During an era of music that sees charts dominated by songs booming on streaming and sales platform, Dua Lipa‘s ‘Levitating’ has slowly, but surely risen to the top thanks to good old fashioned radio airplay.
In fact, its popularity on the platform is so great the authorities responsible for calculating radio performance data (and charting them accordingly) is undoing a longstanding rule to reflect it.
See what we mean inside:
Data produced by Mediabase, a leading music industry service that monitors radio station airplay in nearly 200 US and Canadian markets, is what helps inform song placements on a number of music charts (alongside digital download and streaming performance data from other sources).
For years, the organization – as a measure to effectively represent consumer interests – pushed “cold” songs off its charts that have spent at least 20 weeks on it and fell out of the top 10 positions due to two consecutive weeks of declining airplay. Historically, songs that have met this criteria do not resurge – that is until Dua Lipa’s ‘Levitating.’
Thanks to an aggressive yearlong campaign, the DaBaby-assisted hit has been posting HUGE airplay gains in the last few weeks – so much so it’s sitting in the top 5 in its 20th week of charting (with no sign of slowing).
Because of this, Mediabase is instituting a new rule to account for future resurgent hits.
“According to the [new] rule, songs could return to the chart if they post four consecutive weeks of airplay gains and would be in the Top 10 for airplay. Barring a sudden and highly unlikely collapse this week, “Levitating” will meet the standard and thus return on the chart for the May 23-29 tracking period.”
Don’t call it a comeback.