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BLACKPINK’s Lisa is releasing solo music “soon,” and she delivered a visual teaser for fans this weekend.
On Sunday (Aug. 22), Lisa released a poster as a preview of what’s the come. The artwork features a blurry image of her in long, red high-heeled boots, with her hands clasped together.
“COMING SOON,” she wrote on Instagram, where she shared the poster.
“#LISA COMING SOON POSTER,” the group’s official Twitter account also tweeted.
Four weeks ago, Lisa uploaded a couple photos that appeared to be from the studio on her Instagram Stories. Her upcoming solo release was first confirmed in July.
See her teaser poster below.
Little Mix singer Perrie Edwards has given birth to her first child.
The singer welcomed her baby with partner Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who’s a professional soccer player, on Saturday (Aug. 21).
“Welcome to the world baby 21/08/21,” Edwards announced on Sunday on Instagram, where she shared a sweet glimpse at the newborn’s tiny hands and feet with a pair of black-and-white photos.
Edwards first revealed her pregnancy in May, when she posted a belly picture on Instagram. The photo showed her baby bump and Oxlade-Chamberlain standing behind her.
“So happy to be on this wild journey with my soulmate,” she wrote at the time. “Me + Him = You. We can’t wait to meet you Baby Ox!”
Edwards also has a new release to look forward to, as Little Mix will be dropping a new album titled Between Us — featuring previous hits and some new songs — in November, in celebration of the group’s 10th anniversary.
See the first snapshots of Edwards’ baby on Instagram.
Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever stands at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a third straight week. The set earned 60,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 19 (down 29%), according to MRC Data. The album opened atop the list two weeks ago.
It’s the second album of 2021 to spend its first three weeks at No. 1 (following Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album) and the first set by a woman to do so since Taylor Swift’s Folklore spent its first six weeks atop the list on the Aug. 8-Sept. 19, 2020 charts (of its eventual eight total nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1).
Happier now has as many weeks atop the chart as Eilish’s last album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The latter logged three individual nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1, in 2019 (April 13-dated chart, its debut; May 4 and June 8).
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. 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 Aug. 28, 2021-dated chart (where Happier Than Ever is No. 1 for a third week) will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on Aug. 24. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Happier Than Ever’s 60,000 equivalent album units earned in the tracking week ending Aug. 19, SEA units comprise 36,000 (down 25%, equaling 49.6 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs), album sales comprise 23,000 (it’s the top-selling album of the week; down 35%) and TEA units comprise less than 1,000 (down 27%).
Notably, Happier’s third-week sum of 60,000 units is the lowest for a No. 1 album since the Jan. 16-dated chart (reflecting the traditionally sleepy post-New Year’s tracking week ending Jan. 7), when Taylor Swift’s Evermore spent its third nonconsecutive week at No. 1 with 56,000 units.
Doja Cat’s Planet Her rises 5-2 with 59,000 equivalent album units (up 6%). The set has remained in the top five for all of its eight chart weeks. It returns to its peak, first achieved when it debuted at No. 2 on the July 10-dated chart.
Three former No. 1s are next up on the Billboard 200, as Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour slips 2-3 (57,000 equivalent album units; down 6%), The Kid LAROI’s F*ck Love is a non-mover at No. 4 (52,000; down 7%) and Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album rises 6-5 (43,000; down 3%).
Dan + Shay arrive at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 with the duo’s latest studio album, Good Things. It’s the fourth consecutive top 10 for the act – the entirety of their charting efforts. Good Things bows with 33,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 19,000 (equaling 25.6 million on-demand streams of the set’s songs), album sales comprise 12,000 and TEA units comprise 1,000.
Good Things contains a trio of top 10-charting hits on the Hot Country Songs chart: “10,000 Hours” (No. 1 for 21 weeks), with Justin Bieber; “I Should Probably Go to Bed” (No. 4) and “Glad You Exist” (No. 2 as of the most recently published chart dated Aug. 21). Both “10,000 Hours” and “Glad” also topped the weekly Country Airplay chart, while “I Should” topped out at No. 2.
Dan + Shay previously visited the top 10 on the Billboard 200 with their self-titled album (No. 6 in 2018), Obsessed (No. 8, 2016) and Where It All Began (No. 6, 2014).
Rap duo $uicideboy$ logs the act’s second top 10 and highest charting album, as Long Term Effects of Suffering starts at No. 7 with 32,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 26,000 (equaling 36.5 million on-demand streams of the album’s tracks), album sales comprise 6,000 and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. Long Term is the pair’s third charting effort, following Stop Staring at the Shadows (No. 30 in 2020) and I Want to Die in New Orleans (No. 9, 2018).
Lil Baby and Lil Durk’s former No. 1 The Voice of the Heroes is a non-mover at No. 8 with 28,000 equivalent album units earned (down 3%).
The Killers capture their seventh top 10 effort as their seventh studio album, Pressure Machine, debuts at No. 9 with 26,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 22,000, SEA units comprise 4,000 (equaling 5 million on-demand streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. All seven of the band’s studio albums have reached the top 10.
Pressure Machine was announced on July 19 and comes slightly less than a year after the band’s last studio effort, Imploding the Mirage, debuted and peaked at No. 9 on the Sept. 5, 2020-dated chart. (Pressure was released on Aug. 13, 2021; Imploding was released on Aug. 21, 2020.)
Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia rounds out the Billboard 200’s top 10, as the set moves 9-10 with 26,000 equivalent album units earned (down 4%).
Shawn Mendes and Tainy’s new collaboration “Summer of Love” has topped this week’s new music poll.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Aug. 20) on Billboard, choosing the smooth team-up between the Canadian pop superstar and Puerto Rican reggaeton megaproducer as their favorite new music release of the past week.
“Summer of Love” brought in nearly 27% of the vote this week, beating out new music by Trippie Redd (Trip at Knight), Lorde (Solar Power), Ed Sheeran (“Visiting Hours”), and Skrillex featuring Justin Bieber and Don Toliver (“Don’t Go”), among others.
Mendes revealed the “Summer of Love” song title earlier this month on his sweatshirt while he played a couple of guitar chords in a Twitter video captioned “sol,” meaning “sun” in Spanish. The pop star later previewed the bouncy single in another video of him driving in a convertible with the green mountains and sunset as his stunning backdrop.
His collab with Tainy — who was recently named Billboard’s top Latin producer of the 21st century — arrives a month after he hopped on the bilingual remix of “Kesi” with Camilo, which broke into the top 10 of on Billboard’s Latin Digital Song Sales chart.
Placing second on the past week’s tally with 22% of the vote was Trippie Redd’s fourth album, Trip at Knight, which features all-star collabs from Drake, Lil Durk and Juice WRLD, among others. And coming in third with 21% of the vote was Lorde’s third album, Solar Power.
See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.
The remains of American-born singer and dancer Josephine Baker will be reinterred at the Pantheon monument in Paris, making the entertainer who is a World War II hero in France the first Black woman to get the country’s highest honor.
Le Parisien newspaper reported Sunday (Aug. 22) that French President Emmanuel Macron decided to organize a ceremony on Nov. 30 at the Paris monument, which houses the remains of scientist Marie Curie, French philosopher Voltaire, writer Victor Hugo and other French luminaries.
The presidential palace confirmed the newspaper’s report.
After her death in 1975, Baker was buried in Monaco, dressed in a French military uniform with the medals she received for her role as part of the French Resistance during the war.
Baker will be the fifth woman to be honored with a Pantheon burial and will also be the first entertainer honored.
Holocaust survivor Simone Veil, one of France’s most revered politicians, was buried at the Pantheon in 2018. The other women are two who fought with the French Resistance during World War II — Germaine Tillion and Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz — and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Curie.
The monument also holds the remains of 72 men.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Baker became a megastar in the 1930s, especially in France, where she moved in 1925 as she was seeking to flee racism and segregation in the United States.
Baker quickly became famous for her “banana skirt” dance routines and wowed audiences at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees and later at the Folies Bergere in Paris.
She became a French citizen after her marriage to industrialist Jean Lion in 1937.
During World War II, she joined the French Resistance. Amid other missions, she collected information from German officials she met at parties and carried messages hidden in her underwear to England and other countries, using her star status to justify her travels.
A civil rights activist, she took part in 1963 in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who made his “I Have A Dream” speech.
The Jonas Brothers’ Remember This Tour has kicked off, and special guest Kelsea Ballerini got nostalgic with her opening set that featured a short medley of songs that have inspired her.
One of those songs was a Taylor Swift classic that had a Las Vegas crowd singing along: “Teardrops on My Guitar.”
“There is one particular woman who paved the way for people like me,” Ballerini said of the track from Swift’s debut album at the Park Theater Friday night (Aug. 20), where she performed her set for the audience before the Jonas Brothers took the stage for the night. (“Teardrops on My Guitar” was Swift’s second single, off of her self-titled album released in 2006.)
In fan-filmed videos from the show, Ballerini seemed delighted to return to the stage as tours begin to resume, with safety precautions, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Following CDC guidance and Nevada state requirements, events at the Park Theater on the grounds of the Park MGM require masks for all attendees, regardless of vaccination status.
“Is this anyone else’s first show back?” Ballerini asked the crowd. “Well how about this: How about I promise for the next 15 minutes I will give you 110% of everything have if you’ll do it back for me?”
The week before the first show, a masked up and ready Ballerini tweeted, “I’m thankful to be back at it.” Before the concert began on Friday, she posted a series of rehearsal photos on Instagram, writing, “feeling over-the-top joy to kick this tour off tonight. praying for mindfulness and safety. ready for approximately 10461947 sing alongs. gonna go roll around in glitter and see y’all on stage, Vegas.”
The tour continues at the Park Theater for a second night on Sunday, then heads to California. The Remember This trek is scheduled to run through the end of October. A full list of tour dates is available on the Jonas Brothers’ website.
Watch some clips of Ballerini’s tribute to Swift below.
New York City’s “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert” ended early on Saturday (Aug. 21) due to severe weather conditions in Central Park.
The concert had kicked off in the morning with a pre-recorded video featuring stars like Stephen Colbert and Sara Bareilles delivering a rendition of “New York State of Mind,” wrapping up a week-long celebration of the city’s reopening, which consisted of live concerts, free movie screenings, Restaurant Week, cultural activities and more.
Hours into the event, the concert was halted due to “approaching severe weather” including heavy rain and thunder. Attendees were asked to find the nearest exit and proceed to their vehicles or other protected areas outside of the event site at Central Park.
“This is NOT an emergency,” clarified New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio via his official Twitter account when the announcement was made. According to local news, tropical storm warnings were issued for New York City, with hurricane warnings from Long Island to Rhode Island.
Amid CNN’s continued coverage after the event was stopped — while it was unclear whether it would continue — Anderson Cooper spoke on the phone with stars including Elvis Costello, Patti Smith and Colbert. “I am watching historic broadcasting right now,” said Colbert from the performance tent. “I am enjoying this moment of you killing time. You are spinning straw into gold.”
Smith, who told Cooper that she was “on-call” offsite with her band as they waited for further instructions, shared a message she felt was important. “A performer is there to not only inspire but to entertain the people,” she said, clarifying that obviously I wanted to entertain. “There are things to talk about … “she said, emphasizing the crux of the continuing global and environmental pandemic. “These are important to acknowledge even in a night of celebration.”
Smith mentioned a number of the ongoing challenges in the world: fires, flooding, drought, famine, the earthquake in Haiti, fall of Kabul and the delta variant. “These are real things that are happening, so what are we celebrating?” asked the singer. She concluded that we are celebrating that “we as individuals have heart, resilience and the ability to make change.”
Smith emphasized to Cooper: “We have to face the new world … with a certain amount of willingness and sacrifice to make change.”
The Killers performed an acoustic version of “Mr. Brightside” backstage, as Don Lemon and many others watched in the tent. Elsewhere, Barry Manilow performed and played piano from his trailer.
During the concert’s pre-show, attendees — largely unmasked, though vaccinated as part of the event’s entrance requirement — were treated to a musical montage of New York affiliated artists and entertainers, including Broadway star Idina Menzel and award-winning actress Laura Dern, serenading the Big Apple with the Billy Joel tune.
“This is a celebration of our city, of every working family who faced incredible challenges last year and overcame,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement last month when details about the concert were announced. “This is a celebration for you.”
But outside the Central Park event’s entrance, anti-vaccine protesters congregated with yellow stars attached to their clothing, something Holocaust survivors, historians and experts have criticized. Used by the Nazi German government to identify Jews during the Holocaust, the symbol has been appropriated by the anti-vaccination movement, which inaccurately likens vaccine mandates to antisemitic persecution during World War II.
Following the pre-event, The New York Philharmonic and CBS This Morning’s Gayle King helped open the show, with the morning show co-host thanking essential workers for taking “their stations on the front lines” in the city, which was once the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic and “is now the epicenter of the recovery.”
“Slowly, New Yorkers began to do what we do,” King said to a clapping crowd. “We find a way.”
The “Homecoming” concert features performances from an array of music icons and contemporary artists, spanning various genres — from reggae to rock to Latin pop and more. “Live music has the unique ability to bring us together,” said Geoff Gordon, the regional president of Live Nation, which is co-producing the event along with music mogul Clive Davis and the city.
Bruce Springsteen, Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, LL Cool J, Elvis Costello, Barry Manilow, Jennifer Hudson, The Killers, Andrea Bocelli, Jimmy Fallon, Cynthia Erivo, Julia Michaels and Earth, Wind & Fire were among the big-name acts set to take the stage at the celebration, which took place amid ongoing concerns about the delta variant.
Introducing Jon Batiste, Colbert said, “If there’s one thing I learned at the beginning for the pandemic, it’s that owning a tiger sanctuary is harder than it seems. If there’s a second thing, it’s that living any part of your life in New York is a gift.”
Behind each performer, a series of shots and graphics of New York filled the screens behind the stage. Hudson described her operatic performance with the New York Philharmonic to King, calling it an “out of body experience.”
Blue and white beach balls and big, yellow balloons with smiley faces on them bounced around the audience as the concert continued. DJ Cassidy filled in between performance sets, playing pop hits.
Proof of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination was required for entry, unless an attendee was unable to get vaccinated because of a disability or age, in which case they needed to provide a negative COVID test result. Masks were optional at the outdoor event. The event was also set to air worldwide exclusively on CNN.
“There is absolutely no place more special than Central Park to celebrate the reopening of New York City,” Davis said last month, adding that the event marked an “historic occasion.”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Kacey Musgraves previewed new music on social media that left her fans in (emoji) tears.
On Saturday (Aug. 21), Musgraves first teased a snippet of a new song without sharing its title or any other details.
Soon after, she followed with several more Instagram posts, each one unveiling the next line from what appeared to be a set of lyrics.
The words described the heartache of a relationship that’s ended, perhaps alluding to her own divorce from Ruston Kelly.
Put together, her posts read: “Let me set the scene/ Two lovers ripped right at the seams/ They woke up from the perfect dream/ And then the darkness came/ I signed the papers yesterday/ You came and took your things away/ Moved out of the home we made/ And gave you back your name/ What have we done? / Did we fly too high?/ Just to get burned by the sun?/ No one’s to blame/ ‘Cause we called all the angels to save us/ But I guess they got lost…”
Comments ranged from sad faces to announcements about being “all in” and “ready” for the new tune.
“They see me as this starry-eyed, rose-colored glasses kinda girl; the Golden Hour girl. Well, here I come with a post-divorce album, bursting the f—ing bubble,” Musgraves recently revealed of her next record. She paralleled the recording process to grieving — “Denial, anger, sadness, depression, bargaining, guilt… [I’ve felt] all of those things” — and added that the new album captures “the push and pull of tension between sorrow and joy” as she experiences life after marriage.
Listen to her latest teaser on Instagram.
