Well, the lists start off strong - the Premiere really was fun to hang with y'all, might have to do that again soon... Also, just addressing this here because some people are bitching about me interjecting some relevant social commentary: a.) if you're angry about me calling Juice WRLD a misogynist and are instead throwing out the 'he's a confused kid just expressing how he feels', otherwise known as the 'boys will be boys defense, the problem is you; b.) Lil Dicky is not funny, and I can make the credible argument he's never been funny. And frankly, I don't care that it's been years since what Chris Brown did - I have a long memory and I don't have to forgive him or like his artistic output, and considering he references his own life in the song, I'm well within my rights to bring it in; c.) If you think Kavanaugh's confirmation wasn't anything but a gross abuse of procedure, bastardized political flailing, a compromised investigation, and the continued enablement of the lack of accountability for rich, spoiled frat boys, maybe consider the fact that he's now on the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford can't still return home. I'll insult that beer-soaked abuse of privilege for all its worth, especially because the same dismissive defenses of him come from the exact folks who think Lil Dicky is worth defending. Next up, the list of the best hits of 2018 - stay tuned!
So I'm not going to mince words or waste your time here: 2018 was not a good year for the Hot 100. Perhaps not as bad as 2016 given how many songs were outright atrocious that year, but 2018 was not only an eventful and exhausting year, but it was one where the Hot 100 as a singles chart didn't even seem to matter. And yes, success on a manipulated ranking scale like the Hot 100 is always a bit of a shell game that most discerning artists recognize, but on some level we convince ourselves that it matters - you know, like the Grammys. But here's the funny thing: as much as I've characterized 2018 as the year of the album bomb, where thanks to playlist payola - no jokes anymore, let's call it what it is - an entire album will overrun the Hot 100, the songs rarely last, which means when it comes to making the year-end list you run into a weird split: the streaming hits that cling to relevance just long enough, usually hip-hop and trap, and the pop- and pop-adjacent songs that receive regular radio and sales promotion that hold up long enough to weather the storm. And of course there is some overlap, but I was actually a little surprised how despite streaming hits getting so much media attention, there's still a traditional pop structure that'll get hits on the year-end list. We'll get into the unfortunate side effects of this in the next year-end list, but it is absolutely a shifting ecosystem, and there weren't many who could navigate that storm. But make no mistake, the ability to have charting success has never been proportional to the talent of the artist, and with trap being an oversaturated mess and most radio hits defaulting to the safest possible options for relevancy in a year where Cumulus and iHeartRadio were on the cusp of bankruptcy, it was a rough year. And while I was more faintly embarrassed about the junk from 2017, 2018's bad stuff is in a different league - and keep in mind this is just the stuff that debuted on the 2018 year-end Hot 100. So let's take out the trash, starting in no particular order with our Dishonourable Mentions...
And here we go - man, I look exhausted filming this, but thank god I got some sleep coming through. Next up... ugh, this'll be frustrating to handle, so just stay tuned!
...you know, I'd call it funny if I was anyone else. See, I predicted last week that Meek Mill would have have something of an album bomb - he's had two already just in the course of me covering the charts, and I expected given the hype there'd be another one here, especially given some of his critical acclaim... but the Spotify numbers didn't seem that huge and it's not like he'd get sales or much radio. So imagine my extreme exasperation when not only did we get fourteen new Meek Mill songs, we also got a mini album bomb from Lil Baby - an artist I thought we could leave behind, preferably by the side of an abandoned road - and a sizable set of new arrivals, bringing our round total up to twenty-seven new songs for this week. All right before the holidays while I still work fulltime in the middle of trying to wrap up multiple year-end lists with a tighter schedule than any other year prior because of real life constraints. So yeah, screw it, album bomb rules are in effect, albeit revised from their original outing from Tha Carter V given that I'm not reviewing Meek Mill's new album formally - as if there'll be much to say - but with the suggestion taken from you all that the only songs I cover are his breakthroughs in the top 40 and any that would wind up as the Best/Worst of the week. That still comfortably gives me over a dozen new entries, and if anyone wants to complain about that, especially given Meek Mill is under Atlantic which is under Warner and that means this video will likely wind up copyright claimed and I won't get a dime from it, you go produce 200+ episodes of a twenty minute weekly series with a day's turnaround time on your own for over four years, and then get back to me.
And this week blew. No way around it, it sucked, and it leads me with a sour taste in my mouth if I'm stuck with Future and Juice WRLD next week. Anyway, next up... a much bigger matter at hand. Stay tuned!
So am I the only one feeling underwhelmed? Like, I know the new Quavo album is already fading from memory - hell, you could make the argument that was happening the day it dropped - but beyond that and our... let's call them 'enterprising' new top ten entries, it just seems like the Hot 100 hit a lull this week, and while I do expect Future and Juice WRLD to rack up the streams for next week... well, the critical reception hasn't been much better there, so I'm just not sure if the album bomb is guaranteed.
So this came together pretty damn quick... nice stuff. Next up... you know, this Logic album is so damn long, I need to knock out an episode of the Trailing Edge soon, so we'll see what comes first!
Okay yes, I'm very relieved it's a cooldown week... but look, in the era of the album bomb and with Logic and Lil Wayne set to do stupid numbers for next week, it's really not that much consolation that I get a breather here, especially if it comes at the expense of any analysis or predictions beyond 'well, Lil Wayne has a shot for a few top 10 debuts and maybe a shot at #1'.
Not gonna lie, I've had more fun engaging with folks in the comments and my random chicanery around this whole endeavor than I did making the episode. Heh, maybe I should keep that in mind going forward. Also, by some miracle this avoided copyright bullshit, so next up... I feel like something languid and weird, so stay tuned!
...no, I'm not happy about this. Really, if you consider the long term, nobody should be happy about this week, where every single song from Drake's Scorpion impacted the charts. That meant twenty-two new arrivals from that album alone, which broke all kinds of records for Drake and surely cements his dominance in popular culture... but does it really? I've seen more critics pan the record than praise it - and not receive backlash for doing so - and when you hear that Spotify is having to issue refunds to paying customers for the Scorpion spam - I'm sorry, custom graphics package that of course Spotify made out of the goodness of their hearts and premium playlist placement that surely wasn't paid for by the label directly or otherwise we'd have the modern version of payola, right? But the ugly truth is that Drake might be the one who suffers the worst out of this in the long run - cultural overexposure is very much a thing, and considering the goodwill he still had with 'Nice For What', you'd have to wonder if he'd have been better off holding back, especially when the product is overwhelmingly mediocre at best. Hell, even becoming the quintessential silent majority act doesn't look good overexposed.
My god, I'm so happy this is over with... well, at least until the Drake stans come rushing in, but that's just a matter of time... Anyway, next up, something different - stay tuned!
Hey folks, are you sick of Drake yet? Or are you well past that point and are just sick of people complaining about being sick of Drake? Or have you reached the point where you've just accepted Drake in the same way you do the movement of the tides and the stars, that once a year he'll vomit out over an hour of mediocre hip-hop and R&B and it'll bulldoze over the charts and by the next year you'll forget any of it ever happened outside of maybe the singles muscled onto the radio. If you're in that third camp... congratulations, happy to have you. I get the feeling I was early to reaching this place thanks to Billboard BREAKDOWN, where my annoyance at Drake overexposure began in 2015, worsened in 2016, and finally faded into exasperated shrugs by 2017. I've weathered multiple album bombs, I've seen the shifts from pitch-black Future collaborations to utterly misconceived flirtations with grime to a lingering obsession with midtempo tropical tones that serve as perfectly serviceable background music. And for those of you who expect your R&B and hip-hop to have passion or intensity or wordplay that doesn't sink into a quagmire of concern trolling or unwarranted paranoia... heh, you must be new here. But I will admit I did have a smattering of curiosity about Scorpion, at least at first. 'Nice For What' was a really damn good single, and when Pusha-T delivered a wounding blow with 'The Story Of Adidon', it became known that Scorpion had to be good to save Drake's career. And those hopes were promptly dashed when it was revealed that Scorpion was nearly an hour and a half, 'I'm Upset' was a mediocre slog of a song, and that Drake was going to make an R&B track over an unused Michael Jackson song that came from the same Paul Anka session that spat out 'Love Never Felt So Good' a few years ago - Justin Timberlake didn't get a pass, and you can be sure as shit that Drake's not going to get one either for this brand of graverobbery. So yeah, my patience was burned away years and dozens of forgettable songs ago - so will this Scorpion survive or get crushed beneath my merciless boot?
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.
And now we have a busy but overall pretty damn good week, I'm generally pleased with this. Next up... okay, fine, we'll deal with the elephant in the room, and I won't have a lot of mercy - stay tuned!
...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...
Can't believe I nearly forgot to post this... but still, it was a pretty rough week overall, and I really have no idea what's coming next. Thankfully, what's up next...
I'm not sure how to evaluate what happened on the Hot 100 this week. Obviously there was going to be some slide towards conventionality as Post Malone's album bomb continues to fade, but there seemed to be more going on here, songs from artists I've never heard of showing up and other songs changing in ways I wouldn't predict or expect - or in some cases, not really changing much at all.
There are a lot of narratives that need to be considered going into this week, most of which I predicted and those that I didn't I'm not sure I wanted to entertain. Of course the biggest story is the Cardi B album bomb, but like last week the Hot 100 would have been plenty busy without her.
