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: Thanksgiving songs quickly peek their heads onto streaming before making way for the Christmas avalanche — including a quickly growing new song from a pop icon — and a side-splitting viral trend brings a late-’00s pop-rock classic back to the mainstream.
Thanksgiving Songs Beat the Holiday Rush on Streaming
Yes, Thanksgiving is most notable in the Billboard world as the benchmark holiday after which Christmas music really starts to take off; see next week’s Hot 100 for a glimpse of just how dramatic the takeover will be. But before listeners fully ensconce themselves in Yuletide classics, some of them make sure to give some time — one day, at least — to the handful of enduring Thanksgiving perennials, many of which saw major boosts on streaming last week (particularly, of course, on Nov. 23, the final day of the tracking period).
Two unrelated staples simply titled “The Thanksgiving Song” — by pop/rock singer-songwriter Ben Rector and comedian Adam Sandler — both saw stratospheric gains, with the official on-demand U.S. streams for Rector’s song rising 473% to 803,000, while Sandler’s leapt 680% to 275,000, according to Luminate. (Sandler’s total came despite the song being unavailable on Spotify). Meanwhile, CCM singer-songwriter Matthew West’s singalong “Gobble Gobble” was up 218% to 1.2 million streams, and jazz outfit (and Christmastime regular) Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Thanksgiving Theme” rose 248% to 1.1 million.
Then, of course, there’s the daddy of them all: Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” the sung-spoken 1967 story song set at Thanksgiving that remains an annual listen in countless households nationwide. Boosted by some TikTok virality this year — largely of younger users sharing their confusion over their families’ continued observance of the “Alice’s” tradition — the once-a-year classic jumped a stunning 796% to 369,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending Nov. 23. Not quite Mariah Carey numbers, but pretty impressive endurance for an 18-plus-minute talking-blues number from over 55 years ago. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Colbie Caillat’s Breakthrough Hit “Bubbly” Rides Hilarious TikTok Meme to Streaming Revival
16 years ago, a guitar-touting Malibu girl by the name of Colbie Caillat burst onto the scene with “Bubbly,” a heartwarming earworm that served as the lead single for debut studio album Coco and reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Today, that song is seeing a second life with Gen Z thanks to a hilarious TikTok trend that is resulting in substantial streaming gains across DSPs. According to Luminate, “Bubbly” has earned over 1.62 million on-demand U.S. streams during the period of Nov. 17-23. That marks a major 98.3% increase in streaming activity from just three weeks ago, when the song was pulling just north of 800,000 on-demand U.S. streams.
The song’s boost in streams is primarily due to a TikTok trend where users place “Bubbly” over raucous videos of other artists performing. Whether it’s Lil Uzi Vert rocking their hips or Tyler, the Creator banging his head, the goal is to play on humor sourced from the visual and sonic dissonance of Caillat’s tender hook and high-octane stage shows. Thanks to the trend, the official “Bubbly” sound has been used in over 50,700 videos. Caillat has played into the trend, duetting and stitching memes featuring KISS, Post Malone and Travis Scott. She also cheekily responded to a TikTok poking fun at her request to be counted in at the beginning of the track and released an acoustic “living room session” version of the song on her YouTube page.
“Bubbly” remains Caillat’s sole Hot 100 top 10 hit, and its recent rise and streams proves the song is still connecting with audiences over a decade and a half removed from its original release. — KYLE DENIS
Cher, Play a Christmas Song: Thanksgiving Parade Performance Boosts New Holiday Single
Although the 2023 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade boasted a slew of music stars performing and popping by — from Beyoncé delivering a video message to The Roots playing a song with Jimmy Fallon to Chicago playing “You’re the Inspiration” atop a Wonder Bread float (!) — the climactic performance was saved until the end of the festivities. Cher arrived on 34th Street in Manhattan with a showcase of “DJ Play a Christmas Song,” her danceable pop single from her recently released holiday album Christmas, complete with choreography performed by dancers in heart costumes and dressed as little drummer boys and girls.
After Christmas debuted at No. 32 on the Billboard 200 chart last month, “DJ Play a Christmas Song” has naturally started to heat up as the holidays creep closer — although early returns suggest that the Thanksgiving Day performance provided the single with even more upward momentum. While the song’s weekly U.S. on-demand streaming totals jumped from 101,000 streams for the week ending Nov. 2 to 521,000 for the week ending Nov. 23, according to Luminate, “DJ Play a Christmas Song” earned 647,000 streams from Friday to Monday (Nov. 24-27) — surpassing its previous week’s streaming total in just four days.
With the Hot 100 in the process of being flooded by holiday music, we’ll see over the few weeks if “DJ Play a Christmas Song,” which has reached No. 3 on the Holiday Digital Song Sales chart, can keep climbing and reach the all-genre tally before the end of the season. If it does, the single would be Cher’s first Hot 100 entry since “Song for the Lonely” in 2002. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
