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: A couple buzzy SNL first-timers see streaming spikes as a result of their performances, veteran rock hitmakers see a mid-period single get revived, a gospel favorite leads to an unlikely dance trend and more.
Turnstile and Rosalía Get Streaming Boosts From ‘Saturday Night Live’ Performance Debuts
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for musical performances on Saturday Night Live, with two highly acclaimed but wildly different acts making their first appearances as musical guests on the long-running late-night institution. Baltimore punk band Turnstile was featured on the Oct. 3 episode — making them the first hardcore band to appear on the program since Fear in 1981 — while genre-and-language-spanning singer-songwriter Rosalía brought two songs from her award-winning Lux album to the stage on Oct. 10.
Turnstile’s explosive performance resulted in major gains for the two songs performed by the quintet: “Birds” amassed 327,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the Monday-Friday period following the performance (Oct. 5-9), according to Luminate — a gain of 74% from the same period the prior week — while “I Care” collected 239,000 streams over the same timespan, an 80% gain from the previous week. (The band also saw gains for its whole catalog, with its discography totaling over 3.9 million streams over the period, up 44% from 2.7 million the week before.)
Of course, we don’t have as much data yet for Rosalía’s songs following her spellbinding performance last Saturday — but from early returns, she looks to be receiving similar gains. Her “Reliquia” pulled in 51,000 streams the following Monday (Oct. 12), according to early data provided by Luminate, which is a 175% gain from the prior Monday (Oct. 5) — and “Magnolias” saw an even bigger bump, up to 53,000 streams from just under 12,000 the previous Monday, a whopping 356% gain. (On the whole, Rosalía’s catalog received just over 1 million streams, up 37% from the 762,000 it received a week earlier.)
The continued streaming impact on SNL is certainly good news for this season’s recent and upcoming musical guests — with Gracie Abrams the only announced performer so far for Season 52’s remainder, scheduled for this year’s Halloween episode, hosted by recent horror star Inde Navarrette. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
‘Holy Bend’ Dance Trend Lifts Marvin Sapp’s Classic ‘Listen’
Earlier this year, Billboard reported on the Dallas-sourced “bend” dance trend boosting viral songs on streaming, and the latest beneficiary is Marvin Sapp’s “Listen.”
The 2017 single, which hit No. 2 on Gospel Airplay, has jumped over 158% in streaming activity over the past month. Back in May, TikTok user @/chang3dgentleman posted a clip of him hitting the “holy bend” while praise dancing in church. That video earned over 213,000 views, kicking off a slow-but-steady rise for the trend, which the same user would revisit with a viral Sept. 11 post that garnered over 692,000 views. On Sept. 15, user @/fortunately.md posted the now-viral “holy bend” dance challenge to an unofficial TikTok sound containing parts of the original version of “Listen.” During the week of Sept. 11-17, “Listen” spiked nearly 30% to over 169,000 official U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
By Sept. 21, user @/prodbyjohnnyflexx shared a trap-inflected remix of “Listen” with the caption “Gospel bend?” The accompanying sound spawned several viral videos — including some featuring bibles, choir robes and full-on Jesus cosplay — among its 5,000 posts. During the week of Sept. 18-24, “Listen” streams jumped a further 45% to over 246,000. On Oct. 7 at the Dove Awards red carpet, Sapp commented on the TikTok-led “Listen” revival, adding more fuel to the trend. During the week of Oct. 2-8, “Listen” pulled 341,000 streams, up 21% from the week prior.
Who says gospel music can’t be hip? — KYLE DENIS
Worth the ‘Wait’: 2013 Kings of Leon Song Takes Off on TikTok
Kings of Leon grew into one of the biggest bands of the 21st century’s first decade, starting out as live sensations in the early decade and then press darlings at mid-decade, before morphing into arena rockers in the late ’00s, thanks to the gigantic hits “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody.” But it’s not either of those songs, nor any of their fan favorites from earlier in the decade that have blown up recently — rather, it’s the second single from the Followills’ 2013 album Mechanical Bull, “Wait for Me.”
With nearly 100,000 videos made to its official audio, the mid-tempo ballad has become a user favorite for soundtracking TV edits, clips of romantic yearning, and videos capturing the changing seasons. The latter may help explain why, after steady growth for most of the year, its numbers have been particularly shooting up recently — with “Wait for Me” just clearing three million official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending Oct. 8, up 27% from the 2.4 million it posted four weeks earlier (Sept. 4-10), and about triple the one million streams it posted four months earlier (June 11-18), according to Luminate.
It’s good timing for the Kings, who just announced a new album (O My Beloved) for November, with two singles already released from the project: “My Whole World” and “Cold Blue Dawn.” – AU
Rising Rapper SWAE Taps Lakeyah for Burgeoning Hit ‘Hide It’
Florida-hailing, self-proclaimed “whisper rapper” SWAE has one of the fastest-rising hits on TikTok at the moment. “Hide It,” which features Milwaukee MC Lakeyah, has exploded in streaming activity over the past three weeks.
From Sept. 18-24, “Hide It,” which dropped on Aug. 27, earned just over 60,000 official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate. Between Sept. 23 and Sept. 26, user @/weloveditzz shared one clip a day of a CapCut template tied to “Hide It,” with each clip garnering over 100,000 likes. By the week of Sept. 25-Oct. 1, streams for “Hide It” vaulted 320% to over 254,000. On Oct. 3, user @/ash.awaken1 shared a dance challenge set to “Hide It,” and that clip garnered over 440,000 views. During the week of Oct. 2-8, “Hide It” leapt a further 78% to over 454,000 official streams. To date, the official “Hide It” TikTok sound boasts over 540,000 uses (good for No. 8 on the platform’s Viral 50 chart).
Looks like Swae Lee isn’t the hitmaking Swae in the hip-hop world. – KD
