Trending Up: ‘Wednesday’ Scores Netflix’s Latest Revival of a Cult ’80s Single, The 1975 Pull Off a Streaming Heist & More
Written by djfrosty on November 30, 2022
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up column, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip.
This week: Netflix’s latest hit series Wednesday helps an early cult-punk classic get out of the “Muck,” The 1975’s live lip-locking revives one of their early singles and everyone is left craving more “Yamz” this Thanksgiving.
‘Wednesday’ Sends The Cramps’ Streams Running Up That Hill
Wednesday, the Addams Family revival focused on a teenage Wednesday Addams (played by Jenna Ortega) and her adventures at a boarding school, has been a smash success for Netflix since premiering last Wednesday (Nov. 23), setting the record for the most hours viewed in a week for an English-language series on the streaming service. Its 341.2 million hours viewed in its debut week surpasses the record set a few months back by the fourth season of Stranger Things — which, you may recall, resurrected Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” with dramatic flair and turned the 1985 single into a top five Billboard Hot 100 smash in 2022.
Six months later, Wednesday is helping “Goo Goo Muck,” the spooky-fun 1981 version of the 1962 Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads single released on I.R.S. by influential rockabilly punks The Cramps, receive a similarly inspired comeback. “Goo Goo Muck” soundtracks a school dance in which Ortega demonstrates some quirky, spirited choreography, and Wednesday fans are seeking out The Cramps version after the fact. On the day before the Wednesday series premiered, “Goo Goo Muck” earned 2,500 daily U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate; by Monday (Nov. 28), that number was up to 134,000 daily streams. The Cramps have been defunct since the 2009 death of lead singer Lux Interior, but if Wednesday viewers keep streaming “Goo Goo Muck,” the band could belatedly earn its first career Hot 100 hit. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
The 1975 Make Out Like Bandits
U.K. alt-pop veterans The 1975 hit the Billboard 200’s top 10 for the fourth straight album this October with their latest set, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, and have a slow-burning streaming hit with that LP’s “About You,” which has grown 41% over the three weeks to over two million weekly U.S. on-demand streams for the period ending Nov. 24, according to Luminate. But the band’s most buzzed-about song the past week hasn’t come from that album, or any of the three before it – for that one, you’ve got to go back to from their 2013 self-titled debut set (on Dirty Hit/Polydor) and longtime fan favorite “Robbers,” which the group has turned into a lip-locking spectacle on their current stateside tour.
At consecutive stops over the past weekend in Las Vegas and San Diego, frontman Matty Healy pulled fans from the audience – one female, one male – onstage during their performance of “Robbers,” embracing them and then giving them a healthy smooch just before the song’s climax. The consecutive kisses both went viral on social media, getting fans dangerously in their feelings and causing them to swarm back to the enduring “Robbers.” Since Nov. 25 (the night of the Vegas concert), the song has spiked 116% in daily official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate, growing from 65,000 that Thursday to 141,000 on Sunday, and no doubt inspiring a whole lot of breathless refreshing of social feeds for each remaining tour date. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
A Second Helping of “Yamz” This Thanksgiving
It was 2015 all over again last week, as the hottest song of Thanksgiving belonged to Fetty Wap. The “Trap Queen” hitmaker scored a breakout success with the rap-crooned synth-funk of “Sweet Yamz” – a song not necessarily about the delicious side dish, but which nonetheless felt seasonally appropriate to countless listeners. The 300 Entertainment/RGF Productions single, released to streaming services on Nov. 18, earned plaudits from authorities as respected as Snoop Dogg and Charlie Wilson and exploded on streaming last week, earning over half a million official on-demand U.S. streams daily from Wednesday (Nov. 23) through Saturday (Nov. 26), according to Luminate.
However, as many R&B heads online were quick to point out, the song wasn’t totally an original: The hit was based off a 2021 collab between Masego and Devin Morrison on EQT Recordings/Capitol, with a near-identical chorus and groove, but different verses. Though some cried foul at the lift, there was more than enough consumption to go around this Thanksgiving season: The original “Yamz” also experienced a huge bump, rising from 172,000 streams total from Nov. 21-23 to 367,000 from Nov. 24-26, a 113% gain. – AU