Welcome to Sleeper Hit Support Group, a new column diving into the song currently occupying the bottom spot of the Billboard Hot 100.

In a pop landscape that asks more questions that it answers, I'm setting out to answer three questions about each of these songs: how it got here, if the song is good, and where it's going. In this 100th spot we'll find unlikely ascents, falls from grace, and resurgences of hits from bygone eras.

Today, we're taking a look at "Sienna" by The Marías.

How did it get here?

31-year-old singer songwriter María Zardoya was born in Puerto Rico and raised in the suburbs of Atlanta. Her father taught her guitar at a young age, and she quickly took to writing songs in both Spanish and English, idolizing the late Mexican singer Selena. After graduating high school, Zardoya moved to Los Angeles to pursue a music career, performing under the name Zara Sky. In 2016, a gig at The Kibitz Room sparked the fateful meeting between Zardoya, who was on the bill, and drummer/producer Josh Conway, who was running sound. Zardoya told Vogue, “When [Josh and I] first worked on a song together, both of us knew right off the bat that we had chemistry, both personally and creatively.” The pair's collaborative chemistry led them to begin dating and form The Marías. They rounded out the lineup with Edward James on keys and guitarist Jesse Perlman.

If you're thinking to yourself "wait, weren't these guys just nominated for Best New Artist? How did that happen if they formed a decade ago?" you would be correct in your confusion. For the Recording Academy, "new" is a very languid term. The short answer given to guide submissions is "...eligible artists must have achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness and impacted the musical landscape during the year's eligibility period." This would make sense for The Marías, as they did not find chart success as a main artist until October 2024, which was the beginning of this ceremony's eligibility period. (If you're curious in the nitty-gritty of the BNA Award rules, you can read them here.)

An abandoned deal to make songs for TV was repurposed to create the group's first EP, Superclean, Vol. 1 in 2017. Its counterpart, Superclean Vol. 2, released a year later. When looking at these releases I noticed I had one song from each in my library despite not remembering the songs themselves, and realized it was because they were in the playlist I used when I'd make out with my high school boyfriend in the car. I could not have made up a better descriptor for their music myself. It's fresh and youthful like young romance, but the other end of the coin displays a lack of nuance.

The Marías and their dream pop ilk often blend together in a Spotify editorial playlist-shaped cloud. Men I Trust, Cigarettes After Sex, Suki Waterhouse – the list goes on. The music isn't bad, nor is it useless, it's just never really all that interesting. You could sum up the whole genre with an image of a reverb send on a master bus cranked to 100% wet.

In early 2021, The Marías signed to Warner subsidiary Atlantic Records and would put out their debut record CINEMA in June of that year. It got very little media attention. The group's first whiff of chart success came from a feature slot on the Bad Bunny song "Otro Atardecer" off his blockbuster 2022 album Un Verano Sin Ti (it peaked at #49).

They appeared on a couple more Latin pop songs the following year, but none of them made much noise. The song that truly broke The Marías was "No One Noticed" off their 2024 sophomore record Submarine. The track's chorus slowly became viral on TikTok, and eventually earned a co-sign from Billie Eilish on an Instagram story.

The song tackles Zardoya pleading her distant lover to stay. "No One Noticed" is one of many songs on Submarine that chronicles Zardoya's breakup with bandmate Josh Conway in 2022, which happened soon after the conclusion of their tour promoting Cinema. This is perhaps the calmest and most mature iteration of the bandmate romantic breakup trope. None of the bandmates saw each other for the four months following the tour, and they all pledged to go to therapy during the making of the record. In an interview with Variety, Conway shared, “We were just trying to see if we could still write and make music together. It wasn’t until we had finished all the songs on the album that we finally sat down and acknowledged that we could and we did create something we are all proud of.”

"No One Noticed" peaked at #22 in November of 2024 following its TikTok virality. Non-album single "Back To Me" had a one week chart stint the following April on the heels of their appearance on "Ojos Tristes", a song on the Benny Blanco/Selena Gomez collab album. "Sienna" eventually found its way to the charts in September of last year, peaking at #74. The sneak into the #100 spot after falling off the chart completely a couple weeks ago is likely due to their Best New Artist nomination at this year's Grammys.

Is the song any good?

"Sienna" is a member of the cannon of songs about hypothetical children. It will never be the worst of them, though, as that title currently belongs to AJR's "Dear Winter". "Sienna" is pleasant and goes down easy despite how heartbreaking its premise is. Zardoya describes the hypothetical child she and Conway would have had had they not ended their relationship, but it's delivered with such resign in service of "vibes" and not much else. She dreams that the child would have been cute, and shares all her traits with Conway, except "singing to her pets".

The song builds enough sonically that it digs itself out of being hollow, but ultimately the easy-listening nature most of their music holds doesn't work for me personally. There's a place for music like this, there always has been, but that place is not in my playlists. If The Marías are willing lean in to a poppier sound akin to their song "Run Your Mouth", I certainly wouldn't complain.

Where is it going?

This song in particular has probably hit its peak. In their Grammy performance, the group opted for "No One Noticed", and delivered the least memorable performance of the night (good, bad, or otherwise). While the Best New Artist was a relatively wide open field this year, The Marías lived in the liminal slot of unlikely to win, but certainly not reviled for being nominated in the first place like an Alex Warren or sombr.

I am sure The Marías will continue to fulfill their spot in their nice, cushy subgenre for the foreseeable future, but I doubt there's much room for them to grow further. They have found their fanbase and the people that will ride for them, but I'm not sure if there's too many outstanding fans they could get on board.