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Song of the Day #5,521: ‘FE!N’ – Travis Scott feat. Playboi Carti

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.

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Song of the Day #5,520: ‘Cruel Summer’ – Taylor Swift

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.

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Song of the Day #5,519: ‘Meltdown’ – Travis Scott feat. Drake

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.

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Song of the Day #5,518: ‘Fast Car’ – Luke Combs

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.

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Song of the Day #5,517: ‘Whoomp! (There It Is)’ – Tag Team

After a run of great Throwback Weekend songs from the 60s through the 80s, we hit the brick wall of the 90s. Fortunately, I’ve already posted the #1 song from the week of August 7, 1993, the awful but inexplicably popular cover of ‘(I Can’t Help) Falling in Love with You‘ by UB40.

In the #2 spot is a song I was ready to dismiss as hot garbage, but my increasing nostalgic fondness for early 90s hip-hop keeps me from going too negative. ‘Whoomp! (There It Is),’ by hip-hop duo Tag Team, isn’t great art, but its verses have the playfulness and buoyancy that make much of this era’s rap music a delight.

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