Taylor Swift fans kept “hope-alite” alive that “Opalite” would become her 14th No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, even though it faced some competitive headwinds in reaching the summit. The infectious bop came through, reaching the top in this, its 20th week on the chart, and moving Swift just a little bit closer to an all-time record.
Thirteen has traditionally been Swift’s lucky number, but so is 14. (And so will be 15, and so on.) With 14 career No. 1s, she now ties Rihanna for the most Hot 100 leaders in the history of the chart. Who’s ahead of her? Only the Beatles, with 20 No. 1s, and Mariah Carey, with 19 — neither of those presenting anything like an insurmountable mark for someone as prolific as Swift.
“Opalite” follows “The Fate of Ophelia” as her second No. 1 from the album “The Life of a Showgirl.” “Ophelia” spent 10 weeks at No. 1. “Opalite” previously debuted at No. 2, during the week of the album’s release, and was always destined to register as the album’s second-most-popular track. Since then, it had spent several weeks in the top 10 and was a mainstay of the top 20, based primarily on streaming demand. But it was not officially released as a single until the music video dropped on Feb. 6.
Last week would have seemed like a prime time for “Opalite” to top the chart, based on all those immediate video streams. But it was kept out of a top position by the huge resurgence of Bad Bunny’s catalog following his Super Bowl halftime appearance, among other factors. Perhaps seeing the Bad Bunny tsunami coming during that time frame, the biggest push for singles sales was held back a week and came during this latest chart period.
Ubiquitous for four months now among fans, the song had already peaked some time ago on Billboard’s streaming chart; it falls to No. 17 on that register this week. So making it to No. 1 on the Hot 100 this week was much more reliant on increased radio play as well as singles sales.
The radio airplay impressions for “Opalite” were up 17% this week, to 58.9 million, after already taking a leap last week. The most substantial gain, though, was in sales. The single sold 168,00 copies this week, up 2,290%. Of those 168,000, Billboard and Luminate report, 144,000 were physical copies, representing a mix of one vinyl and six CD variants. Some of those editions had gone on sale in January but did not count toward her tally till they shipped during this mid-February time frame.
The sales tally for the single was impressive enough that Billboard reported it was the highly weekly sales for any song since Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” went viral and sold 175,000 downloads in a single week in August 2023.
The number of streams for “Opalite” in this time frame was 11.4 million, down 20% from the week before.
Swift probably would have had an easier path to hitting No. 1 a week earlier if Billboard had not recently instituted a rule change. The publication altered its playbook so that free YouTube streams no longer count in the calculation of a hit. That was presumably one reason why Swift gave Apple Music and Spotify Premium a two-day exclusive on the “Opalite” video, to redirect fans to paid services whose totals still count toward the charts. Regardless, it all worked out for her, even if there was a week of delayed gratification for Swifties to enjoy their heroine getting her latest chart triumph.
Nashville has a very strong presence at the top of the Hot 100 this week, if you count Swift, and you should, as a longtime mainstay and still a part-time resident. Following the former country queen at No. 1 is current country star Ella Langley at No. 2, as her smash “Choosin’ Texas” — which recently peaked at the top of the chart, then took a dip — rose two spots from its No. 4 position last week.
Following those two songs are Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” at No. 3, and Bad Bunny’s “DtMF” (last week’s leader) dipping a few spots to No. 4. Bad Bunny also has two other songs remaining in the top 10 for a total of three, after landing four there last week. “Tití Me Preguntó” is at No. 7 and “Baile Inolvidable” is at No. 10.
The No. 5 song is Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” followed by “Golden” at No. 7 and Swift’s “Ophelia” still affording her a second spot in the top 10 at No. 8.
Over on the Billboard 200 album chart, Bad Bunny was a holdover at No. 1 with “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” the second consecutive and fifth nonconsecutive time that album reached the top.
There were two new entries in the top 10, both from artists debuting more modestly with their current projects than they did with their previous albums.
Brent Faiyaz debuted at No. 6 with “Icon,” collecting 58,000 equivalent album units. His previous album, 2022’s “Wasteland,” bowed at No. 2 with 88,000 as its first-week tally.
Charli xcx‘s soundtrack album for “Wuthering Heights” entered at No. 8, with 51,000 units. Even with an association with a hit movie, this more eclectic project was not exepected to match debut numbers for her last album, the culturally phenomenal “Brat,” which bowed at No. 3 in 2024 with 77,000 units.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com ’
