Billboard‘s newest chart recognizes TikTok‘s undeniable influence on the music industry. Those two companies have teamed up to launch the TikTok Billboard Top 50, which ranks the songs that are picking up the most views on the ByteDance-owned app.
The TikTok Billboard chart will incorporate multiple data points to measure the reach of top TikTok hits. Factors in the ranking include uploads, views, and U.S. user engagement. A new TikTok Billboard Top 50 will be released each Thursday
The first song to hit #1 on the new chart is “SkeeYee,” a viral hip-hop number performed by Sexyy Red (pictured above). The St. Louis-born rapper — who has four entries in the TikTok Billboard Top 50 — has shared vertical videos to promote her chart-topping song, which also serves as the soundtrack for short-form dance routines. Sexyy Red’s growing star power made her a guest of honor at the first Monday Night Football matchup of the NFL season.
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@espn Sauce Gardner 🤝 Sexyy Red #nfl #mnf #football #jets #saucegardner #sexyyred ♬ original sound – ESPN
Doja Cat‘s “Paint The Town Red” followed behind “SkeeYee” in second place, while Taylor Swift‘s “August” rounds out the chart’s inaugural top three. There’s significant overlap between the new Top 50 and the standard Billboard Hot 100. “Paint The Town Red” currently leads the latter of those charts, and Swift has three entries in the Hot 100 herself. “SkeeYee” is sitting in 67th place in Billboard’s 65-year-old ranking.
Over the past decade, Billboard has tried several different approaches as it looks to recognize the internet’s influence on pop music. YouTube views first factored into the Hot 100 in 2013, and the “Harlem Shake” rocketed to #1 on the heels of that change. Billboard eventually lessened YouTube’s influence within the Hot 100, but in 2023, TikTok’s outsized impact on pop trends is impossible to ignore.
“TikTok is already the world’s most powerful platform for music discovery and promotion, and each week our passionate community of music fans drives songs onto the Billboard charts,” said TikTok Global Head of Music Business Development Ole Obermann in a statement. “It therefore made perfect sense to partner with Billboard to create the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart. The chart gives a clear picture of the music that is being listened to on TikTok, and consequently starting to trend on DSPs and other services.”
Check back on this page each Thursday to explore each week’s Top 50 entrants. Alternatively, you could just scroll through your For You Page to learn what’s hot. For the tracks that go viral, TikTok and Billboard’s collaboration provides an extra layer of esteem.
