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: Travis Scott picks up where he left off a half-decade ago with his new album’s streaming performance, Ice Spice does some solo shopping, an ’80s top 40 relic sees an improbable revival and more.
A Streaming ‘Utopia’ for Travis Scott
If the five years in between Travis Scott’s 2018 blockbuster Astroworld and follow-up album Utopia – or the 2021 Astroworld festival tragedy that cast a pall over his 2020s so far – had any dampening effect on his career, it’d be tough to spot from the set’s early streaming performance.
The Cactus Jack/Epic set has amassed a staggering 266.21 million official on-demand U.S. streams in its first five days of release (July 28-Aug 1), according to Luminate – nearly matching the full first-week total of 269.33 million for Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which was the second-biggest streaming week of 2023 so far. (Astroworld posted 349.43 million total streams in its debut frame.) Utopia is led in first-week streams by the Drake-featuring “Meltdown” (25.12 million), the Playboi Carti-featuring “Fe!n” (20.45 million) and the unaccompanied “I Know ?” (16.78 million).
The set has seen such a robust streaming debut that it has also boosted some of the songs the album samples and references. Two songs sampled on the set’s opening cut, “Hyaena,” saw gains over the July 28-Aug 1 period from the prior Friday to Tuesday: Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” (up 11% to 45,000 streams) and Gentle Giant’s “Proclamation” (up 585% to over 9,000 streams). The biggest rise was saved for Scott’s mentor Kanye West, however, as his “I Am a God” – which many fans cited as being the obvious sonic blueprint for Utopia’s “Modern Jam” – climbed 85% to nearly 115,000 streams. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Noah Kahan’s ‘Dial Drunk’ Posts Gains Post-Post Malone Remix
In June, we covered the steady, undeniable rise of Noah Kahan in this column, on the occasion of his Stick Season album receiving a deluxe edition and barreling into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time (peaking at No. 3 on the chart, after its standard edition previously reached No. 14 upon its 2022 release). The deluxe edition was led by the new single “Dial Drunk,” an ode to a late-night call from a holding cell which, like the Stick Season title track, found a wide audience upon its release after Kahan had been teasing the song on TikTok for weeks. Unlike “Stick Season,” however, “Dial Drunk” has spent the past six weeks becoming the Vermont singer-songwriter’s biggest chart hit by far — thanks in part to a famous new friend in Post Malone.
“Dial Drunk” became Kahan’s first career Billboard Hot 100 hit upon its June release, peaking at No. 43 and spending four weeks on the chart before slipping off in July. However, a July 18 remix of the song — featuring Post Malone, Kahan’s Republic Records label mate, crooning in between the finger-picked banjo notes — has helped give “Dial Drunk” renewed chart juice, even as the solo version remains the one listed on the Hot 100. After bounding back to a new peak of No. 39 on last week’s chart, “Dial Drunk” sprints up to No. 25 this week.
Meanwhile, combined U.S. on-demand streams of the original version and the remix totaled 12.56 million for the week ending July 27 — a 154% increase from two weeks earlier, prior to the release of the remix, according to Luminate. Kahan has “been listening to Post Malone since White Iverson dropped,” he wrote last month, “even covering Congratulations right when my career was beginning.” Now, Posty has helped his longtime supporter score the first top 40 Hot 100 hit of his career, and one that’s still quickly rising. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Ice Spice’s ‘Deli’ Serves Up Solo Success
During the same week that she’s named Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Rookie of the Year, Ice Spice has another reason to celebrate: the Bronx rapper just scored the highest-charting unaccompanied solo hit of her career.
After breaking through with viral smashes like “Munch (Feelin’ U)” and “In Ha Mood,” then conquering the charts with top 10 Hot 100 collaborations like “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” (with PinkPantheress) and the Nicki Minaj-assisted remix to “Princess Diana,” Ice Spice’s solo track “Deli” makes a strong start at No. 41 on this week’s Hot 100 chart. The track highlighted the recently released deluxe edition of her debut EP, Like..?, and earned an impressive 10.94 million official on-demand U.S. streams during the week ending July 27, according to Luminate, while surpassing Ice Spice’s previous best Hot 100 showing as a solo artist, when “In Ha Mood” peaked at No. 58 earlier this year. (The song is still rising, too: Up from 1.58 million daily streams on its debut two Fridays ago to over 2 million last Friday.)
As “Deli” makes its chart bow, the newly expanded Like..? re-enters the Billboard 200 at No. 26 this week. Time will tell if the uptempo, club-ready “Deli” becomes a durable hit for Ice Spice, but she’s already got another in the meantime: “Barbie World,” her latest team-up with Nicki Minaj (and first with Aqua!) from the Barbie soundtrack, is back in the top 10 of the Hot 100 this week at No. 8. – JL
The ‘Oppenheimer’ Bump? Sting’s “Russians” Up Following Renewed Interest
One of the strangest musical documents of Cold War-era nuclear anxiety you could find on the Billboard charts of the ‘80s was Sting’s dolorous ballad “Russians,” featuring lyrics expressing the former Police frontman’s incredulity at how close world powers were to bringing one another to nuclear annihilation: “We share the same biology, regardless of ideology/ Believe me when I say to you/ I hope the Russians love their children too.“ The song became a No. 18 Hot 100 hit in early 1986 – albeit one far more rarely heard today on ‘80s-themed radio as Sting’s other contemporaneous hits.
However, the song is back in the zeitgeist this summer, thanks to the hit Christopher Nolan-directed biopic Oppenheimer. While the movie has far fewer pop music tie-ins than its concurrent blockbuster Barbie, “Russians” has received renewed attention thanks to Nolan citing it – in particular the lyric “How can I save my little boy/ From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?” – as one of his inspirations for making the movie. The song is unlikely to join “Barbie World” and “Dance the Night” on the Hot 100 anytime soon, but it’s up from 28,000 to 41,000 in official on-demand audio streams for the chart week ending July 27 – a 48% gain, according to Luminate. – AU
Q&A: Ashley Graver, Spotify’s Head of Pop, Dance & Indie, Artist Partnerships, on What’s Trending Up in Her World
How did Spotify’s new Billions Club series originate?
The evolution of the Billions Club has been organic and primarily driven by artists. The idea first struck when we saw artists naturally celebrating the billion-stream milestone on their social media platforms. We felt the excitement, and quickly decided to commemorate the milestone with a heavy custom plaque.
Once we did that, we saw artists like Drake get creative with the plaque and celebrate the achievement in clever ways. In Drake’s case, he used it as a dish to eat pasta out of, and it was hilarious! The rest is history. We saw that this added another layer of connecting artists with their fans and decided to turn each of these moments into a content franchise – giving it the Billions Club name. It’s these fun, unique moments that allow audiences to feel like they’re celebrating with their favorite artist, and we’re thrilled to have [production company] OBB Pictures bring this to life.
Why do you think the idea of a song earning 1 billion streams on Spotify resonates with major artists?
It’s still rare to make it to the billion-stream mark, and this achievement really cements a moment in time. Earning a billion streams on Spotify is a tangible way to quantify an artist’s impact on music and culture worldwide, and as the leading global DSP, reaching a billion streams on a single song is a significant milestone for any artist. With Spotify in over 180 markets today, artists are crossing borders and connecting with new and longtime fans. That is what makes this so special for artists and equally important for Spotify.
What trends, or surprises, do you see when you look at the list of songs that have joined the Billions Club?
One of the great things about the Billions Club list is seeing the diversity of music genres and the growth/trajectory of a song. There’s such a wide variety of artists and sounds, from “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush to “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi, to hits by Bad Bunny, Rihanna, Avicii, Miley Cyrus and The Weeknd, to name a few. Streaming has really helped propel emerging and established artists to a global level, and with the Billions Club, we can celebrate this achievement in a big way.
Where do you see the Billions Club franchise evolving from here?
Spotify is excited to see how many artists will join the club in the coming years. As the platform grows, the title will become more widely held, both in terms of the number of members and the span of genres that join the club. We look forward to watching the Billions Club franchise evolve so we can continue to give fans a deeper look into the songs they know and love and share stories they don’t about their favorite artists. – JL
Season’s Gainings: “August” Is Taylor Swift’s Moment in Time
In case you haven’t already gotten your fill the rest of this calendar year, it appears that August is now officially Taylor Swift’s month – thanks to her song of the same name, a Folklore fan favorite. The song has already become a perennial re-charter thanks to its strong association with this time of the season, and every year the song seems to rebound a little higher: This year, it jumps from 701,000 to 1.94 million official on-demand audio streams from July 31 to August 1, a gain of 176%, according to Luminate. Could it rechart on the Hot 100, giving Taylor Swift a chart hit from four different albums simultaneously? For this month, Swifties will be livin’ for the hope of it all. – AU
