Last week, Harry Styles set the high-water mark for weekly streams for a song in 2022 — and just one week later, that record has fallen. It now belongs to Jack Harlow, whose “First Class” debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 after picking up 54.6 million on-demand streams in its first week.
Last week, Styles’ “As It Was” came out on top with 43.8 million streams. This week, it predictably falls to a still-solid No. 2, with 32.3 million streams in its second frame.
So as streaming goes, Harlow came out well ahead of Styles, in their respective opening weeks. However — and this is a big “but” — Styles was well ahead of Harlow when you look at the first-week radio airplay. “First Class” got 4.1 million audience impressions at radio this week, less than a fourth of the 27.2 million radio ears Styles got in his debut last week. Harlow’s new song went instantly viral on TikTok in a big way, and it may be that radio has yet to be delivered the news about how big a star he is (or, alternately, how much people love a Fergie sample in 2022).
So make what you will of the fact that Harlow did somewhat better at streaming and Styles did a lot better on the airwaves when they respectively came out of the box. This is a race that will be fun for chart-watchers to keep track of in the coming weeks, and that’ll be a relief, since so many of the chart year so far has consisted of yawning at 2021 leftovers. No song had debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 at all in 2022 until these two tracks came along and did it back to back.
All of this date comes via Luminate (formerly PMC Data), via Billboard.
“First Class” represents Harlow’s second time on top of the Hot 100, but his first as a solo artist — his previous topper was as a featured artist on Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” — so his ability to come and top a chart all by himself still represents a big milestone for the recent PvNew cover star. (Just as a matter of coincidence, Harlow directly followed Styles as PvNew’s Hitmaker of the Year.
At Nos. 3-4, songs by Glass Animals and Latto each slipped a spot from last week after being pushed down by Harlow, just like Styles. Imagine Dragons’ and JID’s “Enemy” held at No. 5, still its high to date. The remaining slots among the top 10 songs belong to the familiar ranks of the Kid Laroi with Justin Bieber, Kodak Black, Doja Cat, Bieber solo (“Ghosts”) and finally Lil Nas X.
Over on the Billboard 200 album chart, there was no such new blood at the top, as Lil Durk’s “7220” returned to No. 1 for a second non-consecutive week. It had 47,000 album-equivalent units.
But there was plenty of turnover beneath that, with four albums debuting in the top 10. Jack White‘s “Fear of the Dawn,” was the week’s top new release, at No. 4 with 42,000 units. Of those, actual album sales accounted for 39,000, and of that total, 24,000 were vinyl LPs.
The other three top 10 debuts came from 42 Dugg and EST Gee at No. 7 (with 30,000 units), Fivio Foreign at No. 9 and Camila Cabello’s bilingual effort at No. 10, allowing the latter artist to maintain a perfect record for having her solo debut in the top 10.
Holdovers in the top 10 of the album chart include Morgan Wallen at No. 2, “Encanto” at No. 3, Olivia Rodrgo at No. 5 and Doja Cat at No. 8.
