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Music legend Willie Nelson may be best known for as a country superstar, but some might not realize he’s visited many other Billboard album genre charts outside of the Top Country Albums chart — where’s racked up a record 53 top 10s, with 18 of them hitting No. 1. Over the years, Nelson has placed high-charting efforts on these genre-specific album rankings: Blues Albums, Kid Albums, Reggae Albums, Traditional Jazz Albums, Jazz Albums, Americana/Folk Albums and Top Christian Albums.
Now, Nelson’s new Bluegrass album, released on Sept. 15, appropriately debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums chart (dated Sept. 30), marking his first appearance on the 21-year-old tally. On the album, Nelson reinterprets a dozen of his older songs, joined by a bluegrass ensemble. Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums chart ranks the top-selling bluegrass albums of the week in the U.S., based on traditional album sales, as tracked by Luminate. In the week ending Sept. 21, Nelson’s Bluegrass sold 3,000 copies.
Below is a recap of Nelson’s history on Billboard’s major album genre charts, aside from Top Country Albums. (In addition, Nelson has logged 83 entries on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart.)
Chart NameAlbum Title, Peak Position, Peak Date
Blues AlbumsMilk Cow Blues, No. 2, Oct. 7, 2000
Kid AlbumsRainbow Connection, No. 7, June 30, 2001
Reggae AlbumsCountryman, No. 1 (nine weeks at No. 1), July 30, 2005
Traditional Jazz AlbumsTwo Men With the Blues (Nelson and Wynton Marsalis), No. 1 (four weeks), July 26, 2008Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles (Nelson & Wynton Marsalis featuring Norah Jones), No. 1 (five weeks), April 16, 2011Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin, No. 1 (five weeks), March 19, 2016My Way, No. 2, Sept. 29, 2018That’s Life, No. 1 (two weeks), March 13, 2021
Jazz AlbumsTwo Men With the Blues (Nelson and Wynton Marsalis), No. 1 (four weeks), July 26, 2008Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles (Nelson & Wynton Marsalis featuring Norah Jones), No. 2, April 16, 2011Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin, No. 1 (three weeks), March 19, 2016My Way, No. 2, Sept. 29, 2018That’s Life, No. 1 (two weeks), March 13, 2021
Americana/Folk AlbumsLast Man Standing, No. 1, May 12, 2018Ride Me Back Home, No. 1, July 6, 2019First Rose of Spring, No. 1, July 18, 2020The Willie Nelson Family, No. 12, Dec. 4, 2021A Beautiful Time, No. 3, May 14, 2022
Top Christian AlbumsJust As I Am: 18 Hymns and Gospel Favorites (Willie Nelson and Bobbie Nelson), No. 37, Aug. 27, 2022
Bluegrass AlbumsBluegrass, No. 1, Sept. 30, 2023
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The chart-topping film soundtrack to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music will be reissued on Dec. 1 in an array of new expanded, remixed and remastered formats. Among them: a lavish Super Deluxe Edition boasting over 40 previously-unreleased tracks – 11 of which are never-before-heard alternate takes from the 1965 blockbuster movie.
One of those alternate takes is an unreleased rendition of the film’s opening number “Prelude / The Sound of Music,” by the film’s star Julie Andrews, and cast. The song is now available to stream and download (Sept. 27) — listen below.
And, for the first time, all of the Academy Award-winning film’s music – including every musical element from the movie – will be included on the Super Deluxe Edition of the album. Among those classic songs: “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Edelweiss,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”
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The Sound of Music soundtrack spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1965 and was a near-constant presence in the top 10 from the spring of 1965 through the spring of 1967. It spent a staggering 109 weeks in the top 10 – the most of any soundtrack in the chart’s history. In 2015, Billboard ranked The Sound of Music as the most successful soundtrack of all time on the chart.
The Super Deluxe Edition of The Sound of Music will be available as either as a four-CD/one-Blu-ray audio boxed set or as a digital download album. The Blu-Ray audio disc contains the film’s full score in hi-resolution audio, as well as a new Dolby Atmos mix of the original 16-track soundtrack released in 1965.
The boxed set features new liner notes written by film historian and preservationist Mike Matessino, who remixed and remastered the album from the original multi-track tapes.
The Super Deluxe Edition is one of multiple new iterations of The Sound of Music that Craft Recordings will release on Dec. 1. (Craft is the catalog label for Concord.) The Sound of Music will also be reintroduced in a Deluxe Edition (on two-CDs) and a three-LP vinyl collection (including a “Picnic Meadow Green”-colored vinyl pressing limited to 500 copies worldwide). A standard edition of the album will also be refreshed, where the original 16-track 1965 soundtrack will be reissued digitally in standard digital, HD digital and in a Dolby Atmos mix. (The standard digital album will also be available in multiple non-English-language editions, including Spanish, German, French and Italian).
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“It’s been wonderful to collaborate across all of Concord’s divisions to help bring this historic and culturally significant reissue to light,” says Sig Sigworth, president, Craft Recordings and chief catalog officer, Concord, in a statement. “This deluxe edition has been years in the making, with Craft Recordings working in concert with Concord Publishing and Concord Theatricals (home of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization). We’re delighted that The Sound of Music fans around the world, old and new, will be able to enjoy the iconic soundtrack in a brand new listening experience, more than a half century after its original release.”
Imogen Lloyd Webber, SVP at Concord Theatricals on behalf of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization adds: “This reissue of The Sound of Music, lovingly—and painstakingly—curated by the team at Craft with collaboration from so many at Concord, alongside Mike Matessino, is a landmark moment in the history of the title. It is a truly fitting tribute to the last of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals and one we hope fans across the world will treasure for years to come.”
For a full recap of the tracklists for each variant of the album, visit the Craft Recordings website. A summary of the new iterations is below:
The Sound of Music Soundtrack 2023 Reissues:
Super Deluxe Edition (4-CD/1 Blu-Ray boxed set)100 tracks on the CDs, 62 tracks on the Blu-Ray audio disc.
Super Deluxe Edition (Digital Download Album)84 tracks
Deluxe Edition (2-CD)46 tracks
Deluxe Edition (3 vinyl LPs, plus a “Picnic Meadow Green” color variant triple LP limited to 500 copies worldwide)46 tracks
Original 1965 Release (Standard Digital [inclusive of multiple international language versions such as Spanish, German, French and Italian] & HD Digital)16 tracks
Original 1965 Release (Dolby Atmos)16 tracks (all in 2023 Stereo Mixes)
It’s a busy week on Billboard’s Cast Albums chart (dated Sept. 30), as the original cast recordings of StarKid’s Nerdy Prudes Must Die., Disney and Marvel’s Rogers: The Musical and the world-premiere complete studio cast recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! debut at Nos. 1, 2 and 8 respectively. Meanwhile, New York, New York: A New Musical re-enters at No. 4 (a new peak) after its release on CD.
With the arrivals at Nos. 1, 2 and 8 on Cast Albums, it’s the first time at least three albums have debuted in the top 10 in the same week in more than four years. It last happened on the June 22, 2019-dated list, when the original Broadway cast recordings of Beetlejuice and Tootsie launched at Nos. 2 and 6, while the 2019 Broadway cast recording of Kiss Me, Kate! bowed at No. 8.
Billboard’s Cast Albums chart ranks the top-selling musical cast recordings of the week in the U.S., based on traditional album sales, as tracked by Luminate.
Nerdy Prudes Must Die. is “a teen slasher comedy about a group of geeks and their ghostly tormentor.” The show, with music and lyrics by Jeff Blim, had a brief run at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, Calif. in February. It’s the third No. 1 on the Cast Albums chart for the StarKid production team, following Black Friday (in 2020) and Starship (2011). In total, Nerdy Prudes is the 17th charting effort on Cast Albums from StarKid, with 13 having reached the top 10. StarKid’s first entry on the tally was Me and My Dick, which peaked at No. 11 in 2010.
Rogers: The Musical – an abridged version of the life of the first Avenger, Captain America (aka Steve Rogers) – had a limited run at Disney California Adventure Park’s Hyperion Theater in Anaheim, Calif. from June 30-Aug. 31. Rogers’new original songs were written by composer Christopher Lennertz, with lyrics by Jordan Peterson, Lennertz and Alex Karukas. The new tunes were joined by earlier-penned songs like “Save the City” (music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman) and “Star-Spangled Man” (by Alan Menken and David Zeppel).
Rogers: The Musical is the first cast recording from a Disney Parks-presented stage show to chart on Billboard’s 17-year-old Cast Albums ranking. Previous musical shows staged at the Hyperion include Frozen: Live at the Hyperion (2016-20) and Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular (2003-16). (The Broadway versions of Aladdin and Frozen saw their companion cast recordings hits Nos. 1 and 2 on the Cast Albums chart.)
Both Nerdy Prudes Must Die. and Rogers: The Musical were only available to purchase as digital download albums. The third debut in the Cast Album chart’s top 10, the new studio cast recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, was available as a download and on CD and vinyl.
The studio cast recording of Oklahoma! was released by Chandos Records and is the first recording to boast the complete score performed with Robert Russell Bennett’s original orchestrations. Oklahoma! was the first musical written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and it premiered on Broadway in 1943. It was later adapted into a film in 1955, which won two Academy Awards and launched a soundtrack that spent four weeks atop Billboard’s Best Selling Popular Albums chart in 1956. Oklahoma! has been revived on Broadway four times, most recently in 2019, when it won two Tony Awards, including best revival of a musical.
Finally, the original Broadway cast recording of New York, New York: A New Musical, re-enters Cast Albums at No. 4, having previously spent one week on the list at No. 7 (on the July 8-dated chart). The album returns to the list following its Sept. 15 release on CD, as the set was only previously available to purchase as a digital download. New York, New York played for three months at the St. James Theatre in New York earlier in 2023 and garnered nine Tony Award nominations, winning one for best scenic design of a musical.
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R&B legends Tony! Toni! Toné! sat down with Gail Mitchell, Billboard‘s Executive Director of Hip-Hop and R&B, to talk about their hit track “Anniversary,” their upcoming reunion tour, how their name came about and more!
Gail Mitchell:I’m sitting here talking to three gentlemen that oh my god, and everybody was so excited when they found out you guys were reuniting for this tour. But I’m here with Tony! Toni! Toné! I’m with Tim Riley, I’m with D’Wayne Wiggins and Raphael Saadiq. Thank you all for joining us!
Raphael Saadiq:Thank you, Gail!
D’Wayne Wiggins:Happy to be here!
Gail Mitchell:Looking back over ya’ll’s career as Tony! Toni! Toné!, what is it about your music — the group’s music — that still resonates some 30 years later?
Raphael Saadiq:I think it’s just a lot of nostalgic memories of people having kids to the music and meeting us. And you know, when bands are going to different cities and going to one-stops and visiting schools, you know, just doing the work in the community. You know, we didn’t just put out a record and it was on the radio and we didn’t go to that market. We would stay in that market for, like, three or four days, so we met a lot of people and have a lot of friends. People probably want to bring their kids to see it, or use the shows to see these three guys, and I think they get the opportunity now to see us all together like this is pretty, pretty good.
D’Wayne Wiggins:I guess you’d call it like the soundtrack to a lot of people’s lives, and definitely was for us because we just learned how to write, you know, and so it was all genuine and very real. I guess getting back to that, so that’s the beautiful thing about it. After 25 years, the three of us together, it’s getting back to the real roots.
Watch the full interview above!
Fleetwood Mac’s from-the-vaults release Rumours: Live debuts at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Sept. 23). It’s the highest debut on the list for the band in more than 20 years, since the act’s last full-length studio album, Say You Will, opened at No. 2 in May 2003.
Comprised almost entirely of previously unreleased recordings, Rumours: Live captures the band’s Aug. 29, 1977, concert at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., during the act’s Rumours Tour. The trek was in support of its then-most-recent studio release Rumours, which had bowed earlier in 1977. That album would spend 31 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart – still the most weeks at No. 1 for an album by a group. The set launched four top 10-charting hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including the group’s lone chart-topper, “Dreams.”
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, new releases from Olivia Rodrigo, V, Tyler Childers and BOYNEXTDOOR all arrive, while Lauren Daigle’s self-titled album re-enters the chart straight into the top 10 after a deluxe reissue.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Rumours: Live sold a little over 10,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 14, according to Luminate. Among the songs featured on the album are such Hot 100 hits as “Dreams,” “Oh Well,” “Landslide,” “Over My Head,” “Rhiannon,” “You Make Loving Fun” and “Go Your Own Way.” Rumours: Live was available to purchase as a digital download album or in three physical iterations (a 180-gram double vinyl set, a crystal-clear colored double vinyl set sold via Walmart, and a two-CD package). Vinyl accounted for 44.5% of the album’s first-week sales.
At No. 1 on Top Album Sales, Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts debuts with 150,000 copies sold. Of that sum, physical sales comprise 138,000 (94,000 on vinyl, 43,000 on CD and 1,000 on cassette) and digital download sales comprise 12,000. Guts’ vinyl sales mark the seventh-largest week for a vinyl album since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991.
Guts’ first-week sales were bolstered by its availability across 13 different vinyl variants. Among the variants: a signed edition and exclusive color vinyl and picture-disc editions sold through Amazon, independent record stores, Spotify, Target, Urban Outfitters, Walmart and Rodrigo’s webstore. Guts’ sales also got a boost from four CD editions (including a signed version), a cassette tape and four deluxe boxed sets sold through Rodrigo’s webstore (each containing a CD or vinyl LP along with branded merchandise).
BTS’ V sees his debut solo studio effort Layover enter at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 88,000 copies sold. Of its first-week sales, physical sales comprise 79,000 (all on CD) and digital download sales comprise a little over 9,000. Layover’s debut was enhanced by its availability in collectible CD offerings – 13 in total.
The set was released in three standard iterations (dubbed Layover 1, Layover 2 and Layover 3, each containing branded paper goods and merchandise specific to the iteration like photobooks, lyric books, posters, postcards and photocards, as well as randomized stickers). Each iteration was also available in variants sold exclusively through Barnes & Noble, Walmart and the Weverse store (a total of nine; and each retailer had its own exclusive photocard enclosed in the three variants). Lastly, Target carried its own exclusive version of the album (with a Target-exclusive photocard), where one of the three iterations of the album (Layover 1, 2 or 3) were sold to the customer (with online buyers randomly shipped one of the three iterations).
Tyler Childers’ Rustin’ in the Rain bows at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with 25,000 copies sold. Of that sum, physical sales comprise 17,500 (with 15,000 on vinyl and 2,500 on CD) and digital album sales comprise 7,500. The album was sold in four different vinyl variants, as well as three deluxe boxed sets exclusive to his webstore (each containing a vinyl LP and branded merch).
Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is a non-mover at No. 5 on Top Album Sales with a little over 9,000 sold (down 3%), NewJeans’ former leader 2nd EP ‘Get Up’ falls 4-8 with nearly 9,000 (down 19%), Rodrigo’s former No. 1 Sour shoots 50-7 with a little over 8,000 (up 288%), and Swift’s former No. 1 Midnights dips 7-8 with nearly 8,000 (up 1%).
Lauren Daigle’s self-titled album re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 9 (nearly 8,000 sold; up 1,255%), prompted by its deluxe reissue on Sept. 8 with additional tracks. The set initially debuted and peaked at No. 3 on the May 27-dated chart. The deluxe edition of the album was released in four vinyl variants (including exclusives for Barnes & Noble and the artist’s webstore), four CD variants (including a Target-exclusive cover variant, a zine/CD package, a signed CD and a lenticular cover version), and was available in two Fan Pack offerings (where a piece of branded merchandise was sold alongside a physical copy of the album).
Rounding out the top 10 of Top Album Sales is BOYNEXTDOOR’s debut album Why.., which starts at No. 10 with nearly 8,000 sold. The K-pop effort was available in eight collectible CD editions (including exclusive iterations sold through Barnes & Noble, Target and the Weverse store), each with a standard set of branded paper goods and merchandise items (photobooks, film photos, posters, stickers, and the like) and randomized items (including photocards and post cards).
The album was initially released to purchase as a digital download album on Sept. 4, followed by its CD release on Sept. 8. In the week ending Sept. 14, CD sales comprised 99.8% of the album’s sales, with digital downloads comprising the remaining 0.2%.
In the week ending Sept. 14, there were 1.766 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 8.3% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.437 million (up 11.6%) and digital albums comprised 328,000 (down 4.1%).
There were 649,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Sept. 14 (up 19.4% week-over-week) and 779,000 vinyl albums sold (up 6.1%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 24.475 million (up 1.5% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 32.66 million (up 20.1%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 70.597 million (up 6.7% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 57.512 million (up 11.3%) and digital album sales total 13.085 million (down 9.9%).
Global superstar Shakira takes a look back at her chart history and talks through some of her most iconic musical moments, from No. 1 songs to her most memorable collaborations in her Billboard cover video. Shakira: Hey everyone, I’m Shakira and this is my Billboard Chart History. “Donde Estás Corazón” was my international hit. It […]
Rising jazz artist Laufey scores her first entry on the Billboard 200 albums chart with her sophomore release Bewitched, debuting at No. 23 on the Sept. 23-dated list. Further, the set launches atop both the Traditional Jazz Albums and overall Jazz Albums charts – marking the first No. 1 on both rankings for the 24-year-old Icelandic singer-songwriter […]
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