Month: October 2022

Rosalía’s “Despechá” tops Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart, as the song advances from No. 3 to lead the Oct. 8-dated survey. It’s Rosalía’s first No. 1 as a soloist, unaccompanied by any other act.

“Despechá” rules assisted by a 19% increase in audience impressions to 9.34 million earned in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 2, according to Luminate. It concurrently spends a second week atop Tropical Airplay — her second champ there.

The new Latin Airplay coronation arrives almost five months after Rosalía captured her last No. 1 through a collaboration, since “La Fama,” featuring The Weeknd, led the tally for one week on the May 14-dated ranking.

While Rosalía boasts five total Latin Airplay No. 1s, with “Despechá,” her fourth straight leader, the Spaniard checks off a new milestone. The track is both her first chart entry and first No. 1 as a soloist unaccompanied by any other act. Three of her previous four No. 1s were collaborations in a lead role, while one, 2020’s “Relacion,” by Sech, Daddy Yankee and J Balvin, featured her alongside Farruko.

Further, “Despechá” crowns Latin Airplay in its eighth week, the fastest trek to the top among Rosalía’s five No. 1s. Let’s look at the songs’ ride to the top:

Weeks to No. 1, Title, Artist (if other than Rosalía), Peak Date
14 weeks, “Yo X Ti, Tu X Mi,” with Ozuna, Dec. 28, 2019
11 weeks, “Relación,” Sech, Daddy Yankee & J Balvin featuring Rosalia & Farruko, Sept. 26, 2020
11 weeks, “La Noche De Anoche,” Bad Bunny & Rosalía, April 24, 2021
13 weeks, “La Fama,” Rosalia featuring The Weeknd, May 14, 2022
8 weeks, “Despechá,” Rosalia, Oct. 8, 2022,

Elsewhere, “Despechá” holds steady at its No. 7 high for a second week on the all-metric Hot Latin Songs chart which blends airplay, digital sales, and streaming activity.

September has officially come to an end, and the Billboard Latin team has compiled a list of 12 collaborative tracks released throughout the month that were either included on the weekly First Stream Latin roundup or featured by Billboard.

This month’s fan poll includes Paulo Londra and Duki’s hard-hitting single “Party En El Barrio,” which truly captures not only the pair’s ethos, but also Argentina’s ever-growing rap culture; Andy Rivera and Beéle’s “Te Perdí” with lyrics about discovering peace of mind after a failed relationship; and Kany García and Christian Nodal’s ultra heartfelt pop-ranchera “La Siguente,” to name a few. 

Last month, Cuban newcomer R3ymon and Puerto Rican rapper Anonimus won the coveted fan poll with their track “Santa Diabla” receiving more than 34 percent of the votes. They were followed by Anitta and Maluma’s “El Que Espera” with over 24 percent of the votes. Sebastian Yatra and Pablo Alboran’s “Contigo” was picked best Latin collaboration of July, with more than 50 percent of the votes, followed by CNCO and Kenia OS’ “Plutón,” with more than 37 percent of the votes.

In the summer, Billboard unveiled the “Best Latin Collaborations of 2022 (So Far),” including Christina Aguilera & Ozuna’s “Santo” (January), Becky G & Karol G’s “Mamiii” (February), Sebastian Yatra & John Legend’s “Tacones Rojos (Remix)” (March), Bizarrap & Paulo Londra’s “BZRP Music Sessions #23” (April), Morat & Duki’s “Paris” (May), and Blessd & Rels B’s “Energia” (June).

Who should win the best Latin collaboration of September? Vote below!

On Tuesday (Oct. 4), country music lost one of its trailblazers and most revered poets, Loretta Lynn. During her career, Lynn not only earned 16 Hot Country Songs No. 1 hits with her largely self-written music, but her songs — as straightforward as Lynn was herself — shared stories from her life, both the highlights and the low moments.

In addition to songs such as “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which highlighted her childhood in Kentucky, Lynn also used music to broach difficult topics including infidelity, alcohol use and reproductive rights, from the perspective of a strong-minded, assertive woman.

From “Fist City” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough” to her collaborations such as “Lead Me On” and “Feelins,” to “Miss Being Mrs.” and “Portland, Oregon” with Jack White, Lynn’s songs pushed boundaries and boldly conveyed her own triumphs and struggles.

We want to know which Loretta Lynn song is your favorite. Vote in the poll below.

Drake is coming to the Apollo.

On Tuesday (Oct. 4), the Certified Lover Boy announced a Nov. 11 concert at the legendary Harlem venue in partnership with SiriusXM.

The show will be Drake’s first performance at the storied Apollo Theater. A website for the event encourages fans to scan a QR code and listen to Sound 42, the rapper’s radio platform, on the SXM app anytime from now until 11 p.m. EST on Oct. 26. Fans should then watch for a pop-up message on how to enter for a chance to win tickets.

Drake launched Sound 42 in 2021 as a 24-hour “radio experience reflecting his interests in music and culture from all walks of life,” according to its website. The channel’s flagship show is OVO Sound Radio, which the rapper co-founded alongside Oliver El-Khatib and Noah “40” Shebib in 2015. In 2019, the platform moved from Apple Music to SiriusXM.

In June, Drake also surprised-released his seventh studio album, Honestly, Nevermind. The dance-influenced album earned him his 11th Billboard 200 No. 1 album, making him the fifth act with more than 10 No. 1 albums on the chart since it began regularly publishing on a weekly basis in 1956.

Two months later, in August, the 35-year-old artist made history by surpassing The Beatles as the artist with the most top five hits in Billboard Hot 100 history, thanks to his featured verse on DJ Khaled‘s “Staying Alive” alongside Lil Baby.

Depeche Mode’s new album is titled Memento Mori, Latin for “remember, you will die,” and it sounds like a dark set of songs from a band known for them. “It’s the perfect title for this record,” Dave Gahan tells Billboard after a Berlin press conference on Tuesday (Oct. 4) to announce the album and a tour that starts March 23 in Sacramento, Calif. “All the songs lean into that idea that life is fleeting and life is cruel, and it can also be joyous and celebratory, but it has to end.”

Gahan and bandmate Martin Gore came up with the title and most of the songs before the May death of Andy Fletcher, who co-founded the band with them and Vince Clarke in 1980.

His absence seems to haunt the group – which is now a duo made up of Gahan and Gore – which for the first time had to think about when it might end. The album name, Gahan says sadly, “seems even more relevant in some ways.”

For months during the pandemic, Gahan and Gore had been trading musical ideas by email. “Martin has a studio in Santa Barbara and he would send something to me and I would sing and send it back to him,” Gahan says, sitting in a chair in a backstage room at an old East Berlin theater, dressed in a black suit that makes him look at home there. “And I would send him ideas – usually just me singing a melody and some lyrics and he would fiddle with it and send it back to me.”

Gahan says they planned to start recording at Gore’s studio, with producers James Ford and Marta Salogni, until “I got the phone call.” Fletcher’s death of an aortic dissection came as a shock. “He’s been in my life for 40-odd years,” Gahan says.

“We had a conversation, me and Martin, and I said to Martin, ‘We have to move forward, don’t we?’ And he said yes, without missing a beat, but I could feel a sense of relief, like he was asking that question, too.”

It was the first time Gahan and Gore had truly faced the future of their band, which in 2020 was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “This is the first time the two of us broached that question: ‘Do we go on or do we end this now?’” Gahan says. “And we said, ‘Let’s at least make this record.’”

It will be followed by a tour, which will start March 23 with 10 dates in the U.S., then continue with 32 shows in Europe. (Depeche Mode is especially big in Eastern Europe, so the tour includes Zagreb, Croatia and Tallinn, Estonia as well as Rome and Berlin.)

The influential electronic outfit will not replace Fletcher. “It’s going to be hard when we go onstage and there’s an empty space where his setup used to be,” Gahan says. DM will continue to tour with multi-instrumentalist Peter Gordeno and drummer Christian Eigner, who have performed live with the band for decades. And after that? “I’ve seen plans for 2024,” Gahan says.

The album itself, which is due out in March, is “atmospheric – the sounds are really interesting,” Gahan says. Lyrically, it’s about how “everything has to end. We all try to avoid that as much as possible but it’s inevitable.”

Even Depeche Mode itself?

“When Martin and I asked ourselves that question for the first time in all those years – ‘Shall we continue?’ – we both decided to,” Gahan says. “It felt like we still have unfinished business.”