With Morgan Wallen's I'm the Problem topping the Billboard 200 albums chart yet again, and Alex Warren's "Ordinary" doing the same on the Hot 100 singles chart, there's not much action at No. 1 this week. But, amid a cluster of top 10 album debuts — by Lorde, KATSEYE and rapper Russ — there's a left-field hit with staying power: the soundtrack to the Netflix original movie KPop Demon Hunters, which surges into the top five.
TOP ALBUMS
For the past few weeks, we've seen fresh iterations of a familiar cycle: A few new albums debut in the top 10, only to drop out a week later, replaced by a fresh crop of debuts. Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen's I'm the Problem — buoyed by huge streaming numbers that barely decline from week to week — sits, immovable, at No. 1.
Last week, three albums debuted in the top 10. But a twist emerges on this week's Billboard 200: None of those records drop very far in their second week — and one actually rises from its debut spot, which almost never happens in the Billboard charts' upper regions.
The titles in question: Benson Boone's American Heart, buoyed by the hit singles "Sorry I'm Here for Someone Else" and "Mystical Magical"; Karol G's Tropicoqueta, which gave the Colombian pop star a new all-time career chart peak last week; and the soundtrack to the Netflix animated feature KPop Demon Hunters, which is the first movie soundtrack to hit the top 10 since Wicked.
Surprisingly, the only one of those three to depart the top 10 in its second week is Boone, who falls this week from No. 2 to No. 14. Tropicoqueta slides just two spots, from No. 3 to No. 5 — an impressive showing on a chart that loves to serve up precipitous second-week drops. Then there's KPop Demon Hunters, which climbs from No. 8 to No. 3 thanks to an explosion in streaming; in week two, its streaming numbers rose an astonishing 108%, which portends a longer chart run than most observers would have expected, given how ephemeral most (though certainly not all) K-pop chart runs have been in the U.S.
Clearly, KPop Demon Hunters is finding a wide and devoted audience: The film, which made its Netflix debut on June 20, has also climbed from No. 6 to No. 2 on Netflix's own chart. That audience has clearly done more than merely embrace the movie; fans are also streaming its soundtrack like crazy. Seven of its songs cracked the Hot 100 singles chart this week, with five of them making their debut.
The KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack isn't this week's only auspicious riser, as three very different albums make top 10 debuts:
- Lorde's Virgin enters the chart at No. 2, outperforming the No. 5 peak of its predecessor, 2021's Solar Power. The question for Lorde this time around will be longevity, as Virgin sold 31,000 copies on vinyl in week one and those numbers don't carry over from week to week. A hit single would be crucial, and the only one she lands on this week's Hot 100 is "What Was That," which reenters the chart at No. 85.
- The global girl group KATSEYE debuts at No. 4 with its five-song EP Beautiful Chaos. The group, whose members won a 2023 reality TV competition show called Dream Academy, isn't technically K-pop, given that its members hail from the U.S., the Philippines, South Korea and Switzerland. But the vibe is K-pop — and the chart numbers are encouraging. KATSEYE's other EP, last year's SIS (Soft Is Strong), peaked at No. 119.
- The prolific rapper Russ returns to the chart with W!LD, his fourth album to crack the top 10 since 2017. Russ acted in M. Night Shyamalan's 2024 movie Trap, which isn't relevant to Russ' current chart performance but feels like it's worth noting because Trap is one of the most entertainingly terrible movies to come along in ages and everyone should watch it, with friends, to revel in how ridiculous it is.
Oh, and I'm the Problem sits at No. 1 for a seventh consecutive week, and will likely remain No. 1 until sometime after the heat death of the universe.
TOP SONGS
Want a data point to illustrate the baffling doom loop in which the Billboard charts find themselves? Sure you do!
In the history of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, which dates back to the summer of 1958, just four songs have sat in the top 10 for 45 or more weeks. One is The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights," which spent 57 weeks in the top 10 in 2020 and 2021. The other three? They're all in the top 10 right now.
It's certainly possible that some sizable percentage of U.S. commercial radio programmers — lulled into a stupor by streaming algorithms that keep feeding listeners the songs they've already played — died of boredom sometime last fall and were never replaced. Regardless, the public apparently still can't get enough of Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," with its 60 weeks in the top 10; Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' "Die With a Smile," which is a relative spring chicken at just 45 weeks; and Teddy Swims, whose "Lose Control" just keeps extending its all-time records for weeks in the top 10 (68!) and the Hot 100 (98!). In just six weeks, "Lose Control" will hit the two-year mark. To prepare for a fitting celebration when the time comes, let's inflate some balloons right now, then let them get all saggy and airless over the next month and a half. Then, at the two-year mark, we'll hang their limp carcasses in our homes, play "Lose Control" for the octillionth time and stare, unblinking, into the middle distance.
God, what else? Alex Warren's "Ordinary" is No. 1 for a fifth nonconsecutive week — something to file away for the summer of 2027, when it's still somehow lingering at No. 8 — while three Morgan Wallen songs fill out the top five yet again. At least Chappell Roan's having a nice week: "Pink Pony Club" re-enters the top 10, while her country one-off "The Giver" re-emerges in the Hot 100 at No. 43 thanks to a flood of copies sold on vinyl.
WORTH NOTING
When it comes to measuring the cultural and commercial impact of a piece of music, the Billboard charts have always been an inexact science — just as box-office reports, Nielsen ratings and bestseller lists don't always adequately measure the impact of movies, TV shows and books. The charts are just one metric among many, and are particularly ill-suited to capturing the incremental drip-drip-drip of cult success.
Consider the case of Jeff Buckley's landmark 1994 album, Grace. Grace was enormously influential on music in the '90s and beyond; echoes of its sound can be heard in the works of Radiohead, Coldplay and a thousand ethereal singer-songwriters. Grace is no commercial slouch, either; over the years, it's been certified double-platinum. Buckley, who drowned in 1997, has become a mythical figure, as his recordings — most of them released posthumously — have received deluxe reissues. A documentary about his life, It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley, comes out next month. Drip, drip, drip.
Buckley's Billboard chart history reflects virtually none of this impact. Various posthumous works have charted here and there, but none have so much as cracked the top 50 of the Billboard 200. Grace itself spent just seven weeks on the chart — all of them in 1995 — and peaked at No. 149.
This week, curiously enough, Grace reenters the Billboard 200 for the first time since July 1, 1995, when it sat at No. 200. In just its eighth week on the chart, this influential, much-loved classic sits at No. 198.
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