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: Netflix has a new hit series on its hands and many alt-pop artists are benefiting from it, an ’00s indie rock classic proves timeless once again, it’s Girl in Red season again and much more.

‘Nobody Wants This,’ But Lots of People Want the Soundtrack

The new Netflix series Nobody Wants This is one of the breakout hits of this late-2024 TV season, with good reviews and word-of-mouth buzz spreading the Kristen Bell and Adam Brody co-starring series – about the romantic relationship between a podcaster and a rabbi, and the reactions of their respective families and communities – all over social media and pop culture. That of course extends to the series’ soundtrack, which is stacked with synchs from some of the most popular and acclaimed alt-pop artists of the past decade-plus, as well as some exciting new up-and-comers. 

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary so far has been Francis and the Lights’ “See Her Out (That’s Just Life),” which plays in multiple key scenes in the season, including during the first kiss between Bell’s and Brody’s characters. The song racked up 432,000 official on-demand streams in the U.S. last week (ending Oct. 3) following the show’s Sept. 26 debut, up from just 13,000 streams the prior frame – an eye-popping gain of 3,157%, according to Luminate. Multiple songs from star sister trio HAIM are also featured, with the group’s “Now I’m in It” jumping 120% to 177,000 streams over the same period, while “You & I” from veteran Swedish pop singer-songwriter LÉON is also up 245% to 196,000. 

The series has also had a big impact on the catalog of newer singer-songwriter Anna Graves, who has a couple songs featured in the series. Her “Fly” is up 304% to 63,000 streams over this period, while her “When the Love Is Gone” spikes 615% to 41,000 streams. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

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Wait, They Don’t TikTok Like I TikTok: Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ ‘Maps’ Gets a Viral Trend

Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”: early-00’s classic, timeless alt-rock love song, iconic music video, the anthem that unwittingly launched Karen O and co. towards indie stardom. And now, more than 20 years after the 2003 single’s release, “Maps” is getting the viral treatment on TikTok thanks to the “Maps Dance,” in which a remixed version of the song soundtracks users shaking their hips and hitting them with their hands, then pausing (or moving in slow motion) when Karen O declares, “Wait!,” as in, “Wait! They don’t love you like I love you!”

The TikTok trend has helped “Maps” nearly double in U.S. on-demand weekly streams over a two-week period: the YYYs track earned 1.49 million streams during the week ending on Oct. 3, according to Luminate, up from 766,000 streams for the week ending Sept. 19. “Maps” crept onto the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 87 in 2004; depending on how this trend grows, maybe the Yeah Yeah Yeahs can hip-shake back onto the chart two decades later. – JASON LIPSHUTZ

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‘Joker’ Sequel & Harlequin LP Lift Lady Gaga’s Jazz Catalog 

Although Joker: Folie à Deux has suffered from dismal reviews and a disastrous box office performance, there is a silver lining for the film’s leading lady. Lady Gaga, who portrays Harley Quinn in the new film, injects the Joker sequel with her love for jazz standards, which spilled over into both Harlequin, her new Billboard chart-topping companion album featuring both covers and original cuts, and even to a couple her older jazz collections. 

According to Luminate, combined official on-demand U.S. streams for Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale – Gaga’s two Grammy-winning duets albums with the late Tony Bennett – have risen 30% since the release of Harlequin (Sept. 27). During the period of Sept. 20-26, the two LPs earned about 380,000 combined official on-demand U.S. streams. That figure ballooned to over 490,000 combined streams in the week following Harlequin’s release (Sept. 27-Oct. 3). It’s unlikely – but not completely out of the question – that Harlequin will launch a Hot 100 hit, but its arrival has spurred some gains for Gaga’s non-pop catalog. A win is a win! 

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Latto Squeezes Another Streaming Hit Out of ‘Sugar Honey Iced Tea’ 

Latto’s Billboard chart-topping Sugar Honey Iced Tea already boasts streaming hits like “Big Mama” and “Brokey,” and it looks like “Georgia Peach,” the record’s intro, could join those ranks. 

Bolstered by a rise in social media adoration for the song – alongside the album and Latto in general – official on-demand U.S. streams for “Georgia Peach” have risen over 83% from Sept. 27-20 to Oct. 4-7, according to Luminate. During the period of Sept. 27-30, the Southern hip-hop banger collected over 588,000 streams, which rose to over 1.07 million streams during the period of Oct. 4-7. On TikTok, the official “Georgia Peach” sound boasts nearly 30,000 clips, while an unofficial upload soundtracks a further 13,000 videos. 

Although “Georgia Peach” does have an official music video, it’s rise in popularity isn’t tied to that clip, a dance trend or anything else. Should its streams continue to rise, “Georgia Peach” could become the fourth Hot 100 entry from Sugar Honey Iced Tea. — KD

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Q&A: Sarah Patellos, Head of Spotify Music Studios, on What’s Trending Up in Her World

How did the Spotify Anniversaries series idea form?

This concept was born as a result of a few creative inspirations from our team. We wanted to find a way to celebrate iconic catalog music, especially as we’ve seen listeners engage positively in that space over the past few years. Our Los Angeles Spotify Studio is an incredible space that has always birthed creativity, so the idea of bringing artists into the space to revisit their classics as a series felt like it had a lot of potential. It would give existing fans something new to experience, while engaging new fans in discovering the music for the first time.

From that initial internal excitement, we started to build out what the series would be. On that would exist through music and video. Knowing that every project’s lifespan is unique, our thought was to allow for a flexible anniversary window that made sense for each album and artists’ milestones.  That gave us a wide canvas to find the right projects to bring back to life.

How did you decide on the artists and projects that made sense for the series, and what goes into each one?

Spotify Anniversaries celebrates the staying power of iconic albums. We’ve worked with artists from different genres, but the throughline is the timelessness of the projects we’re celebrating. From Isaiah Rashad’s EP Cilvia Demo to Weezer’s The Blue Album to Christina Aguilera’s debut album Christina Aguilera – we are honored to have the opportunity to help celebrate these anniversaries.

For each episode, we invite the artists to perform 4-6 songs from the project, ideally both the hits and the tracks that embody this milestone for the project. We partner closely with the artist to create an environment in our Spotify Studio that feels aesthetically right for the project and their vision, but keep it really focused on the live performance and the quality of the studio recording.

What have been some highlights thus far?

Our first episode with Isaiah Rashad felt incredibly special – he is such a captivating performer and really set the stage for the vision of this series. For Christina Aguilera, her special guests Ron Fair, Heather Holley, mgk and Sabrina Carpenter brought a unique element to the making of the project, while also reimagining and bringing new life to it.

Weezer was also a highlight. The band chose the direction to perform facing each other, which led to a really natural conversation and allowed the meaning of the project amongst the band to shine beautifully. Not only were the songs being revisited, but watching the band connect face-to-face created a unique experience, and that’s one of the reasons why that episode in particular has been so impactful. It’s a great example how artists can take the series and steer it into their own creative space.

How has Spotify Anniversaries impacted engagement with those projects on the Spotify platform?

The beauty of this project is that is led by music, but supported by video on socials and YouTube. Each Spotify Anniversaries episode has a live EP that lives exclusively on platform. We’ve seen incredible responses to each EP release – the Christina/Sabrina collab was even seen on New Music Friday and Teen Beats. The more this program grows, the more ways we are testing the use of other products to make this even more layered. – JL

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Season’s Gainings: Leaves Turning, Pumpkin Spice Lattes Arriving & Girl in Red Rising

If Earth, Wind & Fire’s moment has already passed and you’re not hearing Ray Parker Jr. and Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers everyone just yet, that must mean it’s Girl in Red season. As happens annually around this time of year, the Norwegian singer-songwriter born Marie Ulven Ringheim is rising on streaming with her indie-pop modern classic “We Fell in Love in October” – with the song racking up 3.6 million official on-demand U.S. streams over the first four days of the month, a 73% gain from the 2.1 million combined streams of the prior four-day period. The song even hit a new all-time peak of No. 38 on the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart, suggesting that folks are falling even more in love with Girl in Red this October. – AU 

When Jaclyn Kinnon was seven, she lived more like a roadie than a second grader. Because her mother, Shelley Kinnon, headed the backstage catering for Southern California’s Irvine Meadows (now FivePoint Amphitheatre) from 1988 to 2010, she spent many evenings and weekends helping her mom pamper rock stars. One particular chore later became a rock ‘n’ roll fable.

“I remember my mom tossing me bags of M&Ms and having me pick out all the brown ones for Van Halen,” says Jaclyn. “But I didn’t throw them out — I kept them for myself.”

When it comes to hospitality riders — a list of requests in an artist’s contract fulfilled by promoters or venues — the most famous is Van Halen’s demand for no brown M&Ms in their dressing room. But whether technical, practical or outrageous, the rider is an industry staple. It is also an endless source of fascination, finding its way into pop culture, such as the This Is Spinal Tap character Nigel Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest, who complains that the bread provided backstage is a catastrophe because it’s too small for the deli meat. For those of us who live far from the galaxy of stardom, this is an inconceivable world of entitlement and excess. But for those who work in the live music industry, this is their reality.

Touring may seem like an endless bacchanalia, but it is nonetheless challenging. There are long hours spent on the road and on airplanes, late nights, early mornings, meet-and-greets, energy-zapping performances, sleeping (or not sleeping) in foreign beds, pre-parties, after parties, and unbridled access to all manner of intoxicants. Since ticket sales make up a large portion of an artist’s revenue, ranging from Taylor Swift‘s billion-dollar Eras Tour to throw-everything-in-the-van-and-go indie bands, the industry has developed a set of best practices for how musicians are treated while on the road, and creature comforts, especially for A-list artists, make a big impact on tour. Swift’s humble 2008 tour rider included simple indulgences such as one quart of 2% chocolate milk, one stick of butter, one small jar of dill pickles, and three boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Her Eras Tour version would presumably go further.

Particular types of food and meal preparations are rider staples that offer a respite from drive-thrus, greasy spoons and gas station nachos. While some artists travel with a personal chef, others may expect the venue to provide a fine dining experience.

“For Van Halen and Sammy Hagar back in the ’90s,” says Shelley Kinnon, “they had to have a big, lavish, sit-down dinner in their dressing room. We supplied the dinner, and it was one of the most expensive riders I can remember. In fact, I even hired a chef from the Ritz Carlton to come in.”

Kinnon has seen it all. Her eponymous catering business has decades of experience at venues such as the aforementioned FivePoint Amphitheatre, L.A. Sports Arena and Orange County’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts. She roasted a whole pig for an Ozzfest end-of-tour party. She whipped up a juicy roasted pork loin from a special recipe provided by members of Rush. She supplied many bottles of Cristal. While some of her food requests were easy to fulfill, like Jimmy Buffett‘s three grapefruits, others were more daunting, like finding chicken feet for the Jamaica-based Reggae Sunsplash tour of the early ’90s. Now, most rare food items are more readily available, but 30 years ago when, for example, various British bands would require HP Sauce — a tomato and tamarind condiment as popular as ketchup in the U.K. — she was at a loss.

And then there were drugs — something that was oft requested but always unwritten. Since it was the ’80s, an era that was covered in white dust, it came as no surprise. (And no, Kinnon never provided it.) She also witnessed other high-maintenance requests of which rider lore is made.

“For Michael Jackson at his ’89 L.A. Sports Arena show, they were measuring the table cloths because they had to be a certain length,” she says.”Somebody had to taste all his food before he ate it. We even had to set up a separate dressing room for Bubbles, his [chimpanzee], who was wearing a frickin’ suit.” 

As the music industry evolved, so have riders. While artists are still making headlines with their demands — lest we forget Beyoncé‘s alleged 2013 request for over $900 worth of titanium straws, which she needed, according to E! News, for drinking alkaline water — at least some lean toward a more cause-driven purpose. 

“Florence and the Machine was a solidly expensive rider — a few thousand dollars,” says Tadia Taylor, who has worked in artist relations, tour and artist management, and event production. “Florence is focused on sustainability so it was important to her that there’s no paper plates, no paper cups, no plastic cutlery. I had to buy stuff like china, glassware and real silverware, but it didn’t bother me because it was coming from a good place. Even though it was expensive, it wasn’t frivolous.

“I actually kept all that stuff and reused it for other events,” she adds.

The rider comes from humble beginnings. In the early ’60s, they were utilitarian, consisting of performance essentials like payment preferences, sound equipment and lighting, which these days is categorized as a technical rider to differentiate it from the hospitality version. Chuck Berry, who traveled with his guitar in hand, asked to be paid in cash upfront or he would not play. (This was used against him when the IRS charged him with tax evasion in 1979.)

Alex Hodges, 82, CEO of Nederlander Concerts, who has represented artists such as The Allman Brothers and Stevie Ray Vaughan, says his first experience with the rider was in Macon, Ga. in the early ’60s when he worked with the now-defunct Walden Artists & Promotions. While still in college, he started managing local bands around 1961 and eventually landed his first big star: Otis Redding. 

“Regional bands would tell us stories of the bare dressing room or the lack of equipment or water on the floor,” says Hodges. “The first rider I ever did was probably no more than a page or two. For Otis, it became more essential and technical, just the minimum requirements. And around 1970, when The Allman Brothers came out with their first album, it became a little bit more interesting.”

That is due in large part to John Hartmann, 84, a Canadian-American author, educator and music industry legend who has worked with artists such as Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and the Eagles, and who helped reshape the rider into what it is today — which can now be upwards of 15 pages. And it all began with Perrier.

“We invented the rider,” Hartmann claimed in Michael Walker’s book Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood. “I remember the big thing I wanted was Perrier. I drank Perrier. So I got everybody around me into it, and we ended up putting Perrier on the riders and no one knew what it was and people were sending to France to get it. Those kinds of things crept in as the managers and the artists gained power.”

With Perrier, Hartmann was one of the first to request an indulgence on tour that was something other than technical equipment or a per diem, making venues and promoters scramble to either hunt down or import the bubbly beverage. His request was honored, and later, when the British duo Chad & Jeremy called him with a venue issue, these combined occurrences revealed an opportunity.

“I sent Chad & Jeremy to San Diego to play a concert,” says Hartmann. “When they got down there, they called and said, ‘There’s no PA.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? It’s a venue, they’ve got a PA,’ and they said, ‘This is the kind of PA a teacher uses to talk to a class. It won’t hold rock and roll.’ That’s when we started, as agents, analyzing this whole need for proper sound and really got into the technical aspects of it all for the first time.”

Eventually, riders began to help artists and managers gain more power. If a rider was fulfilled, it meant the contracts were read. If they weren’t, it meant the artist had the ability to cancel their show. Since promoters and venues needed performers in order to run their businesses, the dynamic shifted from offering the bare minimum to ingratiating artists and management. The demands to elevate the standards of sound and lighting quality quickly became the norm for most venues, allowing artists to fill their riders with other, more personalized, requests. Thus, the hospitality rider (versus the technical rider) was born — and it didn’t take long for artists and managers to catch on.

In essence, riders evolved into binding contractual terms. Hodges once demanded in Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rider — whose last name was frequently misspelled as “Vaughn” on marquees, tickets and posters — that if his last name was misspelled on any marketing materials, the promoter would have to pay the hotel bill for the entire band and crew. As a fond reminder of this, Hodges keeps a framed poster featuring Vaughan’s misprinted name in his office. 

“That’s in essence what the rider’s about: To be sure the promoters are given the information they need,” Hodges says. “Some of the funny stuff you put in isn’t necessarily intended to be funny or difficult, it’s to be sure that they read the rider and take it seriously. We’d check everything to see if they spelled the artist’s name right, whether it’s a marquee, dressing room, or on a cake — anything that might let us know they weren’t paying attention.”

“The rider evolved based on the specific interests, needs or whims of the acts, especially as they got bigger,” Hartmann adds. “Those requests became rigid, and eventually no artist performed without a rider. When I went to Europe with the Eagles, America and Crosby and Nash — before Stills — we had unwritten needs. It wasn’t on the rider, but you gotta give us pot or hashish when we crossed the border into your country.”

If there’s anyone who knows about riders based on specific interests and needs, it’s Darrius Washington, who is Steve Aoki‘s tour and production manager. Dubbed the “$30 million DJ” by Forbes in 2019, Aoki is not just known for rattling arenas with his high-energy big room house but also for lobbing cakes at eager audience members.

Known as “Cake Face,” these are not regular store-bought cakes picked up by a production assistant, but rather a particular recipe made by a local baker in each city of the tour. They are so specific that the cakes have their own rider, shared with Billboard, which offers a diagram, dimensions (12×16 inches), ingredients (plain white sponge cake, no chocolate or sprinkles), and the ratio of cake to frosting (25% white sponge cake and 75% whipped cream frosting). The rider also says, “A great test is to see how easily you can stick your finger in the top of the cake. If you have to use force, then the cake is not prepared correctly.” Even the foundation of the cake is explicit and must be made of expanded polystyrene foam board because it is soft and breaks upon impact, avoiding injuries that could be incurred by cardboard or plastic careening at one’s face.

“What most people don’t know about the cake,” Washington explains, “is that it’s all contractual. So if you fuck up our cake rider or your cakes in any way, it’s a $5,000 fee.

“We’re actually refining the rider even further because Steve has mentioned that they are on the lighter side,” Washington adds. “He’s been featured on Barstool Sports for how accurate he is with the cakes, but if you want to continue that accuracy, the cakes have to be a certain weight, a certain size, or else they don’t go as far. So all of these things have to come together to make this perfect cake for throwing.”

According to Washington, they go through about 800 cakes per summer.

Now, some venues go above and beyond the riders, not only fulfilling them in their entirety but organizing customized activations for artists and their entourage. Christy Castillo Butcher, senior vp of programming and booking for SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, believes in the broader definition of hospitality, which is welcoming people into your home.

“You wanna create a comfortable space for them, an inner sanctum to decompress before the show,” Butcher says. “Hospitality riders are key in creating some consistency from venue to venue so the performers know what to expect. From a venue side, it’s really trying to tap into some of the nuances around that. What are some of their favorite things? Is there a specialty coffee or food particular to the artist or crew? Are they fond of a certain tequila?”

From Butcher fabricating a personalized SoFi football helmet for Kenny Chesney to organizing a carne asada cookout during a press conference — complete with a local youth mariachi band — for the Mexican Norteño-banda act Grupo Firme, the rider continues to evolve via the venues and the artists themselves. 

“With the rider, the power went from the criminal conspiracy known as the record business to the artist and managers,” says Hartmann with a laugh. “The rider is now an institution. The ridiculousness is unlimited and it’s up to the artist — what are they not ashamed to ask for? Well, most of the time it doesn’t matter and they’ll just ask for it anyway.”

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Are you looking for a new series to binge-watch? Amazon Prime has a new original series titled, Citadel Diana. This six-episode series premieres its first season on Thursday (Oct. 10) on Amazon Prime Video, according to Amazon’s press release.

This Italian series is set in Milan in 2030, and follows Diana Cavalieri (played by Matilda De Angelis) as she embarks on her mission as a double agent for the global spy agency Citadel. In this journey, she goes undercover in Manticore, “the rival agency that destroyed Citadel eight years ago,” according to the series’ description.

If you enjoy spy thriller series, this is a great option to add to your watchlist.

Alessandro Fabbri is the creator of this series, with Gina Gardini as the showrunner. Arnaldo Catinari, known for his work on Blessed Madness and many other films, is the director. This six-episode series is produced by Cattleya and executive produced by Gardini, Riccardo Tozzi, Marco Chimenz, Giovanni Stabilini, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Angela Russo-Otstot, Scott Nemes and David Weil.

The cast for this project includes Matilda De Angelis, Lorenzo Cervasio, Maurizio Lombardi, Julia Piaton, Thekla Reuten, Giordana Faggiano, Daniele Paoloni, Marouane Zotti, Carlo Sciaccaluga, Bernard Schütz, Jun Ichikawa, Maxim Mehmet and Filippo Nigro.

Keep reading for directions on how to stream the series for free.

How to Watch

Citadel Diana is a Prime New Original Series. The first season premieres on Prime Video on Thursday (Oct. 10). The series consists of six episodes. If you’re not a subscriber, you can join Amazon Prime and start your 30-day free trial to watch Prime Video movies and more.

Prime Video provides an extensive array of exclusive TV series, movies and other must-watch programs, and you can add Prime Channels such as Paramount+, Max, Starz and Showtime, BET+ and AMC+.

Amazon Prime costs $14.99 per month after the free trial (students and EBT/SNAP recipients can join for 50% off). Prime members get access to Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Gaming and Prime Reading, in addition to free same-day, one-day or two-day delivery and exclusive discounts. 

Besides Citadel Diana, Prime Video features exclusives such as Killer Heat, It Ends With Us, Marlon Wayans: Good Grief, Prime Video feature exclusives including The Idea of You, Fallout, Them 2, Space Cadet, Invincible, Road House, Reacher, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Citadel, Daisy Jones & The Six, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Swarm, Harlem, The Boys, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Fleabag, The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Wheel of Time and The Legend of Vox Machina.

Watch the trailer for Citadel Diana below.

JO1’s “WHERE DO WE GO” hits No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, dated Oct. 9, tallying the week ending Oct. 6.

The title track of JO1’s ninth single debuted at No. 31 on the chart dated Sept. 18 after being released digitally on Sept. 9. It remained in the Japan Hot 100 since then and soared 73-1 powered by sales with the release of the CD on Oct. 2. The track rules sales this week while coming in at No. 4 for downloads, No. 36 for streaming, No. 2 for radio airplay, and No. 29 for video views. The CD sold 732,009 copies, coming in second to the group’s previous single “HITCHHIKER” (738,776 copies), currently the record-holder for highest first-week sales for the band.

SKE48’s “Kokuhaku Shinpakusu” debuts at No. 2. The group’s 33rd single launched with 319,722 copies to come in at No. 2 for sales, while hitting No. 64 for radio.

Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Lilac” slips a notch to No. 3. The former No. 1 hit continues to rule streaming for the 16th straight week, though showing a slight decrease (94%) from the week before. The track comes in at No. 3 for video, No. 15 for downloads, and No. 5 for karaoke.

ATEEZ’s “Birthday” bows at No. 4. The title track off the K-pop boy band’s fourth single in Japan sold 154,296 copies in its first week to debut at No. 3 for sales. The track also comes in at No. 93 for downloads and No. 65 for radio. No. 4 on the Japan Hot 100 is tied for the group’s best position so far, previously achieved by “NOT OKAY.”

King & Prince’s “WOW” enters at No. 5. The track off the duo’s sixth album Re:ERA dropped digitally on Sept. 30 and rules downloads and radio, while also coming in at No. 25 for video. This is the second time King & Prince topped downloads, following “halfmoon.”

Official HIGE DANdism’s “Same Blue” debuts at No. 7. The opener for the anime series Blue Box comes in at No. 2 for downloads (11,375 units), No. 4 for radio, No. 20 for video, and No. 27 for streaming.

The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.

See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English X account.