It’s been over a year and a half since Duncan Laurence won the last edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. But his entry “Arcade” just goes from strength to strength. The song has re-entered the UK singles chart and it now has the most number of Spotify streams of any Eurovision winner.
Arcade first entered the UK singles chart back in May 2019. The first chart after the Eurovision 2019 grand final had a few stars from Tel Aviv. KEiiNO were the highest ranking, at 61 with “Spirit in the Sky”, “Arcade” was at 67, while Mahmood’s “Soldi” was at 73.
It didn’t last long and all Eurovision songs disappeared from the charts the following week. But now “Arcade” has made a comeback.
Duncan Laurence’s heartbreak ballad has re-entered the UK singles chart at number 90. While it’s not a super high chart position, it is still remarkable considering the song isn’t a new release.
TikTok loves “Arcade”
Part of the song’s success seems to be related to its popularity on TikTok. Back in October, “Arcade” had gone viral on TikTok, with fans using it to make “Dracotok” videos. The videos highlighted a cut scene from a Harry Potter film, showing the good side of Draco Malfoy.
Duncan joined in with the fun, making his own Harry Potter-inspired TikTok.
@duncanlaurenceThanks for all your Harry Potter videos featuring “Arcade”! Here’s mine. 🤭 ##arcadechallenge ##harrypotter ##lovingyouisalosinggame ##draco♬ son original – 🐍Serpentard🐍
But the song isn’t just being used in Harry Potter tributes. The emotional message of “Arcade” seems to have resonated with TikTok users, particularly the lyric “All I know, all I know / Loving you is a losing game”.
The song has been used in thousands of videos on the platform, including the recent “Guess my degree” meme. To date, “Arcade” has been used in over 182,500 TikTok videos, while a remix of the song has been used 301,900 times.
Continued success for “Arcade” on Spotify and YouTube
The TikTok popularity of the song appears to have boosted its listens on Spotify. “Arcade” now has over 162 million listens on Spotify, putting it ahead of Loreen’s “Euphoria” with 130 million listens.
The top five of Eurovision winners is rounded out by Måns Zelmerlöw’s “Heroes” with over 122 million listens, ABBA with over 112 million for “Waterloo” and Lordi’s Hard Rock Hallelujah” with over 71 million.
However, “Arcade” isn’t quite the Spotify champ — Eurovision 2019 runner-up Mahmood has over 171 million listens for “Soldi”.
The popularity of “Arcade” can also be seen on YouTube. The music video now has over 25 million views, putting it in the top 20 of the most popular video on the official Eurovision channel.
The continued popularity of “Arcade” shows that a Eurovision winning song can have a new life beyond the song contest, discovered by new audiences who might not have even seen Duncan’s live performance in Tel Aviv.
And with Eurovision 2021 just months away, will the next edition of the contest give us a song that has an afterlife like “Arcade”?
What do you think? Have you come across “Arcade” in non-Eurovision places? Is going viral more of an achievement than getting a platinum record? Tell us your thoughts below!
I (personally) don’t like the overuse of the song in Tik Tok (despite I love both Duncan and Draco Malfoy, the reason why he is used), but if it is helping Duncan to be more well-known and streamed, I guess I’ll let it be.
Moreover, I’m quite happy many people have discovered his music and his beautiful song thanks to it.
Nothing to do with the fact he’s had an artificially long stint as the reigning champ. All the build up last year, and now again this year, he’s had twice the outside exposure than anyone else has ever had.
I think that a lot of people who now listen to the song a lot don’t even know that is a Eurovision song. So yeah maybe that helps, but in this case not a lot I think.
The song was given a second life thanks to TikTok which is good news because it’s a great song and deserves a bigger audience. Obviously, it wouldn’t have gone viral if it hadn’t won Eurovision.
Hopefully, his presence in the French national final will push Arcade in France as well! Do we know if he’s going to be there physically and perform?
I am happy for Duncan “Arcade” is still a great song. His album is very beautiful. He deserves his succes.
I love his album, all songs are awesome. He deserves international success.
Also the position of “Arcade” on Apple music:
42 Armenia
58 Netherlands
67 Azerbaijan
71 Luxembourg
73 Czech Republic
78 Switzerland
88 Cyprus
88 Poland
92 Slovenia
115 Switzerland
115 Ukraine
116 Russia
116 Hungary
117 Malta
121 Netherlands
123 Moldova
127 Cyprus
140 Estonia
141 Norway
148 Romania
149 Slovakia
157 Belgium
161 Germany
167 Austria
174 Greece
187 Ireland
191 Lithuania
it’s doing actually as well as if the eurovision grand final just ended hahah
and number 300 in Canada!
Also, surprisingly, the song is charting on Apple Music charts in various Asian and Middle eastern countries like Bahrain, Lebanon, UAE, Indonesia, Malaysia.
Countries with good taste. In Spain, out of the top 20 most streamed in Spotify, 20 are reggaeton/trap/latin music, which in many songs denigrates women.
Also, Arcade has only been once in chart, the Post-Eurovision week, in position 37!!
Re-entering the UK Singles chart at n90 is a big deal because Arcade doesn’t have radio airplay or any other media attention in the country other than going viral on TikTok and being added on Spotify playlists. Also, it re-entered the Swiss singles chart at n100 last Friday and probably stay in the chart this week as well since both versions of the song are charting high on Apple Music and Spotify. If only Duncan’s label decides to push it further?? It’s a great song that I can totally see it being played on radio again. Physical promo is impossible… Read more »
Arcade also re-entered the iTunes pop chart in Canada!
Awesome!! Always love seeing Eurovision songs on our charts. Amir’s song used to play a lot on the radio a few years ago here in Quebec. 🙂
I remember it peaked at #1 on the country’s Francophone airplay chart
It’s been charting for a long time, i wonder if it received radio airplay there.
I think Soldi’s still the most streamed Eurovision song ever, not only in UK…
Soldi is indeed the most Spotify streamed Eurovision song ever at the moment but Arcade will get that title in the next 1-2 weeks. Arcade is gaining approximately 600,000 streams on a daily basis and is only 9 million streams behind Soldi at the moment.
That does remind me: Where is Polegend Godgarina?
It wasn’t a hit outside Russia
Mahmood -proudly singing in his language- is still first. He’s pure class!
But you can keep on listening TikTok stuff…
Soldi is more than 60.000.000 streams behind arcade now and more than 90.000.000 streams behind if you count
The different versions
We like to see it, but I pray that he could reach top 50 of the OCC and kept going. It’s really remarkable since the song is almost 2 years old!
UK fans should make a campaign on twitter to help the song get a new peak, hopefully within the Top 40.
If the Icelandic entry made it, i am sure Arcade can do it.
Maybe also cause he released the song in duet with Fletcher ?! Very good duet !!
I love the new duet but no it’s not because of it.
I am following the charts closely and the duet does not seem to have any impact yet.
It’s the original version that is rising, not the duet version. Even in Canadian Apple Music chart, it’s the original version that is charting within the Top 300 which is remarkable for a Eurovision song.
The only country in which the duet has some moderate success in Switzerland.
True, but the original version is charting higher.
I thought it was a bit of a shame the UK didn’t have a national final last year (even a ‘Choose a Song for James’ thing), because I would have liked Duncan to guest on it and perform Arcade again, reminding the casual viewers that winning songs aren’t like the stereotype
I love him! His music is great!
TikTok is so cringy tho I can’t with this app haha.
We LOVE to see it!
Duncan’s youtube views are kinda spread out among many videos. If you count the first 5 results you already get 97,8 million.