Tina Turner Tops 40 Million U.S. Streams in Week After Her Death

Fans rallied to the late Tina Turner’s catalog in massive numbers in the week following the icon’s death. Her tracks collected more than 40 million U.S. on-demand streams from May 24, the day of her passing, through the six days after, according to preliminary reports to Luminate.

Turner, the electric performer whose career spanned multiple generations and multiple genres – with pop, rock, soul and even country among her gifts – died at age 83 on May 24 at her home in Switzerland. Her legacy includes a rare double induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as she was honored in 1991 part of Ike & Tina Turner and again in 2021 for her solo efforts.

Across all her work, Turner’s tunes captured 40.1 million U.S. on-demand streams May 24-30, up from 2.7 million May 17-23 – a 1,367% increase. Turner’s solo material, consisting of songs largely recorded from 1978 on, contributed 36.1 million clicks of the posthumous activity. Songs credited to Ike & Tina Turner, active from 1960 to 1976, accounted for 4 million streams. (The totals above include both official on-demand streams and user-generated activity [“UGC”] to give a full view of Turner’s posthumous impact. UGC streams do not count toward Billboard’s chart calculations.)

“What’s Love Got To Do With It” led all of the diva’s songs, with 7.2 million clicks May 24-30, up 686% from 912,000 in the previous seven days. The 1984 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 was the main driver behind her monumental comeback that year. It became her sole Hot 100 No. 1, leading the list for three weeks, and ended 1984 at No. 2 on the year-end Hot 100 chart. The single won Turner two Grammy Awards, including record of the year, at the 1985 ceremony and ranks first on the recap of Turner’s biggest Hot 100 hits.

“The Best” claimed second place among Turner’s streamed songs May 24-30, with 4.5 million on-demand clicks, up 1,022%. Turner’s 1989 cover of the Bonnie Tyler cut became a signature song, inspiring the title of her 1991 greatest-hits set, Simply the Best. The same phrase became a common refrain in many tributes and eulogies on social media.

Ike & Tina Turner’s 1971 classic “Proud Mary” cover ranked third May 24-30 thanks to 3.9 million on-demand streams (up 1,132%). Two cuts from Turner’s 1984 LP, Private Dancer, the title track (2.04 million, up 2,502%) and “Better Be Good to Me” (1.8 million, up 1,714%), round out the top five.

On the Billboard charts (dated June 3), “What’s Love” also generated the strongest impact, despite only two days of the posthumous activity surge in the last chart tracking week (May 19-25). (The weekly airplay, sales and streaming windows for Billboard charts run on a Friday-Thursday cycle.) The single debuts at No. 11 on the Hot R&B Songs chart, which began in 2012 and blends streaming, radio airplay and sales activity.

“What’s Love” also returns at No. 1 on the R&B Digital Song Sales chart with 7,000 downloads sold (up from a nominal sum) and leads eight Turner songs onto the 15-position list:

No. 1, “What’s Love Got To Do With It”
No. 2, “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)”
No. 3, “Proud Mary”
No. 4, “Better Be Good to Me”
No. 5, “Private Dancer”
No. 7, “I Don’t Wanna Lose You”
No. 9, “Let’s Stay Together”
No. 10, “River Deep – Mountain High”

All told, Turner sold 78,000 song downloads May 24-30, a 6,238% vault from a little over 1,000 in the prior seven-day window.

The streaming and sales activity spark album gains for her 2005 greatest-hits effort, All the Best: The Hits. The set debuts at No. 6 on the June 3-dated Top R&B Albums chart, No. 14 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and No. 45 on the Billboard 200.

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