Shaboozey and Post Malone are top contenders for Spotify's Song of the Summer title

One month after Spotify announced that seven Nashville songs were among the top 30 competitors for its Song of the Summer, data from the service, as well as from bar and restaurant jukebox service TouchTunes, has identified two songs — both bearing Music City roots — as the most dominant contenders for the title.

As expected, Post Malone's Morgan Wallen duet "I Had Some Help" and Shaboozey's anthem "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" are reigning supreme.

On TouchTunes alone, for the past two months, "A Bar Song" has outpaced not just "I Had Some Help." It has been spun more often than Chris Stapleton's almost decade-old cover of "Tennessee Whiskey," Toby Keith's "I Love This Bar," Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places" and Brooks and Dunn's "Neon Moon."

On Spotify, the lead is even more pronounced. It's been played nearly 11 million times daily, almost twice as many times as the Malone-Wallen collaboration.

For perspective, add that "A Bar Song" is being played more than 2? times as much as Taylor Swift's "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart," another Song of the Summer candidate.

Yes, Malone has his country-inspired album "F-1 Trillion" dropping on Aug. 16, but Shaboozey's impact could significantly mushroom and still outpace the expected prodigious growth of "I Had Some Help."

'A Bar Song (Tipsy)' hits No. 1

July 8 marked "A Bar Song" topping Billboard's all-genre Hot 100, remaining in the Top 10 on Billboard's country radio charts, and reaching the Top 10 on Billboard's Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay and Rhythmic Airplay countdowns. The song has also landed No. 1 placements in Australia, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom.

Shaboozey also succeeded in replacing Beyoncé at the top of Billboard's country singles sales chart. It marks the first time two Black artists have achieved the feat.

Shaboozey recently hitting No. 1 on country radio joins him in a rare class with Jimmie Allen, Charley Pride and Darius Rucker as the only Black acts who have initially topped country's radio charts as solo performers.

Notably, alongside Tanner Adell, Shaboozey recently became the first country artist to perform at the BET Awards, mashing up "A Bar Song" with the song it samples, St. Louis-based rapper J-Kwon's 20-year-old hit "Tipsy."

Morgan Wallen's success expands beyond Song of the Summer consideration

Wallen's impact overall cannot go without mention here, either.

He and Malone are at their peak. Wallen is coming off a year that saw for the first time in 42 years two country singles — Combs' and Wallen's — land at Nos. 1 and 2 on America's Billboard's Hot 100.

The 11-time 2023 Billboard Music Award winner is nearing 1 billion overall Spotify streams on two singles, 2023's Song of the Summer "Last Night" and his 5-year-old hit "Whiskey Glasses." Also, four of his "One Day at a Time" album tracks — "Last Night," ERNEST collaboration "Cowgirls," "Thinkin' Bout Me" and "You Proof" — have tallied nearly 2.5 billion streams to date between them.

Insofar as America's bars and restaurants are concerned, Wallen's popularity on TouchTunes is profound.

He's been the No. 1 played artist overall on the service for the past two months, and has a hand in 20% of the Top 20 songs.

If Malone and Shaboozey are in contention for Song of the Summer, consider just how dominant Wallen is as "artist of the moment," too.

Between the songs "Last Night" and "I Had Some Help," he's averaged America's all-genre No. 1 song once a month for two years. He also recently played London's Hyde Park in front of 50,000 people — the first time a contemporary country artist has headlined an all-genre festival and the largest country concert ever held in the U.K. — to add to his series of notable accomplishments.

Jelly Roll rising in impact and influence

Jelly Roll, meanwhile, is TouchTunes' No. 7 most-played artist overall, and his single "Son of a Sinner" remains one of the songs most frequently played on the service.

On Spotify, his songs are also sustainable, long-duration champions. "Son of a Sinner" is spun nearly 200,000 times daily on the service.

That's roughly 50 times less than Shaboozey's "A Bar Song."

However, in the past 12 months, Jelly Roll has become a Grammy-nominated, Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association and CMT-award-winning performer.

Thus, in a move that is important to the sustainability of both of their outsider-to-mainstream success stories, Jelly Roll is taking Shaboozey on the road as one of the opening acts on 14 fall dates on Jelly Roll's "Beautifully Broken" arena tour across the Southern and Midwestern U.S.

Regarding the power of the moment that Nashville-rooted artists and country music are having, in general — potentially even in the Song of the Summer conversation — Jelly Roll provided the best overall perspective to the Tennessean at the recent CMA Fest:

"Excitingly, country music is currently creating and attracting mega-stars as the most popular form of popular music there is. And yes, a rising tide will lift all ships."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Shaboozey, Post Malone songs vie for Spotify's Song of the Summer