Nearly every week this summer, there’s been an immovable object at the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart: It’s “Ordinary” by the singer Alex Warren. That changed this week.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There’s a new No. 1 song in the country, and it comes from an unlikely source. NPR’s Stephen Thompson has the story.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: Nearly every week this summer, the same song has sat at the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart – it’s “Ordinary” by the singer Alex Warren.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “ORDINARY”)
ALEX WARREN: (Singing) You’re takin’ me out of the ordinary. I want you laying me down till we’re dead and buried
THOMPSON: “Ordinary” topped the Hot 100 for 9 out of 10 weeks, a run fueled by an enormous presence on commercial radio playlists. It’s also No. 1 on Billboard’s Songs of the Summer chart. But for at least this week, “Ordinary” has been dethroned from the top of the pop charts in favor of a band that isn’t even real – Huntr/x, the K-pop girl group at the center of the animated Netflix movie “KPop Demon Hunters.” Your new No. 1 song in the country is “Golden.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GOLDEN”)
EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI: (As Huntr/x, singing) We’re goin’ up, up, up. It’s our moment. You know together we’re glowing. Gonna be, gonna be golden.
THOMPSON: “Golden” isn’t the only “KPop Demon Hunters” track to storm the Billboard charts. Seven songs from the movie are now among the Top 30 songs in the country, thanks mostly to an audience that’s been jamming the soundtrack on streaming services. Physical copies of the “KPop Demon Hunters” soundtrack aren’t even out yet.
There’s one other song worth noting in this week’s Top 10 – Chappell Roan’s new standalone single “The Subway” debuts at No. 3.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE SUBWAY”)
CHAPPELL ROAN: (Singing) Till you’re just another girl on the subway.
THOMPSON: Chappell Roan has been playing “The Subway” in concert since last year, so fans have anticipated its release for many months. “The Subway” is a breakup song that wallows in heartbreak, even as its sound references standard bearers of 90s pop, from the Cranberries to Roxette.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE SUBWAY”)
CHAPPELL ROAN: (Singing) She’s got, she’s got a way. She’s got a way. She’s got a way
THOMPSON: Now, after just one week, it’s the highest-charting song of her career.
Stephen Thompson, NPR Music.
CHAPPELL ROAN: (Singing) She got away, she got away. And she’s got, she’s got a way. She’s got a way.
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