The Contenders
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The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated Aug. 24, Taylor Swift’s incumbent Tortured Poets Department is mostly free from new challengers – but one that’s been rising for months could finally start to pose a real threat.
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Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (KRA/Amusement/Island/Republic): Against all odds, Chappellmania just continues to keep spreading, as seemingly every week another festival performance or other big cultural moment keeps Roan a rising tide. Last week, it was a historically massive Lollapalooza performance in luchador gear, this week, it’s a similarly gargantuan Outside Lands gig as a majorette – with a quasi-viral moment during her “Hot to Go” performance where she chastised the VIP section for not singing along.
That hit is one of seven Chappell Roan songs scaling the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Aug. 17) this week – with “My Kink Is Karma” becoming the sixth cut from her breakthrough debut The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess to join the party. Meanwhile, Midwest Princess rises to a new peak of No. 3 on the Billboard 200, climbing from No. 4 the previous week (and No. 5 the week before). With Ye & Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2 (No. 2 on the chart this week) all but sure to drop some in its second week of release, and no major debuts expected to impact the chart’s top five, it seems likely Midwest Princess is about to make it four weeks in a row.
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Could it have the No. 1 spot in its sights? To reach that peak, of course, it will have to depose Taylor Swift’s 14-week No. 1 The Tortured Poets Department. On last week’s Billboard 200, Swift’s blockbuster was still way ahead of Roan’s debut – 142,000 units to 64,000 – but that Poets number was boosted by a wide variety of just-released and reissued digital and physical editions of the album that helped account for a 606% gain in sales. The week before, Poets secured the No. 1 with 71,000 units – which could be much more matchable for Midwest Princess, should it continue to gain steadily and should Swift not release or re-release more exclusive editions of her latest. (Roan’s album has been discounted to $6.99 in the iTunes store, which may also help spur some extra sales.)
In any event, if Roan doesn’t seize the top prize next week, she may find the race more crowded in the charts to come. It’s been a relatively fallow period for major new releases compared to earlier in the year, but this Friday, veteran hitmaker Post Malone releases his long-anticipated (and already multi-hit-spawning) country pivot album F1-Trillion — and a week later, newly minted pop superstar Sabrina Carpenter will look to reclaim the late summer with the release of her new album Short n’ Sweet. But then again, maybe Roan will play it patiently and wait for her moment – which could come around the one-year anniversary of Midwest Princess in September, as both a new anniversary edition and a new Target color variant of the album were recently made available for preorder, with the official release date listed as Sept. 20.
Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (Republic): Roan’s and Swift’s albums have all but pulled even in terms of their streaming performances – so once again, it’s all down to sales for Tortured Poets, which just held off Vultures 2 to claim its 14th week at No. 1. So far this tracking week, Swift does not appear to have released any new variants for the album, so if she wants to grab a 15th week at No. 1 – leaving her just four shy of Morgan Wallen’s decade-best 19-week mark, set with 2023’s One Thing at a Time – she’ll either need to work on some last-minute sales-boosters, or simply hope that Roan’s set isn’t quite ready to catch up to hers yet.
IN THE MIX
Latto, Sugar Honey Iced Tea (Streamcut/RCA): The latest from Billboard July cover star Latto is a 17-track affair – 21 if you count a “bonus disc” featuring multiple versions of previous hit singles “Put It on Da Floor” and “Sunday Service” — with guest features from recognizable names like Megan Thee Stallion, Ciara and Teezo Touchdown. The set’s performance might be hindered by its lack of physical release – and the lack of a current hit as established as those bonus tracks – but it should still stream well and be helped by a deluxe edition (featuring the new bonus cut “Chicken Grease”) released on Tuesday.
Polo G, Hood Poet (Columbia): It wasn’t long ago that Polo G was a regular chart-topper, besting both the Billboard 200 (with third album Hall of Fame) and the Hot 100 (with runaway hit “Rapstar”) in 2021. The hits have dried up some for the Chicago rapper in the years since, but Hall of Fame follow-up Hood Poet dropped last Friday, and should also stream well – with a star-studded tracklist that includes cameos from hitmakers Lil Durk, GloRilla, The Kid LAROI and many more.
Beabadoobee, This Is How Tomorrow Moves (Dirty Hit): The alt-rock singer-songwriter born Beatrice Laus has long seemed on the verge of a major commercial breakthrough, with a devoted cult fanbase and viral streaming hits like “The Perfect Pair” and “Glue Song.” Beabadoobee seems sure to at least get her highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 with third LP This Is How Tomorrow Moves – having previously reached No. 189 with 2020’s Fake It Flowers — with the new set being made available on cassette, standard and signed CD, and six different vinyl variants.
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming charts dated Aug. 10, we look at two artists who have largely defined the summer in pop music so far, and who are experiencing new gains after Kamala Harris’ announced presidential candidacy.
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Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (KRA/Amusement/Island/Republic): Since climbing to a peak of No. 5 on the Billboard 200 dated July 13, Chappell Roan‘s Midwest Princess has hung around the top 10 of the chart, landing at No. 8 this week. Improbably, the album continues to grow in streams — most recently thanks in large part to a surge in interest and consumption after “Femininomenon,” the album’s anthemic lead track, was used in a promotional TikTok from the official Kamala Harris account just days after Harris became the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“Femininomenon” debuts at No. 96 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, the lowest of an incredible five songs from Midwest Princess which have bowed on the chart in the past two months and are still working their way up its rankings. Each of the other four reaches a new peak position this week: “Hot to Go!” is the highest at No. 26, while “Red Wine Supernova” reaches No. 47, “Pink Pony Club” No. 50 and “Casual” No. 79. None of the songs has yet found a major foothold at radio, which would likely be the final step in them threatening for the chart’s top tier, but “Hot to Go!’ and “Red Wine Supernova” have both started to gather steam on the top 40 airwaves.
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In the meantime, with steady streaming and sales numbers, Midwest Princess could move back up on the Billboard 200 this upcoming week. There aren’t major new Friday releases currently threatening for a top debut, and with the sales-driven bows of Stray Kids’ ATE and Jimin’s MUSE likely to take a hit in their second week, there should be an opening for the album to return to the top five – and if it can continue to build on its recent momentum, it may even challenge for a new peak of No. 4. It will still have its work cut out to pass the 30-plus-track streaming behemoths from Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen that have been lodged near the top of the Billboard 200 since their respective releases, but it should be in the mix for some time to come, and with another extra song boost or two – or perhaps a physical reissue – it wouldn’t be inconceivable that it could get to No. 1 before year’s end.
Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!” (KRA/Amusement/Island/Republic): Arguably the most impressive thing about the run that Midwest Princess has had on the Billboard 200 is that it’s making it without even getting any help from the song that’s actually Roan’s biggest of all of 2024. “Good Luck, Babe!” was released in April as a standalone single, unattached thus far to Midwest Princess or any other album of hers, and it has taken her further on the Hot 100 than any of that album’s breakout hits. This week, “Babe” returns to its peak of No. 10, which it originally reached on the chart dated July 13, while gaining on both the Streaming Songs (9-7) and Digital Song Sales (22-17) charts.
More important to its chart potential is that it has finally clicked the last piece of the puzzle into place: major radio support. Unlike the Midwest Princess hits, “Babe” has been fully (if somewhat belatedly) embraced by top 40 radio: It climbs 12-9 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart this week, and 25-21 on the all-format Radio Songs listing. As “Babe” continues to expand on the airwaves, and with no major new song releases expected to provide additional traffic in front of it on the Hot 100, it has a good chance of getting even higher on the chart next week. And with plenty of room for it still to grow – and streaming and sales support also strong – a run to the top five could certainly be in play for the song in the weeks to come.
Could it get to No. 1? It’s still well behind such four-quadrant smashes as Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” at the top of the chart, so it would take some considerable growth across all metrics for “Babe” to really mount a challenge there. But it’s worth noting that as far as “Babe” has already come, it’s done so without some of the more traditional promotional tactics used to boost songs in its position – no official remixes, no major national performances of it beyond a Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon appearance, not even a non-lyric music video. So if it gets close, there’s plenty of cards for Roan still to play to get it that final push over the top.
Charli XCX, Brat (Atlantic/AG): The season familiarly known as Brat Summer has mostly come with impressive, but not quite overwhelming chart returns. Brat did debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, which marked a career-best showing for Charli XCX, but three weeks later it was out of the top 10, and it’s been hanging around the chart’s teens ever since. Meanwhile, before this week, she’d only launched two tracks from it onto the Hot 100, and neither in the top half – lead cut “360” debuted at No. 73 the same week as the album’s bow and had hung around the chart’s bottom quadrant since, while “Girl, So Confusing” entered at a slightly higher No. 63 two weeks later following the release of its Lorde-featuring remix, and was off the chart altogether a couple weeks after that.
But three words might have turned around the entire chart momentum of Brat Summer. The Sunday (July 21) that President Joe Biden officially dropped his re-election campaign and endorsed Kamala Harris as his replacement, Charli tweeted “Kamala IS Brat” — unofficially making her exciting new album the soundtrack to the global moment. Harris’ campaign seized said moment by adapting Brat’s already-iconic cover design for the header on their HQ’s official Twitter page, and within days, CNN was airing discussions about Brat Summer and what kind of impact the coolest pop star in the world could have on this year’s presidential election.
Despite seeing respectable gains in both sales and streams following last week’s spike in interest, Brat actually slides 13-14 on the latest Billboard 200 – thanks to a glut of high-performing new albums released at the start of the tracking week, four of which debut ahead of it on the chart. But with the album continuing to grow in both sales and streams so far this week, next week it could be ticketed for a trip back to the top 10, its first time back in the region since the chart dated July 6, which was its third frame on the listing.
In the meantime, two songs from Brat are surging on the Hot 100. “360” hits a new peak of No. 55 this week, while the TikTok-approved “Apple” debuts at No. 81. A top 40 hit could be in Brat’s future, as both songs still have room to grow – the latter has major virality on its side, with everyone from Twisters star Glen Powell to Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl doing the dance challenge that helped it light up social media, while “360” is starting to make inroads at radio, up 56% in plays for the week, according to Luminate, and bubbling under the Pop Airplay chart. And the album might not be done spawning hits yet: “365,” the album’s meme-spawning closing complement to “360,” has been rising in streams and sales the past couple weeks, and re-enters Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart today.
The album is still pretty far from being a major contender for the top spot on the Billboard 200. But who knows? With the twists and turns that Charli’s season has already taken, we’d be foolish to bet against her finding new ways to challenge for supremacy on the chart, and officially cement Brat Summer in the 2024 record books. (Perhaps a new remix to one of the album’s deluxe edition bonus tracks — widely believed to be co-starring alt-pop superstar Billie Eilish — will be one of them.)
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, we take stock of the current Song of the Summer race, which is tighter this year than the past few, thanks to sparring smashes between Post Malone & Morgan Wallen, Shaboozey, Kendrick Lamar and Sabrina Carpenter.
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Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (Mercury/Big Loud/Republic): A couple months ago, it seemed like a pretty safe bet that Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” would reign all season on Billboard’s Songs of the Summer chart. The song blasted to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 immediately upon its May release – zooming past an unusually stacked array of major hits in the top 10 at the time — with staggeringly big numbers across the board. As radio airplay picked up for it at a blinding pace and its sales and streaming numbers stayed strong, it looked like it might follow the path of Wallen’s 2023 smash, “Last Night,” which both started and ended the season atop the Songs of the Summer chart, while reigning for four total months on the Hot 100.
And in truth, it still very well might. “I Had Some Help” has ruled the Songs of the Summer chart for all eight weeks of the list’s 2024 existence thus far, and has topped the Hot 100 for six frames, as well. Its numbers remain strong in all areas: On this week’s charts (dated July 27), it remains in the top five on Radio Songs (No. 1, its fourth week atop the chart) Streaming Songs (No. 3) and Digital Song Sales (No. 4). It’s still gaining on the airwaves, and should get an extra late-summer boost when Posty releases his long-anticipated full country album, F-1 Trillion (due Aug. 16).
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But “I Had Some Help” has had some competition. After towering over the rest of the Hot 100 for its first five weeks of release, “Help” briefly ceded the crown to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please.” Then after recapturing it the next week, “Help” again let the title slip the following frame — and in the two weeks since, it’s yet to reclaim it, as Shaboozey and Kendrick Lamar have taken turns trading off the top spot.
Which is hardly to say that “Help” has fallen off dramatically or unexpectedly: It’s naturally experiencing a slow decrease in streams and sales, but it’s also still No. 2 on this week’s Hot 100, and very much still a threat to jump back up to No. 1 any time the competition sags for a week or two. However, its chances of matching or even nearing the 16 weeks (!!) “Last Night” spent atop the Hot 100 last year are growing slim — and while it remains the clear Song of the Summer frontrunner, it also remains vulnerable in the race if any of the songs beneath it experience another power surge.
Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): Though it initially seemed like it would be scrapping with Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” on the undercard for this summer’s title fight, Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has elbowed its way into the main event. With consistently impressive streaming numbers and downright stunning sales since its April release, radio was the final piece of the puzzle for “A Bar Song” — and it has delivered on that front, attracting airplay from a historic array of radio formats, and climbing all the way to No. 2 on Radio Songs so far, behind “Help.” Like that song, “Bar Song” ranks in the top five on each of the Hot 100’s three component charts this week — and actually tops “Help” with its No. 2 placement on both Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales.
More crucially, “Bar Song” also tops “Help” on the Hot 100 this week — its second frame atop the chart. That’s still four behind Post and Morgan, of course, so “Bar Song” has plenty of catching up to do if it wants to really challenge “Help.” But it helps that “Bar Song” has also been in the fight since the very beginning of this SotS season — debuting at No. 4 on Songs of the Summer and working its way up to No. 2 by the end of June — so if it continues growing on radio as it has so far and “Help” starts to recede a little, or if it gets a momentum-boosting remix or new video, there’s certainly a chance that “Bar Song” could steal this race yet.
Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us” (pgLang/Interscope/ICLG): Pre-”I Had Some Help,” it looked like “Not Like Us” was going to be the song to beat this summer. It debuted atop the (already very crowded) Hot 100 with an incomplete first week of tracking, thanks to otherworldly levels of excitement around it as the knockout punch in the increasingly fevered back-and-forth between Kendrick Lamar and rival-to-the-north Drake. “I Had Some Help” quite impressively managed to lap it the very next week, and as interest in the beef died down (and radio understandably was slower to pick up the virulent missive than the cartoonishly crossover-friendly “Help”), it seemed like “Not Like Us” would bow out of the Song of the Summer race before it even really began.
But as the hip-hop and pop worlds should’ve learned from his bout with Drake in the first place, you can never count out Kung Fu Kenny. Lamar’s new signature smash was doubly adrenalized by his much-publicized, nationally-streamed Juneteenth concert spectacular The Pop Out, and then by the song’s official music video, which dropped on July 4. Following the boost from the latter, “Not Like Us” even reclaimed the Hot 100’s top spot for the first time in two months. It’s back down to No. 3 on this week’s listing, and may have finally run out of extra lives, but we’re twice bitten, three times shy there — especially since it’s up 6% in airplay this week, according to Luminate, and at No. 9 on Radio Songs, and we still haven’t gotten any kind of official remix for the song.
Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” & “Please Please Please” (Island/Republic): If you could somehow merge the popularity and momentum from Sabrina Carpenter’s two summer singles so far, you’d undoubtedly have yourself the song of the season: “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” both reached the Hot 100’s top five (the latter marking her first leader), and have been fixtures of the Songs of the Summer’s top 10, with Carpenter the only artist with multiple entries in the 20-position seasonal chart’s top half this week. With Carpenter’s new album due the week after Post Malone’s in August, her two four-quadrant smashes will undoubtedly receive a sizeable bump. But if she wants to challenge for the SotS No. 1 spot with either song, she won’t be able to wait around for that — neither is higher than No. 5 on the chart this week, and Billboard’s summer season officially ends following the chart dated Sept. 7.
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. Next week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated July 27), Taylor Swift’s Billboard 200 reign faces its greatest challenger yet in the form of Eminem’s alter-ego-killing latest.
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Eminem, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope): If you’re a regular reader of The Contenders and are rolling your eyes at yet another “Could [Non-Taylor Swift Artist] Finally Knock Taylor Swift From Atop the Billboard 200?” type headline, it’d be hard to blame you. In the past three months, we’ve seen such charges mounted by the likes of Billie Eilish, Gracie Abrams and (most recently) Zach Bryan, and all have ultimately fallen short: Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department has now reigned uninterrupted on the chart for a full 12 weeks, becoming the longest-running No. 1 of her career, and tying Morgan Wallen for the longest consecutive rule of the decade.
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But this week, Swift faces a challenger unlike any she’s faced in Poets’ lifetime – from one of just a handful of artists this century who can legitimately claim to be in the same galaxy of commercial success. Eminem, one of the best-selling solo recording artists of all-time – with two RIAA diamond-certified albums to his name, and a stunning 10 consecutive No. 1 sets on the Billboard 200, a streak dating back to 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP – returns this week with his first new album in four years. What’s more, the set aims to be something of a career bookend for the veteran rapper, as it trumpets The Death of Slim Shady – Em supposedly killing off the alter-ego persona that helped vault him to superstardom a quarter-century ago.
The album is already off to a strong start at streaming, with every one of its 19 tracks – except for the 24-second “All You Got” skit – debuting in the top 100 of Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart after its Friday (July 12) release, and most of them remaining in the region at mid-week. What’s more, the set already has one pre-certified smash in lead single “Houdini” — which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June and is still lingering around the top 20 – and another more modest hit in the Big Sean and BabyTron collab “Tobey,” which vaults 95-27 on the chart in its first full week of release.
Streaming will have to make up the bulk of The Death of Slim Shady’s consumption, as the album has not yet been released in physical form. (The CD version of it is currently scheduled for a Sept. 13 release, with cassette and vinyl due on Oct. 25). However, there were two D2C digital editions of the album for purchase, both available for a limited time before the set’s release, and both with their own exclusive bonus track – one with “Kyrie & Luka” (featuring 2 Chainz) and one with “Like My Shit” (featuring FIFTEENAFTER) — and a third one was released today, with both bonus tracks and a new “Steve Berman” skit.
Eminem’s prior album, 2020’s Music to Be Murdered By, moved 279,000 in its first week, without the benefit of an advance single or a career-spanning narrative hook. If the rapper’s latest again debuts with a number in the 200,000s, it would mark a bigger week than Swift has had for Poets since its fifth week on top, for the chart week dated June 1. And if Em is able to secure the No. 1 with Death of Slim Shady, his 11th consecutive all-new album to hit No. 1 would again tie Ye (formerly Kanye West) — who extended his own run earlier this year with the Ty Dolla $ign teamup Vultures 1 — for the longest such streak in Billboard 200 history.
Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (Republic): Are there any cards left for Taylor Swift to play to maintain her already-historic Poets run atop the Billboard 200? With Swift’s restocked exclusive CD variants of the album shipping last week – helping Poets to fend off Zach Bryan’s six-digit first full week for The Great American Bar Scene, and securing Swift her first 12-week run at No. 1 – and a truly formidable opponent arriving this week with Eminem’s latest, it certainly feels like the greatest chance yet that the blockbuster finally cedes the top spot.
Still, there is more history for Swift to make with one more frame at the chart’s apex: a 13th consecutive week at No. 1 would make it just the second album to reign consecutively for that long on the 200 following its debut, tying the mark set nearly a half-century ago by Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. Never count out Taylor Swift until every last sale and stream is counted.
IN THE MIX
ENHYPEN, Romance: Untold (Belift/Genie/Stone): In a less loaded week, we might have been talking about whether South Korean pop group ENHYPEN was headed for its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. The boy band’s second Korean-language full-length album follows last year’s Orange Blood EP, which brought ENHYPEN to the chart’s top five, and is available for purchase in a stunning 17 different CD variants — including exclusives for Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart and the group’s webstore; all with collectible paper ephemera like photocards, stickers, and a poster – as well as a pair of vinyl editions.
Megan Moroney, Am I Okay? (Sony/Columbia): While Megan Moroney has yet to score another radio hit on the scale of her 2022 breakthrough “Tennessee Orange,” the country singer-songwriter has developed an impressive fan following, which looks ready to pay off with second full-length Am I Okay? The set is off to a strong start in both sales and streams, with the addictive title track leading the way on DSPs, and the album being sold in three deluxe CD boxed sets and three different vinyl editions, including a signed version exclusive to her webstore.
Clairo, Charm (Clairo Records): After reaching the top 20 on Polydor/Republic in 2021 with sophomore album Sling, Clairo went independent – self-releasing her third album Charm on Friday. The singer-songwriter born Claire Cottrill does not seem to be suffering commercially for her move: The warmer-sounding album already has a streaming hit in lead single “Sexy to Someone,” and appears set for impressive first-week sales – helped by eight different-colored vinyl variants and four CD boxed sets, three with a T-shirt and one with a handkerchief – as well as perhaps her best showing yet on the Billboard 200.
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. Next week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated July 20), Taylor Swift aims to secure her longest run at No. 1 to date, but may be interrupted by another star’s new set.
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Zach Bryan, The Great American Bar Scene (Belting Bronco/Warner): The 2020s have marked one long rise to superstardom for singer-songwriter Zach Bryan. The country and Americana artist’s presence on streaming and as a live draw grew from project to project, with his mainstream breakthrough coming in 2022 with his American Heartbreak album and its hit single “Something in the Orange,” and then hitting a new peak in 2023 with his Billboard 200-topping self-titled set and its accompanying Billboard Hot 100-topping Kacey Musgraves collab “I Remember Everything.” Now, in the midst of an arenas-and-stadiums U.S. tour, Bryan releases his first album as a no-doubt A-lister: The Great American Bar Scene.
The 18-track new set already boasts one major hit in lead single “Pink Skies,” which debuted at No. 6 on the Hot 100 in June and is still hanging around the chart’s top 15 this week, and a second Hot 100 entry in “Purple Gas,” which features Noeline Hofmann (and is a redo of a song she originally wrote and recorded). The record also features first-time collaborations with a pair of artists who have extensive chart histories of their own — John Mayer on “Better Days” and Bruce Springsteen on “Sandpaper” — and already has something of a new breakout hit of its own in shuffling ballad “28,” which is still in the top 10 on both Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart and Apple Music’s realtime listing. (If the Springsteen track debuts on the Hot 100, it will mark his first entry since 2009, and if it goes any higher than No. 95, it will be his highest-charting hit in nearly 20 years (since 2005’s “Devils & Dust” reached No. 72).)
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The set should stream in highly robust numbers – but it does have a couple factors working against its chances of a No. 1 debut. For one, Bryan pushed to have the album released on July 4 – last Thursday – rather than the usual Friday drop, meaning that its first day of stats count towards this week’s chart, not next week’s. (Its opening-day numbers were still big enough on their own for the album to debut at No. 17 on the Billboard 200 dated July 13.) More pressingly, the LP is currently only available for sale in digital form, with its release on CD and vinyl not due until Oct. 11. And while “28” is off to a good start, it’s not a real threat to debut atop the Hot 100 like “I Remember Everything” did.
The album is still expected to follow Zach Bryan – which launched with 200,000 units in its debut week last year – with another six-digit first week, which should make it a real contender for the top spot next week. But since the album’s first-full-week performance was hobbled a little by its off-cycle debut, whether Bar Scene can get to No. 1 may depend on whether it can stay a consistent performer on streaming through the end of the week.
Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (Republic): The Tortured Poets Department has ruled atop the Billboard 200 since debuting there back in early April, fending off debuts from Dua Lipa (Radical Optimism), Gunna (One of Wun), Billie Eilish (Hit Me Hard and Soft), ATEEZ (Golden Hour: Part 1) and Gracie Abrams (The Secret of Us), all of which debuted at No. 2 behind Taylor Swift’s blockbuster. Even in its 11th week of release, Poets remains a very strong performer – posting 114,000 equivalent album units this week, as the 31-track set (in its full Anthology edition) continues to put up robust streaming numbers, and also sell well in its various editions.
More of those new variants may be on their way to fans this week. On July 7, Swift restocked seven previously available CD editions of Poets on her webstore, each featuring a different exclusive bonus track — which were only available to purchase that day, and (according to the webstore) were due to ship on or before July 10, and could impact the tracking week. On Monday, Swift also released two new versions of the album’s lead single, the Post Malone-featuring “Fortnight,” to DSPs and digital retailers: a new Cults remix of the song, and an acoustic version of it. (The latter had previously been available via a limited edition CD version of Poets, and is currently in the top 10 on the iTunes chart.)
Taylor Swift has fought hard to maintain the chart’s pole position for over two months now, and will certainly make Zach Bryan earn the spot if he is to take it from her with his new album. What’s more, Swift has particular reason to be motivated to go for the 12th frame at No. 1 for her new set: With one more week on top, Poets would break a three-way tie with 2008’s Fearless and 2014’s 1989 to become the longest-ruling album on the Billboard 200 of the pop superstar’s entire storied career.
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. Next week (for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 dated July 13), one of the biggest breakout artists of the year hopes to take a post-4th of July victory lap with his first crossover hit.
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Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): For the last two and a half months, as established superstars like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar and rising phenoms like Sabrina Carpenter and Tommy Richman have all made their big bows on the Hot 100, one artist has consistently been lurking just offscreen, slowly gathering steam: Shaboozey. The country singer-songwriter, who made his Hot 100 debut earlier this year via a pair of feature appearances on Beyoncé’s acclaimed Cowboy Carter album, bowed on the chart with “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” in April, and shot to No. 3 in May, before receding a bit as the crowded chart fielded new runaway smashes seemingly every week.
But now, the breakout hit is closer than it’s ever been: “Bar Song” reaches a new peak of No. 2 on the chart this week, with the song continuing to stream and sell very well – particularly the latter, as it reigns for a seventh week on Digital Song Sales. And it still has room to grow on radio, where it’s been climbing the Radio Songs tally (8-7 this week) and is still gaining momentum across formats – including on country radio, climbing 17-12 on Country Airplay. (If it goes top 10 on that chart next week, it will become the first song to ever reach that tier on each of Billboard’s Country Airplay, Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay and Rhythmic Airplay charts.)
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Helping with the song’s momentum: a big showcase at Sunday’s (June 30) BET Awards, with Shaboozey becoming the very rare country act to get a full-song performance on Culture’s Biggest Night – and seizing the opportunity with a party-starting rendition of the song, including late guest appearance from St. Louis rapper J-Kwon, whose 2004 classic “Tipsy” it heavily interpolates. With the race already looking to be a close one, any amount of streaming or sales bump from that performance might be enough to put “A Bar Song” over the top on next week’s Hot 100.
Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (Mercury/Big Loud/Republic): Post Malone may finally be on the way to moving on from the wildly successful first taste of his long-promised country pivot, with the release two Fridays ago (June 21) of his second single from his upcoming F-1 Trillion set, the Blake Shelton collab “Pour Me a Drink.” That song is also off to a strong start on the Hot 100, debuting at No. 12, tying Shelton’s best-ever peak on the listing (with 2013’s “Boys ‘Round Here,” featuring Pistol Annies & Friends).
However, predecessor “I Had Some Help” is far from done, as it returns to the Hot 100’s apex this week for a sixth total frame on top – while also topping Radio Songs for the first time. Its streams are finally starting to slip a little, however, as the song descends 2-4 on Streaming Songs this week. So it will likely either need to continue building on radio — it hits the top five this week on both Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay — or get a bit of a 4th of July barbecue bump to hold off Shaboozey and secure a seventh week atop the chart next week.
IN THE MIX
Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” & “Please Please Please” (Island): She may be done at No. 1 for the time being, after “Please Please Please” netted her first Hot 100-topper a week ago, but both that song and “Espresso” remain stable smashes for Sabrina Carpenter, ranking at Nos. 4 and 5 respectively on the Hot 100 this week, with major streaming profiles. “Espresso” has also long established its bonafides on radio, moving into the Radio Songs top five this week, but it may have to make room for “Please” soon as well, as that song is the Hot 100’s top Airplay Gainer this week, debuting at No. 24 on Pop Airplay (with help from radio edits replacing the end of its signature “don’t embarrass me, motherf—ker” lyric with “mother trucker” and/or “little sucker”).
Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!” (KRA/Amusement/Island): Chappell Roan has been diversifying her Hot 100 takeover over the past month: She now has five different songs currently climbing the chart, with “Casual” (No. 82) joining “Pink Pony Club” (No. 66), “Red Wine Supernova” (No. 46), “Hot To Go!” (No. 38) and “Good Luck Babe” (No. 11) at the party this week. She still hasn’t reached the chart’s top 10 – but that may change next week, as “Babe” continues to grow both on the DSPs (hitting the Streaming Songs top 10 this week) and the airwaves (moving 19-17 on Pop Airplay).
GloRilla, “TGIF” (CMG/Interscope/ICLG): Rihanna isn’t recording and releasing songs at the frequency she used to, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost her touch as a hitmaker – now it’s just other artists’ songs she’s blowing up. GloRilla’s latest single “TGIF” exploded on social media and streaming over the past weekend after RiRi posted a video of her rapping along with the song to a stern-looking A$AP Rocky – and now it looks well on its way to being her third major hit of the year, following “Yeah Glo!” and the Megan Thee Stallion collab “Wanna Be.” It’s not likely to hit the top 10 next week, but if its momentum continues it could be in the hunt soon enough – especially if Rihanna were ever to grace a remix of the song.
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. Next week (for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 dated June 22), a recently minted new pop superstar has two songs that could take over the top spot next week.
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Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please” & “Espresso” (Island/Republic): Sabrina Carpenter’s set at New York’s Gov Ball music festival on Saturday (June 8) was something of a coronation, as the ascendant pop star played to a headliner’s-worthy crowd in the late afternoon, creating near-hysteria in Flushing Meadows Corona Park with her now-hits-filled set. It helped that she also had a brand-new hit to play live for the first time: the slapping, pleading and unexpectedly twangy “Please Please Please.”
“Please” was released just the Friday before, along with a buzzy video starring her now-confirmed real-life paramour, Oscar-nominated Saltburn star Barry Keoghan. By the time of her Saturday performance, the song had already gone viral, proving particularly catchy on TikTok for its radio-unfriendly chorus hook “Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another/ I beg you don’t embarrass me, motherf—ker.” (Signs held up in the audience read “Please please please play ‘Please Please Please.’”)
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While the song was immediately successful on streaming, Carpenter’s Gov Ball set (which also caught a good deal of online interest) just poured gasoline on the fire — helping the song reach the top of the daily and real-time charts for both Spotify and Apple Music, as its video continued to reign on YouTube’s Trending for Music page. It has only continued to grow on DSPs in the days since, netting over 5 million daily U.S. plays on Spotify as of Tuesday. The song has been less immediately dominant in sales and radio airplay, but has also reached the top 10 on iTunes’ real-time chart, and is starting to get some early curiosity spins on the airwaves, led by SiriusXM’s Hits 1 channel.
But of course, the bigger the song gets, the more traffic it runs into from her current piping-hot smash: “Espresso,” which slips 5-6 on this week’s Hot 100 (dated June 15), but which is also up across the board following the release of “Please” and Carpenter’s Saturday festival set. On Spotify, the song is No. 2 behind “Please” on its Daily Top Songs USA chart, while rating at No. 5 on Apple Music’s real-time chart. It leads “Please” on iTunes, and obviously it’s way ahead of the new song on the airwaves, having moved into the top 10 on Billboard’s Radio Songs chart for the first time this week. (Incredibly, both songs still trail her Emails I Can’t Send deluxe edition cut “Feather” there, which gently falls to No. 8 on that chart after hitting a No. 5 peak in May.)
Both “Please” and “Espresso” are likely to populate the Hot 100’s top five this week, and may even have a shot at the No. 1 spot. Their chances should depend on how both songs continue to maintain their post-weekend momentum in the final days of the tracking week – or grow even further – with “Please” likely having the inside track between the two songs based on how stratospheric its streaming numbers have already gotten.
Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (Mercury/Republic/Big Loud): Speaking of Gov Ball: The Friday headliner was none other than Post Malone, who of course got a massive reception across the board – particularly for his encore performance of his and Wallen’s current four-week Hot 100-topper, “I Had Some Help.” (No Wallen guest appearance, sadly for those in attendance.) The performance did not have the galvanizing effect on streaming that Carpenter’s had – maybe he could’ve used a brand new song, too, as “Help” was the only new song from Post’s long-hyped country pivot to appear in his Friday setlist – but the song still holds at No. 3 on the Spotify and Apple Music charts, and No. 5 on iTunes.
The key for “Help” maintaining separation from the pair of Carpenter hits is, of course, its still-growing radio dominance. The song holds at No. 5 on Radio Songs this week — up 13% in reach, according to Luminate – and jumps 4-3 on Country Airplay and 14-10 on Pop Airplay. If, as trending, its presence continues to expand on those formats this week, while Carpenter’s hits perhaps have a sort of vote-splitting effect on the airwaves, it would certainly help “Help” in its campaign for an uninterrupted fifth week of Hot 100 ruling.
IN THE MIX
Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): A little further outside of the pop zeitgeist than Posty or Sabrina, Shaboozey’s solo breakthrough smash just continues to get bigger and bigger. While holding in the top five on Billboard’s Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales charts, it also leaps 22-16 on Radio Songs, with an unusually prolific presence across formats. Billboard’s charts team reports this week that “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is the first song to be rising in the top 25 simultaneously on the Country Airplay, Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay and Rhythmic Airplay charts — which have coexisted since 1996. The song should continue to contend in the Hot 100’s top five as it keeps rising at radio, meaning it might never be more than a well-timed remix away from making a serious bid for No. 1.
Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather” (Darkroom/Interscope/ICLG): “Birds” (No. 11, a new high) passed “Lunch” (No. 13, after reaching No. 5) last week for the highest-ranking of Hot 100 hits from Billie Eilish’s new Hit Me Hard and Soft album – and next week, “Birds” could hit the top 10 for the first time, as it continues building on streaming (No. 3 on Spotify, No. 8 on Apple Music). It is also beginning to soar on radio, with 1.3 million all-format impressions June 7-10, on the back of airplay from early leaders including SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio and Hits 1, KMVQ San Francisco, WWWQ Atlanta and WIHT Washington, D.C.
Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!” (KRA/Amusement/Island/Republic): Of course, discussion of the overall Gov Ball bump would be incomplete without mention of Chappell Roan, whose headline-grabbing Sunday afternoon set – featuring the singer-songwriter in full Statue of Liberty getup, including green skin paint – has also given her overall catalog a major boost. Leading the way there is newest single “Good Luck, Babe!,” which rises 31-26 on the Hot 100 this week, and should be due for another big jump next frame. Whether or not the song can crack the chart’s top tier may depend on if it can secure further radio support, as “Babe” has yet to make the 50-spot Radio Songs listing, but is getting close – including a No. 31-29 move on Pop Airplay this week.
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. Next week (for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 dated June 15), a return to form a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame rapper looks to interfere with some of the more explicitly 2024 hits vying for the top of the Hot 100.
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Eminem, “Houdini” (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope): In April, Eminem began teasing the upcoming release of his 12th studio album, The Death of Slim Shady. Whether the album title foreshadows Em’s official retirement from music – a full 25 years after first announcing his name to the world in 1999 – or just a new phase in the rapper’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career, the album is sure to be one of the summer’s most anticipated. And now, it has an already-minted hit as the official lead single: “Houdini,” released on Friday (May 31).
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The new single, co-produced by Eminem with longtime Detroit-based collaborator Luis Resto, calls back to the MC’s 2002 megahit “Without Me” — with its “guess who’s back, back again” intro and its superhero-themed music video – and heavily interpolates both the instrumental backing and chorus hook from Steve Miller Band’s 1982 Hot 100-topping smash “Abracadabra.” The song also has gained a great deal of attention for its inflammatory lyrics, which see Em back to several of his old tricks – trying to bait critics with bars that at least verge on the homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic, as well as with one couplet making a bad pun about Megan Thee Stallion’s recent shooting at the hands of Tory Lanez.
Despite the controversy – or more likely, partly because of it — “Houdini” has gotten off to an excellent start in consumption. It debuted in the top five on both the daily charts on Spotify and Apple Music and is still hanging around there at mid-week with barely any drop-off, while remaining YouTube’s top-trending music video. Perhaps even more importantly for its chart fortunes, it has held all week at No. 1 on the iTunes sales chart, with Eminem having the advantage of having ruled in the era when digital song sales were still a more central part of the musical economy. He will need some pretty mighty numbers there to have a chance of scoring a No. 1 debut on the Hot 100 — which would make his first chart-topper since “The Monster” in 2013, and sixth overall — but when it comes one of the best-selling artists of the past quarter-century, you never want to proclaim their demise prematurely.
Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help” (Mercury/Republic/Big Loud): Three weeks after debuting at No. 1 on the Hot 100, the star team-up between Posty and Wallen shows no real signs of slowing down: It’s still holding in the top three on both the regular Spotify and Apple Music charts, and is just a couple spots below “Houdini” on the iTunes chart as well. But radio is where the song is really starting to create some distance from the competition: It has already moved into the top five on Billboard’s Radio Songs chart over four weeks – tying for the fastest rise to the region since Miley Cyrus’ four-quadrant smash “Flowers” last year — while surging on the country, mainstream pop and adult pop radio formats.
Radio is likely to make the difference for “Help” in the race for No. 1 next week, unless Eminem’s latest — which has earned 2 million in all-format radio airplay audience as of June 3, according to Luminate — grows there at a spectacular rate, while selling digital downloads like it’s 2010 all over again. (If “Help” holds at No. 1 for a fourth frame, it’ll be the first song to reign for that many weeks consecutively since Wallen’s own “Last Night” a year ago.)
IN THE MIX
Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): Shaboozey’s solo breakthrough smash has been hanging around the Hot 100’s top five for about a month now – and it might be due for something of a boost next week, with the release of the country singer-songwriter’s full Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going album. The song has also been finding its footing on radio, catapulting from 37 to 22 on Radio Songs in just its second week on the chart (dated June 8), and even finally catching on in Nashville, jumping 31-24 on Country Airplay as well.
Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather” (Darkroom/Interscope/ICLG): “Lunch” was tabbed as the focus track from Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft – along with a music video and an early radio push – and it also earned the album’s biggest Hot 100 debut, bowing at No. 5 and holding in the top 10 for a second week this week. But this love song may end up being the album’s biggest breakout hit, as the TikTok-approved “Birds” has passed “Lunch” on both the updating Spotify and Apple Music charts, and even on iTunes as well. “Lunch” will likely continue to have the radio advantage, but “Birds” (up 13-12 this week) may fly past it and into the top 10 on the Hot 100 in the next week or two.
Central Cee & Lil Baby, “BAND4BAND” (CC4L/Columbia): This Atlantic-crossing collab from London’s Central Cee and Atlanta’s Lil Baby debuted just outside the top 20 on the Hot 100 this week, and looks to only be gaining in its second week on streaming. Cee, one of the U.K.’s biggest breakout artists of the decade, has long been bubbling just under the mainstream in the U.S. — and now that he’s got a full-on crossover hit (with a proven American hitmaker as a co-star), there may be no ceiling for his stateside breakthrough.
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip.
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This week: Kehlani sees bumps both for her own song and a song named after her, while Central Cee and Lil Baby have a trans-continental hit on her hands and a devastating ’80s synth-pop classic goes viral for surprisingly blithe reasons.
Kehlani’s Name Spurs Streaming Wins for Herself & Belfast Singer-Songwriter Jordan Adetunji
In just a few weeks (June 27), Kehlani will unleash Crash, her third studio album. “After Hours,” the set’s lead single, is already pulling ample streaming traction, but so is a breakout hit named after her from Belfast singer-songwriter Jordan Adetunji.
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Released on May 19, Adetunji’s “Kehlani” collected over 115,000 official on-demand U.S. streams in its first three days of release (May 19-21), according to Luminate. Four days before the track hit DSPs, Adetunji posted a snippet of the song to his official TikTok account, writing, “Bro wrote a whole song about Kehlani, but why it kinda go hard,” alongside a bevy of popular hashtags, including “#cashcobain,” “#melodicdrill,” “#slizzymusic” and, of course, “#kehlani.” On May 18, Kehlani herself left a singular flame emoji under his post.
Over the same period the following week (May 26-28), “Kehlani” jumped 434% in streaming activity to 615,000 streams. In addition to the song naturally gaining traction on socials — “Kehlani” plays in the three pinned TikToks on Adetunji’s page, all of which have garnered at least 870,000 views each – a more explicit co-sign from Kehlani helped get the ball rolling.
On May 23, Kehlani posted a pair of TikToks featuring her vibing and lip-syncing to the track. The more recent video of the two has since earned over five million views and over one million likes on the platform, directing plenty of new listeners to Adetunji’s track. The official “Kehlani” TikTok sound currently boasts over 12,5000 posts.
Of course, Kehlani’s magic doesn’t stop there. With the release of a “Cater 2 U Mix” for “After Hours” and increased visibility due to her passionate social media pleas in support of the Free Palestine movement, the Crash lead single has enjoyed a significant streaming bump. During the period of May 17-21, “After Hours” pulled in 2.1 million official on-demand U.S. streams. By the period of May 24-28, that number jumped 55% to 3.3 million streams. – KYLE DENIS
Central Cee & Lil Baby Rack Up a New Hit With ‘BAND4BAND’
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After dominating the UK. alongside Dave with “Sprinter” last summer and earning his first Billboard Hot 100 with his Drake-assisted “On the Radar Freestyle” (No. 80), Central Cee is gearing up for another hit on both sides of the pond – and this time Lil Baby is along for the ride.
This U.K.-Atlanta drill-based link-up earned 1.93 million official on-demand U.S. streams on its first day of release (May 24). Streams for “BAND4BAND” remained stable throughout the week, eventually hitting 2.04 million streams on May 27. By the following day (May 28), that number rose 29% to 2.64 million streams, marking the strongest streaming day out of the track’s first five days of release. With a total of 10.2 million streams in its first five days of the week, “BAND4BAND” is already off to a very promising start.
The new track has also already exploded on TikTok, with the official “BAND4BAND” sound garnering over 97,000 posts in just one week. Most users are using Cench and Baby’s back-and-forth hook to show-off their hilarious “U.S.” and “U.K.” sides. Over on YouTube, the official “BAND4BAND” music video has pulled in over 14 million views in under a week.
Should “BAND4BAND” hold steady, Cench and Baby could be looking at the next global rap smash. – KD
Heartbreaking Bronski Beat Classic Revived for Light-Hearted TikTok Trend
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Bronski Beat’s 1985 hit “Small Town Boy” was never a huge chart smash in the U.S. — it peaked at just No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, though it reached No. 3 on the U.K.’s Official Charts. But the song remains well-remembered for its passionately delivered lyrics and evocative music video, a tearjerking tale of a young gay man’s rejection and alienation from mainstream society. However, the song is making the rounds again in 2024 for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with its content, and everything to do with its propulsive synth hook and danceable post-disco beat.
TikTok has really gotten swept up in the #80sDanceChallenge, in which users take videos of their parents dancing to a lightly sped-up version of the pulsing intro to “Small Town Boy” — supposedly with the moves they would’ve used if boogieing to the song back in the ’80s. No less an early-MTV-era authority than Cyndi Lauper has gotten in on the fun, posting a CapCut edit of some old performance footage of her full-bodied dancing set to “Boy,” with the caption, “Oh #80s #dancechallenge you say?”
The clips, several of which have already racked up millions of likes, have helped the song find new life on streaming: “Boy” racked up over 1.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams for the tracking week ending May 23, according to Luminate — a 114% gain from the 705,000 streams the song notched four weeks earlier, before the trend really took off. Bronski Beat singer Jimmy Somerville also shared a TikTok celebrating the song’s recent 40th anniversary, singing along to the song’s now-viral intro and sharing his joy at how the song has been revived.
“Everything is just kind of going so crazy in the world,” he said. “But here, on TikTok, there’s all these people just finding a moment to just have a bit of fun … It’s just been brilliant.” – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. Next week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated June 8), a cult favorite act looks to get in the way of Billie Eilish’s latest and Taylor Swift’s unsinkable blockbuster.
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Twenty One Pilots, Clancy (Fueled by Ramen): For a couple years in the mid-‘10s, the duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun made the jump from regional Columbus, Ohio sensations to national hitmakers to legitimate A-listers, scoring a trio of Hot 100 top five hits and accepting Grammys in their underwear. Those days of massive crossover success are likely behind Twenty One Pilots at this point – their lone Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hit of the 2020s came at the beginning of the decade, with the COVID-themed “Level of Concern” – but the massive following the group accrued over those years has largely hung around, and should make them a contender for the top of the Billboard 200 this week for their latest LP Clancy.
The new album (released two Fridays ago, May 17) follows 2021’s Scaled and Icy, which debuted at No. 3 with 75,000 equivalent album units. Clancy has the advantage of arriving as the much-hyped final installment in their conceptual series dating back to 2015’s breakthrough set Blurryface, loosely telling the story of the titular Clancy in the dystopian city of Dema. The set should have modest streaming success – helped by the visual album aspect of the release, with videos filmed for each of its 14 tracks – but will likely do most of its damage in physical sales. To that end, the duo has released Clancy in 11 different-colored vinyl variants, as well as in signed and unsigned zine/CD journal packages and digipak CDs, and a couple deluxe CD box sets with branded merch included inside. On May 29, the group also released a limited-time Clancy – Digital Remains deluxe edition – only available until midnight on May 30 — which features four recently recorded live bonus tracks, as well as a lengthy exclusive digital booklet offering behind-the-scenes photos.
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Even with impressive sales and solid streams, Clancy will still be fighting an uphill battle trying to get to No. 1 next week, with the two sets that sparred for No. 1 last week – Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft – still posting massive numbers on streaming. With both of those artists essentially emptying the bench last week of their remaining deluxe editions and CD variants on sale for their respective new albums, however, Clancy could have a real advantage in sales. But the album will have to post a much better first-week units figure than Scaled and Icy’s 75,000 – likely at least in the low six figures – to really have a chance of passing either.
IN THE MIX
RM, Right Place, Wrong Person (Big Hit/Geffen): The BTS alum’s follow-up to 2022’s No. 3-peaking Billboard 200 hit debut album Indigo is even looser, more expansive and more sonically diverse than that impressive first effort. That means that RM still hasn’t scored a solo hit single or global streaming mega-smash like his bandmates Jimin and Jung Kook – who both topped the Hot 100 in 2023 – but it means he’s cultivating an albums audience, which will have the option of purchasing Right Place, Wrong Person in 13 different CD variants, all containing branded paper merch and other collectibles.
Wallows, Model (Atlantic): Like Twenty One Pilots, Wallows are no longer at the peak of their crossover moment – which was much more modest than that duo’s to begin with – but retain an extremely loyal following, one which should help their third album Model become one of the week’s top debuts. The set is available in a dozen different-colored vinyl variants – with three signed editions available on their website, one signed by each member – as well as a couple cassette and CD editions, while the group spent this week doing in-store promotional appearances at indie retailers.
Sexyy Red, In Sexyy We Trust (Rebel/gamma.): Sexyy Red was one of 2023’s biggest breakout stars, with her acclaimed Hood Hottest Princess mixtape and breakout hits “Pound Town” and “SkeeYee,” which she’s already one-upped this year with the No. 20-peaking Hot 100 hit “Get It Sexyy.” That song can be found on her new mixtape In Sexyy We Trust, as well as a new teamup with her “Rich Baby Daddy” collaborator Drake, “U My Everything,” which samples the “BBL Drizzy” beat that producer Metro Boomin had been using to mock Drake as part of the latter’s ongoing feud with Kendrick Lamar. That song has gotten off to a slower-than-expected start on some DSPs – perhaps as exhaustion with the larger feud finally starts to set in – but the set should still fare well on streaming, with the album currently only available digitally.