billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 27, 2019 (VIDEO)

Kind of crappy episode here, to be honest - not a lot to really be said with these, unfortunately. 

Now time to tidy up some old business before I get to the eight (!!!) albums I want to talk about all dropping this Friday, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 27, 2019

I get the funny feeling that a lot of folks are going to forget this week pretty quickly, the sort of Billboard BREAKDOWN probably more notable for what's not happening than what is. No album bomb, no significant chart shakeups that seem like they're going to last - and yes, I know for some either the BTS arrival or Lil Uzi Vert's continued attempts to get something to stick will contradict me, but while I've been wrong predicting what will last, I get the feeling I'm not going to be that wrong with this one.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 10, 2018 (VIDEO)

So yeah, this week blew... but at least the Democrats grabbed the House. But I'm Canadian, so we'll handle the aftershocks regardless.

Next up, some Poppy - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 10, 2018

I'm just going to say this right now, this is the second time I'm putting together an episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN on an election evening and I'm just not a fan of it - somehow the songs just don't wind up feeling very good... even if, instead of dealing with a Meek Mill album bomb we've just got a pileup of assorted, forgettable cuts. Hell, in most cases I'll treat that like a net positive.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 8, 2018 (VIDEO)

And here we are, Billboard BREAKDOWN back on regular schedule - enjoy!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 8, 2018

...you couldn't have saved the cooldown week for when I was on vacation? Seriously? Not that i'm complaining much - there wasn't much happening this chart week and we'll have the aftermath of whatever the hell happens with Eminem next week, so I appreciate the breather.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 2, 2018 (VIDEO)

Oh man, this was a messy damn week.. but eh, I'll take it...

Anyway, now for something better - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 2, 2018

This was a weird week. A pretty busy one, to be sure, and some things did turn out as I had predicted, but overall... it's not often you can say that our new arrivals span between k-pop, Lil Baby, Kevin Gates, and the Backstreet Boys - yeah, we'll be getting to that one, I did not see that coming at all! And that's very telling of the Hot 100 right now: there doesn't seem to be any one musical movement that's driving the pop culture conversation with any sustainability, and we're ripe to see everything blow apart.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 16, 2017 (VIDEO)

Lighter week, for sure, but I wouldn't really say a better one, to be honest.

Thankfully, next up is both lighter and better, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 16, 2017

So this is a point we typically hit around this time of the year: the charts start to slow down for the holiday season, we get a few extraneous songs from The Voice - just one thus far - and a sense that barring a major disruption, we're going to have some stability. Granted, said stability could be disrupted by that Eminem record dropping in just over a week, but that'll remain to be seen.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 7, 2017 (VIDEO)

So I've been off my game updating this here... okay, so here's the last episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 7, 2017

So we're now in our last two months of the Billboard year - it ends in November, and yes, that makes both more and less sense than you think it does - and yet I'm a little surprised how uncertain the Hot 100 feels right now. Granted, this is one of those weeks that feels deceptively quiet in that we only had a few new arrivals, but again, major turbulence is coming considering the albums on the horizon, and it'll be fascinating to see what cracks first.