State Champ Radio Chart Beat
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Burna Boy lands his first No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart as “Last Last” captures first place on the chart dated Oct. 15. The single climbs from the runner-up spot after a 9% increase in weekly plays made it the most-played song on U.S. monitored R&B/hip-hop stations in the week ending Oct. 9, according to Luminate.
“Last Last” gives Burna Boy his first Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart-topper with his second career entry. He previously reached a No. 26 best with “Ye” in 2019. With its ascent, “Last” also halts the record-breaking stay of Future’s “Wait for U,” featuring Drake and Tems, which logged an unprecedented 14th week at No. 1 on the chart last week.
Plus, the new champ brings a former R&B hit to the summit via a sample. “Last” prominently samples Toni Braxton’s “He Wasn’t Man Enough,” which reached No. 6 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay in 2001.
The new champ adds to the Afrobeats genre’s mounting presence on R&B/hip-hop radio. It’s the genre’s third No. 1 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay in the past year, after the 10-week reign of Wizkid’s “Essence,” featuring Tems, beginning last November and a one-week visit for CKay’s “Love Nwantiti” in February. “Last Last” also retains its status as one of the top Afrobeats songs in the U.S., ranking at No. 2 on the latest Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart. The track previously clocked eight weeks at No. 1 from July to September.
Elsewhere, “Last” repeats at its No. 3 peak thus far on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, which ranks songs by combined audience at adult and mainstream R&B/hip-hop radio stations. There, the single adds 8% in weekly audience to reach 14.6 million in the week ending Oct. 9. Similarly, “Last” holds at its current No. 8 peak on Rhythmic Airplay, with a 9% improvement in weekly plays.
Thanks to its strength at R&B/hip-hop and rhythmic radio, “Last” advances 29-24 on the all-genre Radio Songs chart. There, it surges 18% to 22.3 million in total radio audience. Radio airplay, in turn, helps the track lift 49-44 on the Billboard Hot 100, which combines radio airplay with sales and streams to arrive at its rankings.
Streams of Loretta Lynn‘s catalog shot up 615% in the week of the country legend’s death, according to Luminate.
In the Sept. 30-Oct. 6 tracking period, Lynn’s catalog earned 8.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams, a 615% jump from 1.2 million the previous week (Sept. 23-29).
The primary bump occurred on Oct. 4, the day of Lynn’s death. Her music was streamed 3.2 million times that day, up 1,841% from 167,000 on Oct. 3.
Her signature hit, 1970’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” led the pack at 1.3 million streams Sept. 30-Oct. 6, a 399% boost from 253,000 the previous period.
It’s followed by 1966’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” (768,000 streams, up 381%), 1966’s “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind)” (593,000, up 351%), her 1973 Conway Twitty collaboration “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” (575,000, up 209%) and 1968’s “Fist City” (427,000, up 424%).
Additionally, Lynn’s catalog moved 7,000 digital downloads Sept. 30-Oct. 6, a gain of 2,691% from a negligible amount the previous week. “Daughter” makes a pair of Billboard charts dated Oct. 15 as a result, appearing at Nos. 12 and 36 on Country Digital Song Sales and Digital Song Sales, respectively, on the strength of 2,000 downloads.
Lynn’s 2022’s greatest hits package, All Time Greatest Hits, also debuts on Top Country Albums with 5,000 equivalent album units earned.
Lynn died Oct. 4 at age 90 in her sleep in Tennessee of natural causes.
Lynn earned 10 Top Country Albums No. 1s over a career that spanned seven decades from 1960 through 2021, plus 16 No.1s on Hot Country Songs.
Harry’s House has made itself quite at home on Billboard‘s Pop Airplay chart.
On the list dated Oct. 15, Harry Styles infuses the top 10 with three hits, all from his third album: “As It Was,” which reigned for seven weeks beginning in May (No. 4); follow-up “Late Night Talking” (No. 8; a week at No. 1 in September); and third radio track “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” up 12-10 to become the third Pop Airplay top 10 from the set, and his fifth overall.
Harry’s House, released on Erskine/Columbia Records May 20, launched at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart dated June 4, spent two weeks at the summit, and has ranked in the top 10 in each of its first 20 weeks on the tally.
Styles becomes the first solo male to log three simultaneous Pop Airplay top 10s, and just the third artist total, dating to the chart’s October 1992 inception. Ariana Grande initiated the honor for two weeks in May 2021 with “Positions,” “34+35” and “pov,” all from her album Positions, and Doja Cat tallied two frames in the tier last October with “Kiss Me More,” featuring SZA; “You Right,” with The Weeknd; and “Need to Know,” all from her LP Planet Her.
While artist separation has long been a tenet of radio, to help ensure variety, “It’s up to pop radio to reflect what truly is the hottest of the hot, and that’s definitely Harry,” says Erik Bradley, assistant program director/music director at Pop Airplay reporter WBBM-FM Chicago. “It’s a challenge to keep all of his songs separated, but when an artist is this on fire, I tend to not be as critical about that.”
“As programmers, we’re looking to give our listeners what they want,” echoes Mark Adams, iHeartMedia vp of pop programming and pd of Pop Airplay panelist KYLD San Francisco, among other stations. “As the demand for those songs has been overwhelming, we’ve been nimble in recognizing that our listenership is not concerned about the traditional rules of artist separation and have acted accordingly. Ariana Grande and Doja Cat were similarly audience-driven, and radio responded.”
Matt Mony, pd of Pop Airplay reporter WYOY Jackson, Miss., pd, concurs. “Harry Styles and other artists who continue to pump out massive amounts of hits have forced radio playlists to adapt to an online world,” he says. “An album can drop and have five or six songs hit the Spotify top 10 almost instantly. Bad Bunny is a great example. Harry Styles and Doja Cat have both earned a special 15-minute separation on WYOY. Some programmers might look at this as playing too much of a certain artist, [but] Harry Styles is extremely popular right now, so the station should reflect that.”
Also helping Styles’ latest single stand out: its instrumental hook, courtesy of Ivan Jackson on trumpet.
“Pop songs with almost entirely instrumental-driven hooks have seemingly become rare,” Adams says. “I can readily think of Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’ or Vanessa Carlton’s ‘A Thousand Miles,’ but there have been fewer of them as of late. Modern dance music producers and DJs are probably where most of the instrumental-dominated hit tracks are originating from in more recent years.” Adams notes such examples as DJ Snake’s “You Know You Like It,” with AlunaGeorge, and “Lean On,” with Major Lazer and featuring MØ, and SAINt JHN’s “Roses.”
Joining “Sushi,” instrumental ingredients are key to David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s “I’m Good (Blue),” as the track, another with a dance pedigree, bounds 21-14 on Pop Airplay, built on the signature section of Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” from 2000.
Mony, meanwhile, cites Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” as a song in which an instrumental section was … well, instrumental to its success. “That is such a great record for so many reasons, but that driving bass and drum line makes the song,” he says. Also: “Feel It Still” by Portugal. The Man, as “The Ventures vibe in that guitar riff made that song inescapable.
“It’s refreshing,” Mony muses of “Sushi.” He’s also vocal about … well, the song’s vocals. “Harry’s mini-scat line in the middle doesn’t hurt things, either.”
Six years after its release, Sia‘s “Unstoppable” ascends to No. 1 on Billboard‘s Adult Pop Airplay chart (dated Oct. 15).
The song is the singer-songwriter’s second leader on the list, after “Cheap Thrills,” featuring Sean Paul, reigned for seven weeks beginning in September 2016.
Notably, the two tracks are from the same album – Sia’s 2016 LP This Is Acting, which debuted at its No. 4 best on the Billboard 200 that February and spent 83 weeks on the chart through 2018.
“Unstoppable” has lived up to its title, notably being used promos for Major League Baseball’s 2016 postseason and in a Lancôme Idôle commercial, starring Zendaya, in 2019. It subsequently became prominent on TikTok and soundtracked a Samsung Galaxy ad beginning this February.
Radio promotion began this year for the song, which debuted on the Adult Pop Airplay chart dated May 7.
“We started talking about it in January. The question was, ‘How are we going to do this?’ ” Erik Olesen of Crush Music tells Billboard of the song’s promotional campaign. Complicating the push somewhat, Sia’s most recent material has been released on Atlantic Records and “Unstoppable” was originally on RCA Records, and later moved to Sony Music’s catalog division under the Legacy label. However, “both RCA and Legacy were very supportive and were all about us going for this,” Olesen says.
Olesen recalls bemusement among certain programmers as he began bringing “Unstoppable” to radio, but, seemingly in its favor, it was hardly the only older song cutting through in 2022. “As we got it going, Kate Bush took off” with her 1985 classic “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” sparked by its feature in Netflix’s Stranger Things. “At least ‘Unstoppable’ was 30 years younger!”
As momentum continued to build for the song, “I asked several format captains at different radio chains both domestically and internationally to put it into their callout research,” Olesen recalls. “After a couple of weeks, it started to raise its hand and had huge familiarity. One of the most important ingredients for radio is familiarity.”
Among major-market Adult Pop Airplay panelists, KBIG Los Angeles leads with over 1,600 plays to-date for “Unstoppable,” followed by WWBX Boston (800) and WNEW New York (700), according to Luminate.
Since its release, “Unstoppable” has drawn 388.2 million in airplay audience among reporters to Billboard‘s all-format Radio Songs chart and 250 million official streams and sold 365,000 downloads in the U.S.
In addition to its Adult Pop Airplay coronation, the track rises 10-9 on Radio Songs, up 11% to 37.1 million in reach in the week ending Oct. 6. It also drew 3 million streams and sold 3,000 in that span. It likewise hits new highs on Adult Contemporary (No. 3), Pop Airplay (No. 19) and the all-genre, multi-metric Billboard Hot 100 (No. 30).
Manuel Turizo’s “La Bachata” spends a fifth week at No. 1 on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100 chart (dated Oct. 8).
With a fifth week at No. 1, “La Bachata” ties with Tini’s “La Triple A” and Paulo Londra’s “Plan A” for the third-most weeks atop the tally in 2022. (“Entre Nosotros” by Tiago PZK, Lit Killah, Nicki Nicole and Maria Becerra still leads with a nine-week domination this year. Meanwhile Bizarrap and Quevedo’s “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 52” ranks second with eight weeks in charge.)
While the songs between No. 2 and No. 7 hold their rankings, Quevedo and Rei’s “Fernet” rises 9-8. Meanwhile, TINI rejoins the top 10 as “La Triple T” rebounds 11-10 after its five weeks in charge.
Chileans Pablo Pesadilla, Polimá Westcoast, Nickoog Clk and Fran C earn the week’s Greatest Gainer honor as “Baby Otaku” rallies 75-37. Argentinian La Joaqui scores the next notable ascent as “Butakera” surges 62-29.
Plus, the week’s highest debut goes to Wisin & Yandel and Rosalia’s latest collaboration, “Besos Moja2” at No. 47.
Finally, five other debuts hit the Argentinian Hot 100 chart this week: Rusherking and Dread Mar I’s “Perfecta” at No. 61, La Joaqui and Dj Alex team-up with “Tu Amor E7” at No. 73, Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” at No. 75, FMK’s “Buscando un Amor” at No. 88, while Natti Natasha and Maria Becerra’s “Lokita” starts at No. 89.
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