Duncan Laurence won Eurovision 2019 with “Arcade”, but in the two years since, he’s slowly seen his song go viral and become an international hit. Now, following a performance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, “Arcade” has at last entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Duncan has only just managed to sneak onto the chart, with “Arcade” debuting at No.100. But it’s still an impressive achievement. The Billboard Hot 100 is the industry standard chart for singles in the United States.
.@dunclaurence's "Arcade" debuts at No. 100 on this week's #Hot100. It's his first career entry on the chart.
— billboard charts (@billboardcharts) April 12, 2021
Duncan shared the news by simply tweeting “Omg!!!”. The news of the Hot 100 debut also came the day after he celebrated his 27th birthday.
Omg!!! https://t.co/xZN4g4bnMc
— Duncan Laurence (@dunclaurence) April 12, 2021
The American chart debut follows Duncan’s performance of “Arcade” on The Ellen Degeneres Show. Duncan performed his song as a duet with the American singer FLETCHER.
Last month he also performed “Arcade” on the Today show.
“Arcade” has also re-entered the UK singles chart at No.97. The song has spent a total of 13 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at No.27.
“Arcade” first Eurovision song to chart on Hot 100 since 1996
While Eurovision songs are frequently found in the charts around Europe, it’s a different story in the United States.
The last Eurovision song to chart on the Hot 100 was Gina G’s “Ooh Aah… Just a Little Bit”. The song was the UK’s entry in Eurovision 1996, where it placed eighth.
In November 1996, the hi-NRG bop was released in the United States. It was a hit, spending 30 weeks on the chart and peaking at No.12.
Duncan will perform at Eurovision 2021, opening the first semi-final and returning to perform in the grand final.
What do you think? How high will “Arcade” climb? Which Eurovision 2021 songs could make an impact in the US charts? Tell us your thoughts below!
Nice! Not even Loreen could manage to do that. He can and should be really proud of himself!
HUGE news: “Arcade” has now been certified gold in the United States! He also went gold in Denmark and Austria in recent days
Love that!
Just noticed that it is now also charting in New Zealand of all places…perhaps Robyn had something to do with it?
I’m gutted Duncan was not part of the Eurovision movie. It’s also sad that due to this pandemic he cannot travel to US for physical promo there. I hope he goes at the end of this year. I also hope he gets nominated at Grammy awards!
Honestly tho, only attention seeking Eurovision winners, who prefer the spotlights over making music would do a cameo in a Eurovision related movie. In my opinion, Duncan did the right thing.
He was offered a cameo in the movie, but declined because he was already committed to his tour of Europe and the Netherlands
LOL. I’ll wire you 1 € if you say that to Salvador’s face (who, as far as I remember, declined to do a second scene, since they wouldn’t raise his salary).
Oscar-nominated movie from Will Ferrell surely helped, right?
Of course not, Duncan didn’t even appear or perform on that movie. I’ll never understand why they chose that snubbish Portuguese guy and not Duncan!
salvador is the worst winner in a long time. His song was only fine and his attitude was just horrible
im not saying his song was bad. It was original and a deserving winner weather i personally liked it or not. His attitude after the he won and making fun of Netta, other genres, the contest wasn’t ok and came off as extremely snobby
I think Salvador made a good point though, since outside of Eurovision I’m finding it harder to find songs I actually connect with and are original pieces without recycled lyrics. Even in Eurovision people have complained about Dream Team and Melodifestivalen songwriters.
Because “amar pelos dois” is an amzing song, with an outstanding performance. A smashing victory for a timeless song. Are we clear?
If you separate the artist from his (sister’s) art, you’ll end up with the most beautiful song in years and Eurovision’s most pretentious douchebag.
Given how rare it is for any Eurovision song to chart in the U.S. (let alone a Eurovision winner), it’s impressive that Duncan has finally managed to make it onto the Hot 100. Coming from an American, “Arcade” is getting airplay here in Central Florida on the most popular station in the region, WXXL (also known by its on-air name, “XL 106.7”, named after the last two letters of its call sign and its FM frequency). It’s the primary pop radio (also known as “contemporary hits radio”/CHR or “Top 40 radio”, since when a song reaches the Top 40 on… Read more »
Billboard always lags behind a bit, I think the biggest hype (if there was any) is already over. The Tiktok hype is past its peak, he’s on his way down on the Spotify US chart, and on the airplay chart he’s plateaued. He probably won’t get much higher than 100th.
Should we care if a Eurovision song is popular in the USA?
I am not sure to understand the downvotes… I think tomtomtom just wants to highlight that we do not need the USA if we are right or wrong to like a song…
Exactly. Why do we need approval from the USA?
It’s not about approval but it shows the success of a Eurovision winning song which helps the content by getting extra positive press. Remember how all the haters were saying that Eurovision songs are irrelevant, outdated songs that no one will remember after the show? Well, here’s the evidence against that statement! Duncan is very talented and i am happy for him and hopefully it will get even higher!!!
No one’s awaiting any approval. But isn’t it simply nice to see that Eurovision’s choice now also gets some appreciation from the unlikeliest of places?
Just be happy for him. Surely this Billboard nod won’t make his song worse, will it?
TikTok has completely changed the music industry.
We need to prepare for future Eurovision entries which are purposely made to go viral on TikTok… unfortunately.
Future? Have you heard name of Choratian entry? xd
Actually, Norway has a TikTok inspired song called Witch Woods. It would have been a hit on TikTok if they had selected it to represent them!
I like when TikTok helps songs to gain popularity like Arcade which underperformed after ESC (blame it on the summer period?)
I’ve heard Spotify already did. Songs need to stick to certain schemes to be selected for the most popular playlists. I’m afraid ‘factory’ songs will sound even more alike in the future.
Yves Dessca was a songwriter on the 1971 and 1972 winners.
So proud of Duncan! Hopefully future winners can keep the momentum going by charting in the US.
1996. Another year the UK was robbed.
In those years you couldn’t get away with weak vocals.
Agree. And didn’t they win the non televised jury preselection that year?
No, they didn’t – because there was only one person from each country voting, not full juries.
No…some countries had full juries
it was robbed because there was no televoting. Gina G was unlucky because in 1997 televoting was implemented in 5 countries and then 1998 was more countries. Bad timing
Bad live vocal….theres no televote to save her for sure
In 1996 Portugal was robbed..not UK with that bad live performance
Where is Polegend Gagarina that called Arcade a flop and said it will never do anything outside the contest. Fast forward a few months it is the most streamed ESC song ever on Spotify has almost 200 million views on Youtube and is the first ESC song to chart in the US since 1996. Lol
Gina G > anyone that has ever participated in ESC
And we have the first conspiracy theory. As if “Arcade” went viral in October last year in Draco TikToks, so that half a year later it would enter the Hot 100 at #100, just in time before the American contest.
And never mind that the song biggest success isn’t in the US but in SE Asia. And of course Duncan’s record company reacted after the song became viral.
https://twitter.com/merwabi/status/1381725801339568135?s=21
Eurovision fans tend to think that the world revolves around Eurovision, but in reality the world doesn’t give a … about Eurovision. It’s the Tiktok trend that woke up the label in the US, and they decided to do some promo, including the duet with Fletcher who is also on Capitol. The little song contest he won is hardly mentioned, as no one in the US knows about it.
No one said it’s because of Eurovision! It’s all because of TikTok, BUT BUT BUT/./////// it wouldn\t be on TikTok if Arcade had not taken part in Eurovision. Duncan was an unknown singer in the Netherlands with no major record company to support him. The song would have flopped without Eurovision.
So yes, it’s all because of TikTok (good timing i guess), but it wouldn’t happen without the exposure in Eurovision 😉
Too bad it’s only because of TikTok and he had to collaborate with an American…. Hopefully the EBU can make a deal with an American media company like Netflix or ABC to air the show and get it popular with the US public.
It’s the solo version that’s charting and getting airplay, not the Fletcher collab… but of course it helped him in getting his name out there. In reality the song is probably more popular than 100th, but Billboard works in such a way that a debut single can hardly crack the top-100, let alone the top-10. It really has to be a massive hit to do so, like Olivia Rodrigo for example.
You are wrong. The FLETCHER duet is not charting or didn’t go viral on TikTok, it’s only the original solo version that won Eurovision. The FLETCHER version of course helps the total number of streams but it’s not because of that. FLETCHER is not a big name in US 😉
Arcade and Ooh ahh just a little bit are both great songs. Completely different from each other. I think I still have the Gina G cd singles (1 & 2) in a box somewhere. That dates me lol
Funny thing, I remember hearing “Ooh Aah…” on XL 106.7 (see my above comment for context) a lot when I was a kid! It was released during a time when house music and Eurodance were really popular genres on American radio (think of artists like Amber, La Bouche, Technotronic, or C + C Music Factory), although that song came out more towards the end of that kind of music’s wave of radio popularity. Within a year or two, rap music really started to dominate American pop radio (also spurred on by the still-unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious… Read more »
LOL: Amber is dutch too!
I think I should still have the single of Tanel Padar’s and Dave Benton’s ‘Everybody’ at my parents’ place. Given the current reputation of that song, that surely has to be a rarity these days, lol.