With ‘Golden’ a Okay-pop lady group hits No. 1 on the charts for the primary time : NPR

For 9 of the final 10 weeks, Alex Warren‘s “Ordinary” has sat at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 singles chart. But this week, it has been dethroned by an act that is not even actual: HUNTR/X, the lady group from the film KPop Demon Hunters. On the albums chart, Reneé Rapp, $uicideBoy$ and Yeat all crash the highest 10. And, with a brand new Taylor Swift album set to drop quickly, we survey how the singer’s albums are at the moment stacking up on the pop charts.

TOP ALBUMS

The Billboard 200 albums chart has skilled fast turnover prior to now few weeks, at the same time as two prime titles stay roughly immovable: Morgan Wallen‘s I’m the Problem, which holds at No. 1 for a tenth nonconsecutive week, and the soundtrack to KPop Demon Hunters, which stays at No. 2. The latter remains to be gaining on the previous — and can probably surpass it, for at the very least per week or two, as soon as bodily copies start rolling out subsequent month.

From No. 3 on down, although, the highest 10 has been unusually unstable. Three albums debut within the prime 10 and 6 drop out, which tells you that some albums aren’t “surging” a lot as “filling a vacuum left when the bottom falls out of other titles’ streaming and sales numbers.”

First, let’s go over the excellent news, within the type of these three debuts: Reneé Rapp’s BITE ME enters the chart at No. 3 — that is a profession excessive by a considerable margin, on condition that the singer/actress’s solely different album to hit the Billboard 200 was 2023’s Snow Angel, which peaked at No. 44. Rapp is not probably to hang around within the prime 10 for lengthy (BITE ME‘s numbers are principally derived from first-week gross sales, which creates solely a short-term sugar excessive the place the charts are involved), however No. 3 is No. 3. Then, you’ve got received two rap acts who’ve landed within the prime 10 earlier than: $uicideBoy$, whose Thy Kingdom Come debuts at No. 4, and Yeat, whose Dangerous Summer enters the chart at No. 9.

The dangerous information: Not solely did all three of final week’s debuts (new albums by Tomorrow X Together, YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Tyler Childers) vacate the highest 10, however we additionally misplaced two current information by hip-hop powerhouses. JACKBOYS & Travis Scott‘s JACKBOYS 2 by no means appeared destined to hold round within the chart’s higher reaches for months on finish, however Tyler, The Creator‘s Don’t Tap the Glass solely scored two weeks within the prime 10 — the primary at No. 1 — earlier than sliding from No. 4 to No. 11 in week 3. That’s a speedy decline for an artist whose final album, CHROMAKOPIA, spent its first three weeks on the chart at No. 1 again in November. (The sixth title to drop out of the highest 10: The Essential Ozzy Osbourne, which had leapt up the charts within the aftermath of the heavy-metal icon’s loss of life.)

TOP SONGS

For 9 of the final 10 weeks, Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” had the Hot 100’s No. 1 tune locked down, with no specific finish in sight; in any case, it is dominated the airplay charts for ages, and as soon as a tune has turn into an airplay juggernaut, it might turn into extraordinarily troublesome to dislodge from the chart’s higher reaches. Overtaking “Ordinary” would appear particularly difficult for a monitor like HUNTR/X’s “Golden,” which has ridden the KPop Demon Hunters growth to No. 2 due to blockbuster streaming numbers, however hasn’t proven practically as a lot energy with industrial radio programmers.

But this week,”Golden” does take the No. 1 spot, within the course of effectuating a real milestone: The members of HUNTR/X — the fictional Okay-pop group made up of nonfictional singers EJAE, Audrey Nuna and REI AMI — have simply turn into the primary ladies Okay-pop artists ever to hit No. 1. (If you are questioning about “APT.,” final yr’s duet between BLACKPINK‘s Rosé and Bruno Mars, it peaked at No. 3.)

Okay-pop acts routinely prime the Billboard 200 albums chart, and eight Okay-pop songs hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 previous to “Golden” — all of them related to the boy band BTS. Now, a Okay-pop lady group has lastly topped the Hot 100 within the U.S. And, as “Golden” begins to make headway with radio programmers — its airplay numbers are up greater than 70% this week, although “Golden” nonetheless lags far behind “Ordinary” on that entrance — it might be robust to beat within the coming weeks.

The different main information on the Hot 100 includes the career-best debut of Chappell Roan‘s new single “The Subway.” Roan has been constructing anticipation for the tune’s launch ever since she premiered it at a Governors Ball live performance final yr. Now, the completed single enters the Hot 100 at No. 3 — besting the peaks of Roan’s different prime 10 singles (“Pink Pony Club,” “The Giver” and “Good Luck, Babe!”).

WORTH NOTING

Early Tuesday morning, Taylor Swift introduced the approaching launch of her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. Specifics are nonetheless forthcoming as of press time — Swift’s web site reveals that bodily copies will ship earlier than Oct. 13, however that does not preclude an earlier digital launch — so it looks like pretty much as good a time as any to survey Swift’s present place within the chart panorama.

This week’s charts doc a stretch with none main Swift information to spice up the numbers: no contemporary information about her buying her masters, no Eras Tour clips crashing folks’s social-media feeds, no rumors tied to bulletins that is perhaps forthcoming at awards exhibits, no uninteresting boomlets of controversy through which the president of the United States has deemed her “NO LONGER HOT.” So we have a good snapshot of the established order between promotional cycles.

And… it seems to be fairly good for Taylor Swift. With nothing to advertise at that second and no main information lingering in followers’ minds, Swift has eight albums on the present Billboard 200 albums chart: Folklore (No. 24), The Tortured Poets Department (No. 27), Lover (No. 51), Reputation (No. 62), Midnights (No. 81), the Taylor’s Version version of 1989 (No. 136), the Taylor’s Version version of Red (No. 179) and the non-Taylor’s Version version of 1989 (No. 180). It’s uncommon to see Folklore charting increased than TTPD — the previous not too long ago celebrated its five-year anniversary, which can have given it a lift — however that in any other case represents a stable baseline for these albums’ recognition within the current day.

What stays to be seen, at the very least between now and the discharge of The Life of a Showgirl, is whether or not the anticipation of recent Taylor Swift music boosts the chart efficiency of the albums that are not at the moment on the chart: her self-titled debut, Speak Now, Fearless, Evermore, the non-Taylor’s Version version of Red and so forth. But, a technique or one other, we’re in for one more season of Swift — within the information, through the looming NFL season and, as a matter of absolute certainty, on the charts.