The Strokes Are Enjoying The Best Week Of Their Career On The Rock Chart

After a seven-year absence, The Strokes are back with a new album, The New Abnormal. The title opens at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Rock Albums list, but it’s on the Hot Rock Songs chart where the group best displays their ongoing popularity for all to see. 

On Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart, which ranks the most popular tracks that fit into that genre based on a mix of sales, streams and radio airplay, The Strokes occupy nine of the 50 available rungs, or just shy of 20% of the entire list. That’s a showing rarely seen, and that kind of dominance is typically reserved for the biggest names in the field.

Included in their nine current hits are three top 10s. First up for the group is “Bad Decisions,” which was released as a single before the album arrived in full. Just behind it come “Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus” and “The Adults are Talking,” which both debut at Nos. 7 and 8, respectively.

Outside the top 10, but inside the top 40, are “Selfless” (debut, No. 14), “Eternal Summer” (debut, No. 17), “At the Door” (re-enter, No. 18), “Why Are Sundays so Depressing?” (debut, No. 25), “Ode to the Mets” (debut, No. 27) and “Not the Same Anymore” (debut, No. 29).

Placing nine tracks onto the Hot Rock Songs chart under any circumstance would be a noteworthy performance for any act, but this week is especially meaningful to The Strokes, who have never been major players on the genre-specific list. 

Before the group began doling out singles from The New Abnormal, The Strokes had only reached the Hot Rock Songs chart with three tracks. Now, they have upped their career count to 12, quadrupling the record with just one full-length. Included in that sum are their first three (and only three) top 10 hits, as they had never managed to break into the uppermost area on the list before.

It’s likely that a number of the new tracks fall off the Hot Rock Songs ranking next week, but a few of the singles which have received some form of promotional attention may hold on. Even if they all vanish in just a few days, The Strokes have already made The New Abnormal their biggest record yet when it comes to charting hits, and it’s entirely possible that they will never top their performance this period.