Pop
Page: 415
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
This week, Bad Bunny returns sooner than expected, Offset corrals his famous friends and Ice Spice links up with Rema for a new hit. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Bad Bunny, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana
[embedded content]
Thought you had to wait until 2024 for Bad Bunny’s next opus, which would follow last year’s enormous Un Verano Sin Ti? A lot of us did — there’s a reason why his new semi-surprise project is titled Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana (“Nobody Knows What Will Happen Tomorrow”), considering how widespread the belief was that the Puerto Rican superstar would sit patiently until the calendar flipped. Instead, Bad Bunny has gifted another 80 minutes of dynamic solo material: zero guests are credited on Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, and while some are sprinkled throughout, there’s clearly been a conscious decision to delineate between the summer-ready opulence of Un Verano Sin Ti and his captivating next phase. Bad Bunny’s latest requires due diligence before a snap judgment, but needless to say, it’s good to have him back sooner than anticipated.
Offset, Set It Off
[embedded content]
The cover of new Offset solo album finds the rap star falling away from the world as it explodes away from him, the sky and ground inverted; after Quavo’s somber Rocket Power, which reflected on Takeoff’s untimely death throughout its track list, Offset’s new artwork could be construed as a reaction to his fellow Migos member’s passing. While Set It Off does contemplate grief and unspoken words (see the late highlight “Upside Down”), Offset’s latest also revels in blockbuster-rap elegance — especially in its first half, which includes guest spots from Travis Scott, Don Toliver and Offset’s wife, Cardi B.
Ice Spice feat. Rema, “Pretty Girl”
[embedded content]
During her meteoric rise, Ice Spice has never compromised her style or relaxed her flow to fit in with mainstream expectations — but on crackling new single “Pretty Girl,” featuring Nigerian superstar Rema, the rapper showcases her ability to translate her effortless rhyming into a traditional pop structure, and scores one of the most likable singles of her career. “Pretty Girl” benefits from an Afrobeats-adjacent thump and the melodic charisma that Rema flaunted on “Calm Down,” but Ice Spice dominates the track, each of her bars a dart that hits its mark.
Troye Sivan, Something to Give Each Other
[embedded content]
Troye Sivan has always possessed a distinct pop voice — both literally, with his warm, richly developed tone, and figuratively, as a former YouTuber making fundamentally sound and unabashedly queer pop music. Yet “Rush,” the thrilling lead single to third album Something to Give Each Other, hinted that his song construction had leveled up, and the full-length has confirmed as much: not every song on his new project carries the tempo of “Rush,” but from the robo-fantasia of “One of Your Girls” to the clap-along lullaby of “Can’t Go Back, Baby,” Something to Give Each Other gives Sivan the sonic depth required to help his voice fully soar.
Boygenius, The Rest
[embedded content]
Prior to a breakout 2023 in which they released their debut full-length and headlined arenas, Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker conjured magic with a six-song EP in 2018, unveiling Boygenius as a collaborative project and slowly winning over thousands of listeners. The Rest, a new four-song EP, arrives in very different circumstances for the group yet feels just as intimate, a short, moving songwriting showcase defined by sparse arrangements and overlapping voices; the closer “Power,” in particular, feels like a summation for this phase of Boygenius, with Baker singing about “a crooked little trajectory” before being joined by her best friends.
Editor’s Pick: Fred again.. feat. Jozzy, “Ten”
[embedded content]
As he caps off a string of shows in New York and Los Angeles, effectively putting an exclamation point on a professional period during which he ascended to dance’s A-list, Fred again.. has also unveiled one of the more satisfying grooves of his career: “Ten,” a new single with Jozzy, plays with space and vocal pitches, but that percussive hook is as wonderfully woozy as Fred hoped it would be, and Jozzy makes his presence felt in a short amount of time. “Ten” begs to be presented to and bopped with a crowd of thousands — lucky for those with Fred again.. tickets this month.
Ed Sheeran notches his sixth No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Oct. 14), as his latest studio effort, Autumn Variations, debuts atop the list. It sold 46,500 copies sold in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 5, according to Luminate.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
With the No. 1 bow of Autumn Variations, Sheeran is the only artist to earn at least two new No. 1s on Top Album Sales in 2023. Autumn’s arrival comes just five months after Sheeran last hit No. 1, when his previous studio set, – (Subtract), launched at No. 1 on the May 20-dated tally, spending a week in charge. Only one other act has had two albums at No. 1 in 2023, but they did so with a carryover title that first hit No. 1 in 2022: Taylor Swift. Her Midnights album had 14 weeks at No. 1 nonconsecutively from Nov. 5, 2022, through June 10, 2023, while her Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) debuted at No. 1 on the July 22, 2023, chart, logging two weeks at No. 1.
Autumn Variations was announced on Aug. 24, a little over a month before the album was released on Sept. 29.
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart: titles from NCT, Joe Hisaishi and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Wilco, Grateful Dead, Lil Peep all debut in the top 10, while Green Day’s Dookie re-enters the chart in the top 10 after its 30th anniversary reissue, and Jason Isbell’s Southeastern surges back onto the chart following its 10th anniversary reissue.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Autumn Variations’ 46,500 first-week sales, physical sales comprise 33,500 (17,500 on CD and 16,000 on vinyl – his largest week ever on vinyl) and digital downloads comprise a little over 13,000. The set also launches at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums chart, marking his fourth No. 1 on the 12-year-old tally. The album’s debut-week sales were bolstered by its availability across five vinyl variants, a signed CD and a deluxe digital edition of the album with live versions of each of the album’s songs.
Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts falls 1-2 on Top Album Sales with nearly 16,000 sold (down 31%). NCT’s Golden Age: The 4th Album debuts at No. 3 with 13,000 sold, marking the third top 10-charting effort for the Korean pop ensemble.
Joe Hisaishi and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s A Symphonic Celebration: Music From the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki bows at No. 4, following its vinyl release on Sept. 29. The set was initially released via digital download and CD on June 30. In the week ending Oct. 5, the Celebration album sold 12,500 copies – with 12,000 of that sum on vinyl, marking the single biggest sales week for a classical album on vinyl since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. (Its vinyl sales were enhanced by its availability in five vinyl variants.)
With 12,500 overall copies sold, Celebration logs the second-largest sales week for a classical album released in 2023, following Def Leppard’s Drastic Symphonies (15,000; June 3-dated chart).
Wilco logs its ninth top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales as the band’s new studio set, Cousin, debuts at No. 5 with a little over 12,000 copies sold. Green Day’s Dookie re-enters the chart at No. 6 with 11,000 sold (up 1,744%) following its 30th anniversary deluxe reissue. The album peaked at No. 2 in 1995 and hasn’t been in the top 10 since April of that year. Grateful Dead’s Wake of the Flood debuts on Top Album Sales at No. 7 following its 50th anniversary reissue. The set, first released in 1973, sold nearly 10,500 copies in the tracking week (up from a negligible sum the previous week). Jason Isbell also celebrates an anniversary, as his Southeastern album re-enters at No. 8 – a new peak and its first week in the top 10 – with 10,000 sold (up 4,723%) after its 10th anniversary reissue. The album originally peaked at No. 23 in June of 2013.
The physical commercial debut of Lil Peep’s 2016 mixtape Hellboy prompts the album’s debut at No. 9 on Top Album Sales with nearly 10,000 sold. It was released via CD, vinyl and cassette on Sept. 29, but was previously available as a digital download (and via streaming services). It’s the fourth top 10-charting set for the late rapper, who died in 2017. All of his charting efforts on Top Album Sales debuted on the list following his passing.
Closing out the top 10 on Top Album Sales is V’s Layover, which falls 3-10 with 9,000 sold (down 22%).
In the week ending Oct. 5, there were 1.695 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 8.8% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.369 million (up 11.1%) and digital albums comprised 327,000 (down 0.1%).
There were 573,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Oct. 5 (up 6.7% week-over-week) and 784,000 vinyl albums sold (up 14.2%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 26.160 million (up 0.5% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 34.883 million (up 19.4%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 75.521 million (up 6.0% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 61.449 million (up 10.4%) and digital album sales total 14.071 million (down 9.7%).
Five-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams will narrate Britney Spears‘ upcoming tell-all memoir, The Woman in Me. The singer revealed the news to People magazine in a statement on Friday (Oct. 13), noting that she will read the introduction to the audiobook version, but that Williams will read the rest of the book due out on […]
If the heartbreak in Miley Cyrus‘ emotional single “Used to Be Young” just wasn’t quite enough for you, then you should definitely check out Lauv‘s even more devastating take on the song about the bad old good days. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The singer appeared on […]
TOMORROW X TOGETHER caps a busy stretch with The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, the South Korean five-piece boyband’s fifth album. The Name Chapter: FREEFALL arrives just two month after the release of Sweet, the lads’ second Japanese-language album, which debuted at No. 3 on the World Albums chart. This year has also been a sweet one for TXT — […]
More than five years have passed since Troye Sivan dropped an album. The drought is broken, the floodgates open with Something To Give Each Other, the Australian pop star’s third studio LP.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Something To Give Each Other arrived at the stroke of midnight, its 10 tracks a celebration of “sex, dance, sweat, community, queerness, love and friendship,” and passage through a challenging time.
It’s the followup to Sivan’s sophomore album from 2018, Bloom, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, one of his four top 10 appearances on the chart.
The new LP includes the single “Rush” which has amassed over 215 million combined global streams and debuted on 12 Billboard charts, including a No. 77 bow on the Hot 100; and follow-up single “Got Me Started,” which has raked in over 30 million combined streams, according to EMI.
Written and recorded in London, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Sweden, Sivan worked closely on Something with a collection of collaborators, including Oscar Görres (Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Sam Smith), Ian Kirkpatrick (Dua Lipa, Britney Spears), AG Cook (Charli XCX, Beyoncé), Styalz Fuego (Khalid, Imagine Dragons) and Leland (Selena Gomez), and creative director Gordon von Steiner.
To celebrate the fresh release, Sivan shares the official music video for album track “One Of Your Girls,” which features actor and musician Ross Lynch. The clip, which can be seen below, was created by the team behind the videos for “Rush” and “Got Me Started” — director von Steiner, cinematographer Stuart Winecoff (JAY Z, FKA twigs, Miu Miu) and choreographer Sergio Reis (BTS’ “Black Swan”).
[embedded content]
The 28-year-old is firmly established in the fields of pop, fashion, film and LGBTQI+ culture, and has been a fixture on U.S. TV over this past week, with spots on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, and more. He’s the cover star for the September 2023 issue of Rolling Stone AU/NZ.
The five-year gap between albums, “it wasn’t intentional,” he told Fallon. “It was just like, I started working on it then COVID (happened), then I was filming a TV show, doing whatever. It just took a long time. I’m genuinely, like, this is the most proud I’ve ever been of anything.”
Stream Something To Give Each Other below.
Taylor Swift is back in Kansas City. One day after her Eras Tour film had its star-studded premiere in Los Angeles, the superstar was spotted heading to Travis Kelce‘s suite on Thursday night (Oct. 12), rocking a Kansas City Chiefs windbreaker and a black miniskirt with black heeled boots. In a TikTok posted by the […]
Rich Paul knows a thing or two about dating a musical superstar, but isn’t worried that Travis Kelce will find his way amid his ongoing rumored romance with Taylor Swift. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Paul, who has been dating Adele since 2021, said on Fox Sports‘ First […]
Britney Spears spent a night out with two Latin superstars this week, and the trio seemed to have a ton of fun posing for Instagram photos. Maluma took to the social media platform on Thursday (Oct. 12) to share a picture alongside the “Piece of Me” singer and J Balvin, in which Spears and the […]
Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift have been longtime friends and musical collaborators, and the Grammy-winning producer opened up about his journey with the superstar in a new interview with Today‘s Willie Geist. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “I could quantify our relationship in very reductive ways about […]