Month: July 2023

Taylor Swift‘s “Cowboy Like Me” found a new partner in crime at the inaugural Sommo Festival this weekend.

Marcus Mumford brought Maggie Rogers to the stage to join him on the Evermore song at the Canada music festival held in Cavendish, on Prince Edward Island, where Rogers headlined Friday night (July 14) and Mumford & Sons headlined Saturday night (July 15).

As part of the encore Mumford joked that there comes a time when “all there is left to do, the only choice we have, is to play a Taylor Swift song.”

He took the first verse of “Cowboy Like Me.” Rogers came in to harmonize with his vocals and then took over on the second verse: “Never wanted love, just a fancy car/ Now I’m waiting by the phone like I’m sitting in an airport bar,” she sang.

The Mumford & Sons frontman is featured on background vocals on the studio version of “Cowboy Like Me,” which was recorded at Mumford’s Scarlet Pimpernel Studios.

Swift welcomed him to the stage when she debuted the song live during the Las Vegas stop of the The Eras Tour in March. Mumford had previously performed the song solo on his own tour.

Watch Mumford and Rogers’ duet of “Cowboy Like Me” below.

Jung Kook‘s “Seven,” featuring Latto, has topped this week’s new music poll.

Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (July 14) on Billboard, choosing the collaboration between the beloved BTS member and rap star as their favorite new music release of the past week.

“Seven” brought in nearly 96% of the vote, beating out new music by Billie Eilish (“What Was I Made For?”), Troye Sivan (“Rush”), Post Malone (“Overdrive”), Lil Tjay (222), and others.

The music video for the track finds BTS singer-songwriter engulfed in a heated exchange with Han So-hee, who stars in the clip as his on-screen girlfriend, while the two are out at a high-end dinner. A chandelier then falls from the ceiling, disrupting the other patrons while Jung Kook and Han So-hee remained in their argument. “Weight of the world on your shoulders/ I catch your waist and ease your mind,” Jung Kook croons over sultry guitar licks.

When the news of the team-up first broke, Latto tweeted “S/O to the Army,” alongside three “7” emojis, a reference to both the song’s title and her own jackpot imagery. The announcement adds to the “Big Energy” superstar’s big year, as she’s fresh off the release of her Cardi B-assisted “Put It On Da Floor Again,” which hit No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Jung Kook’s last solo release was “Dreamers,” a song for the 2022 FIFA World Cup soundtrack that peaked at No. 1 on Digital Song Sales.

The breezy pop tune marks the first collaboration between Jung Kook and Latto.

Trailing behind “Seven” on the poll is Eilish’s emotional Barbie soundtrack song “What Was I Made For?” In the track, which brought in nearly 3% of the vote, the 23-year-old ponders her identity and reason for existence.

See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.

As Taylor Swift achieves her 12th No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart (dated July 22) with Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), she also populates the top 10 with three of her former No. 1s, marking the first time in nearly 60 years that a living artist has at least four albums at the same time in the top 10.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is joined by her former chart-toppers Midnights (falling 4-5), Lover (8-7) and Folklore (13-10). She is the first living act to have four albums in the top 10 at the same time since the April 2, 1966-dated chart, when Herb Alpert also had four albums in the top 10 (Going Places at No. 2, Whipped Cream & Other Delights at No. 3, South of the Border at No. 9 and The Lonely Bull at No. 10).

Between Alpert and Swift, only one other act has placed at least four titles in the top 10 concurrently, and that was Prince, following his death in 2016, when he had five albums in the top 10 dated May 14, 2016. That week, the Purple One reigned in the top 10 with The Very Best of Prince (falling 1-2), the Purple Rain soundtrack (with The Revolution, 2-3), The Hits/The B-Sides (6-4), Ultimate (61-6) and 1999 (31-7). (Swift is also the only woman with four albums in the top 10 at the same since the Billboard 200 was combined from its previously separate mono and stereo album charts into one all-encompassing list in August of 1963.)

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new July 22, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on July 18. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Taylor Swift’s third re-recorded album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated July 22), launching with the year’s biggest week for any album, and gives Swift her 12th No. 1, surpassing Barbra Streisand for the most No. 1 albums among women.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) bows with 716,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending July 13, according to Luminate, of which 507,000 are in traditional album sales. Both figures represent the largest week for any album in 2023 and the best since Swift’s last studio album, Midnights, debuted with 1.58 million units, of which 1.14 million were in album sales, last year (week ending Oct. 27, 2022; as reflected on the Nov. 5-dated Billboard 200).

2023’s previous largest week, by equivalent album units earned, was tallied by Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which launched with 501,000 units in the week ending March 9, as reflected on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 18. The year’s largest sales week was held by the debut frame of Stray Kids’ 5-STAR with 235,000 copies sold in the week ending June 8, as reflected on the June 17-dated charts.

Further, Swift has a total of four albums in the top 10 at the same time on the new Billboard 200, as Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is joined by her former chart-toppers Midnights (falling 4-5), Lover (8-7) and Folklore (13-10). She is the first living act to have four albums in the top 10 at the same time since the April 2, 1966-dated chart, when Herb Alpert also had four albums in the top 10 (Going Places at No. 2, Whipped Cream & Other Delights at No. 3, South of the Border at No. 9, and The Lonely Bull at No. 10).

Between Alpert and Swift, only one other act has placed at least four titles in the top 10 concurrently, and that was Prince, following his death in 2016, when he had five albums in the top 10 dated May 14, 2016. (Swift is the only woman with four albums in the top 10 at the same time since the Billboard 200 was combined from its previously separate mono and stereo album charts into one all-encompassing list in August of 1963.)

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new July 22, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on July 18. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is a re-recorded version of Swift’s 2010 No. 1 Billboard 200 studio album Speak Now. The 22-track re-recorded edition includes new recordings of the original album’s 14 standard tracks, along with bonus cuts and previously unreleased “From the Vault” recordings. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) follows Swift’s re-recorded Red and Fearless albums, released in 2021. Both debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Swift announced the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on May 5, the same day she began taking pre-orders for the album via her official webstore. The set sold as a digital download album, double-CD, double-cassette and in three color vinyl LP variants (orchid marbled, violet marbled and a Target-exclusive lilac marbled color). It was also available to stream in its standard 22-track edition.  On the final day (July 13) of the album’s debut tracking week, Swift released a deluxe digital album download of the set exclusively sold through her official webstore, which added two bonus live tracks recorded during her ongoing The Eras Tour (“Dear John” and “Last Kiss,” both of which were originally released in their studio form on the Speak Now album in 2010).

Swift celebrated the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) during her Kansas City stop of The Eras Tour on July 7, where she premiered the music video for the album’s “From the Vault” track “I Can See You.” On stage, Swift was joined by the clip’s three co-stars, actors Taylor Lautner, Joey King and Presley Cash.

12 No. 1s: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) marks Swift’s 12th No. 1 on the Billboard 200, pushing her past Streisand (with 11 No. 1s) for the most chart-toppers among women since the chart began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March of 1956. Swift ties Drake for the third-most No. 1s among all acts, with only The Beatles (19) and Jay-Z (14) ahead of them.

Five Years in a Row of New No. 1 Albums: Swift is the only act to have achieved a new No. 1 album in each of the last five calendar years — 2019-23. She topped the list in 2019 with Lover; in 2020 she led with Folklore and Evermore; in 2021 she ruled with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version); in 2020 Midnights arrived; and in 2023 Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) has now debuted. Swift is the only woman with five consecutive years of new No. 1 albums. Previously, she was tied with Miley Cyrus for the most consecutive years of new No. 1s (Cyrus did it four years in a row, from 2006-09, including titles billed to her former Disney Channel alter ego Hannah Montana). The only other acts with at least five years in a row of new No. 1s are The Beatles (seven years, 1964-70), Drake (five years, 2015-19), Jay-Z (five years, 2000-04) and Paul McCartney (five years, 1973-77).

Of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’s 716,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending July 13, album sales comprise 507,000, SEA units comprise 206,000 (equaling 269.33 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 22 songs – the third-largest streaming week of 2023 and the second-largest streaming debut frame of the year) and TEA units comprise 3,000.

Country Time: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) scores the largest week, by equivalent album units earned, for a country album since the Billboard 200 began ranking titles by units in December of 2014. It surpasses the previous best week in that span of time, notched by the opening week of Swift’s own Red (Taylor’s Version), with 605,000 units in 2021. Plus, with 507,000 copies sold in its first week, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) garners the largest sales week for a country album in nearly 10 years, since the debut frame of Luke Bryan’s Crash My Party (528,000 on the chart dated Aug. 31, 2013). (Country albums are those that have charted on, or are eligible for, Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.)

Version Vs. Version: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) logs the biggest week of the three re-recorded Swift albums, surpassing the opening frames of Red (Taylor’s Version) (605,000 in 2021) and Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (291,000; 2021). First-week sales of Red (Taylor’s Version) were enhanced by the availability of CDs signed by Swift sold in her webstore and via independent retailers. Fearless (Taylor Version)’s first-week did not include any signed copies or vinyl LP sales — which are traditionally quite large for Swift — as its vinyl did not arrive until months after the set’s initial release.

Swift Has Four of the Top Five Biggest Weeks Since 2019: Since January 2019, four of the top-five biggest weeks, by units earned, have been tallied by the debut frame of a Swift release: Midnights (1.578 million; 2022), Lover (867,000; 2019), Folklore (846,000; 2020) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (716,000; 2023). The only non-Swift week among the top five largest frames since January 2019 is the opening week of Adele’s 30, with 839,000 units in 2021.

Second-Largest Vinyl Sales Week in Modern Era: Of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)’s 507,000 first-week copies sold, vinyl sales comprise 268,500 — the second-largest sales week for a vinyl album since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. It is second only to the first week of Midnights’ vinyl LP, with 575,000 sold in its opening frame.

2023’s Second-Biggest Selling Album After One Week on Sale: After only one week on sale, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is 2023’s second-largest selling album. The year’s top-seller remains Swift’s own Midnights, with 636,000 sold in 2023. Midnights was the top-selling album of 2022, with 1.818 million sold that year.

Nine Albums With Half-Million-Plus Sales in a Single Week: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) marks the ninth Swift album to have sold at least 500,000 copies in a single week in the U.S. Since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991, Swift is the only act with nine different albums to sell at least a half-million copies in a single week.

As for the rest of the top 10 on the new Billboard 200… Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time is a non-mover at No. 2 with 104,000 equivalent album units (down 6%). One Thing at a Time has earned in excess of 100,000 equivalent album units in all 19 of its chart weeks. It extends its own record as the album with the most weeks of 100,000-plus units since the Billboard 200 began ranking titles by units in December of 2014.

Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape falls 1-3 on the Billboard 200 in its second week (61,000 equivalent album units earned; down 64%), Peso Pluma’s Génesis dips 3-4 (59,000; down 14%) and Swift’s Midnights is pushed down 4-5 (55,000; though up 2%).

Wallen’s chart-topping Dangerous: The Double Album falls 5-6 (46,000 equivalent album units; down 4%); Swift’s Lover climbs 8-7 (45,000; up 3%); SZA’s former No. 1 SOS descends 6-8 (44,000; down 1%); and Gunna’s A Gift & a Curse falls 7-9 (42,000; down 3%). Swift’s Folklore returns to the top 10 for the first time in nearly two years, as the set rises 13-10 (33,000; up 5%). Folklore was last in the top 10 on the chart dated Aug. 7, 2021, when it ranked at No. 9.

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.

Britney Spears was in a singing mood during a recent visit to the coast.

On Saturday (July 15), the 41-year-old pop superstar shared a video on Instagram of herself singing a pair of Christian hymns while horseback riding along the beach.

“Southern girl singing on my horse!!!” Spears captioned the clip.

In the self-recorded video, the “…Baby One More Time” songstress is seen wearing a yellow and white bikini top while relaxing atop a horse and showing off beautiful waves crashing onto the shore. She opens by singing the hymn “Jesus Loves Me” before transitioning to “Amazing Grace.”

Spears hasn’t released a new album since 2016’s Glory, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Last year, she teamed up with Elton John on “Hold Me Closer,” a fresh take on his 1972 classic “Tiny Dancer.” The collab bowed at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The pop princess’ beach video arrives days after she revealed that her long-awaited memoir, The Woman in Me, will be released on Oct. 24. The book’s cover features a picture of a topless Spears wearing silver pants, with her arms covering her breasts.

Watch Spears sing “Jesus Loves Me” and “Amazing Grace” while horseback riding on Instagram here.

The Shawn Carter Foundation, co-founded in 2003 by Jay-Z and his mother, Gloria Carter, hosted a black-tie gala in New York City on Friday (July 14), raising $20 million that will be used to help people facing socioeconomic hardships further their education at postsecondary institutions.

The fundraising included a $10 million legacy donation to the foundation from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. Jack Dorsey donated an additional $2 million as part of his annual contribution.

The organization’s Friday night gala at Pier Sixty celebrated the 20th anniversary of The Shawn Carter Foundation and welcomed a number of high-profile guests in music, sports, business and entertainment.

Jay-Z and Ms. Carter were of course in attendance, as was Beyoncé, who shared a series of photos from the evening on Instagram. See her first post featuring pictures of her dramatic gown here, and a video montage from the gala, which she hilariously set to the “My Husband” remix that went viral on TikTok. (“I am on to see my husband. I’m happy, I’m happy, to see my husband,” Beyoncé says in the audio clip.)

Guests included music artists DJ Khaled, Lil Uzi Vert, Meek Mill, Babyface, Miguel, Tinashe, A$AP Ferg and Saint Jhn. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Fanatics founder Michael Rubin were also in attendance, as well as Regina Hall, Chazz Palminteri, Robinson Cano, Dez Bryant, Angie Martinez, Corey Gamble, Tamika Mallory, Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden and more.

The Shawn Carter Foundation has provided college scholarships, study abroad opportunities, wealth building programs and more for underserved youth and families from disenfranchised communities.

Before the gala, The Shawn Carter Foundation and Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism announced a partnership and teamed up to contribute $1 million toward stopping nationwide book bans and protecting educational freedom. Fanatics and Live Nation contributed an additional $500,000 each to this initiative, which will provide book donations, legal support, marketing assistance, publishing help and additional resources to protect creatives and institutions harmed by the nationwide book ban.

Farm Aid 2023 tickets went on sale Saturday (July 15), but high demand and reported “technical issues” encountered on Ticketmaster/Live Nation made obtaining tickets a challenge.

General sale tickets for this year’s Farm Aid went on sale at 10 a.m. ET., following a pre-sale with limited availability earlier in the week.

Ticket buyers reported trouble Saturday securing tickets, tweeting complaints of waiting in a queue and carting tickets only to get error messages about the ticketing system being unable to process their payment. Farm Aid 2023 — set for Sept. 23 at Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana, with Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson — is now sold out.

On Saturday afternoon, event organizers posted the following statement on the official Farm Aid social media accounts:

“Today’s on-sale for Farm Aid 2023 was a disappointment to many frustrated fans trying to purchase tickets and to Farm Aid who wanted the process to go smoothly. Based on the excitement around our announcement, we knew there was great demand for tickets. We did not anticipate that the ticketing system would let us down.

We do everything that we can to make sure that Farm Aid extends the best hospitality in every possible way. It pains us that many people who wanted to purchase tickets to hear these extraordinary artists and to support family farmers encountered technical issues in the purchasing process today.

Despite ticketing challenges, many fans were able to get tickets and we are grateful to say that Farm Aid 2023 is sold out. We hope you’ll stay tuned for more ways to experience Farm Aid 2023 at home. We deeply appreciate all who have supported Farm Aid’s work to build a system of agriculture that values family farmers, good food, soil and water, and strong communities.”

Farm Aid’s lineup includes Young, Mellencamp and Nelson, plus Margo Price, Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds, the Grateful Dead’s Bobby Weir & the Wolf Bros. featuring the Wolfpack, Lukas Nelson, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Allison Russell, The String Cheese Incident, Particle Kid and more.

Since launching in 1985, Farm Aid has raised more than $64 million to support programs that help family farmers.

This year’s event will honor Indiana family farmers and others who are taking on climate change using regenerative, organic and sustainable farming practices.

Taylor Swift kept “Timeless” in the vault for 13 years, then brought it to the stage just a week after its release on Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).

The track about an ageless romance — a never-before-heard gem until the star dropped her re-recorded Speak Now on July 7 — is new to fans, but easily finds a place as one of the most classic love songs in Swift’s canon. She surprised the crowd with the first-ever live performance of the ballad at Denver’s Empower Field at Mile High on Friday night (July 14).

Sitting at the piano during the acoustic section of her Eras Tour show, during which she switches things up with two surprise songs that aren’t on the regular set list, Swift kept the audience on its toes until she sang the opening line of “Timeless”: “Down the block, there’s an antique shop/ And something in my head said, ‘Stop,’ so I walked in.”

Although “Timeless” has only been on fans’ playlists for about a week, the Denver crowd sang along while Swifties at home lamented not being in attendance for its live debut; they also showered praise for the song on social media. “idk i just think that if you dont like timeless or you dont get it, it’s probably because you didn’t fall in love with the classic storytelling country taylor,” one fan tweeted Friday night. “like look me in eye and tell me it wouldn’t be a smash on country radio in 2010.”

Before “Timeless,” Swift played her self-titled album’s “Picture to Burn” live, for the first time in more than a decade. (“In the spirit of nostalgia we should be exploring all the eras, including my first album that I wrote when I was like 14,” she announced.)

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which features re-recorded versions of the original album’s tracks plus six songs “From the Vault,” has already had the largest week of 2023 for any album in its first six days of release, according to initial reports to Luminate. The album’s first-week numbers are expected to be announced on Sunday (July 16) along with its debut position on the multimetric Billboard 200 albums chart (dated July 22).

Watch a fan-filmed clip of Swift’s “Timeless” performance below. Check out the full list of surprise songs she’s brought to The Eras Tour here.