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Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars’ ‘Die With a Smile’ Targets Big Debut After First Week
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we delve into the songs, artists, curiosities, and trends capturing the music industry’s attention. Some emerge suddenly, others take months to gain traction, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip.
This week: Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ new duet keeps growing, Taylor Swift’s second Tortured Poets single is making waves on radio, and Gigi Perez may be on the verge of a big mainstream breakthrough.
A duet between Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars was bound to generate significant interest upon release. “Die With a Smile,” the anthemic pop-rock collaboration released on Friday (Aug. 16), is aiming for a splashy debut within the Hot 100’s upper reaches. Although initial numbers appeared modest, the song has been growing steadily during its first week. A top-tier debut might very well be in reach for it.
After bowing with 2.78 million U.S. on-demand audio streams on its opening day, according to Luminate, “Smile” maintained that daily streaming mark over the weekend. However, the song saw a substantial streaming uptick on Monday (Aug. 19), with 3.52 million streams—a 34% gain from the day before. By Wednesday, the song had reached the top of both Spotify Daily Top Songs USA and the real-time Apple Music charts. Furthermore, the song has performed well in digital song sales, achieving over 14,000 sales in its first four days and remaining atop the iTunes chart for nearly the entire time.
The increase in popularity could be due to more pop fans discovering the song as the work week began, or perhaps TikTok users have started to embrace its hooks. Either way, “Smile” could potentially notch another top 10 hit for both Mars and Gaga by early next week.
On Tuesday night (Aug. 20), Taylor Swift capped off a five-night run at the U.K.’s Wembley Stadium and the European leg of her Eras tour by unveiling a new music video for “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” The video featured behind-the-scenes clips from her mega-selling tour. The anthem about thriving in the spotlight amidst personal turmoil is featured on The Tortured Poets Department, which logs its 15th week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week.
Unlike “Fortnight,” the album’s lead single featuring Post Malone that debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, “Broken Heart” has been steadily climbing back up the chart, becoming a multi-platform hit.
Read more about Taylor Swift’s swelling “Broken Heart” success.
Gigi Perez, a New Jersey-born, Florida-raised singer-songwriter, achieved some streaming success earlier in the 2020s with the ballad “Sometimes (Backwood),” which has racked up nine digits worth of streams on Spotify. Her sound, reminiscent of ’00s alt-folk favorites like Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes, appears to be headed for new levels of virality with her TikTok-approved love song, “Sailor Song.”
The long-teased song has garnered rave reviews and comparisons to Hozier’s “Take Me to Church” for its impassioned delivery and lyrics of queer love and longing. However, it has also attracted some backlash from religious TikTok users who object to its “I don’t believe in God/ But I believe that you’re my savior” chorus lyric. Perez responded to the controversy with a TikTok of her own on Monday (Aug. 19), stating via caption that altering the lyric “was never up for discussion… My songwriting is not a democracy and that applies to every artist’s work.”
Despite the discourse, “Sailor Song” has benefited in terms of overall consumption. It debuted with 3.9 million U.S. official on-demand streams in the tracking week ending Aug. 1, according to Luminate—a tremendous number for a new song by an artist without extensive chart history. Two weeks later, that number has climbed to 4.6 million, a 23% gain. The song also rose from No. 18 to No. 12 on Hot Rock Songs this week, one of the chart’s top gainers.
Source: Billboard
