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 box office blockbuster starts to get its footing on streaming, while Charli XCX parlays Coachella attention into another viral moment and a big HBO twist lends new emotional heft to the song that soundtracks it.
‘Sinners’ Soundtrack Spins Southern Horror into Streaming Success
Academy Award-nominated multihyphenate Ryan Coogler has scored perhaps the first must-see film event of 2025 with Sinners, a remarkable Michael B. Jordan-led period horror flick that blends Southern Gothic elements with vampires and blues music. The picture opened to over $48 million at the box office, snagging the No. 1 spot from A Minecraft Movie – which spun out its own streaming hit last week.
Sinners features an original score by Oscar winner Ludwig Göransson, as well as an original soundtrack produced by him and his wife, Serena Göransson. With a smattering of blues and gospel classics, Irish folk tunes and original cuts performed by the cast, Rod Wave, Don Toliver and Brittany Howard, the Sinners soundtrack captures the critical role music plays in the film’s plot.
According to Luminate, the Sinners soundtrack pulled over 570,000 official on-demand U.S. streams in its first day of release (April 18). Over the course of the film’s opening weekend (April 18-21), the soundtrack’s streams increased by at least 20% day-over-day, ultimately jumping 126% over the three-day period to over 1.3 million streams on April 21.
The Rod Wave-penned-and-performed titular song and lead single from the soundtrack arrived on April 4 and has steadily increased in streams now that the film is in theaters. By April 21, the song logged over 448,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, marking a near 30% increase from the number of streams it pulled at the top of the weekend (April 18). Don Toliver’s “Flames of Fortune,” the soundtrack’s other original song by a contemporary rap star, leapt 271% in streams across opening weekend, topping out at 51,000 official streams on April 21.
Three of the most notable streaming increases came from songs performed in the film by the Sinners cast. Miles Caton’s Raphael Saadiq-penned “I Lied to You,” a very pivotal song in the film, exploded over 600% in streams from April 18-21. By April 21, daily streams for “Lied” topped 175,000. Caton also sings alongside Grammy-nominated soul singer-songwriter Alice Smith for the end credits song, “Last Time (I Seen the Sun).” Streams for last time jumped over 500% across the film’s opening weekend, eventually reaching over 40,000 official streams by April 21. Finally, streams for “Rocky Road to Dublin,” a sinister take on a 19th-century Irish folk song performed by Irish singer Brian Dunphy, rose a whopping 700% across the film’s opening weekend. By April 21, the song logged over 109,000 official on-demand U.S. streams.
Already having spun out a Billboard 200 No. 1 album in the 2018 Black Panther soundtrack and a Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 hit in Wakanda Forever’s “Lift Me Up,” it looks like Ryan Coogler has delivered yet another film that will significantly impact the music world. — KYLE DENIS
‘Party’ On, Charli: 2020 Deep Cut Goes Viral Again for Coachella’s Miss Should Be Headliner
Just when you might have thought Charli XCX’s reign over pop culture was over — with the star giving her hedonistic 10-month Brat Summer a proper send-off through a pair of special guest-filled Coachella sets April 12 and 19 – the resurgence of an older deep cut (for the second time already this year) has proven that the party will never really be over for her.
“Party 4 U,” an A.G. Cook-produced, Robyn-esque banger on 2020’s How I’m Feeling Now about dancing through the pain despite feeling your heart break in real time, is seeing another streaming spike the past week. That’s largely thanks to a melancholy new TikTok trend, where fans share their interpretations of the song’s emotional breakdown, which finds an emotionally wiped Charli repeating the phrase “Party on you” over stacks of artfully Auto-Tuned harmonies. Users unloaded anecdotes about everything from seeing an ex seven years post-breakup to searching for love on Roblox, before the song’s creator herself finally shared its real meaning in a video of her own: “This is actually the moment you realize that that one person isn’t ever coming to your party,” she wrote, “so you stand in the middle of the room, tears briefly fill your eyes but then you wipe them away, pretend you’re ok and proceed to get unbelievably f—ked up…”
Nonetheless, the track has given Charli plenty to celebrate with its recent performance on DSPs — pulling in nearly two million official on-demand U.S. streams between April 18 and 21, a 63.4% increase from the same period (April 11-14) the week prior, according to Luminate. It was also the biggest gainer on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart on Tuesday (April 22), moving up 37 spots to No. 39 — so even though Coachella has officially wrapped for 2025, Charli’s “Party” may not have even hit its peak yet. – HANNAH DAILEY
That Major Moment on ‘The Last of Us’ Boosts Streams For The Video-Game Voice of Ellie
No The Last of Us spoilers here, don’t worry — but if you’ve been on the Internet at all over the past few days, you’re probably aware that the most recent episode of the zombie-apocalypse HBO series contained a rather momentous ending. And before credits rolled on the second episode of season 2, the final few minutes were soundtracked by “Through the Valley,” the 2012 song by Shawn James, as covered by Ashley Johnson and guitarist Chris Rondinella.
Johnson has a special connection to The Last of Us: not only did the singer-actress, who was a child star on Growing Pains and later appeared in films like What Women Want and The Help, voice the character of Ellie in the best-selling video game franchise, but she also played Ellie’s mother when the HBO series premiered in 2023. In 2021, Johnson sang four songs, including a somber take on “Through the Valley,” on The Last of Us Part II: Covers and Rarities, an EP released following the second installment of the video game.
After her rendition of “Through the Valley” concluded the episode (also titled ‘Through the Valley’), daily streams of the cover shot up by a factor of 10: after earning 4,000 U.S. on-demand streams on the previous Monday (Apr. 14), the song scored 43,000 streams on the day after the episode aired (Apr. 21), according to Luminate. The Last of Us Part II: Covers and Rarities also includes Johnson and Rondinella covering a-ha’s “Take on Me” — maybe that one will appear in an episode of The Last of Us where the infected get really into synth-pop? – JASON LIPSHUTZ
