Chart Watch: Bieber Is Hot With ‘Cold‘
(photo: Getty Images)
Justin Bieber lands his 10th top 10 hit on the Hot 100 as Major Lazer’s “Cold Water,” which features both Bieber and MØ, debuts at #2. Impressively, Bieber has amassed five of these top 10 hits in just over a year.
“Cold Water” is only the third single so far in 2016 to debut in the top five. It follows Zayn’s “Pillowtalk” and Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!,” both of which debuted at #1.
This is the second top 10 hit for Major Lazer, a band composed of Diplo, Jillionaire, and Walshy Fire. Major Lazer reached #4 last year with “Lean On” (with DJ Snake featuring MØ).
“Cold Water” is Bieber’s second collaboration with Diplo to crack the top 10. The first was Jack Ü’s “Where Are Ü Now,” on which Bieber was featured. Jack Ü consists of Diplo and Skrillex. Six of Bieber’s 10 top 10 hits have been collaborations, but none of his other collabo partners on his top 10 hits (Ludacris, Jaden Smith, Big Sean, and Nicki Minaj) has been credited on more than one of them.
Diplo (born Thomas Wesley Pentz) is one of the top producers in the business. He has received two Grammy nominations for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, for 2012 and 2015.
“Cold Water” sold 169K copies in its first week. It enters Top Digital Songs at #1, displacing Katy Perry’s “Rise.” It’s Bieber’s fifth #1 on that chart, following “Boyfriend” (which peaked at #2 on the Hot 100), “What Do You Mean?,” “Sorry,” and “Love Yourself” (all of which hit #1 on the Hot 100).
“Cold Water” enters The Official U.K. Singles Chart at #1, displacing Drake’s “One Dance” (featuring Wizkid and Kyla), which spent a near-record 15 weeks on top. This is Bieber’s fourth #1 in the U.K in less than a year. Bieber becomes the first artist to have two #1 hits in the U.K. in 2016.
Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and Benjamin Levin, who wrote “Love Yourself,” were among the writers on “Cold Water.”
Trivia note: “Cold Water” is the fifth song with a title that begins with the word “Cold” to crack the top 10. It follows Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted” (#1 in 1989), Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice” (#6 in 1977), James Brown’s “Cold Sweat” (#7 in 1967), and Tony Bennett’s “Cold, Cold Heart” (#1 in 1951).
Top Songs
Sia’s “Cheap Thrills” (featuring Sean Paul) tops the Hot 100 for the second straight week. The song tops the 1 million mark in digital sales this week.
Billboard’s Trevor Anderson came up with two fun factoids about “Cheap Thrills.” Sia, 40, is the first woman to land her first #1 hit (as a lead artist) after turning 40 since Bette Midler scored in 1989 with “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Midler was 43 at the time. Here’s another nugget: Sia and Sean Paul are both over 40. (Paul is 43.) “Cheap Thrills” is the first male/female duet to reach #1 on which both duet partners were over 40 since “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes in 1987. Medley was 47 at the time. Warnes was 40. I might add that both the Midler hit and the Medley/Warnes hit were from successful movies (Beaches and Dirty Dancing, respectively). Sia and Paul reached the top without the boost that a hit movie can provide.
Sia is also the first woman over age 40 to hit #1 since Madonna, who topped the chart with “Music” in 2000, when she was 42 years old.
Adele’s “Send My Love (to Your New Lover)” jumps from #10 to #9 in its 11th week. It’s the highest-ranking song that moved up in rank on this week’s Hot 100. (I’m not counting the debuting “Cold Water.”)
Kent Jones’s “Don’t Mind” drops from #8 to #11 in its 13th week. The genial song climbed as high as #8.
Desiigner’s “Tiimmy Turner” is the week’s second-highest new entry at #46. It’s the follow-up to “Panda,” which logged two weeks at #1. This week, that smash dips from #9 to #10 in its 23rd week.
Skrillex and Rick Ross’s “Purple Lamborghini” is the week’s third-highest new entry at #67.
Top Albums
Drake’s Views logs its 12th week at #1 on the Billboard 200. That puts it in a tie with Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill for the longest run at #1 by a Canadian artist since the album chart originated (as a top 10 listing) in 1945. Both Drake and Morissette were born in Ontario — Drake in Toronto; Morissette in Ottawa.
Gucci Mane’s Everybody Looking debuts at #2. The rapper recorded the album shortly after his release from prison in May. It’s his third top 10 album. It’s also his highest-charting album to date. He previously climbed as high as #4 with 2010’s The Appeal: Georgia’s Most Wanted. Everybody Looking is the week’s top-seller in traditional album sales. Drake’s album was the top seller in traditional album sales for just the first two of its 12 weeks at #1. Since late 2014, the chart has been based on a new formula which combines traditional album sales, track sales and streaming data. This week, Views sold just 16K copies, compared to 43K for Everybody Looking.
twenty one pilots’ Blurryface holds at #3 in its 63rd week. The album debuted at #1 in May 2015. The duo’s 2013 album Vessel rebounds from #33 to #30 in its 102nd chart week. The album has climbed as high as #21. Vessel is #1 on the Top Catalog Albums chart for the third week.
Sia’s This Is Acting leaps from #11 to #6 in its 26th week. The album, boosted by the #1 smash “Cheap Thrills,” has climbed as high as #4. The album is one of five in this week’s top 10 by female solo artists. The others are by Rihanna, Adele, Beyoncé, and Meghan Trainor. It’s kind of fitting that this display of female power happened in the first week following Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party.
The Hamilton Broadway cast album drops from #5 to #8 in its 44th week. This is its 33rd week in the top 40. That’s the longest run in the top 40 for a cast album since Hair spent 59 weeks in the top 40 beginning in 1968. Wanna know the record-holder for the cast album with the most weeks in the top 40 since 1955? The wonderful My Fair Lady, which starred Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. The cast album logged 311 weeks in the top 40 beginning in 1956. Here’s the rest of the top five: The Music Man (155 weeks), The Sound of Music (127 weeks), West Side Story (113 weeks), and Flower Drum Song (102 weeks).
Meghan Trainor’s Thank You rebounds from #15 to #10 in its 10th week. The album debuted and peaked at #3 in May. (Its total “consumption” tally that week—107K—would have put it at #1 in any of the last three weeks.)
Three albums drop out of the top 10 this week. NeedToBreathe’s HardLove plummets from #2 to #52 in its second week. Kidz Bop Kids’ Kidz Bop 32 drops from #9 to #13 in its second week. ScHoolboy Q’s Blank Face LP drops from #10 to #16 in its third week.
Chris Stapleton’s Traveller rebounds from #17 to #14 in its 46th week. The album spent two weeks on top in November 2015. The album logs its 23rd week at #1 on Top Country Albums. That’s the longest run by any album since Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now logged 31 weeks on top in 2010-11. It’s the longest run for an album by a male solo artist since Tim McGraw’s Not a Moment Too Soon logged 29 weeks on top in 1994.
Looking ahead to next week, DJ Khaled appears headed for his first #1 album with Major Key. It would mark the second time that Drake has been bumped out of the top spot. Also look for big debuts from Jake Owen’s American Love and Fantasia’s The Definition Of…
