NEWS
In 2015, Norwegian singer-songwriter Aurora released her debut EP, Running With the Wolves. She followed in 2016 with her first full-length, All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend, which reached No. 28 on Billboard's U.S.-based Top Rock Albums chart.
Both sets begin with the song "Runaway." Fast-forward to 2021 and the track is gaining more widespread worldwide recognition on the back of, what else? TikTok virality. On the latest lists, dated April 24, "Runaway" leaps 99-34 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart and 130-49 on the Billboard Global 200.
"Runaway" received its own colorful interactive TikTok filter that dramatically changes the backlighting from day to night and back again, spurring the #RunawayChallenge. The song's global sales and streams have been building each week for more than a month, from 7.8 million streams and 500 downloads sold in the week ending March 18 to 23.7 million streams and 2,400 downloads sold in the week ending April 15, according to MRC Data.
The song's success is rare for songs of a certain age: of 51 songs released in 2015 or before to make the Global Excl. U.S. chart since the list launched last September, "Runaway" is only the second to crack the top 40. Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," from 1977, followed its own social media resurgence No. 30 for two weeks in October.
Further, it’s the fifth such song to hit the top 50 of the Global 200, following “Dreams” (No. 10), The Weeknd’s “The Hills” (No. 44) and a pair of DMX tracks, as “Ruff Ryders' Anthem” and “X Gon’ Give It to Ya” debut on this week’s chart at Nos. 27 and 32, respectively.
Growth for "Runaway" has been healthy both in and out of the U.S., although its share of streams in the past month has shifted slightly more internationally; while four weeks ago its streams were 24% domestic and 76% international, this week brings an 18% U.S./82% outside the U.S. split.
Stateside, still, "Runaway" debuts on this week's U.S.-based Alternative Digital Song Sales and Alternative Streaming Songs charts at Nos. 14 and 15, respectively, while jumping 12-3 on the LyricFind U.S. chart. Aurora herself re-entered the Emerging Artists two weeks ago and has climbed 42-32-15 the last three weeks.
NEWS
Supergrass are teasing an upcoming announcement with fans, according to a new post.
The British band, fronted by Gaz Coombes, shared a cryptic new post across their social media channels this morning (September 13), suggesting to fans that a new announcement is on the way.
Posted at 9am BST, the post simply shared artwork of the band’s logo in red, alongside next Monday’s date, September 16. In the caption, the band simply wrote: “Sign up now”, alongside a link to their website’s homepage.
Upon clicking the link, the page prompts fans to sign up for future updates, and asks them to input both their email address and the country they live in. Check out the post below.
While details on the announcement remain sparse, the post has already caught fans’ attention, with some speculating that the news could be around the upcoming 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘I Should Coco’.
Released in May 1995, the release marked the record that first put the band on the map, and contained singles ‘Mansize Rooster’, ‘Caught By The Fuzz, ‘Lose It’ and ‘Lenny’. It also saw Coombes and Co. nominated at the 1995 Mercury Prize, and contained what would soon become their biggest track to date, the Ivor-Novello winning ‘Alright’.
At time of writing, the band haven’t shared any further indication as to whether the announcement is related to the huge upcoming milestone – whether it be an anniversary tour or reissue – nor whether it has anything to do with new music that could be on the way.
The band’s last studio album was ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, which arrived in 2008. Since then, they have shared remastered versions of both their 1999 self-titled album and their 2003 record ‘Life On Other Planets’.
In other news around the band, last year it was reported that the band’s frontman joined Johnny Marr onstage last month to perform The Smiths‘ classic ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ at Lakefest 2023.
Before then, Coombes opened up about how “nervous” he was about reuniting Supergrass following the success of his solo albums.
Supergrass split up in 2010 but reunited for a series of live shows in 2019. They released a live album in 2020, Live On Other Planets, to celebrate their 25th anniversary and raise money for grassroots venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having got into a flow and the last two albums having done so well, it seemed a bit odd, like a backward step,” he said. “But then I was confident that I could operate both things together and it seems that I did, because I was obviously writing this record mainly during the reunion so I feel like I made best use of both things.”
Coombes’ fourth solo album, ‘Turn The Car Around’, came out in January of last year.
