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

Man, this was an interesting week - I think next week is going to be wild, but we'll have to see...

In the mean time, looks like I'll have the Flaming Lips next, but I've also got Rock Coliseum tonight, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 27, 2019

Let's be honest: there's one primary narrative going into this week. I could talk about the mini-album bomb unleashed by Ed Sheeran, or the other scattered arrivals, but the reason anyone is paying attention to the Billboard Hot 100 right now, be you in the music industry or outside of it, is the race at the very top, where a record is being tested as we speak and barring any unforeseen circumstances could be broken next week... and all from a track that I thought would flame out in a week or less, goes to show how much I know!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 18, 2019 (VIDEO)

Okay, here we go - pretty bad week, but at least the Bazzi song was good, right? Right?

Anyway, I've got Logic or Emotional Oranges to be covered next, we'll see - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 18, 2019

...so yeah, there are weeks where I'm wrong, and then there's this week, where I might have been expecting a slowdown - which in some categories we did get - only for a few big singles to disrupt the top 10 from out of nowhere and force me to re-evaluate where the chart could be going in the next few weeks. Now granted, one of those singles is coming from an album that's also out of nowhere - and boy oh boy, I can't tell you how much I don't want to cover it - but still, this is one of those cases where I feel I should have seen this coming, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't.

the top ten best hit songs of 2009 (VIDEO)

Yeah, about time I got this done - enjoy!

the top ten best hit songs of 2009

So I'll admit to being surprised that this, of all things, is the next top ten people want me to cover. You'd think folks would want me to finish off the 2010s proper before going back to 2009, but there you have it.

But I get it, because while I'd struggle to call it the best of the 2000s, 2009 was a pretty glorious year. Not only did it showcase the birth of YouTube chart criticism, but it was such a potent year to cover! 2009 is widely accepted by most as the birth of the club boom, where the kinetic, rock-tinged pop of the mid-2000s picked up more layers of glitter and went to party hard, picking up a grabbag of whatever hip-hop had survived the ringtone era, whatever rock that was willing to party, and basically lock the placid country scene out of the clubhouse entirely. More to the point, it was impossible to not see 2009 as a year of reckless abandon: the economy had crashed, most of my generation was broke, and if we we didn't have money, we were going to party as if we did - it might have seemed bleak, but I think a lot of us were riding the contact high that came from a new president and a desperate desire to believe in hope... even if that contact high would lead to incoherent silliness and a hangover we'd only halfheartedly regret. But I'll say this: even if I've slowed down a little bit, it's hard not to miss the manic fun of this year, especially when there were so many great hits, so let's get things started with...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 29, 2018 (VIDEO)

Man, quick rendering time helps me get these out so much faster... shame it was a rough week, though.

Okay, next up... I think it's time for Vallendusk and maybe one of these hip-hop records, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 29, 2018

This week feels more transitional than I think it actually is. Sure, we have a new #1 and a sizable number of new arrivals and it's not an album bomb week and we are indeed changing seasons... but I dunno, what we're getting on the Hot 100 doesn't exactly seem built to last, which means while I won't call this precisely bad, I don't think it's all that good either.

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: 'kamikaze' by eminem

I humbly await your backlash.

Next up, Troye Sivan - stay tuned!

album review: 'kamikaze' by eminem

I was afraid of this happening. I honestly didn't expect it to happen - while there has always been blunt self-aware commentary in Eminem's work even with regards to his previous records, the fallout coming from Revival was particularly concerning, and I honestly just hoped that Em would leave it at the remix of 'Chloroseptic' and just move on, or maybe hunker down in the studio to cut together a sharper project, or heaven forbid get out of Detroit for a bit so he could take in the cutting edge of modern hip-hop and start really pushing the gauntlet again. About the last thing I would have wanted him to do was build an entire project as a response, because it's not the first time he's done this. I've always read Encore as a layered artistic immolation, intentional self-sabotage of his curdled legacy, and Recovery was explicitly framed as a response to the underappreciated Relapse, and somehow wound up even worse, to say nothing of sounding dated as all hell.

But Kamikaze looked to be simultaneously something different but familiar: a surprise album framed as a response and return to form, burning down everything in his path in acrid contempt for a mainstream hip-hop sound that threw him and Revival aside, with features from Joyner Lucas and Royce but also hooks from Jessie Reyez, about the last person I cared to see hop on a hook for anyone given her barely adequate and depressingly conventional pop vocal timbre. It was an album designed to court controversy with an impressive number of names getting dropped and insults getting thrown that all had the feeling of Eminem taking the critical rejection of Revival way too seriously and worse still not learning the lessons of why that record didn't work... but again, I'm an Eminem fan and defender and I have been for years, so I wanted to give this project its due time to sink in, to see if it could rise above its questionable origins... so how is it?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 25, 2018 (VIDEO)

Man alive, this took WAY too damn long to put out - hell, I had something ready in Birmingham, but the footage got corrupted. But not to worry, I've got more reviews on the docket and then the next episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 3, 2018 (VIDEO)

I am disturbingly behind in updating things here, but yeah, this was an episode. Enjoy?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 3, 2018

I think I was expecting a lot more to actually happen this week than actually did. Sure, it's the holiday season and that usually meant things were slower - with the exception of The Voice, but we'll get to that - but we had big releases from Eminem and G-Eazy that had hype, and also from N*E*R*D, which with the continued single success could have streaming crossover... and yet that didn't happen. Sure, Eminem got a few songs, but people must have been satisfied by what they got otherwise because this was a slow week on the Hot 100. Not complaining, mind you - sorting out year-end lists is pretty difficult as it is - but still, I was expecting more.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 30, 2017 (VIDEO)

And this week was pretty damn rough too... goddamn it, 2018 is not looking good going forward...

But okay, we've got some better hip-hop coming, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 30, 2017

So as I've been predicting, the charts are heading into the lull around the holiday season - and I mean that more than most, because I don't think I've seen the Hot 100 this static in months, with only a pretty sparse crop of new arrivals to bring any real disruption. Hopefully that means I can keep this episode short and get to work on my last few reviews before year-end lists, but hey, you never know, right?

video review: 'revival' by eminem

So yeah, this one hurt. Man, I wanted to defend this record... but I can't. Sorry, folks.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and hopefully some even better hip-hop - stay tuned!

album review: 'revival' by eminem

So do you ever have the feeling before going into a movie or game or record that while you desperately hope it's going to be good, you know deep down it probably won't be? That slow, sinking feeling as your rational mind overrides the sense of hype and the feeling that nothing could live up to your expectations, even if they aren't all that high?

Yeah, that's how I felt going into Revival - and if anything, it was even worse because I've been an Eminem fan for decades. I'll admit to being one of the fans for whom Eminem was my introduction to more hip-hop, that can rattle off multiple Eminem songs from memory - and not just the singles but deep cuts and diss tracks too. And as I grew and matured as a critic and heard so much more hip-hop and Eminem's flaws came more sharply into view, it also led to a different sort of artistic appreciation for even his worst projects - while Encore is far from good it was the sort of record that understood its purpose of artistic suicide, and I still hold Relapse is criminally underrated to this day, where Slim Shady was revealed to be as perverse and deranged as he always was before, this time without any veneer of 'cool'. And even though I'd likely agree with the assertion that Eminem becomes less impressive as an artist the more hip-hop you hear, I don't think even the best in the game would deny his talent for wordplay, his charisma, and his uncanny knack for mainstream crossover success.

And thus, when I heard Em was looking to get more political for his upcoming record, not only was I not surprised I was also extremely encouraged. For many white people Eminem was one of the few rappers they would listen to or cite as a favourite, he spoke across demographics and genres and he's never been uncomfortable speaking truth to power, especially given how much he continued to identify with his working class roots in Detroit. But in the lead-up to this release - and especially after the track and feature list was released - I had a really bad feeling going into this, with names showing a lot of potential for pop crossover but few if any of the relevant acts making conscious hip-hop right now. You'd think someone of his stature would use this opportunity to put some names over instead of pass over more production to Alex da Kid and hooks to goddamn Skylar Grey - an artist who has never been interesting or compelling and who has been neutering the power of Em's hooks for too long - but if Eminem wasn't willing to venture out of his comfort zone to make his political statement, this could be pretty rough. But again, I'm an Eminem fan, I've defended records from him that many brand as legendarily terrible - can I defend Revival?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 2, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this was... awful, actually. Can only hope what's coming up next will be better... eh, we'll see. Stay tuned!