Olivia Rodrigo – “the cure”: The second single from her third album “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love”. This is a great example of a new song with instant reaction, which her other current hit “drop dead” also had upon release. “The Cure” is nearly five minutes, but unlike “Aperture” by Harry Styles, which was criticized for its length, I wouldn’t recommend playing any edit except for the original. It has a masterful buildup, it’s deep, kind of eerie and among the most mature and beautiful pieces she has ever done. It’s not “Stairway to Heaven”, but this is the version everyone is consuming online; playing an edit would be an insult and offensive to her large fanbase. It immediately debuted on Spotify at #1 and got substantial requests on Liveline that same night.
Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”: It has topped the charts in multiple countries including Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK where it’s still currently #1 on Spotify and one of the biggest songs of the past year. The original version came out last June as just a Sam Fender solo, and then Olivia Dean hopped on the track and it blew up. She’s had a remarkable year with two No. 1s in America, “Man I Need” and “So Easy (To Fall In Love)” and winning all kinds of awards. Now we’re getting requests for “Rein Me In.” Although American airplay is only beginning, it’s a serious contender for “Song of the Summer” purely off its sound and feeling. It’s currently #98 on Spotify in the US but peaked at #69 a few weeks ago. This past week it was our #18 request on Liveline.
FYI: Though 13 of the top 14 Spotify streams are for songs from Drake’s new triple-album release, as of Tuesday night, we have not yet received a single request for any of the 43 new songs.
The Michael Jackson rebirth continues!
As if he wasn’t already arguably the biggest star in the history of music, Michael’s songs continue to dominate the streaming charts. The monstrous success of the biopic Michael has created an entirely fresh, huge new fanbase. Amazingly, young people under 30 make up the vast majority of all requests for his songs which have been exploding now for a month. That’s given us enough time to honestly track and report the trends. Below is a list of all the different Michael Jackson songs we’ve gotten requests for in the past four weeks and how many calls and texts each have gotten. There are a few oddball titles that received single requests which aren’t listed:
Billie Jean – 64
Thriller – 42
Beat It – 23
Rock With You – 15
Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough – 8
Black or White – 6
Human Nature – 5
The Way You Make Me Feel – 5
They Don’t Care About Us – 3
I’ve heard “Rein Me In” on radio once so far, on Triple A a while back. I guess it’s not really surprising given the state of radio today, but for a moment I found myself surprised that I haven’t heard Sam Fender on any format besides that one yet. Hopefully that can change before too long.
It’s not the only tune that I fear could languish on one American radio format despite being a big mainstream hit in many overseas territories. The other, Dave’s “Raindance”, I’ve only just started hearing on air, once on a mixshow where it was unsurprisingly mixed in via one of Tems’s sections and the other time I think because I drove through a market with a rhythmic station.