Saltburn
Just weeks after making an unlikely U.S. chart debut, Sophie Ellis-Bextor is taking her show on the road for a first-ever headline tour of North America.
The British pop star sets a seven-date stretch, starting March 30 at San Francisco’s August Hall, followed by dates in San Diego, CA; Washington, DC, Boston, MA; Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; and wrapping June 8 at Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, ON.
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The New York show at Webster Hall “sold out in a day,” she writes on social media. “My band and I are coming for you! Super excited. Come and dance with me.”
Ellis-Bextor is, of course, flying high with her 2001 hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” which is synced to the final sequence in the hit dark drama Saltburn.
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The scene, in which the film’s lead Barry Keoghan dances nude to the song, kicked off a dance trend on TikTok – and saw the song power into charts around the world.
Last month, “Murder” cracked the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time, at No. 98, then lifted to No. 51, its new peak.
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In her homeland, “Murder” recently returned to its all-time peak position of No. 2 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, and is one of her six top 10 hits there. She also boasts a No. 1 hit as the uncredited singer on Spiller’s 2000’s release “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)”. The track has also reentered the top 10 on Australia’s ARIA Chart.
“It actually feels really magical, and if I’m honest, I don’t think I’ve completely processed it really,” Ellis-Bextor told the BBC following the revival for “Murder”. “It’s a song I’ve been singing for over 20 years. I still love singing it. I love the way people react when I do it live. But for new people to be discovering it, for it to be making new memories with people, is kind of beautiful.”
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Ahead of her North America jaunt, Ellis-Bextor has strutted her stuff on national TV, performing the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and for the BBC’s coverage of the BAFTAs.
The English artist kicks off a tour of Continental Europe next month, starting in Groningen, Netherlands on March 1. More concerts are locked in across the U.K. and Europe later in the year.
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Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up column, 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: Myriad ’00s jams take off on streaming thanks to their Saltburn usage, He Is We sparks the early year’s most unlikely viral dance trend and a former president’s co-sign helps out an indie staple.
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Pop and Indie Favorites From Two Decades Ago ‘Saltburn’ing Up on Streaming
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By now, you may have heard about one of the most fun Billboard Hot 100 success stories of the new year: veteran U.K. pop hitmaker Sophie Ellis-Bextor scoring a debut on the chart with the 22-year-old Gregg Alexander co-penned disco-pop gem “Murder on the Dancefloor.” Thanks to virality ensuing from its usage in the Emerald Fennell-directed 2023 film Saltburn, the song bows at No. 98 on the Hot 100 this week — the first-ever appearance on the chart for Ellis-Bextor, who reached the top 10 of the U.K.’s Official Songs Chart six times in the early 21st century.
But while “Murder” has gotten the biggest bump from the ’00s-set viral black comedy, it’s far from the only song to benefit from its usage in the film, as pretty much every other period favorite used in the movie is also way up in streams following its Dec. 22 bow on Amazon Prime. Mason vs. Princess Superstar’s 2007 U.K. smash “Perfect (Exceeder)” is another of the biggest Saltburn gainers, up 289% in official on-demand U.S. streams to over 1.4 million from the week ending Dec. 21 to the week ending Jan. 4, according to Luminate. Over the same period, MGMT’s psych-pop classic “Time to Pretend” is up 96% to 1.1 million streams, Bloc Party’s swooning rock gem “This Modern Love” is up 166% to 177,000 streams and Tomcraft’s barnstorming dancefloor anthem “Loneliness” is up 569% to 173,000 streams.
Even a couple absolutely unkillable ’00s staples see noticeable Saltburn bumps: Flo Rida’s Hot 100-topping “Low” is up 16% to 2.5 million, and the daddy of all ’00s indie anthems, The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” is up 15% to 5.2 million. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
He Is We’s “I Wouldn’t Mind” Merrily Falls into Streaming Success Following Viral TikTok Trend
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Indie pop act He Is We has yet to impact a single Billboard chart, but that could very well change thanks to the viral TikTok trend powering their 2017 track “I Wouldn’t Mind.”
According to Luminate, “I Wouldn’t Mind” logged 1.08 million official on-demand U.S. streams during the period of Dec. 29-Jan. 4. That marks a staggering 294% increase in streaming activity from just four weeks prior, when the track collected a little over 275,000 streams during the period of Dec. 8-14. For each of the past three weeks, streams for “I Wouldn’t Mind” have increased by approximately 57%.
These massive week-over-week gains are due to a TikTok trend in which users execute Jersey club-inspired choreography to the song’s opening lines (“Merrily we fall / Out of line, out of line / I’d fall anywhere with you / I’m by your side”), yet another example for the TikTok generation’s penchant for stark sonic/visual juxtapositions. TikTok user @zaebriel first paired the dance with “I Wouldn’t Mind” in a Dec. 11 post that has since amassed over 2.4 million views. Four days later, TikTok creator @jerseyyjoe – who recently appeared in ScarLip’s “Blick” music video – posted his spin on the dance, garnering a whopping 16.2 million views and 2.3 million likes. The official “I Wouldn’t Mind” TikTok sound currently boasts over 130,7000 posts.
While He Is We has yet to acknowledge the viral trend on any of their official social media pages, new fans of “I Wouldn’t Mind” have already flooded the comments of their most recent Instagram post with lots of love for the surprise hit. – KYLE DENIS
Big Thief Gets the Obama Bump
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Indie rock stalwarts Big Thief‘s 2023 single “Vampire Empire” has experienced a sharp rise in streams in the past few weeks, thanks to an unlikely fan: Barack Obama.
The former president’s end-of-year playlists always spark internet chatter when they are posted — often because of the former President’s usually unnervingly hip, eclectic taste — and this holiday season was no different. Big Thief’s “Vampire Empire” was slated alongside other surprising indie rock gems like “Joiner” by Blondshell and “Younger and Dumber” by Indigo De Souza as well as more mainstream hits like Zach Bryan’s Hot 100-topping Kacey Musgraves duet “I Remember Everything,” Victoria Monet’s Grammy-nominated banger “On My Mama,” and Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar’s iconic team-up “America Has a Problem.”
For Big Thief, this surprising spotlight amounted to new listenership for the song, which was released on July 19 and had already seen some viral growth on TikTok. The week before Obama’s post, the track earned 825,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, but the following week it rose 193% to 1.59 million streams, according to Luminate. – KRISTIN ROBINSON
Just how high can Sophie Ellis-Bextor dance up the Billboard Hot 100 with her resurgent, Saltburn-powered hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” 20 years after the song’s initial release? On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking about the buzzy early-aughts song, which this week debuts at No. 98 on the Hot […]
More than two decades after Sophie Ellis-Bextor unleashed “Murder On The Dancefloor,” her pop monster returns to the U.K. top 10 – thanks to Saltburn.
The tune rebounds to No. 8 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, published last Friday, Jan. 5, its first appearance in the top tier for more than 22 years. During the seven-day chart cycle, “Murder” collected more than 2.2 million streams for its best-ever streaming week in the U.K., the Official Charts Company confirms.
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There’s no mystery to its fresh legs. “Murder On The Dancefloor” (via Polydor) is synced to a prominent scene in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, a dark comedy that has erupted on Amazon Prime Video.
“Murder” is one of Ellis-Bextor’s six solo U.K. top 10 hits, peaking at No. 2 back in 2001. The daughter of a popular TV star Janet Ellis and director and producer Robin Bextor, Ellis-Bextor’s breakthrough came with Spiller’s 2000 club cut “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love),” on which she was the uncredited vocalist. The track went to No. 1 on the Official Chart. Ellis-Bextor has also accumulated five U.K. top 10 albums.
Ellis-Bextor isn’t the only artist to benefit from the Saltburn effect. Mason and Princess Superstar’s 2006 single “Perfect (Exceeder)” (via Armada) reenters the top 40 on the Official Singles Chart for the first time in 17 years, appearing at No. 40. Following its release, the single reached No. 3.
As the Christmas songs are swept from the chart for another year, a raft of singles vault up the tally.
As expected, Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” (Republic Records) completes its first summit climb in its 14th week, vaulting 10-1.
Meanwhile, Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me” rebounds 27-2 (up 27-2 via Atlantic); Casso, Raye and D-Block Europe’s “Prada” (Ministry of Sound) bounces 73-3; Tate McRae’s “Greedy” (Ministry of Sound) returns 37-4 and Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” (EMI) is up 96-5.
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