Returning to my latest installment of ‘What the Kids are Listening To,’ we’ve arrived at #11 on the most recent edition of the Billboard Hot 100.
‘Back to Friends’ is the lead single from singer-songwriter Sombr’s debut album, I Barely Know Her. This is actually Sombr’s 19th single overall, as he’s spent the last four years dropping non-album singles along with an EP. But thanks primarily to TikTok exposure, this is his first release to find a wide audience.
It’s hard to believe that 17 years and 6,348 songs into my daily blogging enterprise I had yet to feature the recording often called the worst song of all time.
Well, that oversight is remedied today, as Starship’s ‘We Built This City’ was the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of December 23, 1985. Yes, today we’re throwing back to a time when ‘We Built This City’ was an unironic hit.
Throwing back to the week of November 22, 1975, we find KC & the Sunshine Band atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘That’s the Way (I Like It),’ the second single from their self-titled sophomore album.
The first single, ‘Get Down Tonight,’ also reached #1 on the chart. These were the first of five eventual #1 hits for the band. ‘That’s the Way (I Like It)’ has the distinction of hitting #1 twice within the same month, as it was briefly replaced by Silver Convention’s ‘Fly Robin Fly’ after topping the charts the first time.
At #10 on the latest Billboard Hot 100 chart is a song that first entered the chart 42 years earlier: Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller.’
This is an example of one of the exceptions to Billboard’s new Hot 100 rules, which allow a perennially popular track to return to the chart due to seasonal popularity. ‘Thriller’ has become a Halloween staple, popping onto the chart on an annual basis during spooky season.
Leon Thomas sits at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Mutt,’ a song I covered in the Song of the Summer write-up. This one’s been on the chart for 40 weeks. It still has three months left on the chart based on the new rules, unless it drops below #25 before then.
It wouldn’t be the modern Hot 100 if Morgan Wallen wasn’t somewhere in the top ten, and this week he’s at #9 with ‘I Got Better,’ the sixth single from his smash album I’m the Problem.
Meet Me In Montauk 