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Papercuts, the first greatest-hits compilation from Linkin Park, debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart dated April 27.
The set bows with 44,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in its first week (April 12-18), according to Luminate. The majority (23,000) is from streaming equivalent units, with 21,000 in album sales.
Linkin Park now boasts a record-rewriting eight No. 1s on Top Hard Rock Albums, which began in 2007. The band pulls into sole possession of the most rulers in the tally’s history, passing Five Finger Death Punch, Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam; perhaps not to be outdone for long, Pearl Jam’s latest LP, Dark Matter, was released April 19 and will challenge for the top spot on the May 4 ranking.
Most No. 1s, Hard Rock Albums:8, Linkin Park7, Five Finger Death Punch7, Foo Fighters7, Pearl Jam6, Disturbed6, Korn
Linkin Park last led Top Hard Rock Albums with Meteora, following its 20th-anniversary reissue last April.
Papercuts also starts at No. 2 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums. As previously reported, it debuts at No. 6 on the all-genre Billboard 200, where it’s the band’s 11th top 10 and first since One More Light debuted at No. 1 in 2017.
The 20-song Papercuts includes singles from the majority of the band’s studio albums, as well as the previously unreleased “Friendly Fire” and outtake “QWERTY,” from the group’s 2006 EP LP Underground 6, a fan club-only collection. The new release’s “Lost” was released in 2023 on the 20th anniversary reissue of Meteora.
“QWERTY” concurrently debuts at No. 5 on the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart with 1.1 million official U.S. streams and 1,000 sold April 12-18. “Friendly Fire,” released Feb. 23, rises 42-37 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs (after it debuted at its No. 13 high on the March 9 ranking) with 6.5 million radio audience impressions, 806,000 streams and 1,000 sold. It spent two weeks atop Rock & Alternative Airplay and one week at No. 1 on Mainstream Rock Airplay.
Linkin Park’s music rose 15% to 42.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams April 12-18, boosted by interest in not only the newly released “QWERTY” but also the band’s multi-album string of hits cataloged on Papercuts. The most-streamed Linkin Park song of the week was “Numb,” which accrued 4.7 million streams, up 9%. It’s just a tick ahead of “In the End,” also at 4.7 million streams rounded off, a boost of 10%. “One Step Closer” was third with 3 million streams, a 15% jump.
In all, the 20 songs on Papercuts encompass 10 of Linkin Park’s 12 career No. 1s on Alternative Airplay. The tracklist omits only three-week ruler “Lying From You” (2004) and four-frame leader “The Catalyst” (2010). As for Mainstream Rock Airplay, Papercuts features all but two of the band’s 10 No. 1s, both from 2014’s The Hunting Party: “Guilty All the Same” (featuring Rakim) and “Until It’s Gone.”
One More Light remains Linkin Park’s last studio album. Frontman Chester Bennington died two months after its May 19, 2017, release.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson confesses how at one point he wanted to be a country star, his upcoming dream performance with Chris Janson and more! Tetris Kelly: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a true country fan, but did you know he’s a country singer too? Dwayne Johnson may have appeared in Chris Janson’s music video […]
Jess Glynne shares the story of how she wrote and recorded the song “Hold My Hand” with Jack from Clean Bandit on Billboard‘s How It Went Down. She shares the spontaneity of the song’s lyrics coming together, how it’s remained relevant four years after its release and more!
Jess Glynne:Hey, I’m Jess Glynne, and this is How It Went Down from my song “Hold My Hand.”“Hold My Hand,” I wrote in probably the end of 2014. I’ll never forget that day, actually. I was with my friend Din Din, and we were in the car driving to Kilburn in London, to go to the studio to meet Jack from Clean Bandit who I had “Rather Be” with.
I don’t know, like how it came about, but “darlin’ hold my hand” came up in the car. We were talking about what we wanted to say, I think, in the song or what we were kind of going into the session with. I think we were just having a real, like, friendship moment in the car. And by the time we got to the studio, we kind of had, like, an idea of what we wanted to say. And that was like, when you’re feeling kind of like the outcast in a room, there’s one person that you know, has always got you.
It was kind of crazy. The song came together so quickly, we kind of gave him that idea and what have you, and he just sat at the piano in the corner of the room. We were sat on this little sofa and he just started playing. Dun dun dun, dun dun dun and everything just went like that. As they say, the rest genuinely was history. It was just like the song just fell out of our kind of mouth, I guess. The lyrics were there, the message was there. And it was like a moment where we left that session knowing that we just done something really special.
And it still took a while to actually finish the record, like, after we’ve kind of started it because we went back in again to add to the chorus because it’s like we heard the heard the song, like, maybe a week or two in, and it was like something was missing. And then we kind of invited someone else in with fresh ears because sometimes it really jars you when you listen to a song loads of time.Watch the full video above!
Few rock albums live as long and varied a life as The Who’s Tommy. Since its release in 1969, guitarist Pete Townshend’s conceptual masterpiece — centered around the story of the titular boy who witnesses a murder, becomes a “deaf, dumb and blind” pinball wizard, then something like a rock star-savior — has been translated into various mediums, including Ken Russell’s wild 1975 film starring the likes of Tina Turner, Elton John and Jack Nicholson.
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But none have persisted quite like The Who’s Tommy, the groundbreaking 1993 stage musical directed by Des McAnuff that brought Townshend’s electrifying music and haunting story to Broadway. It was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won five, including best original score for Townshend and best direction for McAnuff.
Three decades later, The Who’s Tommy is back in its first major Broadway revival — a searing production with a cast of standout vocal and acting talent led by 23-year old Ali Louis Bourzgui as Tommy. If the show still feels incredibly vital, that’s in large part because McAnuff, who returns to direct, and Townshend still are, too. And as they told Billboard in a wide-ranging conversation, this production (a likely contender for best revival of a musical when the 2024 Tony nominations are announced April 30) is anything but the end of their alchemical creative partnership.
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Back before the original Broadway production, what convinced you to turn Tommy into a musical, Pete, and why with Des?
Pete Townshend: You know, The Who were not a particularly financially successful band. We had big hits and Tommy was our biggest, but the money didn’t exactly roll in. I tended to work purely for the art. I had written a bunch of songs, all of which had done pretty well, and one was “I Can See For Miles” which I took a lot of trouble with recording and arranging harmonically. I think still to this day it’s a masterpiece, and I can’t really work out why it isn’t in the shrine of rock history as the best song ever written about anything at all.
So after it [underperformed in the U.K.], I thought, “F–k, what am I going to have to do to get the interest of the public and maintain it and also to harness this incredible machine” which the band was at that time as a performing band. It hit me that I should write a major piece, a collection of good rock songs strung together that will tell a story. At the time, I was absolutely not interested in anything to do with music, theater, movies, anything other than just providing something for my band — something that would last, that we could perform on the stage.
Whip pan forward to 1992: I haven’t performed with The Who for nearly 10 years, I had gone to work with publisher Faber & Faber as a commissioning editor for a pop culture imprint within the company, I was doing some solo work. And I had a cycling accident, fell and broke my wrist, and my surgeon told me I’d never play music again with my right hand, so I thought, well, I’ve got to make a living. As ever, every couple of years the phone would ring and my manager would say “Somebody wants to talk to you about doing a theatrical version of Tommy” — God forgive me, it was ice skating Tommy, it was ballet Tommy, brass band Tommy, there was a reggae Tommy. And I just was not interested in any of it to be honest.
But when Des flew over to New York in late summer or early fall of ’92, I daresay — I don’t want to embarrass Des — that we fell in love. We struck an immediate relationship and I knew we would be friends forever, whether or not we worked together. And that’s where it began. I think Des has been so fantastic to hang on to the integrity of the original story, all of the nuances and some of the bum notes, and I thank him for that. And you know, I’ve done what I can to help out along the way.
Ali Louis Bourzgui as Tommy in The Who’s Tommy
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
When the original Broadway run ended (and then subsequent tours and productions elsewhere, like the West End), did you feel like a chapter was closed? Or did you have a sense that there might be a reason to revisit it down the line together?
Des McAnuff: It was kind of open ended — there wasn’t a moment where we said, “Okay, well, this is over.” Ultimately what happened is, I was traveling in Costa Rica and saw that Pete had called, and he suggested that we start talking about a film project, whether it was a motion picture or a live capture, he felt that the time had come. And I was very excited by that. We did a screenplay, and as we were doing it, we kind of said, hey, you know, it’s really time to reimagine this [for Broadway].
That was several years ago, and pre-COVID we started working on this in earnest. Nothing is easy, particularly in the theater — or for that matter in rock ‘n’ roll. But this has been remarkably smooth. The great thing about Tommy is while it has evolved, it’s deepened, there are new complexities in the story — themes that are sometimes even paradoxical — but it does remain faithful to what Pete composed.
Were there elements of the original production you wanted to be sure to preserve or pay homage to? Or likewise things you dreamed of doing the first time around that you now had the ability to do — particularly on the technology front?
McAnuff: I think we basically did what we imagined the first time around. I remember the conversations: “The bed’s going to spin here, Tommy’s gonna come flying in here.” Both at La Jolla Playhouse [where Tommy premiered in 1992] and this time around at the Goodman Theater [in Chicago], they were willing to just kind of follow us into hell, so we basically got to do what we wanted.
While the new production is very ambitious, interestingly enough nothing moves on that stage that is not moved by an actor. It really is about a company of actors, storytelling. The first one had a lot of gadgetry and technology and automation, and this certainly is very ambitious, technically, and somewhat of a spectacle. But I would say it has a kind of humanity that breaks through all of that.
Townshend: A number of people who saw the original show in ‘93 have told me they think the storytelling is more solid and clearer somehow this time around. And I don’t think it’s because there’s less distraction, because the stage is still a sleigh ride, a visual feast, an onslaught of image and light and color — and also of shadow, moments when you really feel drawn into the deep pathos of many of the characters. And that was only ever inferred in the original music that I wrote.
Ali Louis Bourzgui and the cast of The Who’s Tommy
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
I think this one exposes the actors in a much bigger way, and it feels to me to be more of a play than it ever was. There’s an incredible empathy for the creatures that we’ve created here, not just to make them real, but to make them solid enough that they spark a real identification with members of the audience. Tommy is about stuff that so many of us in my generation, and the generations that followed right up to today, are all still suffering from — from the trauma of 200 years of war. So everybody in the audience has this deep desire just to have a night out where they can forget their worries and have a good time, but also feel involved in something that is deep and reflects the very reason why they want to get out and get smashed. And of course that is what rock ‘n’ roll was about, and Tommy I believe is doing that now.
You’re in the Nederlander Theater, where Rent began on Broadway in 1996; I think few people realize that Tommy actually preceded Rent! In so many ways Tommy was the parent of the next generation of rock musicals — or, well, attempts at them — that have followed. Why do you think Tommy succeeds as a rock musical, where many others have not?
Townshend: We had a human story to tell. And the way that I realized that is we would get to the end of the show — after the songs about bullying, about drugs, about sexual abuse, about family trauma, about a kid who becomes a messiah in a sense — and it ends with what was perceived to be a prayer: “Listening to you, I get the music.” Why do we need that release at that point in the show? I think it’s because we’ve been taken on a journey where we look at the best and the worst of human nature. It’s not Dostoevsky, but it ain’t far off, the function of it. Actually, I do feel a bit like Dostoevsky.
McAnuff: Very much like Dostoevsky [Laughs.] I think what distinguishes Tommy from many other theatrical enterprises is that it has authenticity. Pete is really one of the reigning princes of rock ‘n’ roll to this day, he is rock ‘n’ roll, he personifies it. And he’s also a very good storyteller, and he’s made a wonderful partner because of that. It’s not just his imagination, but it’s his appreciation of good story points that’s made my job really a delight.
McAnuff (left) and Townshend with the cast of The Who’s Tommy.
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
When we did this 30 years ago, people were still very nervous about electric music. Electric music was something you made fun of in Bye Bye Birdie! It wasn’t legitimate somehow. And that’s totally changed. Now Broadway represents all of the richness of American music in all its different forms. In those days, all you could do was was, quote, “Broadway.” Well, that’s all gone.
In Tommy, there’s very little spoken dialogue — you both seem to have this inherent trust that the songs will communicate the story, that every point doesn’t need to make literal sense or feel totally linear, and that the audience will come along for the ride, which seems like something for more theater makers to internalize…
Townshend: I recently went to see the Sufjan Stevens piece at the [Park Avenue] Armory, Illinoise; I’m glad it’s moving [to Broadway]. I love his music, and I love the show, but the thing that really came across to me was, whether you got the story or not, whether you felt that the story was relevant or not, it was a poetic experience — I felt somehow moved and touched. And, wow, that’s all I want.
Behind Tommy is a performance piece, rooted in the engine of modern performance. If we look at the brilliance and massive success of somebody like Taylor Swift, it’s because she carries her audience with her, and they carry her with them. The essence of the period that Tommy came from, we were experimenting with the function and the importance and the value of the audience just showing up and listening but also contributing. How do you contribute if you’re sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a theater? You contribute in some way which is almost intangible. Yes, you can get up and you can clap along or you can smoke a joint and shout. But there’s something more going on.
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So many artists from the pop world now want to work in musical theater, and many find they prefer it to the commercial music industry. Having spent much of your life interacting with the theater world now, Pete, do you think anything is preferable about it?
Townshend: Working in music theater, you have everything that we have in rock ‘n’ roll, but you also have story. So for me, it’s been like being in a band but with extra cream. All art, all performance is play. It’s so important to play — and that’s how I feel about working in theater or going back and working with Roger Daltrey and what remains of The Who on a tour or producing other artists, as I’ve done largely for folk artists over the past few years. This is where creativity really comes alive. And remember, I’ve done this and the shows have not been successful, too. It’s just about whether or not you’ve actually spent the time in a useful way.
Tommy has had many different iterations since the album came out. Do you think of it as an eternally evolving work, or is each version of it merely a moment in time, without necessarily a “next”?
Townshend: As a songwriter and a storyteller, you create something and then you just let it go. You have to let it fly in each of its incarnations, some of which I’ve found difficult to live with and some of which I’ve enjoyed.
I have to be absolutely honest here: I think I do care about the lasting legacy of my work. I do very much. One of the reasons I’m with my current wife Rachel [Fuller], is that around 1996 The Who were struggling to get back together to help our bass player John Entwistle who was in dire straits financially, he was gonna go to prison for tax evasion. We had to tour to keep him out of jail, basically.
I decided that I wanted all of what I would call my story-based pieces to be put on paper— A Quick One While He’s Away, Rael, Tommy, Quadrophenia, Life House, my solo albums and so on — and I was looking for an orchestrator and found Rachel, and the first thing she orchestrated for me was Quadrophenia. I wanted it to be something that could be performed the way that I wanted it to be performed as a songwriter, without any bells and whistles, without the ideas of other creative people, just to be put up as a piece of music that I had personally rubber stamped.
So the legacy of Tommy is really important to me. At my age now, 79 in May, there are big decisions to make. I can’t jump out on a stage the way that I used to — some of the photographs of me jumping up in the air, it looks like I’m jumping seven feet in the air, I don’t know how it happened. I survived Keith Moon, and the fact is that Keith Moon didn’t survive Keith Moon.
On the other hand, you have to let this stuff go. You have to trust. In Chicago, I realized that time had moved under this piece, and it still worked. That’s all that matters; what you’ve done doesn’t have to be sacrosanct. For God’s sake, what AI might do to creative work might actually be good — who knows?
McAnuff: Somebody once said that musicals don’t get finished, they just get opened. And that’s true — we’re working on this even now. The theater exists, as Bob Dylan said, in the eternal present. I would have thought Tommy was more or less finished in the ‘90s for me, and then here it is. It has new life.
Townshend: In my first week at art college back in 1961, we were being told that computers were going to come within two or three years and they would change the nature of artistic and creative communication and would change the world for the better. And it took 40 years or so for those promised computers to arrive. Now we have Apple producing this great big thing like a television screen that you stick to your head and we’re supposed to be impressed by it? Give me a pill I can take that will help me to experience something more fabulous than looking at a f–king television screen!
I do think if there’s another iteration of Tommy, I probably won’t be here for it, but you could do it [using] these new media formats that are starting to rise up and maybe even be able to make something out of artificial intelligence as just a tool. Anything that makes my life as a creative easier and, incidentally, is fun to play with, I’m in.
The company of The Who’s Tommy.
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
You’ve both spent so much of your creative lives with Tommy but is there another piece from Pete’s catalog that you think deserves more theatrical attention?
Townshend: Well for me, it’s Life House. Songs like “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Pure and Easy,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” those songs all emanated from a sci-fi piece that I wrote called Life House, which had a strong spiritual backbone and a lot of ethical issues are brought up in it. This was meant to be the follow up to Tommy, and it began at the Young Vic theater in 1971, but was really a bit too ambitious, I think, to survive [Ed. note: It’s since been adapted into a graphic novel.] I would love to do something theatrical or some kind of modern production based on that — that would be my dream, I think, right now. It feels like it has potential. I’ve recently shared some of the collateral of that with Des.
McAnuff: I’m digging into the box set, Who’s Next/Life House, and I’m incredibly excited because I think that the music in Who’s Next, as with Tommy, is obviously masterful, brilliant songs that continue to bounce around in my brain all these years later. I also love Quadrophenia — an extraordinary score. But for me it’s Life House next.
Townshend: Give us another five years.
The Weeknd’s postponed tour of Australia is now canceled and ticket owners will be refunded.
The Canadian R&B superstar had initially scheduled an 11-date stadium tour of Australia and New Zealand, winding its way across both countries last November and December.
Then, two weeks before the After Hours Til Dawn Tour was due to kick off, the trek was shelved “due to unforeseen circumstances.”
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A statement issued at the time confirmed that new dates would be announced for 2024 and current tickets will be valid for those new shows.
That’s no longer the case. Though replacement dates were never announced, a statement confirms the existing 2023 tour will be cancelled, while Live Nation, which was producing the tour, continues to investigate a rescheduled trek.
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“The Weeknd ‘After Hours Til Dawn Tour’ for Australia & New Zealand is still in process of being rescheduled,” reads a statement from LN, seen by Billboard. “Whilst we continue to work through the rescheduling process with the artist, tickets for the existing 2023 tour will be cancelled with all ticket holders receiving a full refund accordingly.”
Ticket holders of the The Weeknd’s ‘After Hours Til Dawn Tour’ shows who previously held on to their tickets will be able to access a priority purchase window for the new tour in Australia and New Zealand when announced, the message reads, linking to a priority waitlist. All current ticket holders will receive an automatic refund.
The tour was originally announced last August with just four shows, visiting each of Australia’s big three east coast cities — Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane — and including a single date in Auckland, NZ.
Additional dates were added last September, boosting the itinerary to 11 across both markets.
The Weeknd’s tour is scrapped as Australia’s festivals market navigates turbulent waters. In recent weeks, the 2024 editions of Splendour in the Grass, Mona Foma, and Groovin The Moo, with soft ticket sales playing a part in each story.
The inaugural Soundcheck report, published by Creative Australia, found the climate for operating a festival was a “highly complex” one, with event organizers challenged with myriad issues, from rapidly increasing costs, changing ticket buying behavior and more.
Despite the situation Down Under, The Weeknd continues to pump out the hits. In recent days, Abel Tesfaye became just the 18th artist to chart at least 100 career hits on the Hot 100, thanks to a pair of guest appearances on Future and Metro Boomin’s new Billboard 200 No. 1 album We Still Don’t Trust You: the set’s title track, which debuts at No. 22, and “All to Myself,” which starts at No. 67.
In the U.S., he has landed seven No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 and four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200.
On Australia’s ARIA Albums Chart, published last Friday, April 19, the Weeknd’s hits collection The Highlights lifts 8-4 in its 167th week on the tally. It’s triple-platinum certified in Australia.
Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney reflect on their 20-year journey as The Black Keys. The duo elaborates on the various collaborations of their new album ‘Ohio Players,’ including Juicy J, Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Lil Noid and more. They also share some insight into their upcoming tour, what the fans can expect on the setlist and more!
Patrick Carney:
One night we were working here at Sunset and there’s a, there was, a very rare record that Dan wanted on eBay.
Dan Auerbach:
I had been waiting a year and a half to get it.
Patrick Carney:
He didn’t know that I knew that it was on eBay, and like, there was three minutes left, and it started jacking the price up. I was like watching him sweat because-
Dan Auerbach:
He was behind me laughing. I didn’t know what he was laughing at and I was just freaking out because somebody else was bidding so heavy on this thing. I’ve been waiting like six days for this auction.
Dan Auerbach:
Hey, I’m Dan.
Patrick Carney:
I’m Patrick, we’re The Black Keys and you’re watching Billboard News.
Lyndsey Havens:
Hey, I’m Lyndsey Havens for Billboard News. And we are here with the legendary hitmaking duo The Black Keys. What’s up, guys?
Patrick Carney:
What’s up? How are you?
Lyndsey Havens:
Album came out just a few weeks ago, how are we feeling?
Patrick Carney:
We’re stoked. We’re very happy with the album. We’re excited for the year ahead.
Lyndsey Havens:
So this is your 12th album, obviously, a long road to get here. Do you have any rituals before you release an album at this point? Or does it all sort of feel the same?
Patrick Carney:
I heard that Chris Martin like … when he prepares to write, he likes to isolate himself and read all the bad reviews.
Keep watching to learn more!
For a band that split in 1970, the Beatles seem to be everywhere right now.
Last year, the Fab Four released their final recording, “Now And Then,” which gave the band their first No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay in more than 50 years, a leader on the Official U.K. Singles Chart which extended their record as the British act with the most leaders (18). It was also the longest-ever gap between No. 1 singles for any act, at 54 years.
Then, last week, confirmation that Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary Let It Be would be released for streaming on Disney+ from May 8, restored by Peter Jackson and the Kiwi director’s team.
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The Beatles’ music got another boost — and an update — during the Playoffs of NBC’s The Voice, when Nathan Chester ripped out a classic.
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For the latest episode, which aired Monday night (April 22), Chester gave an acrobatic performance of “Oh! Darling,” which appears on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album.
Chester, looking sharp in a retro, green suit, brought soul to his rendition, delivered high notes with style, and busted out some eye-watering splits. Think prime James Brown.
The Chicago, IL native hones his talents as a professional singer on cruise ships. It shows. During the Blind Auditions, he impressed with a performance of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River,” earning a two-chair turn.
“I’m always waiting for someone to inspire me, excite me,” coach John Legend said at the time. “When I heard you singing, I turned very quickly because I was like, this man’s got it.”
Guided by Legend, Chester performed Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” in the Knockouts.
And what is Chester comfortable singing? Jazz, opera, golden age of musical theater, funk, soul, Motown, he explained following his Blind Audition. It turns out, he’s just fine with the Beatles. And if he was to make an album, he’d want to bring back “the James Brown-style of Motown.” We got a glimpse of that on Monday night.
Watch below.
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The latest epic from the Marvel Cinematic Universe brings together three giants of popular culture: Deadpool, Wolverine and Madonna.
Marvel’s forthcoming action-comedy “Deadpool & Wolverine” is a superhero dream team, which sees Hugh Jackman reprise his role as the hard-as-nails X-Man Wolverine alongside Ryan Reynolds’ reckless (and foul-mouthed) Deadpool.
The trailer should fill the cups for anyone weaned on Marvel, comics, action and ‘80s music.
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It’s a two-and-a-half-minute NSFW blockbuster, loaded with fight sequences, drug references, Deadpool crashing through the fourth wall and a carpeting of f-bombs, soundtracked to the Madonna classic “Like a Prayer.”
The Queen of Pop’s Billboard Hot 100 leader from 1989 gets a dancey-upgrade for the clip, which was shared on Reynolds’ YouTube page and can be seen in full below.
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Madonna justified her royal status earlier this year as “Popular,” her collaboration with the Weeknd and Playboi Carti, creates an impressive piece of U.K. chart history when it became the U.S. pop veteran’s 64th top 10 single, extending her lead as the female artist with the most top 10s in Official Chart history.
Madonna sets chart records for fun. According to the Official Charts Company, the superstar singer has 12 U.K. No. 1 albums, the most among solo female artists, though Taylor Swift is days away from equaling that feat. The Like a Prayer LP, which recently celebrated its 35th anniversary, is one of those leaders (it logged two weeks at the chart summit).
When “Popular” splashed on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023, Madonna joined Cher as the only women to have debuted titles on the chart in five separate decades (Madonna has debuted songs on the Hot 100 in the 1980s, ‘90s, 2000s, ’10s and now ‘20s).
Directed by Shawn Levy, Deadpool & Wolverine is due out July 26 and is Marvel Studios’ first R-rated film. The forthcoming film is the third in the Deadpool series and follows Deadpool 2 by six years.
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Taylor Swift is ready for her chart crown.
Predictably, Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department (via EMI) flies out the gate in the U.K., where it’s set to become her 12th No. 1.
Based on midweek sales and streaming data captured by the Official Charts Company, Tortured Poets has already collected 197,000 chart units, good enough for the title as the fastest-selling album of 2024 so far.When the full-week’s result is tallied, Tortured Poets will stand tall as Swift’s biggest opening week in the U.K. Her current record holder is 2022’s Midnights, with 205,000 first week U.K. chart units, a result that Tortured Poets has almost certainly eclipsed (with half a week to spare).
When the Official U.K. Albums Chart is published later this week, Swift should notch a 12th No. 1 with Tortured Poets, equaling Madonna at the top of the leaderboard of solo female artists. She’s also the first and only artist this century to rack up 10 U.K. No. 1 albums.
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As previously reported, Swift respectively locks up the top three spots in the singles chart race with “Fortnight” featuring Post Malone, the title track, and “So Long, London.” With that form, expect the U.S. pop superstar to nab the chart double. “Fortnight” should become TayTay’s fourth U.K. No. 1, after “Look What You Made Me Do” (from 2017), “cardigan” (2020) and “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version)” (2023).
Swift’s 11th studio album has already smashed Spotify streaming marks, blasting away with more than 300 million streams in a single day.
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Also on the Official U.K. Albums Chart Update, Pearl Jam’s 12th and latest studio album Dark Matter (Monkeywrench Records/Republic Records) is predicted to give the Rock Hall inductees their highest-charting LP in 11 years, at No. 2.
Completing the podium on the chart blast is UB40’s UB45 (Sono Recording Group), new at No. 3. UB45 is the 21st studio album from the British reggae/pop act, gathering seven new songs and as many revisions of older works.
All will be revealed when the national chart is published late Friday, April 26.
It’s Monday, April 22nd, and we’re starting off the week with fiery disses and records breaking. Drake released an AI track further digging at Kendrick Lamar. The track, ‘Taylor Made Freestyle,’ uses AI to emulate the voices of icons Tupac Shakur & Snoop Dog. Taylor Swift once again breaks records with the release of her […]
