VOA常速英语:Top 5 Pop Hits for Week Ending June 8

We’re sampling the five most popular tracks on the Billboard Magazine Hot 100 pop singles chart, for the week ending June 8, 2013.
 
It all starts in fifth place, where Florida Georgia Line - a Country act - joins forces with multi-platinum rapper Nelly on "Cruise". This isn’t the first time the St. Louis, Missouri rapper has gone the Country route. Back in 2004, Nelly and Tim McGraw teamed up for “Over And Over.” It hit third place on the Hot 100 chart, while selling more than one million copies in the United States alone.

A new addition to the top 5 this week is French duo Daft Punk teams with Pharrell Williams for “Get Lucky,” rising six slots to number four. The mysterious French duo members wear robot helmets and go to great lengths to avoid being photographed. That hasn’t stopped them from becoming stars: their latest album Random Access Memories has gone to number one in more than a dozen countries, including the United States.

From here, we step into familiar territory: Justin Timberlake holds in third place with “Mirrors.” You can find it on his album The 20/20 Experience. The album version runs more than eight minutes. It hit number one in the United Kingdom, becoming the longest chart-topping single since 1998, when Oasis hit the top slot with its nine-minute opus, “All Around The World.”

Spending another week in second place are Pink and Nate Ruess with “Just Give Me A Reason.”  Nate is from the band Fun. Here’s a fun fact for you chart-watchers: this song replaced Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man” at number one. That made them the first back-to-back ballads to top the Hot 100 since May, 2008, when Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” surrendered to Rihanna’s “Take A Bow.”

Holding fast to the singles title are Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, and Ray Dalton - with “Can’t Hold Us.”   The future looks bright for the  Seattle, Washington rapper and his producer, Ryan: they’re the first duo to ever hit number one on the Hot 100 with their first two singles.

Check back next week for the new Top 5 Countdown and other music news.