Tracy Chapman has seen a meteoric rise in streams for her song “Fast Car” in the days following her appearance at the 2024 Grammy Awards.
eAccording to Billboard“Fast Car” has seen a 241% increase in streams (from 248,000 daily streams to 949,000) and a 38,000% (!) increase in sales (from a negligible amount to almost 14,000 purchases).
“Fast Car” initially saw renewed interest last year when Luke Combs covered the song. The cover reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, surpassing the original song's peak position at No. 6 in 1988. The version's success on the country charts made Tracy Chapman the first black woman to have sole songwriting credit on a country hit. number one.
At last weekend's Grammys, Chapman made a rare public appearance to perform “Fast Car” with Combs. The performance quickly went viral, generating even more interest in both Combs' version and Chapman's original.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Grammys producer Ben Winston said Chapman's performance was months in the making. “Five months ago, [exec producers] Raj Kapoor and Patrick Menton said, “Look, Tracy might be interested.” And they worked very closely with that camp to make sure it happened, to make sure she felt good about it. She brings this joyful, amazing energy, this calmness to the set. And it happened. “Sometimes we thought it was too good to be true when she agreed to do it.”
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Tracy Chapman, who hasn't performed publicly in years, performs “Fast Car” with Luke Combs at the #Grammy: pic.twitter.com/VJg3knUYuV
– Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) February 5, 2024
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