Macklemore streams jump after removal from Ed Sheeran tour
Macklemore's listening figures almost doubled in two days after his removal from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour.
News of the removal broke on Monday, Sept. 14, following "Free Palestine" comments Macklemore made at early dates opening the stadium trek. Sheeran issued a statement in response on Tuesday, Sept. 15, and each of the tour's remaining openers pulled out of the dates to come.
The sharpest movement came around "Hind's Hall," his 2024 single. It logged a little over 5,000 official on-demand U.S. streams on Sunday before the news cycle, then rose 693% to 43,000 on Monday, Sept. 14, according to early Luminate data, the company that supplies streaming figures for the Billboard charts. It climbed again to nearly 87,000 on Tuesday, Sept. 15, Billboard reported.
That Tuesday total was the song's best daily streaming total in over two years. It last posted a higher day on June 5, 2024, with 88,000 streams, less than a month after its May 10 release.
The lift spread wider than one track. "Hind's Hall 2," the September 2024 sequel featuring Anees, MC Abdul and Amer Zahr, rose from just under 2,000 streams on Sunday to over 22,000 streams on Tuesday. Macklemore's total catalogue across solo work and work with Ryan Lewis rose from just over 1 million official on-demand streams on Sunday to nearly 2 million on Tuesday, a gain of 97%.
Solo material drove much of that shift. It rose 172%, from 282,000 streams on Sunday to 767,000 streams on Tuesday, while his work alongside Ryan Lewis was up 68%.
Older hits moved too. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Can't Hold Us" featuring Ray Dalton re-entered the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart, the platform's daily ranking of most-played songs in the country, at No. 166 on Tuesday, then rose to No. 95 on Wednesday. The two acts share two Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s, the US singles chart, with "Can't Hold Us" and "Thrift Shop" featuring Wanz.
The tour story kept widening as the streams rose. Macklemore said on Monday that he was dropped after his pro-Palestinian comments, which included criticism of Israeli government actions in Gaza, Reuters reported. Sheeran later said the decision was not his, and venues had allegedly threatened to cancel dates before the removal.
Four opening acts then withdrew, and Sheeran's live band also departed, The Guardian reported. Macklemore has said he donated $1M in tour earnings and challenged businessman Robert Kraft to match the donation.
What makes this stand out is the speed. A tour dispute that surfaced on Monday had, by Wednesday, pushed a two-year-old protest single close to its release-week streaming level and put a decade-old hit back on a current daily chart.
