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: Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday 2 release sends fans to some of its sampled hits — and to the sequel album’s predecessor — while Netflix’s Leave the World Behind takes over the Shazam charts, and we haven’t heard the last from HBO‘s The Idol yet.
Nicki Minaj’s ‘Pink Friday 2′ Brings Billie Eilish & Junior Senior to Gag City with Big Streaming Gains
Not even the holiday season can stop a queen. As Brenda Lee and Mariah Carey solidify their stronghold atop the Billboard Hot 100, Nicki Minaj looks primed for a few splashy debuts on next week’s ranking thanks to her brand new fifth studio album, Pink Friday 2.
Serving as the sequel to her Billboard 200-topping 2010 debut studio album, Pink Friday 2 features collaborations with Drake, J. Cole, Future, Skeng, Skillibeng, 50 Cent, Tasha Cobbs Leonard and more, as well as the Hot 100 hits “Super Freaky Girl” (No. 1), “Red Ruby Da Sleeze” (No. 13) and “Last Time I Saw You” (No. 23).
Upon release, the 22-track album, which Minaj is expected to expand each day this week, made a splashy streaming debut, with two new songs earning considerable early traction: “Everybody” (feat. Lil Uzi Vert) and album opener “Are You Gone Already.” Both tracks heavily incorporate samples, and those sampled tracks have already shown a spike in streams since Minaj dropped us off at Gag City.
“Everybody” heavily samples Junior Senior’s “Move Your Feet,” a 2002 dance track from the Danish pop duo’s debut album. According to Luminate, during the period Dec. 8-10, “Move Your Feet” collected a little over 130,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, a 40.9% increase from just over 92,000 steams the prior weekend (Dec. 1-3). As for “Are You Gone Already,” Minaj’s emotional album opener pulls from Billie Eilish’s “When the Party’s Over.” Eilish’s track has always been a consistent streamer, but it did see a 15% jump in streams this weekend (1.074 million on-demand U.S. streams during Dec. 8-10) versus last weekend (934,000 streams during Dec. 1-3).
Naturally, the release of Pink Friday 2 also spurred notable gains for the OG Pink Friday album. Minaj’s debut racked up 4.2 million official on-demand U.S. streams during its sequel’s release weekend. That’s a 16.9% jump in streams from the previous weekend (3.6 million) for the Grammy-nominated LP, which features hits such as “Super Bass,” “Your Love” and the Drake-featuring “Moment 4 Life.” As for Pink Friday 2, the long-awaited record clocked 90.8 million streams during Dec. 8-10. — KYLE DENIS
‘Leave the World Behind’ Needle Drops Spur Gains for Joey Bada$$, Blackstreet & More
Last Friday (Dec. 8), director Sam Esmail’s film adaptation of the acclaimed Rumaan Alam novel Leave the World Behind hit Netflix, with the story of a chance encounter during an ominous technological breakdown brought to life by a star-studded cast headlined by Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali and Myha’la. The psychological thriller finds some levity within its music synchs, as Esmail has peppered the film with hip-hop and rhythmic pop hits — all of which are enjoying significant streaming upticks since the film hit the streaming service, and landing near the top of Shazam’s U.S. Top 200 chart.
The Joey Bada$$ song “The Rev3nge,” which opens the film, has earned the biggest bump so far: from Dec. 8-11, the track earned 153,000 U.S. on-demand streams, a 267% gain from its streaming total from the previous Friday-to-Monday period (41,000 streams), according to Luminate. Meanwhile, Next’s Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Too Close,” which Roberts’ character dances to in the film, is up 12% to 474,000 streams from Dec. 8-11; Blackstreet’s “Never Gonna Let You Go” soars 214%, to 60,000 streams over that period; and Kool + The Gang’s ’80s smash “Misled” is up 263%, to 66,000 streams. One month after David Fincher’s The Killer sent Netflix viewers searching for The Smiths’ discography, Esmail’s Leave the World Behind has a more wide-ranging set of needle drops, and it’s proven equally effective at yielding streaming gains. — JASON LIPSHUTZ
The Idol Gives Us “One of” 2023’s Latest-Breaking Viral Hits
We may be through with The Idol, but The Idol isn’t through with us. HBO may have pulled the plug on the Sam Levinson-directed controversial music-biz melodrama — starring and co-created by real-life pop superstar The Weeknd — but one of the songs released for the series continues to grow months later. “One of The Girls,” performed by The Weeknd along with BLACKPINK’s Jennie and Lily Rose-Depp (both of whom also star in the series), has long been one of the best-performing songs from the show’s extensive soundtrack, and has doubled in streams over the past six weeks.
According to Luminate, the track has grown from 1.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending Nov. 2 to 4.1 million for the week ending Dec. 7. Much of the track’s growth is likely due to continued TikTok virality for the song, largely stemming from BLINK support for the Jennie-sung parts of the song, with fans praising her enchanting vocals. If “One of the Girls” continues growing at the rate it has, it could very well become her first Hot 100 hit in the months to come — it even debuts at No. 17 on the Bubbling Under chart this week. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
