New Around the World: Older Hits by Taylor Swift & Whitney Houston Chart Again

• The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts recently celebrated their first birthday, with a full (and free) report spotlighting the biggest artists, newest names and timeliest trends from the last year.
• “Wildest Dreams” follows “Goosebumps” as the second song to appear on the global charts simultaneously in two iterations.
• Swift will continue the “Taylor’s Version” franchise with Red (Taylor’s Version), due out Nov. 19.

Taylor Swift debuts two songs on this week’s global charts. At No. 25 on the Global 200 and No. 34 on the Global Excl. U.S. chart is “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version),” and at Nos. 170 and 188, respectively, is the original “Wildest Dreams,” from 2014’s 1989. The original is the first of Swift’s Big Machine-era songs to appear on the global charts.

Swift released the new take as part of her ongoing series of re-recordings of her first six albums. The new “(Taylor’s Version),” released Sept. 17, debuts with 24.1 million worldwide streams and 18,400 copies sold in the week ending Sept. 23, according to MRC Data. The original drew 10 million streams (up 27%) and sold 1,000 copies (up 26%).

In April, Swift dropped Fearless (Taylor’s Version), the first of her planned re-recorded albums. Its first sneak peak was “Love Story (Taylor’s Version),” which debuted and peaked at No. 17 on both global charts in February (with 34.1 million streams and 21,900 sold worldwide). That re-record hit higher than the first-week results for the new “Wildest Dreams,” but it didn’t send the original “Love Story” (from 2008) back to the charts, like the “Wildest Dreams” double-up.

Taylor’s Wildest Dreams

“Wildest Dreams” isn’t the only older song to re-appear in new clothes on this week’s global charts. Decades after topping the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986, Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know” gets dressed up and re-worked as “If You Really Love Me (How Will I Know)” by David Guetta, Mistajam and John Newman. The interpolation debuts on the Global Excl. U.S. chart at No. 154 on the back of 5.8 million streams and 2,400 copies sold outside the U.S.

The “How Will I Know” reimagination follows other producers’ updates of classic hits. Kygo scored two global chart entries in 2020 with remixes of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It” and Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” (co-crediting each legend). Plus, earlier this year, British DJ Majestic updated Boney M.‘s “Rasputin,” fresh off a TikTok-aided resurgence, hitting the Global Excl. U.S. chart just over two months after the 1978 original scored two weeks on the tally.

Somewhere in between Guetta’s remix and Swift’s update is Travis Scott’s “Goosebumps.” His 2016 original has spent a full year on the Global 200 (so far) and 30 weeks on the Global Excl. U.S. chart. But at the turn of 2021, a remix with Spanish producer HVME started charting alongside its inspiration. The new version reached No. 10 on Global Excl. U.S. and No. 15 on the Global 200, after the original hit Nos. 113 and 102, respectively.