Ariana Grande/Justin Bieber Single ‘Stuck With U’ Outpaces 6ix9ine’s ‘Gooba’ on Rolling Stone Songs Chart

By Chris Willman

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In the battle for chart supremacy between 6ix9ine and the team of Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, the latter duo has claimed another victory over the controversial and contentious rapper. The Grande/Bieber charity single “Stuck With U” came in at No. 1 on Rolling Stone’s songs chart , pushing ahead of 6ix9ine’s “Gooba” in the stretch.

The placement is newsworthy because 6ix9ine previously cried foul when his song came in at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. He took to social media to charge that the fix was in and that mysterious mass purchases of the Grande/Bieber song had pushed it ahead of his little-purchased but more heavily streamed hit. Grande took to social media to deny 6ix9ine’s charges and to urge him not to fixate on competition.

The final Rolling Stone/Alpha Data chart had “Stuck WIth U” claiming 244,500 song units. For “Gooba,” the tally was 181,900 units. Actual sales for the Grande/Bieber charity duet did make a big difference, as it fell behind 6ix9ine in the stream total — but not radically behind — with 20.5 million streams to his 23.6 million.

Said Grande earlier this week in response to 6ix9ine’s rage, “I’ve had a lot of ‘almost number ones’ in my career and i never said a goddamn thing because I FEEL GRATEFUL TO EVEN BE HERE. TO WANT TO BE HEARD AT ALL … and you should feel that way too. Congratulations to all my talented-ass peers in the top ten this week. Even number 3.”

On Rolling Stone’s album chart , there were also new entries in the top two positions… and a bit of controversy there, too, if far less social media case-pleading.

Nav’s “Good Intentions” easily landed the No. 1 spot with 151,200 album units. He is the rare hip-hop artist nowadays to come in with a relatively high number of actual album sales (75,100) as well as a monster amount of streams (75.3 million). But chart watchers were quick to note that Nav took extraordinary measures to goose his album sales figure. Fans were prompted to buy the album more than once in a number of ways, including extravagant merch bundles that had branded clothing and other items tied to album sales. More mindbogglingly, a deluxe reissue of the album with twice as many tracks came out just two days after the initial album release.

There were far fewer asterisks attached to Kehlani’s No. 2 bow. Her sophomore album, “It Was Good Until It Wasn’t,” came in second with 81,100 album units. She racked up just 6,600 album sales and 10,900 song sales but enjoyed a healthy 65.7 million streams. If she has a deluxe reissue of “It Was Good Until It Wasn’t,” she is waiting until the album has been out for more than a week to release it.

Last week’s albums chart topper, Drake’s “Dark Lane Demo Tapes,” got pushed down to No. 3 with 77,400 album units. He actually had more streams than either Nav or Kehlani for the week, with 91.2 million for his album in its second week.

There were three more albums debuting in Rolling Stone’s top 20: at No. 5, Lil Durk’s “Just Cause Y’all Waited 2” (54,800 album units); at No. 7, Bad Bunny’s “Las Que No Iban A Salir” (40,200); and at No. 18, Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams’ first solo album, “Petals for Armor” (21,600).