Okay, a little late, but here we go - think this turned out rather well, still trying to fiddle with the lights (not sure I quite got the blue the way I waned on camera, but trial and error). Anyway, the Little Simz album might require a bit more time to properly digest, so I've got something in the mean time - stay tuned!
So look, it's hard for me to get that enthused for whatever's here this week, I'll be straight with you. Even despite how hard I panned the album, I'd put money that Juice WRLD is coming for an album bomb next week with streaming alone, and that means I can't guarantee what in this week will actually hold traction. And given that outside of new arrivals this week seems fairly steady, that question feels more wide open than ever.
So I don't think people were expecting how harsh I was in this video. Oh well, I'm not going to mince words, and I've already made my lengthy pieces surrounding XXXTENTACION. It's your choice to not reckon with the consequences of your listening choices, not mine. Anyway, might as well talk Death Grips next, so stay tuned!
...you know, it's funny, people were reaching out to me for my reaction when XXXTENTACION posthumously went to #1 this week and all I tweeted was '...'. That was it, and people assumed or projected so many emotions upon that tweet... when reality I just did not care. And I still don't - I've said my piece on XXXTENTACION a number of times, my review of ? was over fifteen minutes long, and to see this response... well, it's very telling to say the least, that in the dumpster fire of the Hot 100 in 2018, instead of any of his other songs American audiences chose to send the one where he's guilt-tripping a significant other by threatening suicide to the #1.
...well, I can't say that the Hot 100 doesn't surprise me occasionally. I was expecting some fallout from the Pusha-T and Drake beef, but the most we got was the worst song to come out of it and half of Pusha-T's album! And when you pair it with all the rest of the scattered entries, this week wound up feeling surprisingly busy...
...you know, there was a time when an album bomb happened it would at least slow existing traffic on the Hot 100. But since The Weeknd's new EP only had six songs - and seems like it's already vanishing from the cultural conversation given how flat and turgid it was - aside from every single song from it breaking we also had a pretty active week regardless - at least until the next album bomb with Cardi B, and I'd put a fair amount of money on that being far more disruptive.
Hmm, so this turned out all right... filmed it the same day as the Ought review dropping tonight, so stay tuned for that, but overall it was a pretty decent week. Okay, so next up, Ought and Courtney Patton, then probably something from my backlog, then Resonators - stay tuned!
This is one of the weeks where everything seemed muted - I made predictions about what was coming, and while most of those predictions came to pass, the impact was less than expected. Sure, I was planning for the Black Panther soundtrack to make an impact, but it wasn't much of an album bomb, and there were larger debuts that disrupted the top 10 and Hot 100 more. Not precisely bad, sure, but in a year where I have felt oddly disconnected with a lot of the songs that have shown up, it leaves me with a very weird feeling.
Well, look at that, a pretty damn good week on the show - and with Lorde coming up, it looks to be even better. And speaking of Lorde... well, stay tuned!
This week surprised me. In more ways than one actually, and for the most part they seem to be good surprises, where songs I was not looking forward to didn't show up, and a few that I never dared to dream would chart actually cracked through. To me, this is the sort of good news I've been conditioned not to expect going into the summer slowdown, and considering next week we'll probably get a big push for Lorde... yeah, maybe things are looking up?
So yeah, another pretty rough week here... but on the plus side, I've got an interesting record on the docket next (in fact, a fair few of them) so stay tuned!
Do you ever have the feeling looking at the Hot 100 that no matter what happens, it's not going to be a good week? Yeah, that was my gut feel going through the Hot 100 this week - which yes, did slow down a bit as things settle in for the summer with no major releases, but at the same time, looking at some of these new arrivals... well, we'll get to it.
Well, this happened - I'm actually pretty happy they changed the formula, but still, it's disappointing the load of crap we got. Anyway, next up is Lauren Alaina and Japandroids, so stay tuned!
So this was an important week on the Billboard Hot 100 - which on the surface might be a surprising statement, given that it didn't seem that out of the ordinary, at least on the surface. But for those who pay attention, something big happened this chart cycle: Billboard changed their formula. And despite what I might have said earlier on Twitter, upon giving it more thought, I'm actually entirely behind this change - looks like Billboard got it right for once!
So this week sucked on the Hot 100... thank god the album release schedule has improved and I've got YG and Swans next, or I'd just be flat-out miserable.
So a week or so back I might have said that I was gearing up for one of the worst upcoming album release dates in recent memory... and yet just days after I said that, all of my concerns seemed to drop away. Both Iggy Azalea and Rae Sremmurd pushed back their albums and that just leaves me with Riff Raff, and I can handle him. But apparently the universe was unwilling to let me get off that easy, because from a quick look through the charts, we've got a really bad week ahead of us, folks.
Well, this was a weird week - and arguably one of my weakest episodes of Billboard BREAKDOWN in a while. Flubs, not catching on that Drake's revival was thanks to Spotify... ugh, not pleased with this. And on that note, ANOHNI review is up next, so stay tuned!
So we're now settling back into routine - well, as much routine as we can expect, especially when Ariana Grande is coming around the corner next week - and this has led to something of a bizarre case that I've observed happen to big debuts in the past. They have tons of songs smash onto the Hot 100 the first week, and yet while things cool off dramatically the second week, the third week a whole group of them seem to bounce back. Now there are a lot of reasons for this: initial fatigue after a binge feeding into renewed interest; the radio picking up a few for rotation; or even the case of compensation against a reset to equilibrium...
It was better, but Lord only know that when Ariana comes in next week where the charts will take us - there's too much instability at the top to hold for long. Regardless, Flatbush Zombies coming tonight, then probably going to finally cover that Mount Moriah or Denzel Curry... and then coming up this weekend is one of my most anticipated projects of this year, so definitely stay tuned!
