Today’s random selection was a bonus track on Katy Perry’s 2013 album Prism. Prism, the singer-songwriter’s fourth studio album, was the follow-up to smash hit Teenage Dream.
While this album didn’t reach its predecessor’s heights, it did reach #1 in a half dozen countries and debuted in the top spot in the U.S., where it ultimately went 5X Platinum. At the time, Katy Perry was pretty much the biggest name in pop music.
The track at #31 on the 2022 Billboard Hot 100 is Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Good 4 U,’ a song that did so well in 2021 that its success bled over into the following year.
At #32 is a track by another young woman, 23-year-old Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Em Beihold. Beihold has had modest success with a few singles thanks mostly to TikTok, but ‘Numb Little Bug’ marked her first appearance on the Billboard charts. The song peaked at #18 on the Hot 100 the week of July 16.
The 30th top-charting song of 2022 comes courtesy of Post Malone, who also showed up at #26. That single found him paired up with Doja Cat, while this one partners him with The Weeknd.
This is a catchy synth-pop song about a truly toxic relationship, fueled by infidelity and sexual revenge. Kudos to Post Malone and The Weeknd for making such icky subject matter go down so easy, thanks to the 80s production influence The Weeknd has mined so well on recent releases.
Pop singer-songwriter Nicky Youre lands at #29 on the 2022 Billboard Hot 100 with his summery bop ‘Sunroof,’ only the second song he has released since 2020. The 23-year-old’s Wikipedia page has more to say about his high school water polo success than his music.
Youre wrote ‘Sunroof’ and collaborated with producer dazy to give it the slick earworm quality that made it a TikTok hit and pushed it to a high of #4 on the Hot 100.
Holding the #28 position on the year-end Billboard Hot 100 is a track called ‘Bad Habit’ by R&B artist Steve Lacy. This song is not to be confused with Ed Sheeran’s ‘Bad Habits,’ which appeared at #13 on the same list.
Like many hits these days, ‘Bad Habit’ owes much of its success to TikTok, where the song’s opening lines scored many a video clip. Footage of a concert where attendees could recite only those first few lines went viral on Twitter. Imagine playing to fans who are familiar with only one of your songs, and only a handful of lines from that song to boot.
Meet Me In Montauk 