The Contenders 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 dated Sept. 13, we look at Sabrina Carpenter’s first two singles from her just-released Man’s Best Friend set, and which may have the stronger performance on next week’s chart.
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Sabrina Carpenter, “Tears” & “Manchild” (Island/Republic): Pop superstar Sabrina Carpenter is all but guaranteed to have the top spot on next week’s Billboard 200 albums chart with her new set Man’s Best Friend. The follow-up to last year’s four-week Billboard 200 No. 1 Short n’ Sweet, Carpenter’s latest arrives on the back of a good deal of discourse around its provocative title and cover — which the singer-songwriter has largely shrugged off — as well as her second No. 1 on the Hot 100 with lead single “Manchild,” which became her first song to debut atop the chart upon its June release.
Next week, Carpenter will look to make it two No. 1 debuts in a row with winking, discofied second single “Tears” — which, as “Manchild” did, arrives along with a big new music video. Directed by Bardia Zeinali (who also helmed the Barry Keoghan-co-starring clip for Carpenter’s first Hot 100 No. 1, “Please Please Please”), the clip features a Rocky Horror Picture Show-inspired narrative, starring Emmy-winning actor Colman Domingo in drag, as well as elaborate staging and choreography. She has also maintained interest in the new video over the week by premiering multiple differing endings for the video — which originally closed with her killing her boyfriend, out of obligation to her personal brand — over the course of the album’s release week.
“Tears” is off to a very good start at DSPs, hitting No. 1 on both the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart and the Apple Music real-time chart, and maintaining in the top two on both throughout the week. On radio, it’s still only getting started, but is also set to make a fairly strong debut, possibly entering the top 25 on Pop Airplay, and earning 7.4 million in all-format audience over the first four days of the tracking week (Aug. 29-Sept. 1), according to Luminate. The one area where it’s clearly lagging behind where “Manchild” began is in sales, as “Tears” has had a good-not-great showing on iTunes, currently landing outside the top 25 on that real-time chart. (“Manchild” also had a sizeable first week in vinyl single sales; “Tears” is available for purchase only as a download.)
“Tears” will also face continued competition from “Manchild” on the chart next week, as that song had slipped out of the top 10 on the Hot 100, but rebounds 14-7 this week with notable gains in both streaming and radio. Those streams should continue to rise for next week with the release of the full Man’s Best Friend (which “Manchild” leads off), and the song is also continuing to grow on radio, most likely tracking for a second week atop the Pop Airplay chart, and up another 5% in all-format audience over that Aug. 29-Sept. 1 period.
Whether “Tears” can outpace “Manchild” and put up a real challenge for the No. 1 spot may be determined by its final few days of tracking — as the song returned to the top of the Spotify daily listing after Labor Day Weekend, and may continue to swell from there as more and more listeners catch onto its charms.
HUNTR/X: EJAE, Audrey Nuna & REI AMI, “Golden” (Visva/Republic): The biggest challenge for “Tears” on the Hot 100 will of course be getting past HUNTR/X’s “Golden,” which holds at No. 1 this week for a third week, and which hasn’t stopped growing yet in either streams or sales. It’s taken back the top spot on the Apple Music real-time listing from “Tears” — and has traded off the Spotify daily No. 1 with Carpenter over the course of the week — and it continues to be one of the week’s best-sellers, currently ranking at No. 2 on the real-time iTunes chart.
And on radio, it’s officially taken off. The song is up 10% over that Aug. 29-Sept. 1 period, trending towards both the top 10 on the Pop Airplay chart and the top 25 on the overall Radio Songs listing. It’s crazy to say about a song by a fictional girl group from a K-pop movie musical — versus one of the most consistent radio hitmakers of the last two years — but radio may be the thing that keeps “Golden” out of range for Sabrina Carpenter’s latest to pass next week on the Hot 100.
