DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - February 16, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "7 Rings" - Ariana Grande (=) -- This is going to be here for a while. The song fell again on streaming, but only 9 percent to 57.7 million U.S. streams. Plus, it rose in sales to 42,000 downloads sold and cracked the top 10 on radio with 50.6 million audience impression and quickly climbing. I'm not sure why people are gravitating to this song. It's an awful song. Possibly Ariana's worst in terms of quality. But eh. Whatever. The only thing that has the potential to stop it in the immediate future is Ariana herself. Her new album dropped and is set for a huge debut next week. It's a 12-track album and we've already seen three of the songs, so I'm expecting the other nine to be new entries next week. Leading the charge out of those nine is "break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored." I'm not sure what the streaming numbers on that one are, though.

2- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+6) -- This is where I sound like an old man. In Billboard weekly article regarding the top 10, I read that "Happier" got a huge boost because of a "Fortnite" concert. I don't even know what "Fortnite" is outside the fact that it's a huge game that's blown up recently. Apparently you can have live concerts inside the game, though, which is what Marshmello did. Because of him uploading at least a portion of the concert set to his YouTube channel and other gamers uploading various clips from it, "Happier" soared up to 51.8 million U.S. streams. So that's cool. I don't know how long that'll last, but I'm totally fine with that. The "Fortnite" concert also caused Marshmello's song "Alone," perhaps my favorite Marshmello song, to re-enter the Hot 100 at No. 28, which is a new high for that song. It had previously reached No. 60 in November 2016 after being Marshmello's first Hot 100 entry.

3- "Without Me" - Halsey (-1) -- All this means that Halsey is the big loser this week, being forced down to No. 3. And who knows what's going to happen next week. I could predict "Happier" crashing back down to earth next week, helping Halsey to go back up to No. 2. But I have no idea if a new Ariana song is going to come screaming into the top five next week or not. We'll have to wait and see.

4- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- Post and Swae are in the same position as Halsey. This could go back up to No. 3 next week. But we'll have to see how things shape out next week. At the very least, I could see these two songs recovering in two weeks. I don't think they're going away.

5- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- The good news of the week is that Travis Scott got a huge boost from the Super Bowl halftime show, but it wasn't enough for the song to actually go anywhere on the charts. It was up 63 percent in sales to 17,000 downloads sold and up 5 percent in streaming to 41.7 million U.S. streams. But all that accomplished was keeping it ahead of "High Hopes" at No. 6. J. Cole crashed down this week, but he was replaced by Marshmello, as I've previously talked about. And I'm guessing there will be an after effect here with Travis Scott collapsing next week. I'm hoping that's the beginning of this song going away.

6- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+1) -- Due to Ariana cannibalizing herself by releasing too many singles in a short period of time, "High Hopes" is able to sneak back up to No. 6. And if it wasn't for that Ariana album bomb next week, I'd say this may have the potential to sneak ahead of "SICKO MODE" next week. But the reality is that both songs might be pushed down next week.

7- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-1) -- The long term prognosis for this song isn't good thanks to "7 Rings" dominating. But this is going to get a good album boost next week. But I imagine it could be in danger of falling out of the top 10 the week after.

8- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (-4) -- I was expecting "Middle Child" to crash this week after it soared high last week on its first full week of tracking. But it manages to not bleed too much. The next few weeks will be the big indicator as far as what this song is going to do going forward. If it can manage to survive Ariana next week and start gaining traction, then I could see it sticking around. Or it can continue to bleed and flat out disappear. I hope it stays around, though. If we have to have some rap songs in the top 10 at all times, I'd rather this song hold a place because its one of the more tolerable rap songs. J. Cole seemed to actually try with this one, which is something that I can't say for most rappers that find success today.

9- "Wow." - Post Malone (=) -- I've been expecting this song to start gaining in the top 10, but I'm certainly glad to see that it's not getting as much traction as previous Post Malone songs. Maybe people are realizing that this song sucks?

10- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- The bad news of the week is that "Girls Like You" has officially tied Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" for the longest run in the top 10 with 33 weeks. How and why Maroon 5 pulled that off is really disgusting. The good news is that the Super Bowl halftime performance wasn't able to get the song to move anywhere. I was partially expecting this to soar up into the top five, or at least get close. But the boost only managed to keep the song clinging on to this final spot. Once those numbers collapse next week, I'm hoping that'll cause the song to FINALLY fall out of the top 10. And stay out. The fact that this song was able to stay in the top 10 for over half a year is an absolute stain against the music industry.

Rising on the Hot 100:

12- "A Lot" - 21 Savage (+14) -- Is this song getting a huge push because 21 Savage's legal troubles? Because a convicted felon getting busted for living here illegally for over a decade is some sort of social injustice? The evil police officers arrested a black rapper, so we're going to revolt? That's disgusting.

14- "bury a friend" - Billie Eilish (+60) -- On the exact opposite note from the last song, I'm in a state of pure joy right now in seeing the news that "bury a friend" has jumped up 60 spots this week. I'm also stunned at that news as well. I realize that it debuted last week after only a few days of tracking, but I didn't think that would mean a top 20 appearance this week. As successful as Billie has been with her consistent number of debuts and surprising longevity, she's been the queen of the bottom half of the Hot 100 as she had yet to cross over to the top 50. Until now. Is this where Billie gets her big break? I hope so. This song is about as strange and unique as it comes, which is part of the reason why I love it. I just don't know if it's too strange or not for the general public. Streaming seems to be on board, which is great news. But will the radio pick up on this? I have no idea. It might get pushed back next week thanks to Ariana's album combined with a natural second week fall. But I hope this can gain traction and stick around. Billie deserves to be 2019's biggest rising star. Her debut album comes in late March, hopefully that's good timing that'll give this song a boost.

18- "Better" - Khalid (+5) -- Here's a Khalid song that's been slowly gaining traction. I'm not sure how much potential the song has, given how slow it has risen. But maybe that's just me being a Grinch since I think this is a very weak song for Khalid. But I suppose if it keeps climbing and hits top 10, it won't be the end of the world. It would still be better than a lot of the songs that have hit the top 10 recently.

19- "MIA" - Bad Bunny featuring Drake (+3) -- This song has had its time in the spotlight. It's not managed to get back into the top 10, which is a good thing. But it's done a good job at sticking around in the mid section of the Hot 100.

20- "Thotiana" - Blueface (+8) -- Why this song has now gained top 20 status confuses me. It's a piece of trash. Let's get it out of here.

26- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith &Normani (+5) -- I would appreciate it if this song would climb a bit faster. I want it to be a big hit, but it's taking its time to break out, which has me nervous. Same thing goes with Ava Max's "Sweet but Psycho," which I haven't even been able to include here because it only rises one or two spots each week. It's currently standing at No. 30 this week. Both songs deserve to be big hits.

32- "Look Back at It" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie (+8) -- Why is this song gaining traction?

42- "This is It" - Scotty McCreery (+7) -- I suppose I'm not surprised to see Scotty doing well. I'm still not particularly happy about it, though. But it's whatever.

58- "Take It from Me" - Jordan Davis (+10) -- I have a hard time even remembering this one. Just another boring country song from an untalented country singer.

61- "when the party's over" - Billie Eilish (+15) -- This is what I mean when I saw that Billie is the queen of the bottom half of the Hot 100. "when the party's over" has now spent 16 weeks on the charts. But it's peak is at No. 52. It's a bit of a strange run, but I'll take it. As as long as Billie can stick around, that's great news for me.

66- "lovely" - Billie Eilish & Khalid (+15) -- Speaking of which. Here's Billie again. This is a song that debuted way back in June. It keeps falling off the charts, then re-entering, climbing and falling again. It's accumulated a total of 15 weeks on the charts, but its peak is at No. 64. Maybe Billie's album in March will finally vault all of these songs into the top 50 as she slowly gains recognition with the general public.

83- "Talk to Me" - Tory Lanez & Rich the Kid (+11) -- I don't care about this.

New Arrivals:

56- "One Call" - Gunna -- Only two new arrivals this week. And I'm going to ignore one of them. I don't care about Gunna and neither should you. Let's move onto Kelsea!

95- "Miss Me More" - Kelsea Ballerini -- I almost missed this song. It was hidden among a handful of re-entries in the 90's. I'm glad I caught it, though, or else I would have nothing to talk about. Kelsea is a country pop singer who I really enjoy and this song comes from her 2017 album "Unapologetically." I didn't do a favorite albums list for 2018 because I didn't listen to enough albums last year. But I did one for 2017 and "Unapologetically" made the cut, so "Miss Me More" isn't a really a new song for me. The only thing strange here is the timing. Kelsea didn't release any singles from this album last year after releasing it at the end of 2017. Not any that charted, that is. So it's a bit strange to see her wait so long before finally getting another song from the album out there. But hey, I'm not complaining. In terms of the song, it has a fun, upbeat tune mixed with the right amount of attitude. It's a breakup song, but it's a bit of a sassy breakup song as she states that she thought she would miss her now ex-lover, but it turns out she misses herself more. In others, she's realizing how much she missed her previous life before she was with this person. So she's kinda shoving it in his face. In terms of songs from the album, "In Between," "End of the World" and "I Hate Love Songs" are my favorite three. But this is an enjoyable one, too.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - February 9, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "7 Rings" - Ariana Grande (=) -- No surprise here. After launching last week with 85.3 million U.S. streams, "7 Rings" grabbed another 63.2 million U.S. streams this week, down 26 percent, to go along with 39,000 downloads sold, which was down a hefty 59 percent. Despite the drops, both of those numbers were still good enough to top both the streaming and sales charts and give Ariana her second week at No. 1 for the song. Notably, she was also up 53 percent to 41.9 million audience impressions on the radio charts, meaning this looks like it's getting serious radio traction, which I think is unfortunate. As I said last week, this is Ariana trying to mimic Cardi B for some odd reason. Not that I like Cardi B in the first place, but even on those standards, Ariana sucks at trying to be Cardi B and should just stick to pop music. Not that this really surprises me. Ariana has always had a lot of talent, but I've also seen her as one of the most inconsistent in terms of putting out quality music and her rushing out another album so soon after her previous one has caused her to throw quality out the window in favor of huge Billboard success. And it's a shame that it's working because it's going to encourage Ariana to repeat this in the future. If crappy, rushed music is what finally gets you the most success, why try to write quality music, right?

2- "Without Me" - Halsey (=) -- Ariana's huge success means that Halsey probably has to settle with those two weeks she got at No. 1 with this song. But this song still has a lot of staying power, so I'm guessing that it'll sit here at the runner-up spot for a while, which is a decent consolation prize for Halsey.

3- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse") - Post Malone & Swae Lee (=) -- Same thing goes with "Sunflower." It's moment of glory at the top only lasted one week, but I imagine it'll be camped out in the top five for a while. I'm curious as to what will happen when the "Spider-Verse" hype dies down, though. Will the song disappear with it?

4- "Middle Child" - J. Cole (+22) -- Part of me was hoping that this song would skyrocket to No. 1. It hit No. 26 last week after just a couple of days of tracking. Now in its first full week, its monster streaming total comes in at 54.4 million U.S. streams. Which in this case is only good enough for No. 2 on the streaming charts, so it couldn't quite topple Ariana's song there. It also clocked in 24,000 downloads sold, which is a decent number. But radio isn't touching it quite yet. So is it going to be able to maintain this momentum going forward? I'm expecting a bit of a drop next week since this is only being held up by streaming. But if it does hold, it wouldn't mind it. This is not the type of song that I would add to my playlist and actually listen to on a regular basis. But in terms of rap music, this is certainly a lot better than most of the crap that charts today.

5- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- I want this song gone, but I have to face the unfortunate reality that this will probably get a huge bump next week thanks to Travis Scott's Super Bowl halftime appearance. I was planning on muting him anyways because Travis Scott is pure trash, but CBS practically did it for me with how much he was censored because most rappers can't help but swear up a storm when they're given a mic, which is no bueno for live TV. I was also disappointed that the SpongeBob skit was used as a means to introduce "SICKO MODE." What a slap in the face to SpongeBob fans that were looking forward to that. I'm not a fan of SpongeBob, so I wasn't really one of those. But I was offended for them in what amounted to the worst Super Bowl halftime show that I have ever watched.

6- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-2) -- "7 Rings" gaining traction on radio means that Ariana is sabotaging "thank u, next." She could've spaced them out a bit more to get the most out of each song. But oh well. It is what it is.

7- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (-1) -- The rest of these songs essentially stayed put from last week. They just all got pushed down a spot thanks to "Middle Child" surging to No. 4. We'll see what happens next week when/if "Middle Child" falls back down. Panic! still has the top spot on the radio charts this week, giving the song a total of 11 weeks on top. That lead won't last too longer, though, as its finally starting to bleed on radio.

8- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (-1) -- Same thing for "Happier" as with "High Hopes." It essentially stayed even, but got pushed down a spot thanks to "Middle Child." Of note, "Happier" has now crowned the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for a 20th week, which makes me think that the should do some adjusting on those individual genre charts. Songs shouldn't be lasting that long at No. 1 on a regular basis.

9- "Wow." - Post Malone (-1) -- It made me happy to see that this song didn't gain any additional traction this week. I'm not going to celebrate, though, because I'm expecting this song to stick around for a while. If it fails, though, that would amazing!

10- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-1) -- Curse you Super Bowl halftime committee! This song was about to fall out this next week, but Maroon 5's halftime performance, which I think was the worst I've ever heard, is going to cause the sales of this song to surge. The sad thing about that is doing so will cause "Girls Like You" to tie Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" for the longest ever stay in the Hot 100 top 10 at 33 weeks. It's at 32 weeks right now. And then I'm sure that surge is going to have a bit of a hangover that will cause the song to break the record. So congratulations. This will be your new all-time record holder. Y'all happy that such a boring, lifeless song can be talked about as one of the most successful Billboard hits of all-time? Now in regards to that halftime performance, Maroon 5 actually played some of their older classic songs that are actually good. And Adam Levine sounded like he was out of tune the whole performance, as if he hadn't practiced anything prior to the performance and/or hadn't sang most of those songs in years. After the first couple songs, I simply muted the whole thing and watching him without sound, he looked like he was bored up there. No stage presence. No personality. But of course he had to take off his shirt and expose his ugly body full of gross tattoos. It was awful in every sense of the word.

Rising on the Hot 100:

16- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (+8) -- Wouldn't it be amazing to see awards season buzz help this song resurge into the top 10? I'm already happy that it's back in the top 20 this week and we still have several weeks until the Oscars, where it'll most certainly win best original song. It's already become a mega hit in other countries. It would be nice if it could do the same here.

26- "A Lot" - 21 Savage (+8) -- The big news of this week is that 21 Savage was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after it was discovered that he's actually a U.K. native who's been illegally living in the U.S. since 2006. He legally came here in 2005 when he was 12 years old, but his visa expired in 2006 and he hasn't done anything about it since. He's also a convicted felon, which doesn't help his case. All of this means that he faces deportation and a potential 10-year ban for the U.S. The funny thing is that his attorney said that he "is a role model to the young people in the community." That floored me because they have a funny definition of role model. All the dude sings about is drugs, sex, and murder while having all sorts of legal issues and has apparently been lying to everyone about where he's from because everyone thought he was an Atlanta native. Yet we also have a huge percentage of people calling this a racial issue? I don't care if his skin is black, green, purple, blue, orange, or white. The dude is a convicted felon who has been illegally living in this country for the last 13 years and is an all-around awful human being. Let's get his sorry face out of here.

28- "Thotiana" - Blueface (+38) -- I about threw up when I saw that this song jumped 38 spots this week.

31- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani (+10) -- This is a great song from Sam Smith and Normani. I wish it was more of a duet where the two are responding to each other rather than taking turns singing the same thing. But that aside, I'm glad to see this gaining traction and I hope that continues.

44- "Be Alright" - Dean Lewis (+6) -- Dean Lewis has been a huge hit everywhere else in the world with "Be Alright." I would love for this song to be a hit here as well, but I have a feeling that it's not going to gain a whole lot more traction than this. It's still good to see it in the top 50, though.

56- "Pure Cocaine" - Lil Baby (+33) -- Why did this get a boost this week? Lil Baby singing about cocaine is something that should disappear forever.

61- "Saturday Nights" - Khalid & Kane Brown (+14) -- I forgot that this song existed, so I had to go look it up to remind myself what I thought about it. Well, as it turns out, I forgot about it because it was a song that debuted back in November, but only lasted two weeks on the charts. And the reason it's back is that this is a remix. The version that debuted in November was Khalid only. And now Khalid has added Kane Brown to the song. No wonder I didn't remember a Khalid and Kane Brown duet. I hadn't listened to it before. First off, I reminded myself of the Khalid only version and it's a solid song from Khalid. It's nothing super special. In fact, the lyrics are a bit troubling when Khalid is claiming that he cares more about this girl than her parents do. That aside, it's a relaxing, mellow song from Khalid that works well enough. As far as the remix goes, well, Khalid and Kane Brown mix together a little too well. They sound too similar on this song. And lyrically adding Kane Brown doesn't make sense. Instead of one guy talking to a girl, it's two guys talking to this girl. Kane doesn't make the song worse, necessarily. But he doesn't make it better, either. So I don't know. It is what it is.

68- "Take It from Me" - Jordan Davis (+10) -- I also forgot this song existed. The problem here is that it debuted in January, so that's a bad sign for Jordan Davis. Another boring country song that's completely forgettable.

76- "When the Party's Over" - Billie Eilish (+11) -- I love how much staying power Billie has on the charts. I just wish that she could get one of her songs to at least crack the top 50. I'm waiting for her to become a huge hit in 2019 and hopefully her debut album that's getting released soon will do that for her. More on that later because a new song from that upcoming album debuted this weeks and gives us a lot to talk about.

78- "Murder on My Mind" - YNW Melly (+17) -- So I went and actually read these lyrics to see if I was off base by judging this song last week by title only. Nope. I was justified in what I said. The dude is complaining about being in prison as if it was someone else's fault that he's there. Then he talks about waking up with murder on his mind, name dropping plenty of gun names. The next verse he talks about him accidentally killing someone because the dude caught him by surprise. I think that verse was supposed to sound emotional, but instead it sounded messed up to me. And it's not made worse because, after another chorus, he then starts bragging about being a murderer as if that now makes him cool. And no, I didn't listen to the song. I just read the lyrics. After reading them, I don't need to listen to this song. If these are the type of lyrics that are being accepted into our culture today, I'm not even going to add one number to its streaming total. Y'all should join me in this effort, too.

85- "Roses" - benny blanco & Juice WRLD featuring Brendon Urie (+12) -- Let's not make this song a thing.

New Arrivals:

65- "Put a Date on It" - Yo Gotti featuring Lil Baby -- Don't care.

74- "bury a friend" - Billie Eilish -- Billie Eilish's debut album titled "WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?" is right around the corner. In the Apple Music description of the album, it quotes an interview with Billie wherein she said she wanted the album to sound like a bad dream. Or maybe a good dream. Her goal was that if 14 people who like different genres were all in the room listening to her album, she wants every single person to like at least one song. So the idea is to be crazy and different here. I'm really excited to see how that turns out. I think it totally fits her because she's quite the spunky 17-year-old if you've listened to interviews with her or watched her music videos. She's not someone who has a desire to fall into all the typical conventions. Her goal is to be different. And she has the personality to pull it off.

And with that context in mind, this song. Yeah, I'm obsessed with this. Yet at the same time, I'm nervous to share this with anyone because of how weird, creepy and different it is. I first listened to the audio only, with zero context of what it was about. And it was dark and creepy. But I had to listen to it again. And I decided that I loved the song as a creepy Halloween-like song. Then I dove deeper and learned that Billie said in an interview that the song is literally from the perspective of the monster under her bed. Now go listen to the song with that perspective in mind and suddenly everything makes sense. Then in the same interview, Billie said that she might be the monster under her own bed. As in, she's her own worst nightmare at times. Then the song adds another layer to it, making it deep and personal. Finally, Billie says that she also might be the monster under YOUR bed. Yeah, this girl is awesome. Musically, I don't even know how to describe the song. The construction of it is certainly unconventional. I was trying really hard to think of what song it reminded me of and it eventually hit me. "Knights of Shame" by AWOLNATION. Or at least it reminds me of certain segments of that song. "Knights of Shame" is a 14-minute long song from their album "Megalithic Symphony" that's the strangest, weirdest song, but I love the creativity and the uniqueness of it. And maybe that's why I love "bury a friend." If Billie wanted different, she succeeded. I have no idea how the general public will react to this one or if it's even possible to become a radio hit, but I love it. And if you love it, too, then we can be friends. 

And finally, I have to give a shout out to that music video. It does a perfect job and representing the who song. And quite frankly, it's scarier and creepier than most horror movies. And as I think about it, this song would work perfectly as a trailer song for a horror movie. I think that gives it bonus points. I have the music video embedded above this section, so give it a watch! If you're brave enough, haha.

86- "i'm so tired..." - Lauv & Troye Sivan -- It's hard to go from "bury a friend" by Billie Eilish to, well, anything else. You almost have to take a bit of a break before diving into all of the generic stuff. Luckily for me, though, "I Like Me Better" by Lauv is a really catchy song that I enjoy, especially when you get to some of the remixes that add even more groove to it. But he doesn't win any awards for originality there. And he won't with "i'm so tired..." either. He's tired of love songs. He's partying and trying to have a good time, but all he sees is other people falling in love to his song. Or "our song" as he states. Who is "our"? I don't know. He doesn't explain. But whatever the song is, he's sad that he can't find someone to fall in love with. So yeah, super basic. But like with "I Like Me Better," the song has an upbeat groove to it that makes it fun, so I give it a pass. And yeah, Troye Sivan is on the song, too. But it's another one of those collaboration errors. Troye Sivan and Lauv sound too similar to make a collaboration interesting. And Troye Sivan adds nothing to the song. He just sings the second verse of a song that sounds like it was initially written for just one singer.

88- "Shot Clock" - Ella Mai -- Ella Mai's bid to be included in some sort of NBA content? She's using shot clock metaphors to tell a guy that he's got a limited time to make a move or else she's out of there. Later in the song she complains that she's been waiting five years for him to make a move and is running out of patience, which I find a bit curious. If you've been dating a guy for that long and you want the relationship to move forward, why don't you just say something instead of continuing to wait? The song isn't as choppy and annoying as "Trip," but it's also a song that I find mostly boring with vocals that are way over the top for a song with lyrics that feel so underwritten. Too many uses of the n-word as well. I know that's a thing in black culture to use that word a ton. I just don't think it fits at all into this style of slow, R&B song about a relationship.

89- "Sauce!" - XXXTENTACION -- Can we please stop taking advantage of X getting killed to make money? I may have said this before, but at this point I'd almost believe that the record label hired someone to kill him so that they could earn a ton of money off of him being dead. It's horrible. And I have thus vowed to never listen to a song by him again.

90- "Con Calma" - Daddy Yankee featuring Snow -- I don't know who the singer Snow is, but it is snowing outside as I type that, so that's a random coincidence for you. I do know who Daddy Yankee is, though, and as such I don't really feel the need to translate his songs. They're all the same. So with this, I pay attention to the beat to see if Daddy Yankee has delivered a good enough for groove for this song to be a fun one on the dance floor. And he's succeeded. This is a fun Latino dance song that I can dance to. If the lyrics are randomly super awful, I'll just play the language card because I don't understand Spanish. Both Daddy Yankee and Snow, when the latter finally decides to show up during the last 30 seconds, have solid flows and the groove well together.

98- "Night Shift" - Jon Pardi -- I scrolled through Jon Pardi's discography to see if there was a song of his that stood out to me because his name stood out to me. But the list was just a long list of generic-sounding country songs, so I gave up. In searching "Night Shift" on my Apple Music, I learned its a song from 2016. So I have no idea why it's here. And all Jon Pardi has to say on this song is about he loves working the night shift with this girl. If you were to take that premise in your head and think of a generic country song to go along with it, you'd probably come up with this exact song. So there's no need to spend anymore time with this, is there?

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - February 2, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "7 Rings" - Ariana Grande (new) -- Is 2019 going to be the year of the Ariana? In principle I don't really have a problem with that. For some reason, Ariana has found favor with the streaming gods, which is now why she's had two No. 1 debuts in less than three months as "7 Rings" debuts with 85.3 million U.S. views, just below the 93.8 million total of "thank u, next," which was the highest weekly streaming total ever for a female artist. The reason why I think that in principle this is a good thing is that we are seeing a female pop singer dominate the Billboard charts, proving that "thank u, next" wasn't just a fluke. If Ariana can do this, then perhaps other female pop singers can begin to also find favor with the streaming gods. And maybe pop music in general can see a bit of a revolution. But I specifically say "in principle" because this song is just pure trash. It doesn't hurt my ear drums or offend me. But it makes me facepalm at Ariana. Just... why? My detailed opinion of the song is below.

2- "Without Me" - Halsey (-1) -- Poor Halsey. She just can't catch a break. After her little duel with Post Malone over the last few weeks, she was set to repeat at No. 1, accumulating a third week at the top total. But then she's denied again thanks to the monster debut of "7 Rings." And if Halsey is going to win back the crown, she's going to have to hope that "7 Rings" falls faster than "thank u, next." The latter spent seven total weeks at No. 1. If "7 Rings" repeats that feat, "Without Me" will be long gone. At least in terms of having a chance to go No. 1 again. It'll probably be in the top 10 somewhere in seven weeks from now since the radio loves this song.

3- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- Like Halsey, Post Malone and Swae Lee will probably be here a while with "Sunflower." It just appears that their time at No. 1 is officially in the history books. Halsey seems to have gained a solid footing on the song and now Ariana is also ahead. But still. "Spider-Verse" continues to do well at the box office and the radio has also seemed to latch onto the song, allowing it to maintain longevity beyond the run of "Spider-Verse" in theaters.

4- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (+1) -- Ariana's other song in the top five also gains, and now she's forming a Halsey and Post Malone sandwich as she now surrounds both of the songs. But I've gotta wonder how long both of Ariana's songs can last? Yeah, if streaming continues to favor them, then they can co-exist. But is radio going to play both songs consecutively? Usually that's not how that rolls. If the radio decides to pick up on "7 Rings" instead of "thank u, next," that could cause this song to tank. Or maybe both songs with cannibalize their own radio play, causing neither to perform as great as they could've. But we shall see. Drake did well with both "God's Plan" and "Nice for What" overlapping, so maybe I'm over-analyzing this.

5- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-2) -- Do you know what? I'm not even going to praise the fact that this song fell two spots. It's not falling fast enough. And because Travis Scott is going to infest all of our ears by showing up at the Super Bowl halftime show, this song is set to get a good gain in two weeks. I just want this song gone.

6- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (-2) -- I was happy that Panic! managed to get over the hump and hit No. 4 after being stuck at No. 5 for a long time. But now it falls out of the top five again. It's still No. 1 on radio, though, and has been for 10 weeks.

7- "Happier" - Marhsmello & Bastille (-1) -- With Halsey debuting at No. 1, this falling one spot essentially means it stayed put when compared to last week. So it's being a little more stubborn than I thought as I initially assumed it was about to start tanking.

8- "Wow." - Post Malone (+1) -- This song is positioning itself rather well with the three songs above it (and perhaps four if Ariana hurts herself) not having a whole lot of positive traction at the moment. And that makes me upset because why do we have to have another trashy Post Malone song around?

9- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-2) -- This can't fall fast enough.

10- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (-2) -- At least "ZEZE" fell out of the top 10 this week. Now we need BOTH of those songs to go away. I mean, really? Who is still listening to this song? And why?

Rising on the Hot 100:

14- "Going Bad" - Meek Mill featuring Drake (+3) -- This is not the top 10 entry that I want. Yet apparently we haven't got enough of Drake, so he's helping Meek Mill rise up the charts, set to be the next big rap hit in the top 10.

29- "Twerk" - City Girls featuring Cardi B (+25) -- Ew, gross. Why in the world did this song rise so high? Please let's not make City Girls a thing.

40- "Backin' It Up" - Pardison Fontaine featuring Card B (+5) -- More good news for Cardi B fans as she's not going away. Instead she's continuing to push other useless acts that no one cares about up the charts due to her presence.

43- "Crushed Up" - Future (+16) -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea! 

57- "Jumpin on a Jet" - Future (+23) -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!

New Arrivals:

1- "7 Rings" - Ariana Grande -- The problem with this song? It feels like it was a song written for Cardi B, but accidentally got sent to Ariana, so Ariana recorded it just for the heck of it. Like, seriously. Cardi B's "I Like It" took a classic song and essentially interpolated it with a modern trap twist as Cardi listed off all the fancy things she likes. The only reason it was somewhat catchy is because the original song it used is fantastic. My personal evaluation of it was that it barfed all over the original. And that's exactly what Ariana is doing here. She took a classic song from "The Sound of Music" and turned it into a modern trap version of the song as Ariana lists off all of her favorite things, which is mostly her flexing about all the riches and fancy jewelry she has. The song really has no point to it outside Ariana deciding to dip super low to sing a song about empty flexing. The real shame is that "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music" DOES have a point to it. Julie Andrews is listing off all of her favorite things to help cheer her up. When life gets hard, think of all the good things that you have going for yourself and that'll make you feel better. Like Cardi B barfing all over the original version of her song, Ariana is doing nothing but barfing all over "The Sound of Music," which is upsetting because that's one of my favorite musicals.

26- "MIDDLE CHILD" - J. Cole -- Apparently this song debuted at No. 26 with only a couple of days of tracking. On Apple Music it's currently ahead of "7 Rings." I don't know if that means anything in regards to its actual streaming numbers this next week, but if it can somehow manage to dethrone Ariana, that would be excellent. I'd rather have a decent rapper at top than a pop singer pretending to be Card B. While I can't say that I love J. Cole or this song, I've found him to be one of the more tolerable rappers recently. He actually seems like he cares about his music and especially his lyrics. With "MIDDLE CHILD," he's telling us that he's in the middle of two generations and plans on essentially being the bridge between the old rappers from back in the day as well as fitting in with the new crowd. And yeah, he's doing some flexing by telling us that he's the greatest and he's going to destroy everyone. But there's actually substance to his verses. It sounds like he put thought into what he wanted to say and was writing things that he felt passionately about. And when he raps what he wrote, he has good flow and musically the song sounds pretty good. So yeah, I'm happy with this.

38- "Keanu Reeves" - Logic -- Hey, Keanu Reeves has a movie coming out later this year. It's called "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum" and I'm super excited. Oh wait, we're talking about a Logic song? Yeah, it sucks. He's the one, like Keanu Reeves. That's the only Keanu Reeves connection there. The rest of the song is just him flexing about how awesome he is with a lot of cheesy lines thrown in all over the place.

47- "First Off" - Future featuring Travis Scott -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!

65- "Never Stop" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!

68- "Secreto" - Anuel AA & Karol G -- I don't know why we've started to make Anuel AA a thing. And I don't know who Karol G is. But I'm going to wager a bet that the secreto translates to secret. So the two of them are talking about a secret they have. I actually don't care enough to translate the lyrics, especially since Anuel AA is really boring and Karol G doesn't add a whole lot of personality. The cover art for this single has a naked woman in it, so I'm also going to bet that this boring song is probably a dirty song that's not worth anything anyways. But that's all just a guess. If your desire to dive into this song is any higher than mine, feel free to explore it and tell me if I'm right or wrong.

71- "Mixed Personality" - YNW Melly featuring Kanye West -- I have no idea who YNW Melly is, but he collaborated with Kanye West, so I'm skipping this.

76- "Temptation" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!

79- "Rocket Ship" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!

81- "Pure Water" - Mustard & Migos -- Why in the world would you name yourself Mustard? Out of all the rap names I've seen, that's a contender for the strangest. Now he needs to find whoever decides to name themselves Ketchup and do a collaboration. But I'm also not giving him the time of day because Migos are the fellow collaborators. And I don't do Migos. I blame it on my misophonia. And the fact that they suck.

83- "F&N" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!

91- "On My Way to You" - Cody Johnson -- I don't know who Cody Johnson is. But I looked at this and guessed that it was a country song. I searched the song on Apple Music and saw the cover art of a man wearing a cowboy hat, so that seemed to prove my theory. "On My Way to You" sounds like an extremely generic title for a country song, so was this going to be just another boring country song by a dude worth forgetting about? Well, kinda. He's talking about all the hard times he's had and all the beers he's drank on the way to getting to this girl. So nothing special there. Sounds like the type of lyrics that any old country singer could've written. But this guy does actually have a decent voice and the music itself is more mellow. So it's a bit of a relaxing country song that I could totally accept if it started playing. Though I'm probably not going to remember it once it leaves the charts.

95- "Murder on My Mind" - YNW Melly -- Why has this become an acceptable topic to sing about? Everyone who glorifies murder in a rap song should be arrested, not given a musical career. But OK, fine. Freedom of speech. But still. Why is this appealing?

96- "GIRL" - Maren Morris -- Speaking of country, Maren Morris is a country pop girl that I mostly find myself enjoying. Although after her monster success that was "The Middle," in which she jumped on with Zedd and went pure pop, I have been wondering what she's planning. Is she going to go back to her country pop style or is she going to completely turn into a pop girl? While I suppose we won't fully know that answer until her new album comes out this year, I really don't hear much of any country in this. I'm going to classify this as a pop song. And as a pop song, this works pretty decently. Maren is talking to a girl, helping to encourage her to pull herself together and realize that everything is going to be OK. As I was listening, it initially sounded like she was speaking to another woman, but I began to wonder if this woman she was referring to was actually herself, as if she was speaking in the third person. In looking it up, I found Maren's commentary on the song and... yeah. It's kinda both. She initially was writing this to a female friend in the music industry. But then she realized the lyrics were more about herself. So it works both ways. It's a song with enough emotion to connect with me and decent enough vocals from Maren. While not a masterpiece by any means, I'd say it has a little more depth and character to it than "The Middle."

98- "Face My Fears" - Hikaru Utada & Skrillex -- I'm always a bit nervous seeing Skrillex on the charts. While he always has the potential to be amazing and creative with his music, more often than not his music becomes noise to me. He can sound very robotic and grating. But Hikaru Utada is a singer I knew nothing about. Turns out she's a Japanese-American who's a big deal over in Japan. She started singing in a trio with her parents in the early 90's. She released her debut solo album in 1999 and his since released a total of eight studio albums, all but one of which hit No. 1 on the Japanese album charts. She's also released a whole lot of singles in Japan that have hit top 10. But this is her first trip over to the American charts. After listening to this, I was rather captivated by how beautiful her voice was. And the song started off as a piano ballad of sorts before Skrillex jumps in. Luckily Skrillex is more restrained than normal, thus not overpowering the song with robotic noises, but giving it enough energy to compliment Hikaru. And actually, there's two versions of this song. A Japanese version and an English version. In both versions, she repeats the line "Let me face my fears" in English. I don't speak Japanese, but I think the Japanese version in a prettier song. I like the combination of the Japanese lyrics sprinkled with a little bit of English, rather than the whole thing being an American song. The song isn't super deep, but it's really pretty. Skrillex is fine in the song. But mostly it made me want to go look up more of this girl's music because I'm predicting that I'll love it. Final note on this is that it looks like it's a song from "Kingdom Hearts III," which is why it charted. Makes sense, I guess.

100- "Call the Coroner" - Future -- What? Future released a new album? I had no idea!

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - January 26, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "Without Me" - Halsey (+1) -- The war is on! Halsey vs. Post Malone. Two weeks ago, Halsey dethroned Ariana on the Hot 100, only to be taken out last week by Post Malone. And now Halsey is back on top with consistent gains in all three categories, coincidentally being No. 2 in each category. The biggest gain that helped her this week was streaming, where she gained 23 percent to 47 million U.S. streams, just barely behind Post Malone's 52.8 million. What puts Halsey over the edge, now that the two are much closer on streaming, is that Halsey owns Post Malone on radio. She's at 106.6 million audience impressions while Post Malone is 63.3 million. The two are nearly dead even on sales at 41,000 downloads sold each. Post Malone has the ever so slight edge. Helping boost Halsey's streaming is a new vertical video, which does a great job at showcasing why you ALWAYS are supposed to shoot videos horizontally. Yes, you can watch the video vertically on your phone or tablet. But even that is a bit odd to me. Outside that, the music video isn't very special. She's just sitting on a stool posing sexily while singing as water starts to drip down and soak her in her mostly see-through white t-shirt. Typical Halsey stuff, right?  

2- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (-1) -- Post Malone is down and out this week, but I'm wondering if this war is over. Could Post Malone swing again and retake the top spot if Halsey falls a bit on streaming? I think it's possible, but I have no idea, which is why I'm intrigued to see how this plays out. Eventually I think Post Malone is going to need to grow slightly faster on radio if he wants this song to be a huge hit. Otherwise it might start to fade out when "Spider-Verse" starts disappearing from theaters.

3- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+1) -- I still don't understand the appeal of this song. I want it to fall down, yet it jumps a spot thanks to Ariana taking a bit of a tumble.

4- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+1) -- Hey look! "High Hopes" managed to jump up a spot! I was having the feeling that it was going to be forever stuck at No. 5, but Ariana's tumble as well as the song's continued dominance on the radio propels this song up a spot. Now if it can only manage to sneak past "SICKO MODE" as well.

5- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-2) -- I'm not sure why Ariana has started to tumble. I thought the song would remain consistent at No. 3 for a while since "SICKO MODE" and "High Hopes" aren't exactly tearing things up. But nope. She drops down to No. 5. Now I'm wondering if she can stay in the top five. My current bet is yes since the bottom half of the top 10 is rather unstable at the moment. 

6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (=) -- Marshmello and Bastille remain camped here at No. 6. I still think the song is losing it's momentum and I keep expecting it to fall. It's just that nothing is stepping up to the plate below the top 10.

7- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- Why won't this go away? I was sick of this song 30 weeks ago and for some reason it's still around. Curses to all of you who helped in this song remain consistently stable in the top 10. Unfortunately I don't see this song disappearing in the next few weeks since Maroon 5 will be the halftime performance at this year's Super Bowl. Meaning I have a good time to go to the bathroom during the game since I won't be skipping any commercials or game time. 

8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- Why is this song still around? 

9- "Wow." - Post Malone (+2) -- Oh sure. Instead of getting rid of "Girls Like You," "Drip Too Hard" or "ZEZE," we instead dump "Eastide" in favor of another Post Malone song, this one being complete and utter trash. If this becomes another one of Post Malone's mega hits, I'm going to be cursing life throughout 2019. I don't know why we've suddenly knighted such a boring, lazy singer as Post Malone as a superstar.

10- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (=) -- Why is this song still around? 

Rising on the Hot 100:

13- "Money" - Cardi B (+4) -- No. 7 through No. 10 on the charts right now are all pure trash that needs to be replaced. Add "SICKO MODE" at No. 3 to that list and we have a really bad top 10 right now. Yet all that's around to replace any of the songs is the most lazy, bottom of the barrel song from Cardi B? Does anyone on Earth really want another song about her rapping about all the money she has? That's all she ever really does anyways. Let's stop supporting her in this. 

40- "Look Back At It" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie (+9) -- Yup, we jumped right from No. 13 to No. 40. A lot of songs remained mostly stationary on the Hot 100 this week, which is rather odd. And it's really depressing that one of the few songs that made actual gains is one from Boogie. He's not one who deserves any attention.

41- "Envy Me" - Calboy (+22) -- Ew gross. I think I just threw up in my mouth seeing this song jumping 22 spots. Are we really going to turn another horrendous hip-hop artist into a major star? Just make this stop, please? 

New Arrivals:

27- "Lost in the Fire" - Gesaffelstein & The Weeknd -- Oh hey. We have a few songs to actually cover this week. Last week we had nothing. The four new arrivals were all trashy hip-hop songs. While this week provides a few more hip-hop songs for me to skip, we also have four songs that were at least worth checking out. I generally have liked The Weeknd recently, so I was hopeful about this. Until I played the song and the first line was him wanting to have sex with a girl slow with the lights on. As the song goes on, apparently this girl tells The Weeknd that she might be into girls, so his response is that she can bring her friend and they can have a threesome. Yeah, this song is pretty trashy. Gesaffelstein, a French DJ, puts a nice beat to the song and The Weeknd's vocals are solid as always. But I want him to give me substance.

33- "Dancing with a Stranger" - Sam Smith & Normani -- Well here's a match that seems made in heaven. Normani hasn't been a huge presence on her own, but "Love Lies" with Khalid ended up being a huge hit, which hopefully means she has good potential as a solo artist, proving again that the girls from Fifth Harmony should all just go their separate ways. They're trash together. But on their own they're pretty good. Or at least Camila and Normani are. I haven't heard much from the others. But team up Normani with Sam Smith, a male singer whose music I have always loved, and you've got yourself a duet that's as great as it sounds. Sam Smith is a singer who does a great job at keeping his love songs gender neutral. He's openly gay, but you'd never know it if you only listened to his music. The way the song is constructed, he could be singing to Normani. Or the two of them could be singing to their own respective lovers, both being upset and hurt that said lover is pushing them away by not giving them attention. They want love tonight, but in order to get that, they find themselves dancing with a stranger rather than their lover. It's a simple song, but both of them sell the song with their vocals. They take turns selling me initially, but then at the end they sing together, blending just about as good as you can get. The song also has a decent enough bounce to it to make it a fun song to listen to rather than just being a depressing song.  

69- "Nights Like This" - Kehlani featuring Ty Dolla $ign -- We have both Kehlani and Normani debuting songs on the charts this week. Make sure not to confuse the two. Normani is the excellent singer from Fifth Harmony that needs a great solo career because her voice and style warrants it. Kehlani is a pop/R&B singer who you probably forgot existed. And that's probably for the better as it also describes this song. Kehlani's vocals aren't bad, but this feels like a generic song about her longing for an ex-lover, perhaps her girlfriend Shaina Negron? I'm not sure if they're still together, but that's who the internet told me she was dating in 2017. She specifically references in this song that she is talking about a girl, which is fine. But it makes Ty Dolla $ign's verse even more useless since he's not playing the voice of the ex-lover given that he's the wrong gender of whom Kehlani is referring to on the song. His verse is a little more restrained than he normally is, leaning a bit on the pop side, actually. So it's not bad. It just doesn't have a point to it. Name recognition, I suppose. 

75- "Thotiana" - Blueface -- I had no idea who Blueface was. So I gave this song a chance and lasted less than 30 seconds. Another awful hip-hop artist singing a trashy song. Which means this thug is probably going to be another superstar, right? 

79- "Let Me Down Slowly" - Alec Benjamin featuring Alessia Cara -- The final song I'll be covering is another nice duet, this time between Alec Benjamin, a singer I've never heard of, and Alessia Cara, a pop singer who I really like. As I looked into this song, I learned that this was simply an Alec Benjamin solo track from last year that had been gaining traction overseas, but in order to boost its attention, he added Alessia Cara, who is more of a household name. Now this has actually come up in a few songs now, but when we pair a male and female singer in a duet, part of me longs for an actual duet where the second voice comes in and responds to the first voice, as if they're having a conversation with one another. This would've worked great in this song because young Alec is feeling vulnerable and doesn't want to be crushed by this girl, so he's asking her to let him down slowly. Show him a little sympathy. Personally I'd rather the girl just get it over with, but that's beside the point. Alec wants her to be gentle. Adding Alessia Cara would give her the chance to play the voice of the female, responding to his request to let him down slowly. But she doesn't. She also plays the voice of the person being rejected, making her inclusion mostly insignificant, done just for some name recognition. But even so, both of them have very likable singing voices and they blend well together, so if I try not to be too nitpicky with the lyrics, I could see this being a song I that I grow to enjoy if it is played. And musically this is a well constructed song, which certainly helps. It's just that I listen to this and see the potential of it being more, but I suppose I'll settle with what we've got. 

80- "Jumpin on a Jet" - Future -- Future has an album that's coming out. Or is out? And just to forewarn you, I'm going to be mostly pretending that it doesn't exist. I'm not going to listen to a single song from it. And if it album bombs here soon, that'll give me a week off from this because not going to cover the king of mumble rap. I refuse to listen to even one second of that album. I'll type of the names of the songs on this list and call it good. Just like I'm doing here. I didn't listen to this. I probably never will. 

99- "Splashin" - Rich the Kid --  Don't care about this either. Anyone who drools all over themselves while listening to Rich the Kid should have their music-listening privileges taken away because we don't need to give him any attention. 

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - January 19, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+2) -- Well here's a bit of a surprise. I was anticipating "Sunflower" eventually getting to No. 1, but I didn't think it would happen this quick. But hey, I'm totally fine with this. The lyrics are still nothing special, but Swae Lee's vocals are totally killer, making this a pretty catch song. And I'm guessing it's going to stick around for quite some time. On streaming, it jumped up to 47.8 million U.S. streams, up 17 percent, while also jumping 19 percent in sales to 48,000 downloads sold. That's No. 1 on both of those charts, which is why it vaulted past Halsey and Ariana to the top. Helping "Sunflower" out was a new music video, as well as "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" winning best animated feature at the Golden Globes. It's only No. 10 on the radio charts, but it has a lot of radio momentum as pop radio is especially catching on fast with this one. The timing of all of this could lead to a rather lengthy run at No. 1 given that by the time the sales and streaming slow down, the radio will be on fire.

2- "Without Me" - Halsey (-1) -- Well, it was a short reign for Halsey as she could only manage to capture one week at No. 1. Although that was nothing of her own fault as "Without Me" increased significantly on streaming and radio, while remaining steady on sales. It's just that "Sunflower" got an even bigger spike this week. But both songs doing well most likely means "Sunflower" and "Without Me" could monopolize the top two spots for a while, which I'm fine with.

3- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-1) -- "Sunflower" and "Without Me" doing so well ends up leaving Ariana's "thank u, next" in the dust a bit. But that's OK. Ariana ruled for seven weeks, so she had her time. She'll still be around, though.

4- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- Can we please get rid of this?

5- "High Hopes"- Panic! At the Disco (=) -- I played the radio while at work today and I think I heard this song like five times over the course of the day. And I enjoyed it thoroughly every single time. It's one of those anthems that never gets old. The song is still No. 1 on radio, which explains why I heard it so much.

6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (=) -- I still think "Happier" is sliding down in points. It's just that there's not a whole lot of competition rising super fast at the moment, so the duo here will enjoy hanging around for a while longer until there is.

7- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- WHY?

8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- WHY??

9- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+2) - For our first new entry to the top 10, we welcome Halsey and Khalid. And I'm totally happy with this song being here. When it comes to Halsey songs in the top 10, I actually prefer this one over "Without Me," although I consider both songs acceptable entries. It's Halsey's fourth trip to the top 10, following "Closer," "Without Me" and "Bad at Love," while Khalid gets his third top 10 following his featured turn on Logic's "1-800-273-8255" and his duet with Normani last year in "Love Lies." I'm calling this a duet song between Halsey and Khalid. On that note, it works really well. And I do have to give credit to Benny Blanco for producing the song, but I'm still annoyed that he listed himself as a billed artist. This is his 27th trip to the top 10 as a writer, beginning with Kesha's "Tik Tok." So why is he starting to throw himself as a billed artist now? Did DJ Khaled urge him or inspire him to do this?

10- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (-1) -- WHY???

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Wow." - Post Malone (+2) -- This is song has been catching on like wildfire and I have no idea why. If we absolutely have to have our Post Malone fix, can't we just call it good with "Sunflower"?

18- "Going Bad" - Meek Mill featuring Drake (+3) -- Meek Mill and Drake sneak back into the top 20 after this song initially debuted in the top 10. That makes me nervous.

23- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (+6) -- This makes me happy. Now when I did my list of my top 10 favorite songs of 2018, I made the tough decision that "Remember Us This Way" was my favorite song from "A Star is Born." But "Shallow" and "I'll Never Love Again" also made my top 10 along with "Remember Us This Way," so I'm ecstatic at any song from "A Star is Born" doing well. In a perfect world, this would continue to catch on, but realistically it got a boost this week because it won best original song at the Golden Globes.

24- "Better" - Khalid (+6) -- We now have Khalid in our top 10 this week. One of his songs will be sufficient, right? I'm really not a huge fan of this one.

41- "Beautiful Crazy" - Luke Combs (+7) -- I have a hard time remember this song. Whenever I remind myself, I'm reminded that it's another boring country song.

43- "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" - Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus (+6) -- I've been hearing this quite a bit on the radio. I hope that means it's going to continue to catch on and become a huge hit in 2019. That and "Sweet but Psycho," which is a few notches above this song (but only rose four spots, thus not qualifying for the list this week), are songs from the end of last year that I really enjoyed and almost made my end of year list. So let's please make them a thing!

49- "Look Back at It" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie (+5) -- Don't care.

76- "Ruin My Life" - Zara Larsson (+10) -- I'm sensing that this song is going to catch on for Zara. And that makes me happy in the sense that I really want her to be hugely successful in the states. I just wish I liked this specific song a bit more because I love several of her previous songs that were a lot better than this one. But hey, the radio edit of this isn't bad at all. Just not the best for her.

New Arrivals:

35- "Undecided" - Chris Brown -- Chris Brown is a punk. I don't care about him.

46- "Crushed Up" - Future -- I also don't care about the mumble rap king.

81- "Butterfly Doors" - Lil Pump -- We need to stop making Lil Pump a thing.

87- "Valuable Pain" - YoungBoy Never Broke Again" -- And we also need to reject YoungBoy. Oh, this is awkward. Only four new songs and I'm not listening to any of them? Whoops! I guess we'll try again next week. Maybe the Hot 100 will have new songs for me to cover that are worth covering.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - January 12, 2019

The new Billboard charts have arrived and so it's time again for me to give you my thoughts! In this weekly post, I cover three sections. First, I give my thoughts on the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Second, I give my thoughts on the songs that experienced significant gains below the top 10. Third, I give my initial thoughts on our new arrivals this week. I reserve the right to switch things up in the future, but for now this is what I'm sticking with. I've followed the Billboard charts for a long time now and this is a great way for me to express my thoughts to the world. I hope you enjoy!

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10:

1- "Without Me" - Halsey (+1) -- As was eventually expected based on the trajectories of both songs, Halsey has dethroned Ariana Grande to capture the top spot on the Hot 100. Halsey accomplishes this by being consistent in all three categories with excellent sales, formidable radio and solid streaming whereas Ariana has been slipping quite a bit in streaming ever since capturing the highest weekly streaming total ever for a female artist and it finally caught up to her. With Halsey gaining the No. 1 spot, this is her first No. 1 hit as a lead artist after previously spending what seemed like an eternity on top as a featured act in The Chainsmokers' "Closer" back in 2016. Halsey being No. 1 also means female pop singers have taken control of the charts early on in 2019, which is good news for both female singers and for the pop genre, both of which I think is a good thing after our masculine-heavy 2018 provided mostly rap music festering on the charts. How long it keeps this way before the trends of 2018 take over again is yet to be seen, but at least I can have hope for the year, right?

2- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (-1) -- Despite giving the crown up to Halsey, Ariana is still in great position right now. Even though streaming and sales are sliding, she still has excellent totals on the radio, which means she's likely to remain here in the top 10 for quite some time after ruling for seven weeks.

3- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+2) -- The potential spoiler for our female-led 2019 is right here with Post Malone and Swae Lee as "Sunflower" seems to have excellent traction right now. And although both artists would technically be labeled as rappers, it'd be stretching it quite a bit to refer to this specific song as rap. I'd call this pop, meaning pop music has controlled the top three in both weeks of 2019 so far. It's a bit empty when it comes to pop, but it's fairly catchy and was solid background noise in "Spider-Verse." I'm glad it was able to climb to the top three because that meant it prevented Travis Scott from jumping back up.

4- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- With Mariah Carey dropping off the charts in record fashion due to all the holiday music disappearing (going from No. 3 to being gone from the charts is the biggest dropout in the history of the Hot 100, with the previous high being Prince's "Purple Rain," which showed up for a week at No. 4 following his passing), Travis Scott staying put is an overall loss because it means he fell below "Sunflower." This is good news. Better news would be him falling faster.

5- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+1) -- Thanks to continued radio dominance, as "High Hopes" has now led radio songs for seven weeks, Panic! At the Disco returns to No. 5 following Mariah's departure. Now if the song could sneak ahead of "SICKO MODE," that would be excellent.

6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+1) -- I still think "Happier" is on its way out. But with the Christmas songs gone this week and nothing else giving a legit challenge as of yet, Marshmello and Bastille will enjoy a momentary boost back up to No. 6.

7- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (+7) -- Unfortunately the disappearance of the Christmas songs meant that Maroon 5 snuck back into the top 10, jumping all the way up to No. 7. Also, I would be willing to guess that the radio stations' end-of-year playlists and/or iTunes gift cards from Christmas helped boost the performance of this song. Said factors always boost old songs from the previous year for a week or so in January. Hopefully that means we can get this song to fall back out here soon because I was thoroughly enjoying it being gone.

8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gonna (+4) -- And these two songs are back in their 8-9 spot after the Christmas songs prematurely kicked them out. That's unfortunate. I was hoping that when the Christmas songs disappeared we could get some new entries and not these two awful rap songs. I mean, who is still listening to "Drip Too Hard" and "ZEZE"? More importantly... WHY?

9- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (+6) -- See previous comment.

10- "Better Now" - Post Malone (+13) -- Maroon 5 showing back up in the top 10 is also why Post Malone's "Better Now" is back momentarily. Although in this case I don't mind this song being around. It's not great by any stretch of the imagination. But it grew on me a lot last year to the point of me being able to tolerate its existence, which is something I totally didn't do with "Psycho" and "rockstar."

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+10) -- OK, with 23 Christmas songs falling off the charts, as well as the Kodak Black and A Boogie wit da Hoodie album bombs also sliding, it means that practically every song on the Hot 100 had a huge gain this week, so instead of spending my whole week commenting on every song, I'll just let you browse through this list while I provide super short replies for each song. Next week we'll get to see what's ACTUALLY rising. So we'll start with this one, in which case I have to say... GOOD!

12- "Wake up in the Sky" - Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black (+6) -- BAD!

13- "Wow." - Post Malone (+34) -- YIKES!

14- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+10) -- GOOD!

15- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+2) -- WRETCHEDLY AWFUL!

16- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+6) -- GOOD!

17- "Money" - Cardi B (+2) -- BAD!

18- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+9) -- STILL GOOD. BUT OLD!

19- "Taki Taki" - DJ Snake featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B (+11) -- FORGETTABLE!

20- "MIA" - Bad Bunny featuring Drake (+11) -- BAD!

21- "Going Bad" - Meek Mill featuring Drake (+15) -- BAD!

22- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero (+11) -- BAD!

23- "Trip" - Ella Mai (+15) -- ANNOYING!

24- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+17) -- TOLERABLE!

25- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+21) -- GOOD!

26- "I Like It" - Cardi B, Bad Bunny & J Balvin (+13) -- I DON'T LIKE IT!

27- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+21) -- GOOD!

28- "Beautiful" - Bazzi featuring Camila Cabello (+22) -- UGLY!

29- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (+23) -- PHENOMENAL!

30- "Better" - Khalid (+21) -- BORING!

31- "She Got the Best of Me" - Luke Combs (+23) -- TOLERABLE!

33- "Close to Me" - Ellie Goulding & Diplo featuring Swae Lee (+27) -- GOOD!

34- "You Say" - Lauren Daigle (+25) -- GREAT!

35- "Uproar" - Lil Wayne (+21) -- ACCEPTABLE!

37- "Best Shot" - Jimmie Allen (+24) -- TOLERABLE!

38- "Swervin" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie featuring 6ix9ine (+19) -- BOYCOTTED!

39- "Drunk Me" - Mitchell Tenpenny (+25) -- TOLERABLE!

40- "Be Alright" - Dean Lewis (+23) -- GREAT!

41- "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max (+42) -- GREAT!

42- "Sixteen" - Thomas Rhett (+37) -- DECENT!

43- "Talk to Me" - Tory Lanez & Rich the Kid (+29) -- DON'T TALK TO ME!

44- "Backin' It Up" - Pardison Fontaine featuring Cardi B (+25) -- GO AWAY!

45- "Burning Man" - Dierks Bentley featuring Brothers Osborne (+35) -- GOOD!

46- "Dangerous" - Meek Mill featuring Jeremih & PnB Rock (+16) -- BORING!

47- "Good Girl" - Dustin Lynch (+42) -- BAD BOY!

48- "Beautiful Crazy" - Luke Combs (+33) -- BORING!

49- "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" - Mark Ronson featuring Miley Cyrus (+29) -- GREAT!

50- "This Feeling" - The Chainsmokers featuring Kelsea Ballerini (+34) -- GOOD!

51- "Consequences" - Camila Cabello (+24) -- GREAT!

52- "Girl Like You" - Jason Aldean (+35) -- DUMB!

53- "Last Shot" - Kip Moore (+43) -- GOOD!

54- "Look Back at It" - A Boogie wit da Hoodie (+12) -- BOYCOTTED!

55- "Arms Around You" - XXXTENTACION & Lil Pump featuring Maluma & Swae Lee (+22) -- DISGUSTING!

56- "Armed and Dangerous" - Juice WRLD (+20) -- BAD!

57- "This is It" - Scotty McCreery (+43) -- BORING!

58- "Calling My Spirit" - Kodak Black (+16) -- BOYCOTTED!

59- "You" - Jacquees (+26) -- BORING!

60- "No Stylist" - French Montana featuring Drake (+30) -- BAD!

64- "Ella Quiere Beber" - Anuel AA & Romeo Santos (+28) -- BORING!

66- "Envy Me" - Calboy (+32) -- BAD!

68- "when the party's over" - Billie Eilish (+14) -- GREAT!

71- "Lost in Japan" - Shawn Mendes & Zedd (+28) -- GOOD!

73- "lovely" - Billie Eilish & Khalid (+18) -- FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!

74- "Fine China" - Future & Juice WRLD (+23) -- GAG-WORTHY!

New Arrivals:

32- "Baby Shark" - Pinkfong -- Let me get this straight. A song about baby sharks meant for very young kids went crazy viral because of the Baby Shark Challenge, a challenge wherein millions of grown adults and celebrities dance like the kids in the video, causing the song to get 2.1 BILLION views on YouTube (and counting) and a spot on the Hot 100? I mean, what am I supposed to say about this? The song is fantastic... for its targeted audience of two-year-olds. For anyone older than that? No. Just... no. And if there's one thing that bothers me more than the festering invasion of hip-hop songs on the charts, it's songs that get popular because of ridiculously stupid internet challenges. So I can't fault the song itself. But the challenge, you better believe I'm furiously mad at. Any grown adult who participated in the Baby Shark Challenge should be banned from YouTube. Because said people are probably the same stupid crowd that falls for every new internet challenge just so they can get their two seconds of internet fame. If we get rid of all them, then the internet will be a much better place. That said, if you want a song to annoy a family member or friend, then look no further. This song is in the same exact category as "The Gummy Bear Song," if you know what I mean.

75- "Take It from Me" - Jordan Davis -- One of the trends you may have noticed in the previous section was that it was an excellent week for country. And that continues in the new arrivals with several new country songs, starting with Jordan Davis. The previous song I knew from him last year was "Singles You Up," which was alright. But "Take It from Me" is what you call generic country. He doesn't get personal or specific. He's just talking broadly about a girl he's with and things they're going to do. He wants to skip the party. He's going to offer a t-shirt for her to sleep in. She's just what he needs and he has what she wants. Yada yada yada. The type of boring nonsense that could've come from any one of our bland country singers.

76- "What Makes You Country" - Luke Bryan -- On our second country song, Luke Bryan takes another song from his 2017 album and turns it into a single. This is the opening track of the album and I suppose it's a decent opening track to a country album as Luke Bryan sings about all the things that make him country. The message of the song is that all country people are different and you should be proud of whatever it is that makes you country. I can see this being a huge hit among the country crowd because it does great job of pandering towards that target audience. Luke tries to do something that's more unique and specific than what Jordan Davis just did. But I don't know. I got kinda bored of him simply listing off random country things he's done in his life that make him a country boy. I guess I'm just not a country boy.

80- "Down to the Honkytonk" - Jake Owen -- More proof that I'm not a country boy because I didn't really know what a honky-tonk was. I just heard the word used on a lot of country songs over the years, with "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones being the first that comes to my mind. Apparently a honky-tonk is a country bar where all these country people go to drink beer, listen to their country music and pick of their girls or guys. Suddenly everything in the world makes sense. And you know what? I am so glad that I learned from Jake Owen that he goes to the honky-tonk. He claims that he might not be famous when all is said done, but he'll still go to the honky-tonk. And yes, if you sensed a bit of sarcasm, then bingo! This song gives me nothing. I did like "I was Jack (You were Diane)" from last year, but in this song Jake just delivers nothing. I will say, though, that the deep notes Jake hits starting at 1:45 into the song are fairly impressive and make for a fun chorus. And the song is a lot more catchy than the previous two songs. But lyrically it still delivers nothing.

82- "Love Someone" - Lukas Graham -- Here was a surprise. It's been a while since we've seen Lukas Graham on the charts. I wasn't sure if they were ever going to come back or if "7 Years" was going to wind up as a one-hit wonder for them in America. And yes, I do say "them" because Lukas Graham is a band, not an individual. They're named after frontman Lukas Forchhammer, who is a fantastic human being. I actually interviewed him over the phone during my internship for the Deseret News and it was one of my favorite interviews and the only one during those four months where the moderator had to stop us because we went too far over our allotted time. So yeah, I might be a little biased here than your average person hearing this. But that's alright. "Love Someone" comes from their third album, "3 (The Purple Album)" and is a rather sweet love song. When Lukas sings about him loving this girl, I felt it in my soul because I know how much he cares about his family. He had just become a father when I interviewed him and he was super genuine when he told me that his young family meant more to him than anything, so to hear him singing about his girl in this song feels so sincere and that's what I think makes it different than your average love ballad. It's not just written to appease a target audience. It sounds like it was written from the soul. Again, I might be biased here. I don't know how the rest of the world will take to this. But I certainly hope it does well. But if not, it'll always be a song that I'll remember.

83- "Love Wins" - Carrie Underwood -- Speaking of love songs, we got a second one in a row thanks to Carrie, a country girl that we can all get behind. Although I suppose when I say "love song," in this instance I mean songs with the the world "love" in the title because this isn't really a romance ballad. It's a song about the principle of love and how it's love that can help unite the world. There's a lot of emotion in this song as Carrie beautifully and sadly sings about all the tragedy happening around the world. Her petition to you and me through it all is that we keep believing because humanity was meant to be there for each other rather than being pitting against each other via hate and violence. I don't know, I can be a sucker for an empowerment anthem like and Carrie has the charisma to sell it. I've been a huge fan of her's since day one and she never ceases to disappoint me. Is this here an actual country? Well, no. Not really. It's more of a pop song. But country-pop has always been her thing.

86- "Ruin My Life" - Zara Larsson -- Another surprise on the charts. Zara is one who I fell in love with rather early with songs like "Lush Life" and "Symphony," the latter of which being a Clean Bandit song that Zara had featured vocals on. But if I'm being honest, she's had a hard time sticking the landing for me since. She just doesn't quite have it on every song, which makes me sad because her potential is sky high. "Ruin My Life" starts out really strong, making me think Zara was about to soar into a beautiful pop ballad. But then to my disappointment, the song hits the chorus and kinda sputters out with an overly repetitive, fast-paced tempo that didn't really fit with the first part of the song. She also started dropping f-bombs left and right, which felt a bit jarring. I had to go find the clean version on Apple Music, which does exist. It's the one that I think she should've had as the actual version as it's much better. But it still doesn't hit the heights that it could've. This remains we remain on the potential side of Zara's career that I still think exists. I guess I just have to be a little patient with her for the moment.

87- "Body" - Loud Luxury featuring Brando -- More surprises this week, this time with two acts that I had no knowledge of. I was scared that they were two new hip-hop artists to plague the charts again, but turns out that this is a dance song that was initially released in 2017, but is just now hitting the Hot 100 here in a America after being a pretty big worldwide hit in several countries. In terms of a dance track, it's upbeat and catchy enough to get you grooving, which is I guess what a dance track should do. But I was waiting for it to really drop and go wild, but it kinda just plateaus after the initial build, so it's not too exciting. Lyrically it's super thin, which is acceptable in a dance song if you have a good beat. But it's nice if you have something to work with. This is just Brando singing about him "losin' all my innocence" with this girl's body on him. So yeah, maybe it's good that he didn't dive deeper into this specific subject?

91- "Here Tonight" - Brett Young -- We're back to our country kick as its a huge week for country, if you couldn't already tell. When it comes to Brett Young, I'm not quite sure what to do with him. "In Case You Didn't Know" connected really well with me. "Like I Loved You" was decent as well, but "Mercy" was fairly boring. So he might just be someone who conjured up one really good country song rather than someone who's actually a good country singer. I hope not, though, because his voice is better than your average country dude and his songs feel more genuine than most. "Here Tonight" falls into the "alright" zone. It's nothing offensive by any means. It's a nice song with a sweet message. But it also doesn't quite hit the emotional punch that it could've as it's a bit shallow. Just another country love song rather than being something special.

92- "Burn Out" - Midland -- I'm not really sure what to say here. Midland has been a group that has released a few things, but have not captured my attention. I appreciate the slower, more mellow tone that fits with the lyrics of being burned out after having a lot of bad luck with a relationship, but that's all that really impressed me. The rest of it is just generic country. The lyrics are paper thin as we are given very few details on this relationship outside the fact that it didn't work. He's on top of the world and now he's not. The vocals are very twangy and dull. So despite the instrumentation being alright, it's a song that really made me bored as I got halfway into it.

93- "Solo de Mi" - Bad Bunny -- I've not been very impressed with Bad Bunny to say the least. He's becoming the Latino version of Drake, someone who gets featured on every song because he's super popular and will help sales rather than being a talented singer who adds quality to the music. Whenever he hops onto a verse, I typically find myself waiting for his portion of the song to finish so we can move onto the rest of the song. But with him all by himself, there's nothing else to anticipate. I didn't bother translating the lyrics here, but I'm not expecting them to really mean anything. Even with that out of the picture, he doesn't enunciate very well as this borderlines on mumbling. There's a soft Latin beat, but it's not a super exciting one and Bad Bunny himself sounds lonely and bored here, which caused me to be even more bored.

95- "Roses" - Benny Blanco & Juice WRLD featuring Brendon Urie -- Juice WRLD and Brendan Urie? That sounds like mixing mushrooms and ice cream. Juice WRLD made one good song, but it's been a rather steep nosedive ever since. Meanwhile, Brendon Urie is on fire, so why would he ruin that by jumping on a track with Juice WRLD? The Benny Blanco thing doesn't mean anything to me. He's a producer who has spent a lot of his life producing, but is just now deciding to give himself featuring credits on his songs for some strange reason. As you might expect, the combination doesn't work, especially since this is primarily a Juice WRLD song. He's just singing about how much life sucks now that he doesn't have this girl in his life, something that he's done on nearly every song I've heard from him. His shtick got old really fast. In the midst of his commiserating, he goes and describes all the awful things he's going to do and it's some really poor writing. Brendon Urie comes in and gives a more tolerable sound to the song, but it feels like he's just singing Juice WRLD's lyrics. There's no reason for him to be on the song as he doesn't provide any sort of alternate voice. It's literally like Juice WRLD wrote another dumb song, but instead of singing the whole thing himself, he asked Brendon Urie to sing the second verse. The combination fails and thus I will discard this as yet another awful Juice WRLD song.

98- "Make It Sweet" - Old Dominion -- One final country song this week, this time coming from Old Dominion, who sneaks onto the Hot 100 at No. 98. Much like with most of Old Dominion's music, this just doesn't have a whole lot of life to it. It's not particularly bad. The music is alright and the lead vocals by Matthew Ramsey are a lot better than some other country singers. The song also has a decent groove. But if the song left the charts next week, I will have completely forgotten that I ever listened to this. It kinda baffles me when you have a band of five people, but yet the best you can come up with is nothing more than your average generic country lyrics. It's like they sat in the writing room, but no one could come up with anything, so they just bagged the session and quickly threw together the same stuff they've done in the past.

100- "idontwannabeyouanymore" - Billie Eilish -- Billie Eilish has become queen of the bottom half of the Hot 100. I keep waiting for her to break out with one of these songs and have a giant hit that shows up everywhere. And maybe that'll will happen in 2019. But for now she just manages to get a lot of her old songs to show up on the bottom half of the Hot 100, hang out for a while, then leave. "idontwannabeyouanymore" is another older song from her 2017 EP "don't smile at me," which means it's another song that she wrote and released when she was 15 or 16. I'm mildly annoyed that there's no spaces in the title. It's seems like a teenager thing to do, which makes sense given her age. But outside that, this is another solid song from Billie. When I was creating my list of favorite songs of 2018 out of all of the songs that debuted on the Hot 100, there was a lot of her songs that I considered. Only one made the final cut, that being "lovely," but several more could've at least hit the honorable mentions and this is another one that slides into that region. It's nothing particularly special, but considering it's a song from a girl that young, it's pretty impressive and still very enjoyable to listen to, so I'm a fan. I'm just anxiously waiting for her to release a new album.