Luis Fonsi is making history with an assist from the Biebs…
For the first time in more than 20 years, a mostly Spanish-language song ranks in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, as the 39-year-old Puerto Rican singer and Daddy Yankee‘s smash “Despacito” vaults 48-9 (on the May 6-dated chart), driven by a new remix featuring Justin Bieber.
The last time such a song hit the top 10 was in 1996, when Los Del Rio‘s “Macarena,” powered by its Bayside Boys remix, spent 14 weeks at No. 1.
While Bieber notches his 12th Hot 100 top 10, Fonsi and Daddy Yankee each earn their first.
It’s “such an incredible honor to have a Spanish song in the top 10 of the Hot 100 chart. It’s been an incredible ride since the very first day we released the song, seeing how the world just connected to it,” said Fonsi to Billboard after learning about the song’s race to the top 10.
“Despacito” isalready a huge success on Billboard‘s Latin charts, and this week it spends a 12th week atop Hot Latin Songs. The release of the remix (on April 17) spurs a 129 percent surge in U.S. streams, to 24.1 million (in the tracking week ending April 20, according to Nielsen Music), more than doubling its own record for the most weekly streams for a core Spanish song. The original version of “Despacito” earned 10.9 million streams on the April 15-dated chart.
Digital sales for “Despacito” soar 510 percent to 60,000, as the track re-enters at No. 8 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales chart (where it had previously peaked at No. 48). It tallies a 10th week atop the Latin Digital Song Sales chart, where it logs the highest sales frame for a mostly Spanish-language song (with no accompanying primarily English version) in the chart’s seven-year history. Enrique Iglesias‘ “Bailando,” featuring Descemer Bueno and Gente de Zona, peaked with a prior-best 76,000 downloads (Aug. 16, 2014); notably, those sales also included Iglesias’ mostly English version of the song.
Globally, “Despacito” has forged record-breaking feats. According to Spotify, it’s the first Spanish-language song to reach No. 1 on the streaming service’s Global Chart and is that chart’s highest-ranking Spanish-language record to date.
Further, upon the release of the official remix audio clip on YouTube, it became the top music debut of 2017, accumulating more than 20 million views in its first 24 hours, according to the platform. It has reached 76 million worldwide views so far.
Meanwhile, the song’s original music video surpassed 1 billion global views on April 20, becoming the second-fastest music clip to reach the milestone across all genres (following its Jan. 12 release). Only Adele‘s “Hello” made a quicker ascent to the 1 billion mark.
Of its worldwide accolades, Fonsi adds that “the billion views in four months, No. 1 on Spotify Global and Justin Bieber jumping on-board with the remix have taken the song to another level. This is great for Latin music!”