DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - August 31, 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- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (+1) -- Two new No. 1 hits in two different weeks? Even though I would've liked "bad guy" to reign for longer, I find this a bit refreshing. Billie got her chance at No. 1 and now we're sharing by giving Shawn Mendes his first ever No. 1 hit and Camila her second following "Havana." So congratulations to those two. And the margins here were pretty close. "Señorita" rose 6 percent in radio (102.4 million audience impressions), rose 3 percent in streaming (37.5 million U.S. streams), while falling 4 percent in sales (22,000 downloads sold). So it's not like it had a huge surge in numbers that helped it. It just benefited from solid timing as "bad guy" has been around for longer, meaning "Señorita" is more stable.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (-1) -- Billie returns to a rather familiar spot here as "bad guy" now celebrates its 10th non-consecutive week at No. 2. The song is falling, but not by a whole lot as it fell 1 percent in streaming (38.9 million U.S. streams), fell 3 percent in radio (91.1 million audience impressions), and rose 1 percent in sales (20,000 downloads sold). So as I mentioned, the margins here are really close. I wouldn't necessarily expect "bad guy" to back to No. 1 as I think "Señorita" to remain slightly more stable as it's simply been around for less time, but nothing is set in stone at the moment, which could make room for our next song to have its turn.

3- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+1) -- Personally I think its a lot more interesting when there's not a huge behemoth ruling the charts because it means anything can happen. Like "Señorita," "Truth Hurts" benefits from having been around for less time, meaning it could just naturally slide into No. 1. This week it rose 17 percent in sales (26,000 downloads sold), rose 4 percent in radio (99.1 million audience impressions) and rose 6 percent in streaming (28.4 million U.S. streams). So it's really just a bit behind in streaming is all. If it can somehow make up a bit more ground in that area, while keeping up in radio as I imagine that "Señorita" is going to remain a radio powerhouse, it could very well challenge for No. 1. As is, though, I like our trio of songs that are on top right now. One other random note, "Truth Hurts" replaced "Old Town Road" this week as the No. 1 song on both the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and the Hot Rap Songs chart. But I don't know, the song feels more like a pop song to me than R&B, rap or hip-hop. She's kinda rapping, but not really.

4- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (-1) -- With "Señorita" going No. 1 this week, and "bad guy" going No. 1 last week, "Old Town Road" actually lost one of its records this week. Or, well, lost sole possession of it. During its 19 week run, it had blocked seven songs from going No. 1, forcing them to peak at No. 2. The previous record was five songs, which "Old Town Road" now falls to since "bad guy" and "Señorita" have both successfully made it to No. 1.

5- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+3) -- "Ran$om" annoyingly breaks the top five after soaring up 21 percent in streaming to 52.3 million U.S. streams. My question there is this. What in the world makes this song so unique that it's getting THAT much streaming? My only conclusion is that Lil Tecca and his team are paying off the various streaming services by forcing the song onto everyone's playlists who listen to rap and hip-hop. Because no one would voluntarily listen to this song so much would they?

6- "Talk" - Khalid (-1) -- Khalid falls out of the top five this week, but is still clinging onto the top spot on the radio charts for an 11th week with 121.2 million audience impressions (down 3 percent). I don't imagine that will last too much longer. I think "Señorita" will eventually get that crown, even if it takes a few weeks.

7- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (-1) -- While I'm not exactly ecstatic that "Ran$om" is in the top five, the only consolation prize is that "No Guidance" is again held out as it's struggling to gain traction on the songs ahead of it. That's a good sign.

8- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (-1) -- "I Don't Care" also continues its slow slide downward. It's impressive how long the song has lasted.

9- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug (=) -- Post Malone clings onto the No. 9 spot, but it doesn't appear he's going to last much longer.

10- "If I Can't Have You" - Shawn Mendes (=) -- For what's most likely going to be a final week, Shawn Mendes again has both of his songs in the top 10. Taylor Swift is going to get at least one song in the top 10 next week, possibly two, thanks to her album release that's getting a huge number of sales. They'll immediately fall back out, but I don't know if this song is really strong enough to make a return in two weeks.

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+3) -- It's my favorite spot on the Hot 100. No. 11. The spot where a lot of songs come to die, nearly making it into the top 10, but not quite. So I'm not going to celebrate just yet, especially with Taylor set to jump in next week, but with half of the songs in the top 10 right now not doing very well, you would think this song is a good enough position to slide into the region, right?

14- "You Need to Calm Down" - Taylor Swift (+4) -- Taylor Swift's album reportedly has sold over 500,000 equivalent album units in its first three days, making it the biggest album debut of 2019. What that means for the individual songs on the album is a mystery to me. My plan is to simply wait for next week to see what happens instead of making any predictions. But it would make sense that this song would get enough of a push to make a return to the top 10 after having been away from the region since its debut.

18- "Beautiful People" - Ed Sheeran & Khalid (+2) -- With Ed Sheeran and Khalid's respective top 10 hits both slowly falling down, can the combination of the two of them here eventually take their place? We'll see. I wouldn't be completely ecstatic at the proposition, but there's worse things that could happen.

21- "The London" - Young Thug, J. Cole & Travis Scott (+6) -- This song rose six spots only because Young Thug got an album bomb this week. An album bomb that I will rightfully ignore as I don't think there exists a person on this planet who is curious about my opinion on a new Young Thug album.

24- "Baby" - Lil Baby & DaBaby (+10) -- Make it stop, please.

42- "Trampoline" - SHAED (+5) -- I'm glad I was able to sneak this song on this list this week. It managed to still rise despite a whole slew of Young Thug songs debuting ahead of it. Can it survive an onslaught of Taylor Swift songs next week? I hope so!

46- "Only Human" - Jonas Brothers (+7) -- The Jonas Brothers are back in the top 50. With "Sucker" gone from the top 10, they're probably hoping this one will rise a bit higher. I personally don't care, though. If they want me to care about them, they're going to have to write or release better singles than this one.

57- "On Chill" - Wale featuring Jeremih (+29) -- I still don't care enough to listen to this.

New Arrivals:

19- "Lover" - Taylor Swift -- I defended Taylor's album "reputation" amidst a slew of hate, but I've not really cared that much for her promotional singles for "Lover," so I'm not really jumping for joy at the prospect of diving into the album, which is why I haven't listened to any of it yet. We'll see how much of it shows up on next week's charts. In the meantime we now have the title track from said album charting this week to talk about. And it might be the best song of the four songs that have charted so far. But I don't know, I'd have to go listen to "The Archer" again to decide. What I like about this song is that it's more in Taylor's lane. I like her best when she's writing her simple love songs. She's good at that. It's when she tries to be crazy and bold that she falls flat. I mean, I appreciate that idea of her trying to do something different, but she's not good at different. She's good at this. That said, this isn't the best love song she's written. I kinda laugh at her idea of "we make the rules" being that "We could leave the Christmas lights up till January" or "We could let our friends crash in the living room," as if those things are two crazy ideas that new lovers do. So there doesn't seem to be a lot of effort put into the lyrics of this song, but musically it's nice enough to be an inoffensive Taylor song. Although seeing the title makes me want to go listen to "Love Story" instead.

26- "Hot" - Young Thug featuring Gunna -- Don't care.

32- "Bad Bad Bad" - Young Thug featuring Lil Baby -- Don't care. 

33- "Motivation" - Normani -- Are we actually going to get solo stuff from Normani now? It's about time. The only time she's charted, or even released anything, is with the likes of Khalid or Sam Smith. This is the first thing I'm seeing that's just Normani. Maybe she's just not had the proper... motivation? OK, that was bad. But I'd be fine with Normani having more of a presence on the charts instead of just being a tag-along artist. But I would like her to write better songs than this. She has a great voice and a solid presence that make this song passable. If it were to play on the radio or at some sort of party, I wouldn't be offended. There's just not a lot of substance here. She's not really talking about much outside being this boy's motivation. No real context in the verses. Nothing for me to gravitate towards or latch onto. It just feels like a generic, repetitive pop song that Fifth Harmony would put out.

47- "Slide Away" - Miley Cyrus -- Meanwhile, I'm not even sure what to do with Miley Cyrus. She kinda just does what she wants and so I'll take things as they come. This one is easy to figure out, though. Not that I closely follow Miley's relationship updates, but the internet recently told me that her and Liam broke up... again. My thought is that if we give it 10 seconds, they'll be back to together. But in the meantime we get a breakup song from her saying "Baby we were found but now we're lost; So it's time to let it go." And I dig this. Miley's always had a great voice even if she hasn't always used it to her advantage. But this time she takes a step back to use her vocals to write an emotional anthem about her breakup with Liam. It almost feels like the exact opposite of "Malibu," which was an upbeat, cheerful song about everything working out with a lover. And now this is a sad, mellow, depressing song about things being over and it being time to move on. It's simple, but effective. I'll certainly take it over anything from whatever the heck that "She Is Coming" EP was earlier this summer. Apparently she also has two more EPs on the way, "She Is Here" and "She Is Everything," before her seventh studio album "She Is Miley Cyrus" gets released. Again, I have no idea what to expect with all of this. I'll take it as it comes. But I hope it's more along the lines of "Slide Away."

55- "What's the Move" - Young Thug featuring Lil Uzi Vert -- Don't care.

60- "Just How It Is" - Young Thug -- Don't care.

61- "Surf" - Young Thug featuring Gunna -- Don't care.

70- "Sup Mate" - Young Thug featuring Future -- Don't care.

75- "Won't Be Late" - Swae Lee featuring Drake -- I was unsure about this one. I almost skipped it, but then I remembered that sometimes Swae Lee can conjure up something interesting. But he has to be steered in the right direction in order to do so and Drake isn't the one to give proper motivation. But I decided to check it out anyways and... yeah. It's exactly what you expect. There actually could've been something here, but both Swae Lee and Drake just sound bored and half asleep. If there was someone else in the studio there to wake them up and point them in the right direction, there's pieces here that make me believe this could've been another "Sunflower," but there's just no effort and certainly no content to work with. 

78- "Heartless" - Diplo presents Thomas Wesley featuring Morgan Wallen -- "Diplo presents Thomas Wesley" was a confusing thing to me, too. So let me make it easy. Diplo's name is Thomas Wesley Pentz. And he's decided to do a country project, because he does a lot of random side projects, where he uses the name Thomas Wesley to promote. Because Diplo sounds like an EDM name while Thomas Wesley sounds like a country name. So there's a bit of a branding game going on there. Country people won't accept Diplo and Morgan Wallen. But they will accept Thomas Wesley and Morgan Wallen. But since he doesn't want to confuse people too much, or completely abandon his normal fan base, he still uses his Diplo name. So "Diplo presents Thomas Wesley." And that was way more explanation than you probably needed, but talking it out made it make more sense to me. But the song? Yeah, this doesn't sound like your typical Diplo song, which may be what he was going for, but for me makes it less interesting. It just sounds like a clunky Morgan Wallen song with distant whispers of Diplo in the background. And Morgan is just whining and complaining about how heartless this girl is, yet the obvious issue when I look over the lyrics is that Morgan is just completely ignorant to how much of an idiot he's being. So when the song is trying to make me feel bad for the dude singing, but instead makes me feel for girl being sung about, I don't think the song really did its job. Thus I'll pass on Diplo's country album.

82- "Light It Up" - Young Thug -- Don't care.

83- "Juicy" - Doja Cat & Tyga -- Don't care.

84- "Lil Baby" - Young Thug -- Don't care.

92- "Ecstasy" - Young Thug featuring Machine Gun Kelly -- Don' care.

99- "Every Little Thing" - Russell Dickerson -- One more country song before I sign off for the week. And this is where country confuses me a bit because this is yet another single from Russell's 2017 album "Yours." Instead of releasing new albums and new singles, country singers just cling onto old albums for a really long time, often having months or years between singles. On said album, I liked the title song "Yours," specifically the wedding edition at the end. "Everything Little Thing" is the track that opens it up. For country standards, it's fine. It's upbeat and catchy enough to be acceptable, but it feels too heavy for me to really care about. A lot of country just feels bloated with strong drums and heavy guitars that don't make it sound like country, then gets attached some generic lyrics about liking a girl or whatever. That's what this is. The tone doesn't match the lyrics, nor does Russell sound genuine in his delivery. So maybe his song "Yours" being good was more of a freak accident rather than him being a good country artist.

100- "Did It Again" - Lil Tecca -- Don't care.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - August 24, 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- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (+1) -- Oh my goodness, this is the happiest week of my life! Not only is the 19-week run of "Old Town Road" over, but it gets replaced with "bad guy" by Billie Eilish! It was aided a bit by the arrival of a vertical video, as well as a cassette single available only through Billie's official website, but if you call that cheating then you have to disqualify the entire run of "Old Town Road" because that song has like five different versions of the song and somewhere around 10 different videos all combining together for the same numbers. If this new vertical video and cassette single did have an effect this week, it really just kept it ahead of "Señorita," as "Old Town Road" fell below both songs. Without the continued aid of all the remixes and videos, the floor is finally falling out from under "Old Town Road." Even though it's still No. 1 on streaming and sales, those numbers continue to drop and the radio is all the way down at No. 28 this week whereas "bad guy" and "Señorita" both have very strong radio that will keep them around for a while. So this was bound to happen.

Outside of simply being excited that "Old Town Road" has finally been dethroned, I'm also super happy for Billie. I've loved her music ever since hearing "lovely" last year. I've been waiting for her big break and I'm happy that it happened with "bad guy." When I first listened to this song, I had a feeling that this could be it because it's such a fun, upbeat song. I'm glad I was right. Other accomplishments for "bad guy" and Billie, "bad guy" sets the record for the longest time spent at the runner-up spot before finally taking the top spot as the song spent nine weeks at No. 2. Previously said record was held by three different songs each spending eight weeks at No. 2, "Starboy" by The Weeknd, "Sorry" by Justin Bieber and "The Way You Move" by Outkast featuring Sleepy Brown. "bad guy" is also the first song to top the alternatives songs chart to go No. 1 on the Hot 100 since "Royals" by Lorde in 2013. Speaking of Lorde, Billie (17) is also the youngest to be No. 1 since Lorde (16). Finally, Billie is the first person born in the 2000s to be No. 1 on the Hot 100, which is kinda crazy for me to think about. People born in the 2000s are already starting to have No. 1 hits on the Hot 100. It's one of those moments where I begin to feel old. Billie was six when I graduated high school.

2- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (+1) -- How long will "bad guy" be No. 1? I'm not really sure. "Señorita" boasts 36.2 million in streaming (up 4 percent), 23,000 in sales (up 4 percent) and 96.1 million in radio audience (up 7 percent). Meanwhile, "bad guy" has 39.1 million in streaming (up 10 percent), 20,000 in sales (up 11 percent) and 93 million in radio audience (down 3 percent). So "bad guy" is really only leading in streaming. And given that its been around on the charts for longer, I think "Señorita" is naturally going to have more staying power while "bad guy" is going to start dropping as its been around for a bit of time now. Could "Señorita" be No. 1 as soon as next week? I think that's quite possible? And I'm not upset. "bad guy" got to No. 1. That's good enough for me. I like it better when we cycle through our top hits quicker.

3- "Old Town Road" - Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus (-2) -- "Ding dong, the witch is dead! The wicked witch, she lost her head!" That's all I have to say. Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus rode that top spot until they couldn't no more. OK, I'll see myself out.

4- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (=) -- While "bad guy" and "Señorita" were strong enough to get past "Old Town Road," "Truth Hurts" didn't quite make it. But I'm sure it will eventually and we'll have our top three of "bad guy," "Señorita" and "Truth Hurts" reigning.

5- "Talk" - Khalid (=) -- Thanks to the strong radio play, "Talk" is managing to be quite stubborn right now by refusing to fall out of the top five. Either that or the songs below aren't strong enough to cause there to be a huge shift. But I still don't think this will be here for much longer as its sales and streaming continues to evaporate.

6- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (=) -- I hope that "No Guidance" doesn't get a spot in the top five. If it got stuck here at No. 6, I would consider that a win. But just because I said that, it'll probably swap spots with "Talk" next week.

7- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (=) -- "I Don't Care" is also being quite stubborn. But I guess we just don't have anything to replace it with.

8- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+2) -- I'm not happy that this rose two spots, helped again by huge streaming as it shoots up to No. 2 on the streaming charts with way more streaming that it ever deserved. The good thing is that it has nothing in terms of sales or radio, so its weeks in the top 10 are numbered, I think.

9- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug (=) -- This still baffles me by not being able to gain traction. In reality it lost a spot this week, succombing to "Ran$om." It's just that Ariana's new song that the world has already forgotten about fell off following its debut last week.

10- "If I Can't Have You" - Shawn Mendes (+1) -- Since there's surprisingly nothing that's ready to rise into the top 10, "If I Can't Have You" spends another week in the region as the top of the charts are really kinda stagnant at the moment. Outside a few cockroaches, I'm fine with that. There's a lot of worthy songs in the top 10 right now and I have no problem with a double dosage of Shawn Mendes.

Rising on the Hot 100:

14- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+3) -- I like the fact that this is slowly rising up the charts. If it can manage to maintain enough consistency, I would love to see this take a place in the top 10. Maybe we can kick out "Ran$om" and put this in. Realistically, though, if it can manage to not get stuck at this spot, it'll probably take the place of that second Shawn Mendes song.

20- "Beautiful People" - Ed Sheeran & Khalid (+2) -- I don't know how much potential this song has, but it has been remarkable consistent in the past weeks in maintaining its positioning. I'm not sure how I would feel it if hit top 10.

34- "Baby" - Lil Baby & DaBaby (+11) -- Gross. Make this one go away.

46- "One Thing Right" - Marshmello & Kane Brown (+16) -- Does this really have that much cross genre appeal to make it a thing? Are country people listening to a Marshmello infused Kane Brown song? Are EDM fans listening to listening to something with a lot of Kane Brown? I don't. This song's success confuses me.

47- "Trampoline" - SHAED (+5) -- I'm happy to see "Trampoline" break the top 50. I imagine its rise will continue to be a slow one, but it's great that the song is slowly catching on with people around the country. I've done my best to spread the word with this song, but my personal influence can only go so far.

49- "Queen of Mean" - Sarah Jeffery (+18) -- This is surprising. I thought last week was our "Descendants 3" week for the charts, but last week was perhaps a partial week for this song in terms of tracking, with this week being the first full week? That's my current guess. Because not only does this song jump 18 spots, but we have a second song from "Descendants 3" in the new arrivals this week. And I'll say here a summary of what I said last week. If you're really taking a song from a Disney Channel movie seriously and deeply analyzing all the lyrical and musical components, you should just stop. It's a song from a Disney Channel movie. And on that level its a fun song. And I'm a bit amused that it's now a top 50 hit. I don't imagine it will have a long chart run, but it's owning it on the DisneyMusicVEVO channel on YouTube as it has 72 million views since being uploaded on August 2, which completely annihilates everything from "The Lion King" on that channel and most things from "Aladdin." So the "Descendants 3" influence is a lot stronger than you were probably thinking if you're just a casual outside observer.

53- "Only Human" - Jonas Brothers (+10) -- The Jonas Brothers are probably excited that they have another single that's catching on. At least it's this one and not "Cool," but this is still not even close to the level of "Sucker."

59- "Gold Roses" - Rick Ross featuring Drake (+14) -- Rick Ross has a new album that I think impacted the charts this week. Although he got no new hits from it to chart this week, so I laugh in his face. All that it did was give a boost to this song that I don't care enough to actually listen to.

65- "Time" - NF (+14) -- Thanks to all of the songs from Drake completely evaporating from the charts this week, we have a lot of risers here in the bottom half of the charts. I suppose there's worse things than NF, but I'll still pass on this.

75- "Love You Too Late" - Cole Swindell (+19) -- Generic country song gets a rise after debuting last week.

78- "Daddy" - Blueface & Rich the Kid (+20) -- Excuse me while a throw up.

79- "Ballin'" - Mustard featuring Roddy Ricch (+10) -- At least it only rose 10 spots in the absence of Drake this week?

80- "We Were" - Keith Urban (+10) -- Eh. Not Keith's best. It's not a song I see ever being a highlight at a Keith Urban show, but I won't be upset if it does well.

82- "Prayed for You" - Matt Stell (+17) -- Mostly inoffensive and almost a really good wedding reception song, but it still lacks a bit of the depth that I would like it to have. But I'll still take it over most of the country that gets played today on country radio.

85- "What Happens in a Small Town" - Brantley Gilbert & Lindsay Eli (+12) -- This one I'll take a pass on. Play the previous two country songs I just talked about and not this one.

New Arrivals:

11- "Hot Girl Summer" - Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj & Ty Dolla $ign -- I haven't listened to this, but I see that title combined with those three artists and I feel I already have listened to it. And I already don't like it. So why waste my time? 

64- "Mac 10" - Trippie Redd featuring Lil Baby & Lil Duke -- Lil Duke? Why does every new rapper think its cool to start their name with either Lil or Young? If we have to have dumb rap names, can't we be more creative? Not that I would've listened to this anyway given the other two rappers on this track, but I just had to complain at that.

81- "Small Talk" - Katy Perry -- So what's Katy Perry doing with her life these days? Certainly not writing music that people are remembering. Her most recent single, "Never Really Over," was released in mid-June, yet is currently on life support as it falls down to No. 50 this week and will be off the Hot 100 before too long. Although it's really funny because in my brain I started this off with that comment, then I listened to this song and it started with "Isn't it strange, they used to know me. All the highs and lows and in betweens and now you see me and just say, 'Hey.'" Yeah, pretty much. It's kinda crazy that we live in a world where both Katy Perry and Taylor Swift are doing their best to write music and release new singles, yet neither are able to gain any traction. I guess that's what you get when most people don't like your previous albums. You have to do more than just write average music in order to make a comeback in the public's eye. Right now I'm listening to a bunch of old Katy singles and her music used to have such a strong bombast to them. She had a powerful presence in the pop world with songs that stuck in your head, even if you didn't like them. Specifically I'm on the "Teenage Dream" album going through those singles and those songs were impressive. Then I go back to listening to "Never Really Over" and "Small Talk" and I can tell why Katy is becoming a has been. "Small Talk" even has a segment towards the end where the lyrics are "Blah, blah, blah, blah" for several stances. And yeah, that section is pretty much what I hear for this whole song. It's not particularly bad. But it's a song that I'm not going to ever remember. And for me that's disappointing because I want Katy to be back.

84- "Night Falls" - Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson, Booboo Stewart, Cameron Boyce, Thomas Doherty, China Anne McClain & Dylan Playfair -- This, ladies and gentlemen, is the cast of "Descendants 3." Well, many of them. On the YouTube thing, it has 53 million views since being uploaded on August 2. So not quite as strong as "Queen of Mean," but it still shows how big the "Descendants" brand is. And this song, well, let's just saying that I'm gaining a soft spot for this "Descendants" stuff. I watched the music video for this and was laughing at the hilariously cheesy moments. But laughing in a good way. The heroes were getting corned by the knights and then one of them seemed to put a spell on the knights and the all started dancing in the same manner as the heroes were. In comparing "Queen of Mean" to "Night Falls," my very educated guess is that "Queen of Mean" happens towards the beginning where Princess Audrey is accepting the darkness boiling up within in her instead of trying to pretend to be good, while "Night Falls" seems like a battle song that happens much later in the film. I've listened to "Queen of Mean" a lot more in the last week than I care to admit. It's the much catchier song that parallels "Let It Go" in many ways. "Night Falls" is an entertaining battle song that sees a good mix from these talented young singers, but it's not quite as catchy and infectious. But maybe I just need to give it a week or so.

86- "On Chill" - Wale featuring Jeremih -- Nope. Never cared about these two. But it's probably slightly less offensive than stuff from Trippie Redd, Lil Tjay or DaBaby.

87- "Snake Skin" - Trippie Redd -- Two Trippie Redd songs? Did he release an album for me to ignore? I don't care enough to look that up.

90- "Buy My Own Drinks" - Runaway June -- Here's my "What in the world is this?" song of the week. As it turns out, Runaway June is a female country group consisting of John Wayne's granddaughter Jennifer Wayne as well as Naomi Cooke and Hannah Mulholland. This is the group's first Hot 100 entry following the release of their debut studio album "Blue Roses" in June of this year. They've been active since 2015 and are currently touring with Carrie Underwood and Maddie & Tae on Carrie's Cry Pretty Tour 360. So that's a bit of background. Having this song chart in the midst of that tour certainly helps them. I will say that I've always had a softer spot for female country singers and that holds true again here. These girls have a solid chemistry together on this song to go along with great voices that fit the genre well. Maybe it's just that I'm a guy, but I think female singers fit the genre a lot better than guys do. As far as the lyrics go, I was going to get a bit upset that this is one of those "shove it in the face of the guys" songs where the girls don't need any men in their lives. Because heaven forbid you allow a guy to buy you a drink as if that's some sort of weak sign of submission to the male race. But a closer examination shows that that's not really what they're really going for here. This is a post break-up song where the girl is trying to un-fall apart, as the lyrics say. She tries calling friends and go have a good time, but when no one is around, she decides that she can be her own boyfriend. Buy her own drinks, pay her own tab, have fun by herself, call herself a cab at the end of the day. Not let loneliness prevent her from having a good time. That I think is much better and certainly quite relatable. I can see why people are connecting with this song. And if I was feeling rich, I think it would be fun to go see this group on tour with Carrie in Salt Lake on September 14. I've actually been to a Carrie concert as she performed at Stadium of Fire a few years back when I had tickets. She's good at putting on a show and I think this Runaway June group would do good at complimenting her.

92- "F.N" - Lil Tjay -- Let's not make this guy a thing. I don't even know how I'm supposed to interpret a title like that, anyways. Nor do I care enough to look up what it means.

93- "Baby Sitter" - DaBaby featuring Offset -- Is every DaBaby song going to have a baby reference in it?

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - August 17, 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 (=) -- I believe we will all look back on the summer of 2019, not as a historical one, but an embarrassing one for music history. BECAUSE THIS IS STILL HERE!!!! It's almost literally been No. 1 for the entire summer. 19 weeks. MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- Now that Lil Nas X has the record in the bag and there won't be any more new videos or remixes (hopefully), "Old Town Road" is tanking in chart points, down 13 percent in streaming, down 28 percent in sales and down 11 percent in radio. The reason why "bad guy" isn't topping it yet is because "bad guy" is also tanking, at least in streaming and sales as it's down 22 percent in streaming and down 11 percent in sales. Although where "bad guy" has the advantage is radio, where it is up 4 percent. Apparently that math somehow works out to make it so the two songs essentially lost the same amount of chart points this week as there's still a 1.2-to-1 lead for "Old Town Road," with "Old Town Road" having fallen slightly more. Will next week be the week where "bad guy" FINALLY jumps ahead of it? I hope so. But if not, "bad guy" will tie the record for most weeks at No. 2 without having gone No. 1. Said record is 10 weeks. "bad guy" has now been No. 2 for nine weeks.

3- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (=) -- While Billboard is doing a great job keeping track of the margin between "Old Town Road" and "bad guy," they're not helping me out very much with "Señorita." Thus I have to look at the individual charts and see that "Señorita" is No. 5 on streaming ("Old Town Road" is No. 1 and "bad guy" is No. 4), No. 5 in sales ("Old Town Road" is No. 1 and "bad guy" is No. 7) and No. 7 in radio ("Old Town Road" is No. 21 and "bad guy" is No. 3). So in comparing "Señorita" to "bad guy," the only advantage "Señorita" has is a slight margin in sales, whereas "bad guy" is ahead in streaming and radio, thus keeping ahead. I imagine it will continue to be a close race between these two songs over the next month or so.

4- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (=) -- Referring you to the recent comment about where the other three songs on the charts are, I'll add "Truth Hurts" to the mix and report that it's No. 6 on streaming, No. 4 on sales, No. 6 on radio. So it has both "bad guy" and "Señorita" on sales, but is behind both in streaming and radio.

5- "Talk" - Khalid (=) -- "Talk" is No. 1 on radio for a ninth week, maintaining a pretty healthy margin between its competition as it only fell 2 percent to 127.2 million audience impressions, but it is nearly MIA in the other two categories, coming in at No. 24 on sales and No. 13 on streaming. So yeah, eventually that radio is going to evaporate and cause this song to fall.

6- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (=) -- Unfortunately the song ready to replace "Talk" in the top five is "No Guidance" as it now jumps up to No. 2 on streaming, while playing decent at No. 11 on radio, but lacking the most on sales at No. 22. Sales and radio margins are thankfully going to keep this back from being too strong of a competition for the top four songs, but this is one of those times where I get mad at streaming for making this song a thing.

7- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (=) -- No need to report numbers for "I Don't Care" as it's going to eventually start sliding down if ever there becomes competition in the top 10. It mostly is only holding this spot because it's No. 2 on radio, which makes sense for an Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber collaboration.

8- "Boyfriend" - Ariana Grande & Social House (new) -- This totally caught me by surprise. A new Ariana Grande song wasn't even on my radar. I guess that shows how little I care about her at the moment because she's just been mostly trash as of late, which continues with this worthless song. More on that below. But I suppose this could be seen as a disappointing debut considering her recent history with the likes of "thank u, next" and "7 rings" both doing extremely well. But in her game of quantity over quality, she adds another top 10 hit to her resume, so I'm sure she's not complaining. Although I wouldn't be surprised at all if this is the song's only week ever in the top 10.

9- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug (-1) -- I'm continued to be surprised at this song's inability to establish traction. Is this actually going to fall out soon?

10- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (=) -- Still completely MIA on sales and radio charts, "Ran$om" is riding solely on streaming at this point. That gives me hope that this will be one of those annoying songs that stays in the top 10 for a bit, then falls out like "Suge" or "Thotiana" due to its inability to get anything in the other two metrics.

Rising on the Hot 100:

32- "Knockin' Boots" - Luke Bryan (+5) -- This is not a good week for the rising songs section. All that's here is a bunch of country risers, most of which rose just barely enough to qualify for this list.

33- "All to Myself" - Dan + Shay (+10) -- Country.

40- "Rearview Town" - Jason Aldean (+6) -- Country.

46- "The Ones That Didn't Make It Back Home" - Justin Moore (+5) -- More country.

48- "Worth It" - YK Osiris (+5) -- Oh hey! It's NOT a country song! But it's a worthless rap song that barely scratched its way into the top 50 in its 25th week on the charts. Kudos to it for sticking around for this long, I suppose, but this isn't much of a contender to actually make a whole lot of noise.

72- "Living" - Dierks Bentley (+10) -- Country again.

86- "Tip of My Tongue" - Kenny Chesney (+12) -- And we finish with country.

New Arrivals:

8- "Boyfriend" - Ariana Grande & Social House -- Ariana sings one true line in this song and it's the very first line. "I'm a train wreck." That's edited, of course, because apparently Ariana is also now a foul-mouthed pop singer dropping f-bombs whenever she feels like it, even though they don't fit the song at all. Back to the point, though, I have no idea what Ariana is doing. Not only did she release two albums within months of each other then cannibalize her charting potential by releasing too many singles too close to each other, but now six months after all of that, she's completely abandoned everything and is releasing worthless singles like this piece of trash that makes it seem like she's not even trying? If you listen to "thank u, next," "break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored" and now "Boyfriend" all back to back, you can tell that these songs mean absolutely nothing to her. She's just writing random relationship nonsense to see what sticks. But ignoring all of that, this song doesn't even make a whole lot of sense. I can't even tell if she's mad at this guy or if she desperately wants him. Granted, complex relationships happen all the time where you both love and hate someone, but this song doesn't even seem like it's going for the complex relationship element. It just seems like Ariana couldn't decide what worthless song to write next or what generic subject matter that she didn't actually care about that she should put lyrics to and thus decided to lazily throw something together and throw it out because she's all about quantity over quality right now and thus I'm completely done with her. I really just want her to take a break for two or three years and figure out what she wants to do with her musical career, then come back with something thoughtful that takes full advantage of her musical talent. But she's not going to. Because she had her biggest success in 2018 and 2019 by this quantity over quality game, so she's going to continue this until it stops working. Knowing music in 2019, it'll probably keep working.

58- "Trust Issues" - Drake -- Six new Drake songs this week from his recent 17-track compilation called "Care Package." I saw this blowing up on my Apple Music last week and it had me nervous that Drake had a new album out that was going to take over the world, so I checked it. Apparently this is not a new album with new songs. He just took a whole bunch of songs that he had never released before and threw them together into one thing. In other words, these were the rejects from previous albums, which is just gross if I think about it because Drake's albums usually have like 10,000 tracks on them each. So Drake is literally digging at the bottom of the barrel to find all of the songs he didn't release instead of trying to come up with something new. That feels like a new low to me. So of course I'm not going to give it the time of day. I'm glad that only six of these songs showed up and that none of them broke the top 50. That means there's a good chance that they'll all be gone within a few weeks.

60- "How About Now" - Drake -- See previous comment about Drake.

61- "The Motion" - Drake -- See previous comment about Drake.

67- "Queen of Mean" - Sarah Jeffery -- In trying to figure out who Sarah Jeffery was, I did a quick Google search and suddenly all sorts of "Descendants 3" results came up. I suddenly became quite amused. I knew that was coming at some point. But I don't follow "Descendants" news closely enough to know that it had already been released. August 2 was the date. In previous "Descendants" movies, or at least with "Descendants 2" in 2017, we had multiple songs chart. This time around we just have one, and its sung by Sarah Jeffery, who plays Princess Audrey, daughter of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip. Because, yeah, "Descendants" is all about the... descendants of all the classic Disney characters. Don't ask me about the plot of all of this, but for the sake of context with this song I learned that Princess Audrey gets jealous and goes rogue. Hence "Queen of Mean." I don't know exactly where this fits into the movie, but based on the descriptive lyrics, I'm guessing this is towards the beginning when Ben, son of Belle and Beast, proposes to Mal, daughter of Maleficent, causing Audrey, Ben's ex-girlfriend to completely lose it. Because, yeah, this is all about her deciding to stop pretending to be good and embracing the darkness within her after the inciting incident of when "he called her name." Now you can take this "Descendants" music as seriously as you want, but I might look at you funny if you do. This is a Disney Channel musical fantasy about the descendants of Disney characters. It's not meant to be a serious thing. It's a silly, fun musical. As such, I've found myself rather entertained by the songs that have charted in the past and I think this fits well into that catalogue of music. Sarah Jeffery has an excellent voice and the song does a solid job of slowly building to a villainous climax with a pretty good key change towards the end. My only real complaint is that Sarah is better when she's singing on the chorus rather than doing her rap (if you want to call it that) on the verses. But still. It's a "Descendants" song from "Descendants 3."

68- "Dreams Money Can Buy" - Drake -- See previous comment about Drake.

82- "Uno" - Ambjaay -- What in the world is this? I looked it up because I had no idea who Ambjaay is, but based on that spelling, I was rather worried. And I had great reason to be because this is just as trashy and dirty as most rap songs that debut these days. The only thing that makes it unique is that it tries to have a Spanish influence with its beat and lyrics, but it feels as about authentically Spanish as Taco Bell is. It feels like he's trying to be cool by singing about nachos, counting to three in Spanish, and using a few other occasional Spanish words while rapping about the typical rap sleaze and cursing every other word. I didn't turn it off because I was in a bit of a dumbfounded state while listening. When I decided I'd had enough, the song ended. Yeah, it's less than two minutes long, so it's barely even a song. Sadly, I can see this being a song that sticks around because it's catchy and dumb enough to feel like a hit in today's rap world.

85- "Club Paradise" - Drake -- See previous comment about Drake.

90- "We Were" - Keith Urban -- Earlier this year I was nervous and disappointed when they announced Keith Urban as the headline act for Stadium of Fire here in Provo, Utah. I was hoping for someone that would get more excited than just another country act. As it turns out, though, Keith Urban put on quite the show. It was far from the best Stadium of Fire performance I've heard (that might go to Journey), but it was a pleasant surprise. The guy can rock out and make songs that probably aren't that special sound quite epic. But that's what happens in the musical world sometimes. You have musicians that only write average songs, but are excellent live. You also have musicians that have excellent music, but don't really know how to put on a show. The best musicians know how to do both great, but I don't really think Keith Urban is one of them. I'd put him in the first category. Thus if I were listening to this song live in concert, I'd imagine it would be really good as a change of pace song in between his more upbeat, exciting numbers. As is, listening to it via my earbuds on my tablet isn't all that wonderful. The lyrics are fairly generic. He misses who he was when he was with her. Typical country stuff. Keith does have more of a likable charisma to sell it better than most of his country colleagues, so I'd say this is fine. I'm not going to be upset if this does well. It's just that I listened to a lot of Keith Urban songs live last month and this song doesn't seem good enough to ever be a highlight at one of his shows.

93- "Fear Inoculum" - TOOL -- When I was looking at the sales charts this week, I noticed a lot of songs on their from whoever TOOL was, so I assumed it was a new album release wherein we got one song from. Turns out that TOOL is a them as they are a metal band. But no, they don't have a new album that impacted sales this week. They have a new album that gets released on August 30 and "Fear Inoculum" is the lead-off single for that album. I suppose that, in releasing "Fear Inoculum," it caused a chain reaction that caused a lot of their old singles to sell well since this will be the band's first album released in 13 years. I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about TOOL, because I don't, but this is a very welcome song for me on the Hot 100. I would love it if more rock or metal songs charted, or whatever it is that you officially call this song. Wikipedia calls it progressive metal, which is close to what I was going to say. I was going to say progressive rock because this is a 10 minute song. When is the last time a 10 minute song debuted on the charts? I don't know. Now I'm not super familiar with progressive rock, but it's a genre that my brother-in-law has introduced me to and I really enjoy it. A lot of people don't have the patience for a song that long, but I love the experience of listening to a song slowly build and transform as the song goes on. This doesn't have a whole to say in terms of lyrics, but that's almost not the point. It's a very hypnotic, mesmerizing song that plays around with the instrumentation quite a bit in a rather fascinating way. It makes me really excited to go listen to this full album later this month, as well as check out TOOL's other stuff. And now I know why their songs are all selling well. People hear this and they want to hear more. Due to the song's length, I don't imagine it will have much of a chart life, but I can only hope it does because this is one of the most unique and refreshing songs to chart in recent memory. I want more songs like this to do well and am thus happy that it charted at all.

94- "Love You Too Late" - Cole Swindell -- It's really tough to go from TOOL to Cole Swindell. "Love You Too Late" comes from his 2018 album "All of It," which did have the song "Break Up in the End," which I really enjoyed, but "Love You Too Late" is not even close to as interesting. This is more like your typical boring country song. He opens the song by talking about whiskey and I almost turned the song off right there because that's a sign of a useless country song. But I continued and listened to Cole spend just under two and a half minutes singing about how he loved this girl too late, which is more generic country lyrics that doesn't even have the charisma of a Keith Urban to make it somewhat interesting. It'll probably get big because, you know, country. But I certainly won't remember this song ever existed a year from now.

95- "Days in the East" - Drake -- See previous comment about Drake.

97- "What Happens in a Small Town" - Brantley Gilbert & Lindsay Ell -- Speaking of more boring country, we now have Brantley Gilbert to discuss. This song is the lead-off single from his upcoming album "Fire & Brimstone," due this October. I had a little bit of home for it because he featured a female country singer on it and typically I find myself liking female country singers a lot more than male country singers. But yet Brantley spends the song singing about what happens in a small town, yet the song is very loud and big, so the tone of the song feels disconnected from the lyrics. If you're going to talk about a small town, it would make more sense to have it be a quieter, more mellow song. But in singing those lyrics, the two of them don't bring anything new to the table. A lot of country singers sing about life back home, but this song doesn't even seem personal. It feels very generic. Unsurprisingly, I do like Lindsay's parts better than Brantley's. At the beginning of the song I was worried that she was just going to be relegated to backing vocals, but was pleased that she had a bigger role in the song. I just wish she was given more to sing about. Also, Brantley's vocals aren't that bad. He does fine. It's just that there's nothing interesting about either the lyrics or the music. A song can only carry me so far on good vocals alone. It has to have something around it.  

99- "Prayed for You" - Matt Stell -- In a very country-heavy week, we end with one more country song. This time from newcomer Matt Stell. I say newcomer because this is Matt's first appearance on the Hot 100, although he's released a few albums independently and been around the block a bit in the country scene, being active in a small way since 2010. But this is his big breakout hit and has been slowly building since it was released last year. As one who doesn't follow country, this is new to me, but if you are a country aficionado, you may have heard of this one. Honestly I can see why this has gained popularity. I'm not going to say it's super unique or even one I'll listen to on my own, but Matt has an excellent voice that doesn't feel contrived or forced. He's not doing some southern twangy accent just to fit in. He's just singing and he has a great voice. The lyrics also feel honest and genuine. It sounds like he's singing about something that means something to him, even if the lyrics aren't any more unique than our other new country songs this week. When push comes to shove, this is a love song. He's admitting that he's not much of a religious person, but he's prayed for this person, anyways. Why is he praying for her? Part of me was hoping it was some sort of tribute to someone having a difficult time or a song that fits well for a tragedy. But no, he's just praying for someone to fall in love with him. In that light, it is a sweet, romantic song, but I would've also liked a bit more detail. He repeats his chorus three times, has one small intro and one small verse and that's it. So there ends up being not much too this song, but it's still nice enough for me to accept it.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - August 10, 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 (=) -- Now that the record is broken for most weeks at No. 1, it's no longer interesting following this. It's just boring and I'm annoyed that this is No. 1 for an 18th week. Let's get some variety on the charts. Imagine how many different No. 1 hits we'd have these past 18 weeks if "Old Town Road" never existed? Anyways, moving on. Helping this song stay at No. 1 is the remix with RM of BTS that's nicknamed "Seoul Town Road." Lil Nas X claims that's going to be the last remix. First, given that he's already gotten the record, I believe that. Second, it better be. Just let this song die. Numbers-wise, both "Old Town Road" and "bad guy" fell 6 percent in overall chart points, meaning the 1.2-to-1 difference between the two songs from last week remains the same this week. But with no additional remixes or videos on the horizon, I could envision this being the last week at No. 1.

2- "bad guy" - Billie Eilish (=) -- Had "Old Town Road" never existed, it would be Billie Eilish at No. 1 for an eighth week this week. As such, "bad guy" gets an eighth week at No. 2. The record for most weeks spent at No. 2 without having reached No. 1 is 10 weeks. "Work It" by Missy Elliott in 2002 and "Waiting for a Girl Like You" by Foreigner in 1981 share that record. There's two songs with nine weeks and five other songs with eight weeks. The most recent of the bunch is "Thinking Out Loud" by Ed Sheeran, which got stuck behind "Uptown Funk" for eight weeks before falling down. Let's hope Billie doesn't stay on this list as I would love to see her get at least a few weeks at top. But we'll see what happens in the next month or so.

3- "Señorita" - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (=) -- Could it be "Señorita" that ends up leapfrogging both "Old Town Road" and "bad guy"? It's quite possible. Although its lagging a bit on streaming when compared to those two, which is why its No. 3. Sales are about even with "bad guy" and its catching up on radio, which is what I'm predicting will remain the song's biggest strength moving forward.

4- "Truth Hurts" - Lizzo (+1) -- Lizzo is also in good position moving forward. I'm curious to see how this will all shake out when "Old Town Road" finally disappears. We could have a bit of a carousel at the time, which I prefer. I'm not sure the exact margins as I'm looking strictly at the sales, radio and streaming charts here, but "Truth Hurts" trails "Señorita" and "bad guy" in streaming, is slightly ahead of both songs on sales, and is between "bad guy" and Señorita" on radio. So I'm going to guess that the margins here are pretty close, outside the fact that "bad guy" is still getting way more streaming than both and is still ahead (and still gaining) on radio. But it's Señorita" that currently has the most momentum on the radio, which I'm guessing will help it retain the lead.

5- "Talk" - Khalid (-1) -- Not in the best position here is "Talk." While it still has a huge margin on top of radio songs for an eighth week, it's slowly starting to slide there and is way far behind on sales and streaming. Its No. 16 on sales and No. 12 on streaming, so that No. 1 radio lead is the only reason why this song is in the top 10 at all.

6- "No Guidance" - Chris Brown featuring Drake (+5) --  I was really excited last week when it looked like we had gotten rid of this song. But not only does it re-enter the top 10, helping kick out "Sunflower" and "If I Can't Have You," but now it soars up to No. 6 with a huge week in sales and streaming that I'm hoping is just due to the arrival of the music video, which impacted the charts this week. Yet this also has more radio than I would like to admit as it's No. 10 on the radio charts, so now I'm scared that this will stick around, which makes me upset that we're giving Chris Brown attention.

7- "I Don't Care" - Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber (-1) -- With almost no remaining momentum, this song isn't going to last much longer. It's only here because it's still pretty strong on radio. But with "bad guy," "Truth Hurts" and "Señorita" all gaining on radio still, that's not going to last for a whole lot longer. 

8- "Goodbyes" - Post Malone featuring Young Thug (-1) -- I'm a bit surprised that this song is still stalled out here in the bottom half of the top 10. After staying at No. 7 last week following its expected week two drop, I thought it was going to start to slowly climb up, but now it just falls a spot as it doesn't look like it has as much momentum as a Post Malone single usually does. If Post Malone falls out and no longer has a top 10 entry, I won't be upset. He's had way too much time in the region. However, I do enjoy this song more than "No Guidance" and the new cockroach that showed up at No. 10. So I'd rather see Post Malone stick around longer than give way to those two songs.

9- "Sucker" - Jonas Brothers (-1) -- This is in a similar place as "I Don't Care." It's still No. 3 on the radio charts as this has become a radio favorite this year, but it has even less of anything else, so I don't think it has much longer in the top 10.

10- "Ran$om" - Lil Tecca (+9) -- Yup, here's our latest cockroach in the top 10. Luckily streaming is all this song has. It's No. 4 on the streaming charts, behind "Old Town Road," "bad guy" and "No Guidance," but it hasn't even made an appearance on the sales or radio charts. Let's keep it that way. Songs that only get streaming are the songs that show up for a few weeks, hang out in the bottom half of the top 10, then fall out and are never heard of again. Let's just hope that "Ran$om" follows that.

Rising on the Hot 100:

18- "Someone You Loved" - Lewis Capaldi (+2) -- Slowly sneaking up through the top 20 is "Someone You Loved." Given that the seven songs ahead of it all seem to be stalled out or dropping, this seems to be timed well enough to at least sniff the top 10.

34- "Otro Trago" - Sech featuring Darell (+35) -- This is gross. I'm not sure why this song song jumped 35 spots this week, but let's not do something like that again. Out of all the Latinx songs out there, this is not the one that needs to become a mega hit.  

42- "Cash S---" - Megan Thee Stallion featuring DaBaby (+9) -- Cardi B 2.0 had another decent week while Cardi B 3.0 stalled a bit and didn't make this list this week. Both songs are in the 40 range this week and I can handle that for now.

44- "China" - Anuel AA, Daddy Yankee, Karol G, Ozuna & J Balvin (+8) -- At least it's not a 35 spot jump, but seeing this in the top 50 also makes me nervous.

46- "Rearview Mirror" - Jason Aldean (+8) -- This is whatever. I'm not a fan, but I'm also not offended, especially since country songs always have a ceiling and this is not going to be a song that breaks out from that.

51- "The Ones That Didn't Make It Back Home" - Justin Moore (+17) -- I also don't care too much about this one. But at least it has a title that tricks you into thinking it's good.

73- "I Don't Know About You" - Chris Lane (+13) -- I don't know about you, either, Chris.  

New Arrivals:

39- "Gold Roses" - Rick Ross featuring Drake -- Nope.

58- "Hot Shower" - Chance the Rapper featuring MadeinTYO & DaBaby -- Either Billboard glitched this week or my tablet was being dumb because this song, and a few other new arrivals, didn't have an artist listed. So when I went to verify that this is the song that charted, I stumbled upon the lyrics of this. Just reading over the first verse or so already had me annoyed without even listening to it. So of course this is also a nope.

64- "Single Again" - Big Sean -- Poor Big Sean. He's single again. At least I assume that's what he's talking about. I don't care enough to figure out otherwise.

69- "Takeaway" - The Chainsmokers & Illenium featuring Lennon Stella -- It was a pleasant surprise seeing Illenium on the charts this week. Recently I haven't kept up with the EDM charts as much as I have in the past. There's just so much to keep up with that I fell behind. But still, Illenium showed up on those charts quite a bit and I wondered if he was going to eventually breakthrough to the main charts, but he never did. Not until this week, anyways, when The Chainsmokers helped him get there. And honestly I want to say that his involvement in the song is the main reason why this has a nicer, catchier groove, but that's just a guess. The Chainsmokers certainly haven't been on their game in the last couple of years, so it makes sense in my mind. But outside the song sounding nice, the lyrics here are really confusing. The chorus repeats the line "My heart for takeaway," which is a confusing statement on its own. I had to dive more into the lyrics to figure out what it meant and I didn't really like what I heard. "Before I love you, I'm gonna leave you. Before I'm someone you leave behind, I'll break your heart so you don't break mine. Before I love you, I'm gonna leave you. Even if I'm not here to stay, I still want your heart." And that's pretty shallow lyrics there from Andrew Taggart, who doesn't let Lennon Stella have her moment. Lennon Stella is one half of the sister duo Lennon & Maisy, who are mainly known for playing Maddie and Daphne on the musical drama "Nashville." But Lennon's voice was really nice on this song and this could've been a breakout moment for her, but outside a brief moment, Andrew Taggart is always singing along with her, thus stealing her thunder. In addition to the lyrics not being very good, I don't like it when Andrew Taggart sings because he's not good at. So this song is nice musically, but lyrically it really annoys me.

82- "Living" - Dierks Bentley -- For Dierks Bentley's first appearance on the Hot 100 in 2019, he's going back to his 2018 album "The Mountain." Sometimes I don't know why these country acts wait so long in between releasing singles from their albums, but whatever. That 2018 album had the song "Burning Man" featuring Brothers Osborne and that was a decent song. Having Brothers Osborn on it helped, but whatever. "Living" isn't an awful song. There's a nice sentiment there and Dierks voice is just fine. But it feels just a touch generic. Dierks is waking up and taking in how amazing life is. And that's it. It's good to have a song that touches on not taking life for granted, but I feel this was more of a skeleton of a song rather than a fully realized song with a lot of depth and emotion. And he still made sure to throw in a bunch of country isms that bother me. Like waking up and drinking in the rising sun... like whiskey. I mean, why? So I can't get behind this song and I probably will have a hard time remembering it. But at the same time, it's not particularly offensive or bothersome.

85- "Leave Me Alone" - NF -- I don't know why I keep giving these NF songs a chance. The singles leading up to his new album, of which was recently released, were overall not that impressive. Had he experienced an album bomb, I would've ignored it. But for whatever reason, I listened to yet another NF song and again I wasn't impressed. Even though I did give it a listen, I don't feel like analyzing it too much. It's slightly better than some of the other ones, but not by much. His rap is good. His style is better than most rappers. But his content is empty and because of that, his songs don't jump out and grab me. This is the same thing. NF fans will like it, but not me.

89- "Daddy" - Blueface & Rich the Kid -- Definitely not.

94- "All Day Long" - Chance the Rapper featuring John Legend -- After skipping "Hot Shower," I wasn't super interested in the other two songs either, but I was curious enough about a John Legend feature to check out what that was about. He was certainly more appealing than MadeinTYO and DaBaby. As weird as it seems, I almost quit when Chance's first word was "Yep." I actually hate the fact most rap songs start with that. I know, I'm weird. But I continued. And I liked how more musically complex the song was in compared to most rap songs. There was a lot going on in terms of the instrumentation here. But I found Chance's voice really annoying and even though John Legend added a bit of soul to the song, making it a bit of a soul rap, if that's a thing, it wasn't enough for me to overcome what Chance was doing and I don't think the two meshed very well. Also, Chance's lyrics were mostly really stupid and incoherent. I could hardly tell what he was rapping about in this song as it seemed like he jumped from tangent to tangent, discussing whatever random thing was on his mind. So I should've skipped this song. But I didn't. And I kinda regret it.

95- "Do You Remember" - Chance the Rapper featuring Death Cab for Cutie -- Again, curiosity took over here. Death Cab for Cutie? Honestly that's a band that I don't know as well as I probably should, but seeing their name on the Hot 100 caught my attention as they haven't had a song chart on the main Hot 100 since 2008. They've showed up on various rock charts and whatnot, but nothing else. I suppose it's not really the whole band that's a part of this song. Just lead singeer Ben Gibbard doing vocals, but I really like his chorus. It's a more mellow song and his voice fits a relaxed tone as he reminisces about past summers. I was really digging it... until Chance came on and started rapping. He also goes for a slower rap in order to fit the tone of the song and that mostly works. But his problem is his lyrics don't. He's talking about past summers with absolutely zero focus. He jumps all over the place and it gets on my nerves. And again, I find his voice a bit annoying. But I would love to see a version of this song that takes away Chance and is just Ben Gibbard. Maybe he can get his band to do a remix of the song without Chance so that I can add it to my library.