billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 2, 2019 (VIDEO)

And here we go - bad week, let's just get this over with...

Next up... well, folks want me to talk indie, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 2, 2019

...so okay, I was wrong. I made the assumption that given its heavy reliance on streaming I expected Ariana Grande to suffer some major losses... and while nearly every song lost by a considerable margin, she didn't actually have any dropouts this week. And yet beyond that, this week did seem to go through a pretty standard rotation, and given what they turned out to be, it implies that Ariana didn't exactly see huge competition this week and may be in more dicey territory when we get impact from Lil Pump, Gunna, and especially Offset next week - again, we'll see.

video review: 'can't say i ain't country' by florida georgia line

And this was not good - man, I'm surprised I just had so much content out of it.

But heading for something of more quality...

album review: 'can't say I ain't country' by florida georgia line

You know, on some level I've always thought it was a cheap thing to judge an act like Florida Georgia Line by their album titles, especially when they're a solid five years past their prime in terms of relevance and seem to be fighting tooth and nail to preserve whatever's left. Their first two albums were called Here's To The Good Times and Anything Goes, bro-country projects that reflected a shallow, tossed off vibe that didn't really invite a lot of deeper thought, and while I'd call neither album precisely good, for what they were I couldn't exactly get angry or all that annoyed with them. No, where that manifested was on their third album in 2016, Dig Your Roots, not their first attempt to say they were going back to their core but arguably their most revealing of what that core could be, the project where they wanted to settle down and get 'mature'... but did so against some of the most lifeless pop-leaning production to date. And that did feel a bit telling... because for as much as these guys have referenced the pop of their youth, this album could have indeed referenced their roots directly - they're just not really all that country.

But you can tell Florida Georgia Line has taken this as a slight, and from the lead-off single 'Simple' that sounds like a mash-up of High Valley and Edward Sharpe to the defensive album title, this looked to be a lot of posturing and maybe even some hurt feelings at being so effectively sidelined by the pop-country of Dan + Shay or the heavier smolder of Brothers Osborne. So I'll admit a little concern when I saw their newest album was described by them as a tribute to 90s country - and then stacked with features from Jason Aldean and Jason Derulo, not to mention all still produced by Joey Moi! That said, I was willing to give this project a chance, mostly because Florida Georgia Line have a weird habit of sneaking at least one single through that's pretty good - I liked 'Dirt' back in 2014, I liked 'Simple' last year, I had the hopes there'd be something more on what looked to be their longest album to date... so what did I get, can Florida Georgia Like prove that I can't say they ain't country?

the top ten worst hit songs of 2018 (VIDEO)

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!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2018

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...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 16, 2018 (VIDEO)

Okay, album bomb, but a solid week regardless...

Next up, more Kanye, but with bonus Kid Cudi...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 16, 2018

Kanye album bomb. Yeah, I know there are other things going on right now - a new #1, a sizable amount of activity further down the chart, but the big story is all of Kanye West's 'ye' crashing into the top 40, triggering a shockwave down the Hot 100 that'll likely be a mess to clean up next week... presuming of course Kids See Ghosts doesn't create its own impact!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 7, 2018 (VIDEO)

And here we go - but it's not the only video dropping tonight, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 7, 2018

And now we get a cooldown week... whew. Sort of what I was expecting, given that there wasn't really any big crossover releases outside of some scattered singles - and really, there are some songs that are lingering longer than I'm personally comfortable - but hey, given how busy I have been, I will take what I can get.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 11, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a bizarre week - but I'm mostly pleased with it, to be honest. But next up... whoo boy, none of this looks good, so stay tuned?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 11, 2017

So I've been predicting for some time that the Hot 100 would be hit with a pretty major shift that would knock things loose, really shake up the status quo. And yet somehow I think we got the worst of both worlds with this, with the top ten mostly staying static, the majority of our new arrivals hitting in the bottom half of the Hot 100... and it's all coming from a collaboration between Future and Young Thug. Yes, over half the songs here are from Super Slimey, and whatever else we got... well, we'll get to it.

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

Okay, so this was... actually a pretty lousy week, not helped by YouTube dicking over my sub box (which apparently happened for multiple users, but still wasn't all that fun). At least this'll have some longevity...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 21, 2017

So I've been predicting for the past few weeks that the charts are on the verge of something breaking - and thus far, the Hot 100 has been doing a fine job of making me look like a fool by not really doing much of anything. Worse yet, the predictions I did make about pop divas making a splash blew up in the face and, as so many of you predicted, the biggest splash we got this week was from the debut album from A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. I have to be honest, this wasn't even on my radar or schedule, so might as well take a dive into that, especially considering our other new arrivals this week!

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

Overall not a bad week, and I have to say, it's going to be interesting in the days ahead here, especially given all the coming shakeups.

But on the topic of one of those shakeups not quite going according to plan... well, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 30, 2017

This is one of those weeks where I'm increasingly unsure where the hell the Billboard Hot 100 is going, and not just because we've got a few albums bombs in the making that are going to be dropping over the next few weeks for further destabilize things. And while part of it is also linked to the headlong race for what'll make the year-end lists, the larger point is that as a whole, songs that you'd expect to not seem fragile feel increasingly perilous, especially when you take a look at the top ten.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 18, 2017 (VIDEO)

Weird week. Busy as hell, but weird all the same, I have to say.

Next up, though, is finally Sun Kil Moon - enjoy!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 18, 2017

So this was a weird week. I wouldn't call it a bad week - any chart where we get less Future than expected is a net positive - but the new arrivals and shifts reflect not quite a lull but a Hot 100 where nothing is quite as stable as it seems. There have been a lot of fluctuations here - and with a big debut from Ed Sheeran coming next week I can definitely see that continuing - which I tend to see as a net positive overall, it keeps things kinetic to avoid the massive stalls that did considerable damage in 2014 and 2016.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 17, 2016 (VIDEO)

Man, computer problems couldn't have come at a worse time... goddamn, this has been tough to get out, especially considering I flubbed part of the audio editing the first time round.

But whatever, next up... well, you all asked for it, let's talk about Carly Rae Jepsen. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 17, 2016

So let me give you all a quick recap of my past few days. I get home from vacation, put up my big recap video, get ready to set up the Travis Scott review and then Billboard BREAKDOWN today... and then my editing computer loses multiple cores and experiences systemic hard drive failure. Now I've been having computer troubles for the past few weeks so I knew this was coming - hell, I've got a new machine in transit right now - but given the insane album release schedule of the next few weeks, I was hoping to save the transition for a slower period and not have to work with a machine that's on its last legs. No such luck - hell, I'm just thankful Billboard BREAKDOWN seems a little slower this week, giving me a little more time to prepare for the shift.