Days after her show stopping Super Bowl half-time performance, Lady Gaga has released the video for her song John Wayne exclusively through Apple Music.
The exclusive video release is the latest move in a flurry of Gaga activity from the past week, after it was also announced that she would be performing with rock legends Metallica at the upcoming Grammy Awards in LA.
And it seems that Gaga’s return to the spotlight may provide her 2016 album Joanne with something of a second wind, following its lukewarm reception last October.
Since Sunday’s Super Bowl turn, the album has rocketed 77 places up the official albums chart from No.88 to 11, while overall streams for Gaga were given a significant boost.
Over 5.4 million streams were clocked on Sunday February 5, and an even bigger number the day after, with 7.5 million streams, according to data tracking company Buzzangle Music. On average, during the four days prior to Super Bowl, Lady Gaga's songs were registering 2.3 million streams daily, that figure jumped 230% on Super Bowl day.
All six songs she performed during the show (Million Reasons, Bad Romance, Poker Face, Born This way, Just Dance, Telephone) saw a streaming uptake. The most streamed track was Million Reasons, from current album Joanne, with 729,000 streams on Super Bowl day, and close to a million the day after, a 218% growth from 295,000 the day before.
Sales of her songs reached 134,600 units on Super Bowl day, and 115,800 the day after. This compares with an average of 6,950 sales in the four days prior to the event. The 1835% hike in sales mostly benefited Million Reasons, which sold 47,500 copies on Super Bowl day and 38,800 the day after. Born This Way saw the greatest growth in sales, exploding 4,457% compared to the previous four-day period to close to 12,400 units, from 272. Even songs not performed such as Perfect Illusion, Paparazzi and You And I saw a rise in both streaming activity and sales.
How much of an impact the Apple Music exclusive will have on sales and streams of Joanne remains to be seen. However, the move does raise some questions over Universal’s alleged blanket ban on artist exclusives, which was said to have been introduced last year following the controversial release of Frank Ocean’s Blonde album.
