There’s a new No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 this week. But for chart followers like me, there’s some bigger news further down the chart. And that other song provides some useful context for our new No. 1.

The newsmaking hit song is in the bottom half of the Top 10, where last week it set an all-time longevity milestone. It’s the record for most weeks on the Hot 100, total, and it’s actually been reset three times this decade, each time by a moody male-vocalized ditty. Back in 2021, the Weeknd’s COVID bop “ Blinding Lights ” set the mark when it spent 90 weeks on the Hot 100 (beating the 2010s’ 87-week record holder , “Radioactive,” by Imagine Dragons). Then, in 2022, Glass Animals’ pensive and even more COVID-flavored “ Heat Waves ” edged out the Weeknd when it racked up 91 we

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