The week ending July 13, 2024, was a long time ago. The arrival of GNX, the surprise album–slash–victory lap from the man affectionately known as K-Dot, sends a slew of Kendrick tracks onto the Hot 100, including “Squabble Up,” which enters the flagship songs chart in the top spot, ejecting “A Bar Song.” For those who are just becoming acquainted …
In popular music, the hype machine works in delightfully mysterious ways. Within two weeks, “Texas Hold ’Em,” the leadoff single from Bey’s Cowboy Carter LP, topped both the Hot 100 pop chart and Hot Country Songs. After he signed to major label Republic Records, ostensibly as a rapper, country tropes began gradually infecting his music—2018’s Lady Wrangler, mostly a trap-style …
In the closing weeks of 1969, Merle Haggard took “Okie From Muskogee” to No. Which explains how, last week, Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” was momentarily outgunned on the Hot 100 by “Seven” by Jungkook, an erstwhile member of the on-hiatus South Korean juggernaut BTS. Not on the Hot 100—the song “Justice for All,” credited to “Donald Trump …
Before I talk about the new No. Because Lil Nas X had tagged the song on digital services as country, “Old Town Road” was allowed onto Hot Country Songs for a single week—it made a notably high debut at No. Billboard’s official statement, repeated across the media, was that the song “incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery does not …
