(July 4, 2024). Everybody may have been in the club getting tipsy two decades ago. But the party has shifted to the bar in 2024!
And the biggest proof might be on next week’s Hot 100 where country rap-singer Shaboozey — who’d never even touched the Hot 100 before this year — has the inside track to No. 1 with his country party anthem “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
The crossover track, which climbed to a new peak of No. 2 on this week’s list (dated July 6), is currently trending with more points than its closest competitor — Post Malone & Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” — which sits at No. 1 for a sixth non-consecutive week (the longest chart-topping total so far this year).
The tracking week ends tonight (July 4) at midnight, so all sales, radio and streaming points will have to be accumulated before the clock strikes 12am Friday morning to factor into the July 13th Hot 100. With Shaboozey’s current lead and less than a day to go, it seems unlikely that Malone/ Wallen will be able to reverse the current tide and keep the newcomer from getting his first chart-topper.
Helping Shaboozey’s cause was his performance on Sunday night’s BET Awards, where he teamed with ‘00s rapper J-Kwon on a mashup of “A Bar Song” and “Tipsy,” the earlier artist’s smash that inspired Shaboozey, which itself peaked at No. 2 in 2004.
If Shaboozey holds at No. 2 and ultimately peaks there, it’ll be a rare case of a song matching the runner-up status of a song it heavily interpolated. But if the momentum from the BET performance — plus his ongoing popularity after being introduced as a featured act on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album — remains at the current level, then Shaboozey will become the latest artist to top both the Hot Country Songs and Hot 100 charts with the same song — marking the seventh time that’s happened in the past 12 months.
Going back to last July when Wallen’s first No. 1 was in the midst of a nonconsecutive 16-week stint there, the other songs to have turned the trick since then were: Jason Aldean’s “Try That In a Small Town,” Oliver Anthony Music’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” “I Remember Everything” by Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, “Texas Hold ‘Em” by Beyoncé, and “I Had Some Help.”
“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” would bring the total to seven, making this the only 12-month window since both charts were created in 1958 that seven songs have topped both rankings.
The closest any 12-month window had come before that was in 1975-76 when the following six songs hit No. 1 on both the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs:
“(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song,” B.J. Thomas, 1975
“Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” Freddy Fender, 1975
“Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” John Denver, 1975
“Rhinestone Cowboy,” Glen Campbell, 1975
“I’m Sorry,” John Denver, 1975
“Convoy,” C.W. McCall, 1975-76
Those six songs did it between April 1975 and January 1976. And there were at least two missed opportunities that could’ve made it seven during that window. Olivia Newton John’s No. 1 pop hit “Have You Never Been Mellow” just missed hitting No. 1 country in March 1975 when it peaked at No. 3 on that list. And Billy Swan’s “I Can Help” did top both charts, but just outside the 12-month window in November 1974.
So Shaboozey and “A Bar Song” would make this era the first to do seven! What’s more, the dreadlocked Woodbridge, VA native, 29, would become the first Black male — out of 28 total instances — to top both the pop and country charts with the same song (after Beyoncé became the first Black person to do it back in March).
And finally, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” would become the first song with the words “Bar” or “Tipsy” to top the Hot 100.
As Morgan Wallen puts it on his latest album, “Man Made a Bar.” But Shaboozey is the man that’s poised to make it into a No. 1 Hot 100 smash.
And if he doesn’t? Well, you can partially blame that on Wallen also, who along with his “help,” Post Malone, would be the only thing standing in Shaboozey’s way.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog and on Meta’s Threads.
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