There Are Only Ten Real Hits – Were There Ever More?

This is a great time for pop music. This is a lean time for pop music.

The summer of ’24 is characterized by real hits that have galvanized pop culture in a way not seen for a decade. The challenge is that there are barely a dozen real hits, and they haven’t repopulated much over the course of the summer. We’ve heard for years about pop culture’s increasingly “long tail.” At the moment, it seems to start around No. 11.

Inside the top 10, airplay and streaming are more in sync than ever, and have been for most of the summer. The Hot 100 is led not by superstar album cuts, songs bolstered by a single loyal constituency, or hard-to-parse streaming oddities, but by consensus hits like “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” “Espresso,” “Birds of a Feather,” “Good Luck, Babe!,” and “I Had Some Help.” Even “Not Like Us” made the unlikely transition from streaming outlier to multi-format hit.

When you get outside the Top 10, the chart starts to look more like its old self:

11 – Benson Boone, “Beautiful Things” — Falling out of the top 10 again after a long run at both streaming and radio. 

12 – Jimin, “Who” – Pursuing mainstream adds/airplay, but currently fan-driven. Getting about 125 spins at Top 40, but mostly from iHeart’s K-Pop show.

13 – Morgan Wallen, “Lies Lies Lies” — The only song with no Top 40 foothold to make the top 10 in its debut week over the last two months. Now becoming a Country radio hit.

14 – Luke Combs, “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” — No. 6 Country airplay at this writing; not getting any significant pop airplay, but perhaps it should because of Twisters.

15 – Morgan Wallen f/Ernest, “Cowgirls” — A former Country No. 1 now starting to get Top 40 airplay.

16 – Zach Bryan, “Pink Skies” — Got some airplay at Country, Triple-A, Hot AC (and to a lesser extent CHR), but not on the magnitude of “I Remember Everything” — a streaming outlier that Country and Top 40 did try to acknowledge. Bryan’s “28” made the top 20 last week without significant airplay and falls to No. 22 this week.

17 – Post Malone f/Luke Combs, “Guy for That” — Got first-week Country event airplay, then tapered off. No real pop airplay to speak of.

18 – Future, Metro Boomin & Kendrick Lamar, “Like That” — No. 1 at Hip-Hop/R&B and Rhythmic Top 40. Made it to No. 35 at Mainstream CHR.

19 – Eminem, “Houdini” — Holding at No. 12 on the CHR airplay chart at this writing, but a power at some of the successful smaller-market Top 40s that I watch most closely. 

20 – Marshmello & Kane Brown, “Miles on It” — Top 20 at both CHR and Country. Top 15 at Hot AC. Unlike some of the Country titles above it, a solid multi-format record that has been overshadowed by Malone/Wallen’s bigger Pop/Country collaboration, which came out shortly thereafter.

If you look at the songs starting at No. 10 on Mediabase’s CHR airplay chart this week, you see (in addition to the aforementioned “Not Like Us,” “Houdini,” and “Miles on It”):

• Two more songs that, like “Houdini,” made Billboard’s Top 10 but ahead of their peak airplay — Billie Eilish’s “Lunch” and Taylor Swift’s “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”
• Two songs that have thus far peaked in the 20s on both Billboard and Mediabase: Ariana Grande’s “The Boy is Mine” and Dasha’s “Austin,” although it was certainly being a streaming phenomenon that helped bring the latter song to the attention of both pop and Country.
• Four songs where CHR radio support is well ahead of the Hot 100: Dua Lipa’s “Illusion” (No. 9 CHR, peak No. 43 Hot 100); Benson Boone’s “Slow It Down” (No. 14 vs. No. 34); Teddy Swims’ “The Door” (No. 20 vs. No. 55); and, most notably, Madison Beer’s “Make You Mine” (No. 13 CHR but not on the Hot 100). 

As label budgets and promotion staffs shrink, there is less willingness to pursue any song not immediately ratified by streaming, and thus fewer songs in the latter category. But sometimes those songs are Sabrina Carpenter’s “Feather,” which helped make “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” possible. Madison Beer has the same sort of just-beyond-the-horizon fanbase that Carpenter or Charli XCX did. At the very least, Epic’s tenacity on that song gives CHR a few uptempo moments of its own. But maybe it’s setting up a hitmaking career.

There have always been songs, starting in the lower reaches of the top 10, that don’t become enduring hits. Sometimes they’re superstar stiffs nudged just across the line, such as Donna Summer’s “Love is in Control (Finger on the Trigger).” Sometimes they’re songs that felt like real enough hits at the time. Ollie & Jerry’s “Breakin’ … There’s No Stopping Us” was a No. 9 hit that you don’t often hear now. In 1984, propelled by the excitement of the Breakin’ movie, it read to me as a hit, if not a CHR power.

And in Top 40’s best moments, the place below the top 10 can have plenty of hits, too. It is commonly held that August 1984 was a magic moment for Top 40 radio and music. In the top 10, there are up to seven songs still heard on the radio today: “When Doves Cry,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Sunglasses at Night,” “Stuck on You,” “Sad Songs (Say So Much),” “I Can Dream About You,” and “Dancing in the Dark.” You could still hear “Ghostbusters” too, based on research, if radio wasn’t hung up about playing it year-round.

One real show of August 1984’s strength is how different the rest of the top 20 looks from today, including seven songs that are still radio staples:

11 – Ollie & Jerry, “Breakin’ … There’s No Stopping Us” – Had just peaked at No. 9.

12 – John Waite, “Missing You” – On its way to No. 1; still a radio staple today.

13 – Peabo Bryson, “If Ever You’re in My Arms Again” – Headed for the top 10. A song that returned to the radio as a result of the Soft AC boom of the last five years.

14 – ZZ Top, “Legs” – Another future top 10 hit and another enduring song.

15 – Van Halen, “Panama” — Would make it only to No. 13, the same as the previous single, “I’ll Wait.” Still a song that you’ll hear on the radio, however.

16 – Billy Idol, “Eyes Without a Face” — Until “Mony Mony,” it was his biggest Hot 100 hit (No. 4). Ironically, not one of Idol’s four enduring radio songs.

17 – Ratt, “Round and Round” — Would peak at No. 12. Another bubble-glam hit, Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was on the way, and that’s the one you hear on the radio now. 

18 – Pointer Sisters, “Jump (For My Love)” — Would become their second of four top 10s in a row. Another song I’ve heard a little more of on the radio recently.

19 – Huey Lewis & News, “If This Is It” — The fourth top 10 from Sports. Still played now.

20 – Cyndi Lauper, “She Bop” — A No. 3 follow-up to the No. 1 “Time After Time.” Didn’t endure on the radio as much as She’s So Unusual’s other hits.

There are a few lost-to-time hits in the top 10 as well that week. Rod Stewart’s “Infatuation” certainly read as a hit at the time, and the follow-up, “Some Guys Have All the Luck,” would endure on the radio for years. The Jacksons’ “State of Shock” (really a Michael Jackson & Mick Jagger song) was a more short-lived event record. But there’s an overall depth that’s hard to imagine now. In 1984, CHR had, well, “Legs.”

As summer winds down, CHR’s comeback remains tantalizingly close. Consultant Guy Zapoleon’s just-published annual analysis is optimistic. This week’s July PPM ratings still show a handful of success stories–exceptions that prove the rule–but no across-the-board comeback. (They’re also inconsistent for Country, despite that format’s product boom.) Meanwhile, the Classic Hits stations that play ’80s hits are enjoying the sort of summer that Top 40 once did.

I still believe that CHR can, with a concerted effort, reclaim some young-end listening and start showing across-the-board results. But there’s still a vicious cycle of needing more hits and not being able (or willing) to make more hits. Even when the songs at No. 11 were the “turntable hits” that radio loved, but nobody bought, they gave CHR the variety and volume of product that it’s missing now, as well as more songs that had the opportunity to become the top 10 hits we need.