{"id":49451,"date":"2025-08-07T03:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/49451\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T03:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:40:11","slug":"will-chappell-roans-subway-pass-alex-warren-huntr-x-for-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/49451\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Chappell Roan’s ‘Subway’ Pass Alex Warren & HUNTR\/X for No. 1?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Contenders<\/a> is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 <\/a>dated Aug. 16, we look at whether Chappell Roan\u2019s new single will be able to get into the mix with KPop Demon Hunters and Alex Warren in the fight atop the Hot 100.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tChappell Roan, \u201cThe Subway\u201d (KRA\/Amusement\/Island\/Republic): Like New Yorkers anxious to get to work on time, Chappell Roan<\/a>\u2019s fans had been waiting for \u201cThe Subway\u201d far longer than they\u2019d initially expected. Roan had debuted the song at a couple live dates in summer 2024, but for the next year, there was no indication of an imminent studio release. Then finally, last month, reports of Chappell filming a new music video in New York began to circulate, followed by an official announcement weeks later that the song would finally arrive on the evening of Thursday, July 31, with an official video to follow Friday morning.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFans were certainly ready for the dreamy new song, which debuted atop the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart \u2014 with over 3.9 million streams in its first full day of release, a high for 2025 \u2014 while also briefly topping the iTunes real-time chart, and shooting to the top of YouTube\u2019s Trending chart for music once its video was released the next morning. (The song\u2019s impact on the Apple Music real-time charts has been somewhat less, as it has thus far peaked at No. 6.) The song\u2019s daily numbers have perhaps inevitably receded from that first-day boom, but remain robust, with \u201cSubway\u201d reigning for most of the week on the Spotify daily chart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWill it be enough for \u201cThe Subway\u201d to pull in atop the Hot 100? That might be a challenge, as it will not be getting any help from physical sales \u2014 the vinyl single of the song sold on Roan\u2019s website is currently scheduled to ship \u201con or before Halloween\u201d \u2014 and not much support yet from radio, though the song has early boosters in SiriusXM\u2019s Hits 1, iHeartMedia\u2019s WIHT Washington, D.C., and Cox Media Group\u2019s WBLI Long Island, N.Y., with far more stations still playing her enduring hit \u201cPink Pony Club\u201d (No. 11 on Radio Songs this week).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut if the new song can gain a little extra momentum on streaming late in the week, and maybe find a small extra boost or two \u2014 like Roan\u2019s Island labelmate Sabrina Carpenter did on her way to a No. 1 debut<\/a> for \u201cManchild\u201d a couple months ago \u2014 it\u2019s not impossible that \u201cSubway\u201d could find its way to the top. And regardless, a debut in the top three seems very likely, which would make the song the highest-charting of Roan\u2019s career, passing the shared No. 4 peaks of current signature hits \u201cGood Luck, Babe!\u201d and the aforementioned \u201cPink Pony Club.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHUNTR\/X, EJAE, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami, \u201cGolden\u201d (Visva\/Republic): It\u2019s six weeks now into the pop culture takeover of KPop Demon Hunters, and against all odds, the soundtrack is still growing. The Netflix soundtrack currently claims the No. 2 spots on both the Billboard 200 (with the full film soundtrack) and the Hot 100 (with HUNTR\/X\u2019s \u201cGolden\u201d), with the gaps shrinking every week between it and Morgan Wallen\u2019s I\u2019m the Problem and Alex Warren\u2019s \u201cOrdinary\u201d on the two charts, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a little closer to clearing that final hurdle on the Hot 100, with \u201cGolden\u201d having long lapped \u201cOrdinary\u201d on DSPs \u2014 it\u2019s now led Streaming Songs<\/a> for two weeks \u2014 and also sitting right behind it on the Digital Song Sales<\/a> chart this week (Nos. 4 and 5, respectively). The question of radio remains, but \u201cGolden\u201d is also starting to really make its presence felt there: the song is up 73% in plays Aug. 1-4 over the same period the week before, according to Luminate, and approaching the top 25 on Pop Airplay <\/a>next week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIf \u201cGolden\u201d continues to surge, this could be the week it has its moment atop the Hot 100.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlex Warren, \u201cOrdinary\u201d (Atlantic): Don\u2019t count out \u201cOrdinary\u201d just yet: After finally starting to slip in radio airplay last week, the nine-week Hot 100 No. 1 has rebounded slightly this week, and the song should secure an eighth week atop the Radio Songs chart. This is happening while his subsequent single \u201cOn My Mind\u201d with ROS\u00c9 is also gaining in airplay and his brand-new \u201cEternity\u201d is also drawing some early radio attention. And like \u201cGolden,\u201d \u201cOrdinary\u201d has been discounted to 69 cents on iTunes for this tracking week \u2014 and is benefiting from buzz over his and Luke Combs\u2019 Lollapalooza performance<\/a> of the song \u2013 meaning Warren<\/a> and his team are still hoping to secure that benchmark 10th week atop the Hot 100 before potentially falling to Roan or HUNTR\/X.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,9607,136,41986],"class_list":["post-49451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-genre-pop","tag-music","tag-the-contenders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}