INTERSCOPE'S BIG THREE
Interscope, our data-crunching gerbils affirm, is on fire, thanks to big records from three major artists.
In the wake of giants by Billie Eilish and Kendrick Lamar, the label is now fielding a huge new track from Eminem, “Houdini,” ahead of his hotly anticipated The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), due sometime this summer via Shady/Aftermath/Interscope.
“Houdini,” which dropped on 5/31—accompanied by a madcap video co-starring Dr. Dre and numerous other familiar faces—has quickly flown to #3 (with a +31% building trend) on the Spotify global Top 50 and #6 on the U.S. chart, plus #2 at Apple Music. The cut is poised to log a terrific 20-25m streams in its opening frame.
As for Billie, her brilliant 10-song album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT (Darkroom/Interscope) followed its 329k debut—the artist’s biggest week yet—with 150k in its second week, retaining the #2 spot on the HITS Top 50 chart (behind only the marketing machine that is Taylor Swift). Meanwhile, an array of tracks from Eilish's set are streaming like gangbusters, including two (“Lunch” and “Birds of a Feather”) in the Spot’s global Top 5 and two (“Lunch” and “Chihiro”) in the U.S. Top 15. “Birds” has flapped its way to #8 overall at Apple Music. “Lunch” is also faring quite well at both Pop and Alternative radio.
And then there’s Kendrick. The pgLang/Interscope hip-hop luminary doesn’t have a new album, nor has any been announced. But the tracks he dropped as part of his beef with Drake had the biggest impact of any rap cuts to arrive in many a moon. “Not Like Us,” the biggest of these, summited the Spotify and Apple charts; it currently sits at #1 at Apple as well as #3 U.S. and #7 global at the Spot. Its current worldwide stream count on Spotify is 267m+. “Like That,” the Future/Metro Boomin cut on which Kendrick guests and which started the whole Drake ruckus, has amassed 329m+ global streams.
Top 40 radio joins the fray this week on Kendrick and Eminem.
John Janick and team are on quite a roll. If only they didn’t have to hear about it from us.
