South Korean superstars BLACKPINK debut atop the Sept. 3-dated Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. survey with “Pink Venom,” extending their international reach. But another band scores multiple debuts and re-entries on this week’s rankings, bolstering its own global fortunes.
Coldplay’s 2008 hit “Viva La Vida” debuts on the Global 200 at No. 184, while re-entering Global Excl. U.S. at No. 162. (The surveys started in September 2020.) Concurrently, 2014’s “A Sky Full of Stars” starts on Global Excl. U.S. at No. 199 and 2015’s “Hymn for the Weekend” re-enters at No. 166. In all, the British quartet tallies six songs on the latter list, rounded out by “My Universe,” with BTS (2021); “Something Just Like This,” with The Chainsmokers (2017); and “Yellow” (2000).
It’s an impressive total, bested this week only by Bad Bunny (16 entries on Global Excl. U.S.) and Ed Sheeran (seven). (Ado and The Weeknd also sport six each.) For Bad Bunny, his global saturation is mostly due to Un Verano Sin Ti, his hit album released in May. For Sheeran, it’s a combination of hits from last year’s = and recent turns with Burna Boy and Camila Cabello, plus a pair of enduring songs from 2017’s ÷ (Divide).
Coldplay boasts a similar blend of current and catalog, mixing last year’s No. 1 global hit “My Universe” with its breakthrough single “Yellow.” But while those two songs, and “Something Just Like This,” have been consistently on the global charts over the last year, the group’s other chart entries are spiking. Streams outside the U.S. gained 16% week-over-week for “Vida” (to 7.4 million) and “Stars” (to 7.1 million) in the frame ending Aug. 25, according to Luminate. “Yellow,” “Universe,” “Something,” and “Hymn” are all up, as well, by 19%, 11%, 9% and 8%, respectively.
Collaborations with BTS and The Chainsmokers aside, few acts have found such substantial global chart action with this many catalog titles. And while, with one song or another, Coldplay ranked on the Global Excl. U.S. chart every week since the list’s launch, its six-song sum on the latest chart is striking.
The band saturates the charts amid its band’s Music of the Spheres Tour, in support of its 2021 album of the same name, the parent set of “My Universe.” The tour has been cresting on its European leg, ruling Billboard’s Top Tours chart in July with a $66 million haul and continuing with a string of London shows in August.
Plus, videos from the various shows have been making the rounds on social media and YouTube, bringing the band’s nightly stadium spectacle to your screen and mine. Though this crop of songs is also ticking upward on the Global 200, the gains are sensibly stronger outside the U.S., owed to the band’s European concerts.
Bad Bunny himself experienced a similar surge earlier this year, when tracks from 2019’s Oasis and 2020’s YHLQMDLG entered the Global 200 in February and March, during his North American El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo.