We're in week three of Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl era, chart-wise, and that's not enough time to dislodge the album — or its lead single, "The Fate of Ophelia" — from the top of the Billboard rankings. But, while it still yields four of the week's top 10 songs, the album is starting to see its deeper cuts slide down to make room for fresh blood. That helps two artists, Olivia Dean and Leon Thomas, land in the Hot 100's top 10 for the first time in their careers. But the singles chart remains crowded and for the second week running there isn't a single hip-hop songin the top 40. That hadn't happened since 1990.
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Two weeks ago, thanks to a massive surge of first-week streaming, Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl locked down the entire top 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Last week, her grip slipped slightly, as she landed a mere eight of the week's top 10 songs, with HUNTR/X's "Golden" and Alex Warren's "Ordinary" serving as the only interlopers. Now, The Life of a Showgirl has four songs in the top 10: "The Fate of Ophelia" at No. 1, plus "Opalite," "Elizabeth Taylor" and "Father Figure." Considering that commercial radio stations are largely focused on "The Fate of Ophelia," The Life of a Showgirl is proving durable on streaming services.
Still, the Hot 100's Swiftian chokehold is loosening, and that's made room for two fresh career milestones, as two artists — Olivia Dean and Leon Thomas — crack the top 10 for the first time in their careers. Dean's "Man I Need" leaps to No. 8, while Thomas' "Mutt" lands at No. 10 in its 38th week on the chart. That's one of the slowest climbs into the top 10 in Billboard history, with Glass Animals' "Heat Waves" holding the all-time record of 42 weeks.
How big a deal is hitting the top 10 for the first time? Well, consider that after 10 months, just eight acts have done it in 2025 — and two of them are HUNTR/X and Saja Boys, the fictional groups depicted in KPop Demon Hunters. Besides Dean and Thomas, the others are Doechii ("Anxiety" hit No. 9 in May), Warren ("Ordinary" topped the chart for much of the summer and still sits at No. 3), BigXthaPlug ("All the Way," his collaboration with country singer Bailey Zimmerman, peaked at No. 4 in April) and Ravyn Lenae ("Love Me Not" topped out at No. 5 in August).
Unlike some of the biggest stars to enter the top 10 for the first time last year — Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, et al — this year's crop (minus HUNTR/X and Saja Boys) have each, at least so far, landed just one song in the top 10. It's tough to compete with the Taylor Swifts and Morgan Wallens of the world. And, to make matters even worse, in just a few weeks they'll be competing with the return of the usual Christmas chestnuts, from Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" on down.
Between now and then, though, two potential first-timers are worth watching: Kehlani, whose "Folded" leaps to No. 14 this week, and sombr, whose "Back to Friends" climbs to No. 18. They're positioned to rise further as The Life of a Showgirl fades.
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Shocking no one, Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl holds at No. 1 for a third straight time, as it was streamed and sold a combination of roughly 194,000 times. Even with 38,000 sales, which don't carry over from week to week, Swift has a good shot of extending her run for at least a little while longer: The album at No. 2, the soundtrack to KPop Demon Hunters, scored 96,000 equivalent album units, though it may get a boost with the approach of Halloween. (If you get a lot of trick-or-treaters, you're about to hear a lot about KPop Demon Hunters.)
Whether or not you chalk it up to a Taylor Swift hangover, it's an unusually slow week for fresh albums, with just one debuting inside the top 50. That debut belongs to the psych-pop band Tame Impala, which bows at No. 4 with Deadbeat. Reviews of the album haven't been great, but Deadbeat has produced the band's first-ever Hot 100 singles — three in all, led by "Dracula," which hits a new peak at No. 33 this week. Having a single called "Dracula" in October, it turns out, is a pretty good idea.
Deadbeat isn't Tame Impala's highest-charting record — 2020's The Slow Rush hit No. 3, while 2015's Currents also topped out at No. 4 — but it's an impressive debut. The band pulled out all the stops to make it a hit, too, ranging from editions on vinyl and CD to the greatest fame-propellent known to humankind: the almighty Tiny Desk concert.
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It was easy to miss — even Billboard didn't report it until this week — but last week's Hot 100 ended a streak that had run for more than 35 years. For the first time since 1990, no hip-hop songs landed in the top 40. Hip-hop's 35-year run in the top 40 began with Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" and ended when Kendrick Lamar's "Luther (feat. SZA)" fell victim to Billboard's new rules for removing old hits from the chart once they've fallen past a certain position.
This week, hip-hop's exclusion from the top 40 extends to a second week, as the highest-charting hip-hop track — YoungBoy Never Broke Again's "Shot Callin" — sits at No. 43. But a closer look suggests that the chart is, well, just in a weird place right now.
For starters, the week's two biggest albums are being streamed so heavily that they alone account for a stunning 19 songs in the top 40. Between that and a logjam of sturdy hits like Alex Warren's "Ordinary," there just isn't a ton of room for… much of anything, really.
We're also in a bit of a lull between blockbuster hip-hop albums. Cardi B's Am I the Drama? has landed a bunch of tracks on the Hot 100 this fall, but her highest-charting song this week is "Safe (feat. Kehlani)" at No. 57. Lamar's 2024 juggernaut GNX has exhausted its run of singles, thanks in part to the aforementioned rules about removing old hits from the chart, while his nemesis Drake keeps delaying his forthcoming album Iceman. ("What Did I Miss?" and "Nokia" both hit No. 2 this year, but they've since fallen off the chart.)
If Drake were to drop Iceman right away, he'd be in a great position to capitalize on the vacuum. He'd likely even displace Swift from the top of the charts, though that might not be worth the price of making her mad. She's held grudges for worse reasons, and if there's one thing Drake doesn't need in his life, it's another diss track.
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