billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 13, 2016

You know, there's an adage I have on this show that the Canadian charts are always better, mostly because we didn't get rid of rock radio and we at least try to cultivate more unique Canadian acts. And yet if we look at the 2016 Hot 100, which many critics are already claiming is one of the worst years on record for this decade, it's been dominated by two Canadian artists coasting more off production than any sort of lyrical or vocal personality. Now I could make the argument that we as Canadians tend to manufacture some distance with our stars - Drake and Bieber have both been bigger south of the border than they have here - but on the other hand, we did let Bieber debut at #1 where he only landed #2 this week, so take it as you will.

special comment: #kimexposedtaylor & pop culture authenticity (VIDEO)

I'm actually a little amazed I got this out on time, but I'm definitely happy I did - fair amount to deconstruct her, and it did lead to a nifty little punchline at the end about our role in enabling this sort of drama. A little less dramatic now, thanks to the legality of it all being stripped out the picture, but eh, it happens.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

special comment: #kimexposedtaylor and pop culture authenticity

I started to feel physically ill when I started drafting this Special Comment. It's the same sinking feeling that happens whenever I have to even mention the Kardashians in anything I create, acknowledge how so many people find their utterly brainless TMZ-baiting trash so damn captivating. Even though anyone with a functioning brain stem can tell you that none of it is remotely close to real or has produced anything beyond cheap gossip and ruining the lives of people who should rightly know better at this point. Oh, don't get me wrong, I get the attraction to it - people like vapid drama, especially when it seemingly comes at the expense of the rich and famous - but even without seeing a single episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and contributing to the downward slide of humanity towards Idiocracy, at this point it should be blatantly obvious to everyone that they're more shrewd than that and are making millions off of the public not knowing any better - or caring, which is arguably even worse.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 2, 2016 (VIDEO)

So this week sucked on the Hot 100... thank god the album release schedule has improved and I've got YG and Swans next, or I'd just be flat-out miserable.

And speaking of which...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 2, 2016

So a week or so back I might have said that I was gearing up for one of the worst upcoming album release dates in recent memory... and yet just days after I said that, all of my concerns seemed to drop away. Both Iggy Azalea and Rae Sremmurd pushed back their albums and that just leaves me with Riff Raff, and I can handle him. But apparently the universe was unwilling to let me get off that easy, because from a quick look through the charts, we've got a really bad week ahead of us, folks.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 4, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a weird week - and arguably one of my weakest episodes of Billboard BREAKDOWN in a while. Flubs, not catching on that Drake's revival was thanks to Spotify... ugh, not pleased with this.

And on that note, ANOHNI review is up next, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 4, 2016

So we're now settling back into routine - well, as much routine as we can expect, especially when Ariana Grande is coming around the corner next week - and this has led to something of a bizarre case that I've observed happen to big debuts in the past. They have tons of songs smash onto the Hot 100 the first week, and yet while things cool off dramatically the second week, the third week a whole group of them seem to bounce back. Now there are a lot of reasons for this: initial fatigue after a binge feeding into renewed interest; the radio picking up a few for rotation; or even the case of compensation against a reset to equilibrium...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 23, 2016 (VIDEO)

Man, this took WAY too long to finish. Long episode too, so I hope you all enjoy!

Next up... hmm, time to take care of some unfinished business, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 23, 2016

And to think this week was going to be busy enough. The chart instability is only getting more pronounced, we've got a healthy list of new arrivals - including what looks to be bad signs coming from Drake's lead-off to Views From The 6 - I thought things would be mostly stable. So of course here comes Kanye West with eight new songs from The Life Of Pablo, an album I covered nearly two months ago with one of the most confused release strategies I've ever seen play out. Of course, such is the transcendent power of Kanye's fame and fanbase that the album went to #1 on streaming alone, regardless of middling quality or the fact that it's been out for two months already.

theneedledrop podcast: white publications and black music (w/ anthony fantano)

This was a fascinating conversation - thanks again to Anthony to have me on his podcast, and I hope to have another chance to delve more deeply here on a later date! In the mean time, if you want to hear two music critics talk race in music criticism, this'll be one of the more enjoyable runs, so have fun!

video review: 'the life of pablo' by kanye west

Well, this happened. Sure it'll go over GREAT.

On a different note, Taylor Swift beat Kendrick Lamar for Album of the Year at the Grammys and apparently snapped at Kanye. There has not been a time in recent history where I wished Kanye would interfere in something more - the Grammys have always been worthless, but this is worse than usual.

Whatever. Next is Charles Kelley, Avantasia, and a few indie country acts (and I do need to get to Pop 1280 at some point too). Stay tuned!

album review: 'the life of pablo' by kanye west

There's no easy way to talk about Kanye West.

I mean, at first it was easier. The first three records hold up as some of the best hip-hop of the 2000s, excellently produced with a flow that was frequently clumsy and forced but had enough interesting ideas and personality to make up for most of it. But I'll also be the first to admit that I wasn't really won over by those records - solid, sure, but the braggadocious side of Kanye has always rung a little hollow to me, something that he wants to believe in his worship of Jay-Z rather than something that clicks on a deeper level. So while I liked Kanye initially, it wasn't those albums that won me over. That came with 808s & Heartbreak, which I'd argue hit me harder as a whole than any album he's released. The usage of autotune as a method for him to distance himself from the audience and his own emotions, an underappreciated gift for melody, and lyrics that tap into an unflattering but powerfully human heartbreak that felt more real than most of the flash of previous albums.

Then came the VMAs in 2009 and Kanye saw himself vilified, so he ripped away the smokescreen to make My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a record of which I have the contentious opinion of having simultaneously some of the best and worst of Kanye's discography - some great cuts and evocative images let down by sloppy indulgence and half-formed ideas. It's also a record that snapped into focus the picture of who Kanye is - a world-famous and gifted artist who is monumentally insecure and cares way too much, who has enough distance from his life to write with unflinching detail about it, but not enough to filter his emotions or outrageous thoughts before he says or does something asinine. That got amped up to eleven with Yeezus in 2013, where he consciously chose to embody all of the negative stereotypes he initially painted on his last record, but as such it felt far less convincing. Part of this is that Kanye is a consummate borrower: starting with sampling as a producer to the appropriation of whole styles like on Yeezus, where he essentially sounded like a low-rent Death Grips. As such, I tend to find my liking of Kanye tends to fluctuate the more of his influences I hear - I admire his production and his ability to paint some vividly unsettling pictures using the foundation of commercial hip-hop - 'Hell Of A Life' and 'Blood On The Leaves' are the two best examples of that - and yet his sloppy flow, corny references, frequently uneven performances, and occasional outright misfire makes him hard for me to really appreciate. 

As such, watching the build-up to this new Kanye release was kind of fascinating, at least before it started becoming exasperating. Not only did the album title change three or four times - along with the track listings and album art and Kanye's off-kilter Twitter providing more fuel for the fire - it seemed more like Kanye didn't know what to give. It certainly didn't show any indication of a coherent artistic vision, especially considering the track listening and album art was being changed not only up to the intended release date but right past it to the weekend. Whatever, Kanye's long ago reached the point where critics and his diehard fans will furiously masturbate over whatever he puts out, so what did we get with The Life Of Pablo?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 1, 2015 (VIDEO)

So, that week was pretty lightweight. No complaints, especially considering the rest of things look a little crazy.

Next up... hmm, I'll decide in the morning, I've got a good three or four reviews nearly ready. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 1, 2015

So we've now settled into the doldrums of summer, the time of year where everything seems to slow down and nothing all that interesting happens on the charts. The Top 10 was mostly static, not many movers and shakers, and even our list of returning and new arrivals is smaller than ever...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 21, 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, this was another struggle to get online. Damn, this took too long...

Okay, next up, schedule as usual, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 21, 2015

Sometimes on Billboard BREAKDOWN, we can get some pretty rough weeks... but sometimes you the weeks where it all just clicks in some of the best ways possible. The good songs win, the bad songs lose, the new songs kick ass, and even the returning tracks aren't bad. I don't think it's quite possible to ever have a perfect week - simply based on the law of averages I reckon it's impossible to a Hot 100 that's all great music - but you can have great weeks. And folks, we came pretty close here - yeah, we got some rough songs, but we also got a bonafide classic, and I couldn't be happier about that.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 14, 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, this took longer to get up than I was hoping. Worth it, though.

Next up, got a whole list of artists. Purity Ring, Cannibal Ox, and more - stay tuned

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 14, 2015

So here's an interesting hypothetical for all of you - presume you're an artist who has scheduled to release his album - and then out of nowhere, one of your competition drops a critically acclaimed mixtape/album that gains him a ton of buzz. You're angry, you're annoyed - without warning, he seems to have stolen your thunder - do you delay your record? It's an interesting question - but it appears by staying the course, Big Sean got an interesting results on the charts. Simply put, Drake was riding a wave of hype that managed to lodge ten songs off of his new album on the charts, and when they inevitably faded, something had to replace them. Now sure, Big Sean could have impacted the chart with his album anyway, but I'd argue he wouldn't have lodged as many tracks - and unlike Drake, the songs Big Sean got charting were his best ones. I might not like the guy, but I have to give him props here, even if some of it was pure luck.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 14, 2015 (VIDEO)

By the Nine Hells, it gets annoying when the upload keeps failing. In any case, I'm actually really quite happy with this episode - finally, some good songs and signs for the future.

Next up... you know, I haven't done a country review in a while. Let's change that, shall we...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 14, 2015

This was one of the more deceptive weeks for the Hot 100 - not that it was a bad or good week, we'll get to that, but that from first glance, not a lot seemed to change or evolve. I mean, the Top 10 barely seemed to shift at all, and we only have seven songs, new or returning, to talk about. But look a little deeper and you'll start to see a lot more traffic, some expected, but a fair bit that did surprise me.