trackten chart roundup 10.14.25

The Taylor Takeover, a new Demi single, and our first guest pick!

Everyone seems to think the Hot 100 is broken. Each week, I count down the biggest songs, take a look at what’s trending up in the weeks ahead, and let you know if I think Billboard got it right.

counting down

Billboard Hot 100 #1: The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

• 92.5 million streams (record breaking week for streams)

• 38.5 million airplay audience (only the 5th ever top 10 debut on radio)

Billboard 200 #1 Album & Song: The Life of a Showgirl (The Fate of Ophelia) by Taylor Swift

• A record breaking 4.002 million units; huge lol that Billboard calculated to the thousands here. This number was projected to be released on 10/12 but wasn’t released until afternoon of 10/13.

• 3,479,500 traditional sales

• 522,600 SEAs

• 0 TEAs (not available)

Spotify Weekly US #1: The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

• 49,012,720 streams

Youtube Weekly US #1: The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

• 14,290,446 streams

• This was probably Taylor’s nearest miss - she only topped Golden by ~500k streams

Billboard Global 200 #1: The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

• 216.9 million streams worldwide

r/popheads Chart: The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

• Taylor sweeps the top 12 as she does on the Hot 100.

my last.fm: Opalite by Taylor Swift

• If I was running the show, I would have released Opalite as the lead single with a few weeks of run time (probably after 2-3 weeks of vinyl variants if you still wanted to juice sales). I think this would have helped people understand what “banger” meant (she actually meant bop) and I think the lyrics are much better here than Fate of Ophelia.

trending up

• I have less to say here than normal - of the top 25 on Spotify for example, 12 are new Taylor songs, 11 dropped in streams week over week, and the other 2 songs are 9 months (DtMF) to 20 years (Iris) old, so really we’re in a bit of a holding pattern. The exception to note…

• Dracula by Tame Impala: One of the few gainers on Spotify this week, Tame Impala also had his Hot 100 debut last week at #55 with Dracula. I’ve definitely enjoyed his music over the years, but one of the things clueing me into the trend here is the fact that he is playing FOUR nights at Barclays Center?? Excited to see where this one goes, especially since it’s not even the lead single for this album cycle.

• NEW - Kiss by Demi Lovato: Demi???? Again??? Here All Night really caught my ear, and I went back and liked Fast a lot too. This whole era is what Kim Petras should really be doing… will be curious to see if the album has much front to back playability because having three fun and cohesive singles feels like a big win for Demi.

• NEW - Romeo by PinkPantheress + Rachel Chinouriri: Hard to pick one from such a lovely and fun project as Fancy Some More?, so figured I’d use it to highlight Rachel who feels like such a great underdog in the indie pop world. Pink really has managed to so smoothly move from novelty tiktok act into almost an established genre unto herself - this era has been a great run of the brat playbook!

• NEW - viscus (feat. FKA twigs) by Oklou: I’m definitely late to the party here, but have been enjoying Oklou’s releases, which feel like a nice evolution of the PC music sound and a natural fit for the twigs feature. I could weirdly see this picking up with an almost Marias-esque fanbase.

• GUEST PICK: A Couple Minutes by Olivia Dean, selected by Celine: Celine writes about pop culture on her substack, The Trove, and I highly recommend you check it out, including her recent album analysis of Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving! On the chart side of things, Olivia continues to climb on Spotify with Man I Need at #16 and So Easy (To Fall in Love) climbing 23 spots to #50. I think there is a real chance of Man I Need hitting the top 10 next week!

consensus pick: The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

• Even as Golden dominated the last few weeks, I haven’t yet had an easier consensus pick (which I also got right in my prediction last week, though that’s not shocking). The Fate of Ophelia had the biggest day ever for a song on Spotify and swept just about every metric I use. The question is more about how many weeks it manages to reign.

contrarian pick: Sympathy is a Knife by Charli XCX

• I was at a bit of a loss here without just picking Golden (the only song to interrupt Taylor’s takeover on the Global 200) or TIT FOR TAT (which I picked last week), so why not engage in some drama? If you don’t absolutely hate Taylor Swift, you probably listened to The Fate of Ophelia this week, purposely or not. If you DO absolutely hate Taylor Swift, you probably were happy to join the fight by supporting Charli and streaming one of her best songs which just so happens to be about Taylor (allegedly). On r/popheads, Sympathy is a Knife was the highest charting non-TLOAS song, and party 4 u did manage to jump 27 spots on Spotify, so this isn’t just based on vibes!

next week’s #1: The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift

• If Fortnight could make it for 2 weeks, I think TFOO will be able to. I’m curious to see what radio pick up looks like in the next week and of course streaming. Opalite has really held close in streams, so I’m wondering if Taylor will rip the bandaid off sooner rather than later and promote a second single before allowing TFOO to fall much.

What tracks did I miss? Comment below to see if your recommendation makes my list next week.