Month: July 2022

Lizzo lands her first No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated July 30), as her latest studio effort, Special, starts atop the list. The set sold 39,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending July 21, according to Luminate. It’s the second top 10 for the performer, who previously reached No. 2 with Cuz I Love You in 2019.

Also debuting in the new top 10: ITZY’s Checkmate, J-Hope’s Jack in the Box, Black Midi’s Hellfire, and Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp’s 18.

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. The new July 30, 2022-dated Top Album Sales chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday, July 26. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Of the 39,000 copies sold of Special, physical format sales comprise 23,000 (16,000 on vinyl, 6,000 on CD, and 1,000 on cassette) and digital album sales comprise 16,000. Special also starts atop the Vinyl Albums chart (her first No. 1 there) and at No. 2 on Tastemaker Albums. The former ranks the top-selling vinyl albums of the week across all sellers, while the latter tally lists the top-selling albums at independent and small chain record stores (where Special sold 5,000 across all formats).

Special’s first-week sales were enhanced by its availability across more than 15 different physical-format versions of the album – including nine vinyl LPs. All variants contained the same audio, but each had different packaging elements. Among them were editions exclusively sold via Target, Walmart, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lizzo’s official webstore and indie record stores.

At No. 2 on Top Album Sales, ITZY’s Checkmate debuts with 31,000 copies sold. It’s the second top 10-charting effort for the South Korean quintet and its best sales week yet. The group previously logged a visit to the top 10 with the No. 1 debut of Crazy In Love in 2021.

Like many K-pop releases, the CD configuration of Checkmate was issued in collectible deluxe packages (17 total, including exclusive versions for Target and Barnes & Noble) each with a standard set of items and randomized elements (such as photocards and posters); 98% of the album’s first-week sales were on CD. The other 2% were digital album sales. (The set was not released in any other format, such as vinyl or cassette.)

A pair of former No. 1s are next up on Top Album Sales, as Harry Styles’ Harry’s House falls 2-3 with 13,000 sold (up 7%) and Aespa’s Girls: The 2nd Mini Album drops 1-4 in its second week with 11,000 (down 80%).

J-Hope notches his second top 20-charting effort, and first top 10, on Top Album Sales, as Jack In the Box debuts at No. 5 with 10,000 sold. The BTS member previously charted on the tally with the No. 16-peaking Hope World in 2018. Unlike most of BTS’ releases, as well as many K-pop albums, Jack In the Box was not available to purchase in the CD format – only as a digital download album. (BTS is a strong seller on the CD format – the group’s CD album sales account for 3.6% of all CD albums sold in the U.S. year-to-date in 2022.)

Tyler, the Creator’s chart-topping Call Me If You Get Lost falls 4-6 on Top Album Sales with 9,000 sold (down 10%) while TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s former leader Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child is a non-mover at No. 7 with 8,000 sold (up 4%).

British rock band Black Midi scores its first top 10 on Top Album Sales as its new album Hellfire launches at No. 8 with nearly 8,000 sold. Of that sum, vinyl sales comprise 77% — equaling about 6,000. The set also starts at No. 4 on the Vinyl Albums chart. (Over on the Official U.K. Albums Chart, Hellfire starts at No. 22 – granting the group its first top 40-charting set there.)

Rounding out the new top 10 on Top Album Sales are NAYEON’s former No. 1 IM NAYEON: The 1st Mini Album (which falls 5-9 with nearly 7,000 sold; down 23%) and the debut of Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp’s collaborative album 18, which starts at No. 10 with nearly 7,000 sold. It’s the first top 10 for both Beck and Depp on the 31-year-old Top Album Sales chart.

In the week ending July 21, there were 1.845 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 3.2% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.456 million (up 1.5%) and digital albums comprised 388,000 (up 10.3%).

There were 665,000 CD albums sold in the week ending July 21 (down 1.1% week-over-week) and 781,000 vinyl albums sold (up 3.6%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 18.818 million (down 9.9% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 21.634 million (down 0.3%).

Overall year-to-date album sales total 52.26 million (down 8.5% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 40.737 million (down 4.9%) and digital album sales total 11.522 million (down 19.4%).

When Calvin Harris announced the monster list of guests on his forthcoming LP Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2, it wasn’t immediately clear who’d be appearing with whom. On Monday (July 25), the gaggle of superstars involved in the project is becoming clearer with the tease of the album’s next single.

Harris previewed the song “New to You” via social media, revealing that it will feature Offset, Normani and Tinashe and drop this Friday. A 20-second snippet of the track features a dreamy, elegant string section playing in a minor key before a female voice offers a single “uh.” This audio plays over slow-pan imagery of a lush rainforest featuring flora including orchids, ferns and birds of paradise, with a television sitting on a rock. (See the announcement below.)

“New to You” will be the fourth single from Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 and will follow “Stay With Me,” a collab with Justin Timberlake, Halsey and Pharrell that debuted earlier this month. That track followed the 21 Savage team-up “New Money” (also released in July) and May’s “Potion,” with Dua Lipa and Young Thug.

Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 will also feature Stefflon Don, Chloe Bailey, Charlie Puth, Pusha T, Shenseea, Lil Durk, Halsey, 6lack, Coi LeRay, Busta Rhymes, Latto, Swae Lee, Jorja Smith and Snoop Dogg. The album is due Aug. 5, via Sony, and will be Harris’ first album since 2017’s Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

Friday! pic.twitter.com/YVOLUi9fMj

— Calvin Harris (@CalvinHarris) July 25, 2022

JoJo Siwa took part in a viral TikTok trend over the weekend, in which participants are given a series of prompts and briefly flash a photo of the person who fits that prompt.

For the “rudest celebrity I’ve met,” the YouTube sensation quickly showed a photo of Full House star Candace Cameron Bure. She went on to crown Zendaya as her celebrity crush, Miley Cyrus as the nicest celebrity she’s met and Elton John as the coolest.

“Pool day = exposed hahahha,” Siwa captioned her spill session.

At the end of the clip, the dancer showed a photo of Spongebob Squarepants in response to the celebrity who “did me dirty,” seemingly in reference to Nickelodeon.

The star has previously called out the network, most recently claiming that Nickelodeon did not send her an invitation to the 2022 Kids’ Choice Awards, despite being nominated. In a series of since-deleted tweets back in September 2021, Siwa accused Nickelodeon of attempting to block her from performing songs from The J Team, a movie musical she starred in for the network, on her tour. “These are MY songs, MY voice, MY writing. Does this seem fair???” she wrote in one tweet, while adding in another, “Working for a company as a real human being treated as only a brand is fun until it’s not.”

Both Bure and Nickelodeon have yet to publicly respond to Siwa’s TikTok. Watch it in full below.

Nick Cannon has welcomed baby number eight.

On Monday (July 25), model Bre Tiesi announced via Instagram that she and Cannon have welcomed their first baby together — the eighth total child for the comedian. Tiesi gave birth to a baby boy.

The model shared a series of intimate photos that go behind the scenes of her birthing process, two of which feature Cannon posing with her in a bathtub and one just moments after their child’s birth. The 41-year-old comedian and talk show host is pictured holding Tiesi as she cradles their newborn.

On Instagram, Tiesi shared that she went the natural route for her birth and welcomed her and Cannon’s baby from the comfort of her home without the help of labor medications to ease the process.

“I did it. An all natural unmedicated home birth. This was the most humbling / limit pushing yet awakening and completely empowering experience. I can’t thank my team enough for delivering my son safely,” she wrote in the caption. “This experience has changed me forever and I couldn’t of asked for a more amazing and supportive partner. Daddy showed the f up for us.. I couldn’t of done it without you I can’t believe he’s here.”

Cannon — who has yet to share a statement regarding his and Tiesi’s happy news — has seven children with five different women. His eldest, 10-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe, are with ex-wife Mariah Carey; they split in 2016. He then welcomed two more kids — son Golden in 2017 and Powerful Queen in 2020 — with model Brittany Bell. In June 2021, the comedian had another set of twins, Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, with DJ Abby De La Rosa, and another son, Zen, with model Alyssa Scott. Zen died in December at just 5 months old after struggling with aggressive brain cancer.

The comedian may have more children on the way in the coming months: While co-hosting Entertainment Tonight with Nischelle Turner, he hinted that he might have an additional two children on the way very soon.

“I allow the women in my life to kind of share their news on their own, because then it doesn’t make it look like I’m trying to get publicity. When they’re ready to speak on who and what and where, I support. For now I’ll just let them talk. That’s why I said the stork is on the way. We’ll see how it trickles down!” he said, adding that “You would be safe to bet on three [children] in 2022!”

See Tiesi’s pregnancy announcement here.

Lil Wayne is mourning the death of former New Orleans police officer Robert Hoobler, whom he endearingly referred to as “Uncle Bob” after he saved the rapper’s life following his suicide attempt at age 12.

“Everything happens for a reason. I was dying when I met u at this very spot. U refused to let me die,” Wayne wrote via Instagram on Monday (July 25) beneath a photo of Hoobler. “Everything that doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen for a reason. That reason being you and faith. RIP uncle Bob. Aunt Kathie been waiting for u. I’ll love & miss u both and live for us all.”

According to The New Orleans Advocate, Hoobler was found dead in his Old Jefferson, La., home. He was 65. His grandson Daniel Nelson said that he suffered from lingering health issues stemming from a car accident and struggled with diabetes, which eventually led to both of his legs being amputated. David Lapene, Hoobler’s former colleague, said Lil Wayne’s story of Hoobler saving his life nearly 30 years ago is “one of the best stories that depicts Hoobler as a person.”

Last August, the rapper, now 39, sat down with Emmanuel Acho, former NFL player and author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, to discuss his mental health struggles and open up about his suicide attempt at such a young age. On Nov. 11, 1994, the Young Money MC (real name Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.) had called the police before finding his mother’s gun in her bedroom and putting it to his head. After he had shot himself in the chest and heard the cops pounding on the front door, Wayne described how the blood pouring out of chest made it easy for him to slide his body across the floor before kicking the door to signal to the officers that someone was inside.

“They saw me — they as in the cops — they just jumped clean over me and went through the house, talking about, ‘I found the drugs! I found the gun!’ It took a guy named Uncle Bob, he ran up there and when he got to the top of the steps and saw me there, he refused to even step over me,” said Weezy of Hoobler, who was off-duty at the time and arrived at Wayne’s apartment after he heard the dispatcher on his police radio say there was a boy suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “One of them yelled, ‘I got the drugs!’ And that’s when he went crazy. He was like, ‘I don’t give a f— about no drugs! Do you not see the baby on the ground?!’ … He’s screaming at ’em, and they all came out the other room like, ‘Oh sorry, boss. We called the ambulance.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t give a f—!’ So he called one of their names [and said] ‘Your car, now!’ Picked me up and just kept telling me some sh– like, ‘You’re not gonna die on me, you’re not gonna die on me.’ … And so he got me to the hospital, he brought me there and made sure I was good.”

Wayne continued: “I met him years later. But he was like, ‘I don’t want nothing. I just want to say I’m happy to see that I saved a life that mattered.’”

Read Weezy’s sentimental post below.

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If you or anyone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts and/or distress, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255. 

DENVER — For 20 or 30 minutes before Red Hot Chili Peppers started the sold-out opening show of their U.S. tour, Empower Field at Mile High felt a bit scary. The sun went down, a storm set in and many of the 50,000 drenched fans took refuge in covered concourses, trying to stay dry yet still see the stage, causing claustrophobic bottlenecks. Vendors hawking tallboys were everywhere, but in many parts of the stadium, security was eerily absent.

Then the lights went down and bassist Flea appeared on a video screen, wearing a purple muscle shirt, plus tall, purple socks and a long skirt, plucking a white bass, huddling at center stage with drummer Chad Smith and recently returned guitarist John Frusciante for an opening jam. Fans (some of whom apparently paid as much as $3,778.65 for two tickets) returned to their seats and the walkways cleared. After the Los Angeles funk-rock band opened with classics “Can’t Stop,” “Dani California” and “Scar Tissue” and three or four songs from their latest, Billboard 200 albums-chart-topping LP Unlimited Love, the rain stopped and the Peppers’ enthusiasm for being together spread to the crowd.

Befitting a stadium concert, the band draped the stage with psychedelic videos and special effects, at one point resembling a Day-Glo lava lamp, but the energy was with Flea, Smith and Frusciante. They formed a tight triangle, frontman Anthony Kiedis bopping in and out, and the power of new tracks (“Black Summer” was most effective) and old came from this core. The band is in a prolific phase: Before playing “Whatchu Thinkin’,” Kiedis and Flea announced its second double-album of new material this year, Return of the Dream Canteen, due Oct. 14.

Frusciante — who first joined the Chili Peppers in 1988, and has been in and out before returning to play on Unlimited Love and his first shows with the band in 15 years — was especially sharp, and seemed to energize Flea, Smith and Kiedis. His high and screechy-yet-melodic curly riffs are built into the band’s sound, whether briefly punctuating “Scar Tissue” or closing “Charlie” with a long jam. Unlike Flea and Kiedis, who were in constant motion, stalking, running, leaping and making aerobic gestures, Frusciante frequently jammed in place.

The band played its biggest hits, of course: “Give It Away,” as explosive as always, closed the set; the smash 1991 ballad “Under the Bridge” (which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1992, their biggest hit on the chart) and 2002’s “By the Way” were the encores. But the best moments were the warmest: Under his backwards baseball cap, Smith was caught beaming onscreen when Kiedis told him, after “Scar Tissue,” “Very, very nicely done” and praised him as a “beautiful man.” He flashed that smile again, towards the end, after Flea and Frusciante plucked their guitars, facing each other in a slow dance, with Smith in the rear.

On their first all-stadium tour ever (called the 2022 Global Stadium Tour), the Chili Peppers are an unlikely survivor of the pop-and-grunge ’90s, having started the prior decade as a chaotic punk party band, known for slap-bass thrashers like 1989’s “Nobody Weird Like Me.” Flea, 59, introduced a hardcore version of that one on Saturday by misdirecting the band to “take it down real slow”; he added, before executing numerous Pete Townshend-style leaps, “I’m f–king old. I’ve got gray hair under this dyed shit.”

Flea was so energetic that Kiedis, the band’s ripped, bare-chested frontman, wearing shorts with a bright-red lightning bolt on the crotch, had to exert himself to keep pace. He sang well, especially on softer hits like 1993’s “Soul to Squeeze” and signature love song “Under the Bridge,” the band’s heartbroken tribute to their Los Angeles hometown. But Flea’s L.A. love was even more blatant, as he walked back onstage for the encore on his hands, skirt dropping over his head, displaying his briefs, then flipping upright to rock a purple-and-gold Lakers bass.

Denver was still bright and sunny when Thundercat (the L.A. funk-and-jazz bassist who brought a crack band for underrated streaming hits like “Funny Thing”) and Haim (the heralded San Fernando, Calif., sister trio who wore black leather pants and bikini tops while playing delightfully heavy rock ‘n’ roll versions of “The Wire,” “The Steps” and “Want You Back”) opened the show. Then it stormed for the first time in weeks.

Posh has still got it. On Saturday (July 23), Victoria Beckham returned to her pop star roots with a karaoke rendition of the Spice Girls‘ classic single “Stop.”

“Karaoke night with the one & only Posh Spice @victoriabeckham @spicegirls,” her husband David Beckham captioned the fun moment in an Instagram video, in which the fashion designer can be heard belting out, “Stop right now, thank you very much/ I need somebody with a human touch/ Hey you, always on the run/ Gotta slow it down, baby, gotta have some fun” as she goes through the choreography from the song’s iconic music video.

Though she often left the bulk of the vocals to Mel C, Mel B, Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell, Posh did get one solo line in the original recording of the Spiceworld single, which peaked at No. 16 on the Hot 100 and No. 2 in the band’s native Great Britain. While she’s better known for fashion in her post-Spice career, Beckham did release her own self-titled solo album in 2000 following the Spice Girls’ initial hiatus.

Seeing Beckham perform in any capacity is a rare treat these days — while she remains close with her former bandmates, she hasn’t hit the stage with them publicly since the Spice Girls performed during the closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. In 2019, she opted out of joining Baby, Ginger, Scary and Sporty on their Spice World U.K. Tour to focus on her namesake fashion brand.

Last year, the Spice Girls celebrated the 25th anniversary of their debut album, Spice, by releasing a new deluxe edition titled Spice25 as well as an anniversary fan video for their breakout Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Wannabe.”

Watch Posh show off her pop star powers with “Stop” below.

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Joni Mitchell has been a performer for nearly six decades, so at this point it’s safe to assume that she doesn’t get super nervous on stage, even during her first full-length live set in more than 20 years. Which explains why Mitchell’s surprise festival closing set at Sunday night’s (July 24) Newport Folk Festival — officially billed as “Brandi Carlile & Friends” — was not super nerve-wracking even though it marked the folk icon’s first gig at the beloved gathering in 53 years.

“No, I’ve never been nervous about being in front of an audience,” Mitchell told CBS Mornings Anthony Mason on Monday (July 25) about her feelings about the 13-song set that included a stage full of special guests on hand to pay tribute to the beloved 78-year-old singer who has struggled with health issues and rarely appeared in public since suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015. “But I want it to be good. And I wasn’t sure I could be. But I didn’t sound too bad tonight!”

There was good reason for Mitchell to feel comfortable, as the stage was set up like the singer’s California living room, where she has been holding a series of “Joni Jams” with other musicians for the past several years as she recovers from the aneurysm. Her first visit back to Newport in over five decades found Mitchell playing guitar, something she wasn’t able to do again until fairly recently due to her health issues.

“I’m learning,” she told Mason. “I’m looking at videos that are on the net to see where I put my fingers, you know. It’s amazing what an aneurysm knocks out – how to get out of chair! You don’t know how to get out of a bed. You have to learn all these things by rote again. I was into water ballet as a kid, and I forgot how to do the breaststroke. Every time I tried it, I just about drowned, you know?. So, a lot of going back to infancy almost. You have to relearn everything.”

It was Carlile’s idea to stage a live “Joni Jams” at Newport, something she said she’d been dreaming about for a while. “The first time she opened her mouth and sang ‘Summertime’ and I saw Herbie Hancock burst into tears and everybody in the room catch their breath because she had decided to sing, really decided to sing, you know, I knew. I knew she’d do it at Newport. I can’t really say how I knew it. I just pictured her out there. I pictured the water and the fort and the boats.”

The Newport set kicked off with Mitchell — seated regally on a gilded throne — singing along to songs such as “Carey” from Blue, with Carlile, as well as “Come in From the Cold” with Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith and included some beloved throwback pop covers, including the Persuasions’ “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” and the Clovers’ “Love Potion No. 9.”

“No one brings folk singers together like the humility of trying out a new song in front of Joni f–king Mitchell,” said Carlile in the introduction to the Newport set she curated, which also featured support from the all-star group of superfan performers including Marcus Mumford, Blake Mills, Lucius, Wynonna and more; longtime fan and friend Carlile covered Mitchell’s landmark 1971 Blue album in full at Carnegie Hall in Nov. 2021.

Carlile and Mitchell also collaborated on Mitchell’s iconic 1969 song “Both Sides Now,” playing a hushed version of the ballad as the stage full of musicians sat in awe at the master class, with video of the performance catching country singer Wynonna dabbing away tears during the emotional performance anchored by Carlile’s bandmates, Phil and Tim Hanseroth. Other highlights included versions of “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Carey,” “Amelia,” “Help Me,” “Shine,” a live cover of George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess classic “Summertime” and the set-closing Court and Spark staple “The Circle Game.”

Mitchell, who survived a bout of polio that left her briefly paralyzed as a child, said recent accolades including a Kennedy Center Honor and the MusiCares Person of the Year award earlier this year have her feeling the love. “I think having a brush with death like that kind of softens people towards me!” Mitchell said with a laugh.

Watch Mitchell’s interview below.

The estate of Celia Cruz and Archetype-IO have partnered for the late Cuban artist’s first-ever NFT collection and avatar, aiming for the “younger generations to learn and enjoy.”

This also mark’s the Miami-based Web3 interactive technology company’s first NFT legacy collection on their NFT marketplace, Collector-IO.

“In keeping pace with the current times and trends, the Celia Cruz Knight Estate is thrilled to collaborate with Archetype-IO in creating Celia Cruz’s first NFT collection,” said Omer Pardillo Cid, executor of Celia Cruz’s estate in a press statement. “This partnership serves as a testament of the strong legacy she left, and that now transcends to these new platforms for the younger generations to learn and enjoy.”

Respectfully showcasing Cruz’s life and preserving her likeness and essence, Archetype-IO will reimagine Celia Cruz with never-before-seen footage, photos, experiences and memorabilia, as well as her belongings such as dresses, shoes, wigs and letters, to name a few. They will also be launching her avatar and live concerts for the metaverse.

“Having the opportunity to work with Omer Pardillo Cid and the estate of Celia Cruz on Web3 opportunities is truly an honor and privilege,” Cesar A. Ochoa, chief business development officer, Archetype-IO, added. “We want to pay tribute to every beloved fan of her contributions as well as inviting the next generations who are ready to discover the lasting and timeless impact Celia Cruz had as a true icon and cultural ambassador of Latin music across the globe.”

Celia Cruz’s avatar is set for a September release while the NFT collection will debut at Art Basel in Miami in December, with prices beginning at $2,500.