Even the combined star power of Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber couldn’t unseat Lil Nas X on the Billboard charts. The two pop stars debuted on this week’s Hot 100 singles chart with their duet “I Don’t Care,” but they’re stuck in the number-two spot. Lil Nas X’s country/hip-hop hybrid “Old Town Road” still has the top spot after seven weeks, and it may not be going anywhere anytime soon. Watch the video for Sheeran and Bieber’s new video above.
“I Don’t Care” dropped on May 10, but it’s not the first time Sheeran and Bieber have joined forces. They earned a Song of the Year Grammy nomination for writing Bieber’s number-one hit “Love Yourself.” Sheeran also co-wrote”Cold Water” by Major Lazer featuring Bieber. And both artists contributed to Lil Dicky‘s environmental event song “Earth.”
This is the 15th top-10 hit in Bieber’s career and the seventh for Sheeran. It was the best-selling song of the week, and it had an impressive 34.1 million streams, but that only was about a third of the streams that juggernaut “Old Town Road” got. Lil Nas X’s single was streamed another 103.1 million times this week, which is the eighth best streaming week for any song in history. That now gives the song six of the top eight streaming weeks ever. And “Old Town Road” might continue to rule next week since its official music video was finally released on May 17, which will likely added to its streaming totals.
So “Old Town” has now told five superstars to hit the “Road.” Last week the song held Shawn Mendes‘s debut “If I Can’t Have You” at bay at number-two, and the week before that Taylor Swift and Brendan Urie‘s collaboration “Me!” also had to settle for second place. So Lil Nas X is proving as difficult to unseat as Cersei from the Iron Throne. How long may he reign?
