The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming charts dated Aug. 10, we look at two artists who have largely defined the summer in pop music so far, and who are experiencing new gains after Kamala Harris’ announced presidential candidacy.
Chappell Roan, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (KRA/Amusement/Island/Republic): Since climbing to a peak of No. 5 on the Billboard 200 dated July 13, Chappell Roan‘s Midwest Princess has hung around the top 10 of the chart, landing at No. 8 this week. Improbably, the album continues to grow in streams — most recently thanks in large part to a surge in interest and consumption after “Femininomenon,” the album’s anthemic lead track, was used in a promotional TikTok from the official Kamala Harris account just days after Harris became the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“Femininomenon” debuts at No. 96 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, the lowest of an incredible five songs from Midwest Princess which have bowed on the chart in the past two months and are still working their way up its rankings. Each of the other four reaches a new peak position this week: “Hot to Go!” is the highest at No. 26, while “Red Wine Supernova” reaches No. 47, “Pink Pony Club” No. 50 and “Casual” No. 79. None of the songs has yet found a major foothold at radio, which would likely be the final step in them threatening for the chart’s top tier, but “Hot to Go!’ and “Red Wine Supernova” have both started to gather steam on the top 40 airwaves.
In the meantime, with steady streaming and sales numbers, Midwest Princess could move back up on the Billboard 200 this upcoming week. There aren’t major new Friday releases currently threatening for a top debut, and with the sales-driven bows of Stray Kids’ ATE and Jimin’s MUSE likely to take a hit in their second week, there should be an opening for the album to return to the top five – and if it can continue to build on its recent momentum, it may even challenge for a new peak of No. 4. It will still have its work cut out to pass the 30-plus-track streaming behemoths from Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen that have been lodged near the top of the Billboard 200 since their respective releases, but it should be in the mix for some time to come, and with another extra song boost or two – or perhaps a physical reissue – it wouldn’t be inconceivable that it could get to No. 1 before year’s end.
Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!” (KRA/Amusement/Island/Republic): Arguably the most impressive thing about the run that Midwest Princess has had on the Billboard 200 is that it’s making it without even getting any help from the song that’s actually Roan’s biggest of all of 2024. “Good Luck, Babe!” was released in April as a standalone single, unattached thus far to Midwest Princess or any other album of hers, and it has taken her further on the Hot 100 than any of that album’s breakout hits. This week, “Babe” returns to its peak of No. 10, which it originally reached on the chart dated July 13, while gaining on both the Streaming Songs (9-7) and Digital Song Sales (22-17) charts.
More important to its chart potential is that it has finally clicked the last piece of the puzzle into place: major radio support. Unlike the Midwest Princess hits, “Babe” has been fully (if somewhat belatedly) embraced by top 40 radio: It climbs 12-9 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart this week, and 25-21 on the all-format Radio Songs listing. As “Babe” continues to expand on the airwaves, and with no major new song releases expected to provide additional traffic in front of it on the Hot 100, it has a good chance of getting even higher on the chart next week. And with plenty of room for it still to grow – and streaming and sales support also strong – a run to the top five could certainly be in play for the song in the weeks to come.
Could it get to No. 1? It’s still well behind such four-quadrant smashes as Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” at the top of the chart, so it would take some considerable growth across all metrics for “Babe” to really mount a challenge there. But it’s worth noting that as far as “Babe” has already come, it’s done so without some of the more traditional promotional tactics used to boost songs in its position – no official remixes, no major national performances of it beyond a Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon appearance, not even a non-lyric music video. So if it gets close, there’s plenty of cards for Roan still to play to get it that final push over the top.
Charli XCX, Brat (Atlantic/AG): The season familiarly known as Brat Summer has mostly come with impressive, but not quite overwhelming chart returns. Brat did debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, which marked a career-best showing for Charli XCX, but three weeks later it was out of the top 10, and it’s been hanging around the chart’s teens ever since. Meanwhile, before this week, she’d only launched two tracks from it onto the Hot 100, and neither in the top half – lead cut “360” debuted at No. 73 the same week as the album’s bow and had hung around the chart’s bottom quadrant since, while “Girl, So Confusing” entered at a slightly higher No. 63 two weeks later following the release of its Lorde-featuring remix, and was off the chart altogether a couple weeks after that.
But three words might have turned around the entire chart momentum of Brat Summer. The Sunday (July 21) that President Joe Biden officially dropped his re-election campaign and endorsed Kamala Harris as his replacement, Charli tweeted “Kamala IS Brat” — unofficially making her exciting new album the soundtrack to the global moment. Harris’ campaign seized said moment by adapting Brat’s already-iconic cover design for the header on their HQ’s official Twitter page, and within days, CNN was airing discussions about Brat Summer and what kind of impact the coolest pop star in the world could have on this year’s presidential election.
Despite seeing respectable gains in both sales and streams following last week’s spike in interest, Brat actually slides 13-14 on the latest Billboard 200 – thanks to a glut of high-performing new albums released at the start of the tracking week, four of which debut ahead of it on the chart. But with the album continuing to grow in both sales and streams so far this week, next week it could be ticketed for a trip back to the top 10, its first time back in the region since the chart dated July 6, which was its third frame on the listing.
In the meantime, two songs from Brat are surging on the Hot 100. “360” hits a new peak of No. 55 this week, while the TikTok-approved “Apple” debuts at No. 81. A top 40 hit could be in Brat’s future, as both songs still have room to grow – the latter has major virality on its side, with everyone from Twisters star Glen Powell to Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl doing the dance challenge that helped it light up social media, while “360” is starting to make inroads at radio, up 56% in plays for the week, according to Luminate, and bubbling under the Pop Airplay chart. And the album might not be done spawning hits yet: “365,” the album’s meme-spawning closing complement to “360,” has been rising in streams and sales the past couple weeks, and re-enters Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart today.
The album is still pretty far from being a major contender for the top spot on the Billboard 200. But who knows? With the twists and turns that Charli’s season has already taken, we’d be foolish to bet against her finding new ways to challenge for supremacy on the chart, and officially cement Brat Summer in the 2024 record books. (Perhaps a new remix to one of the album’s deluxe edition bonus tracks — widely believed to be co-starring alt-pop superstar Billie Eilish — will be one of them.)
