billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 10, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this episode generated a lot of backlash... eh, it happens. Overall, pretty happy with it, all things considered. 

Next up, though... really excited, have to say, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 10, 2017

So it looks like the charts have settled down for a bit heading into the summer months, and that means for me, things seem fairly normal. Hell, even the big shifts I expected coming off of records that I thought had a chance to cross over... well, it didn't happen. Instead, for once, things almost look straightforward or at the very least a little predictable, especially when we get to our new arrivals.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 13, 2016 (VIDEO)

As I said, better late than never.

Next up, Dream Theater - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 13, 2016

So you know how I've been predicting things were going to get seriously unstable on the Hot 100 for a while now? Well, we've got a big one this week - major shifts in the Top 10 including a new number one, a ton of major shifts up and down, and a big crop of new entries... a shame more of them aren't better, but we'll get to that. Of course, Billboard also exacerbated the situation with a choice to shift their chart formula to better temper the impact of streaming, which they did by slightly shifting the balance in favour of sales. So how did that turn out?

video review: 'rewind' by rascal flatts

Well, that was worth a good laugh, I can tell you that. Not a good album by a long shot, but man, I needed that burst of humour. Review was a ton of fun to film too.

Next up will be Coldplay - I just need more time to deal with Swans, so be patient, it's coming.

album review: 'rewind' by rascal flatts

I've said before that there was a period in my life where I drifted away from country music. And it wasn't because of any teenage rebellion or any nonsense like that, but there was just a period of time on mainstream country radio where I was getting nothing out of the music. It felt soulless and generic or lacking any sort of genuine emotion or feeling, and it wasn't as if it evoked a response from me other than just apathy. And I hate saying that about a genre I love, but I can't deny the facts that throughout the mid-to-late 2000s, outside of a few artists I couldn't be less interested in country music.

And of the many acts that got huge in that time frame, the band I blame the most was Rascal Flatts. For me, they were always the spiritual successors to Lonestar, in that they performed a lot of soaring, middle-of-the-road pop country and had very limited writing credits on their material. But unlike Lonestar's Richie McDonald with the pipes and passion to back up his material, you had Gary Levox, a singer who delivers his middle-of-the-road pablum with a smile as plastic as his music, and voice that did nothing for me whatsoever. It's telling that Rascal Flatts signed to Big Machine in 2010 and joined in with artists affiliated with Taylor Swift, because at their worst, both acts produce the same sort of utterly empty pop-country with not a hint of texture or depth in sight. 

And thus, I couldn't tell you how much I was dreading a review of this album, especially after the lip-syncing debacle at the American Country Music awards this year and the rumours that their newest album Rewind was an attempt to modernize their sound. And even though I've been reasonable with pop country acts like Keith Urban, Danielle Bradbury, Dan + Shay, and even Hunter Hayes in the past, there was nothing you could tell me that would make me think this album was good. But then that terrible voice in my head that's actively encouraging me to review Brantley Gilbert's upcoming atrocity spoke up and whispered, 'Dude, you can't judge an album fairly until you give it a chance to prove you wrong.' And yeah, that's true, so I picked up Rascal Flatts Rewind over continuing to work through the Swans discography or revisiting Mariah Carey's discography in preparation for her new album or even just relistening to Sturgill Simpson's new record for the dozenth time because that album explodes country awesomeness from every pore. Was Rascal Flatts worth it?