Why is Disturbia not an annual hit?

[Dylan :)]

For the last few years, a bunch of Christmas songs have begun to chart every year, mostly in the upper realms of the chart (including the top 5 and #1). This year, a bunch of Halloween songs have debuted on the US Spotify chart, such as Monster Mash, This Is Halloween, Ghostbusters and Thriller. Despite hitting #1 in 2008, Disturbia is not one of the regular Halloween songs to appear each year

I’d love to know what your opinions are on why it isn’t, especially given how big Rihanna is?

[jenglisbe]

It does see a boost each Halloween, for one, but it's also not a Halloween song in the same way those other ones are so it makes sense it wouldn't get as big of a boost. It's more of a Halloween song by proxy, so it gets a smaller boost the way other indirectly related songs do.

Dylan :) The video for "Thriller" makes it more Halloween; people love the costumes, dance, etc. Plus scary movies are very Halloween, which very much relates to the video.

[Dylan :)]

Nov 1, 2023 7:26:25 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

It does see a boost each Halloween, for one, but it's also not a Halloween song in the same way those other ones are so it makes sense it wouldn't get as big of a boost. It's more of a Halloween song by proxy, so it gets a smaller boost the way other indirectly related songs do.

You’re not wrong that it’s not explicitly a Halloween song, but in a way neither is Thriller (the video premiered on MTV in December 1983) or Ghostbusters (released in June 1984), which are #7 and #13 on US Spotify respectively. While you cannot compare the chart run of a 1980s song with a 2000s songs (or even week to week given context), Disturbia was a bigger *chart* hit during its initial run (Hot 100 #1, Year End #16, Decade End #64) than Thriller (Hot 100 #4, Year End #78) and roughly the same size as Ghostbusters (Hot 100 #1, Year End #9, All Time #382)

[Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ]

#15 on AM and #55 on Spotify.

Thriller, Ghostbusters, This Is Halloween and Monster Mash are just on another level, and Disturbia is doing really fine especially when you know it wasn't meant to be a Halloween song - and while not on the same level as those classics, I'd say it's definitely the biggest "Halloween" song of this century, something like Santa Tell Me and Underneath The Tree for Xmas.

We'll see next year when Halloween lands on Thursday, maybe it'll be able to re-enter the top 50 on the Hot 100

[Dylan :)]

Nov 1, 2023 10:09:40 GMT -5 Ｓｏｕｎｄｃｌ🕤ｃｋ said:

#15 on AM and #55 on Spotify.

Thriller, Ghostbusters, This Is Halloween and Monster Mash are just on another level, and Disturbia is doing really fine especially when you know it wasn't meant to be a Halloween song - and while not on the same level as those classics, I'd say it's definitely the biggest "Halloween" song of this century, something like Santa Tell Me and Underneath The Tree for Xmas.

We'll see next year when Halloween lands on Thursday, maybe it'll be able to re-enter the top 50 on the Hot 100

Thanks for that. Impressive too when you consider the recent album bombs still lingering on Spotify

[#LisaRinna]

[Dylan :)]

It’s a complete bop, I expected it to be as high as the other songs 😢

[jdanton2]

like with alot of Christmas songs older songs tend to do well every year . this might be too recent but could continue to gain if it gets a good spot on Halloween playlists in future years.

[rainie]

others have touched on some good points but i feel like which songs are part of the holiday "canon" and which aren't is ultimately arbitrary. last christmas i was talking to my stepdad abt the george michael christmas song of the same name, who mentioned that it was seen as a fairly lame, sellout song at the time and didn't really become part of the christmas canon until years later, which is crazy to me since it's a catchy track, george michael is a big name, and it's easily one of the best holiday songs out there

yes it's not entirely a crapshoot but it wouldn't surprise me if 5-10 years down the road, as holiday music continues to grow in stature and people get more and more desperate to try to find anything that fits their playlist, more and more people hear disturbia and remember what a great song it is, leading it to them put it into THEIR halloween playlist, eventually leading to it becoming a halloween classic. at least one can hope haha

[eyeofthestorm]

Disturbia is my favorite Rihanna song and video. I still listen to it often all year round but, I would love it if it was able to make a chart resurgence year after year. I think it could, but as in some songs, like AIWFCIY at Christmas, Mariah actively does stuff to push it. Monster Mash is featured in movies, tiktoks, etc that gives it a boost year after year. Quite frankly, I don't see Rihanna going out of her way to push it in that manner.