The Radar: This Week's Tunes You Need To Know – November 17

DSPs

Pop and hip-hop dominate the flagship playlists from both Spotify (New Music Friday) and Apple Music (New Music Daily) this week. Spotify’s spread is headlined by Tate McRae’s new tune exes, followed by Thelma Plum’s We Don’t Talk About It. Apple also put both tracks side-by-side, respectively ranked fourth and fifth, following Me Gusta Tu Flow by Arcángel, Alma Mater by Bleachers, and the Kassa Overall-assisted Jenn’s Terrific Vacation by Danny Brown.

Alma Mater made it into Spotify’s list at #6, with their own Top Five fleshed out by the new tracks from Dermot Kennedy (Two Hearts), KAHUKX and S1mba (PARTY & BS, which was ranked #9 by Apple), and Electric Fields (Anpuru Maau Kutjpa). Also standing out in the first chunk of Spotify’s playlist is Troye Sivan’s live recording of Still Got It, which he performed exclusively for the new Spotify Green Screen series. All of the remaining songs in Spotify’s Top Ten are Australian as well: Heist by Aitch and PLK, Walk & Drive by ChillinIt (featuring Nerve) and Ride It by Larissa Lambert and Jay Sean.

Apple also gave their New Music Daily playlist a local focus, highlighting the latest tracks by Anna Lunoe (Deep Blue Sea), Dune Rats (Be Like You) and Mashd N Kutcher (It’s Alright) in their Top Ten. The sole remaining outlier there is Body Moving, the latest joint effort from Eliza Rose and Calvin Harris.

RADIO

Virtually every major radio network has rallied around Dua Lipa’s new hit Houdini, being added across-the-board (ATB) nationally at the NOVA Network and triple j, plus in Sydney via KIIS 1065, Melbourne via The FOX, Brisbane via B105, and both Adelaide and the Limestone Coast via SAFM. Vance Joy’s recent cover of Little Red’s Rock It also made it ATB on the latter three stations, while NOVA’s national rotation gained Ricki-Lee’s new single Ghost.

Elsewhere on the airwaves at NOVA, Smallzy’s Surgery was bolstered by Royston Noell’s Dreaming and Sonny Fodera’s MK collab Asking (which also features Clementine Douglass). The former track was also added to the nighttime rotation at KIIS 1065, alongside Jessica Mauboy’s Flashback.

Speaking of stellar Australian artists, this week’s triple j feature album is Tkay Maidza’s long-awaited second LP, Sweet Justice. The national youth broadcaster also gave a spotlight to songs from PinkPantheress’ debut album, Heaven Knows.

As for triple j’s standalone additions, there were eight songs added ATB. Half came from local acts – Greta Stanley (Every Time I Think I'm Happy), Old Mervs (Leave That), Stand Atlantic (SEX ON THE BEACH) and Ullah (What Nightmares Are Made Of) – with the other half coming courtesy of Armani White (BREATHE.), the duo of Peggy Gou and Lenny Kravitz (I Believe In Love Again), the trio of David Guetta, Ayra Starr and Lil Durk (Big FU), and as mentioned earlier, Dua Lipa.

Less even were triple j’s spot adds, which platformed two songs by overseas artists (Your Blood by AURORA and If U Need It by Sammi Virji) and three by Australians: Division by Barkaa, BLOCKBUSTER by DIVEBAR YOUTH (featuring Franki Kaneur) and Electric Snowman by Rum Jungle.

This week’s Radio Monitor Hot 50 chart sees two new songs make it to the Top Five – Dua Lipa’s Houdini at #4 (also marking its chart debut) and The Weeknd’s Popular (featuring Playboi Carti and Madonna) at #5. There was one other song debuting in this week’s chart – Ricki-Lee’s Ghost at #24 – with two songs re-entering: I’m Good (Blue) by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha at #48, and Ghost by Justin Bieber at #49.

COUNTRY

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

It was a weak week for country on Spotify, with only two songs platformed in this week’s New Music Friday update: Get You Back Roads by Zac & George, and Wild Mama by Taylor Moss. Apple Music also featured the latter in the latest New Music Daily playlist, as well as the latest cuts from Midland (Wichita Lineman), Jeremy Turner (Try To Stop Me), Bonnie Kellett (Bare Feet), Justin Moore (This Is My Dirt) and Matt Ward (The Way That I Was Meant To Be).

This week’s Countrytown Hot 50 chart is once again headlined by Dustin Lynch’s Stars Like Confetti, while Lainey Wilson’s Watermelon Moonshine is up from #4 to #2. Sara Berki also rose from #5 to #4 with Favour, but Morgan Wallen slumped to that #5 spot – down from #2 – with Everything I Love. Casey Barnes is holding steady, though, still at #3 with Never Give Up On A Good Time.

There are two new songs in the chart – Dancing On The Tables by Hudson Rose at #37, and Somewhere In Mexico by Tori Darke at #43 – while Size Up by Felicity Urquhart and Josh Cunningham makes a comeback at #65, and Memory Lane by Old Dominion returns at #50.

Hear the big new tunes of the week now on The Music Hit List.
And for the latest in hip-hop and EDM, get your ears around Purple Sneakers’ Best New Music.