Coldplay’s Streams Spiked 25% Following Viral Fan-Cam Moment
Since the July 16 concert in Massachusetts, fans flocked to the rock band's catalog.
On July 16, Coldplay’s generally controversy-free Music of the Spheres World Tour rolled through Foxborough, Mass., just south of Boston. A day later, the show had gone viral because of its fan-cam moment gone-wrong. Internet discourse lit up, but the attention also drove listeners to the band’s sprawling catalog, sending streams shooting toward the (sky full of) stars in the days that followed.
In the five days before the show (July 12-16), Coldplay’s catalog received 28.7 million official U.S. on-demand audio streams, according to Luminate. In the five days following (July 17-21), that number surged by 25% to 35.7 million.
The day after the concert (July 17), listens stayed steady, up just 2% as memes spread. The conversation translated to streams more significantly the next day, up 15% from 6.6 million to 7.6 million. That remains the high mark for Coldplay’s streams this month.
Gains are fairly consistent throughout Coldplay’s catalog but are topped by 2005’s “Fix You.” Notably quoted in a widely circulated fake apology from former Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, the iconic ballad soared by 34%, from 1.1 million (July 12-16) to 1.5 million (July 17-21). “Hymn for the Weekend” (2015) and “The Scientist” (2002) each bumped by 27%, and this year’s TikTok-resurgent “Sparks” (2000)…well, sparked by 18%.
Coldplay’s catalog has already been a mainstay on Billboard’s charts. Six of the band’s tracks appear on the July 26-dated Billboard Global 200 (based on the tracking week July 11-17), the most recent of which was released eight years ago (2017’s “Something Just Like This,” with The Chainsmokers). Since the band’s most notable streaming increase occurred on July 18, as noted above, chart gains could show on next week’s rankings.
The Music of the Spheres World Tour launched in 2022 and continues through a 10-night run at London’s Wembley Stadium that wraps on Sept. 8. It’s already in the record books as the best-selling tour in history, over 11.7 million tickets so far.
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