Music
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Lana Del Rey‘s microphone was turned off during her Saturday performance at the 2024 Reading & Leeds Festival, unexpectedly cutting her set short last night (Aug. 24). As The Hollywood Reporter noted, Del Rey was headlining Reading at Richfield Avenue when fireworks began toward the end of her set. At that time her sound went […]
Sabrina Carpenter‘s Short n’ Sweet has topped this week’s new music poll that features artists in various genres of music.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Aug. 23) on Billboard, choosing the 25-year-old pop star’s sixth album as their favorite new music release of the past week.
Short n’ Sweet brought in nearly 50% of the vote on the poll, securing an edge ahead of new releases from Coldplay, Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyana and TINI (“We Pray”); Lainey Wilson (Whirlwind); Central Cee (“Billion Streams Freestyle” and “Bolide Noir”); New Radicals (“Murder on the Dancefloor” and “Lost Stars”); and others.
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Carpenter’s highly anticipated Short n’ Sweet officially arrived on Friday. The new project features previously released singles “Espresso” and her Billboard Hot 100 chart topper “Please Please Please.” Along with the album release, she also dropped the thriller-inspired music video for “Taste,” starring Wednesday actress Jenna Ortega.
Short n’ Sweet follows 2021’s Emails I Can’t Send, which features hits like “Nonsense,” “Feather” and “Because I Liked a Boy.” The album peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking Carpenter’s highest-charting effort on the tally.
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“I called it Short n’ Sweet for multiple reasons. It was not because I’m vertically challenged. It was really like I thought about some of these relationships and how some of them were the shortest I’ve ever had and they affected me the most,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe of the project.
“I think about the way that I respond to situations, and sometimes it is very nice and sometimes it’s not very nice. And again, the thing about albums, projects, writing songs, it’s all moments. So harder for other people to understand that when they’re listening to something that’s going to take them through maybe a lot of years, hopefully a lot of years, is that I’m not the same person that I was when I wrote that.”
Trailing behind Carpenter on this week’s poll is Coldplay’s team-up with Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI for “We Pray,” which brought in 30% of the vote. The British band is gearing up for the release of its 10th studio album, Moon Music, set for release on Oct. 4.
See the final results of this week’s poll below. Check out Billboard‘s Friday Music Guide to catch up with more must-hear releases from this week.
Post Malone’s first country album, F-1 Trillion, rolls in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Aug. 31) with 250,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 22, according to Luminate. It’s the sixth top 10, and third No. 1 for the artist. He last led the list with Hollywood’s Bleeding in 2019, which racked up five weeks atop the list. He first reigned with Beerbongs & Bentleys, for three weeks in 2018.
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The standard edition of the F-1 Trillion album was released on Aug. 16 and has 18 songs, 15 of which are collaborations with country stars ranging from Dolly Parton and Hank Williams Jr., to Brad Paisley and Blake Shelton, to HARDY and Morgan Wallen. Later on Aug. 16, F-1 Trillion garnered a deluxe reissue, dubbed the “Long Bed” edition, with nine additional solo Post Malone tracks.
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F-1 Trillion also leads the Top Country Albums — where it’s Post Malone’s first entry — and the Top Streaming Albums and Top Album Sales tallies.
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. 31, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Aug. 27. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
F-1 Trillion debuts with 250,000 equivalent album units earned — the second-largest week for any country album in 2024. Only Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter earned a bigger week this year among country sets, when it opened in April with 407,000 units.
Of F-1 Trillion’s first-week sum of 250,000 units, SEA units comprise 164,000 (equaling 212.86 million on-demand official streams of the deluxe album’s 27 songs), album sales comprise 80,000 and TEA units comprise 6,000. The album’s first-week sales were bolstered by its availability across four vinyl editions (a standard black vinyl and three color variants; which combined to sell 25,000 — Post Malone’s best week on vinyl), a cassette and a CD, in addition to explicit and clean digital download albums for the standard 18-song version and the 27-song “Long Bed” version.
F-1 Trillion was led by the crossover hit “I Had Some Help,” featuring country superstar Wallen. The single spent six weeks atop the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart, in May-July, reached No. 1 on the all-genre Streaming Songs chart, and topped both the Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay tallies. It also crowned the all-genre Radio Songs airplay ranking and hit No. 1 on both the Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay charts. “Help” was followed by two further preview tracks from the album before the full-length set dropped: “Pour Me a Drink,” featuring Shelton, and “Guy for That,” featuring Luke Combs. Both reached the top 20 on the Hot 100 and the top 10 on Hot Country Songs.
Reflecting their latest sonic turns, Post Malone is the second artist, following Beyoncé, to lead the Top Country Albums chart in 2024 with a first entry after having reached No. 1 on other genre-specific album charts with earlier albums. Between 2017 and 2022, Post Malone claimed four No. 1s on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (with Stoney, Beerbongs & Bentleys, Hollywood’s Bleeding and Twelve Carat Toothache), and also led the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart in 2023 (with Austin). Earlier in 2024, Beyoncé made her first visit to Top Country Albums with Cowboy Carter, leading the list for four weeks in April-May. Beyoncé previously logged eight No. 1s on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart as a soloist in 2003-22.
Post Malone leads an otherwise sleepy top 10 on the new Billboard 200, as F1-Trillion is the only debut in the region. Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess holds at its No. 2 high for a second week, earning 72,000 equivalent album units (down 1%), while Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department falls to No. 3, after 15 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1, with 62,000 (down 27%). Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time dips 3-4 with 60,000 (down 5%) and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft descends 4-5 with 53,000 (down 8%).
Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene drops 5-6 with 44,000 equivalent album units earned (down 8%); Charli XCX’s Brat slips 6-7 with 41,000 (down 14%); Noah Kahan’s Stick Season falls 7-8 with 38,000 (down 2%); Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album descends 8-9 with 36,000 (down 5%); and Bryan’s self-titled leader is a non-mover at No. 10 with 33,000 (down less than 1%).
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.
The Isaac Hayes estate is taking Donald Trump to court.
On Friday (Aug. 23), the late soul singer’s son Isaac Hayes III announced on social media that a federal judge had granted his father’s estate an emergency hearing in their lawsuit against the former president, who has been using “Hold On, I’m Coming” without authorization during multiple campaign rallies.
“The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief,” Hayes III wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Donald Trump, the RNC, Trump, Trump for President Inc. 2024, Turning Point and The NRA are required to appear in court September 3rd, 2024 at the Northern U.S. District Federal Court in Atlanta. See you in court.”
On Aug. 11, lawyers for Isaac Hayes Enterprises filed a notice of copyright infringement and threatened further legal action against the Trump campaign over its use of the Sam & Dave classic at multiple Trump rallies without authorization from 2022-2024.
“Today, on the anniversary of my father Isaac Hayes’ death we have repeatedly asked Donald Trump, the RNC and his representatives not to use ‘Hold on I’m Coming’ written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter during campaign rallies but yet again, in Montana they used it,” Hayes III wrote on X on Aug. 10.
He added the following day, “We demand the cessation of use, removal of all related videos, a public disclaimer, and payment of $3 million in licensing fees by August 16, 2024. Failure to comply will result in further legal action.”
Hayes died Aug. 10, 2008, at the age of 65. He and David Porter wrote “Hold On, I’m Coming,” which was recorded by soul duo Sam & Dave, and issued on the Stax label in 1966, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has had numerous run-ins with other musical acts. Scores of top artists and songwriters have objected to his campaign’s use of their songs at political rallies since he first ran for president in 2015, among them The Rolling Stones, Adele, Rihanna, Sinead O’Connor‘s estate and Aerosmith‘s Steven Tyler.
“It is most unfortunate that these artists have publicly posted on their social media and asked Team Trump and other candidates not to use their music — and yet their candidates keep using their music,” James L. Walker Jr., an attorney for Hayes Enterprises, previously stated.
On Friday, Foo Fighters joined the list of artists who are opposed to Trump using their music during his events. The Dave Grohl-fronted group’s 1997 anthem “My Hero” was played while Trump welcomed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the stage Glendale, Ariz., after the independent presidential candidate suspended his campaign and endorsed the Republican nominee.
“Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were, they would not have granted it,” a spokesperson tells Billboard of the unauthorized usage. Furthermore, “appropriate actions are being taken” against the campaign, the spokesperson continues, and any royalties received as a result of this usage will be donated to the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz campaign.
The move marked the second time in the week — and third time in August — Trump’s campaign had run afoul of a superstar for using music without permission. On Tuesday (Aug. 22), Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung posted a 13-second video on his X account of footage of Trump stepping off a plane as Beyoncé’s “Freedom” played. The video arrived long after his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Harris, had been using the song (with permission) for weeks.
Beyoncé’s record label and music publisher sent a cease-and-desist notice on Wednesday (Aug. 21) to Trump’s campaign over its use of “Freedom.” Later that evening, the video was deleted from Cheung’s X account.
See Isaac Hayes III’s posts on X below.
🚨Breaking 🚨The Federal Court has granted our request for an Emergency Hearing to secure injunctive relief.Donald Trump, @realdonaldtrump, the RNC, Trump, Trump for President Inc. 2024, Turning Point and The NRA are required to appear in court September 3rd, 2024 at the…— Isaac Hayes III (@IsaacHayes3) August 23, 2024
Liam Gallagher seems to be giving hope that an Oasis reunion could finally be in the works.
Following reports over the weekend that the Britpop band will reunite for a series of U.K. concerts in 2025, Liam Gallagher was fueling the flames on social media of a possible reunion with his brother Noel, who he last performed with onstage in August 2009.
On Saturday (Aug. 24), The Sunday Times reported that the Gallagher brothers — who have been feuding for the past 15 years — will reunite next summer for a 10-night stand at London’s Wembley Stadium and shows at Heaton Park in their hometown of Manchester. The report cites “industry insiders” as sources and claims the announcement could arrive as early as Tuesday (Aug. 27).
As rumors began to spread online, Liam Gallagher responded to fan inquiries on X (formerly Twitter) with lines like “News to me” and “I know nothing.” Later in the day, the musician upped the ante by replying to a fan who wrote they were “scared” by the potential reunion announcement. “Your scared how do you think I feel,” Gallagher replied. When another observer called Manchester’s Heaton Park “a terrible venue,” Liam wrote, “See you down the front you big fanny.”
Liam further stoked the flames on Sunday morning by responding to a fan on X who asked when Oasis tour dates would be announced. “Nxt Friday,” he said. And when asked about his plans for 2025, the artist answered, “World domination.” In a standalone post, he vaguely wrote, “I never did like that word FORMER.”
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I never did like that word FORMER— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) August 25, 2024
Meanwhile, Liam’s older brother Noel Gallagher, has not responded publicly to the rumors about a possible Oasis reunion.
Oasis — whose final lineup included Liam, Noel, guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell — formally disbanded in 2009 after the brothers had an argument before a performance in France. Noel has previously stated he was willing return to the band for 100 million British pounds ($135 million USD), to which Liam responded that he would reunite the band for free.
The Manchester rock heavyweights are currently celebrating the 30th anniversary of their debut album, Definitely Maybe, with a deluxe edition scheduled for release on Aug. 30. The expanded editions include “unheard” versions from Monnow Valley Studio, near Rockfield, and outtakes from Sawmills Studios in Cornwall, where the album was re-recorded.
A 26-year-old man has turned himself into police, saying he was responsible for the Solingen knife attack that left three dead and eight wounded at a festival marking the city’s 650th anniversary, German authorities announced Sunday (Aug. 25).
Duesseldorf police said in a joint statement with the prosecutor’s office that the man “stated that he was responsible for the attack.”
“This person’s involvement in the crime is currently being intensively investigated,” the statement said.
Federal prosecutors said they were investigating on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and membership in a foreign terrorist organization. The suspect, wearing handcuffs and leg shackles, was taken later Sunday from the police station in Solingen to make a first appearance before a judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe.
The suspect is a Syrian citizen who had applied for asylum in Germany, police confirmed to The Associated Press. The dpa news agency reported, without citing a specific source, that his asylum claim had been denied and that he was to have been deported last year.
On Saturday (Aug. 24), the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, without providing evidence. The extremist group said on its news site that the attacker targeted Christians and that the perpetrator carried out the assaults Friday night “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”
The claim couldn’t be independently verified. Only a small number of claims on the site have turned out to be completely baseless, said Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College London. However “ISIS’ strategy for a number of years has been to claim attacks which are merely ‘inspired’, in other words, in which the link between organization and attacker is merely ideological.”
Friday’s attack plunged the city of Solingen into shock and grief. A city of about 160,000 residents near the bigger cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf, Solingen was holding a “Festival of Diversity” to celebrate its anniversary.
People alerted police shortly after 9:30 p.m. local time Friday that a man had assaulted several people with a knife on the city’s central square, the Fronhof. The three people killed were two men aged 67 and 56 and a 56-year-old woman, authorities said. Police said the attacker appeared to have deliberately aimed for his victims’ throats.
The festival, which was due to have run through Sunday, was canceled as police looked for clues in the cordoned-off square. Instead, residents gathered to mourn the dead and injured, placing flowers and notes near the scene of the attack.
“Warum?” asked one sign placed amid candles and teddy bears. Why?
Among those asking themselves the question was 62-year-old Cord Boetther, a merchant fron Solingen.
“Why does something like this have to be done? It’s incomprehensible and it hurts,” Boetther said.
Officials had earlier said a 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion he knew about the planned attack and failed to inform authorities, but that he was not the attacker. Two female witnesses told police they overheard the boy and an unknown person before the attack speaking about intentions that corresponded to the bloodshed, officials said.
The attack comes amid debate over immigration ahead of regional elections next Sunday in Germany’s Saxony and Thueringia regions where anti-immigration parties such as the populist Alternative for Germany are expected to do well. In June, Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed that the country would start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again after a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant left one police officer dead and four more people injured.
The IS militant group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria about a decade ago, but now holds no control over any land and has lost many prominent leaders. The group is mostly out of global news headlines.
Still, it continues to recruit members and claim responsibility for deadly attacks around the world, including lethal operations in Iran and Russia earlier this year that killed dozens of people. Its sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq still carry out attacks on government forces in both countries as well as U.S.-backed Syrian fighters.
Fujii Kaze announced a new Asia tour set for later this year, following his first-ever trek around the region last year. This time, the Japanese singer-songwriter will scale up his shows to arena-sized venues for his upcoming Best of Fujii Kaze 2020-2024 ASIA TOUR. The “Shinunoga E-Wa” artist released the key visuals and special website […]
“Are you on live?” Sabrina Carpenter asked Judi Jupiter, a stranger filming her on a Soho street in New York City on Friday (Aug. 23), the release day of her new album Short n’ Sweet.
The “Taste” singer raised her eyebrows high and widened her eyes when she got the answer: “Yeah.”
Carpenter — who’s had an opening spot on The Eras Tour, has had a No. 1 song on the Hot 100, got actress Jenna Ortega to co-star in her latest music video, and just this week had interviews airing with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Zane Lowe for Apple Music, and Amelia Dimoldenberg on an episode of Chicken Shop Date — could’ve politely made an exit. She likely had a busy day ahead.
Instead she stopped on the corner of Spring Street for an impromptu Q&A with Jupiter, who encouraged the (unbeknownst to her) pop star to promote her social media handles on camera so the street interviewer could share with followers on her up-and-coming channel, @judijupiter. (Carpenter has more than 22 million followers on TikTok and nearly 39 million on Instagram; Jupiter has a little over 20,000 TikTok followers, a number that should continue to rise after this chance encounter.)
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“This is so cool. What’s your account?” asked Carpenter, curious enough to start coming up with the questions.
“Judi with an ‘I’ Jupiter,” Jupiter said.
“What kind of content do you–“
“I do really cool people in Soho. All the hot girls in Soho, and in Fire Island,” said Jupiter, who’d spotted Carpenter as she stopped for quick photo opps with fans passing by.
“Oh! I feel honored,” said Carpenter, seemingly fascinated by Jupiter. As it turns out, she should be: Judi Jupiter was part of the late ’70s nightlife in Manhattan, at go-go bars and the famed Studio 54, where she says she became an in-house photographer.
The next part of their unplanned convo on Friday in New York went like this:
“You’re spectacular. Did you just come out with an album?”
“I did. Today.”
“What’s the name of it?”
“It’s called Short n’ Sweet.”
“By?”
“Sabrina Carpenter. Me.”
Jupiter, as though she was discovering a new talent to share, later suggested Carpenter “say hi to my followers.”
“Hi to your followers,” Carpenter said, then directed her attention back to her latest interviewer: “I’m obsessed with you, honestly.”
Watch a clip of their TikTok Live below (saved on a tweet circulating X), and see the original recording on @judijupiter’s TikTok right here.
Ed Sheeran was joined by surprise guest Chris Hemsworth playing drums on “Thinking Out Loud” Saturday night (Aug. 24) in Bucharest, Romania. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the moment — surely an unforgettable one for Hemsworth and the concert audience — was filmed for an upcoming episode of the second season of Limitless With Chris […]
Jean-Michel Jarre is set to open and close the Paris Closing Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics on Sunday, Sept. 8. A pioneer in electronic music, Jarre is a native of France.
The Sept. 8 finale will celebrate 4,400 athletes from 168 Paralympic delegations. Following the athletes’ parade and the handover of the flag from Paris 2024 to Los Angeles 2028, the stadium will host an open-air party for the public at Stade de France.
The much-anticipated musical celebration highlights the French electro scene, with Jarre and a number of other French artists on the lineup, including Agoria, Alan Braxe, Anetha, Boston Bun, Breakbot & Irfane, Busy P, Cassis, Chloe, Chloé Caillet, DJ Falcon, Étienne de Crecy, GЯEG, Irène Drésel, Kavinsky, Kiddy Smile, Kittin Kungs, Martin Solveig, Nathalie Duchene, Ofenbach, Polo & Pan, Tatyana Jane and The Avener.
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A press statement notes the “the concert promises to be a visually and musically festive spectacle, closing the Paris 2024 Games in style.”
Thomas Jolly is artistic director, Victor le Masne is musical director and Romain Pissenem is director/designer of festival.
Speaking with the news publication Le Parisien, Jarre said he considers Pissenem one of the world’s greatest show creators.
In a 2022 interview with Billboard Jarre talked about his French roots, saying his album Oxymore “is a tribute to this French way of approaching the roots of electronic music — by actually dealing with sounds rather than notes and injecting the sound design approach to music composition, people have no idea about how big their contribution is in the way we’re doing the music today.”
Mentor Pierre Schaeffer of Groupe de Recherches Musicale, whom Jarre called “the father of musique concrète,” taught him “two quite important things: Don’t hesitate to go to the unexpected, to mix the sound of a bird with a clarinet, to mix the sound of a washing machine with a trombone … And he said, don’t waste your time experimenting, because your path is to create a bridge between the experimentation we are doing is here in this group and pop music and the audience.”