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It’s a beautiful day for U2, as the iconic Irish rock band starts at No. 1 in the U.K. with Songs of Surrender (via Island).
The new LP, a collection of reimagined songs from across U2’s storied 40-year-plus career, debuts atop the Official U.K. Albums Chart, published March 24.
It’s the 11th U.K. leader for Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., and their first since 2009’s No Line on the Horizon. The set outsells its nearest competitor by more than 2-to-1, the Official Charts Company reports, an effort that sees the Hall of Famers draw level with the late legend David Bowie on 11 No. 1s. Songs of Surrender is also the week’s best-seller on wax, according to the OCC.
There’s a lot of love for U2 on the latest chart. The band’s 2006 greatest hits collection U218 Singles returns to the tally, at No. 38.
The podium is completed with the Weeknd’s The Highlights (via Republic Records/XO), unchanged at No. 2, and Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation (RCA), which dips 1-3 in its second week.
Meanwhile, Brighton-England four-piece Black Honey bag a career-high with A Fistful of Peaches (FoxFive), their third studio album. It’s new at No. 6, a result that betters the peak of their eponymously-titled 2018 debut (No. 33) and 2021’s followup Written & Directed (No. 7).
Veteran U.S. rock act All Time Low nab a seventh U.K. top 40 appearance with Tell Me I’m Alive (Parlophone), their ninth studio effort. It’s new at No. 12.
Finally, as Taylor Swift embarks on the U.S. leg of her The Eras Tour, Swifties on the other side of the Atlantic flock to her catalog. Five of her classic LPs rise in the top 40 — led by her latest, the 2022 chart leader Midnights (up 8-4), followed by 2014’s 1989 (26-18), 2019’s Lover (39-23), 2020’s folklore (38-26) and 2017’s Reputation (51-33) – all via EMI. Swift has yet to announce international tour dates.
Kelly Clarkson has officially announced the title of her upcoming post-divorce album.
The 40-year-old pop superstar and television personality shared the exciting news through social media on Sunday (March 26), revealing details about the album’s title, Chemistry, and assuring fans that new music will be arriving very soon.
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“I’ve been working on this project for close to three years now. I wasn’t sure I was going to release it, but I am. The album is called Chemistry,” Clarkson said in a video on Instagram.
“I was trying to find a word, it might be one of the songs on the album, but I was trying to find a word that really described the whole thing. I didn’t want everybody to think I was just coming out with some ‘I’m angry,’ ‘I’m sad’ — just one or two emotions. This album is definitely the arc of an entire relationship.”
The Kelly Clarkson Show host added, “That whole relationship shouldn’t be brought down to one thing. There’s the good, the bad and the ugly kind of thing going on. Chemistry can be a really amazing, sexy, cool, fun thing, but it can also be very bad for you. So that’s why I named it Chemistry, I thought it was the perfect title to describe the entire album.”
Clarkson did not reveal a specific release date for Chemistry, but said the album is “coming out soon” and noted that new music from the forthcoming release is “coming out even sooner.”
The songstress said in a September 2022 interview with Variety that she had been working on new music in the wake of her separation and subsequent divorce filing from ex-husband Brandon Blackstock in 2020.
“My producer and I were laughing yesterday because I was like, ‘Remember that time we wrote, like, 25 songs in a week?’ A lot of those are the ones that are on the album,” Clarkson told Variety. “I literally wrote most of these almost two years ago. Then I told my label, ‘I can’t talk about this until I’ve gone through it,’ and it’s just taken some time to do that. That’s one of the reasons we’ve done a lot of Christmas stuff the past two years — because I was like, ‘Well, that’s happy!’”
Clarkson’s most recent album, the holiday release When Christmas Comes Around, arrived in 2021. Prior to that, she dropped her eighth studio album, 2017’s Meaning of Life, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
The singer’s upcoming Chemistry album was reportedly inspired by the “emotional journey” she went through during her tumultuous split with Blackstone, with whom she has two young children.
“I hadn’t really been working hardcore on an album until I needed to. I was just very busy,” Clarkson said of the album, which will be released on Atlantic Records.
“There were so many jobs, and I’m a single mom — well, even with being married, it’s a lot, trying to fit kids’ schedules in and all that stuff. But then the whole divorce thing happened, and I needed to write it. And then I didn’t know if I was going to release it, because you can be very angry in that state of mind. So some of the songs, they definitely cover the gamut of emotions; there’s everything on the album. It’s almost like the arc of a relationship, because the beginning is so beautiful and so sweet, and then it evolves. And sometimes it doesn’t evolve how you want.”
Watch Clarkson’s Chemistry album announcement on Instagram below.
Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time notches a third straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated April 1). The set earned 209,500 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending March 23 (down 19%), according to Luminate. It debuted at No. 1 with 501,000 units, then tallied 259,000 in its second frame.
In the last 12 months, only two albums have exceeded 200,000 units in each of their first three weeks: One Thing at a Time and Taylor Swift’s Midnights (which surpassed 200,000 in each of its first four weeks).
The last album by a male act to spend its first three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 was Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, which also spent its first three frames atop the list (Sept. 18-Oct. 2, 2021-dated charts).
Further, in the last 10 years, only two country albums have clocked at least three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and both are by Wallen: One Thing at a Time, his last album, Dangerous: The Double Album (10 weeks at No. 1 in 2021). (Country albums are considered those that have hit or are eligible for Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.)
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 chart, U2 collects its 13th top 10-charting effort, as Songs of Surrender debuts at No. 5. The retrospective sees U2 revisiting its own catalog, re-recording and re-interpreting familiar hit songs from the band’s career. Among the tracks including on the project: “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “One,” “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “I Will Follow.”
Plus, U2 becomes only the fourth group with a newly-charting top 10 title on the Billboard 200 albums chart in the 1980s, ‘90s, 2000s, ‘10s and now the ‘20s.
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, compiled by Luminate. 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 April 1, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on March 28. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of One Thing at a Time’s 209,500 equivalent album units earned in the week ending March 23, SEA units comprise 194,000 (down 17%, equaling 256.13 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 36 songs), album sales comprise 12,500 (down 41%) and TEA units comprise 3,000 (down 12%).
SZA’s chart-topping SOS climbs 4-2 on the Billboard 200 with 72,000 equivalent album units earned (though down 5%), while Swift’s former leader Midnights jumps 6-3 with 61,000 units (up 31%) following her Eras Tour launch on March 17. Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation falls 3-4 in its second week with 49,000 units (down 59%).
U2’s Songs of Surrender debuts at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 with 46,500 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 42,000, SEA units comprise 4,000 equaling 4.99 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise 500. The retrospective re-records project is available in multiple editions, including a standard 16-track edition, a 20-track deluxe and a 40-track super deluxe (with the latter divided into four 10-track chapters named after each band member: Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge and Larry Mullen Jr.). Sales were also aided by a dozen vinyl variants of the album, including exclusive editions sold by Amazon, Target and independent retailers.
U2 is the fourth group to achieve a newly-charting top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart in the 1980s, ‘90s, 2000s, ‘10s and now the ‘20s. The quartet joins AC/DC, Def Leppard and Metallica.
Rounding out the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 are five former No. 1s: Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito (5-6 with 45,000 equivalent album units earned; down 15%); Dangerous: The Double Album (a non-mover at No. 7 with 42,000; down 2%); Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains (holding at No. 8 with 40,000; up 3%); Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss (10-9 with 38,000; up 12%); and Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti (9-10 with 37,000; up 1%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Jimin‘s debut solo album, Face, has topped this week’s new music poll.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (March 24) on Billboard, choosing the BTS member’s six-track project as their favorite new music release of the past week.
Face, which arrived on March 24 via HYBE LABELS, brought in 74% of the vote, beating out new music from Lana Del Rey (Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd), Ed Sheeran (“Eyes Closed”), Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro (RR), Luke Combs (Gettin’ Old), and others.
Face was preceded by pre-release single “Set Me Free, Pt.2” and its dance-heavy music video. The new album also contains “Like Crazy,” album opener “Face-Off,” and more. In addition to production from the likes of Pdogg, Ghstloop and Evan, Jimin’s BTS bandmate RM also has songwriting credits on three songs on the tracklist.
In an interview with Consequence previewing Face, Jimin admitted each of his bandmates have been anxious over going solo as they focused on individual projects, but “their results were absolutely great.” (Recent solo efforts have included J-Hope’s old-school hip-hop-leaning Jack in the Box, RM’s eclectic, collab-packed Indigo, and Jin’s single “The Astronaut,” which was co-written by Coldplay and released before he started his mandatory enlistment in the Korean military.)
Jimin himself was also nervous for his solo debut before its grand unveiling, explaining, “I don’t want to be an embarrassment to my members. I want to be a proud member of BTS” before hinting that the album will explore “how I overcame… If people understand the emotions I’m trying to express, I’ll consider the album a success.”
Trailing behind Jimin on the fan-voted poll was Del Rey’s ninth album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, with 21% of the vote. In the set, the songstress muses on sex, devotion, family and American decay, but this time with a series of guests — including Tommy Genesis, Jon Batiste and Bleachers — providing an assist. The set shows once again that Del Rey is trying to challenge herself in ways she previously hasn’t.
See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.
Matt Cameron is clearing up rumors about joining the Foo Fighters for the rock band’s upcoming tour dates.
On Saturday (March 25), the Pearl Jam drummer shared a post on his Instagram Story, denying a recent report by U.K. tabloid The Sun that he’s replacing late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins when the group returns to the road in late spring.
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“FYI the internet rumors are false, I haven’t joined the Foos,” Cameron wrote alongside a red heart emoji.
The Sun reported on March 16 that Cameron, a close friend of Hawkins, would join the Foo Fighters on their 2023 North American tour, which begins May 24 at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford, N.H. Citing a source, the report also indicated that Angels & Airwaves drummer Atom Willard would join the Dave Grohl-fronted band on various upcoming dates.
Cameron performed the Foo Fighters song “Low” alongside surviving band members during a September 2022 tribute concert in Los Angeles. Saturday (March 25) marked the one-year anniversary of Hawkins’ death at the age of 50. He passed away in a Bogotá, Colombia, hotel room as the Foos were gearing up to perform. The beloved drummer’s death was announced through a social media statement from the band’s accounts, with no immediate cause of death given.
In a New Year’s Eve social media post, the Foo Fighters announced plans to continue as a “different band going forward” following the death of Hawkins.
“Without Taylor, we never would have become the band that we were — and without Taylor, we know that we’re going to be a different band going forward,” the statement read. “We also know that you, the fans, meant as much to Taylor as he meant to you. And we know that when we see you again — and we will soon — he’ll be there in spirit with all of us every night.”
See Cameron post on his Instagram Story here.
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