First David Guetta returns to the charts with Ava Max and now Lady Gaga’s magic begets one of the best songs of her career! High energy EDM returns to radio to light up Top 40, plus Selena Gomez and her fiance join up with emerging superstar Gracie Abrams for the most added song of the week.!
New Music
Doechii – “DENIAL IS A RIVER”: This song is seriously taking off and the proof is clear. We featured it here three weeks ago, after she performed this at the Grammys on February 2nd and then won “Best Rap Album”. It’s normal for an artist’s discography to surge or spike in popularity after a big event. Kendrick Lamar currently occupies the top 4 spots on Spotify, with 2018’s “All The Stars” featuring SZA being #4. #6 is “DENIAL IS A RIVER” which came out last August. It’s clear that the Grammy’s really gave her the boost she needed, as the song has been Top 10 on Spotify and Shazam ever since. It’s all over TikTok now and projected to reach Top 5 in requests on Liveline in the next two weeks. It was #8 last week, up from #16. Little kids, middle aged men, teenage girls and moms all think it’s a cool track. #23 on Top 40 and #11 on Rhythmic this week. It’s clearly a bona fide hit in the making!
Lady Gaga – “Abracadabra”: The story of this song is quite amusing, mostly because of EDM and Gaga’s comeback. Neither one have been particularly responsible for many hit records in the past 10 years, but it seems that “Abracadabra” is finding its audience and getting familiar with everyone. Unlike her last single “Disease” which Top 40 held on to for way too long despite a lack of ANY requests or big streaming numbers (then it finally dropped in airplay FAST), this song actually has both. We first featured it in our February 5 article after the Grammy’s. It hit #1 on Spotify for a few days and remained in the Top 10 for about a week but right now is #34. Still much better than any other song she has released since 2018’s “Shallow” with Bradley Cooper, her most-streamed track ever, 2.6 billion. But that is due to all her other hits being released before Spotify blew up. “Die With A Smile” is #2 and on its way to take over #1 with 1.9 billion. In streaming, “Poker Face” is #3. “Abracadabra” is #18 on Top 40 and #10 in requests this week. Her new album “Mayhem” comes out March 7.
Selena Gomez, benny blanco, Gracie Abrams – “Call Me When You Breakup”: Most added this week, Selena and Benny are engaged, while Gracie Abrams is one of America’s next breakout stars as “That’s So True” heads for #1 on Top 40 in the next two weeks, even though it was already #1 on Spotify and getting requests on Liveline months ago. “Call Me…” debuted at #16 but fell to #64 the next day. Now it’s #103 because the initial excitement is over. Benny Blanco is one of most successful top pop hit producers, and this song is catchy, has tempo and sounds good on the radio. The lyric is a cute story from a cheating woman singing about a guy who should notify her when he breaks up with his girlfriend. Hopefullyover the next three weeks it catches on and returns to meaningful streaming numbers. Aside from her massive contribution to Rema’s “Calm Down” which Selena made into an international hit, her solo material has low popularity. Just to recap, “Love On”, “Single Soon”, “My Mind and Me” and “Rare” (along with a few others) all failed to crack the top 15 and hold on as recurrents. Does ageism become a factor for 32 yar-old Selena? Like Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Pink, and so many others, eventually their sex appeal and hip, cool vibe goes away as they leave their youth behind, have kids, get married etc. So far, we’ve had no requests for “Call Me When You Breakup”, but it’s only been 4 days. We’ll circle back in a few weeks.
It’ll be interesting to see how Justin Bieber’s 2025 comeback goes, as he’s a married Dad turning 31 next week.
Buried Treasures of the Week
Mark Morrison – “Return of the Mack”: A song you probably never expected to see here, because it’s so old and never played on Top 40 anymore. It peaked at #2 on Billboard, #3 on Top 40 and #1 on Rhythmic in 1997. It’s been certified 5x Platinum in America. Over the past 5 years, we’d get a request for it once a month or so, but in the past three months we’ve had at least a dozen. It could be that others heard it play before on the show and wanted to hear it again, which happens very often. Old songs come back in waves and then disappear again. Gold categories should be filled with your biggest throwback hits, which rarely change on most formats, but also some surprise “wow songs” that you play for a week or two just to break up the monotony for your P1’s and anyone who’s tired of hearing “Low”, “Yeah” and “Give Me Everything”. Listeners will get the impression that you play “so many songs I love but never hear anymore”. There are years worth of great, ultra-familiar and widely-loved songs that never get played anymore. All it takes is a few, and they aren’t always the ones that made it into the Top 5 either. They’re also not from the past 8 years, which were an especially weak period for great songs.
Clean Bandit, Anne-Marie & Sean Paul – “Rockabye”: Every single mom’s theme song. It’s 2016 release makes it one of the more recent songs we’ve featured on “Buried Treasures”. #1 in 26 countries including the UK, Mexico, Australia, Germany and New Zealand, but only #9 in America on Billboard, though #4 on Top 40. A few stations still play it today, but we get requests for this constantly from people of all ages, some little kids but mainly women in their 20s to early 30s. The stories they share when they request it are so emotional, and they ALL have one. Plus, “it’s got a great beat, and you can dance to it!”
