Welcome to Billboard Pro‘s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 

This week: Sabrina Carpenter’s latest single looks to take her breakout year to an even-higher level, while Franz Ferdinand get their biggest hit Top Gun‘d and a joke song becomes a real viral hit.

Sabrina Carpenter Readies Second Summer Smash With “Please Please Please” 

Sabrina Carpenter season is in full effect. As “Espresso” continues to dominate, “Please Please Please,” the second single from Carpenter’s forthcoming Short n’ Sweet LP, has emerged as yet another smash for the pint-sized pop star. 

According to Luminate, “Please” collected over 5.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams during each of its first four days of release, climbing to a new peak 7.77 million streams on June 10. In its first four days of release, the breezy country-inflected tune earned a whopping 25.6 million streams and sold just over 4,000 digital downloads. 

“Please” is obviously riding the continued success of “Espresso” — which is currently enjoying a seventh non-consecutive week in the Billboard Hot 100’s top ten – but the Jack Antonoff-produced track isn’t solely relying on those coffee-stained coattails. In addition, Carpenter’s stock is rising thanks to her key opening slots on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and her frequently viral “Nonsense” outros, “Please Please Please” benefits from a cinematic new music video starring her boyfriend, Oscar-nominated actor Barry Keoghan. The visual serves as a sequel to that of “Espresso,” with Bardia Zeinali directing the Bonnie and Clyde-esque clip, which has earned over 19 million views in under a week. 

Like “Espresso,” “Please” has also earned a viral moment thanks to its pitch-perfect songwriting, with the “Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another/ I beg you, don’t embarrass me, motherf–ker” lyric garnering ample traction across socials. Users have been using the lyric as a caption for pictures of film characters such as Zendaya’s Tashi Ducan (from 2024’s Challengers) and Rosamund Pike’s Amy Elliott Dunne (from 2014’s Gone Girl). On TikTok, the official “Please Please Please” sound boasts over 32,6000 posts, while an unofficial sound soundtracks a further 32,200 clips. The song also got an additional boost from its live debut on Saturday, during Carpenter’s buzzy set at New York’s Gov Ball festival.

During the weekend of June 7-10, Carpenter’s catalog (aside from “Please”) also pulled in an additional 38.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams, posting a 35% jump in streaming activity from the same period the week prior (May 31-June 3, 28.6 million streams). With her new LP due at the end of the summer (Aug. 23), the pop supremacy of Sabrina Carpenter seems to be just getting started. – KYLE DENIS

Be All That You Can Be…. With Franz Ferdinand?

Franz Ferdinand’s 2004 alt-rock classic “Take Me Out” has long proven to have any number of practical uses — for car-ride singalongs, workout playlists, indie dance nights and countless other real-life applications. One context that the Scottish quintet likely never saw their signature hit landing in, though, is as the soundtrack to pro-U.S. military edit on TikTok, via the account phoenix.mw. The CapCut-produced clip delivers a rapid-fire montage of U.S. military operations, set to a sped-up version of the Franz song’s action-packed intro, and has been viewed over eight million times on the app, with 1.4 million likes. It’s also inspired a trend, set to the same sped-up Franz sound, of users claiming they’d never join the military, before encountering the original military edit and having their minds changed (or at least confused).

Deeper jingoistic implications aside, the edit and ensuing trend have had the positive impact of inspiring listeners to uncover (or rediscover) the still-brilliant 20-year-old indie staple. Through the first four days of this tracking week, Jun. 7-10 — as the trend really started to take off on TikTok — the song racked up nearly 1.6 official on-demand U.S. streams, a 35% gain from the equivalent period the week before, according to Luminate. The song’s daily streams are still rising, and may not be stopping anytime soon — at least if you go by the number of new comments on the song’s official YouTube page along the lines of “I liked the song so much that I just signed up for the military” or “I’m enlisting f–k it.” – ANDREW UNTERBERGER

Girl on Couch Rides Offhand TikTok Quip Into Streaming Hit 

On April 30, TikTok user @girl_on_couch (Megan Boni) stumbled into a massive meme when she improvised a novelty song with the lyrics, “I’m looking for a man in finance/ Trust fund, 6’5”/ Blue eyes.” That video has since garnered over 44.7 million views and earned a remix from David Guetta, who released his version of the song on June 7. 

Before that remix, however, Girl on Couch teamed up with EDM duo Billen Ted for “Man In Finance (G6 Trust Fund),” which earned just over 210,000 official on-demand U.S. streams in its first week of release (May 17-23), according to Luminate. Two weeks later (May 31-June 6), those numbers more than doubled to 490,000 streams, setting the stage for an even bigger boost with the arrival of the David Guetta remix. In its first weekend of release (June 7-10), Guetta’s remix of “Man In Finance” helped the song top 705,000 streams, a 168% increase from the weekend prior (May 31-June 3; 263,000 streams). 

While the Billen Ted’s official “Man In Finance” sound plays in just under 5,000 posts on TikTok, a live performance video from Guetta’s Brooklyn Mirage set has earned over 103,000 views on YouTube in just five days. The meme might be running out of gas, but now users have an actual song to listen to, as per the caption of Boni’s original TikTok. “Can someone make this into an actual song plz just for funzies,” she quipped. 

With a new label deal – a licensing agreement for this specific vocal – on her hands, Boni may not have much use for a “Man In Finance” after all. — K.D.