The first year of the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart featured an array of music that reached the fledgling ranking’s upper reaches, with 21 songs topping the weekly ranking from its inception as of the Billboard charts dated Sept. 16, 2023.
Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby,” however, was a leg above the rest.
From its coronation at No. 1 on the May 18 survey (after debuting at No. 2 the previous week) to its to-date final week atop the ranking (July 20), Richman’s summer hit crowned the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for 10 uninterrupted weeks. What’s more: as of this writing, “Million Dollar Baby” has never fallen below No. 6. In fact, the latest weekly chart (Sept. 14) finds it up one spot to No. 5.
But “Million Dollar Baby” is a fitting longest-running No. 1 for the chart’s inaugural year. To recap the story you’ve probably already been told: on April 13, Richman uploaded a 14-second clip of the song to his TikTok. It exploded immediately, having racked up nearly 14 million plays as of mid-September. Two days later, he was posting more clips featuring different music, but the demand in the comments was clear: “Drop million dollar baby rn,” one read. He released the song “Selfish” a few days later on April 19, and yet the pleas persisted: “More million dollar baby clips.”
The next week, it happened. After a few more videos promoting its impending release (including one from April 23 that has even more views – over 18 million – than the original), Richman dropped “Million Dollar Baby” on April 26, and the song immediately shot to the top of the TikTok Billboard Top 50, as well as charts worldwide. On the multimetric Billboard Hot 100 (which does not include any TikTok activity), it both debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the May 11 tally and spent the next nearly four months in the top 10.
Pent-up demand for the song helped drive initial numbers, but in the months since, “Million Dollar Baby” has had its own dance trend that’s dominated the conversation. By the end of the summer, TikTok crowned the tune its song of the summer.
Read on for more highlights of the TikTok Billboard Top 50’s chart’s first year. You can see the latest TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart here, and you can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.