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Taylor Swift’s Evermore album holds atop the Billboard 200 chart for a second week, as the set earned 169,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 24 (down 49%), according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The album opened at No. 1 a week ago with 329,000 units.
Meanwhile, Paul McCartney’s new McCartney III debuts at No. 2 with 107,000 equivalent album units – of which 104,000 are in album sales. McCartney III is also the top-selling album of the week. Also, Eminem’s former No. 1 Music to Be Murdered By surges 199-3 after its deluxe reissue on Dec. 18 with 16 additional tracks. (All versions of the album, new and old, are combined for tracking purposes.)
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 Jan. 2, 2021-dated chart (where Evermore holds at to No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on Dec. 29. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Evermore’s 169,000 equivalent album units earned in the tracking week ending Dec. 24, album sales comprise just under 102,000 (down 34%), SEA units comprise 66,000 (down 61%, equaling 86.15 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs) and TEA units comprise a little a little over 1,000 (down 85%).
Evermore’s second week was aided by the arrival of the album on CD on Dec. 18. The set was only available to purchase as a digital download in its first week of release. Cassette and vinyl LP configurations are due in 2021.
Evermore is the companion set to her earlier No. 1 album Folklore, which bowed atop the Aug. 8-dated Billboard 200. Folklore descends 3-8 on the new Billboard 200 with 53,000 equivalent album units (down 61%). Both albums were released with little advance notice.
Paul McCartney’s McCartney III debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 105,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, 102,000 are in album sales – which also makes it the top-selling album of the week, as it debuts at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart. SEA units comprise 3,000 units (equating to 4.12 million on-demand streams of the album’s tracks), and TEA units comprise a negligible number.
McCartney III’s robust sales were aided by its availability across many CD and vinyl LP editions, including versions with alternative cover art or colored vinyl. The album was issued in more than 10 vinyl variants which combined to sell 32,000 copies – the third-largest sales week for a vinyl album since Nielsen Music/MRC Data began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. Only the debut weeks of Jack White’s Lazaretto (40,000) and Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy (34,000) were larger. McCartney III naturally also premieres at No. 1 on the weekly Vinyl Albums chart, which ranks the top selling vinyl LPs of the week. All told, McCartney III is McCartney’s 21st top 10 album on the Billboard 200. That tally includes his solo recordings and his albums with Wings.
Notably, McCartney is the first act to have a new album reach the top two in each of the last six decades. He reached the top two eight times in the 1970s and once each in the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, ’10s and ’20s. (McCartney is additionally just the third act with new top 10 albums in the last six decades, alongside Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor. McCartney and Springsteen are the only acts with new top five-charting albums in the last six decades as well.)
Back on the new Billboard 200, Eminem’s former No. 1 Music to Be Murdered By surges from No. 199 to No. 3 after the album was surprise-reissued in a deluxe edition on Dec. 18 with 16 bonus tracks. The deluxe redux is dubbed Music to Be Murdered By: Side B. The original 20-track album was surprise-released on Jan. 17 and premiered at No. 1 on the chart dated Feb. 1. For tracking purposes, all versions of the album, new and old, are combined.
In the tracking week ending Dec. 24, Music to Be Murdered By earned 94,000 equivalent album units (up 1,125%). Of that sum, SEA units comprise 57,000 (up 761%, equaling 82.01 million on-demand streams of the 36 tracks), album sales comprise 33,000 (up 3,401%) and TEA units comprise 4,000 (up 3,868%).
With the latest tracking week ending on Dec. 24, Christmas Eve, the top 10 of the Billboard 200 is especially festive, as six holiday sets dot the region, mostly powered by streaming activity of their seasonal songs. (The top 10 last housed six holiday sets on the Jan. 5, 1959-dated chart, when Mitch Miller’s Christmas Sing Along With Mitch was tops and the entire top five were Christmas titles.)
Leading the six-pack of holiday albums in the top 10 on the latest Billboard 200 is Michael Bublé’s former No. 1 Christmas, which is steady at No. 4 with 77,000 equivalent album units (up 33%). Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas jumps 10-5 (60,000; up 36%), Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song hits a new high, as it climbs 8-6 with 60,000 units (up 33%, surpassing its previous peak of No. 7), Carrie Underwood’s 2020 release My Gift (the newest holiday album in the top 10) falls 6-7 (57,000; up 21%) and Pentatonix’s The Best of Pentatonix Christmas jingles 13-9 (51,000; up 24%).
Lastly, Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas reaches the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for the first time, as the album rises 12-10 (50,000 equivalent album units earned; up 20%). The set was released in 1965 as the companion album to the animated TV special and did not reach any Billboard ranking until 1987. That year, it debuted on the Top Holiday Albums chart, where it later peaked at No. 2 (Jan. 27, 2007).
Michelle Branch is opening up after suffering a miscarriage.
In a candid Instagram post on Saturday (Dec. 26), the 37-year-old singer-songwriter revealed the heartbreaking news to her thousands of followers.
“Just when we were rounding third and heading home (A baseball metaphor?! I know.) 2020 was like, ‘nah, I ain’t done yet,’” Branch wrote alongside a photo gallery. “December decided to really finish us off with a bang! No, literally. A bomb went off in downtown Nashville yesterday. And to further twist a dagger in my heart, I experienced my first miscarriage (ugh! Motherf—–!).”
The “Everywhere” singer went on to thank her husband, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, as well as her sister, for their support during the difficult time.
“But alas, between the crying and binge eating of Christmas cookies, I decided to put on lipstick and a dress. We drank champagne alllll day. Made an incredible meal and sang Christmas songs snuggled up by a roaring fire,” Branch wrote. “Five more days until 2021. I’m limping to the finish line.”
Her emotional post included a slideshow of family snapshots, including one of her cozying up to Carney, and others of her toddler son and teenage daughter.
“These people, my precious family, my husband, sister and kids have been the MVP’s,” she continued. “I couldn’t imagine spending a year isolated with anyone else. Happy Christmas, everyone.”
Branch and Carney started dating in 2015, and fell in love while working on her 2017 album, Hopeless Romantic, which he produced. The couple got married last year in New Orleans. The celebrity couple share a 2-year-old son, Rhys James.
Branch is also the mother to her 15-year-old daughter, Owen, whom she shares with ex-husband Teddy Landau. They divorced in 2015.
See the Branch’s heartfelt Instagram post here.
Nile Rodgers’ mother, Beverly Goodman, who had been battling late-stage Alzheimer’s, has died.
“My mom #BeverlyGoodman #RIP passed away around 6am today. I breathed some of my 1st breaths with her and she breathed some of her last with me. My brothers and I will contact everyone soon. Today I’m numb,” Rodgers wrote on social media Sunday afternoon (Dec. 27). He shared a heartbreaking image of himself laying his head down next to hers.
Just before Christmas, on Dec. 23, Rodgers had written a message about how much he missed spending time with his mom over the holidays.
“The saddest part of this #COVID holiday is not being able to visit my #mom,” he said. “She’s always happy and entertaining even w late stage #Alzheimer’s. I’ve learned to redirect or not, so she’s never uncomfortable with her memory loss.”
Along with his tweet that day, he shared a home video of the pair bantering. “This was 2 years ago and she’s still sharp today,” he noted.
In an interview with the BBC in the summer of 2019, Rodgers said that while caring for his mother, he had become “more involved in her life than I have been since I was 14 years old … It’s really strange because we, right now, seemingly have the best relationship we’ve ever had in our lives.”
Remarkably, the legendary musician, co-founder of Chic, said he’d “never really heard my mother sing aloud in my life until she developed Alzheimer’s,” when she “developed perfect pitch, which is incredible.”
“When my mom and I go walking down the street, she’s all of a sudden got a real singer’s voice, and she’s hitting the notes perfectly,” Rodgers said.
The tributes are pouring in following the death of legendary bluegrass guitarist Tony Rice.
Artists like Ricky Skaggs, Kenny Chesney, Rosanne Cash, Lee Ann Womack and many others took to social media to honor the memory of Rice, who died on Christmas Day (Dec. 25) at the age of 69.
“Tony Rice was the single most influential acoustic guitar player in the last 50 years,” Skaggs, who performed and recorded with Rice, wrote on Facebook. “Many if not all of the Bluegrass guitar players of today would say that they cut their teeth on Tony Rice’s music.”
The bluegrass giant, known for his innovative and elegant flatpicking, released dozens of albums dating back to the early 1970s and played alongside such major artists as Dolly Parton and Jerry Garcia.
Rice received numerous awards over the decades, including a Grammy in 1993 for best country instrumental performance and was a six-time recipient of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) guitar player of the year honor.
His death was confirmed in a statement from the IBMA.
Cash tweeted that Rice’s death leaves an “enormous vacancy” in the bluegrass community and that the guitarist “never played a bad note in his life.”
Chesney, meanwhile, credited Rice as an inspiration from his childhood and recalled watching the late musician perform at a past IBMA festival in Kentucky.
“Tony Rice inspired so many including a kid like me from East Tennessee who was in awe of the way he sang and played Me And My Guitar,” the country superstar tweeted. “I’ll never forget seeing him sing that at the IBMA Bluegrass Festival in Owensboro, Ky. It’s printed in my brain forever!”
And Womack called Rice “one of my very favorites” in a heartfelt tweet. “I’ve gotten so much enjoyment over the years from listening to his records, bootleg cassette tapes & finding gems on YouTube (look for the @MerleFest stuff),” she wrote. “Thank you Tony for the music.”
See more social media tributes to Rice below.
Cool, elegant, badass, classy.. always in the same mood as that old D-28. Thank you Tony
RIP legend pic.twitter.com/jGspkkZ13j
— Billy Strings (@BillyStrings) December 26, 2020
Tony Rice… One of my very favorites. I’ve gotten so much enjoyment over the years from listening to his records, bootleg cassette tapes & finding gems on YouTube (look for the @MerleFest stuff). Thank you Jill Douglas for introducing me.
Thank you Tony for the music. pic.twitter.com/MyEtPqGZ5j
— Lee Ann Womack (@leeannwomack) December 27, 2020
Puerto Rican salsa singer Tito Rojas, known as “El Gallo Salsero” and famous for his velvety tenor and hits like “Señora de madrugada” and “Por mujeres como tú,” died of a suspected heart attack Saturday (Dec. 26) in his hometown of Humacao, Puerto Rico. He was 65 years old.
“Our friend and colleague Tito Rojas has moved to ‘another neighborhood,’” salsa icon Ruben Blades wrote on Instagram. “Blessed with a dynamic personality and sense of humor, he obtained deserved popularity for his ability to connect with the salsa audience, displaying the sharpness, humor and capacity Puerto Ricans have to confront life and overcome hardships.”
According to reports on Puerto Rican daily Un Nuevo Día, Rojas, a gregarious and well-loved figure, had spent the evening with friends and, on the way home, began to feel ill and stopped at a cousin’s house to get help. He collapsed and medics were unable to revive him, according to Teddy Morales, the director of Humacao’s Criminal Investigation Division.
Rojas, whose real name was Julio César Rojas, was a fixture in the world of salsa who landed 49 tracks on Billboard’s Tropical Airplay chart from his beginnings in the mid-1990s to as recently as this year. His No. 1 hits include 1995’s “Esperándote” and 1999’s “Por mujeres como tú,” a song that also hit No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, and would later be reprised in regional Mexican format.
Rojas rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the commercial heyday of salsa, and was long signed to tropical indie MP, known for its hard-hitting, Puerto Rican salsa acts. During that time, Rojas garnered a Grammy nomination, in 2003, for Perseverancia, in the Best Salsa/Merengue album category. MP later merged with another tropical music powerhouse, JN Records
But Rojas never stopped recording or performing, even during lulls in salsa’s popularity. This year, he was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the best salsa album category for Un Gallo Para la Historia, and was also featured in his friend Gilberto Santa Rosa’s album, Colegas.
Rojas’s last performance was a Christmas special, “Canta Gallo, Canta en Navidad,” where he performed danceable hits with his full band and which streamed free to fans on YouTube. Watch below.
Reaction to Rojas’ death was swift on social media. “A man of the people, humble, charismatic and unparalleled energy, among the best singers,” Maelo Ruiz wrote. Elvis Crespo called him “a one of a kind artist in his class.” And Don Omar added, “No one is eternal in the world, even having a heart that so feels and sighs for life and love.”
In Rojas’ native Humacao, the mayor called for five days of mourning. Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
