New Taylor Swift Album Boosts Streams for The Starting Line, The Blue Nile & Other Honorary ‘Tortured Poets’
Written by djfrosty on April 24, 2024
Welcome to Billboard Pro‘s Trending Up newsletter, 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: Artists and songs mentioned across the 31 tracks of Taylor Swift’s new double album see spikes, while Bossman Dlow and Tyla both score follow-up hits, Kate Bush is killing it on TikTok again and more.
Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Makes Charlie Puth a (Slightly) Bigger Artist
Along with meditations on past relationships featuring thinly veiled lyrical subjects, Taylor Swift’s blockbuster new album The Tortured Poets Department includes multiple tips of the cap to other recording artists, with Swift either expressing admiration or remembering a pivotal musical exchange. The most memorable name-check arrives on the title track, on which Swift sings, “You smoked, then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”
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As The Tortured Poets Department barrels its way toward the biggest debut sales of the year — and one of the biggest of all time — it’s worth wondering: is Swift’s Puth shout-out actually about to make the “Attention” singer a bigger artist? Yes and no, based on the early streaming returns. In the first three days of release of The Tortured Poets Department (Apr. 19-21), Puth’s catalog earned 3.26 million official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate. That’s an increase from the previous weekend’s streaming total for Puth, but only slightly: from Apr. 12-14, his catalog earned 3.13 million streams, meaning that Swift’s stamp of approval bumped his streams a little under 4%.
While Puth was already scoring seven-figure streams prior to the lyrical reference, two artists that also received nods on the album saw their smaller streaming totals skyrocket. The veteran Philly pop-punk group The Starting Line enjoyed a hefty catalog bump after getting shouted out on “The Black Dog,” with 234,000 streams from Friday to Sunday representing a 55% uptick from the previous weekend (151,000 streams).
And when a Swift song starts out with the lines “Drowning in the Blue Nile / He sent me ‘Downtown Lights’ / I hadn’t heard it in a while,” as “Guilty as Sin?” does, chances are that streams for “Downtown Lights” are going to explode. Indeed, the Scottish pop-rock group the Blue Nile’s 1989 single “The Downtown Lights” rose from 3,000 streams from Apr. 12-15 to over 48,000 streams from Apr. 19-22 — a whopping 1,400% increase from one four-day tracking period to the next. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Bossman Dlow Tees Up Latest Hit With “Talk My Shit”
Just under two months after “Get In With Me” reached No. 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 (chart dated March 9) – becoming the Florida rapper’s first entry on Billboard’s all-genre singles chart – Bossman Dlow is already gearing up for another viral hit.
Produced by DJ Jam305 and housed on Mr. Beat the Road, which reached No. 20 on the Billboard 200 (chart dated March 30), “Talk My Shit” follows a similar blueprint to “Get In With Me,” riding high on Dlow’s off-kilter flow, South Florida twang and a slightly ominous trap beat. According to Luminate, “Talk My Shit” earned 5.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams during the period of April 12-18. That marks a jaw-dropping 434% increase in streaming activity from three weeks earlier (March 22-28), when the song collected just over one million streams.
The explosive growth of “Talk My Shit” is due, in large part, to the cheeky TikTok dance trend choreographed to the chorus, specifically beginning with the line “Wrist piece on bling-blaow, neck piece on blizzard, bae.” The dance essentially converts the second half of the chorus into an instructional song through which users act out the lyrics – e.g., pointing to their wrist for “wrist piece on bling-blaow” — through popular dance moves. On TikTok, the official “Talk My Shit” sound boasts a whopping 466,000 posts, with several clips surpassing one million likes, including one featuring Paige Bueckers of the UConn Huskies women’s basketball team. On YouTube, the official “Talk My Shit” audio clip has earned nearly three million hits in about a month and half, far outpacing the other Mr. Beat the Road audio clips.
With its streams rising this quickly, “Talk My Shit” could gift Bossman Dlow his third Hot 100 entry of the year. – KYLE DENIS
Get Ready for Another Viral Kate Bush Moment
Kate Bush has been one of the patron saints of TikTok and virality in general since at least 2022, when her “Running Up That Hill” became a resurrected hit – initially boosted by a big Stranger Things synch – thanks largely to the app. The last couple months, she’s had another revived single to her credit, albeit one probably significantly less familiar even to stateside fans who were around for “Hill” on the first go-round: “Army Dreamers,” third single from Bush’s 1980 album Never for Ever.
While “Dreamers” was a top 20 hit in the U.K., it was likely a little too challenging for U.S. top 40 audiences of the time, with its austere waltz arrangement, anti-war lyrics and piercing Bush vocal. Nonetheless, clips of the song – and in particular, its war-themed music video, featuring the singer-songwriter running through the jungle in military fatigues and full makeup – have been racking up views by the millions the past couple months. As a result, weekly official on-demand U.S. streams of the song have risen from under 80,000 for the tracking week ending Mar. 14 to nearly 1.1 million the week ending Apr. 18, according to Luminate – a cumulative gain of 1291%.
“Dreamers” still has a ways to grow before it’s a threat to run back up the charts the way Bush’s signature hit did a couple years ago. Then again, we do hear there’s a new season of Stranger Things coming our way shortly… – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Tyla Seeks to Slay Second Consecutive Summer With Steamy “Jump” Single
Last summer, “Water” catapulted Tyla into global pop stardom. This year, she’s looking to maintain that momentum with “Jump,” a breakout hit from her recently released self-titled debut studio album.
Alongside Grammy-nominated rapper Gunna and Jamaican dancehall star Skillibeng, Tyla spends “Jump” seductively cooing of the singularity of her sex appeal. Despite the album campaign focusing on “Truth or Dare” and “ART,” “Jump” has received considerable traction across both streaming and socials. During the period of April 12-18, “Jump” received 2.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams, continuing the steady growth it has displayed for the past month. For the past four works, “Jump” has remained over two million streams, increasing by an average of nearly 10% per week.
On TikTok, the official “Jump” audio boasts over 326,000 posts, bolstered, in large part, by a viral dance trend created by Zoe Baptiste (@zoebaptistee). Her infectious original choreography garnered 25 million views, sparking the song’s initial virality. Of course, many listeners noted “Jump” as an album highlight upon the release of Tyla due to its myriad earworm elements.
Just as the dance trend started to taper off, a second trend emerged, playing on the “They never had a pretty girl from Joburg / See me now, and that’s what they prefer” lines that opens Tyla’s verse. From replacing “Joburg” with their actual place of origin to gushing over the idiosyncratic way the South African singer pronounces “prefer,” TikTok users cannot get enough of the beginning of “Jump.” One user, Kelsey Maggott (@kelseymaggott), has gone viral for creating nearly 50 videos replacing “Joburg” with other countries and cities users have requested in her comment section. Even Kehlani has gotten in on the action.
With streams steadily gaining and a music video and live performances still on the table, be sure to keep an eye on “Jump” as the 2024 Song of the Summer race begins to heat up.
Q&A: Jim Selby, Chief Publishing Officer at Concord, on What’s Trending Up in His World
In late 2022, Concord purchased the publishing and recorded music catalog of Phil Collins and Genesis. Can you speak to the motivation behind the purchase?
I think it speaks for itself. Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks are incredible talents who wrote some of the most influential songs, both together and individually. We have a long-standing relationship working with them since the days of Imagem – they’ve entrusted us with their work, and we’re honored to continue that.
We’ve already seen multiple revivals of “In the Air Tonight” across popular culture, including for Monday Night Football last fall. Why do you think the song has resonated with multiple generations of listeners?
It’s just iconic. I think everyone has a core memory that they can attach to that song. The combination of the power drumline with Phil’s vocals is so masterful and demands your attention, which I think is why it resonates so well when set to the screen. “In The Air Tonight” is so recognizably 80’s but it’s also dynamic. Phil even has a country radio No.1 single – with Kane Brown’s interpolation [“I Can Feel It”], it was exciting to see such a different use. It’s incredible how artists continue to be inspired by the song and get creative with it.
– What can we expect in the near future for “In the Air Tonight” and Collins’ catalog in general?
We expect more. New generations continue to discover Phil and his music and it’s exciting to see that connection. No Jacket Required turns 40 next year, maybe we’ll figure out what “Sussudio” means – get it added to the dictionary.
– Fill in the blank: a personal favorite Collins/Genesis song that deserves its own revival is ______.
Besides “In The Air Tonight,” of course, I think “I Can’t Dance” or “Follow You Follow Me” – these songs are both great but very different. They really show the versatility of Genesis and how the group adapted through the decades. – J.L.
Season’s Gainings: Death, Taxes and The Beatles
Tax day was upon us two Mondays ago, and if this is the first you’re hearing about it, it might be time to close out of this article and start drafting an email to the IRS. If you were on it, though, then maybe you were also one of the thousands that chose a particular Beatles deep cut for your soundtrack while kicking a percentage of your annual income up to Uncle Sam. The Fab Four’s Revolver-opening “Taxman” – inspired by an eye-popping 95% supertax the band was suddenly facing following the 1966 re-election of U.K. prime minister Harold Wilson (as in “ha ha, Mr. Wilson”) – received nearly 24,000 official on-demand U.S. streams on April 15, according to Luminate, a 31% gain from the day before. – A.U.