Hot 100 First-Timers: Surf Curse Debut With Viral 5-Year Old Song ‘Disco’

Surf Curse has been steadily releasing music for more than a decade and now, for the first time, the surf rockers debut on the Billboard Hot 100 with their five-year-old song “Disco.”

Released in June 2019 via Danger Collective and more recently picked up by Atlantic Records, the song starts at No. 91 almost entirely from its streaming sum: 5.4 million official U.S. streams (up 20%) in the Sept. 6-12 tracking week, according to Luminate. It also holds at No. 13 on Hot Alternative Songs and rises 18-17 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs.

“Disco” has been surging lately thanks to a viral dance trend on TikTok in which pairs, usually couples, twist and groove in unison to the song’s chorus. That snippet of the audio has soundtracked over 1.6 million videos on the platform to date. It has also helped the song spend the past three weeks at its No. 2 high on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart.

“Disco” was released as the first single from Surf Curse’s third studio album, Heaven Surrounds You, released in September 2019. The band has released one album since then, Magic Hour, in October 2022. Previously, the group released Buds in 2013 and Nothing Yet in 2017.

This isn’t the first time that Surf Curse has benefited from a TikTok dance trend generating a chart hit. In 2020, the band’s breakthrough song “Freaks” became one of the most popular sounds on TikTok early in the COVID pandemic. The track was nearly a decade old when it initially took off, as it’s from Buds. “Freaks” reached No. 17 on the Hot 100’s Bubbling Under list in 2021 and rose to No. 9 on Hot Alternative Songs, No. 10 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and No. 15 on Alternative Airplay. The band subsequently released several remixes of the song, including one with Travis Barker.

Surf Curse hails from Reno, Nev., and is comprised of Henry Dillon, Noah Kohll, Nick Rattigan and Jacob Rubeck.