RS Charts: The Kid Laroi’s ‘Stay’ Holds at Number One as Lil Nas X Debuts
The Kid Laroi’s “Stay” repeated at Number One on the Rolling Stone Top 100 Songs chart for a third consecutive week. “Stay,” which features Justin Bieber, was challenged by another collaboration: “Industry Baby,” the latest track from Lil Nas X featuring Jack Harlow. “Stay” had the edge in on-demand audio streams — 27.2 million relative to Lil Nas X’s 26 million — which allowed the Kid Laroi to stay on top, even though “Industry Baby” earned more downloads (10,400 to 8,700).
The brassy “Industry Baby” was produced by Lil Nas X’s regular collaborators, Take a Daytrip, along with Kanye West. Take a Daytrip produced a Number One RS 100 hit in 2020 — Travis Scott’s “The Scotts” — and repeated the feat earlier this year when they helped craft Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” The release of “Industry Baby” also let to a resurgence for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” which rose from Number 20 to Number 12 on the latest RS 100 thanks to an increase of nearly a million streams.
The success of “Industry Baby” pushed BTS’ “Butter” down to Number Three — the track has been holding in the Top Three for ten consecutive weeks. It was trailed by Olivia Rodrigo’s former Number One, “Good 4 U,” another BTS single, “Permission to Dance,” which was co-written by Ed Sheeran, and then another Sheeran cut, his club-pop single “Bad Habits.” After debuting at Number Ten on the previous week’s chart, Normani and Cardi B’s “Wild Side” fell to Number 35 this week.
Top Songs
Stay
Industry Baby
Butter
good 4 u
Permission to Dance
The Rolling Stone Top 100 chart tracks the most popular songs of the week in the United States. Songs are ranked by song units, a number that combines audio streams and song sales using a custom weighting system. The chart does not include passive listening like terrestrial radio or digital radio. The RS 100 chart is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending with the previous Thursday.
The high-flying BTS singles were the highest-selling tracks of the week, a distinction they continue to enjoy despite not streaming as well in the U.S. as some of their competitors. The third-highest sales total of the week after BTS went to country stars Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood, who joined forces on “If I Didn’t Love You.” The arena-ready power ballad about a pair who can’t shake the memories of their old relationship debuted at Number 14 with 7.2 million streams.
Aldean and Underwood’s country duet also amassed over 28,000 downloads, which powered it past the Kid Laroi’s “Not Sober,” a collaboration with Polo G and Stunna Gambino (10.7 million streams). “Not Sober” was one of four new songs from the Kid Laroi that debuted on the RS 100 following the release of F*ck Love 3.
A number of singles reached new peaks on the RS 100 this week. Glass Animals’ long-running “Heat Waves” cracked the Top 20 for the first time, impressive considering the song is nearly a year-old: It appeared on the Dreamland album, which was released August 7th, 2020. The single pulled in 9.8 million streams this week.
In addition, Wizkid’s “Essence” — a breezy collaboration with Tems produced by P2J and Legendury Beatz — rose to Number 58 during its fourth week on the chart (5.3 million streams). And Tai Verdes’ second viral single, “A-O-K,” jumped to Number 76 on the strength of 4.8 million streams.
Next week, expect the new single from Bruno Mars’ and Anderson .Paak’s Silk Sonic project plus songs from Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever album to debut high on the chart.
See the full RS 100 here.
