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: Fans celebrate Alan Jackson’s iconic country catalog following his star-studded farewell concert, Miguel has a second old song pop off anew, BabyChiefDoIt scores a new viral hit and more.
Streaming Audiences ‘Remember’ Alan Jackson Following Final Concert
Very few country stars of the past 40 years have had careers more accomplished or storied than Country Music Hall of Famer Alan Jackson, with 26 Country Airplay No. 1 hits to his name — spanning from 1991 to 2010 — as well as 11 Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits, and four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. So of course, all eyes were on Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on Saturday night (June 27) as Jackson performed his “Last Call: One More for the Road — The Finale” concert, a star-studded, livestreamed event designed to be the 67-year-old legend’s farewell to performing.
And of course, whether inspired by the concert experience or upset to have missed out on it, streaming audiences flocked to Jackson’s catalog in the days following the concert. Between the two days after the June 27 show, Jackson’s discography combined for over 8.1 million official on-demand streams, according to Luminate — a 32% gain over the 6.2 million streams his work amassed across the equivalent period the prior week (June 21-22). One of the biggest bumps was for the sentimental “Remember When,” which rose 79% to 450,000 streams over the same period.
While “Last Call” marks Jackson’s final live performance, he’s not done with music in general — last Thursday, he also released his cover of Orleans’ ‘70s pop-rock smash “Still the One,” which generated 201,000 combined streams over Sunday and Monday. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Miguel Eyes Another Potential TikTok-Revived Hit With ‘Damned’
After scoring one of the decade’s biggest TikTok-assisted viral comebacks with “Sure Thing,” Miguel could repeat that success with “Damned.” A bonus track from his 2015 Wildheart LP, “Damned” has been steadily rising on streaming over the past four months. After soundtracking a Chad Michael Murray fancam with over 2.6 million views (March 22), streams for “Damned” pulled 385,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the week of March 27-April 2, according to Luminate, marking a whopping 1,359% increase from the 26,000 streams it logged a month prior (March 3-9).
Throughout April, “Damned” continued to soundtrack fancams and before-after transition videos (specifically with the song’s chorus), helping the song spike to over 3.2 million official on-demand U.S. weekly streams during the period of April 23-30. On May 10, TikTok user @/rodwavehairline shared a fanmade mashup of “Damned” and Brent Faiyaz’s “No One Knows,” which continued the song’s streaming surge and TikTok virality.
Though streaming activity dipped slightly during the period of May 22-28 (2.88 million weekly streams), a viral, Camden Bop-anchored dance trend, created by users @/nateb0310 and @/quuuimby. By the week of June 19-25, “Damned” collected over 4.05 million official on-demand U.S. streams, marking an incredible 15,273% leap in streaming activity over the past 16 weeks.
On TikTok, the official “Damned” sounds and the Brent Faiyaz remix play in a combined 6.1 million clips. While “Damned” wasn’t the hit of the Wildheart era — that would be a combination of “Coffee” and “Simple Things” — it could very well have its own moment in the sun, and on the charts, should its streaming resurgence continue. — KYLE DENIS
BabyChiefDoIt Rides Viral TikTok Trend to Latest Streaming Smash
Rising Chicago rapper-producer BabyChiefDoIt made his Hot 100 debut last year with “Went West” (No. 71), and he might add to that tally with “Ghetto Love Story.” Housed on his Rise Against My Broken Odds LP, which arrived June 12, “Love Story” has quickly taken over TikTok.
After hitting 174,000 official on-demand U.S. streams on June 22, according to Luminate, streams for “Love Story” rose every day for the following week, reaching 465,000 official streams on June 29. Over those seven days, streams for “Love Story” vaulted 166%.
BabyChief first teased the song on TikTok with a June 9 clip shot at a roller-skating rink; featuring the entire first verse and chorus, the Miami bass-inflected song and its “Baby, I just wanna dance” refrain quickly won over the app. Over the past two weeks, BabyChief has scored several TikToks crossing the one million-view mark thanks to “Love Story” and his adorably goofy dance moves. A From the Block live performance of the song, posted on June 19, has also been making the rounds. “Love Story” has already surpassed 1.2 million posts on TikTok and over 2,400 posts on Instagram Reels.
Most users have opted for the question–response photoset approach to join the “Love Story” trend; the first picture is captioned with some version of “They always ask me why/When somebody looks at me weird…” and the second picture answers with “I just wanna dance.” Others have chosen to caption the first slide with “Baby, baby,” and pair that with childhood dance videos in the second slide.
It’s still early in the game, but the 2026 song of the summer race just got a very strong new entry. — KD
‘Misery’ Loves Streaming Company in Viral Pupsies Digicore Hit
If you’ve heard an Auto-Tuned vocal moaning over a throbbing synth-bass and video game-sounding electronic effects in the past few weeks, you’re certainly not alone. “Misery,” a catchy new lament by teenage digicore artist Pupsies, has been taking over on TikTok, soundtracking emotional videos and animé edits and becoming an inside joke among LARPers (or at least among folks who enjoy saying “Larp”).
The song has subsequently exploded on DSPs — drawing nearly 1.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending June 25, up 1,664% from the previous week (and still rapidly climbing), according to Luminate, while also cracking the top half of Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA top 200 earlier this week. It’s also been included in multiple mash-ups (and viral recommendations) with the similar sounding “Meant to Be” (by the artist C–tsniffer), which has also been growing steadily in streams all year, up to 1.7 million streams for the same week ending June 25, up 1,079% from the tracking week eight weeks prior.
“Its okay to find a new song thru social media and like it,” posted Pupsies in the info on the song’s SoundCloud page, “dont worry about being ‘larp’ that is not a real thing!!!!!” – AU
