Lana Del Rey’s ‘West Coast’ Set For Strong Hot 100 Debut
Her new song appears headed for the list's top half next week thanks to expected high sales following her buzzworthy Coachella set.
Lana Del Rey’s new single “West Coast” looks likely to debut in the upper half of next week’s Billboard Hot 100. Highlights of the chart, which blends songs’ sales data, via Nielsen SoundScan, and airplay and streaming figures, according to Nielsen BDS, will post on Billboard.com on Wednesday (April 23), while the survey will update in full the following day.
Industry sources suggest that the song, the studio version of which was made available for purchase on Monday (14) after she’d premiered the song live the night before for throngs of fans at the Coachella festival, could sell 110,000-120,000 downloads for the SoundScan tracking week ending Sunday (20). While the track is not yet being actively promoted to radio by Interscope Records, its sales and any early airplay and streaming should spur a start in the Hot 100’s top 50, with a top 40, or higher, launch possible.
Del Rey has charted three titles on the Hot 100 so far: “Video Games,” which spent a week at No. 91 (Jan. 28, 2012); “Young and Beautiful,” which reached No. 22 last June; and “Summertime Sadness,” which soared to No. 6 in September after it was remixed by Cedric Gervais.
She co-wrote “Coast” with Rick Nowels, who also co-wrote “Young” and “Summertime” and has been a chart visitor since the mid-’80s, having penned hits for and/or with Belinda Carlisle (the No. 1 “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”), Madonna, Dido, John Legend, Colbie Caillat and others.
“People are starving for real artistry,” Nowels told Billboard last year. “As more people hear [Del Rey’s] music, she’s gaining more fans.”
Del Rey is working with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach on her new album, “Ultraviolence.” While a release date has not been announced for the set, sources say it won’t reach retailers before June. Her major label debut, “Born to Die,” crossed the one million-sold mark in March, according to SoundScan. The set debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart following its release on Jan. 31, 2012. She followed with the “Paradise” EP later that year, which hit No. 10 and has sold 332,000.
Del Rey’s Coachella performance and anticipation for her new music has already resulted in gains for her social profile. She was the most-mentioned artist during the first weekend of Coachella last weekend, according to data gathered and compiled by Twitter. She rises 42-37 on Billboard’s Social 50 chart this week, with 137,000 mentions of her name on Twitter (up 158 percent over the previous week) and an 83 percent rise in conversation on Facebook.
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