Tame Impala's 'Loser' Hits ARIA No. 11 After Spider-Man Sync

A late chart run for a song from last year

Tame Impala's "Loser" has gone back into the Australian singles chart, nearly a year after it first came out. The reason is a scene in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. On the ARIA Singles Chart published Friday, August 14, Kevin Parker's track came back in at No. 11 (Columbia/Sony). Its best showing in 2025 was No. 95.1 Another Deadbeat song, "Dracula," dropped from No. 16 to No. 18 that same week.12

On its own, an ARIA re-entry is a modest story. What makes this one notable is where it sits in a longer run. Within a week, the song had reached No. 1 on Spotify's daily global chart, which the coverage describes as the first time a Tame Impala song has topped that ranking.410 A current chart summary now lists the song's Australian peak at No. 7. That suggests it kept climbing after the August 14 chart.5 Read together, the reports show a song that had stalled getting a second commercial life, more than an Australian curiosity.

How the sync happened

The placement wasn't a surprise to people following closely. Fan reports from Sony Pictures' CinemaCon 2026 panel in April said footage from the film was shown with the song playing. Recording was banned at the panel, so the claim couldn't be checked right away.19 The film opened on July 31.10 UK fans at early screenings were already posting about hearing the song in the days before that.14

Accounts differ on exactly what happens in the scene. One report says Peter Parker sees Ned buying kegs and an energy drink in a store, then follows him to the apartment Ned shares with MJ, where they're throwing a housewarming party.8 Another calls it a college party where Ned doesn't remember that he and Peter used to be close friends.13 A third says the song plays as Peter watches his best friend fail to recognize him, and calls the moment emotionally charged.10 These descriptions don't really conflict. Everyone agrees the song plays over a party scene.4 The more useful point is that the music sits on a sad, character-focused beat, not an action sequence. That probably explains why viewers went looking for the song afterward.

Tame Impala promoted the tie-in itself. The project posted a clip from the film with the caption "It's now or never," a line from the song's first verse.817 The TikTok version of that post had about 996,000 likes when it was captured.17

The numbers outside Australia

The ARIA jump fits a pattern seen in several other markets. "Loser" first came back onto Spotify's daily global chart at No. 87 with about 1.5 million streams, then climbed day by day.10 Spotify has called the wider pattern the "Spider-Man Effect." It said U.S. streams of "Loser" rose 456% after the film's opening weekend, and that older Spider-Man soundtrack songs such as "Sunflower" from Into the Spider-Verse also got a lift.10 Business Upturn reported that the song held No. 1 on the global Spotify chart for a third day with about 3.725 million streams.4

The Billboard figures point the same way. Reporting in August had "Loser" moving from No. 51 to No. 5 on the Billboard Global 200 on a 72% rise to 30 million streams worldwide.10 The current chart summary lists its Global 200 peak as No. 3. It also lists No. 18 on the Hot 100, No. 10 on the UK Singles chart, No. 2 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, and No. 1 in India's international chart and in Lebanon.5 For comparison, the song spent a single week on the Hot 100 at No. 91 when it was first released.7 The label followed the streaming growth with radio. "Loser" went to U.S. contemporary hit radio on August 8, 2026, as Deadbeat's second U.S. single after "Dracula."5

The film's size explains why the effect was so large. Brand New Day reportedly passed $2 billion worldwide within its first three weekends.10 Its international total of $1.108 billion made it Sony Pictures' biggest film ever outside the U.S., just ahead of Spider-Man: No Way Home, according to figures attributed to The Hollywood Reporter.2 With that many people seeing the scene, even a small share of them going on to stream the song is enough to move global charts.

Where the reporting disagrees

The coverage doesn't agree on what number single "Loser" is. Billboard calls it the first song released from Deadbeat.1 Other accounts, including the song's release history, say it was the album's second single. It arrived on September 3, 2025, after "End of Summer" came out in July.58 The release timeline supports the second-single version. Billboard's wording probably refers to the U.S. radio rollout or to the album's tracklist, not the order of release. Either way, the reporting doesn't match on this point.

The stories also tell the hit differently. Billboard treats it as a chart item, folded into a larger ARIA roundup that also notes a chart lift for Steve Lacy from the same film.12 Fan and entertainment sites present it as a long-overdue moment for an artist who has been influential for years without topping the charts.10 The Spotify milestone backs up that framing. Fans pointed out that "The Less I Know the Better" has about 2.5 billion Spotify streams and "Let It Happen" about 1 billion. Neither reached No. 1 on the global daily chart, and "Loser" did with a far smaller lifetime total of roughly 158 million plays.9 That shows how much a daily chart rewards a sudden spike, sometimes more than a song's long-term standing.

The Deadbeat story is bigger than one song

In this reading, "Loser" is the second step in a Deadbeat run that some critics underestimated, not a one-off. "Dracula," which later appeared in a version with JENNIE, peaked at No. 5 on the Hot 100 after 44 weeks on the chart.7 It also became Parker's first top-ten hit on the Hot AC and Pop radio formats, with more than 983 million Spotify streams worldwide.10 MuseScore's Daily Score notes that the album got good reviews but sold modestly at first, and that both of its biggest songs only took off well after release.710 One outlet says there is already early talk of an Album of the Year Grammy nomination, though so far that is speculation.10

That pattern helps explain the chart run. One critique quoted in the coverage says Parker's catalog can blur together over a full album, but individual tracks stand out when placed in the right setting, like a big film scene.7 Seen that way, the Spider-Man sync didn't change the song. It gave the song a setting where it stood out. Fans in the Tame Impala community say much the same thing, arguing the scene made them like a song they had previously overlooked.6 Users in Marvel fan spaces said they skipped it in 2025 and now play it on repeat.9

Ownership and the business side

The business details are worth a look. "Loser" is released on Columbia, a Sony label, and the film is a Sony Pictures release.15 Fans have repeated a claim that Parker sold his catalog to Sony and that his permission wasn't needed for the placement. The coverage reviewed here doesn't confirm this, so it should be treated as unverified.14 What is documented is that "End of Summer" in 2025 was the project's first release on Columbia.5 With the record label and the film studio under the same corporate umbrella, the placement looks less like a lucky break and more like a coordinated cross-promotion. That isn't a criticism. When a sync works this well commercially, it's usually because the scene, the song, and the release plan were lined up on purpose. The radio push that began days after the film opened fits that reading.5

This is also not Parker's first Marvel placement. One profile notes that a Tame Impala song had already appeared in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film, and fans have called Brand New Day the second MCU soundtrack to feature the project.136

What it means

In Australia, the No. 11 re-entry, and the later No. 7 peak, give Parker a career-best result for the song in his home market. It also reverses the song's 2025 performance, when it barely registered there.15 Globally, the takeaway is that in a streaming market, a song's release date matters less than when the most people first hear it. Ten months after release, a scene in the year's biggest blockbuster turned a modest single into Tame Impala's first global Spotify No. 1.10 The open question is whether it lasts once the film leaves theaters. That will decide whether "Loser" settles among Parker's signature songs or stays known as the song from the Spider-Man movie.10