The song to beat on the Billboard Hot 100 this summer has been the same as the song to beat this spring, and even for a couple weeks this winter. Ella Langley‘s “Choosin’ Texas,” which first topped the Hot 100 dated March 7, reigns for a 16th frame on this week’s chart (dated Aug. 8) — leading the chart’s first-ever all-country top five, which also includes a song of hers, with the Morgan Wallen duet “I Can’t Love You Anymore” (No. 4).
However, the song will have to fend off a formidable challenger next week: two, actually, by the same artist, who has extensive familiarity with the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
On Friday (July 31), Ariana Grande released her much-anticipated eighth studio album, Petal. The set, released while she is in the midst of an arena tour largely supporting her prior studio album, 2024’s Eternal Sunshine, seems all but assured a No. 1 debut on next week’s Billboard 200, which would make it her seventh album to top the chart. But could she double up on Billboard‘s marquee charts with a No. 1 on the Hot 100 as well?
It wouldn’t be the first time she’s done so. The acclaimed Eternal Sunshine not only debuted atop the Billboard 200 upon its 2024 release, but sent its accompanying single “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” to No. 1 on the Hot 100 the same week (charts dated March 24). And in 2019, as her blockbuster album Thank U, Next cruised to the top of the Billboard 200 upon its debut, she held the top three spots on the Hot 100 the same week (charts dated Feb. 23) — led by Next‘s “7 Rings,” in its fourth week atop the listing — becoming the first solo artist to ever accomplish the feat.
And next week, she could have a pair of songs in the mix for top five debuts. “Hate That You Love Me,” the album’s advance single, has already spent one week at No. 1, debuting there on the chart dated June 13, and spending its first two months on the chart in the top 10 (sliding 5-8 on this week’s chart). “Hate” will undoubtedly experience a major surge in streaming activity in the first week of the full album’s release, and has indeed returned to the top three on both Apple Music’s real-time chart and Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA listing since Friday.
It will most likely be joined in the top 10 next week by Petal‘s title track. The song, which Grande had been teasing extensively online and had begun to perform on her Eternal Sunshine tour, has been tabbed as the album’s second single — and debuted with a new video on Friday, which has generated a great amount of discussion about both its content and Grande’s appearance in it. Like “Hate,” the song has climbed to near the top of the daily charts on DSPs, and has also been one of the best-selling songs on iTunes since its release.
Will either of them be able to mount a significant threat to the juggernaut that is “Choosin’ Texas”? After all, as strong as “Texas” has been over the past five and a half months, it’s hardly been impervious, having ceded its throne at various points to Bad Bunny (“DtMF”), Taylor Swift (both “Opalite” and “I Knew It, I Knew You,” the latter for two weeks), Bruno Mars (“I Just Might,” for its third of three weeks on top), BTS (“Swim”), Olivia Rodrigo” (“Drop Dead”), Drake (“Janice STFU”) and indeed Grande herself (for “Hate”). But none of those songs managed to hold Langley off for more than two weeks at a time, and “Texas” has barely slipped at all in the meantime, maintaining top-five placement on both Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales chart, and landing at No. 6 on this week’s Radio Songs.
In other words, the two Grande songs will have their work cut out for them winning this particular battle. “Texas” still currently reigns on both of the aforementioned DSP charts and on iTunes, and also maintaining a significant advantage in radio airplay, with its 30.8 million in U.S. radio audience for the first four days of this tracking week (July 31-Aug. 3), according to early reports from Luminate — exceeding the combined total for “Hate That I Made You Love Me” (24 million) and “Petal” (2.4 million). The continued cross-platform dominance of “Texas,” particularly its built-in advantage at radio, and the fact that the two Grande songs have slipped in the daily rankings from their debut, most likely means that they will be in stronger contention for the Nos. 2 and 3 spots this week than No. 1.
If so, the loss will hardly be a cycle-wrecking one for Grande, who has a 10-date mini-residency upcoming at London’s O2 Arena to close out her Eternal Sunshine Tour, and (as already mentioned) has already scored one No. 1 on the Hot 100 from Petal. That’s the 10th No. 1 of her career on the chart, and her eighth in the 2020s alone — a total that ties her with Drake for the second-most this decade, behind only Taylor Swift’s 10.
