Ever since arriving as a 16-year-old pop auteur in 2013, Lorde has been prone to returning every four years and commanding our collective attention with a new album. Unlike, say, the presidential elections or the Olympic Games, she does so with relatively little buildup, disappearing from the public eye for multiple years at a time before suddenly being back in our lives, a fresh opus handy.
During an age of popular music in which being hyper-prolific is the new norm — artists releasing multiple albums in a calendar year, or doubling track lists with instant deluxe editions — Ella Yelich-O’Connor has made a habit of releasing a full-length of 10 or 11 songs, touring behind that album, and then… going away to live life, often in New Zealand and always off social media. The thrill of a new Lorde era is the unknown of what she’s experienced, who she’s become; in a letter to fans about her upcoming third album, Solar Power, Lorde aptly begins with, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
The Lorde we’re acquainting ourselves with this time around has found peace in the natural world. After leading 2017’s Melodrama with “Green Light,” a purge of feelings that raced through tempos and accusations, Lorde’s new single “Solar Power” is a playful splash of salt water onto our faces in time for the summer. With Clairo and Phoebe Bridgers providing backing vocals and Jack Antonoff playing bass and electric guitar (along with co-producing and co-writing, as he did on the majority of Melodrama), Lorde has gathered her friends and shown them her newfound euphoria, first in an intimate acoustic format, then in a swaying sing-along when the drums kick in with a minute to spare.
Like all great pop songs, “Solar Power” is deceptively simple: after a few listens, you notice the saxophone and trumpet snuck into the mix, as well as the barely audible ad-lib “So sorry, I can’t make it,” after Lorde shrugs, “I tend to cancel all the plans.” For as attention-grabbing as a winking line like “I’m kind of like a prettier Jesus” may be, Lorde remains one of the best at filling the corners of her songs with personalized knickknacks.
In the four years since Melodrama, Lorde’s presence in the mainstream has loomed large: artists like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo have become household names in her absence, all while drawing upon her dark-pop sound, use of harmony and songwriting detail as influences. With that in mind, hearing Lorde happily deliver lines like “Forget all of the tears that you’ve cried” and “Come on and let the bliss begin” on “Solar Power” is a bit jarring, especially after last hearing her at her most emotionally charged. But that’s part of Lorde’s magic — her affinity to re-emerge as something new and unfamiliar, while still dazzling with her unmistakable talent for song construction and unlikely hooks. “Solar Power” is a fresh chapter in a riveting book, and Lorde fans should be thrilled to meet this new author.
Tones And I had the whole world jamming to “Dance Monkey”. Now she’s preparing to unleash her debut album.
The Australian singer and songwriter will drop Welcome to the Madhouse next month, a 14-track LP featuring the new gospel-tinged track “Cloudy Day.”
Tones (real name Toni Watson) discussed her LP and the sad story behind “Cloudy Day” when she sat for a chat with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1.
“One of our best friends passed away this year,” she recounts. “And I was trying to finish the album, but then I couldn’t finish it at all. I couldn’t write music. And on the way to the studio, I was just like crying.”
A beam of inspiration came from Sony Music Australia chairman and CEO Denis Handlin and the memory of Tones’ late mom, who “used to say on a cloudy day, look up and try and find the sun.”
The lyrics poured out in the studio. Despite its origins, it’s “not a sad song at all,” she explains. As the song climaxes, it’s “like finding your feet and almost honoring him”.
The one-time busker smashed records around the world with her 2019 hit “Dance Monkey.”
Along the way, “Dance Monkey” logged a record 24 weeks atop the singles chart in Tones’ homeland, and 11 weeks at No. 1 in the U.K., a record for a female solo artist. It’s the third-most-streamed song on Spotify. The tune appeared on the 2019 EP The Kids Are Coming, which peaked at No. 3 on the ARIA Albums Chart. Her followup “Never Seen the Rain” and Madhouse track “Fly Away” also went Top 10 in Australia.
A slew of awards have come her way, including several ARIA and APRA trophies.
Welcome to the Madhouse is due out July 16, and contains songs written prior to “Dance Monkey,” and more recent works. Madhouse “isn’t one mood,” but a “welcome to the last years of my life,” she tells Lowe. Those years have, of course, included the world-altering health crisis. Thanks to the lockdown, she continues, “there’s no stable mood. So here’s just an anxiety album from happy, sad, lonely, terrified, unsure, you know? So that’s what it is.”
Stream “Cloudy Day” below.
Welcome To The Madhouse tracklist:
1. Welcome To The Madhouse
2. Lonely
3. Won’t Sleep
4. Westside Lobby
5. Fly Away
6. Sad Songs
7. Just A Mess
8. Child’s Play
9. Not Going Home
10. Dark Waters
11. Cloudy Day
12. You Don’t Know My Name
13. Fall Apart
14. Bars (RIP T)
On Thursday (June 8), Ricky Martin dropped his new summer banger “Que Rico Fuera,” reeling in Chilean-American newcomer Paloma Mami.
“I’ve been obsessed with her for a while now,” Martin tells Billboard. “I love that she’s very selective in her collaborations, and with this song, I threw my shot in the air and she liked it.”
“I think my manager was the one who told me that he had the song ready,” Paloma (real name: Paloma Rocío Castillo Astorga) recalls. “I heard it and fell in love with it. It’s incredible to be on this catchy song and it’s just what I needed in my career.”
“Que Rico Fuera” — co-written by Paloma and Ricky and helmed by producers Wissem Larfaoui, Kevyn Mauricio Cruz and Juan Camilo Vargas — is a rhythmic Caribbean bop with urban-pop fusions and sultry lyrics. They describe the song as “lit,” “sabrosura” (flavorful) or, Martin’s personal favorite, “Freaky Ricky.”
“My thing is to find the magic in different cultures and break barriers,” the Puerto Rican star says. “At the end of the day, I grab a bit of the rhythms that move me, turn them into my sound, and that’s the dynamic that has worked.”
For both Ricky and Paloma, who recorded the song separately but met for the first time at the video shoot in California, this is just what people needed right now.
“We’re in a moment where we’ve gone through so much and this song moves people,” Martin explains.
But their collaboration goes beyond professional.
“We have an astrological connection,” he says. “Everything I do with a Scorpio turns out to be very successful and I didn’t know that was her sign until we finished filming the video.”
Paloma, who says she simply loves Capricorns, immediately knew there was “magical chemistry” between the two.
“She’s young and knows what she wants and doesn’t want and I love that she’s so connected. You can tell by her music and her delivery in this song,” Martin notes.
“Que Rico Fuera” will be on Martin’s upcoming album Play, slated for later this year.
Paramore’s 2007 album Riot! reaches the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart for the first time, thanks to a new pressing on silver colored vinyl.
The set re-enters the chart dated June 12 at No. 8 with 7,000 copies sold in the U.S. in the week ending June 3 (up 1,380%), according to MRC Data, nearly all from sales of the new vinyl edition. Riot! had previously debuted and peaked at No. 20 on the June 30, 2007-dated chart. The album was issued on silver colored vinyl on May 28 as part of the Fueled by Ramen record label’s ongoing 25th-anniversary festivities.
Elsewhere on the new Top Album Sales chart, as earlier reported, Taylor Swift’s Evermore returns to No. 1 (jumping 73-1) with the largest sales week of 2021 (192,000; up 8,307%). Its sales surge is owed to the album’s release on vinyl, Swift-signed CDs and deep discounting on its digital album.
Plus, new albums from Blackberry Smoke and DMX debut in the top 10, while Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red hits a new chart high, following its release on vinyl.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now MRC Data. Pure album sales were the measurement solely utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour slips 1-2 in its second week on Top Album Sales, with 24,000 copies sold (down 67%).
DMX’s posthumous album Exodus debuts at No. 3 with 14,000 sold, while Blackberry Smoke’s new You Hear Georgia starts at No. 4 with 12,000 sold. It’s the eighth top 10 for DMX, and the third for Blackberry Smoke. It’s also the highest-charting effort yet for the latter act, eclipsing the No. 6 peak of 2016’s Like an Arrow.
Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 5 with 8,500 sold (up 7,203%) following the set’s May 28 release on vinyl LP. The album initially debuted and peaked at No. 6 from its digital downloads upon its release on Dec. 25, 2020. (The set has yet to be issued on CD.)
Twenty One Pilots’ Scaled and Icy falls 2-6 in its second week (8,000 sold; down 84%), Swift’s former No. 1 Folklore jumps 25-7 (7,000; up 59% thanks to a surge in vinyl LP sales), Harry Styles’ chart-topping Fine Line rises 11-9 (6,000; down 11%) and Alan Jackson’s Where Have You Gone dips 7-10 (nearly 6,000; down 48%).
Carrie Underwood won video of the year for the ninth time at the 2021 CMT Music Awards on Wednesday night. She took the award this time for the video for “Hallelujah,” a collab with John Legend that appeared on her 2020 Christmas album, My Gift.
And that’s not the only CMT Music Awards category that Underwood has thoroughly dominated. She has won eight times for female video of the year. (Do you get the sense that CMT viewers really like her?)
Underwood isn’t the first music star who has won so many times in a given category at an awards show that the category should almost be named in their honor. Here’s a healthy sampling of other artists who have won eight or more times in a category at various award shows — both EGOT-level and genre-specific shows. (In each case, these artists hold the record for the most wins in that category at that show.)
Enrique Iglesias: The second-generation Latin heartthrob won the American Music Award for favorite Latin artist eight times between 1999 and 2016. Fun fact: The category was added the year before Iglesias began his win streak. The winner that first year: his dad, Julio Iglesias.
Garth Brooks: The country titan won the American Music Award for favorite country male artist eight times between 1992 and 2000. Brooks’ trophy case is jammed with other awards too. He won the CMA Award for entertainer of the year seven times between 1991 and 2019 and the ACM Award in that category six times between 1990 and 1998.
The Statler Brothers: The veteran group took the CMA Award for vocal group of the year nine times between 1972 and 1984. Fun fact: Despite the name, only two members of the group (Don and Harold Reid) were brothers and none of the group members had the surname Statler.
Alfred Newman: The late film composer and one of the founders of the Newman film music dynasty won the Academy Award for best original score nine times between 1938 (Alexander’s Ragtime Band) and 1967 (Camelot).
Miranda Lambert: Lambert won the ACM Award for female vocalist of the year nine years in a row between 2009 and 2017. The star also took the CMA Award in that category seven times between 2010 and 2017.
Reba McEntire: The country icon won the American Music Award for favorite country female artist 10 times between 1988 and 2004.
Vince Gill: The balladeer won the Grammy for best male country vocal performance nine times between 1990 (“When I Call Your Name”) and 2006 (“The Reason Why”). In 2011, the Grammys combined the male and female categories into best country solo performance. Gill won that award in March for “When My Amy Prays.”
Beyoncé: Queen Bey won the BET Award for best female R&B/pop artist 10 times between 2004 and 2019 — and she is nominated again this year.
Max Martin: The Swedish hitmaker won songwriter of the year at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards 11 times between 1999 and 2018.
John Williams: The legendary film composer won the Grammy for best score soundtrack for visual media 11 times between 1975 (Jaws) and 2016 (Star Wars: The Force Awakens). On the other side of the pond, Williams won the BAFTA Award for best original music seven times between 1975 (a dual award for both Jaws and The Towering Inferno) and 2005 (Memoirs of a Geisha).
Aretha Franklin: The eternal Queen of Soul won the Grammy for best R&B female vocal performance 11 times between 1967 (“Respect”) and 1987 (the album Aretha). This includes eight years in a row between 1967 and 1974, when she was at her commercial and creative peak.
Brooks & Dunn: Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn won the ACM Award for vocal duo of the year 16 times between 1991 and 2009. They did nearly as well at the CMA Awards, winning in that category 14 times between 1992 and 2006.
Alabama: The country quartet won the American Music Award for favorite country band/duo/group 17 times between 1983 and 2003.
Jimmy Sturr: The polka king won the Grammy for best polka album 18 times between 1986 (I Remember Warsaw) and 2008 (Let the Whole World Sing). The Grammys eliminated the polka category after 2008, in part because of the lack of competition in the category.