How Much Is the U.S. Men’s National Team Adopting ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ as Its Unofficial World Cup Anthem Helping Its Streams?

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip. 
 
This week: The World Cup boosts an old pop song with no obvious soccer connections but unexpected modern resonance, while streaming audiences embrace an oft-misunderstood German song and a cult-pop classic gets yet another revival thanks to a new synch.

Almost Heaven, United States: ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ Gets Team USA World Cup Bump

If you’ve been watching Team USA get out to their impressive 2-0 start to Group Play of the 2026 World Cup tournament — with a staggering 6-1 goal differential — you’ve no doubt heard the strains of a familiar song emanating from the crowds: John Denver’s 1970 country classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” The song was one of the handful that the team sent FIFA when asked for a potential victory song to play after wins, but it’s easily the one that the crowds and the team itself have most embraced over its first week-plus of World Cup play.

Consequently, the song — which is already something of a streaming perennial, having been streamed on Spotify over a billion times between its two most popular versions — has become even more of a favorite than usual on DSPs. Between the date of the team’s most recent win (Friday, June 19) and the two days following, the song amassed nearly 1.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams, up 20% from the the 1.4 million it amassed over the same three-day period the prior week, according to Luminate.

On Thursday, Team USA has its third game of the Group Stage, against Türkiye — but the team has already clinched its entry to the next round, meaning the game is mostly just a tune-up for the team. So expect the fans to be relaxed, feeling good, and ready to belt out some “West Virginia, Mountain Mama” at the slightest provocation.

German Singer Blumengarten’s Performance on ‘Gut Genug’ Goes Viral for Falsetto and Misunderstood Lyrics

The easy entry for this week’s Only on The Internet file: “Gut Genug,” a German electro-soul song by three performers (KITSCHKRIEG, Blumengarten & Shirin David) largely unfamiliar to U.S. audiences, has become one of the fastest-growing hits on streaming — largely because folks are having fun mixing up the meaning of the German lyrics.

The song’s primary hook is based around the German phrase “du bist gut genug,” meaning “you are good enough.” But according to countless TikTok videos, the phrase — as delivered in singer Blumengarten’s somewhat pinched falsetto — lands more like “Doobie scoot canoe,” a message less comforting or universal than its proper lyrics, but one with far greater meme potential. (Also helping accelerate the memeability: an oft-perceived visual similarity between Blumengarten and The Cleveland Show animated character Cleveland Brown, Jr.)

Consequently, the song has become largely unavoidable on social media over the past two weeks, with its virality also quickly crossing over to DSPs. After amassing just 35,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the tracking week ending June 4, that number has exploded to nearly 1.7 million over the following two weeks, a gain of 4,628%, according to Luminate. “Danke für die ganze Liebe auf den Song????,” Blumengarten captioned a post of the song’s video on Instagram — “thanks for all the love for the song” — with the post already racking up over a million likes.

‘Voicemails for Isabelle’ Viewers Go ‘Dancing’ WIth Robyn Once Again

If you’re not familiar yet with the new Netflix original romantic comedy Voicemails for Isabelle, you most likely will be soon enough. The movie, written and directed by Leah McKendrick and starring Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson as two strangers united by a reassigned phone number, is quickly picking up word-of-mouth steam — as well as streams for the many songs featured as synchs, with alt-pop newcomers rubbing elbows with some pop legends on the film’s soundtrack.

One of those legends is the great Swedish pop singer-songwriter Robyn, whose “Dancing on My Own” has become one of the most beloved dance-pop classics to never hit the Hot 100 since its initial release in 2010. The song is featured at the core of the new movie, and has sent more fans to DSPs every day to re-stream the all-timer. After picking up 83,000 official on-demand U.S. streams the day before the movie’s release (June 18), that picked up to 102,000 on the 19th, then to 150,000, 180,000 and finally 219,000 in the three days following — a 163% gain over the four-day period, according to Luminate.

If the song keeps growing at that rate, watch out — the latter half of that “one of the best songs to never hit the Hot 100” status might be in jeopardy.