Viral video hits on the Hot 100

[Gary]

10 songs to chart on the Hot 100 that got their start as a viral video sensation on the internet

Lower peaks = prior to youtube counting on the Hot 100


www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/5944768/10-viral-video-hits-that-charted-on-the-hot-100

From "Friday" to "Harlem Shake" to two new smashes, here are 10 songs that crashed the Hot 100 thanks to highly clickable viral clips.
This week's Hot 100 chart includes the unlikely Top 10 debut of Soko's "We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow," a song that accompanied a new ad by clothier Wren in which strangers share their first kiss. The video went viral and sent "We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow" soaring to the top of Billboard's Streaming Songs chart, while "#Selfie," another virally spread clip (this time by electronic duo the Chainsmokers), strides into the Top 20 of the Hot 100 chart this week and reaches a new peak at No. 18. You want a dance song about a whiny girl wanting to take a selfie in the Top 20? You got it!

Inside Soko's 'First Kiss' Song | Is '#Selfie' The Next 'Harlem Shake'?

The Soko and Chainsmokers songs are just the latest offbeat singles to hit the Hot 100 primarily due to viral videos -- after all, we're living in the age of Rebecca Black, Ylvis and a No. 1 single for Baauer. Check out our breakdown of 10 viral smashes that hit the Hot 100, and revisit every YouTube craze that accompanied the millions of clicks.





Antoine Dodson & The Gregory Brothers feat. Kelly Dodson, "Bed Intruder Song"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 89
Peak Date: August 28, 2010


"Bed Intruder Song" was the product of the Brooklyn-based group the Gregory Brothers remixing a local TV news interview with Huntsville, Ala. native Antoine Dodson about the attempted rape of Kelly, his sister, in 2010. The deeply bizarre "Hide your kids, hide your wife" anthem ended up turning a scary situation into a positive for the Dodsons, who were listed as co-writers on the track and received 50 percent of the song's revenue.



Rebecca Black, "Friday"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 58
Peak Date: April 9, 2011


When 14-year-old Rebecca Black's parents paid a production company to make a music video for her, an unlikely, physically grating hit was born. "Friday" became the top YouTube video of 2011 with 180 million views, inspiring many to gawk at its off-key charm and sing about how fun, fun, fun the weekend was. Speaking of which...



Rebecca Black, "Saturday"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 55
Peak Date: December 28, 2013



The inevitable follow-up! Two and a half years after Rebecca Black's "Friday" caused computers to melt and eardrums to quake, "Saturday" actually scored a higher Hot 100 peak, although it only lasted one week on the chart ("Friday," rather incredibly, spent six weeks on the tally).




Alison Gold, "Chinese Food"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 29
Peak Date: November 2, 2013



Twelve-year-old Alison Gold worked with ARK Music Factory (the same company behind Rebecca Black's "Friday") on "Chinese Food," a controversial ode to Chinese cuisine that has been understandably been deemed racist by many viewers. Nevertheless, "Chinese Food" peaked higher than "Friday" on the Hot 100, and has earned 14 million views on YouTube.




The Chainsmokers, "#Selfie"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 18
Peak Date: March 29, 2014



Still rising on the Hot 100 chart, "#Selfie" may very well earn EDM duo the Chainsmokers crossover stardom nearly one year after "Harlem Shake" catapulted Baauer's career. A female clabber's monologue about a night out at a club -- and, of course, taking a selfie or two -- is paired with a thumping beat, making for a relatable meme you can dance to. "It's been life-changing for us," says the Chainsmokers' Drew Taggart, who works alongside Alex Phall. "Things started happening that we never could have predicted."



Baauer, "Harlem Shake"
Hot 100 Chark Peak: No. 1
Peak Date: March 2, 2013



The concept: a 30-second video with one person dancing to Baauer's "Harlem Shake" intro for 15 seconds, and then being joined by countless others for the second half. It was a simple-enough meme to reproduce, and the "Harlem Shake" videos spread like wildfire last year, turning the Brooklyn producer into an unwitting star. Debuting atop a revamped Hot 100 chart that now incorporates U.S. YouTube video streaming data, "Harlem Shake" became just the 21st song in the history of the chart to start at No. 1.



Ylvis, "The Fox"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 6
Peak Date: October 19, 2013



The Norweigan comedy duo might not have been expected to crash the Top 10 of the Hot 100 chart when it concocted its wacky ode to fox noises, but "The Fox" did have a solid pop pedigree -- it was produced by Stargate, the duo behind Rihanna's "Diamonds" and Selena Gomez's "Come & Get It." "The Fox" yipped and yapped all the way to No. 6, and its unabashedly goofy music video has accrued 383 million YouTube views.



PSY, "Gangnam Style"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 2
Peak Date: October 6, 2012


It was the Horsey Dance that took over the globe: the K-pop star invaded the U.S. with his 2012 single, with its wildly colorful video inspiring a tremendous amount of cover clips and even more did-you-see-this? shares in order to spread its virility. PSY's "Gangnam Style" was blocked from the top of the Hot 100 chart by Maroon 5's "One More Night," but its video became the first in the history of the Internet to surpass one billion views in December 2012. Not a bad consolation prize!



The FiNATTiCZ, "Don't Drop That Thun Thun!"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 35
Peak Date: August 3, 2013



Los Angeles group the FiNATTiCZ didn't see its Hot 100 bow coming last year when its single, "Don't Drop That Thun Thun," was used in a popular video on Vine that depicted five young women dancing provocatively to the track. The twerk craze also helped J. Dash's song "Wop" land on the Hot 100 chart after Miley Cyrus posted a video of herself dancing to that track.



Soko, "We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow"
Hot 100 Chart Peak: No. 9
Peak Date: Mar. 29, 2014



Soko's ethereal single lands at No. 9 on this week's Hot 100 chart thanks to its use in the viral video "First Kiss," a black-and-white clip in which 20 strangers kiss for the first time. Soko appears as one of the lip-lockers in "First Kiss," which was actually made by womenswear brand Wren; "We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow" was personally chosen for the video by the company's founder and creative director, Melissa Coker. The song's video was first released in May 2012, and debuts on the Hot 100 with 96 percent of its points from online streaming.

[HolidayGuy]

He doesn't mention the important note that YouTube/Vevo views weren't part of the Hot 100 mix when some of those charted.

[Gary]

Mar 22, 2014 15:12:52 GMT -5 HolidayGuy said:

He doesn't mention the important note that YouTube/Vevo views weren't part of the Hot 100 mix when some of those charted.

That is why I added that at the top of the post

[HolidayGuy]

If it was there when you initially posted it, I must have glossed over it. :)

Of course, "Gangnam Style" only peaked one position lower than it likely would have with the inclusion of YT/Vevo.

[Gary]

I did go back and make it a different color so it is easier to see after you commented on it ;)

I wrote everything above the link

[alfonzo]

Gangnam Style and Friday would have been #1 for months if streaming was included in the Hot 100 back then.

[Deleted]

Mar 22, 2014 22:07:42 GMT -5 alfonzo said:

Gangnam Style and Friday would have been #1 for months if streaming was included in the Hot 100 back then.

lol, imagine Friday at #1, and even more hate it would have created for the song.
Bed Intruder Song would have been in the top 10.

[Gary]

SOKO FALLS OFF THE HOT 100 FROM NO. 9? REALLY?!

Hi Gary,

I noticed that Soko's "We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow" has dropped completely off the Billboard Hot 100 after debuting at No. 9 last week. Do you still believe that the Hot 100 accurately measures popularity? If that song had debuted at No. 1 last week, wouldn't that pose a serious problem for the chart's credibility?

Garrett Godbey
Tampa, Florida

@gthot20 Gary, is Soko out of the hot 100 altogether? if so, is it the first time a song drops from a top 10 position out of the hot 100?

Sebastian Driemer ‏@echtersebo


Hi Garrett and Sebastian,

Last week, Soko's track blasted onto the Hot 100 at No. 9 thanks to its huge viral week. It also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Streaming Songs chart with 11.5 million U.S. streams, according to Nielsen BDS.

Here's what the charts department's streaming charts manager William Gruger wrote:

Of the song's streaming sum (in the week ending March 16), 99 percent are from YouTube, the majority of which stem from users who viewed the viral video "First Kiss," which hit the Internet on March 10. Shot entirely in black-and-white, the 3-minute, 28-second "Kiss" clip captures 20 strangers sharing an intimate moment for the first time, along with their ensuing bashful, yet heartwarming, reactions. Throughout, Soko's song accompanies the potential romance, its subtly-stated melody and instrumentation adding to the ambience necessary to set the video's intended intimate mood.

That was last week. This week (for the tracking period ending March 23), the song plummeted 1-42 on Streaming Songs, down by 86 percent to 1.6 million streams.

When "Dead" debuted on the Hot 100, 96 percent of its chart points were from streaming. The ratio is a comparable 93 percent this week (with the song having sold 10,000 and 3,000 downloads in the Nielsen SoundScan weeks ending March 16 and 23, respectively).

First, the chart stat: Billboard research shows that "Dead" is the first song to fall off the Hot 100 from inside the top 10. Previously, three songs had departed from as high as No. 11: Taylor Swift's "Mean" debuted at No. 11 on Nov, 6, 2010, as a preview track from her album "Speak Now" (selling 163,000 that week). It did, however, return as a proper single in April 2011, rising to No. 31 thanks to its run at country radio. Two other tracks spent a single frame on the Hot 100, each at No. 11 and both by boy bands: Jonas Brothers' "A Little Bit Longer" (2008) and One Direction's "Diana" (2013). Those songs, like Swift's, also debuted a week before each group bowed with new albums on the Billboard 200.

Do such debuts compromise the Hot 100's integrity or accuracy? Can a song really go from nowhere to No. 9 to off the chart in a span of three weeks? (This week, "Dead" ranks just below the chart, within striking distance of No. 100.)

I think that, A) Yes, such odd chart lives do reflect the chart's accuracy and, B) they, ultimately, reflect the current era of music consumption.

We're in an era of more immediate reactions to all things commercial, as Facebook and Twitter both reflect and engender. And, prior to those platforms, iTunes came along, helping to make music purchasing decisions more impulsive, since instead of going out to a record store, we needed only to press a button on our laptops (or, maybe desktops in the earlier 2000s).

As the Swift, Jonas Brothers and One Direction debuts also show, preview tracks have become common, so songs have gone from zero to more than 150,000 sold and then regressed over three weeks based on how they've been marketed. When the Hot 100 shows such yo-yoing, it's reflecting a new type of sales arc that never existed in a physical music world; 45s, cassette singles or CD singles (not worked to radio) just didn't appear on store shelves for a week only leading up to album, tape or CD releases.

Until 2012, the Hot 100 also didn't include streaming, while YouTube plays didn't begin factoring in until last year, when they clearly began to Harlem-shake things up drastically (led by Baauer's No. 1 debut and five-week reign). When a song draws 11.5 million streams in a week, it seems clear that the Hot 100, which for 55 years has aimed to rank the most popular songs in the U.S. each week, should factor in that consumption. Plus, the lives of viral videos can be volatile. The Soko track caught fire for a week before viewers/listeners seemed to move on to the next thing that drew their attention in their Facebook feeds. When a song isn't selling much and has no notable radio airplay, it'll live – and die (Hot 100-wise) – based on the whims of the web.

We've also recently seen a key Hot 100 record set, as the cast of Fox's "Glee" has blasted to 207 chart entries since 2009. Of those 207, 173, or 84 percent, have spent a single week on the survey. A whopping 95 percent (196) has spent one or two weeks each on the chart. The cast's longest-charting hit, "Don't Stop Believin'," charted for seven weeks. So, there's another example of how recent times have brought about songs that enjoy noteworthy popularity for about a week before receding. Of course, that makes sense for a show that releases around five tracks a week with each new episode. A track like the "Glee" cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic" came and went in a week (No. 16; Oct. 16, 2010), but in that week, it sold 109,000 downloads, placing at No. 9 on Digital Songs. Like Soko ranking at No. 1 for a week on Streaming Songs, a song can place in the top 10 of Digital Songs for a week and then disappear from the Hot 100. Radio and traditional sales now share music consumers' options with streaming and quick-hit digital tracks, and the Hot 100 is reflecting that reality.

At the same time, streaming is helping big hits stay on the Hot 100 for record runs. The two longest-charting hits all time have set their marks this year: Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" (82 weeks and counting) and AWOLNATION's "Sail" (79). The former has ranked in the Streaming Songs chart's top 25 continuously since the list's inception on Jan. 26, 2013 – 63 weeks running. "Sail" has done the same since the week of Feb. 16, 2013. Thus, more than three years after "Sail" debuted on the Alternative Songs chart, it's the No. 21 title on Streaming Songs this week with 2.5 million U.S. streams. Hits that connect at radio, sell and draw streams can, therefore, live longer chart lives than were likely possible prior to streaming, a chart version of the rich getting richer (i.e., the biggest hits across all platforms remaining on the chart longer than those not making such across-the-board-connections).

So, while Soko can make the Hot 100 look schizophrenic week-to-week, such movement appears merely to mirror the modern behavior of how we discover music and how short, or long, we stay with songs, whether it's for a week or for unprecedented lengths.