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The 2021 Tokyo Olympics came to an end on Sunday, and the Jonas Brothers got to join in on the closing ceremony celebration.
The group’s anthemic “Remember This” was paired with a feel-good montage of moments from the Olympics.
“A moment I’ll never forget,” Kevin Jonas said after their Olympics-inspired edition of the song aired.
“What an honor,” Nick Jonas added in a tweet.
NBCUniversal aired the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games programming across its broadcast, cable and digital platforms.
The Jonas Brothers are about to kick off their Remember This Tour, with special guest Kelsea Ballerini.
Watch their performance for the Olympics below.
Billie Eilish earns her second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as her latest release, Happier Than Ever, debuts atop the list with 238,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 5, according to MRC Data. Happier launches with the fifth-largest week of 2021 by equivalent album units earned. The year’s biggest week belongs to Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, which charged in at No. 1 on the June 5 chart with 295,000 units.
Happier is Eilish’s first studio effort since 2019’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, which also launched at No. 1 (April 13, 2019-dated chart), and spent a total of three nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1. The set finished 2019 as the year-end Top Billboard 200 Album and went on to win the Grammy Award for album of the year, and the 2020 Billboard Music Award for Top Billboard 200 Album. So far, the album has earned just over 5 million equivalent album units in the U.S., with 1.2 million of that in album sales.
All told, Happier is Eilish’s fifth charting effort on the Billboard 200, and third top 40-charting set, after When We All Fall Asleep and her debut chart entry Don’t Smile at Me (No. 14 peak in 2019). She also hit the chart with Live at Third Man Records (No. 55 in 2020) and Prime Day Show x Billie Eilish (No. 87 earlier this year).
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. 14, 2021-dated chart (where Happier Than Ever bows at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on Aug. 10. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Happier Than Ever’s 238,000 equivalent album units earned in the tracking week ending Aug. 5, album sales comprise 153,000 (making it the top-selling album of the week as well), SEA units comprise 84,000 units (equaling 113.87 million on-demand streams of the album’s 16 songs) and TEA units comprise a little more than 1,000.
Happier was preceded by five top 40-charting songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: “My Future,” “Therefore I Am,” “Your Power,” “Lost Cause” and “NDA.” Of those, “My Future” was first out of the gate, hitting the Hot 100 on the Aug. 15, 2020-dated chart.
Happier’s first week was supported by sturdy sales, with its 153,000 sold marking the third-biggest sales week of 2021, and the second-largest debut sales week of the year. Only Taylor Swift managed bigger sales weeks, when her 2020 album Evermore was released on vinyl in May, causing a huge surge in total sales (rising to 192,000 on the chart dated June 12) and when Fearless (Taylor’s Version) was released, selling 179,000 copies in its first week (April 24).
Happier was available in a great number of physical album formats. They include eight different colored vinyl LPs (including retail-exclusives for Amazon, independent record stores, Target, Urban Outfitters and Walmart), 10 CD variants (including a signed CD for indie stores, a version with alternative packaging hand-painted by Eilish, three premium boxed sets and a Target-exclusive edition packaged with a poster) and even multiple cassette tape variants (including a deluxe boxed set).
All those different configurations added up. Of the 153,000 Happier sold across all its permutations, physical sales comprise 129,000 (with a whopping 73,000 on vinyl, 46,000 on CD and nearly 10,000 on cassette) and 24,000 via digital download.
Happier’s vinyl sales of 73,000 were so large, the album would have been No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week from just vinyl sales alone, as the No. 2 title, The Kid LAROI’s F*ck Love, earned 65,000 equivalent album units (down 23%). Happier’s vinyl sales start of 73,000 marks both the second-largest sales week, and debut week, for a vinyl album since MRC Data began tracking sales in 1991. The only larger week was registered by the arrival of Swift’s Evermore on vinyl earlier this year (102,000; chart dated June 12).
Evermore’s vinyl release on May 28 trailed the wide digital release of the album by five months, as the digital and streaming editions were released on Dec. 11, 2020. Evermore’s vinyl debut was aided by five months of banked pre-orders (the vinyl went up for sale in mid-December), while Eilish had three months of pre-orders (her pre-order went live at the end of April). And lastly, Evermore was initially available in three vinyl variants for its May 28 release, as compared to Eilish’s eight vinyl variants.
The 19-year-old Eilish replaces another teenager at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as Happier bumps F*ck Love, by the 17-year-old The Kid LAROI, down to No. 2 after one week in the lead. F*ck Love earned 65,000 equivalent album units (down 23%).
The top three of the Billboard 200 albums chart is ruled by teens, as 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo is No. 3 with her former No. 1 Sour. It dips 2-3 in its 11th week on the list.
Prince’s archival studio album Welcome 2 America debuts at No. 4, marking the 20th top 10 for the legend and his highest charting new release since 2009. (Prince died in 2016.) Recorded in 2010, but not released until July 30 of this year, Welcome starts with 55,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise just over 50,000 (bolstered by an array of available configurations), SEA units comprise 4,000 (equaling 5.9 million on-demand streams of the set’s 12 songs) and TEA units comprise less than 1,000.
Welcome 2 America is the late legend’s highest charting new album since 2009’s Lotus Flow3r/MPLSound/Elix3r (with Bria Valente) debuted and peaked at No. 3 on the April 18, 2009-dated chart. (Prince charted higher since then, but only with previously released titles following his death in 2016, including the No. 1 The Very Best of Prince.)
Doja Cat’s Planet Her falls 3-5 on the new Billboard 200 (55,000 equivalent album units earned; down 4%) and Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album dips 4-6 (44,000 units; up less than 1%).
Rapper Isaiah Rashad lands his first top 10 album and third charting effort as The House Is Burning debuts at No. 7 with 41,000 equivalent album units earned. The album is his first since 2016’s The Sun’s Tirade, which debuted and peaked at No. 17 (Sept. 24, 2016-dated chart). Of House’s starting sum of 41,000 units, SEA units comprise 36,000 (equaling 46.89 million on-demand streams of the album’s 16 tracks), album sales comprise 5,000 and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.
Rounding out the new top 10 on the Billboard 200: Lil Baby and Lil Durk’s former No. 1 The Voice of the Heroes (6-8 with 30,000 equivalent album units earned; down 6%), Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia (10-9 with 29,000 units; up 2%) and Polo G’s former leader Hall of Fame (8-10 with 27,000 units; down 7%).
Rihanna nearly had a role opposite a puppet in Annette, the movie musical starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard that hit theaters Friday.
Director Leos Carax told USA Today that there was a small role written for the singer in the script by Ron Mael and Russell Mael.
“It was a small part written specifically for her,” Carax said. “She was supposed to play Rihanna.”
The film centers on stand-up comedian Henry (Driver) and opera singer Ann (Cotillard), who marry and then welcome a child.
As The Hollywood Reporter’s chief film critic David Rooney described it in his review: “They marry and she soon becomes pregnant, prompting visions of blood-drenched childbirth and a baby with a garish clown face. That child is Annette, represented by a marvelous Pinocchio-like wooden puppet, its features both innocent and inscrutable yet unexpectedly expressive.”
Annette goes on to become a famous singer, and Rihanna would have played a fellow performer threatened by the young star.
“When Baby Annette becomes famous, there was a duet between the puppet and Rihanna,” Carax told USA Today. “But then Rihanna feels upstaged by this baby.”
Early reports of the film noted Rihanna was attached to the project, but her rep later said she was no longer part of the cast. Instead of replacing Rihanna, the scene was cut from the film, Carax said.
Annette is portrayed by a puppet in the film until the final scene, where Devyn McDowell takes on the role and performs a song alongside Driver.
Annette, which hit theaters Friday, premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, where Carax won the best director award, and will be available for streaming on Amazon later this month.
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Robert Ringwald, the pianist who played and promoted jazz in California for more than half a century, has died, according to his daughter, the actor and musician Molly Ringwald. He was 80.
Ringwald, known to friends and fans as Bob, died Aug. 3, Molly Ringwald wrote in an obituary Saturday for the Sacramento Bee. No cause was given.
Born in Roseville, California with vision problems, Ringwald went blind at an early age. He began taking piano lessons at 5 and started his first band at 13.
“Four years later, at the age of 17, he was able to grow enough of a beard to be able to pass for an adult to play in nightclubs as a professional musician, an occupation he held for the next six decades,” his daughter wrote.
At first drawn to modern jazz, the music of Louis Armstrong instilled in Ringwald a lifelong passion for the performance and preservation of traditional New Orleans jazz.
By the 1970s, Ringwald was playing piano at clubs seven nights a week.
He co-organized the first Sacramento Jazz Festival in 1974, and his band headlined the event, which became an annual city tradition. In 2012, Ringwald was honored by the festival as “The Emperor of Jazz.”
In addition to music, Ringwald’s passions included ham radio and the Los Angeles Dodgers, for whom he once served as a guest announcer, reading the lineup in Braille.
“Anyone who knew Bob also knew his mischievous streak, and his ever-present, slightly ribald sense of humor. If you didn’t sufficiently beg to get off of his email joke list, you would have received one just a couple of days before he died,” Molly Ringwald wrote.
Besides his daughter Molly, Robert Ringwald is survived by Adele, his wife of 60 years; a sister, Renée Angus; another daughter, Beth Ringwald Carnes; a son, Kelly Ringwald; two grandsons; two granddaughters; two step-granddaughters; one great-grandson; and one step-great-grandson.
A memorial service is pending.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made either to the Foundation Fighting Blindness or to CURE Childhood Cancer.
The formal apology DaBaby issued to the LGBTQ+ community earlier this week on Instagram — in which he addressed the homophobic remarks he made at Rolling Loud Miami — is no longer there.
As of Sunday (Aug. 8), those following DaBaby on social media noticed that his post that had been originally dated Aug. 2 appeared to be deleted from his account. It remains unclear why the post was removed.
Billboard reached out to a representative for DaBaby for comment.
In the post, the rapper had said, “I want to apologize to the LGBTQ+ community for the hurtful and triggering comments I made. Again, I apologize for my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS and I know education on this is important. Love to all. God bless.”
“Social media moves so fast that people want to demolish you before you even have the opportunity to grow, educate, and learn from your mistakes,” he wrote in the now-removed note. “As a man who has had to make his own way from very difficult circumstances, having people I know publicly working against me— knowing that what I needed was education on these topics and guidance— has been challenging. I appreciate the many people who came to me with kindness, who reached out to me privately to offer wisdom, education, and resources. That’s what I needed and it was received.”
The controversy began during DaBaby’s set at Rolling Loud in Miami on July 25.
While onstage, he said to the crowd, “If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cell phone lighter up. Ladies, if your p—- smell like water, put your cellphone lighter up. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking d— in the parking lot, put your cell phone lighter up.”
In the aftermath of his comments, DaBaby was dropped from several events, including Lollapalooza, Governors Ball, Austin City Limits, Day N Vegas, iHeartRadio Music Festival, Music Midtown Festival and a concert organized by Working Families Party.
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