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.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 23, 2017 (VIDEO)

So yeah, this was actually a pretty decent week. What will come next... I'm honestly not sure, will need to check the schedule - so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 23, 2017

This is one of those weeks where I'm not really sure how to evaluate things, where I had a big prediction that came true faster than I could have predicted, and the rest that... didn't, because this turned out to be a slightly busier week than I predicted, partially triggered by the mass return of Christmas music - most of which I've already talked about in detail a while ago, so hopefully this'll be pretty short?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 1, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, look at that, a pretty damn good week on the show - and with Lorde coming up, it looks to be even better.

And speaking of Lorde... well, stay tuned! 

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 1, 2017

This week surprised me. In more ways than one actually, and for the most part they seem to be good surprises, where songs I was not looking forward to didn't show up, and a few that I never dared to dream would chart actually cracked through. To me, this is the sort of good news I've been conditioned not to expect going into the summer slowdown, and considering next week we'll probably get a big push for Lorde... yeah, maybe things are looking up?