[Billboard Japan] Official HIGE DANdism's Pretender is the fastest song to reach 100 million playbacks on streaming services.

[davidguy]

「Pretender」が史上最速で1億回再生突破！ Official髭男dismの大躍進をストリーミング・チャートで振り返る | Special | Billboard JAPAN

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www.billboard-japan.com

Currently, Official HIGE DANdism's momentum is great.「Pretender」which was released in May has been in the Billboard JAPAN HOT 100 Top 10 for 20 consecutive weeks. Together with the release of「Shukumei」in July, both songs by HigeDan have remained in the Top 10 for the past 8 consecutive weeks. This persistent popularity is due to being a hit on streaming services. This article will look at the breakthrough of Official HIGE DANdism through the streaming data.

First of all, how often is Official HIGE DANdism being listened to on streaming services? Currently,「Pretender」has been maintaining the #1 spot in the "Streaming Songs" chart for 18 consecutive weeks, since June 3, 2019. Since July 22, 2019, the number of weekly playbacks has exceeded 5 million times for 11 consecutive weeks. To understand the impact of 5 million weekly playbacks, please look at the Top 10 songs with the most playbacks in a single week. Since the start of streaming chart aggregation in October 2017, only 4 songs have exceeded 4 million playbacks per week. Among them,「Pretender」at first place, is the only song that exceeds 5 million playbacks, with a difference of over 1.5 million playbacks compared to the next most played song. You can see that in the history of the streaming chart, it is being listened to at an exceptional rate.

In addition, Official HIGE DANdism has multiple songs in the top 10, with「Shukumei」in 2nd place,「Yesterday」in 8th place, and「No Doubt」in 9th place.「Shukumei」, which was released in July 2019 has recorded over 4.4 million playbacks on the 2019/9/2 chart. The cumulative number of playbacks has exceeded over 36 million times, showing momentum approaching「Pretender」.




Furthermore, their presence is clear when sorted by artist. The table below shows the top 10 most playbacks each artist has ever achieved in a single week.

A ranking of the total number of playbacks for each artist for the songs that are charted into the weekly streaming chart (1st to 100th). Coverage period: 2017/9/25 ~ 2019/9/22.

The graph below shows the transition in the number of playbacks of Official HIGE DANdism's music in the streaming charts. Firstly, 「No Doubt」first appeared in 57th place on the chart on 2018/4/30. After that, the number of playbacks gradually increased with the song becoming theme song to the drama "The Confidence Man JP", achieving 977,481 playbacks on the 2018/6/25 weekly chart. It ranked #7 on that chart, which was the highest it achieved at that time.

「No Doubt」disappeared from the chart around March 2019, but re-emerged with the release of「Pretender」. When「Pretender」first appeared, it recorded 545,359 playbacks, exceeding 「No Doubt」and「Stand By You」. Having previously released 2 smash hits, it can be inferred that the attention to Official HIGE DANdism's new song increased significantly. Following the CD release of「Pretender」, the song blows up on the graph. After appearing on music shows such as "Music Station" and performing at events such as "METROPOLITAN ROCK FESTIVAL 2019" and "NOW PLAYING JAPAN vol. 3", the song achieved its first place on the weekly streaming chart on 2019/6/3. At the same time,「No Doubt」and「Stand By You」exceeded the number of playbacks they had gotten during their initial peaks. This is the first breakpoint.

The second breakpoint was around the time of the CD release of「Shukumei」. At this time, the previously released songs「SWEET TUNE」and「Tell Me Baby」made their first appearance on the charts. The rise in popularity of the previously released works was seen with the release of「Pretender」, but it seems this momentum was further accelerated with the release of「Shukumei」.

What these 2 breakpoints have in common is that interest did not end following the release of new songs. In addition to tie-ups with "The Confidence Man JP" and "Netto Koshien", and performances on music shows, they also constantly performed at festivals and events. The approach of reaching people through the living room and at concerts has led to an increase in the number of playbacks on streaming services with easy access to music. In addition, listeners who dug up past songs through streaming services have become new fans and have led to further chart breakthroughs.

With the 2019/9/30 streaming chart,「Pretender」has finally exceeded 100 million playbacks. This is the first time a song released in 2019 has achieved over 100 million playbacks. Since the start of the streaming aggregation chart in October 2017,「Pretender」is the 4th song to have reached over 100 million playbacks, following Aimyon's「Marigold」, DAOKO x Yonezu Kenshi's「Uchiage Hanabi」, and Ed Sheeran's「Shape of You」.「Pretender」is the fastest ever to reach this milestone at 23 weeks.




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This is a jank translation by me, so there might be a lot of mistakes.