Shaboozey, Morgan Wallen, Bruno Mars & Lady Gaga: Who Will Win the Crowded Race for No. 1 on Next Week's Hot 100?

The contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top Bulletin board charts and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 dated November 9, we look at Shaboozey's chances of reclaiming the top spot for a historic 16th week and the many competitors trying to get in his way.

Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): Every conversation about the Hot 100 over the past three (almost four) months has had to start with Shaboozey's “A Bar Song (Tipsy”), the surprise breakout country hit that now has a near-historic dominance of the charts. After 15 non-consecutive frames atop the chart, the song ceded the pole position last week to Morgan Wallen's “Love Somebody” — good timing for Wallen, since his “Last Night” is a 16-week No. 1 is now “A Bar Song”. One week away from tying as the longest-running Hot 100-topper of the 2020s.

“A Bar Song” remains an extremely strong performer, sliding to No. 3 on both Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales (due to the debut of “Love Somebody” and ROSÉ & Bruno Mars' “APT” ahead of it and on both charts ) but remains No. 1 on Radio Songs for a 13th week. It looks set for a 14th week at the top of this chart, and even with its sales and streams continuing to drop so late in its lifespan, they should be strong enough to keep it as the song to beat on the Hot 100 – though this week, a Few other songs will be in the running to do so.

Morgan Wallen, “Love Somebody” (Big Loud/Mercury/Republic): Wallen stopped Shaboozey from tying his 2020s Hot 100 record this week, but next week, he might need some help. “Love Somebody” is expected to decline across the board next week, with streams and sales falling, as is typical of a big new song in its second week — and radio will likely take a bit of a dip, as the song received very concentrated play on the first day as a promotion for the new single of the country's biggest artist today. But its streaming and sales numbers remain strong, so as the song likely continues to climb in airplay from here (with Wallen currently one of the most reliable radio artists in all of popular music), it could certainly reclaim the top spot. first place soon, and probably for many weeks after.

Bruno Mars & Lady Gaga, “Die With a Smile” (Streamline/Interscope/Atlantic/ICLG): Since debuting at No. 3 on the Hot 100 in August, “Die With a Smile” has been fairly harmless in the middle of the top 10. But if you were counting on it as a No. 1 contender, it might have done so prematurely – looks like this is the week the two pop superstars make their move to possibly claim the top spot. Two new versions of the song have been released, an instrumental and a “Live From Las Vegas” version, the latter also revealed with an accompanying live video. All three versions are also down to 69 cents on iTunes – and as of publication, occupy the top three spots on iTunes' real-time chart.

The timing is interesting, because Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga both have other songs nominated to some degree this week. The “APT” of Mars. The team-up with ROSÉ debuted at No. 8 on the Hot 100 this week and continues to do well on both streaming and iTunes, while Gaga has a brand new single with “Disease” — for which also released a new video for Tuesday night (October 29), along with the live “Smile.” However, neither song is a likely contender for the top spot, with Gaga's latest currently something of a long shot for the top 10 due to modest streaming returns: “Disease” has fallen out of the top 50 on the Daily Top Songs Spotify's USA chart and broke out of the top 100 on Apple Music's real-time chart.

Tyler, the Creator, “St. Chroma” & “Noid” (Colombia): Ever the iconoclast, star rapper Tyler, the Creator has decided to release his latest album Chromaticity at 6:00 a.m. Monday (October 28). However, even with just over half a week of tracking, the album is likely the frontrunner for the top spot on next week's Billboard 200, with excitement for the album resulting in the tracklist dominating the entire top 10 and the top two Spotify songs. US and Apple Music's listing in real time on the day of its debut — even though it was released six hours a day.

At least two of those songs could be big hits on the Hot 100 next week, too. “St. Chroma,” the album's title track with Daniel Caesar — ​​which Tyler previously teased with a short two weeks ago — topped streaming services, with some strong first-day numbers. A few spots behind that was “Noid,” which while not the current best-performed song from the album, has the benefit of having been released the previous week (along with its own music video), making it the single song on the album to consume a full week of tracking — though its total daily numbers were much lower prior to the album's release.

If the full album had been released on Friday, we might as well be talking about one of those songs as Tyler's first Hot 100 No. 1 of the Creator. which is obviously still pretty impressive, especially in a week where every other song in the race has such a huge lead.