The bigger winner on National Watermelon Day – besides watermelon – was Harry Styles, whose song celebrating the sweetness of the fruit rocketed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
Nine months after Styles debuted the song on Saturday Night Live, it becomes his first ever No. 1 hit in the U.S. He premiered the song's official video in May.
“Watermelon Sugar,” which spent 19 weeks on the Hot 100, benefitted from a surge of attention on Aug. 3 to take the top spot for the week that ended Aug. 6. The chart, dated Aug. 15, will be published Tuesday.
A social media campaign on National Watermelon Day using the hashtag “#WatermelonSugarDay” as well as a reduced price at digital retailers, several new vinyl editions and new videos gave the song a big boost.
While it's the first No. 1 song to have "Watermelon" in the title, it's the sixth with “Sugar." Two of the others came from Canadians: 1969’s “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies (written by Montreal’s Andy Kim) and 1970’s “American Woman / No Sugar Tonight” by The Guess Who.
One Direction never made it to the top of the Hot 100 and Zayn Malik is the only other former 1D member to earn a solo No. 1 (with “Pillowtalk” in 2016).