Spring 2022 Unveils Superstars: For Three Consecutive Weeks, Future Released I never liked youBad Bunny went off Un Verano Sin Tiand Kendrick Lamar returned from a five-year hiatus with him Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Future and Lamar each released four Top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 during their debut weeks, while Bad Bunny scored three.
But few of these pieces endured. Nine of them fell out of the top 10 in their second week on the chart. A month later, Future's “Wait for U,” a brooding hip-hop ballad featuring Drake and Tems, loomed as the only lasting reminder of that top 10 blockbuster.
That July, Steve Lacy charted a very different path on the Hot 100. He's not as well known as Future, Bad Bunny or Lamar. As a result, his new single “Bad Habit” debuted on the Hot 100 at its lowest possible position. It charted for five weeks before reaching the top 10. It then remained there for 18 weeks, eventually reaching No. 1.
Songs like “Bad Habit” are becoming hard to find — 75% of 2024's top 10 hits debuted in that lofty environment since the third week of July. Ironically, though, tracks that start at the top of the Hot 100, like Future's “Puffin On Zootiez” and Lamar's “N95,” tend to be easy to come by. They don't last as long as the hits that take time to get into that exclusive atmosphere.
Since 2000, the average single that debuts in the top 10 stays there for about six weeks. In contrast, tracks that take two to eight weeks to rise to that position remain for more than 11 weeks.
This dynamic has become more extreme in the heart of the streaming era. As of 2015, singles that start in the top 10 last an average of 6.3 weeks, while tracks that take two to four weeks to reach the top 10 last more than twice that – 12.7 weeks. And songs that take five to eight weeks to climb into the top 10 do even better, lasting an average of 13-plus weeks.
Singles that burst high on the chart and then immediately sink can be seen as viral singles — tracks that emerge from obscurity, usually from the masses on TikTok, are embedded in millions of videos, streamed by curious listeners, and then discarded. In fact, most of these short-lived top 10 hits are album cuts from superstars like Taylor Swift and Drake.
When artists with big followings release new full-lengths, it's now common for many of the album's tracks to immediately debut on the Hot 100 — as dedicated fans get into it for the first time and play it all the way through, sometimes more than once. Listeners have always been eager to devour new releases from their favorite acts, but this activity could not be tracked at the song level prior to the adoption of streaming, except through sales or occasional radio play by individual DJs who liked a particular album section.
However, the initial burst of excitement after a release—the thrill of the new—is very hard to sustain, and many of these songs quickly drop out of the top of the Hot 100. From 2000 to 2015, about 13% of the top 10 it fell out of the top 10 after one week. that number has skyrocketed, topping 40% in each of the past four years.
Gaining the attention of listeners is difficult enough in an age of unprecedented competition for attention. Sustaining this attention for extended periods, or building it over time, can be even more difficult.
Songs that make it tend to sound a lot like singles from the pre-streaming era, as they've had long promotional campaigns behind them. The effect of radio on their orbit is often very noticeable.
While streams and sales of sought-after projects typically cluster near a release date and then decline, airplay tends to increase over time as more stations see a song work and start playing it, and then playing it more often alongside label promotion. A similar development occurs with radio formats, which will often steal successful tracks from one another, further amplifying their chart impact.
“A lot of times, the pop genre just looks at other genres and sees what pops up — like a Hozier or a Noah Kahan — and then goes, 'You know what, it looks like a pop record, let's give it a shot.' explains Tom Poleman, head of programming at iHeartMedia. “Then you can make something a super massive record.”
Many young executives believe that airplay has little to no effect on streaming levels, but radio's slow recording schedule helps songs climb the Hot 100 — and stay near the top. In fact, from a company's perspective, this is one of the main remaining benefits of airplay as radio continues to face increased competition from streaming services and small-format video platforms. (Some executives also believe that airplay can help artists sell tickets and win brand deals.)
Take Shaboozey's “A Bar Song (Tipsy):” when it went from No. 2 to No. 1 on the Hot 100 on July 27, streams and sales dropped — 6% and 24%, respectively, according to Luminate — but radio listening increased by 11%. Shaboozey's hit garnered 77.2 million airplay audiences, compared to 39 million official streams and 16,000 sales.
For the next two weeks, streaming and sales continued to dwindle, while airplay audiences continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace—up 10% in week three and 6% in week four—and “A Bar Song ( Tipsy)' remained at No. 1. “Radio can still very much move the needle,” says J Grand, a veteran A&R. “Certainly not as much as a decade ago, but I don't think the decline is as steep as people make it out to be.”
However, promoting songs to radio is expensive, and radio generally plays less current music than it used to. It's a good thing for commercial artists, then, that airplay isn't the only way to extend the life of a song high on the charts. While the influence of music videos has waned significantly in the age of TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts, a well-placed clip can still spark a single. (Though videos can be expensive too.)
Lamar's “Not Like Us” returned to No. 1 nine weeks after it was originally released thanks to its music video, which was widely expected due to the avalanche of attention surrounding his nasty public feud with Drake. Streams of “Not Like Us” jumped 20% and sales climbed 16% in a period where it usually falls.
And adding a star partner to a remix remains a tried and true technique for dealing with declining map position. Wizkid's 'Essence,' a swinging, soulful collaboration with Tems, has been building steadily for months during 2021. “The people who first connected with the song in the United States were largely either from Africa or the diaspora ” says John Fleckenstein, COO of RCA Records. who released and marketed the track. “We literally went city by city, focused on targeted radio and digital campaigns to reach those populations.”
But the big boost for “Essence” came when Justin Bieber joined the fray, appearing on a remix in August that boosted streams, sales and airplay all at once. Bieber's presence catapulted the song from No. 44 on the Hot 100 to No. 16. In October, “Essence” broke into the top 10 — again with the help of airplay, which continued to climb even as streams and sales were declining.
The engineering of the long climb that ultimately made “Essence” – or “Bad Habit” – inescapable is increasingly a lost art. But while the majority of the Hot 100's top 10 hits now debut at the top of the chart, the danger of breaking out strongly is quickly disappearing. As Nick Bobetsky, who runs Chapell Roan, likes to say, “there's a lot more meaning in momentum than in a moment.”
