Shershaah songs set new records, claim crossover success with Billboard’s Global charts-Entertainment News , Firstpost
‘Raataan Lambiyan’ and ‘Ranjha’ are among 18 Indian songs to have scaled Billboard magazine’s Global Excl. US chart.
Cinemas may not have yet opened across the country but film songs are back to ruling the music charts. Towards the end of August, two tracks from Shershaah, ‘Raataan Lambiyan‘ by Tanishk Bagchi, Jubin Nautiyal and Asees Kaur and ‘Ranjha‘ by Jasleen Royal and B Praak set new records for the most streams in a week on Spotify India, with over 8.2 million and 7.3 million plays on the platform respectively, surpassing the 5.1 million mark set by BTS’s “Butter” in May.
The Shershaah hits have tallied upwards of 5 million streams in every week since then. The numbers have been big enough to make them the only Indian tunes so far to reach the top 100 of Spotify’s daily and weekly Global charts, on which ‘Raataan Lambiyan‘ peaked at No.60 and No.63 and ‘Ranjha‘ at No.77 and No.79.
Sony Music India, which released the soundtrack, celebrated the achievement saying that it’s “fascinating to see how music transcends all geographic and language barriers”. Except that while there’s no doubt the soundtrack is arguably the most popular OST since that of Kabir Singh from 2019, more than 90% of ‘Raataan Lambiyan‘ and ‘Ranjha‘s plays are from within India. The other 10% are from countries with a large proportion of India’s diaspora, which totals 18 million, the highest for any country on the planet.
This indicates two things. Firstly, Spotify’s listenership in the country is growing as it acquires customers beyond the metros. (Notably, at the time of writing, ‘Raataan Lambiyan‘ had over 50 million streams on Spotify, compared to 47.8 million on JioSaavn, despite the former having only one-fifth or even less of the latter’s monthly active user base. It’s no wonder that the Swedish service chose to remix the hit for the second of its series of Singles releases in India.)
Secondly, it shows that Indians are finally streaming music in quantities substantial enough for our releases to crack international charts.
Siddharth Malhotra and Kiara Advani in a still from Shershaah
For a wider perspective, we can turn to Billboard’s Global charts, which were launched a little over a year ago in the first half of September 2020. The American charts bible launched two surveys, including one that leaves out streams from the US, which is the world’s largest music market. Exactly 18 Indian songs have scaled the ‘Global Excl. US’ chart.
These are the eight that have got to the top 100 of the 200-position list and their peak positions:
‘Lut Gaye’, Jubin Nautiyal, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Tanishk Bagchi, T-Series, No.23 (March to June 2021)
‘Raataan Lambiyan‘ (from Shershaah), Asees Kaur, Jubin Nautiyal and Tanishk Bagchi, No.28 (August and September* 2021)
‘Titliaan‘, Afsana Khan, Avvy Sra and Jaani, Universal Music, No.46 (December and January 2020)
‘Bachpan Ka Pyaar‘, Aastha Gill, Badshah, Rico and Sahdev Dirdo, Universal Music, No.50 (August 2021)
‘Filhaal2 Mohabbat‘, B Praak and Jaani, Universal Music, No.68 (July 2021)
‘Paani Paani‘, Aastha Gill and Badshah, Saregama, No.71 (June to August 2021)
‘Ranjha’ (from Shershaah), B Praak and Jasleen Royal, Sony Music, No.73 (September* 2021)
‘Saiyaan Ji‘, Yo Yo Honey Singh featuring Neha Kakkar, No.98 (February and March 2021)
*Currently on the chart.
As Billboard observes, most of the Indian tracks to have reached the chart get the bulk of their chart points from video plays. India, after all, is YouTube’s biggest market with more than 325 million MAUs as of October 2020. Seven of these eight tunes hit No.1 on YouTube’s Global Music Videos chart but only two songs have impacted the top 40 of Billboard’s Global Excl. US list, traditionally considered “hit” territory. Both of them have performed well on both video and audio OTT services. So far, Billboard factors in streams from only international services such as Apple Music and Amazon Prime Music, which means that to touch the upper ranks of the worldwide charts, a track needs to have success on both.
For example, Haryanvi phenomenon ‘52 Gaj Ka Daman‘ by Aman Jaji, Mukesh Jaji and Renuka Panwar, which was the most viewed music video in the world on YouTube for all of January and most of February, did not reach the Global Excl. US chart because it didn’t really take off on audio OTT platforms. Similarly, viral Punjabi hip-hop hit ‘Brown Munde‘ by the Canadian crew of AP Dhillon, Gminxr, Gurinder Gill and Shinda Kahlon, which is among the year’s hugest hits on Apple Music in India didn’t land on the Billboard survey because its weekly YouTube plays were never quite as high.
Shifting focus back to Shershaah, we should acknowledge Sony isn’t the first or only label to claim crossover success. This month, Times Music and Speed Records touted how Punjabi pop and hip-hop star Karan Aujla’s new album BTFU had debuted in the top five on Apple Music in international markets such as Canada, where he’s based, as well as Australia and New Zealand, countries with high concentrations of Indian diaspora.
However, the fact is that, as of now, it’s only when a song truly crosses over to non-Indian listeners that we’ll see our homegrown hits reaching the top ten of global charts such as those published by Billboard – unless they start factoring in plays on Indian audio services such as Gaana and JioSaavn.
That will only happen if Indian labels allow these DSPs to share their streaming information with chart compilers such as MRC Data, the company that’s the source of Billboard’s charts, and BMat, which puts together the Indian Music Industry’s surveys. Then, if platforms actually have the 150 million-plus MAUs they claim, Indian music should surely start having a greater impact on Billboard’s Global charts.
