Chart Watch: Collabo Fever Grips the Hot 100

If you’re an artist and you want a hit these days, I have one word of advice for you: collaborate. This is the 25th consecutive week that more than half of the singles in the top 10 on the Hot 100 have been collaborations.

The reason for this trend is simple: When you combine two artists’ fanbases, you expand the potential audience for a new single. This is especially true if the artists come from different genres. Many collaborations include a hip-hop element — what the Grammys call “Rap/Sung Performances.” This allows even mainstream pop performers such as Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, and Justin Bieber to have a hip-hop edge on their records.

Seven of this week’s top 10 hits are collaborations. Here they are.

Migos’s “Bad and Boujee” (featuring Lil Uzi Vert) logs its third week at No. 1.

The Chainsmokers’ “Closer” (featuring Halsey) moves up from No. 4 to No. 3 in its 26th week. It’s the first song in Hot 100 history to spend its first 26 weeks in the top 10.

“Bad Things” by Machine Gun Kelly and Camila Cabello jumps from No. 6 to No. 4 in its 13th week. It’s Cabello’s second top five hit. She first reached this hallowed ground as a member of Fifth Harmony, whose “Work From Home” (featuring Ty Dolla $ign) reached No. 4 last year.

“I Don’t Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)” by Zayn and Taylor Swift jumps from No. 8 to No. 5 in its seventh week. This is its highest ranking to date. It’s Swift’s 11th top five hit; Zayn’s fifth (counting three hits that he recorded as a member of One Direction).

Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” (featuring Gucci Mane) drops from No. 3 to No. 6 in its 20th week. The song logged seven weeks at No. 1.

Maroon 5’s “Don’t Wanna Know” (featuring Kendrick Lamar) rebounds from No. 9 to No. 7 in its 16th week. This equals its highest ranking to date. The song is the most-played song at radio for the seventh week.

The Weeknd’s “Starboy” (featuring Daft Punk) drops from No. 5 to No. 8 in its 19th week. The song reached No. 1.

There are just three non-collaborations in this week’s top 10.

Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” holds at No. 2 for the second week, after debuting at No. 1. The song sold 104,000 copies in the U.S., which allows it to rank No. 1 on Top Digital Songs for the third week. It’s the first song to spend its first three weeks atop that chart since Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” last spring (which spent its first 10 weeks at No. 1). “Shape of You” tops the Official U.K. Singles Chart for the third straight week.

Drake’s “Fake Love” rebounds from No. 11 to No. 9 in its 14th week. This equals its highest ranking to date. This song borrows from the O’Jays’ 1972 hit “Back Stabbers.” Drake’s 2015 smash “Hotline Bling” borrowed from Timmy Thomas’s 1972 hit “Why Can’t We Live Together.” I remember both of those hits fondly, but how is Drake so familiar with them? He wasn’t even born until 1986.

Alessia Cara’s “Scars to Your Beautiful” jumps from No. 12 to No. 10 in its 22nd week. This is the slowest climb to the top 10 since gnash’s “I Hate U I Love U” (featuring Olivia O’Brien) cracked the top 10 in its 25th week last October. This is Cara’s second top 10 hit, following “Here.” Both songs are featured on her first full-length album, Know-It-All. Cara is the first artist to land two or more top 10 hits from a debut album since Fetty Wap scored with three songs from his eponymous debut album.

The Chainsmokers’ “Paris” drops from No. 7 to No. 13 in its second week. Bruno Mars’s “24K Magic” also drops out of the top 10 this week.

Migos’s “T-Shirt” jumps from No. 43 to No. 37 in its second week. This is just a beat behind the No. 36 peak of Shontelle’s song “T-Shirt,” from 2008.

Top Albums

The Weeknd’s Starboy holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for the fifth nonconsecutive week. That’s the longest run at No. 1 for an R&B album (excluding rap or hip-hop) since Usher’s Confessions logged nine weeks at No. 1 in 2004. Note: Michael Jackson’s Number Ones was the bestselling album in the U.S. for six weeks following his death in 2009, but it wasn’t listed on the Billboard 200 because of a rule at the time barring older “catalog” albums.

This surpasses the Weeknd’s previous album, Beauty Behind the Madness, which logged three weeks at No. 1 in September 2015. Both albums were No. 1 in traditional album sales for just the first of those weeks. All subsequent weeks at No. 1, in both cases, were due to the Billboard 200 formula since late 2014, which blends traditional album sales, digital track sales, and streaming data.

Starboy sold just 12,000 copies in traditional album sales this week. Only one other album has ever ranked No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with such a paltry traditional album sales total. Drake’s Views posted traditional album sales of just 8,000 in the week it logged its 13th and final week at No. 1.

John Mayer lands his eighth top 10 album or EP as his four-song EP The Search for Everything – Wave One debuts at No. 2. This was the week’s bestseller in traditional album sales. The four songs are expected to appear on Mayer’s upcoming seventh studio album. In a Facebook post, he wrote, “The album will be released four songs at a time. Every month. There were too many songs to ever get out the door at once…” If Mayer releases, say, three EPs and they all crack the top 10, and then the album cracks the top 10, this would artificially inflate his top 10 tally. Mayer and his record company, Columbia, probably wouldn’t mind, but avid chart followers are likely to think it distorts reality. To nip this in the bud, Billboard may need to revisit the idea of allowing EPs with just four or five songs on the Billboard 200.

The La La Land soundtrack holds at No. 3 in its seventh week. The album features the Oscar-nominated “City of Stars,” sung by stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. This is the 25th consecutive week in which at least one soundtrack has appeared in the top 10. La La Land is No. 1 on Top Soundtracks for the third week.

Bruno Mars’s 24K Magic inches up from No. 5 to No. 4 in its 10th week. The album has climbed as high as No. 2.

AFI land their fourth top 10 album as AFI (The Blood Album) debuts at No. 5.

The Moana soundtrack drops from No. 4 to No. 6 in its 10th week. The album peaked at No. 2. Moana includes Auli’i Cravalho’s rendition of the Oscar-nominated “How Far I’ll Go,” which was co-written by Hamilton mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Post Malone’s Stoney jumps from No. 9 to No. 7 in its seventh week. The album peaked at No. 6.

Hamilton: An American Musical drops from No. 6 to No. 8 in its 70th week. The Broadway cast album peaked at No. 3 in the wake of the Tony Awards in June. This is its 23rd week in the top 10.

Drake’s Views dips from No. 8 to No. 9 in its 39th week. It logged 13 weeks at No. 1.

J. Cole’s 4 Your Eyez Only drops from No. 7 to No. 10 in its seventh week. The album debuted at No. 1.

Two albums drop out of the top 10 this week. The xx’s I See You dives from No. 2 to No. 30. The Trolls soundtrack drops from No. 10 to No. 12.

Starset’s sophomore album, Vessels, debuts at No. 11. The band’s debut album, Transmissions, reached No. 49 in 2014. The title of the new album is very close to the title of twenty one pilots’ major-label debut album, Vessel, which drops from No. 47 to No. 51 in its 128th week on the chart. It climbed as high as No. 21.

The latest installments in two long-running series debut in the top 20 this week. Grammy Nominees 2017 opens at No. 16. Kidz Bop Kids’s Kidz Bop 34 debuts at No. 18. Oddly, neither series has (yet) produced a No. 1 album. Two Grammy Nominees titles have climbed as high as No. 2. Five Kidz Bop titles have climbed as high as No. 2.

Chris Stapleton’s Traveller drops from No. 16 to No. 21 in its 72nd week. The album logs its 28th week at No. 1 on Top Country Albums. This ties LeAnn Rimes’s Blue, which spent 28 weeks at No. 1 in 1996-97. Just two debut albums have logged more than 28 weeks at No. 1 since the chart originated 53 years ago. They are Billy Ray Cyrus’s Some Gave All (34 weeks at No. 1 in 1992-93) and Clint Black’s Killin’ Time (31 weeks at No. 1 in 1989-90).

Coming attractions: Migos’s Culture and Brantley Gilbert’s The Devil Don’t Sleep will vie for the No. 1 album spot next week.