Sometimes I worry that I come across as overly hostile toward rap music. I have a sort of knee-jerk liberal defensiveness, eager to point out that I’m not racist, just hopelessly square.
I don’t want my ‘What the Kids are Listening To’ segments to turn into multiple days of “old man yells at cloud.” But I like what I like, and I dislike what I dislike, and I have to be honest about all of it.
Here’s the second Travis Scott track I promised in this installment of ‘What the Kids are Listening To.’ ‘FE!N,’ a collaboration with rapper Playboi Carti, landed at #5 on the latest Billboard Hot 100 chart, giving Scott two top five debuts in the same week.
While I was kinda digging the previous entry, this one is making me feel old again. I’m not sure what “FE!N” means (Genius.com suggests it’s a twist on the word “fiend” and references both a drug user and a demon), but I know I don’t want to hear it repeated 20 times per chorus.
It’s a testament to the world-conquering success of Taylor Swift that a single from a four-year-old album currently sits at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.
‘Cruel Summer’ is one of the best songs on 2919’s Lover. At the time of the album’s release, I wrote this about the track: “This should have been the first single, and I’d bet it still has the potential to become a big hit.”
Now, I’m no prophet. That was the opinion held by pretty much everyone, and it’s the reason ‘Cruel Summer’ finally got an official single release earlier this year in the midst of the record-breaking Eras tour.
In the #3 spot on this week’s Hot 100 is a name that (spoiler alert) will show up another couple of times between this week and next. Rapper Travis Scott recently dropped his fourth studio album, Utopia, and fans sent all 19 of its tracks up this chart.
The winner among them, so far, is third single ‘Meltdown,’ a collaboration with Drake. This is the sixth collaboration between the two men, though the #1 hit ‘Sicko Mode’ doesn’t officially list Drake as a feature for Billboard’s purposes.
It’s been four months since my last installment of ‘What the Kids are Listening To,’ so I figured it was a good time for a summer check-in on the Billboard Hot 100.
In the #1 spot, where it has spent a record-tying 15 weeks, is Morgan Wallen’s ‘Last Night.’ The song now shares the record for longest time at #1 by a solo artist (no features) with Harry Styles’ ‘As It Was.’ One more week at #1 and it will own that title outright and join Mariah Carey’s ‘One Sweet Day’ and Luis Fonsi’s ‘Despacito’ as the songs with the second-longest tenure at #1. After that, Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ record of 19 weeks at #1 could be in its sights.
Meet Me In Montauk 