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Kevin Bacon scores his first career entry on a Billboard songs chart as “Here It Is Christmastime,” from The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, debuts at No. 7 on Holiday Digital Song Sales, No. 10 on Rock Digital Song Sales and No. 27 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales chart (all dated Dec. 10).
The song, on which he’s co-billed with the Old 97’s, debuts with 2,000 downloads sold in the Nov. 25-Dec. 1 tracking week, according to Luminate.
The Guardians special, in which Bacon plays a fictionalized version of himself, premiered on Disney+ Nov. 25.
While Bacon makes his first solo appearance on a songs ranking this week, this isn’t his first-ever appearance on any Billboard chart. He charted for the first time in 2014 with his band The Bacon Brothers — his folk-rock group with his brother, Michael. The group’s album 36 Cents reached No. 19 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart and No. 42 on Heatseekers Albums.
As for the Old 97’s, the Rhett Miller-fronted group has scored success on Billboard’s charts since 1999. The band has sent seven albums onto the Billboard 200, climbing as high as No. 30 with Most Messed Up in 2014. The act has also logged three top 10s on Adult Alternative Airplay: “Murder (Or a Heart Attack)” (No. 6 peak in 1999), “Nineteen” (No. 9, 1999) and “King of All the World” (No. 8, 2001).
Old 97’s also debut one additional song from the Guardians special: “I Don’t Know What Christmas Is” opens at No. 4 on Holiday Digital Song Sales, No. 5 on Rock Digital Song Sales and No. 15 on Digital Song Sales.
The Guardians franchise has generated prior action on Billboard charts, thanks to its array of classic hits from the 1960s and ’70s. The soundtrack to the first film, Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1, spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2014, while the sequel’s soundtrack, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2, reached No. 4 in 2017. The first film’s soundtrack has also spent 141 weeks in the top 10 of the Vinyl Albums chart (including one at No. 1), the second-longest run after The Beatles’ Abbey Road (263).
2022 is coming to a close, and Billboard celebrated the music of the year by compiling our 100 ranked, favorite songs.
From TikTok-viral hits like Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit,” Dove Cameron’s “Boyfriend” and Gayle’s “abcdefu” to new tracks from top artist like Harry Styles’ “As It Was,” Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” and Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” there was a little something for every type of music lover this year.
We want to know which 2022 hit is your favorite. Check out our picks here, and let us know by voting below.
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This story is part of Billboard‘s The Year in Touring package — read more stories about the top acts, tours and venues of 2022 here.
At some point during Daddy Yankee’s ongoing La Ultima Vuelta tour, which kicked off this summer, publicist Mayna Nevarez looked around and took stock of what was happening around her.
“I was with him at sold out arenas in Seattle, Denver, Sacramento and, I swear, it brought tears to my eyes,” says Nevarez, who owns Nevarez PR in Miami and has been Yankee’s publicist for over 15 years. “For so long it was cities like Miami, Los Angeles, New York — big Latin hubs — and we forget that the United States is so much more than that.”
Daddy Yankee is no stranger to big tours; in 2007, for example, he played 17 U.S. shows, and in 2019, he played a fabled 12 sold-out dates at Puerto Rico’s Coliseo de Puerto Rico. But La Ultima Vuelta (The Last Tour) has been his biggest trek by far, selling over 1.1 million tickets for a $125.3 million in gross ticket sales during the tracking period, from Nov. 1, 2021-Oct. 31, 2022, landing him at No. 13 on Billboard’s Top Tours tally.
Yankee’s numbers point to Latin music’s potential for big touring success beyond Bad Bunny and beyond the cities that were long considered Latino strongholds. In 2022, Latin artists of all sizes and genres filled arenas, theaters and festivals, underscoring the huge potential and growing presence of Latin music across the country.
The fray, of course, is led by Bad Bunny, who tops this year’s Top Tours chart with a $373.5 million gross across 65 shows in arenas and stadiums with a combined attendance of nearly 2 million. Bunny’s World’s Hottest Tour broke venue revenue records in 12 of the 15 U.S. markets that it played, including Yankee Stadium, Chicago and Washington, D.C. The North American leg of tour averaged $11.1 million per show — the biggest per-show average gross by any artist in any genre in Boxscore history (dating back to the late 1980s).
At this moment in time at least, Bad Bunny is “a unicorn,” says Henry Cardenas, de CEO of CMN, which promoted Bunny’s U.S. tour in partnership with Live Nation. “No one does what he does.” But at a touring level, “What Bad Bunny really did is take Latin music to industry execs who aren’t Latin, and make them realize there was a viable market,” says Nelson Albareda, founder and CEO of marketing and promotion company Loud and Live.
Loud and Live, which is owned by Albareda, is a prime example of Latin’s growth in touring. The entertainment, marketing and promotion company was launched four years ago and in 2019, pre-pandemic, produced around 50 shows. This year, it came in at No. 14 on the Top Promoters chart, with $96.5 million in gross ticket sales for 386 shows.
“Overall, touring is definitely stronger, and shows are doing better, including in emerging markets like Seattle, Salt Lake City,” says Albareda. “Secondary markets are here to stay and it’s not just the A acts. It’s not a fluke. I think you’ll see the Kansas City, Minneapolis, Nashville, Raleigh, Salt Lakes also do well. The Latino population is now much greater and definitely they’re in every city.”
This allows for vertical growth that may not be always visible on the touring charts. Loud and Live’s roster, for example, includes touring stalwarts like Ricardo Arjona, who ends the year at No. 63 on the Top Tours list ($31.5 million gross on 32 shows), but it also includes rising star Camilo, who just fell short of the Top 100, grossing $11.4 million and selling 149,000 tickets in 28 shows.
Tours by smaller acts, says Jorge Juarez, co-founder of management and promotion company Westwood Entertainment, can still yield impressive margins. Rising Mexican rapper Santa Fe Klan, for example, played 23 markets on his first U.S. tour, selling some 7,000 tickets per market at an average $100 ticket price, per Juarez. And regional Mexican acts have seen a surge in ticket sales as well.
“There’s been a general tendency of growth here for the last two years. Certainly, a lot of factors post-pandemic that gave a surge, but we were already on a trend of growth,” says Hans Schafer, senior vp of Latin touring for Live Nation. “It was inevitable that we would reach this point one way or the other […] The sort of evolution that we’re seeing in different genres within Latin is all adding to that. More music, more new artists. Better production at all levels. Connectivity with multigenerational fans.”
On top of that, the growth of the U.S. Latino population and its middle class cannot be discounted as a factor in the overall growth of touring and consumption. According to Nielsen’s “The Evolving Hispanic Consumer” study from 2021, in the next 40 years Latinos will contribute more growth than any other U.S. population segment, contributing 53% of population growth in the next five years and 58% of the growth to 2060. In terms of buying power, from 2010 to 2019, Hispanic buying power increased by 69%, outpacing non Hispanics (41%).
According to a Pew Research Center Statistical Portrait of Hispanics published in July 2022, Latino demographics have grown “in just about every corner of the nation. While California, Texas and Florida hold about half of the U.S. Latino population, the fastest growth rates are in states like North Dakota (up 148% between 2010 and 2020) and South Dakota (up 75% over the same period).”
The growth has profound impact at many levels. In the last decade, for example, Latinos became the largest racial or ethnic group in California for the first time, a fact that explains why cities like Sacramento and San José are now major touring destinations for Latin artists of all stripes.
The direct result of a Latin population with acquisition power can be seen at the new SoFi Stadium, which opened in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and hosted its first full stadium shows with Los Bukis, the romantic Mexican group that had its heyday in the 1990s, on Aug. 27 and 28, 2021. The stadium also hosted two nights of Bad Bunny this last September.
“The way we position ourselves is, we’re in Los Angeles, we’re in Inglewood, we’re 50% Latino,” says Adolfo Romero vp of programming for SoFi Stadium, Hollywood Park and YouTube Theater, which has held sold out shows by the likes of Rosalía and Mexican rockers Caifanes this year. “We looked at many different artists [for SoFi opening night] and when we saw this opportunity with Los Bukis, we were very aggressive. I think it kind of opened the eyes to the industry to see that Latin acts could do stadiums. That led us to do two nights of Grupo Firme in 2022, and now we have two nights of Bad Bunny.”
Romero says that when he booked Los Bukis for what would be their first-ever U.S. stadiums, the prospect of selling over 70,000 tickets for a Mexican nostalgia act didn’t make him loose sleep. “I come from [major league] soccer. If we can sell 70,000 plus for soccer here, what’s the difference?” he says. “It’s the same demographic. We have disposable income. A lot of our community was working in the service industry. Now, many of their kids are college grads.”
Irving Azoff‘s latest signing to his Iconic Artists Group is “The King of Cool,” Dean Martin.
On Wednesday (Dec. 7) Iconic Artists Group announced a new agreement with The Dean Martin Family Trust to “manage, develop and expand” the legendary singer and actor’s legacy to new generations. The deal encompasses Dean Martin‘s name, image and likeness along with a range of rights from his career, including the trust’s interest in his self-titled variety shows and specials, the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast series, feature films and sound recordings from his time with Capitol and Reprise Records.
Over the course of his career, Martin, who died in 1995, sold over 50 million albums worldwide and appeared in 85 films and numerous TV shows, according to Iconic Artists Group’s press release. His hit songs include “That’s Amore,” “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head,” “Volare,” “You’re Nobody till Somebody Loves You” and “Everybody Loves Somebody.”
Martin rose to fame alongside Jerry Lewis, with whom he had a massively popular show at the 500 Club in Atlantic City, New Jersey beginning in 1946. The live show launched them as an in-demand duo, and they went on to team up for a total of 16 feature films and a string of appearances on The Colgate Comedy Hour.
After splitting professionally with Lewis, Martin went on to host the hugely successful Dean Martin Show from 1965-74, for which he received two Emmy nominations for outstanding variety series. That was followed by The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, a series of 54 specials that aired from 1974 to 1984.
Martin was posthumously honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009.
“Dean Martin was America in film, recordings, nightclubs, comedy & TV,” said Azoff in a statement. “He was the epitome of coolness. It is both an honor and privilege to welcome this cherished American talent to our Iconic family.”
Martin’s long-time business manager and trustee of The Dean Martin Family Trust, Laura Lizer, added, “Dean Martin’s work and cultural influence across so many media platforms, including music, television, movies, radio, and live performances, makes his diverse catalog and legacy one of the most unique assets in entertainment history. Aligning the Dean Martin Family Trust with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group secures Dean’s legacy for generations to come.”
Founded in January 2020, Iconic Artists Group has made several attention-getting deals over the last couple of years. In January 2020, the company purchased a controlling interest in The Beach Boys‘ music catalog, including sound recordings, select musical compositions, brand and memorabilia. The company also signed a partnership with the family of Nat King Cole to sell asset rights from his estate, acquired Linda Ronstadt‘s recorded music assets and purchased the catalogs of former Crosby, Stills & Nash bandmates David Crosby and Stephen Stills in separate deals.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ video for “Californication” has officially reached one billion views, YouTube announced Wednesday (Dec. 7).
The now-classic visual, which finds the quartet replacing their own avatars in an open-world video game as California is shaken by a massive earthquake, becomes the Chili Peppers’ first video to achieve the viewership feat. According to YouTube, the video has so far averaged 290,000 daily views in 2022.
“It’s the edge of the world and all of Western civilization/ The sun may rise in the East at least it’s settled in a final location/ It’s understood that Hollywood sells Californication/ Pay your surgeon very well to break the spell of aging/ Celebrity skin, is this your chin, or is that war you’re waging?” Anthony Kiedis croons on the opening verse as drummer Chad Smith’s character snowboards down a mountain shirtless in the video.
As title track off the rockers’ seventh album of the same name, the song was originally released in June 2000 as the fourth single off the studio set after “Scar Tissue,” “Around the World” and “Otherside,” and became their sixth chart-topper on the Alternative Airplay chart.
This year, Red Hot Chili Peppers returned from a six-year hiatus with not one, but two albums: April’s Unlimited Love and October’s Return of the Dream Canteen. Next year, they’re set to embark on a world tour filled with both festival and stadium gigs. They’ll be joined on the global trek by everyone from The Roots, Iggy Pop and The Strokes to The Mars Volta, St. Vincent, Thundercat, King Princess and more.
Revisit the music video for Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Californication” below.
Welcome to The Contenders, a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 albums chart dated Dec. 17): As holiday titles and heavy hitters vie for the top of the December charts, new albums from a star hip-hop producer and a couple of K-pop hitmakers join in the merriment.
Metro Boomin, Heroes & Villains (Boominati Worldwide/Republic): You might have thought the big album releases were starting to wind down for 2022, but Metro Boomin begs to differ. The Atlanta-via-St. Louis producer has been one of the biggest behind-the-scenes names in hip-hop for a decade, and new album Heroes & Villains shows off his Rolodex, with enough star collaborators — Future, Young Thug, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, 21 Savage, Gunna, even narrator Morgan Freeman — to justify an accompanying short film.
After dominating streaming charts on Spotify and Apple Music over the weekend, the set appears due for a big debut on the Billboard 200 — perhaps even one to challenge the producer’s Republic label-mate Taylor Swift and her five-week No. 1 Midnights for the chart’s top spot. (He hit No. 1 in 2020, with 21 Savage full-length team up Savage Mode II .) Though its consumption is mostly digital, Metro did release a CD version of Heroes & Villains to select physical retailers — and also debuted a deluxe “Heroes Version” of the album to streamers and digital retail on Monday, adding instrumental versions of each track.
RM, Indigo (Big Hit): Singer/songwriter/rapper RM released his solo debut, Indigo, on Friday, a varied album that features marquee R&B names Erykah Badu and Anderson .Paak, as well as veteran Korean hitmakers Tablo and Park Ji-yoon. BTS, the world-conquering group which RM previously achieved stardom with, scored five No. 1 albums over the past half-decade, from 2018’s Love Yourself: Tear to this June’s Proof.
His chart bow for Indigo this week will have to come without help from a physical release, as the set’s CD packages — which often move big numbers for Korea’s biggest pop acts — are not due until Dec. 16. Earlier this year, RM’s bandmate J-Hope entered the Billboard 200 at No. 17 with his own solo album debut Jack in the Box, also only from the support of a streaming and digital retail version of his album. (Jack has yet to be released on CD in the U.S.)
ITZY, Cheshire (JYP Entertainment/Dreamus/Republic): Korean pop quintet ITZY hit the Billboard 200’s top 10 for the first time in July with their sixth EP Checkmate. This week, they aim to return to the top tier with sixth EP, Cheshire, featuring advance English-language single “Boys Like You” — though technically it’s already in its second week of release, since the streaming and digital retail version of the set dropped last Wednesday (Nov. 30).
Cheshire’s chart performance will depend mostly on sales of its physical editions, which went on sale Friday. Like many K-pop releases, the CD came out in collectible deluxe packages (13 total, including versions exclusive to Barnes & Noble, Target and the group’s official webstore), each with a standard set of items and randomized elements (such as photocards and a poster).
IN THE MIX
Backstreet Boys, A Very Backstreet Christmas (K-BAHN/BMG): The classic boy band’s first holiday set made its Billboard 200 debut back in October, but should surge on the chart this week following its Dec. 2 vinyl debut (and the approaching season). It’s only reached No. 17 so far, making this week its best chance of keeping alive Backstreet Boys‘ double-digit streak of consecutive top 10 albums.
Arcangel, Sr. Santos (Rimas Entertainment): Veteran reggaetón and Latin trap hitmaker Arcangel made a splashy return last Wednesday alongside perhaps the biggest male pop star on the planet with the Bad Bunny collab “La Jumpa.” That song should give Sr. Santos, the single’s 18-track parent album released on Friday — which also features appearances from Myke Towers, De La Ghetto and Bizarrap — a nice head start in consumption for this week.
Ivan Cornejo, Dañado (Manzana Records): Regional Mexican star Ivan Cornejo charted at No. 149 on the Billboard 200 in June with sophomore set Dañado, which has since climbed as high as No. 64 thanks to its stellar streaming performance. The seven-track mini-album received a deluxe reissue on Friday, with three new bonus tracks, which should give it a big boost from its current chart perch of No. 145.
Malibu Babie’s path to becoming a sought-after producer started when she was just five years old. Growing up in Olympia, Washington as the daughter of construction workers, the producer would record herself playing the piano and later hand the CDs out to her friends.
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It wasn’t until her senior year of college, though, while studying political science at Vanderbilt University with the thought of going on to law school, that she decided to pursue music professionally. “I was standing in my apartment and I remember being like, ‘Man, every time I think about law school my stomach sinks,’ and all of a sudden I heard a voice in my head go, ‘Well, that’s because you’re not supposed to be a lawyer,’” recalls Malibu Babie. “You’re supposed to be a musician. You’re supposed to write songs and sing them.”
She quickly added an elective songwriting class to her schedule, for which she wrote and played an original song to the class on piano. Her professor took notice, and suggested she work as a studio intern for a company called ZMG on Music Row, in the heart of Nashville’s music and entertainment industry.
Malibu Babie — whose moniker was inspired by her blonde hair and slim physique, and who signs off emails as “Beat Barbie” — spent the next six years mastering her craft and trying to make her mark on the industry. This year, she finally did, producing two Hot 100 hits, one of which topped the chart.
And while success came fast, Malibu Babie affirms it hasn’t been easy. “Whether you’re new or whether because of your gender or whatever, people underestimate you for sure,” she says. “But I realized quickly, if I did the work and if I came into the studio and knocked the socks off of whoever was in the room…they would give me the respect of their business people.”
Nicki Minaj, “Super Freaky Girl”
Malibu Babie’s persistence and hard work led to her producing a Hot 100 hit for Nicki Minaj this year with “Super Freaky Girl,” which samples Rick James’ 1981 smash hit, “Super Freak.”
“This is a [title] I had in my manifestation journal for years,” says Malibu Babie. “I was just doing a beat day with two of my favorite-ever collaborators, and when we landed on that sample we were like, ‘Okay, this is a big sample. Like, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right,’” she recalls. After several hours spent fine-tuning the beat, it ended up in the hands of LunchMoney Lewis, a close friend and collaborator. “The idea came together and gets played for Nicki, and within 24 hours, she writes the whole song.” What came next was even more surprising: Malibu Babie received a phone call of the rapper laying down a verse in real time. “I was like, ‘Holy fuck, is that Nicki’s voice?’ And then it all happened so fast.”
The No. 1 hit helped Malibu Babie become the first and only woman to debut at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs as a producer this century. And though she and Nicki have yet to meet in person, Malibu Babie says, “I’m so grateful to her.”
Megan Thee Stallion, “Her”
Nicki Minaj isn’t the only megastar for whom Malibu Babie helped score a Hot 100 hit. Also this year, the producer cooked up the beat for “Her” off Grammy award-winning Megan Thee Stallion‘s second studio album, Traumazine.
“This was the last idea of a 6-8 hour session — I usually like to call them Hail Mary ideas,” says Malibu Babie. “They’re always the best work because all the pressure’s off.” She says in this instance, she didn’t even mean to play the bassline now heard at the start of the song. “I just started adding pieces, like hi hats to get the hip-hop thing and a little house, and just kind of playing with the balance of the two and adding the slot machine for fun,” she continues.
Though she and her collaborators wrote over the beat, once it landed in Meg’s hands (they sent the demo to her team) the Houston native rewrote the whole song — while on tour. “I honestly was not sure if it would fit her vibe at all, because it was pretty different,” admits Malibu Babie, “so for that one to get placed and be successful too was like, ‘Wow, it pays to take chances.’”
Malibu SZN Vol 1 Mixtape
Now, Malibu Babie is taking a chance on herself. In November, she released her Malibu Babie SZN Vol 1 mixtape, with the viral Instagram and TikTok breakout, “Barbiegurl.” She’s teasing its upcoming music video, saying she hopes it sparks “confidence and joy. That’s all I want, to make people happy.”
She says that kind of attitude is key to her work as a producer, and she encourages all women wanting to explore and enter the field to just jump in. “Be confident in your abilities and to literally tune out all the noise,” she offers. “I’m hoping that [my own music] will inspire women to know they can be any type of way. You can be feminine, you can be masculine, you can identify however you want, dress however you want, look however you want. As long as you have the talent, that’s all that matters.”
Music featured in the first season of Netflix’s new series Wednesday dot the Billboard charts dated Dec. 10 following the show’s Nov. 23 premiere.
That even includes a No. 1, as The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” rules the Alternative Digital Song Sales list on the strength of 2,000 downloads in the Nov. 25-Dec. 1 tracking week, according to Luminate, up 2,229% from a negligible amount the previous period.
The ruler marks The Cramps’ first No. 1 on a Billboard chart. The rockers, active for three decades until the death of singer Lux Interior in 2009, are often cited as inspirations partially in the psychobilly genre but had never found much chart success, scoring a lone appearance on the Alternative Airplay tally in 1990 with the No. 10-peaking “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns.”
“Muck,” which can be heard on the band’s 1981 sophomore effort Psychedelic Jungle and is a cover of a tune initially recorded by Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads in the ‘60s, prominently features in an episode-four dance scene featuring Wednesday’s titular character, portrayed by Jenna Ortega.
In addition to its bump in sales, “Muck” earned 817,000 on-demand U.S. streams Nov. 25-Dec. 1, a bound of 2,705% from 29,000 Nov. 18-24.
While “Muck” is the only song featured in Wednesday to top a Billboard chart dated Dec. 10, it wasn’t the most streamed. That distinction belongs to Beach House’s 2015 offering “Space Song,” heard in episode three. The song earned 4 million streams, a 41% boost. Those metrics launch it onto Alternative Streaming Songs at No. 15, a new peak for the song and its first appearance since January and February of 2022, when it charted due to TikTok virality, and it also starts at Nos. 14, 16 and 20 on Hot Alternative Songs, Hot Rock Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, respectively, where older songs are able to appear if in the top half of chart points and with a meaningful reason for their re-entry.
Other major gains include those for Apocalyptica’s cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters,” which jumped 817% to 1,000 downloads and 506% to 166,000 streams; Edith Piaf’s “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien (179,000 streams, up 67%); and Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” (168,000 streams, up 55%).
And though it’s not heard in the series per se, Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” has received tangential gains due to TikTok edits of the aforementioned “Goo Goo Muck” dance scene in which creators replace the song with Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way cut.
From Nov. 25-Dec. 1, “Mary” earned 2 million streams, a 411% increase.
Jenna Ortega has been going viral recently for her creepy and kooky dance moves in a scene from Netflix’s new smash hit series Wednesday, but as it turns out, she was feeling altogether ooky while shooting it.
In an interview with NME published in November, a couple weeks before Wednesday arrived on the streaming platform, Ortega revealed that she was sick with COVID-19 during filming for the now famous scene. During a school dance at Nevermore Academy, the You alum, as Wednesday Addams, dances oddly to The Cramps‘ 1981 single “Goo Goo Muck,” which has been experiencing a boost in streams since the series premiered.
“I choreographed that myself!” Ortega old the publication. “I’m not a dancer and I’m sure that’s obvious. I’d gotten the song about a week before and I just pulled from whatever I could… it’s crazy because it was my first day with COVID so it was awful to film.”
“Yeah, I woke up and – it’s weird, I never get sick and when I do it’s not very bad – I had the body aches,” she continued. “I felt like I’d been hit by a car and that a little goblin had been let loose in my throat and was scratching the walls of my esophagus. They were giving me medicine between takes because we were waiting on the positive result.”
According to a statement given to the publication by MGM, Wednesday‘s production company, “strict COVID protocols were followed and once the positive test was confirmed production removed Jenna from set.”
Not only is “Goo Goo Muck” going through a resurgence thanks to the dance scene, but so is Lady Gaga‘s “Bloody Mary” — not that it was featured at any point in the show, which broke Stranger Things‘ season four record for most hours viewed in a week for a Netflix English-language series. In a trend as spontaneous and unpredictable as can only be started on TikTok, users on the app have been recreating Ortega’s dance moves to a sped-up version of the 2011 track, farming millions of views and newfound recognition for the Born This Way deep cut.
Gaga herself took notice of the trend, tweeting: “Slay Wednesday! You’re welcome at Haus of Gaga anytime (and bring Thing with you, we love paws around here).”
Even though the dance scene has since exploded into Twitter and TikTok fame, Ortega confessed that she originally wasn’t completely happy with it. “I asked to redo it but we didn’t have time,” she told NME. “I think I probably could have done it a bit better…”
Next Tuesday’s (Dec. 13) two-hour The Voice finale will feature a star-studded parade of guest stars on hand to celebrate the crowning of season 22’s champion. At the end of the night, a winner will emerge after the final showdown between finalists bodie, Omar Jose Cardona, Baryden Lape, Bryce Leatherwood and Morgan Myles.
But before that happens, viewers will be treated to a cavalcade of all-star collaborations, including Kane Brown performing the title track from his Different Man album with coach Blake Shelton, whose team has three slots in the final five. Kelly Clarkson — who will return as a coach for season 23 in March — will sing a solo version of her Ariana Grande Christmas duet “Santa, Can’t You Hear Me” from her When Christmas Comes Around…” holiday album.
In addition, Maluma will be on hand for a run through his Billboard Latin Airplay chart No. 1 “Junio,” OneRepublic will play their top 5 hit “I An’t Worried,” Adam Lambert will take on his cover of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” (which will appear on his upcoming album, High Drama), Breland will make his Voice debut with “For What It’s Worth” and returning season 21 winner Girl Named Tom will perform “One More Christmas” from the trio’s debut EP.
In his swan song, lone original coach Shelton could be poised to add a ninth win to his already record-setting Voice resumé with three of his team members in the mix (Leatherwood, Lape and bodie) after Tuesday night’s (Dec. 6) semi-final round.
The Voice‘s season finale will air from 9-11 p.m. ET.
