SZA’s ‘Snooze’ Awakens on Streaming With Help From Justin Bieber Duet
Written by djfrosty on September 20, 2023
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: SZA’s second SOS smash benefits from a new acoustic version with a superstar guest, while TikTok helps Mitski and Tate McRae score some of their best numbers in years with their respective new singles.
Justin Bieber Hitting “Snooze” Could Make for SZA’s Second Top 5 Hit
It’s been the slowest of burns, but “Snooze,” the swaying mid-album highlight from SZA’s blockbuster SOS, has grown into the album’s second smash hit, following the Billboard Hot 100-topping “Kill Bill.” The song has now spent 13 weeks atop Billboard‘s R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, and hit a new peak of No. 7 on the Hot 100 a few weeks ago (on the chart dated Sept. 9), following the release of its captivating and star-studded music video. And now one of those guest stars — pop superstar Justin Bieber — might help the song rise even higher on next week’s chart, thanks to his appearance on the song’s new acoustic version.
With the debut of “Snooze (Acoustic)” on Friday (Sept. 15), the total official on-demand U.S. streams for “Snooze” (which includes the new acoustic version) has jumped to 12.1 million for the four-day period of Sept. 15-18, up from 7.5 million streams during the same period the week before (Sept. 8-11) — a gain of 61%, according to Luminate. (The song also more than doubled in sales, from 800 to 1,700). The resulting boost should give it a another shot of caffeine on the Hot 100 next week, perhaps resulting in it jumping from its current No. 8 placement to the chart’s top five — becoming just SZA’s second single to do so. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Mitski’s ‘Love’ Radiates on Streaming
Over the course of her career, Mitski has watched songs belatedly go viral and translate TikTok trends into major streaming numbers; “Washing Machine Heart,” for example, transformed from a back-half highlight of 2018’s Be the Cowboy into one of her most-streamed songs years after its release. Yet the acclaimed indie singer-songwriter has never enjoyed a hit single from a current album, and STILL hasn’t yet hit the Hot 100 chart.
Both may change if “My Love Mine All Mine,” the heartbreaking, waltzing ballad from Mitski’s new album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, continues its upward trajectory on streaming platforms. The lilting hook from the song is already getting some TikTok play, with Laufey (an artist recently familiar with scoring a viral hit) posting, “Nobody talk to me rn mother mitski just dropped and it’s perfect.”
Mitski released Inhospitable last Friday (Sept. 15), but daily streams of “My Love Mine All Mine” have increased since then – debuting with 466,000 official on-demand U.S. streams on Friday, and earning 659,000 streams on Monday (Sept. 18), according to Luminate. Meanwhile, its eye-popping music video (also released last Friday) has earned 522,000 YouTube views to date, and the song has bumped up to No. 50 on Spotify’s daily Top Songs USA chart. After last year’s Laurel Hell earned Mitski her first top 10 entry on the Billboard 200 albums chart, she’s hoping that the early breakout hit from its follow-up earns some more firsts on the singles charts. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
TikTok Snippet Campaign Nets Big Streaming Returns for Tate McRae’s “Greedy”
After several weeks of teasing, Tate McRae’s “Greedy” has debuted to immediately sizable streaming returns. According to Luminate, the breezy, self-assured pop track – which marks McRae’s first solo release in almost a year – collected over 6.3 million official on-demand audio streams during the period of September 15-18, pulling over 1.2 million streams each day. The song enjoyed a total of 1.99 million streams on its first full day of release.
“Greedy” is a successful example of a concerted TikTok-focused promotional plan. Instead of getting carried to success by a random runaway trend, McRae steadily teased snippets of “Greedy” for weeks on end, dating back to August 4. “Oh s—t, u guys want this one?” she cheekily captioned the post, which has since garnered over one million likes and 8.1 million views on the platform. Between the track’s melodic nod to Nelly Furtado and Timbaland’s “Promiscuous” and lyrics that flaunt tongue-in-cheek self-confidence, “Greedy” quickly went viral on TikTok, spawning tens of thousands of videos of users lip-syncing their favorite lines – particularly the lyric “Obvious that you want me, but I said/ I would want myself/ Baby, please believe me.” McRae encouraged her fans’ use of the snippet by stitching their videos and cheering them on.
Several different TikTok sounds – all with over 30,000 posts each – went viral on the platform, with a slightly sped-up version gaining the most traction (105,900 posts). The track’s official music video, which features choreography from Sean Bankhead, garnered over 1.8 million views in five days.
Already having reached the top 10 of both US Apple Music Pop and Spotify Global, “Greedy” is shaping up to be a particularly successful single for McRae. At the very least, the early numbers have proven that McRae, RCA label head Peter Edge and Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer made the right decision in choosing to push “Greedy.” – KYLE DENIS