When Billie Eilish was announced as the singer of the new James Bond theme last month (January 14) she was already breaking records, as the youngest person to ever record a title track for the franchise.
Now though, Eilish (and the song, “No Time to Die”) have broken another record, with the biggest opening week ever for a James Bond theme.
The UK’s Official Charts announced the song’s success yesterday (February 21) and it also doubles as the singer’s first UK number one, with 90,000 equivalent chart sales, including well over 10 million streams.
This means that it beats out Sam Smith’s 2015 Bond theme “Writing’s On The Wall” – the only other Bond theme song that reached number one – by around 20,000 sales. It also tops Adele’s iconic “Skyfall” by 6,000, though Adele and Eilish’s tracks were released at different times in the week, making it difficult to compare them 100% accurately.
Despite her obvious success, Eilish told the BBC earlier this week that she and Finneas (her brother/producer, who co-wrote the song) went through an “intense amount of writer's block” after they were chosen for the track. Eventually reading the script for the opening sequence was what helped get the song done.
The pair performed “No Time to Die” live for the first time at this year’s Brit Awards, along with Hans Zimmer and Johnny Marr.