Halsey (2) – Week Of January 19, 2019

Hey guys! This week, the countdown was hosted by Twenty One Pilots, who seemed pretty good during the few minutes I actually listened to them since I did not actually hear the countdown in its entirety. In other news, I have more year-end posts hopefully coming soon and I'm planning on introducing my new rankdown very soon. So be on the lookout for that. My schedule will definitely be loaded for a little while. Before we get to this week's Fresh 45, here are the songs we're saying goodbye to this week.

• The Chainsmokers/Emily Warren – Side Effects (#38)
• Olly Murs/Snoop Dogg – Moves (#39)

Last Week's #1 Song: Halsey – Without Me

The Countdown

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

44. Zedd/Maren Morris/Grey – The Middle (#44) [9 Weeks At #1]

43. George Ezra – Shotgun (#43)

42. Jennifer Lopez – Limitless (DEBUT)

41. Charlie Puth – The Way I Am (#41)

40. Silk City/Dua Lipa – Electricity (#40)

39. Lauv/Julia Michaels – There's No Way (#31)

38. Steve Aoki/BTS – Waste It On Me (#42)

37. Bebe Rexha – I'm a Mess (#36)

36. Panic! At The Disco – Say Amen (Saturday Night) (#37) [4 Weeks At #1]

35. Little Mix/Nicki Minaj – Woman Like Me (#34)

34. Backstreet Boys – Don't Go Breaking My Heart (#35)

33. Selena Gomez – Back To You (#32)

32. Maroon 5/Cardi B – Girls Like You (#29)

31. Alessia Cara – Trust My Lonely (DEBUT)
30. lovelytheband – Broken (#24)
29. Camila Cabello – Consequences (#26)
28. The Struts/Kesha – Body Talks (#10)
27. Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus – Nothing Breaks Like A Heart (#25)
26. James Arthur – Empty Space (#24)
25. Zara Larsson – Ruin My Life (#30)
24. Fall Out Boy – The Last Of The Real Ones (#8) [2 Weeks At #1]
23. Lauren Jauregui – Expectations (#23)
22. Dan + Shay – Speechless (#33)
21. Khalid – Better (#28)
20. Ariana Grande – Breathin (#19)
19. Post Malone/Swae Lee – Sunflower (#11)
18. Imagine Dragons – Natural (#16) [1 Week At #1]
17. Ava Max – Sweet But Psycho (#13)
16. Twenty One Pilots – Chlorine (#20)
15. David Guetta/Anne-Marie – Don't Leave Me Alone (#15)
14. Imagine Dragons – Machine (#27)
13. Benny Blanco/Halsey/Khalid – Eastside (#17)
12. Dan + Shay – Tequila (#18)
11. Ellie Goulding/Diplo – Close To Me (#21)
10. Panic! At The Disco – Hey Look Ma, I Made It (#12)
  9. Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next (#9)
  8. Alec Benjamin – Let Me Down Slowly (#14)
  7. Anne-Marie – 2002 (#7)
  6. 5 Seconds of Summer – Youngblood (#5) [5 Weeks At #1]
  5. Khalid/Normani – Love Lies (#6)
  4. Marshmello/Bastille – Happier (#4) [2 Weeks At #1]
  3. Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes (#3) [8 Weeks At #1]
  2. The Chainsmokers/Kelsea Ballerini – This Feeling (#2) [4 Weeks At #1]
  1. Halsey – Without Me (#1) [2^nd Week At #1]

#1 Song This Week One Year Ago: Imagine Dragons – Thunder (4)

Biggest DROP!!!... Of The Week: The Struts/Kesha – Body Talks (–18)

Biggest Jump Of The Week: Imagine Dragons – Machine (+13)

New Entrants
~ First up we have Jennifer Lopez returning after quite a while with Limitless. I like the song for what it is and I appreciate its message. Musically, it's pretty good. All of that was enough for me to put it in green. However, the song is incredibly forgettable. This is not something I will remember in the long run. While being good, the song is very mediocre compared to some of the stuff Jennifer Lopez has released in the past. I consider her a pretty good singer overall. Her vocals here are decent at best and she has done much better in the past. I liked this a reasonable amount this week, but I already know it's not something that will stick with me because of how forgettable it is. Then again, she's not someone I revisit often with the exception of On The Floor.

~ Next is Trust My Lonely by Alessia Cara, which has been around for quite a while now. I didn't like Growing Pains because how mediocre it was and how bad the chorus sounded the way she layered her own vocals over herself. It was very strange after her first three singles, which were all pretty good. Now we have this "new" song, which follows the path of Growing Pains in the sense that it's very awkwardly-paced and the production is weird as hell. Alessia Cara objectively has a good voice. But something about her vocals here are not clicking with me. I don't think she fits this style of music and I just find the song mediocre as hell. I don't like whatever vibe she was going for with this song, Growing Pains, as well as the entire album. I don't understand why every time I see her now, she's in that oversized suit, which does not look good on her. If anything, I much prefer Know-It-All Alessia because at least that had some good singles. I'm hoping Trust My Lonely doesn't stick around considering that it's not a hit.


Best Debut of the Week: Jennifer Lopez – Limitless


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

• Charli XCX/Troye Sivan – 1999
• Gesaffelstein/The Weeknd – Lost In The Fire (DEBUT)
• Dean Lewis – Be Alright
• Seeb/Bastille – Grip
• Stephen Puth – Sexual Vibe
• Kelsea Ballerini – Miss Me More
• Lauren Daigle – You Say
• Jake Miller – Wait For You (DEBUT)
• Post Malone – Wow
• Sabrina Carpenter – Sue Me
• lovelytheband – Maybe, I'm Afraid
• Benny Blanco/Calvin Harris – I Found You
• Pitbull/Rhea – Ocean To Ocean
• Avril Lavigne – Tell Me It's Over
• Travis Scott/Drake – Sicko Mode

~ Gesaffelstein and The Weeknd have collaborated a couple of times on The Weeknd's My Dear Melancholy. This week, we get the latest single from them titled Lost In The Fire, which is essentially Starboy 3.0. The production is solid and The Weeknd sounds great. This is very enjoyable. I would love to see this get big.

~ I like Jake Miller as an artist and I wanted to like this song. But Wait For You is just weird. I don't really know any other way to describe it. I don't like the production and the way it changes when we hit the chorus. The lyrics are okay for the most part. I like what the song was going for, but a couple of the lines kind of bug me a little bit. I like his voice, but everything else kind of brings the song down for me.

~ Can we please get rid of Ocean To Ocean??? Mr. Worldwide, I have respect for you and you've made some bangers. But this is just not good as it's unoriginal and is nothing new or interesting, while also terribly sampling a classic. Rhea's voice also annoys me for some reason.

Top 5 Hit-Bound Picks

1. Kelsea Ballerini – Miss Me More

2. Gesaffelstein/The Weeknd – Lost In The Fire

3. Lauren Daigle – You Say

4. Avril Lavigne – Tell Me It's Over

5. Stephen Puth – Sexual Vibe

YouTube15

~ Here is the YouTube15 list since I haven't talked about this in a while.

• Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next
• Clean Bandit/Marina/Luis Fonsi – Baby
• Kehlani/Ty Dolla $ign – Nights Like This
• Maroon 5/Cardi B – Girls Like You
• Alan Walker/AuRa/Tomine Hacket – Darkside
• Post Malone/Swae Lee – Sunflower
• Loren Gray – Queen
• Benny Blanco/Halsey/Khalid – Eastside
• The Chainsmokers/Winona Oak – Hope
• Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes
• Billie Eilish – When I Was Older
• Marshmello/Bastille – Happier
• Mike Posner – Move On
• Halsey – Without Me
• Calvin Harris/Rag'N'Bone Man – Giant

~ Can someone explain to me how Girls Like You is still trending on YouTube apparently? Who is still listening to this at this point??

~ Trending for a while now is Baby by Clean Bandit, Marina & The Diamonds, and Luis Fonsi. I don't love this song, but I consider it one of the better songs on What Is Love along with Symphony and Out At Night. I really like the Latin vibe and I think Marina sounds really good. Luis Fonsi was a nice addition, although I wish he had more of a presence. Still, this is pretty enjoyable.

~ I talked about Nights Like This in Episode #17 of the Wake The Pop Up podcast (1:06:07 if you want the exact timestamp). To repeat what I said, I don't think it's as good as all the guest features Kehlani has done recently, which includes but is not limited to Ring by Cardi B, Faking It by Calvin Harris, Good Life by G-Eazy, Nowhere Fast by Eminem, What I Need by Hayley Kiyoko, and Done For Me by Charlie Puth. All of those are at least good and Kehlani has a good presence on each of them. Nights Like This is enjoyable for the most part even though the production is not that interesting. I've said this many times, but I really like her voice. I think it sounds really good. So yeah. I like this song and I like Kehlani.

~ Darkside is pretty enjoyable overall. I think Alan Walker is a solid producer. The vocals are really good and the production is solid. I will say that the drop does sound a lot like Alan Walker's other songs, especially Alone. But I get that that's just his sound and it's unique to him. If you had played this for me without telling me who it was, I probably would've said Alan Walker. So it can be looked at in different ways.

~ I don't have very many thoughts on Queen. The production is kind of interesting, but I don't like her voice. It's closer to red than green for me.

~ Even though The Chainsmokers put out a couple of good songs recently, that doesn't mean the bad ones aren't still coming in. Hope is nowhere near as bad as Save Yourself and Siren. But I find it very generic and I hate this girl's voice. It just sounds really annoying and covering it in auto tune most certainly does not help. She's just not a good singer. Other than that, it's mostly just mediocre. Her voice just brings it down a lot.

~ When I Was Older is another song I talked about in the Wake The Pop Up podcast (same episode). This song is an absolute snoozefest just like 98% of Billie Eilish's discography. It's not as bad as songs like When The Party's Over, but there's nothing here that I can consider good. Her voice is not very good at all and her music is more lifeless than Lana Del Rey, whose music I've found to be very boring in recent years. I don't understand why she's popular as she only has one good song, which is Lovely. Also, WTPU host and blogger Nick Perkins noted this, but the title When I Was Older makes no sense. And honestly, nothing she does makes sense to me.

~ If I could give everyone one album recommendation right now, it would be A Real Good Kid by Mike Posner. I thoroughly enjoyed it as I really felt the emotion and the lyrics in each track. From that album is the track Move On, which is very enjoyable as Mike Posner sounds great. The chorus is very groovy. I really like the beat and the guitar sounds great. This is very enjoyable and one of the best songs on the album, which I highly recommend.

~ I definitely had high expectations when I heard that Calvin Harris and Rag'N'Bone Man would be collaborating. Calvin Harris has made bangers in the past and Rag'N'Bone Man has an amazing voice as shown on Human and Broken People, which was the collaboration with Logic. I loved that song especially. I find Giant to be underwhelming in terms of the production. There's not very much to it and the trumpet in the drop is annoying. Rag'N'Bone Man sounds great though, so I still give him credit for being a great singer. I just don't think this is Calvin's best work.

~ I've made my thoughts on Happier and Without Me very clear in recent posts, so I don't need to get into that here.


Top 5 YouTube15 Picks
1. Marshmello/Bastille – Happier
2. Mike Posner – Move On
3. Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes
4. Kehlani/Ty Dolla $ign – Nights Like This
5. Alan Walker/AuRa/Tomine Hacket – Darkside


Trust My Blurbs
~ Can we not with Alec Benjamin – Let Me Down Slowly in the Top 10? The song is not very interesting at all and I don't like Alec Benjamin's voice. I'm not exactly sure what people like about this song

~ Ellie Goulding/Diplo – Close To Me is just outside of the Top 10, which I'd be happy about if it was actually a good song. I get the appeal though. I just don't like the production at all.

~ Imagine Dragons – Machine made a jump into the Top 15 for some unknown reason. I don't think this song's votes are coming from actual people and if they are, these people need to clean out their ears because we're clearly not hearing the same thing.

~ Fall Out Boy – The Last Of The Real Ones and The Struts/Kesha – Body Talks took hard falls out of the Top 10. Both are great songs even though the former has been here for a long time. It definitely had a great run, so I'm happy. The latter deserved more, but I'm not surprised it dropped since it's not actually a hit. It is great though and I'm glad it peaked in the Top 10.

~ I kind of hope Lauv/Julia Michaels – There's No Way is on its way out soon because it's not a good song. Silk City/Dua Lipa – Electricity has been here for a while and hasn't exactly done much so I'd be cool with that dropping out soon. And Charlie Puth – The Way I Am has been here a little too long since it wasn't a massive hit and it's not that good.

~ As far as the exits go, Side Effects stayed quite a while despite not being huge, which is good because it's the best song The Chainsmokers put out in 2018. It's a shame it didn't get treated similar to how This Feeling is getting treated, but a Top 10 peak is still good and it made Hits 1's 2018 Year-End list, so I'm pleased with how it did. Moves was severely underrated, which definitely doesn't come as a surprise. But it's still extremely catchy. We'll see what ends up happening because I want to include this in my Top 45 songs of 2019, but it's very early in the year, so I don't really know at the moment. It definitely deserves a spot though, so I'll take that into consideration.


Top 20 Review
0 – Crap:
20. Halsey – Without Me
19. Imagine Dragons – Machine
18. Alec Benjamin – Let Me Down Slowly

1 – Bad:
17. Anne-Marie – 2002
16. Ariana Grande – Thank U, Next
15. Twenty One Pilots – Chlorine

2 – Mediocre:
NONE

3 – Decent:
14. David Guetta/Anne-Marie – Don't Leave Me Alone
13. Ellie Goulding/Diplo – Close To Me
12. Post Malone/Swae Lee – Sunflower

4 – Good:
11. Ava Max – Sweet But Psycho
10. The Chainsmokers/Kelsea Ballerini – This Feeling

5 – Great:
9. Imagine Dragons – Natural
8. Khalid/Normani – Love Lies
7. Panic! At The Disco – Hey Look Ma, I Made It
6. Benny Blanco/Halsey/Khalid – Eastside
5. 5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood
4. Ariana Grande – Breathin
3. Panic! At The Disco – High Hopes
2. Dan + Shay – Tequila

BONUS: 6 – Best Song On The Countdown:
1. Marshmello/Bastille – Happier

Overall Score: 66/100 = 66% (B)


Throwback Pick Of The Week: The Killers – Mr. Brightside

Most Missed Countdown Song: Ella Henderson – Ghost

#1 Recommendation For Hits 1: Tie Between The Killers – Land Of The Free and Dean Lewis – 7 Minutes

Favorite Countdown Song This Week One Year Ago: Tie Between Walk The Moon – One Foot (#12) and G-Eazy/Halsey – Him & I (#21) (what was I thinking?...)


My Top 5 Picks
1. Marshmello/Bastille – Happier
2. Mark Ronson/Miley Cyrus – Nothing Breaks Like A Heart
3. The Struts/Kesha – Body Talks
4. Shawn Mendes – In My Blood
5. Backstreet Boys – Don't Go Breaking My Heart