Mega Monday: The Record-Holder Reclaims No. 1, and the Song That Won Instantly Just Lost Everything

What Mega Monday Is

Every Monday, Song Reviews takes the previous week’s Billboard Hot 100 top 10 and asks the one question a chart position can’t answer on its own: is the popularity deserved? Last week’s column watched “Babydoll” break into the top 10 for the first time after eight years of sitting as a forgotten deep cut. This week, in the same ten positions, the song that set the longest No. 1 run in chart history reclaims the top spot it spent a month without, a song that got there instantly just got evicted, and three completely unrelated new releases all show up on the same morning.

This Week’s Chart

The Hot 100, week of October 31, 2026:

“Babydoll” (Dominic Fike), “BbY WOW” (KAROL G, Judeline & rusowsky), and “Hate That I Made You Love Me” (Ariana Grande) all fell completely out of the top 10 this week.

Is the Popularity Deserved?

Start with the good news, because there’s an actual feel-good story at the top of this chart for once. “Choosin’ Texas” set the longest No. 1 run in Hot 100 history this fall – 24 nonconsecutive weeks, a record this column tracked week by week through September – before finally losing the top spot in early October and settling at No. 2 for most of the month since, including through its collision with a Drake interpolation this column covered on October 23. This week it climbs back to No. 1. That’s not a new song’s fluke or a promotional push; it’s a record-setting single proving it can still take the top spot months after its original reign ended, against a field that’s turned over almost completely since.

Everything else in the top five is a lesson in how fast the opposite can happen. Taylor Swift’s “Patient Zero” held No. 1 for three straight weeks on a record this column has never called more than competent, and the moment real competition showed up – three simultaneous new entries, all legitimate crossover events in their own right – it fell four full spots in a single week. That’s not a chart fluke either; it’s what happens when a No. 1 run is built on streaming numbers that compound until something bigger comes along, rather than on the kind of critical or cultural consensus that holds a position through competition. “Patient Zero” never had that second thing, and this week is the bill coming due.

The three new arrivals are each their own small event – Tate McRae’s “Housewife” reclaiming a loaded title without quite committing to the reclamation in the music itself, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan turning a forgettable album track into a genuine collaboration through sheer chemistry, Zach Bryan and Lana Del Rey leaning on a Fleetwood Mac quotation to do work their own chorus doesn’t quite do alone – but the real story among them is that three different genres (glossy pop, synth-pop collaboration, country-folk duet) all broke through on the exact same morning, which almost never happens this cleanly.

And then there’s “Babydoll,” which deserves one more mention on its way out the door. Two weeks ago, this column watched “Solar Eclipse” debut at No. 5 on a borrowed hook and vanish entirely within a week. This week, “Babydoll” – a song built on eight years of patient, organic rediscovery, the exact opposite origin story – falls out of the top 10 just as fast, after exactly one week there. Two songs that got to the top 10 by completely opposite means just left it on an identical schedule. The chart doesn’t care how a song arrived. It only cares what’s arriving behind it, and this week, three new arrivals at once was more than enough to clear the board.

Hero image: “Housewife” single cover art, RCA Records. Used under fair use for editorial commentary.