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In a relatively slow-to-start 2021 – where the pop world still seems to be gaining a foothold after the holiday music rush of late 2020 – the impact of “driver’s license” is particularly seismic. “I really think it’s just a whirlwind moment in a bottle that sort of brought together a number of factors in a way they haven’t really come together recently, ”said Becky Bass, manager. of Spotify’s Global Hits. Billboard. “But I can’t say that pop audiences weren’t hungry for a great pop song either.”
Below, Bass discusses Spotify’s reaction to the early success of “Drivers License”, and what previous songs they can compare it to – if any.
When was the first time that you noticed that something was wrong with the “driver’s license”?
As soon as it came out, we saw the reaction from the fans, and just the immediate chatter around the romantic drama associated with this song – that’s the first thing that came out. We know Olivia as an artist: her outings with High school music performed really well on the platform, and we knew she had an engaged fan base. But just in terms of how quickly the chatter around this song started – literally upon its release Thursday night – we knew this fanbase was definitely engaged and hooked on this song.
From there, do you go overdrive by hitting it on playlists and adding it to other things? How do you answer them right away?
Yep, we definitely started watching it very quickly. We have supported, and continue to support, Olivia – so she was already on playlists like New Music Friday and Pop Rising and Teen Beats, and many more, right out of the song’s release. But as we watched the momentum grow, the chatter grow, the flows grow, we definitely adjusted our support accordingly. He quickly entered Today’s Top Hits, which is our biggest playlist. He is now No. 1 in today’s Top Hits. So definitely reacted to the momentum as the song became a force of nature.
Was there some sort of coordination with her team, before or after the song was released, to find other opportunities to promote it?
It’s less coordination with her team and more coordination internally within Spotify and the global editorial team – and just kind of talking to each other to see how it works in our individual playlists in different markets. But it’s definitely a situation wherever you are in Asia, South America, North America, or Europe – everyone pay attention to the song right now. So it’s been more exciting on the internal side, kind of the way we coordinate as a team around this song.
Is there anything in Spotify’s past that you can compare this song to, in terms of the trajectory and velocity of this song – especially for an artist who doesn’t have a long history of gigantic hits like this – this?
There really is no direct comparison here. You have songs like BTS and “Dynamite,” or Ariana Grande and “7 Rings,” which only come out with massive Day One numbers. And then you have newer artists like Tones and me with “Dance Monkey”, or Lil Nas X and “Old Town Road”, who took a little longer to become tops. But in my experience – and as a team we were just talking about this earlier – we’ve never seen anything like this, where you’ve got a new artist coming out the door in such a dominant way, and just keep growing.
I mean, we were like, “Whoa, those day one numbers are huge!” And then they were bigger on the second day, bigger on the third day… so it’s really unprecedented, and probably unprecedented.
You talk about how he keeps growing day by day – what do you attribute that to?
I really think it’s a perfect storm. When we were talking about the audience she had before the release, it’s a very young, feminine and engaged audience. So they really started the flame. But now what you have is that he’s traveling way beyond that audience. And obviously social media platforms helped with that, but I think word of mouth. It’s a song you talk to everyone now. Everyone listens to it, everyone is obsessed with it. I think the drama – which was familiar to its grassroots fan base and really kicked things off – helped, and now you’ve got this whole new audience going, “Who’s Olivia Rodrigo? Who is Joshua Bassett? What’s going on here? “Now they hang on to the drama, they learn Joshua Bassett has a song to release this week.
So in addition to a new audience finding this drama, learning who [Olivia] it’s – you also have people listening to the song and realizing that it’s just a really good song that feels genuine, that sounds familiar. You got fans that hear Lorde in it, you got fans that hear Taylor [Swift] in it you have fans hearing Kesha in it. So it really resonates with people in a new way. Plus, most countries around the world can relate to a breakup – so it’s a song to tell too. But you layer the drama, you just layer a really active fan base, and you get that snowball effect.
In addition to this song, her previously released track “All I Want” is also in Spotify US Daily’s Top 40. Is it also unusual, to have the ripple effect of a song so massive that it essentially creates a second streaming hit in the process?
I mean, it’s a pretty common effect. I would say maybe not as quickly and as noticeably as it goes with this song – we certainly took note of that, and are looking closely at this song too. But often when someone releases a new song, the same thing happens. When SZA released his new song [“Good Days”], suddenly you saw the entire SZA catalog appear as well. So I wouldn’t say that’s the most unusual effect here, of a very unusual situation.
How long do you think the song can keep growing? Do you think this will start to stabilize soon, or what do you see the trajectory from here?
It’s hard to say. I think the song will have a long life – just because of some of the points we’ve talked about before. It’s a really good song that resonates deeply with people. It’s not somehow tied to a dance fad or anything more fleeting. It is therefore difficult to say what the growth path will be. But I mean, it’s been so exciting this week, especially seeing how he’s growing day by day, and we don’t expect him to go away anytime soon.
You already mentioned that Joshua Bassett has a new song coming up. Will everyone be on deck at Spotify when this song comes out, now that you know the interest in this story in general?
We keep a close eye on him and are just as invested in the conversation around him as the fan base. So we’ll see what happens.
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