Shawn Mendes Scores His Biggest Career Debut With ‘If I Can’t Have You’

By Jordan Moreau

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – With more than 30 million first-day streams, Shawn Mendes had the biggest song debut of his career with his new single “If I Can’t Have You.”

Released last Friday (May 3), the song hit No. 1 on the iTunes chart upon its release and the music video racked up 21 million views on YouTube within the first 24 hours. As of this writing, the pop song’s black-and-white video has more than 39 million views.

The Grammy-nominated singer performed the song for the first time on the May 4 episode of “Saturday Night Live” hosted by Adam Sandler, and appeared in a sketch as one of Sandler’s relatives. The track came together with longtime Mendes collaborators Scott Harris, Teddy Geiger and Nate Mercereau, and was originally written with Dua Lipa in mind.

Last year, Mendes received his first Grammy nominations following the release of his third studio album. The self-titled project was up for best pop vocal album and his hit single “In My Blood” was nominated for song of the year. In addition to “In My Blood,” “Lost in Japan” and “Youth” all charted in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The new track is the artist’s first release in 2019 and has left fans hoping a fourth album will drop before the year’s out.