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Twenty One Pilots land a second No. 1 in Australia with Clancy (via Atlantic/Warner), the U.S. act’s seventh and latest studio album.
Hailing from Columbus, OH, Twenty One Pilots now boast four top 10s on the ARIA Chart, including 2018 leader Trench, plus 2015’s Blurryface (No. 7 peak) and Scaled and Icy (No. 3) in 2021.
Clancy is also on track for the U.K. crown, having led the midweek tally ahead of Paul Weller’s 66 and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.
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After bowing at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft (Interscope/Universal) dips 1-2, while Swift’s Tortured Poets (Universal) slips 2-3.
U.K. heavy rock band Bring Me The Horizon enjoy a top 10 start in Australia with Post Human: Nex Gen (RCA/Sony), their ninth studio album. It’s new at No. 4 on the ARIA Chart, published Friday, May 31. The fresh release is the second in the four-album Post Human series. The first, Post Human: Survival Horror, peaked at No. 3 in 2020. The Sheffield, England act has led the national chart on four occasions: There Is A Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It, There Is A Heaven Let’s Keep It A Secret (in 2010), Sempiternal (2013), That’s The Spirit (2015) and Amo (2019).
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Homegrown hip-hop favorites Hilltop Hoods return to the top 10 with Walking Under Stars (Island/Universal), thanks to a 10th anniversary edition. The LP logged two weeks at No. 1 in 2014 for two weeks and is one of the Adelaide trio’s five consecutive No. 1 studio albums. Walking Under Stars won best urban album at the ARIA Awards, one of the group’s 10 career ARIAs.
Over on the singles chart, Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” (Concrete Boat Boy) enters a second week at No. 1, while country tracks Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (Empire) and Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” (Universal) respectively complete the top 3.
The top new entry on the current frame belongs to U.S. country star Zach Bryan, whose “Pink Skies” (Warner) open up at No. 15. It’s Bryan’s third top 20 hit in Australia, following “Something In The Orange” and “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves, which both peaked at No. 6.
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Let’s open the latest mailbag.
‘Help’-ing Hands
Hi Gary,
Where does Post Malone rank among artists with the most collaborative Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s? Thanks to his current leader “I Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wallen, and following his featured role on Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight,” which topped the chart earlier this month, five of his six No. 1s have been collaborations.
Also, “I Had Some Help” is notable for Post Malone’s musical versatility, given his history on numerous genre charts.
Thanks for any, well, help!
Pablo NelsonOakland, Calif.
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Hi Pablo,
Teamwork makes the dream work, per “I Had Some Help,” a strategy that has resulted in Post Malone tying for the second-most collaborative No. 1s in the Hot 100’s history.
Let’s look at the artists with the most Hot 100 No. 1s overall, the most on their own and the most with other billed artists (either in lead or featured roles), from the chart’s Aug. 4, 1958, inception through the ranking dated June 1.
Most Hot 100 No. 1s Overall:
20, The Beatles
19, Mariah Carey
14, Rihanna
13, Michael Jackson
13, Drake
12, Madonna
12, The Supremes
12, Taylor Swift
11, Whitney Houston
10, Janet Jackson
10, Stevie Wonder
9, Bee Gees
9, Beyoncé
9, Ariana Grande
9, Elton John
9, Paul McCartney
9, Katy Perry
9, Usher
Most Noncollaborative Hot 100 No. 1s:
19, The Beatles
16, Mariah Carey
12, Madonna
12, The Supremes
11, Whitney Houston
11, Michael Jackson
10, Janet Jackson
10, Taylor Swift
9, Bee Gees
8, The Rolling Stones
8, Stevie Wonder
7, Elvis Presley
Most Collaborative Hot 100 No. 1s:
8, Drake
8, Rihanna
5, Beyoncé
5, Justin Bieber
5, Diddy
5, Ludacris
5, Post Malone
The Beatles boast both the most Hot 100 No. 1s overall, 20, and without any other billed acts, 19; “Get Back,” which was amid its five-week reign 55 years ago this week, is co-billed with Billy Preston.
With collaborations more common in recent decades, and long prominent in hip-hop, Drake and Rihanna have each scored a record eight Hot 100 No. 1s with other credited acts, including two together: “What’s My Name?,” in 2010, and “Work,” in 2016.
Meanwhile, Swift is the only act whose chart career began the 2000s with a double-digit total of noncollaborative Hot 100 No. 1s. She and Mariah Carey are the only such acts whose chart histories date back no further than the 1990s.
Notably on the third list above, Diddy and Ludacris are the only artists with as many as five Hot 100 No. 1s in collaboration with other acts and no other leading hits, theirs all augmented by other rappers and singers including Faith Evans, Fergie and Pharrell.
Conversely, Madonna and The Supremes are the acts with the most Hot 100 No. 1s all without any guests, 12 out of 12 each.
As for Post Malone, prior to his two latest No. 1s, he ruled the Hot 100 with his lone leader on his own: “Circles,” for three weeks in 2019. In addition to Wallen and Swift, he has shared his stays atop the chart with Swae Lee, 21 Savage and Ty Dolla $ign.
Regarding his sonic versatility, “I Had Some Help” has given Post Malone his first Hot Country Songs No. 1, to go along with five on Hot Rap Songs and four on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, as well as one on Hot Alternative Songs, via his having joined on Noah Kahan’s “Dial Drunk.” He has also hit No. 3 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, as featured, with Preme, on Tiësto and Dzeko’s 2018 hit “Jackie Chan.” Latin is additionally on his chart résumé, as his first Hot 100 No. 1 (and one that shouts out another genre), “Rockstar,” featuring 21 Savage, spent a week on Latin Airplay in 2018.
Republic co-founder/CEO Monte Lipman told Billboard in 2022 that when the label signed Post Malone in 2015, “We kept reinforcing [that] Post rely on instincts. We also crystallized our position that we’d remain incredibly patient and support Post’s creative endeavors.”
Said Post Malone, “The whole thing is that you don’t want to compromise your art and your gut vibe on anything.”
‘Breakfast’ Before ‘Lunch’
Gary,
As (the perhaps radio-ready) “Lunch” by Billie Eilish debuts on the Hot 100 at No. 5, can you please provide a list of charted hits with “breakfast,” “lunch” and “dinner” in their titles?
Thanks,
Jesper TanSubang Jaya, Malaysia
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Hi Jesper,
Seemingly surprisingly, Billie Eilish scores the first Hot 100 hit with “lunch” in its title. Honorable mention: Lunchmoney Lewis served up two entries in 2015-16.
In the lead in the category, five songs with “breakfast” in their titles have reached the Hot 100 (along with two by The Breakfast Club, led by 1987’s No. 7-peaking “Right on Track”):
No. 4, 2007, “Cupid’s Chokehold/Breakfast in America,” Gym Class Heroes, feat. Patrick Stump
No. 5, 1996, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Deep Blue Something
No. 62, 1980, “Breakfast in America,” Supertramp
No. 91, 1969, “Breakfast in Bed,” Dusty Springfield
No. 92 1976, “Breakfast for Two,” Country Joe McDonald
“Lunch” is now tied with “dinner” in terms of appearances in Hot 100 hits’ titles: “Dinner With Gershwin” by Donna Summer reached No. 48 in 1987.
No songs with “brunch,” “supper” or even “snack” in their titles have hit the Hot 100.
(Still, this likely remains pop culture’s lightest menu.)
King & Prince reign over the Billboard Japan Hot 100 with “halfmoon,” blasting in at No. 1 on the chart released May 29. The Takeshi Kobayashi-produced title track off the duo’s 15th single “halfmoon/moooove!” is being featured as the theme of the drama series Tokyo Tower starring member Ren Nagase. To celebrate the sixth anniversary […]
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip.
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This week: Kehlani sees bumps both for her own song and a song named after her, while Central Cee and Lil Baby have a trans-continental hit on her hands and a devastating ’80s synth-pop classic goes viral for surprisingly blithe reasons.
Kehlani’s Name Spurs Streaming Wins for Herself & Belfast Singer-Songwriter Jordan Adetunji
In just a few weeks (June 27), Kehlani will unleash Crash, her third studio album. “After Hours,” the set’s lead single, is already pulling ample streaming traction, but so is a breakout hit named after her from Belfast singer-songwriter Jordan Adetunji.
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Released on May 19, Adetunji’s “Kehlani” collected over 115,000 official on-demand U.S. streams in its first three days of release (May 19-21), according to Luminate. Four days before the track hit DSPs, Adetunji posted a snippet of the song to his official TikTok account, writing, “Bro wrote a whole song about Kehlani, but why it kinda go hard,” alongside a bevy of popular hashtags, including “#cashcobain,” “#melodicdrill,” “#slizzymusic” and, of course, “#kehlani.” On May 18, Kehlani herself left a singular flame emoji under his post.
Over the same period the following week (May 26-28), “Kehlani” jumped 434% in streaming activity to 615,000 streams. In addition to the song naturally gaining traction on socials — “Kehlani” plays in the three pinned TikToks on Adetunji’s page, all of which have garnered at least 870,000 views each – a more explicit co-sign from Kehlani helped get the ball rolling.
On May 23, Kehlani posted a pair of TikToks featuring her vibing and lip-syncing to the track. The more recent video of the two has since earned over five million views and over one million likes on the platform, directing plenty of new listeners to Adetunji’s track. The official “Kehlani” TikTok sound currently boasts over 12,5000 posts.
Of course, Kehlani’s magic doesn’t stop there. With the release of a “Cater 2 U Mix” for “After Hours” and increased visibility due to her passionate social media pleas in support of the Free Palestine movement, the Crash lead single has enjoyed a significant streaming bump. During the period of May 17-21, “After Hours” pulled in 2.1 million official on-demand U.S. streams. By the period of May 24-28, that number jumped 55% to 3.3 million streams. – KYLE DENIS
Central Cee & Lil Baby Rack Up a New Hit With ‘BAND4BAND’
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After dominating the UK. alongside Dave with “Sprinter” last summer and earning his first Billboard Hot 100 with his Drake-assisted “On the Radar Freestyle” (No. 80), Central Cee is gearing up for another hit on both sides of the pond – and this time Lil Baby is along for the ride.
This U.K.-Atlanta drill-based link-up earned 1.93 million official on-demand U.S. streams on its first day of release (May 24). Streams for “BAND4BAND” remained stable throughout the week, eventually hitting 2.04 million streams on May 27. By the following day (May 28), that number rose 29% to 2.64 million streams, marking the strongest streaming day out of the track’s first five days of release. With a total of 10.2 million streams in its first five days of the week, “BAND4BAND” is already off to a very promising start.
The new track has also already exploded on TikTok, with the official “BAND4BAND” sound garnering over 97,000 posts in just one week. Most users are using Cench and Baby’s back-and-forth hook to show-off their hilarious “U.S.” and “U.K.” sides. Over on YouTube, the official “BAND4BAND” music video has pulled in over 14 million views in under a week.
Should “BAND4BAND” hold steady, Cench and Baby could be looking at the next global rap smash. – KD
Heartbreaking Bronski Beat Classic Revived for Light-Hearted TikTok Trend
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Bronski Beat’s 1985 hit “Small Town Boy” was never a huge chart smash in the U.S. — it peaked at just No. 48 on the Billboard Hot 100, though it reached No. 3 on the U.K.’s Official Charts. But the song remains well-remembered for its passionately delivered lyrics and evocative music video, a tearjerking tale of a young gay man’s rejection and alienation from mainstream society. However, the song is making the rounds again in 2024 for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with its content, and everything to do with its propulsive synth hook and danceable post-disco beat.
TikTok has really gotten swept up in the #80sDanceChallenge, in which users take videos of their parents dancing to a lightly sped-up version of the pulsing intro to “Small Town Boy” — supposedly with the moves they would’ve used if boogieing to the song back in the ’80s. No less an early-MTV-era authority than Cyndi Lauper has gotten in on the fun, posting a CapCut edit of some old performance footage of her full-bodied dancing set to “Boy,” with the caption, “Oh #80s #dancechallenge you say?”
The clips, several of which have already racked up millions of likes, have helped the song find new life on streaming: “Boy” racked up over 1.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams for the tracking week ending May 23, according to Luminate — a 114% gain from the 705,000 streams the song notched four weeks earlier, before the trend really took off. Bronski Beat singer Jimmy Somerville also shared a TikTok celebrating the song’s recent 40th anniversary, singing along to the song’s now-viral intro and sharing his joy at how the song has been revived.
“Everything is just kind of going so crazy in the world,” he said. “But here, on TikTok, there’s all these people just finding a moment to just have a bit of fun … It’s just been brilliant.” – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. Next week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated June 8), a cult favorite act looks to get in the way of Billie Eilish’s latest and Taylor Swift’s unsinkable blockbuster.
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Twenty One Pilots, Clancy (Fueled by Ramen): For a couple years in the mid-‘10s, the duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun made the jump from regional Columbus, Ohio sensations to national hitmakers to legitimate A-listers, scoring a trio of Hot 100 top five hits and accepting Grammys in their underwear. Those days of massive crossover success are likely behind Twenty One Pilots at this point – their lone Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hit of the 2020s came at the beginning of the decade, with the COVID-themed “Level of Concern” – but the massive following the group accrued over those years has largely hung around, and should make them a contender for the top of the Billboard 200 this week for their latest LP Clancy.
The new album (released two Fridays ago, May 17) follows 2021’s Scaled and Icy, which debuted at No. 3 with 75,000 equivalent album units. Clancy has the advantage of arriving as the much-hyped final installment in their conceptual series dating back to 2015’s breakthrough set Blurryface, loosely telling the story of the titular Clancy in the dystopian city of Dema. The set should have modest streaming success – helped by the visual album aspect of the release, with videos filmed for each of its 14 tracks – but will likely do most of its damage in physical sales. To that end, the duo has released Clancy in 11 different-colored vinyl variants, as well as in signed and unsigned zine/CD journal packages and digipak CDs, and a couple deluxe CD box sets with branded merch included inside. On May 29, the group also released a limited-time Clancy – Digital Remains deluxe edition – only available until midnight on May 30 — which features four recently recorded live bonus tracks, as well as a lengthy exclusive digital booklet offering behind-the-scenes photos.
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Even with impressive sales and solid streams, Clancy will still be fighting an uphill battle trying to get to No. 1 next week, with the two sets that sparred for No. 1 last week – Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft – still posting massive numbers on streaming. With both of those artists essentially emptying the bench last week of their remaining deluxe editions and CD variants on sale for their respective new albums, however, Clancy could have a real advantage in sales. But the album will have to post a much better first-week units figure than Scaled and Icy’s 75,000 – likely at least in the low six figures – to really have a chance of passing either.
IN THE MIX
RM, Right Place, Wrong Person (Big Hit/Geffen): The BTS alum’s follow-up to 2022’s No. 3-peaking Billboard 200 hit debut album Indigo is even looser, more expansive and more sonically diverse than that impressive first effort. That means that RM still hasn’t scored a solo hit single or global streaming mega-smash like his bandmates Jimin and Jung Kook – who both topped the Hot 100 in 2023 – but it means he’s cultivating an albums audience, which will have the option of purchasing Right Place, Wrong Person in 13 different CD variants, all containing branded paper merch and other collectibles.
Wallows, Model (Atlantic): Like Twenty One Pilots, Wallows are no longer at the peak of their crossover moment – which was much more modest than that duo’s to begin with – but retain an extremely loyal following, one which should help their third album Model become one of the week’s top debuts. The set is available in a dozen different-colored vinyl variants – with three signed editions available on their website, one signed by each member – as well as a couple cassette and CD editions, while the group spent this week doing in-store promotional appearances at indie retailers.
Sexyy Red, In Sexyy We Trust (Rebel/gamma.): Sexyy Red was one of 2023’s biggest breakout stars, with her acclaimed Hood Hottest Princess mixtape and breakout hits “Pound Town” and “SkeeYee,” which she’s already one-upped this year with the No. 20-peaking Hot 100 hit “Get It Sexyy.” That song can be found on her new mixtape In Sexyy We Trust, as well as a new teamup with her “Rich Baby Daddy” collaborator Drake, “U My Everything,” which samples the “BBL Drizzy” beat that producer Metro Boomin had been using to mock Drake as part of the latter’s ongoing feud with Kendrick Lamar. That song has gotten off to a slower-than-expected start on some DSPs – perhaps as exhaustion with the larger feud finally starts to set in – but the set should still fare well on streaming, with the album currently only available digitally.
After succeeding Lay Bankz’s “Tell Ur Girlfriend,” a three-week No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” also strings together its third frame atop the tally, ranking at No. 1 on the June 1-dated survey.
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The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity May 20-26. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Million Dollar Baby” is the fifth song with at least three weeks at No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 since its September 2023 inception. Mitski’s “My Love Mine All Mine” is the all-time leader with a six-week reign.
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“Million Dollar Baby” concurrently ranks at No. 3 on the multimetric Billboard Hot 100 via 55.9 million official U.S. streams, 15.2 million radio audience impressions and 7,000 downloads in the week ending May 23, according to Luminate.
Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” which spent its first week in the top five of the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated May 25, jumps to a new peak of No. 2 on the latest list, followed by Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,” which debuts at No. 3.
As for “Birds of a Feather,” the song marks the second week of debuts from Eilish’s newly released album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. “Blue” led the pack on the May 25 tally with a No. 13 bow, with “Chihiro” also appearing at No. 49.
More songs from Hit Me Hard and Soft populate the June 1 list, but “Birds of a Feather” is far and away the top performer so far with its No. 3 debut. The song’s main trend features friends posting videos together, either past or present, highlighting their friendship. Eilish’s “birds of a feather/ we should stick together” chorus soundtracks the footage.
“Birds of a Feather” concurrently bows at No. 13 on the Hot 100 thanks to 25.3 million streams and 3,000 downloads. The album’s top-performing tune on the Hot 100, “Lunch” (No. 5), is one of the other Eilish tunes to reach the TikTok Billboard Top 50, starting at No. 13, led mostly by lip-synch content.
Below “Birds of a Feather,” Lay Bankz’s “Tell Ur Girlfriend” and Future, Metro Boomin, Playboi Carti and Travis Scott’s “Type Shit” rounds out the top five.
“Birds of a Feather” isn’t the only song to hit the top 10 for the first time. Tinashe’s “Nasty” leaps from No. 12 to No. 7, and Cayo’s “Close” shoots 28-9 while Luis R Conriquez and Neton Vega’s “Si No Quieres No” jumps 18-10.
“Nasty,” originally released April 12, has accelerated in recent weeks thanks to a dance trend on TikTok, as has “Close,” premiered in March. While “Nasty” has a few additional appearance on the Billboard charts under its belt, paced by a No. 10 debut on the Hot R&B Songs ranking dated June 1 (2.9 million streams), the TikTok Billboard Top 50 is the only chart appearance so far for “Close,” though it enjoys a 104% jump in streams to 385,000 in the week ending May 23.
As for “Si No Quieres No,” the duet’s TikTok rise (soundtracking a variety of content with no major throughline trend) coincides with a continued spike on other streaming services, rising 10% to 9.6 million streams.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
Billboard Boxscore unveiled its midyear 2024 charts earlier today, and in addition to U2’s Sphere shows dominating various rankings, there are brand new venue charts that highlight some of the most iconic concert halls in the world. Historically, Boxscore’s capacity-specific venue charts have gone as far down to rooms that hold 5,000 people or less. In an effort to spotlight more clubs and small theaters, there are now separate charts for venues with capacities of 2,501-5k, and 2,500 or less.
Leading the inaugural 2,501-5k chart is Atlanta’s Fox Theatre. Across the eligibility period of Oct. 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024, its 110 shows earned a combined $34.5 million and sold 434,000 tickets. The theater hosted several national touring companies performing iconic Broadway shows, such as Annie, Beetlejuice and Hamilton. There were also highlights from Janelle Monae, My Morning Jacket, Steve Miller Band and the double-bill of Tina Fey & Amy Poehler.
The Fox Theatre finished second on year-end rankings in 2022 and 2023 and was No. 6 on last year’s midyear tally for venues with a capacity of 5,000 or less. Several other perennial theaters appear, with the Beacon Theatre (New York), Chicago Theatre (Chicago), Resorts World Theatre (Las Vegas) and the Au-Rene Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts (Fort Lauderdale) rounding out the top five.
Among rooms with a capacity of 2,500 or less, Teatro Telcel in Mexico City reigns supreme, with a $14 million take from 248,000 tickets sold. Like the Fox Theatre, the CDMX venue’s gross was plumped up by theatrical productions, specifically Anastasia The Musical. Just beneath, Las Vegas’ Encore Theater at Wynn Resort is No. 2 with $13.2 million. Both venues would have been in the top 10 on the old combined 5k-cap-and-below chart.
What follows is a parade of some of the most iconic clubs and small theaters in the U.S. (Teatro Telcel is the only international venue on the chart). New York and Washington, D.C. are each represented twice. The former appears at Nos. 11 and 13 with Brooklyn Steel and Webster Hall, respectively, both booked and promoted by AEG Presents/The Bowery Presents. The latter is at Nos. 12 and 17 with IMP Presents’ 9:30 Club and Lincoln Theatre.
On the west coast, Seattle doubles up. Again, it’s a two-fer from AEG Presents, with Showbox SODO at No. 7 and its sister venue Showbox rounding out the list at No. 20.
Theaters still dominate the lower-capacity ranking, with the top six spots devoted to seated venues. But starting with Showbox SODO, general-admission clubs proliferate the back-end, with Atlanta’s The Eastern (No. 9) and Montreal’s MTelus (No. 15) rubbing up against San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre (No. 10) and the Philadelphia-area Keswick Theatre (No. 18).
Concert industry experts generally thought 2024 would be a down year — or at least less busy than 2023, when Taylor Swift and Beyoncé catapulted the sector to new heights and challenged the personnel within it to keep pace amid its explosive growth.
But so far, 2024 hasn’t brought much rest for the weary. The touring business is entering the summer fueled by huge concert grosses that are unprecedented for the midyear mark, according to Billboard Boxscore.
At midyear, grosses for the top 10 entries on the Top Tours chart total a collective $1.5 billion, up a staggering 83% from last year’s figure of $814.9 million. That marks the first time the combined gross of the top 10 tours has crossed $1 billion by the halfway point. Last year, only two tours — Elton John and Harry Styles — had generated more than $100 million at midyear. This year, eight of them have.
Leading the chart period, which spanned from Oct. 1, 2023, to March 30, 2024, is U2, which opened the new Sphere venue in Las Vegas with a residency that grossed $231.6 million from 38 shows during that time. (U2’s full 40-date Sphere run grossed $244.5 million, though the first two shows, which took place Sept. 29 and Sept. 30, occurred just before the chart period began.)
On the strength of her fall North American tour along with February and March dates in Oceania, P!nk ranks second on the midyear tally with $196 million grossed from 42 shows. At No. 3, Madonna logged 67 of her Celebration Tour’s 80 dates during the period and grossed $190.6 million for a No. 3 rank (the trek wrapped in early May). Rounding out the chart’s top 10 are three Latin tours (Luis Miguel; RBD; and Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull and Ricky Martin), three pop and rock acts (Coldplay, Depeche Mode and the Eagles) and Travis Scott, the sole hip-hop artist in the ranking’s upper tier, who brought in $96 million from 44 North American arena shows on his Circus Maximus Tour — marking the rapper’s first outing since the deadly 2021 Astroworld festival.
The big revenue gain for the chart period’s top-earning tours, during what is normally the slower half of the year, is further evidence that — driven largely by international growth in Asia, South America and Australia — the concert business has become an increasingly year-round business.
Leading the Top Promoters midyear chart with $2.8 billion grossed is Live Nation, which has long advocated for steady, incremental international growth. Its main competitor, AEG — No. 2 on Top Promoters with $976.8 million grossed — produced Taylor Swift’s ongoing The Eras Tour through its partnership with Messina Touring Group and has also continued to expand its footprint globally. Swift did not report her The Eras Tour data to Billboard during the chart period, when she played 26 shows across South America, Australia and Asia.
SPHERE IS HERE
Individual music venues rarely change the entire touring landscape, but few facilities have captured the public’s imagination quite like Las Vegas’ Sphere. With its ground-breaking interior sound and video display — not to mention its light-up, skyline-dominating exterior — the venue has effectively created a new tier of high-end concert experience.
U2’s No. 1 ranking on Top Tours was driven solely by the 38 U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere shows from Oct. 1, 2023, through the residency’s conclusion on March 2, 2024. Those concerts grossed $231.6 million from 630,000 tickets sold, with U2 averaging a $6.1 million gross per show from an average ticket price of $368. While a few megastars have earned more from Vegas residencies, none have ever earned so much from so few shows.
While those in the industry largely view fans’ willingness to increasingly shell out for premium concert experiences as a net positive, some live executives predict that other parts of the sector — festivals, namely — may begin to feel a competitive pinch.
“It’s already getting difficult for festivals to find headliners,” says Wasserman Music agent Sam Hunt, who represents major acts such as Diplo, Run the Jewels and The xx, noting that artists used to make substantially more money headlining festivals than they did headlining arenas. But new ticket-pricing tools have significantly increased what artists can make playing the latter.
That shift in financial posture for the touring business comes amid increasingly frequent festival cancellations, and those woes have extended to the top of the market: This year, Coachella was slow to sell after its initial on-sale and ended up down about 20% in attendance compared with 2023.
Given the choice between festivals and headlining concerts at arenas and stadiums, fans are increasingly choosing the latter. “There is no more comfortable way to enjoy a show than an arena — especially the newer facilities,” says Mark Shulman, senior vp of programming at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y., just outside of Queens, which opened in late 2021. “The modern arena is a concert palace, with incredible acoustics, comfortable seats and tons of bathrooms, plus all kinds of food and beverage options.”
DOJ LAWSUIT LOOMS
The sector’s momentum may be hindered by the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in late May seeking to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster 14 years after the government approved the merger of the two companies. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia joined the lawsuit, which alleges an illegal monopoly in the live entertainment industry. “It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the suit.
For the government to prove that Live Nation is a monopoly, it must demonstrate that the company has a dominant market share. Though Billboard’s midyear report only measures the top line of the concert market — during the slowest two quarters of the year — it does offer context about the mega-promoter’s clout.
Take the Top Promoters chart. Live Nation and AEG rank first and second, respectively, followed at No. 3 by OCESA — the Mexican promotion company Live Nation purchased in December 2021 — with $403 million in sales. Of the $5.4 billion spent globally on concert tickets to events promoted by the top 20 promoters during the midyear period, according to Boxscore, Live Nation and OCESA accounted for $3.2 billion in sales — about 60% of the total.
That tracks closely to the Top Tours chart, where 31 tours — nearly two-thirds of the overall list of 50 — were produced by Live Nation. Of the top 10 tours, only one, Luis Miguel, was produced by another company. (If Swift had reported data for her AEG-produced The Eras Tour, she undoubtedly would have swelled the number of non-Live Nation productions in the top 10 to two. However, Billboard’s analysis is based only on global data that is voluntarily reported to Billboard Boxscore by promoters, venues and artists.)
A large part of the DOJ’s inquiry into Live Nation will revolve around the company’s ownership of Ticketmaster, which it acquired in 2010, along with the platform’s current market share of the concert ticketing business. On that front, Billboard found that 69 of the top 100 venues across Boxscore’s five highest-capacity charts at midyear were Ticketmaster clients.
This story will appear in the June 1, 2024, issue of Billboard.
New Kids On the Block’s first full-length studio album in over a decade, Still Kids, debuts at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated June 1). The set also arrives at No. 9 on the Independent Albums chart, and No. 12 on the Vinyl Albums tally.
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The set sold 14,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending May 23, according to Luminate. The effort is the vocal group’s first full-length studio project since 2013’s 10.
New Kids On the Block’s overall Billboard chart history runs almost exactly 38 years, to when the single “Be My Girl” debuted on the now-named Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart dated June 7, 1986. The group would later rack up 13 hits on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, including a trio of No. 1s. Over on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart, the act has logged a dozen entries (among them two No. 1s), including the new set, which bows at No. 56.
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Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department holds atop the list for a fourth nonconsecutive week, while albums debut from Billie Eilish, Zayn, Slash, Cage the Elephant, The Avett Brothers, Kerry King and Kate Hudson.
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.
The Tortured Poets Department holds at No. 1 with 201,000 copies sold (up 413%) after an array of drivers helped the set post its first weekly sales gain. Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft launches at No. 2 with 191,000 – marking Eilish’s best sales week ever.
Zayn returns to the chart with his first new album since 2021, and his best sales week since 2016, as Room Under the Stairs starts at No. 3 with 24,000 sold. Slash’s new blues covers project Orgy of the Damned, boasting an array of guest artists such as Gary Clark Jr and Chris Stapleton, bows at No. 5 with a little over 10,000 sold.
Cage the Elephant’s Neon Pill enters at No. 6 (9,000), The Avett Brothers’ self-titled album debuts at No. 7 (8,000), SEVENTEEN’s SEVENTEEN Best Album ‘17 Is Right Here’ falls 4-8 (7,000), guitarist Kerry King’s solo debut From Hell I Rise arrives at No. 9 (7,000) and Kate Hudson’s debut studio album Glorious bows at No. 10 (nearly 7,000).
Álvaro Díaz bounds back onto Billboard’s Latin Rhythm Albums chart as his new album, Sayonara, debuts at No. 8 on the list dated June 1. The 20-track set, released on Universal Music Latino, becomes his first top 10 in more than seven years.
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“I’m happy and I hope this a new beginning in my career,” Díaz tells Billboard. “It’s always great to see oneself in lists such as Billboard, continuing the sound with which one started.”
Sayonara, which dropped on May 17, the first day of the tracking week, earned 7,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending May 23, according to Luminate. The album’s opening sum is mostly driven by streaming activity. The figure equals to 9.58 million on-demand official streams for the set’s songs during the tracking week.
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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.
Díaz returns to Latin Rhythm Albums for the first time since Dec. 2016, when San Juan Grand Prix, his first chart entry there, debuted and peaked at No. 4, for one week in the top 10.
Elsewhere, the Puerto Rican claims his third entry on the overall Top Latin Albums, where Sayonara launches at No. 14. While San Juan Grand Prix concurrently earned Díaz his maiden chart performance in 2016, in between Felicilandia arrived at its No. 48 high in Nov. 2021.
Only one song preceded Sayonara, “1000Canciones” with San Senra, Díaz’s second top 10: No. 10 peak in April 2023, after “A Donde Van,” with Sebastián Yatra, took him to an equal No. 10 high in Oct. 2020.
Beyond “1000Canciones,” the set’s “Gatitas Sandungueras, Vol. 1,” with Feid, opens at No. 34 on the multi-metric Hot Latin Songs charts, which combines airplay, digital sales and streams. The song logged 2.3 million official U.S. streams.
