Why the Weeknd’s ‘Die for You’ Took Six Years to Hit No. 1

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music How does a six-year-old song become a hit? In 2023, of course the short answer is TikTok, but it takes a lot more than that to make a song into a genuine hit single — let alone take the longest climb to No.

1 for a non-holiday song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. That’s the story of the Weeknd’s “Die for You” — No. 8 on Variety‘s 2023 Top 25 — which was originally released in November of 2016 on his “Starboy” album.

The song’s origin story actually goes back even farther than that, as “Starboy” saw the Weeknd (real name: Abel Tesfaye) reuniting with some collaborators from back in the day. “Being from Toronto, I’ve known Abel since almost the beginning of his career,” says Cirkut, who cowrote and coproduced “Die for You.” “I did a song called ‘High for This’ on his first mixtape, [2011’s] ‘House of Balloons.’ I guess he was sort of looking to reconnect with some of the crew from the early days for ‘Starboy,’ people like [cowriter] Doc McKinney and myself.” “Starboy” cemented the Weeknd as a superstar artist, and it speaks to the album’s depth that “Die for You” was the fifth single to be released from it, originally in September of 2017, peaking at No.

43 on the Hot 100, and appeared in the HBO series “Insecure” around the same time. He performed it on the tour behind the album, but the song did not see much further action until it started getting activity on TikTok in Southeast Asia in the summer of 2021.