Jack Black just speedran his way into the Billboard record books with a song that’s shorter than your average sneeze. Yes, we’re talking about the absolute masterpiece known as “Steve’s Lava Chicken” from the A Minecraft Movie. And yes, it is exactly as chaotic and glorious as it sounds.
In this live-action fever dream of a Minecraft movie, Jack Black plays Steve, a former doorknob salesman (because of course he is) who’s now living his best blocky life in the Overworld. Somewhere between punching trees and avoiding creepers, Steve launches a spicy poultry empire called Steve’s Lava Chicken — and naturally, it has a jingle. A very, very short jingle.
How short? 34 seconds. That’s it. That’s the whole song. Blink and you’ve missed it. But somehow, this nugget of a tune (pun absolutely intended) just broke the Billboard Hot 100, debuting at No. 77, and officially becoming the shortest song EVER to do so. That’s right — a chicken jingle beat out your sad love ballads and auto-tuned heartbreak anthems. Cry harder, industry.
And guess what? The song isn’t just cluckin’ around — it’s streaming like crazy. According to Billboard and their stream-sniffing elves over at Luminate, “Steve’s Lava Chicken” spiked 62% in streams, racking up 7 million listens between April 18–24. That’s a whole lotta people voluntarily listening to a fried-chicken-themed Minecraft jingle. Society is doing great.
Meanwhile, A Minecraft Movie is basically printing money at this point, closing in on the $1 billion box office club, sitting pretty at $816.6 million worldwide. Not bad for a movie that features a man in a pixel suit singing about poultry lava.
Now, if this all feels familiar, it’s because Jack Black already hijacked the music charts with “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which peaked at No. 56. So apparently, if Jack Black sings nonsense in a movie, it will chart. That’s the rule now. Sorry, Beyoncé.
TL;DR: Jack Black sang a chicken jingle in a Minecraft movie and made music history. Somewhere, Mozart is weeping into his powdered wig.
