Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up column, 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: Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor and more Gen X stalwarts get a valuable boost from a hit dramedy’s new season, Dominic Fike scores a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it viral hit, GloRilla gets one of the most valuable cosigns imaginable and much more.
‘The Bear’ Roars Back With Bumps for Eddie Vedder, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead & More
For those who have spent the last year fretting over whether or not Carmy ever got out of that damn freezer, good news: The Bear has finally returned for its third season. The much-anticipated new 10-episode drop from one of TV’s most acclaimed dramedies arrived last Wednesday night (June 26) – and according to its home streaming service Hulu, it’s scored the show’s best opening viewership yet, with 5.4 million views over its first four days of release. And as in the first two seasons, the show comes replete with a variety of memorable needle drops, which have led to big streaming gains this week – particularly for a number of esteemed ‘90s alt-rock veterans.
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder is leading the way with the biggest Bear tune, albeit for a brand-new song. “Save It for Later,” his solo cover of the English Beat’s 1982 new wave staple, debuted along with the new season on Wednesday, and saw its official on-demand US streams nearly double from Thursday to Friday (39,000 to 73,000, according to Luminate) – as more people caught up with the season, in which it appears multiple times (though most prominently at the outset of episode two, “Next”). It totaled a combined 234,000 streams from Thursday to Sunday, while the Beat original (also featured in the Bear season) saw a notable bump as well, up 37% in streams over Friday to Sunday (116,000 total) from the same period the week before. (The English Beat version is also No. 1 on Billboard’s LyricFind U.S. chart after the release of Vedder’s cover – up 3,668% in lyric searches since the premiere.)
Nine Inch Nails also had several songs featured throughout the season, and the most notable – the instrumental “Together,” featured prominently in the season premiere “Tomorrow” – was up a staggering 1,477% in streams over that Friday to Sunday period, rising to 35,000 from just over 2,000 in the previous week’s equivalent period. Similar gains were seen over the same timeframe for featured songs by Radiohead (“(Nice Dream),” up 42% to 58,000) and Refused (recurring Bear staple “New Noise,” up 31% to 46,000). And it wasn’t just the ‘90s greats: Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker represented for the younger generation with a bump for her “No Machine,” which rose 73% to to 33,000. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Dominic Fike’s ‘Misses’ Hits on TikTok & Streaming
“14 minutes of music that almost didn’t see the light of day”: that’s how Dominic Fike described 14 Minutes, a new EP that quickly followed last year’s Sunburn album, upon its May release. With a track list of eight self-produced songs that clock in between one and three minutes in length, 14 Minutes was unveiled as an odds-and-ends project for fans — but then one of its shortest tracks, the 74-second “Misses,” started to go viral, and is now logging seven-figure weekly streams.
While the jaunty 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 steadily growing on streaming services — earning 4.41 million official on-demand U.S. streams during the chart week ending June 27, according to Luminate, after earning 2.35 million streams during the week ending June 6, a nearly 88% spike in three weeks’ time. Fike earned his first Billboard Hot 100 entry as a lead artist last year with “Mona Lisa,” which peaked at No. 89; if “Misses” keeps growing, the track could become an unlikely follow-up hit. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Thank God It’s Rihanna: New GloRilla Single Blows Up After Pop Legend’s Viral Video
It’s already been a hell of a 2024 for Memphis rapper GloRilla, who’s scored a pair of top 40 Hot 100 hits with “Yeah Glo!” and the Megan Thee Stallion teamup “Wanna Be.” Glo’s new single “TGIF” hasn’t quite joined them in that region yet – the weekend-celebrating anthem debuted at No. 46 on the Hot 100 last week. But it’s probably going to get there very shortly, after getting an instantly unforgettable co-sign from someone as familiar with the top of the chart as any artist this century: Rihanna.
On June 28, Rih shared a video of herself rapping along and dropping it low to the song, all in the face of her significant other A$AP Rocky – who observed her performance with his hands on his hips like a disapproving schoolteacher, before commenting “I’m too old for this” at video’s end (as Rihanna cackled in response). The couple’s delightful clip, captioned “happy friday,” caused the song to immediately explode: “TGIF” racked up nearly 4.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams combined over the following Saturday and Sunday after notching just 2.4 million the previous weekend (according to Luminate), a 74% gain. Good to know that while we’re waiting for her impossibly long-anticipated R9 album, Rihanna is still bringing new smash hits to the people, one way or the other. – AU
Could the Celine Dion Documentary Help a Former ‘AGT’ Contestant Become a Star?
Last month, I Am: Celine Dion, a documentary capturing the life and career of the titular 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 bow allowed millions of viewers to marvel at Dion’s personal and professional achievements — as well as get introduced to “Who I Am,” an uplifting piano ballad from singer-songwriter Wyn Starks, which is showcased as an inspiring anthem in the doc.
Starks, a Minneapolis native, originally released “Who I Am” in 2020 and performed the song while competing on America’s Got Talent in 2022, the song’s emotion moving judge Sofia Vergara to tears. Now signed to Curb Records, Starks has landed another high-profile platform for “Who I Am,” and it’s paying off: the song earned 101,000 official on-demand U.S. streams from June 28-30, according to Luminate, after earning just a fraction of that (14,000 streams) during the same three-day period the previous week. Starks released a new single, “Run,” earlier this year, but the success of the documentary may have the singer-songwriter and his team pivoting back to another round of promo for “Who I Am.” – JL
