Music

09 Mar 2023

Brandon Lake, Deitrick Haddon Lead Faith-Based Airplay Charts

Singer-songwriter Brandon Lake earns his second No. 1, and his first as a lead artist, on Billboard’s Christian Airplay chart (dated March 11) with “Gratitude.”

The song jumps 5-1 following its increase of 9% to 7.3 million audience impressions in the tracking week ending March 2, according to Luminate.

Lake co-authored “Gratitude” with Dante Bowe and Benjamin Hastings, while Jacob Sooter produced it.

Concurrently, “Gratitude” spends a sixth week at No. 1 on the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Christian Songs survey. It collected 2.1 million U.S. streams and sold 2,000 downloads to lead Christian Digital Song Sales for an eighth frame.

When “Gratitude” initially reached the Hot Christian Songs summit (Feb. 4), also becoming Lake’s second No. 1 and first as a lead artist, he told Billboard, “Every song has a season, and season a song. ‘Gratitude’ couldn’t more accurately describe everything I want to express to God in this time. There are times where I feel like worshipping and there are times I often don’t, but what can shift any weary soul is a spirit of gratitude.”

The 32-year-old Lake, who serves as worship pastor at Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., previously topped Christian Airplay and Hot Christian Songs as featured on Elevation Worship’s “Graves Into Gardens” in 2021.

Haddon Adds Third No. 1

On Gospel Airplay, Deitrick Haddon scores his third leader as “Here Comes the Joy” ascends 4-1 (up 17% in plays).

Haddon, a native of Detroit, serves as lead pastor of Los Angeles’ Hill City Church.

“Joy,” which he co-penned, marks his first Gospel Airplay chart-topper since “Open Door Season” dominated for two weeks in June 2020. His first No. 1, “A Billion People,” ruled for a week in September 2017. He boasts 11 top 10s, dating back to 2005.

09 Mar 2023

Morgan Wallen’s ‘One Thing at a Time’: All 36 Tracks Ranked From Worst to Best

We won’t officially know until Sunday (March 12) how big Morgan Wallen’s new album, the super-sized One Thing at a Time, will debut on the Billboard 200, but we know the 36-track set is already a blockbuster.

As of Wednesday (March 8), the 36 tracks have accumulated 315 million on-demand streams, already the biggest week for any 2023 album, according to Luminate. In its first four days, OTAAT surpassed the 240 million tally hit by Wallen’s 2021 album, Dangerous: The Double Album, in its first full week.

The album, which features collaborations with Eric Church, HARDY and ERNEST, was culled from 42 songs to its final 36 tracks.

“The songs just kind of naturally came in,” Wallen previously told Billboard. One Thing at a Time producer Joey Moi added, “It seemed like the more we cut, the more songs would show up. So it just kept piling up.”

Moi also noted Wallen’s involvement in the studio has become deeper with each album release.

“The first record, in a budding career [from a] new artist is weird, you kind of get stripped of all your time to make the record, so we really panicked our way through that one,” Moi said. “He was on tour, and then we would cut the songs together in the studio, and then he’d go off on tour. I’d squirrel away and work on the music getting ready for him to come back. He’d sing like six songs in one day. It was that process. Second record, we were able to engineer the calendar a little better but he was still heavy in obligations [but] he was present for way more than the first record. This one I feel like we nailed the calendar, and he was there for every moment of it. It was amazing having him in the room the whole time with me.”

Upon the album’s March 3 release, we picked the top 10 tunes, but now we’re back to rank all 36 songs on the Moi-produced set, from the least to the greatest.

09 Mar 2023

Miley Cyrus Gets Her ‘Flowers’ Atop Dance/Mix Show Airplay Chart

Miley Cyrus scores her first No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart as “Flowers” tops the tally dated March 11. Previously, she achieved top 10 hits with “Party in the U.S.A.” (No. 9, 2009) and as featured on Mark Ronson’s “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” (No. 5, 2019).

With radio-friendly remixes from Tommie Sunshine/On Deck/JustnKayse, Dark Intensity and Kue, among others, “Flowers” is finding core-dance airplay on outlets including KNHC (C89.5) Seattle, iHeartRadio’s Pride Radio and SiriusXM’s Diplo’s Revolution Feb. 24-March 2, according to Luminate. (The Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart measures radio airplay on a select group of full-time dance stations, along with plays during mix shows on around 70 top 40-formatted reporters.)

Starting with “See You Again” (No. 17, 2008), Cyrus has tallied eight appearances on Dance/Mix Show Airplay. Her other entries: “We Can’t Stop” (No. 14, 2013), “Wrecking Ball” (No. 19, 2013), “Malibu” (No. 19, 2017) and “Midnight Sky” (No. 26, 2020).

“Flowers” just spent six weeks at No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard Global 200 charts, among other successes.

Additionally on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, Loud Luxury lifts to its fifth top 10 and Hook N Sling celebrates its first with “Afterparty” (12-9). Plus, VAVO and Clara Mae each earn initial top 10 placements with “Take Me Home” (13-10).

Shifting to the multi-metric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, Skrillex, Missy Elliott and Mr. Oizo jump 14-8 with “RATATA.” Skrillex’s seventh top 10 and the first each for Elliott and Oizo, “RATATA” racked up 1.4 million U.S. streams and sold 700 downloads in the tracking week.

Sticking with Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, MK collects his fifth top 10 and Dom Dolla draws his second with “Rhyme Dust,” new at No. 9. The track earned 1.2 million streams and sold 900, the latter figure also enabling a top 10 debut on Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales (No. 8).

On the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, Dutch DJ/producer MELON and Dance Fruits make their first Billboard chart appearance with This Is Melon, Vol. 1 (No. 7). The set, which starts with 4,000 equivalent album units, is a sprawling, 41-track collection of upbeat dance covers of dance, pop, rock and R&B classics, including ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” Avicii’s “Levels,” Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” and Swedish House Mafia’s “Don’t You Worry Child.”

09 Mar 2023

Ed Sheeran Gives Fans a Sneak Peek at New Song ‘Eyes Closed’: Here’s When It Arrives

With less than two months to go before the arrival of Ed Sheeran‘s Subtract, the singer revealed on Thursday (March 9) when the project’s first single, “Eyes Closed,” is scheduled to arrive.

“Eyes Closed. 24.03.23 (March 24),” Sheeran captioned a video of himself on Instagram playing the song on the piano, adding that fans can catch another preview of the track over on his TikTok account with a separate video of him performing the song’s parts in a duet with himself.

“So I’m dancing with my eyes closed/ Cause everywhere I look I still see you/ Time is moving so slow/ And I don’t know what else that I can do/ So I’ll keep dancing with my eyes closed/ Oh I keep dancing with my eyes closed,” he passionately sings, while playing acoustic guitar.

“Eyes Closed” will be the first track released from Subtract (or as Sheeran prefers to stylize it, –). The four-time Grammy winner revealed the final album in his decade-long mathematics era — previous installments are 2011’s +, 2014’s x, 2017’s ÷ and 2021’s = — on March 1, stating that the forthcoming LP came to be after a series of difficult, personal events impacted his life.

“I had been working on Subtract for a decade, trying to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I viewed music and art,” he shared in the album announcement. He added that “in just over a week, I replaced a decade’s worth of work with my deepest darkest thoughts.”

“Within the space of a month, my pregnant wife got told she had a tumor, with no route to treatment until after the birth,” Sheeran continued. “My best friend Jamal, a brother to me, died suddenly and I found myself standing in court defending my integrity and career as a songwriter. I was spiraling through fear, depression and anxiety.”

In light of the events, the singer-songwriter stated that Subtract is an album of him making songs “that’s honest and true to where I am in my adult life” for the first time.

Subtract will arrive on May 5. Listen to the first snippet of “Eyes Closed” below.

09 Mar 2023

John Travolta, Halle Berry & More Set as Presenters on 2023 Oscars

John Travolta is set to present on the 2023 Oscars on Sunday, March 12. This will give the veteran actor another chance to prove that his inexplicable mangling of Idina Menzel’s name as Adele Dazeem on the Oscars nine years ago was just a once-in-a-lifetime verbal slip.

Halle Berry, who remains the only Black actress to win for best actress (and will remain so even after this year, since no Black actresses were nominated in that category this year), will also present on the show. Berry won the award for her 2001 film Monster’s Ball.

Past Oscar nominees Harrison Ford and Kate Hudson were also included in the third and final batch of presenters announced on Thursday (March 9). So were Paul Dano, Cara Delevingne, Mindy Kaling, Eva Longoria, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Andie MacDowell, Elizabeth Olsen and Pedro Pascal.

Previously announced presenters are Riz Ahmed, Halle Bailey, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Glenn Close, Jennifer Connelly, Ariana DeBose, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Danai Gurira, Salma Hayek Pinault, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Nicole Kidman, Troy Kotsur, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Deepika Padukone, Florence Pugh, Questlove, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver and Donnie Yen.

The presenters were announced by executive producers and showrunners Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner and executive producer Molly McNearney.  Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the Oscars will air live on ABC and broadcast to outlets worldwide on Sunday, March 12, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. 

The 95th Oscars will be held at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood, the show’s usual home since 2002. (The only exception was the show two years ago, near the height of the pandemic. That one was held at Union Station In Los Angeles.)

09 Mar 2023

India.Arie Talks Returning to Spotify: ‘I Deserve My Checks’

In February 2022, Grammy-winning R&B singer-songwriter India.Arie pulled her music from Spotify in protest, after the audio streaming platform paid podcaster Joe Rogan 200 million dollars despite his years of using anti-Black language on his show. (Rogan would later apologize for his comments.) More than that, however, Arie was unsatisfied with the way Spotify was treating artists at large – and Black artists specifically –  leading her to keep her music off the service for a year.

Recently, however, she announced via Instagram that she has decided to put her music back on the platform. She shared a series of posts, including a video explaining why she initially took her music down from Spotify, and what motivated her to put it back up. ”People thought I was in a public battle with Joe Rogan,” she said. “I was not. I was in a public battle with Spotify because Spotify owns all our copyrights.” 

Arie also hopes to clear up what she feels are misconceptions that the public has developed about her in the year since her Spotify protest. One is that India.Arie is her birth name, and not a stage name. Another is that, despite online trolls suggesting that she is an “under the radar” artist or a “never was,” she has released multiple RIAA-certified platinum albums (including acclaimed 2001 breakout Acoustic Soul), and received industry accolades including BET Awards, NAACP Awards and Grammys, with an influence that can still be felt in artists today ranging from H.E.R. to Ariana Grande. 

“I was a big player and I was very successful, which is why I could still have conversations like this,” she says. “‘Cause you have to have a big success for people to still be wanting to talk to you 23 years later.”

Below, Arie speaks to Billboard about her decision to put her music back on Spotify, her feelings about the Grammys and her legacy as an artist. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you explain why you decided to pull your music off of Spotify? 

I pulled it off in the name of my own dignity.

It was in protest. I’ve been in the music industry for 24 years. I signed my record deal in 1999, and I know too much about how racism functions in the music industry to be comfortable with what I saw. And so knowing that Black music sells most of the music, and just how important Black people are in the [music industry], and in the creation of music, period –  we all know. Spotify said it to me: Someone called me after I took my music down and said, “You know, Black music does the most streams.” I’m like, “I know that.”

And so knowing that Black music does the most streams [and how] streaming has deeply affected people’s ability to make a living as songwriters, and then they just throw it in our face that they’re giventhis man who uses racist language $200 million —  for me, my dignity could not stand it.

I did not think that anybody was gonna care, ‘cause I’ve spoken out about things in the past. There again is the concept of race showing up, ‘cause people didn’t care until there was this white man involved — which, you know, welcome to the world, is no surprise.  

How were songwriters impacted by streaming that you saw and were concerned about?

Well, it’s not just what I see, it’s what we have all experienced. So before streaming, the way that royalties were paid out had to do with CD sales and also radio play. And so when CD sales go away… ‘cause you know, who buys albums anymore at all? We all buy everything digitally. It was a revolution. 

And so when this revolution happened, the record labels and the streaming platforms came together. The record labels had to partner with the streaming platforms or they were gonna lose, too. So they formed this partnership, and they decided how much people would be paid. I don’t know why they came up with these numbers, but it was like, “This is what it’s worth now. So forget what you were getting.” ‘Cause I put out albums before streaming and after, and so did many of my friends who wrote songs on my albums, and I watched people’s checks dry up. This is not a theory – this is what we have experienced. 

A lot of us feel like these numbers are random. The labels and the streaming platforms feel like it’s worth a fraction of a penny, 0.333% of a penny. Take it or leave it. What the average person thinks is that they pay $10 a month to Spotify or whoever for access to all this music, and that portion of that goes to the artist that they’re buying – and that’s not what that is. All the money goes to the labels, then a smaller portion goes to Spotify, and a person then is paid for whatever the labels and the streaming platforms together deemed the value of a stream. I don’t know where the number came from. I don’t know anybody who knows.

Were there any artists reaching out to you with moral support behind the scenes?

There was a little. I had more people tell me, “No, I don’t wanna talk about this”. I’ll be like, “You wanna talk? No? OK…” One artist who shall remain nameless told me, “I think you should just shut up.” And I was like, “Well, enjoy all of your success. I’m over here fighting for us who have regular careers still.”

But some people did reach out, and they just wanted to talk about it… not a lot, but those two people who reached out, they were like, “Well, you know, I’m still with the label.” I’m like, “I get it.” I remember those days when they could just hold anything over your head. Anything you did – if you chose a different album cover than what they wanted, they would say, “Well, maybe we won’t put it out.” Or if you didn’t do the remix, or use the artist they wanted … they would hold anything over your head. I know those days very well. And so those two artists who wanted to just talk it through, I knew exactly what they were talking about, about the punishment that can come.

But there were only those two. And some other people were saying, ”Oh yeah, that’s cool. I see you. I see you on your activist s–t…” But there was no, “If you need anything, or you need to talk…” There was very little of that. Not one artist that I reached out to was like, “I’ll do it with you.”

I did find out later through a very prominent attorney that some of his clients were talking about it behind the scenes, and asked him to go to Spotify and speak on their behalf and show their distaste – which I think also had something to do with Spotify [coming to understand] the nuclear nature of the N-word, why some black people have a zero-tolerance policy around it. And so I know that people spoke out behind [the scenes], because I was told. But there was not a lot of [public] moral support.

Why did you decide to put your music back on Spotify?

Something big did change for me where I started getting these royalties payments. I’ll be getting my first ones this year. But also, [NMPA president/CEO] David Israelite won the lawsuit where [the royalty rate for songwriters will be increased from 10.5% to 15.1% over the course of stream payments from the years 2018 to 2022], which is huge when you’re getting a fraction of a penny.

So when those two things shifted, I put my music back up. Cause I want my checks. And not only do I want my checks, I deserve my checks. There’s still not gonna be enough. And there’s still so much that needs to be changed in the music industry for it to be humane, really. But I stood up for myself and I got some shift, and I want my checks, period.

Do you own your masters? 

Not yet. But I’m coming up on the time when I would, just because I’ve been in the industry so long. That would be a natural reversion. But owning my masters is one of my big prayers.

Is your relationship with Spotify and your conversation with them about how they can help Black artists an ongoing one?

No. They invited me into the conversation in the beginning, and then I would reach out to them and no one would reach back. And so in the very beginning, they asked, “What do you think we can do?”

But then none of them would ever answer my calls again. I didn’t try it a million times, but I did call a few times through my lawyer, and they never wanted to talk to me again. I reached out to them again towards the end of last year and they were like, “Well, that’s behind us. We don’t wanna talk about it.” When they started making some of the shifts that we saw, like taking some 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast down – also, they agreed to pledge 100 million dollars towards podcasters of color. That was their language. I wanted it to [specifically] be Black podcasters, ‘cause there’s a difference. And so I tried to reach out to them about that. They didn’t wanna talk about it. Nobody ever called back. 

And then I called again this summer around August to ask if they would be willing to give a public apology to their artists of color. Just simple to me – that would make you look good – but they said “no.” They answered that. They said, “No, that’s behind us.” So, no, it’s not an ongoing relationship. But it’s not because of me – because I definitely have things I’d love to say and initiatives I’d love to be a part of.

Pivoting a bit: There was the infamous Grammys night of 2002 when you lost all seven awards you were nominated for. There are still a lot of conversations about racism with the Grammys, especially in regards to an artist like Beyoncé not receiving the bigger awards. Have your feelings changed about awards at large and the Grammys specifically? 

Yes. I mean, of course. I went into that night thinking, “This is a night where the industry votes,” and all this stuff that they tell you – that this is about your peers, and they listened to the music. I believed all that. And then I left understanding the politics of race in the industry. I was very clear on that after that night. And so when Beyoncé didn’t win [in 2017] for Lemonade, I was watching it with some friends and I was like, “I told y’all, it’s all drawn along lines of race – even when you’re Beyoncé.” 

With this last Grammy [Awards], I didn’t even watch this one. And it wasn’t even in protest – it wasn’t even on my radar. That’s how I feel about award shows at this point. It means nothing.

But the last time I went [at the 2020 awards], I went down the red carpet. I told myself that first of all, I was gonna look amazing – which I did, and the photographs of that night went viral several times on Twitter and Instagram. And then I told myself I was gonna tell the truth, the exact full truth to any question they asked me on the red carpet. And I did. And I had a video from that [night] that went viral from USA today. And so I feel like that was the night that I set myself free from any expectations of [The Grammys] or the ability for it to hurt my feelings. And now this last one came and went. 

It’s been 22 years since your debut album Acoustic Soul came out. Could you reflect on how that album has changed your life and relationship to it now?

Well, of course, Acoustic Soul changed my life completely. I went from being a college student playing under a tree to opening for Sade on 50 tour dates. And then after the tour was over, the seven Grammy nominations came through, and, you know, my life was never the same. In good ways and challenging ways as well. 

I have other conversations too about the enduring impact of the aesthetic of Acoustic Soul in different artists – not just that album, but my aesthetic overall. I hear it. And I think that at the age when I released Acoustic Soul, my biggest wish was that I would be an artist who made a generational impact. ‘Cause to me, Stevie Wonder is the ideal for everything music. And so, [multiple] generations of people listening to my music, people getting married to my music, people having it as their birthing playlist —  that was all I wanted, was to make music that was a part of people’s lives. I didn’t think about influencing anyone. To me that felt so far-fetched.

09 Mar 2023

Black Coffee Claims Drake & Lil Baby Are Working On a Joint Album

Black Coffee has given Drake fans another reason to possibly gasp, as he claimed in a new interview that the 6 God is reportedly working on a new album with oft-collaborator Lil Baby. In the chat with Podcast and Chill With MacG, Coffee recalled his conversation with Quality Control’s co-founder Coach K, during which he learned the two rap titans were busy logging in time together in the studio. 

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

“He had said to me Lil Baby and Drake are making an album,” Black Coffee noted at the three-hour mark of the interview before adding, “It’s possible that Drake is retiring.”

Billboard has reached out to Drake and Baby’s reps.

Drake and Lil Baby aren’t strangers to each other’s material, teaming up on a bevy of records, including “Yes Indeed,” “Wants and Needs” and “Girls Want Girls.” The pair also partnered on DJ Khaled’s top five Hot 100 single “Staying Alive” last year.

If Drake releases another collaborative effort, it will mark his third after previously releasing 2015’s What a Time to Be Alive with Future and 2022’s Her Loss with 21 Savage. The same applies to Lil Baby, who tag teamed with Gunna on 2018’s Drip Harder mixtape and 2021’s Voice of the Heroes effort with Lil Durk. 

Regarding retirement plans, Drake hinted at the notion during his chat with Lil Yachty last month for his new series, A Moody Conversation. “I’m kind of introducing the concept in my mind of a graceful exit,” Drake said at the time. “I’ll still be around to like, you know, work with people or do a show here or there, but I’m not going to like, force myself to compete. … So I guess that’s the one thing that I want for myself really badly.”

Check out Black Coffee’s interview below. 

09 Mar 2023

Florence + The Machine Delivers a ‘Deeply Unsettling’ Cover of No Doubt’s ‘Just a Girl’ for ‘Yellowjackets’ Trailer

Ethereal rock meets ’90s punk on Florence + The Machine‘s new cover of No Doubt‘s classic “Just a Girl,” recorded for the highly anticipated upcoming second season of Showtime’s Yellowjackets.

The cover is also heavily used throughout the brand new trailer for Yellowjackets season two, both of which dropped Thursday (March 9). Based on the trailer, No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani‘s spunky 1995 lyrics perfectly match the show’s coming-of-age and survival themes, while Florence Welch’s haunted vocals and sinister production bring out Yellowjacket‘s horror-inspired texture.

“I’m such a huge fan of Yellowjackets and this era of music, and this song especially had a huge impact on me growing up, so I was thrilled to be asked to interpret it in a ‘deeply unsettling’ way for the show,” Welch said of the cover in a statement. “We tried to really add some horror elements to this iconic song to fit the tone of the show. And as someone whose first musical love was pop punk and Gwen Stefani it was a dream job.”

Available for streaming March 24, the second season of Yellowjackets will continue the Emmy-nominated thriller’s harrowing story of a girls’ soccer team fighting for survival after a plane crash leaves them stranded in the wilderness. “As they confront the horrible truth of what survival entails, the real nightmare for each of them will be to figure out who they are — and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to stay alive,” reads a release about the upcoming season.

Meanwhile, Welch is currently in the middle of her world tour in support of Dance Fever, Florence + The Machine’s fifth studio album released in May last year. The “Just a Girl” cover comes exactly three months after Welch and Ethel Cain dropped a duet version of “Morning Elvis,” the final track on Dance Fever.

Stream Florence + The Machine’s cover of “Just A Girl” and watch the trailer for Yellowjackets Season 2 below:

09 Mar 2023

Karol G’s ‘Mañana Será Bonito’ Makes a Big Impact on Billboard Global Charts

The release of Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito, the fourth studio LP from the Latin music superstar, is already historic. The set earned 94,000 album equivalent units in the United States in the week ending March 2, according to Luminate, making it the Billboard 200 chart’s first all-Spanish language No. 1 by a female artist.

Globally, the set’s 17 songs drew 438.2 million official streams, with 13 of its tracks hitting the March 11-dated Billboard Global 200. Nine of those appear on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. ranking, including four songs whose releases pre-date the album. All nine rank higher on the Global 200 than on Global Excl. U.S.

It’s rare to see a Colombian artist who performs exclusively in Spanish do better on the Global 200 than the Global Excl. U.S. chart, where the primarily English-language American market is the only difference in methodology.

But based on Karol G’s global chart history, and that of many other major hitmakers of the last few years, the balance between her ranking on Billboard’s global surveys may even out in the weeks to come. Over the 30 months since the global charts launched, a pattern has emerged where an album’s first-week streams will lean much heavier toward domestic activity, before steadying in the weeks that follow.

In the case of Karol G, the spike in U.S. activity is sharp. One week ago, three advance singles from Bonito were on both charts and averaged more than 80% of their streams from outside the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 23 (ahead of the album’s Feb. 24 release), all ranking higher on Global Excl. U.S. than the Global 200.

In the album’s debut week, her 13 new tracks averaged 66% non-U.S. streams, while a couple songs dipped as low as 59% and 57%. Even though her international stream total remains above 50%, the drop from 80% international to 66% in the album’s first week reflects a common listening pattern in America.

Based on streaming activity for practically all major global albums in the charts’ history, the U.S. versus non-U.S. splits will likely return to Karol G’s “normal.”

Drake, Billboard’s top artist of the 2010s, released his long-teased Certified Lover Boy in September 2021. All 21 songs debuted on both lists but averaged at No. 16 on the Global 200 and No. 44 on Global Excl. U.S. in the set’s debut week. Of its combined 1.1 billion streams, just 32% came from outside the U.S., less than half of that week’s average.

Three weeks later, the album’s international streams climbed — though barely — to 34%. Three months after that, they settled at 37%. These changes aren’t drastic, but similar patterns exist for recent hit albums by J. Cole, Future, and Kendrick Lamar.

Those higher-U.S. and lower-international splits are common for hip-hop albums, but their rising trajectory applies to pop artists as well. Taylor Swift’s Midnights averaged 53% of its 973 million first-week streams (for the set’s 13 standard-edition tracks) from outside the U.S. Three weeks later, that share bumped to 56%, and three months later, to 61%.

Even among artists from outside the U.S., first-week streams spike in America. Harry Styles’ Grammy-winning Harry’s House was released last year and scored 620 million streams in its first seven days. Of those, 60% came from outside the U.S., far lower than the 75% of his own years-old hit “Watermelon Sugar.” The opening 60% grew to 66% by week four, and to 69% by month four. The same goes for recent releases by fellow Brits Adele and Ed Sheeran.

These examples, all of which debuted their entire track listings on the Global 200, suggest an urgency from American listeners for first-week listens, while international fans, broadly speaking, are slower to discover new releases. But while the artists mentioned above all follow this pattern, the closest comparison to Karol G’s glass-ceiling moment is the other artist to score major American success with all-Spanish albums.

Bad Bunny dominated 2022 with Un Verano Sin Ti, the album that spawned his biggest U.S. hits to date. The 23-song set debuted with 1.1 billion streams worldwide, 66% of which were from outside the U.S. That number is much closer to that week’s average than the opening week splits for Drake and Swift, but the fact that Bad Bunny was below the average at all, just as Karol G is on her debut week, was surprising. One week prior, he had six globally charting songs, averaging 75%. While the release of his new album generated huge numbers everywhere, the bigger immediate spike in consumption was in America, despite his all-Spanish-language material.

Less than a month after the album’s release, the pendulum moved closer to the center, up from 66% to 71% non-U.S. streams. That number remained relatively steady as the album continued to rule various charts. The happy medium between the album’s first week numbers and Bad Bunny’s pre-Verano figures also indicate that while he experienced the same U.S.-heavy first-week spike as virtually every other major pop act, the album may have done some heavy lifting in making him an even bigger star in the U.S. than he had been when he scored the first-ever all-Spanish No. 1 album.

Time will tell how consumption for Mañana Será Bonito will settle in the coming weeks and months, but Bad Bunny’s 2022 may be indicative of her future global prospects. Like Bad Bunny, Karol G scored her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit yet upon impact, with “TGQ,” with Shakira, debuting at No. 7, leading a heap of debuts further down the U.S.-based chart and a giant domestic streaming total. We can expect international listeners, specifically those in South and Latin America, to close the gap somewhat, although her global star power could continue to rise in all directions.

09 Mar 2023

Kirk Franklin Becomes First Artist to Spend 100 Weeks at No. 1 on a Songwriters Chart

Kirk Franklin makes history as he spends a landmark 100th week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Gospel Songwriters chart (dated March 11).

The artist becomes the first person to reach the 100-week milestone on a songwriters chart. Billboard launched its Hot 100 Songwriters and Hot 100 Producers charts, as well as genre-specific rankings for country, rock & alternative, R&B/hip-hop, R&B, rap, Latin, Christian, gospel and dance/electronic in June 2019. (Alternative and hard rock joined in 2020, along with seasonal holiday rankings in 2022.)

“As a songwriter, there are few things more gratifying than seeing your work connect with people on a deep level,” Franklin tells Billboard. “To have my music resonate with so many for 100 weeks is truly a humbling experience. I am grateful beyond words to those that love my music for their support and to everyone who has played a part in bringing my music to life.”

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

Franklin extends his record run atop Gospel Songwriters thanks to three songwriting credits on the latest Hot Gospel Songs chart. He’s also credited as a recording artist and producer on all three tracks. Here’s a recap:

Rank. Artist Billing, Title (co-songwriters in addition to Franklin)

  • No. 4, Maverick City Music X Kirk Franklin feat. Brandon Lake & Chandler Moore, “Fear Is Not My Future” (Brandon Lake, Jonathan Jay, Hannah Shackleford, Nicole Hannel)
  • No. 7, Maverick City Music X Kirk Franklin feat. Naomi Raine & Chandler Moore, “Kingdom” (Chandler Moore, Jonathan Jay, Jacob Poole)
  • No. 9, Maverick City Music X Kirk Franklin, “Bless Me”

The only act to spend at least 100 weeks atop a producers chart is Tainy, who has amassed 119 weeks at No. 1 on Latin Producers, thanks to his work on hits by J Balvin and Bad Bunny, among others.

Franklin has been hugely successful on Billboard’s gospel charts. He holds the record for the most Hot Gospel Songs No. 1s (eight) and has the second-most top five hits (15), top 10s (20) and overall entries (36) in the chart’s 18-year history. He’s also tied for the most No. 1s on Gospel Airplay (nine, with Tamela Mann) and holds the record for the most career entries at the format (25, also over the list’s 18 years).

Franklin’s “Wanna Be Happy?” spent 45 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Gospel Songs in 2015-16, making it the third-longest-leading hit in the chart’s archives, while his “Love Theory” spent 44 weeks on top, the fourth-longest reign. His eight leaders on Hot Gospel Songs have spent a combined 144 weeks at No. 1, the most among all acts.

Franklin has also earned 13 No. 1 albums on the Top Gospel Albums chart, the most among all acts since he first led the chart in December 1993, with Kirk Franklin And The Family. On the all-genre Billboard 200, he’s charted 14 albums, including five top 10s.