Maroon 5's 'Sugar' Rushes to the Top 10
Maroon 5's “Sugar” is this week's top new entry on the Hot 100 at #8. It's the group's 11th top 10 hit; its eighth in a row. That's the group's entire output since its career-revitalizing 2011 collabo with Christina Aguilera, “Moves Like Jagger.”
The fast start was boosted by the song’s video, which is built on a simple, but clever idea: Maroon 5 pops in and plays at numerous wedding celebrations. The video may be a little corny, but it’s cute and it’s fun.
This is the group’s third single to debut in the top 10. “Payphone” (featuring Wiz Khalifa) started at #3. “Moves Like Jagger” also debuted at #8. “Jagger” was released in June 2011, just two months after Adam Levine and Aguilera made their first appearances as judges on The Voice.
This is the second song titled “Sugar” to make the top 10. A different song with that title by Flo Rida featuring Wynter reached #5 in May 2009.
And here’s some deep trivia for you: With this streak of eight consecutive top 10 hits, Maroon 5 is indeed “moving like Jagger.” But they still haven’t quite matched the rock legend. The Rolling Stones had nine consecutive top 10 hits in the U.S., from “The Last Time” in May 1965 to “Ruby Tuesday” in March 1967. (I’m discounting a couple of B sides which charted below the top 10.)
"Uptown Funk!" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars logs its third week at #1 in its 10th week on the chart. The song logs its fourth week at #1 on Hot Digital Songs. It sold 400K copies this week, bringing its 10-week sales total to 2,497,000.
"Uptown Funk!" logs its fifth week at #1 on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart. That’s the longest run at #1 in the U.K. since "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke featuring T.I. + Pharrell had five weeks on top in 2013.
Ronson’s album, Uptown Special, enters The Billboard 200 at #5, with surprisingly soft (actual) sales of 30K. (Digital song sales and streaming bumps the “sales equivalent” tally up to 77K, but even that is below what you might expect from an album containing a hit of this magnitude.)
Ed Sheeran's “Thinking Out Loud” jumps from #4 to #2 in its 15th week. This marks the first time that male solo artists have locked up the top two spots since May, when John Legend's “All of Me” and Pharrell Williams's “Happy” were #1 and #2.
Taylor Swift's “Blank Space,” which logged seven weeks at #1, dips from #2 to #3 in its 12th week. It holds at #1 for the sixth week on the Radio Songs chart (which measures radio airplay across all genres). The song tops the 3 million mark in digital sales this week. It's Swift's second 3-million seller from 1989. “Shake It Off” is up to 3,763,000.
Hozier's “Take Me to Church,” which peaked at #2, dips from #3 to #4 in its 23rd week. It's #1 on Hot Rock Songs for the 14th week. That's the longest run at #1 by any song since Lorde's “Royals” logged 19 weeks at #1 in 2013-'14. “Royals” won a Grammy as Song of the Year. “Take Me to Church” is nominated for that same award this year.
Swift’s “Shake It Off,” which logged four weeks at #1, rebounds from #9 to #5 in its 22nd week. The resurgence is due to the viral success of a lip-sync video by one Master Cpl. Jeff Davis of the Dover, Del. Police Department.
Meghan Trainor's “Lips Are Movin,” which has climbed as high as #4, holds at #6 for the second week in its 13th week. Trainor's debut album, Title, enters The Billboard 200 at #1, with robust (actual) first-week sales of 195K.
Sam Smith's “I'm Not the Only One” drops from its #5 high-point to #7 in its 20th week.
Nick Jonas's “Jealous” drops from its #7 high-point to #9 in its 19th week.
Trainor’s “All About that Bass,” which logged eight weeks at #1, holds at #10 for the second week in its 28th week. The song has ranked in the top 10 for 25 weeks. Billboard's Gary Trust reports that it's just the 10th song in Hot 100 history (which dates to 1958) to log 25 or more weeks in the top 10. The all-time champ is LeAnn Rimes's “How Do I Live,” which spent 32 weeks in the top 10 in 1997-'98.
"Style," the third single from Swift’s album, jumps from #72 to #52 in its sixth week. Will it become her third #1 in a row? Stay tuned.
Luke Bryan's “Play It Again” tops the 2 million mark in digital sales this week. The song reached #14 on the Hot 100 and logged nine weeks at #1 on Hot Country Songs.
"The Hanging Tree" by James Newton Howard featuring Jennifer Lawrence tops the 1 million mark in digital sales this week. The song has climbed as high as #12.
To My Readers: I’ll have another blog drawn from the Hot 100 that will focus on the week’s other top debuts, which will (likely) include Kelly Clarkson's “Heartbeat Song,” Zac Brown Band's “Homegrown,” Fall Out Boy's “Uma Thurman,” “All About It” by Hoodie Allen featuring Ed Sheeran and “Glory” by Common & John Legend.
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