The Radar: This Week's Tunes You Need To Know – August 25

Every Friday in The Radar, The Music breaks down the week’s top performers and the breaking new music you need to be across. 

Hear the big new tunes of the week now on The Music Hit List.
For the hottest rock, punk and metal jams, check out Kill Your Stereo’s Heavy Hitlist.
And for the latest in hip-hop and EDM, get your ears around Purple Sneakers’ Best New Music.

DSPs

Burna Boy tops Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist, having just dropped his new single Cheat On Me as a joint effort with Dave. The #2 and #3 spots are both local efforts, though, respectively going to Chillinit (Pac Energy) and Angie McMahon (Fireball Whiskey). Chillinit also took the #2 spot in Apple Music’s New Music Daily playlist, sandwiched between Trofeo by Maluma and Yandel at #1, and leave me for dead by GAYLE at #2.

Only three other songs were shared between the Top Ten rankings on Spotify and Apple Music, and they’re all stacked collaborations: Meridian by Dave and Tiakola (#6 and #4, respectively), I Remember Everything by Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves (#4 and #5), and Let It Spray by Ay Huncho, wewantwraits and Hooligan Hefs (#8 on both playlists).

Elsewhere in Spotify’s Top Ten, we see new tunes from Drax Project and Charley (Disrespect), Conan Gray (Winner), The Beaches (What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Paranoid) and the duo of Brent Faiyaz and Coco Jones (Moment Of Your Life). Over on Apple, they’ve shown love to John Summit and his new track with MKLA, Fade Out, as well as Star by Mitski, High School Drama by Lola Scott and Hated by YUNGBLUD.

RADIO

Three new songs were added across the board (ATB) over at the NOVA Network, with their picks this week being Year 3000 2.0 by Busted and the Jonas Brothers, Paint The Town Red by Doja Cat and I Chose Good by Guy Sebastian. Noah Kahan’s Post Malone-assisted Dial Drunk was also added to the national daytime rotation, while another three songs bolstered the spread for Smallzy’s Surgery: (It Goes Like) Nanana by Peggy Gou, Enough Is Enough by Post Malone, and bad idea right? by Olivia Rodrigo.

Over on Sydney’s KIIS 1065, four new songs were added ATB: Runaway by P!nk, What Was I Made For? by Billie Eilish, the Ian Asher remix of Makeba by Jain, and I Chose Good by Guy Sebastian. The lattermost tune was also added ATB on Melbourne’s FOX, alongside the Jason Derulo-assisted Give You Love by Jessica Mauboy.

Genesis Owusu’s second full-length effort, STRUGGLER, was this week’s feature album on triple j, while Tia Gostelow’s Head Noise was also shouted out as a spotlight album.

Out of eight ATB adds, the national youth broadcaster gave five of the spots to songs by local artists: Best Mistake I Never Made by BIRDEE 王煒, Atmosphere by FISHER and Kita Alexander, I Cannot Read Your Mind by The Grogans, Brown Eyes (She Doesn't Know) by Mason Dane, and Dash Of Speed by Rum Jungle. As for the other three, we got the latest tracks by Sigrid (The Hype), The Linda Lindas (Resolution/Revolution) and Fred again.. (adore u, a collaborative effort with Obongjayar).

Elsewhere, there were five spot adds on triple j this week: Dulcie’s Off By Heart and JACOTÉNE’s you already know [demo_2021].wav were the two Aussie picks, with the list rounded out by Baauer’s <3<3<3, K.Flay’s Irish Goodbye (which features Vic Fuentes of Pierce The Veil) and Petey’s Did I Mention I'm Sorry.

As for the Radio Monitor Hot 50 chart, this week’s #2 and #3 spots were flipped – Taylor Swift is back in the former spot with Cruel Summer, while Post Malone’s Chemical slipped down into the latter. There were two re-entries for this week – Budjerah’s Therapy came in at #47, right below Die For You by The Weeknd at #46 – and there were a total of three new entries: I Chose Good by Guy Sebastian at #24, Paint The Town Red by Doja cat at #34, Barbie World by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice at #40.

COUNTRY

Hear the big new country tunes of the week on the Countrytown Hot Country Hits Playlist.

As we’ve come to expect on the DSP side, it was Apple Music that showed the most love for our cowboys in this week’s roundup.

While Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist featured I Remember Everything by Zach Bryan, All These Walls by Gretta Ziller and Sidelines by Toro y Moi, Apple’s New Music Daily also spotlit the latest tunes by Caitlin Harnett & The Pony Boys (I’ll Get By), Chayce Becham (Little Less Lonely), Matt Cornell (Back For A Day), Felicity Urquhart and Josh Cunningham (Size Up), BRELAND (Cowboy Don’t), Melinda Schneider (The Story Of My Life), Tim McGraw (Hold On To It), and Ashley Kutcher (Matchbox).

There’s been lots of new movement on the Countrytown Hot 50 chart, starting with a spot flip for Casey Barnes and Luke Combs: the latter’s Fast Car has bumped down from the top spot to #2, while Barnes returned to #1 this week with Boys Like Me. Travis Collins and The Wolfe Brothers have also risen to the #3 spot with Runnin’ The Country (which sat at #5 last week), knocking Jelly Roll’s Need A Favour down to #4, and Morgan Evans’ Hey Little Mama to #5.

Only one song re-entered the chart this week – You Proof by Morgan Wallen at #48 – but we’ve got a stonking six new entries, starting with another track by Wallen, Thinkin’ Bout Me, at #30. A short slip down, we see the debut entries for The Painter by Cody Johnson (#43), the Morgan Evans-assisted Date Night by Kita Alexander (#44), the Zac & George-assisted Some Things Never Change by James Johnston (#45), What Are You Waiting For by Brooke McClymont and Adam Eckersley (#49), and One Song Brings You Back by Kaylens Rain.