Summers may come and go, but the songs of the summer last forever
There’s no movement at the top of the main Billboard charts this week, as Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” spends a ninth nonconsecutive week atop the Hot 100 singles chart and Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet stays at No. 1 after debuting atop the Billboard 200 albums chart last week. Still, two debuts crack the Top 10 albums: South Korean girl group LE SSERAFIM’s Crazy EP at No. 7 and rapper and singer Destroy Lonely’s Love Lasts Forever at No. 10. And Billboard winds down this year’s “Songs of the Summer” chart with a wire-to-wire winner: Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help,” which features Morgan Wallen, topped that seasonal chart for 14 weeks out of a possible 14.
TOP ALBUMS
Last week, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet took the No. 1 spot by a whisker, as she fended off a furious challenge from rapper Travis Scott and the 10th-anniversary edition of his 2014 mixtape Days Before Rodeo. This week on the Billboard 200, it’s not a contest, as Scott plunges from No. 2 to No. 30 and Carpenter holds on to the top spot with ease. It’s a common story with the albums chart: A few titles have staying power, while most others that rally enough support to make a run at the crown implode like dying stars in a matter of days.
They may or may not perform like dying stars in the weeks to come, but two new records enjoy Top 10 chart debuts this week: Crazy, an EP by the South Korean girl group LE SSERAFIM — that’s an anagram for “I’m fearless” — debuts at No. 7, while rapper/singer Destroy Lonely’s new album Love Lasts Forever enters the chart at No. 10. The titles replace two of last week’s three Top 10 debuts: the aforementioned Days Before Rodeo and country singer Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind, which drops from No. 8 to No. 38. (Only one album that’s been out for less than a month actually rose on this week’s chart: Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, which climbs from No. 3 to No. 2.)
Elsewhere in the Top 10, most titles drift up to fill the vacuum left by Scott and Wilson’s plunges: In addition to F-1 Trillion, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (No. 4 to No. 3), Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time (No. 5 to No. 4), Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department (No. 6 to No. 5) and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft (No. 7 to No. 6) all tick up a spot, as do Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene (No. 9 to No. 8) and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (No. 10 to No. 9).
Otherwise, there’s shockingly little movement across the chart: Between No. 11 and No. 20, no title is more than two spots removed from where it sat last week. And after LE SSERAFIM and Destroy Lonely, the highest chart debut belongs to Big Sean’s Better Me Than You, at No. 25.
TOP SONGS
If you saw the words “shockingly little movement” in the preceding paragraph and thought, “I like the sound of that,” then you’re gonna love this week’s Hot 100 singles chart. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” holds at No. 1 for a ninth consecutive week; that’s the longest run of any song this year. The song with 2024’s second-longest run, “I Had Some Help” (by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen) rebounds from No. 5 to No. 2; it topped the chart for six weeks earlier in the summer and has sat comfortably in the top five ever since.
Next up are the three best-known songs from Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, though they’re all swapping places: “Espresso” climbs from No. 4 to No. 3, “Please Please Please” slips from No. 3 to No. 4 and the newest single, “Taste,” drops from No. 2 to No. 5. Short n’ Sweet’s remaining nine songs continue to dot the Hot 100, from “Bed Chem” at No. 15 down to “Lie to Girls” at No. 77.
In the back half of the Top 10, it’s basically stasis all the way down: Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” holds at No. 6, Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” stays at No. 7 and Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” sits tight at No. 8, while Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” (No. 10 to No. 9) and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” (No. 9 to No. 10) pay us the courtesy of switching spots. Next week, the latter song, which hung out in the top five for nearly the entire summer and hit No. 1 on two separate occasions, could enjoy a boost from last weekend’s announcement that Lamar will headline the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show.
WORTH NOTING
Every year, Billboard maintains a “Songs of the Summer” chart, which by definition only runs for a limited time. To be more precise, it runs for 14 weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The final chart just dropped, and if you’re someone who believes there can only be one song of the summer — which, to be clear, is foolishness — you’ve got yourself a definitive answer for 2024: It’s “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone, featuring Morgan Wallen. Considering that Wallen had the song of the summer last year, with “Last Night,” the man’s on a pretty decent roll.
“I Had Some Help” never relinquished the top spot, even as Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” dominated the Hot 100 in the back half of the summer; it certainly doesn’t hurt that “I Had Some Help” sat at No. 1 or No. 2 for nearly the entire season. (Naturally, “A Bar Song” landed at No. 2 on the final Songs of the Summer chart.)
Rounding out the Top 10 were … well, most of the consensus picks for 2024’s songs of the summer: Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” (No. 3), Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” (No. 4 and No. 6, respectively), Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” (No. 5), Hozier’s “Too Sweet” (No. 7), Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” (No. 8), Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” (No. 9) and Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” (No. 10). Even that list can't capture every song to plausibly lay claim to song-of-the-summer status. In addition to the entirety of Charli XCX’s Brat, you've got the song at No. 11: Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”
It’s an extremely solid crop all around, but … can we get some new songs for fall, pretty please?
