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 Billboard Hot 100 dated Oct. 12, we look at a few threats to the long-established throne of Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” including a new star team-up and an established pop megahit with a new official video.
Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): It’s crazy to remember that a few months ago, it seemed like Shaboozey would need a little luck on his side to even steal a week at No. 1, considering the crowded pack of songs his “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” had to get past and the double-digit-week climb in consumption it needed to scale first. Now, not only is the song the year’s longest-reigning No. 1, but it’s gone twice as long on top as any other previous Hot 100-topper – and it may not be done for a while yet.
Despite being nearly half a year old at this point – this chart week (dated Oct. 5) marks its 24th week on the Hot 100 — “A Bar Song” remains in the top two in all three component charts, leading Streaming Songs and Radio Songs and ranking at No. 2 on Digital Song Sales. The song is trending towards another week atop Radio Songs next frame – which would already be its 10th week at pole position there – as it remains top five across Country Airplay, Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay.
Is it time to start thinking about the chances “A Bar Song” has of becoming the longest-reigning Hot 100 No. 1 this decade – or even all time? It still needs another four weeks to tie Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” (16 weeks, 2023) for the former, and then three weeks on top of that to tie Lil Nas X’s Billy Ray Cyrus-featuring “Old Town Road” (19 weeks, 2019). A whole lot can happen between now and then, and the song’s weekly metrics are hardly on a historically unbeatable level this deep into its run – but clearly, unless the bottom really starts to fall out on Shaboozey’s crossover smash, another song is gonna have to really rise up and take the top spot from it, rather than hoping for natural statistical erosion to end its run.
Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather” (Darkroom/Interscope/ICLG): Billie Eilish already has her biggest hit in years with “Birds of a Feather,” but next week the top five hit (which rests at No. 6 this week) should get a bump from its new official music video, which features a gravity-defying Eilish and which she dropped last Friday (Sept. 27). As one of the most celebrated music video artists of this era, the clip naturally has gotten a ton of attention, and remains No. 1 on YouTube’s Trending Music rankings five days after its release.
The video could provide enough of a boost to help the previously No. 5-peaking hit reach a new high on the Hot 100. It’s gonna need to be a particularly big one to help the song unseat Shaboozey, however – the song ranks at No. 5 on both Streaming Songs and Radio Songs this week, and will likely remain at a deficit on the latter chart next week (and perhaps beyond), having already topped Pop Airplay (and still climbing Adult Pop Airplay) but lacking the cross-genre base support that “A Bar Song” has on country radio. (Eilish has previously found success on Rock & Alternative Airplay, but “Birds” is not being promoted to those formats.)
The Weeknd & Playboi Carti, “Timeless” (XO/Republic): Both The Weeknd and Playboi Carti had top 20 debuts on the Hot 100 last week — “Dancing in the Flames” (No. 14) and “All Red” (No. 15), respectively – so how high could they get by teaming up? We’ll see shortly, but they’ll have a hell of a streaming start: five days after its release, their “Timeless” still sits atop both Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart and Apple Music’s realtime chart.
The collab is in play to unseat “A Bar Song” atop Streaming Songs, but it will need to really trounce the song in streaming numbers to have a shot of making up for the gap in radio play between the two. “Timeless” already has amassed three million in airplay audience from R&B/hip-hop and rhythmic radio in its first four days of release, according to Luminate, but that’s still a small fraction of the weekly reach of a cross-format super-smash like “A Bar Song” — and “Timeless” also appears to be well behind “Bar” in song sales, too, as the latter currently ranks at No. 2 on the iTunes real-time chart while the former is outside the top 40.
IN THE MIX
Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile” (Streamline/Interscope/Atlantic/ICLG): When Gaga announced a new Joker: Folie a Deux-inspired album of pop standard covers mixed with a couple classic-sounding new songs, it seemed a no-brainer that her retro-leaning (and Joker-y titled) new hit with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile,” would be included on the set. But “Smile” remains a standalone single, so any bump it gets from the Friday release of her new Harlequin LP will have to be in terms of spillover interest. Regardless of any streaming gains, it does continue climbing on radio this week, moving up the top 10 on Adult Contemporary and the top 20 on Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay – and perhaps the song will receive more interest still after the release of the Gaga-starring Joker movie this Friday (Oct. 4).
