Month: January 2023

Some A-list artists, including Billie Eilish, BTS and Khalid, are responsible for helping people fall asleep, according to a new study published Wednesday (Jan. 18).

Researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark analyzed 225,626 tracks from 985 Spotify playlists that relate to sleep. The group then used the audio streaming platform’s software to compare sleep songs and general music.

Sleep music tends to be quieter and slower and features acoustic instruments. But according to their findings shared in journal PLOS One, a substantial amount of diversity was present among some sleep music in six categories.

Authors of the study said they “investigated the characteristics of music used for sleep and found that even though sleep music, in general, is softer, slower, instrumental and more often played on acoustic instruments than other music, the music people use for sleep displays a large variation, including music characterized by high energy and tempo.”

While three categories included songs with typical sleep music, the other categories featured louder and more energetic music. Some of the tracks were popular songs like “Dynamite” by K-pop group BTS and “lovely” by Billie Eilish and Khalid.

“The study can both inform the clinical use of music and advance our understanding of how music is used to regulate human behavior in everyday life,” the team behind the study added.

Although the researchers theorize that the higher energy songs could relax people due to familiarity, they said additional research would be needed to identify why people choose that specific type of music. In all, the study found there is no “one-size-fits-all” for the music people listen to when they fall asleep.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.

From career milestones and new music releases to major announcements and more, Billboard editors highlight the latest news buzz in Latin music every week. Here’s what happened in the Latin music world this week.

A Star-Studded Paris Fashion Week

Spanish-language artists were present at the 2023 Paris Fashion Week, starting with Rosalía, who served as the musical curator at the Louis Vuitton Men’s Fall-Winter 2023 Fashion Show and was also the first woman to ever perform live on the coveted runway. Rocking an outfit from the new collection, the Spanish singer performed some of her biggest hits at the top of a vintage car including “Despecha,” “Saoko,” and “Candy” from her Latin Grammy-winning album Motomami, to name a few. Additionally, J Balvin, who’s kept a low profile on social media as of late, was also present at Paris Fashion Week, where he was spotted at various events, interacting with his fans, and having dinner with industry friends and artists such as Spanish artist Omar Montes.

Live with Billboard Latin

Billboard kicked off its first “Live with Billboard Latin” episode of 2023 with guests Grupo Frontera and Fuerza Regida. In a nearly 25-minute conversation, Billboard’s Jessica Roiz caught up with the two Regional Mexican acts who, for the first time in their careers, hit No. 1 on the Hot Latin Songs chart this week with their viral hit “Bebe Dame.” During the Instagram Live, the groups reflected on their successful track, how they met and began working together, and future projects for 2023. Watch the complete video below:

Maffio’s “Better Than Wonderful” Initiative

With his foundation “Better Than Wonderful,” Maffio—alongside film director Jessy Terrero, former basketball player Luis Felipe Lopez, and journalist Bolivar Valera—headed to the barrios of his beloved Dominican Republic to give children free basketball balls and sports uniforms. Through the initiative and his “Make a Child Smile” campaign, the Dominican artist and hitmaker hopes to offer the correct resources to motivate, inspire, and encourage kids in the barrios to dream big and follow their dreams.

Anuel AA Makes Late-Night TV Debut

Anuel AA kicked off the year by making his late-night TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon this week. The Puerto Rican trap star performed a live medley of his tracks “El Nene” and “Sufro” from his latest album Las Leyendas Nunca Mueren 2. That same day, he announced his next collaborative effort will be with Dominican artist Messiah and expressed of their song that “it’s for all the women who work hard and don’t need anyone.” Watch Anuel’s performance on Fallon Tonight below:

Romeo Santos’ Baby Announcement

In the new music video for “Solo Conmigo,” part of his latest album Formula, Vol. 3, Romeo Santos, who’s known for keeping an ultra-private life, surprised fans in two different ways. First, he finally unveiled his longtime girlfriend as the model of his music video, and then, he announced they were expecting a baby—all in the same video clip! Directed by Fernando Lugo, the video starts off with a steamy love-making scene and ultimately shows off the baby bump. This will be the couple’s third child together and Santos’ fourth.

Taylor Swift’s Midnights continues its hot streak atop Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, as the set spends its 12th consecutive, and total, week at No. 1 on the list dated Jan. 21. The album sold 25,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 12 (down 58%) according to Luminate.

Midnights now has the most weeks at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart since the Frozen soundtrack ruled for 13 nonconsecutive weeks in 2014. Midnights has the most weeks in a row at No. 1 since the Titanic soundtrack logged all 16 of its No. 1 weeks consecutively in 1998.

Midnights’ total U.S. album sales now stand at 1.140 million.

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.

BTS’ Love Yourself: Her re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 2 following the set’s Jan. 6 release on vinyl. The effort, initially released in 2017, bounds back onto the chart with 20,000 sold (up 2,130%), with most of that sum from vinyl sales (18,000). It’s the first time BTS has released an album on vinyl in the U.S., though the group has issued singles on vinyl.

Love Yourself: Her also debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart, the first time a K-pop title has led list. It also halts Swift’s stranglehold of the top spot with Midnights, pushing the album down to No. 2 after 11 straight weeks at No. 1.

Back on Top Album Sales, ATEEZ’s Spin Off: From the Witness falls one spot to No. 3 (14,000; down 66%) while French Montana’s Coke Boys 6: Gangsta Grillz, hosted by DJ Drama, debuts at No. 4 (11,000).

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours dips 4-5 (just over 7,000; down 17%), RM’s Indigo descends 3-6 (7,000; down 22%) and Michael Jackson’s Thriller falls 6-7 (nearly 7,000; down 16%). Stray Kids’ former No. 1 MAXIDENT re-enters the chart at No. 8 with nearly 6,000 sold (up 378%) after a new Target-exclusive CD edition of the album was released on Jan. 6.

Rounding out the top 10 are two former No. 1s: Harry Styles’ Harry’s House (5-9 with nearly 6,000; down 32%) and Tyler, the Creator’s Igor (7-10 with 5,000; down 23%).

In the week ending Jan. 12, there were 1.837 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 13.5% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.512 million (down 14.7%) and digital albums comprised 325,000 (down 7.5%).

There were 589,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Jan. 12 (down 13.6% week-over-week) and 915,000 vinyl albums sold (down 15.4%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 1.27 (up 3.4% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 1.996 million (up 33.2%).

Overall year-to-date album sales total 3.961 million (up 11.8% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 3.285 million (up 19.8%) and digital album sales total 676,000 (down 15.4%).

J-pop singer-songwriter Yuuri premiered the new music video accompanying his latest song “Billimillion” on Jan. 19.

The new track by the 28-year-old musician lends support to the younger generation trying their best to get by in modern times, through an allegorical story about an old man who offers a young man large sums of money in exchange for 50 years of his life. The “Betelgeuse” singer has been performing this song that encourages people to make decisions they won’t regret since last year, including his tour celebrating his YouTube channel sailing past a million subscribers.

The visuals released on YouTube features Tekken’s flip animation depicting the message and story of the new track through his signature black-and-white drawings.

Kelly Clarkson is allowing her country side to shine.

On the Friday (Jan. 20) episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, the American Idol winner gave the Chris Stapleton single “You Should Probably Leave” a spin for her daily Kellyoke performance.

Accompanied by her band Y’all, the “Since U Been Gone” singer lets her full vocal range shine in the cover, singing, “‘Cause I know you and you know me/ And we both know where this is gonna lead/ You want me to say that I want you to stay/ So you should probably leave/ Yeah, you should probably leave.”

“You Should Probably Leave” was released in 2020 as the first single from Stapleton’s fourth studio album, Starting Over. The track — which tells the story of an on-off couple who simply can’t stay away from each other — peaked at No. 28 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. Over on Country Airplay, the track spent a week at No. 1.

Recently, Clarkson performed Blink-182’s “All the Small Things” for Kellyoke, as well as Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World,” Chris de Burgh‘s “The Lady in Red” and Joji‘s 2022 breakthrough hit “Glimpse of Us.”

Watch Clarkson’s cover for “You Should Probably Leave” in the video below.