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Song of the Day #5,410: ‘Players’ – Coi Leray

At #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 we have the first song I’ve already featured on the blog — Taylor Swift’s ‘Anti-Hero.’ I didn’t do the song any justice at the time, sliding it in without comment as a last-minute substitution during a disrupted theme week. I did give it another mention during my countdown of all the tracks on Swift’s Midnight.

Moving on, the #10 song on this week’s chart is the delightful ‘Players’ by singer/rapper Coi Leray. This song samples Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s 1982 hip-hop classic ‘The Message‘ to deliver a very different sort of message, namely that “girls is players too.”

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Song of the Day #5,409: ‘Calm Down’ – Rema & Selena Gomez

Remixes are the order of the day on the back half of the top ten this week on the Billboard Hot 100. In the eighth spot, Nigerian singer Rema is joined by Selena Gomez for a new take on his song ‘Calm Down.’

In its original form, this song did well in Europe in early 2022, prompting the team-up with Gomez to attract an American audience. The new version was released last August and has spent 30 weeks on the chart, peaking at its current position.

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Song of the Day #5,408: ‘Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2’ – PinkPantheress & Ice Spice

Like yesterday’s track, the song in the #7 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 is a remix duet that owes much of its popularity to TikTok.

British pop singer PinkPantheress scored a modest hit with ‘Boys a Liar’ in late 2022, but it was a remixed version featuring New York rapper Ice Spice that soundtracked a million TikToks and sailed up the charts, eventually peaking at #3.

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Song of the Day #5,407: ‘Die For You’ – The Weeknd & Ariana Grande

Returning to my look at a recent edition of the Billboard Hot 100, today’s track is a collaboration between The Weeknd and Ariana Grande that sits at #6.

‘Die For You’ is a perfect example of how TikTok has reshaped the music industry. This song first appeared on The Weeknd’s 2016 album Starboy and was released as that album’s sixth single. It peaked at #43 on this chart back then and had seemingly run its course.

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Song of the Day #5,406: ‘Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree’ – Dawn featuring Tony Orlando

Our second Throwback Weekend song comes from the week of April 21, 1973, when Dawn and Tony Orlando reached the top spot of the Hot 100 with ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.’

Released the month before the U.S. pulled its last troops out of Vietnam, this song hit a nerve not just in America but all over the world. It topped the charts in eight countries, selling millions of copies worldwide. In the states it was the top-charting single not just of this week but for all of 1973.

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