And here we are... messy and mostly not good week, but it'll be entertaining at least? Ehh, I have no idea these days... Anyway, next up is ScHoolboy Q, and then I want to get this episode of Resonators done... oh wait, what's that? You want an AJR review? Well, that will be done when it's done, so stay tuned!
So this week was... weird. I had the suspicion it'd be more transitional because the big album drop that made my life a lot more hectic occurred last Friday - seriously, eight albums that I'd otherwise want to cover, a situation not helped by me getting sick and what's depressing is that most of them aren't close to good - and for the most part, it is. But I get the impression this is a week that buries its biggest lead, and the sharper changes will take effect next week based off of what happens here.
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...
Heh, this turned out WAY more controversial than I expected... eh, it happens. Next up, something way better than everything I'm talking about here - enjoy!
You know, given how the past week has been it's been very tempting of me to just step up in here, say the Billboard Hot 100 shit itself inside out like most of the rest of this year - and let's not mince words, it's about as bad as I've seen it in the past few years - but hey, it could have been worse, right? We didn't get a full album bomb from XXXTENTACION, and while I sure as hell don't think our replacements are anything close to good, I have to keep reassuring myself with the thoughts that this could be a much more miserable experience than it is.
And this was surprisingly easy to get done - either I'm getting better at editing or filming these, or positivity just works for me. Next up... ooh, I've got a good one coming. No, not that one, the other one....
You know, when I looked at the Billboard Hot 100 charts this morning, I was astounded: because this week scanning through the returning entries and new arrivals, I could find little to complain. Even the songs I didn't like as much weren't so much bad and in a worse week would easily miss the bottom spots, whereas for the best we got a plethora of solid to genuinely great songs. Now I'm not too optimistic to expect this'll last in the long term, but weeks like this always give me a little thrill of hope: maybe the air is shifting as we come into the last weeks of 2015, you never know!
So this should have gone up last night, but apparently my upload freezes when the file is grotesquely massive or when my computer goes to sleep. Go figure. Next up on a far lighter note, CHVRCHES! Stay tuned!
For all of you who wanted me to cover Drake & Future's surprise collaboration release, you're going to get your wish - because it effectively crushed everything in its path and for I think is the third time this year, turned the Hot 100 into the Drake show. And please tell me that I'm not the only one who's starting to get a little sick of it at this point. Coupled with my suspicions that Views From The 6 will probably still end up dropping this year - and the fact that Drake was responsible for cosigning The Weeknd and helping him become huge - the hip-hop story has been dominated by Drake this year, and yet he got there by making some of the least interesting music of his entire career. And given the somewhat mixed critical response I've seen for What A Time To Be Alive, I'm suspecting we're going to hit the backlash zone any time now, because Drake is reaching dangerous points of overexposure. But apparently the mainstream public disagrees, because we had seventeen new songs this week and nearly half of them had Drake on them.
