Trending Up
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Did you know that Depeche Mode‘s 1987 Music for the Masses single “Never Let Me Down Again” was a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit? Neither did we — in fact, our records show that the song actually peaked at No. 63 in Feb. ’88 — but according to HBO’s new post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us, it’s one of the songs featured in Fred Bronson’s essential The Billboard Book of Number One Hits compendium, which characters on the video game adaptation play over the radio in order to send coded messages to fellow survivors.
Regardless of its chart peak, the use of Depeche Mode’s dark synth-rock classic in the pilot episode’s chilling final scene — an ’80s song is meant in the show’s universe as a message of trouble — inspired many of the new video game adaptation’s millions of viewers to go play it themselves. “Never Let Me Down Again” more than tripled in official on-demand U.S. streams overnight, from 26,000 on the day of the premiere (Jan. 15) to 83,000 the next day — a gain of 220.5%, according to Luminate. (Depeche Mode even helped welcome the newly interested by adding a “Heard on Episode 1 of The Last of Us” parenthetical to the title of the song’s official YouTube video.)
Of course, when you start talking about minor crossover hits from the ’80s alt-pop underground being revived by blockbuster TV shows in 2023, all minds naturally go to Kate Bush and Stranger Things. The song has a long way to go still before showing that kind of renewed impact just yet — but it’s certainly a message that when it comes to catalog hits being given new life by dramatic TV syncs, a lot of artists are going to want to be taking a ride with The Last of Us.
The month of M3GAN — the camp-horror film starring a robot doll who’s more sinister than she first appears — marches on, with winning box office receipts and a newly announced sequel. Meanwhile, M3GAN is slicing her way into the music world as well, with a mini-revival of David Guetta and Sia’s 2011 hit “Titanium.”
Midway through the film (minor spoiler), M3GAN croons the pre-chorus and hook of “Titanium” to comfort Cady (played by Violet McGraw), her human companion, after a traumatic incident. The out-of-nowhere serenade makes for one of the more memorable moments in M3GAN, and theatergoers have sought out the original version of “Titanium” — as well as a new, stripped-down take on the song, cleverly dubbed “Megan’s V3rsion,” that Sia released days after the film’s Jan. 6 premiere.
During the film’s first full week of release, the original “Titanium” rose 4.6% in weekly U.S. on-demand streams, to 1.6 million, according to Luminate. “Titanium” originally peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a commercial breakthrough in the U.S. for Sia, as the acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter would go on to find solo success with hits like “Chandelier” and “Cheap Thrills.”
On Jan. 9, Sia, sensing a M3GAN-led revival of the song, unveiled “Titanium (Megan’s V3rsion),” a piano rework that recalls M3GAN’s demon-doll balladry (although, sadly, does not feature any of her vocals). “Megan’s V3rsion” has earned 226,000 U.S. on-demand streams to date, a figure that’s separate from the streams of the original “Titanium,” according to Luminate.
While M3GAN creeps toward a $100 million global box office gross, a sequel, titled M3GAN 2.0, was announced with a Jan. 17, 2025 release date. If the character of M3GAN is simply a Sia fan, which single does she belt out in the sequel? “Wild Ones”? “Elastic Heart”? We’ll find out in two years.
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: Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton reap streaming benefits from their much-watched New Year’s Eve special performance, Gracie Abrams eyes her first crossover hit after a valuable Netflix synch and the recently convicted Tory Lanez hits the Hot 100 for the first time in a couple years.
Miley & Dolly’s Classic Singles Rise After the Ball Drops
Miley Cyrus is about to kick off a new era with the release of “Flowers,” the lead single to her forthcoming album (and Columbia Records debut) Endless Summer Vacation. Two weeks before the scheduled debut of “Flowers,” however, Cyrus kicked off a new year alongside her godmother Dolly Parton, as the host of Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party on NBC, ringing in 2023 on network television with hits, covers and medleys of both.
Cyrus has been covering Parton’s “Jolene” in concert for years, so naturally it made sense to belt out the classic single (which is turning 50 this year!) alongside the legend who wrote and recorded it. “Jolene,” which Cyrus and Parton sang after warbling some of Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight” together on New Year’s Eve, received a bump on streaming services last week as a result, with a 29.6% increase in U.S. on-demand streams (up to 1.71 million), along with a 57% bump in digital sales, in the week ending Jan. 5, according to Luminate.
“Wrecking Ball,” which Cyrus and Parton sang together on the show before segueing into Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” fared even better. Cyrus’ first career Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper (which is turning 10 this year!) scored a 44.5% rise in streams during the same week, up to 1.79 million for the week ending Jan. 5. “Wrecking Ball” also earned a digital sales increase of over 400% for that week.
Plus, Cyrus used Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party as the network TV platform to announce “Flowers,” dropping a pair of teasers in between hosting and performing duties as 2023 got underway. Widely announcing an upcoming single while also causing an older hit’s streaming revival — now that’s an enviable way to flip the calendar. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Ginny & Georgia Doesn’t “Miss” With Gracie Abrams Synch
Interscope’s Gracie Abrams has steadily built a devoted fan base — and a reputation as your favorite singer-songwriter’s favorite singer-songwriter – over the past few years, but has yet to score the sort of crossover hit enjoyed by some of her more famous supporters. That may be changing with the recent streaming growth of her tear-jerking ballad “I miss you, I’m sorry,” a highlight from her 2020 debut EP, Mirror. The song got a big showcase moment in the finale of the Jan. 5-released second season to Netflix’s hit dramedy Ginny & Georgia, playing over a lovelorn montage of Ginny (Antonia Gentry) and her on/off romantic interest Marcus (Felix Mallard), both getting emotional while separately looking at old photos of the couple together.
As more viewers connected with the finale’s sentimental moment, the song has climbed steadily in streams – from 54,000 daily on-demand official U.S. streams on Jan. 5 to 81,000 by Jan. 8, according to Luminate, a gain of 50%. That number looks to still be growing in the days since, as fans of both Abrams and Ginny & Georgia have begun to spread it on TikTok and other social platforms. The increased exposure should be coming right on time for Abrams, who is set to release her long-anticipated debut full-length, Good Riddance, via Interscope on Feb. 24. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Tory Lanez Returns to Hot 100 Following Trial Guilty Verdict
While Tory Lanez awaits sentencing after being found guilty on three felony counts in the 2020 shooting of star rapper Megan Thee Stallion, he returns to the Hot 100 with his first new entry on the chart since the year of the assault.
“The Color Violet,” a Weeknd-reminiscent pop&B track from his 2021 One Umbrella release Alone at Prom, slowly developed into a prolific streaming hit over the course of 2022, and climbs 22.2% to 5.5 million in weekly official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending Jan. 5, according to Luminate. While the song does not yet have a radio presence of any kind, as programming directors are likely reluctant to publicly support the disgraced singer-rapper at this point, streaming audiences have not been so dissuaded – and their embrace of “Violet” earns it a No. 87 bow on the Hot 100 this week. — AU
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: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery reveals gains for its titular Beatles cut and other soundtrack favorites, Yellowstone‘s Luke Grimes takes a step towards stardom in a second medium and a decade-old Miguel hit may be gearing up for another chart run.
‘Glass Onion’ Hits Streaming, Boosts Music Streams for… “Glass Onion”
“Looking through the bent-backed tulips/ To see how the other half lives/ Looking through a glass onion,” Paul McCartney sings on The Beatles’ White Album classic “Glass Onion.” There are some subtle clues to the plot of Glass Onion – the latest Knives Out mystery, a Netflix smash since its Dec. 23 release – in the lyrics to “Glass Onion,” which plays over the end credits of the film.
Maybe listeners wanted to revisit “Glass Onion” after hearing it during the movie’s finale to parse its lyrics and try to further unlock the puzzle box of a plot, or maybe they were simply they were reminded by the movie how much “Glass Onion” rules. Regardless, the 1968 song experienced a huge uptick in streams during the film’s first week of wide availability — as have some other ’60s and ’70s tracks used in director Rian Johnson’s crowd-pleasing mystery.
“Glass Onion” experienced a 167% increase in weekly U.S. on-demand streams during the week of Dec. 23-29, according to Luminate, jumping to over 160,000 streams after earning a little over 60,000 the previous week. Meanwhile, David Bowie’s “Star” — which is used to soundtrack a memorable dance sequence featuring Kate Hudson’s character (no spoilers here, we promise) — was up 60% during the same week, reaching 32,000 U.S. on-demand streams. And The Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody,” featured in its original version in the film, scored a 37% bump, up to nearly 259,000 streams in the week ending Dec. 29.
A third Knives Out film has already been confirmed, although its title has yet to be announced. After the original Knives Out in 2019 was named after a Radiohead song, and Glass Onion was titled as a Beatles reference, we’ll see if the next installment also features a shared song title — but if it does, rest assured that that song will get a streaming boost of its own during its Netflix premiere week. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
The ‘Yellowstone’ Bump Continues Growing – Even for Its Own Cast
We’ve written before in Trending Up about how effective the Paramount+ smash Western melodrama Yellowstone has been in lending streaming and sales bumps to its more prominently featured synchs. Americana star Zach Bryan has been one of its biggest beneficiaries, with his songs included across multiple seasons – in December, Bryan’s “The Good I’ll Do” (from his Belting Bronco/Warner-released breakout album American Heartbreak) debuted in the top five of Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart after inclusion in a Season Five episode.
That trend continues this week, with Bryan’s “Tishomingo” ballad showcased in the show’s mid-season finale on Jan. 1 – resulting in a 90.4% rise in daily official on-demand U.S. streams to 115,000 for Jan. 2, according to Luminate. (The song also sold over 1,000 digital songs from Jan. 1 to Jan. 2, after selling a negligible number the two days before.)
More interesting, though, is another artist seeing gains whose name will undoubtedly be familiar already to all Yellowstone fans: Luke Grimes, the actor who stars as Kayce Dutton on the show. Grimes recently launched a country music career with debut single “No Horse to Ride” (Range Media/Mercury Nashville) and the love song was similarly featured on the drama’s midseason finale – receiving a 67.7% bump to 109,000 daily official on-demand streams for Jan. 2, and also combining to sell over 1,000 digital songs for Jan. 1-2. (Perhaps for Stranger Things’ fifth and final season, its musically inclined cast should take from Grimes’ example and push for similar synch placement – anachronisms be damned.) – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
You Can Bet That: Miguel’s “Sure Thing” Gets Biggest Viral Boost Yet
A little over a decade ago, Miguel broke through as a crossover star thanks to his swoon-worthy R&B single “Adorn,” which peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2012 and was nominated for song of the year at the 2013 Grammys. Yet one year earlier, the singer-songwriter’s neo-soul single “Sure Thing” became his first Hot 100 top 40 hit (off ByStorm/Jive debut release All I Want Is You), and his first chart-topper on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs tally. Now, “Sure Thing” is surging back into the public consciousness, and introducing the R&B star, who hasn’t released an album in over five years, to the TikTok generation.
“Sure Thing” has bubbled up a few times over the past three years thanks to versions both slowed-down and sped-up. However, the song has experienced its biggest revival to date over the past month or so, thanks to a new wave of sped-up takes on the song that started in November, and is now climbing the daily charts on various streaming platforms — today, No. 22 on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA listing, and No. 55 on the Apple Music U.S. daily Top 100 tally.
During the week ending Dec. 1, “Sure Thing” earned 4.58 million U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate; that total grew to 6.80 million for the week ending Dec. 29, a 48% bump from that earlier number. Meanwhile, other songs from 2010’s All I Want Is You are taking off to a smaller degree, with the title track and “Girl With the Tattoo Enter.lewd” both climbing in streams over the past month.
How high can “Sure Thing” climb? The coming weeks should demonstrate just how prolonged the song’s revival will be — but for Miguel, who hasn’t scored a Hot 100 hit as a lead artist since 2017’s “Sky Walker” featuring Travis Scott, the possibility of a chart re-entry for “Sure Thing” would make for a nice lead-in to a potential return to music in 2023. – JL
People Who Need “People”
Minneapolis singer-songwriter Libianca may be familiar to viewers of NBC’s The Voice as a Team Blake contestant from the show’s 21st season, but otherwise you might have heard her for the first time on TikTok the past month. That’s because her new Afrobeats-flavored song “People” is blowing up on the service, with thousands of users sharing videos of them relating to the song’s mentally wary lyrics (particularly its opening lines, “I’ve been drinking more alcohol for the past five days/ Did you check on me?”), and even R&B star Chris Brown posting that it “speaks volumes” to him.
“People” has since crossed over to other streaming platforms, rising 55.2% to 1.8 million on-demand U.S. streams for the chart tracking week ending Dec. 29, and hitting No. 5 on Billboard’s U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart dated Jan. 7 – indicating it may be a breakout hit to watch for over the first few months of 2023. – AU
Q&A: Taryn Lacroix, Spotify’s Associate Manager, Artist & Label Partnerships, on What’s Trending Up in Her World
What was your biggest takeaway from the 2022 Spotify Wrapped rollout compared to previous years?
Spotify Wrapped has existed in some form since 2015, and this was our biggest year yet from both the artist and fan perspectives. It’s become so highly anticipated that the chatter online starts to build well before its surprise launch. Artists also want to get in on the fun — we saw record-breaking artist involvement this year, and were able to activate with some artists for the first time in our campaign, like Beyoncé and Britney Spears. When you have Elton John sharing his Artist Wrapped or Drake organically sharing his personal listening stats on socials, you know you’ve tapped into the cultural zeitgeist, which is always the most significant challenge as a brand.
Which new feature of Wrapped did you think was most successful?
This year we scaled our short-form video initiative called ‘Your Artist Messages,’ which are self-recorded videos from artists thanking their top fans on Spotify. With an ambitious goal in mind, we galvanized the music industry across the globe to record and upload videos via Spotify for Artists to reward top fans for streaming on Spotify. Artists from Taylor Swift to Måneskin to Dolly Parton to Lil Baby participated, reaching hundreds of millions of listeners on Spotify. When eligible listeners selected “Your Artist Messages” in their 2022 Wrapped hub on Spotify, they would see a personalized feed of videos from some of their favorite artists this year. This was a massive win, not only for the users’ experience, but for product development at large.
Looking at the top songs/artists/albums of 2022, which trend was the most personally interesting to you?
The longevity of Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” domination is unparalleled. A viral indie pop song from 2020 was the No. 2 song globally in 2022, surpassing some of the biggest household names. It’s a feat to not only achieve a viral hit, but also to transcend it and maintain sustained relevancy. It’s a testament to the power of social media, combined with the fact that the appetite for catalog is only growing, which is a trend evidenced across the board with many of the most popular titles being released prior to 2022.
Fill in the blank: when it comes to exploring their Spotify Wrapped, not enough listeners are talking about their _______.
Audio Day descriptors. I need to know who else is channeling “upbeat gothic angst!” – JL
Season’s Gainings: What Are You Streaming New Year’s Eve?
Though the Christmas music season comes to an end shortly after the last present is unwrapped on Dec. 25, there’s still plenty of New Year’s holiday listening to be done as we turn the calendar over. Such themed songs saw a big streaming bump on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, including Death Cab for Cutie’s “The New Year” (up 345% from Dec. 30 to Jan. 1, to nearly 40,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate), U2’s “New Year’s Day” (up 215% to nearly 75,000) and Taylor Swift’s “New Year’s Day” (up 333% to to 361,000). Hope you got your share of seasonal listening in while you could these holidays, since President’s Day and Groundhog Day don’t yet offer the same variety of soundtrack options. – AU
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: Viewer fascination with HBO’s White Lotus spills over onto streaming, one TikTok user’s cosign changes a band’s commercial fortunes and Mac DeMarco fans get emotional over his (extremely unconfirmed) retirement.
Listeners Not Ready to Leave White Lotus Theme
One of the year’s most buzzed-about television seasons wrapped on Sunday (Dec. 11), as the much-anticipated finale of season two of HBO’s intriguing destination drama The White Lotus aired. Though none of the show’s many syncs — largely consisting of older Italian pop songs appropriate to its Sicily location — found viral success over the course of the season, the show has shown steady gains for its fan-favorite theme song, an elegant, lush and unexpectedly pulsing work from Chilean-born Canadian film and television composer Cristobal Tapia De Veer.
In the four weeks leading up to the chart week ending Dec. 8, weekly official on-demand U.S. streams of the striking theme (officially titled “Renaissance (Main Title Theme)”) rose from 82,000 to 283,000, according to Luminate — a 244% hike. After Dec. 11, viewers rushed to play the song like Lucia played Albie in the finale, with the song seeing a daily jump of 83% (from 53,000 to 97,000) on Monday. And though the White Lotus season is now over, interest in the theme may not be; it just received a new house remix from producer Enamour.
“Musta Been” a TikTok Endorsement Causing Próxima Prada to Go Viral
For all the random reasons a song can explode on TikTok, it seems pretty rare that it happens as a virtue of one user telling their followers, “Hey, listen to this song.” But that’s basically what happened with San Luis Obispo, Calif. band Próxima Prada and their unexpectedly viral song “Musta Been a Ghost,” which user Matt Firestone featured a short clip of in a video titled “Songs You Never Would Have Found Because Life Gets Really Busy Sometimes Part 2.” The video, posted on Dec. 9, ended up being over nine million times — leading to “Ghost” spiking from under 3,000 daily on-demand official U.S. streams to over 178,000 on Dec. 12, according to Luminate, a whopping 5,884% gain.
“I love how @fuego.stine (a guy we had never met or spoken to) made this short, simple video about our song and it went viral,” the band wrote on their Instagram page of the feel-good surge. “Real people sharing our music with other real people is how we’ve been able to slowly but surely grow. SO THANK YOU!”
Fans Have a “Heart to Heart” Over Mac DeMarco Retiring (Or Not)
Mac DeMarco has always performed well on streaming, but recently the indie singer-songwriter-guitarist’s 2019 track “Heart to Heart” (from Here Comes the Cowboy) has proved particularly explosive — doubling its weekly official on-demand U.S. streams over the last two weeks to 939,000, according to Luminate, and even making its way onto Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart for Dec. 12 and 13. Look for the song on TikTok, and you’ll find thousands of videos of emotional conversations being set to the song, many with captions (or users in the comments) bemoaning rumors of DeMarco’s retirement from music, whispers of which have swept through social media the past few weeks.
Is there any truth to them? Probably not — at least not officially, as DeMarco hasn’t announced anything besides some postponed tour dates while he works on his upcoming album, and there’s little sourcing on the internet for news of his supposed music-industry departure beyond anonymous quotes. But the whisper-down-the-lane effect of social media appears to have helped him score another viral hit, which should make for a nice early retirement gift if and when he does decide to hang up his six-string.
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 Lady Gaga deep cut goes viral thanks to Netflix’s Wednesday — despite not being featured in the show — while a star trio’s ’00s R&B cover gets a big bump for the original, and Snoop Dogg does it for the kids.
Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” Soars Over 400% in Streams Thanks to ‘Wednesday’
The streaming gains of The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck,” as covered in Trending Up last week, make perfect sense: the spooky-punk classic was used in a school dance sequence in Netflix’s smash new Addams Family revival Wednesday. With millions binging the show following its Nov. 23 premiere, “Goo Goo Muck” naturally received a healthy streaming bump by viewers eager to listen to the song that soundtracked Jenna Ortega’s limb-throwing dance moves.
Yet that school dance sequence is also helping Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” make major moves… and Gaga’s Born This Way track (released on Interscope in 2011) isn’t even featured in Wednesday. Instead, TikTok users have figured out that speeding up “Bloody Mary” makes the electro-pop track synch perfectly with Wednesday’s off-kilter choreography, and are producing and liking hundreds of “Bloody Mary”/Wednesday clips as a result.
“Bloody Mary,” which was never released as a single from Born This Way, is up 415% in weekly U.S. on-demand streams for the week ending Dec. 1, cracking 2 million plays in that time frame, according to Luminate. “Slay Wednesday!” Mother Monster wrote on Twitter last Thursday (Dec. 1) to acknowledge the trend. “You’re welcome at Haus of Gaga anytime (and bring Thing with you, we love paws around here).” At the end of a year where TV and movie soundtrack hits were louder than ever on TikTok, it’s only fitting that we get a soundtrack hit fully born on the platform. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
The Weeknd & Metro Boomin Fans Can’t Keep Their “I Don’t Wanna Know” Listening on the Low
It might’ve been re-titled “Creepin’,” but any fan of ‘00s pop or R&B knew what the deal was by the end of The Weeknd’s first line. The song, taken from star producer Metro Boomin’s new Boominati Worldwide/Republic set Heroes & Villains, is a cover in all but name of Mario Winans’ cheated-on classic “I Don’t Wanna Know” (from his 2004 album Hurt No More on Bad Boy/Universal) with rap’s late-year-MVP 21 Savage handling the guest verse duties that belonged to Diddy on the original. Featured as the lead track on Spotify’s most recent New Music Friday playlist, “Creepin’” was one of the best-performing tracks on streaming over the weekend, and is currently leading the daily charts for both Spotify and Apple Music.
We’ll see next week what kind of early chances “Creepin’” has of matching or exceeding the chart heights of “I Don’t Wanna Know,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2004. But in the meantime, some of its streaming success has also spilled over to the song’s predecessor: Its daily official on-demand U.S. stream count rose from just under 50,000 on Dec. 1 (the day before “Creepin’”) to over 157,000 on Dec. 3 – a gain of 215%, according to Luminate. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Raye Resets, Scores a Fast-Moving Viral Hit
“A little context, if you care to listen/ I find myself in a s–t position,” Raye sings early in her new single “Escapism,” featuring 070 Shake; the British pop artist is singing about an unexpected breakup and the drowning-of-sorrows that will follow, but Raye also found herself in a sticky situation last year when she publicly claimed that her label, Polydor Records, was refusing to release her long-completed debut album.
Now, Raye has a new deal with Human Re Sources/The Orchard, and a viral hit with “Escapism,” which has gotten the sped-up TikTok treatment and taken off as the soundtrack to various lip-syncs and rap-alongs following its Nov. 11 release. “Escapism” earned nearly 2 million U.S. on-demand streams in the week ending Dec. 1, according to Luminate – a 300% gain from the previous week. Raye has been featured on dance hits by David Guetta, Jax Jones and Major Lazer, but she may be entering 2023 with a fresh start and a hit as a lead artist – the opposite of a s–t situation, really. – JL
“Affirmation”s With Snoop Becomes a Surprise TikTok Trend
If you’ve ever felt like you needed some motivational pep talk from Tha Doggfather, it’s been quite the last couple weeks for you on TikTok, where the Snoop Dogg-fronted kids’ music project Doggyland has been taking off lately. “Affirmation Song” has been the biggest breakout track from its independently released Kids Hits, Vol. 1 project, with thousands of vid eos – most from adults, clearly still in need of a little positive reinforcement – being soundtracked by Snoop leading a chorus of kids in a series of the titular chants (“There is no one better to be but myself! Today is gonna be an amazing day!”) The song’s streaming performance has gotten an accompanying self-esteem boost, spiking 272% in official on-demand U.S. streams to 269,000 for the week ending Dec. 1, according to Luminate, and undoubtedly raising some label eyebrows about what other artists might be able to get into the viral kids’ music game. – AU
Q&A: Stephen Brower, Global Co-Lead of Artist Relations at Amazon Music, on What’s Trending Up in His World
What was the process for programming this year’s lineup of Amazon Original and cover holiday songs?
We always look to work with artists we know our Amazon Music customers love. Lizzo and Kane Brown have had massive success on Amazon Music, both throughout their careers and certainly with their 2022 album releases. Lauren Spencer-Smith is likewise an emerging artist that Amazon Music customers have been loving all year long. Working with each of them to find a holiday song that we thought holiday listeners on Amazon Music would discover and love was a fun process, and one we think will delight their fans on Amazon Music.
We also look to work with artists across different genres and styles of holiday music. If you’re an R&B fan, there’s an amazing Giveon Amazon Original for you to discover. If you love classical holiday music, Alexis Ffrench has delivered a beautiful song for you.
What have you noticed in terms of how Amazon Music users are interacting with holiday music in 2022 as opposed to previous years?
Our customers have found these new holiday Amazon Originals early this year, and certainly seem to be responding to these songs. We’re already seeing Originals on the Holiday 100, with Lauren Spencer-Smith at No. 51, Lizzo at No. 54 and Kane Brown at No. 58 on the chart. Both Lizzo and Lauren Spencer-Smith debuted on the Hot 100 this week, and Lizzo’s track is currently at No. 52 on the Official Charts (UK) Top 100 this week. That these songs are only available on Amazon Music — and are doing so well so early in December — shows how excited our customers are about holiday music and about these new Amazon Originals.
Every year, several artists try to launch new holiday songs as well as covers of classics, with only a few cutting through the clutter. What do you think is the biggest key to a successful new holiday song?
The beauty of holiday music, but also one of its challenges, is that having a holiday hit is really a long-term proposition. These songs only have a brief window of time to catch the public’s ear, but they have that window every year. Our 2018 Amazon Original from Katy Perry, “Cozy Little Christmas,” was certified platinum earlier this year, and now feels like one of those songs listeners are going to look for every year. I think something similar is happening with Carrie Underwood’s Amazon Original song “Favorite Time of Year” from 2020. Those songs have that magic quality of being both nostalgic and contemporary at the same time, which I think will be key to their timelessness.
With artists with whom we work to create new cover versions of classic tracks, I think a key is having something distinctive so that their new version can sit alongside an original or iconic version and not compete with it. Last year, Camila Cabello’s Amazon Original version of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” featured mariachi flourishes that felt totally authentic to her, and also gave her version something listeners would seek out alongside other versions of that song. This year, Lauren Spencer-Smith’s take on “Last Christmas” is as an emotional ballad, which gives a totally different feel than Wham!’s iconic version.
Fill in the blank: the biggest new trend in holiday music over the next few years will be _______.
Holiday versions of songs that aren’t otherwise tied to the season. In the U.K., Stormzy has released an Amazon Original holiday version of his current single “Firebabe” that customers are loving. We did something similar last year with the Amazon Original holiday version of Coi Leray’s viral smash “Twinnem.” I love both of those and think they really offer something unique to fans alongside songs that are more explicitly “holiday,” thematically. – JL
Seasons Gainings: Happy “Heather” Day
In between cleaning up from Thanksgiving and starting to hang your holiday decorations, did you make time to celebrate “Heather” Day? Maybe not, but plenty of Conan Gray fans surely did, with “Heather Day” trending all across social media on Dec. 3 – thanks to the date being mentioned in the 2020 hit ballad’s opening lyrics, “I still remember, the third of December, me in your sweater…” Plenty of commemorating took place across streaming services as well, with “Heather” (from Gray’s Republic-released Kid Krow album) rising 92% in daily official on-demand U.S. streams to over 914,000 on Dec. 3, according to Luminate – enough for the song to re-enter the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart at No. 62. – AU
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: Netflix’s latest hit series Wednesday helps an early cult-punk classic get out of the “Muck,” The 1975’s live lip-locking revives one of their early singles and everyone is left craving more “Yamz” this Thanksgiving.
‘Wednesday’ Sends The Cramps’ Streams Running Up That Hill
Wednesday, the Addams Family revival focused on a teenage Wednesday Addams (played by Jenna Ortega) and her adventures at a boarding school, has been a smash success for Netflix since premiering last Wednesday (Nov. 23), setting the record for the most hours viewed in a week for an English-language series on the streaming service. Its 341.2 million hours viewed in its debut week surpasses the record set a few months back by the fourth season of Stranger Things — which, you may recall, resurrected Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” with dramatic flair and turned the 1985 single into a top five Billboard Hot 100 smash in 2022.
Six months later, Wednesday is helping “Goo Goo Muck,” the spooky-fun 1981 version of the 1962 Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads single released on I.R.S. by influential rockabilly punks The Cramps, receive a similarly inspired comeback. “Goo Goo Muck” soundtracks a school dance in which Ortega demonstrates some quirky, spirited choreography, and Wednesday fans are seeking out The Cramps version after the fact. On the day before the Wednesday series premiered, “Goo Goo Muck” earned 2,500 daily U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate; by Monday (Nov. 28), that number was up to 134,000 daily streams. The Cramps have been defunct since the 2009 death of lead singer Lux Interior, but if Wednesday viewers keep streaming “Goo Goo Muck,” the band could belatedly earn its first career Hot 100 hit. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
The 1975 Make Out Like Bandits
U.K. alt-pop veterans The 1975 hit the Billboard 200’s top 10 for the fourth straight album this October with their latest set, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, and have a slow-burning streaming hit with that LP’s “About You,” which has grown 41% over the three weeks to over two million weekly U.S. on-demand streams for the period ending Nov. 24, according to Luminate. But the band’s most buzzed-about song the past week hasn’t come from that album, or any of the three before it – for that one, you’ve got to go back to from their 2013 self-titled debut set (on Dirty Hit/Polydor) and longtime fan favorite “Robbers,” which the group has turned into a lip-locking spectacle on their current stateside tour.
At consecutive stops over the past weekend in Las Vegas and San Diego, frontman Matty Healy pulled fans from the audience – one female, one male – onstage during their performance of “Robbers,” embracing them and then giving them a healthy smooch just before the song’s climax. The consecutive kisses both went viral on social media, getting fans dangerously in their feelings and causing them to swarm back to the enduring “Robbers.” Since Nov. 25 (the night of the Vegas concert), the song has spiked 116% in daily official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate, growing from 65,000 that Thursday to 141,000 on Sunday, and no doubt inspiring a whole lot of breathless refreshing of social feeds for each remaining tour date. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
A Second Helping of “Yamz” This Thanksgiving
It was 2015 all over again last week, as the hottest song of Thanksgiving belonged to Fetty Wap. The “Trap Queen” hitmaker scored a breakout success with the rap-crooned synth-funk of “Sweet Yamz” – a song not necessarily about the delicious side dish, but which nonetheless felt seasonally appropriate to countless listeners. The 300 Entertainment/RGF Productions single, released to streaming services on Nov. 18, earned plaudits from authorities as respected as Snoop Dogg and Charlie Wilson and exploded on streaming last week, earning over half a million official on-demand U.S. streams daily from Wednesday (Nov. 23) through Saturday (Nov. 26), according to Luminate.
However, as many R&B heads online were quick to point out, the song wasn’t totally an original: The hit was based off a 2021 collab between Masego and Devin Morrison on EQT Recordings/Capitol, with a near-identical chorus and groove, but different verses. Though some cried foul at the lift, there was more than enough consumption to go around this Thanksgiving season: The original “Yamz” also experienced a huge bump, rising from 172,000 streams total from Nov. 21-23 to 367,000 from Nov. 24-26, a 113% gain. – AU
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: Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” goes viral anew, d4vd follows up his streaming breakthrough with another slow-growing hit, and an independent Texas band enjoys major gains after an appearance on one of the most-watched TV premieres of the decade.
TikTok Takes Another Lick at “Lollipop”
Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III smash “Lollipop” may have topped the Billboard Hot 100 back in 2008, but TikTok is taking to the song like it came out yesterday. The line “Okay, lil mama had a swag like mine / Even where her hair down her back like mine” is now the soundtrack to all sorts of random ephemera on the platform: One woman used it to soundtrack herself preparing for labor, a 92-year-old grandma used it to share that she had paid off her future funeral costs, and a pair of siblings used the song to poke fun at their dad.
There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why users are loving Tunechi’s old Cash Money track so much, but the strange TikTok buzz has surely paid off: “Lollipop” is up 47% in weekly on-demand U.S. streams to nearly 3.3 million for the week ending Nov. 21. – KRISTIN ROBINSON
‘Yellowstone’ Fever Boosts Shane Smith & The Saints Songs
If you were one of the nearly 16 million people who watched the season five premiere of the Paramount Network smash family drama Yellowstone, you heard three songs – two as performed by the band within the episode – by independent Texas outfit Shane Smith and the Saints, a previously established favorite of characters on the show. Not surprising, then, that the songs would experience a streaming bump as a result, particularly the ones the band played themselves: “Dance the Night Away,” from 2013’s Coast album, rose 164.7% in weekly official on-demand U.S. streams to 107,000 for the week ending Nov. 17, according to Luminate, while the recently released “Fire in the Ocean” saw a 81% gain to 177,000. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Sped-Up? Slowed-Down? Either Way, Listeners Love ‘Limbo’
“Limbo,” the bruising rap showcase from Ontario MC Freddie Dredd, has started to snowball into a hit after being featured on his Freddie’s Inferno project in August — and the song is doing so in a variety of different formats. A slowed-down version of the track is taking off on TikTok, and so is a sped-up version; “Limbo” is being synched up to dramatic sequences in Call of Duty, as well as God of War: Ragnarok. But even in its original version, Dredd’s hard-nosed rhyming is connecting with listeners: weekly U.S. on-demand streams for “Limbo” increased over 90 percent during the week ending Nov. 17, up to 3.54 million, according to Luminate.
Dredd, who is signed to RCA Records, is no stranger to TikTok virality: his 2019 single “Cha Cha,” which sampled Lisa Ono’s “Sway It, Hula Girl,” became a breakthrough for the rapper in the early days of the app’s industry influence. Yet “Limbo” is quickly becoming his signature hit, and Dredd is well-aware of its success. “Out of all the music i have made ive never had a single song do so well in a single day,” he posted on Twitter last week after a particularly strong day for “Limbo” on Spotify. “thank yall so much for streaming my s–t, thank yall for making my dreams come true.” – JASON LIPSHUTZ
d4vd Goes Two for Two With Viral Hits
Teen singer-songwriter d4vd is certainly a newcomer to the music biz, but he’s already racked up a second major TikTok hit this year. First, his single “Romantic Homicide” went so viral it hit the Billboard Hot 100’s top 40 and led to a seven-figure deal with Interscope/Darkroom. Now follow-up “Here With Me” is also picking up steam, with hundreds of thousands of creations already on the app.
Focusing on the lyrics “I don’t care how long it takes / as long as I am with you / I’ve got a smile on my face,” users are posting videos of heartwarming videos they found on the Internet, sometimes with them on greenscreen reacting to it. One video shows a woman feeding a stray dog, another shows a “tired teacher” putting on a “happy face” before walking into his classroom to greet students. Users’ emotional attachment to the song has transferred to real streaming wins for d4vd, as the song has climbed steadily in plays over the past month – rising 69% in official U.S. on-demand streams from 2.6 million the week ending Oct. 20 to nearly 4.5 million the week ending Nov. 17, according to Luminate. – KR
Q&A: Randy Hutson, CEO of Production Resource Group (PRG)’s Music and Live TV Divisions, on What’s Trending Up in His World
Looking back at 2022, what are some of the biggest wins for PRG, which provides resources and pushes technical innovation in the live sector?
PRG continued our work elevating production for some of the world’s biggest tours this year. Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour has been a big moment for us, especially in terms of sustainability. Coldplay made a pledge to reduce their carbon footprint while touring, so our mission was to stay more sustainably-minded while not losing any of the magic fans have come to expect at their shows. To minimize CO2 emissions, the engineers at PRG made one of the show’s standout features – four huge 3D spheres – inflatable so they would collapse and take up ¾ of one truck. With traditional construction techniques the four spheres would have needed six for transport. This complex engineering had never been done before.
This year we’ve also provided production solutions for legendary artists like Metallica, Post Malone, Jack Harlow, and Elton John’s Farewell Tour, among many others. Some of the Las Vegas residencies we’ve worked on this year include Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, and Aerosmith. It was also incredibly meaningful to do lighting and video for the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Show at Wembley Stadium.
What do you expect innovation (visual or otherwise) in the touring sector to look like in the next year and beyond?
Tours are being pressured to fill every stadium or arena seat, so one of the areas that we’re focused on is fan engagement. For example, we’ll be building on the success we had with the Indochine tour in Europe, where we positioned the audio speakers BEHIND a new transparent LED video screen, providing fans with an unobstructed view of the screens.
Efficiency in gear is increasingly important. Now, both lighting fixtures and projectors are being designed with LED and laser sources to produce a multitude of green benefits, allowing us to do more with less carbon footprint. And lastly, for years we’ve done large tours requiring many buses and trucks for gear – whatever we needed to execute the show design. But going forward, production and tour managers are looking at reverse engineering tours, i.e., how many buses and trucks do we want to have? Artists and their productions are looking for ways to improve touring by using companies with global footprints to cut down on equipment and people movement around the world. Fewer trucks, buses and planes moving will increase profitability (and lead to sustainability) allowing us to continue to do the work we love every day.
PRG has provided technical and logistical support for the Super Bowl halftime show for years. How has the halftime show evolved, and how will it continue to evolve with new tech?
The Super Bowl halftime show is unquestionably one of the most epic moments in an artist’s career, so we listen closely to what they are envisioning for each performance. That means some years the stage is more simplistic while others feature higher levels of spectacle. Overall, our team’s job is to ensure the visual experience is equally incredible for people in the stands and the millions watching at home. As technology and creatives have become more sophisticated, new tech has been implemented to make the show more cinematic, despite limited camera positions on the field.
You can really see this with The Weeknd in 2021 and the Dr. Dre & Co. performance in 2022 which used our proprietary 35LIVE!® technology. 35LIVE! elevates televised events by giving them a big-screen look and feel, replacing the traditional multi-camera approach. A team of technical specialists work together to produce astounding imagery, 100% live.
Fill in the blank: more people in touring/events should be thinking about ______.
Sustainability. It’s never been more important to take care of the environment. In 2017 PRG developed PRG SpaceFrame®, a touring frame design with ultra-light carbon fiber construction and collapsibility that reduces truck space by approximately 35 percent. This means less trucks and a lower carbon footprint. We’re going to see more governments requiring tours, fabrication companies, and production services companies to measure and report carbon emissions and supply safety reports.
We can also anticipate seeing more regulation around power consumption. Resources like fuel are going to be more costly. Research into replacing steel with bamboo in some fabrication applications could be a game-changer. We are also using recyclable materials in place of the hard scenic elements that the industry was built on. It’s time for our entire industry to focus on doing what’s good for the planet. – JL
Season’s Gainings: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Thanksgiving
We all know about the annual Christmas bump that certain holiday perennials begin to enjoy on streaming as early as Nov. 1 – but do folks begin to anticipate Thanksgiving in the same way in the days leading up to the fourth Thursday in November? Well, the numbers aren’t as stratospheric, but slowly but surely, they’re creeping up there for some of the bigger titles. Matthew West’s “Gobble Gobble” is up 93% in daily on-demand U.S. streams from Nov. 15 to Nov 21 to 73,000, according to Luminate, while Ben Rector’s “The Thanksgiving Song” is up 64% over that same span to 45,000, and the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Thanksgiving Theme” is up 38% to 75,000.
As for Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre,” the near-20-minute, Thanksgiving-set ‘60s story song traditionally played by classic rock and Triple A stations in full on Turkey Day, the numbers are still relatively small, just passing 15,000 daily streams on Nov. 21. But it’s also rising by 1,000-2,000 streams a day, and may be poised to explode (like so many post-dinner waist shirt buttons) this Nov. 24. – AU
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: Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss album spurs gains for its sample sources, pop radio embraces TikTok hits with ever-accelerating velocity, and Christmas season is officially underway on streaming.
‘Her Loss’ is Daft Punk’s Gain
collaborative album Her Loss has already proven a streaming juggernaut, even by the standards of the two hip-hop superstars. The 16 songs on Her Loss — a return to form for Drake, following his dance detour Honestly, Nevermind earlier this year — still make up the entire top 16 of the current iTunes songs chart this Wednesday (Nov. 9), and every song is in the top 25 of the daily Spotify tally. The set (released via OVO/Republic/Slaughter Gang/Epic) is doing so well, in fact, that its success is even rolling over to its samples.
Tracks like The Isley Brothers’ “Ballad For the Fallen Soldier,” The Diplomats’ “Real N—as” and Ginuwine’s “Lonely Daze” are all sampled on Her Loss, but the standout lift is of Daft Punk’s eternal dance floor classic “One More Time,” which gets slowed down and paired with percolating percussion on “Circo Loco.” The sample has caused some listeners to seek out Daft Punk’s 2000 original – and as a result, daily U.S. on-demand streams of “One More Time” increased 55% (from 117,000 to 182,000, according to Luminate) upon the Her Loss release, and stayed relatively high throughout the following weekend. Daft Punk may have officially broken up early last year, but it’ll be cause for celebration to have Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s names appear as songwriters again on the Hot 100 soon enough. — JASON LIPSHUTZ
Is Pop Radio Adopting TikTok Hits More Quickly?
The Sam Smith–Kim Petras collaboration “Unholy” reaching the top five of Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart shouldn’t be a surprise: the Capitol/EMI team-up has been a smash since its September release and last month becoming both artists’ first career Hot 100 chart-topper. Smith has been a top 40 fixture for years, and “Unholy” is built around a tenaciously catchy hook that’s ripe for the format. Yet “Unholy” — which climbs four spots to No. 5 on the Pop Airplay chart in the week ending Nov. 6 after a 17% gain in plays at U.S. monitored top 40 stations, according to Luminate — started off squarely in the TikTok-hit range, with Smith and Petras teasing the track weeks ahead of its official release; the fact that it’s already a top five Pop Airplay hit, in only its sixth week on the chart, suggests that the format is starting to react to and adopt these sort of viral singles more rapidly than ever before.
Smith may have been a proven commodity at pop radio — albeit mostly with songs significantly more stately than the cacophonous and sexed-up “Unholy” — but Steve Lacy certainly wasn’t, and his “Bad Habit” has become a top 40 smash for RCA after growing on TikTok and streaming, up one spot to No. 2 on Pop Airplay. Meanwhile, The Weeknd’s “Die for You,” a song from his 2016 Republic release Starboy that has recently been revived online, reaches a new high of No. 10 on Pop Airplay this week, taking 11 weeks for programmers to switch attention away from more recent Weeknd fare and toward the resurrected fan favorite. Other songs with TikTok origins, from Stephen Sanchez’s “Until I Found You” to Jax’s “Victoria’s Secret” to Rosa Linn’s “Snap,” are also making waves on pop radio, sitting comfortably on the chart alongside new A-list radio singles from artists like Taylor Swift and Rihanna.
TikTok’s influence on popular music has been common knowledge for years, but the current Pop Airplay chart nods to the fact that viral hits no longer require multiple months to cross over to radio listeners. Expect that pipeline to keep speeding up, and more songs like “Unholy” to make that leap in a matter of weeks. – J.L.
Eminem’s “Mockingbird” Flies Again
Just when you thought TikTok’s predilection for sped-up versions of distinctly low-energy older songs couldn’t get any stranger, here comes Eminem’s “Mockingbird.” The dolorous 2005 single (from the rapper’s fourth Aftermath/Interscope LP Encore), written as an ode to daughter Hailie, has picked up steam on the service thanks to multiple faster versions of the track making the rounds – inspiring everything from sing-along challenges to clips of teens taking care of their younger siblings. Whatever the logic behind the trend, the song has subsequently soared on streaming, going from 1.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams the week ending Oct. 6 to over 3.1 million streams four weeks later – a gain of 104%, according to Luminate. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
20-Something Singer-Songwriter’s “QUARTER LIFE CRISIS” Strikes a Viral Chord
As All Time Low, Wheatus and countless other acts have discovered over the past couple years, there are few more proven recipes for TikTok success than a song that allows users to flash back to past photos – often providing contrasting juxtaposition with their more adult current look and life. Taylor Bickett is the latest artist to benefit from this. The unsigned Nashville singer-songwriter’s post-adolescent lament “QUARTER LIFE CRISIS” has inspired countless such clips with its “I swear sixteen was yesterday/ But now I’m closer to twenty-eight” lyrics. The 23-year-old’s clever track has already spiked 158% to nearly a million official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending Nov. 6, according to Luminate — presumably making Bickett’s mid-20s look a lot brighter than they might have seemed when she wrote the song. – A.U.
Season’s Gainings: The Christmas Season Kicks Off Right on Time
If you had any doubt that the end of Halloween is now officially the start of pop music’s holiday season, the numbers this year make the trend pretty unmistakable. As we waved goodbye to Michael Jackson, Ray Parker Jr. and Bobby “Boris” Pickett this Nov. 1, holiday perennials from Brenda Lee, Bobby Helms and (of course) Mariah Carey all exploded with triple-digit percentage gains in official on-demand U.S. streams: “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was up 176% to 615,000, “Jingle Bell Rock” up 185% to 602,000, and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” up a whopping 236% to nearly 1.3 million streams. In other words, if you’re getting dirty looks from your neighbor for already putting up your Christmas decorations this week, point them to the Spotify or Apple Music charts and let them know that you’re not starting early – they’re just already late. – A.U.
Rihanna’s Catalog Gets ‘Lift’ed With Comeback
Just one week after Taylor Swift’s Midnights was released to historic impact, we got an even longer-anticipated return from a global pop icon: Rihanna, who released her first new single in six years with the Def Jam-released Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ballad “Lift Me Up.” The song debuted with nearly eight million official on-demand U.S. streams and 16,000 in sales on Oct. 28, and racked up another 6.9 million streams and 11,000 sales over the next two days, all according to Luminate. Those numbers should portend a major Billboard Hot 100 debut for the single, though how deep it can strike into the Swift stronghold atop the chart currently remains to be seen. (A strong radio showing should also help: “Lift Me Up” registered 26.3 million in radio audience on pop, adult, rhythmic and R&B/hip-hop stations combined in its first three days (Oct. 28-30), 10 million better than even Swift’s Hot 100-topping “Anti-Hero” over the same period the prior week.)
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In the meantime, “Lift” has also raised the rest of Rihanna’s catalog, with her non-”Lift” streams bubbling up from 5.8 million last Monday (Oct. 24) to 6.8 million that Thursday as anticipation for the new song grew – then spiking another 24% to 8.4 million on Friday, after the song’s release. Gains for those songs – along with a Halloween-themed hike for her spooky smash “Disturbia” – should result in an increased presence for the Bad Gal on next week’s Billboard 200 albums chart, including a likely gain for 2016’s ANTI (No. 122 this week) and a possible re-entry from 2007’s Good Girl Gone Bad. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Meghan Trainor’s New ‘Look’ Is Beguiling Listeners
With all the big pop names making splashes the last couple weeks, you might have missed that Meghan Trainor has enjoyed solid returns as well. As her new album on Epic Takin’ It Back debuts at No. 16 on the Billboard 200, giving the pop singer-songwriter her best showing since 2016’s Thank You started at No. 3, recent single “Made You Look” also becomes her first solo Hot 100 entry in four years as it starts at No. 95. Trainor is no stranger to the Hot 100 — her debut single “All About That Bass” topped the chart in 2014 — but “Made You Look” could become her biggest hit in a half-decade, thanks in part to a body-positive trend that is gaining traction on TikTok.
Upon the album’s release on Oct. 21, Trainor launched a dance challenge for the call-and-response doo-wop hook that highlights natural beauty regardless of style. Yet some TikTok users have gone viral for cleverly deploying “Made You Look” to soundtrack a rejection of the male gaze and society’s sexualization of female bodies. No matter which trend they’re encountering, listeners are responding to “Made You Look,” with its daily U.S. on-demand streams crossing the 1 million mark for three straight days beginning last Friday (Oct. 28), according to Luminate. Keep an eye on how top 40 radio, which was key in breaking Trainor with “Bass” eight years ago, adopts her latest offering: “Made You Look” is currently bubbling under Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay, with 266,000 in audience in its first three days. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Get Down “Ton1ght” With Exøtix, j4m and Ludves
With the way TikTok trends have evolved toward addressing more serious issues, it almost feels like a refreshing throwback when a fun song unexpectedly gets popular on the back of a simple dance challenge. That’s basically what happened with rappers Exøtix and j4m’s haunting jam “Ton1ght,” with the song’s remix (featuring additional vocals from singer Luvdes) taking off on TikTok thanks to a series of videos of users doing a tricky and fast-paced footwork dance to it. The song, originally self-released via DistroKid on ExøtixWørld in October, racked up 615,000 on-demand U.S. streams on the week ending Oct. 27, a 664% gain, according to Luminate, topping Spotify’s Viral 50 – USA chart and making it feel like 2020 all over again – the more enjoyable parts, anyway. – AU