billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 6, 2019 (VIDEO)

Honestly, I've been tinkering with the past few episodes in the audio mixing and thus far it's turning out well - generally nice.

Next up, though... Gibbs is coming, folks. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 6, 2019

So remember when I said last week that it looked like things were about to be changing? It's hard not to look at the Hot 100 right now and think that the disruptions are starting to come en masse - not the album bomb I expected from Lil Nas X, sure, but we still got four new songs in the top quarter of the charts, as well as a few shifts I definitely did not predict - we could be in for an interesting summer, just putting it out there.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 18, 2019 (VIDEO)

Okay, here we go - pretty bad week, but at least the Bazzi song was good, right? Right?

Anyway, I've got Logic or Emotional Oranges to be covered next, we'll see - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 18, 2019

...so yeah, there are weeks where I'm wrong, and then there's this week, where I might have been expecting a slowdown - which in some categories we did get - only for a few big singles to disrupt the top 10 from out of nowhere and force me to re-evaluate where the chart could be going in the next few weeks. Now granted, one of those singles is coming from an album that's also out of nowhere - and boy oh boy, I can't tell you how much I don't want to cover it - but still, this is one of those cases where I feel I should have seen this coming, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't.

video review: 'shawn mendes' by shawn mendes

So I sincerely doubt this video will be dislike-bombed in the same way the last Shawn Mendes review was... but hey, you never know?

Anyway, I've got Billboard BREAKDOWN and a lot of other reviews to get through this week - stay tuned!

album review: 'shawn mendes' by shawn mendes

Yep, let's do this again.

So if you all remember the last time I talked about Shawn Mendes in a full review, it didn't go well by any stretch of the imagination, mostly because he had taken the promising upbeat Ed Sheeran-knockoff tones into the most blandly-produced, insufferably written and performed acoustic pop I've heard this decade. Let me reiterate that for those in the back: Illuminate by Shawn Mendes is a bad record, and 'Treat You Better' is one of the worst hits of the 2010s, by far the worst hit song of 2016. And yes, I'll freely admit my disappointment bled into that review, because Shawn Mendes had potential coming out of Handwritten - hell, so long as he had consistent momentum on his songs he could deliver quality - but doubling down on the 'nice guy with acoustic guitar' template was about the worst potential direction he could take. And while a fair amount to blame lands on Teddy Geiger, ultimately it was Mendes who stuck with this direction.

And then something happened. Maybe it was the success of the tacked-on bonus track 'There's Nothing Holding Me Back' that actually restored a glimmer of hope Mendes could deliver again, maybe it was a renewed focus on expanding his sound instead of doubling down on the worst tropes of his genre, but Mendes' newest singles were heading in a slicker, more groove-centric direction and I couldn't complain. Yeah, I wasn't pleased to see a collaborating credit with Julia Michaels on this self-titled release, but if Mendes was going the way of Charlie Puth in tightening up his sound and writing, I was willing to give him another chance. So Shawn Mendes fans, I'm burying the hatchet and going in with some optimism - he's got nowhere to go but up with me, so what did we get from Shawn Mendes?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 19, 2018 (VIDEO)

And it's out... and that means I might be able to go to bed on time on a Tuesday... nice.

Anyway, looks like it's Beach House next, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 19, 2018

So I've said a number of times that the most interesting weeks on the Hot 100 are not those of the album bombs, but the week right after, when things seem to reset to some form of equilibrium and the charts regain some sort of stability, for better or worse. And in the week following two album bombs in a row, you'd expect the recovery to be more pronounced... and then Childish Gambino unleashed 'This Is America'. And unsurprisingly, that's the much bigger story to discuss later on this show, but make no mistake, we will be talking about it, albeit with more of a focus on the song than the video.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 7, 2018 (VIDEO)

And here we go - but it's not the only video dropping tonight, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 7, 2018

And now we get a cooldown week... whew. Sort of what I was expecting, given that there wasn't really any big crossover releases outside of some scattered singles - and really, there are some songs that are lingering longer than I'm personally comfortable - but hey, given how busy I have been, I will take what I can get.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 31, 2018 (VIDEO)

Heh, this turned out WAY more controversial than I expected... eh, it happens.

Next up, something way better than everything I'm talking about here - enjoy!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 31, 2018

You know, given how the past week has been it's been very tempting of me to just step up in here, say the Billboard Hot 100 shit itself inside out like most of the rest of this year - and let's not mince words, it's about as bad as I've seen it in the past few years - but hey, it could have been worse, right? We didn't get a full album bomb from XXXTENTACION, and while I sure as hell don't think our replacements are anything close to good, I have to keep reassuring myself with the thoughts that this could be a much more miserable experience than it is.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 13, 2017 (VIDEO)

I think people who were a lot higher on the Paramore song probably enjoyed this week a lot more than I did... meh, it happens.

But next up, we've got something that's waited FAR too long... stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 13, 2017

So I was expecting this week to feel dispiriting. Kendrick falls off the top spot, the aftermath of DAMN. as the chart naturally corrects to a less promising state... but here's the honest truth: despite some absolute trash on the Hot 100 right now, I'm generally pretty pleased with the current state of affairs. Good songs have held enough traction to make a serious shot at the year-end list, I'm seeing promising continuity into the summer, and while there are problems, they feel isolated in comparison with the larger trends. 

the top ten worst hit songs of 2016 (VIDEO)

So this happened... awful songs on a pretty horrible year-end list, but hey, it happens.

Next up, though, is the best hits of 2016 - man, looking forward to that one, so stay tuned!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2016

I'm going to try and maintain a level composure for as long as possible with this list. I know so many of you will want me to get good and furious - after all, it's the Worst Hits of 2016, this is when you're supposed to deliver the killing blow with righteous fury. This is your chance to exile the dregs to whatever just punishment they deserve, take a blowtorch to the rectum of a year that so many music critics have already branded as one of the worst in recent memory, certainly this decade. And if you look at the year-end Hot 100...

Well, here's the thing: due to my stipulation that I can only choose songs from that list, and the fact that I have my weekly show Billboard BREAKDOWN discussing all of these changes in detail, I've been acutely aware of this disaster for months now - I've seen it happen in slow motion. The calls of '2016 is the worst' picked up in the summer and exploded this fall - not helped by cultural forces beyond the charts themselves - but it becomes disheartening when you've been coping with it week after week and you can explain in excruciating detail why this happened. What it reminds me of most are the charts in the very early 90s - replacing Paula Abdul ripoffs for Rihanna ripoffs, an embrace of tepid tropical or adult contemporary sounds in pop that stank of non-effort, and when there were new acts on the horizon they looked to have no sustainable future in sight - or at the very least you hoped they didn't. Hell, even country in the early 90s was on the upswing thanks to the neotraditional sound like the Americana revival today, but whereas we could look to shifting trends in hip-hop and rock to revitalize that decade going forward... well, in rap we somehow managed to get the dregs of an otherwise promising year and the most 'rock' getting airplay was twenty one pilots and X Ambassadors. As I said, every critic has already told you this year was dreck, now it's time to go deeper and count out the worst of the worst. Fair warning, this is going to get ugly, so let's start with Dishonourable Mentions!

video review: 'illuminate' by shawn mendes

So this was terrible. Already some people are getting peeved, but look, writing this bad needs to be taken to task, especially given the audience it's directed. Miserable listen, and when my backlog is so long, there's no excuse for something like this wasting my time.

On that note, How To Dress Well is next - stay tuned!

album review: 'illuminate' by shawn mendes

Oh, I haven't been looking forward to this.

Hell, anybody who has been watching Billboard BREAKDOWN or my last review already knows that, but let's skip back a year to chart out how we got here. Believe it or not, when I covered Handwritten last year I was going in with some high expectations, or at least a hope that Mendes could rise above his Vine star origins to flesh out actual songs. For the most part, that didn't really happen, which is why Handwritten fell below a pass for me, as he tried emulating Justin Timberlake by way of Ed Sheeran that lacked the interesting instrumentation or witty writing to get there. But still, a part of me wanted to root for this kid, and I still hold that 'Something Big' is a damn good song.

But ever since then, my opinion on Shawn Mendes has been plummeting in record time, as more singles have exposed flaws and issues that I was hoping Mendes could avoid. His writing was slipping perilously close to the self-aggrandizing douchebaggery that is symptomatic of the 'white guy with acoustic guitar' moniker, and the increasingly sterile production and delivery was not helping, all the more evidence Mendes was being pushed by his handlers in that direction. And from what I had heard going into Illuminate... well, suffice to say I was gearing up for a real disaster, even if I had some hope this fellow Canadian might be able to pull something together on his sophomore project. So what happened?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 10, 2016 (VIDEO) (VACATION REVIEW!)

This is the first video I've ever shot that's entirely handheld... not sure it entirely works, but I'm overall pretty happy with it, especially in terms of the picture quality. And plus, Barcelona!

Next up... ah, okay, Glass Animals soon, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - june 25, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a quick episode. Shame so much of it sucked, but what can you do, really...

Okay, I think I've got to cover this Jon Bellion thing for all of you to stop asking already, and then Brandy Clark - stay tuned!