Alex Warren performs onstage on the 2025 American Music Awards.
Christopher Polk/Penske Media through Getty Photos/Penske Media
conceal caption
toggle caption
Christopher Polk/Penske Media through Getty Photos/Penske Media
With Morgan Wallen‘s I am the Downside persevering with to dominate — it is No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a second week, by a large margin — the most important information belongs to singer-songwriter Alex Warren, whose blockbuster observe “Strange” ascends to No. 1 on the Sizzling 100 singles chart for the primary time. It is one of many few songs at present within the working for “tune of the summer time” standing, although the summer time of 2025 is admittedly (and fortunately) nonetheless younger.
TOP ALBUMS
Final week, Morgan Wallen’s I am the Downside topped the Billboard 200 by a mile: It was essentially the most streamed album of the week, it posted the most important gross sales week of any document this 12 months, and 36 of its 37 songs cracked the Sizzling 100 concurrently. Everybody knew it might be a blockbuster and — ta da! — it is a blockbuster.
These developments proceed in I am the Downside‘s second week. For starters, its “equal album items” quantity — referring to the cocktail of gross sales and streaming that Billboard makes use of to rank albums every week — dropped simply 42 %, from 493,000 to 286,000. The decline could appear vital at first look, however percentage-wise, it is an unusually small week-to-week dip from a high-profile debut; main albums sometimes profit from an enormous streaming surge upon launch, solely to plummet again all the way down to earth because the preliminary flood of curiosity fades. (For an excessive instance of this phenomenon, contemplate Echo, the brand new album by Jin of BTS: It debuted at No. 3 final week and plunged all the best way to No. 122 simply seven days later.)
The truth is, this week’s Billboard 200 brings Wallen a brand new little bit of bragging rights so as to add to his arsenal: For the primary time in his profession, he is obtained three albums within the prime 10 concurrently. One Factor at a Time, from 2023, holds at No. 4, whereas 2021’s Harmful: The Double Album sits at No. 10. (His full-length debut, 2018’s If I Know Me, peaked at No. 10 shortly after the discharge of Harmful; it nonetheless sits at No. 73.)
Past Wallen, it is a sluggish week, as just one album — Joe Jonas‘ Music for Folks Who Imagine in Love — debuts within the prime 100 at No. 24. Playboi Carti‘s MUSIC leaps from No. 18 to No. 5 due to a cargo of deluxe bodily editions from the rapper’s webstore, whereas tourmates Kendrick Lamar (GNX) and SZA (SOS) proceed their long-term residencies within the prime 5, however that is all there’s to report from the chart’s higher reaches.
TOP SONGS
Final week, Morgan Wallen locked down the Sizzling 100’s prime three spots with “What I Need (feat. Tate McRae),” “Simply in Case” and “I am the Downside,” delaying the inevitable ascent of Alex Warren’s “Strange” to No. 1. This week, buoyed by a surge in radio airplay — in addition to a high-profile slot performing the tune on the American Music Awards — “Strange” lastly ascends from No. 4 to No. 1. “Strange” has skilled a gentle climb since coming into the Sizzling 100 16 weeks in the past, and now it is able to stake its declare to “tune of the summer time” standing. (Extra on that beneath.)
After all, Wallen’s greatest songs did not fall far — the truth is, the three every slid down a single spot in lockstep, with Kendrick Lamar’s “Luther (feat. SZA)” rounding out the highest 5 after topping the chart for 13 consecutive weeks earlier within the 12 months. And I am the Downside, Wallen’s new album, nonetheless lands 31 of its 37 songs on the Billboard Sizzling 100. (Wallen even has a thirty second tune on the Sizzling 100, as his Submit Malone collaboration “I Had Some Assist” nonetheless sits at No. 16 greater than a 12 months after it debuted atop the chart.)
With three of Wallen’s songs departing the highest 10, that leaves room for 3 previous standbys to return to acquainted perches. Drake‘s “Nokia” rebounds from No. 12 to No. 9, Benson Boone‘s “Lovely Issues” surges from No. 14 to No. 10 in its seventieth week on the chart, and Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Management” climbs from No. 11 to No. 8. “Lose Management” has now spent 63 weeks within the prime 10 and 93 weeks on the Sizzling 100 — each all-time information. In the meantime, Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” rebounds from No. 9 to No. 6 in its 59th week on the Sizzling 100. Can we get some new hits, fairly please?
WORTH NOTING
Keep in mind the summer time of 2024? Collect ‘spherical your grandpappy’s knee and he’ll inform you the story of one thing we known as “Brat Summer time” — but it surely wasn’t simply Charli xcx! There was Chappell Roan! Sabrina Carpenter! Followers had been nonetheless rocking current albums by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé! Kendrick Lamar was successful his diss-track struggle with Drake! Submit Malone and Morgan Wallen shaped a country-pop Voltron that really seemed like summer time! Up-and-comers like Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Tommy Richman and Shaboozey grew to become stars — or at the very least hitmakers — earlier than our eyes!
At the moment? There’s rather a lot much less… newness to select from.
In some way, lots of 2024’s zombified stays are nonetheless shambling round close to the highest of the charts. Even with Wallen’s new album crowding the Sizzling 100, 9 of the highest 16 songs have been on the chart for greater than six months, and 5 of these — Shaboozey’s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy),” Swims’ “Lose Management,” Boone’s “Lovely Issues,” Billie Eilish‘s “Birds of a Feather” and Submit Malone’s “I Had Some Assist,” that includes Wallen — have charted for greater than a 12 months apiece.
There is no regulation that claims a tune of the summer time must be new; keep in mind 2022, when Kate Bush‘s 1985 traditional “Operating Up That Hill” stormed the charts all summer time due to its placement on Stranger Issues? However the songs of this summer time should not simply be the undead remnants of final summer time, both.
This week, Billboard revealed its inaugural Songs of the Summer time chart for 2025. Their rating makes use of quite a lot of components — radio airplay, streaming and gross sales, all computed cumulatively because the summer time rolls on — to find out which songs most exemplify that 12 months’s summer time playlist. Within the 2024 chart that lastly declared a single winner after 14 weeks, Submit Malone’s “I Had Some Assist (feat. Morgan Wallen)” narrowly edged out Shaboozey’s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy),” not that you simply wanted a chart to inform you that these had been final summer time’s greatest hits.
It is humorous to peruse this 12 months’s first Songs of the Summer time chart, largely as a result of it scans like an alternate-universe Sizzling 100 during which they imposed modest time period limits. (Titles that appeared on final 12 months’s Songs of the Summer time chart, or which peaked earlier than or throughout final summer time, aren’t eligible.) And, as a result of it roughly coincides with the discharge of I am the Downside, eight of the brand new chart’s 20 songs are by Wallen. The truth is, absolutely half are nation or country-adjacent, with BigXthaPlug‘s “All of the Method (feat. Bailey Zimmerman)” and Riley Inexperienced’s “Worst Method” additionally making the minimize.
That is to be anticipated; nation jams have contended for “tune of the summer time” standing since “tune of the summer time” first emerged as an idea. Nevertheless it’s putting, when scanning the remaining 10 songs, how long-in-the-tooth a few of them are. Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Membership” definitely suits the invoice for a Pleasure Month-friendly pop banger, but it surely’s been on the Sizzling 100 for 50 weeks now. (It really first got here out in 2020, however that is one other story.) Girl Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile” turns up, too, and it has been on the Sizzling 100 for 41 weeks.
Maybe it speaks to the second that the chart additionally contains rapper Doechii‘s breakout hit “Nervousness,” which nods to Gen-Z nostalgia — it interpolates Gotye‘s inescapable early-2010s sensation “Someone That I Used to Know” — whereas additionally capturing a second when so many people are feeling pressured concerning the world. If that finally ends up being 2025’s tune of the summer time, it’d make a good bit of sense.
Nonetheless, it is onerous to not discover the vacuum that exists for these searching for feel-good summer time pop jams that — not like “Pink Pony Membership” or “Die With a Smile” — aren’t but sufficiently old to eat strong meals. Benson Boone’s definitely making an attempt, if followers and radio stations would simply cease spinning “Lovely Issues” lengthy sufficient to hear. Jessie Murph and Lola Younger have been ready within the wings for some time, hovering simply outdoors the charts’ higher reaches alongside up-and-comers like neo-soul superstar-in-waiting Leon Thomas and high-cheekboned pop singer-songwriter sombr. This is hoping a couple of of them break into the highest 10 — the earlier, the higher.
