Doja Cat’s “Paint The Town Red” Earns Second Week at No. 1

After slipping to No. 2 for a couple of weeks, Doja Cat‘s summer single “Paint The Town Red” has reclaimed its No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second week. Announced on Monday (October 2), “Paint The Town Red” is now Doja’s first time spending multiple weeks atop the Hot 100, as her only other No. 1 hit “Say So” (2020) only lasted for a week.

Despite one of its promotional singles topping charts, though, the accompanying album for “Paint The Town Red,” titled Scarlet and released on September 22, will likely only peak at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart, expected to be announced tomorrow. According to HitsDailyDouble, who tallied up the sales week for September 22 released on Friday (September 29), Scarlet will have sold around 69,000 copies in its debut week, falling short of albums put out earlier this year like Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS, Rod Wave’s Nostalgia, and Morgan Wallen’s One Thing At A Time.

A far cry from the 109,000 units sold in the first week for Doja’s previous album Planet Her, which peaked at No. 1, Scarlet‘s perceived underwhelming numbers are explainable. Going into the album, Doja emphasized how she’d be switching her sound from a glitzy pop approach to more honest, rap-inspired sonics, even going as far as to say her old music was full of “cash grabs.”

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However, while the appeal of this hip-hop style paled in comparison to her previous sound for a whole album’s length, it is also the reason “Paint The Town Red” has continuously thrived on the charts. Mixing her melodic prowess on the hook with slickly rapped verses, the song is stuck in the heads of millions of listeners worldwide and has proven why Doja Cat can be successful as a multi-dimensional artist.

“I made that beat two years ago and sometimes as a producer, you have to be ahead of the wave,” Earl On The Beat, the producer behind “Paint The Town Red,” told American Songwriter in an interview. “You have to be ahead before the sound catches up if that makes sense. So sometimes you may make certain records that may be years ahead, but they can’t get off right then and there. It may not be ready right now for the sake of the culture at the moment. And maybe it’s years. After the pandemic, things are different, the world’s ready to turn up again. I reworked that beat a little bit, and added some new things to it. That was literally one of the first ones I chose to send [to Doja]. I make everything, but at that moment, I didn’t necessarily have anything for her, but I knew I had that… I love what she did over it.”

Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for MTV