Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:
1- "In My Feelings" - Drake (=) -- A whole bunch of accolades for Drake this week as he breaks the tie with Usher to become the artist who has spent the most amount of weeks at No. 1 in a single year while at the same time getting a second single from this year to hit 10 weeks at No. 1, both coming from his album "Scorpion." And I don't give one iota about all of that because I just want Drake gone. And I don't hate "God's Plan," "Nice for What" or "In My Feelings." In fact, I enjoy the former two and the latter is tolerable if I ignore the complete idiocy that got it to be No. 1. But man, 29 weeks at No. 1 and it's only September. There's been 39 Billboard weeks in 2018 so far, so that means nearly 75 percent of the year we've had a Drake song at No. 1. And I was ready for that to be done a long time ago. Good thing is this song's reign is about over. Its radio was consistent, but streaming and sales plummeted again, causing it to fall 14 percent in overall chart points whereas Maroon 5 only fell 7 percent in overall chart points. I don't know how much margin is left, but I don't think it's very much.
2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 (=) -- You know, if it means getting Drake to be done sitting at the top of the charts, I'll accept a dumb Maroon 5 song at time momentarily. But not for long. I still don't think this song even belongs anywhere close to the top 10, so I'm mad that it's become one of their biggest hits ever. It makes no sense.
3- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (=) -- Drake, Maroon 5 and Cardi B have been camped out in the top three for longer than I care to keep track of. Something needs to break this bland trio of songs up. But something that's actually worth something. I mean, is it too much to ask for to have a good song at the top of the charts?
4- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+1) -- I'm so desperate for the top three to be broken up that I'll gladly cheer on Post Malone right now. I think I've officially gone mad. But hey, a celebration is warranted that 6ix9ine tanked and is out of the top five.
5- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+2) -- I'm even happier that this song is back in the top five. Nothing else from Juice WRLD is proving to be worth anything, but I still stick to the fact that "Lucid Dreams" is a good song. And I'll take what I can get.
6- "I Love It" - Kanye West & Lil Pump (new) -- Wait, we have an "I Like It" and an "I Love It" in the top 10 right now? Quick, someone write a song called "I Want Some More of It" so that we can complete the trio! Actually, though, I have a better idea. Let's just get rid of this. It's the anthem for the first annual Pornhub awards that was co-created by Kanye, the world's most annoying troll. And no, I'm not making that up. More on that down below in my new arrivals section.
7- "FeFe" - 6ix9ine featuring Nicki Minaj & Murda Beatz (-3) -- The next three songs need to die already. I'm happy that this tanked this week and fell out of the top five, but it never belonged anywhere close to the top 10 in the first place, so it would be nice if we could get rid of it altogether.
8- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+1) -- Travis Scott and Drake lazily droning on about nothing interesting. And it's still in the top 10 after debuting in the region several weeks. Again, at least Drake isn't getting any official credit for this. And at least it hasn't been able to get back to the top 10 after debuting at No. 4.
9- "Taste" - Tyga featuring Offset (+1) -- You know the top 10 as a whole is awful when this song is no longer the most awful and disgusting song in the top 10. Yet that doesn't make me any less annoyed that this is still around.
10- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+1) -- Hey, a glimmer of hope. I was annoyed that this got pushed out after only one week in the top 10. Now if this could climb higher than the four songs ahead of it, at the very least, that would be excellent. Let's encourage good music and not trashy music.
Rising on the Hot 100:
11- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+2) -- As is typical the week after an album, last week being Eminem, we have a lot of songs showing up in the rising songs section as the charts reset themselves before whoever is next with an album bomb. Headlining the list is 5SOS hitting the infamous No. 11 spot, the spot where many good songs have come to die because for some reason this is a hard hill to climb in order to officially crack the top 10. But if they pull it off, I will be more than happy for them because, as you can see, I am not very happy with most of the songs in the top 10 at the moment. "Youngblood" would give us another song that's more tolerable.
12- "No Brainer" - DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper & Quavo (+3) -- It brings me much joy that this song hasn't had nearly the same amount of traction as this gang's track last year. But seeing it sneak closer to that top 10 for yet another time makes me nervous. Stupid radio won't let this die because apparently we love bland pop songs with even blander rap verses attached, all put together by an untalented producer who thinks a pile of crap like this is quality music.
15- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+5) -- I've been rightfully mean to Imagine Dragons, but their college football anthem would be a welcome addition to the top 10 if it manages to get over the hump. Right now I'm thinking it might hang around in the teens for a bit.
19- "Back to You" - Selena Gomez (+3) -- I can only hope that Selena gets a lot of love and attention. I suppose I can celebrate this song being in the top 20, but wouldn't be an even bigger breath of fresh air if we had a great song in the top 10?
23- "Trip" - Ella Mai (+9) -- Instead of Selena, though, we're probably going to welcome in a more annoying pop/R&B song instead. I want to be happy for Ella Mai because I want to see more female singers doing well, but this is just not a good follow up to her decently enjoyable hit "Boo'd Up."
28- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+6) -- I might forever complain that Benny Blanco is attached as a credited artist on this song, but I'll be happy if this song can maintain some momentum. Let's give Khalid a second top 10 hit.
29- "SAD!" - XXXTENTACION (+7) -- It's interesting seeing this song still hanging around here. No, it's not getting a second wind. It's just stubbornly floating around here in the mid-section of the Hot 100 and just so happened to get a rise after Eminem fell off.
35- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+11) -- Am I allowed to say that I'm happy to see this song rising on the charts, or is that diving into bad pun territory? Either way, this is not the best thing that either Marshmello or Bastille has put together, but it's a decently enjoyable hit. And I'm all for helping forward the careers of both parties.
41- "Broken" - lovelytheband (+7) -- I find it fun seeing a little, indie rock hit doing well. This is also not the most amazingly fantastic song that this genre could put out, but I'll totally accept a decently enjoyable little indie rock hit over just about everything rap or hip-hop related right now. So if we can continue to have more variety on the charts, that will be very much welcomed because I hate seeing the world of popular music being drowned out by awful rap music.
42- "Beautiful" - Bazzi featuring Camila Cabello (+5) -- I want to be more excited about this because I like Camila. But the dude she's partnering up with this time around in Bazzi just doesn't have what it takes to please me, so I'm not going to support this.
44- "You Say" - Lauren Daigle (+28) -- I feel like standing on the rooftops and shouting "Hallelujah!" I was happy with this song simply getting a week or two on the charts, but to now see it with a whole bunch of momentum after now officially becoming a top 50 hit is something worth celebrating. In a day where awful rap has plagued the charts, and we even have the Pornhub anthem in the top 10, I'm glad that there's at least some hope for the music world as people are accepting this beautiful Christian hit.
45- "Barbie Dreams" - Nicki Minaj (+18) -- What is this doing here? I thought we were over this Nicki Minaj thing this year after her album vastly under-performed. But now "Barbie Dreams" is sailing back up the charts? Let's hope this is only a one week thing.
48- "Hooked" - Dylan Scott (+12) -- Not the best week for country, but Dylan Scott managed to hit the top 50, which I don't think is a good thing.
54- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+19) -- I realize why I was initially intrigued when I saw the title of this song. "Mo Bamba" looks a lot like "Mambo." As in "Mambo No. 5." But no, this is not anything close to that. Instead it's just another awful rap song by a new rapper who needs to get away from the Hot 100. Let's not make Sheck Wes a thing.
62- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+12) -- I would really love to see this song become a hit, but it's just not getting enough traction at the moment. Let's hope this changes because imagine how awesome it would be to have this at the top of the charts? It would take me back to the days where fun. were able to top the charts. But no, this song is probably too good for 2018. We salivate over the awful rappers mumbling about how rich they are while rejecting good music.
66- "Smile (Living My Best Life)" - Lil' Duval featuring Snoop Dogg & Ball Greezy (+14) -- Hey, when it comes to rap music doing well, I'll certainly take this song over nearly everything else. It's not quite my cup of tea, but I'll get behind a chill Snoop Dogg song.
67- "Lose It" - Kane Brown (+15) -- Does anyone care about Kane Brown? If he were to disappear from mainstream country, would anyone realize that he's gone?
69- "The Way I Am" - Charlie Puth (+19) -- Yeah, sure, I'll get behind this doing well. Like everything Charlie Puth puts out, the content of this is nothing that special, but this at least has a decent groove to it in terms of the music. If it came on the radio, I might dance around a bit in my car instead of moaning about another bland Charlie Puth song, so that's a step in the right direction.
72- "Promises" - Calvin Harris & Sam Smith (+14) -- Sam Smith is capable of a lot better and Calvin Harris doesn't quite do enough of his typical Calvin Harris stuff, but this song is still excellent as background noise at whatever get together you're having and would be a pleasant radio hit, so I'm certainly pushing for it to do well.
78- "Thunderclouds" - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present... LSD (+16) -- After covering this song on last week's charts, I quickly learned that this is the theme song of a certain phone commercial. And I saw that commercial all the time as I watched my sports stuff. I think it's one of ESPN's favorite commercials to play at the moment, so I've heard this song a lot this week. The result of that is it being stuck in my head all week. And you know, I don't have an issue with that. This is a pleasantly enjoyable song even if it doesn't dive as deep as Labrinth and Sia have been known to in the past. I still don't like that group name, though.
New Arrivals:
6- "I Love It" - Kanye West & Lil Pump -- Without knowing anything about the context of this song, I listened to it and hated it. I mean, are you surprised? What would you expect from a Kanye and Lil Pump collaboration? Two music who the world needs to discard, yet somehow have a huge following of people who worship their garbage. But yeah, when you look at the context of this, Kanye admitted in a interview with Jimmy Kimmell that his attitude towards women hasn't changed after having daughters and that he still watches Pornhub. After that, Pornhub reached out to him and gave him a premium lifetime membership to show their gratitude. One thing led to another and before we know it, Kanye became the co-creator of the first annual Pornhub awards, which happened recently, and this is where this song and video debuted. So this song is literally a Pornhub anthem where Kanye and Lil Pump talk about being rich and screwing girls. And I think they had a competition to see which of them could drop more f-bombs in the song. And now it's a top 10 hit. If that's not the perfect example of the deterioration of modern day popular music, I don't know what is. What's worse is that there's now a "I Love It" challenge that might keep this around for a while.
13- "Rap Devil" - Machine Gun Kelly -- We all knew this was coming, right? When Eminem dropped his surprise album "Kamikaze," which I covered last week, the track "Not Alike" was specifically a song where Eminem ripped into MGK and I was so amused by it that it had me rolling over in laughter. And I mean that as a good thing for Eminem because who cares about MGK? It felt therapeutic for me to hear Eminem slamming him for an entire song. If you want to know who the real rap god is, go listen to "Not Alike," then go listen to this song, "Rap Devil," because this is MGK's weak attempt at a response. I mean, take the whole beef aside and just listen to the flow and the intensity from both rappers. Eminem has fire and passion as he spews his hatred towards MGK and the rest of the modern rappers that plague the industry. MGK just sounds bored and flat. He doesn't have flow. He doesn't have energy. The song is nearly five minutes long and I stopped halfway through simply because I was bored. That coming after I was curious to see what MGK had to say. But I just couldn't get through the song because I was so bored, so I read the rest of the lyrics. And then we get to the insults. All of them feel flat and empty as if MGK was doing this out of obligation and didn't really know how to respond, so he came up with a bunch of crap that he barely believe himself. "Now to see if "Killshot" by Eminem charts next week, which is the response to "Rap Devil." That song is not that good, either. But it's still better than this.
33- "Self Care" - Mac Miller -- I was expecting some Mac Miller to chart this week. What I thought was going to happen was some re-entries of older songs of his. But instead we have three songs from his most recent album, released last month in August before he passed away earlier this month. This is where things get tricky. Like I said with XXXTENTACION when he got shot and killed, I will never celebrate the passing of a human being. I find it extremely tragic when someone gets killed, regardless of how I thought of them beforehand. In Mac's case, I find it tragic anytime I hear that someone died of a drug overdose. And I do my best to be sensitive towards it because I know there's a lot of good people in the world who simply can't overcome their demons. Mac has struggled with drug abuse for a long time and I would've loved to hear a story of him overcoming that, but unfortunately he succumbed to his demons and it cost him his life. That's why I hate it when rappers glorify drug use in their lyrics because this is what drugs do. They kill people. To those blaming Ariana Grande for his death, I don't even know how to respond because that's the most atrocious thing I've heard. She broke up with him back in May because she was tired of the toxic relationship they were having because he could keep his crap together. If that resulted in a downward spiral that led to his overdose this month, there's no one to blame but Mac Miller.
All that said, I'm also not going to suddenly worship a person or their music just because they passed away. I'm devastated that he overdosed and died. I truly am. But that doesn't make me like his music. I've never liked his music and I've always seen him as an overhyped, untalented rapper. And "Self Care" just sounds like he's not fully there. The music itself does more interesting things than most rap songs and he's not lazily rapping about drugs, riches, or fame. It sounds like he's trying to come up with personal, cohesive lyrics, but I just don't think it worked. He doesn't have very good flow and it sounds like he was stumbling all over his words when he recorded the song as there's lots of mumbling. I hate to say it, but it sounds like he was drunk or high on drugs in the studio during the record, so I find this song tragic because of that. I probably would've trashed this song if it had charted before he died and his death doesn't change my opinion of it.
70- "Hurt Feelings" - Mac Miller -- The second of three Mac Miller songs to chart from his album "Swimming" following his death. And I would really love to praise one of these songs and mourn with people who truly miss him. And like I said with "Self Care," I'm honestly devastated that he's gone. But this song is another miss for me. When in doubt, just bathe your lyrics in a whole bunch of yeahs and whoas, right? That's the whole introduction to this song and he has lots of yeahs scattered throughout. The song itself is pretty mellow, but the lyrics don't really match the mellow tone as he's just saying he's not going to change who he is to better his career. Sure, I can celebrate the idea of being yourself, but I think it feels more hollow and empty here. And again, he's not up to par with his flow or tempo. It just feels like he's lazily wandering around the outline of what he was supposed to do when the song was written, so it doesn't feel like cohesive execution here. The song also feels like a minute or two too long. I got really bored while listening. The pacing of the song wasn't right. I'm not jumping to conclusions as to why the song ended up this way. I just don't like the final result.
91- "Come Back to Earth" - Mac Miller -- OK, this song title is sad. And I'm wondering if that's the reason why this song specifically charted this week. Many people hope that Mac Miller will come back to Earth. And I share that sentiment. Although I don't think this song specifically is like a Chester Bennington situation where you look back on his final album after his death and the lyrics look like a suicide note. This song feels more optimistic. He realizes all the challenges he's faced, but now he feels like he's swimming instead of drowning. That in hindsight is kinda tragic in it's own way. Out of the three Mac Miller songs to chart, this is the better of the three. But I feel like in this instance it's a bit overly simplistic. Now it's the opening track on the album, so perhaps it doesn't need to be more than a simple introduction to what he wants to say for the rest of the album, but standing on its own it's a song that barely crosses two minutes after a chorus, a verse, then a chorus. And in that, the lines feel really stretched out to the point where if he rapped it at normal speed, the song might barely cross one minute. I suppose I'll take this over the other two songs being way too long, but I think there's a balance that could've been found that he doesn't quite get either way.
94- "Vaina Loca" - Ozuna & Manuel Turizo -- I think last time I covered an Ozuna song, I was in a big hurry and didn't care to translate it. This time around I took my time with that. I did my usual thing of listening to the song in Spanish in order to gauge how I feel, then I went exploring to figure out what I listened to. I'm generally pretty nice to Ozuna as I find his music fairly soothing. This song here is about the same. I don't know who Manuel Turizo is, but him and Ozuna have a nice balance in this song, even though I don't really know if both artists were needed this time around. The song isn't super upbeat, but few Ozuna songs actually are. This has the typical Latino groove to it, but it's a more mellow song that will probably be effective as a slower, change of pace song on the dance floor. It's pretty basic, but decently effective. Speaking of basic, from what I gather from the lyrics, it's also fairly basic. Guy is in love with a girl and wants to be with her. Nothing deep or emotional. But nothing risque either as it sounds pretty innocent. If you're into Latin dancing, you're probably not going to remember this song specifically after the night is over, but if it plays during the dance, you'll probably enjoy the moment, so I'll call it satisfactory.
95- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay -- This duo again. For the record, whichever one of them takes the charge with the lead vocals does have a pleasant voice that I'll take over most of the boring twangy stuff that I get from most other country artists. I've just not been that interested in any of the content in their songs. When they commented on this song on their Twitter, they commented that both of them got married last year and they wanted to write a song about what it was like seeing their brides walking down the aisle. That's actually a nice sentiment that I'll take over their lame drinking song "Tequila." Being that the two songs are on the same album confuses me. One song is about how happy they are to have seen their brides walking down the isle while the other is them singing about how lonely they are after the girl has left them. And that's the problem with some of these country artists. A lot of their lyrics feel run-of-the-mill and impersonal. Which is why this song has a leg up on the rest because it actually sounds like a song where they care about the lyrics they wrote. And it is kinda sweet hearing them singing about how speechless their wives make them. I think the song could've had a little more too it as it's fairly basic. She makes him speechless. That's it. That's the song. And it's also not as romantic as it could be in terms of the music. It could've been a soft piano ballad, but instead it gets into your basic country nonsense with the heavy drums and guitars that don't fit the tone of the song. But as a whole, the song is harmless, so I'll accept it.
96- "Electricity" - Silk City & Dua Lipa -- I saw the name of this song and I had one expectation for it. It needed to be electric. And I know that sounds dumb, but when your song is called "Electricity," there should be some, well, electricity. And that shouldn't be too hard considering the fact that Silk City is a duo consisting of Mark Ronson and Diplo. Yes, I've lost track of how many groups that Diplo has formed, so I kinda facepalmed when I heard of yet another one. But anyways, the two of them teamed with Dua Lipa on vocals should be a winner, right? I mean, we have the creator of "Uptown Funk" combined with a veteran DJ and a great pop vocalist. Yet the team-up results in a song that is decent. There's a pretty good groove to it, but the second I think the song is about to explode, it tapers down and even mutes Dua's voice a bit, leaving me slightly underwhelmed. But even with that, the song is inoffensive. Dua's voice is good even though whoever wrote her lyrics didn't get her much to sing about. And there's enough of a groove that would probably make me enjoy this song as good background music. It's no "Uptown Funk," but I'd still be curious to see what else Mark Ronson and Diplo have up their sleeve when they release their debut Silk City EP. I hope there's something with a little more fire and energy than what they brought here.
