the top, moving into a three-way tie for the record.

HOWEVER, this is no longer a race that's set in stone as things got really interesting this week. First, "Old Town Road" plummeted this week in all three categories, falling 21 percent in streaming to 70.5 million U.S. streams, 24 percent in sales to 43,000 downloads sold, and 14 percent in radio to 65.2 million audience impressions. Billboard reports that it is down 20 percent in overall chart points while "bad guy" remained pretty steady, increasing 1 percent in overall chart points. Thus the margin that was 1.9 to 1 last week as narrowed down to 1.5 to 1 this week.

Second thing here is that "bad guy" has a new remix out that will impact the charts next week as Justin Bieber has been added to the song. Notably, Justin Bieber is one of the three acts on "Despacito," so it seems like he wants to do his best to keep his record in tact. Lil Nas X counteracted by adding yet another remix to "Old Town Road" (that's the fourth version of the song, if you're counting), this time adding Young Thug and Mason Ramsey to the song, because, you know, internet memes and dumb rappers have to unite, right? That might lead one to believe that said remix will give "Old Town Road" enough of a boost to survive "bad guy" next week. But the "bad guy" remix seems to be performing a lot better than the latest "Old Town Road" remix. So I'm not confident in predicting how this is going to play out. If you make me guess, I'd say that "Old Town Road" narrowly gets week No. 16, but I'm excited to see what the charts look like.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- Not a whole lot to add here that I didn't say in the recent comment. What I will add is that if "bad guy" continues to remain steady and "Old Town Road" continues to stumble, "bad guy" seems like it will eventually surpass it on the charts, even if it doesn't do so in time. I'm not necessarily predicting that "bad guy" will go No. 1. In theory, there could be a song that ends up leapfrogging both of them. But I do think it's quite possible that "bad guy" ends up higher on the charts than "Old Town Road" as "Old Town Road" seems to be losing all momentum while "bad guy" seems to have a lot left in the tank, especially on radio where it rose again this week, entering the top five on the radio charts. And quick opinion on the Justin Bieber remix coming to the charts next week. I find it amusing. Of course Billie's original is much better, but giving Justin a verse is inoffensive and doesn't destroy the song, even though his lyrics are really dumb and he doesn't do a good job of making himself sound like a bad guy. But if adding him is the push needed to get the song over the edge, then I think it was worth it. Plus, we have to remember that Billie is still a teenage girl. If Bieber's camp was the one to contact her camp in an effort to keep his record in tact, I can see her jumping on that without hesitation, because, you know, teenage girls love Bieber.

3- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug (new) -- Out of the frying pan and into the fire. The moment we get one Post Malone song to finally leave the top 10 (I'm talking about "Wow." - "Sunflower" I still enjoy because of Swae Lee), another one takes its place. That, my friends, is how you properly push singles. A huge part of the reason why Post Malone is so successful is that his team is doing an excellent job of properly pushing singles at the right time, whereas a lot of other rappers and hip-hop artists (yes, that's where I categorize Post Malone - I don't see him as a pop artist - sue me) just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, which creates overexposure. So props to Post Malone for that. "Goodbyes" enters the charts with 40.8 million in streaming, 41,000 in sales and 22.9 million in radio. While some of those numbers are bound to drop in its second week, unlike Taylor Swift of late, Post Malone has a habit of sticking around. So for better or for worse, I could envision a 15-20 week run in the top 10 for "Goodbyes." My opinion of the song will be below.

4- "Talk" - Khalid (-1) -- While "Old Town Road" and "bad guy" were strong enough to hold off a new Post Malone debut, "Talk" wasn't quite so lucky. While it remains king of the radio, up another 5 percent to 133.2 million audience impressions for its fifth week on top there, it just doesn't have enough in sales and streaming to get it any higher. With said radio that strong, I can still see this hanging around for a while. And if Post Malone collapses a bit in its second week, I can see this jumping back up to No. 3 next week. But I do feel like the song overall has peaked. You can only go so far in today's world when radio is the only thing on your side. You need streaming and sales.

5- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (=) -- With a new Post Malone debut this week, "Señorita" staying steady at No. 5 is a good sign for the song moving forward. Shawn's other song was long gone from the top 10 at this point, so adding Camila to this new single is helping him stay put this time around. And I'm fine with this. This is still a fun song for me to listen to, so long as I don't pay too close attention to the lyrics, which aren't that wonderful. However, even though it appears the song is going to stick around, I'm not sure how much higher it's going to get. It feels like it's going to be more like Ed and Justin's song "I Don't Care," which kinda just got stuck in the bottom half of the top five for a while after its huge debut.

6- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (-2) -- Speaking of which, "I Don't Care" finally gets bullied out of the top five this week, pushed back by "Goodbyes" and "Señorita." However, this isn't quite done yet. While I don't anticipate Ed Sheeran getting a new song in the top 10 next week, I do think his collaboration album, which impacts the charts next week, is going to give this a boost. I can see it jumping as high as No. 3 next week, but I'm guessing it'll end up somewhere in the top five.

7- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (-1) -- Honestly I'm a bit surprised that "Truth Hurts" could crack top five this week and in fact fell a spot with the Post Malone debut. Maybe I spoke too soon when I predicted last week that this was going to be one of 2019's huge hits. A similar thing also happened with "The Git Up." I was expecting that to soar up into the top 10 this week, but instead it fell three spots to No. 19. But I don't think that spells doom for either song. I still think "Truth Hurts" is going to hit top five and camp out there for a while. But it might just require a bit more time to do so.

8- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (-1) -- Meanwhile, "Sucker" continues to slowly slide down the charts. It's been an excellent run, though. With how consistent the song has remained, I think it's secured a spot in the top 10 of my year end most popular songs of 2019. At the very least it'll be a top 15 entry. That's a solid comeback for the Jonas Brothers. Now they just need to figure out how to successfully get a second single to stick. Step one there is to write or release a song that is on par with "Sucker" because their other charting songs this year have certainly not been up to par.

9- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- Thanks to this one final boost for "Sunflower," the song has now accumulated 30 weeks in the top 10, which in my opinion is a more impressive feat than getting 10+ weeks at No. 1. "Old Town Road" may eventually pass it on my most popular songs of 2019 list (at this point it still hasn't, though), but I'm not sure if "Old Town Road" is going to make it to 30 weeks in the top 10 given that the floor for that song seems to be about to completely disappear from under it.

10- "Suge" - DaBaby (=) -- After getting "Money in the Grave" out of the top 10 last week, we successfully kicked out "No Guidance" this week. I'm not quite ready to take a sigh of relief as those two songs are at No. 11 and No. 12 respectively, but it's a momentary win. Next step is to get "Suge" out of here and replace it with something more worthy, like maybe "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" or "The Git Up." That might not be next week, though, as both of those songs got stuck in the bottom half of the top 20 this week. But something needs to step up and kick "Suge" out.

Rising on the Hot 100:

26- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+9) -- What I don't want to happen is for "Ran$om" to be the song that soars up and replaces "Suge." That's not an improvement at all. Let's all hope that this song somehow gets stuck in either the teens or the 20's.

32- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (+11) -- Honestly I don't really know what this Dreamville project is that impacted the charts this week. Nor do I really care. All I know is that it has something to do with J. Cole. Yet instead of making a ton of noise itself (there's only two new Dreamville songs on the charts this week), it seems to have just pushed J. Cole's "Middle Child" up a bit. I'll take that as a win.

36- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+10) -- Hey look! Some good news in this rising songs section. It's been a slow rise for Lewis Capaldi. Said slow rise usually equates to the song getting stuck in the 20's or 30's at this point. But seeing "Someone You Loved" jump up 10 spots this week makes me really happy.

38- "Shotta Flow" - NLE Choppa (+7) -- I'm glad that this song's momentum seems to have slowed down a bit. There's been a few weeks where I had the luxury of not including it. But nonetheless, it has now entered the top 40 and I can only hope that it doesn't get much higher. We don't need this to continue spamming the charts.

49- "Some of It" - Eric Church (+6) -- Eric Church hits top 50 this week. OK. It's not a song that has stuck with me. This guy has done much better in the past. But this is also inoffensive, so it's whatever. I'll let country radio have this.

67- "My Type" - Saweetie (+14) -- I'm not surprised that this song rose high this week. I'm just hoping that Cardi B 3.0 doesn't get too much success because we could use some actual talent on the charts rather than a whole bunch of Cardi B wannabes.

68- "Lalala" - Y2K & bbno$ (+16) -- Gross. Let's please not make this a thing.

74- "Cash S---" - Megan Thee Stallion featuring DaBaby (+12) -- Also not surprised that Cardi B 2.0 is having success by throwing DaBaby on her song. Her last song failed to do much on the charts, though, so I'm hoping that repeats here.

78- "Trampoline" - SHAED (+11) -- This song hiccuped a bit last week, falling a few spots. That tells me that this probably isn't going to be a mega hit. But I'm still glad that I found it and I will continue to show it to friends and listen to it throughout the year. At the least I hope it ends up like "Someone You Loved" by slowly finding its way to the top 50. The fact that I was able to include in this section this week is a good sign.

84- "The Ones that Didn't Make It Back Home" - Justin Moore (+11) -- Given the subject matter, the only thing that surprises me here is that this hasn't risen faster. I just wish I liked the song more than I do.

New Arrivals:

3- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug -- Filled with strong amounts of auto-tune and a useless Young Thug verse, Post Malone's team has created another song that sounds like its bound to be a huge hit. And if it is, well, I suppose I won't be too upset. "Goodbyes" is not unique by any means. It has the same exact feel lyrically as "Better Now" and "Sunflower," given that the three songs are underlined by a broken relationship that. But I'll take that side of Post Malone over the side of him that sings about empty flexing, as in his songs about jewelry, drugs, cars, fame, and hot girls he's going to sleep with. In other words, most of his "beerbongs & bentleys" album. And I'll never give Post Malone credit for being a good singer because he's not, but in "Goodbyes" he's auto-tuned himself enough to sound tolerable. Thus in casually listening to this song if it shows up on the radio or other means, this is pretty solid. In fact, I'd call it his second best single he's released behind "Sunflower." Granted, as I've tried to repeat as often as possible, Swae Lee does most of the heavy lifting on "Sunflower" and doesn't get hardly any credit for it. Everyone says "Sunflower" is a great Post Malone song. No it's not. It's a great Swae Lee song wherein Post Malone comes in at the end and is tolerable enough to not destroy the song. But on that note, perhaps the reason why "Goodbyes" isn't as good is because Post Malone's partner on the song, that of Young Thug, is no Swae Lee. Instead of doing the heavy lifting, Young Thug comes in with a quick verse that sounds like he had a hard time remembering what the subject of the song was supposed to be. He's awful and off topic. "Goodbyes" also doesn't have as great of a production as "Sunflower," a song that is extremely catchy. "Goodbyes" is simply decently tolerable, not catchy. But if we have to have a Post Malone song in the top 10 at all times, I'll take "Goodbyes" as an excellent placeholder.

44- "Under the Sun" - Dreamville featuring J. Cole, Lute & DaBaby -- I don't care about this Dreamville project, especially not with DaBaby added onto a song. In fact, I care so little that I don't even feel like looking up who or what Dreamville actually is, even though that would only take a 10 second Google search.

60- "BLOW" - Ed Sheeran, Chris Stapleton & Bruno Mars -- I'm sure we're going to get plenty of Ed Sheeran next week when his collaborations album "No. 6 Collaborations Project" impacts the charts. Looking at the track listing, most of the tracks make me super nervous, but "BLOW" was another one that sounded like it had enough potential. Granted, that didn't exactly work last week with "Beautiful People," a Khalid collaboration that should've been a lot better than it was, so I tempered my expectations on this one a bit. But... WOW! This song is not what I was expecting from these three. At this point, I don't know if I mean that "WOW!" in a positive or a negative way, but rather in a "that caught me off guard" sort of way. This is a rock song. Or at least an attempt at a rock song. Ed Sheeran is good at his slower ballads and the occasional upbeat pop song. In the description of this album on Apple Music, he said he really stepped out of his comfort zone for this project and that's evident here. Ed starts off by imitating an aggressive version of Chris Stapleton mixed with Bruno Mars and it kinda works. Then Chris Stapleton steps in for a while and owns the song. This is by no means a country song, but it seems to be the most in his comfort zone and it works great for him. According to Genius, Bruno Mars does all the work with the guitar, drums and piano, which is especially impressive given his guitar solo in the song is pretty great. But Bruno's verse and chorus are also solid. I don't know if I'm a huge fan of the lyrics, especially when Ed yells out that he wants to make a baby with this woman. And that's basically what most of the song is. All three of them are basically blown away by how amazing this woman is and we get a little too much details there, which feels like Bruno's influence since that's kinda his wheelhouse. But most of all, this is a unique and fun song that I'm down with jamming to. Stay tuned next week for more Ed Sheeran.

75- "Costa Rica" - Dreamville featuring Bas, JID, Guapdad 4000, Reese LAFLARE, Jace, Mez, Smokepurpp, Buddy & Ski Mask the Slump God -- With THIS many artists attached to a song, can you blame me for not caring about this project? The only act I even recognize here is Ski Mask the Slump God. And he is terrible. So I assume they all are as well, especially with all of these atrocious names.

95- "No Me Conoce" - Jhay Cortez, J Balvin & Bad Bunny -- This is a remix. The original is just Jhay Cortez. But of course the Latinx songs have to always add J Balvin and Bad Bunny, or artists like them, in order to get them popular. I listened to the original first and I wasn't that impressed. It feels kinda staticky and slurred. So I wasn't really that interesting in listening to the remix that added J Balvin and Bad Bunny because I knew it was going to make it even worse. And of course it does. Bad Bunny mumbles his way through his sections, as is his signature, and that clashes heavily with Jhay Cortez's already unimpressive original. J Balvin comes in and is fine, but his sections are mostly boring and thus don't even come close to saving the song. If it was just J Balvin, I'd say this song was fairly inoffensive, yet forgettable. But with the three of them, this is like fingernails on a chalkboard. And that's not even me bothering with the lyrics.

98- "I Don't Know About You" - Chris Lane -- This is exactly what I said when I saw Chris Lane on the charts. I always assume songs like this are going to be boring, generic country songs, but I'm willing to give them a try. Yet Chris Lane is one who I don't know well enough to know if he's capable of putting out an exception. Granted, I can't speak for his whole discography, but this is certainly not an exception. The song starts out slow and mellow, making me feel like this could work. But then Chris comes in and is super twangy in a way that sounds purposely forced rather than natural. And his lyrics are crap. Just more assembly line country lyrics straight out of the country music factory with no feelings or emotions attached to them. Then we get the heavy guitars and drums slowly coming in as the song progresses, betraying the initial slow and mellow feel. Sure, country radio might eat this up, but not me.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - July 13, 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 (=) -- A 14th week at No. 1 for "Old Town Road" and it remained steady on both sales and streaming, despite plummeting again on radio. That's 57,000 downloads sold, down just 4 percent, 89.3 million U.S. streams, up 1 percent, and 75.8 million audience impressions on radio, down 8 percent. In terms of songs that have ruled for 14 weeks, it is currently in an eight-way tie there along with "Uptown Funk," "I Gotta Feeling," "We Belong Together," "Candle in the Wind 1997 / Something About the Way You Look Tonight," "Macarena," "I'll Make Love to You" and "I Will Always Love You." Now the only songs ahead of it are the two songs tied for 16 weeks at top, "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito." It's biggest challenger at the moment is again Billie Eilish's "bad guy," but Billboard reports that there is a 1.9 to 1 difference between the two songs in terms of chart points, which actually sees "Old Town Road" increasing the margin compared to last week, so a 15th week at No. 1 for "Old Town Road" is a foregone conclusion at this point as I don't see "Goodbyes" by Post Malone getting a strong enough debut to knock out, with that of course being next week's top debut.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (+1) -- It continues to be a rather impressive run for Billie Eilish as "bad guy" survives a flurry of new debuts to once again be at No. 2. But as I mentioned, the margin remains too large for her to have a shot at No. 1 before the record gets broken. But given how consistent this song is on streaming and how the radio continues to climb, this song certainly isn't going away anytime soon.

3- "Talk" - Khalid (+1) -- Khalid tops the radio charts for a fourth week, rising another 7 percent to 126.9 million audience impressions. Sales and streaming still are still significantly behind "bad guy," though, which is why this song remains at No. 3. Also like "bad guy," this song isn't going anywhere.

4- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (+1) -- It appears that Ed and Justin have managed to maintain some traction here, which is certainly good news for Ed because he'll continue to have a stream of songs debuting on the charts with his upcoming collaboration album. One additional song debuts this week, so we'll get to that below.

5- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (-3) -- All things considered, this is not a bad drop for "Señorita." Last time Shawn Mendes debuted at No. 2, he fell completely out of the top 10 and hasn't yet managed to resurface. The same thing happened to Taylor Swift last week with "You Need to Calm Down." So remaining in the top five in week two is a good. But now what happens from here on out will be the real story. Can this song gain traction and stick around like "I Don't Care"?

6- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+5) -- I'm not surprised that Lizzo made the top 10 this week. That was certainly expected. I am a bit surprised that she jumped all the way to No. 6, though. But doing so puts Lizzo in great position as "Truth Hurts" is gaining fast in all categories. It might be a while before she breaks into the top three, as those songs are all pretty strong right now, but I'm expecting it to hit top five next week and then camp out there for the foreseeable future. This will be one of 2019's biggest hits.

7- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (-1) -- The Jonas Brothers are being stubborn here as they aren't going to go quietly. "Sucker" only falls one spot and I think it still has several weeks of life left in it. Its weeks are still numbered, though.

8- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+4) -- "Wow." has left the top 10 this week, which is great news, but Post Malone isn't going away as "Sunflower" takes a bit of a surprising surge back into the top 10. At first I was a bit confused, but then I was reminded that "Into the Spider-Verse" recently debuted on Netflix, which explains things. Even if this falls back out, we might not be done with Post Malone as he appears to have timed his next single quite well. As I referred to earlier, "Goodbyes" is set to be next week's big debut. Even though I don't expect it to come anywhere close to dethroning "Old Town Road," I'm expecting a top 10 debut next week, especially since Nos. 7 - 10 right now aren't that strong.

9- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (=) -- I'm mad that this song is stubbornly sticking around. But at least it doesn't appear to have enough momentum to gain traction, meaning it should be gone before too long.

10- "Suge" - DaBaby (-3) -- This is great news. "Suge" has apparently hit its peak and will hopefully be gone within a few weeks. And mark my words, no one on Earth will remember that this song was ever a thing.

Rising on the Hot 100:

16- "The Git Up" - Blanco Brown (+13) -- Yet another huge increase for Blanco Brown with what is set to be 2019's next big dance craze. While "The Git Up" is feeding off of "Old Town Road" with its combination of country and hip-hop, it has one advantage that "Old Town Road" didn't. Country radio is actually supporting this as this song has now taken over the Hot Country Songs, a lead that it will probably retain for a very long time. Combine support from multiple metrics with a big dance craze that will soon take over the world and that's a recipe for huge success.

18- "Hey Look Ma, I Made It" - Panic! At the Disco (+6) -- A second song this week cracks the top 20 as Panic!'s latest song now is king of the Hot Rock Songs for a second week. Unlike "The Git Up," I'm not 100 percent sure that this song has top 10 potential. I certainly wouldn't be offended if it made it. It would certainly be better than songs like "Suge" and "No Guidance." But sometimes songs have a habit of getting stuck in the teens for a while and I have a feeling that this is what's going to happen here.

24- "Beer Never Broke My Heart" - Luke Combs (+9) -- Make this one go away, please.

29- "Pure Water" - Mustard & Migos (+9) -- I'm not sure what sparked the big rise for "Pure Water" this week. I'm guessing it was the album release of Mustard's "Perfect Ten"? Either way, this song has been on the charts for over 20 weeks, and although it's managed to annoyingly stick around for a long time, it doesn't have the momentum to get much higher than it already is.

34- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+10) -- This song was initially released back in September, so it's had quite the lengthy run. I'm fine with it stick around for a bit longer, I suppose.

35- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+16) -- Someone stop this song from rising so quick.

46- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+7) -- Welcome to the top 50, Lewis Capaldi! It's already been quite the journey for this song in getting here, but I hope it stays a while and continues to inch its way up the charts. It doesn't seem like it's ever going to be a massive hit here, but it's a decent sleeper hit that could end up doing quite well.

50- "Knockin' Boots" - Luke Bryan (+11) -- Don't care about this one.

55- "Some of It" - Eric Church (+11) -- This one is alright, I suppose.

86- "Cash S---" - Megan Thee Stallion featuring DaBaby (+12) -- Nope. This needs to die.

New Arrivals:

26- "Beautiful People" - Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid -- I've been a bit mixed so far on Ed Sheeran's latest project of collaborations. Looking at the track listing for it, I'm sure that will continue to be the case because a lot of Ed's featured guests kinda scare me. But out of all of them, this one seemed like it would be one that would work nicely. I like both Ed and Khalid. I also think they have voices that are unique enough that you can easily tell the difference between them. And, yeah, well, vocally they do work a lot better than Ed and Justin do, but the problem with this song is that it's rather empty lyrically. Khalid himself only gets one verse and one chorus, most of which is just repeating what Ed previously sang, thus his existence on the song is not really justified. And while Ed is good with his simple pop songs, they're usually at least packed with enough emotion and sincerity to make them work. But this time around, he's just singing about feeling awkward in social situations. He's with a bunch of beautiful, yet he doesn't feel like he fits in. And that's really kinda it. The song just doesn't have much life to it.

63- "Higher Love" - Kygo & Whitney Houston -- Whitney Houston on the charts in 2019? I didn't see that coming. Not until, like, last week when I saw that this was released, anyways. Like most people in the world, I love Whitney Houston. Her voice was one of the best ever. But as I'm not a Whitney megafan, I had to do some quick digging to figure out where this came from. Turns out "Higher Love" was originally recorded in 1986 by Steve Winwood, becoming a No. 1 hit for a week. Whitney covered it in 1990, but never released it as a single. In fact, it was only released as a bonus track on the Japanese version of her third studio album "I'm Your Baby Tonight." That made it a bit tough to find the non-Kygo version to compare this to. I did listen to the original Steve Winwood song and that was a solid 80's song that I enjoyed. The only version of Whitney's that I found was a low quality live performance on YouTube.

In regards to this Kygo version of the song, I'm not sure an EDM remix of a Whitney Houston song really does her voice justice. She fits best on her own with her own her production. I think if I were to find a high quality version of her original cover, that would far supersede this Kygo remix. I can say with a certainty that Steve Winwood's original is much better. I think the authentic 80's production is is a better fit for the song than a tropical house remix in 2019. However, that's me just nitpicking because I press play and Whitney's voice just wins me over. It almost doesn't even matter what she's singing about. She just has a unique power to her voice that few artists have ever been able to match. And if we have to have an EDM remix of this song, then Kygo is the best choice. He made this song as good as it can be, I think. And imagine if this song becomes a hit? Whitney Houston doing well in 2019? I'm down for that!

65- "Que Pretendes" - J Balvin & Bad Bunny -- I didn't spend much time on this one. A Latinx song featuring Bad Bunny has almost made it to the skippable range. But I've enjoyed J Balvin enough to give this a chance. But no he doesn't save this. The song has no life to it. It's too slow and doesn't have any energy behind it. Which of course is not helped by Bad Bunny's incoherent mumbling.

67- "Don't Check on Me" - Chris Brown featuring Justin Bieber & Ink -- Nope. Not giving Chris Brown even one streaming number. Although I do laugh at him because his new 32-track album "Indigo" was only able to get one new song to chart this week.

78- "When I Grow Up" - NF -- I searched this song and one of the top results was a song from The Pussycat Dolls. So out of amusement, I pressed play. And, well, I'm not here to review that song, but it certainly has more life to it than this song from NF. And more interesting lyrics given that both songs are about pretty much the same thing. They're both essentially sung from the perspective of their younger selves. But The Pussycat Dolls have more honest and realistic dreams with a more interesting turn out as reality hits. But NF just raps about wanting to grow up, sign a record deal, make a few million, buy a house on a hill and be able to pay his bills. He says he doesn't care about being the best in the business and he acknowledges that his lyrics might suck, but that's OK. And I guess it's just a bit strange to her. Most rappers are singing about how awesome they are and how they're the best in the business. Yet NF sings about how he sucks and he's not the best, but at least he's real and he's making his money. So yeah, since NF just opened the door for me and begged me to walk right through, I'm going to take it. This song sucks. The lyrics suck. The rap isn't good. But whatever. If all NF wants to do is earn a paycheck, I guess mission accomplished?

81- "My Type" - Saweetie -- How many more Cardi B wannabes are we going to get in 2019? I suppose I can say it's relieving that we are getting more female representation in the rap world. Speaking of representation, Saweetie was born to a Filipino-Chinese mother and an African-American father, so there's all types of representation here. I just wish there was more... talent. Granted, this girl's flow is good. But the content is just the same awful trash as everyone else. So I'll pass.

84- "Lalala" - Y2K & bbno$ -- What in the blazes is this? Get it away from me!

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - July 6, 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 (=) -- "Old Town Road" gets its 13th week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, meaning it's only three weeks away from tying the record for most weeks at No. 1, which is currently a tie between "One Sweet Day" and "Despacito." Four more weeks and it'll break the record. Notably this week, "Old Town Road" is now the longest-leading hip-hop song on the Hot 100, breaking away from "See You Again" by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth, "Boom Boom Pow" by The Black Eyed Peas, and "Lose Yourself" by Eminem, all of which had 12 weeks at No. 1. "Old Town Road" is now one of 12 songs to rule for at least 13 weeks. In terms of its numbers, it actually wasn't as strong as I was expecting. Lil Nas X released his EP this week, which should've given a good boost, but instead only helped it remain stable in sales and streaming, falling 3 percent in streaming to 88.7 million U.S. streams and remaining mostly even in sales to 59,000 downloads sold. That means next week when the boost from the EP goes away, it's set to take a significant tumble on sales and streaming, just like it did this week in radio, falling 14 percent to 82.5 million audience impressions. That means the song as at its most vulnerable right now. Problem is we didn't have any major new releases this past Friday, so it will sleepwalk to a 14th week at No. 1.

2- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (new) -- Good effort from Shawn and Camila this week, but this spot is exactly where I was expecting this to debut. "Señorita" did have an excellent start on streaming with 46.7 million U.S. streams, thanks mostly to its YouTube numbers, and had a fine first week of sales with 50,000 downloads sold, but both of those were No. 2 behind "Old Town Road." The song also drew 23 million in overall radio audience, which is not bad for a first week on radio, but also way behind "Old Town Road." Last week's No. 2 debut, Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down" plummeted all the way to No. 13 this week. That's about what I expect "Señorita" to do next week, which is a similar fate that Shawn Mendes' previous No. 2 debut "If I Can't Have You" did eight weeks back. That song is now holding steady in the teens (it's at No. 14 this week), but it hasn't yet been able to get back to the top 10. Mendes will hoping that the combined star power will be enough to overcome a similar fate.

3- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- With no new major debuts scheduled for next week, "bad guy" will again become the biggest competition for "Old Town Road." Honestly if the numbers for "Old Town Road" continue to tumble like they have the last couple of weeks, "bad guy" might eventually jump ahead of "Old Town Road" on the charts because it continues to be remarkably stable, but that's not going to happen within the next three or four weeks, so we're still relying on a new debut to come and knock out "Old Town Road" if the current record is going to stand.

4- "Talk" - Khalid (=) -- Khalid remains No. 1 on radio, rising 4 percent to 118.9 million audience impressions. But that strong radio presence hasn't been strong enough to get him bast Billie, but both songs will probably jump up a spot each next week as Shawn and Camila come tumbling down.

5- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (=) -- Out of all the new debuts that have failed to knock out "Old Town Road," this song has been the one to remain consistent enough to actually stick around in the top 10, which is fairly impressive. I don't think this song is going to rise ahead of Khalid or Billie, but it could jump up to No. 4 next week depending on what happens to "Señorita."

6- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (=) -- Let's hope that "Sucker" also manages to remain right behind "I Don't Care" next week. Because I'd really prefer that the rest of the top 10 doesn't get any higher.

7- "Suge" - DaBaby (+2) -- Gross.

8- "Money in the Grave" - Drake featuring Rick Ross (-1) -- Gross.

9- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (+1) -- Gross.

10- "Wow." - Post Malone (-2) -- Gross.

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+3) -- I'm excited to see this song at No. 11 because that means it has strong potential to knock something out of the top 10 next week. Given that I want everything from Nos. 7 to 10 gone, I'll take what I can get.

18- "God's Country" - Blake Shelton (+3) -- This isn't going to get much higher than this spot, but the song's consistency is pretty impressive. And if I'm wrong and it does manage to break out of the teens, I won't be upset.

29- "The Git Up" - Blanco Brown (+22) -- Another huge rise for "The Git Up" this week as America's next huge dance craze seems destined for a top 10 entry sooner rather than later. Maybe this will be the song to eventually dethrone "Old Town Road." I won't bet on it doing so in time, but I think this has all the pieces in place to be a huge smash hit. Except for the radio thing. I haven't looked at the chart positioning for it, but it doesn't seem like the type of song to get a bunch of radio play. But who knows. We shall see.

39- "Cross Me" - Ed Sheeran featuring Chance the Rapper & PnB Rock (+7) -- I'm not a fan of this Ed Sheeran song, but it's managing to slowly gain traction, which is a positive note for Ed Sheeran with both of his songs holding well.

43- "Press" - Cardi B (+17) -- No thank you.

48- "Shotta Flow" - NLE Choppa (+19) -- Gross.

70- "It's You" - Ali Gatie (+27) -- Oh yes! I'll certainly take this! I mean, this guy is nothing too unique. He sounds a lot like Khalid to me. But it's still a solid song. So if he can gain traction and become 2019's newest rising star, I'm all for it.

New Arrivals:

2- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello -- I'm not really sure how people are going to take to this one. This could be the type of song that gets forgotten about in a month or two. But I don't know, I've found to be an extremely catchy. I listening to it shortly after it debuted a week or so ago and haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I think a big part of that for me is Camila. She has a habit of writing catchy enough pop songs that I've gravitated to. In terms of quality music, I think she's had a solid career post Fifth Harmony, even though her team has mismanaged her single release strategy. "Señorita" is another song that she simply owns. When Shawn comes in, he does a good job at harmonizing with her. They make a great musical pair. The lyrics? Eh. They're not good. But in this instance, I don't really care too much. This is a solid pop song to have playing in the background and has a good enough beat to dance to. If everyone else wants to tear it apart, I'm fine with that. I'm not going to sit here and defend the song as a musical masterpiece.

16- "Panini" - Lil Nas X -- As I mentioned before, Lil Nas X's new EP "7" impacted the charts this week. It included both the original and the Billy Ray Cyrus remix versions of "Old Town Road" as well as five other songs. Two of those new songs charted this week. I was curious enough to check them out. I'm mostly convinced that Lil Nas X will end up as a one-hit wonder as he's far from being the best part of "Old Town Road." Billy Ray Cyrus and the Nine Inch Nails sample are the two things that make "Old Town Road" work. So what's a follow-up song going to sound like? Well, it has no personality to it and no flare. It's not a country/rap combo song that's dumb enough to become a huge meme. And if Lil Nas X wants to be taken seriously as a country artist, he's doing a bad job at that with this song because this has no country elements to it. Not even a twangy voice or other hollow things that trick people into thinking some non-country songs are actually country. Granted, this song isn't pure awful. It doesn't hurt my ears. It's just boring and dumb. And the lyrics make me laugh. "Hey Panini; Don't you be a meanie; Thought you wanted me to go up; Why you tryna' keep me teenie?" That's how the song starts. The only other thing that might keep the song afloat is that it interpolates Nirvana's "In Bloom." I didn't necessarily pick up on that right away, but I did notice a Kurt Cobain writing credit on the song, which surprised. As it turns out, Lil Nas X said he's never even listened to Nirvana's album "Nevermind." That shocked me, especially because that album has "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on it. Thus of course I can't give Lil Nas X any credit for the interpolation of "In Bloom." If he'd never heard of it, I guess that means someone else did that for him and he just went with it. Kinda like him admitting that he had no idea "Old Town Road" interpolates Nine Inch Nails. 

20- "MEGATRON" - Nicki Minaj -- Nope.

22- "Rodeo" - Lil Nas X & Cardi B -- After "Panini," I almost decided to just skip this one. But I listened to it just for the heck of it. And yeah, I'm not really sure what to make of this. If anyone cares about Lil Nas X being country, he does his twangy voice in this as he raps. If you want to call that country, then whatever. It's not. It's another rap song and I can't even really decipher what it's about. It's titled "Rodeo," but I don't know why. Something about not wanting his girl to leave him, but nothing he says in his verses makes a whole lot of sense, then Cardi comes in and gives a verse saying she'd rather kill her ex than see him with another girl. Because, you know, I guess murder is the cool thing in rap nowadays. The only credit I'll give her is that she sounds more interested in the song than Lil Nas X does. Again, the song itself isn't awful like other rap songs. It's just boring and lifeless. Unfortunately I could see this song gaining more traction given the Cardi feature and Lil Nas X doing his twangy thing. I hope not that. Finally, in continuing the trend of sampling, this song samples "Pump It" by The Black Eyed Peas. Which, oddly enough, is the second time I'm mentioned them in this post. 

57- "One Thing Right" - Marshmello & Kane Brown -- Marshmello just keeps showing up on the charts. I'm guessing it's starting to annoy some people, but for me it's just whatever. Mostly it's just harmless. And as I said whenever his lost song charted, he switches back and forth from featuring a mainstream act and featuring an obscure act. Here's him featuring a mainstream act. Unfortunately for me, this time it's Kane Brown, one of the more uninteresting country acts who for some unknown reason to me is a huge in the country realm. Lyrically this song is about as uninteresting as anything else that Kane Brown has written. More boring country nonsense. The only thing that makes it somewhat tolerable is that Marshmello doing an EDM country thing is a significantly more interesting than any country beat that would be on a normal Kane Brown song. So I guess that makes this song alright. But nothing I'm going to remember. If it were to disappear in a week or two, I might forget it ever charted.

72- "Out the Mud" - Lil Baby featuring Future -- Nope.

98- "Cash S---" - Megan Thee Stallion featuring DaBaby -- Nope.

100- "Summer Days" - Martin Garrix featuring Macklemore & Patrick Stump -- It was a pleasant surprise seeing Martin Garrix on the charts this week. When it comes to DJs, he's always been one of my favorite ones. However, I won't lie. Seeing him teamed up with Macklemore and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy caused me to raise an eyebrow. That's an interesting trio of artists. In seeing how this all plays out, I decided that Martin Garrix and Fall Out Boy is a good combination. Patrick Stump's personality fits well with Martin Garrix's groove. But whoever wrote these lyrics didn't do a very good job. I get that it's supposed to be a simple, relaxing summer groove, but lyrically this just feels empty. Then Macklemore comes in during the middle of the song and just kills whatever groove this song had with a lackluster double verse that comes with zero energy. It makes me sad because ever since Macklemore and Ryan Lewis parted ways, Macklemore just hasn't been interesting at all. So maybe in a future song, Fall Out Boy and Martin Garrix could write a an awesome song together. But this experiment here didn't really work. The groove almost gets there, but not enough to over-compensate the empty lyrics, then Macklemore just kills any bit of momentum the song had. I'd probably prefer it slightly over the Marshmello and Kane Brown song that I just covered as this song isn't outright bad. It's just underwhelming and mostly forgettable.

However, there is a Tiësto remix of this song that's legitimately boss. But that's not the version of the song that charted, so that's mostly irrelevant to this discussion. Just thought I'd mention that, though, in case you feel like checking it out.