Taylor Swift spends a personal-best fourth week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Shake It Off,” which also reaches No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart.
It’s Wednesday, the day that the sales/airplay/streaming-based Hot 100 is tallied, so let’s make our weekly trip through the numbers of the top 10 and more.
With its fourth week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, “Shake” sets Swift’s longest rule. Her sole prior No. 1, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” led for three weeks in 2012.
“Shake,” the lead single from 1989, which tops the Billboard 200 for a second week with 402,000 sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan, additionally crowns the Streaming Songs chart (2-1) after six (nonconsecutive) weeks at No. 2. The song jumps by 50 percent to 16.1 million U.S. streams Nov. 3-9, according to Nielsen BDS, tacking on the chart’s top Streaming Gainer award.
“Wait,” you might ask, “how does Swift make such a big gain in streaming after her well-publicized removal of the song (and her catalog) from free streaming on Spotify?” The answer: the popularity of numerous user-generated videos (many of which have since been removed) featuring the song’s official audio; in particular, a clip set to an ’80s-styled aerobic workout made the rounds on BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and other sites, garnering more than 7 million global views before being taken down by Swift’s distribution label, Universal Music Group.