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

Well, that was a bit quicker to get online than I otherwise expected. Short week, y'all.

Anyway, next up is Danny Brown, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 12, 2019

So last week I said that I expected an album bomb from DaBaby - I did not expect one of this size, I'll admit that! Yeah, while the majority of it fell below the top 40, all of DaBaby's KIRK hit the Hot 100 this week, and given that's comfortably over eight new songs, the album bomb rules are in effect. Shame it's about the only thing interesting to happen to the Hot 100 this week, but since I wasn't really planning to review the album at length, this'll give me a good opportunity to get caught up, I guess.

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

And here we are - man, this took forever to put together, but I'm pretty happy this all came together with a minimal number of copyright hits.

Next up... you know, it might be Resonators or Boogie, I'm not sure yet - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 2, 2019

So I'm not going to say I'm surprised by everything that happened this week - sure, I expected the Future album bomb, but I also expected that it would be more muted than ones in the past, and I seemed mostly correct about that. But beyond that, this is the sort of week that I expected would eventually come in 2019, where the new year begins to start shoveling away the last... although note that none of this guarantees said new year is good, we'll have to see.

the top ten best hit songs of 2018 (VIDEO)

So that's the next list out - okay, Billboard BREAKDOWN and two lists left to write (plus the last episode of Resonators for this season), so my work's cut out for me. Stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2018

So here's where things get hard - I already said in my last list that 2018 was a pretty bad year for the Hot 100... but was it, really? When I started putting together this list, I actually found a pretty sizable list of pretty good songs where I actually had to make some cuts. But note my choice of words: there were plenty of good songs, but very few great ones, especially if we're going to make any comparisons to previous years, and that makes the flagrant awfulness stand out all the more starkly. But to explain why... well, the bad songs were execrable results of gross trends and chart manipulation, but I honestly couldn't get too mad at the latter because if the songs were good, nobody would be complaining about it.

Sadly, this is where the second part of the album bomb conversation comes up, and how they can prove surprisingly detrimental to more than just the album itself. Sure, it might give promoters a clue how to push certain songs to become sleeper hits, but it also can burn people out on potential singles faster, and limits their chance to rise within the top 40 - you only need to look at how Post Malone mismanaged 'Candy Paint' for an example of that. And while the radio will occasionally get onboard with late album singles, in order to maintain relevance they wind up pushing the most stale and broadly sketched music imaginable to satiate as wide of an audience, which doesn't always align with quality. But what's perhaps most damaging about an album bomb is the aftershocks around it, where potentially weird or obscure tracks riding a slow groundswell might get knocked aside, especially if you're not a megastar or you're in a subgenre that doesn't get mainstream attention anyway! The one thing I could say about 2017 hits is that they brought an uncommon wealth of talent and critical acclaim to bear where they could wind up on both my list of hits and songs proper - 2018, not even close, especially when you consider how many artists disappointed or outright fell off this year.

And yet by some miracle, I've got a list of songs that debuted on the year-end Hot 100 in 2018 that I can credibly call the strongest of this year, even if they don't hold a candle to the best of, say, the majority of this decade, so let's start with our Honourable Mentions...

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 - april 21, 2018 (VIDEO)

So yeah, crazy busy episode, but it seems like it's going down well, so enjoy!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 21, 2018

There are a lot of narratives that need to be considered going into this week, most of which I predicted and those that I didn't I'm not sure I wanted to entertain. Of course the biggest story is the Cardi B album bomb, but like last week the Hot 100 would have been plenty busy without her.

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: 'culture ii' by migos

Oh god, this was a struggle... can't say much positive about it as a whole, but really, I'm amazed I got as much out as I could.

Next up, some hip-hop I actually want to cover - stay tuned!

album review: 'culture ii' by migos

And to think I was starting to come around on these guys...

Well okay, that's unfair: as I've said before, 2017 was the first year I started seeing any appeal in this trio, mostly because their flows and punchlines had evolved to match with production that was steadily becoming more interesting. They weren't making complex music, but there's a place for that sort of sound and vibe in hip-hop and providing the hooks and delivery were sharp, I'm willing to praise them. And while I was lukewarm on 'MotorSport', I really like 'Stir Fry' as a single, mostly because it highlighted where the trio could take their sound going forward, there was potential there...

And then in rapid succession it seemed like Migos started fumbling. Offset dropped a verse that many have read as homophobic for no discernible reason - not the first time with these guys either - but what looked a little worrisome was that there was little information released about their upcoming project Culture II; hell, up until the night before we didn't even have a track list! And then the album was released, and the backlash began in earnest. Not for the content, but for the album's length: twenty-four tracks, 106 minutes, over an hour and a half of Migos. Even diehard fans were wary about this much from the group, because even in the era of No Limit or the bloated mid-2000s where hour-long projects became the norm, this was excess. And I'll admit right out of the gate this was going to be an uphill battle for me - I didn't cover the first culture because most of it wound up on Billboard BREAKDOWN anyway, but this could well be a breaking point for the modern, short-attention span listener, especially as this wasn't a concept record and probably couldn't earn its length - hell, at least when Big K.R.I.T. released 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time it could easily be split in two and he was exploring a variety of themes and sounds, which isn't exactly in Migos' playbook. But hey, I could be wrong: what did I get on Culture II?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 6, 2018 (VIDEO)

And here's the episode from today, which... again, it's an episode. Transcripts for a few year-end lists are on their way out soon!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 6, 2018

There are only three names that matter on today's Hot 100. Sure, you could talk about how a bunch of old 2017 hits got their final wind, or how Christmas music seemed to linger a week longer than I personally expected, but the real story to open this week - with the date slightly revised because Billboard is bringing things closer in sync with their tracking week - belong to three people: Travis Scott and Quavo under their duo name 'Huncho Jack', and Cardi B, who seems to be pushing hard to extend her success into 2018.

the top ten best hit songs of 2017 (VIDEO)

Always the one that's the most entertaining to put together, a real treat here. Enjoy!

the top ten best hit songs of 2017

So as I said in my last list, I haven't considered 2017 nearly as bad of a year as some critics have, especially when it comes to the hits. Yeah, there was a lot of stupid, misinformed, or just outright offensive garbage that clogged up the charts, and I can see if you weren't willing to dig beyond the top ten you might dispirited in the dreary trap slog, but the truth is that the songs that did break away from that sound or mold - or hell, even a few of the tracks within it - were true gems across multiple genres. Yeah, country struggled in the mainstream this year, but there was real greatness in pop, hip-hop, EDM, R&B, and even some rock-leaning tunes. I wouldn't quite say the overall quality or sheer number of hits is comparable to 2015 or 2012, but it is up there. 

And what surprised me in a great way was the truly amazing hits of this year were strong enough to maybe even reach my year-end list of my favourite songs of 2017, not just the hits! And you know, for as many obscure or weird albums as I cover and then love, this is still a great feeling, that sometimes quality does win out and rise to mainstream prominence for everyone to share, and that's good for culture everywhere! Yeah, I know some of these picks might be controversial - especially in my Honourable Mentions - but as always they debuted on the year-end Hot 100 for 2017, and I did manage to find some quality here. So let's start with the Honourable Mentions, particularly one that if you saw my worst hits last year might shock you a bit...

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?