Don’t look now, but the wave of Christmas music is on the horizon. We’ll shelve discussion of it until it becomes the dominant story on the charts, a moment every year in which our rankings somewhat “freeze over” until new music begins trickling out in January. In the meantime, a fresh LP from Summer Walker and two hits with legs from Loe Shimmy and Radiohead loom as the stories to watch as November draws to a close.
Summer Walker is back with another record, and her heading up our discussion this week ultimately isn’t too much of a surprise. Chapter 2 of the “Over It” saga in 2021 notched the biggest first-week performance for an R&B album this side of Beyonce’s “Lemonade.” However, we’ve seen plenty of acts stumble from top-line chart performance, so Walker’s ability to maintain her star power in the interim between LPs is no doubt worth celebrating. “Go Girl,” a three-headed link-up with Latto and Doja Cat, is the early winner from the tracklist (nabbing #72 in our rankings), but “Robbed You” with recent riser Mariah the Scientist, “Heart Of A Woman,” and “No” each notch early performances above #200 for us.
Loe Shimmy and Radiohead Prove Evergreen Success
In more longstanding news, we’re spotlighting “3 AM,” the woozy collaboration between Loe Shimmy and Don Toliver, for its sheer staying power. On our end, the song has held on to a top 100 placement every week since at least October, no doubt earning higher marks closer to its July release. While Don Toliver’s Midas touch is unassailable at this point, both on his own two and during the early stages of his Cactus Jack tenure with some star-powered cosigns. In that way, lending that exact placement to Loe Shimmy marks something of a “tables turned” moment for the Houston crooner, propelling the Pompano Beach native into the minds of many as the song keeps up heavy social media use.
Finally, we end on that same note, with another log into the book of “social media dredging up classics.” “Creep” by Radiohead has been in the top 100 conversation for at least 12 weeks running, yet suddenly rockets up to #21 in this week’s edition. A large portion of its inclusion in past weeks has been continuous momentum on Spotify specifically, yet gaining on the YouTube front makes this an across-the-board hit some three decades after its release.
As always, you can catch the music mentioned throughout this piece wherever you stream your music.
