Chart Beat
Page: 56
Linkin Park’s “The Emptiness Machine” vaults to the top of Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, soaring from No. 24, where it debuted a week ago, to No. 1 on the Sept. 21-dated survey.
The song reigns with 9.1 million rock radio audience impressions Sept. 6-12 – its first full week of tracking – according to Luminate. The single premiered at 6 p.m. ET on Sept. 5 and debuted on the Sept. 14-dated chart with 1.1 million in rock radio reach.
In the history of Rock & Alternative Airplay, which began in 2009, 14 songs — now including “The Emptiness Machine” — have reached No. 1 in just one or two weeks. Linkin Park had last achieved the feat when “Friendly Fire,” released on the band’s best-of set Papercuts after originally being recorded for the sessions for 2017’s One More Light, launched at No. 1 this March.
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In fact, of those 14 songs, five are by Linkin Park. “Friendly Fire,” “Lost” (2023) and “The Catalyst” (2010) all debuted at No. 1, while “New Divide” (2009) reached the top spot in its second week, like “The Emptiness Machine.”
The quick coronation for “The Emptiness Machine” is supported by its debuts at Nos. 4 and 5 on Mainstream Rock Airplay and Alternative Airplay, respectively. The song’s No. 4 start on Mainstream Rock Airplay is the best since December 2022, when Metallica’s “Lux Æterna” debuted at No. 2. Those two songs represent the only arrivals in the top four since 2008; before then, the last to make such a grand entrance was Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done” (No. 3, April 2007).
As for Alternative Airplay, No. 5 marks the best beginning since Linkin Park’s “Lost” (No. 4, February 2023). In the last decade, only three songs have premiered that high, with the two Linkin Park songs joined by Mumford & Sons’ “Believe” (No. 5, March 2015).
More chart activity for “The Emptiness Machine” will show once all Sept. 21-dated rankings refresh on Billboard.com Tuesday, Sept. 17. On the Sept. 14-dated Hot Hard Rock Songs chart, the track started at No. 7 from its first few hours of tracking; along with 1.1 million audience impressions, it drew 690,000 official U.S. streams and sold 1,000 downloads in that span.
“The Emptiness Machine” is the lead single from From Zero, Linkin Park’s eighth studio album, due Nov. 15. It’s the band’s first full-length since the death of co-frontman Chester Bennington in 2017 and the departure of drummer Rob Bourdon. Singer Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain take over those duties on the new LP.
A decade before Brat summer, Charli XCX roared to No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart with “Boom Clap.”
The song began a three-week reign on the list dated Sept. 13, 2014, and marked her first No. 1 on her own and second overall. She first led as featured on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” for three weeks beginning that June.
Powered by their explosive choruses, the songs became Charli XCX’s second and third Pop Airplay top 10s, after Icona Pop’s fellow anthemic hit “I Love It,” on which she’s also featured, rose to No. 3 in June 2013.
On the multimetric Billboard Hot 100, “I Love It” hit No. 7; “Fancy” dominated for seven weeks – and earned top honors on the season-ending 2014 Songs of the Summer chart; and “Boom Clap” stormed to No. 8.
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Notably, “Boom Clap” marked the fourth consecutive Pop Airplay No. 1 by an artist in a first chart visit as a lead act, following three fellow enduring hits: Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” Magic!’s “Rude” and Nico & Vinz’s “Am I Wrong.”
“Discovering new artists is one of the many things that keeps radio great,” Tommy Chuck, senior vice president of programming for iHeartMedia’s Tampa and Sarasota, Fla., stations, told Billboard upon the chart coronation of “Boom Clap.”
New acts or not, “great songs win,” said Erik Bradley, Audacy brand manager. “And hits like ‘Rude’ and ‘Boom Clap’ are incredible songs.”
“Boom Clap” was released from Charli XCX’s album Sucker, which reached No. 28 on the Billboard 200 in January 2015. The song was also fueled by its synch in the hit film The Fault in Our Stars.
In 2016, the Cambridge, England-born artist hit the Hot 100’s top 10 as a co-writer of Selena Gomez’s “Same Old Love,” while in 2019, her co-write “Senorita,” recorded by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, spent a week at No. 1, marking Charli XCX’s second leader as a writer, after “Fancy.”
In 2022, Crash became Charli XCX’s first Billboard 200 top 10, peaking at No. 7. This June, Brat bounded in at its No. 3 best. The Atlantic Records release has yet to depart the chart’s top 15 and has earned 585,000 equivalent albums in the United States through Sept. 5, according to Luminate. (Meta moment, especially for this post: “I used to never think about Billboard/ But now, I’ve started thinking again, wondering about whether I think I deserve commercial success,” she muses on the set’s reflective track “Rewind.”)
Meanwhile, Brat single “360” becomes Charli XCX’s first Pop Airplay top 10 since “Boom Clap,” rising a spot to No. 10 on the Sept. 21-dated chart. In addition to notching her fourth top 10 on the tally, she scores the list’s highest new entry, as fellow Brat track “Apple” debuts at No. 36.
Looking back for Billboard’s July cover story, Charli XCX called Sucker “an attempt at what Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour was able to do much better. My vision wasn’t fully realized. I was 19 years old. Whilst I think a lot of the songs that I was doing then were good songs, I wouldn’t necessarily have listened to them if it was another artist releasing them. I think I knew that at the time, but I also think I knew that that was OK. At that time, I was writing for a lot of other people, and I wanted to be doing that. I knew I probably wouldn’t have been in those [writing rooms] had ‘Boom Clap’ and those songs not happened the way they happened.”
Chappell Roan rules Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart with her first entry on the survey as “Good Luck, Babe!” ascends to the top of the list dated Sept. 21.
The track, released on KRA/Amusement/Island Records and promoted to radio by Republic, gained by 9% in plays Sept. 6-12. (The Pop Airplay chart ranks songs by weekly plays on over 150 mainstream top 40 radio stations monitored by Mediabase, with data provided to Billboard by Luminate.)
The singer-songwriter, who first reached Billboard’s charts in October 2023, when she entered Emerging Artists and her album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess debuted on the Billboard 200, among other rankings, lands her first leader on an airplay chart with “Good Luck, Babe!” (a stand-alone single).
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The song has additionally risen to No. 6 on the all-genre, multimetric Billboard Hot 100. It has drawn 404 million in radio audience and 357 million official on-demand streams and sold 48,000 through Sept. 5.
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“Good Luck, Babe!” also marks a first for Island Records: As the song supplants Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” after two weeks at No. 1, the label links back-to-back leaders for the first time in the Pop Airplay chart’s 32-year history.
Plus, Island boasts four Pop Airplay No. 1s in 2024; prior to “Good Luck, Babe!” and “Please Please Please,” Carpenter led with “Espresso” for three weeks in July and “Feather” for a week in April. Island had previously logged as many as two No. 1s in a single year (in 2005 and 2017).
Meanwhile, Republic has promoted seven Pop Airplay No. 1s this year, the most among all labels; in addition to Chappell Roan and Carpenter’s hits, it led via Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wallen (two weeks, August); Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” (two weeks, May-June); and Taylor Swift’s “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) [From the Vault]” (one week, March).
Chappell Roan is concurrently scaling Pop Airplay with “Hot To Go!” The track, from The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, jumps 22-17 (up 15% in plays).
All charts dated Sept. 21 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, Sept. 17.
Missy Higgins is back on top with The Second Act (via Eleven/EMI), which debuts at No. 1 on Australia’s albums chart.
Higgins’ first full-length LP in six years, The Second Act opens at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart, published Friday, Sept. 13, for her fourth career leader.
The Second Act arrives 20 years after the release of Higgins’ breakthrough debut The Sound Of White, which dominated the tally for seven non-consecutive cycles.
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Her sophomore set On A Clear Night (from 2007) and third collection The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle (2012) also led the chart, while Oz (2014), Solastalgia (2018) and Total Control (2022) all cracked the top 3.
“I could not be happier or more grateful. This album was just so important to me and I just want to say a massive thank you to all the fans. I’m so touched,” she comments, as her album hits the ARIA Chart summit. “I wanted this No. 1 more than any other album I think. It’s 20 years since The Sound of White went No. 1 so I feel like the luckiest person alive to still be doing what I do to this day. Thank you guys to much. This means the world to me.”
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With that feat, the Melbourne singer and songwriter becomes only the seventh Australian artist in history to have No. 1 albums in at least three consecutive decades.
The Second Act is the fifth homegrown album to hit No. 1 in the past month, a lineup that includes recordings by Lime Cordiale, Tones And I, Amy Shark and Cold Chisel.
Higgins will be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, during the annual ARIA Awards, set for Nov. 20 at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion.
Also new to the national chart is Ten Days (Atlantic/Warner), by prolific British electronic music producer Fred Again. That’s one better than USB from June this year, which peaked at No. 4. Earlier in 2024, Fred Again embarked on unique tour of Australia – a “pop-up” jaunt, which sold almost one quarter of a million tickets, without any marketing spend.
Further down the tally, legendary Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour lands at No. 6 with Luck and Strange (Leg/Sony), his fifth solo album.
It’s the followup to Rattle That Lock, which reached No. 2 in 2015. As a member of Pink Floyd, ARIA reports, he notched 20 ARIA Top 50 albums, including leaders with Wish You Were Here (in 1975), The Wall (1979), The Division Bell (1994) and Pulse (1995).As a member of Pink Floyd, he has racked up 20 top 50 albums, hitting the summit with Wish You Were Here in 1975, The Wall in 1979, The Division Bell in 1994 and Pulse in 1995 (their biggest-selling collection, The Dark Side Of The Moon, reached at No. 2 here in 1973).
Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” (Island/Universal) holds top spot ahead of Billie Eilish’s “Birds Of A Feather” (Interscope/Universal) and Lady Gaga’s collaboration with Bruno Mars, “Die With A Smile” (Warner/Universal), respectively.
It’s Valentino Merlo and The La Planta’s winning week on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100 chart as the Argentianians first team-up “Hoy” dominates for an 11th consecutive week (list dated Sept. 14).
With the new week at No. 1, “Hoy” breaks away from a tie with “Una Foto (Remix)” by the all-star team comprising Mesita, Nicki Nicole, Tiago PZK, and Emilia, for the longest-leading song in 2024. Plus, it becomes the seventh-longest run at No. 1 on the almost six-year chart.
Here’s the recap of those longest-leading songs on Billboard Argentina Hot 100 dating back to its 2018 launch:
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Peak Date, Song, Artist, Weeks at No. 1Jan. 11, 2020, “Tusa,” Karol G & Nicki Minaj, 25July 31, 2021, “Entre Nosotros,” Tiago PZK, LIT killa, Nicki Nicole & Maria Becerra, 16Sept. 10, 2022, “La Bachata,” Manuel Turizo, 15May 25, 2019, “Otro Trago,” Sech, Darell, Nicky Jam, Ozuna & Anuel AA, 13Aug. 29, 2020, “Hawai,” Maluma & The Weeknd, 12Jan. 12, 2019, “Calma (Alicia Remix),” Pedro Capo & Farruko, 12July 6, “Hoy,” Valentino Merlo & The La Planta, 10
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Luck Ra and Nicki Nicole add a new top 10 to their chart career with “Doctor,” which arrives at No. 8 as the week’s Hot Shot Debut. While Luck Ra scores his seventh top 10, Nicki Nicole banks her 11th, tying with Karol G for the fourth-most among women. With 11 top 10s each, both trail Maria Becerra, who continues to lead with 28 top 10s, and Emilia and Tini, both with 18 top 10s.
Luck Ra also crosses off a new achievement, as “Hola Perdida (Remix)” with Khea, takes home the Greatest Gainer award, as the song flies from No. 92 to No.19.
Spanish artist Ana Mena earns her first entry with the Emilia collab, “Carita Triste” at No. 26. Meanwhile, Maisak’s “Se Me Olvida,” featuring Feid, debuts at No.45.
Below the top 50, seven other songs make its first chart appearance, starting with Salastkbron and Omar Varela’s “Dímelo Mami” at No. 56.
Elsewhere, Vilma Palma makes its maiden debut thanks to “Auto Rojo,” with Marama, at No. 75. Omar Courtz, De La Rose and Haze follow with “Kyoto” at No. 77, Q’ Lokura and La K’onga’s “La Última Granada” at No. 85, Lisas’ “New Woman,” featuring Rosalia, at No. 88, Ciro’s “Me Gusta” at No. 89, FloyyMenor’s “Tu Ta Rika” at No. 90, while Lira Música and Kingto’s “El Pronóstico” at No. 94.
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Clean Bandit’s “Symphony” and Surf Curse’s “Disco” take the top two spots of the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for the third straight week, while Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” inches nearer to the summit at No. 3 on the ranking dated Sept. 14.
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The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity from Sept. 2-8. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Symphony,” featuring Zara Larsson, takes hold of a third week atop the ranking, sporting yet another gain in official U.S. streams alongside it; it’s up 23% to 1.8 million listens in the tracking week ending Sept. 5, according to Luminate.
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The 2017 tune remains driven by a meme and trend on TikTok that features users posting videos of technicolor dolphins alongside humorous or dark captions.
It reigns ahead of “Curse,” which spends a third week at No. 2, driven by a multi-person dance trend that concurrently brings the 2019 song onto non-TikTok Billboard charts for the first time. Its 59% jump in streams to 4.5 million drives it to a No. 18 debut on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, plus a No. 24 premiere on Alternative Streaming Songs.
“Die With a Smile” is the mover of the group, albeit up one spot from No. 4 to 3 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 (a new peak). Since its Aug. 16 release, the song has been used in a variety of TikTok uploads, usually related in some way to romance, per the song’s theme. Some of the top-performing videos so far include homecoming proposals, footage from movies and TV shows such as Tangled and Elemental, and people talking about how they’d react if their significant other posted them set to the song.
“Die With a Smile” is currently No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 as the ranking’s latest Greatest Gainer/Airplay; it debuted at No. 3 in August.
Alphaville’s “Forever Young” follows “Die With a Smile” into a new peak on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, rising 5-4. Creations featuring the song, which peaked at No. 65 on the Hot 100 in 1988, continue to include posts showing the passage of time with loved ones, edits featuring fictional characters and a trend in which one person in a couple lifts the other in the air as they spray water down on both from a water bottle.
Though the songs listed so far were in the previous TikTok Billboard Top 50’s top five, there’s some more substantial movement going on across the rest of the chart, led by Kodak Black’s “No Flockin,” which shoots 20-6. It’s the first time on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for the rapper, and it comes with a song that was originally released in 2015 and then peaked on the Hot 100 at No. 95 in 2017.
“No Flockin” has received some of its top-performing uploads in recent weeks from sports-related videos, plus other general content. The song is up 20% in streams to 3.6 million in the tracking week ending Sept. 5.
Adrianne Lenker’s “Anything” returns to the TikTok Billboard Top 5’s top 10, blasting 31-8 after previously reaching No. 8 in April. One of the song’s trends features one user asking the other person “Why are you always at my house?” or some variation, with the other lip-synching to Lenker’s “I just wanna be a part of your family” lyric.
And while Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” falls from its No. 3 peak to No. 7 on the latest ranking, another song from Short n’ Sweet joins it in the chart’s top 10, as “Bed Chem” vaults 18-9, mostly driven by lip-synch clips.
“Bed Chem” is the third song from Short n’ Sweet to reach the TikTok Billboard Top 50’s top 10, following the aforementioned “Taste” and “Please Please Please,” the latter peaking at No. 2 in June.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
LE SSERAFIM celebrates its first No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, as CRAZY crowns the Sept. 14-dated chart. The set debuts atop the list with 37,500 copies sold in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 5, according to Luminate. It’s the fourth top three-charting effort the Korean pop group, the entirety of their charting efforts.
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Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Destroy Lonely scores his first top 10 with the No. 3 bow of Love Lasts Forever, while Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds notch their highest charting set yet as Wild God starts at No. 4.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
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Of CRAZY’s first-week sales of 37,500 copies, CD sales comprise 36,500 and digital download album sales comprise 1,000. CRAZY’s first-week was bolstered by its availability across more than 20 CD variants, all containing collectible branded paper ephemera such as photocards, postcards, stickers, and posters.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet is a non-mover at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 28,000 sold in its second week (down 85%).
Destroy Lonely logs his first top 10, and best sales week, as Love Lasts Forever arrives at No. 3 with 19,000 sold. The hip-hop album’s first week was bolstered by its availability in a signed CD edition and two digital download album variants – all exclusive to the artist’s webstore. The latter two were each sold for $5 and each included five additional bonus songs (five different songs per variant).
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ new studio album, Wild God, debuts at No. 4, marking the highest charting effort for the group on Top Album Sales. It launches with 13,000 sold – the act’s best sales week since Skeleton Key sold 15,000 copies in its first week (a debut at No. 13 on the chart dated Oct. 1, 2016). The new album was available across five vinyl variants, which combined to sell 8,000 copies (it bows at No. 2 on the Vinyl Albums chart).
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess dips 4-5 on Top Album Sales (13,000; down 29%), Stray Kids’ former No. 1 ATE rises 7-6 (11,000; down 7%), Post Malone’s chart-topping F-1 Trillion falls 6-7 (9,000; down 34%), ENHYPEN’s former leader Romance: Untold ascends 9-8 (8,000; down 3%), Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind falls 3-9 in its second week (nearly 8,000; down 77%) and Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo falls 1-10 in its second week (nearly 8,000; down 98%).
Destroy Lonely achieves his first No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart as Love Lasts Forever opens atop the list dated Sept. 14. The set, released on Opium/Interscope Records/IGLC, launches with 37,500 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. for the tracking week of Aug. 30 – Sept. 5, according to Luminate.
Of Love Lasts Forever’s starting sum, 19,000 units come through traditional album sales. Multiple configurations helped the album’s sales – including a signed CD edition and two digital download album variants, which were all exclusive to the rapper’s webstore. The two digital options each included five additional bonus songs (five different songs per variant) and sold for $5.
Album sales just eclipse the set’s streaming activity – at 18,500 units – for the biggest share of Love Last Forever’s debut. Still, the 18,500 units derived from streams represent 25.2 million official on-demand streams of the album’s songs. Track-equivalent album units, meanwhile, contribute a negligible amount of activity.
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Elsewhere, Love Lasts Forever begins at No. 1 on the Top Rap Albums chart and at No. 10 on the Billboard 200. As with Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, both results are new career bests for the 23-year-old rapper, who hails from Atlanta. Before this week, his highest peak came through his debut LP, If Looks Could Kill, which reached No. 3 on Top Rap Albums, No. 4 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and No. 18 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in May 2023.
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Alongside the album’s arrival, its track “Love Hurts,” with Lil Uzi Vert, starts at No. 50 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The collaboration is the week’s top-streamed cut from Love Lasts Forever, at 2.7 million official U.S. clicks. “Love Hurts” secures Destroy Lonely’s third visit to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, after “If Looks Could Kill” (No. 30, 2023) and “How U Feel?” (No. 47, 2023). For Lil Uzi Vert, the new entry yields a 129th charting title of their career.
Activity surrounding Love Lasts Forever sparks a No. 17 debut for Destroy Lonely on the Billboard Artist 100, which measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption – album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming – to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of the most popular artists.
Saweetie enjoys a return to form on radio as her single “Nani” advances to No. 1 on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart. The track, released on ICY/Warner Records, rises from the runner-up spot to lead the list dated Sept. 14 after it became the most-played song on U.S. monitored rhythmic radio stations in the tracking week […]
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.
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This week: Linkin Park’s second act is off to a remarkable start on streaming, Rich Homie Quan’s catalog skyrockets on streaming after his tragic passing, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce give an ’00s classic a singalong bump and much more.
Linkin Park’s Streaming Catalog Soars Following Comeback News
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Next week’s Hot 100 chart will likely feature a new Linkin Park single — a sentence that would have seemed improbable just one week ago. Yet the band’s return, as covered in Billboard’s exclusive cover story last Thursday (Sept. 5), has produced new arena tour dates (kicking off tonight at The Forum in Los Angeles), a new studio album (From Zero, out Nov. 15) and a high-powered new song, “The Emptiness Machine,” that’s off to a hot start at streaming.
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After being released at 6 pm ET on Thursday as Linkin Park launched into a global livestream performance, “The Emptiness Machine” earned 2.22 million U.S. on-demand audio streams on Friday, its first full day of release, according to Luminate. The single hovered about one million U.S. audio streams over the next three days, and ended its first full four-day stretch with 6.47 million streams, while also racking up over 6,000 in digital sales — likely setting it on pace for a big Hot 100 bow.
Yet Linkin Park’s return is also boosting the band’s back catalog and biggest hits, as listeners revisit their past albums before receiving a new one in November. From Sept. 6-9, the band’s catalog (minus “The Emptiness Machine”) earned 30.11 million combined U.S. audio streams — a 62% increase compared to the same four-day period during the previous week. That spike also included big week-over-week gains for hits like “Numb” (up 60%), “One Step Closer” (up 76%) and “Faint” (up nearly 100%), as fans heard new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong sing all three during the band’s livestream and wanted to hear the classic versions, too. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Rich Homie Quan Catalog Surges on Streaming Following Rap Great’s Death
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The hip-hop world was shaken last week (Sept. 5) by the tragic news of Rich Homie Quan’s death at the age of just 33. The Atlanta rapper, whose real name was Dequantes Devontay Lamar, had been one of hip-hop’s leading hitmakers of the mid-2010s, during a time in which his home city essentially took over as the U.S.’s rap capital. Over the days that followed, tributes poured in from Quan’s collaborators and contemporaries, saluting both the man and artist and expressing shock over his premature passing.
Fans of Rich Homie Quan of course also expressed their grief by streaming his music in massive numbers. Over Sept. 2-4, the three days before his death, the rapper amassed 1.7 combined million official on-demand U.S. streams for his solo catalog as a lead artist – but that number skyrocketed to 31.7 million total over the following three days, according to Luminate, an eye-popping gain of 1,727%. Leading songs from his catalog over that period include his Hot 100 hits “Type of Way” (4.5 million combined streams, a 1,892% gain) and “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)” (3.6 million streams, up 1,666%).
Those numbers do not account, however, for perhaps the song most celebrated on social media following Quan’s passing: “Lifestyle,” his classic 2014 team-up with Atlanta rap icon Young Thug, released under the collective name Rich Gang. Over the same period, “Lifestyle” was up to 4.7 million combined streams, a 598% gain from the previous three-day period. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
The Taylor Bump: Works for ‘00s Retro-Rockers as Well as Presidential Candidates
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Taylor Swift made global headlines on Tuesday night (Sept. 10) with her official endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, announcing her support of the current vice president with a social media blast following Harris’ debate with former president Donald Trump. The impact of the biggest figure in contemporary pop culture’s co-sign will likely be major — but Harris isn’t the only person benefiting from the Taylor Swift Bump this week.
On Sunday (Sept. 8), Swift attended the U.S. Open men’s tennis finals in Queens, New York (featuring another Taylor in American finalist Taylor Fritz), along with celebrity beau Travis Kelce. There, the pair were spotted singing (and even air-guitaring) along to a ’00s classic — “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” signature hit for ’00s U.K. retro-rockers The Darkness — with Swift of course dramatically pantomiming the lyrics as well.
Click here for the full story on The Darkness’ Taylor/Travis streaming bump. – AU
‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Has the Recipe for a “MacArthur Park” Revival
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For the recently released box office-topping film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – sequel, of course, to the cult classic 1988 comedy Beetlejuice – the filmmakers wanted to recreate the magic of the first film’s famous cast lip sync scene, set to Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat (Day-O).” They didn’t want to re-use Belafonte’s ‘50s staple for the scene, however, so they decided to go with something very, very slightly more modern for the 36-years-later sequel: “MacArthur Park,” the bizarre Jimmy Webb-penned psych-pop rhapsody that became a No. 2 Hot 100 hit for actor-singer Richard Harris in 1968, before Donna Summer took her discofied version of it all the way to No. 1 in 1978.
Since appearing in the hit sequel, “MacArthur Park” has been rising on streaming, with the Harris version featured in the film racking up over 110,000 U.S. on-demand audio streams from Sept. 8-11 – the film’s four days of release – a 939% gain over the same period in the prior tracking week, according to Luminate. Summer’s version, which also appears on the film soundtrack, has been a similar beneficiary – it’s up 241% to 98,000 streams over the same period – and Belafonte’s “Day-O,” which only appears on the soundtrack through a cover version from Alfie Davis & The Sylvia Young Theatre School Choir, is also up 52% to 485,000 streams. – AU
Season’s Gainings: Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl Announcement Strikes a Chord on DSPs
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The NFL season has kicked off once again, and even if you weren’t following the action on Sunday (Sept. 8), you might’ve still felt the excitement of football’s return – thanks to the early-day announcement that the upcoming Super Bowl LIX in New Orelans would be headlined by rapper-of-the-moment Kendrick Lamar. The announcement was met with some controversy, as many rap purists voiced their support for Big Easy hip-hop icon Lil Wayne as an alternate headliner, but plenty of streaming listeners were evidently still pumped by a prospective K Dot set – the rapper’s total streams for Monday were over 11.6 million, according to Luminate, a 12% gain from the prior Monday. – AU