Music
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BTS singer Jimin is flying high on the U.K. singles chart with “Who” (via BigHit Entertainment), which debuts at No. 4.
That’s the top debut on the latest frame and a new solo career best for the K-pop star (born Park Jimin), besting the No. 8 peak for his 2023 release “Like Crazy.”
The focus track from his sophomore studio album MUSE, “Who” becomes Jimin’s third top 40 appearance in the U.K. after 2023’s “Set Me Free Pt.2,” which reached No. 30.
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As a collective, BTS has snagged nine U.K. top 40 singles, including four U.K. top 10s appearances 2020’s “Dynamite” (No. 3) and “Life Goes On” (No. 10), 2021’s “Butter” (No. 3) and Coldplay collaboration “My Universe” (No. 3).
At the top of the Official U.K. Singles Chart, published Friday, July 26, is “Please Please Please” (Island) by Sabrina Carpenter, which enters its fourth non-consecutive weeks at No. 1. The U.S. actor and singer replaces herself at the top of the leaderboard, as “Espresso” slides 1-9. Carpenter has now occupied top spot for a total of 11 weeks in 2024, the Official Charts Company reports.
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The podium is respectively completed by Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” (up 5-2 via Interscope) and Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck Babe” (up 6-3 vis Island), both notching new peak positions. Roan’s hot streak can be seen further down the tally as “Hot To Go!” spikes 27-19, and “Red Wine Supernova” blows up 48-39, for new peaks.
Little Mix artist JADE (real name: Jade Thirlwall) flies into the top 10 with her debut single “Angel Of My Dreams” (RCA), new at No. 7. With that start, JADE has bragging rights over her bandmates Leigh-Anne, whose 2023 solo debut “Don’t Say Love” hit No. 11, and Perrie, whose “Forget About Us” reached No. 10.
Charli XCX’s BRAT summer continues to heat up. BRAT album tracks “360” (Atlantic) powers 29-18 and viral number “Apple” climbs 42-19, for the British artist and producer’s 18th U.K. top 40 track. BRAT was last week shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, celebrating the best British and Irish albums of the year.
Following their headline spot at London’s BST Hyde Park festival, K-pop favorites Stray Kids bag their first U.K. top 40 appearance with “Chk Chk Boom” (Republic Records). It’s new at No. 30.
Eminem reigns again on the U.K. chart with The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) (via Interscope).
The Rap God’s latest LP enters a second week atop the Official U.K. Albums Chart, published Friday, July 26, holding off Olivia Rodrigo’s resurgent Guts.
The Death of Slim Shady is Em’s 12th studio album, and his 11th leader in the U.K.
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Meanwhile, Rodrigo’s sophomore album Guts (Geffen) flies 22-2 following the release of the deluxe “spilled” edition on vinyl. Guts logged a single week at No. 1 following its release last year. Rodrigo’s record-setting debut album Sour, from 2021, also enjoys a lift on the latest frame. It’s up 24-23 in its 166th week on the chart.
The top new entry on the latest tally is Heavy Jelly (BMG), the fourth studio album from Soft Play, the punk act formerly known as Slaves. It’s new at No. 3. As Slaves, the rockers (Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent) landed top 10s with Are You Satisfied? (No. 8), Take Control (No. 6) and Acts of Fear and Love (No. 8).
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Also new to the top 10 is Glass Animals’ I Love You So F***ing Much (Polydor), new at No. 5. It’s the second top tier effort from the Oxford, England-formed pop-rock act following 2020’s Dreamland, which peaked at No. 2 and housed the global hit “Heat Waves.”
Further down the list, British heavy metal icons Deep Purple dig out a 26th U.K. top 40 with =1 (Ear Music), their 23rd studio album. It’s new at No. 12.
And finally, Cardiff, Wales seven-piece Los Campesinos! makes a long overdue appearance in the U.K. top 40 with All Hell (Heart Swells), its seventh studio release. All Hell is new at No. 14. Until now, the group’s best on the national survey was No. 72 for 2008’s How On Now Youngster.
XG’s “Something Ain’t Right” tops this week’s new music poll. Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (July 26) on Billboard, choosing the Japanese girl group’s catchy dance track as their favorite new music release of the past week. “Something ain’t right” in the relationship that has XG ranting in their new single, but fans stepped […]
Lady Gaga called Michael Polansky her fiancé, seemingly revealing the couple is engaged, while introducing him to French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
“My fiancé, Michael,” Gaga is heard casually saying in a clip the prime minister posted on TikTok Sunday night (July 28). The short video shows Attal briefly hugging the singer and shaking hands with Polansky, Lady Gaga’s partner of more than four years, at an Olympic event.
Billboard reached out to a representative for Lady Gaga for comment.
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Gaga and Polansky have been publicly dating since early 2020; she made their relationship Instagram official with a post that February. In an interview a couple months later, she referred to Polansky as “the love of my life.”
Prime Minister Attal didn’t mention the pair’s apparent engagement on TikTok, instead focusing on the pop star’s show-stopping Friday night performance in Paris: “Thank you Lady Gaga for your stunning performance at the opening ceremony,” he wrote in a caption. “It was breathtaking.”
The multi-talented superstar — who will take over the big screen as Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux alongside Joaquin Phoenix when the movie hits theaters Oct. 4 — was the first artist to take the stage during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, providing her version of Parisian cabaret-style entertainment ahead of this summer’s games. Lady Gaga performed the French-language “Mon Truc en Plume” (“My Thing With Feathers”) in a highly choreographed, but playful, routine that led her from a long staircase to a piano.
While in France, Lady Gaga surprised Parisian fans on Sunday with the smallest teaser of music from her forthcoming, much-anticipated seventh studio album.
A thumping, dance-ready snippet off of LG7, and another teaser leaning more rock — both heard in the clip below — was played on the street from a vehicle’s rooftop while Gaga pumped her fist and spectators screamed.
“I’m so deeply touched by my French fans this week outside the hotel,” she wrote in an Instagram Story just before coming outside to play the song. “I’m gonna come out and say goodbye tonight with a few seconds of #LG7.”
The as-yet-untitled LG7 will be the follow-up to 2020’s Billboard 200 chart-topping album Chromatica, which was Gaga’s sixth set to debut at No. 1.
As Stray Kids’ new album ATE opens at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Aug. 3), they become the first group ever to debut at No. 1 with their first five charting albums. Stray Kids previously debuted atop the chart with ODDINARY, MAXIDENT (both in 2022), ROCK-STAR and 5-STAR (both in 2023). The […]
Twisters: The Album enters the Billboard 200 (dated Aug. 3) at No. 7. It’s the first country-dominated soundtrack to a theatrically-released film to make the top 10 on the all-genre chart since Country Strong, which reached No. 6 in January 2011.
“Twisters” is only the second country soundtrack from a theatrically-released film to debut in the top 10, after Hannah Montana: The Movie, which opened at No. 2 in April 2009. The album, which reached No. 1 three weeks later, featured star Miley Cyrus’ pop/country crossover hit “The Climb.”
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Other country-dominated film soundtracks to reach the top 10 include Urban Cowboy (No. 3 in 1980), George Strait’s Pure Country (No. 6 in 1992), Hope Floats (No. 4 in 1998), Coyote Ugly (No. 10 in 2000), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (No. 1 in 2002) and Walk the Line, from the Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic (No. 9 in 2006).
Twisters has already climbed higher than the soundtrack to the original Twister, which peaked at No. 28 in 1996. That Warner release was mostly rock and featured such artists as Tori Amos, Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham.
The new album, released on Atlantic, features such established country artists as Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Kane Brown, Lainey Wilson, Shania Twain and Jelly Roll, as well as such rising stars as Bailey Zimmerman, Breland and Tanner Adell. (Notably, both albums came from the Warner Music Group family of labels.)
Twain also had a track (“No One Needs to Know”) on the Twister soundtrack. She was one of the few non-rock artists on board for that album, along with k.d. lang and Alison Krauss & Union Station. On the new album, she teams with Breland to perform “Boots Don’t.” She is the only artist to appear on both albums.
The arrival of Twisters ends a notable drought in recent months for soundtracks. Three weeks ago, the highest-ranking soundtrack on the Billboard 200 (Barbie: The Album) was way down at No. 172. That marked the first time that the highest-ranking soundtrack on the Billboard 200 had ranked that low in the more than seven years that the Billboard 200 and the Top Soundtracks chart have adhered to the same chart formula.
Since Feb. 11, 2017, both charts have ranked 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).
Twisters is the first soundtrack from any genre to appear in the top 10 since Barbie: The Album (which, like Twisters: The Album, was released on Atlantic) ended its top 10 run in September.
This marks the first time that no soundtracks appeared in the top 10 in the first six months of a calendar year since 1987. The first soundtrack to make the top 10 that year (Beverly Hills Cop II) did so in the issue dated Aug. 1.
There are only two other years since 1956 – when the Billboard 200 bowed as a regular, weekly feature – where no soundtracks appeared in the top 10 in the first six months of the year. In 1972, the first soundtrack to make the top 10 that year (Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly) did so in the issue dated Oct. 7. In 1976, the first soundtrack to make the top 10 that year (Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same) did so in the issue dated Nov. 6.
Soundtracks have been a big part of the album market since the introduction of the Billboard 200. On the first chart – March 24, 1956 – soundtracks to Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals held two of the top three spots. Oklahoma! and Carousel were No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. (A non-soundtrack, Harry Belafonte’s Belafonte, was No. 1.)
At least one soundtrack appeared in the top 10 every week from that first chart on March 24, 1956 through Dec. 22, 1958. In the mid-1960s, there was an even longer winning streak. At least one soundtrack appeared in the top 10 every week from July 25, 1964 through June 10, 1967.
Twisters ranked No. 1 at the boxoffice last weekend, but falls to No. 2 this weekend behind the new Deadpool & Wolverine. The original Twister was No. 1 for two weekends in May 1996. Isaac Chung directed Twisters, which stars Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Jan de Bont directed the original Twister, which starred Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton.
Drake is poking fun at his beef with Kendrick Lamar now that their feud has seemingly died down.
On Sunday (July 28), Drizzy took to social media to repost a viral clip of a lookalike performing his hit song “Hotline Bling” at a boxing gym in New York.
“Sometimes you gotta pop out,” Drake captioned the Instagram Story post, quoting a line from Lamar’s smash hit “Not Like Us.”
This isn’t the first time the Toronto MC has referenced K. Dot’s diss track, which spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Last month, Drake comically named himself “69 God” during a bowling match, quoting another famous line from the Compton rapper’s infectious song.
The fallout from Drake’s feud with Lamar apparently hasn’t put a damper on the 6 God’s summer. Drizzy’s Honestly, Nevermind collaborator Gordo recently said he hasn’t seen Drake happier.
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“Ever since all this has happened … I’ve seen him happier. It’s really weird. He’s pretty jolly,” the Grammy-nominated producer told People in late July. “The internet makes it seem like, ‘Oh, that photo, he’s all sad and s—.’ That’s just a bad photo from a bad camera. But because it’s him, it’s put under a magnifying glass like, ‘Oh, look at his eyes. He’s looking a little droopy. He hasn’t slept.’ But the guy’s been happy as s—, to be honest. He’s chilling.”
Gordo, formerly known as Carnage, claims Drake has moved on from the battle with K. Dot and is ready to focus on himself again. “He’s been past it,” the producer added. “The thing is that he was just on the longest tour ever. He literally did a tour for like a year. I think he’s just chilling.”
During their feud, the Canadian superstar dropped numerous disses against Lamar, including “Euphoria,” “Family Matters” and “The Heart Pt. 6.” While Lamar didn’t formally respond to “The Heart Part 6,” he performed multiple diss songs at his Juneteenth Pop Out concert and released a music video for “Not Like Us” that features him beating down an owl piñata and ends with an owl in a cage in reference to Drake’s OVO logo.
K-pop superstars Stray Kids and Jimin make a splash atop the Billboard 200 (dated Aug. 3), as the acts’ latest albums, ATE and MUSE, debut at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. In turn, it marks the first time the top two on the Billboard 200 are K-pop (Korean pop) albums.
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Further, ATE lands Stray Kids their fifth No. 1 in a row, making the act the first group ever to debut at No. 1 with their first five charting albums. They previously opened atop the chart with ODDINARY, MAXIDENT (both in 2022), ROCK-STAR and 5-STAR (both in 2023).
The only other artist to debut at No. 1 with its first five chart entries was rapper DMX in 1998-2003 with It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot (1998), Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood (1999), …And Then There Was X (2000), The Great Depression (2001) and Grand Champ (2003).
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ATE arrives with 232,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending July 25, according to Luminate. That’s the largest week of 2024 for any K-pop album, and the sixth-biggest debut for any album this year. MUSE moves in with 96,000 units, and gives BTS member Jimin his second solo album to reach No. 2 (after last year’s FACE).
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, the Twisters soundtrack debuts at No. 7 with 57,000 equivalent album units earned. The country music-heavy album is the first soundtrack to reach the top 10 in 2024, and it does so with the year’s biggest week, by units earned, for any soundtrack. Further, it’s the first country soundtrack from a theatrical film to reach the top 10 in over a decade.
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. 3, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on July 30. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of ATE’s 232,000 first-week units, album sales comprise 218,000, SEA units comprise 13,000 (equaling 19.05 million on-demand streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise 1,000. With 218,000 copies sold, ATE is the top-selling album of the week, debuting at No. 1 on Top Album Sales. It also nets the largest sales week for any K-pop album this year and 2024’s second-largest sales week for any album of any genre (trailing only the 1.91-million sales debut of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department). ATE’s sales were bolstered by its availability across 11 different CD variants, all containing collectible items like photocards, stickers and posters (some of which was randomized), including signed editions, as well as variants exclusive to Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart.
As ATE is mostly in the Korean language, it is the 25th mostly non-English-language album to hit No. 1, and the second of 2024. On the March 9-dated chart, TWICE’s With YOU-th garnered the group its first leader when it opened at No. 1. Of the 25 mostly non-English-language albums to reach No. 1, 16 are mostly Korean, five mostly (or all) Spanish, one mostly Italian, one entirely French, and two mostly a blend of Spanish, Italian and French. Of the 25 almost all non-English-language albums to reach No. 1, 21 have topped the chart since 2018 (the year that K-pop superstars BTS scored their first of six No. 1s, with the chart’s first Korean-language No. 1s). Further, of the 16 K-pop albums that have reached No. 1, Stray Kids and BTS account for 11 (five and six, respectively).
Speaking of BTS, the group’s Jimin sees his latest solo project MUSE bow at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 96,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 74,000 (aided by its availability across nine CD variants, containing collectible posters, photocards and stickers; inclusive of exclusive editions sold at Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart), SEA units comprise 15,000 and TEA units comprise 7,000. In 2023, Jimin’s first solo charting set, FACE, debuted and peaked at No. 2.
MUSE was preceded by the Billboard Hot 100-charting “Smeraldo Garden Marching Band” (with Loco), which debuted at No. 88 on the July 13-dated list.
Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) falls to No. 3 in its second week with 79,000 equivalent album units earned (down 72%) after debuting at No. 1 a week ago. Swift’s former leader The Tortured Poets Department is a non-mover at No. 4 with 74,000 units (down 9%); Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene slips 3-5 with 71,000 (down 19%); and Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time dips 5-6 with 65,000 (down 2%).
Twisters: The Album debuts at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 with 57,000 equivalent album units earned — marking the first soundtrack the reach the top 10 in 2024 and the year’s biggest week, by units, for any soundtrack. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 40,000 (equaling 52.85 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 29 songs), album sales comprise 14,000 (it was available to purchase a digital download, CD and in three vinyl variants) and TEA units comprise 3,000.
The country music-heavy project is the companion album to the film Twisters, which blew into U.S. movie theaters on July 19. The film is a standalone sequel to 1996’s Twister, which boasted a rock-focused soundtrack (peaking at No. 28 on the Billboard 200).
The Twisters album features a wealth of new original material from country stars including Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, Miranda Lambert and Lainey Wilson, and was preceded by three charting hits on the Hot Country Songs chart (Combs’ “Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma,” Bailey Zimmerman’s “Hell or High Water” and Tyler Childers’ “Song While You’re Away”). Twenty of the album’s 29 songs appear in the movie, and over half of the album’s tracks were released over the course of the 10 weeks leading up to the set’s drop on July 19.
Twisters is the first country soundtrack to reach the top 10 since the Jan. 4, 2014-dated chart, when The Robertsons’ TV soundtrack Duck the Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas closed out its last week in the top 10, having peaked at No. 3 the previous November. As for country soundtracks to theatrical films, like Twisters, the last to reach the top 10 was Country Strong, which peaked at No. 6 on the Jan. 29, 2011, chart. The last country soundtrack from a theatrical film to debut in the top 10, like Twisters, was Hannah Montana: The Movie, which bowed at No. 2 on the April 11, 2009, chart, later reaching No. 1 on the May 2 list. (Soundtrack and country albums are defined as those that are eligible for, or have charted on, Billboard’s Soundtracks and Top Country Albums charts, respectively.)
Closing out the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 is Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (falling 7-8 with 54,000 equivalent album units; up less than 1%), Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft (6-9 with nearly 54,000; down 5%), and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (holding at No. 10 with 43,000; up 10%).
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.
Sinead O’Connor‘s official cause of death has been revealed one year after her passing.
The “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer’s death certificate lists that she died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, the Irish Independent reported on Saturday (July 27).
The death certificate specifically noted that O’Connor’s passing was a result of “exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma together with low grade lower respiratory tract infection,” the publication said.
The certificate was reportedly registered by the late Grammy winner’s husband, John Reynolds, in London on Wednesday (July 24).
O’Connor died at 56 in her London home on July 26, 2023, where authorities said she was found “unresponsive.” The next day the police announced that they were not treating her passing as suspicious and had handed the investigation over to the coroner’s office to determine the cause of death.
In January, London’s Southwark Coroners Court announced that O’Connor died of natural causes and that the coroner had “therefore ceased their involvement in her death.”
At the time of her death, O’Connor’s family said, “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinéad. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.”
The Irish singer struggled with mental illness throughout her life, including PTSD, depression and suicidal tendencies. In 2022, her 17-year-old son Shane died by apparent suicide. She is survived by three children, including daugher Roisin Waters, aged 28.
O’Connor released her bracing debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, in 1987, featuring the alt radio hits “Mandinka” and “I Want Your (Hands On Me),” followed by her breakthrough 1990 masterpiece, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. The sophomore effort featured her global breakthrough hit, the No. 1 Prince-written smash “Nothing Compares 2 U,” as well as such enduring favorites as “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and the hypnotic “I Am Stretched on Your Grave.”
Grupo Frontera’s latest single “Ángel,” featuring Romeo Santos, has topped this week’s new music Latin poll. In a poll published on Friday (July 26) — in support of the weekly New Music Latin roundup and playlist, curated by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors — music fans voted for the Texas-based group and Dominican artist’s […]