The Contenders is a midweek column that appears at artists aiming for the highest of the Billboard charts, and the methods behind their efforts. This week, we take inventory of the present Tune of the Summer time race, which is tighter this 12 months than the previous few, because of sparring smashes between Publish Malone & Morgan Wallen, Shaboozey, Kendrick Lamar and Sabrina Carpenter.
Publish Malone feat. Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Assist” (Mercury/Large Loud/Republic): A pair months in the past, it appeared like a reasonably protected guess that Publish Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Assist” would reign all season on Billboard’s Songs of the Summer time chart. The track blasted to No. 1 on the Billboard Scorching 100 instantly upon its Could launch – zooming previous an unusually stacked array of main hits within the prime 10 on the time — with staggeringly huge numbers throughout the board. As radio airplay picked up for it at a blinding tempo and its gross sales and streaming numbers stayed robust, it appeared prefer it would possibly observe the trail of Wallen’s 2023 smash, “Final Evening,” which each began and ended the season atop the Songs of the Summer time chart, whereas reigning for 4 complete months on the Scorching 100.
And in reality, it nonetheless very effectively would possibly. “I Had Some Assist” has dominated the Songs of the Summer time chart for all eight weeks of the record’s 2024 existence to date, and has topped the Scorching 100 for six frames, as effectively. Its numbers stay robust in all areas: On this week’s charts (dated July 27), it stays within the prime 5 on Radio Songs (No. 1, its fourth week atop the chart) Streaming Songs, Digital Tune Gross sales (No. 4). It’s nonetheless gaining on the airwaves, and may get an additional late-summer increase when Posty releases his long-anticipated full nation album, F-1 Trillion (due Aug. 16).
However “I Had Some Assist” has had some competitors. After towering over the remainder of the Scorching 100 for its first 5 weeks of launch, “Assist” briefly ceded the crown to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please.” Then after recapturing it the following week, “Assist” once more let the title slip the next body — and within the two weeks since, it’s but to reclaim it, as Shaboozey and Kendrick Lamar have taken turns buying and selling off the highest spot.
Which is hardly to say that “Assist” has fallen off dramatically or unexpectedly: It’s naturally experiencing a sluggish lower in streams and gross sales, however it’s additionally nonetheless No. 2 on this week’s Scorching 100, and really a lot nonetheless a risk to leap again as much as No. 1 any time the competitors sags for per week or two. Nonetheless, its probabilities of matching and even nearing the 16 weeks (!!) “Final Evening” spent atop the Scorching 100 final 12 months are rising slim — and whereas it stays the clear Tune of the Summer time frontrunner, it additionally stays susceptible within the race if any of the songs beneath it expertise one other energy surge.
Shaboozey, “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): Although it initially appeared like it will be scrapping with Tommy Richman’s “Million Greenback Child” on the undercard for this summer time’s title battle, Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” has elbowed its method into the primary occasion. With persistently spectacular streaming numbers and downright gorgeous gross sales since its April launch, radio was the ultimate piece of the puzzle for “A Bar Tune” — and it has delivered on that entrance, attracting airplay from a historic array of radio codecs, and climbing all the best way to No. 2 on Radio Songs so aar, behind “Assist.” Like that track, “Bar Tune” ranks within the prime 5 on every of the Scorching 100’s three element charts this week — and truly tops “Assist” with its No. 2 placement on each Streaming Songs and Digital Tune Gross sales.
Extra crucially, “Bar Tune” additionally tops “Assist” on the Scorching 100 this week — its second body atop the chart. That’s nonetheless 4 behind Publish and Morgan, in fact, so “Bar Tune” has loads of catching as much as do if it needs to essentially problem “Assist.” But it surely helps that “Bar Tune” has additionally been within the battle for the reason that very starting of this SotS season — debuting at No. 4 on Songs of the Summer time and dealing its method as much as No. 2 by the tip of June — so if it continues rising on radio because it has thus far and “Assist” begins to recede a bit of, or if it will get a momentum-boosting remix or new video, there’s actually an opportunity that “Bar Tune” might steal this race but.
Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us” (pgLang/Interscope/ICLG): Pre-”I Had Some Assist,” it appeared like “Not Like Us” was going to be the track to beat this summer time. It debuted atop the (already very crowded) Scorching 100 with an incomplete first week of monitoring, because of otherworldly ranges of pleasure round it because the knockout punch within the more and more fevered back-and-forth between Kendrick Lamar and rival-to-the-north Drake. “I Had Some Assist” fairly impressively managed to lap it the very subsequent week, and as curiosity within the beef died down (and radio understandably was slower to choose up the virulent missive than the cartoonishly crossover-friendly “Assist”), it appeared like “Not Like Us” would bow out of the Tune of the Summer time race earlier than it even actually started.
However because the hip-hop and pop worlds ought to’ve discovered from his bout with Drake within the first place, you possibly can by no means depend out Kung Fu Kenny. Lamar’s new signature smash was doubly adrenalized by his much-publicized, nationally-streamed Juneteenth live performance spectacular The Pop Out, after which by the track’s official music video, which dropped on July 4. Following the increase from the latter, “Not Like Us” even reclaimed the Scorching 100’s prime spot for the primary time in two months. It’s again right down to No. 3 on this week’s itemizing, and will have lastly run out of additional lives, however we’re twice bitten, thrice shy there — particularly because it’s up 6% in airplay this week, in keeping with Luminate, and at No. 9 on Radio Songs, and we nonetheless haven’t gotten any type of official remix for the track.
Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso” & “Please Please Please” (Island/Republic): If you happen to might one way or the other merge the recognition and momentum from Sabrina Carpenter’s two summer time singles thus far, you’d undoubtedly have your self the track of the season: “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” each reached the Scorching 100’s prime 5 (the latter marking her first chief), and have been fixtures of the Songs of the Summer time’s prime 10, with Carpenter the one artist with a number of entries within the 20-position seasonal chart’s prime half this week. With Carpenter’s new album due the week after Publish Malone’s in August, her two four-quadrant smashes will undoubtedly obtain a sizeable bump. But when she needs to problem for the SotS No. 1 spot with both track, she gained’t be capable of wait round for that — neither is larger than No. 5 on the chart this week, and Billboard’s summer time season formally ends following the chart dated Sept. 7.
