Adele’s ‘Easy on Me‘ continues its five-months-and-counting run in the top ten, sitting at the #7 spot on this week’s Billboard Hot 100.
At #8 is Imagine Dragon’s ‘Enemy,’ featuring rapper J.I.D. This song was written for a Netflix animated series Arcane, which is based on a video game called League of Legends. If you’re over 18, it’s likely none of that means anything to you.
In the #5 slot on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 is the Encanto smash ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno,’ which enjoyed five weeks in the top spot before being unseated by Glass Animals’ ‘Heat Waves.’
The success of the Encanto soundtrack, and this song in particular, is one of the great Billboard chart stories of recent years.
Coming in at #6 is the latest Justin Bieber jam, ‘Ghost,’ a syrupy mid-tempo pop song about the loss of a loved one.
In the #4 spot on the latest Billboard Hot 100, we have ‘abcdefu’ by 17-year-old singer-songwriter Gayle. This catchy kiss-off track has spent 17 weeks on the chart and peaked at #3 before sliding back a spot.
Many songs on the Hot 100 these days owe their popularity to TikTok. This one owes its very existence to the social platform. Gayle asked her TikTok followers for song ideas and liked the suggestion from one to write a song that included the alphabet. I wonder if that fan is trying to get a cut of the profits.
After a solid month of movie posts, I’m shifting back to my primary focus on music. I will have more film-related content this year, including planned deep dives into a few directors’ filmographies, but that will come later. For now, it’s time for some tunes!
And what better way to start than with another installment of “What the Kids are Listening To?” I last dipped into the Billboard Hot 100 the week of November 14, 2021, and over the next two weeks we’ll see what songs are topping the list right now.
Liz Phair’s 2010 album Funstyle was self-released by the artist after she left Capitol Records. The album followed a couple of poorly-received stabs at a more commercial sound and signaled her increasing dissatisfaction with the direction of her career.
Funstyle fared a bit better, critically, but just a bit. It also seemed for awhile like the last thing Phair would release, until she returned 11 years later with the well-reviewed Soberish.
Meet Me In Montauk 