The pop charts show a real conundrum for its top acts right now.
Singers Charli XCX and Gracie Abrams lead the iTunes top 100 albums right now with, respectively, “Music Fashion Film” and “Daughter from Hell.” The former is brand new and the latter is a week old.
Country star Ella Langley is number 3 with “Dandelion,” in the top 3 since April.
The difference? Langley has 8 titles in the iTunes top 100 singles. She also leads the Spotify singles charts with a song most people don’t know, called “Choosin’ Texas.” (It must be popular down South. No one in the big cities would be humming that title to themselves, frankly.)
So, good for her. But Charli XCX and Abrams don’t have one track on the iTunes or Spotify charts. Not one. Nothing is going on. Nothing is happening. Despite their albums being so hot, the songs individually can’t get any attention.
It’s not a good sign for those two album’s further appeal. If the streaming audience doesn’t latch on to tracks, albums tend to fade quickly. Langely’s singles have kept “Dandelion” in the garden for months. If the other two can’t start a fire with at least one single, we may seem them disappear.
As for Charli XCX, I’m really enjoying the album. It’s very different than her sleek “Brat” hit from two summers ago. It’s like a punk album from 1979. The songs are rock, and lyrically rich. My favorite is “No One Lasts Forever,” which would make a great single if edited at the end. Once the song is over, there’s a whole passage with legendary film director David Cronenberg.
