From Triple J to TikTok and The Top 40: The Unusual Journey of Ocean Alley’s ‘Confidence’

Ocean Alley has all the confidence in the world right now.

Five years after their breakthrough was declared song of the year by triple j listeners, the Northern Beaches indie band’s hit has found a clean set of heels, and, for the first time, it’s making a measurable impact in the United States.

Released independently, with distribution through The Orchard, “Confidence” returns to the top 40 on the ARIA Singles Chart – soaring 95-40.

And it’s flying in the U.S., where the chilled-out tune has accumulated almost 2 million on-demand streams in the stretch from Nov. 10-16. That’s an “eye-popping” 182% increase from the 700,000 streams generated during the previous week, reports Billboard, based on Luminate data. 

And that earlier, Nov. 3-9 tracking period represented a 433.7% gain on the prior  period, when Americans streamed the cut a little over 131,000 times.

Credit TikTok.

Ocean Alley are regular sharers on TikTok, where they’ve gathered a community of more than 179,000. 

“Confidence” grew wings when the group uploaded a slightly pitched-up and sped-up version, a celebration of two sold-out concerts in Brisbane.

And off it went.

The song soundbedded the Behind Every Girl trend, igniting billions of views, with the audio used upwards of 51,000 times.

Ocean Alley jumped on board. A pinned version on their official account has captured almost 9 million views at the time of writing (including 6.2 million views in four days), and a BTS clip has more than 3 million views.

According to reps for the act, streams of “Confidence” in the U.S. have now eclipsed streams in Australia for the first time.

The track has made its way onto a raft of viral streaming charts, including top spot on Spotify’s Viral 50 – USA and top 10 on the Viral 50 – Global tally. 

“Confidence” has also cracked the U.K’s Independent Single Breakers Chart, entering at No. 19.

Music typically makes its leap from TikTok to the mainstream — that is, streaming platforms and consumption charts — in a matter of days. 

“Right now there’s an incredible correlation between success on TikTok and what then becomes successful on Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, Apple, the multitude of streaming services,” Ole Obermann, global head of music at TikTok and Bytedance, told this reporter at Music Matters 2022.

“You can literally see a 24-48 hour correlation between something that picks up on TikTok first and rises up the charts on those services.”

Over recent weeks, “Confidence” has had “a huge resurgence across DSPs globally,” says a spokesperson for the Sydney lads, with streams increasing 1,060% and 2,912% on Spotify and Apple Music, respectively.

The love wasn’t lost on Ocean Alley’s social accounts. The band has “experienced huge audience growth across all channels” since embarking on a national tour in September, capturing 23,000 new followers on Instagram and 45,000 new followers on Spotify.

In just 10 days earlier this month, more than 81,000 new fans clamoured to their TikTok; their Apple Music audience more than doubled from 53,000 to 113,000-plus, and their monthly Spotify listeners ballooned from 1.1 million to 3.3 million.

The six piece, comprised of Baden Donegal (vocals), Angus Goodwin (guitar), Lach Galbraith (keys/vocals), Mitch Galbraith (guitar), Tom O’Brien (drums) and Nic Blom (bass), are now four-albums deep into their career.

“Confidence,” the platinum-certified third single from their second studio album Chiarascuro (2018), impacted the ARIA top 10 following its release (peaking at No. 9), and went to No. 1 on triple j’s Hottest 100 countdown of 2019.

Next up, performances across a run of festivals including Spilt Milk, Rolling Sets and NZ’s Rhythm & Alps.