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Missy Higgins left no stone unturned in the creation of The Second Act, the Australian singer and songwriter’s sixth studio album.
Released 20 years after her breakthrough debut The Sound of White, The Second Act (via Eleven/EMI) finds Higgins in an altogether different, and vulnerable, stage of life.
Higgins explored the pain of a breakup, and channeled it into the album which, she explains, was recorded in a back room at her house.
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“The songs came out in desperation. Really, desperation to figure out the way forward,” she says during a Zoom call from outside of her home. “And because songs have always been that for me, they’ve always been very, very cathartic and therapeutic, they’ve always been a way for me to figure out stuff.”Australian audiences have connected with the album, too. The Second Act opened at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart on Friday, Sept. 13, for her fourth leader.
“There aren’t that many albums written from the perspective of parents, particularly single parents,” she explains. The Second Act does, and it captures “the kind of grief that comes with that, and the sense of responsibility and guilt.”
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Higgins has had her hands full this year, not just with parenting duties and her new LP. The Melbourne artist has toured through the year, supporting the 20th anniversary of The Sound of White. When her 40 dates sold out in minutes, Frontier Touring added an “encore” run in the lead-up to Christmas. For Higgins, Christmas will come early. On Nov. 20, she’ll be elevated into the ARIA Hall of Fame, during a segment of the ARIA Awards in Sydney.
Higgins’ career got off to the brightest of starts with The Sound Of White, which dominated the ARIA Chart for seven non-consecutive cycles and collected a bunch of ARIAs.
Her sophomore set On A Clear Night (from 2007) and third collection The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle (2012) also led the chart, while Oz (2014), Solastalgia (2018) and Total Control (2022) all cracked the top 3.
The United States called, and Higgins lived for a time in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles. She even counts best-selling author Harlan Coben among her fans and supporters (the pair made several in-store appearances together in 2009).
Another U.S. tour may have to wait. “I wanted to go to America this year but it’s too hard with the kids. I don’t really want to just leave them for two weeks. I’d have to take a nanny, or there’d be late nights. It’s just too difficult. I think I’m just going to have to wait until they’re a little bit older. And make it a big thing.”
Good things, it is often said, come to those who wait. Until then, fans can live with a record that is as raw and human as any released this year. “With every album, it’s a snapshot of my life. The Sound of White was a snapshot of my, my teenage angsty years and this is a new chapter, this transition into the second act. I’m glad I have it.”
After backlash to a spicy tweet about Ye and Taylor Swift, Zach Bryan has deactivated his X account.
On Wednesday (Sept. 18), the country star shared a hot take that might have proven to be too hot for social media. “eagles > chiefs,” his message started, followed by, “Kanye > Taylor.” He concluded: “who’s with me” — and the answer to that question appears to have driven him off the site formerly known as Twitter.
Swifties quickly came to Taylor’s defense, given Bryan’s message was a twofold offense against both Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “He knew not to mess with the Swifties,” one commenter wrote on a Pop Crave post about the tweet, with another writing: “got all brave just to wimp out and deactivate.”
According to Bryan’s Instagram (which is still active), he’s been on a Kanye kick lately. The first four of his current Instagram Stories, as of press time, feature four older songs by Ye (formerly Kanye West): “Good Life,” featuring T-Pain, from 2007’s Graduation and “I Thought About Killing You,” “All Mine” and “Ghost Town,” featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR, from 2018’s Ye.
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The Eagles and Chiefs football rivalry has heated up over the past few years, with Travis Kelce facing off against his now-retired brother Jason Kelce and the Philly squad in the 2023 Super Bowl, with Kansas City emerging victorious.
But the much more heated rivalry has been between Swift and Ye, whose story began when West interrupted Taylor’s 2009 VMAs acceptance speech to declare Beyoncé should have won instead. They reconciled after that and even formed an unlikely friendship, before Ye put some questionable lyrics about Swift in his “Famous” song and his then-wife Kim Kardashian released a recording of a private phone call between the two musicians that set their rocky relationship ablaze.
The pair have made references to their famous feud as recently as last month, with Ye rapping about Swift’s relationship with Kelce on his Vultures 2 album and Swift restyling a Tortured Poets Department song’s title to capitalize YE: “thank You aimEe.”
See the tweet from Bryan’s now-deleted account below:
Billie Eilish’s “When the Party’s Over” soundtracks a new Kamala Harris ad that targets the dangers of not having reproductive care under a Donald Trump presidency. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In the one-minute clip, reproductive freed activist Hadley Duvall tells a devastating story of how […]
TDE’s newest rising star sat down with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden for a conversation about her young career and her critically-acclaimed mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal. Doechii credited her love of golden era rap music as a major influence on the direction she decided to take. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]
TDE’s Punch has been the face of the label’s front office on social media, with an emphasis on X. He engages with fans and is fine being their punching bag when it pertains to the company’s notorious album release schedule — or lack thereof. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]
Despite more than a decade since LLCOOLJ last released an album, the rapper picks up right where he left off. His new project, THE FORCE, debuts at No. 9 on the Top Rap Albums chart, giving the hip-hop legend his fifth consecutive top 10 result on the list, which began in 2004.
THE FORCE, released through LL COOL J’s self-titled imprint and the Def Jam Recordings record label, earned 16,000 equivalent album units in the tracking week of Sept. 6 – 12, according to Luminate. Of that sum, traditional album sales contributed 11,500 units, making THE FORCE the top-selling rap title of the week. 4,000 units derive from streaming activity, with the remaining 500 coming through track-equivalent album units. (One unit equals the following levels of consumption: one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.)
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Robust sales likely trace to LL COOL J’s flurry of promotional performances during the tracking week, including an interview on CBS Mornings and a performance to celebrate the Def Jam label’s 40th anniversary during the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, where the MC delivered a medley of his hits such as “Headsprung,” “Goin’ Back to Cali” and “Bring the Noise.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=w_XVxj035Qk%3Fsi%3Dov7qpLz2LdcK6r5h
Released Sept. 6, THE FORCE marked the first project since 2013 for LL COOL J, the hip-hop pioneer who became one of the genre’s earliest crossover stars and, in 2017, became the first rapper to receive the Kennedy Center Honors. The album, largely produced by another rap icon, Q-Tip, of A Tribe Called Quest, boasts a strong supporting lineup, with Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross and Nas among the guest stars. Saweetie features on the set’s current single, “Proclivities,” which climbs 36-31 in its second week on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, while an Eminem feature on the album’s “Murdergram Deux” powers it to become the week’s top-selling (2,500 downloads) and most-streamed (2.3 million official U.S. streams) song on THE FORCE.
As noted, THE FORCE is the fifth consecutive top-10 effort for LL COOL J on Top Rap Albums. The streak began with The DEFinition, which reigned for one week in 2004, and followed with Todd Smith (No. 2, 2006), Exit 13 (No. 2, 2008) and Authentic (No. 4, 2013).
On the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, which began in 1958 and encompasses the rapper’s entire career, THE FORCE launches at No. 11. It becomes his 15th album to appear on the list, dating to his debut LP, Radio, in 1985.
Gwen Stefani is ready to bloom! The superstar revealed on Wednesday (Sept. 18) that her fifth studio album, Bouquet, will be arriving on November 15. She also unveiled the album’s cover art and track list. The photo features Stefani in a cowboy hat and a brown plaid suit, laying across a bed while holding a […]
Jhayco achieves his third top 10 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart with Le Clique: Vida Rockstar, his third studio album, which debuts at No. 6 on the Sept. 21 dated list. The 29-track also launches at No. 2 on Latin Rhythm Albums chart.
Le Clique: Vida Rockstar launches at No. 6 on Top Latin Albums with 13,000 equivalent album units logged in the U.S. on the Sept. 6-12 tracking week, according to Luminate. As it’s become a norm among Latin rhythmic artists, streams contribute most of the album’s debut week activity.
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Top Latin Albums and Latin Rhythm Albums rank the week’s most popular Latin albums, and Latin rhythm albums, respectively, by multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Each unit equals one album sale, 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams for a song on the album.
Le Clique: Vida Rockstar’s 13,000 opening sum is largely driven by the album’s songs generating 17 million on-demand official streams in the U.S. in the tracking week, while a negligible amount of traditional album sales and track sales supply the remaining units.
Notably, Le Clique: Vida Rockstar is just the fourth Latin rhythm set to debut in the top 10 on Top Latin Albums in 2024 among the 15 debuts this year so far –after Eladio Carrion’s Sol Maria (No. 6 debut, Feb. 3-dated chart), Young Miko’s att. (No. 9, April 20), and Myke Towers’ La Pantera Negra (No. 7, Sept. 7). The overall Latin albums raking, in contrast, boasted seven Latin rhythmic album debuts by the same point year-to-date in 2023 (two by Karol G and Yng Lvcas, while Eladio Carrión, Myke Towers and Rauw Alejandro debuted with one album each).
With Le Clique: Vida Rockstar, released Sept. 6 on Universal Music Latino/UMLE, Jhayco secures his third top 10 debut on Top Latin Albums, two then-billed under Jhay Cortez. Here’s a review of his top 10 collection:
Peak, Title, Peak DateNo. 5, Famouz, Dec. 7, 2019No. 2, Timelezz, Sept. 18, 2021No. 9, Le Clique: Vida Rockstar, Sept. 21
Three songs preceded Le Clique in 2023: “Cuerpecito” (No. 49 peak in April), and “Ex-Special,” with Peso Pluma, and “Holanda” (No. 22 and No. 32 high, respectively, in September).
Elsewhere, Le Clique gives Jhayco his third entry on the all-genre Billboard 200, as it debuts at No. 77.
Celebrities are just like us! Noah Kahan took to X this week to share that he’s been loving the content of viral pygmy hippo Moo Deng that’s been circulating the Internet recently. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “I’m late to whatever these creatures are but I […]
Talent for the first five episodes for Saturday Night Live‘s 50th season were announced on Wednesday (Sept. 18), with Ariana Grande returning as host on Oct. 12. The first episode of the landmark season on Sept. 28 will feature Hacks star Jean Smart as host joined by first-time musical guest Jelly Roll. Somehow, the six-time […]