billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 9, 2019 (VIDEO)

Well this took too long to get up - stupid copyright bullshit...

Anyway, Earl is coming very soon, plus we have Rock Coliseum coming tonight, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 9, 2019

You know, when I reviewed JESUS IS KING over a week ago, I had this naive hope that maybe the general public would just be apathetic to it and it wouldn't chart, or if it did it'd be patchy and marginal, mostly around the bottom half of the Hot 100, an album bomb but one that could be managed. Instead, over half the album landed in the top 40, so even when album bomb rules are applied I've got a sizable week to mostly talk about a project I have aggressive non-interest in - goddamn wonderful. And while I could very easily find seven related Bible passages to make my point again and call it a day... well, we'll have to see.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 11, 2019 (VIDEO)

Hmm, so here we go - not a great week, but this is alright enough.

Next up, let's finally handle P!nk - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 11, 2019

I think the best way to describe this week would be a deflation of expectations - yeah, I knew this week wouldn't quite have the same impact as what happened with album releases, but I was open to the possibility of larger hits from acts like ScHoolboy Q or P!nk or even AJR. Now thankfully for a change we mostly missed this and seemed to walk away with about as good of a result as we could hope for, although with still more quiet weeks ahead it begs the question where the hell the Hot 100 could even go in the next week or two.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 12, 2019 (VIDEO)

Man alive, this took so damn long to finish... oh well, let's see what I can do next - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 12, 2019

So this is one of those weeks on Billboard BREAKDOWN that can be draining to talk about, mostly because it's easy but time-consuming to explain at length. To put it simply, if you look at the Hot 100 a full half of it advanced ten positions or more, we have a ton of returning entries, and a full slate of fourteen new arrivals - and no, there wasn't an album bomb. No, as I said, I can explain this fairly easily: along with the album bomb from 21 Savage drying up, all the Christmas music exited the chart and a lot of older music this week picked up radio spins thanks to year-end countdowns, and given that there was no big releases to plug in the gap, the flood of music to replace it is all over the damn place and really shows no indication of what could last long term.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 14, 2018 (VIDEO)

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!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 14, 2018

...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.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 10, 2018 (VIDEO)

Alright, this went up late... and really, this one was painful to put out, so much fucking Migos...

But now onto something a little more local - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 10, 2018

...well, we all knew this was coming. There were two pretty disruptive events on the Hot 100 this week and we all had a rough idea of the ramifications: the Grammys would trigger some shifts, and more importantly, Migos would unleash the album bomb of Culture II. Friendly warning, since I already covered that release my recaps of individual songs are going to be pretty short, and given we have seventeen new arrivals and there really isn't much to say about individual tracks from that record, I'm sure you'll understand.

video review: 'what makes you country' by luke bryan

So this wasn't good... at all, but hey, is anyone surprised at this point?

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and then something a little... strange. So stay tuned!

album review: 'what makes you country' by luke bryan

About a year and a half ago, during my review of Cole Swindell's sophomore record You Should Be Here, I made the statement that some might not see it that way, it should be considered the 'final' bro-country record. It was a record of endings, showing new paths forward, and while there have been attempts by some artists to reboot the subgenre, I still mostly believe that assertion. Yes, we will be dealing with 'Body Like A Backroad' in a few weeks but that seems more like the corpse of a genre that's still twitching, because we still have no information surrounding if Sam Hunt will ever release another record. Now whatever replaces bro-country is anyone's guess: between the neotraditional sound, the still-burning sparks in the indie scene, and even pop country that you might not like, but on average it is still better than what we were getting three or four years ago.

And thus I have to be brutally honest: I kind of feel sorry for Luke Bryan. I shouldn't - over the 2010s he went all in on bro-country and made some truly awful music as one of its biggest figureheads, especially when deep cuts made it plain he was capable of better - but this is now an artist who is being left behind. People tend to forget that Luke Bryan is in his forties, and while his big bet on bro-country means he'll fill stadiums for the rest of his career, artistically you get the impression he has no idea where to go next. There was a recent profile piece published in the New York Times that discussed Luke Bryan, and while the entire thing was incredibly cringey, what stood out to me the most was how Luke Bryan wanted to get coffee with Sturgill Simpson, and at least until Sturgill provided the full quote in context, he didn't seem to have any interest whatsoever in Luke Bryan - whoa. Think about what this means: it might not have been the Kurt Cobain vs. Axl Rose beef of country, but it's hard not to see a similar dynamic between them - but you have to wonder with the Luke Bryan industry and machine around him whether he'd even be allowed to take a real artistic risk. And all of that is the reason I didn't just veto this album from my schedule when it was added. From the lead-off single I didn't expect a change in sound or content... but at the same time, Bryan has to be somewhat aware the ground is slipping away beneath him, and with his label choosing to release it in December, it might be a sign that he's trying something they don't view as commercially viable to the same extent. Of course, it could also mean even they think it's complete garbage, so what the hell: what did I find on What Makes You Country?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 16, 2017 (VIDEO)

This week took entirely too long to edit... and it sucked. Go figure.

Next up, LCD Soundsystem momentarily, so stay tuned...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 16, 2017

Because this is what I want to deal with on my first few days back from vacation, a double album bomb from records that I had no reason to expect were anything close to good or interesting, just goddamn perfect. And of course there is more news than that, but at this point, if I want to keep this episode at a sane length for the twenty new arrivals we have, we're going to have to keep this moving...

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

Well, this happened - I'm actually pretty happy they changed the formula, but still, it's disappointing the load of crap we got.

Anyway, next up is Lauren Alaina and Japandroids, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 11, 2017

So this was an important week on the Billboard Hot 100 - which on the surface might be a surprising statement, given that it didn't seem that out of the ordinary, at least on the surface. But for those who pay attention, something big happened this chart cycle: Billboard changed their formula. And despite what I might have said earlier on Twitter, upon giving it more thought, I'm actually entirely behind this change - looks like Billboard got it right for once!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 10, 2016 (VIDEO) (VACATION REVIEW!)

This is the first video I've ever shot that's entirely handheld... not sure it entirely works, but I'm overall pretty happy with it, especially in terms of the picture quality. And plus, Barcelona!

Next up... ah, okay, Glass Animals soon, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 16, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this happened and has already sparked up furious debate. Billboard BREAKDOWN, folks.

Okay, Lukas Graham next, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 16, 2016

So as I predicted, this week is indeed busier than last week, with not just more activity within the charts but a slew of new arrivals... and yet my predictions why this happened seem to have mostly gone unanswered. Sure, Zayn's debut album Mind of Mine made an impact, but not with any new arrivals. Instead... well, let's just say that I'd prefer Zayn had gotten traction than Young Thug.

the top ten worst hit songs of 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, it's finally here, the video so many of you have been wanting for so long. Once again, thanks for your patience - because man, this is a doozy. Stay tuned for the Best Hits of the year in a few days, but until then, have a Happy Holidays!