Three people have proven themselves to be more skilled than the rest at predicting this year’s hits, placing first, second and third in the Billboard Hot 100 Challenge as of the end of the competition Tuesday (July 16).
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After racking up points by accurately guessing how songs would fare on the U.S. chart via fantasy-sports-style gameplay, 26-year-old Easton Erosa, 25-year-old Lamar D and 19-year-old Josiah Fitzgerald ended the season as winners. Erosa, who’s from Haleiwa, Hawaii, will take home $25,000 cash for placing the highest of all the mobile game’s users, while runner-up Lamar of Philadelphia wins two VIP access passes to a 2024 or 2025 Billboard event or conference.
“When I found out there was a contest to predict the peak of the current top songs I knew I had to be a part of it,” Erosa tells Billboard . “I’ve grown up always loving music, especially Miley Cyrus. I listen to all kinds of genres like pop, hip-hop, country, etc., so I intuitively could tell when a song is gonna be a hit or not no matter the genre.”
“I also loved being introduced to new songs and artists I’ve never heard before,” he notes of his experience with the app. “It made the game so fun listening to all the hot new songs from different genres and adding my favorites to my playlist.”
Repping Amherst, Massachussetts, Fitzgerald snags the third-place prize of a $500 Ticketmaster gift card to spend on concert tickets. “My brother Samuel and I downloaded the app shortly after it was announced and went in with fairly low expectations,” he tells Billboard . “I know that there were people who followed charts much more closely than we did during the season, so it was surprising and exciting to find out that we both ended up finishing within the top five!”
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“Thank you to everyone at Billboard who made this possible and congratulations to the other winners!” Fitzgerald adds.
The news comes about three months after Billboard launched the first-of-its-kind mobile competition game, inviting users to listen to a new song every weekday and guess its ultimate peak position on the Hot 100. Points were awarded based on the accuracy of each participant’s respective predictions.
Between the charts dated April 13 and July 13, there were 197 new song entries on the Hot 100. Seven tracks reached No. 1 in that time: Future, Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That,” Hozier’s “Too Sweet,” Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight,” Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Morgan Wallen and Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
“For more than six decades, the Billboard Hot 100 has been the music industry’s top chart for measuring hits,” said Billboard EVP of Charts Silvio Pietroluongo when the game was first announced. “We are thrilled to create a new and unique interactive experience for passionate fans … We’re redefining how fans engage with chart-topping hits and ushering in a new music discovery and enjoyment era.”
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