The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated July 26, we look at some much-anticipated albums and exciting surprise drops looking to impact next week’s race to the chart’s top. 

Jackboys & Travis Scott, Jackboys 2 (Cactus Jack/Epic): The second release from the Cactus Jack label’s semi-eponymous rap collective — consisting of members Don Toliver, Sheck Wes, Chase B, SoFaygo, Wallie the Sensei, Luxury Tax 50, and of course label head Travis Scott — arrived on Sunday (July 13), already two days into the tracking week. But five days is more than enough time for Scott, one of the consistently best-selling rappers of the last decade, to do big business and launch a serious threat to the Billboard 200’s top spot.  

The set is widely available in a seven-track digital download and vinyl release, as well as a 17-song widely available digital download and streaming set, and a webstore-exclusive CD. Then, as is often the case with Scott’s releases, there is a wide variety of physical options also for sale through the webstore — including five different vinyl editions, three standard CD variants and two expanded packaging CD variants (in larger packaging and with different covers). There are also four webstore-exclusive download albums available each with 17 songs, each with different covers and three with one unique bonus track each.  

All these physical releases should add up to another major sales debut for Scott and his crew — and the set is also off to a very strong start on streaming, with multiple top 10 entries on both the Apple Music real time chart and Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA listing. The combination seems likely to result in Jackboys 2 following its predecessor, which launched with 154,000 units upon its late 2019 release (despite its full tracklist being just seven songs — though it had a bevy of merch/digital download album bundles helping its first-week numbers), to a No. 1 debut, making it the first album to interrupt Morgan Wallen’s Billboard 200 reign since I’m the Problem debuted two months earlier.  

Justin Bieber, Swag (ILH/Def Jam): If not for Jackboys 2, it might have been a fairly close race for the top spot between I’m the Problem and this week’s most unexpected chart contender: Swag, the surprise new album from Canadian pop superstar Justin Bieber, announced a mere 10 hours before its Friday (July 11) release. The unexpectedness of its release was nearly matched by the unexpectedness of its sound — an alternative-leaning R&B sonic palette, heavily influenced by artist collaborators Dijon, Mk.gee and Eddie Benjamin, and by new go-to writer/producer Carter Lang.  

The 21-track project — which also features appearances from guest rappers Lil B, Sexyy Red and Gunna, as well as gospel singer Marvin Winans and a trio of skits with comedian Druski — has been a major force on streaming since its Friday debut, swarming both the Spotify and Apple Music charts. Though its presence has receded a bit on both in the days since (particularly following the Jackboys 2 bow), lead single “Daisies” still resides atop both charts, and the overall streaming numbers for the album in its first week should end up being fairly tremendous.  

However, unlike Jackboys 2, streaming will have to make for the great majority of Swag’s overall first-week units. As is usually the case with such surprise releases, there’s no physical version of the album yet available for purchase — it’s not expected to arrive until December — meaning that all of its sales will have to come via digital downloads, with no additional variants yet available to boost its numbers there. That will likely cap Swag at a first-week number below where it would need to be to compete with Jackboys 2, potentially making it Bieber’s first original full-length studio album not to debut atop the Billboard 200. 

Clipse, Let God Sort Em Out (Self-Released): In plenty of earlier tracking weeks this year, the new album from venerated Virginia hip-hop duo the Clipse would’ve been a real contender for a Billboard 200 No. 1 debut. However, in a crowded week also including new sets from two major stars, a reigning behemoth in Morgan Wallen’s 37-track blockbuster, and also a still-rising breakout success in the soundtrack to Netflix’s animated musical KPop Demon Hunters, it might instead have to set its sights on a top five debut on the chart.  

Still, it should have a chance to make such a bow, thanks in large part to expected robust sales. The set is available for purchase in six vinyl variants, two of which are signed, as well as three CD variants (one signed), two cassettes and a whopping 13 boxed sets in branded boxes, with branded clothing and a CD included. (The physical editions, which are widely available, have a 12-song tracklist; the streaming and digital download versions add in a 13th song, “So Be It.”) The set also had a strong streaming debut, with most of its 13 tracks reaching the Spotify and Apple Music daily charts, though its numbers there will likely be dwarfed by the Jackboys and Bieber sets.  

Nonetheless, the combination should make for easily the best Billboard 200 showing from the duo since its debut, 2002’s Lord Willin’, which bowed at No. 4 on the chart. (Its last effort before the duo’s recent hiatus, 2009’s Till the Casket Drops, reached just No. 41 — though during a crowded Christmas season that December.)  

IN THE MIX 

TWICE, This Is For (JYP) Another release that might have been able to contend for the top spot in a slower week is the latest from K-pop superpower TWICE, This Is For. The girl group’s new set is expected to sell well, being available in 15 CD variants (all with collectibles included, some randomized) as well as three vinyl editions, and a mid-week deluxe edition for download and streaming. The latter also includes two bonus tracks, one of which (“Takedown”) is also available on another album likely to appear in next week’s Billboard 200 top 10, the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack.  

ATEEZ, Golden Hour: Part 3 (KQ/RCA/Legacy): Golden Hour already scored a No 2 debut on the Billboard 200 for K-pop boy band ATEEZ upon its June release — but now the EP is available in the widely expanded In Your Fantasy edition, which adds an extra 10 tracks (mostly solos from the octet’s individual members) to the previous five-track set. The deluxe edition was released via six CD variants, all with collectibles (some randomized), which should drive sales and propel the set back to the chart’s top 10.  

GIVĒON, Beloved (Not So Fast/Epic): It’s a bit of tough luck for the R&B hitmaker that his sophomore effort debuts in such a packed week — including the late-announced comeback of his old “Peaches” collaborator Bieber — but the album should still stream and sell fairly well, helped by five vinyl and two CD variants (one of each of which is signed). It could be a photo finish as to whether the set will bring GIVĒON to the top 10 on the Billboard 200, after his 2022 set Give or Take topped out at No. 11. (His 2021 EP compilation When It’s All Said and Done… Take Time reached No. 5, marking his career peak to date.)

Three members of Jane’s Addiction have sued their frontman Perry Farrell over his viral onstage attack of guitarist Dave Navarro last year, claiming the incident was a “terminal inflection point” that lost the band millions of dollars from canceled tour dates and a derailed record deal.

The lawsuit, submitted in Los Angeles court on Wednesday (July 16) and obtained by Billboard, was brought by Navarro alongside Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery and drummer Stephen Perkins. The trio reunited with Perry last year for their first tour all together since 2010, but things went haywire in September when Farrell punched Navarro onstage mid-set at Boston’s Leader Bank Pavilion.

A now-viral fan video of the altercation shows Farrell shouting profanities and lunging at Navarro while he was mid-guitar solo in the song “Ocean Size.” Wednesday’s lawsuit calls Farrell’s alleged series of punches, which supposedly continued backstage after the band prematurely ended their set, “brutal and unprovoked.”

“Navarro was shocked by what he would later describe as the demonic look in Perry’s eyes,” writes attorney Christopher Frost in leveling seven claims, including assault, battery and breach of contract.

The band members allege that while Farrell initially apologized for the incident and took accountability, “the narrative quickly changed” as the singer and his wife, Etty Lau Farrell, blamed the other band members and onstage acoustics for his outburst.

Jane’s Addiction was allegedly forced to cancel the rest of its 33-date North American reunion tour after this incident, losing out on significant profits from a now-scuttled deal with Live Nation. They’ve also been unable to complete a planned album, forcing them to repay an advance to Warner Music Group’s ADA.

“The band will never have their revival tour, to celebrate a new album and 40+ years of deep, complex, chart-topping recordings,” the lawsuit reads. “Instead, history will remember the band as suffering a swift and painful death at the hands of Farrell’s unprovoked anger and complete lack of self-control.”

The band members are seeking at least $10 million in damages from Farrell for this lost revenue, as well as for emotional and physical pain. They also claim Navarro lost $50,000 when he postponed his wedding in Scotland to go on the ultimately canceled tour, and that because he began working again, the guitarist was forced to give up $25,000 in monthly disability payments he had been getting due to long COVID-19.

In addition to laying out the alleged onstage attack in detail, Wednesday’s lawsuit also takes a series of other shots at Farrell. Navarro, Avery and Perkins say Farrell was exhibiting bad behavior from the start of the reunion tour, and he “frequently “forgot lyrics, lost his place in songs he had sung since the 1980s, and mumbled rants as he drank from a wine bottle onstage.”  

The band members also say Farrell has a history of “taking credit for others’ ideas and accomplishments. They claim the singer has spread a false narrative that he came up with the idea for Lollapalooza, when the festival was actually the brainchild of Perkins and touring executive Marc Geiger.

“To anyone who truly knows Perry, his conduct on the tour was emblematic of Perry’s continued self-aggrandizement,” the lawsuit says.

Reps for Jane’s Addiction and Farrell did not immediately return requests for comment on the allegations.

Miles Caton isn’t missing his moment. Amid his newfound fame from starring in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, the actor-musician showed off his vocal talents with a new cover of SZA‘s “Snooze” that fans are absolutely loving.

In a recent TikTok, Caton sits in a recording studio while holding up a mic, casually spinning slightly in his swivel chair as he sings. “I can’t lose when I’m with you/ How can I snooze and miss the moment?” he croons with silky soulfulness. “You just too important/ Nobody do body like you do.”

Featured on SZA’s Billboard 200-topping album SOS, “Snooze” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 2023, nearly a year after it was first released. Just a month before the song’s peak, Justin Bieber had joined SZA on an acoustic version of the track.

Caton’s followers loved what he did with the song, with one person writing in the comments of his TikTok, “I didn’t know I needed to hear sammie sing SZA until now,” referencing the name of his character in Sinners.

“sing it preacher boy!!!” another viewer wrote, while a third person commented, “i need you to drop some music like NOW.”

Sinners premiered in theaters in April, earning critical acclaim and marking Caton’s acting debut. In an interview with Variety that month, Coogler said that he knew there was something special about Caton from the moment he saw the young star’s audition tape.

“He was just in the dark — like he didn’t turn his lights on,” the director told the publication at the time. “Something about that was, like, so intriguing. This kid looked like he was in his basement, like in between homework assignments. But he had this voice — a once in a lifetime voice — and he also felt like the character.”

Before making his acting debut, Caton gained traction as a musician, performing with artists such as H.E.R. In 2023, he dropped a single titled “This Ain’t It.”

Watch Caton’s cover of “Snooze” below.

Jason Aldean, Old Dominion, Trisha Yearwood, Lukas Nelson and Jessie Jo Dillon are among those set to perform at the 2025 Nashville Songwriter Awards, which will be held at the fabled Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Sept. 23. Dillon has been nominated for the Grammy for songwriter of the year, non-classical, the last two years running.

Other artists set to perform at the event are Kelly Archer, Drew Baldridge, Marc Beeson, Johnny Clawson, Travis Denning, Josh Dorr, Aaron Eshuis, Tyler Hubbard, Lalo Guzman, Cameron Jaymes, Tony Lane, Josh Miller, Tim Nichols, Josh Phillips, Daniel Ross, Chris Stevens, Kyle Sturrock, Chris Tompkins and Jimmy Yeary.

The awards, now in their eighth year, are presented by the Nashville Songwriters Association International along with presenting partner City National Bank. Tickets will be available on the Ryman’s website beginning on Friday, July 18, at 10 a.m. CT.

In addition, Alabama will receive the Kris Kristofferson Lifetime Achievement Award, and Brenda Lee will be honored with the NSAI President’s Keystone Award. The event will also recognize song of the year, songwriter of the year, songwriter-artist of the year, the 10 Songs I Wish I’d Written awards, and the legendary song award.

Both songwriter and songwriter-artist of the year are contingent on chart performance, while the other award categories are peer-voted and determined by NSAI’s professional membership of songwriters.

The song of the year award is given to the song that receives the most votes in the 10 Songs I Wish I’d Written voting process.

The legendary song award, which was introduced in 2024, was developed as a way to honor a song that is deemed legendary above all others in the designated time frame. The eligibility period for this year’s award was 1968-1984. The NSAI board of directors selected 10 songs from that time frame for the pro membership to vote on to determine the top legendary song.

The NSAI is the world’s largest not-for-profit songwriters trade organization dedicated to protecting the rights of and serving aspiring and professional songwriters in all genres of music.