‘Good News’ for Shaboozey’s Numbers Following ‘SNL’ Gig

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: Shaboozey’s SNL appearance gets him that much closer to a second solo hit, an early MGMT clip helps one of their classic singles go viral again and a new dance trends revives a 2Pac Hot 100-topper.

“Good News” on a Saturday Night for Shaboozey’s Second Hit

Shaboozey has been nearly unavoidable in the past few months, with appearances at the CMA Awards and in the Grammy nominations and of course on the Billboard Hot 100, where his four-quadrant smash “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” reigned for a record-tying 19 weeks over the late summer and autumn. Now, he can add a Saturday Night Live stamp to his 2024 passport, as the country singer-songwriter made his debut on the weekly NBC comedy and live music institution on Nov. 30, performing both “A Bar Song” and his new single, “Good News” — the latter of which recently debuted at No. 71 on the Hot 100.

As “Good News” aims to become Shaboozey’s second big crossover hit in a row, the boost it got from his emotional SNL performance should undoubtedly help. “Good News” was up a solid 13% in U.S. on-demand audio streams to 1.5 million across the Sunday and Monday following his appearance from the same period the week before, according to Luminate — but more notably, it was up 424% in sales to over 2,200 over that same two-day period. “A Bar Song,” which has led Digital Song Sales for 15 non-consecutive weeks already, was also up in sales over that timespan — rising 86% to nearly 2,600 across the two days — as the pair of Shaboozey singles claimed the top two spots on the real-time iTunes chart.

It may not boost “Good News” to a new Hot 100 peak next week, as the song struggles to get its head above the flood of holiday songs crashing onto the chart in recent weeks — but it bodes well for the song finding its way as a jukebox singalong in its own right by early 2025. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

2Pac’s Former Hot 100 No. 1 Sees TikTok Resurgence 

Two weeks after Kendrick Lamar’s GNX brought renewed attention to “Made N—az” (K.Dot flipped the 1997 track on “Reincarnated”), another 2Pac song is seeing notable streaming gains. Thanks to an infectious new dance trend featuring choreography from TikTok creators @roniahalynn_ and @donthurtemniaa, 2Pac’s K-Ci and JoJo-assisted “How Do U U Want It” is up over 102% in streaming activity over the past four weeks, according to Luminate.  

Official on-demand U.S. streams for “How Do U Want It” were hovering around 900,000 before user @roniahalynn_ posted her version of the dance on Nov. 15. By the end of that week, “How Do U Want It” rose 14%, pulling over 1.02 million streams during the period of Nov. 15-21. User @roniahalynn_’s original clip has since collected over 1.9 million views on TikTok, and the sound she used now boasts over 209,000 posts. An additional unofficial sound using bits of 2Pac’s track plays in over 138,000 posts, while another unofficial sound plays in nearly 50,000 posts. The official “How Do U Want It” sound plays in just under 10,000 posts. 

During the period of Nov. 22-28, streaming activity for “How Do U Want It” increased a whopping 44% to over 1.48 million streams. That figure rose a further 16% the following week (Nov. 29-Dec. 5), to over 1.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams. Notably, user @donthurtemniaa’s original dance trend is soundtracked by 22Daboat’s “Munyun.” 

Already having entered the TikTok Billboard Top 50 at No. 16 (dated Dec. 7), expect 2Pac’s former Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper to continue rising in streams as the dance trend grows. – KYLE DENIS

MGMT Playing “Kids” as Kids: Old Footage Spurs New Streaming Gains

In 2003, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser were students at Wesleyan University, performing tiny gigs on campus under the band name The Management. The duo would eventually re-brand as MGMT, become a defining group of the late-‘00s indie boom, score a best new artist Grammy nomination, and move on to a winding, often quite fruitful recording career, including this year’s album Loss of Life. But this week, the Internet is enjoying an unexpected look at those early college shows, thanks to some newly discovered footage of The Artist Eventually Known as MGMT performing their undeniable 2008 synth-pop single “Kids.”

A video uploaded by the YouTube user Rad Scientist on Nov. 28 features VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser playing an outdoor daytime gig for their friends in front of a brick wall, running around and sprawling across the ground when they’re not presenting an early (but mostly intact) version of the song that would become “Kids.” The clip went viral last week, and the unexpected trip down memory lane helped “Kids” grow by 60% in weekly U.S. on-demand streams, from 1.11 million in the week ending Nov. 28 to 1.78 million the following week, according to Luminate. The streaming uptick will likely last a few weeks, but who knows? Indie nostalgia is a powerful thing — maybe we get unearthed footage of Vampire Weekend performing “Campus” on campus next. – JASON LIPSHUTZ