Tate McRae “Sports Car” released

 

Sports Car Tate McRae

Writer(s): Tate McRae, Julia Michaels, Ryan Tedder, Grant Boutin (see lyrics here) Released: January 24, 2025 First Charted: February 5, 2025 Peak: 16 BB, 11 RR, 11 A40, 3 UK, 9 CN, 8 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK, 1.92 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 77.13 video, 697.91 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Singer/songwriter and dancer Tate McRae was born in Canada in 2003. In 2016, she was a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance. She charted on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2020 with “You Broke Me First” (#16). She released her first album, I Used to Think I Could Fly, in 2022. Her next album, 2023’s Think Later, gave McRae her biggest hit yet with “Greedy” (#3, Billboard Hot 100). Her next album, 2025’s So Close to What, sent three songs into Billboard’s top 40. The most successful was “Sports Car” (#16), a “blunt message here is that there are few greater pleasure enhancers than a fat wallet, particularly if you can uh-uh in its spoils.” PF “Her minimalist sex song of tire squeaks, engine revs, and ASMR-whispered findom demands.” PF It “might be the most emblematic of her skill set as a modern hitmaker: a slick, combustible banger that translates to both top 40 radio and a choreo-heavy arena show. McRae stays comfortable with her flirtatious cooing in the opening chorus, then drops the hammer: a whisper chorus, both audacious and undeniable.” BB’25 “Sports Car” shares the “hyper-sexual” RS’25 quality of the Ying Yang Twins’ “Wait (The Whisper Song),” released two decades earlier. “Sports Car” also “has a whisper chorus…and plenty of her own horny lines – most memorably ‘So good it hurts / Thinkin’ ’bout what we did before this verse.’ Sonically, it echoes Y2K pop like Nelly Furtado and Britney Spears, but with a fresh update.” RS’25 Resources: BB’25 Billboard (12/11/2025). “The 100 Best Songs of 2025: Staff Picks” PF Pitchfork.com (12/1/2025). “The 100 Best Songs of 2025” RS’25 Rolling Stone (12/4/2025). “The 100 Best Songs of 2025” Related Links: First posted 1/19/2026.

Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker” debuted at #1

Sucker Jonas Brothers

Writer(s): Ryan Tedder, Louis Bell, Mustafa Ahmed, Adam Feeney, Homer Steinweiss, Nicholas Jonas, Joseph Jonas, Kevin Jonas II (see lyrics here) Released: March 1, 2019 First Charted: March 9, 2019 Peak: 11 BB, 16 BA, 11 DG, 11 ST, 117 AC, 19 A40, 4 UK, 11 CN, 13 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 5.0 US, 1.2 UK, 8.23 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 443.40 video, 1381.03 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Kevin (born 1987), Joe (1989), and Nick (1992) were raised in New Jersey and formed as a pop trio in 2005. They released their first album, It’s About Time, a year later. Three albums followed – two reached two million in U.S. sales, two topped the Billboard album chart. They reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 twice – with “Burnin’ Up” and “Tonight,” both from 2008’s A Little Bit Longer. After their fourth album, it was ten years before they released Happiness Begins in 2019. It gave the group their third #1 album and third platinum release. It also featured their biggest hit to date, the #1 song “Sucker.” In addition to debuting atop the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., it reached the pinnacle in seven other countries. It became the most-heard song on American radio in 2019. SF It is a “rollicking pop-rock jam…about an infatuation…The lovesick brothers are so obsessed with the girl it makes them do crazy stuff like dancing on top of cars. Still, they are proud to be suckers for their love.” SF One of the song’s co-writers was Ryan Tedder. He had success with his group One Republic, reaching the top ten with “Apologize” (2007), “Good Life” (2010), “Counting Stars” (2013), and “I Ain’t Worried” (2022). He’d also accumulated writing credits on songs by Adele, Beyoncé, Camila Cabello, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Leona Lewis, Jennifer Lopez, Maroon 5, Paul McCartney, Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, and others. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Jonas Brothers SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 4/11/2024.

Adele wins the Grammy for Album of the Year…Again

25 Adele

Released: November 20, 2015 Peak: 110 US, 113 UK, 112 CN, 18 AU Sales (in millions): 11.0 US, 3.9 UK, 23.36 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop/blue-eyed soul

Tracks: (Click for codes to charts.) Song Title (Writers) [Time] (chart date, peaks on charts) Hello (Adele Adkins/Greg Kurstin) [4:55] (10/23/15, 110 US, 13 UK, 17 CN, 16 AU, 116 AC, 17 A40, 14 AAA, 10a RB, sales: 13.45 million worldwide) Send My Love to Your New Lover (Adkins/Max Martin/Shellback) [3:43] (12/12/15, 8 US, 5 UK, 10 CN, 13 AU, 13 AC, 12 A40, 2 AAA, sales: 1.55 million worldwide) I Miss You (Adkins/Paul Epworth) [5:48] When We Were Young (Adkins/Tobias Jesso Jr.) [4:51] (12/12/15, 14 US, 9 UK, 9 CN, 13 AU, 6 AC, 3 A40, 10 AAA, sales: 1.55 million worldwide) Remedy (Adkins/Ryan Tedder) [4:05] (12/12/15, 87 US) Water Under the Bridge (Adkins/Kurstin) [4:00] (12/12/15, 26 US, 16 AAA, sales: 0.5 million) River Lea (Adkins/Brian Burton) [3:45] Love in the Dark (Adkins/Samuel Dixon) [4:46] Million Years Ago (Adkins/Kurstin) [3:47] All I Ask (Adkins/Bruno Mars/Philip Lawrence/Christopher Brody Brown) [4:32] (3/5/16, 77 US) Sweetest Devotion (Adkins/Epworth) [4:12] Total Running Time: 48:24

Rating: 3.847 out of 5.00 (average of 37 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: After the monstrous success of her 2011 sophomore album 21, Adele considered quitting music. After all, how do you follow-up one of the most successful albums of all time? She suffered from writer’s block, but was inspired to work again after the birth of her first child in October 2012. She said then that she wanted her son to “know what I do.” WK She met with producer Greg Kurstin, after which she said “it all poured right out of me.” WK She made a conscious attempt to move away from the break-up themes which dominated 21 and also added added synths and drum pads to give the album a modern sound. WK She initially wrote an entire album about motherhood which she scrapped because it was “too boring,” WK although she did keep Sweetest Devotion, an uplifting track written as a tribute to her son. WK She told Rolling Stone the final product was about “yearning for her old self” and “melancholia about the passage of time.” WK To that end, she crafted songs such as When We Were Young, which explored Adele’s “uneasy acceptable of adulthood,” the album’s key theme. WK “25 didn’t quite achieve the cultural impact of 21,” BB “but by no means did Adele disappoint on her third studio album.” BB “It was still an industry phenomenon, scoring the largest sales week in SoundScan history with over 3 million copies sold in its first week – an unfathomable figure in any era, let alone where sales totals have long been shrinking.” BB It went on to easily be the best-selling album of 2015, moving more than 17 million by year’s end. WK With sales continuing into 2016, it became the biggest selling album of that year as well. WK “The set contains the perfect melancholy soul hits to put her unbeatable vocals on full display, from Water Under the Bridge to ‘When We Were Young’ to Hello – all of which are the type of crossover smashes that made us fall in love with the British powerhouse in the first place.” BB “Hello” was a soul-driven piano ballad which Telegraph described as having “a very luscious wall of sound.” WK It was the first single and a monstrous #1. It went on to win Grammys for Record and Song of the Year and racked up more than 2 billion views on YouTube. The song took six months to finish. WK In addition to working with Tedder and Paul Epworth again, Adele also collaborated with Max Martin and Shellback, Danger Mouse, and the Smeezingtons (which includes Bruno Mars). WK The track Send My Love Your New Lover was a reworking of a song Adele wrote when she was thirteen and inspired by Amy Winehouse’s Frank album. She and Ryan Tedder, who worked with her on 21 and 25, went to lunch after unfruitful sessions and Adele heard Taylor Swift’s single “I Knew Your Were Trouble.” When Tedder told Adele it was produced by Max Martin, she reached out to him and they reworked “Lover.” WK On February 12, 2017, Adele made Grammy history as only the second woman (after Taylor Swift) to win the Album of the Year twice for a solo effort. Adele first pulled off the feat with 21. In fact, Adele won all five Grammys for which she was nominated.

Resources and Related Links: BB Billboard (11/19/2019). “The 100 Greatest Albums of the 2010s” Grammy.com WK Wikipedia.org Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/1/2019; last updated 3/5/2024.

One Republic released “Counting Stars”

Counting Stars One Republic

Writer(s): Ryan Tedder (see lyrics here) Released: June 14, 2013 First Charted: June 29, 2013 Peak: 2 US, 14 BA, 11 RR, 12 AC, 17 A40, 4 AA, 12 UK, 11 CN, 2 AU, 7 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 1.64 UK, 12.93 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2880.0 video, 2000.43 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: One Republic emerged in 2007 with their #2 US hit “Apologize.” It put Ryan Tedder, the song’s singer and writer, on the music world’s radar and led to him working with Beyoncé, Kelly Clarkson (“Already Gone”), Elle Goulding (“Burn”), Leona Lewis (“Bleeding Love”), and others. 2013 found him and his band back in familiar chart territory when “Counting Stars” matched the chart success of “Apologize” and stayed on the charts for 68 weeks, fifth most in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. WK The song was the third single from the band’s third studio album, Native. It hit #1 in multiple countries, including Canada and the UK, and went top ten in 20 countries. WK In Canada, it took a record-setting 34 weeks to reach #1. WK Tedder came up with the genesis of the song while working with Beyoncé on her follow-up to 2011’s 4. While waiting for her in her studio one morning, he discovered a little-known folk song. He reached out to the writer to collaborate, but when he was rebuffed he did his own interpretation which was heavier on piano and acoustic guitar and took on a more soulful, gospel sound. SF The band explained the song is about “Laying in bed awake at night…thinking ‘How are we gonna make ends meet? How are we gonna pay the bills?’…So instead of counting sheep, we’re counting stars.” WK Tedder told Billboard magazine he felt a band should create meaningful, uplifting songs. He talked about U2 as a band “who sings about things other than just boy-girl troubles” SF and said he “felt a responsibility to actually write and sing about things that have a level of human gravity to them.” SF He said he’d rather have a song that’s “embedded in the cultural framework…than a #1 song that explodes for five seconds, becomes the dance hit of the summer, then goes away.” SF While it may not have been a dance hit, it has been called a “folk pop song with a disco beat.” WK The Denver Post’s Ricardo Baca said it was “an extremely effective and infectious song.” WK Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for One Republic SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Last updated 7/23/2023.