Billboard Hot 100 Countdown for the week of September 19, 2015 (including the songs that have dropped out of the chart from last week)

It’s been almost a month since I posted the Billboard Hot 100 Countdown, and so much has changed.  It was back and forth at #1 between “Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn remix)” by OMI and “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd, but now the new #1 is the first #1 of Justin Bieber’s career, “What Do You Mean?”  It debuted at #1, and it’s the first song to debut at #1 since “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift.  Here’s something interesting…it’s only the third time a Canadian artist has replaced another Canadian artist at #1 (The Weeknd is Canadian).

The 2015 MTV Video Music Awards affected the chart this week.  Among the performers (aside from the performances by Bieber and The Weeknd)…Demi Lovato (“Cool for the Summer”), Nick Jonas (“Levels”), Macklemore & Ryan Lewis with Eric Nally, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster Caz (“Downtown,” which is a song that I can’t wait to play at a DJ gig), and Tori Kelly (“Should’ve Been Us”), had their songs raise or debut significantly on the chart.  I’m kind of surprised host Miley Cyrus’s “Dooo It!” didn’t make the chart.  Oh well.

Speaking of The Weeknd…his new album Beauty Behind the Madness was recently released, and eight of the tracks from that album debuted on the chart.  Along with “Earned It,” “Can’t Feel My Face,” and “The Hills” (all of which are also on Beauty), that makes eleven songs on the Billboard Hot 100 this week by The Weeknd.

Finally, I have to acknowledge something awesome.  Legendary gangsta rap group N.W.A., who started recording in 1987 and have been nominated twice for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, have never had a song chart on the Billboard Hot 100…until now.  Most likely because of the blockbuster biopic Straight Outta Compton, the song “Straight Outta Compton” from the 1988 album of the same name debuted at #38 two weeks ago.  It only took them 28 years to have a Hot 100 hit!  Eazy-E’s “Boyz-N-The-Hood” also charted for the first time (at #50), but Eazy has had two other songs chart (“Real Mutha*******n G’s” peaked at #42 in 1993 and “Just tah Let U Know” peaked at #45 in 1995).

Click the link to hear the countdown on Spotify: Billboard Hot 100 Countdown for the week of September 19, 2015