Genius Presents: The Month In Lyrics (August 2019)

Every day, millions of music fans come to Genius to find the deeper meaning behind the lyrics of their favorite artists, from rappers to pop singers to country stars. Our Top Songs Chart reflects what the world is listening to all day, every day. In 2019, we’re continuing to crunch numbers and compile the Month in Lyrics to show what music is catching fans' eyes and ears the most.

The data is broken down into the following categories each month: Top Artists, Top Songs, Top Lyrics, and Top Albums.

In a month of major releases, one artist stood heads above the rest: Taylor Swift. The pop star launched her seventh album, Lover, in August and earned more than 6.6 million pageviews across her catalog. Lover debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and notched 18 simultaneous entries on the Hot 100 chart.

In a distant—but still impressive—second place is Lana Del Rey, whose fifth album, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, dropped just one day before the end of the month. A slew of singles helped buoy her numbers, including some controversy around her calling out Kanye West on “The Greatest.” She’s likely to perform well in September, too.

The early-August release of Drake’s Care Package compilation project helped push the ever-popular rapper to No. 3 this month, one spot ahead of RCA-backed boyband BROCKHAMPTON and their new release, GINGER. Young Thug rounded out the Top 5 thanks to his No. 1 album, So Much Fun, already the most successful release of the rapper’s career.

Further down the chart, new releases from rock stalwarts like Tool and Slipknot gave the legacy bands a major boost in popularity. NF landed at No. 12 off the strength of his new album, The Search, and Megan Thee Stallion finished off Hot Girl Summer strong with a No. 18 placement.

For the second month in a row, the nearly decade-old Minecraft parody song “Revenge” by YouTuber CaptainSparklez leads the Top Songs chart thanks to a viral Discord meme. The song managed to eclipse Taylor Swift’s best-performing new track by nearly half-a-million pageviews, and has more than double the total of Ariana Grande and Social House’s Top 10 hit, “Boyfriend.”

Swift controls more than half of the Top Songs chart this month, landing 12 total entries thanks to her new album, Lover. Aside from Grande, only Miley Cyrus managed to crack the Top 10 with her post-divorce track, “Slide Away.” On the lower reaches of the chart, Megan thee Stallion’s seasonal anthem, “Hot Girl Summer,” landed at No. 12, and Lizzo’s newly minted No. 1, “Truth Hurts,” reached No. 20.

Taylor Swift dominated August 2019, so it’s no surprise that Lover was the top album of the month with over 349,000 average pageviews across every song. She far outpaced the still-strong performance of new releases from BROCKHAMPTON (GINGER), Social House (Everything Changed…), and Lana Del Rey (Norman Fucking Rockwell!), all of whom landed in the Top 5.

Young Thug earned the first No. 1 album of his career with So Much Fun, and fans reacted accordingly. He reached No. 6 on Genius' Top Albums chart this month off the strength of the project and songs like “Hot” and “Bad Bad Bad.” Emerging rappers like Lil Tjay, Lil Tecca, and NF also earned places on the chart, as did legacy rock acts Tool and Slipknot.

Soundtracks had another popular month, led by the animated Disney Channel film Descendants 3 at No. 7. Euphoria and Aladdin soundtracks landed on the lower reaches of the chart.

Even the massive performance of Taylor Swift’s Lover wasn’t enough to overcome the bizarre meme of CaptainSparklez, whose lyrics have inspired countless Discord chat frustrations. Swift did, however, otherwise dominate, with six total spots on this month’s Top Lyrics chart. She led with the lyrics to “Cornelia Street,” the name of the street where she once lived in New York City. “False God” and “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” were also popular.

BROCKHAMPTON landed at No. 6 with lyrics from Dom McLennon’s verse on “Dearly Departed.” The song seems to address former member Ameer Vann’s departure from the group last year. Lizzo rounded things out with the opening line on her No. 1 hit, “Truth Hurts.”