There’s a good chance Bad Omens’ viral single “Just Pretend” could be certified Gold by the RIAA in 2023

As of the time of this writing, Bad Omens are racking up 3.16 million monthly Spotify listeners, thanks to their neverending momentum off the back of their third full-length album. The band’s viral single “Just Pretend”, a relatable anthem that’s appealed to so many, took off last year despite not being dropped as a pre-release single. First exploding on social media and TikTok in particular, the song only recently exited the Spotify Viral 50 in the USA, where it remained for seemingly months on end. It might even receive a bump again thanks to their appearance at Shiprocked, which you can also watch below.

You come and go in waves
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You haven't seen The Death of Peace of Mind until you've seen it on a cruise ship sailing in the middle of a pitch black ocean. #SHIPROCKED2023 #badomens #TDOPOM pic.twitter.com/3eKI9xzJNl

— Vapid Soul (@vapidsoulband) January 28, 2023

There’s also a good chance that the band might end up with an RIAA Gold certification in 2023 for the song, which is clocking in at 41.4 million streams on Spotify alone. You don’t need us to tell you that it’s now quite rare to have a newer rock/metal band sell enough records to even get halfway to a Gold single or record, let alone actually reach it. The list of rock/metal bands in the “scene”, if you will, to do this recently? Pretty small.

Calling it now, "Just Pretend" pulls a "Feel Nothing" and goes Gold this year.

— New Fury Media (@NewFuryMedia) January 27, 2023

Much like the complete game has become a relic of a bygone era in Major League Baseball (interestingly, the two correlate with a decline around the same time period – the decline of album sales after the year 2000, as well as in complete games and general pitch counts for starting pitchers), so too have these certifications (and general album sales) for rock and metal bands. Of course, it’s not exclusive to those genres, but then again, you still have hip-hop and pop singles going Platinum or even Diamond with somewhat regularity by comparison.

The list of more recent bands to do this, say, established since 2008, is fairly small. Not that there’s only a few, of course. Everyone from Motionless In White (who did so with “Another Life”, their first) to Beartooth, Sleeping With Sirens to even The Plot In You have managed to do in the last decade or so. However, the case for Bad Omens is a little different. For starters, just before the COVID-19 pandemic began, they had a major tour canceled – the headlining run for their album Finding God Before God Finds Me. In a way, the album built a lot of momentum for what was to come. You had your requisite heavy song (“Dethrone”), but you also had the growth the band underwent with more pop hooks (“Burning Out”, “Limits”) – though the latter had been there since the very beginning.

Basically, all of those trials and tribulations led up to what the band is experiencing right now. And for a band only on their third album cycle to have their crowds multiply in just a couple years is impressive alone – but when you consider that they’ll end up having a non-single go Gold before anything else (unless something equally crazy happens)? Wild stuff.