The Billboard Hot 100 is trapped in some kind of purgatory, as it’s topped by the same 10 songs as last week, albeit in a different order. A beneficiary of this stagnation is the song that’s at No. 1 for a ninth consecutive week and 10th overall: Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” In the process, it joins a notable club. Over on the albums chart, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet holds at No. 1 for a third straight week, the top six remain the same, and notable debuts include albums from Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, country legend George Strait and … Paris Hilton.
TOP ALBUMS
You can usually sort the entries on any given Billboard 200 albums chart into two kinds of records: 1) mainstays that linger and linger, sometimes for years on end; and 2) one-, two- or three-week wonders that debut high, only to plummet shortly thereafter. All but one entry on this week’s top 10 is firmly entrenched, to the point where the top six titles reside at the exact spots they held last week: Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet is No. 1 for the third week in a row, followed by Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft. The next few titles are on the rise — that’d be Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene (No. 8 to No. 7), Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (No. 9 to No. 8) and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album (No. 11 to No. 9) — but they’re not really “rising” so much as “filling the vacuum left as last week’s debuts plunge.”
Plunging how steeply, you ask? Well, the K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM’s Crazy EP drops from No. 7 to No. 54, while Destroy Lonely’s Love Lasts Forever crashes from No. 10 all the way down to No. 118. A crueler observer might make a joke about “lasting forever” here; thank goodness you’re in such tender, empathetic hands.
With that dichotomy established, it’s hard to get too attached to this week’s debuts, which begin at No. 10 with Luck and Strange, the first solo album from Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour since 2015. Lord knows Pink Floyd’s albums have been known to linger on the charts for a while, so maybe he’s in it for the long haul.
From there, George Strait’s Cowboys and Dreamers enters the chart at No. 14; it’s the 31st studio album by the country legend, who’s racked up dozens of platinum records in his illustrious career, so it’d be foolish to write him off, either. (His 2004 greatest-hits collection, 50 Number Ones — yes, he’s had that many chart-topping country singles, and then some — is still floating around, at No. 121.)
Four more wildly different albums enter this week’s Billboard 200 in the top 50. Tzuyu, of the K-pop group Twice, is at No. 19 with abouTZU: The 1st Mini Album. Jessie Murph, who received a prominent showcase on last week’s VMAs, is at No. 24 with That Ain’t No Man That’s the Devil. Paris Hilton (!!!) is at No. 38 with her second album, Infinite Icon (released 18 years after her debut). Finally, LL Cool J, who also performed at the VMAs, is at No. 50 with The FORCE.
TOP SONGS
Once again, there’s little motion to speak of in this week’s Hot 100 top 10; a few entries slide up or down, but the songs themselves remain the same. The headline here is that Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has entered an exclusive club: It’s one of 45 songs in Hot 100 history — as in, going all the way back to August 1958 — to top the chart for at least 10 weeks.
Looking over the complete list of songs to enjoy that distinction, it’s hard not to pick up on the fact that this kind of longevity used to be far less common than it’s become in recent years. In fact, prior to 1992, the list contained only two songs — Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” in 1977 and Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” in 1982 — and those two songs “only” topped the chart for 10 weeks each. (Oddly enough, the list doubled in ’92, as Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” and Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” held the No. 1 spot for 13 and 14 weeks, respectively.)
In the last decade, though, a seemingly contradictory phenomenon has occurred: There’s more new music to choose from — and more ways to consume it — than ever, and yet it’s gotten more difficult to dislodge dominant songs from the top of the charts. Just last year, Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” sat at No. 1 for 16 weeks; that’s the second-longest run of all time, behind only Lil Nas X’s 2019 run with “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. If you noticed that both of those songs are at least country-music-adjacent, bear in mind that it weren’t for Shaboozey, Wallen’s duet with Post Malone, “I Had Some Help,” would be giving “Last Night” and “Old Town Road” a run for their money. Country music continues to do massive business on the pop charts.
Speaking of which, “I Had Some Help” holds at No. 2 this week; it’s followed by another hold at No. 3, for Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.” Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars climb from No. 6 to No. 4 with “Die With a Smile,” while Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” rises from No. 7 to No. 5. Carpenter still has three songs in the Top 10, but “Taste” dips from No. 5 to No. 6 and “Please Please Please” drops from No. 4 to No. 8. Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” ascends from No. 8 to No. 7, while two chart mainstays round out the chart by holding steady: Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” is at No. 9, while Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” is at No. 10.
WORTH NOTING
Seven years after it began an indefinite hiatus following the death of singer Chester Bennington, Linkin Park recently announced that it’s gotten back together and recorded new music with two new members, including singer Emily Armstrong. A new album, From Zero, is due out Nov. 15, and its first single (“The Emptiness Machine”) enters this week’s Hot 100 at No. 21.
If you’re looking for more signs of the public’s interest in Linkin Park, look no further than the Billboard 200, where the band’s first two albums are on the rise — 2003’s Meteora climbs from No. 62 to No. 47, while 2000’s Hybrid Theory re-enters the chart at No. 51 — and its 2024 greatest hits set Papercuts re-enters the chart at No. 119.
It remains to be seen how much of the surge is driven by excitement vs. curiosity vs. nostalgia, but it bodes well for From Zero’s release in a couple months.
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