Month: August 2022

Demi Lovato‘s Holy Fvck roars in at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums charts, while Five Finger Death Punch‘s AfterLife starts atop the Top Hard Rock Albums list, all dated Sept. 3.

In the Aug. 19-25 tracking week, Holy Fvck, Lovato’s first rock-focused full-length, earned 33,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate. Of that sum, 20,000 units are via album sales.

AfterLife tallied 29,000 units, with 22,000 from album sales in the same period.

Holy Fvck is Lovato’s first ruler on all three lists. Five Finger Death Punch snags its seventh Top Hard Rock Albums No. 1, tying the Ivan Moody-led band with Pearl Jam for the most No. 1s in the history of the chart, which began in 2007. The group first led Top Hard Rock Albums with The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell: Volume 1 in 2013. Each of its proper LPs since has reached No. 1, along with its 2017 retrospective A Decade of Destruction.

On the all-genre Billboard 200, Holy Fvck arrives at No. 7, while AfterLife starts at No. 10. Lovato logs her seventh top 10 (comprising each of her album releases) and Five Finger Death Punch adds its eighth, dating to 2009’s War Is the Answer.

One track from Holy Fvck hits the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart: “29,” which swoops in at No. 10 with 4.8 official U.S. streams and 1,500 downloads sold, marking Lovato’s first top 10, exceeding the No. 13 debut and peak of “Skin of My Teeth” (also on the new set) in June. “29” also places at Nos. 7 and 8 on Hot Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs, respectively, and starts at No. 96 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, where it’s Lovato’s 36th career charted title.

AfterLife boasts two Hot Rock & Alternative Songs debuts on the latest list: current radio single “Times Like These” at No. 46 (1.4 million radio audience impressions, 1.1 million streams) and “The End” at No. 50 (1.5 million streams). They supplement previous appearances for the album’s title track (No. 28 peak, April), “IOU” (No. 37, May) and “Welcome to the Circus” (No. 35, June).

Five of those tracks also dot the Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. “Times” leads at No. 7, followed by “End” (No. 9), “Circus” (No. 12; 1.1 million streams), “Afterlife” (No. 14; 934,000 streams) and “Judgment Day” (No. 19; 797,000 streams).

“Afterlife” ruled the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart for four weeks beginning in June. Follow-up “Times” lifts 9-8 on the Sept. 3 ranking.

Country singer-songwriter Jackson Dean makes his first visit to the Billboard Hot 100 chart (dated Sept. 3) with his breakthrough single “Don’t Come Lookin’.”

The song, released via Big Machine Records, debuts at No. 90 with 14.4 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 2%), 2.4 million official streams (up 2%) and 2,000 downloads sold in the Aug. 19-25 tracking week, according to Luminate. It also rises 14-12 on Country Airplay and holds at its No. 24 high on the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart.

“Lookin’” is Dean’s first Billboard chart entry. He made his first debut on any ranking when the song entered the Country Airplay chart dated March 12. It had earned a boost via its sync in the seventh season of Paramount’s Yellowstone released in December.

The Maryland native had his first taste of fame in 2018 as a senior at Arundel High School. He sang an acoustic rendition of the national anthem during his school’s football game, which went viral and led to an appearance and performance on The Steve Harvey Show. It was his first visit to Los Angeles and “the furthest away from home I’ve ever been,” he told Harvey.

Since then, Dean has opened for Brothers Osborne, Kane Brown, Miranda Lambert and Jake Owen, among others, and signed with Big Machine Label Group last year, as well as TKO Artist Management, WME and Little Louder Music (Eric Church’s publishing company). He’s currently on tour with Lee Brice before heading off with HARDY in December. He recently toured with Brooks & Dunn.

In an interview with Billboard in May, Dean recalled how his breakthrough hit came together. “We had that big thumpin’ vibe and I kind of mumbled something under my breath that I used to say to my mom: ‘If I don’t come back, don’t come looking.’ And [my co-writer Luke Dick] whipped his head around and said, ‘That’s what we’re writing today.’ But it was just something I would tell my mom if I was running off in the woods for a day or so. She’s say, ‘Stay alive, no matter what occurs,’ and I’d say that. It was just a little shot at each other for a while, and it became a radio song.”

“Lookin’” appears on Dean’s debut major-label LP Greenbroke, which arrived in March.

Another year, another MTV VMAs in the book. The annual music awards ceremony took off without a hitch on Sunday night (Aug. 28) and featured some of the most famous stars in pop music coming together to honor their achievements and perform their biggest hits on stage. But which performance was your favorite of the night?

The Prudential Center in New Jersey lit up Barbie pink for Nicki Minaj in honor of her receiving the Video Vanguard Award at the show, which saw the iconic rapper perform a medley of her biggest hits from “Super Bass” and “Moment 4 Life,” to her newer hits such as “Anaconda” and “Super Freaky Girl,” which recently hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The audience in the stadium shouted the lyrics to Minaj’s hit with fervor, including Taylor Swift, who did not miss a single beat and later urged the crowd to give her friend a standing ovation.

BLACKPINK had an evening of firsts: The K-pop group took to the stage to perform their recently released single “Pink Venom” from upcoming album Born Pink. The performance marked the first time the girl group performed at the VMAs, as well as the first time they ever performed at an American awards show. It was an impressive feat that added to the group’s two wins for the night (best metaverse performance and best K-pop for Lisa’s “Lalisa.”)

Anitta also set the stage ablaze with a twerk-filled performance of her global smash “Envolver” and funk anthem “Vai Malandra,” which she prefaced by saying, “VMAs, did you think I wasn’t going to shake my a– tonight?”

Måneskin, Jack Harlow (with Fergie), Bad Bunny and more also performed at the 2022 VMAs, but which performance was your favorite? Vote in our poll below.

Kelsea Ballerini has revealed she is going through a divorce from husband and fellow country artist Morgan Evans.

She revealed the split in an Instagram Story posted on Monday (Aug. 29). “I’ve always tried to share my life with you in a real and vulnerable way, while also protecting layers of my personal life as they unfold,” she wrote in the all-text message. “This is now public record so I wanted you to hear from me directly that I am going through a divorce.”

Ballerini called the “deeply difficult decision” a “result of a journey of love, growth and effort that ultimately has come to an end.”

“It’s hard to find the words here…but I feel extremely grateful for the years of marriage to Morgan and hopeful for the next seasons. With very active schedules coming up, please be mindful that we are both fragile, actively healing and showing up the best we can,” she added.

The couple met in March 2016 while both were co-hosting the CMC Awards in Australia. They became engaged in December of that year, and married Dec. 2, 2017 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Ballerini is currently gearing up to release her album Subject to Change, out Sept. 23 via Black River Entertainment. In announcing the album, she shared on social media that the album reflects on her personal growth over the past few years.

“In my younger years, the idea of change scared me. It had proven to be a faceless force that patterned my past with uncertainty,” Ballerini wrote on Instagram in July. “Only in the gift of growth have I learned that in the stark and constant juxtaposition of life, living happens. That when I unclench my fists, undig my heels and unravel the architecture built by youth, a true metamorphosis can happen.”

Megan Thee Stallion is just getting started on her Hollywood adventure. In an interview with New York magazine’s The Cut, the 27-year-old Traumazine rapper talked about how she was inspired to go after what she wants by her mother — a rapper who went by the name Holly “Holly-Wood” Thomas — playing the bad cop to her good copy in early music industry meetings.

But following her mother’s passing in 2019, Meg has to take on both roles and it seems as if she — along with manager T. Farris — are making her Moet wishes and caviar dreams come true. After landing a guest-spot as her alter ego Tina Snow on Starz’s stripper drama P-Valley earlier this year, the magazine appeared to confirm rumors that Megan has been cast in Marvel’s superhero lawyer sitcom She-Hulk in an unspecified role.

Though spokespeople for Disney+ and Megan had not returned requests for comment at press time, earlier this year a stunt person who worked on the set of the Tatiana Maslany-starring series seemed to corroborate the news by listing the need for a stunt double for “utility stunts” for the “Savage” MC. In addition to the possible MCU cameo, it was previously announced that MTS would appear alongside Nathan Lane and Bowen Yang in the first-ever musical from A24, F*cking Identical Twins.

When it comes to her acting plans, Meg said she’s taking notes from a pair of OG rapper-to-actor idols. “When I look at them, it inspires me to take it further than just music,” she said of Queen Latifah and Ice Cube. “I don’t feel like I’m only going to be an actress — I feel like I’m also going to be a director and I’m also going to be a producer.”

In the profile, Megan also reveals that she actually auditioned for P-Valley before the world knew who she was, trying out for the lead role of Mercedes, which wound up going to actress Brandee Evans. “But seeing Brandee play Mercedes, I’m like, Obviously, I was not here yet. She’s so perfect for that role,” Meg said. The show’s creator, playwright Katori Hall, however, saw something in the rapper and recalled thinking, “This young lady has swag. She has power. She has something to say. She’s obviously gorgeous to look at. This is a young artist.”

Megan isn’t the only one who thinks she has a future in acting. J. Alphonse Nicholson, who plays rapper Lil Murda on P-Valley said he believes she’s just getting started in the acting game. “I think she has it in her tool bag to do anything,” he said. “You could see her in a period piece, whether she’s playing someone in the 1960s trying to come up and make it, or whether she’s in a futuresque sci-fi film and she’s out here whooping ass and fighting on some Marvel stuff. I think she could bring it all to the table just because she has that glow.”

As long as we’re making a list, Megan said her dream roster also includes a possible Bring It On reboot in which she would slip into Gabrielle Union’s iconic cheer uniform to play Isis, explaining, “I always have wanted to be Isis. I would be perfect for that. If they were ever to make a new Bring It On, I should be that character.”