billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 14, 2018

...you know, there was a time when an album bomb happened it would at least slow existing traffic on the Hot 100. But since The Weeknd's new EP only had six songs - and seems like it's already vanishing from the cultural conversation given how flat and turgid it was - aside from every single song from it breaking we also had a pretty active week regardless - at least until the next album bomb with Cardi B, and I'd put a fair amount of money on that being far more disruptive.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 22, 2017 (VIDEO)

My lord, this was a rough week to get through. Not exactly terrible, but mediocrity is almost worse on some level.

Eh, whatever, time for something more recent, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 22, 2017

Okay, maybe I'm just not as in-tune with what will cross onto the Hot 100 as I thought as I was, especially when it comes to album tracks. I knew that Jay-Z's 4:44 would take the wide release to land on the Hot 100, but I did think that there'd be at least a few album tracks from Calvin Harris' last release that'd have a chance, or maybe a bit of traction for Kesha's big comeback single 'Praying'... but while of course it landed on the Canadian charts, thanks to not getting a full tracking week it just missed the Hot 100, and what we got instead... well, it's interesting, I'll say that.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 25, 2017 (VIDEO)

This was certainly a less excruciating week than last time - more diversity here, for one - and I'm fascinated to see how the Grammys impact things going forward. Until then, back to my schedule and... hmm, P.O.S.. Well, this could be fun, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 25, 2017

So folks, did you have enough of me talking about Big Sean when the review dropped last night? Well, it's not over - because to replace Migos and as a lead-in to the expected chaos that'll come with the Grammys, Big Sean brought in six new songs to the Hot 100 to an already busy week. Yeah, believe it or not, I'm not sure he's the biggest story here, from some major shifts in our top ten to a swathe of new arrivals peppering the rest of the Hot 100.

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 9, 2016 (VIDEO)

Yeah, I know, I've been a tad late on videos over the past few days. Part of that is getting into the groove of vacation, part of it is deciphering this Swans record. And speaking of which... well, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 9, 2016

So last week was one of the worst I'd seen on the Billboard Hot 100 in a long time - it was genuinely disheartening trying to put that episode together, pretty painful all things considered. But the good thing about hitting rock bottom is that you can always recover, and while I wouldn't say everything clicked on the Hot 100 here, I do see signs of improvement that should definitely be called out.

video review: 'still brazy' by yg

Well, this was pretty interesting. Not a great release, but definitely a good one, recommended.

Still need more time for Swans, though, so let's handle Jon Pardi - stay tuned!

album review: 'still brazy' by yg

It's kind of amazing how much hip-hop has mutated over the past two years, isn't it?

Because if you look at the current hip-hop sound, it's in a weird place: a little more organic and melodic, drenched in autotune and trap hi-hats, and sitting in a weird place where any rapper with the slightest amount of buzz online or on Vine can blow up, especially in the mainstream. And yet if you go back just two years, while those trap trends were there, it was a very different sound that was dominant, minimalist and more touching a bass-heavy West Coast sound driven most by the LA producer DJ Mustard. 

Now let's be clear, his star has faded a lot, but if you want to find the rapper at the epicenter of his sound, look no further than YG, who released his debut album My Krazy Life that year. Before then he was most well-known for the oh-so-charming 'Toot It And Boot It' from back in 2010, but YG took his ground-level Compton gangsta rap to new heights working with DJ Mustard's stripped down synths and production. And I'll admit I was very hard on that record, but for good reason - he got shown up by a significant chunk of his big name guest stars, his own content was inconsistent and rarely treading new ground, and even if it was, doing the bare minimum in production didn't elevate the record to anything all that special for me. I can appreciate the street-level gangsta's view in Compton, but again, it really did feel like he was doing the bare minimum.

And then something happened. I'm not sure what it was, but the YG features I started hearing were getting measurably stronger in terms of flow, content, and even subtext. And given he ditched DJ Mustard completely for his sophomore album Still Brazy, I had to hope that maybe he could pull off a stronger release - was I right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 25, 2015 (VIDEO)

I honest to God thought I couldn't get this done tonight. The filming was hell, I started late, and I was bleary-eyed and exhausted. Whew.

Okay, next is Tyler, and then I have a slew of reviews I shouldn't have any problem knocking out... plus I've got a surprise planned for this weekend. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 25, 2015

Well, it finally happened. Fourteen weeks into its run, just a scant few weeks from breaking a record held for nearly twenty years, it was unseated by a dark horse soundtrack hit by a subpar rapper and a YouTuber that nobody could have seen coming. Yes, the rest of the week happened and gave me a fair amount to actually talk about, but in a rare occurence on this show, it actually looks like our Top Ten might be more interesting - because this week, 'Uptown Funk' by Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars lost the #1 slot.

the top ten worst hit songs of 2014 (VIDEO)

First of our year-end lists, and sadly the one that will probably get the most traffic. Go figure.

Next up is the list of the best hit songs - stay tuned!

the top ten worst hit songs of 2014

So, another year, another Billboard Year-End list, another assorted collection of hits and misses, and another year end list from me where I take a long hard look at the biggest charting songs of the year and pick out the best and worst.

Now for those of you who aren't familiar, let's go over the rules. A song can only make this list if it first landed on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End chart for 2014. There may be songs from last year that qualify - I can think of a few - but it needs to hit the list this year. And of course there were worse songs that I heard this year on albums that could easily outstrip huge chunks of this list - I'm not going to mention them, they don't deserve more attention - but I want to make the point that we're looking at the hits that got under my skin and annoyed or angered me. Songs that are just excruciatingly boring don't really make the cut here - 'boring' can be a factor, but there needs to be something aggressively wrong with the song to join this august company.

The other important thing to mention is that 2014 has, on average, been a stronger year than 2013, or at least more consistent. Up until the frantic reshuffling at the end of the year, this has been a pretty stodgy year with a few absolutely massive hits that wouldn't go away and prevented a lot of turnover. What this has meant is that many of the songs that have landed on this list don't inspire the same amount of real anger from me - of the majority I wouldn't say they are as deserving of vitriol as some of the really terrible tracks from last year.

That said, I think it's time for our dishonourable mentions!

video review: 'my krazy life' by yg

Well, I'm glad I got that out of my system.

Okay, next up is Madlib & Freddie Gibbs and Pinata. Stay tuned!

album review: 'my krazy life' by yg

I was going to skip this album.

And honestly, on first look, could you have blamed me? I've said a number of times in the past that the current crop of gangsta rappers have rarely interested me if they don't do something fresh with the formula, and YG looked like the poster child of not only cementing himself to that formula, but doing it worse than everyone else combined. Frankly, I was shocked to see him with a new album at all - for a rapper who built the first steps of his career off of the oh-so classy track 'Toot It And Boot It', I thought we had consigned him to the same memory hole in which we dumped Chingy, Mims, and Soulja Boy.

But then I thought to myself, 'Mark, get your head out of your ass, just because it's superficial and dumb party bangers doesn't mean they have to be bad, and it's not like all the material in this genre is stuff you dislike'. And to a point, that's true - I'll admit I've got a soft spot for certain brands of dumb gangsta rap, particularly in the crunk vein that was popular in the early-to-mid 2000s. But I guess some of my unironic liking for acts like Ludacris and especially Lil Jon came from the fact that what they didn't have in intelligence they made up in explosive, high-energy beats or solid technical rapping or even just an ability to go over the top with a populist vibe that can suck you in - call it the Andrew W.K. methodology, if you will. And yet with YG, his main collaborating producer is DJ Mustard, a producer who has already picked up a bad reputation in the hip-hop community for making sterile, lifeless beats that aren't all that interesting. 

In other words, the only reason why I'm covering this at all is because critical outlets that I normally respect started throwing scores that seemed suspiciously high at this album, so maybe I was presumptuous and missed something. And to give YG some credit, he did say he was drawing more inspiration from the 90s G-funk scene, most of which I do like, so I gave this album a couple of listens - how was it?