billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 19, 2019 (VIDEO)

Okay, looks like things are back on path... busy episode too.

Next up, though - got some BABYMETAL coming, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 19, 2019

I did not expect this week to be that tumultuous. Granted, a major part of this comes from the minor album bomb courtesy of Summer Walker - which is just under the cutoff which means I'll be covering every entry in detail, which I don't mind given my curiosity into all the hype there - but there was a surprising amount of movement on the Hot 100, which makes for the sort of busy week that I'm actually intrigued to cover... so yeah, strap in, there's a lot here!

video review: 'flicker' by niall horan

I honestly have no idea why so many people are surprised I find this so damn satisfying, but my god, it just works for me. I can see this growing on a lot of people, especially if he releases more of the Fleetwood-esque songs.

But now, for something far worse...

album review: 'flicker' by niall horan

I think I've been looking forward to this record more than... well, pretty much everyone else. And that's not entirely surprising - if you've followed One Direction's career arc, Niall Horan didn't really seem to stand out. Liam and Louis had more writing credits, Zayn and Harry seemed to have more personality and wanted to make bigger statements, with admittedly mixed results. Hell, even when I covered his debut single 'This Town', I expressed some surprise that he was out of the gate ahead of Harry and Liam, who would both go on to having more success throughout this year.

And yet there was an odd part of me that actually kind of liked this guy. I didn't think his writing was stellar but he seemed to have good instincts and a decent sense of maturity. And I liked many of his collaborators - I've always thought Tobias Jesso Jr. is better behind the scenes than on his own work, there's a credit from Dan Wilson formerly of Semisonic, somehow he managed to get a guest appearance from Maren Morris, and for as much as Greg Kurstin has frustrated me over 2017, for this sort of understated acoustic project I hoped he would be a good fit. On top of that, it was just over a half hour - it didn't seem to have the ambition to go huge that Harry and Zayn did, and if the writing was good, maybe smaller stakes could serve him well. So okay, did we get anything worthwhile out of Flicker?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 7, 2017 (VIDEO)

So I've been off my game updating this here... okay, so here's the last episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 7, 2017

So we're now in our last two months of the Billboard year - it ends in November, and yes, that makes both more and less sense than you think it does - and yet I'm a little surprised how uncertain the Hot 100 feels right now. Granted, this is one of those weeks that feels deceptively quiet in that we only had a few new arrivals, but again, major turbulence is coming considering the albums on the horizon, and it'll be fascinating to see what cracks first.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 20, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this episode got a LOT of conversation... huh, a little surprised, to be honest, especially with so many mediocre tracks. Oh well.

Next up... ooh boy, it's Logic. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 20, 2017

So I think it's fairly obvious that we live in uncertain times, and while music critics and cultural anthropologists will debate how much the music that charts will reflect the world around us, I think you could make a case for the Hot 100 being the most unsettled it's been in some time. Because while you could make a story about Katy Perry collaborating with Migos, or the fight for dominance between One Direction members, or that Gorillaz for no discernable reason failed to sell enough to chart this week, the big story is for the third time in three weeks, we have a new #1... and like with the others, there's no clear indication of how long it'll last.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 15, 2016 (VIDEO)

Pretty short week here - actually skipped World Hit altogether mostly because there was so little to talk about (and you couldn't pay me to talk about James Arthur, someone who got booted from Syco because even SImon Cowell couldn't stand him - WOW).

Beyond that, though... Bon Iver. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 15, 2016

So after this week we're now in the final seven weeks of the Billboard year - which yes, ends in November - the last chances for songs to snag spots on the year-end Billboard Hot 100 list, which like it or not can serve as a pretty definitive historical record of this year in pop music. And thus for me, who uses that year-end chart as a strict guideline for tracking my best and worst hits of the year, this is where the horse race starts to get tight indeed. And given that 2016 has been such a dumpster fire of a year for pop music, it's more of a desperate hope that a few long gone songs hold their place and a few new arrivals rack up enough presence fast enough.