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.
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This week: An early classic by The Cure slowly grows into a potential 2020s breakout hit, while a potentially big year for the Michael Jackson catalog gets off to an early start and a beloved soul staple scores a Netflix bump.
‘Cry’ing All the Way to a Billion Streams: The Cure’s Early Classic Finds New Streaming Life
It’s been a good past year for emotional alt-rock songs that never found a pop audience in their first lives finding a second life with 2020s audiences. A pair of fan favorites from Jeff Buckley (“Lover, You Should Have Come Over”) and Radiohead (“Let Down”) have even found their way to the Billboard Hot 100, despite not even being released as singles upon their ‘90s debut. Now, a newer (but even older) viral hit may be on its way to joining them: The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry.”
The Cure has found a decent amount of pop crossover success during its lifetime, with 14 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including three top 40 hits (led by 1989’s No. 2-peaking “Love Song”). None of those hits, however, were 1979’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” which the goth-rock progenitors released very early in their career and which missed the charts on both sides of the Atlantic upon its original release — a stunning commercial snub in retrospect, given the song’s preternatural catchiness and Smokey Robinson-like lyricism. (In 2023, Billboard’s staff ranked it as one of the 20 greatest pop songs to never hit the Hot 100.)
But that “never” may soon be coming to an end if the song keeps growing on streaming like it has. Over the last three months, the post-punk classic has caught fire on TikTok, with younger listeners gravitating to its chiming hooks and fragile masculinity (to the tune of over 107,000 videos, several with over one million likes), and that has translated to major streaming growth. In mid-October, the song was still garnering under a million weekly official on-demand streams, according to Luminate, but two months later (for the tracking week ending Jan. 23), that total had more than tripled, with the song now racking up over 3.1 million weekly streams. “Boys” even recently passed one billion streams on Spotify, becoming The Cure’s first song in the Billions Club.
It’s all very good timing for The Cure, who recently announced a 40th-anniversary vinyl reissue of the song’s 1986 re-recording — which did bring the song to the U.K. Official Charts for the first time, with a No. 22 peak — along with the second-go-round version finally arriving on DSPs. We’ll see if “Boys,” whose original version just hit the U.K.’s top 40, can match the re-recording’s peak in the band’s home country, or get onto the Hot 100 for the first time. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Majorette Dance Challenge Revives Michael Jackson’s ‘Liberian Girl’
Just in time for the King of Pop’s upcoming biopic, which hits theaters on April 24, a Bad deep cut is surging on streaming.
Thanks to a majorette dance challenge shared by TikTok user @jshun0729 — a coach for the Memphis Prancing Tigerettes majorette team — “Liberian Girl” has leapt 116% in streaming activity over the past two weeks. User @jshun0729 posted his video on Jan. 7, and the clip has since amassed over 5.6 million views, setting to motion a challenge that has united majorettes across regions and generations. Notably, several core members and fan-favorites from Lifetime’s Bring It! — a 2010s reality series following Coach Dianna Williams’ Dancing Dolls in Jackson, Miss. — hopped on the dance trend, helping the official “Liberian Girl” TikTok sound reach nearly 50,000 posts, while the unofficial sound attached to @jshun0729’s initial clip has surpassed 27,000 creates. On Instagram, MJ’s track plays in over 73,000 reels.
According to Luminate, “Liberian Girl” earned over 240,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the week of Jan. 2-8. The following week (Jan. 9-15), once the dance trend began circulating, those numbers jumped 36% to over 331,000 official streams. By the weeks of Jan. 16-22, “Liberian Girl” rose a further 58% to over 524,000 official streams. And the song’s rise is far from over. During the four-day period of Jan. 23-26, “Liberian” earned 410,000 official streams, a 60% improvement from its streaming totals a week prior (Jan. 16-19).
One of the few Bad tracks to miss the Hot 100, maybe the 2020s can do for “Liberian Girl” what the ‘80s couldn’t. — KYLE DENIS
New Netflix Smash ‘His & Hers’ Spurs Gains for Classic Roberta Flack-Donny Hathaway Duet
Netflix’s new limited series His & Hers, led by BAFTA nominee Tessa Thompson and Emmy winner Jon Bernthal, has quickly taken over social media while thrusting a gorgeous duet from the late Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway back into the spotlight.
“I (Who Have Nothing),” the opening track from the duo’s eponymous 1972 joint album, plays after a particularly heart-wrenching conversation in episode three — and the scene clearly struck an emotional chord with the show’s audience.
During the week of Jan. 2-8, the duet logged just under 3,000 official on-demand U.S. streams (according to Luminate), setting the stage for a 1,204% increase to over 39,000 official streams by the next week (Jan. 9-15), following the Jan. 8 premiere of the six-episode series. “I (Who Have Nothing)” jumped a further 30% the following week (Jan. 16-22), making for a whopping 1,603% increase in streaming activity over the past two weeks.
Flack & Hathaway’s English-language cover of the Italian song “Uno dei tanti” never hit the Billboard charts, but that could very well change should it maintain its new streaming momentum. — KD