The Fame Monster is still a Monster of Fame. On Friday, May 29, 2020, Lady Gaga finally released her long-awaited and sought-after album, Chromatica, her sixth studio album. Like flames burning through cities this weekend as protests over the police killing of George Floyd turned fiery, Lady Gaga’s latest conflagration burned through the music charts.
The scheduled release date for Chromatica was long ago, April 10, but Lady Gaga continually withheld her album out of concern for the Covid-19 pandemic. So far it is unclear how, or if, the timing of this release in the midst of yet another national crisis will affect its future success, but for now it means Lady Gaga is the dominant force in music.
According to Music Maven’s proprietary technology, which provides the most current and accurate data on the performance of all artists and songs in daily music charts, Chromatica has made Lady Gaga by far the Most Streamed Artist with 17M streams, and the Highest Earning Artist at $47K on the album’s release day.
In anticipation of her album, Lady Gaga has also lately been high on Music Maven’s most proprietary metric, the Most Influential Artist. The Most Influential Artist rank is based on a combination of measures including social media presence, streaming charts, digital downloads, and other markers of success. That metric has shown Gaga as the Most Influential Artist every other day this past week, now second only to Britney Spears, who reminded fans about her with the new release of an old song and a nostalgic playlist.
Similar to the other major pop release this year, DuaLipa’s Future Nostalgia, Lady Gaga’s Chromatica has EDM, dance, and club tunes to make you move. At the same time, Gaga’s dark and wayward styles keep you from conforming to any norm. Messages of inclusivity meanwhile make you feel at home on Chromatica, an alternate planet in Gaga’s mind, where “no one thing is greater than another.”
When Lady Gaga played in the latest remake of A Star is Born two years ago, her own star had already been born, with extreme hits like “Alejandro,” “Bad Romance,” “Paparazzi,” and “Telephone,” featuring Beyoncé. To give a sense of her fame, Gaga is one of the few artists to reach over one billion streams for her songs on Spotify: “Shallow,” a song from the A Star is Born soundtrack has by now reached a deep 1.1B streams.
Chromatica’s individual songs have neared the top of the charts, but have not displaced the reigning number one of late, DaBaby’s “ROCKSTAR,” featuring Roddy Ricch. Chromatica’s second single, “Rain On Me,” featuring Ariana Grande, was the Most Streamed Song when it was released last May 22, but now is number two with 2.4M streams, followed by “Sour Candy,” featuring BLACKPINK, a South Korean girl band, at number three with 2.1M streams. The album’s first single, “Stupid Love,” released last February 28, is at number 20, with 1.1M streams.
Besides Lady Gaga, Chromatica, and its singles, no other artist, album, or song has significantly altered the rap-dominated music charts this weekend.
Among the top ten Most Streamed Artists, apart from Gaga, all others are rappers. In the top five, these include:
- The late Juice WRLD, at 5.4M streams, whose estate just posthumously released his “Tell Me U Luv Me,” featuring Trippie Redd, now the sixth most streamed song, at 1.5 streams
- DaBaby, at 4.8M streams after his release of BLAME IT ON BABYon April 17
- Gunna, at 4.1M streams after his release of WUNNAlast week, and
- Drake, at 3.6M streams after his release of Dark Lane Demo Tapes on May Day.
Other artists who have lately made much news, or increased their notoriety on social media, continue to sink in the charts. Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and their antagonist, Tekashi 6ix9ine are all still falling in the 30s, at 32, 35, and 39, respectively among Most Streamed Artists. The Grande-Bieber collaboration, “Stuck with U,” is stuck at number 35 and declining with only 885K streams. Tekashi’s “GOOBA,” is doing better, but still declining from number 29 at only 945K streams.
While both songs have vied for number one in recent weeks, they have not really competed with DaBaby’s “ROCKSTAR,” featuring Roddy Ricch, with its 2.45M streams, and its track record as the Most Streamed Song every single day since May 12, except on May 23 when it was number two. Nor have any of Lady Gaga’s new songs. In most other respects though, the Fame Monster still devours her competition, with over three times more streams then her next competitors on the charts.
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