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: The big winners in the music categories at this year’s Oscars see gains for their victorious works, while an already-minted Tame Impala hit gets new life through a viral remix with a K-pop co-star and an ’00s dance hit goes global for a second time.

‘Sinners’ & ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ Turn Oscar Wins into Streaming and Sales Gains 

On Sunday night (March 15), Ryan Coogler’s Sinners took home four Academy Awards, including a third best original score statuette for composer Ludwig Göransson. “Golden,” the Billboard Hot 100-topping Kpop Demon Hunters smash, added a best original song Oscar to its lengthy list of accolades, marking the first time a K-pop song has received such an honor. 

To top it all off, this year’s Oscars telecast featured live performances of the music from both films. While EJAE, Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna (the singing voices of HUNTR/X) brought light sticks to the Dolby Theatre, Sinners star Miles Caton led a star-studded ensemble in a reimagining of the horror film’s iconic juke joint scene. Featuring additional Sinners cast members Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Buddy Guy and Jack O’Connell, the “I Lied to You” medley also featured Sinners soundtrack contributors Brittany Howard and Alice Smith, Grammy-winning country star Shaboozey, best original song nominee Raphael Saadiq, Grammy-nominated blues rock guitarist Eric Gales, Grammy-winning blues artist Bobby Rush and history-making Black ballerina Misty Copeland. 

According to early data provided by Luminate, the Sinners compilation soundtrack collected 756,000 official on-demand U.S. streams the day after the Oscars (March 16), marking a 150% jump from the 301,000 official streams it logged the week prior (March 9). I Lied to You,” which lost the best original song Oscar to “Golden,” earned over 154,000 official on-demand U.S. streams the day after the ceremony (March 16), up 240% from the 45,000 streams it pulled the week prior (March 9). 

Meanwhile, the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack received 5.1 million streams the day after the Academy Awards. The Billboard 200-topping set also sold over 2,000 U.S. digital downloads in the same frame, good for a 282% jump in sales. “Golden,” the film’s signature hit, collected 1.68 million official on-demand U.S. streams following Sunday night’s telecast (March 16). The smash hit, which also picked up a Grammy in February, also sold over 1,6000 U.S. digital downloads, marking a whopping 608% increase in sales. 

Awards season may finally be over, but Sinners and KPop Demon Hunters both delivered eternal hits. — KYLE DENIS 

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Tame Impala and JENNIE Run to the Viral Sunlight With “Dracula” Remix

It was an unexpected, though perhaps not altogether shocking pairing: Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, underground hero turned late-arriving crossover pop star, joining forces with JENNIE, solo star from BLACKPINK, for a new spin on “Dracula,” Tame’s breakout 2025 smash. “Dracula” has been on the Hot 100 for 24 weeks now, peaking at No. 30 in late 2025, with the remix giving it a new boost of streams upon its debut in early February. 

As is usually the case, that boost started to recede in the weeks after the remix’s release. But that trend has reversed course now, thanks to the JENNIE-featuring version of “Dracula” finding itself at the center of a new TIkTok trend — in which lip-syncers (usually in pairs) walk towards the camera, soundtracked by the song’s dark disco strut, for the section of the remix where Parker calls himself “Mr. Charisma” and JENNIE’s friends tell her to shut up and just get in the car. (JENNIE herself participated in the trend on Mar. 9.) 

For the tracking week ending Feb. 12 — the first period of the remix’s release — ”Dracula” amassed 7.2 million official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate. After falling the next couple weeks, the song rebounded to 7.7 million streams for the week ending Mar. 5, and then 8.6 million the week ending Mar. 12. The song has since climbed back into the Hot 100’s top 40, sitting at No. 37 this week — with its original No. 30 peak certainly in its sights if the song continues to sink its fangs into TikTok and streaming audiences. — ANDREW UNTERBERGER

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Nascent Alt-Rock Outfit Temper City Makes a Streaming Splash with Debut Single 

Temper City has virtually no digital footprint, but it’s already earned a rising hit. The enigmatic band has taken over TikTok relatively quickly, thanks to a snippet campaign for its “Self Aware” debut single, which it released on Feb. 15 via L.A.-based indie label Thirty Knots. Notably, Thirty Knots is the same company behind Nicky Youre’s “Sunroof,” which leveraged TikTok virality into an MTV VMA-nominated Hot 100 top five hit (No. 4) in 2022. 

The alt-rock outfit, which appears to be a trio according to the few performance clips posted to its official social media accounts, began posting teasers of the single on Jan. 28. The clips featured the band recording the song in the middle of the desert, with the snippet highlighting the back half of the pre-chorus and the first half of the chorus. The song quickly went viral on TikTok, thanks to its sonic similarities to 2010s indie rock bands like Cage the Elephant and The Neighbourhood, as well as its emotional lyrics. The official TikTok sound currently boasts nearly 150,000 clips. 

“Self Aware” earned 128,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during the week of Feb. 13-19, which only accounts for a few days of tracking considering the song’s Sunday release. That figure vaulted 201% to 388,000 official streams the following week (Feb. 20-26), only to rise a further 118% to 849,000 official streams the week after that (Feb. 27-March 5). By March 6-12, “Self Aware” pulled over 1.12 million official weekly streams, marking a 32% jump. Over the past three weeks, “Self Aware” has exploded an impressive 770% in streaming activity — and that growth is poised to continue should TikTok (and social media at large) continue its love affair with Temper City’s debut single. — KD 

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‘00s European Dance Hit “Just the Way You Are” Revived by New Australian Remix

No, not that “Just the Way You Are.” And no, not THAT one either. The “Just the Way You Are” currently going viral in the U.S. has nothing to do with either Billy Joel’s or Bruno Mars’ radio-conquering, Grammy-winning, wedding-soundtracking megaballads of the same name. Rather, this one comes from Italian house outfit Milky, whose euphoric, Go-Betweens-sampling “Just the Way You Are” was a Dance Radio Airplay-topping hit in the U.S. and a top 10 hit in the U.K. back in 2002. 

The song was reintroduced to global audiences in the mid-2020s thanks to interest in a new remix from Australian DJ/producer Mall Grab, which helped the original also catch fire on TikTok. Ultimately, the dual popularity of the two version sent the song back onto charts around the world — including in the U.K., where it got all the way back to No. 11 on the Official Singles Chart earlier this March, and in Australia, where it beat its original peak of No. 47 by getting to No. 27. 

Now the song is starting to take off on U.S. shores as well. With help from influential TikTokers like NBA rising star Jared McCain — who has used both the original and the remix in multiple videos — the song began to cross over to stateside streaming success. After amassing under 50,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the week ending Jan. 1, the song is up to over 2.7 million streams for the week ending March 12, according to Luminate. It reaches a new peak of No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Songs chart this week, and if its growth continues, it could soon be on the verge of its first-ever appearance on the Hot 100. – AU

BMG has sued Anthropic for copyright infringement, joining the ranks of other large music rightsholders that have entered the AI litigation fray.

The various publishing arms of BMG filed a lawsuit on Tuesday (March 17) against the behemoth company, which is behind the popular AI chatbot Claude. BMG alleges the model was trained on lyrics from unlicensed songs, including Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers like Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk,” and now spits out infringing lyrics when prompted.

“Anthropic has blatantly violated the copyright laws and caused direct harm to BMG and the songwriters it proudly represents,” reads the lawsuit, filed on BMG’s behalf by powerhouse entertainment law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips. “Generations of inventors have brought revolutionary new products to market while complying with copyright law. Anthropic’s rapid development of its new technology is no excuse for its egregious law-breaking.”

The lawsuit closely resembles separate copyright litigation already brought against Anthropic by Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), Concord Music and ABKCO Music. It’s not clear why BMG opted to bring its own case rather than join the other publishers, who’ve been fighting Anthropic in court since 2023. Notably, Billboard recently reported that BMG and Concord are in talks to merge.

BMG says in Tuesday’s complaint that it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Anthropic in December, but that the AI company never responded. A BMG spokesperson told Billboard on Wednesday (March 18) that Anthropic’s conduct “stands in direct opposition to the standards required of any responsible participant in the AI community.”

“Protecting the rights of those who entrust their life’s work to BMG is essential. Building an industry on the backs of our songwriters, recording artists, and producers, without permission or compensation, is never acceptable,” said the BMG spokesperson. “We believe that, with appropriate permissions, generative AI can serve as a tool to enhance creativity rather than replace it, and that different segments of the music industry may benefit from it in different ways. However, copyright protection and fair remuneration are non-negotiable.”

Anthropic did not immediately return a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Just like other music publishers’ existing Anthropic litigation, the BMG complaint alleges that Claude infringes its song lyrics in both the training process (inputs) and chatbot responses (outputs). This differentiates the publisher cases from separate copyright lawsuits brought by the major record labels against AI music generators Suno and Udio, which are focused only on unlicensed training.

On the input side, BMG claims Anthropic has infringed its intellectual property by including copyrighted lyrics in Claude’s “enormous” training set. According to the lawsuit, the training materials include text scraped from the BMG-licensed lyric libraries MusicMatch and LyricFind and sheet music books that include the work of major artists like The Rolling Stones and Justin Bieber.

BMG alleges Anthropic obtained much of this training material by torrenting files from illegal pirate libraries. This is key because a judge ruled in a different case this summer that Anthropic should be held liable for storing torrented books, leading the company to ink a $1.5 billion settlement with authors. Other AI copyright plaintiffs, including both music publishers and record labels, have since viewed this as an opening and added new piracy claims to their lawsuits.

Then there’s the question of outputs, with BMG claiming Anthropic is separately infringing its copyrights in the text that Claude spits out. According to the lawsuit, when requested by user prompts, Claude has provided all or significant portions of the lyrics to multiple BMG-owned compositions, including “Uptown Funk,” Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite.”

“Even when prompted for ‘new’ or ‘original’ song lyrics, Claude generates outputs incorporating unauthorized copies of and/or derivative works based on BMG’s copyrighted lyrics that Anthropic copied into training sets,” reads the lawsuit. “Such unauthorized copies and/or derivative works result from, among other things, Claude combining various songs into a single song as a mash-up in response to user prompts requesting such a combination or new songs.”

BMG is now seeking financial damages from Anthropic, arguing that the company has amassed “a fortune built on stolen copyrighted works.” The lawsuit, which notes that Anthropic recently raised an additional $30 billion at a valuation of $380 billion, seeks the statutory maximum of $150,000 per act of infringement. A non-exhaustive list attached to BMG’s lawsuit includes 467 allegedly infringed songs, meaning the total requested damages would come out to at least $70 million.

Anthropic, like the other AI companies facing a flood of copyright litigation in recent years, has maintained that it is shielded by the principle of “fair use” — a tenet of copyright law that allows unlicensed work to be used in “transformative” fashion. Whether AI training is in fact fair use is an unresolved legal question that’s currently being litigated in dozens of courtrooms across the country.

Jay-Z is heading back to The Bronx. Hov and Roc Nation announced plans for a pair of Yankee Stadium shows celebrating the 30th anniversary of Jay’s debut, Reasonable Doubt, and the 25th anniversary of 2001’s The Blueprint.

“Two historic nights to celebrate the iconic albums Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint JAŸ-Z 30 on Friday, July 10 JAŸ-Z 25 on Saturday, July 11 Yankee Stadium,” Roc Nation wrote on social media on Wednesday (March 18) afternoon. “Stay Tuned.” Reasonable Doubt peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200 in 1996, while The Blueprint topped the tally for three weeks in 2001.

The special shows are slated for two consecutive days. July 10 will highlight Reasonable Doubt, while July 11 at Yankee Stadium will be geared toward celebrating The Blueprint. Information surrounding tickets hasn’t been made available as of press time.

Jay has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about performing again and honoring a pair of his legendary albums, which had fans speculating throughout 2026’s first quarter.

The Brooklyn icon released the OG “Dead Presidents” on streaming services for the first time, launched a new website, dropped vinyl of classic tracks and changed his stage name back to JAŸ-Z, which he had used around the ’96 era, featuring an umlaut.

Earlier this week, Jay-Z announced that he’d be returning to the stage in May, where he’s slated to headline the Roots Picnic in Philadelphia alongside The Roots.

It’s his first performance with The Roots in a decade and will mark his first performance since joining Beyoncé on stage in Paris at the final overseas show of the Cowboy Carter Tour in June 2025.

Jay-Z and Eminem memorably took over Yankee Stadium for a pair of star-studded shows in September 2010 as part of their Home & Home Tour in NYC and Detroit.

Find Roc Nation’s announcement for the shows below.

Two historic nights to celebrate the iconic albums Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint

JAŸ-Z 30 on Friday, July 10
JAŸ-Z 25 on Saturday, July 11
Yankee Stadium

Stay Tuned pic.twitter.com/Ak5Y6R090W

— Roc Nation (@RocNation) March 18, 2026

On March 25, it will be two decades since the passing of Rocío Dúrcal, the legendary Spanish singer whose partnership with Mexican legend Juan Gabriel became one of the most successful in Latin music, producing classics like “Amor Eterno,” “El Destino,” and “Como Tu Mujer.” To honor her legacy, her first concert at Mexico City’s Auditorio Nacional, held on Nov. 22, 1991, will be screened in 200 cinemas across Latin America and Spain under the title Rocío Dúrcal, 20 Años Sin Ti (meaning “Rocío Dúrcal, 20 years without you”).

Fully remastered and presented in 4K, the concert is coming to the big screen thanks to a partnership between Sony Music Vision and Cinépolis +QUE CINE. In addition to Rocío Dúrcal’s performances, it features appearances by two pivotal figures in her career: Mexican singer-songwriter Enrique Guzmán, who shared the screen and stage with the artist during her youth and her arrival in Mexico in the ’60s, and Juan Gabriel, who revived her music career after three decades, transforming her into a ranchera icon with songs he wrote and produced.

“We believe this is the most beautiful way to remember and honor her. On YouTube, you can watch a song or two, but in this case, it’s a full concert,” says her daughter, singer Shaila Dúrcal, to Billboard Español.

A singer of many timeless hits, Dúrcal — who called herself “the most Mexican Spaniard” — continues to captivate music lovers, boasting 9.7 million monthly listeners on Spotify and countless videos created with her songs on TikTok.

“It’s true that there are many types of music nowadays, but young people also have their romantic side, and they are connecting more and more with that,” adds actress Carmen Morales, another of her daughters, regarding her mother’s ballads.

Rocío Dúrcal (real name María de los Ángeles de las Heras) was born on Oct. 4, 1944, and began her career in her native Spain as a teenager. She appeared in musical films such as Canción de Juventud, Más Bonita que Ninguna, and Amor en el Aire, which catapulted her to fame in the ’60s before partnering with Juan Gabriel in the late ’70s.

Among other accolades throughout her career, Dúrcal won the 1998 Billboard Latin Music Award for Regional Mexican Album of the Year with Juan Gabriel for Juntos Otra Vez. In 1999, she was inducted into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame, and in 2007, she posthumously received the Billboard Latin Music Award for Latin Greatest Hits Album of the Year for Amor Eterno: Los Éxitos.

Rocío Dúrcal, 20 Años Sin Ti marks the beginning of a series of events to honor the singer on the 20th anniversary of her passing. A new mariachi song by Shaila Dúrcal will be released on March 25, coinciding with the premiere of the concert film in countries such as Mexico, Chile, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Meanwhile, a theater production featuring passages from her life, starring Carmen Morales, will tour Spain starting in October.

Regarding the possibility of the concert being screened for free later at Mexico City’s Zócalo — similar to Juan Gabriel’s concert recorded at the Palacio de Bellas Artes a few months ago — there was no confirmation. “For us, who carry on our mother’s legacy, it’s very exciting to do these kinds of things. We have many ideas in mind that we’re working on,” says Morales. “What we can assure you is that whatever is done will be done in a way that befits a star.”