Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile” is the first No. 1 song of the year after a 20-week climb to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. The Grammy-nominated collaboration (up for song and best pop duo/group performance of the year) debuted at No. 3 on the songs chart in late August, and peaked at No. 2 in November.
Gaga’s sixth No. 1 single, and Mars’ ninth, “Die With a Smile” logged a total of 59.7 million radio airplay audience impressions and 27 million official streams. Its 20 week strut to the top is the longest it’s taken for a single to hit the summit since Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” took 32 weeks to hit No. 1 last March (“Lose Control” currently sits at No. 4).
Mars appears a second time in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 with his and Rosé’s “APT” climbing to a new peak of No. 5. The song totalled nearly 31 million airplay impressions and 20 million streams, with a significant uptick (23%) in sales.
This is a milestone for Blackpink member Rosé, who previously appeared in the Top 10 alongside Selena Gomez for their song “Ice Cream” in 2012. She made history as the first female K-pop artist to hit the top 10, and is now the first female K-pop artist to hit the top five.
Elsewhere, SZA’s “SOS” is the No. 1 album in the United States for a second consecutive week this year following the release of its deluxe reissue on Dec. 20. With 15 additional tracks, “SOS Deluxe: Lana” earned 130,000 album units and 166 million streams of the complete set (a total of 38 songs).
The reissue propelled “SOS” to the top the list nearly two years after it was released (and topped the list for 10 weeks) in 2022 and early 2023. With a 12th total week at the summit, the parent LP claims the most weeks at No. 1 for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman since 1986 when Whitney Houston’s self-titled ruled for 14 weeks.
Upon its initial release, SZA teased even more “Lana” mixes and songs via X, writing that she was waiting for the label to return from their winter break to give them their official release on Monday. SZA teased three unreleased tracks — “Take You Down,” “PSA” and “Open Arms.”
Now that the holiday buzz has died down, pushing all of the Christmas albums out of the top 10 of the Billboard 200, Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX” returns to No. 2 with 70,000 album units. Lamar’s sixth studio LP was a surprise release and opened at No. 1 on the chart in November, becoming his fifth album to do so.
Many of the remaining Top 10 titles on the list are occupied by Grammy-nominated projects, including Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet,” which is currently at No. 3 with a total of 56,000 units. Carpenter will compete in all four of the “big” or general categories — record, song, album and best new artist — against her label mate and friend Chappell Roan, who is at No. 7 with “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.”
Meanwhile, the “Wicked” soundtrack is at No. 4; Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” is No. 5; Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is No. 6; Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 8; Gracie Abrams’ “The Secret of Us” is No. 9; and Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia” is at No. 10.