Get ready to feel old, thanks to the young artist featured on the Billboard Hot 100’s top song.
As Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” rules the chart for a third week, guest vocalist Kimbra (as Billboard reader Mark Harris of Cleveland notes in an e-mail), is the first female artist born in the ’90s to top the Hot 100. Kimbra (last name: Johnson) was born in New Zealand on March 27, 1990.
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(The chart’s No. 1 song that week? Alannah Myles’ “Black Velvet.” Tommy Page, meanwhile, soared 14-6 with his future No. 1, “I’ll Be Your Everything.” Twenty-two years later, he’s now Billboard’s publisher. “Wow, Kimbra was a fetus when I was on the chart,” Page muses.)
Until this week, Miley Cyrus held the distinction of highest Hot 100 rank for a female born in the decade of grunge, “Seinfeld” and the Spice Girls. Cyrus, who was born on Nov. 23, 1992, rose to No. 2 in 2009 with “Party in the U.S.A.”
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Among women who’ve reached No. 1 on the Hot 100, Dev had previously boasted the most recent birthday until Kimbra’s reign. Dev, who spent three weeks at No. 1 in 2010 as a featured act (with Cataracs) on Far*East Movement’s “Like a G6,” was born on July 2, 1989.
Prior to Kimbra, two other artists born in the ’90s, both male, have led the Hot 100, and both in 2007. Sean Kingston became the first when “Beautiful Girls” began a four-week command the week of Aug. 11, 2007. Soulja Boy Tell’Em followed with “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” which logged seven weeks on top beginning Sept. 15, 2007.
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As “Somebody” stays at the Hot 100’s summit, Kimbra is preparing her U.S. debut album, Vows, due May 22 on Warner Bros. “(‘Somebody’ has) allowed me to be part of an exciting time for pop music,” she recently told Billboard. “Seeing such a vulnerable, reflective and non-formulaic song shoot so high on the charts has been really encouraging.
“It creates a fantastic pathway for an artist like myself to follow.”