billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 4, 2018 (VIDEO)

So this was... generally pretty okay, I think. Yeah, let's go with that.

Next up, Cody Jinks - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 4, 2018

You know, I'm always hesitant about saying the charts are back to 'normal' at any point, especially in 2018 where we have album bombs every other week and especially in comparison to years where we got fewer entries... but outside of one new top ten entry in particular, this week was pretty typical. Not precisely great by any margin, but it doesn't appear to be that bad either...

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 - july 7, 2018 (VIDEO)

And that's the first here - overall a pretty messy week but there was some quality...

But now onto something a lot better...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 7, 2018

Not gonna lie, I needed an easy cooldown week. There's a couple big releases on the docket that I'm working towards and I'm coming up on my fifth anniversary on YouTube so there are other things I'd rather focus on, so just a moment to catch my breath before the avalanche of Drake... yeah, that's very welcome.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 30, 2018 (VIDEO)

So I don't think people were expecting how harsh I was in this video.

Oh well, I'm not going to mince words, and I've already made my lengthy pieces surrounding XXXTENTACION. It's your choice to not reckon with the consequences of your listening choices, not mine.

Anyway, might as well talk Death Grips next, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 30, 2018

...you know, it's funny, people were reaching out to me for my reaction when XXXTENTACION posthumously went to #1 this week and all I tweeted was '...'. That was it, and people assumed or projected so many emotions upon that tweet... when reality I just did not care. And I still don't - I've said my piece on XXXTENTACION a number of times, my review of ? was over fifteen minutes long, and to see this response... well, it's very telling to say the least, that in the dumpster fire of the Hot 100 in 2018, instead of any of his other songs American audiences chose to send the one where he's guilt-tripping a significant other by threatening suicide to the #1. 

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 23, 2018 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a pretty decent week. Not quite one of my better episodes, to be honest, but alright enough...

But now onto the true controversy, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 23, 2018

So I'll be honest: if there's a week that feels like a bit of a breather for me, it's this one. Yes, we got an album bomb from Kanye and Kid Cudi, but thanks to it actually being pretty good and not having an avalanche of other new arrivals, this week actually feels a little more restrained for once, and before Scorpion crashes in a few weeks, I'll take what I can get.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 12, 2018 (VIDEO)

So I thought I was going to be ahead of schedule getting this up last night... and then goddamn WMG claimed a clip and blocked it in all countries, so I had to rerender this shit and do it all again.

Anyway, it's Iceage next - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 12, 2018

And now we have round two, the second record-breaking album bomb in as many weeks and one from an arguably worse record... and yet somehow it doesn't quite feel as big, at least to me. It's still sizable - we have eighteen new arrivals this week - but since the majority of it is Post Malone and I already reviewed the record and likely will have even less to say, it feels less noticeable overall. Or maybe I just feel better because at the end of June Billboard will be releasing new streaming rules that'll likely curtail some of this mess, but that's a story for another day.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 28, 2018 (VIDEO)

So yeah, this week was kind of messy... but hey, it could be worse (like what I'm expecting next week), so on that topic...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 28, 2018

You know, it's only in the streaming album bomb era where the cool down week gets any sort of appreciation. I can't even say it was a great week here - honestly, doesn't really look like it, especially in comparison with my mostly positive feelings about Cardi B and 'Nice For What' last week - but considering we have J Cole coming in from around the corner for next week and then whatever the hell Post Malone unleashes the week right after... yeah, I'll take whatever slower moments I can get.

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.

the top ten worst hit songs of 2017 (VIDEO)

It's here, it's already controversial, and apparently the damn video malfunctioned because after rendering the damn thing three times I can't catch a break. Ah well, best hits of 2017 is coming in a day or two, stay tuned!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2017

There have been years where writing this list is easy. Sometimes it's like 2015 or 2012, where the bad songs can't diminish otherwise diminish a strong or interesting year - or on the flip side we get years like 2016, where the avalanche of awful is so pronounced I almost have too much material, and while that list might be painful to revisit, sheer rage makes it all surge out.

2017 has not been that year, and it's a little tough to explain why. You could make a comparison to 2014 in how so much of this year defaulted towards average instead of a more pronounced brand of awful - I'm certainly not as angry towards this list as I've been in previous years - but the truly excellent hits were much stronger in 2017. What I think has befuddled some critics is how pop was effectively overtaken by the hip-hop and R&B aesthetic on the Hot 100 - it might have become more pronounced in 2013 but in 2017 the takeover was complete, and if you weren't paying more attention to streaming instead of radio, you were going to be left behind. And thus in 2017 the truly bad songs are a bit of a mix of the pop songs tumbling towards the monogenre and the lazy, bargain-barrel dumpster fire that is the dregs of trap. And again, to establish the rules the songs had to debut on the year-end Hot 100 list for 2017, and purely boring doesn't just cut it for me. Given how much of this I've covered on Billboard BREAKDOWN, I've long been numbed to the endless swirl of interchangeable trap bangers and their brand of disposable mediocrity. If you want to land on this list, you need to really irritate me or piss me off, so let's get going with some Dishonourable Mentions!

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

Lighter week, for sure, but I wouldn't really say a better one, to be honest.

Thankfully, next up is both lighter and better, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 16, 2017

So this is a point we typically hit around this time of the year: the charts start to slow down for the holiday season, we get a few extraneous songs from The Voice - just one thus far - and a sense that barring a major disruption, we're going to have some stability. Granted, said stability could be disrupted by that Eminem record dropping in just over a week, but that'll remain to be seen.