With Morgan Wallen's I'm the Problem continuing to dominate — it's No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a second week, by a wide margin — the biggest news belongs to singer-songwriter Alex Warren, whose blockbuster track "Ordinary" ascends to No. 1 on the Hot 100 singles chart for the first time. It's one of the few songs currently in the running for "song of the summer" status, though the summer of 2025 is admittedly (and thankfully) still young.
TOP ALBUMS
Last week, Morgan Wallen's I'm the Problem topped the Billboard 200 by a mile: It was the most streamed album of the week, it posted the biggest sales week of any record this year, and 36 of its 37 songs cracked the Hot 100 simultaneously. Everyone knew it would be a blockbuster and — ta da! — it's a blockbuster.
Those trends continue in I'm the Problem's second week. For starters, its "equivalent album units" number — referring to the cocktail of sales and streaming that Billboard uses to rank albums each week — dropped just 42%, from 493,000 to 286,000. The decline may seem significant at first glance, but percentage-wise, it's an unusually small week-to-week dip from a high-profile debut; major albums typically benefit from a huge streaming surge upon release, only to plummet back down to earth as the initial flood of interest fades. (For an extreme example of this phenomenon, consider Echo, the new album by Jin of BTS: It debuted at No. 3 last week and plunged all the way to No. 122 just seven days later.)
In fact, this week's Billboard 200 brings Wallen a new bit of bragging rights to add to his arsenal: For the first time in his career, he's got three albums in the top 10 simultaneously. One Thing at a Time, from 2023, holds at No. 4, while 2021's Dangerous: The Double Album sits at No. 10. (His full-length debut, 2018's If I Know Me, peaked at No. 10 shortly after the release of Dangerous; it still sits at No. 73.)
Beyond Wallen, it's a slow week, as only one album — Joe Jonas' Music for People Who Believe in Love — debuts in the top 100 at No. 24. Playboi Carti's MUSIC leaps from No. 18 to No. 5 thanks to a shipment of deluxe physical editions from the rapper's webstore, while tourmates Kendrick Lamar (GNX) and SZA (SOS) continue their long-term residencies in the top five, but that's all there is to report from the chart's upper reaches.
TOP SONGS
Last week, Morgan Wallen locked down the Hot 100's top three spots with "What I Want (feat. Tate McRae)," "Just in Case" and "I'm the Problem," delaying the inevitable ascent of Alex Warren's "Ordinary" to No. 1. This week, buoyed by a surge in radio airplay — as well as a high-profile slot performing the song on the American Music Awards — "Ordinary" finally ascends from No. 4 to No. 1. "Ordinary" has experienced a steady climb since entering the Hot 100 16 weeks ago, and now it's ready to stake its claim to "song of the summer" status. (More on that below.)
Of course, Wallen's biggest songs didn't fall far — in fact, the three each slid down a single spot in lockstep, with Kendrick Lamar's "Luther (feat. SZA)" rounding out the top five after topping the chart for 13 consecutive weeks earlier in the year. And I'm the Problem, Wallen's new album, still lands 31 of its 37 songs on the Billboard Hot 100. (Wallen even has a 32nd song on the Hot 100, as his Post Malone collaboration "I Had Some Help" still sits at No. 16 more than a year after it debuted atop the chart.)
With three of Wallen's songs departing the top 10, that leaves room for three old standbys to return to familiar perches. Drake's "Nokia" rebounds from No. 12 to No. 9, Benson Boone's "Beautiful Things" surges from No. 14 to No. 10 in its 70th week on the chart, and Teddy Swims' "Lose Control" climbs from No. 11 to No. 8. "Lose Control" has now spent 63 weeks in the top 10 and 93 weeks on the Hot 100 — both all-time records. Meanwhile, Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" rebounds from No. 9 to No. 6 in its 59th week on the Hot 100. Can we get some new hits, pretty please?
WORTH NOTING
Remember the summer of 2024? Gather 'round your grandpappy's knee and he'll tell you the tale of something we called "Brat Summer" — but it wasn't just Charli xcx! There was Chappell Roan! Sabrina Carpenter! Fans were still rocking recent albums by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé! Kendrick Lamar was winning his diss-track war with Drake! Post Malone and Morgan Wallen formed a country-pop Voltron that actually sounded like summer! Up-and-comers like Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Tommy Richman and Shaboozey became stars — or at least hitmakers — before our eyes!
Today? There's a lot less… newness to choose from.
Somehow, many of 2024's zombified remains are still shambling around near the top of the charts. Even with Wallen's new album crowding the Hot 100, nine of the top 16 songs have been on the chart for more than six months, and five of those — Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," Swims' "Lose Control," Boone's "Beautiful Things," Billie Eilish's "Birds of a Feather" and Post Malone's "I Had Some Help," featuring Wallen — have charted for more than a year apiece.
There's no law that says a song of the summer has to be new; remember 2022, when Kate Bush's 1985 classic, "Running Up That Hill," stormed the charts all summer thanks to its placement on Stranger Things? But the songs of this summer shouldn't just be the undead remnants of last summer, either.
This week, Billboard published its inaugural Songs of the Summer chart for 2025. Their ranking uses a variety of factors — radio airplay, streaming and sales, all computed cumulatively as the summer rolls on — to determine which songs most exemplify that year's summer playlist. In the 2024 chart that finally declared a single winner after 14 weeks, Post Malone's "I Had Some Help (feat. Morgan Wallen)" narrowly edged out Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," not that you needed a chart to tell you that those were last summer's biggest hits.
It's funny to peruse this year's first Songs of the Summer chart, mostly because it scans like an alternate-universe Hot 100 in which they imposed modest term limits. (Titles that appeared on last year's Songs of the Summer chart, or which peaked before or during last summer, aren't eligible.) And, because it roughly coincides with the release of I'm the Problem, eight of the new chart's 20 songs are by Wallen. In fact, fully half are country or country-adjacent, with BigXthaPlug's "All the Way (feat. Bailey Zimmerman)" and Riley Green's "Worst Way" also making the cut.
That's to be expected; country jams have contended for "song of the summer" status since "song of the summer" first emerged as a concept. But it's striking, when scanning the remaining 10 songs, how long-in-the-tooth some of them are. Chappell Roan's "Pink Pony Club" certainly fits the bill for a Pride Month-friendly pop banger, but it's been on the Hot 100 for 50 weeks now. (It actually first came out in 2020, but that's another story.) Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' "Die With a Smile" turns up, too, and it's been on the Hot 100 for 41 weeks.
Perhaps it speaks to the moment that the chart also includes rapper Doechii's breakout hit "Anxiety," which nods to Gen-Z nostalgia — it interpolates Gotye's inescapable early-2010s sensation "Somebody That I Used to Know" — while also capturing a moment when so many of us are feeling stressed about the world. If that ends up being 2025's song of the summer, it'd make a fair bit of sense.
Still, it's hard not to notice the vacuum that exists for those in search of feel-good summer pop jams that — unlike "Pink Pony Club" or "Die With a Smile" — aren't yet old enough to eat solid food. Benson Boone's certainly trying, if fans and radio stations would just stop spinning "Beautiful Things" long enough to listen. Jessie Murph and Lola Young have been waiting in the wings for a while, hovering just outside the charts' upper reaches alongside up-and-comers like neo-soul superstar-in-waiting Leon Thomas and high-cheekboned pop singer-songwriter sombr. Here's hoping a few of them break into the top 10 — the sooner, the better.
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