Mind you the charts were incredibly hip-hop and UK rap strong at the top of the chart for quite a few years, which are hugely male dominated genres, but aside from a couple of obvious big hits this summer, Dave being the biggest, these genres have really taken a commercial downturn. I'm not really sure why, older demographics transitioning onto Spotify I guess. To me dance seems the dominant genre this year, there's regularly 5-7 dance hits in the top ten at any given time, and many of these have female vocals, plus it's been a huge year for many of the current a-list female pop stars too whereas many of the reliable non rap/hip-hop male stars either haven't released or have started to see the start of commercial downturns (Lewis/Ed).

 

Thanks for articulating this so well, my response to that stupid sarcastic reply from the other user would’ve been far less polite :-)

Leigh-Anne leaving the Top 40 in its second week. I bet Warner will be investing on her next releases.

 

Warner will do be droppin like craaazy!!! They don't stand for these sorts of flops

Does anyone know if Corinne Bailey Rae is in the top 200 Albums? I didn't expect to miss the top 100 update :unsure:

Edited September 19, 20232 yr by soundseekerz

One thing to note re female vocal domination is that it seems to be much prominent in the UK due to how massive dance and pop is but in the US Billboard Hot 100 it's still overwhelmingly male dominated - especially if you consider the whole chart and not just the top. That's mainly due to genres such as country (which is more popular than ever) the regional Mexican trend and hip hop being far more male friendly.

 

Note that this week is probably a rare one of female dominance in the Billboard Hot 100 with the entirety of the Olivia Rodrigo album going top 40 although 'Vampire' excepted the singles aren't doing as well there as in the UK.

Hip-hop is getting closer to gender parity in the US charts as well to be fair, after years of it seeming like there could only be 1 or 2 big female rappers at a time there are now new female rappers getting breakout hits pretty frequently. And I think there are more women breaking through in country recently as well although I haven't followed that scene nearly as closely so I may be wrong, I think the biggest problem for women in the genre is country radio being almost comically sexist, and of course radio still being very much the most important factor when it comes to hitmaking there, though slowly losing its power now as some of the biggest country artists are becoming legitimate streaming giants.

 

Latin music is the only big genre in the US that I'd say is as big a sausagefest as ever, KAROL G is huge and ROSALÍA has had a handful of middling hits plus Shakira having a mini renaissance this year but that's about it. I think there's only been one female artist to chart from the regional Mexican wave so far and even then only as the singer of a mixed group (Yahritza Y Su Esencia).

Olivia is now 6,000 behind Busted. I was expecting her to sell less than or around what Lewis and Ed did in their second weeks

Edited September 20, 20232 yr by Hadji

Really hope Olivia can grab a second week at the top, such a great album! Think it will be close though come Friday

Really hope Olivia can grab a second week at the top, such a great album! Think it will be close though come Friday

I’d rather Busted got their first #1 album and you don’t see many album passing 20k in their second week

Edited September 20, 20232 yr by Hadji

I feel like that’s a bug enough gap for Busted, no? It’ll obvz be close but I was expecting Olivia to be about 3k behind at this stage and end up about 1k ahead?

 

But then I’ve not followed the charts as closely as this for a while so idk.

The decline of hip hop in the US has been even bigger than in the UK. There's about 5 different theories as to why (and it might be a combination of multiple factors), but it's a surprising turn of events for sure. 10 years ago I would've thought hip hop would just get more and more popular.

 

As for females in country music, they've always struggled really hard in that genre, but I think it might actually be a bit worse now than some points in the past. They basically seem to need to do duets or crossover to a pop audience to get a big hit. It felt like to me that women were doing better in country music 10 years ago, but I could be wrong on that, I only based that on skimming through the Hot 100 each week.

My paint the town red cd single shipped today so looks like doja will have some cd sales this week. I wonder if they think Kenya is a big enough threat so wanna hold the #1 this week with the extra sales

Currently only Lainey Wilson is getting country airplay hits (three consecutive solo top 40 hits on Hot 100).

I think in general a lot of usual sure bets are being crowded out from the upper echelons of the chart. People were noting how long it took for hip-hop albums to go to #1 on the Billboard 200 as if ignoring the giant elephant in the room on that chart in 2023. With regards to US radio, it feels less powerful than ever before in terms of hit-making and is just doing its job of deciding what gets to stick around since it essentially creates a passive buffer*. When these are big streaming hits, they definitely make it clear, but there's less strength when radio goes its own way. The #1 song on US country airplay this past week was from Thomas Rhett who's about 8 years past his crossover interest peak, so that's only taking him to #69 on the Hot 100 this week, a far cry from when you could guarantee the #1 song would be in the top 40 or maybe even top 30. They're definitely adapting to trends though, "Last Night" and "Fast Car"'s rapid crossover speed forced them to go off script and keep up, but that's still in response to success, rather than generating it on its own.

 

*I'm also anticipating that Jason Aldean will have cozier chart descent than Oliver Anthony despite the latter generating far more buzz (and streams) just because the former is a cog in that radio machine.

Olivia is now 6,000 behind Busted. I was expecting her to sell less than or around what Lewis and Ed did in their second weeks

 

:nocheer: :nocheer: :nocheer:

 

Really hope she doesn’t stop Busted but streaming will be on her side.

I personally think it's amazing Olivia seems to be coming for a 20k or even 25k+ second week.

 

We need some genuine albums that become hits and not just one week flash in the pans. Lovely to see 'GUTS' is going to have some legs.

Rooting for Olivia, it'd be nice to have a two-weeker at last

Given Busted already have three #2 peaking albums, i'm rooting for them to get that #1.

Rooting for Olivia, it'd be nice to have a two-weeker at last

We’ve already had albums spending multiple weeks at #1 this year thanks to Taylor, Ed and Lewis

http://i.imgur.com/B6faj0h.png

 

Wednesday Top 40 ONLY Update

Source: Music Week

Missing Data:

 

Singles

 

1 Doja Cat - Paint the Town Red (30,342)

2 Olivia Rodrigo - vampire (23,076)

3 Kenya Grace - Strangers (21,175)

4 cassö, RAYE & D-Block Europe - Prada (17,824)

5 Fred again.. & Obongjayar - adore u (16,877)

 

6-10

8 Tate McRae - greedy *

 

11-20

11 Drake feat. SZA - Slime You Out *

15 Sonny Fodera & MK feat. Clementine Douglas - Asking

18 SZA - Snooze ^

 

21-30

21 Issey Cross - Bittersweet Goodbye

25 Tyla - Water *

 

31-40

32 Chase & Status & Hedex feat. ArrDee - Liquor & Cigarettes *

34 Billy Gillies feat. Hannah Boleyn - DNA (Loving You) *

36 Zach Bryan feat. Kacey Musgraves - I Remember Everything *

37 Zara Larsson & David Guetta - On My Love *

38 Miley Cyrus - Flowers

39 Turno, Skepsis & Charlotte Plank - Rave Out *

40 Rema - Calm Down ^

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Albums

 

1 Busted - Greatest Hits 2.0 (21,568) [17,429 physicals, 2,791 downloads, 1,348 streaming] *

2 Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS (15,155)

3 Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We (5,210) *

4 The Weeknd - The Highlights (4,022)

5 Ash - Race the Night. (3,690) *

 

6-10

6 Corey Taylor - CMF2 *

7 The Pretenders - Relentless *

8 Thirty Seconds to Mars - It’s The End Of The World But It’s A Beautiful Day *

10 The Who - Who's Next ^

 

11-20

16 Arctic Monkeys - AM

20 Madison Beer - Silence Between Songs *

 

21-30

27 SZA - SOS

28 Sleepy Hallow - Boy Meets World *

 

31-40

32 Steve Hackett - Foxtrot at Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live in Brighton *

38 Demi Lovato - REVAMPED *

 

NO OTHER SALES INFO

Wow must’ve missed Zara x David earlier this week, wasn’t expecting it to be top 40! Yay for zara!