The Chainsmokers (2) – Week Of December 22, 2018

Hey guys! A lot of stuff is happening this week. I wanted this post out as soon as I could because I plan on getting Year-End posts out starting this week. The first one will hopefully be out Monday evening. So since I'm working on that, this post will be a little shorter than usual. I'll talk a lot about the debuts, but there won't be as many blurbs. Also, the Hits 1 Year-End countdown has begun airing, but I won't review it for a little while because I have other Year-End posts I want to get done first. So yeah. I think I covered everything. Before we get to this week's Fresh 45, here are the songs we're saying goodbye to this week.

• Imagine Dragons – Whatever It Takes (#31) [1 Week At #1]
• Shawn Mendes/Zedd – Lost In Japan (#33)
• Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper – Shallow (#37)
• Taylor Swift – Delicate (#43)
• Calvin Harris/Sam Smith – Promises (#45)

Last Week's #1 Song: The Chainsmokers/Kelsea Ballerini – This Feeling

The Countdown

45. Shawn Mendes – In My Blood (#44) [2 Weeks At #1]

44. NOTD/Bea Miller – I Wanna Know (#38)

43. George Ezra – Shotgun (#41)

42. Bazzi/Camila Cabello – Beautiful (#42)

41. Twenty One Pilots – My Blood (#21)

40. Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey – The Middle (#40) [9 Weeks At #1]

39. Steve Aoki/BTS – Waste It On Me (DEBUT)

38. Charlie Puth – The Way I Am (#39)

37. Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus – Nothing Breaks Like A Heart (DEBUT)

36. Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen (Saturday Night) (#34) [4 Weeks At #1]

35. Silk City/Dua Lipa – Electricity (#36)

34. James Arthur – Empty Space (DEBUT)

33. The Chainsmokers/Emily Warren – Side Effects (#26)

32. Lauv/Julia Michaels – There's No Way (#25)

31. David Guetta/Anne-Marie – Don't Leave Me Alone (#24)

30. Backstreet Boys – Don't Go Breaking My Heart (#27)

29. Selena Gomez – Back To You (#28)

28. Twenty One Pilots – Chlorine (DEBUT)

27. Ellie Goulding/Diplo/Swae Lee – Close To Me (DEBUT)
26. Shawn Mendes – Nervous (#19)
25. Little Mix/Nicki Minaj – Woman Like Me (#22)
24. Maroon 5/Cardi B – Girls Like You (#29)
23. Lauren Jauregui – Expectations (#32)
22. Olly Murs/Snoop Dogg – Moves (#35)
21. Bebe Rexha – I'm a Mess (#12)
20. Imagine Dragons – Natural (#6) [1 Week At #1]
19. Ariana Grande – Breathin (#7)
18. lovelytheband – Broken (#15)
17. Camila Cabello – Consequences (#20)
16. The Struts/Kesha – Body Talks (#17)
15. Ava Max – Sweet But Psycho (#30)
14. Alec Benjamin – Let Me Down Slowly (#23)
13. Benny Blanco/Halsey/Khalid – Eastside (#18)
12. Dan + Shay – Tequila (#13)
11. Post Malone/Swae Lee – Sunflower (#14)
10. Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next (#16)
  9. Panic! At The Disco – Hey Look Ma, I Made It (#11)
  8. Anne-Marie – 2002 (#9)
  7. Fall Out Boy – The Last Of The Real Ones (#8) [2 Weeks At #1]
  6. Khalid/Normani – Love Lies (#10)
  5. 5 Seconds of Summer – Youngblood (#3) [5 Weeks At #1]
  4. Halsey – Without Me (#5)
  3. Marshmello/Bastille – Happier (#4) [2 Weeks At #1]
  2. Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes (#2) [8 Weeks At #1]
  1. The Chainsmokers/Kelsea Ballerini – This Feeling (#1) [2^nd Week At #1]

#1 Song This Week One Year Ago: Ed Sheeran – Perfect (1)

Biggest DROP!!!... Of The Week: Twenty One Pilots – My Blood (–20)

Biggest Jump Of The Week: Ava Max – Sweet But Psycho (+15)

New Entrants
~ It seems like a lot of DJs have been producing some mediocre songs lately. Steve Aoki brings us Waste It On Me featuring the extremely overrated BTS. I don't dislike this as much as I thought it would. Surprisingly, the vocals are fine. I don't think they sound that bad. The production, however, is pretty mediocre and Steve Aoki gets the blame for that. This man has made some better dance tracks in the past. Waste It On Me is not that interesting overall and I don't see this growing on me.

~ Next we have Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus returning with Nothing Breaks Like A Heart, which is a pretty great song. I didn't love this at first listen, but it grew on me very quickly. Everything about the production here is fantastic. This is a top-notch-produced track. The guitars just sell this song for me. I think they sound really great. Miley Cyrus gives a great vocal performance as well. I will say she has done better in the past, but she has also done worse. Overall though, she is a great singer and I think she sounds pretty damn good here. The lyrics are solid. I can't think of one bad thing about this song. I really like it a lot and I hope it becomes a big hit because I think it's very deserving of it.

~ At #34, we have James Arthur with Empty Space. My parents just heard this song for the first time the other day and of course they both really like it and were shocked when I said I didn't think it was that good. I like Say You Won't Let Go mostly because it's a sweet love song, although James Arthur does sound pretty good. But with this song, I don't think his voice fits very well. I think slower songs are better for him and his voice. His shouting in the chorus to this song reminds me of Never Be The Same by Camila Cabello where she does a very similar thing. And it just does not sound good. He has one of those voices where it can sound good if used a certain way, but can also sound excruciating if used another way. Empty Space falls more into the latter category unfortunately. And that's the main problem with this song. So I don't really like this overall. James Arthur is capable of better.

~ Next we have Twenty One Pilots with another song from Trench, this one titled Chlorine. This seems to be a fan favorite for some reason, why I think is why it's here. But as someone who does not think Twenty One Pilots are nearly as good as people make them out to be, I don't think this song is any good. In fact it's probably one of the worst songs on the album, which I personally did not like aside from songs like Levitate. I just find Chlorine annoying for some reason and Tyler Joseph does not sound good, which I found to be a consistent problem all throughout Trench. The lyrics probably have good meaning to them. But musically, I don't think this is very good at all and I would prefer if it didn't get overrated.

~ Finally, we have Ellie Goulding making her long-awaited return with Close To Me. I kind of liked this one at first. But now I don't think it's that good unfortunately. Ellie Goulding has made some of the best pop songs in recent years. So naturally, I have high expectations for her and I expect her to deliver when she puts out new material. I don't think Close To Me meets those expectations. It's a very weird song if I'm being totally honest and I think the main problem is the strange as hell production. Ellie Goulding sounds pretty good here so none of the blame really goes to her. I think Diplo got a little LSD-weird with the production and makes it not that interesting. I just think this is a very weird song for Ellie Goulding and I was expecting more with this comeback single. I'm happy it's getting big because she does deserve more hits. This song is just personally not my cup of tea.


Best Debut of the Week: Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus – Nothing Breaks Like A Heart


Hit-Bound
~ Here is the Hit-Bound list.

• Lauren Daigle – You Say
• Charli XCX/Troye Sivan – 1999
• Dan + Shay – Speechless
• 5 Seconds Of Summer – Killer Queen
• Alessia Cara – Trust My Lonely
• Seeb/Bastille – Grip
• Imagine Dragons – Machine
• Pitbull/Rhea – Ocean To Ocean (DEBUT)
• Avril Lavigne – Tell Me It's Over (DEBUT)
• Benny Blanco/Calvin Harris – I Found You (DEBUT)
• Dean Lewis – Be Alright
• Khalid – Better
• Stephen Puth – Sexual Vibe (DEBUT)
• Zara Larsson – Ruin My Life
• lovelytheband – Maybe, I'm Afraid (DEBUT)

~ Congratulations, Pitbull. You just gave the world another reason to hate you. I didn't even hate Weezer's cover of Africa. But Pitbull is honestly the last person who should be sampling from that song. This has to be some kind of joke. Rhea does not sound that good and Pitbull's verses are typical nonsense. But seriously, who the hell gave him the green light to do this??? This is terrible and people seem to agree since the video has 14K likes and 83K dislikes.

~ Fortunately right after, we get an amazing song that makes up for Pitbull's nonsense. It is Tell Me It's Over by Avril Lavigne. I was a little annoyed that they ignored Head Above Water, which was a very great song. But still, Tell Me It's Over is a fantastic song that shows off Avril Lavigne's vocal capabilities even better than Head Above Water. I think she sounds fantastic and I love the production. Everything about this is great. I'm so happy Avril Lavigne is back with new music. I've been waiting so long and I'm anticipating the album, which I think comes out in February. But knowing Avril's talent and how these first two songs sound, I have no doubt that it'll be great.

~ Following that, we have I Found You by Benny Blanco and Calvin Harris. Unfortunately, I don't think this song is that good. I find the production to be very basic and almost kind of generic. There's just nothing interesting about it and nothing that makes it stand out from other pop songs these days. Calvin Harris has a decent voice for a producer, but he's a pretty generic singer overall. He should not be a go-to artist for vocals. I understand if he uses his vocals for his own songs. But nothing more than that because his voice is not really that great. So yeah. This is pretty basic overall.

~ Next is the sibling of a Hits 1 favorite. It's Stephen Puth with Sexual Vibe. I found this song kind of strange at first. But I actually kind of like it a reasonable amount. I think the production is solid. It's fairly enjoyable. I wasn't head over heels for this guy's voice at first. But I kind of like the deepness of it. I think deep voices like his are pretty sexy. I'm not gonna lie. But as a singer, I do think he's okay and he has potential to improve. So I like Sexual Vibe and I could see it growing on me even more.

~ Lastly, we have lovelytheband with Maybe, I'm Afraid. I've only listened to this once so far and I thought it was okay. It wasn't exactly that interesting. But then again, that was my initial reaction to Broken. So this could grow on me with more listens. We'll see what happens with time.

Top 5 Hit-Bound Picks

1. Avril Lavigne – Tell Me It's Over

2. Dan + Shay – Speechless

3. Khalid – Better

4. Lauren Daigle – You Say

5. Stephen Puth – Sexual Vibe

Nothing Blurbs Like A Heart

~ Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next because people really like this boringness of a song. Again, I like what it was going for. But Ariana has done so much better. I don't think this song is that good and I'm a little annoyed that Breathin only got one week in the Top 10 because of this. But then again, Hits 1 was kind of late with Breathin. Still though, there should have been more time before Thank U, Next was released.

~ I love how Girls Like You and Woman Like Me are placed back-to-back this week.

~ Twenty One Pilots – My Blood took quite a bit into the Bottom 5. It's kind of unfortunate because this song is a lot better than Chlorine. This is one single from Trench that deserved to do well and it didn't unfortunately. Hopefully Chlorine goes a similar route or does worse.

~ NOTD/Bea Miller – I Wanna Know thankfully dropped into the Bottom 5. While this is going to end surviving into 2019, I'm hoping we can get rid of it before the end of January because this should not have been here this long. It was never even that good before it got overrated.

~ As far as the exits go, Promises wasn't exactly going to last. Delicate had quite a run for a Reputation single. Even though I don't really like the song, I'm glad it was successful. Whatever It Takes had a great run this year and I'm so glad it was as big as it got. I still remember when this spent forever on Hit-Bound and I started worrying that it wouldn't debut. It ended up being the hit that I wanted it to be, which makes me happy. Lost In Japan and Shallow both deserved better as both are great songs that were pretty severely underrated. Both of those songs will definitely be missed by me.

Top 20 Review

0 – Crap:

20. Halsey – Without Me

19. Alec Benjamin – Let Me Down Slowly

1 – Bad:

18. Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next

2 – Mediocre:

17. Anne-Marie – 2002

3 – Decent:

16. Post Malone/Swae Lee – Sunflower

4 – Good:

15. The Chainsmokers/Kelsea Ballerini – This Feeling

5 – Great:

14. lovelytheband – Broken

13. Ava Max – Sweet But Psycho

12. Imagine Dragons – Natural

11. 5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood

10. Panic! At The Disco – Hey Look Ma, I Made It

9. Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes

8. Khalid/Normani – Love Lies

7. Fall Out Boy – The Last Of The Real Ones

6. Camila Cabello – Consequences

5. Marshmello/Bastille – Happier

4. Benny Blanco/Halsey/Khalid – Eastside

3. Ariana Grande – Breathin

2. Dan + Shay – Tequila

BONUS: 6 – Best Song On The Countdown:

1. The Struts/Kesha – Body Talks

Overall Score: 81/100 = 81% (A)

Throwback Pick Of The Week: Paul McCartney – Wonderful Christmastime

Most Missed Countdown Song: Adam Lambert – Ghost Town

#1 Recommendation For Hits 1: Sam Smith – Fire On Fire

Favorite Countdown Song This Week One Year Ago: Tie Between Macklemore/Kesha – Good Old Days (#23) and Walk The Moon – One Foot (#40)

My Top 5 Picks

1. The Struts/Kesha – Body Talks

2. Dan + Shay – Tequila

3. Backstreet Boys – Don't Go Breaking My Heart

4. Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus – Nothing Breaks Like A Heart

5. Ariana Grande – Breathin