Hot 100 Chart Moves: ‘Too Much’ of Sam Hunt Is a Good Thing
Country star Sam Hunt's "Drinkin' Too Much" debuts. Plus, moves for Zayn, Taylor Swift & Khalid.
As previously reported, Ed Sheeran earns his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 as a performer, as “Shape of You” vaults in atop the chart (dated Jan. 28). The pop singer-songwriter also makes history as the first artist to debut in the top 10 with two songs simultaneously, as “Castle on the Hill” follows with its launch at No. 6.
Who else makes moves on the Hot 100?
Zayn / Taylor Swift, “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)”
After debuting at No. 6 on the Dec. 31-dated Hot 100, the collab climbs to its highest rank since, rising 14-12. Aided by continued interest in the Fifty Shades Darker extended trailer, which arrived Jan. 2, the track pushes 5-4 on the Digital Song Sales chart, up by 7 percent to 68,000 downloads sold in the week ending Jan. 12, according to Nielsen Music. It also bumps 16-14 on Radio Songs (62 million in airplay audience, up 8 percent) and 19-16 on Streaming Songs (10.5 million U.S. streams, up 23 percent), with its official video possibly imminent.
On the mainstream top 40-based Pop Songs airplay chart, “Live” lifts 11-9, becoming Zayn’s second top 10 (following last year’s two-week No. 1 “Pillowtalk”) and, for Swift, top 10 number 13 (famously her lucky number). It’s her first since “Wildest Dreams” became her seventh No. 1, and fifth (all consecutively) from 1989 in November 2015.
Khalid, “Location”
The El Paso, Texas, singer makes his Hot 100 debut at No. 77, as “Location” leaps by 27 percent to 3.7 million weekly streams. The track concurrently holds at its No. 10 high on Hot R&B Songs. It first appeared on the Billboard + Twitter Emerging Artists chart in July, reaching No. 2.
Khalid’s The Location Tour launched Jan. 12 in Chicago.
Sam Hunt, “Drinkin’ Too Much”
The song enters the Hot 100 at No. 89 while on Hot Country Songs it marks Hunt’s highest debut (No. 16). It starts at No. 3 on Country Digital Song Sales with 26,000 first-week downloads sold.
Notably, the cut’s talk-sung lyrics are starkly self-referential, as Hunt apologizes to his now-fiancee, Hannah Lee Fowler: “I’m sorry I named the album Montevallo / And I’m sorry people know your name now / And strangers hit you up on social media / I’m sorry you can’t listen to the radio.”
Billboard‘s Nashville-based country chart manager Jim Asker reports that “Drinkin’ ” is not being officially promoted to radio; his next radio single is forthcoming, from his next LP. His debut full-length, Montevallo, led Top Country Albums for nine weeks, beginning upon its Nov. 15, 2014, debut and spun off five Hot Country Songs top 10s, including the No. 1s “Leave the Night On” (one week), “Take Your Time” (11) and “House Party” (six). It has sold 1.26 million copies in the U.S. to date.