Over the first three days it was available – from Friday 8 to Sunday 10 – the song sold 16,000 copies and streamed 21 million times in the US, according to preliminary figures from MRC Data. For the sake of comparison, there are more streams in three days than ‘Mood’, the reigning number 1 on Billboard‘s Streaming Songs list, which was cut in the entire previous chart week (17.5 million streams). That’s also almost 73% of the selling price of Justin Bieber’s “Anybody” that week (22,000), the top song on Billboard‘s card for digital song sales.
And the current numbers are still rising. ‘Driver’s License’ rose by 122% from Friday to Saturday, and by 32% from Saturday to Sunday, and at that point, fans’ excitement began to spill over into notes of contemporary pop stars. The song does not seem to have slowed down since the weekend either – it is currently number 1 on the US daily charts for both Apple Music and Spotify, with its new high of nearly 5.7 million daily plays on the latter service exceeding the total of the second to seventh most played songs together, according to the daily scores listed.
‘Driver’s license’ (which Interscope Records will also start promoting for pop radio next week) will already have a big impact on the Hot 100 next week. How important? Go back with Billboard next Tuesday to see where it ends up.