Unwritten TikTok virality

Photo Credit: Eva Rinaldi / CC by 2.0

Thanks to sync licensing in a hit film and subsequently blowing up on TikTok, Natasha Bedingfield’s 20-year-old hit ‘Unwritten’ is on track for a UK Top 20 spot.

Do you feel the rain on your skin? British pop singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield’s 2004 hit “Unwritten” might clock a spot on the UK Top 20 for the first time in nearly 20 years. Thanks to a sync in Will Gluck’s romantic comedy film “Anyone But You” and subsequently blowing up on TikTok, the song is predicted to climb to the Top 20 spot.

“Unwritten” reached No. 6 on the charts after its release on her debut album of the same name in 2004, and remains one of Bedingfield’s five Top 10 hits in the UK. In the early aughts, it was memorable as the theme song to the MTV reality show “The Hills.” Its recent use in “Anyone But You” is pivotal to the narrative of the movie’s leading character and is both played and sung many times throughout the film.

The renewed interest in a British song from two decades ago due to fortuitous sync placement is on trend. Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” from 2001 has been blowing up on social media over the past couple of weeks following its spot in the Emerald Fennell film “Saltburn.”

As a result, “Murder on the Dancefloor” has returned to the cultural zeitgeist, notching at No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart last week. In the US, the song jumped from No. 98 on the Billboard Hot 100 to No. 58 a week later. On Australia’s ARIA Chart, it’s sitting at No. 25.

Meanwhile, in the realm of contemporary music on the UK chart, Noah Kahan’s 2022 hit “Stick Season” is spending a third successive week at No. 1, with Ariana Grande’s much-discussed “Yes, And?” sitting at No. 2. “Murder on the Dancefloor” is predicted to fall from No. 2 to No. 3 this week.