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Sam Moore, half of the seminal duo Sam & Dave, died Friday (Jan. 10) in Coral Gables, Fla. The cause of death was complications from surgery. He was 89.
Moore, who was revered by artists including Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins, Garth Brooks and Jon Bon Jovi, had an instantly recognizable tenor, first heard on such call-and-response classics as Sam & Dave’s 1960s hits “Hold On, I’m Coming” and the Grammy-winning “Soul Man,” both of which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot R&B Singles chart, as well as “I Thank You” and “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby.” The duo, who performed at Martin Luther King Jr.’s memorial concert at Madison Square Garden following his assassination in 1968, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 by Billy Joel.
Moore, who grew up in Miami, began singing in church and drew the attention of another legendary Sam, Sam Cooke, who wanted Moore to replace him in his gospel group The Soul Stirrers. However, after seeing Jackie Wilson perform, Moore shifted from gospel to pop and was performing at the King O’Hearts Club when he met Dave Prater and the two formed Sam & Dave.
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Legendary Atlantic Records executives Ahmet Ertegun, Tom Dowd and Jerry Wexler saw the pair at the King O’Hearts Club and signed them to the label in 1965. Wexler passed them to Atlantic’s southern partner, Stax Records, where Isaac Hayes and David Porter took them under their wing and produced their iconic hits.
Following Sam & Dave’s breakup in 1970, Moore signed to Atlantic as a solo artist. He recorded a solo album produced by King Curtis featuring Donnie Hathaway and Aretha Franklin. However, after Curtis was murdered in 1971, the album was shelved. He reunited with Dave for a few years, but spiraled into heroin addiction, which was chronicled in the DA Pennebaker/Chris Hegedus documentary Only the Strong Survive.
Interest in the duo was greatly revived by 1980’s The Blues Brothers movie, starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The pair’s main theme was their boisterous version of “Soul Man.”
The song “turned out to be an anthem, sort of like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind” or one of those,” Moore told the Library of Congress in a 2002 interview when “Soul Man” was added to the Library’s National Recording Registry. “And, I tell you, it doesn’t matter where I sing — perform it — at the end of the night; if we didn’t do ‘Soul Man, the room would go up in smoke!”
Moore also shared how he and Prater worked out how to trade verses, with the help of Hayes. “By me at that time being the dominate one — and I’m not bragging here — I always sang the high parts,” he said in the same interview. “We went back with Isaac and he took us back and forth [with the verses]. Isaac was like, ‘Sam, try something like this.’ I remember him saying, ‘We want it bright. Not a dull opening.’ That’s why you hear all the high. Isaac was the one that suggested that.”
In the early ‘80s, Moore became sober with the help of Joyce McRae, whom he married in 1982 and who became his manager.
Moore went on to perform for six U.S. presidents — Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — and was a frequent performer at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Springsteen asked Moore to perform on his 1992 Human Touch album, as well as Only the Strong Survive, his 2023 album of soul covers.
Moore recovered his lost 1970 album, Plenty Good Loving, and released it in 2002 via EMI. “I met Sam and his wife, Joyce, when I was in my 20s and working for Rhino Records, who reissued the classic Sam & Dave albums,” says Exceleration Music creative director David Gorman, who was instrumental in the album finally seeing daylight. “Drooling fanboy that I was, I showed up to our first meeting holding a 45 and asking for his autograph. The 45 was his solo single ‘If I Should Lose Your Love.’ When he picked it up, his jaw dropped because he had completely forgotten that he ever made a solo record at all. Over dinner, his memories came flooding back and he remembered making an entire album but had no recollection around its fate. As soon as I got back to LA, I asked [mastering engineer] Bill Inglot if it really existed and within a few days he’d found the tapes and sent over a CD-R. It was brilliant. Sam, Joyce, and I worked together to find a new home for the solo album nobody remembered making.”
Four years later, Moore released his first new album in 30 years, Overnight Sensational, which featured Bon Jovi, Sting, Springsteen and Billy Preston, with whom he received a Grammy nomination for their duet of “You Are So Beautiful.”
In 2019, Moore and Prater received the Recording Academy’s highest honor, its Lifetime Achievement Award.
In his later years, in addition to continuing to perform, Moore became an artists’ advocate, including testifying in Congress on behalf of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, which would pay performers for radio airplay.
“His loss is deep,” Gorman says. “He was a force of joy as a human being, who lit up everyone around him. As an artist he had the explosive ability to work a crowd out — even Otis [Redding] feared following Sam & Dave on stage — but I found Sam’s genius alone with his records, especially the ballads. Sam’s cries, his knowing asides, the way would use time as a weapon to hit you when it would hurt or heal the most, gave me comfort and companionship in ways no other artist could. He could turn up the tempo and turn up the heat, but his slow-burn just couldn’t be touched. He was a master, the last of his kind.”
At the time of his death, Moore was working on a gospel album with Rudy Perez. He is survived by Joyce, daughter Michelle and grandchildren Tash and Misha.
SZA’s SOS secures a 12th nonconsecutive week atop the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Jan. 11), continuing to profit from its deluxe reissue on Dec. 20 with 15 additional tracks. The set surged 15-1 on the Jan. 4 chart, following the reissue (dubbed SOS Deluxe: LANA). The set was originally released on Dec. 9, 2022, as a 23-track album and spent 10 weeks at No. 1 in late 2022 and early 2023. All versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting.
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SOS earned 130,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 2 (down 27%), according to Luminate.
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The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Jan. 11, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Jan. 7). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter and Instagram.
Of SOS’ 130,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Jan. 2, SEA units comprise 125,500 (down 25%, equaling 166.31 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it holds at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart), traditional album sales comprise 4,000 (down 59%, falling 23-36 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 500 (down 63%).
With a 12th total week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, SOS has the most weeks atop the chart for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman, or an R&B album by a woman, since Whitney Houston’s self-titled set tallied 14 weeks at No. 1 in 1986. (Honorable mention to the Houston-led soundtrack to The Bodyguard, which logged 20 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 1992-93. The 12-track album has six songs by Houston and six songs by other artists.)
The last R&B/hip-hop album with at least 12 weeks atop the Billboard 200 was Drake’s Views, which notched 13 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2016 (May 21-Oct. 8). The last R&B album with at least 12 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 was The Bodyguard, with its 20-week reign. (R&B/hip-hop and R&B albums are defined as those that have hit or are eligible for Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top R&B Albums charts, respectively.)
As we move farther away from Christmas (Dec. 25), and with the chart’s latest tracking week covering the Dec. 27, 2024-Jan. 2, 2025 frame, no holiday albums dot the entire top 100 of the 200-title deep chart. A week ago, six of the top 10, and 32 of the top 100, were holiday efforts. In turn, on the latest chart, nonseasonal sets race up the list — many with week-over-week declines in activity — as the chart shakes off the festive last bits of merriment.
Kendrick Lamar’s former No. 1 GNX climbs 5-2 (70,000 equivalent album units earned; down 9%), Sabrina Carpenter’s chart-topping Short n’ Sweet jumps 12-3 (56,000; down 7%), the Wicked film soundtrack flies 8-4 (49,000; down 31%) and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft vaults 14-5 (46,000; down 16%).
Taylor Swift’s former leader The Tortured Poets Department moves 7-6 (44,000 equivalent album units; down 40%) and Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess rises 16-7 (41,000; down 20%).
To close out the top 10 at Nos. 8-10, three titles that were outside the top 20 a week ago all rush back to the top 10. Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time jumps 29-8 (nearly 41,000; up 10%), Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us bounces 25-9 (40,000; up 2%) and Tyler, The Creator’s former No. 1 CHROMAKOPIA drives 27-10 (38,000; down less than 1%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
After 22 months, SZA’s chart-topping SOS returns No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as the set jumps 15-1 on the Jan. 4-dated chart. It bolts back to the top thanks largely from activity generated by the album’s deluxe reissue on Dec. 20 (dubbed SOS Deluxe: LANA) that added 15 additional songs to the album. The set was originally released on Dec. 9, 2022, with 23 tracks. All versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes and continue to chart under the title SOS.
SOS surges to No. 1 with 178,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 26 (up 297%), according to Luminate. With its return to No. 1, the set collects an 11th nonconsecutive week atop the list, and its first since the March 4, 2023-dated chart. That 22-month gap between weeks at No. 1 is the longest for any album since the Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956.
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Notably, had the 15 new songs on the LANA deluxe edition of the album been released as a new stand-alone album, its track activity alone would have been enough for that stand-alone set to debut atop the list. (The 15 new songs generated 105,000 in SEA and TEA units. The No. 2 title this week, Michael Bublé’s former leader Christmas, earned 100,000 units from SEA, TEA and traditional album sales combined.)
SOS debuted atop the Billboard 200 dated Dec. 24, 2022, and logged 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the list through the March 4, 2023-dated chart. It has never left the weekly top 20 of the chart during the 107 consecutive weeks that it has spent on the list. SOS closed 2024 at No. 6 on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums chart, after it was No. 3 on the year-end list in 2023.
Also in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200 chart, Frank Sinatra scores his first top 10-charting in over a decade, as his holiday compilation Ultimate Christmas vaults 17-10.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Jan. 4, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Dec. 31). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of SOS’ 178,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 26, SEA units comprise 167,000 (up 341%, equaling 220.22 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it hits No. 1 on the year-old Top Streaming Albums chart for the first time), traditional album sales comprise 10,000 (up 44%, rising 39-23 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (up 1,744%).
A deluxe reissue of SOS had been in the works since at least February of 2023, and SZA first mentioned LANA as the name of the expansion in September 2023. The deluxe reissue was preceded by the Billboard Hot 100-charting hit “Saturn” (one of the 15 added tracks), which debuted and peaked at No. 6 in March.
The last R&B/hip-hop album with at least 11 weeks atop the Billboard 200 was Drake’s Views, which notched 13 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2016 (May 21-Oct. 8). SOS has the most weeks at No. 1 for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman, or an R&B album by a woman, since Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut spent 11 weeks, all consecutively, at No. 1 in 1991. (Honorable mention to the Whitney Houston-led soundtrack to The Bodyguard, which logged 20 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 1992-93. The 12-track album has six songs by Houston and six songs by other artists.) SOS has the most weeks at No. 1 for any R&B album since The Bodyguard’s 20-week reign. (R&B/hip-hop and R&B albums are defined as those that have hit or are eligible for Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top R&B Albums charts, respectively.)
At No. 2 on the latest Billboard 200, Michael Bublé’s former leader Christmas jingles 5-2 with 100,000 equivalent album units earned (up 47%). The set spent a total of five weeks atop the list in late 2011 and early 2012, following its release in October of 2011. It has climbed to No. 2 in four of the last six holiday seasons. With 100,000 units earned, Christmas tallies its largest week, by units, since the Billboard 200 began ranking by units in December 2014.
The Jan. 4-dated Billboard 200 is set to be the last chart of the holiday season to showcase high-ranking Christmas efforts, as the tracking week for the chart closed on Dec. 26, the day after the Christmas Day holiday.
Bing Crosby’s Ultimate Christmas rallies 6-3 on the new Billboard 200, marking the late entertainer’s highest-charting effort since the Jan. 5, 1959-dated chart, when his former No. 1 Merry Christmas ranked at No. 2. Merry Christmas had previously spent a week at No. 1 on Jan. 6, 1958-dated chart.
Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song moves 11-4, matching its peak, with 84,000 equivalent album units earned (up 56%). Kendrick Lamar’s chart-topping GNX falls 2-5 (76,000; down 24%), Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas rises 10-6 (nearly 76,000; up 36%), and Taylor Swift’s former No. 1 The Tortured Poets Department dips 3-7 (74,000; down 13%).
The Wicked film soundtrack falls 7-8 on the Billboard 200 with 71,000 equivalent album units earned (up 9%) and the festive compilation A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector climbs 16-9 with 70,000 units (up 60%).
Rounding out the top 10 is Frank Sinatra’s Ultimate Christmas, climbing 17-10 with 63,000 equivalent album units earned (up 55%). The title — which previously peaked at No. 12 and reaches the top 10 in its 52nd week on the chart, dating to its December 2017 debut — is the late legend’s first visit to the top 10 since August 2012, when his 2008 hits package Nothing Best the Best returned to the top 10 (re-entering at No. 3 on the Aug. 25, 2012-dated list after sale pricing and promotion). Nothing had previously debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the May 31, 2008-dated chart.
Ultimate Christmas becomes Sinatra’s 33rd top 10-charting effort, the most among solo males. The Rolling Stones have the most top 10s, with 38. They are followed by Barbra Streisand (with 34), Sinatra and The Beatles, whom he passes (32).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Spotify is firing back at Drake’s accusations that the streamer helped Universal Music Group artificially boost Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” calling the allegations “false” and blasting the rapper’s legal action as a “subversion of the normal judicial process.”
The new filing is the first response to a petition filed last month in which Drake accused UMG and Spotify of an illegal “scheme” involving bots, payola and other methods to pump up Lamar’s song — a track that savagely attacked Drake amid an ongoing feud between the two stars.
In a motion filed Friday in Manhattan court, the streaming giant says it has found zero evidence to support the claims of a bot attack, and flatly denies that it struck any deal with UMG to support Lamar’s song.
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“The predicate of Petitioner’s entire request for discovery from Spotify is false,” the company’s lawyers write. “Spotify and UMG have never had any such arrangement.”
Beyond denying the allegations, the filing repeatedly criticizes Drake for going to court in the first place — calling his claims of a conspiracy “far-fetched” and “speculative,” and questioning why Spotify (a “stranger” to the “long-running fued” between Drake, Kendrick and UMG) is even involved.
Spotify also criticized Drake for the way in which he brought his claims to court — not as a full-fledged lawsuit, but as an unusual “pre-action” petition aimed at demanding information. The company accused Drake of using that “extraordinary” procedure because his allegations are too flimsy to pass muster in an actual lawsuit and would have been quickly dismissed.
“What petitioner is seeking to do here … is to bypass the normal pleading requirements … and obtain by way of pre-action discovery that which it would only be entitled to seek were it to survive a motion to dismiss,” Spotify’s lawyers write. “This subversion of the normal judicial process should be rejected.”
A spokesperson for Drake and his legal team did not immediately return a request for comment on Spotify’s filings.
Drake went to court last month, accusing UMG of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal “RICO” statute often used against organized crime. He accused Spotify of participating in the scheme by charging reduced licensing fees in exchange for recommending the song to users. A day later, he filed a similar action in Texas, suggesting that UMG had legally defamed him by releasing a song that “falsely” accused him of being a “sex offender.”
The legal actions represent a remarkable twist in the high-profile beef between the two stars, which saw Drake and Lamar exchange stinging diss tracks over a period of months earlier this year. That a rapper would take such a dispute to court seemed almost unthinkable at the time, and Drake has been ridiculed in some corners of the hip-hop world for doing so.
The actions also represent a stunning rift between Drake and UMG, where the star has spent his entire career — first through signing a deal with Lil Wayne’s Young Money imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records, then by signing directly to Republic.
UMG has not yet filed a responded to the litigation in court. But in a statement issued at the time, the music giant called Drake’s allegations “offensive and untrue”: “No amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments in this pre-action submission can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”
In Friday’s filing, Spotify echoed that criticism — arguing that civil RICO cases are difficult to prove even with ample evidence, and that Drake hardly has any: “The Petition asserts no specific facts of any kind in support of these alleged RICO and deceptive practices violations,” the company wrote. “Instead, it relies exclusively on speculation … or the claims of anonymous individuals on the internet.”
Spotify’s attorneys seemed particularly focused on disputing the idea that swarms of bots had been able to flood the platforms to fraudulently boost Lamar’s track — a hot-button issue in the modern music industry. In an affidavit attached to Friday’s filing, Spotify’s vp of music offered sworn testimony that the company “invests heavily” in efforts to “mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.”
“When we identify attempted stream manipulation, we take action that may include removing streaming numbers, withholding royalties and charging penalty fees,” David Kaefer wrote in the filing. “Confirmed and suspected artificial streams are also removed from our chart calculations. This helps us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hardworking artists.”
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department notches a 17th week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Dec. 21), as the set holds atop the list after rushing back to No. 1 a week ago after its deluxe Anthology edition was released on CD and vinyl exclusively at Target. In the tracking week ending Dec. 12, the album earned 240,000 equivalent album units (down 41%) in the U.S., according to Luminate, with over 80% of that sum driven by physical album sales.
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Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 chart, ROSÉ’s debut solo album rosie bows at No. 3, TWICE’s Strategy enters at No. 4 and Sabrina Carpenter’s holiday set Fruitcake reenters the chart at No. 10 for its first week in the top 10, after its wide physical release.
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The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Dec. 21, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Dec. 17). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of The Tortured Poets Department’s 240,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 12, traditional album sales comprise 201,000 (down 45%, it holds at No. 1 on Top Album Sales for a 10th nonconsecutive week), SEA units comprise 39,000 (up 6%; equaling 51.04 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it falls 9-10 on Top Streaming Albums) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum (up 27%).
TTPD was initially released on April 19 as a standard 16-song digital download album, as well as in an array of 17-song physical configurations. Two hours after the album dropped, Swift issued an expanded 31-song edition of the album, dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which added 15 additional songs. However, the Anthology edition was only available as a digital download and streaming set until Nov. 29, when its CD and vinyl editions became available for purchase exclusively through Target. The Target CD and vinyl additionally boast four bonus acoustic tracks (which were previously released in other alternative versions of the album).
Since the Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956, Poets is only the 18th album to have spent at least 17 weeks at No. 1, of more than 1,200 leaders. The last album to spend at least 17 weeks at No. 1 was Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which logged 19 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 between March 2023 and this March. The last album by a woman to spend at least 17 weeks at No. 1 prior to Poets was Adele’s 21, which earned 24 nonconsecutive weeks on top in 2011-12.
Kendrick Lamar’s former leader GNX is a non-mover at No. 2 on the latest Billboard 200 with 125,000 equivalent album units earned (down 24%). It remains at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums for a third straight week.
ROSÉ’s solo debut album, rosie, launches at No. 3 with 102,000 equivalent album units earned. Pop group BLACKPINK, of which she is a member, has logged a pair of top 10s, including the chart-topping BORN PINK in 2022.
Of the 102,000 equivalent album units earned by rosie in its opening week, album sales comprise 70,000 (it debuts at No. 3 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 31,000 (equaling 43.85 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it debuts at No. 17 on Top Streaming Albums) and TEA units comprise 1,000. The set’s first-week sales were bolstered by its availability across more than 15 physical variants of the album across CD and vinyl editions, many including collectible ephemera (some randomized).
The album was led by the single “APT.” with Bruno Mars, which debuted and peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the Streaming Songs chart, and has reached the top 30 on Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay and the all-format Radio Songs charts.
TWICE captures its sixth total and consecutive top 10-charting set on the Billboard 200 as STRATEGY debuts at No. 4 with 88,000 equivalent album units earned. It’s the second top 10 for the group in 2024, following their first chart-topper, With YOU-th (March 9-dated chart). Of the new set’s first-week units, album sales comprise 81,000 (it debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 6,500 (equaling 8.86 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise less than 500 units. The album’s first-week sales were aided by its availability across more than 15 CD and vinyl editions, all inclusive of collectible paper ephemera (some randomized).
Sabrina Carpenter’s chart-topping Short n’ Sweet is steady at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 (75,000 equivalent album units earned; up 10%); the Wicked film soundtrack falls 3-6 (74,000; down 31%); Michael Bublé’s former leader Christmas is a non-mover at No. 7 (62,000; up 10%); Bing Crosby’s Ultimate Christmas hits a new peak, rising 9-8 (56,000; up 13%); and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft slips 6-9 (56,000; down 6%).
Carpenter captures a second album in the top 10, and the second top 10 of her career, as her holiday effort Fruitcake re-enters the chart at No. 10 (a new peak) following its wide physical release on CD, vinyl and cassette on Dec. 6. In the tracking week ending Dec. 12, Fruitcake earned 54,000 equivalent album units (up 1,040%), with album sales comprising 39,000 (up 27,326%; it debuts at No. 4 on Top Album Sales) and SEA units comprising 15,000 (up 210%, equaling 19.65 million on-demand official streams of set’s songs).
Fruitcake was initially released in November 2023 as a digital download album for purchase and through streaming services. It had a limited vinyl release, exclusively through Carpenter’s official webstore in December 2023. On Dec. 6, the album became widely available on CD, cassette and three vinyl variants (including one exclusive to Target).
Carpenter is the sixth artist in 2024 to have at least two albums in the top 10 at the same time. Previously this year, Zach Bryan, Future, Metro Boomin, Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen all notched multiple projects in the top 10 concurrently.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a 16th nonconsecutive week, as the set vaults 8-1 on the chart dated Dec. 14, following the first physical release of the album’s deluxe Anthology edition, exclusively at Target in the U.S. The set earned 405,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 5 — up 839% — according to Luminate, largely driven by physical album sales. It’s the biggest week for any album since Poets’ second week, when it tallied 439,000 units.
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TTPD was initially released on April 19 as a standard 16-song digital download album, as well as an in array of 17-song physical configurations. Two hours after the album dropped, Swift issued an expanded 31-song edition of the album, dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which added 15 additional songs. However, the Anthology edition was only available as a digital download and streaming set until Nov. 29, when its CD and vinyl editions became available for purchase exclusively through Target. The Target CD and vinyl additionally boasted four bonus acoustic tracks (which were previously released in other alternative versions of the album).
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The announcement of Poets’ return to No. 1 comes on the same day (Dec. 8) that Swift closes her globe-trotting, stadium-filling The Eras Tour in Vancouver, after 149 dates. The retrospective trek launched in March 2023 and visited 21 countries across five continents.
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, Juice WRLD’s The Party Never Ends debuts at No. 4, securing the late rapper his sixth top five-charting set. Plus, the top 10 is getting festive, as the region welcomes its first holiday titles this season: Michael Bublé’s former No. 1 Christmas jingles 12-7 and Bing Crosby’s new compilation Ultimate Christmas dashes 18-9. With the latter, Crosby claims his first top 10 album in nearly 64 years.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Dec. 14, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Dec. 10). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of The Tortured Poets Department’s 405,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 5, traditional album sales comprise 368,000 (up 4,377%; it surges 17-1 on Top Album Sales for a ninth nonconsecutive week on top), SEA units comprise 37,000 (up 6%; equaling 48.19 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs; it holds at No. 9 on Top Streaming Albums) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum (down 21%).
Of TTPD’s 368,000 album sales for the week, vinyl sales comprise 191,000 (up 3,284%) and CD sales comprise 177,000 (up 7,738%), largely driven by sales from the exclusive editions sold at Target. (Digital download and cassette sales comprise a negligible sum for the week.)
Poets spent its first 12 weeks on the Billboard 200 at No. 1 (charts dated May 4-July 20), fell to No. 4 for two weeks, returned to No. 1 for three more weeks (Aug. 10-Aug. 24 charts) and then departed the top slot until the latest chart.
With a 16th week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, The Tortured Poets Department now solely has the third-most weeks at No. 1 among albums by women (since the list began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956). It steps past Carole King’s Tapestry, which registered 15 weeks at No. 1 in 1971. Only Adele’s 21 (24 weeks in 2011-12) and the Whitney Houston-led soundtrack to The Bodyguard (20 weeks in 1992-93) have more weeks at No. 1 among women.
The last album to spend at least 16 weeks at No. 1 was Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which logged 19 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 between March 2023 and this March. The last album by a woman to spend at least 16 weeks at No. 1 was Adele’s 21, which earned 24 nonconsecutive weeks on top in 2011-12.
With Poets — Swift’s longest-leading album on the Billboard 200 — she adds her 85th career week at No. 1 on the chart, extending her record among soloists. (Elvis Presley has the second-most among soloists, with 67.) The total encompasses her 14 No. 1 albums. (She’s tied with Jay-Z for the most No. 1s among soloists.)
Kendrick Lamar’s GNX falls 1-2 on the Billboard 200 in its second week with 165,000 equivalent album units earned (down 48%). The Wicked film soundtrack dips 2-3 in its second frame, with 108,000 units earned (down 22%).
The late Juice WRLD collects his sixth top five (and top 10) charting effort — the entirety of his charting releases — as The Party Never Ends debuts at No. 4. The set bows with 86,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 84,000 (equaling 123.43 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks; it debuts at No. 2 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 2,000 and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.
The new album was preceded by the Billboard Hot 100 chart hit “AGATS2 (Insecure)” (with Nicki Minaj), which reached No. 68 on the Nov. 30-dated chart. On the Hot Rap Songs chart, it debuted and peaked at No. 11.
The Party Never Ends is the third posthumously released charting effort for Juice WRLD, who died on Dec. 8, 2019. Since his passing, he’s notched Billboard 200 entries with Legends Never Die (two weeks at No. 1 in 2020), Fighting Demons (No. 2 in 2021) and now The Party Never Ends.
Sabrina Carpenter’s chart-topping Short n’ Sweet falls 3-5 on the Billboard 200 with 68,000 equivalent album units earned (down 1%), while Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft slips 5-6 with 59,000 units (though up 18%).
Bublé’s chart-topping Christmas returns to the Billboard 200’s top 10, jumping 12-7 with 56,000 equivalent album units earned (up 53%). The set, first released in 2011, spent five weeks at No. 1 in December 2011 and early January 2012 and has returned to the top 10 in every following holiday season. In the latest tracking week, of its 56,000 units, SEA units comprise 48,000 (up 59%; equaling 63.79 million on-demand official streams of its songs; it climbs 13-5 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 8,000 (up 23%; it falls 27-30 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess rises 10-8 on the Billboard 200 with 52,000 equivalent album units earned (up 23%).
The legendary Crosby is back in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 for the first time in nearly 64 years, as his new holiday compilation Ultimate Christmas climbs 18-9. The set earned 50,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Dec. 5 (up 59%). Of that sum, SEA units comprise 46,000 (up 62%; equaling 61.37 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks; it jumps 16-6 on Top Streaming Albums).
Crosby, who died in 1977, was last in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 with his classic Merry Christmas album, which ranked at No. 9 on the Dec. 31, 1960-dated chart. It had previously spent a week at No. 1 on Jan. 6, 1958-dated chart.
Merry Christmas became the second holiday album to top the Billboard 200, following its launch as a regularly published weekly chart in March 1956. Elvis Presley’s Elvis Christmas Album was the first chart-topping holiday set, as it topped the chart for three weeks in December 1957, moved aside for Crosby for a week and then returned to No. 1 for one more week in January 1958.
Ultimate Christmas is available as 14-song standard album, an expanded 28-song edition, and a deluxe 58-song version. All versions of the album contain such classic Holiday 100-charting tunes from Crosby as “White Christmas” (featuring The Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra), “It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?,” “Mele Kalikimaka” (with The Andrews Sisters) and “Silent Night” (featuring John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra and Max Terr’s Mixed Chorus).
Rounding out the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200 is Tyler, The Creator’s chart-topping CHROMAKOPIA, falling 4-10 with 49,000 equivalent album units earned (down 19%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Kendrick Lamar stamped his 2024 rap MVP campaign with a brand new album when GNX hit streaming services without any sort of warning on Friday (Nov. 22) around noon ET. Initially, a GNX teaser arrived on YouTube in the form of a one-minute snippet, and fans hoped it meant the start of a rollout. But […]
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Raygun, a b-girl who competed for Australia at the inaugural breaking competition at this year’s Summer Olympics, turned heads during the event with some questionable dance moves and went viral in memes. Raygun announced during an interview with an Australian outlet that she is no longer going to compete in breaking and will retire.
Raygun, real name Rachael Gunn, was a guest on The Jimmy & Nath Show and explained why she’s walking away from the sport of breaking after receiving negative commentary regarding her time in the competition. In so many words, Gunn says that her love of dancing led her to the world stage but that competing is no longer on the table for her after the backlash.
“I’m not going to compete anymore, no,” Gunn said earlier this week. “I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now to approach a battle.”
Away from breaking, Gunn is an educator for Macquarie University Faculty of Arts for its Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature. Gunn famously penned her PhD thesis, “Deterritorializing gender in Sydney’s breakdancing scene: a B-girl’s experience of B-boying,” from her standpoint of becoming involved with breaking in her home country.
Raygun didn’t score one point during her time in the Summer Olympics breaking event, prompting many online to believe she was placed on the stage as a means to draw ratings or cause controversy. Gunn has since shot down the claim.
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Photo: Getty
Australian breaker Rachael Gunn, or “b-girl Raygun,” holds the top spot in her sport’s latest world rankings despite Olympic performances that led to online ridicule. On Tuesday, the sport’s governing body issued a statement to “provide clarity” on why Raygun tops the rankings. Raygun, a 37-year-old university lecturer from Sydney, failed to score any points at […]
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Red Bull BC One, the largest Breaking competition in the world, will make its return this year and the stakes remain as high as ever. Red Bull BC One just unveiled its 2024 United States competition schedule with the final taking place in Los Angeles.
Breaking has enjoyed quite a resurgence and much of that is due to the efforts of Red Bull BC One, which features B-Boys and B-Girls from around the globe taking on one another in a chance to represent their country for the world title. The art form that was created within the underground also enjoyed a moment in the mainstream after the 2024 Summer Olympics featured Breaking as an event.
Victor Montalvo, the bronze medalist for Team USA’s Breaking team on the men’s side, echoed the significance of Breaking being seen on the world stage in a statement.
“Before Paris, the biggest international breaking competition you wanted to win was Red Bull BC One, which has been around since 2004,” says two-time Red Bull BC One World Champion and Olympic medalist, Victor Montalvo, better known as B-Boy Victor. “Paris was the first look at competitive breaking for many people around the world, but the breaking scene has grown significantly since the 80’s. Red Bull BC One has not only played a pivotal role in my success and breaking journey, but it’s also the best event to tune into if you want a real look into the true spirit of the dance. I hope breaking’s new revival attracts even more fans to the competition.”
Source: Red Bull / Red Bull Content Pool
Hip-Hop Wired has the honor of attending past BC One events and we can attest to what B-Boy Victor expressed. The competition features some of the best dancers across the nation, and the connection within the community was beautiful to witness.
This year, the 2024 season will hold two “Regional Cyphers” serving as qualifying rounds for dancers and the winners of the qualifiers will then compete at the National Cypher in Los Angeles, which is officially the BC One National Championships event.
The first Cypher, Regional Cypher East, will take place in Philadelphia, Pa. on September 7, and the Regional Cypher West event takes place in Denver, Colo. on September 20th. Among the qualifiers will be specially invited dancers known as “wildcards” and winners of the Red Bull BC One City Cypher Series, several smaller local competitions that were held in Boston, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, and New York City.
Source: Red Bull / Red Bull Content Pool
A total of 16 B-Boys and eight B-Girls will face off at the Cypher East and Cypher West in the BC One’s usual bracket format featuring a panel of judges who are from the Breaking scene.
At the conclusion of the Regional Cyphers, the National Cypher festivities will begin on Thursday, September 26 with the annual Red Bull BC One Camp USA, which will be teeming with knowledgeable dancers and figures from the community and also a place for people new to Breaking to learn more about the sport. On Saturday, September 28, the BC One USA National Cypher will take place on the world-famous Venice Beach in California. The World Final will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December 7.
The schedule is below. Click here to learn more about Red Bull BC One, including where to watch online.
RED BULL BC ONE U.S. SCHEDULE
● East Cypher [Philadelphia, PA]: Saturday, September 7, Dilworth Park
● West Cypher [Denver, CO]: Friday, September 20, Temple Nightclub Denver
● Red Bull BC One Camp [Los Angeles, CA]: September 26 – 27
● Red Bull BC One USA National Cypher [Los Angeles, CA]: Saturday, September 28,
Venice Beach Boardwalk
● World Final [Rio de Janeiro, Brazil]: December 7, Farmasi Arena
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Photo: Red Bull Content Pool