(June 23, 2026) – Not since Taylor Swift’s album-release blitzes temporarily monopolized the Billboard Hot 100’s upper reaches has the chart’s top ten been so thoroughly dominated by women. But this week’s chart accomplishes something more impressive than those Swift takeovers where just one artist dominates.
Every song in the June 27 top ten is either performed by a woman or named for one.
Nine of the top ten songs on the chart dated June 27 are by solo women — four by Olivia Rodrigo, two by Ella Langley, and one each by Swift, Ariana Grande, and Olivia Dean. The lone song by a male artist is named for a woman, Drake’s “Janice STFU.”
Excluding weeks in which Swift dominated the entire top ten with songs from new album blitzes (one time each in 2022, 2024, and 2025), this week’s nine songs appear to represent the highest top ten concentration by multiple solo women in the chart’s archives.
Furthermore, it’s the first time Swift has presided over a top ten with as many as eight songs by other women in the chart’s upper decile. Her Toy Story 5 hit, “I Knew It, I Knew You” holds at No. 1 for a second week thanks to a surge from 176,000 physical single shipments to customers during the tracking week. The song recently pushed her above Drake and Jay-Z and only behind Mariah Carey as the solo act with the most No. 1 singles (15) on the chart. The Beatles lead all acts with 20.
While female artists have periodically dominated the Hot 100 in the past, this week’s chart is unusual because the representation is spread across multiple women from multiple generations and genres, including veterans like Swift and Grande, plus relatively newer stars like the two Olivias and Langley.
Rodrigo’s four songs also double the amount of verbal hostility in the top ten, adding the phrases “drop dead” and “stupid” to a chart already containing songs with “hate” and “STFU” in their titles. Hers are from the new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, which debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. With “Drop Dead” having debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in May, this makes Rodrigo the first artist to have her first three albums and the lead singles from each one enter the charts at the top. (Fellow chart watcher Bob Ridge recently posted an inquiry in our Lost Pop Hits Facebook group asking if any other artists have even had their first two albums and the inaugural singles from them top the Billboard charts, whether debuting there or otherwise).
Rodrigo’s album also takes the 2026 sales crown for solo artists from Drake, as you seem pretty sad sold 485,000 units during this chart’s tracking week — besting the 463,000 units Drizzy sold upon the debut of Iceman last month.
As my friend Bob Ridge richly observed, Swift’s and Rodrigo’s feats — both achieved at Drake’s expense — may help explain the toxic tone of the rapper’s former No. 1 hit. “Janice STFU” may be the first Hot 100 chart-topper whose title consists primarily of telling a woman to shut up.
Female artists, who have dominated the Hot 100 throughout the first half of 2026, don’t appear to be shutting up anytime soon and are poised to make history again next week. Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” — already the year’s biggest hit — is projected to make its sixth return to the top spot, giving it eleven total non-consecutive weeks there.
No other Hot 100 single has ever returned to No. 1 six separate times during the same chart run (Mariah Carey has done it many times over multiple chart runs during holiday seasons from 2019-25 with “All I Want for Christmas Is You”). If “Choosin’ Texas” accomplishes the feat next week, it will add yet another female-driven milestone to what has increasingly become a historic year for women on the charts.
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 Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
You can also register for free by selecting the menu bars above to receive notifications of future articles.