Genius Presents: The Month In Lyrics (July 2018)

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 2018, we’re crunching numbers and compiling the Month in Lyrics on the first of every month 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.

Top Artists

With his fifth album Scorpion dropping at the end of June, Drake unsurprisingly ruled the month of July on Genius. He racked up over 12 million pageviews across all his songs, with the majority of those coming from Scorpion. In a distant second was XXXTENTACION, whose tragic murder has continued to drive interest in his catalog of music. Controversial Brooklyn rapper 6ix9ine took third place, largely thanks to his Nicki Minaj collaboration “FEFE,” which earned over 1.6 million pageviews in just a few weeks. Ariana Grande continued to promote her upcoming album Sweetener, earning a spot at No. 4, while Kanye West rounded out the Top 5.

Elsewhere on the charts, rising artists like Juice WRLD, Billie Eilish, and BROCKHAMPTON earned respectable showings, as did more veteran acts like Denzel Curry and ​twenty one pilots. Artists with big releases earlier this year, like Kendrick Lamar, Post Malone, and THE CARTERS, also continued to perform well.

Top Songs

Drake earned an impressive seven entries on this month’s Top Songs chart, including the top spot with his No. 1 hit “In My Feelings” and the fifth slot with the Tay Keith-produced “Nonstop.” 6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj’s controversial collaboration “FEFE” landed at No. 2, while Ariana Grande took the third slot after earning nearly one million pageviews on “God is a woman.” Meanwhile, Cardi B and XXXTentacion are the only artists besides Drake to earn multiple spots on this month’s chart. Cardi’s hit Maroon 5 collab “Girls Like You” charted alongside her own track “I Like It,” while X’s “SAD!” and “Jocelyn Flores” both made it, too.

Although Drake’s dominance left little room for other artists, a handful of other songs also managed to chart. Twenty one pilots' comeback single “Nico and the Niners” racked up nearly half-a-million pageviews, while Russian singer GONE.Fludd’s song “MUMBLE” saw surprisingly robust success. Meanwhile, England’s run to the semi-finals of the World Cup buoyed the 1996 soccer comedy song “Three Lions” by Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds into the Top 20, too.

Top Albums

Drake dominated the July Top Albums chart handily, blowing the competition out of the water with a whopping 428,250 pageview average across a 25-song tracklist for Scorpion. THE CARTERS ran a distant second, with roughly 96,000 pageviews per song on EVERYTHING IS LOVE. XXXTentacion’s two studio albums continued to draw strong interest in the wake of his death, while April holdover Invasion of Privacy by Cardi B kept a high average thanks to its No. 1 single “I Like It.”

In fact, most of the Top Albums chart is holdovers from previous months. Only a handful of releases from an otherwise-quiet July made an impact, most notably Denzel Curry’s TA13OO, Future’s BEASTMODE 2, and Queen Naija’s self-titled EP. Russian singer GONE.Fludd’s April project Boys Don’t Cry also saw outsized success thanks to his single “MUMBLE.”

Top Lyrics

Half of the Top Lyrics of July belong to Drake, with fans gravitating towards the mysterious Kiki he references on “In My Feelings” the most. Amongst non-Drake new releases, twenty one pilots and Ariana Grande fared the best with their respective singles “Nico and the Niners” and “God is a woman.” XXXTentacion’s No. 1 hit “SAD!” remained on the chart for another month, while lyrics from 6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj’s much-discussed hit “FEFE” also made the cut. Rounding out the Top 10 is The 1975, making their sole Genius chart appearance of the month with their recent single “Love It If We Made It.”