DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - December 1, 2018

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- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (=) -- Ariana's really lucky right now that she got a third week on top of the charts. This song debuted two weeks ago at No. 1 with just five days of tracking. It stayed No. 1 last week after its first full week of tracking. And now in week No. 3 it fell hard in sales and streaming, but still managed to stay on top because it was so far ahead in the previous weeks. I'm not surprised at that. In fact, I'm more surprised that it stayed at No. 1 for a full three weeks. Next week I feel Ariana is destined to fall a couple spots on the charts, which makes me really nervous about what might happen next week given what's still in second place.

2- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- I don't understand this. I don't understand this at all. "SICKO MODE" is not particularly dominate in any category at the moment, but it's pretty strong in all three categories and is also maintaining steady across the board, even on radio. I don't know why any radio station would even touch this. And now because of this, Travis Scott is the biggest contender to go to No. 1 next week. If that happens, I would officially declare the song the worst No. 1 hit of 2018. And that's saying something since there's been several bad No. 1 hits this year.

3- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (=) -- Pardon the continued puns, but I would be much happier if this song went No. 1 instead of Travis Scott. But sadly "Happier" has really struggled to jump ahead of "SICKO MODE" and at this point it looks like it's stuck behind it. Even though the radio remains super strong, the sales and streaming just aren't strong enough to get it over the hump. And that's sad.

4- "Without Me" - Halsey (=) -- I'm still fine with this sitting here in the top five. I'm not sure it has the momentum to jump ahead of the song right in front of it, unless of course Ariana takes a huge tumble. I would also really hope that "SICKO MODE" somehow falters and gives way to something better. But that doesn't seem like it's going to happen because our stupid country is too busy drooling all over themselves while listening to Travis Scott and Drake rap about how awesome they are.

5- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (+1) -- Hey look who's back in the top five? I don't anticipate that this will last too much longer. It's just here because the floor completely disappeared from under Maroon 5 this week, which is great news.

6- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+2) -- In continued great news, "High Hopes" has jumped to No. 1 on the radio charts. And I can only hope that said radio momentum continues to be strong enough to keep this song around for a long time. With a few of the previously mentioned songs in the top five looking a bit vulnerable, it would be fantastic if this song could take its place in the top five and camp out there for a while.

7- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (=) -- Meanwhile, let's keep this song far away from the top five. The last thing we need is for another stupid rap song to stick around.

8- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-3) -- It makes me so happy to see this song finally tanking. It deserved to be gone a long time ago. In fact, it never deserved to be this high in the first place. Hopefully we'll only have another week or two before it's gone for good. It's been 25 frustratingly long weeks with this in the top 10.

9- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (+1) -- "Drip Too Hard" swaps places with "ZEZE" this week, making me angry that both songs are still here. Let's get rid of them.

10- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (-1) -- See previous comment.

Rising on the Hot 100:

14- "Wake up in the Sky" - Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black (+3) -- Do we really have to make this song a thing? Stupid Bruno Mars. He's the big reason why this is here. I'd tolerate another boring Bruno song, but seeing him drag Gucci and Kodak with him is rather upsetting, especially Kodak Black. I don't know why we're making him a thing.

15- "Trip" - Ella Mai (+3) -- I thought that this song was going to take its place in the top 10 since it had a lot of momentum on its side. I suppose it'd be better to see this song instead of No. 7, 8, 9, 10 or 14. But I'm still kinda happy to have seen this song stall out a bit in the teens. We'll see what the future has in store for it.

16- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (+6) -- Initial reviews for "Into the Spider-Verse" are in and people are singing the movie's praises. That makes me excited. I'm still struggling to see what this song has anything to do with the movie outside being a random, useless Post Malone and Swae Lee song to be used as background noise. But it's whatever. It's not the worst thing.

17- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+4) -- Halsey looks like she's comfortably camped out in the top five right now. And I'm fine with that. But then I see this song slowly rising in the teens and I'm reminded that I would rather see this song in the top five that Halsey's current one. Let's make it happen, America!

28- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero (+9) -- Sigh. Why do I have to keep dealing with this song? Make it stop and make it go away!

29- "All I Want for Christmas is You" - Mariah Carey (re-entry) -- Mariah's annual return to the charts! That means Christmas season has officially begun and we can all start blasting our Christmas music, right? Last Christmas season we finally got this song to crack the top 10 as it peaked at No. 9. Think we can get it higher this season? I'd be totally down. I'm also curious to see what other Christmas songs make their way to the charts this holiday season. Anything beyond the regulars? I'll list them all here in the rising songs charts as they re-enter in the coming weeks!

33- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+5) -- It's nice to see the proper Dan + Shay song rising on the charts. Last week I was a bit nervous when "Tequila" made another gain. I thought we were done with the song. It's good to see that we might actually be. I'm still not madly in love with this song, but it's a much nicer Dan + Shay song.

43- "Better" - Khalid (+8) -- It's definitely been a great year for Khalid as he's shown up everywhere. Thus with all the songs of his to choose from, I'm disappointed to see this song doing well because it's one of his more forgettable showings.

49- "Arms Around You" - XXXTENTACION & Lil Pump featuring Maluma & Swae Lee (+11) -- BOYCOTT THIS.

80- "lovely" - Billie Eilish & Khalid (re-entry) -- I reserve the right to pick and choose which re-entries I include in this list. There's no rhyme or reason there. This song I'm including because I absolutely love this song. It's still one of my favorites of the year. I have no idea why it's back, but it gave me a lot of joy seeing it this week, so I had to include it because this deserves to be a huge hit.

New Arrivals:

81- "Take One" - Kodak Black -- I don't feel like listening to a Kodak Black song today. All his songs are trash. Why should I expect this one to be any different?

92- "Twerk" - City Girls featuring Cardi B -- If you're wondering who City Girls are, they're the duo who should have a No. 1 hit attached to their name as they were featured on Drake's "In My Feelings," but Drake decided not to list them as featured artist on the track, so they got screwed over. But now they turn to Cardi B to give them their first official Hot 100 hit. And I will admit that that the girls do have a decent sense of flow and they mix well with Cardi B. I can see this catching with the general public as a huge dance hit. The problem, though, is that I don't give them any credit for the beat in the song because they sampled the song "Choppa Style" by Choppa featuring Master P. Go listen to that song and you'll realize this whole song is simply that song regurgitated with City Girls and Cardi B adding their own lyrics. And said lyrics are all super trashy and awful, so I can't get behind this, nor can I give City Girls any credit. And of course Cardi is Cardi. She'll add a lazy verse or two onto any song that's requested of her. And they're all the same, so I don't know why people aren't tired of her yet.

97- "Ocean Eyes" - Billie Eilish -- In addition to being pleasantly surprised that "lovely" re-entering the charts this week, I was also surprised to see "Ocean Eyes" debut on the charts for Billie Eilish. I know her songs well enough at this point to know that this was one of the first singles she released two years ago, a month or so before she turned 15. So yeah, when you listen to this song, you have to keep in mind that it's performed by a 14-year-old Billie Eilish. And with that context, this is a dang good song for a 14-year-old. Yes, the lyrics are pretty simplistic, but as a simple pop song, it's rather soothing and effective. I'm sure if Billie performs it today, you'd be able to hear a bit more maturity in her sound, but as is she's still pretty good. I mean, how many young teenagers do you see that are writing and singing this effectively. She's a girl who has talent well beyond her years, so I'm excited to see where she goes with her career as she gets older. 

98- "Close to Me" - Ellie Goulding & Diplo featuring Swae Lee -- I was wondering when this was going to chart. A quick summary on my history with Ellie Goulding. I liked her breakout hit "Lights" back in the day. Like, a lot. But it was shortly after that on her second album that I completely fell in love. Both "Halcyon" and the deluxe edition "Halcyon Days" are incredible. In fact, I'd call that album one of my favorites of the 2010's. But then she released her third album "Delirium," which I found extremely underwhelming. Maybe I was a bit too harsh on it at the time, but I just had so high expectations for her music that it was super disappointing to listen to her dip down to generic pop that sounded more desperate than anything. But because I loved her so much before that, she became one of the few singers in which I actually subscribed to her YouTube channel. I don't do that these days with musicians. But I just never unsubscribed from Ellie, so I always see her new music right when it comes. The audio for "Close to Me" was released back on October 24th, with the music video getting released on November 14th. So this feels like old news to me.

That said, I think this is totally passable. And that was my initial reaction when I listened to it a month ago. Now perhaps I'm more tolerant of this than her music from her third album because of expectations. I accepted the fact that she's not going to replicate "Halcyon" again, so I didn't expect that when I listened to this song, whereas I probably did expect that when I listened to "Delirium." Now I did feel like teaming up with Diplo and Swae Lee was a bit desperate for attention, but Diplo provides a nice beat to the song and if we have to add a rapper to the song, Swae Lee is one of the more tolerable ones. Even though his lyrics aren't that great, he mixes well with Ellie. And Ellie's lyrics aren't all that wonderful, either, but their passable and the song has enough bounce to it to be a fun one to listen to. Now the question will be if this will catch on with the public because female pop stars haven't had the best luck as of late, with the exception of Ariana and Halsey. But hey, maybe 2019 will be nicer to pop. We do have several of them in the top 10 right now, so we shall see.

99- "Girl Like You" - Jason Aldean -- Really, Jason? "Girl Like You"? Can't you come up with a song title that's slightly more creative? I've had to deal with Maroon 5's "Girls Like You" for the last 25 weeks and now there's a "Girl Like You" on the charts. I think this song might be successful just because people still searching for the Maroon 5 song might click this one by accident. That said, this song is a lot more upbeat and exciting than "Girls Like You," not that that's a super high bar, but still. This has a strong enough groove to it that I can see country fans falling in love with it. And if you like Jason Aldean, I'm willing to bet that you'll love this song. Doesn't mean I'm necessarily a huge fan of it. I think most of the lyrics are your basic country lyrics developed straight out of the factory rather than being genuine and unique to what Jason Aldean is feeling. And I find a lot of said lyrics fairly cheesy. But it has a strong enough groove for it to be acceptable in books, so take that for what it's worth.

100- "Burn the House Down" - AJR -- I've spent the last few minutes scrambling to figure out where I know this song from. Did it show up on another chart that I looked at or covered somewhere? Did I listen to this album last year and forget? This doesn't seem like it's brand new, but I can't place it, so I suppose it might be. I can't find it on any of my Excel charts. I don't think I listened to the album, but if I did this comes from the deluxe version of the album that was released in September. So I'm at a loss. But I really enjoy the song. AJR is a band composed of three brothers who have a unique and creative style. I haven't dove too deep into their discography, but their songs are usually pretty different and fun. Speaking of groove, this song has a ton of groove with a lot of clever instrumentation. And it gets better once you know the song has some actual meaning to it. This could work just fine as an empty dance beat and I would still probably enjoy it. But the message here is actually pretty political. It's not specific enough to name names or dive into issues, but there's a section that says "Should I hang my head low? Should I bite my tongue? Or should I march with every stranger from Twitter to get stuff done?" That's the theme here. There's a strong sense of distaste in the lyrics the dive into the conflicting messages in one's head as you try to figure out if you should remain quiet or march forward and make some noise. Granted, you might argue that this song is a call for action, but doesn't provide action because it doesn't dive into specifics. But I feel that's more of a nitpick. I still think it's a fun, strong anthem with enough depth to make it solid effort from AJR.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - November 24, 2018

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- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (=) -- I'm a bit surprised that Ariana was able to keep the top spot this week since songs that debut high usually take a big second week dip, but I'm not too surprised because "thank u, next" made No. 1 last week with only five days of tracking, so this week qualifies as the song's first full week of tracking. In doing so, the streaming is huge, increasing this week 63.4 million U.S. streams, up from 55.5 million last week. The sales crashed in half, but since sales are a lot lower overall than they used to be, the 43,000 sales it got this week was easily enough to stay at the top of the sales chart. The tricky thing for the song's long term potential will be radio play. While it was up significantly compared to last week's debut, Ariana's "Breathin" is now top 10 on radio and gaining strong traction. Usually artists don't have two radio hits at the same time. When all is said and done, I'm totally happy with this song being No. 1 this week, especially given what ended up in the runner-up spot.

2- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+1) -- Yeah this is gross. I want this song to fall, but Travis Scott boosted it with an iTunes discount, which helped it this week. It also still has monster streaming and is also top 10 on radio for some strange, unknown reasons. Without Ariana, this would've been our No. 1 hit this week, so we dodged a huge bullet.

3- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+1) -- I was really wanting this to go No. 1 this week because I think it would be fitting for a song called "Happier" to be No. 1 on the week of Thanksgiving. But alas it was not meant to be. The fantastic news this week is that it DID go No. 1 on radio, dethroning Maroon 5's "Girls Like You" after the latter song's 16-week reign, which is tied for the second longest reign on the radio charts, behind only the 18-week run of Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris." I had accepted the awful reality of that record being broke, which is why I was very pleasantly surprised to learn that "Happier" stopped it short of the mark. Now "Happier" has stalled out a bit on sales and streaming, which is why it hasn't been able to get over the hump to that No. 1 spot, but consistent radio will keep it around and if Ariana and Travis eventually slip, said consistency could still give it the No. 1 spot. It's anyone's game at this point for the near future.

4- "Without Me" - Halsey (+2) -- So far in the top five we have "thank u, next," "Happier" and now "Without Me." Follow that up with "Girls Like You" up next and that means we have four pop songs in the top five and only one rap song? That's solid news. Maybe we can have a bit of a pop revival after the rap genre has had such a strong stranglehold on the charts of late. "Without Me" isn't the greatest pop song in the world, but it's certainly acceptable. And it's also the highest Halsey has hit on her own. She previous reigned for 12 weeks at top with The Chainsmokers on "Closer," but that was with her as a featured role, not a lead act. This is a great sign for her career moving forward.

5- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-3) -- It brought me so much happiness to see that this song completely tanked this week, falling down to No. 5 when I totally expected it to stay at No. 2. And as I previously mentioned, I'm super glad that the song fell short of tying or passing the radio record set by "Iris." Imagine a world where "Girls Like You" got that record. What a travesty that would be. It's bad enough that it hit second place on that list. It would give me even more joy, though, if this began a downward spiral for the song. The faster that this leaves the top 10, the better.

6- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (-1) -- It's been a solid run for "Lucid Dreams." It fell a spot this week, but at least it didn't completely crash like Post Malone's "Better Now," which you may have noticed is completely gone from the top 10.

7- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+2) -- Why is this still around? What appeal does this song have to people? I really don't get it.

8- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+4) -- Out of all the great things that have happened so far, Panic! At the Disco hitting the top 10 is easily the greatest feat this week. This is the second ever top 10 entry for the band after "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" hit No. 7 in 2006 and what a well-deserved entry this is. I should note that referring to Panic! At the Disco as a band is no longer the most accurate statement since Brendon Urie is currently the only official member of the band, but eh, whatever. Whether it's just Brendon or a group of others with him, this has been one of my favorite songs of the year, which I thought meant it was doomed to do nothing on the Hot 100. But oh how happy I am to be wrong because having a song like this around certainly makes the top 10 a much better place. The song is struggling a bit on sales and streaming as it's mostly boosted up by strong radio, currently No. 3 behind "Happier" and "Girls Like You," so I'm not sure what the song's potential is, but I'm hoping that the radio is strong and consistent enough to keep it around.

9- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (-1) -- Well, at least this isn't rising. But it needs to fall faster because the world doesn't need this around.

10- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- Why is this still No. 10 this week? Let's get it knocked off rather than letting it stubbornly stay in.

Rising on the Hot 100:

13- "Natural" - Imagine Dragons (+2) -- This song has managed to stick around in the teens for the majority of the college football season. I still hear it all the time in advertising and it still works great as a college football anthem. It's also now a part of Imagine Dragons' new album, which totally shocked me by coming out this month. They just barely did an album last year and now they already have their next one? If I get around to the album, I'll let you know what I think. But there is one new song from it on the charts this week that I'll discuss below.

14- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+7) -- Can Ariana manage to get two songs into the top 10 here soon? I would totally be down for that happening. As I noted earlier, this song's radio is get huge traction, entering the top 10 this week. And the recently released music video has helped its streaming numbers in a big way. So all signs point to continued momentum for this song.

28- "Lose It" - Kane Brown (+25) -- I was wondering where country went these last few weeks, so I'm not surprised to see the genre finally get a good week. Several of them got good rises this week, plus we have four new country songs that charted, so I'll be covering those down below. In terms of this song, I'm not surprised to see it doing well simply because a lot of people love Kane Brown for some reason. But I'm personally not impressed. This song doesn't offend me. It just bores me.

36- "Tequila" - Dan + Shay (+8) -- If we're going to have a Dan + Shay song do well, can we have it be "Speechless" and not "Tequila"?

38- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+7) -- Oh hey, speaking of "Speechless." Yeah, this is the superior Dan + Shay song. It still doesn't knock my socks off, but for country standards, this is decently solid.

52- "Topanga" - Trippie Redd (+38) -- A Trippie Redd album dropped, giving this song a huge boost and adding four additional new songs to the charts. And as you'll quickly find out, I couldn't care less.

75- "Burning Man" - Dierks Bentley featuring Brothers Osborne (+17) -- OK, this is a country song that really deserves to find success. I can nitpick it a bit, but this is one of the better country songs to chart this year and I give a lot of credit to Brothers Osborne, an act that I really need to check out more because both times they've shown up on the charts, I've been impressed.

77- "This Feeling" - The Chainsmokers featuring Kelsea Ballerini (+18) -- This song was performed live at halftime for Monday Night Football this week and it was a solid performance, mostly because Kelsea Ballerini is awesome. The Chainsmokers themselves looked and sounded a bit lost, but overall I'm fine with this doing well. It's a step in the right direction for The Chainsmokers and a great choice of a featured credit.

83- "Consequences" - Camila Cabello (+14) -- OK, this is a good first sign. I have a bad feeling that this song is going to fail because of Camila's strange release patterns with her songs this year. But I really hope I'm wrong because I want this to catch on and be a hit. It's one of my favorite songs from Camila's album.

New Arrivals:

16- "BAD!" - XXXTENTACION -- You know what? I'm getting really sick of people taking advantage of the death of XXXTENTACION to get sales and streaming money, whether it be other rappers or his own team looking to continue to release songs. I don't want to see any more of his songs show up on the charts with him in any role. And if they continue to show up, I will boycott them. Starting with this one. I refuse to listen to it.

44- "Armed and Dangerous" - Juice WRLD -- I'm also getting really tired of Juice WRLD. Yes, I'll still defend "Lucid Dreams" as a good song, but at this point I'm calling that lightning in a bottle that he hasn't been able to produce again and probably never will. I'm also tired of this trend that rapping about killing people is the cool thing to do. It's not. I don't condone murder and neither should anyone. Juice WRLD doesn't even sound vicious or angry on this song. He's just lazily rapping about murder in a very nonchalant sort of way because it's the cool thing to rap about and he's jumping on the bandwagon. I don't actually believe that he's murdered anyone or even believes what he's singing about. I suppose that's a good thing that I don't think he's a violent criminal who deserves life in prison. But it's a dumb thing that he's following stupid trends by releasing meaningless songs just to get more money since the world made him a thing. Because, yeah, that's all this song is. He's bragging about murdering people and flexing about how rich he is. I find absolutely nothing interesting about that.

55- "1400 / 999 Freestyle" - Trippie Redd featuring Juice WRLD -- There's four new Trippie Redd songs debuting this week from his new album. And I don't care to listen to any of them. Based on this title, I'm guessing this is a freestyle rap. If you have talent, freestyle is impressive. If you are as bad as Trippie Redd, freestyle rap is beyond garbage because the songs end up being even more incomprehensible and unfocused. If this isn't freestyle, OK. I don't care either way.

73- "Love Scars 3" - Trippie Redd -- Nope. Not going to listen to this song.

79- "Bad Liar" - Imagine Dragons -- I was rather shocked to see Imagine Dragons releasing yet another album this month. Their last album was released just last year. It adds to my theory that Dan Reynolds and the band no longer care about quality. They're just churning out a whole bunch of songs and albums for the sake of quantity. That's my initial thoughts on the album release, anyways. I suppose I can't judge this album specifically until I listen to it, but I'm not excited to dive in. However, I do still enjoy "Natural" because it's a fitting college football anthem and there's also a new song called "Zero" that plays during the credits of "Ralph Breaks the Internet." That song is very unique for the band and I really hope it charts.

"Bad Liar" doesn't have context for college football or for "Ralph Breaks the Internet," so I wasn't confident it was going to be great, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the song. I think my biggest problem with Imagine Dragons lately is they've been churning out empty, meaningless songs that felt and sounded very lazy. This song, though, feels like it actually means something to Dan Reynolds as he dives into how much he's struggled this year with the failing relationship with his wife. It was announced back in April that they were getting a divorce, but a recent interview suggests that they are back together again? Regardless of the final outcome, it's obvious that there's been tension and that's what he's singing about here. The content of these lyrics suggests he's finally come to terms with the idea that he's never going to be enough for her, so instead of lying to her that he will be better, he's being honest with himself and perhaps with her that he might not be what she wants him to be, so he's letting her go. There's actually a lot of power in that. This is also a more held back, mellow song where the soft instrumentals fit the tone and feel of the song instead of being a heavy rock song that conflicts with the lyrics. Adding to it all is that his wife (or ex-wife?) Aja Volkman is the one providing backing vocals in the song. That's a solid touch. So yeah, I'm pleasantly surprised with this. Solid effort from Dan Reynolds here. Maybe I should be more optimistic about the album as a whole?

89- "Negative Energy" - Trippie Redd featuring Kodie Shane -- I'm not going to listen to this Trippie Redd song, either.

91- "Sixteen" - Thomas Rhett -- OK, now we're going to finish this week off with a string of country songs, beginning here with Thomas Rhett. Now mostly I'm fairly Negative towards this guy because he doesn't put out a whole lot of quality. Most of his songs are empty and forgettable. But I didn't mind the song "Life Changes," so maybe there was hope here? And, well, yeah, this isn't bad either. The song has a nice mellow groove to it that feels like he actually tried to put out a meaningful song rather than churning out the factory-built country-pop songs that he usually produces. And I like the sentiment here of reflecting back to your childhood and wishing you were 16 again. What I didn't like is how he doesn't commit to that. If this was specifically a song about him wishing he were 16, I would enjoy that to some degree. But in verse two he starts singing about wishing he were 18, then in verse three he's singing about wishing he were 21. I think the song would've been better if he were to commit to a lane here. But as is, this isn't awful, so I'll accept it.

93- "Good Girl" - Dustin Lynch -- For some reason I thought Dustin Lynch had charted this year, but nope. "Seein Red" and "Small Town Boy" were last year. "Good Girl" is his first song from this year. I didn't mind the former, but wasn't a fan of the latter. "Good Girl" falls into the latter category as well being that it's a forgettable song. This is one of those factory-built country songs I was talking about. Dustin is talking about how happy he is that he's got a good girl. He doesn't tell us much about her or dive into their relationship. And there doesn't seem to be any emotion or originality in the song, so this doesn't sound personal at all. It just seems like a basic, formulaic country songs that any of these singers could produce when they ran out of ideas.

95- "Last Shot" - Kip Moore -- This is also the first song this year from Kip Moore. The difference here is that last year Kip Moore's song was "More Girls Like You," which is an absolutely fantastic country song. In fact, it's still the song that I start singing every time I see Maroon 5's "Girls Like You" on the charts. "Last Shot" comes from the same album as "More Girls Like You," which was released last year. That makes me wonder why it took Kip Moore so long to release another single from the album. As soon as that song started fading, logic says he should've released this one, which is another solid country song. Now in fairness to the other guys, the lyrics here aren't the most inventive. This is still basic country stuff. But the difference here is that Kip Moore has a whole heck of a personality as he sounds like he cares rather than sounding desperate for a hit. I also really love his voice. I don't if husky is the right word, but that sound combined with his passion and the upbeat tune make this a very enjoyable song to listen to even if it doesn't have quite as catchy of a groove as "More Girls Like You."

96- "Millionaire" - Chris Stapleton -- Chris Stapleton did have a song this year, but it wasn't with him in a featured role. It was him joining with Justin Timberlake on "Say Something," which I thought was solid. I'm also not quite sure why he didn't take advantage of the moment and release a single shortly after that song, especially since "Millionaire" comes from his 2017 album "From A Room, Volume 2." So the song was already there and ready to be released. It just took Chris and his team a long time to send it out to the radio. And like both Dustin Lynch and Kip Moore, Chris is singing about his love for a girl. But again, the difference in quality is the emotion and passion behind the song. Dustin doesn't sound like he cared about his song, while Kip and Chris do. And Chris specifically is singing this slowed down love ballad that he's singing with his wife Morgane Stapleton as she's providing the backing vocals here. That's the second time that's happened this week, which is an interesting coincidence as singers don't usually bring their spouses on with them. But in both cases this works. When it comes to a love ballad, the most important thing is for the couple to sound like they love each other. Chris and Morgane pull that off. I suppose Chris doesn't get credit for the lyrics as this is a cover, but he does get credit for singing it well.

98- "Toxic Waste" - Trippie Redd -- An accurate description of Trippie Redd's music. So why would I waste my time?

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - November 17, 2018

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- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande (new) -- Do you know how good it feels to look up the Hot 100 and see that Maroon 5 is NOT No. 1? Thank you, Ariana! And I suppose a congratulations is in order for Ariana's first ever No. 1 hit. Some would say that it's about time. I'm certainly happy for her, but I wish it would've come on a better song as this feels more like a lifetime achievement award rather than an accolade that this specific song deserved. It's like those times when the Academy finally gives a certain filmmaker an Academy Award out of obligation than anything. Said filmmaker may have had better work in the past, but the Academy awarded them on a lesser piece of work because they were long overdue for something. In situations like this, you can't help but be happy for the person, even though you wish it would've come in on a film more deserving. That's kinda how I feel here. Except Billboard isn't an organization that gives out No. 1 hits. It's all about the numbers and Ariana hit the sweet spot with this surprise hit. She managed to get 81,000 in first week sales and 55.5 million U.S. streams, which blew the competition out of the water. There's also a few things worth noting. First, a pop song replaced a pop song. Second, this is the first time since Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" back in January where a rapper isn't present on the No. 1 hit in either a lead or featured role. Third, this is the first woman to debut at No. 1 since Adele's "Hello" three years ago. All of those make me happy, although I wish there was more of a female presence on the charts. Nearly 80 percent of the artists in the top 10 this year have been male and this is only the third week that a solo lead female has been No. 1, which is the lowest year on the Hot 100 since 1975. I find that troubling.

2- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (-1) -- I'm glad that this song is no longer No. 1. But we have a few more things to still worry about. One, we have to hope that this DOESN'T go back to No. 1 next week if Ariana falls off. Two, this song is still at No. 1 on the radio charts for a 16th consecutive week. That ties for the second longest streak ever, with "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls holding the all-time record at 18 weeks. Third, the fact that this song is still in the top 10 at all is troubling. Let's get rid of this altogether. It'll make the world a better place.

3- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-1) -- Why is this still here?

4- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (-1) -- Billboard spent their whole weekly article talking about Ariana. And rightfully so since it's her first ever week at No. 1. But they didn't clue me in on what the numbers for this song are, so we'll just have to see what happens next week. Songs that debut at No. 1 usually drop in their second week. That combined with the fact that "Happier" has been gaining in overall chart points while "Girls Like You" and "SICKO MODE" have both been falling mean that this could still sneak ahead and grab that No. 1 spot. We'll just have to wait and see as I'm just as much in the dark as everyone else is.

5- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (-1) -- I'm still sad that this never dethroned Maroon 5. But since Ariana managed to pull off the feat, I don't have to be too sad anymore.

6- "Without Me" - Halsey (+3) -- Halsey looks to be positioning herself rather well. While everything else is dropping, she's on the rise. Keep up this momentum and she'll have herself another top five hit. With "Girls Like You," "SICKO MODE" and "Lucid Dreams" all sliding, maybe she even moves up to No. 3 before too long?

7- "Better Now" - Post Malone (-2) -- This song had a great life in the top 10 and now it looks like that's going to come to an end. I'm not upset since it's run has been good, but I'm also not celebrating because I learned to tolerate this.

8- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (-2) -- Why is this still here?

9- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+1) -- Why is this still here?

10- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (-2) -- Why is this still here?

Rising on the Hot 100:

14- "Wake up in the Sky" - Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black (+12) -- I'm really upset that "High Hopes" wasn't able to crack the top 10 this week. Instead it fell a spot to No. 12 thanks to Ariana's debut while "Youngblood" by 5 Seconds of Summer slid to No. 11. And now knowing my luck, I'm probably going to have to deal with this song getting to the top 10 first. What a horrible turn of events that would be.

21- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+11) -- It's an all-around great week for Ariana as this official single charges up to No. 21 following the recent release of it's music video. Now I'm hoping that the momentum continues because this is the real Ariana song that deserves to be getting praised and played everywhere.

33- "Bohemian Rhapsody" - Queen (re-entry) -- I'm kind of upset that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the ONLY Queen song to chart this week. I was hoping for an onslaught of Queen songs this week to show up after the Queen biopic named after this song is now dominating at the box office. You can stroll over to my movie blog to get my opinion of the movie, but I of course love this song and am glad that it's here. No, it's not my favorite Queen song. But that's beside the point.

41- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero (+14) -- I wish that this song would leave me alone.

45- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+5) -- We've had a lack of country in the last few weeks, so I've been waiting for something to step up. And I'm fine with it being this song. I'm still surprised that there's not more country songs, though.

63- "Dip" - Tyga & Nicki Minaj (+20) -- Of course this song would become a hit. Because the world hates me right now. Why are we continuing to give Tyga a good career in 2018? The world was a better place when he was out of the picture.

New Arrivals:

1- "thank u, next" - Ariana Grande -- Yup, more Ariana talk now. This time we discuss the actual song instead of diving into the feat of Ariana hitting No. 1. And I don't know, this song is harmless. I don't think it needed to be an explicit song as Ariana decided to randomly drop a few f-bombs, so find the edited version on whatever streaming service you subscribe to for the best experience here. What I do like about this song is that it feels like Ariana is being genuine and honest with how her love life has gone. And she gets specific by name dropping all of her exes, so I know the song means something to her rather than being another cliche break-up song. It's also a more hopeful song as, instead of creating a diss track where she's tearing all of her exes down, she's telling us how each of them have helped her out in a different way, helping her become the person she is today. She hopes to get married one day, but until then she's choosing to recognize how each of her exes have helped her out in her life. I like that sentiment. And I think the slower, more mellow flow to the song fits the tone of the lyrics. So it's a nice song. It's just not a song that grabs me and makes me want to listen on repeat as it doesn't have the strong emotional weight or the powerful vocals that Ariana is capable of bringing on her songs. Not that every song has to have this, but given that this song is the one that finally got Ariana her No. 1, I find myself feeling obligated to bring it up anyways since this is more of a solid change of pace song rather than one you would envision as a chart topper, if that makes any sense.

38- "Don't Come out of the House" - Metro Boomin featuring 21 Savage -- I don't care about this new Metro Boomin album. I'm not going to give it a listen.

42- "10 Freaky Girls" - Metro Boomin featuring 21 Savage -- I don't care about this new Metro Boomin album. I'm not going to give it a listen.

51- "Space Cadet" - Metro Boomin featuring Gunna -- I don't care about this new Metro Boomin album. I'm not going to give it a listen.

62- "Overdue" - Metro Boomin featuring Travis Scott -- I don't care about this new Metro Boomin album. I'm not going to give it a listen.

72- "Dreamcatcher" - Metro Boomin featuring Swae Lee & Travis Scott -- I don't care about this new Metro Boomin album. I'm not going to give it a listen.

79- "No More" - Metro Boomin featuring Travis Scott, Kodak Black & 21 Savage -- I don't care about this new Metro Boomin album. I'm not going to give it a listen.

86- "Ella Quiere Beber" - Anuel AA & Romeo Santos -- Hey look! It's a song that's not by Metro Boomin, so I suppose I'll cover it. Although I'm not sure my opinion here is going to mean much since I couldn't quite crack the translation. "Ella Quiere Beber" may or may not mean "She Wants to Drink." Although this song is a remix as the original was without Romeo Santos and was called "Quiere Beber," which might mean "Wants to Drink"? If I cared enough, I would go to my Spanish friends for an exact translation. As far as the content of the song, it appears to be about a girl who wants to drink in order to forget about her ex-boyfriend. And I'm assuming Anuel AA and/or Romeo Santos have a goal to take advantage of her pain to be the new man in her life. But don't quote me on that. As far as the music itself, it feels like a very safe song for Romeo Santos. He has a nice voice that I don't mind. But I don't think he's able to quite capture the romance in this song that he often has been able to do in the past. And whenever Anuel AA comes in, I just found myself being annoyed because it felt like he does more of a mumble Spanish. I don't like his voice, so I didn't care much for the song. The only tolerable parts are when it's just Romeo and even that's simply acceptable.

97- "Consequences" - Camila Cabello -- I'm not sure what Camila Cabello's plan is with her single release. She released an album earlier this year that got her a huge No. 1 hit with "Havana." Then she followed that up with "Never Be the Same," but instead of pushing that song, she tried to push "Sangria Wine," a non-album single with Pharrell. That blew up in her face. Then she jumped on with Bazzi with "Beautiful," which has done alright. And now nearly a year later, she finally remembers that she has more songs from that album that she could release as singles? Why didn't she simply give "Never Be the Same" a stronger push followed by releasing this as a single a couple months later? Then she could've maximized her Billboard performance because I think this is a solid choice for a single. It feels like a natural progression after "Havana" and "Never Be the Same" as those two are the fun, upbeat pop hits while this is a solid bittersweet love ballad. I actually listened to the whole album shortly after it was released and my three favorite songs were "Never Be the Same," "She Loves Control" and "Consequences," so I was happy to see it show up. Unlike Ariana's song this week, this is a fairly generic breakup song without specifics, but she does a great job of letting us feel the emotion by giving us a soft, sweet love ballad before throwing out the bait-and-switch that she's actually in pain, helping us feel the bitter to go along with the sweet. I hope this song becomes big because I really like it, but I fear that Camila's single release patter this year might hurt this song's overall performance. 

99- "Casper" - Takeoff -- Haha, you really expect me to put much effort into a Takeoff song? Yeah, no. I'm just amused right now that he tried releasing an album, but even his target audience of dumb people who weren't born with proper earbuds ignored him. You would think this would be the type of album that ends up being a streaming monster, but instead it barely charts one song last week and one song this week. I will give Takeoff credit for the album only being 12 tracks long as other rappers release albums that average 20 tracks a piece and that drives me crazy. But that's all the credit he gets because it doesn't seem like Takeoff put a lot of effort into this, that based on the fact that "Last Memory" was a dumb song last week and "Casper" is a dumb song this week. He's not quite as annoying as his other two friends from Migos, but there's still nothing to this song, both in terms of flow of the song and the content of the lyrics. If Takeoff's project does indeed fail like I think it's going to, in a week or two I will have completely forgot that it existed.

100- "Up to Something" - Metro Boomin featuring Travis Scott & Young Thug -- I don't care about this new Metro Boomin album. I'm not going to give it a listen.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - November 10, 2018

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- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- Why is this still No. 1? It's been seven weeks at No. 1 now and that is seven weeks too long.

2- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (=) -- Why is this still the No. 2 song?

3- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+1) -- Hey look! Here's something to cheer for! While "Girls Like You" and "SICKO MODE" both fall by about 5 percent, "Happier" is on the rise by about 3 percent overall. From what Billboard reports, the margins are pretty close and the balance in tipping in favor of "Happier." I feel like it's been a while since I've truly been happy about a No. 1, so hopefully the momentum keeps going.

4- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (-1) -- I'm a bit sad that this was never able to unseat "Girls Like You." But oh well. Life moves on.

5- "Better Now" - Post Malone (=) -- I also would've been totally fine with this getting more momentum and hitting No. 1. But that also didn't happen.

6- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (=) -- Why is this still stuck at No. 6? Let's get it to fall down.

7- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (=) -- Why is this not going higher? I would love for this to camp out in the top five, ahead of some of the more awful songs ahead of it.

8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- Why is this still stuck at No. 8? Do people really care that much about these two or do the immature teenage boys who listen to this crap really have this much influence over streaming numbers?

9- "Without Me" - Halsey (+3) -- You know what? I'll take this. It's not the best Halsey has ever come up with, but in compared to some other songs in the top 10 right now, like the song directly above it and the song directly below it, this is certainly tolerable. The music video gave it a bit of a boost this week, so I'm not 100 percent sure about it's long-term staying power in the top 10, but we'll see.

10- "Mo Bamba" - Sheck Wes (+6) -- Haha, I learned why this is called "Mo Bamba." It's named after rookie center Mo Bamba, who played college ball in Texas and is now playing for the Orlando Magic. Apparently him and Sheck Wes were good friends growing up, so Sheck named a song after him. Although the song isn't really about Mo Bamba. It's an empty rap song about mostly nothing that mentions Mo in a line towards the beginning. And you should know by now that I'm angry that it is now a top 10 hit.

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+10) -- This is such good news! The No. 11 spot always makes me nervous because so many good songs have made it to this point and peaked, so we'll certainly have to take this week by week. But if this can break through and hit the top 10, I'm going to be so happy! This is still one of the best songs to chart this year so it's great to see a quality song do well for a change.

13- "Money" - Cardi B (+41) -- Cardi wrote a song about money. Super original on her part. And this week is the song's first full week of tracking, hence the huge jump. I'm crossing my fingers that it will fall back down next week like some songs do after huge debuts. But knowing Cardi's history recently...

18- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+2) -- If we're going to bring a new Halsey song into the top 10, I'd prefer this song over the one that's in the top 10 at the moment because her and Khalid have a great connection in this song, but I'll take what I can get, I suppose.

26- "Wake Up in the Sky" - Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black (+13) -- Kodak Black already seems to have "ZEZE" stuck in the top 10 at the moment, so I would really appreciate it if this song stops gaining momentum as we certainly don't need any more Kodak at the moment. And we certainly don't need more of Bruno or Gucci, either.

31- "Thriller" - Michael Jackson (re-entry) -- "Thriller" is only here for this week thanks to Halloween streaming and sales impacting the charts this week, but it's always fun to see it here. Even though it's one of the most overplayed songs in the history of like, ever, especially during Halloween, I've actually never managed to get sick of it. It's an absolute classic and I'll gladly welcome it with open arms every Halloween.

32- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+9) -- Ariana's not rising quite as fast as I would like her to, but at least this song is gaining some momentum. It's a solid single from Ariana that deserves to be heard and played.

40- "Ring" - Cardi B featuring Kehlani (+5) -- If we're going to popularize a new Cardi song, can we please choose this song instead of that "Money" trash that jumped into the top 15 this week?

48- "Lost in Japan" - Shawn Mendes & Zedd (+14) -- It's great seeing this song in the top 50. Let's keep it going upwards. I would love to see Shawn and Zedd get a hit. In fact, Shawn has done fairly well for himself recently, so it's sad that he's not doing quite as well as when he only delivered empty, boring songs. Sometimes the world is mean.

62- "That's on Me" - Yella Beezy (+24) -- Why does this exist? Make it go away!

81- "Backin' it Up" - Pardison Fontaine featuring Cardi B (+14) -- I forgot that this song was even a thing. And it's only a thing because of Cardi B, so Pardison Fontaine better be on his knees thanking her for making him a thing.

New Arrivals:

28- "Arms Around You" - XXXTENTACION & Lil Pump featuring Maluma & Swae Lee -- Is there no shame in the music industry? I'm sick and tired of artists taking advantage of the death of XXXTENTACION to shamelessly boost their sales numbers. It's pathetic. Because of that, I'm boycotting this song. I'm not even going to give it a listen and I hope it drops like a rock in future weeks.

54- "Last Memory" - Takeoff -- Hey look! It's the Migos member that everyone seems to have forgotten about. I mean, Quavo and Offset seem to get all the feature credits, but we don't see Takeoff that much. In fact, this is only his second solo appearance on the charts this year. And I'm totally fine with us keeping it that way. Sure, it would be better if we ignore all of Migos, but I'll take what I can get. Apparently Takeoff has a solo album coming out that I plan on ignoring, especially if it's anything like this. He's lazily bragging about his riches and unoriginal Migos fashion. Snooze.

76- "TAlk tO Me" - Tory Lanez & Rich the Kid -- Is Tory Lanez a thing people care about? I forget. Quite frankly I was tempted to flat out skip this song after I saw that it was officially stylized like that. But I subjected myself to it anyways. I suppose Tory's voice is better than most, but he's still only talking about being rich and wanting girls to hop out of their clothes for him, so there's no substance to this. However, he does make himself look fantastic in contrast to Rich the Kid, who comes in spouting gross lyrics and mumble rapping like he was drunk in studio. It makes the song as a whole super awful, but it does make me appreciate Tory slightly more, so take that for what it's worth.

80- "Topanga" - Trippie Redd -- After listening to this song, I learned there's a song called "It Ain't Over" by Maurette Brown Clark that Trippie Redd samples. That's a solid gospel song with great vocals from Maurette Brown Clark. But holy freaking cow does Trippie Redd make an awful choice by messing with the audio in the song with his sample, effectively making her sound like a chipmunk. And that chipmunked sample plays throughout "Topanga" is just awful. I couldn't even focus on whatever was happening in the lyrics. Something about taking the girl to Topanga, a city in California, to protect her from all the gun violence. Trippie kinda lost focus there, so I'm not sure what he was getting at. But I don't really care because all that was going through my head is that I want the sample to stop. But go check out the original song, though!

83- "Dip" - Tyga & Nicki Minaj -- Nicki Minaj's 100th appearance on the Hot 100. The first woman to cross that milestone. And I'm not giving an applause because Nicki is pure garbage about 90 percent of the time. But that's a significant stat worth pointing out for those who care. And speaking of garbage, this is a pretty worthless song with Tyga and Nicki lazily rapping about everything boring and unoriginal. A pretty pathetic song for such a big milestone. But I suppose it does a good job representing Nicki's career as a whole. Pure trash. If this ends up as popular as Tyga's "Taste," I'm going to throw a fit.

89- "Waste it on Me" - Steve Aoki featuring BTS -- Believe it or not, BTS collaborating with Steve Aoki sounds rather redundant on paper since BTS usually has an EDM dance vibe already, like a lot of K-Pop music. Steve Aoki's influence gives them a bit of a unique flavor, but not much. The most surprising part of the song is that there's no Korean spoken at all in this song, so I'm not sure what the point of bringing BTS in and making them only sing English is, especially since the lyrics here are is generic as they come with pop love anthems and you can barely tell when one BTS singer stops and when the other starts. They all blend together to sound like one boring pop singer with a generic Steve Aoki beat on the backdrop. So yeah, this is a lazy song done solely for the sake of sales and money on Steve Aoki's side, not because he thought it would make sense on a musical basis. The song is not particularly awful, it's just that if it falls away next week, I'll have already forgotten that it existed.

90- "A Million Dreams" - P!nk -- I'm trying my best to erase "The Greatest Showman" from my memory. That movie caused me so much pain, both in terms of my viewing of the film as well as how persecuted I felt for not liking it. So imagine my frustration when I learned there's a new soundtrack coming out called "The Greatest Showman: Reimagined" with famous musicians singing the boring, empty pop songs that the musical provided. If it fails to impact the charts whenever it's released, I'll be thankful. But so far the two songs that have been released are "The Greatest Show" by Panic! At the Disco and this, "A Million Dreams" by P!nk. And well, despite my disdain for both the movie and its soundtrack, those are the two songs from the movie that I actually didn't mind, probably because they're both from the beginning of the movie before things started to quickly nosedive downhill. That Panic! At the Disco cover of "The Greatest Show" is actually rather wild and fantastic. I kinda like that way more than the original. And this P!nk cover of "A Million Dreams" also does a great job of taking a decently sweet song from the movie and giving it a lot of power. I mean, P!nk is the type of pop singer that can get away with singing a generic song and making it seem fantastic simply because she has the vocals and presence to make anything work, but still. This is the one song from the movie that actually has something in terms of content, so giving it to P!nk is a match made in heaven because she takes it and runs with it. We might as well toss the original in the trash and call this a P!nk song now.

94- "Be Alright" - Dean Lewis -- Here's an international hit that's finally crossing over to the United States. "Be Alright" is from Australian pop singer Dean Lewis and hit No. 1 in Australia earlier this year. It's also hit top 10 in at least 13 other countries so far. It makes me jealous of other countries actually having good songs in their top 10 because I would like that over here, too. Because, yeah, this song is excellent. It's a super sad song about Dean Lewis coming to the harsh terms that a girl he once cared for has moved on and now he has a friend in the song telling him to stop trying to pursue because doing so is not going to do anything. Breakup songs are certainly not a unique thing to sing about, but I think this one stands out because it feels so personal and specific rather than being generic lyrics written to please a crowd. Because of that, I feel like I can relate to the song quite a bit and I think many other people will, too. But it's not just a sad song about that feeling that overcomes you when you realize it's officially over between you and a former lover, there's a strong message of hope that everything will be alright in the end. Sometimes the best healer is that of time. Once you give yourself time to overcome something difficult, you can then move forward and realize there's other people out there and other opportunities available that will make life better. This is a really deep and meaningful song that I can see myself really connecting with even more as time moves on.

97- "Kamikaze" - Lil Mosey -- Hey, we were on a roll there for a bit! Unfortunately we have to end on a bit of a sour note with Lil Mosey thinking he's Eminem with this song's title. Although there's certainly no fire or rage present like on Eminem's album this year. Just a boring, dull rap song from a punk kid who thinks he's super cool and for some reason is getting rewarding with a career. And when I say kid, I mean that literally. Lil Mosey is only 16 years old, so let's please collectively choose to ignore him. If he gets any bigger, I'm going to throw a fit.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - November 3, 2018

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- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- A sixth week at No. 1 for Maroon 5. This time the band fends off a push by Travis Scott in a race that's more of a lose/lose situation for me as I want both songs to disappear. In addition to being on top of the Hot 100 for six weeks, the more concerning thing is that "Girls Like You" rules the radio charts for a 14th week. "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls has the record at 18 weeks. And I'm scared because I don't know what song is going to catch it in time for the record to be broken. I mean, the numbers for the song are falling in all categories, including radio, but nothing is rising fast enough to catch. So I guess we'll just have to sit here and painfully wait for something to show up.

2- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (+5) -- This is gross. And I also have to correct a mistake I made last week. I thought the video for the song impacted last week's charts, hence I was glad that it didn't make a difference. But I was mistaken. The video impacted this week's charts, which is exactly why it got such a huge boost. I can only hope that said boost is just a one-week thing and it'll fall back down next week. The sad thing is that streaming isn't the only category where this is gaining. It also has a lot of traction on radio and sales. I have no idea why this song is becoming so huge. I guess people with no taste are drooling all over themselves by hearing Travis Scott and Drake rap about how awesome they are, as if each artist hasn't ever done that on every previous song.

3- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (=) -- I think that this song is doomed to just sit here and rot at the No. 3 spot until something steps up and overcomes it. Because at this point it's not going to get enough momentum to stop Maroon 5, which is unfortunate.

4- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+2) -- Here's a hopeful thought. Can "Happier" be the song that finally topples Maroon 5 on both the Hot 100 and the radio charts? It's at No. 5 on radio, but up 21 percent to 74.6 million in total audience. Comparatively, Maroon 5 is down to 116.1 million in audience, a 3 percent overall fall from last week. So there's still a huge gap there, but I'm hoping for "Happier" to be able to top "Girls Like You" within three weeks, before it breaks the 18-week record. So let's cross our fingers for that. If that does happen, it probably means "Happier" goes to No. 1 on the Hot 100, which is fantastic. But I'm more concerned about that radio chart.

5- "Better Now" - Post Malone (-1) -- Like Juice WRLD, Post Malone also seems to be about to completely fade away. I'm not shedding any tears, even though I wouldn't have been opposed to this song doing a bit better. It's certainly a lot better than that Maroon 5 trash. But hey, Post Malone is back in the top 10, so he's not crying either.

6- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (-4) -- I'm happy to see this song fall from that No. 2 spot. But I'm nervous that it's still in the top 10. I don't want this to be like "SICKO MODE," which ended up hanging out in the bottom half of the top 10 for a while until the world decided to make it a bonafide hit. Let's get rid of this song.

7- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (+2) -- I think I've given up on trying to predict what this song is going to do. It's bounced around all over the place in the bottom portion of the top 10. If this can get into the top five and stay there, I will be happy.

8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (=) -- Why did this get stuck at No. 8 this week. That's extremely concerning. Can we please get this song OUT of the top 10 while completely rejecting these two nothing rappers who shouldn't even have a song charted in the Hot 100 as a whole?

9- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee (new) -- Here's the big new song of the week. I'll have lots of thoughts down below. If you don't want to read them, then the short version is that this song is fine. It's not offensive by any means, but it's extremely paper thin in terms of content and I have no idea how it's going to fit into the movie outside being a random post credits song that has nothing to do with anything. I also am having a hard time seeing this sticking around in the top 10, but I suppose we'll see. The movie comes out in December.

10- "Love Lies" - Khalid & Normani (+4) -- It's great to see this song back in the top 10. Although I'm not sure how long it will last because this song has not been able to maintain consistent traction on the charts. I'm also wondering if the boost into the top 10 has anything to do with Khalid's new EP "Suncity," which has several songs on this charts this week. "Love Lies" is not on the EP. But maybe it got a boost anyways with people checking out Khalid's new project?

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Taki Taki" - DJ Snake featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B (+5) -- I suppose this song is gaining real momentum rather than just getting a boost from the video. If it can manage to replace "ZEZE" or "Drip Too Hard" in the top 10, then I suppose I'll be fine with it hitting the top 10. Although it more realistically will probably replace "Sunflower" or "Love Lies." It's a song that I can more easily ignore the lyrics and enjoy the beat since most of it is in Spanish. But my conscience won't let me ignore what said lyrics translate to, so I can't get behind this.

12- "Without Me" - Halsey (+11) -- If this song had fallen after its debut, I don't think anyone in the world would've realized it was gone. But now that it's here knocking on the door to the top 10, I suppose it's alright. I'm not offended by its existence, I just think Halsey could've put a little more emotion and effort to a post-breakup song.

16- "Mo Bamba" - Shek Wes (+5) -- I'm not surprised at all to see this song in the top 10. I'm just really upset that Shek Wes has tricked the world into thinking he actually wrote a song worth listening to. The good thing is that I don't think this has enough momentum to become a monster hit. If it gets into the top 10, it seems like the type of song that won't spend too much time in the region.

20- "Eastside" - Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid (+2) -- Hey look, Halsey now has two songs in the top 20! And if we're going to push a Halsey song on the radio right now, I would prefer this one because her and Khalid have a good groove going in this song, with a surprising amount of chemistry.

21- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+6) -- Oh please! Can we get this song into the top 20 next week and then push it even higher? It would give me much pleasure if this could even get to the top 10. It's been such a frustrating year for the charts, so it would be so nice if I could catch a break for a change.

34- "Better" - Khalid (+37) -- Not a super exciting song from Khalid, but this one is definitely here because of Khalid's EP. Because it's included on it. That means it's primed to fall back down next week, which I'll be happy about.

37- "She Got the Best of Me" - Luke Combs (+7) -- I don't mind this stick around. Although I have to admit that it's not the most memorable song. Most weeks I have to re-listen to it to remember what it is, then I'm reminded each week that it's alright. Take that for what it's worth. 

41- "Breathin" - Ariana Grande (+11) -- Can Ariana's new single gain traction? I'd be fine if it did, but her previous two songs, even though they charted high, didn't have much momentum behind them and this song seems a bit weak. I hope her luck changes because I would like it if this song stuck around.

52- "Speechless" - Dan + Shay (+11) -- It's alright. Another country song that doesn't blow me out of the water, but is fairly harmless. So it's whatever.

53- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero (+23) -- I'm continually upset that this song continues to gain momentum. The next huge rap hit from a nobody rapper that shouldn't have a career, but because our country has horrible taste in music, this continues to climb the charts.

56- "Lose It" - Kane Brown (+10) -- Thanks to Quavo and Lil Baby last week, there's now two songs that have charted this year on the Hot 100 called "Lose It." This is certainly the better of the two. Although I'd categorize this as a boring country song that no one is going to remember once it disappears.

80- "Noticed" - Lil Mosey (+12) -- Not time to panic yet since this is only at No. 80. But it's another awful rap song from a nobody rapper. Make this go away.

New Arrivals:

9- "Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)" - Post Malone & Swae Lee -- OK, I'm certainly excited for this movie. There was a five minute preview at the end of the credits for "Venom" that was really good. Plus all the trailers have been intriguing. And the idea of a Spider-Man multi-verse where each of the universes has a different version of Spider-Man who all come together is a fascinating idea. But I'm struggling to figure out how this song has anything to do with the movie. It's a paper-thin love song where Post Malone and Swae Lee have had enough of this girl and are essentially giving up. If this was Peter Parker being down on his luck as pertaining to Mary Jane or Gwen, I could see that. But Peter Parker isn't the main focus of this movie. It's a young Miles Morales and I don't think there's a love interest for him. But I could be wrong. So my initial reaction is that this is a song included because Sony is desperate to include two popular artists in the soundtrack to hopefully get the movie more attention, yet said artists didn't really know what to write about, so they came up with something extremely basic that might fit in an animated Spider-Man movie directed at kids. I guess I'll see in December how this fits, but I don't know if this song will still be around. If I take a step back and focus solely on the song while ignoring the context, the song is totally fine. These two rappers are collaborating to do a pop song and it's a nice enough tune that's catchy enough to be included in the background of a scene or play as the credits roll. But the problem is exactly as I've said. It's a paper thin song with no depth to it at all, so I have a hard time seeing myself remembering the song.

26- "Fine China" - Future & Juice WRLD -- If you didn't know, Future and Juice WRLD collaborated for a new album titled "Future & Juice WRLD Present... WRLD ON DRUGS." But it's OK if you didn't remember because the world barely acknowledged it. In a year where album bombs are the norm, they could only manage four tracks out of 16 to chart. This was their big hit from that album and thankfully it could only manage to debut at No. 26. All Juice WRLD ever raps about is him being upset at his girl leaving him and I got tired of it some time ago. This song has him comparing his girl to fine china, specifically thousand dollar plates. Then he gets super graphic about what he's going to do with her, then finishes the thought by confessing that if she leaves him, he's going to kill her. Ummm... yeah, that's real love there Juice. Threats like that are a great way to keep your girl, let me tell you. Yes, that was sarcasm. It's true that Future is also in this song, but he's more of an afterthought as he quickly mumbles his way through a lazily-written verse that feels shoehorned in the end. Yeah, this is not a Future song. It's a Juice WRLD song and it's one of his worst so far.

54- "Money" - Cardi B -- What's Cardi doing? She released her album earlier this year and now she's already abandoned that? Because this new song is not from that album. And I really don't know the purpose of her releasing it as all the song is about is her saying that all she needs and wants is money. As if that's unique subject for her. I guess the unique spin is now she has a baby, so she needs money. But that seems like more of an afterthought in the song. So she could've released one of her other 10,000 songs about money rather than wasting her time putting this together.

65- "When the Party's Over" - Billie Eilish -- Here's the one song I was excited about from this week. I actually watched the music video when it was released just five days ago on October 25. It's a bit of a strange video. Billie is sitting there in a white room with her white outfit. Then she drinks a glass of what looks like black ink. Then that black ink starts leaking out of her eyes as she's crying. At the end of the video, the camera pans down and suddenly the black ink is everywhere, almost as if Billie has exploded into black ink. As I said, a bit strange. But that's Billie for you. She's just a 16-year-old girl and she enjoys her shock value with her videos. The song itself is pretty haunting and held back. Billie is speaking of an instance after a party where she wants this person to just let her go and leave her alone, but it's apparent that said person won't, so she feels exhausted and spent. It's a simple song, but effective. I've been continually impressed by this girl's style and voice, thus I'm excited for whenever she decides to release this debut album of her's because I have a feeling that I'm going to really enjoy. I can't say this song grabs me quite on the level of her previous two charted songs, "Lovely" and "You Should See Me in a Crown," but it doesn't need to. It's simple and effective in its own right. Now if she could get one of these songs to gain traction, that would be nice.

72- "Jet Lag" - Future & Juice WRLD featuring Young Scooter -- For Future and Juice WRLD's second song together, they recruit Young Scooter, a self-proclaimed drug dealer, and the three of them brag about doing drugs and dealing drugs. So yeah, a song that glorifies drug use. I'm done here.

82- "Astronauts" - Future & Juice WRLD -- Another song about these two doing drugs and spending money on fancy things. Is that all these two have with this album?

83- "Saturday Nights" - Khalid -- Now it's time to dive into this new EP from Khalid. It's only seven tracks and 21 minutes, so if you like Khalid, you've probably already finished listening. But I'll talk about the three new songs that showed up, starting with "Saturday Nights." Khalid has a nice voice and often his songs have a decent groove to them, but he does have a habit of sometimes sounding a bit bored while singing about a song with no depth to it. And that's why I like this song because there seems to be more meaning to it than your typical Khalid song as he's describing the life of a girl he's met who has a horrible life that Khalid chronicles. Khalid realizes that her parents treat her like crap and thus is encouraging her by saying he likes her more than her parents do. This initially feels sweet and romantic and Khalid has enough of a groove here to make it work. However, I do second guess the song a bit because it sounds like Khalid doesn't really know as much as he thinks he does. I don't know if I like the idea of him claiming he loves her more than her parents do, because that's rarely the case in real life. It sounds like empty claims he's making just to win her over. There's also vibes in this song that said girl is a stripper that he met in the club, which does make it feel even a bit more cheap. But if I don't think about it too hard, the song is pretty nice. So perhaps I'm being a bit overly analytical here and should just enjoy the song.

88- "Suncity" - Khalid featuring Empress Of -- The thing that bothers me most about this song is that Khalid forgot to use his space bar when he typed this song name. "Sun City," not "Suncity" is a nickname for El Paso, Khalid's hometown. It's nice that he wrote a song about wanting to be with this girl and go back to his hometown in the process, but the stylistic choice is a little annoying. About the song itself, though, the other annoying part is that Empress Of, a Latin American singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, whose full name is Lorely Rodriguez, is relegated to backup vocals. Granted, she provides a nice vocal balance to Khalid throughout the song, which helps push the song forward, but it would've been nice if she had her own verse. I was waiting for that as I feel like the song was setting up for that. But it never happened. Outside that, the song is a bit overly simple. There's not as much depth or story to it as "Saturday Nights," but it's effective. It's nothing out of this world, but if it were to become a single, I would welcome it as a nice, balanced pop song.

89- "Vertigo" - Khalid -- This is the final Khalid song of the week and I think this is the best one of the three that charted from his new EP. Khalid seems to bring more emotion to the table with this one as he discusses how hard life has been for him, but how he's going to keep pressing forward, even if the toughest parts of life are in front him. I almost wish the song had a bit more depth to it because I find myself questioning if his life is really this hard or if these are just lyrics to please the listeners. Sometimes I think there's a lot of pop singers who sing about subjects that they feel their audience will connect to rather than singing about something that they are really going through in their own life, which is why I wanted Khalid to be a bit more personal with the verses. But I'm not complaining too much. This is a solid effort from Khalid where his vocals and smooth style really connect with me. I can see myself really enjoying this one.

91- "Yacht Club" - Lil Yachty featuring Juice WRLD -- We've been quickly cruising through Future and Juice WRLD's new album this week and we have one more to go from that. But this is not the one. This is from a new Lil Yachty album, which had even less impact on the charts, despite having featured credits throughout the album from the likes of Lil Baby, Cardi B, Offset, Trippie Red, Kevin Gates and Gunna. Thankfully I don't have to deal with all that, especially since I've already had to deal with Future and Juice WRLD's album. That would be too much and I would've probably skipped it. As is, we have two songs and this one is a lot more tolerable than anything from Juice WRLD's new album. It has a nice instrumental part to it that meshes well with both of these vocalists. Juice WRLD's chorus that he starts out with is pretty decent. At least in sound. Content is a whole different story. As is when we get to the extremely long verse, which sees Yachty and Juice taking turns singing lines and neither of them adds enough personality to keep my attention as the biggest flaw of this song is that it's really boring. And the content is just empty flexing from two rappers who sound like they were bored in the studio. So this isn't offense. There's just not much to it.

92- "Make It Back" - Juice WRLD -- The fourth and final song from Future and Juice WRLD's album. This one is slightly more tolerable than the other three, maybe the lack of Future has something to do with that, but it's still Juice WRLD talking about how he ignored school by doing all of his drugs. Now he's bragging to all his teachers about how much money he has, while also bragging about wasting it all on sneakers, jewelry and fancy outfits. The song is not even two mintues long, so it feels like an afterthought to this thing. Listen, I only listened to these four songs and barely got a quarter of the way through most of them, so I don't know if the project has some sort of anti-drug message included in there. If it does, feel free to let me know. But all I got was four songs about glorifying drug use and that's despicable. If you let your kids liberally listen to all of this rap music, then here's my warning that you better watch out because all of these songs are horrible influences to this younger generation. Unless you're fine with your kids doing drugs. If so, I suppose that's on you. But I think it's despicable.

93- "Kiss and Make Up" - Dua Lipa & BLACKPINK -- Here's a strange collaboration. Dua Lipa and BLACKPINK? Granted, when it comes to K-Pop groups that I've heard, BLACKPINK is one of the better ones. The only have four members instead of a hundred each, which is a much more reasonable number. And all the girls in it do a great job of balancing each other out and having a purpose in the group, whereas something like BTS could remove 80 percent of their members and the songs would be the exact same. But with this specific song, I don't know if it really makes sense to have all five voices in this song, Dua Lipa and the four girls from BLACKPINK. The song is extremely simple as Dua wants to kiss and make up while having this individual's body all over her's. It's not a song that needed five voices, especially since they're all saying the same thing. It would've been better balanced with a single voice from a male pop singer instead of countering with the girls from BLACKPINK. So the idea behind this song doesn't make a lot of sense and the execution shows as all the girls spend the whole song tripping over each other instead of providing a good balance. It's not awful, per se, as I'm usually a whole lot more forgiving towards pop music, especially since Dua Lipa is a great vocalist who is often on point with her music. But this is not a song from her that I'm going to remember, which is unfortunate.

98- "Get Dripped" - Lil Yachty featuring Playboi Carti -- While "Yacht Club" was semi-tolerable, but ultimately empty and boring, this is more of what I expect when Lil Yachty shows up. An awful song that needs to get out of my life. I can barely understand these two as they mumble at me with their choppy bars and annoying sound effects. And of course this is more empty rap flexing that had almost zero thought go into it. Based on both of these songs that charted, it's apparent that Yachty really didn't have much to say with this album, so I'm glad he couldn't get the other 13 songs to chart and I hope I never have to listen to any of them.

100- "Burning Man" - Dierks Bentley featuring Brothers Osborne -- Dierks Bentley I don't really care for. All I've heard from him are empty country songs that I've already completely forgotten about. But what turned my head when I saw this song was the featured credit of Brothers Osborne, who are responsible for "It Ain't My Fault," a song that I grew to absolutely love. So could Brothers Osborne teaming up with Dierks be enough to make this a good country song? The answer is a resounding yes. No, this is not quite as infectious as "It Ain't My Fault," but it still has a fiery groove to it thanks to some excellent guitar work from John Osborne. As far as the vocals go, we have TJ Osborne trading off with Dierks Bentley and I will admit that the two blend a little too well together as I had a hard time figuring out exactly where one one stopped singing and the other started. But both of them follow the guitar flow quite nicely in what results in a nice groove. I don't think the lyrics are necessarily anything to write home about, but they're satisfactory for what the song is going for. This song barely snuck onto the Hot 100 this week at No. 100 and I'm hoping its able to climb higher.

DrogeMiester's Billboard Analysis - October 27, 2018

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- "Girls Like You" - Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B (=) -- The nightmare with Maroon 5 and this song continues as "Girls Like You" gets a fifth week on top of the Hot 100. What's worse is that the song also celebrates its 13th week on top of the radio charts. The all-time record is currently held by Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" with 18 weeks at No. 1 in 1998. If that 20-year record is broken by Maroon 5 of all acts, then I'm going to throw a fit. That's practically blasphemy. Adding to the headache this week is a SECOND music video, which is essentially the outtakes of the original video compiled together to create a new video just so the song can get more streaming. The only differences is that the girls spinning around Adam Levine spend more time touching and caressing him instead of just standing there looking confused. I want to say this song's reign is coming to an end soon, but I don't know what is going to top it, especially now that it has two videos adding to its streaming totals.

2- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset (new) -- Apparently this song almost debuted at No. 1 with 47.6 million U.S. streams. And I don't know how I would've felt if it had accomplished that. Sure, I want Maroon 5 gone. But a collaboration with these three thugs is not what I want to replace it. My thoughts are below in the new arrivals section. And SURPRISE! I don't like it.

3- "Lucid Dreams" - Juice WRLD (-1) -- I think I'm convinced that this song is going to end up peaking at No. 2. It just doesn't have enough momentum to sneak past Maroon 5 and this is the second time recently that a new arrival shoved it down to the No. 3 spot. I suppose I'm not super upset that this won't hit the top. It's certainly had an excellent run for a song of its caliber that I still think is pretty decent. I'm mostly disappointed that it wasn't able to dethrone Maroon 5 because I want them gone.

4- "Better Now" - Post Malone (-1) -- I've had this song stuck in my head for most of the day. And I don't even really know why. I suppose that this is an alright sign as for as my opinion. It's a lot more tolerable than most of Post Malone's stuff. Chart-wise this is in a similar position as Juice WRLD. Neither song has enough momentum to get any higher and will slowly start to fall when other songs decide to step up.

5- "MIA" - Bad Bunny featuring Drake (new) -- Our second new top five debut. And I'm rather amazed that we now live in a world where Bad Bunny of all people has the capability of debuting in the top five. Granted, the fact that this has a Drake feature is a huge part of the reason. But Quavo also had a Drake feature on one of his new songs this week and he could only get that song to debut at No. 48. So Bad Bunny had something to do with this. And it's an unfortunate something because I also don't like this song. My detailed opinion is below. Moral of the story is that I really hope both new top five debuts from this week tank in future weeks.

6- "Happier" - Marshmello & Bastille (+2) -- With the top five feeling very weak right now, Marshmello and Bastille are positioned rather well at the moment, which gives me a lot of hope. I would be ecstatic if this managed to take hold of one of the top five spots. I'll also be rather surprised because EDM songs in general don't usually last long when they hit the top 10. They usually camp out for a few weeks, then dip right back down. If this ends up peaking and hanging out in the bottom half of the top 10, I won't be upset. I never expected this song to get close to this high. But I'm super curious.

7- "SICKO MODE" - Travis Scott (-1) -- The good thing here is that the new music video for the song wasn't able to boost this too much. I was nervous that this would shoot up into the top five, so I'm glad to see it fall. The bad news is that this is still around. I wanted this song to die a long time ago since it's a rather lazy effort from Travis Scott and Drake. But what do you really expect from those two?

8- "Drip Too Hard" - Lil Baby & Gunna (-4) -- I'm glad to see this song drop after the album bomb sent it soaring last week. But I'm sad that it didn't drop harder. Hopefully it will be gone from the top 10 next week.

9- "Youngblood" - 5 Seconds of Summer (-2) -- I suppose I should be happy to see this song still around, but after positioning itself rather well, I was hoping for it to get bigger, but alas I have to settle with it camping out around here. Its momentum appears to be gone, so I'm now expecting it to start falling.

10- "Shallow" - Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (-5) -- Now that I gave you my detailed thoughts on this song last week, can I say how shocked I am to see this song doing super well? Movie soundtracks typically don't perform super well on the Hot 100, so I was surprised to see this debut in the 20's and even more surprised to see it shoot into the top five for a week. A spectacular feat for Lady Gaga and especially Bradley Cooper. Of course there was part of me that was hoping that it would stay in the top five, but I can't be super surprised to see it slide. I don't think it will be here next week, but it was fun to see it get two weeks in the top five.

Rising on the Hot 100:

11- "Trip" - Ellla Mai (+5) -- I'm expecting this song to enter the top 10 as soon as next week. And I'm not super excited about it. Although I suppose there's been worse things to happen to the top 10. "Boo'd Up" was alright, yet somehow became a huge hit. This song isn't bad. But it's mostly annoying and a lot less impressive than "Boo'd Up," which didn't deserve the attention it got.

16- "Taki Taki" - DJ Snake featuring Selena Gomez, Ozuna & Cardi B (+15) -- I can't remember. Is this the week that the music video for this song boosted the track super high or is this song simply soaring in terms of chart points. I suppose we'll see in the upcoming weeks.

19- "God is a Woman" - Ariana Grande (+3) -- I'm a bit surprised to see this song get a bit of a boost this week, coming back into the top 20. But I don't think it'll last.

25- "Boo'd Up" - Ella Mai (+5) -- Oh yeah. Ella Mai also recently released a new self-titled album. It didn't get any new tracks to debut on the charts, but it gave "Boo'd Up" a bit of a boost this week. I'm guessing this is the last time I'll bring up this song on this blog.

27- "High Hopes" - Panic! At the Disco (+8) -- I am so happy to see this song continue to climb. Let's keep it going! This is a super infectious anthem that needs to be blasted everywhere on radios across the country.

32- "Beautiful" - Bazzi featuring Camila Cabello (+15) -- I thought this song was dead, so I was surprised to see it jump so high. Apparently there was a music video released, so I suppose that makes sense. I'm not sure it'll get much higher, though.

33- "Broken" - lovelytheband (+6) -- I'm continually impressed by how much traction this song has gotten. More alternative music like this on the charts would be much welcomed.

37- "I'm a Mess" - Bebe Rexha (+5) -- This didn't get as high as Bebe probably hoped it would get. Not bad for her first single from her first solo album, though. But considering she's collaborated with others to get several huge hits, this not catching fire has to be a bit of a disappointment. Maybe if the song was slightly better, it could've connected more with people.

41- "Wake Up in the Sky" - Gucci Mane, Bruno Mars & Kodak Black (+5) -- We've had too much Kodak Black recently and we never need anymore Gucci Mane. I'm glad that this only jumped five spots because that means it might not get as big as I fear it could.

46- "Ring" - Cardi B featuring Kehlani (+6) -- I'm a bit surprised that this hasn't caught fire given how successful Cardi B has been. I'm also surprisingly disappointed to see this not gaining more traction because this is actually a decent song from Cardi.

53- "W O R K I N  M E" - Quavo (+35) -- This is rising solely because of the release of Quavo's new album, which I'll touch on below as six tracks from the album chart. I'm glad this has mostly failed because the world doesn't need anymore Quavo.

56- "Break Up in the End" - Cole Swindell (+10) -- We haven't seen a whole lot of country recently as it's been a bit of a down swing for the genre on the charts. But I'm sure that'll change soon and I would be totally fine with this becoming a huge country hit because I think it's a pretty good song.

58- "Lie" - NF (+13) -- I wish I liked this song more than I do, but sadly I think this song will be completely forgotten about when it leaves the charts. But I suppose it's still a step above most rap songs today, so it's whatever.

67- "No Stylist" - French Montana featuring Drake (+18) -- French Montana and Drake. No one needs this collaboration in their lives. At least it's not in the top 10 right now, though, like most other Drake songs have been this year. No excuse me while I go find some wood to knock on.

68- "Lost in Japaan" - Shawn Mendes & Zedd (+14) -- I hope this remix can help this song get new life. I was a bit disappointed that the song bombed initially as it was a Shawn Mendes song that I didn't mind. This remix isn't the best thing in the world, but it gives a bit more spice to an already decent Shawn Mendes track.

69- "Best Shot" - Jimmie Allen (+18) -- Country is making a move right now, but with a handful of songs below the top 50. I also am fine with this song doing well, although it's a bit overly simplistic. It could've used a bit more substance, but I like Jimmie Allen's voice and style.

76- "Leave Me Alone" - Flipp Dinero (+18) -- The title of this song accurately describes my reaction to this song rising 18 spots this week.

78- "Hangin' On" - Chris Young (+11) -- Our third country song rising below the top 50. And this is the lesser of the three of them, so thankfully it's the one that's lowest.

81- "Best Part" - Daniel Caesar featuring H.E.R. (+11) -- The best song that you probably forgot existed. But hey, if this can gain actual traction, I'm totally fine with that.

New Arrivals:

2- "ZEZE" - Kodak Black featuring Travis Scott & Offset -- First order of business here. Why has Kodak Black decide to copy 6ix9ine of all people after getting out of prison? In case you don't get what I mean, this year 6ix9ine has released singles titled "KEKE" "FEFE" and "BEBE." And now Kodak Black adds "ZEZE." In each case, the title has absolutely nothing to do with the song, which I find annoying. But I've gotten used to it with 6ix9ine as all his song titles are gibberish. But if this trend catches on further, that's yet another mark against the rap industry in 2018 if more of them decide to not come up with real song titles. Onto the song itself, though. I didn't hate Kodak's "I just got out of prison" song from two weeks ago titled "If I'm Lyin, I'm Flyin." There was actual substance there. "ZEZE" feels more like a real Kodak comeback song, though. And by that I mean the song is pure trash, which is what I come to expect out of Kodak. In fact, he's barely on the song as he lets Travis and Offset do most of the work. Yet Travis lazily drones on his monotone chorus while Offset does typical Migos stuff. Echoes, sound effects, short bars that barely connect with each other. Occasionally Kodak decides to show up on his own song to lazily mumble about nothing. Because the song is about nothing. Typical bottom-of-the-barrel rap trash that these rappers always turn to when they don't know what to rap about. I'm sick of it and I hope this drops like a rock. The only slight positive about this is whatever instrument is used in the background could've worked well if there were any talented rappers to add some content to go along with it.

5- "MIA" - Bad Bunny featuring Drake -- Hey look! It's Drake and Latino Drake teaming up for a song. I say Latino Drake because all Bad Bunny is really useful for is Latino artists lazily throwing him on their songs in order to boost sales. That is, of course, the only thing Drake is used for here in the U.S. Neither artist is all that talented. The surprising part of this song is that it's all in Spanish. I mean, I expected Bad Bunny's part to be in Spanish, but I didn't know Drake was going to sing in Spanish as well. I'm convinced that he simply memorized his portion just for the song. I don't think Drake actually speaks Spanish. But I could be wrong and I don't care to fact check that. That's just what it feels like since Drake's part of the song is so miniscule. Oddly enough, that Drake part is the most interesting part of the song since it's at least tolerable since he's at least enunciating his Spanish. When Bad Bunny comes in, he's mostly mumbling his way through the song while adding a whole lot of sound effects, as if he's not only trying to be the Latino Drake, but also the Latino Future (mumbling) and the Latino Migos (sound effects). I don't like it. The song has a decent enough Latino beat to it, but Bad Bunny's vocals drive me up the wall. And the content apparently isn't worth much. "Mia" is the Spanish word for "mine," so all Bad Bunny is doing is laying claim to this girl. There's nothing to it. Just some empty, bottom-of-the-barrel nonsense that comes with no passion and no emotion. I also hope this drops like a rock. 

48- "Flip the Switch" - Quavo featuring Drake -- When Quavo's new album first showed up on Apple Music, the tagline was "It's Quavo's world and we're just lucky to be a part of it." Or something to that effect. And in a hilarious turn of events, Quavo's album underperforms. So no. It's not Quavo's world right now. And he can't even get a Drake feature to debut higher than No. 48. That's embarrassing. Quavo is always simple to cover because I never give him or his other Migos friends the time of day. I hate their style and they never change it, so why should I waste my time? Here we have a lazy verse from Drake surrounded by a Quavo who sounds bored. I'll give him a small bit of credit for not being as annoying as he often is, but I still find nothing interesting.

61- "Pass Out" - Quavo featuring 21 Savage -- Something I would've done if Quavo's entire album had album bombed. Actually, I would've just skipped it. Like I did most of this song. I mentioned that "Flip the Switch" wasn't as annoying as Quavo usually is. "Pass Out" is. It's as choppy as the most annoying Migos songs and all he's talking about to start things off his taking his girl to the bank and seeing her pass out when she sees all his money. I gave up 50 seconds in when he included an endless string of skrrts in the post-chorus. I didn't get to 21 Savage's part. But I had zero desire to.

86- "Biggest Alley Oop" - Quavo -- Quavo's submission to have a song included in ESPN's advertising of the NBA season? That's what it sounds like to me. And sadly it's the type of song that ESPN will jump at to use. Any awful rapper including any sort of basketball reference will usually be something that causes ESPN producers to slobber all over themselves as if they've never heard a rapper referencing basketball in their life. Oh, you want to know about the song? Yeah, it's bad. What did you expect?

88- "Rerun" - Quavo featuring Travis Scott -- Given how popular Travis Scott is right now, it's REALLY embarrassing that a Quavo and Travis Scott collaboration only debuted at No. 88. But it's certainly good news for me as I would hate to have to deal with this for an extended period of time. I mean, Travis Scott might as well be the fourth member of Migos with how much he's molded his style to blatantly copy everything they do. And they totally buy into it to the point where you can barely tell which one is Quavo and which one is Travis Scott in the song. Also nothing interesting in this song.

93- "Huncho Dreams" - Quavo -- In case you forgot, there was a period of time recently where Quavo and Travis Scott collaborated to call themselves Huncho Jack. I'm assuming this has something to do with that. Or with the fact that this album is called "QUAVO HUNCHO." For some reason Quavo loves the name Huncho. It also starts by sampling some audio from the 2006 movie "ATL," which stars T.I. Why does he do this? I don't know. I gave up on the song when Quavo came in.

100- "Lose It" - Quavo featuring Lil Baby -- Really, Quavo? Lil Baby? It's a good thing that this barely charted at No. 100 and *hopefully* will never see the light of day again on the Billboard charts.