No Apologies Needed: Gracie Abrams’ ‘I Love You, I’m Sorry’ Hits Top 40 and Helps an Older ‘Sorry’ Song of Hers in the Process

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: A new Gracie Abrams hit bumps a similarly titled old favorite, Lil Baby scores a viral hit with an unlikely guest verse and The Penguin starts to show its value as a TV synch source.

‘Sorry’ Not Sorry: Gracie Abrams’ Viral Hit Becomes Her Highest-Charting Hot 100 Entry

On Tuesday night, Gracie Abrams wrapped up the U.S. leg of her The Secret of Us tour in Philadelphia, which found the singer-songwriter playing to her biggest audiences yet following the June release of her sophomore album; three days after that final headlining show, she’ll be in Miami, back as an opener on Taylor Swift’s Eras tour through the stadium trek’s conclusion in December. Along with the two high-profile tours, Abrams has watched a pair of her songs — including her latest single from The Secret of Us — take off on U.S. streaming services, yielding what is now her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date.

The lilting strum-along “I Love You, I’m Sorry” has been a topic of discussion on social media for weeks — first with pop fans arguing over the quality of its official music video and Abrams’ gentle performance on the song, then with a TikTok trend supporting Abrams’ vocal take (literally called “whisper allegation beater”), and finally with a Vevo live performance of the track that fans rallied behind following its Oct. 2 release. The chatter has helped the song’s weekly U.S. on-demand streams soar from 7.38 million during the week ending Sept. 5 to 11.35 million during the week ending Oct. 10, according to Luminate.

As those streams have helped “I Love You, I’m Sorry” streak upward on the Hot 100 — moving up from No. 53 to No. 31 on this week’s tally, Abrams’ first solo top 40 entry — an older Abrams song, “I Miss You, I’m Sorry,” has also benefitted, thanks to longtime fans championing the 2020 track that belatedly received a titular callback. “I Miss You, I’m Sorry” earned 2.5 million streams during the week ending Sept. 5, but in the most recent tracking week, that number had jumped to 3.73 million — a 48% gain over those five weeks, not too far off from the 53% jump for “I Love You, I’m Sorry.” – JASON LIPSHUTZ

No Hate for Lil Baby’s Guest Verse on Italian Rapper’s ‘Canzone D’Odio’

Just a couple years after unquestionably being one of the most ubiquitous rappers in popular music, Lil Baby’s mainstream presence has been a little more sparse the past couple years. But now he might be on his way back to another viral hit with as a guest rapper – no surprise there, except for the artist he’s supporting: Italian MC Lazza, whose Italian-language single “Canzone D’Odio” (in English: “Hate Song”) Baby has turned up on, with a verse in English. 

“Canzone” originally appeared on Lazza’s Locura album – the rapper’s third straight set to top Italy’s FIMI Albums Chart – before catching fire internationally online. Listeners were of course intrigued by hearing such a recognizable American voice on an otherwise Italian-language song, leading to the song climbing to No. 2 on Shazam’s United States top 200 chart. Fans have flooded the YouTube comments for the video in praise of Baby’s guest verse, with many wishing for a version of the song with just his part. 

The song has also begun to ignite on streaming services as well. The song has grown by over 300% in official on-demand U.S. streams each of the last two weeks, according to Luminate, and posted over one million streams during the past tracking week, ending Oct. 10. That’s not enough yet to really threaten a Hot 100 bow – but if the song continues to grow from here, the new collaborators may be “cin cin”-ing to Lil Baby’s 142nd career entry on the chart before long. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

‘The Penguin’ Synchs March to Greater Streaming Numbers

Back in the ‘90s, a big Batman placement for a pop song was one of the surest paths to pop success: Just ask Seal, who had his lone Hot 100 No. 1 hit with a Batman Forever soundtrack single (“Kiss From a Rose” in 1995). While the Christopher Nolan-era Dark Knight trilogy of the early 21st century wasn’t as interested in creating big musical moments, Batman refound its pop footing in 2022 with The Batman, which created a chart hit out of grunge legends Nirvana’s once-deep cut “Something in the Way” – even getting the 30-plus-year-old Nevermind-closing ballad onto the Hot 100 for the first time.

Now, the Gothamverse is aiding the music world again, thanks to the well-received new HBO crime drama The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell as the titular villain (anti-hero?) and taking place after the events of the 2022 Batman. The bumps for songs featured are thusfar more modestly scaled than “Something in the Way” post-The Batman, but synth-pop outfit Floor Cry’s cover of the Turtles’ 1967 pop classic “Happy Together” spiked 616% to nearly 93,000 weekly official on-demand U.S. streams in the two weeks after the moody rendition was featured over the end credits to The Penguin’s second episode. Similarly, EDM duo Bob Moses’ seething electro-funk banger “Broken Belief” was up 1,779% for the week ending Oct. 10, to nearly 81,000 streams, after being featured in an episode three montage. 

Given the muscle it’s already showing with its synchs, it might only be a matter of time before The Penguin finds the right hit, new or old, to put back over the top – “Earth Angel,” perhaps? – AU

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