The immediate reaction to Sunday’s “Bad Blood” launch thrusts Taylor Swift’s fourth “1989” single back onto the Billboard Hot 100.
The song, which previously went as high as #78 on the strength of track sales, re-enters the chart at #53.
That new peak on the all-encompassing Hot 100 comes in conjunction with significant gains in sales and radio airplay.
According to Nielsen Music, Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” (Kendrick Lamar remix included) moved approximately 47,000 copies during the May 11-17 tracking week. That weekly tally, which earns the song the #26 position on the Digital Songs subchart, bests last week’s mark by a whopping 789%.
The song meanwhile earned 27 million all-format radio audience impressions. Good enough for a #46 bow on the Radio Songs subchart, the audience total bests last week’s mark by 25 million.
Notable is that the single’s formal launch did not come until very late in the tracking week.
The sales tracking week, in fact, ended just hours after the Kendrick Lamar version of “Bad Blood” was posted on iTunes. While some radio stations were prematurely playing “Bad Blood,” its formal radio push did not begin until Monday (very late into Billboard’s radio tracking week).
Since next week’s will Hot 100 will account for full weeks of post-launch sales, radio airplay and video streams, “Bad Blood” is a lock to vault into the chart’s upper reaches.
