Fall Out Boy’s Update of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ Hits the Hot 100
Written by djfrosty on July 13, 2023
Fall Out Boy reaches the Billboard Hot 100 as a lead act for the first time since 2016, as its update of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” debuts at No. 94 on the July 15-dated tally.
The reimagination bows with 4.7 million official U.S. streams, 767,000 radio audience impressions and 9,000 downloads in the June 30-July 6 tracking period, according to Luminate.
It’s Fall Out Boy’s first entry on the Hot 100 as a lead act since “Irresistible,” which spent its final week on the survey dated March 5, 2016, after peaking at No. 48 that January. Since then, the band made the list with one track: featured on Lil Peep and ILoveMakonnen’s “I’ve Been Waiting,” which reached No. 62 in April 2019.
Fall Out Boy now boasts 21 charted Hot 100 hits, dating to its first in 2005, paced by the No. 2-peaking “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” in February 2007.
Concurrently, Fall Out Boy’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” vaults 44-6 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs in its second week on the chart after debuting via a partial week of streams, sales and airplay on the July 8 ranking (as the song was released June 28). It also debuts at Nos. 3 and 5 on the Hot Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs lists, respectively.
Its first full week of sales prompts the song to land its first week at No. 1 on Rock Digital Song Sales and Alternative Digital Song Sales as well. It’s the band’s first ruler on both since “Uma Thurman” in 2015.
The new song’s streaming count is also enough to score debuts at Nos. 11 and 20 on Alternative Streaming Songs and Rock Streaming Songs, respectively.
On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” debuts at No. 43. The band’s current radio single, “Hold Me Like a Grudge,” concurrently appears at No. 46, while that song’s predecessor, “Love From the Other Side,” ranks at No. 3 in its 25th week on the survey.
Interest in the new version of “We DIdn’t Start the Fire” also spurs streams and sales gains for Joel’s 1989 original. The song, which topped the Hot 100 for two weeks in December 1989, enters Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, where older songs are eligible to appear if ranking in the top half and with a meaningful reason for their resurgences, at No. 21, thanks to 2.6 million streams, up 44%, and 1,000 downloads sold, a 104% vault.
Thanks to Fall Out Boy’s update, Joel earns his first Hot 100 writing credit since the Glee cast‘s cover of his 1983 hit “Uptown Girl” reached No. 68 in 2011. (Notably, Olivia Rodrigo, new atop the Hot 100 this week with “Vampire,” shouts out Joel and “Uptown Girl” in her No. 3 hit from 2021, “Deja Vu.”)
Fall Out Boy’s edition of the song alters Joel’s original lyrics to include names and events in the news since Joel’s 1989 original, referencing the likes of Y2K, Harry Potter, SpongeBob SquarePants, Stranger Things and Taylor Swift.
In an interview with BBC Radio2, Joel said that he has heard the new verses. “Everybody’s been wanting to know when there’s going to be an updated version of it, because my song started in ’49 and ended in ’89 — it was a 40-year span. Everybody said, ‘Well, aren’t you going to do a part two?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve already done part one.’ So, Fall Out Boy, go ahead. Great, take it away.”