Runaway hit

Runaway hit is a term used to describe a single which has not formally been released, which becomes a hit on its own. As singles before 1998 were not allowed to chart unless they had been formally released commercially, runaway hits did not exist before 1998. The most successful runaway hit is The Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps", which became the first unsolicited song to hit the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Another example of a runaway hit is Beyoncé's "Dangerously in Love 2". The term is generally applied to unsolicited songs which show a relative overall chart performance, not songs which chart, but don't perform that well. Nevertheless, the term has been applied to songs of this caliber too, like Mariah Carey's "Mine Again", from "The Emancipation of Mimi" (2005).