"Popular" was certified gold in New Zealand, United Kingdom, France, Italy and other music markets. An R&B song, it was written by the Weeknd and Playboi Carti with producers Metro Boomin, Mike Dean, and Tommy Rush, alongside The Idol co-creator Sam Levinson, Michael Walker, and John Flippin. "Popular" is a song by Canadian singer the Weeknd, American rapper Playboi Carti, and American singer Madonna. Leslie Bibb and Carly Pope appeared in episode 6 of fellow WB series Grosse Pointe as actresses from Popular in a volleyball game against Johnny and Courtney. The show aired in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and Brazil with subtitles while retaining the original music and English dialogue. In the end of the second-season finale – which turned out to be the unexpected series finale when the show was cancelled – Brooke is run over by a drunk and angry Nicole Julian (Tammy Lynn Michaels). The plot of the first season revolves around the girls' school life, rival groups of friends, mutual animosity and plan to separate their parents.

To accompany its release, the Weeknd uploaded a music visualizer of the song on his YouTube, featuring a montage of clips and photos from the Cannes premiere of the series and the afterparty. The song was officially released as the soundtrack's second single on June 2. An official music video for the song premiered on February 15, 2024, exclusively on Fortnite. Playboi Carti continued to use this song in a sample in his 2025 album, Music on the track "Evil J0rdan". On January 26, 2024, after seeing a resurgence in commercial performance, an EP with multiple versions of the single was released. 1, the accompanying soundtrack for the HBO drama series The Idol due for release on June 30, would include a single by himself, Madonna and Playboi Carti, titled "Popular". It was released on June 4, 2022, through XO and Republic Records, originally serving as the second single from The Idol, Vol.

The complete series of Popular has been released on DVD in region 1 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. On December 4, 2025, the video reached 100 million views on YouTube, making Madonna the first female artist in history, and second to Michael Jackson to have a music video achieve this feat in five different decades. Upon release, "Popular" won a poll conducted by Billboard as reader's favorite new music release of the week. A snippet of the song was first teased at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where the series premiered on May 22, 2023. Upon its release, it was picked up as one of the best songs of the year at that point by Rolling Stone. The song was later included on the 2024 deluxe edition of the Weeknd's greatest hits album The Highlights (2021). 1, the now scrapped soundtrack album to the Weeknd's HBO television series, The Idol. The show's main opening theme was excerpted from the song "Supermodels", a track from indie singer-songwriter Kendall Payne's 1999 album Jordan's Sister.

On June 20, 2024, the song was certified platinum, which became Madonna's first song to achieve this since "4 Minutes" (2008). The song also marks Madonna's first R&B number-one song on a Billboard chart, topping the component R&B Digital Song Sales. The song gave Madonna her first Hot 100 chart entry in approximately eight years since "Bitch I'm Madonna" (2015), her highest-peaking in 11 years since "Give Me All Your Luvin'" (2012), and her 58th entry overall. On June 14, 2023, Rolling Stone picked it as one of the best songs of the year so far. Starr Bowenbank from Billboard called the song a "slinky track", laden with "booming synth instrumentals and plinking percussion" reminiscent of early 2000s R&B urban pop. "Popular" is a midtempo R&B song, whose lyrics give allusion to the "allure and pitfalls of fame and fortune" referring to a woman who "will do anything to achieve celebrity status".

Release history

Television shows like Dawson's Creek, Daria, Mission Hill, Grosse Pointe and other series also went through similar situations where their DVD and streaming (ex. Netflix, Hulu) counterparts used stock music as a replacement in order to cut costs of using other artists' music. The DVD versions of select episodes had to change several songs that were used in the original aired episodes to stock music due to licensing fees. Also, a reversal of fortunes takes place, with Brooke resigning from cheerleading to focus on her studies, and Sam experiencing casino interac a surge of sudden popularity at school. Brooke is a popular cheerleader and Sam is an unpopular reporter for the school newspaper. On July 25, in order to further promote the song, the Weeknd uploaded a live performance of the song on YouTube. It also marked Playboi Carti's first top-ten and the Weeknd's 16th top-ten single in the country. This extended Madonna's record for the female artist with the most top-ten songs on the chart. In the United Kingdom, "Popular" peaked at number 10, becoming Madonna's highest-peaking single in the UK since "Celebration" reached number three in 2009 and her 64th top-ten hit across four non-consecutive decades.