The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Barry Gibb and 71 other prominent British musicians joined a campaign by artists and songwriters pushing for a larger share of streaming royalties from platforms like Spotify and YouTube — and closer scrutiny on the major labels’ hold on the market.

The call by the 74 musicians comes two months after a group of more than 150 artists — including Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox and Chris Martin — sent the same letter to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for the British leader to change U.K. copyright law so that streaming revenues would be treated more like radio revenue.

The new push by British artists to show solidarity in their quest for fairer compensation also comes as a Parliamentary body — the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) Committee — is set to release recommendations after an inquiry into the music streaming economy that concluded in March.

The letter’s signatories are calling for a government referral of the multinational corporations that wield “extraordinary power” over the music business to the U.K. competition enforcer, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which can act against businesses engaging in anti-competitive behavior.

The U.K. Parliamentary probe has seen major labels’ dominance of the market emerge as a central issue. The first stage of the inquiry concluded with government minister Caroline Dinenage saying she would support a referral of the three biggest music companies — Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music — to the CMA.

The committee expects to publish their report next month before Parliament breaks for its summer recess, although a date has not been announced. Ministers will then have eight weeks to respond, and although they aren’t obliged to enact its recommendations, they are expected to engage with them.

During the inquiry, bosses from all three major labels faced hostile questioning from DCMS committee members over how labels pay out streaming royalties to creators. Senior execs from Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and YouTube also appeared before members.

The musicians are pressing for a change in the U.K.’s 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which would see music streaming classified in the same way as radio and TV broadcasting. Songwriters earn on average 50% of radio revenues, but only 15% of streaming receipts, the signatories say in their letter to Johnson. If a re-classification were to happen, streaming would be subject to the principle of equitable remuneration, which guarantees royalties to performers on recordings.

Currently, music streams are covered in most international markets by a “making available right,” meaning that only copyright owners receive payments, which they then share with featured artists according to the terms of their contract. Unlike royalties for U.K. television and radio, session musicians do not typically receive a share of streaming royalties.

The major labels strongly oppose any change to copyright law around how streaming is classified. The labels have said that a move towards equitable remuneration would result in a substantial loss of earnings, reducing their ability to invest in new acts. It could also hamper the ability of rights holders to negotiate licensee agreements with streaming services, they say, by making it harder for them to walk away from negotiations.

The renewed call from British artists also comes after the World Intellectual Property Organization said in a report last week (June 1) that streaming should start to pay more like radio.

The WIPO reported noted that global recorded music revenues have grown six consecutive years to a total of $21.6 billion in 2020, even growing substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. “This streaming-fueled success has not trickled down to performers, especially non-featured performers,” the report said. “The more global revenues surge, the harder it is for performers to understand why the imbalance is fair—because it is not.”

The latest signatories to the letter to Johnson include well-known British music acts such as the Pet Shop Boys, Alison Moyet, Emeli Sandé, Van Morrison, and the Estates of John Lennon and Joe Strummer.

“This letter is fundamentally about preserving a professional class of music-maker into the future,” Tom Gray, founder of the #BrokenRecord Campaign, one of the U.K. organizers, says in a statement. “Most musicians don’t expect to be rich and famous or even be particularly comfortable, they just want to earn a crust.”

The Kennedy Center Honors are among the most prestigious awards in arts and entertainment, but the annual TV show long ago became formulaic and staid. The show desperately needed a makeover. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the producers to make some changes.

Because of COVID regulations and best practices, parts of the show were shot outdoors, parts were shot in a semi-covered pavilion, parts were shot indoors. The result, which aired Sunday on CBS, was the most enjoyable installment in years, much fresher and less static. The changes provided more than just a change of scenery. They reinvigorated the show, now in its 43rd year. (At least something good came out of this long ordeal!)

Here are the 10 best musical moments from this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

10. Yo-Yo Ma, a 2011 honoree, performed J.S. Bach’s “Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1″ in tribute to current honoree Midori. Yo-Yo Ma was one of two past honorees who were enlisted this year as performers. The other was James Taylor, a 2016 honoree, who performed Garth Brooks’ 1992 hit “The River” as part of the show-closing tribute to the country superstar.

9. Grammy winner Sturgill Simpson performed “House of the Rising Sun” in tribute to Joan Baez, who covered the traditional folk song on her 1960 debut album.

8. Current Tony nominee Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge! The Musical) and three-time Grammy winners Pentatonix teamed to perform “Step in Time” from Mary Poppins and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” from the 1968 film of the same name. This was part of the tribute to the ageless Dick Van Dyke, who starred in both films.

7. Grammy winner Rhiannon Giddens with fellow fiddler and banjo player Dirk Powell paid tribute to Baez by performing “Silver Dagger,” the opening track from her 1960 debut album.

6. Tony winner Anika Noni Rose performed “Out Here on My Own,” the plaintive, Oscar-nominated ballad from Fame. This was part of the tribute to Debbie Allen, who portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant in the 1980 film and went on to play the same role on the 1982-87 TV series and serve as the series’ principal choreographer.

5. Vanessa Hudgens performed the Oscar-winning title song from Fame, also part of the tribute to Allen. The rousing Dean Pitchford/Michael Gore song was inspired by the hits of the era by Donna Summer. This number would simply not have been as effective if Hudgens and company were confined to a stage. The song was made to be performed outside (as it was in the original film). Hudgens was joined in her performance by the rest of the company from the Allen segment: Rose, Ariana DeBose, Vivian Nixon, Tiler Peck, Demond Richardson and the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.

4. Jimmie Allen excelled on two of Brooks’ early hits: “The Thunder Rolls” and “Friends in Low Places.” It’s never easy to cover another artist’s signature song, and “Friends in Low Places” has been that for Brooks pretty much since he released it in 1990. The Dewayne Blackwell/Earl Bud Lee song was letter-perfect for Brooks’ persona. Turns out, it suited Allen pretty well too.

3. Emmylou Harris and Mary Chapin Carpenter paid tribute to Baez by performing three songs long associated with the singer, including the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” (from Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2, 1963). Harris and Carpenter also performed the title song (which Baez wrote) from her 1975 album Diamonds & Rust and Steve Earle’s “God Is God” (the opening track from Day After Tomorrow, 2008). Harris is overdue to be a Kennedy Center Honoree. In a rarity, the Baez segment did not include her biggest hit, a 1971 cover version of Robbie Robertson’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

2. Kelly Clarkson performed “The Dance,” the standout ballad from Brooks’ 1989 debut album. It’s a given, after a couple of years of “Kellyoke” segments, that Clarkson can sing anything. But she can really soar when she tackles a superb song like this Tony Arata ballad. The first minute or so of her performance was a cappella, before a pianist joined to provide still-spare accompaniment. She’s good.

1. Gladys Knight closed the show by performing “We Shall Be Free,” which Brooks co-wrote with Stephanie Davis and released in 1992, when its live-and-let-live stance regarding gay rights was considered much more controversial than it is today. Knight excelled on the song. She has long bridged the gap between soul and country, having a hit with Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” in 1972 and teaming with Vince Gill on the opening track on the Rhythm, Country & Blues album in 1994. Memo to the Kennedy Center Honors selection committee: Knight, a star since 1961, really deserves to be an honoree. They don’t call her the Empress of Soul for nothing.

The next Kennedy Center Honors will presumably be staged, and air, in December as the show returns to its normal schedule. (This show was the one that would normally have aired in December 2020.)

At the end of the show, Gloria Estefan, a 2017 honoree who was hosting for the second time, said that next time they would probably be back in the Kennedy Center Opera House. The producers might want to think twice about that. As Sheryl Crow, another likely future honoree, once sang, “A Change Would Do You Good.”

Ari Emanuel has resigned from his position on the Live Nation board of directors nearly 14 years after the founding partner at Endeavor was elected to represent shareholders of the world’s largest concert promoter, according to an SEC filing from Friday.

Emanuel had planned to leave following the launch of Endeavor’s IPO in April, according to a source at Live Nation, After a false start in 2019, Emanuel was able to successfully take the sprawling entertainment company Endeavor — which owns the WME and IMG talent agencies, the Miss Universe Pageant, Ultimate Fighting Championship and ticketing and hospitality company OnLocation — public on the New York Stock Exchange, raising about $511 million at a valuation of a little over $6 billion.

But his timing exiting Live Nation makes sense for another reason: Documents obtained by Billboard suggest Emanuel was waiting until June 3 for the vesting of his final stock award of 4,470 shares issued June 2020 worth nearly $400,000.

In a Live Nation SEC filing announcing Emanuel’s exit, the company said he “withdrew from reelection to the board of directors and will not be standing for reelection at the Company’s annual meeting of stockholders” on June 10. Live Nation officials note that the split was amicable and “not the result of any disagreement.”

Emanuel has enjoyed a long relationship with Live Nation chief executive and president Michael Rapino. Endeavor’s talent agency, WME, is one of the world’s largest music agencies and has booked the company’s clients across Live Nation’s portfolio of venues, festivals and global touring deals, resulting in billions of dollars in tickets sold. Endeavor also holds a partial ownership stake in Lollapalooza with Live Nation, which the promoter acquired in 2014 with the purchase of C3 Presents.

Live Nation’s stock value has grown nearly 350% during Emanuel’s time on the board, trading for approximately $20.30 per share in September 2007, down to a low of less than $5 per share in 2009 during the worst months of the financial crisis before beginning its ascent in 2013 and eventually reaching $75 a share in 2019. That’s a point Emanuel famously reminded Irving Azoff of in June 2013, six months after Irving unexpectedly resigned from his chairman position at Ticketmaster and cashed out his stock.

Emanuel began the fight, with many executives and WME agents on copy, forwarding an article from the Financial Times reporting that Live Nation’s stock price nearly doubled in the first half of the year.

“The article says since you left stock has continued to grow…..interesting,” Emanuel wrote. “How much money you lost by selling. Stupid move.”

Irving Azoff’s wife, Shelli Azoff, disagreed: “I am in the air on my new g450 (private jet),” she replied “We did ok with the LN stock.”

Years later, Emanuel might now be wondering if he sold his own Live Nation stock too early. On March 3, 2020, about 10 days before the company pulled touring shows off the road due to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, Emanuel sold more than 71,000 of his shares in Live Nation — representing 97% of his holdings in the company for approximately $58.26 per share, for a total of $4.8 million. Had he waited 15 months until his other stocks had vested on June 3, 2021, to cash out his holdings, it would have been worth $90 per share, buoyed by investor expectations for a strong recovery after the pandemic, generating $6.4 million.

Singer Shemekia Copeland and guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram are among this year’s top winners at the Blues Music Awards.

Veteran musicians Charlie Musselwhite and Elvin Bishop also won multiple awards for their album 100 Years of Blues during Sunday’s awards show, which was held online due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions.

Winners were chosen by members of The Blues Foundation, based in Memphis. The awards have been held for 42 years.

Copeland won the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award, the show’s top honor. She also won the contemporary blues female artist and the contemporary blues album awards.

Ingram, who won five times last year, took home the contemporary blues male artist and guitar instrumentalist awards.

The collaboration between Bishop and Musselwhite led to awards for album of the year and traditional blues album of the year.

Mike Zito won in the categories of blues rock artist and blues rock album for Mike Zito and Friends-Rock ‘n’ Roll: A Tribute to Chuck Berry.

Blues Hall of Fame members Bettye LaVette and Bobby Rush also won awards.

Performers in the show included Rush, Ingram, John Németh & the Blue Dreamers, Shaun Murphy, Don Bryant, Watermelon Slim and Southern Avenue.

Find the full list of winners here.

NBC’s America’s Got Talent kicked off its 16th season last week, so Billboard is paying tribute to the 15 talented winners who made history on the series.

Created by ex-American Idol judge, X Factor creator and Syco Entertainment founder Simon Cowell and currently hosted by Terry Crews, the talent competition series premiered on NBC in 2006 as a way to find the best talent of any age in the country — whether they specialized in singing, dancing, performing magic tricks, acting as a ventriloquist, or even training dogs to do tricks — and have them headline a show on the Las Vegas Strip on top of a $1 million cash prize.

Current judges Cowell, Heidi Klum, Sofia Vergara and Howie Mandel recruit viewers’ help to crown the most talented, and each season’s top pick runs the gamut of skill sets.

Below is a complete list of which talented act won at the end of every season.


Season 1

Winner: Bianca Ryan

At only 11 years old, the Philadelphia-based singer performed the Dreamgirls’ showstopper “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” for her viral audition — and the only place she was going after that was straight to the finale.

Season 2

Winner: Terry Fator

With more than 20 years of experience and opening gigs for country superstars like Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks, the Dallas native became the first ventriloquist to win the talent competition series.

Season 3

Winner: Neal E. Boyd

The Sikeston, Missouri-based classical opera singer won the competition in its third season and eventually landed a top 10 classical album with 2009’s My American Dream. He sadly died a decade after his victory on June 10, 2018.

Season 4

Winner: Kevin Skinner

The Kentucky-based country singer and guitar player quickly became a fan favorite in the fourth season with his stirring cover of Garth Brooks’ “If Tomorrow Never Comes.” The judges compared him to a diamond in the rough, and his unique ability carried him all the way to the end of the competition.

Season 5

Winner: Michael Grimm

The Colorado-born, Mississippi-raised blues singer had love on the brain during the competition and revealed that his girlfriend at the time, Lucie Zolcerova, inspired his finale performance of Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Not only did he win the fifth season, but he also got the girl at the end: He proposed to Zolcerova during a taping of Ellen just a day after he claimed victory (and she said yes!).

Season 6

Winner: Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr.

The Logan County, West Virginia, native and jazz singer let the spirit of Frank Sinatra guide him all the way to the end of the competition, starting with his audition performance of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” to covering “My Way” in the finale.

Season 7

Winner: Olate Dogs

Richard and Nicholas Olate, the Houston-based Chilean-American father-son duo of dog trainers, and their crew of rescue pups had the judges flipping out at the sight of all their tricks.

Season 8

Winner: Kenichi Ebina

The Japanese dancer might have been a solo act, but he immersed himself so well with his surroundings that he acted as each of the characters in the video screen behind him.

Season 9

Winner: Mat Franco

The Johnston, Rhode Island, native became the first magician to win the talent competition series. But his sleight-of-hand style of magic didn’t just secure him an AGT victory. His ongoing Las Vegas show, Magic Reinvented Nightly, earned him the best magic show award at the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Best of Las Vegas Awards and is the top-rated magic show in Vegas.

Season 10

Winner: Paul Zerdin

The internationally renowned British comedian and ventriloquist, who had even performed in front of the Queen, had the judges giving him (and his puppet Sam) standing ovations round after round.

Season 11

Winner: Grace VanderWaal

One of the most memorable wins in AGT history goes to the Lenexa, Kansas-born singer-songwriter and ukulele player, who took home the title at age 12. In the immediate years following her victory, VanderWaal released the full-length album Just the Beginning, accepted the Rising Star Award at Billboard’s Women in Music, along with a Radio Disney Music Award and Teen Choice Award, and toured with Imagine Dragons.

Season 12

Winner: Darci Lynne

The Oklahoma native (and her puppet Petunia) became the second singing ventriloquist to win AGT following her “idol” Terry Fator and went on to sell out headlining shows across the country, perform at the Grand Ole Opry, open for Fergie at Caesars Palace and star in her own NBC Christmas special My Hometown Christmas.

Season 13

Winner: Shin Lim

The Canada-born, Massachusetts-based act became the second magician to win AGT following Mat Franco. The fellow “sleight-of-hand artist” also became the 2015 International Federation of Magic Societies (FISM) champaign for the close-up card tricks he always has up his sleeve.

Season 14

Winner: Kodi Lee

The Lake Elsinore, California-based singer, who is blind and autistic, took home the title after a string of stirring performances at the piano. His flawless cover of Donny Hathaway’s “A Song for You” earned Lee the first golden buzzer of the competition from judge Gabrielle Union, securing his title as the favorite ever since.

Season 15

Winner: Brandon Leake

The Stockton, California, native blew away the competition and captivated millions with his emotional spoken-word pieces before finally taking the crown.

Justin Bieber returned to the Junos stage for the first time in 11 years with a live performance of “Somebody.”

Bieber opened the  festivities with the upbeat Justice track, backed by a band, with lights and song lyrics streaming across his set Sunday night (June 6).

Bieber was nominated for five awards, including album and single of the year, at the 2021 Juno Awards, where the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences commemorated 50 years of Canadian music.

The 50th Juno Awards were broadcast throughout Canada beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music and CBC Listen, and they were livestreamed on CBC Music’s website, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Watch Bieber bring “Somebody” to the Junos below.

The Weeknd swept the 2021 Juno Awards, which honor the year’s best music by Canadian artists. This year’s Junos were presented over two nights, Friday June 4 and Sunday June 6. Both shows were virtual affairs, with Sunday’s show including eight performances and six award presentations.

The Weeknd won five awards — artist of the year, album of the year and contemporary R&B recording of the year (After Hours), single of the year (“Blinding Lights”) and songwriter of the year. The pop and R&B superstar swept these same five categories five years ago with his album Beauty Behind the Madness and single “Can’t Feel My Face.” Yet The Weeknd didn’t appear on the show, either to perform or accept an award.

Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber and JP Saxe were also big winners on Sunday’s telecast.

The Weeknd is the first artist to sweep the awards for artist, album, single and songwriter of the year twice. The Weeknd is the also first three-time winner for artist of the year, an award that originated in 2003. He previously won it in 2015 and 2016.

The Weeknd was famously shut out in the nominations for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards. He fared much better at the awards in his home country. The Weeknd was this year’s only multiple Juno winner out of 43 categories presented over the two nights. These five wins bring his career total of Juno Awards to 15, which puts him in sixth place on the all-time winners list behind Anne Murray (25), Bryan Adams (21), Céline Dion (20), Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (18), and The Tragically Hip (17).

Mendes took the fan-voted fan choice award for the third time in the past five years. He previously won in 2017 and 2018. Only Bieber has won more times in that category (five). Michael Bublé and Avril Lavigne have also won it three times.

Bieber won pop album of the year for Changes. It’s his record-setting third win in that category, following My World 2.0 (2011) and Purpose (2016). Barenaked Ladies, Lavigne, Bublé, Lights and Alessia Cara have each won twice in that category. Changes was nominated for a Grammy this past year for best pop vocal album, but lost to Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia.

This brings Bieber’s collection of Junos to eight. Other 2021 winners who moved up the all-time winners list include Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (18), Alanis Morissette (13), Arkells (seven), Toronto Symphony Orchestra (six) and Bahamas (five). Bieber performed “Somebody” from a studio in Los Angeles. It was his first Junos appearance in 11 years.

Saxe won breakthrough artist of the year. He’s the first male artist to win in that category since Brett Kissel seven years ago, after which the award went to a succession of six female artists – Kiesza, Alessia Cara, Ruth B, Jessie Reyez, bülow and Lennon Stella. Saxe received a Grammy nomination for song of the year in November for “If the World Was Ending,” which he co-wrote with Julia Michaels. Saxe and Michaels performed that song, and another, “Like That,” on the Junos, also from Los Angeles.

Savannah Ré’s Solid won traditional R&B/soul recording of the year. The award was presented by Liberty Silver and Jully Black. In 1985, Silver became the first winner in an R&B category at the Junos. This marks the first year that R&B has been split into traditional and contemporary categories. As noted, The Weeknd won the contemporary R&B award.

According to the Junos, 52% of this year’s 48 unique winners were first-time winners, 46% had female representation and 40% had BIPOC representation.

The show also featured performances by Ali Gatie & Tate McRae (“Lie to Me” and “What If I Told You That I Loved You”); William Prince featuring Serena Ryder (“The Spark”) and Jessie Reyez (Do You Love Her” and “Before Love Came to Kill Us”). It also included a salute to 30 years of rap at the Junos featuring Michie Mee, Maestro Fresh Wes, Kardinal Offishall, Jully Black, NAV and Haviah Mighty.

Jann Arden, who was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, performed “Good Mother” from the National Music Centre in her hometown of Calgary. The Tragically Hip, winners of the Humanitarian Award, performed “It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken” with special guest Feist from Massey Hall in Toronto.

The Junos are counting this at their 50th telecast. The awards debuted in 1970, but they skipped a year in 1988 and had only a perfunctory streamed awards presentation in June 2020, at the nadir of the pandemic.

The show included a series of illuminating spots dubbed “My Junos Moment” in which such stars as Morissette, k.d. lang and Shania Twain revisited clips from past shows and commented on what those moments meant to them.

Here is a complete list of winners presented on Sunday’s show. See this story for a complete list of winners presented on Friday’s show.

Juno fan choice: Shawn Mendes

Album of the year: After Hours, The Weeknd, The Weeknd XO/Republic/Universal

Artist of the year: The Weeknd, The Weeknd XO/Republic/Universal

Breakthrough artist of the year: JP Saxe, Arista/Sony

Pop album of the year: Changes, Justin Bieber Def Jam/Universal

Traditional R&B/soul recording of the year: Solid, Savannah Ré, 1Music/Universal

The Kid is growing up fast.

In a matter of days, the Sydney-raised, Los Angeles-based chart-champion The Kid LAROI busts a longstanding radio airplay record in his homeland, and unveils a deal with U.S. management guru Scooter Braun.

The teenage singer and rapper’s “Without You” enters a 14th non-consecutive week at No. 1 on Australia’s radio airplay chart, wrecking the 13-week record set by Bernard Fanning with 2005’s ‘Wish You Well’.

“The record for No. 1 airplay back home? That’s crazy!” LAROI comments. “Thank you to radio for supporting me and thank you to my fans for your support. I love you guys and can’t wait to come home.”

The new mark is set on The Music Network’s Hot 100 chart (issue 1343), powered by Radio Monitor.

It’s the latest in a growing list of accolades and records for the 17-year-old, born Charlton Howard.

Earlier this year, he became the youngest Australian solo artist to lead the ARIA Albums Chart, when F*ck Love (Savage) went to No. 1. The mixtape also peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, and he was selected as the MTV Push Global artist for the month of April.

Also that month, he was the youngest winner at the 2021 APRA Music Awards, where he took out the newcomer award.

Then, in May, the Kid showed fresh legs as “Without You” lifted 10-1 in its 22 week on the ARIA chart, for his first No. 1 single.

Global streams of his music are well past 1 billion and the lad’s signature song has since topped Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Alternative Songs charts.

LAROI’s adventure should gather pace following his signing with Scooter Braun’s SB Projects, where he joins a roster that includes Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, J Balvin, Dan + Shay and Tori Kelly. Braun briefly co-managed Aussie act Sheppard.

According to Variety, which broke the story, SBP president Allison Kaye and general manager Jen McDaniels will split management duties for LAROI.

Sources tell the title that competition was heated for the Kid’s signature, and included Ron Lafitte of Patriot Management (Pharrell Williams, Ryan Tedder) and Adam Leber, who manages Lil Nas X and Miley Cyrus, who collaborated with the Aussie artist on a remix of “Without You”.

Laroi signed with UTA for representation in February.

Taylor Swift is feeling all the emotions this weekend, as Evermore tops the Billboard 200 albums chart again.

As Billboard just revealed, Evermore returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a fourth nonconsecutive week in the top position, with 202,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending June 3, according to MRC Data. Album sales comprise 192,000 of that sum, which makes it the biggest sales week of 2021.

Swift retweeted Billboard’s update on Sunday (June 6), sharing her thoughts and gratitude.

“This one hit me hard,” she wrote. “I’m so in my feelings (more so than usual!) over what you all did here for evermore. Blown away by how much you care, and how long we’ve been caring about each other. Love you, so very much.”

Swift included four red heart emojis in her tweet — which, naturally, had fans putting on their detective hats in the comments. (Is it just a random way to show her love for Swifties, or could it be a hint that the re-recording of Red, her fourth studio album, is near?)

Billboard reported earlier that Evermore’s sales surge was fueled by the set’s modern-era record-breaking vinyl LP sales, autographed CDs and discounting on the digital version of the album. Evermore last held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 on the Jan. 16-dated chart.

See Swift’s reaction to the album’s return to No. 1 below.

BTS’ RM dropped a new track, “Bicycle,” as part of the group’s Festa 2021, a celebration of their anniversary that spans several days in June.

“Bicycle” rolled in this weekend when BTS tweeted a link to their blog, which featured a stream of the tune.

The new song was produced, written and arranged by RM and John Eun. The cover artwork was created by artist Sungsic Moon.

RM previously charted for a solo release on the Billboard 200 in 2018, with his mixtape (or “playlist”) Mono.

BTS’ most recent hit, the English-language “Butter,” glided to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, the Billboard Global 200 and the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts in the June 5-dated week.

Listen to RM’s “Bicycle” below.