Welcome to Billboard Pro's Upward trends newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the attention of the music industry. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all could become ubiquitous with the flash of a TikTok clip.
This week: A new Gracie Abrams hit hits an old favorite with a similar title, Lil Baby scores a viral hit with an unlikely guest verse, and The Penguin is starting to show its value as a TV sync source.
'Sorry' Not Sorry: Gracie Abrams' Viral Hit Becomes Highest-Scoring Hot 100 Entry
On Tuesday night, Gracie Abrams wrapped up The Secret of Us US tour in Philadelphia, which found the singer-songwriter playing to her biggest crowd since the release of her sophomore album in June. Three days after that final headlining show, she'll be in Miami, back as an opener on Taylor Swift's Eras tour until the end of the road trip in December. Along with the two high-profile tours, Abrams has followed a couple of her songs — including her latest single from Our secret — is taking off on US streaming services, landing her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date.
The glowing “I Love You, I'm Sorry” has been the talk of social media for weeks — first with pop fans arguing over the quality of the official music video and Abrams' soft-spoken performance of the song, then with a TikTok trend supporting Abrams' voiceover (literally called “whisper allegation beater”) and ending with a Vevo live view of the track that fans flocked to following its release on October 2nd. The buzz helped the song's weekly US on-demand streams rise from 7.38 million during the week ending Sept. 5 to 11.35 million during the week ending Oct. 10, according to Luminate .
As those streams helped “I Love You, I'm Sorry” climb the Hot 100 — climbing from No. 53 to No. 31 on this week's chart, Abrams' first solo entry into the top 40 — an earlier Abrams song, “I Miss You, I'm Sorry” has also benefited, thanks to longtime fans defending the 2020 track that received a belated roll call. “I Miss You, I'm Sorry” earned 2.5 million streams during the week ending Sept. 5, but in the most recent tracking week, that number rose to 3.73 million — a 48% gain over this five weeks, not too far off the 53% jump for “I Love You, I'm Sorry.” – JASON LIPSHUTZ
No Hate for Lil Baby's Guest Verse on Italian Rapper's “Canzone D'Odio.”
Just a few years after being arguably one of the most ubiquitous rappers in popular music, Lil Baby's mainstream presence has been a little more sparse over the past couple of years. But now he might be on his way back to another viral hit with a guest rapper — no surprise, except for the artist he's supporting: Italian MC Lazza, whose Italian-language single “Canzone D'Odio” (in English: “Hate Song”) Baby appeared, with a verse in English.
“Canzone” originally appeared on Lazza's Locura album – the rapper's third consecutive album at the top of Italy FIMI album chart – before they catch fire internationally on the internet. Listeners were naturally thrilled to hear such a recognizable American voice in an otherwise Italian song, leading the song to climb to No. 2 on Shazam's United States Top 200 Table. Fans have flooded the YouTube comments for the video praising Baby's guest verse, with many wishing for a version of the song featuring just him.
The song has started to blow up on streaming services as well. The song has grown more than 300% in official US on-demand streams each of the past two weeks, according to Luminate, and posted more than one million streams in the last tracking week ending Oct. 10. That's still not enough to really threaten a Hot 100 bow — but if the song keeps growing from here, the new collaborators could be “cin cin” — on Lil Baby's 142nd career chart soon. – ANDREW UNDERBERGER
'The Penguin' syncs its way to the biggest streaming numbers
Back in the 90s, a big one Batman Pitching a pop song was one of the surest paths to pop success: Just ask Seal, who had his only Hot 100 No. 1 hit with a Batman forever soundtrack single (“Kiss From a Rose” in 1995). While Christopher Nolan's era Dark Knight the early 21st century trilogy wasn't as interested in creating big musical moments, Batman found her pop footing again in 2022 with Batmanwhich spawned a chart hit from grunge legends Nirvana's once-deep 'Something in the Way' – even with the 30-plus-year-old It does not matter-Closing ballad on the Hot 100 for the first time.
Now, the Gothamverse is helping out the music world again, thanks to HBO's new blockbuster crime drama The Penguinstarring Colin Farrell as the titular villain (anti-hero?) and set after the events of 2022 Batman. Bumps for the songs that appear are so far more subdued than “Something in the Way” afterBatmanbut Floor Cry's cover of the Turtles' 1967 pop classic “Happy Together” surged 616% to nearly 93,000 weekly official on-demand streams in the US in the two weeks after the moody rendition appeared in the end credits on The Penguinits second episode. Similarly, Bob Moses' bouncy electro-funk banger “Broken Belief” jumped 1,779% for the week ending Oct. 10 to nearly 81,000 streams after appearing in an episode three montage.
Given the muscle he's already showing with his timings, it might just be a matter of time The Penguin finds the right beat, new or old, to bring it back to the top – “Earth Angel”, perhaps; – AU
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/gracie-abrams-i-love-you-im-sorry-miss-you-streaming-gains-1235803089/
