For the fourth straight week, the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart has a new No. 1 — this time Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps,” which reigns on the Oct. 12-dated survey.
The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity from Sept. 30-Oct. 6. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Maps” rules the chart in its second week on the list, following a No. 20 debut on the Oct. 5 tally. Its rise is attributed to a recent trend using the song wherein creators use a filter to remove their facial features and then have them cascade back down onto their face, often with uncanny results.
A previous, continuing trend that began in September also sets a sped-up version of “Maps” to a dance trend.
“Maps” peaked at No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2004, and it appeared on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ debut album Fever to Tell in 2003. In the week ending Oct. 3, the song earned 1.5 million official U.S. streams, up 40%, according to Luminate.
“Maps” follows the reigns of Alphaville’s “Forever Young” (Oct. 5), BabyChiefDoit’s “Rollin’” (Sept. 28) and Surf Curse’s “Disco” (Sept. 21), which each ruled the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for one week.
NLE Choppa and 41’s “Or What” lifts one spot to rank at No. 2 on the Oct. 12 survey, followed by Alphaville’s “Forever Young,” which drops 1-3. “Or What” is mostly driven by lip-synching uploads to the 2024 song (it was released a month ago on Sept. 6), with the tune concurrently leaping 79% in official U.S. streams to 5.7 million in the week ending Oct. 3, begetting its No. 91 debut on the latest Hot 100.
The latest TikTok Billboard Top 50 is the first chart of the year to incorporate October data, and that can only mean one thing: the return of Girl in Red’s “We Fell in Love in October.” The song re-enters at No. 4, a new peak, after rising as high as No. 5 last October. The song trends on TikTok, as well as other platforms, every year around this time, sans any sort of dominating trend other than the changing of the month.
The top debut of the week belongs to J. Cole, whose “She Knows,” featuring Amber Coffman and The Cults, bows at No. 7. The 11-year-old song (it was released as part of the rapper’s album Born Sinner in 2013) is largely being used in content about the arrest of Sean “Diddy” Combs and allegations that he was involved in the deaths of multiple musicians (honing in on the lyric “Only bad thing ‘bout a star is they burn up/ Rest in peace to Aaliyah/ Rest in peace to Left Eye/ Michael Jackson, I’ll see ya/ Just as soon as I die” (other videos also bring Beyoncé into the fold, alleging she was aware of Diddy’s alleged crimes).
“She Knows,” which peaked at No. 90 on the Hot 100 in 2014, sports a 133% jump in streams to 2.8 million in the week ending Oct. 3.
A pair of Milli Vanilli songs also debut on the TikTok Billboard Top 50: “Blame It on the Rain” and “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You,” which start at Nos. 34 and 37, respectively. The songs’ rise on the chart runs concurrent with the duo’s catalog gaining in streams after multiple tunes’ synchs in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story series, which was released on Sept. 19.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
