billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 15, 2019 (VIDEO)

Okay, that was a long episode... and yet amazingly I'm ahead of schedule with it, go figure.

Anyway, next up is the equivalent of a double album, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 15, 2019

So this is one of those weeks that I'm just convinced whatever I review, I'm going to wind up pissing people off. And while I'd normally be able to skate by such thoughts on Billboard BREAKDOWN, given that it's in its own separate, equally annoying ecosystem... yeah, a quick glance at our new arrivals is telling me everything I need to know, there's no getting out of the stupid here.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 15, 2018

So this is still somewhat in copyright hell, so we'll see how long it lasts up... but for now, check it out. 

And on that note...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 15, 2018

I think you all might be expecting me to be more angry about this album bomb than I am - given the review and how much vitriol I spewed, you'd probably think seeing it all show up here would piss me off all the more... and yet if I'm being brutally honest, in viewing the songs outside of the larger, slightly nauseating context of the record, I reckon some of them might hold up better on their own, and given that it's an album I covered at length, I'm definitely going to streamline the coverage here.

video review: 'losing sleep' by chris young

And this was... I can't even say this was a disappointment, because it was pretty much exactly what I expected. Forgettable and boring, I won't give this a second thought in a day.

But next up, hopefully records that are much better, so stay tuned!

album review: 'losing sleep' by chris young

This is not the country record I want to be covering right now. If I had my way I'd be reviewing Turnpike Troubadours and Dori Freeman, two artists I'd argue are making far more interesting and compelling country music and I'm desperately hoping that my schedule will enable me to talk about them as soon as possible. 

But before then we have to get through a record from an artist that I used to like but now have no real expectations that he's going to make interesting or particularly good music. And yes, I know that's really harsh, but going into this, did I honestly have any evidence otherwise? Chris Young may have started in a very tasteful, adult-leaning neotraditional sound, and even his bro-country pivot did far better than it had any right to with A.M. in 2013, but his choice to work with Corey Crowder on production - whom in going through his credits doesn't appear to have worked on anything all that memorable - has resulted in a sound that goes back to that same 'mature' tone but with production and writing too flimsy to support him. So on top of feeling generally tepid, it's underserving an artist who frankly needs a richer instrumental palette to match his voice. It's one of the many reasons I'm Comin' Over was a disappointing and forgettable record for me, but hey, it notched just enough singles and sold enough copies to mean Chris Young had no reason to change or vary his formula - and the lead-off single and title track seemed to support that hypothesis. So, was I right about the rest of the album?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 14, 2017 (VIDEO)

And that's all the posting for tonight... man alive, this takes a while to get through everything, but here we are. Okay, next up... well, it'll depend on what Patreon gives me, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 14, 2017

So okay, maybe I'm just bad at predicting when things are going to shift. I've been saying for a few weeks now that the Hot 100 feels precarious, on the cusp of something really shaking up the established order... and yet it didn't happen here, because outside of country rolling some new songs out, very little actually happened in any significant way. Not like I'm complaining - I like a shorter episode every once and a while - but there is a part of me that feels like the Hot 100 needs a good shakeup, and I'd prefer that happens before Taylor Swift drops reputation and blows everything wide open.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 21, 2017 (VIDEO)

And to catch up on Billboard BREAKDOWN... this. Man, I wish this week had been better...

In any case, it's FINALLY time to talk about Run The Jewels, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 21, 2017

This is one of those oddly deceptive weeks that you occasionally see on the Hot 100 - yes, I will have things to say about our new number one, but the big story there is masking what would seem to be a mostly static week, especially in our top 40. But if you look closer and deeper and beyond a pretty sparse list of new arrivals, you'll see that there's a fair bit more coming downstream - maybe not as many gains as last week but a significant list all the same that does show an interesting shift on the horizon.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 5, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, that was okay. Little late to blast this episode, but here it is.

And speaking of late... well, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 5, 2016

I was expecting this week to be busier than it is. I mean sure, it wasn't exactly a quiet week - new number one, a bunch of new arrivals and some considerable jumps around the chart - but I was oddly expecting more. Turns out one of the biggest factors that I was expecting - Kanye's big release - actually made no impact, because he kept it TIDAL exclusive, which Billboard doesn't count. And as for the Grammys... well, maybe it's just me, but with a few exceptions, it actually seemed more reasonable.

video review: 'i'm comin' over' by chris young

This one hurt a lot. Really wished it was better, but eh, it happens even to our favourites.

Next up, Adele - stay tuned!

album review: 'i'm comin' over' by chris young

So here's a fun question for you all: you're a reasonably popular artist and you catch wind that your genre's shifting in a new direction, riding a new trend. So you hop on that trend and it goes reasonably well, but not quite as well as your earlier material, not quite resonating with your audience in the same way - what do you do?

Well, in the case of Chris Young it's arguably pretty simple: you pivot back to what you were doing originally and keep up the routine - you've arguably got the easiest transition path, especially if you take a firmer hand in the songwriting. And if you look at Chris Young's career trajectory over the past four or five years, that's exactly what he's done. Hitting it big in the latter half of the 2000s with a slew of #1 hits, he hopped onboard the bro-country trend for his 2013 album AM, hiring the best of Nashville's songwriting machine to blend his brand of neo-traditional, adult-contemporary leaning country music towards what was cresting in the mainstream. And yet even despite making what I'd deem as one of the best bro-country albums with some of my favourite country songs of 2013, it wasn't an album that produced the sorts of hits previous records like The Man I Want To Be and Neon had. And in a way that makes sense - Chris Young has always been more of a mature romantic, not the sort of guy that would play well with debauched party tracks. It definitely helped matters that he seemed like a stand-up guy, so that when rumours leaked about him being involved in Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert's divorce, Young shot them down so emphatically that I'm inclined to believe him.

So for his upcoming album, Chris Young seemed to be doing everything right: he cut his writing team down to a solid essential team, took more of a songwriting role than he had ever done in the past, and with the lead-off single and title track made it very clear he was transitioning back to modern yet neotraditional country. Hell, he even picked up Vince Gill for a duet, along with Cassadee Pope, an artist I legitimately forgot existed since I reviewed her last record two years ago. For a mainstream country release, he was doing everything right and while I didn't expect this would be better than, say, Mr. Misunderstood by Eric Church, I had some hope this could turn out well. Was I right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 25, 2015 (VIDEO)

Man, this one actually turned out pretty well - with the exception of whatever the hell is up with my hair. God, that swoop on the right looks terrible...

Anyway, Years & Years, Jason Isbell, and Ghostface Killah coming up, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 25, 2015

Yes, I'm going up a Tuesday - no, not like that. What sort of rampant insanity is this?

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 - january 3, 2015 (VIDEO)

Yep, I'm aware of the glitch in the top ten. Damn fader settings get me every time.

So in case you all know, I'm going to be going on vacation - but never fear, I'll still be posting as soon as I get a stable internet connection, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 3, 2015

Today is the first official week of 2015 for Billboard - which is a little odd, considering they start their year and it still is December, but this was the year where we both got the long-awaited finale of The Voice that notched six new hits. And while J. Cole managed to hold a little more momentum, unsurprisingly, most of this week belonged to Nicki Minaj, for better or for worse.