Blackpink’s Record-Breaking ‘How You Like That’ Debut Proves They Didn’t Need Lady Gaga To Make ‘Sour Candy’A Hit

Blackpink is back in your area—if “your area” is the top of the digital charts around the world.

The South Korean girl group received an overwhelming response to its long-awaited new single, “How You Like That,” released on Friday. The eminently catchy trap-pop anthem got off to a roaring start on the digital front, debuting at No. 5 on the global Spotify chart with 4.073 million streams and No. 10 in the U.S. with over 762,000 streams. “How You Like That” marks the biggest girl group debut in Spotify history, breaking a record that Blackpink set themselves less than a month ago with their Lady Gaga collaboration “Sour Candy.” The track also topped the iTunes charts in 64 countries, the most for any song by a girl group, once again dethroning “Sour Candy.”

These mammoth debut numbers should not surprise anybody who’s been paying attention to Blackpink’s highly anticipated comeback. “How You Like That” marks the quartet’s first single as a lead artist since “Kill this Love” dropped in April 2019. That’s an unprecedented gap for a K-pop group, and fans publicly petitioned last December for better promotion from Blackpink’s management company, YG Entertainment GDEN . As the first single off the group’s forthcoming debut full-length album, “How You Like That” was poised to make a gigantic splash around the world—and it certainly made good on that promise.

“How You Like That” also proves that the success of “Sour Candy” (which gave Blackpink a career-high Billboard Hot 100 placement of No. 33) was not simply a result of a Lady Gaga collaboration. Gaga has dominated the Billboard charts for more than a decade, and her presence on “Sour Candy” certainly increased Blackpink’s visibility, but the collaboration was no act of charity on Gaga’s part. The track was mutually beneficial, and it set Blackpink up to beat their own debut records with subsequent solo releases, which they have already accomplished with “How You Like That.”

These records don’t even account for YouTube, a platform on which Blackpink has always thrived. “How You Like That” continues the the group’s tradition for larger-than-life music videos, and it’s challenging for the biggest 24-hour debut in YouTube history, a record that BTS’ “Boy with Luv” currently holds with 74.6 million views. (YouTube has not released the official 24-hour view count for “How You Like That” yet, though the live view counter registered over 82 million views at 24 hours.) “How You Like That” has also reached 100 million views in record time, hitting the milestone in a little over 32 hours and beating “Boy with Luv,” according to Soompi.

Regardless of whether “How You Like That” breaks YouTube’s 24-hour debut record, the song is off to a stellar start. It’s too early to make a Hot 100 prediction, but if the single continues to perform at this rate, it could climb past “Sour Candy” and help Blackpink shatter yet another personal record.

READ MORE:

• Blackpink Reached A New Hot 100 Peak With ‘Sour Candy,’ But Their Next Single Could Chart Even Higher 
• Lady Gaga And Blackpink’s ‘Sour Candy’ Debut Smashes Spotify And YouTube Records
• Lady Gaga Could Help Blackpink Score Their Biggest Hot 100 Hit To Date With ‘Sour Candy’

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