Throwing back to the week of August 17, 2013, we’re once again going deep into the top ten before finding a song I haven’t featured.
The top five that week were, in order, Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines,’ Miley Cyrus’ ‘We Can’t Stop,’ Imagine Dragons’ ‘Radioactive,’ and Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky.’ Those tracks were competing for Song of the Summer status for months that year.
Throwing back to the week of August 16, 2003, we find Beyoncé hanging on to the top spot with ‘Crazy in Love,’ halfway through its run of eight weeks at #1.
Below that is ‘Right Thurr’ by St. Louis rapper Chingy. This song spent (non-consecutive) five weeks at #2, held off by Queen Bey’s first major hit. That seems fair, given how much better ‘Crazy in Love’ is than this track.
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.
Meet Me In Montauk 