Olivia Rodrigo Shatters Records as ‘drivers license’ Debuts on Top of the Billboard Hot 100
Olivia Rodrigo apparently wasn’t content to just break Spotify’s daily streaming record with her song “drivers license”; she had to make her mark on Billboard‘s Hot 100.
The relatively unknown Rodrigo, who stars in High School Musical The Musical: The Series on Disney+, is one of a few artists who have a song debut at number one with twice as many ‘points’ as the number two song.
The piano ballad “drivers license” debuted with more than twice as many Hot 100 chart points as its closest competitor, the current Number 2 “Mood” by 24kgoldn featuring iann dior. This is not common: “License” is only the 24th song that is at least twice as popular as any other song on the chart that week.
This is how it works: the Hot 100 ranks the most popular songs of the week in the US based on a blend of streaming, airplay and sales data. The chart, which launched in August of 1958, began incorporating Nielsen Music’s electronically-measured point-of-sale and radio airplay information beginning in November of 1991. Since that date, only 24 songs have run away with enough sales, airplay (and since 2012,) streaming activity to rule with at least a two-to-one points lead.
Rodrigo released her emotional debut single, on January 8th of this year. Three days later, it broke Spotify’s record for most streams in a single day for a non-holiday song (15.17 million), before reaching 100 million streams. It was the fastest song in the platform’s history to do so. It topped the UK charts and had the biggest opening week of sales since Zayn Malik’s “Pillowtalk” in 2016. This is unheard of for a new artist with no chart history.
Some other songs that have attained this honor are Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” which was the first song to post more than twice as many points as the competition, which it did for nine weeks. “Candle in the Wind” by Elton John and “I’ll Make Love to You” by Boyz II Men also hold the record.
Rodrigo, who is 17 years old, calls herself a “Swiftie” on her Instagram page, said she wrote the song after a break-up. She connected with Swift via the social media site and Swift boosted her profile by sharing Rodrigo’s performance of one of Swift’s songs with her fans.