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Megan Thee Stallion is ready to level up. The “Mamushi” MC has released a string of hit collaborations over the past few years, but she now has her sights set on the very peak of the pop firmament with her dream for the ultimate pop-hop crossover. Speaking to People magazine, Meg, 29, said she is […]

Sabrina Carpenter continues her reign on the U.K. Singles Chart, as her infectious single “Taste” holds the No. 1 spot for a second consecutive week.
The track, which is part of her sixth album, Short n‘ Sweet, dominates as the U.K.’s most-streamed song of the week, racking up 8 million streams. Sabrina has now accumulated a total of 14 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2024, placing her as one of the year’s most successful chart-topping artists.

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Making chart history, Sabrina is now the first female artist to simultaneously hold the top three spots on the U.K. Singles Chart for two consecutive weeks.

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Alongside “Taste” at No. 1, her previous chart-toppers, “Please Please Please” and “Espresso,” remain at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. The only other artist to accomplish this feat was Ed Sheeran, who held the top three positions for multiple weeks back in 2017 with hits such as “Shape of You” and “Galway Girl.”

The success of “Taste” has been further amplified by the recent release of the viral horror-themed music video, which features Wednesday actress Jenna Ortega.

Aside from Sabrina’s chart domination, there are other notable movements in this week’s U.K. Singles Chart.

Oasis’s 1995 single “Live Forever” climbs to a new peak at No. 8, marking a milestone for the band as it surpasses its original 1995 peak of No. 10.

Meanwhile, another Oasis classic, “Don’t Look Back In Anger,” returns to the Top 10 for the first time in 28 years, landing at No. 9, bolstered by the band’s recent reunion tour news.

This marks the first time the iconic Britpop group has had two singles in the Top 10 simultaneously. Other movements include Benson Boone’s “Slow It Down” rebounding to No. 19, and Gigi Perez’s viral hit “Sailor Song” jumping to No. 24.

Check out “Taste” by Sabrina Carpenter below.

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JC Chasez is ready to delve into the world of musical theater. The *NSYNC superstar revealed exclusively via Billboard on Sunday (Sept. 8) that he’s teaming up with Golden Globe-winning songwriter and composer Jimmy Harry for a musical theater concept album called Playing With Fire. The 16-track project is inspired by Mary Shelly’s seminal 1818 […]

Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet stays steady atop the Billboard 200 (dated Sept. 14) for a second week, after opening at No. 1 a week ago. In its second frame, the album earned 159,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 5 (down 56%), according to Luminate.

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That 159,000-unit sum is substantial for an album’s second week in recent times. In the last 12 months, only three other albums have logged a second week as big as Short n’ Sweet’s. Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department tallied 439,000 units in its second week (chart dated May 11; down from its 2.61 million-unit debut), Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) earned 245,000 in its second week (Nov. 18, 2023; down from 1.653 million), and Drake’s For All the Dogs earned 164,000 in its second week (Oct. 28, 2023; down from 402,000).

Notably, Republic Records is the distributing label of all four albums. Short n’ Sweet was released via Island/Republic, For All the Dogs was issued via OVO Sound/Republic, and Swift’s two albums are straight Republic titles.

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Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, LE SSERAFIM captures it third top 10-charting effort with the No. 7 arrival of CRAZY, while Destroy Lonely achieves his first top 10 as Love Lasts Forever enters at No. 10.

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 Sept. 14, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Sept. 10). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

Of Short n’ Sweet’s 159,000 equivalent album units earned in its second week, SEA units comprise 126,000 (down 28%, equaling 168.45 million on-demand official streams of the album’s 12 songs; it holds at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart, as well), album sales comprise 32,000 (down 83%) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (down 38%).

Post Malone’s former leader F-1 Trillion (released via Mercury/Republic) rises one rung to No. 2 with 86,000 equivalent album units earned (down 23%), Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (KRA/Amusement/Island/Republic) is up a spot to No. 3 with 64,000 (down 10%), Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time (Big Loud/Mercury/Republic) steps 5-4 with 55,000 (down 5%) and Swift’s former No. 1 The Tortured Poets Department climbs 6-5 with 54,000 (down 6%).

Republic Records holds the entire top five titles — a feat that it’s achieved four times. Republic remains the only label to claim the entire top five since the Billboard 200 combined its previously separate mono and stereo album charts into one all-encompassing chart in August 1963. Republic previously controlled the top five on the Jan. 13 and 20, 2024, charts, and on the Dec. 9, 2023-dated list.

Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft rises one rung to No. 6 on the latest Billboard 200, earning 49,000 equivalent album units (down 7%).

LE SSERAFIM’s CRAZY debuts at No. 7 with 47,000 equivalent album units earned, landing the Korean pop ensemble its third top 10-charting effort — and largest week by units earned. Of its starting sum, album sales comprise 38,000 (it’s No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart), SEA units comprise 9,000 (equaling 12.08 million on-demand official streams of the set’s five songs; with over half of that sum driven by the title track) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. CRAZY’s first-week was bolstered by its availability across more than 20 CD variants, all containing collectible branded paper ephemera such as photocards, postcards, stickers, and posters.

Noah Kahan’s Stick Season rises 10-8 on the latest Billboard 200, with 40,000 equivalent album units earned (up 7%) in the week ending Sept. 5. The set’s gain is concurrent with the Aug. 30 arrival of Kahan’s new album, Live From Fenway Park.

Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene is a non-mover at No. 9 on the new Billboard 200 with 39,000 equivalent album units earned (down 6%).

Rapper Destroy Lonely lands his first top 10-charting set on the Billboard 200 as his second studio album, Love Lasts Forever, bows at No. 10 with 37,500 equivalent album units earned — his best week by units. Of its starting sum, album sales comprise 19,000, SEA units comprise 18,500 (equaling 25.19 million on-demand official streams of the album’s songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. The album’s first week was bolstered by its availability in a signed CD edition and two digital download album variants — all exclusive to the artist’s webstore. The latter two were each sold for $5 and each included five additional bonus songs (five different songs per variant).

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.

Former A&M Records executive Derek Taylor captured the sound of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 in a few well-chosen phrases in in his liner notes to the group’s first album for the label. Taylor wrote excitedly about its “delicately-mixed blend of pianistic jazz, subtle Latin nuances, cool minor chords, a danceable beat, gentle laughter and a little sex.”

With all that going for it, how could it miss?

Mendes, who died on Thursday Sept. 5 at age 83, had the kind of career artists dream about. He had enormous success in the 1960s fronting Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, which had three top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 and two top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. But Mendes’ success didn’t end when that group’s fortunes cooled. He enjoyed periodic comebacks and periods of rediscovery for decades to come.

He had a big comeback in 1983 with the Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil power ballad “Never Gonna Let You Go,” which reached the top five on the Hot 100. He enjoyed another rediscovery in 2006 when his album Timeless, which he co-produced with will.i.am, reached No. 44 on the Billboard 200 and received a pair of Grammy nods. (The album featured such guest artists as The Black Eyed Peas, Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, John Legend and Justin Timberlake.) In 2012, he was nominated for an Oscar for best original song for a song he co-wrote for the film Rio.

Mendes won a Grammy for best world music album for his 1992 album Brasileiro and two Latin Grammys for best Brazilian contemporary pop album for Bom Tempo and Timeless. He received a lifetime achievement award from the Latin Recording Academy in 2005.

In 1966, Mendes came to the attention of Herb Alpert, co-founder of A&M Records, and one of the top-selling album artists of the 1960s. Alpert produced the group’s first three albums, all of which went gold. Alpert also took Brasil ’66 on tour with him and even wrote an enthusiastic recommendation that appeared on the back cover of their debut album: “One afternoon recently, a friend of mine called to ask if I wanted to hear a new group. From the first note I was grinning like a kid who’d just found a new toy.” That album remained on the Billboard 200 for more than two years (a rarity in those days) and was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012.

Alpert was a close friend of Mendes’ for nearly 60 years. “Sergio Mendes, my brother from another country, passed away quietly and peacefully,” Alpert said in a statement on Friday. “He was a true friend and extremely gifted musician who brought Brazilian music in all its iterations to the entire world with elegance and joy.” (Another bond between the two musicians: Lani Hall, to whom Alpert has been married since 1973, was one of two female singers in Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66.)

The group’s sound was cool, yet hot, and brimming with confidence. Still, it was a new sound in 1966, so new that A&M took no chances and supplied parenthetical phonetic spellings for five song titles on the album, including “Mais Qu Nada (Ma-sh Kay Nada).” That pronunciation gambit may seem quaint in an era when Bad Bunny gives acceptance speeches on general-audience award shows in Spanish, but, hey, baby steps. One generation paves the way for the next.

The group’s music was often featured in “lounge music” compilations of pop songs from the 1960s, which were a forerunner to today’s “yacht rock” collections of pop songs from the 1970s and 1980s. Some people, it seems, can only enjoy pop music if they’re being ironic about it. (But they’re listening, so I’ll take it.)

Here are 10 Mendes tracks which will remind you of his greatness or give you a good place to start in exploring this talented and innovative musician.

I wrote the liner notes for a CD compilation, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66-86, which was released in 1987 amid A&M’s 25th anniversary celebration. This piece draws some material from those notes.

“Acode” (2008)

Kim Petras and The Chainsmokers are sneaking in one last song of the summer contender, with the pop star and EDM duo releasing a new collaboration titled “Don’t Lie” and music video Friday (Sept. 6). Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In the video, bandmates Alex Pall and […]

Selena Gomez is showing off her musical talent as well as her acting chops! The multihyphenate took to Instagram to share a clip of the dance-ready track, “Mi Camino,” which is featured in the upcoming film, Emilia Pérez, in which Gomez stars as Jessi Del Monte. “A little sneak peek of the song “Mi Camino” […]

Halsey is officially killing their ego.
The singer dropped a music video for her latest single, “Ego,” on Friday (Sept. 6). In the clip, Halsey plays two characters representing two versions of themselves. On one end of the dinner table, the star is seen with long, red hair with full glam makeup and a black mini dress. On the opposite end, Halsey rocks short hair of the same color, wearing no makeup and a tuxedo.

“I think that I should try to kill my ego/ ‘Cause if I don’t, my ego might kill me/ I’m all grown up but somehow lately/ I’m acting like a f—ing baby/ I’m really not as happy as I seem,” Halsey sings in the rock-tinged chorus, as her two egos fight each other around a dimly lit home, using any weapons necessary to get the job done.

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“Ego” is the fourth single from Halsey’s upcoming album, The Great Impersonator, set to drop on Oct. 25. The star has described the project as deeply personal, saying, “I made this record in the space between life and death, and it feels like I’ve waited an eternity for you to have it.”

This week, the three-time Grammy nominee also shared the album’s main cover art, which features a black-and-white close-up of them with rosy cheeks and a star-shaped sticker with the title on her forehead. “Step right up, ladies and gentlemen,” the sticker’s fine print reads. “Behold the marvel of a century. Witness the uncanny ability of a woman who can become anyone, anything your heart desires.”

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The Great Impersonator will mark Halsey’s first album since 2021’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The project also features previously released singles “The End,” “Lucky” and “Lonely Is the Muse.” 

Watch the “Ego” music video below.

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If you were one of the many members of the Beyhive who buzzed in earlier this week to wish Beyoncé a happy 43rd birthday, she wants you to know she appreciated it. In an Instagram post on Thursday (Sept. 5), the R&B superstar thanked her fans for their kind words while serving up some typically […]

On a warm Friday August afternoon, in an Italianate mansion in the hilliest (read: gatedest) part of Beverly Hills, Paris Hilton breezes into the room. The assembled label reps and journalists were politely asked to take our shoes off in the marble-floored foyer of the estate that serves as the office of Hilton’s 11:11 Media, a content company for brands and creators. Upstairs in this white carpeted room, the lady of the house wears stilettos.

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The occasion for this gathering is Hilton’s new album, Infinite Icon, out today (Sept. 6), 18 years after the release of her self-titled debut. The album is a dance–pop hybrid that finds Hilton in full pop mode, with a group of collaborators that includes Meghan Thee Stallion, Rina Sawayama, Sia and Meghan Trainor. Paris set a precedent for success with its “Stars Are Blind,” which spent 12 weeks on the Hot 100 in 2006, peaked at No. 18 — and, to this day, bangs.

The house/office is decorated to remind onlookers of what Hilton has accomplished. There are posters on the wall for her show The Simple Life, a Y2K-era ratings juggernaut that helped make Hilton and co-star Nicole Richie household names. Her 2021 reality program Paris in Love tracked her wedding to now-husband Carter Reum, who welcomes us into the house and offers Diet Coke and a tour of the “Sliving Spa,” a collection of amenities that includes hyperbaric and cryotherapy chambers set up in what used to be the garage. There’s a display of pink purses and a neon wall sign proclaiming “That’s Hot,” the catchphrase Hilton trademarked in 2004, long before “very demure” became the patent-pending slogan of the summer.

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As an assistant leads up upstairs, we pass racks (and racks) of clothing (bright, bedazzled, feathery) pulled for, among other things, an upcoming music video shoot for Infinite Icon‘s “Bad Bitch Academy.” A mood board for the video, among other very fierce, very empowering imagery, has a picture of the famous 2006 photo of Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan that the New York Post published with the headline “Bimbo Summit,” which on the moodboard has been swapped for “Bad Bitch Summit.”

But much of the clothing will not ultimately appear in the video; it will instead be incinerated in an RV fire that will happen outside the L.A. video set a week from now. An accident triggered by what Hilton assumes was an electrical issue, the fire started just after they shot the first scene and destroyed nearly everything inside the RV, among it Hilton’s clothes, shoes, hair extensions, 300 pairs of sunglasses, and other more irreplaceable ephemera.

“With my ADHD, I have notepads where I have like, thousands of notes, and all of that burned along with all my journals,” Hilton tells Billboard in the wake of the fire. “It’s just been heartbreaking, really.”

But even with the tamed blaze still smoldering, Hilton and the team carried on with the shoot. “A lot of people thought it was going to be over,” she says. ” I’m like, ‘No, no, we’re powering through.’” You can genuinely say that actual fire can’t stop Paris Hilton from her pop star dreams.

Certainly a second album laden with hooks and household names guests might help her get there. But in a way, with the fame, the wealth , the outfits and the pre-existing Hot 100 hit, Hilton has always been a kind of pop queen — now she just has more music to go with it. “I’ve always had that attitude and vibe and feel,” she agrees. “Even when I go to my perfume line [release] signings and all of these things around the world, my products, my books, I feel like a pop star all the time. So this is just the next level, with this album.”

The project finds her in what’s always seemed to be her comfort zone: surrounded by a gaggle of gal pals. Infinite Icon was executive produced by Sia, a turn of events that happened after Hilton appeared with the singer and Miley Cyrus to perform “Stars Are Blind” on Cyrus’ on NBC’s 2022 Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party special. The day after, Hilton flew home with Sia on the latter’s private jet and divulged her dream of making more pop music, which Sia encouraged into existence with sessions at her house.

“The first time I sang in front of her, I was, like, freaking out,” says Hilton. “I’m like this is the greatest songwriter, singer of our time, and I’m singing in front of her — and I’m so shy, but she literally brought out something in me that I didn’t even know I had. Before I was more in the baby voice and being very breathy and kind of like, Marilyn [Monroe] vibes. And then with this album, I just felt like a woman.”

Infinite Icon was recorded at Sia’s place, L.A.’s Sunset Studios and the studios Hilton had built in this house and her other house not far from here. 

The general vibe is that everyone who worked on it is a bff. Sia is “my guardian angel, my fairy godmother. I love her so much.” Meghan Trainor — “such a sweetheart. I love her. She is my sis for life” — wrote two Infinite Icon songs, which she also sings on. Co-producer Jesse Shatkin, who produced Sia’s “Chandelier” among many other things is “amazing,” while music video director Hannah Lux Davis is “such a badass.” The album takes inspiration from pop stars that made the mold — “I’ve always looked up to Madonna” — including those Hilton has been actual friends with: “I always loved Britney.”

The project is also influenced by Hilton’s longtime love of dance music, a relationship cultivated by attending many of the world’s greatest parties over the years. (“All my friends are like, begging me to go [to Burning Man], and I’m like, ‘Guys, I have an album coming out next week. I cannot be there,” she says when we speak during Burning Man week.) She is also, of course, a longtime DJ herself.

“My DJ career has definitely had a massive influence on me and my life and making this album,” she says. “Performing all around the world at music festivals, for thousands of people and being on stage and just really paying attention to what makes people move and how to create those unforgettable dancefloor moments — I wanted to bring that same energy into the album.” To that end, Infinite Icon‘s “Infinity” is pure fist-pumping Tomorrowland fare.

Other songs traverse more nuanced topics like her ADHD diagnosis, bad relationships, the love she says she’s now found with Reum and their two young children (son Phoenix is 19 months, daughter London will be one in November) the emptiness of fame and even death. These themes further the expansion of Hilton’s public image that started in 2020 with the release of her documentary, This Is Paris.

In it, she disclosed her experiences at Provo Canyon School, an involuntary residential center for young people where she was taken against her will in 1997, when she was 16. The mental and physical abuse she experienced there was revealed in the doc, which has been viewed 80 million times on YouTube alone. The film fell squarely into the broader public reassessment of the misogynistic and often abusive treatment many female celebrities (Britney Spears, Pamela Anderson, Janet Jackson, etc.) received from the media and culture at large in the Perez Hlton era.

Hilton went deeper into her story in her 2023 memoir, which an assistant hands out copies of after the mansion office album listening session. The book details adventures like the time she and photographer David LaChapelle snuck into her grandparents’ house for an impromptu photo shoot (the grandparents were asleep upstairs) — and thornier subjects, like how the release of a private sex tape against her will by an ex-partner derailed her rising career when she was 19 years old. (One might, for example, read the first half in one sitting on a Friday night in August.)

“That was just such a therapeutic experience,” Hilton says of the documentary, “delving into my life and really taking that time just to reflect on my life and everything I’d been through, and just seeing how strong I am, and resilient, and just what I’ve had to endure. Then with the book, it took it to the next level, where I even started going even deeper, and then through the music. So, yeah, I don’t think the album would have been as deep as it is if it wasn’t for doing the documentary and then that book.”

She’s got a few live shows behind the album lined up and says while her main focus is her family and her business empire she’d love to play Coachella (“that would be iconic”) and make music with Charli XCX. “I’m the original brat,” she says matter of factly. 

“Every time I’ve spoken with [Charli],” she continues, “she’s like, ‘You’ve always been such an inspiration to my music.’ So I just think it just makes so much sense for us to do a song together.” Luckily, the few things that didn’t burn up in the fire included a notebook with ideas for her third album.

All in all, the impression one gets is that Paris Hilton is indeed — in a phrase she trademarked in 2022 — “sliving.” Given the intoxicating but also often toxic realm of celebrity that she emerged from, it’s easy to see how things could have gone differently for her. Instead, she’s got her family, a global business, and now, the album she’s spent nearly 20 years dreaming about. She’s sweet, and she seems happy.

“Being the blueprint for modern celebrity, and really redefining what it means and pioneering a new kind of celebrity, and being someone that blends fashion and media and business and pop culture into a powerful personal brand — I feel proud of that,” she says. “I love seeing so many people now who can follow in my footsteps and take that blueprint and be able to create their own brands and their own businesses and create a beautiful life to support themselves.”

It’s perhaps not the future even she’d dreamed for herself back when “Stars are Blind” was on the charts.

“It just makes me happy anytime I meet someone who says like, ‘Thank you so much. You’re the reason that I do what I do,’” she says. “Or, ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Thank you so much for always being my role model.’ Growing up as a teenager and everything I went through, I never thought I would ever hear that. So it’s just been very validating to me.”