Post Malone (left) and Morgan Wallen on the red carpet at the 57th Annual CMA Awards on November 8, 2023 in Nashville, Tenn. Jason Kempin/Getty Images hide caption We’re trying out something a little new here: Each week, we’ll be taking a quick look at the newest Billboard charts to see, in the immortal words of Shakespeare, “who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out.” (Thankfully, the stakes are far lower here than in King Lear , despite the potential for high drama.
) Even in this impossibly fickle era, when the days of a homogenized pop music culture are long gone, the weekly charts published by Billboard still give some indication of what listeners are turning to, what social media trends are running the game and who’s currently riding high. What we’re hoping to do is to provide some context that helps us ground and understand the current data — and maybe even help us divine larger narratives about what we’re listening to. So here we go.
As NPR Music’s critic Ann Powers observed over the holiday weekend on All Things Considered , the summer of 2024 seems to be leaning towards country — or at least country-flavored bops. The Billboard Hot 100, which ranks the top singles (via a combination of data from streaming, digital and physical sales and radio airplay) is dominated this week by the uptempo country breakup tune “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen. Post Malone made his name as a hip-hop/pop guy, but in recent months he�.
