Today’s thread is brought to you by the numbers 1, 29 and 267K.
The predictors were correct, ZAYN’s debut single “Pillowtalk” tops the Hot 100. Billboard has a rundown of all the interesting factoids related to that achievement. One of my favourite is that he is the first artist whose name starts with the letter ‘Z’ to top the Hot 100. With Adele recently topping the chart, that means lots of A to Z columns in our year end.
“Pillowtalk” tops the Digital, Streaming and On-Demand song charts for the week as well with 267K in sales, 22.3M in streams and 12.7M on-demand streams. ZAYN becomes the first artist from the UK to debut at number one (other songs from the UK have, but never a debut single).
To make way for ZAYN, last week’s top 4 get shifted down a spot. Justin Bieber has to settle for 2nd and 3rd slots for “Love Yourself” and “Sorry”, twenty one pilots’ “Stressed Out” is 4th and Adele’s “Hello” is fifth (the top 5 A-Z….I can’t stop myself). Drake is about to release yet another album and arrives on the chart next with “Summer Sixteen” at 6th driven largely by sales of 215K (his best debut week for single sales). Drake is also the featured rapper on Rihanna’s “Work” which rose to 7th on the chart this week. Flo Rida’s “My House” is 8th, Chainsmoker’s “Roses” is 9th, and G-Eazy and Bebe Rexha’s “Me, Myself & I” are there for 10th.
The Superbowl wasn’t just a big night for football fans and beer vendors, it is also a big night for music. Billboard reports that Superbowl synch licenses (songs appearing in ads) were up (29 for the major publishing houses). HDD discusses it as well. No wonder Coldplay got such a jump. There songs were used in a number of CBS related ads as well.