Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (=) -- Drake now celebrates his sixth week at No. 1 with "In My Feelings," thanks to the country thinking it's a cool thing to dance like Drake and/or act like an idiot on the internet. Because, you know, everyone has to try to get their 10 seconds of fame. Although the story for this week is that the streaming and sales both tanked this week. Streaming dropped 24 percent to 71 million U.S. streams while sales dropped 33 percent to 38,000. That puts the song within striking distance of being dethroned if another monster hit comes in, whereas previously the song was untouchable. The real story will be in the coming weeks as we see if it continues to drop like this. The radio is still strong at 109 million audience impressions, but that's mostly equal to last week which means it's not getting any higher. Thanks to Drake's three mega hits in 2018, he has now accumulated 25 weeks at No. 1 this year, which means he's three weeks away from tying Usher's 2004 record of 28 weeks, if there's anyone on Earth that cares about Usher's record.
2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- The positive note about Drake dominating is that he's holding Maroon 5 back from getting No. 1. As long as we continue this, I'm fine with it. Better Drake than Maroon 5. I'm still confused as to why this is here in the first place. I mean, I get it. Adam Levine has maintained star power by hosting the voice, continually releases extremely safe songs that the radio falls in love with, Cardi B is featured in the song at the height of her career, and the music video is loaded with female celebrities. But come on. The song is one of the most boring and dull songs that Maroon 5 has ever released as a single. How can anyone listen to this and consider it enjoyable music? I'm more convinced that Adam Levine made a deal with a crossroads demon in which he asked for constant popularity.
3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (=) -- Our top three is officially stuck, which I'm not OK with. Get rid of Drake. Get rid of Maroon 5. Get rid of Cardi B. All three of them have been in this spotlight for way too long in 2018.
4- "FeFe" - 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj & Murda Beatz (+1) -- With Travis Scott dropping out of the top five, it made perfect sense that this is the song that would benefit from that. Although what doesn't make any sense at all is why in the frack is this song still getting a buttload of streaming? Do all these people who mindlessly listen to this awful rap music non-stop on streaming really have no ear buds? 6ix9ine is perhaps the least deserving artist I can think of to have a hit cemented in the top five. Although with this being the week of Nicki's album release impacting the charts, I hope that means streaming disappears next week for this song. The only silver lining here is that at least the radio thus far has refused to touch this. A song can only go so far without any radio.
5- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+1) -- OK, fine. Whatever. I have worse things to worry about than another boring Post Malone song. At least this one isn't as awful as "Psycho" and "rockstar." I can sleep well at night knowing that both of those songs are gone. And I can be somewhat grateful that no one on Earth is going to even remember that "Better Now" even existed a year from now. So I just have to patiently wait for this to disappear and hopefully we'll be done with Post Malone for the time being.
6- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+1) -- This song remains as the only Juice WRLD song that's worth anything, so he should feel lucky that I still have no problems with this song being around. In fact, at this point "Lucid Dreams" might be my favorite song in the top 10. And that's actually kinda sad because, even though I'm fine with it, it's not going to be anywhere near my list of favorite songs of 2018.
7- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-3) -- As is expected the week after an album bomb, all of Travis Scott's songs tanked this week. He only has 10 of his 18 songs left on the entire Hot 100 and only three of those are still in the top 50. However, I am a bit surprised that this song only fell three spots this week instead of dropping out of the top 10 entirely. I hope that's not a sign that this is going to start gaining traction.
8- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (+1) -- I said last week that "Taste" was probably going to jump up to No. 7. Yet it only managed to jump up to No. 8 since "SICKO MODE" managed to stick around. That's a minor win, I suppose. As long as we can keep this song out of the top five, I might be somewhat content. Although a better option would be to get this away as soon as possible.
9- "Boo'd Up" - Ella Mai (+1) -- I thought that this song was going to be gone this week. But I guess that it hung on for another week due to no songs below the top 10 stepping up their game enough. Let's hope that changes next week because Ella has now worn out her welcome in the top 10.
10- "No Brainer" - DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper & Quavo (+1) -- I'm not surprised to see DJ Khaled and friends back in the top 10 this week after seeing that this song only dropped to No. 11 last week following its debut. The inclusion of Justin Bieber means the radio is enjoying this song, which is unfortunate. I'm not an inherent Bieber hater, but anytime he's on a song with DJ Khaled, he puts out performances that are close to career lows in terms of quality. The silver lining with this specific song is that this gang's song last year debuted at No. 1, then camped out in the top five for a long time. The fact that this only debuted at No. 4, fell out of the top 10 the next week and is barely clinging onto a spot in the top 10 in week three is a good sign that this song won't have as strong of legs.
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+4) -- Also as expected the week after an album bomb, the rising songs section is quite large. Leading the charge here is Khalid and Normami, which is an excellent sign. If this song can manage to get over the hump and break into the top 10, it'll partially save the top 10 because this is a pretty solid song that will immediately be the best song in the top 10. However, I'm not going to celebrate just yet because the list of songs that peaked at No. 11 is really large, so sometimes it can be hard to get over that final hump.
12- "No Tears Left to Cry" - Ariana Grande (+2) -- Nicki Minaj attempted an album bomb this week and mostly failed. More on that later. But I bring that up because Ariana's album is officially out and she's going to try to album bomb next week. I highly doubt that Ariana is going to getting enough streaming across the board to pull off more than a song or two, but I do expect this song to get a huge boost and celebrate another week in the top 10 next week. And that'll be good because this song deserved better.
15- "Yes Indeed" - Lil Baby & Drake (+3) -- This song is stubbornly sticking around in the teens. But at least it's the teens where this song is hanging out because that means it's not in the top 10. Let's keep it that way because we need to all quickly forget that this song was ever a thing before Lil Baby gets any ideas that the world actually cares about him. Without Drake phoning it in on this song, I highly doubt this song would even be on the Hot 100 at all.
17- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+5) -- If 5SOS can continue to get traction, I'll take it. Not that I care for them much as a group. And I still don't think this song is particularly wonderful. But it's still better than most of the songs in the top 10 right now, so this would act as a decent placeholder. That said, if this ends up getting stuck in the teens, I won't shed any tears.
21- "Nonstop" - Drake (+8) -- I'm not sure why this song got momentum this week. Although I'm sure Drake himself is surprised that it's "In My Feelings," not this song, that became his next monster hit. If you remember, this was the song that actually debuted at No. 2 when his album dropped. For the sake of everyone in this country, let's keep this song away from the top 10 so that we can get a break from Drake once "In My Feelings" finally drops out.
25- "Back to You" - Selena Gomez (+8) -- Wouldn't it be nice if we could get this song at least into the teens? It's another excellent song from Selena and it deserves more attention, yet it managed to only camp out in the 20's and 30's instead of becoming a huge hit and that's unfortunate.
28- "Tequila" - Dan + Shay (+9) -- This song got all the way up to No. 21 before getting bullied back down to the 30's. And now it's resurfacing in the 20's, which means I think the 20's is where this is going to stay. And that's good because it's already too high as is.
29- "Mercy" - Brett Young (+5) -- I'm not sure how much higher Brett Young is able to go. Although I do expect him to hit the top of the country charts eventually, so I'm expecting this song to stick around. I just wish I was happier for him this time around.
30- "God is a Woman" - Ariana Grande (+9) -- Like "No Tears Left to Cry," I also expect "God is a Woman" to get a huge boost next week when Ariana's album hits impacts the charts. And I won't be upset at that even though I think "No Tears Left to Cry" is a much better song. "God is a Woman" is simply Ariana acting super sexy yet again and we've had plenty of that from her.
32- "One Kiss" - Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa (+8) -- I once thought that this song might become a bigger hit. But like with Selena's song, this general region seems to be where the song is going to peak. And I suppose I'm fine with that because this isn't the most memorable song that Calvin's done. Although I do think that it's much better most of the stuff Calvin has done recently, so I guess we can call it a bit of a return to form?
34- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+20) -- I know I've been really harsh on Imagine Dragons recently since their third album is criminally boring and dull. But as college football is now upon us, I'm expecting to hear a lot more of this song and I'm fine with that because this is a solid football anthem.
35- "Simple" - Florida Georgia Line (+10) -- Dare I say that this song's title describes it perfectly? It's simple, yet effective. FGL is always hit or miss for me, but this particular song happens to lean more on the hit side of things.
36- "Drowns the Whiskey" - Jason Aldean featuring Miranda Lambert (+16) -- I think country radio will forever overplay Jason Aldean as long as the man is making music. It doesn't even matter if it's as dull as this snoozer. And it's really unfortunate that he used Miranda Lambert specifically for song sales as he relegated her to backing vocals. It's more unfortunate that country radio fell for his scheme.
37- "Never Be the Same" - Camila Cabello (+9) -- Oh Camila, what are you doing with your career right now? This could've been as big as "Havana," but instead she didn't give it the necessary boost because she decided to focus on other songs that completely fizzled out. And I'm also wondering why she seems to have completely abandoned her recent album. There's several song that could be effective as singles.
39- "I Like Better" - Lauv (+10) -- It's always a good week when I'm able to include this song on the list. It's one of the hidden gems of 2018. Unfortunately Lauv isn't a big enough name to get more recognition in the mainstream, so I don't know how much higher this is going to be able to get, but any recognition for this song is good.
41- "Apes---" - The Carters (+10) -- I find it humorous that when I censor this song, it simply reads as "Apes." That sounds like a much better song idea than what JAY-Z and Beyonce were actually able to come up with. This song has stubbornly managed to stick around in the mid-range of the Hot 100, but I'm glad that the country has mostly rejected the couple's sorry excuse for an album.
42- "Bed" - Nicki Minaj featuring Ariana Grande (+42) -- I'm not sure I know what Nicki has been thinking with her singles pattern for her album, but it makes me really happy seeing her completely fail, both in terms of her individual singles, which have all failed to gain any sort of traction, and in terms of the album itself. Instead of getting her whole album to chart, like many other rappers have this year, she could only manage four new songs to debut this week, which has me ecstatic. And on a complete side note, I find it humorous that this song rose 42 spots to hit No. 42. That's double the 42. However, the answer to life, the universe and everything is not being in bed with Nicki and Ariana. It's just 42.
45- "Life Changes" - Thomas Rhett (+11) -- I feel like it's been a slow rise for Thomas Rhett with this song, but he's steadily making it up there. Normally I'd be upset at this, but this time around I don't mind this song, so I'll cheer him on this one time.
47- "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" - Luke Bryan (+10) -- This song has a catchy enough hook that I'm not at all surprised that it's becoming a big country hit. And although I'm not going to be cheering Luke Bryan on here, there's more pressing matters to expend my energy on at the moment.
48- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+7) -- Do I have to complain each week as to why Benny Blanco as listed as a credited artist here when he is merely a producer? But eh, that's the only bit of anger I have here. The song is really a pretty nice duet between Halsey and Khalid, so I'll be happy if it continues to get higher.
49- "Te Bote" - Casper Magic, No Garcia, Darell, Nicky Jam, Ozuna & Bad Bunny (+10) -- I hate typing up all of those credited artists whenever this song shows up on my list. I also hate that this song is still around because this song is nothing but three artists screaming in desperation by adding the latter three artists to an already boring and lifeless song. It's annoying that the desperate move worked.
50- "Moonlight" - XXXTENTACION (+8) -- I'm surprised to see X still maintaining momentum with his songs. But I suppose I'll be fine with his remaining songs running their course because I still think it's a tragedy that he was killed.
51- "I'm a Mess" - Bebe Rexha (+11) -- Bebe's almost cracked the top 50 with her latest single and I want to be happy for her because I think she's a good pop singer. And perhaps if this song becomes a hit, it means that she can have enough star power to release a better single next time.
53- "Kiss Somebody" - Morgan Evans (+24) -- I'm not super happy with country radio at the moment. Although am I ever? But this week has felt especially boring with the songs that have risen. The only country songs that I've enjoyed this week, FGL and Thomas Rhett, aren't really country songs.
54- "Broken" - lovelytheband (+20) -- Apparently this song got a lot of hate when it showed up on the charts. But who cares. I enjoy it and I'd much rather have a run-of-the-mill alternative song show up than pretty much any of the rap that shows up today. So all the millions of people drooling all over themselves about the next untalented rapper bragging about how rich they are can go shove it. What does their opinion really mean, anyways? OK, that might be a bit harsh. But I still enjoy this song and I'm glad to see it get a huge boost this week.
57- "Africa" - Weezer (+16) -- I honestly thought this song was going to be around for a week or two at most. I think this is a solid cover from Weezer even though it doesn't hold a candle to the original. But I mean, what cover of this song ever would? Even so, Weezer is not a band that has ever really had much of a national spotlight with their music, so it's crazy seeing them explode like this with a cover song. But hey, I'm not complaining too much. I'll usually take any sort of rock song over most of the Hot 100 songs today, as long as they're actually rock.
59- "All Girls are the Same" - Juice WRLD (+10) -- The positive note here is that this hasn't had nearly the same amount of traction as "Lucid Dreams." The negative is that it's somehow managed to hang around the middle section of the charts for pretty much the same amount of time and I don't really know why. "Lucid Dreams" is a pretty good song. This song I've never liked.
68- "Hooked" - Dylan Scott (+14) -- Again here's another bland country song rising on the charts. At least this one is only at No. 68. But I imagine this is going to get even higher, so I'm bracing for it.
70- "Remind Me to Forget" - Kygo featuring Miguel (+11) -- Kygo and Miguel collaborating is just too perfect. This is song that has grown on me even more ever since I've listened to it and I started by enjoying it quite a bit. I would be ecstatic if this became a hit, so I'll be rooting for it, hoping that it can at least crack the top 50 and hang out there for a while.
78- "Break Up in the End" - Cole Swindell (+12) -- Hey look! A country song that's actually pretty decent! Too bad it's the one that's at the bottom of this list, so it doesn't leave me a whole lot of room to be excited. But hopefully we can crack this one a bit higher.
New Arrivals:
18- "Barbie Dreams" - Nicki Minaj -- I'm praising the music gods right now that I only have to cover four new Nicki songs rather than covering the whole album, which is 19 tracks long. Nicki actually surprised by releasing the album a week early, which I think was one of the many problems with this whole thing that led to complete failure. So anyways, I'll take each of these four songs one at a time and give them a fair shot, although don't expect me to spend too long on them because I've spent years hating Nicki's music and she's never improved, so I've been sick of her nonsense for a long time. And if "Barbie Dreams" is the best new song she's got, then let's praise the music gods even more because this is awful. She has no fire and no intensity. She's addressing a whole bunch of rapper beefs that I don't even care to keep track of. And I listened to the clean version of this song on Apple Music and it was hilarious because just about every other word was censored out because she delves deep into her typical raunchiness that makes this song just gross.
46- "Taking a Walk" - Trippie Redd -- In addition to Nicki's album drop that impacted this week, Trippie Redd also dropped an album, yet he only managed to chart one song, so he failed more than Nicki. And I imagine that's also a good thing, although this is the only song from that I ever plan on listening to, unless more songs chart in the future. But this song reminds me of an XXXTENTACION song because it's not really rap, but not much of a song either. There's one verse that's surrounding by the chorus on both sides with a 20 second instrumental intro. The result is a song that barely crosses over two minutes. And I suppose there's interesting ideas here as Trippie claims that people want him dead, but then... well... I don't know. Because that's really mostly it. I can fill in the gaps and say that he's probably getting at the fact that he's going to stick it to said haters, but he doesn't really elaborate. He just says people want him dead and that's our song. So this doesn't annoy me, but it's the definition of an empty song, so there's not much to grab my interest.
58- "Majesty" - Nicki Minaj featuring Eminem & Labrinth -- My big question with this song is why in the world are Eminem and Labrinth jumping on a song with Nicki? And where the heck as Labrinth been anyways? He only charted one song on the U.S. Hot 100 as a lead artist and that was "Beneath Your Beautiful" with Emeli Sande in 2012. Then he jumped on with Noah Cyrus of all people in 2016 for his second appearance, that time as a featured artist. And now his second featured run and third appearance overall is with Nicki? What a waste. And his pop chorus is pretty awful. I'll give Nicki some credit for trying to do something interesting in terms of the organization of her song by having a pop chorus and teaming up with Eminem to rap. But the content is typical Nicki crap. It's not as raunchy and gross as "Barbie Dreams," but she's just rapping about how awesome she is and somehow got Labrinth and Eminem to bow down and worship her as the Queen, which is a complete waste of their talent. When Eminem jumps on, I'll say that he's much more interesting to listen to than Nicki. Halfway through his verse he speeds things up and raps in super speed, which was impressive as always, but he's not saying anything worthwhile, which is disappointing because Eminem is at his best when he's being blunt and honest about the world. He acknowledges in his verse that their rap genre is broken, but sadly the rap god himself is doing nothing to fix it. Seeing Eminem on this song means that this is the only song that had potential, but it ends up being a big waste.
60- "Ganja Burns" - Nicki Minaj -- Here's how Nicki opens her album. Being that her album is titled "Queen," of course you would expect that Nicki starts off by saying how much better she is than the competition. Which I'm guessing is what she spends most of the album rapping about. This song does have a bit of a catchy beat and Nicki's chorus is decent, but I just laugh at the song itself. Nicki is not better than the competition at the moment. And in terms of the queen of rap, unfortunately that belongs to Cardi B at the moment, although I wish there was a female rapper at the moment who actually had talent because I'm done with both Cardi and Nicki.
72- "W O R K I N M E" - Quavo -- This title was kinda annoying to type. Let's not set a trend of putting a space in between every word because that slows my groove in type. Let's just call it "Workin Me" in the future. But what does Quavo know about common sense? None of the Migos trio have shown any sort of competence when it comes to rap. This song is loaded with Migos' typical sound effects and echoes that drive me up the wall, so I didn't have much of a desire to listen to it once it started, but for the first minute of the song, Quavo sounded really bored, so I got bored and stopped. The song is about a girl who is working him and urging him. To do what? I don't know. I don't Quavo even really knows because his songs are mostly just random words and phrases anyways. If you're a fan of Migos and you think I'm being unfair, then tough. I don't care. And I'm not going to apologize for not caring when the first minute of the song was the same old crap that I get from any of these guys.
87- "Album of the Year (Freestyle)" - J. Cole -- Earlier this year, J. Cole was one of our rappers that album bombed on the charts and his album was a very curious one. I started by hating it, then I got to the second half and ended up having to rethink the whole thing because he took me on a journey that made me realize that he had more of a point than I initially expected. This song is not from that album. In fact, I don't really know what this is. Given the title, I'm going to assume that he jumped in a studio and started freestyling because that's what this sounds like. One long verse where he jumps around from subject to subject without much of a point outside random bragging, which includes him saying that his album is the album of the year. Which it's not. I don't know what is because I haven't listened to enough albums this year. Yeah it's an alright album. But not album of the year. And this song doesn't help his case at all.
90- "Have it All" - Jason Mraz -- Well here's a surprise. Jason Mraz is back on the charts. He hasn't charted anything as a lead artist since "I Won't Give Up" in 2012 and barely snuck onto the charts a year later with two featured credits on songs by Hunter Hayes and Travie McCoy. But when he does chart, he's usually really good at delivering something sweet and relaxing. I mean, is there anyone on Earth who hates "I Won't Give Up" or "I'm Yours"? If so, then you can label them as Grinches because I don't know how you can hate something so sweet and uplifting. Speaking of uplifting, "Have It All" is such a happy, positive song. To me this doesn't seem like Jason is speaking to one specific individual in his life, but rather is singing a song to all the people listening to the song, wishing them all to have a happy day and a bright future. I pressed play on it and it immediately warmed my soul. So if you're having a tough time, give this song a listen and there's a great chance that Jason will make your day happy, too.
91- "Drew Barrymore" - Bryce Vine -- I saw Jason Mraz on the charts and then Drew Barrymore right after him. I was wondering what's going on. But then after a split second of confusion and wonder, I noticed that "Drew Barrymore" was the title of the song, not the artist. Then it made more sense. But I didn't have any idea who Bryce Vine was or why he was singing about Drew Barrymore of all people, so I was curious. Turns out this is his first ever charted song on the Hot 100 and Bryce Vine is a rapper, not a country singer or pop artist, because my brain was thinking that this could go either way. Although after listening to this song, this borders on more of a combination of pop and rap. I like this guy's voice and it seems like he actually has talent, which is not often the case when a new rapper shows up. But I still wasn't super interested in the song itself. He's talking up a girl, saying how amazing she is and saying how much he enjoys making love with her. Then he claims that she's the next Drew Barry and he wants more. So yeah, I guess the only reason he's singing about Drew Barrymore is that he came up with a fancy play on her name. If this becomes a huge hit, I won't be upset. It's totally fine. But if it drops off next week and never shows up again, I will probably forget that the song was ever a thing.
95- "She Got the Best of Me" - Luke Combs -- Only one new country song this week and it comes to us via Luke Combs, a country singer who I haven't been super impressed with this year. This is the fourth song he's released from his album "This One's for You Too" that was released this year, although this one coming from the deluxe edition, meaning he might've just barely written it and stuck it on the end with a few other songs. I don't know. I don't follow him too much. But out of all the songs I've heard from him this year, this one might be the best one he's done. Although that's not saying too much because I've found his other songs fairly bland. And this song doesn't have a ton of depth to it. He says he didn't know much about life when he was 17, so he jumped in and started living life, then the girl broke his heart and now he's singing a country song about being brokenhearted. But I don't mind his voice this time around and the construction of the song is mostly pleasurable, so I don't have anything particularly awful to say about this. If it sticks around, I'll accept it.
98- "Thought I Knew You" - Nicki Minaj featuring The Weeknd -- One final song from Nicki to cover and I laugh at Nicki because this one barely even charted. Although I'll say that this is the one that's the least offensive of the four and that's probably because this isn't actually a rap song. I'd label this is a pop song. While rapper Nicki has always annoyed me, in the few moments where she's dove into pop, she's done alright at this. And The Weeknd is someone who I've been generally impressed with. As more of a duet, I think this song had potential as it's a song with two people singing about how they thought they knew each other, but ended up being disappointed with the relationship. The problem is this song has no depth. It has a skeleton of a premise, but no content. Nicki gives a generic "I'm upset with you" chorus balanced by a few short verses from The Weeknd stating that he's upset back at her. And we don't learn anything more than that. Thus the song is inoffensive, but not interesting, either.
