Chart Highlights: Sharon Doorson Leads String of Debuts; 2 New Top 10s

Lady Gaga's "Applause" spends a sixth straight frame atop the list with a stellar 92 spins. Although tying for its lowest ranking tracking week, the song remained exactly even with its performance last week. This indicates that the song has started to smooth out at around 90 weekly spins. At this rate, it will likely be a while before "Applause" descends the penthouse. This is because most #1 or #2 songs can barely scrap together 70 plays. With a stable average of 90, it would take a massive debut (a #1 or #2 debut is rare, and has only happened 8 times in two years) to knock the song from the top. This week would have been a contender week for a knock off (4 major debuts from major artists), but each failed for one reason or another.

Avril Lavigne chugs 4-2 with now three time runner up song "Rock N Roll". It manages to score 78 spins (up by 10) which is a decent total for a runner up. It's #2 streak was briefly interrupted by Zedd's "Clarity (feat. Foxes)". Through this frame, the song ties "Same Love (feat. Mary Lambert)" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis for the "Most Weeks at #2 (Without Reaching #1)" title.

Zedd's smash single "Clarity (feat. Foxes)" dips 2-3 with 68 spins. It appears that the song's airplay total  last week was slightly inflated due to the buzz surrounding the release of Zedd's new re-release album. It is quite possible that the song will begin its downhill slide after the small dip it received this week. The total play figure was down 8 from last week, and off 15 from the expected growth.

Katy Perry bounds 7-4 with "Roar", lead cut from her 4th studio album, PRISM, which is set for release on October 22nd, 2013 in the United States. With 67 spins this week, "Roar" takes its best week since the extremely competitive week of August 20th, 2013 when 4 songs passed 100 plays. During that week, "Roar" rose 24-15 with an grand play total of 86 (its second week).

Vita Chambers moves descends 3-5 with promotional single "Masquerade". In its 4th week, the song had already bested "Fix You", which took 7 weeks to climb to #3. Despite this quick rise, the song (while still growing in airplay) has tough competition from Katy Perry and a butt load of new entries in the top 20 that could grow fast.

Lana Del Rey's "Summertime Sadness" dips 5-6 after spending a three non-consecutive weeks at #3, one week at #4 and one week at #5. Although rising in airplay and overall performance for the 6th straight week, strong competition from many new songs should prevent the song from rising any higher on the tally. To date the song has spent five weeks in the top 5 and 6 among the top 10.

Ayah Marar and Calvin Harris ease 6-7 with former #1 runner "Thinking About You". The song had jumped 12-1 to earn the "Biggest Jump to #1" title, before being replaced by the debut of Lady Gaga's "Applause". Since then, the song has struggled to remain in the upper tier but manages to spend a 7th week in the top 10.

Zedd moves 10-8 with "Stay the Night (feat. Haley Williams)", lead single from his new re-release album. Posting across the board gains, it becomes this week's runner up airplay gainer and runner up streaming gainer.

The bottom two top 10 positions are occupied by new top 10 songs.

Karmin bounds 15-9 with first ever top 10 single "Acapella". "Brokenhearted" and "Hello", the singles that preceded "Acapella", peaked at #s 12 and 21 respectively. The song is this week's top airplay gainer, barely edging out  Zedd's "Stay the Night (feat. Haley Williams)".

Drake roars 14-10 to round out this week's upper tier with his fourth top 10 single "Hold On, We're Going Home (feat. Majid Jordan)". He previously hit the upper tier with the #1 single "Take Care (feat. Rihanna)", "The Motto (feat. Lil Wayne)" and "Make Me Proud (feat. Nicki Minaj)" (5th if you include "What's My Name (feat. Drake) by Rihanna which hit #1 in late 2010). He has yet to score a solo top 10, as "Started From the Bottom" failed to reach the top 50, peaking at #52 (on the Bubbling Under Chart) for a single week.

Below the top 10.

Sharon Doorson opens with a career low debut at #17 with "Run, Run". It follows the top 10 hits "Fail In Love" and "Killer" which started at #s 10 and 9 respectively. Reasons to this song not debuting higher include heavy competition, and a monday start (two days from the start of the tracking week).
How It Should Have Preformed: Right Outside the top 10 (11-13)

Katy Perry opens at #19 with "Dark Horse (feat. Juicy J)", which is about on par with the opening of her song "Roar" just a few weeks ago (#24 open). This is still very marginal for her as "Roar" opened at #24 with just 1 day of airplay, while "Dark Horse (feat. Juicy J)" had 4 days to accumulate these plays.
How It Should Have Preformed: Top 15 (13-15)

Justin Timberlake scores his biggest opening over with his 5th single released this year, "TKO". The song arrives at #21 with just 1 day of spins. The song's 1 day spin total reaches 30, which totally annihilates the "Biggest 1 Day Debut" record previously set by Katy Perry's "Roar" which ranked #24 with 26 spins a few weeks ago.
How It Should Have Preformed: Top 50 (40-45)

The biggest disappointment this week came from the weak opening of Britney Spears' "Work B**ch" (also commonly known as "Work, Work") at #42. Honestly this song is her weirdest (that is actually saying something) released single and was a major disappointment and or flop. To be completely frank, we just played this to try and salvage at least one part that we liked. We did find a part (the bridge is pretty sweet), but it wasn't able to help restore what little faith we had in this song. In simple terms, the rest of the song was just not worth it. In its first day, the song preformed reasonably well, but didn't stay stable through the rest of the week. We expect this song to completely drop off the list next week, but hype from the coming music video could end up helping it. Still not a lot of hope for this. Hopefully the second single is better.
How It Should Have Preformed: Right Outside the top 10 (11-13)

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