billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 1, 2015

So we've now settled into the doldrums of summer, the time of year where everything seems to slow down and nothing all that interesting happens on the charts. The Top 10 was mostly static, not many movers and shakers, and even our list of returning and new arrivals is smaller than ever...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 18, 2015 (VIDEO)

Hmm, that episode turned out bizarrely well. Just going to roll with it, hope it continues, especially after how unbelievably shitty yesterday was.

Next up, my album for my two year anniversary! Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 18, 2015

...ever have those days when everything you expected just goes wrong in spectacular fashion? You'd think that I'd have more of those days, considering that I have this show and attempting to predict the evolving tastes of the American public - or at least what the music industry thinks the American public wants - is an exercise in guesswork at best. But I thought after thirty weeks doing this show, I thought I had a reasonably firm grasp on it - and boy, did this week prove me wrong. And that would have been fine - I generally like surprises - except it went wrong in the worst possible way.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 30, 2015 (VIDEO)

And that actually went a lot smoother than I expected. Nice feeling, that is.

Next up... hmm, I've got a country record I really want to cover, but will I have a chance to get to it before a special episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN or something special for this weekend? We'll see, but stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 30, 2015

So we’re now at the halfway point of the Billboard Hot 100 year, so let’s take stock of the situation – and while I wouldn’t quite say it was a disappointment, it certainly is interesting to see how certain trends have oscillated. R&B and neo-soul are fighting pop for dominance – with pop arguably gaining the upper hand – country has mostly stayed quiet to flush the last dregs of bro-country out of its system, all sorts of off-beat, weird tracks have fought their way up from both electronica and the indie scene, and hip-hop continues to marginalize talent and wordplay in favour of the lowest common denominator. Sure, I might lament the failure of a few promising pop and country tracks, but the rise of nu-crunk and the prevalence of Vine have driven more than its fair share of forgettable garbage to the top – and the alarming thing is that it keeps happening.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 14, 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, this took longer to get up than I was hoping. Worth it, though.

Next up, got a whole list of artists. Purity Ring, Cannibal Ox, and more - stay tuned

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 14, 2015

So here's an interesting hypothetical for all of you - presume you're an artist who has scheduled to release his album - and then out of nowhere, one of your competition drops a critically acclaimed mixtape/album that gains him a ton of buzz. You're angry, you're annoyed - without warning, he seems to have stolen your thunder - do you delay your record? It's an interesting question - but it appears by staying the course, Big Sean got an interesting results on the charts. Simply put, Drake was riding a wave of hype that managed to lodge ten songs off of his new album on the charts, and when they inevitably faded, something had to replace them. Now sure, Big Sean could have impacted the chart with his album anyway, but I'd argue he wouldn't have lodged as many tracks - and unlike Drake, the songs Big Sean got charting were his best ones. I might not like the guy, but I have to give him props here, even if some of it was pure luck.

video review: 'dark sky paradise' by big sean

One down, one to go. Stay tuned!

album review: 'dark sky paradise' by big sean

I haven't been looking forward to this.

Because those of you who are familiar with this series probably know that I'm not a fan of Big Sean, something that seems to baffle his bewildering number of fans. And if you take a look at just his highest charting singles, it'd be hard to disagree with that. This is a rapper whose first and biggest hit was a song with Nicki Minaj called 'A$$' that seemed to be made on a bet to see how asinine hip-hop could be - no pun intended. This was a guy who for no adequately explained reason showed up on a Fall Out Boy record on what was otherwise a good song to completely miss the point with sixteen bars delivered in a nasal whine that completely lacked presence or lyrical punch and stole a punchline from goddamn Simple Plan.

But those were aesthetic quibbles - going deeper, was there anything more to him? Well, I'll say this, at his best, he worked with some producers that I did like such as No ID and he did have personality, which can do a fair bit to redeem lyrical deficiencies. And while Big Sean is not a terrible technical lyricist, his punchlines are so basic and corny and his vocal style is so cartoonishly nasal that I only really find him entertaining when he's trying to be funny - which isn't often. Coupled with incredibly thin subject matter that barely descriptive or interesting, there's so little dimension to Big Sean for me to grasp beyond the moments that just irritate me. And don't even get me started on songs where he's trying to be hard - I'm sorry, but he's got nowhere near the heavier timbre in his voice to pull that off. He doesn't sound imposing or threatening, he sounds laughable - and the sad fact is that the majority of the time he's either not funny or not trying to be funny.

That said, when I heard that the title of this album was Dark Sky Paradise, I laughed my ass off - as I said, we wouldn't let symphonic metal or goth rock get away with that, and somehow Big Sean's getting a pass, coupled with some pretty damn awful opening singles to boot? And I wasn't enthused by the changes in his producer line-up either - you swapped out No ID and The Neptunes for Mike Will Made It and DJ Mustard? Sure, you might have gotten what is popular right this second, but dark minimalism and atmosphere was the last thing Big Sean needed for his usual bars of clumsy bragging. But you all kept asking that I cover this, so what did we get?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 21, 2015 (VIDEO)

Bit late getting to this, but with a week this underwhelming, it kind of fits that it's this late.

Next up, I was going to cover Vulnicura, but I think I need to deal with this surprise Drake album... hoo boy...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 21, 2015

Okay, we've got another busy week on Billboard BREAKDOWN here - multiple new entries into the top ten, a whole load of songs shuffling up and down the charts, and a slew of new chart arrivals, some that were easy enough to predict and some that did seem to come out of nowhere. More importantly to my American audience, the week chronicled by this Billboard Hot 100 corresponds with the Super Bowl, and that meant one artist performing at the Half Time show  managed to make a big impact with two singles surging back to the charts. Here are two clues: it wasn't the headliner, and it was one of the few things interesting about the whole experience before the mother of all bad calls courtesy of the Seahawks. I mean, wow - no matter how many bad songs show up this week, I don't think anything is beating that.