billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 30, 2019 (VIDEO)

So yeah, slow week - hate the copyright claims, but I'm muscling through it, we'll see where this winds up.

Next up... you know, I'd like to get an episode of Resonators polished up first, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 30, 2019

Okay, when I predicted a slow week, I didn't expect it to be this slow - and kind of strange, the more you think about the few new arrivals we got. I'd say it's closer to a holding pattern than anything, but considering how much of 2019 has felt like that when it's come to releases, especially on the Hot 100, you have to wonder if or when a major shakeup will truly hit.

video review: 'sucker punch' by sigrid

Okay, this was a lot of fun... really enjoyed it, glad y'all pointed me to it.

But now onto a much uglier conversation - stay tuned!

album review: 'sucker punch' by sigrid

You know, sometimes I get the feeling that some of you pay a little too much attention to my content. And of course I'm not going to complain that much - appreciate the attention, turn on notifications and all that, would prefer to hear it from you than plenty of others - sometimes you're attentive enough that I wind up eating my words.

So Sigrid: young Norwegian pop singer-songwriter signed to Island, and much to my surprise, I had talked about her song 'Strangers' last year around this time on a slow week of Billboard BREAKDOWN as one of my World Hits. And I liked what I heard: some blaring synthpop with a fair bit of intensity and smart songwriting, it was the sort of song that was very easy for me to like as a critic, to the point where I said when her debut album dropped, I'd be happy to cover it... and then like most episodes of Billboard BREAKDOWN, I promptly forgot all about it until you guys started reminding me. And this isn't anything against her, let me stress this - I listen to a ton of music, stuff falls through the cracks, and for pop, you can definitely tell Sigrid is relying more on good writing and sharp composition than flash, and an unfortunate side effect of that is you can lose track of songs and artists. More to the point - and this is a warning sign that labels especially in the U.K. are trying to milk as many singles as possible without a ton of faith in the album - the first Sigrid songs packaged onto Sucker Punch were released as early as February 2017. That was concerning to me... but I did say I was going to cover this and I'm a man of my word, even as I'm still struggling to put my finger on why that Little Simz album isn't quite clicking the way it should. So okay, what did I get from Sucker Punch?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 3, 2018 (VIDEO)

Huh, this is up... WAY earlier than usual. And when the week is this decent, I'm all right with that!

Next up... well, we've got the Trailing Edge, but after that stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 3, 2018

Okay, I made the statement last week that things were likely to slow down - I didn't expect it to slow down this much. Of course, it was still a modestly busy week within the charts - fair number of gains and losses, sizable number of returning entries, even some top ten activity - but we only have two new songs this week, so regardless of what I do this is going to be pretty short... at least until 6ix9ine crashes in next week, but we'll deal with that engorged appendix when it explodes.