For yet another week, the top of the pop charts feel familiar — country star Ella Langley holds at No. 1 with "Choosin' Texas," while the K-pop boy band ATEEZ lands atop the albums chart yet again. But if you look just outside the top 10 on this week's Hot 100, a few intriguing songs seem poised to crash the chart's uppermost reaches.
TOP STORY
The year's biggest hit, "Choosin' Texas," has held the Billboard Hot 100's top spot for 12 nonconsecutive weeks. Every time a new sensation debuts at No. 1, "Choosin' Texas" waits in the wings, ready to pounce. But a few titles just below the top 10 suggest the imminent arrival of a few rising stars with room to grow.
* At No. 13, Stella Lefty's country-pop sleeper "Boston" hits a new peak this week. The song feels simple enough, with a hook lifted from the Noah Kahan hit "Stick Season" — Kahan even gets a songwriting credit — but the song is a bright, summery mood-lifter in its own right. And, as Langley has shown, word-of-mouth country hits have a way of sticking around.
* At No. 19, the rapper Yung Miami scores the highest-charting hit of her career, with her viral hit "Spend Dat." Yung Miami has been floating around and charting for years, both solo and as half of the duo City Girls, and she's collaborated on a chart single with Latto and Lola Young, called "Don't Play With It," which hit No. 69 in 2023. No. 69 is nice and all, but "Spend Dat" has already proven to be Yung Miami's biggest hit by a mile — it's her first solo song to hit the top 40, let alone the top 20.
* And at No. 22, the singer, songwriter and TikTok phenomenon Malcolm Todd hits a fresh career peak of his own, with a song from 2024 titled "Earrings." Todd has been a chart mainstay for a few years now — his new album, Do That Again, recently debuted in the top five — but "Earrings" is his biggest hit yet.
There's still time this summer for Stella Lefty, Yung Miami, Malcolm Todd and others to crash the top 10. If they really want to dream big, "Choosin' Texas" can't stay at No. 1 forever.
TOP ALBUMS
For the past two weeks, Olivia Rodrigo has sat comfortably atop the Billboard 200 albums chart with her latest record, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. It's already one of 2026's biggest hits, and would have easily held on at No. 1 for a third week, were it not for the K-pop boy band ATEEZ.
For those who aren't familiar, ATEEZ ranks among K-pop's kings of quantity: In just four years, the group has landed nine records in the top 10 — including the five-song EP Golden Hour : Part.4, which hit No. 3 back in February. Now, the group is back with Golden Hour : Part.5, which debuts at No. 1.
Golden Hour : Part.5 sold 223,000 copies in its first week — a number that absolutely dwarfs its week-one streaming numbers — thanks in part to 30 different editions on CD and five different editions on vinyl. Because sales don't usually carry over from week to week, it's likely to be a short-timer where the charts are concerned.
Still, the new record gives the group bragging rights, and pop-music enthusiasts a new bit of trivia: ATEEZ is now the group with the most titles to chart in the top 10 during the 2020s so far. Given the prolificacy and popularity of the acts it's just surpassed (namely Stray Kids and Tomorrow x Together), that is no easy feat.
As with last week, when the entire top 10 sat motionless compared to the week before, there isn't much action worth noting immediately below ATEEZ: Rodrigo slides to No. 2, Ella Langley's Dandelion waits in the wings at No. 3. But for this week, Golden Hour : Part.5 is your chart champ. It won't be No. 1 for long, but you won't likely have to wait long for another new ATEEZ title, either.
TOP SONGS
The Hot 100 may look as if in the midst of the summer doldrums, as little changes from last week. But tell that to Ella Langley, who's been 2026's biggest breakout star by a mile. This week, she once again posts three songs in this week's top 10: "Choosin' Texas" at No. 1, "Be Her" at No. 3 and "I Can't Love You Anymore," her Morgan Wallen duet, at No. 6.
Each summer, Billboard assembles a limited-term "Songs of the Summer" chart, and "Choosin' Texas" has been the mainstay atop 2026's entries; the song is virtually guaranteed to run away with the all-around title this year, much the way Alex Warren's "Ordinary" did in 2025.
Langley's toughest competition, Taylor Swift's "I Knew It, I Knew You" — which Swift wrote for Pixar's Toy Story 5 — holds at No. 2 for a second week after two weeks atop the Hot 100. It's easy to imagine the two songs swapping places in the coming weeks, especially if Swift's recent wedding gives her a chart bump.
Copyright 2026 NPR
