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: Justin Bieber’s collaborators see major bumps from their contributions to his surprise new album, a new superhero blockbuster leads to big gains for a couple ’00s alt-pop favorites, and Lena Dunham’s new show looks like a valuable synch source.
‘Superman’ Songs Leaping Tall Streaming Totals in a Single Bounce
The James Gunn-directed Superman reboot debuted in theaters this weekend (July 11-13) to the third-biggest box-office bow of 2025, well on its way to major blockbuster status. As with Gunn’s previous Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, part of the film’s success comes due to some inspired choices with its soundtrack — but rather than dip all the way back to the ’70s like he did with the Guardians movies, Gunn is finding the most Superman synch success with a couple ’00s alt-pop favorites, which are now seeing huge gains as a result.
“Punkrocker,” the 2006 underground hit from Swedish electro-pop group Teddybears (featuring punk legend Iggy Pop on vocals), plays in the film’s closing sequence and over its end credits, calling back to an earlier exchange in the movie where Louis (played by Rachel Brosnahan) refers to herself as being more “punk rock” than her boyfriend and co-worker Clark Kent (David Corenswet). The song rocketed to the top of the Shazam charts for its use in the movie, and has soared in streams over the week, pulling nearly 1.2 million official on-demand U.S. streams from July 10-14, according to early data provided by Luminate — an eye-popping gain of 18,468% from the same stretch the week before.
Meanwhile, folk-pop outfit Noah and the Whale’s 2007 cult favorite “5 Years Time” also saw huge gains for its part in Superman, soundtracking an action sequence featuring Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) taking out an army of Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) henchmen as Lois watches in astonishment. The song racked up 507,000 streams over that same four-day period, a 2088% gain. And even a new fictional song from within the film’s universe — “The Mighty Crabjoys Theme,” by the titular Mighty Crabjoys, beloved by the un-punk Kent — is taking off on DSPs, with 92,000 streams total across those four days. And each of the songs is still growing daily, as Superman continues to take flight as the summer’s box office savior. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Flocking to You: Bieber Writers and Producers All See Big Gains Following ‘Swag’ Credits
It was one of the most unexpected pop stories of 2025 so far: On Thursday, news broke that pop superstar Justin Bieber, after nearly four years without a new release as a lead artist, would be releasing a new album at midnight — the 21-track collection Swag. What’s more, the album was a left turn from his usual pop sound, and even from his R&B-inflected work, with a more alternative-based, organic-sounding sonic palette largely owing to his new choices of collaborators, including the acclaimed artists Eddie Benjamin, Mk.gee and Dijon.
As word spread about Bieber’s new album and sound, so did the names of those collaborators — leading to big gains for each of their own catalogs this week. Over the first four days of this tracking week (July 11-14), Eddie Benjamin’s discography pulled a combined 45,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, according to early data provided by Luminate, a bump of 32% from the same period the prior week. Meanwhile, Mk.gee’s gains were even bigger, with his catalog growing 37% to just over a million streams over the same period, and Dijon’s were biggest of all, with a 50% gain to also just over a million streams.
And of course, Swag has seen massive streaming totals of its own over that period — with the album set for a major debut on the Billboard 200 next week. – AU
‘Too Much’ to Stream: Lena Dunham’s New Netflix Series Boosts Fergie, Kesha & More
Eight years after her breakthrough HBO show Girls concluded, Lena Dunham has returned with another TV series that blends R-rated romance, cringe comedy and millennial culture: Too Much follows Jessica (Megan Stalter) as she leaves a breakup behind in New York and tries to start fresh in London, developing a relationship with a musician named Felix (Will Sharpe). Too Much has been a hit since bowing on Netflix last Friday (July 11), and in the same way that Girls was stuffed with memorable music drops — who could forget the club scene featuring Icona Pop’s “I Love It”? — Dunham’s new project is full of ear-grabbing moments across a wide spectrum of popular music.
Fergie’s “London Bridge” is featured in the first episode of the new series, and earned 520,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the first four days that Too Much was on Netflix (July 11-14) — a 36% bump compared to the same four-day period during the previous week (July 4-7), according to preliminary data provided by Luminate. Kesha’s “Praying” similarly rose 28% in streams after being featured in the sixth episode, while indie singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon’s 2013 song “Are You With Me Now?,” which gets prime placement at the end of episode 2, shot up 285% to 29,000 streams from July 11-14, after earning less than 8,000 streams from July 4-7.
Because the full 10-episode season has been out for less than a week, songs from later episodes might receive an uptick as more viewers finish their binge — after all, the final episode features an underrated Taylor Swift track (no spoilers as to which one, though). – JASON LIPSHUTZ
