Welcome to Billboard Pro's Upward trends column, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, oddities 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: Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor and other Gen X stalwarts get a valuable boost from the new season of a hit dramedy, Dominic Fike scores a look-and-you'll-miss-it viral hit, GloRilla gets one of the most precious feelings imaginable and many more.
'The Bear' Roars Back With Bumps for Eddie Vedder, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and more
For those who have spent the last year worrying about whether Carmy ever made it out of that damn freezer, good news: The bear is finally back for its third season. The long-awaited new 10-episode drop from one of TV's most acclaimed dramas arrived last Wednesday night (June 26) – and according to home streaming service Hulu, it scored the show's best viewership to date, with 5.4 million views from the first four days of release. And like the first two seasons, the series is packed with a variety of memorable pins, which led to big streaming gains this week — particularly for several notable '90s alt-rock veterans.
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder leads the way with the biggest Bear tune, albeit for a brand new song. “Save It for Later,” his solo cover of the 1982 English Beat new wave staple, debuted alongside the new season on Wednesday and saw its official US on-demand streams nearly double from Thursday to Friday (39,000 to 73,000, according to Luminate) – as more people watched the season, in which he appears several times (though most prominently at the beginning of episode two, “Next”). It garnered a total of 234,000 streams from Thursday to Sunday, while the original Beat (also featured on Bear season) also saw a notable increase, up 37% in Friday-to-Sunday streams (116,000 total) from the same period last week. (The English Beat version is also No. 1 on Advertising signLyricFind US chart after release of Vedder's cover – 3.668% increase in lyric searches since premiere.)
Nine Inch Nails also had several songs featured throughout the season, and the most notable — the instrumental “Together,” which featured prominently in the season premiere “Tomorrow” — saw a 1,477% increase in streams during that time from Friday through Sunday, reaching 35,000 from just over 2,000 in the same period last week. Similar gains were made over the same period for Radiohead's featured songs (“(Nice Dream),” up 42% to 58,000) and Refused (repeat Bear basically “New Noise”, up 31% to 46,000). And it wasn't just '90s greats: Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker represented the younger generation with a hit for “No Machine,” which rose 73% to 33,000. – ANDREW UNDERBERGER
Dominic Fike's TikTok & Streaming Hits
“14 minutes of music that almost never saw the light of day”: that's how Dominic Fike described it 14 minutesa new EP that quickly followed last year's Sunburn album, upon its release in May. With a tracklist of eight self-produced songs ranging from one to three minutes in length, 14 minutes was revealed as a project with odds and ends for fans – but then one of its shorter tracks, the 74-second “Misses”, started to go viral and is now racking up seven-figure weekly streams.
While the cute soul-rock track has been used in TikTok posts by Kylie Jenner and The Kid LAROI in recent weeks, Fike has incorporated the song into his sets at festivals like Bonnaroo and Governors Ball. As a result, “Misses” spent all of June in steady growth on streaming services — earning 4.41 million official on-demand streams in the U.S. during the chart week ending June 27, according to Luminate, after gaining 2 .35 million streams during the week ending June 6. an increase of almost 88% in three weeks. Fike earned his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 as a lead artist last year with “Mona Lisa,” which peaked at No. 89. If “Misses” continues to rise, the track could become a breakout hit. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Thank God It's Rihanna: GloRilla's New Single Blows Up After Pop Legend's Viral Video
It's already been one hell of a 2024 for Memphis rapper GloRilla, who scored a pair of Hot 100 top 40 hits with “Yeah Glo!” and the Megan Thee Stallion “Wanna Be” team. Glo's new single “TGIF” hasn't quite got them into that territory yet — the weekend-celebrating anthem debuted at No. 46 on the Hot 100 last week. But he'll probably get there very soon, having immediately received a memorable co-sign from someone as familiar with chart-topping as any artist this century: Rihanna.
On June 28, Rich share a video of herself rapping and laying low on the song, all in front of her significant other A$AP Rocky – who watched her performance with his hands on his hips like a disapproving teacher, before commenting “I'm too old for that” at the end of the video (as Rihanna hacked in response). The pair's delightful clip, captioned “happy friday,” made the song an instant hit: “TGIF” garnered nearly 4.5 million official on-demand streams in the U.S. combined the following Saturday and Sunday, after scoring just a 2.4 million last weekend (according to Luminate), a 74% gain. It's good to know, while we wait for her incredibly long-awaited R9 album, Rihanna is still bringing new big hits to the world, one way or another. – AU
Could Celine Dion's documentary help a former 'AGT' contestant become a star?
Last month, I Am: Celine Dion, a documentary chronicling the life and career of the venerable pop superstar (as well as her ongoing battle with stiff-person syndrome) enjoyed a limited theatrical run before debuting on Amazon Prime Video. Its June 25 streaming allowed millions of viewers to marvel at Dion's personal and professional accomplishments — as well as experience “Who I Am,” a soulful piano ballad by singer-songwriter Wyn Starks, presented as an inspirational anthem in the document
Starks, a Minneapolis native, originally released “Who I Am” in 2020 and performed the song while competing on AMERICA has talent in 2022, the thrill of song judge Sofia Vergara in tears. Now signed to Curb Records, Starks has created another high-profile platform for “Who I Am,” and it's paying off: the song earned 101,000 official US on-demand streams from June 28-30, according to Luminate , after earning just a fraction of that (14,000 streams) during the same three-day period last week. Starks released a new single, “Run,” earlier this year, but the success of the documentary may have the singer-songwriter and crew back for another round of “Who I Am” promo. – JL
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