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 new production of Jesus Christ Superstar elevates past soundtrack albums on streaming, an Ozzy Osbourne disciple takes off following his powerful tribute performance, a new Lorde fan favorite goes viral and more.
Cynthia Erivo & Adam Lambert’s Powerhouse Hollywood Bowl Run Spur Massive Gains for Four Different ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Soundtracks
From Aug. 1-3, Cynthia Erivo (as Jesus) and Adam Lambert (as Judas) enraptured the Hollywood Bowl with a three-night, Sergio Trujillo-helmed staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s landmark 1970 rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar. Thanks to Erivo’s show-stealing rendition of “Gethsemane” and Adam Lambert’s rousing turn as the most disloyal disciple, the Hollywood Bowl staging of Jesus Christ Superstar has resulted in eye-popping streaming gains for four different versions of the musical’s soundtrack.
During the weekend of the Erivo-Lambert production (Aug. 1-4), the original 1970 cast album increased 288% in streaming activity from the weekend prior (July 25-28) to over 430,000 official on-demand U.S. streams. The 1996 London cast recording leapt 583% in streaming activity to over 235,000 official streams the weekend of the Hollywood Bowl production, and the 1973 motion picture soundtrack jumped 151% to over 155,000 official streams during the same period. Furthermore, the 2018 live recording of the album, which featured John Legend, Alice Cooper and Sara Bareilles, earned a 192% boost in streaming activity, garnering over 92,000 official streams during Aug. 1-4. Collectively, the four Jesus Christ Superstar soundtracks earned over 913,000 official on-demand U.S. streams — a whopping 283% increase from the 238,000 streams they pulled during the weekend of July 25-28.
Three versions of Jesus Christ Superstar have hit the Billboard 200. The original 1970 concept album topped the all-genre ranking, the 1973 film soundtrack peaked at No. 21, and the 2018 live recording reached No. 46. Earlier this year, Erivo hit No. 165 on the Billboard 200 with I Forgive You, her sophomore studio album. – KYLE DENIS
Sabbath, Bluddy Sabbath: Ozzy Protégé Yungblud Rises in Streams Following Tribute Performance to Rock Icon
U.K. alt-rock singer-songwriter Yungblud has operated at the fringes of pop and rock stardom for most of the 2020s in the U.S., since breaking through with the mgk and Travis Barker collab “I Think I’m OKAY” and the Halsey duet “15 Minutes” at the end of the prior decade. But he’s moving closer to the center of both in the past month, thanks in large part to his relationship with one of the most legendary figures in rock history.
Yungblud has long been close with Ozzy Osbourne, with the metal godfather and Black Sabbath frontman becoming a sort of mentor to the rising artist after his appearance in the latter’s 2022 video for “The Funeral.” And at the Osbourne-led Back to the Beginning festival at Villa Park in Birmingham, England in early July — meant as a final farewell performance for both Ozzy and Sabbath — Yungblud appeared as part of the mid-day set from the Tom Morello All-Stars, taking the stage with an all-star backing band to perform the classic Sabbath ballad “Changes.”
With a punched-up arrangement meant to better fill the stadium setting and a full-throated, full-bodied performance from Yungblud, the song was uniformly cited as one of the day’s highlights — so much so that an official version was released to DSPs and digital retailers as a charity single. The performance drew enough notice to scrape the UK Singles chart at No. 90, and has also reached No. 42 on Billboard’s Hot Rock and Alternative Songs chart.
More importantly, the performance — which of course received increased attention following Osbourne’s death at age 76 just weeks later — has resulted in catalog gains for Yungblud across the board. After amassing 4.6 million official on-demand U.S. streams for the tracking week ending July 3, according to Luminate — just before the July 5 tribute concert — his streaming numbers have gradually increased nearly every week since, reaching 9.6 million for the most recent tracking week (ending July 31), a 109% total gain. And that’s not even including the numbers for the “Changes (Live From Villa Park)” performance, which drew an additional 1.8 million streams that week.
The benefits for Yungblud have been catalog-wide, but have been particularly beneficial for his new album — June’s Idols — and its breakout single “Zombie” (not a Cranberries cover). The song has more than doubled in streams over that same period, racking up over 1.9 million in the most recent tracking week, enough to help push it to No. 38 on the Rock & Alternative Songs chart — his best showing on the listing since 2020. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Quirky Train Trend Boosts Lorde’s Fan-Favorite ‘Virgin’ Album Closer
The weekend Lorde’s fourth studio album, Virgin, in its entirety, TikTok user @anthonyhaynes9 shared a clip soundtracked by “David” that set into motion a trend that’s led to a significant boost in streams for the album closer. Captioned “what listening to ‘David’ feels like,” the June 29 clip finds Anthony standing on the platform in front of an arriving train as the devastating synths in the final “David” chorus swell to their peak. That clip earned over five million views and 958,000 likes, leading to a remake featuring Lorde herself. The remake, which hit TikTok on July 21, has earned over 3.1 million views and 519,000 likes. Notably, two days later on July 23, Lorde and Anthony recreated the video a second time to the sound of “Buzzcut Season,” which garnered 14.8 million views and three million likes. The official “David” TikTok sound currently boasts over 58,000 posts.
According to Luminate, “David” has grown over 48% in streaming activity over the past two weeks. During the period of July 18-24, the song earned 2.03 million official on-demand U.S. streams, marking a 29% increase from the 1.57 million streams it collected the week prior (July 11-17). By the end of the week of July 25-31, “David” rose another 14% to over 2.32 million official streams.
Currently lead single “What Was That” is still the only Virgin track to reach the Hot 100, but “David” could be next should its growth remain consistent. – KD
Samia Swims Toward a Viral Hit With ‘Pool’
In April, Samia returned with her third studio album, Bloodless, which found the Minneapolis singer-songwriter pushing her indie-pop sound toward folk and alternative rock. The album earned Samia some of the best reviews of her career, but the song of hers that’s going viral right now pre-dates Bloodless by a half-decade: “Pool,” the opening track on her 2020 debut album The Baby, exploded on TikTok in late July, with users repurposing her NPR Tiny Desk Concert performance of the song from 2023 and focusing on the song’s climactic string of rhetorical questions: “How much longer ’til I’m taller?/ How much longer ’til it’s midnight?/ How much longer ’til the mornin’?/ Are my legs gonna last?/ Is it too much to ask?”
During the week ending July 17, “Pool” earned fewer than 10,000 official U.S. on-demand streams; two weeks later, however, that weekly total had skyrocketed to 487,000 streams, according to Luminate. In response to the viral uptick, Samia released a “stripped” version of the song to streaming services on Tuesday (Aug. 5), as well as a standalone clip of the Tiny Desk “Pool” performance to YouTube on July 24. For the latter, Samia wrote in the video description, “Thank you for the love on pool.” – JASON LIPSHUTZ
