The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp’s series, ‘The Idol’, barely lasted a few weeks. Shortly after its premiere, HBO announced its cancellation after a mediocre first season. But despite its poor commercial performance and horrible critical reception, the ‘Blinding Lights’ singer has found success with his soundtrack (which he performs himself).
The artist brought together Madonna and Playboi Carti for one of the series’ promotional songs: ‘Popular’. Since its release last June, the song has already amassed more than 400 million streams on Spotify alone. In addition, it currently remains Madonna’s most popular on the platform and The Weeknd’s third. A quite evident success that leaves no room for doubt, taking into account the quite powerful catalog of both.
However, ‘Popular’ was not a surprise hit. The artists opted for the single and it did quite well in streaming since its publication. And this is something that cannot be said with ‘One Of The Girls’, the song in which The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp sign Jennie from Blackpink. Released the video clip in July, ‘One Of The Girls’ went quite unnoticed if you take into account the furor around the collaboration between Abel and one of the main figures of K-pop.
However, since music is consumed mainly through streaming, we should never take anything for granted… and the cases of ‘Cruel Summer’ by Taylor Swift and ‘Die For You’ by The Weeknd himself are great examples. And, almost half a year later, ‘One Of The Girls’ has begun to be successful thanks to its virality on social networks.
The song, which is accumulating almost four million daily views on Spotify, already has more than 300 million in total. And not only that: it has just debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at position 100. In other words, just barely. But it has already risen to 69th place in what is supposed to be its second week. Also, this is Jennie’s first appearance on the list.
We will have to wait to see if ‘One Of The Girls’ climbs the charts. If we are facing a new big hit from The Weeknd, time will have to dictate, but perhaps ‘The Idol’ series was not a resounding failure. The singer has managed to stand out with what he knows how to do best… sing, not act.
