Chart Beat
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Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department reaches a 15th week atop the Billboard 200 chart (dated Aug. 24) — tying Carole King’s Tapestry for the third-most weeks at No. 1 among albums by women. The latter spent 15 frames 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.
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Tortured Poets earned 85,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 15 (down 40%), according to Luminate.
Meanwhile, in a quiet top 10 (where no albums debut for the second time in three weeks), Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess hits a new peak for the third week in a row, as it climbs 3-2 with 72,000 units (up 13%), a new weekly high, by units, for the set.
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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 Aug. 24, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Aug. 20. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of The Tortured Poets Department’s 85,000 units earned in the week ending Aug. 15, SEA units comprise 57,000 (down 1%, equaling 74.77 on-demand official streams of the set’s widely available deluxe edition’s 31 songs), album sales comprise 28,000 (down 67%) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum (up 5%). On the Top Streaming Albums chart, Poets falls 2-3 and on the Top Album Sales chart, it clocks an eighth week at No. 1.
With Tortured Poets — Swift’s longest-leading album on the Billboard 200 — she adds her 84th career week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, 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.)
In the tracking week of Aug. 9-15, news continued to emerge from the foiled terror attack on Swift’s cancelled Eras Tour dates in Vienna. The three Vienna dates (Aug. 8-10) were nixed on Aug. 7 and were the first cancelled shows of the tour, which began on March 17, 2023. On Aug. 15, the tour continued on to its scheduled five-night stand at London’s Wembley Stadium (Aug. 15-17, 19-20), for The Eras Tour’s final shows in Europe.
During the last day (Aug. 15) of the chart’s tracking week, Swift introduced one all-new digital album variant of Poets on her official webstore, which was available for six hours and sold for $4.99. The set included the standard album’s 16 songs, plus one exclusive bonus track, “The Prophecy (Long Story Short – Live From Lyon),” recorded during The Eras Tour on June 2.
Also on Aug. 15, for only six hours, Swift’s webstore restocked a $4.99 digital album variant that was available briefly the previous tracking week — it contained the standard album’s 16 songs plus a live version of “thank You aimEe (Mean – Live from London),” recorded on June 22 during her The Eras Tour. In the previous tracking week, the same digital album variant was sold in Swift’s webstore, but with one slight difference — the stylization of the letters in the title of bonus live song. It was initially stylized as “thanK you aIMee” (mirroring the studio version on the Poets album), and then on Aug. 15, its stylization changed to “thank You aimEe.” The capitalization of the specific letters in the title — KIM and YE — could reference Kim Kardashian and her ex-husband (and longtime Swift foe), Ye, formerly Kanye West.
In the tracking week ending Aug. 15, Tortured Poets sold nearly 10,000 in digital album downloads across all variants through all sellers (including her webstore, the iTunes Store and others). Even if Poets had not sold a single digital album in the latest tracking week, it still would have been No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The No. 2 title, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, trails Poets by 13,000 units.
As for The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, the album reaches a new peak for a third week in a row, as it steps 3-2 with 72,000 equivalent album units earned (its best week by units earned; up 13%). In the last 10 weeks, the album has steadily inched its way up the list. It broke into the top 10 on the June 22-dated chart, rising 12-10. It has since moved 8-6-5-5-7-8-4-3-2.
The 3-2 ascent for Rise reflects the tracking week that contained a buzzy festival performance from Roan — her Aug. 11 gig at Outside Lands in San Francisco. The latter generated a quasi-viral moment where she chastised the VIP section for not singing along to the album’s “Hot To Go!”
Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time dips 4-3 on the latest Billboard 200 with 63,000 equivalent album units earned (up 1%). It also claims a ninth nonconsecutive week at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart.
Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft steps 5-4 on the Billboard 200 with 57,000 (up 1%), while Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene climbs 7-5 with 48,000 (though down 6%).
Charli XCX’s Brat is a non-mover at No. 6 (47,000; down 16%); Noah Kahan’s Stick Season steps 9-7 (just over 38,000; up 3%); Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album is stationary at No. 8 (38,000; up 2%); Twisters: The Album rises 10-9 (34,000; down 7%); and Zach Bryan’s self-titled chart-topper returns to the top 10, climbing 12-10 (nearly 34,000; up 6%).
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.
Following a synch in the latest season of Netflix’s Cobra Kai, Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” claims the top spot of Billboard’s Top TV Songs chart, powered by Tunefind, for July 2024.
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Rankings for the Top TV Songs chart are based on song and show data provided by Tunefind and ranked using a formula blending that data with sales and streaming information tracked by Luminate during the corresponding period of July 2024.
“Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” Lauper’s breakthrough hit (it peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1984), was heard in the third episode of the Netflix series’ sixth season, which aired its first five episodes all together on July 18, with the next five to come in November.
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“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” racked up 13.7 million official on-demand U.S. streams and 2,000 downloads in July 2024, according to Luminate.
The song is the sole entry from Cobra Kai on the July 2024 tally; it’s followed by a slew of titles from Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys and Peacock’s U.S. version of Love Island, which take up the remainder of the 10-position list.
Music from the fourth season of The Boys — particularly episodes six, seven and eight, which aired between July 4 and 18 — take up Nos. 2-7 and 10, paced by Christopher Cross‘ “Sailing” at No. 2.
“Sailing,” a No. 1 hit for Cross on the Hot 100 in August 1980, scored a synch in the sixth episode of the series, as did the No. 3 song, Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” (No. 2 on the Hot 100 in June 1978).
“Sailing” earned 6.5 million streams and 2,000 downloads in July 2024, while “Baker Street” contributed 3.1 million streams and 1,000 downloads.
As for Love Island, whose sixth season premiered in June and ran through July, the top-performing track was Chance Pena’s “The Mountain Is You” at No. 8 following its appearance in episode 22 (July 5) via 1.4 million streams.
See the full top 10 below.
Rank, Song, Artist, Show (Network)1. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” Cyndi Lauper, Cobra Kai (Netflix)2. “Sailing,” Christopher Cross, The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)3. “Baker Street,” Gerry Rafferty, The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)4. “Heart-Shaped Box,” Nirvana, The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)5. “Rosanna,” Toto, The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)6. “Steal My Sunshine,” Len, The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)7. “Butterfly,” Crazy Town, The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)8. “The Mountain Is You,” Chance Pena, Love Island (Peacock)9. “Sex and Candy,” Unions, Love Island (Peacock)10. “You Can Do Magic,” America, The Boys (Amazon Prime Video)
Coldplay is the midst of the third European leg of the Music of the Spheres World Tour, which has also taken the British quartet to Asia and North and South America, with 11 shows scheduled in Australia and New Zealand later this year. In all of that globe-trotting, the band has made Boxscore history, building […]
Shaboozey dominates Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated Aug. 24) for a fourth week with “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” – gaining entrance to a select group of artists’ breakout hits that have led for at least that long over the chart’s 34-year history.
The song by the Virginia native (born Collins Obinna Chibueze) drew 30.5 million audience impressions at the format Aug. 9-15, according to Luminate. The single, on American Dogwood/EMPIRE, with country radio promotion by Magnolia Music, concurrently crowns the Pop Airplay chart for a second week.
“A Bar Song” is only the ninth country career-establishing No. 1 at the format to reign for four-plus weeks – and the second among the three most recent Country Airplay leaders, after Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” (featuring Morgan Wallen) ruled for four beginning in June. (Before that, however, no such song had achieved the feat in over 18 years.)
What makes “A Bar Song” so special, and a hit at multiple formats, from country and pop to rhythmic? Travis Daily, who in May became Cumulus Media vp of country, after being named brand and content manager of the chain’s WKDF and WSM-FM Nashville in April, tells Billboard, “I have a kid in college who sends me music almost daily, and he sent me the song one night as I was packing for my move to Nashville. My first reaction was, ‘This is exactly what we need to stand out on WKDF when I get to town.’
“After listening multiple times, I began thinking that this is going to take off before I even get a chance to drive across the country [from Salt Lake City],” Daily says. “Some people think it’s a mystery that it’s doing so well, which kind of baffles me. We have a great song by a very talented artist that our audience seems to love. Passion for this song is almost unheard of.
“Some country programmers don’t like when pop stations play our country hits,” Daily further muses. “I would argue that songs like this give me a chance to convert some audience into becoming fans of the greatest format in the world, which is obviously country.”
Below, browse the songs that have topped Country Airplay for four or more weeks by artists making their first major inroads at the format (counting acts’ first entries on the chart as a lead artist or their initial songs promoted to country radio). They include memorable rookie anthems by acts that went on to become some of country’s biggest names.
Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
Image Credit: Daniel Prakopcyk
On Aug. 16, 1969, Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues” climbed to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. It became the seventh of the genre cornerstone’s 38 leaders, the third-most in the survey’s history after George Strait, who reigns with 44, and Conway Twitty, who notched 40. Haggard wrote “Workin’ Man Blues,” which Ken […]
Amy Shark makes it three successive No. 1s in Australia with Sunday Sadness (Sony).
The Gold Coast-raised singer and songwriter cruises to the summit of the ARIA Chart, published Friday, Aug. 16 with Sunday Sadness, her fourth studio effort.
Her debut 2012 album, It’s A Happy City, released under the name Amy Cushway, didn’t chart, notes ARIA. As Amy Shark, she roared to No. 1 for one week in 2018 with Love Monster, and led the survey in 2021 for two weeks with Cry Forever.
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“Words cannot explain how much this No. 1 means to me,” she comments. “Sunday Sadness has been three years in the making and I’m so glad you all love it as much as I do. Today is a day I’ll never forget”.
Sunday Sadness completes a trilogy of No. 1s for homegrown acts on the national chart (after recordings by Lime Cordiale and Tones & I), burying a 10-month dry spell.
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Also, it’s one of four Australian-made albums to debut in the top 20, for Australian music’s “most successful week of 2024,” ARIA claims.
“Huge congratulations to Amy, her team, and her incredibly devoted fans on a third No. 1 album and a career that continues to reach new heights,” comments ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd.
“Amy at the top of the chart marks three weeks of Aussies at No. 1, on top of that, four homegrown debuts in the top 15 is an unbelievable result that our whole industry should be proud of. What a week for Ausmusic.”
Those homegrown hits include Grinspoon’s eighth studio album, Whatever, Whatever (Universal), new at No. 3; King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s 26th studio album Flight b741 (VMG/UMA), new at No. 8; and First Nations hip-hop collective 3%, new at No. 12.
Meanwhile, Filipino-British singer and songwriter Beabadoobee lands her first top 10 in Australia with This Is How Tomorrow Moves (Dirty Hit/Universal), new at No. 6. That bests the No. 19 peak for her 2022 release Beatopia. Finally, DICE rolls to No. 27 with Midnight Zoo (VMG/UMA), the Perth, Australia quartet’s debut album.
Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Billie Eilish scoops her third solo No. 1 as “Birds Of A Feather” flaps its wings, up 2-1. Eilish replaces herself on top, as her guest appearance on Charli XCX’s “Guess” dips 1-3. Earlier, Eilish reigned over the chart for two weeks in 2019 with “Bad Guy” and for three weeks with 2023’s “What Was I Made For?” Eilish’s third and latest studio LP, Hit Me Hard And Soft (Interscope/Universal), holds at No. 2.
Finally, as Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine slices up the global box-office, one of the songs from its soundtrack powers into the top 40: NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” (Jive/Sony). Released in 2000, the song originally spent five weeks at No. 1. Thanks to its sync to the bloody opening scene of the superhero smash, “Bye Bye Bye” returns to the chart at No. 20.
On Aug. 2, Adele kicked off a 10-show run at Germany’s Munich Messe, playing the only concerts since the release of her 2021 album 30 other than her Las Vegas residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. In turn, her catalog is seeing gains in worldwide consumption, leading to several re-entries on the global charts.
Leading the pack, “Easy On Me,” from the album, returns to the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart (dated Aug. 17) at No. 128, while reappearing on the Billboard Global 200 at No. 170. Then, the trio of chart-topping smashes from 2011’s 21: “Someone Like You” at Nos. 144 and 178, respectively, “Rolling In the Deep” at Nos. 149 and 200, and “Set Fire To the Rain” at No. 152 on Global Excl. U.S.
In total, Adele’s catalog generated 142.4 million official streams worldwide in the week ending Aug. 8, according to Luminate, up 29% from the previous frame, and sold 6,000 downloads (up 65%). Sales particularly surged outside the U.S., up 113% compared to a domestic bump of 19%. Still, video footage from her Germany residency went wide, sparking a 23% U.S. increase in streams, not far behind the 31% boost internationally.
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Of her four charting tracks, “Someone Like You” achieves the biggest percentage gains in both metrics, up 73% in sales and 33% in streams. In doing so, it leapfrogs the other 21 singles.
Beyond the 200-position charts, 25’s “Love In the Dark” is up 47% in streams (to 9.2 million) and 214% in sales, making it the week’s most popular song from the 2015 album despite not being one of the set’s four promoted singles. It’s one of six 25 tracks performed during her Munich shows.
Adele’s residency continues through Aug. 31, likely spurring continued chart activity throughout the month.
Following the release of the music video for a remix featuring its namesake, Jordan Adetunji’s “Kehlani” jumps to No. 1 for the first time on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart dated Aug. 17.
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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 from Aug. 5-11. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Kehlani” becomes the fourth straight new No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50. After a 10-week reign by Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby,” Blood Orange’s “Champagne Coast” rose to the top of the July 27 list, followed by Clairo’s “Juna” (Aug. 3) and Sevdaliza, Pabllo Vittar and Yseult’s “Alibi” (Aug. 10) before “Kehlani.”
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“Kehlani” initially debuted on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 in June. It spent two weeks in the top 10 in early summer and began to rebound in August. By ruling in its 10th week on the chart, the song holds the mark for longest wait between debut and hitting No. 1 since the ranking began in September 2023.
Its initial virality was accompanied by a dance trend, one that continues with the release of the remix, which adds Kehlani on vocals (it came out June 20, and its music video followed Aug. 2).
“I broke the simulation,” reads Adetunji’s TikTok upload announcing the video on July 30 while Kehlani lip-synchs to the tune.
“Kehlani” concurrently hits a new peak on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Aug. 17, zooming 53-26 with 13 million official U.S. streams, 8.2 million radio audience impressions and 1,000 downloads in the week ending Aug. 8, according to Luminate.
The rest of the top four on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 is made up of previous No. 1s, as “Kehlani” is followed by the aforementioned “Alibi,” “Champagne Coast” and “Million Dollar Baby” at Nos. 2-4, respectively. Charli XCX’s “Apple,” which had reached a new peak of No. 3 on the Aug. 10 survey, falls to No. 5.
Lower in the top 10, one song hits a new peak while another reaches the region for the first time. Alphaville’s “Forever Young” lifts 10-7, while Hanumankind and Kalmi’s “Big Dawgs” jumps 33-10.
“Forever Young” was a No. 65 hit for Alphaville in 1988. It’s mostly been used in videos and trends about nostalgia, from creators remembering when they were younger to edits recalling people who have since passed away.
The song reached the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts for the first time in August. It reaches new peaks of No. 74 on the latter and No. 112 on the former as of the Aug. 17 tallies. In the U.S., it enjoyed a boost of 11% in streams to 2.2 million in the week ending Aug. 8.
“Big Dawgs,” meanwhile, hits the top 10 of the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for the first time as the track continues to explode across many platforms, particularly TikTok and YouTube thanks to its viral music video. Many top-performing TikTok uploads featuring the Indian rapper’s song are reacting to the music video, while others emulate Hanumankind’s dancing in the clip.
It concurrently debuts at No. 24 on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart dated Aug. 17 with 12.1 million streams, up 58%. The song also zooms 57-31 on the Hot 100.
One must travel all the way down to No. 34 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 to find the week’s biggest debut. That distinction belongs to The Sundays’ “Life Goes On.” Originally released as part of the CD single for the since-disbanded group’s 1997 single “Cry,” the track was given a digital release for the first time on Aug. 3. While some recent TikTok uploads featuring the song had decried how it wasn’t available on most streaming services previously, others follow a trend that follows the prompt “they hate when [you/we] serve.”
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.
It’s been a fruitful partnership between Valentino Merlo and The La Planta as “Hoy” adds a seventh consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100 chart (dated Aug. 17). With a seventh week at the summit, becomes the song with the second-most week at the lead in 2024, trailing only “Una Foto […]
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: Billie Eilish sees big gains for two different songs thanks to two different live performances, Lewis Capaldi gets a big spot in the summer’s biggest romance, and Brat Summer makes room for one of the album’s big collaborators to have a hit of his own.
Au Revoir! Olympics Closing Ceremony Boosts Phoenix, “Nightcall” & More
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The closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics capped off a riveting two-week athletic showcase at the Stade de France on Sunday night (Aug. 11) by once again toasting this year’s host city of Paris, as well as looking ahead to the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles. As such, the ceremony combined a showcase for French indie-rock stalwarts Phoenix — who were joined onstage by Air, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and French producer Kavinsky, among others — with performances from L.A. natives like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
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Fifteen years after breaking through with hits like “1901” and “Lisztomania,” Phoenix reintroduced themselves to the American mainstream, and received a sizable streaming bump: the band’s catalog rose 86%, to 1.12 million U.S. on-demand audio streams from Aug. 11-12 from the same two-day period the previous week (603,000 streams from Aug. 4-5), according to Luminate. Meanwhile, Kavinsky’s 2010 synthwave single “Nightcall” became a Shazam sensation after being featured in the ceremony, as the track grew 74% to 208,000 streams from Aug. 11-12, compared to 119,000 streams during Aug. 4-5.
And while West Coast anthems like RHCP’s “By the Way” and Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode” made their Olympics bows, a current smash, Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,” was the greatest gainer on the sales side: the track sold 4,200 digital downloads from Aug. 11-12, after moving under 1,000 units over the same time frame the previous week (Aug. 4-5). There’s nothing quite like playing your song on the world stage to help your top 10 hit climb a few spots higher. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Lewis Capaldi ‘Ends’ Up With His Most Viral Hit in Years, Thanks to Colleen Hoover Film Adaptation
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Back in 2019, the sound of Lewis Capaldi wailing about how he was getting kinda used to being someone you loved was absolutely omnipresent, as his breakout ballad “Someone You Loved” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and spread to all corners of pop culture. After scoring another top 10 hit the next year with “Before You Go,” hits have been relatively sparse for Capaldi in the U.S. But now, he’s got the most streaming momentum he’s had in several years – thanks to a movie that’s now dominating the culture the way “Someone You Loved” did a half-decade ago.
It Ends With Us, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s wildly popular 2022 romance novel, has become an immediate box office smash, earning $50 million in its first weekend – and has also consumed discussion online, thanks to reports of drama between its star Blake Lively and director/co-star Justin Baldoni. But it’s also boosting the performance of songs across its soundtrack, by artists ranging from indie rock sensation Ethel Cain (“Strangers”) to alt-pop superstar Lana Del Rey (“Cherry”).
The biggest bump, however, has been for Capaldi’s big ballad “Love the Hell Out of You,” originally featured on his 2023 sophomore LP Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent. The song was never officially tabbed as a single, but it may be headed for belated focus-track status now that it’s been featured in Ends’ final scene and end credits. After “Love” earned under 40,000 U.S. on-demand audio streams combined from the period of Aug. 2-5, according to Luminate, that number exploded to over 675,000 for the same four-day period a week later, with the movie now in theaters – a gain of 1,620%, with the song still rising day-to-day. Seems like we might need to get kinda used to Capaldi being someone who’s unavoidable in our lives once again. – AU
Billie Eilish’s Next Big Hit? “Wildflower” Keeps Growing
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Billie Eilish is enjoying a flashy week in the upper reaches of the Hot 100 chart, where “Birds of a Feather” moves up three spots to a new peak of No. 7, while her appearance on the remix of Charli xcx’s “Guess” helps the song bow at No. 12. “Birds” has been the clear breakout hit from Eilish’s third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, thus far — but lower down on the Hot 100, “Wildflower,” the moody ballad that waxes poetic about crossing lines with a friend’s ex, is making noise, and being positioned as a potential fall-time follow-up hit for Eilish.
“Wildflower” has been boosted by a live acoustic performance for Amazon Music’s Songline series, which has earned 6.4 million YouTube views since posting on July 29, and inspired plenty of TikTok analyses of Eilish’s vocal showcase in the clip (“the pain in her voice it’s CRAAAZY,” declares one user). Two weeks ago, “Wildflower” earned 6.66 million U.S. on-demand streams during the chart week ending July 25, according to Luminate; that number grew to 9.08 million streams for the week ending Aug. 9, and as such, the song has leapt from No. 77 to No. 55 on the Hot 100 in two weeks’ time. That’s still a long way away from its No. 17 peak, back when Hit Me Hard and Soft was released in May — but don’t be surprised to watch it creep up closer to that ranking over the next month or two. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
The ‘Brat’ Summer Expanded Universe Is Now Boosting The Dare’s “Girls”
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Among the starrier artists involved in the recent pop culture sensation that was “Guess” remix – which of course included original performer Charli XCX and new featured guest Billie Eilish, as well as the latter’s star collaborator brother Finneas in the production credits – appeared another name that might not be as familiar to mainstream audiences. Harrison Patrick Smith, better known as electro-rocker The Dare – paragon of the modern-day New York “indie sleaze” revival – was the co-producer on the original track, and even gets a shoutout from Charli herself in the “Guess” refrain (“Wear ’em, post ’em, might remix it/ Send them to The Dare, yeah, I think he’s with it”).
Thanks to the bump in exposure from the “Guess” moment (and perhaps partly thanks to the increasing popularity of “indie sleaze”-related fan accounts on TikTok), The Dare is starting to see real movement on his underground breakout hit from 2022, “Girls.” The frisky and slightly dirtbaggy synth-rock anthem received 827,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the tracking week ending August, according to Luminate – a 261% gain from the 229,000 it posted two weeks before, pre-”Guess.” Indie sleaze may or may not officially be back – some say it never totally existed in the first place – but Brat Summer definitely just keeps getting bigger. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Q&A: Erika Elliott, Executive Artistic Director of SummerStage and The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, on What’s Trending Up in Her World
How did the programming of this year’s Charlie Parker Jazz Festival come together?
The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, currently in its 32nd year and a part of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage festival, is committed to honoring uniquely New York music traditions and cultural communities. Every year, we aim to present the best jazz musicians that are masters of the genre, as well as championing the next generations of jazz artists who are creating a name for themselves in the jazz world, while keeping an eye on gender equity – all for FREE!
How does the Jazz Fest fit into the larger SummerStage planning?
Our mission at City Parks Foundation SummerStage is to celebrate the cultural communities of New York, and to connect New Yorkers to their public parks. These goals come together perfectly with The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival as the free program takes place in neighborhood parks located in Harlem and the Lower East Side. These communities fostered the growth of Jazz and were the actual communities of where Charlie Parker lived and worked. By celebrating and presenting jazz music in these neighborhoods, we are not only able to acknowledge the lasting legacy and impact of Parker, but honor the jazz roots in the NYC community.
Which trends within modern jazz are most exciting to highlight at this year’s festival?
Overall, across both SummerStage and The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, the thing I find most exciting is the interest in the genre by both young musicians and audiences. There is a global scene that is developing now within jazz, with performers such as Ezra Collective and Yussef Dayes, and in the U.S. with acts like Dana and Alden and Anessa Strings – all who were presented by us this year at SummerStage. There is so much great talent out there, but most importantly young people (folks under 30) are listening and interested in jazz!
Fill in the blank: the performers that casual jazz fans need to discover this year are:
Ekep Nkwelle, Isaiah Collier, Helen Sung Feat. Chris Potter. – J.L.