Even with trees abloom and spring having sprung, Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” ascends to No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Airplay chart (dated May 25).
The track marks the Strafford, Vt., native’s first leader on the survey – after it first reached a No. 2 peak on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart in November 2022 (two stick seasons ago). Kahan boasts two No. 1s on that tally: “Dial Drunk” for two weeks in September 2023, and “Northern Attitude,” with Hozier, for five weeks this January-February.
Also among his radio chart No. 1s, Kahan topped Alternative Airplay for two weeks last September with “Dial Drunk,” as remixed with Post Malone.
This February, “Stick Season” became Kahan’s first Billboard Hot 100 top 10, rising to a No. 9 best in April. (He first hit the chart last June with “Dial Drunk,” which climbed to No. 25 in August.)
The new leader’s parent album of the same name, on Mercury/Republic Records, has maintained a steady presence on the Billboard 200 albums chart, boosted by multiple extended editions. It debuted at No. 14 in October 2022 and hit a No. 2 high this March. It has spent the past 19 weeks in the top 10, dating to the survey dated Jan. 13. To date, the set has earned 2.3 million equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate.
“It’s been an unbelievable year-and-a-half now … a whirlwind of attention and wonderful outpouring of love from fans,” Kahan told Billboard in September. Of crafting Stick Season through the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, “There was a feeling in the studio of, like, ‘Woah, this is something special.’ I felt so creatively in control … and I think, at the time, I couldn’t see that as a sign of success or relatability. It just felt so right for me that I was fine with whatever happened.”
All Billboard charts dated May 25 will update Tuesday, May 21, on Billboard.com.
