In our privileged multi-ethnic cocoon of Miami — where the Cuban minority created wealth and amassed political power, quickly becoming the ruling majority — many of us grew up with … Click to Continue »
It’s been 25 years since the world was introduced to Rufus Wainwright with his debut self-titled album, which featured songs like “April Fools,” “In My Arms” and many more. To celebrate, the singer-songwriter sat down with Billboard‘s Tetris Kelly to reflect on his career.
“I feel awful,” he jokes about how it feels to celebrate 25 years since his debut. “No, I’m very proud and excited to be alive and still making music and happy. That first record I made has proven to have lasted, and I worked very hard on it. It took me three years to make that first record. It cost a lot of money.”
As for the 25th anniversary re-issue that came out early this year, Wainwright said that the album was remastered and has some bonus material as well. “What’s interesting about the record is that it was made in the mid to late 90s, and it really was part of the last breath of the grand record company-artist relationship, where they’d sort of write all the checks and then let you do whatever you wanted to do. They really didn’t expect you to be popular until your third or fourth album,” he recalls.
“I wasn’t trying to be a trailblazer or anything,” he continues. “AIDS was still very much — it’s still part of our world today — but at that time, it was killing a lot of people, a lot of gay men, and I just didn’t want to end up in the situation if I did get AIDS at that point, that I would be dying and also have to come out of the closet. I just wanted to avert that tragedy. Thankfully it didn’t happen.”
If his debut album was released in 2023, Wainwright believes “it would be considered very unique and very unusual and very romantic, especially, because we live in such a tough world.”
Watch Billboard‘s full interview with Rufus Wainwright above.
Rufus Wainwright opens up about being one of the first openly gay major-label artists to succeed, the thinking behind his new album ‘Folkocracy’ and more!
Tetris Kelly:
What do you want to be remembered as?
Rufus Wainwright:
A great beauty? Hi. This is Rufus Wainwright and you’re watching Billboard News.
Tetris Kelly:
It’s Tetris with Billboard news. How you doing Rufus? Thanks for hanging out with us.
Rufus Wainwright:
Thank you for having me.
Tetris Kelly:
You got big things to celebrate. It’s been 25 years since you released your self titled debut, man. How’s it feel? 25 years later?
Rufus Wainwright:
It feels awful! No, no, I’m very proud and excited to be alive. And still making music and, and happy. And that first record I made has proven to have lasted and I worked very hard on it. It took me three years to make that first record. It costs a lot of money. It was with DreamWorks Records at the time who had a lot of money to pay for that kind of thing. It’s built to last perhaps.
Tetris Kelly:
You made changes to it. You’re re-releasing it? What’s gonna be different about the rerelease?
Rufus Wainwright:
We remastered it and then we also released some bonus material, other songs I did at the time. I think what’s interesting about the record is that it was made in the mid to late 90s. And it really was part of the last breath of sort of the grand record company/artist relationship where they would sort of just write all the checks and kind of let you do whatever you wanted to do. And they really didn’t expect you to be popular until your third or fourth album.
Watch the full interview above!
Peso Pluma continues to make indelible marks across Billboard’s charts. The 24-year-old singer celebrates his first No. 1 on any album ranking as Génesis rises to No. 1 (from No. 35) on the Top Latin Albums chart (dated July 8) after its first full tracking week. It also advances 10-1 on Regional Mexican Albums.
Génesis’ coronation arrives a week after the album debuted on both lists (dated July 1) with only one day of activity. The original version of the album, comprising 14 tracks, was released on an off-cycle Thursday (June 22), the final day of the June 16-22 tracking week. The new Génesis, containing three bonus tracks, dropped June 30. Both versions of the album have been combined for tracking and charting purposes, while the original version has been removed from platforms.
According to Luminate, Génesis earned 73,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. during its first official tracking week ending June 29. It becomes the biggest week by units earned for a regional Mexican album ever, dating back to when the all-genre Billboard 200 chart began ranking by units in December 2014. The previous largest week by total units arrived just less than two months ago, when Eslabon Armado’s Desvelado launched with 44,000 units (May 13-dated list).
An equivalent album unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album (track equivalent album units, TEA), or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album (streaming equivalent album units, SEA).
Largest Streaming Week for a Regional Mexican Album: As is standard among new artists, streaming powers nearly all of Génesis’ first-week totals. Out of its 73,000 units, 72,000 stem from SEA units. That figure equals to 101.18 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs. Traditional album sales contribute just under 1,000 of the remaining balance, with a slice of negligible units deriving from TEA.
With 101.8 million streams, Génesis boasts the largest streaming week ever for a regional Mexican album. Previously, Eslabon Armado’s Desvelado drew the largest, with 63.51 million official U.S. streams (May 13).
Génesis becomes only the fifth Latin album to garner at least 100 million on-demand streams for its songs in a single week, following multiple weeks by Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, two for Bunny’s YHLQMDLG, one for Bunny’s El Último Tour del Mundo, and one for Karol G’s Mañana Será Bonito.
Further, Génesis becomes the fourth regional Mexican effort to lead Top Latin Albums this decade, after Alejandro Fernández’s Hecho en México (one week, Feb. 29, 2020) and two Eslabon Armado albums, Vibras de Noche (one week, Aug. 2020) and Desvelado (one week, May13).
Elsewhere, Génesis launches at No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200, his first entry and top 10 there. The set concurrently outpaces the two other regional Mexican albums which have seized a spot in the top 10, both by Eslabon Armado: Nostalgia (No. 9 debut and peak, May 2022) and Desvelado (No. 6 debut and peak, May 13).
The new July 8, 2023-dated charts will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on July 5, one day later than usual due to the Independence Day holiday in the U.S. on Tuesday, July 4. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Shawn Mendes had fans buzzing when he dropped his sultry Tommy Hilfiger campaign earlier this year, and now, Mendes fans and fashion fans alike can score a steep discount on pieces from the collection as part of Tommy Hilfiger’s Fourth of July sale.
Hilfiger’s “Red, White and Tommy” event gets you 40% off everything on Tommy.com, including men’s and women’s T-shirts, jeans, polos, shoes and accessories. But we spotted pieces from Mendes’ Tommy collection with even bigger discounts, like the varsity jacket the singer sported in the campaign now on sale for 50% off.
Tommy Hilfiger x Shawn Mendes T-shirts, meantime, get a massive 65% discount, taking the price of Mendes’ favorite tees down to just $27 (regularly $80).
Shawn x Tommy Varsity Jacket
Tommy Hilfiger is synonymous with All-American style and the collaboration with Mendes offers up some fresh takes on classic pieces. The varsity jacket is a unisex style that was seen on Mendes and also modeled by his sister, Aaliyah, in the campaign. Regularly $499, it’s on sale for 50% off, taking the price down to just $249.50 on Tommy.com (for reference, the varsity jacket is selling for $476 on Asos.com).
The Shawn x Tommy T-shirts, meantime, are available in three colors — navy, green and white — and on sale for just $27 (regularly $79.50). The shirts are available in sizes XS to XXXL and all sizes are still in stock online as of this writing.
Shawn x Tommy Logo T-shirt
The classic crewneck tee features the words “Hilfiger” and “Shawn Mendes” embroidered on the front in bold, block lettering. Mendes has been an outspoken advocate for environmental issues and sustainability, and worked with the Tommy Hilfiger team to create these T-shirts from an organic cotton jersey blend. The tees are made with 48% Circulose, a material made from discarded textiles, like worn-out jeans and scrap fabric from the production floor.
The $27 price on Tommy.com is the best deal on these T-shirts — they’re $54.99 on Macys.com. Macy’s does have other Shawn x Tommy pieces on sale though, including the jeans and denim trucker jacket from the collection.
Shawn x Tommy Logo T-Shirt
As for Tommy: while Tommy Hilfiger always has a sale section that you can shop here, the brand’s “Red, White and Tommy” sale only runs through the end of July 12. This is also the first time we’re seeing a discount on the Shawn Mendes collection so we recommend adding your favorite pieces to cart while they’re still in stock. Shop online at Tommy.com and see more Fourth of July sales here.
BLACKPINK‘s fierce hip-hop/pop combination and powerful group identity have inspired a huge fandom around the world and, now, in Hollywood.
With a major festival moment at Coachella 2019 and 2023, plus a slew of celebrity supporters showing up at their current In Your Area tour, its become common to see a few famous faces supporting the girl group.
Most recently, actor Hugh Grant revealed what a big fan he is after attending BLACKPINK’s BST Hyde Park concert in London Sunday night (July 2). “Very grateful to three eleven year olds for taking me to see @BLACKPINK yesterday,” the Notting Hill actor tweeted after the event. “Am rabid Blink now. Slept with my heart hammer.”
See below for the slew of stars who are outspoken fans of Rosé, Jisoo, Lisa and Jennie.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has limited the number of tweets that users can view each day — restrictions he described as an attempt to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data from the social media platform.
The site is now requiring people to log on to view tweets and profiles — a change in its longtime practice to allow everyone to peruse the chatter on what Musk has frequently touted as the world’s digital town square since buying it for $44 billion last year.
The restrictions could result in users being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through several hundred tweets. Thousands of users complained Saturday (July 1) of not being able to access the site.
In a Friday tweet, Musk described the new restrictions as a temporary measure that was taken because “we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!”
Musk has pushed back on what he calls misuse of Twitter data to train popular artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. They scour reams of information online to generate human-like text, photos, video and other content.
Musk elaborated on the limits Saturday, saying unverified accounts will temporarily be restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000.
After facing backlash, he tweeted that the thresholds would be raised to 800 posts for unverified accounts and 8,000 for verified accounts before later settling on 1,000 and 10,000 tweets, respectively.
The crackdown began to have ripple effects, causing more than 7,500 people at one point Saturday to report problems using the social media service, based on complaints registered on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages.
Although that’s a relatively small number of Twitter’s more than 200 million worldwide users, the trouble was widespread enough to cause the #TwitterDown hashtag to trend in some parts of the world.
The higher threshold allowed on verified accounts is part of an $8-per-month subscription service that Musk rolled out earlier this year in an effort to boost Twitter revenue. It has fallen sharply since the billionaire Tesla CEO took over the company and laid off roughly three-fourths of the workforce to cut costs and stave off bankruptcy.
Advertisers have since curbed their spending on Twitter, partly because of changes that have allowed more sometimes-hateful and prickly content that offends a wider part of the service’s audience.
Musk recently hired longtime NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s CEO to try to win back advertisers.
An Associated Press inquiry about Saturday’s access problems triggered a crude automated reply that Twitter sends to most media queries without addressing the question.
Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time logs a 15th nonconsecutive and total week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated July 8), as it earned 110,500 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending June 29 (up less than 1%), according to Luminate.
One Thing at a Time, released via Big Loud/Mercury/Republic Records, continues to have the most weeks at No. 1 among all albums since Adele’s 21 logged 24 nonconsecutive weeks atop the list in 2011-12.
The Republic label has topped the chart for the last 17 weeks in a row, since the March 18-dated tally, when One Thing at a Time debuted at No. 1. That album spent 12 consecutive weeks at No. 1, and then stepped aside on the June 10 and 17 charts when Taylor Swift’s Midnights (on Republic) returned to the top and Stray Kids’ 5-STAR (JYP/Imperial/Republic) debuted at No. 1, respectively. One Thing at a Time then returned to No. 1 for the last three weeks (June 24-July 8 charts).
With Republic’s 17th straight week at No. 1, the label has the longest streak for any label atop the chart since 1992, when Mercury ruled for 17 consecutive frames with Billy Ray Cyrus’ Some Gave All.
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 albums chart, Young Thug scores his eighth top 10-charting effort with Business Is Business debuting at No. 2, Peso Pluma captures his first top 10 and the highest charting album ever for a regional Mexican release as Génesis launches at No. 3, and Kelly Clarkson nabs her ninth top 10 with the No. 6 arrival of Chemistry.
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 July 8, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on July 5, one day later than usual due to the Independence Day holiday in the U.S. on Tuesday, July 4. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of One Thing at a Time’s 110,500 equivalent album units earned in the week ending June 29, SEA units comprise 104,000 (up less than 1%, equaling 139.68 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 36 songs), album sales comprise 4,500 (down 6%) and TEA units comprise 2,000 (up 5%).
One Thing at a Time has earned in excess of 100,000 equivalent album units in all 17 of its chart weeks – the most weeks any album has exceeded 100,000 units since the Billboard 200 began ranking titles by units in December of 2014. It surpasses the 16 frames logged by Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti in 2022.
Young Thug clocks his eighth top 10-charting album on the Billboard 200 as Business Is Business bows at No. 2 with 89,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 80,000 (equaling 106.32 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks), album sales comprise 8,500 and TEA units comprise 500. The album’s release came while the rapper is incarcerated, awaiting trial on racketeering charges.
If Business Is Business goes no higher than No. 2, it will mark the 11th album that One Thing at a Time has blocked from the No. 1 position. The latter has stood at No. 1 while 11 albums have debuted at No. 2: TWICE’s Ready To Be (March 25 chart), Jimin’s FACE (April 8), Melanie Martinez’s Portals (April 15), NF’s Hope (April 22), Metallica’s 72 Seasons (April 29), Agust D’s D-Day (May 6), SEVENTEEN’s SEVENTEEN 10th Mini Album: FML (May 13), Ed Sheeran’s – (Subtract) (May 20), Niall Horan’s The Show (June 24), ATEEZ’s The World EP.2: Outlaw (July 1) and Business Is Business (July 8).
It’s not unusual for an album to spend a lengthy amount of time at No. 1 and end up keeping a number of albums from the top slot. Last year, eight different albums peaked at No. 2 behind Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti. In 2016, Drake’s Views also kept eight albums at No. 2 during its 13-week run at No. 1. In 2014, the Frozen soundtrack prevented 10 different No. 2-peaking albums from hitting No. 1 during the set’s 13-week run at the top. The last No. 1 album before One Thing at a Time to hold back at least 11 different albums from the top was Adele’s 21, which blocked 15 titles from the top over the course of its 24 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2011-12.
Back on the new Billboard 200, Peso Pluma achieves the highest-charting regional Mexican album ever, as his debut album Génesis debuts at No. 3 with 73,000 equivalent album units earned. The set is only the third regional Mexican effort to reach the top 10 (following two titles from Eslabon Armado in only the past 14 months) and it bows with the biggest week, by units earned, for any regional Mexican title since the list began measuring by units in December of 2014. The previous highest-charting regional Mexican album, and biggest week by units for the genre, was tallied by Eslabon Armado’s Desvelado, which debuted and peaked at No. 6 on the May 13-dated list with 44,000 units.
Of Génesis’ 73,000 units, SEA units comprise 72,000 (equaling 101.18 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs – the largest streaming week ever for a regional Mexican album), album sales comprise just under 1,000 and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. (Génesis was released on an off-cycle Thursday, June 22, instead of the traditional Friday for most new albums. The tracking week ending June 29 is the set’s first full chart tracking week.)
Peso Pluma has been red-hot on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 songs chart in 2023, having charted 11 entries on the list, including the top five smash “Ella Baila Sola,” with Eslabon Armado (which is not included on the Génesis album).
Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Midnights is a non-mover at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with 57,000 equivalent album units (down 6%), while Gunna’s A Gift & A Curse falls 3-5 in its second week with 55,000 (down 36%).
Kelly Clarkson claims her ninth top 10-charting effort on the Billboard 200 as her latest studio album Chemistry bows at No. 6. The set launches with 53,000 equivalent album units earned, of which album sales comprise 43,000 (making it the top-selling album of the week), SEA units account for 9,000 (equaling 11.25 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise 1,000.
Chemistry is Clarkson’s first studio album of non-holiday material in over five years, since 2017’s Meaning of Life. Clarkson charted her first album on the Billboard 200 just over 20 years ago, when her debut release Thankful opened at No. 1 on the May 3, 2003-dated list.
A trio of former No. 1s is next on the Billboard 200, as Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album falls 6-7 (47,000 equivalent album units; up 3%), SZA’s SOS dips 5-8 (47,000; down 2%) and Swift’s Lover bumps 10-9 (43,000; up 9%). ATEEZ’s The World EP.2: Outlaw rounds out the top 10, falling 2-10 in its second week with 34,000 units (down 68%).
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.
Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour weekend in Cincinnati, Ohio, was an exciting one for Swifties. She debuted two Evermore songs live for the first time during her acoustic sets — one with an assist from collaborator Aaron Dessner — and she performed a Gracie Abrams song with Abrams.
The superstar shared several photos from her Cincinnati shows on social media Sunday (July 2), along with a message that recapped some highlights — and reminded fans what they still have to look forward to later in the week.
“Cincinnati I couldn’t love you more,” Swift wrote. “Had the best two nights with you!!”
She continued, “Last night was so special getting to sing ‘I miss you, I’m sorry’ with @gracieabrams in the acoustic set and bringing out @aarondessner to play ‘Ivy’ in his hometown.”
Swift invited Abrams to the stage with her Saturday night (July 1), as the opening act’s set was cut due to a schedule change based on the weather forecast. The two shared vocals on Minor track “I Miss You, I’m Sorry,” with Swift on guitar and Abrams on piano, and Abrams posted her own reaction to this unforgettable moment: “@taylorswift I love you forever friend. Just thank you.”
Dessner brought Evermore‘s “Ivy” to life on the stage for the first time with Swift the same night. And on Friday (June 30), Swift sang the album’s title track, “Evermore,” for the first time live.
Dessner uploaded a video of “Ivy” on Instagram and wrote, “Cincinnati!! It’s hard to describe what it felt like to play ‘Ivy’ from evermore last night with @taylorswift in the town I grew up in, where I learned to play music in the first place. Grateful as always to Taylor and all of you for listening.”
Meanwhile, Swift wrapped up her note to fans on Sunday: “See you soon Kansas City, meanwhile I’ll be counting down the minutes til Speak Now (my version) comes out July 7th WHICH IS VERY SOON.”
Swift first announced that Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) will be arriving on July 7 at one of her Eras shows at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium in May.
She wrote about Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) on social media on May 5: “It fills me with such pride and joy to announce that my version of Speak Now will be out July 7 (just in time for July 9th, iykyk. I first made Speak Now, completely self-written, between the ages of 18 and 20. The songs that came from this time in my life were marked by their brutal honesty, unfiltered diaristic confessions and wild wistfulness. I love this album because it tells a tale of growing up, flailing, flying and crashing … and living to speak about it. With six extra songs I’ve sprung loose from the vault, I absolutely cannot wait to celebrate Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) with you on July 7th.”
Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is the third re-recorded album she’s releasing, following Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version) in 2021.
For more about Swift’s weekend in Cincinnati, check out Billboard‘s review of Saturday night’s concert, plus an ongoing record of the surprise songs she’s performed on tour here. Watch clips of this weekend’s special performances with Aaron Dessner and Gracie Abrams below.
Olivia Rodrigo‘s “Vampire” tops this week’s new music poll.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (June 30) on Billboard, choosing Rodrigo’s new single as their favorite new music release of the past week.
“Vampire” brought in more than 64% of the vote, beating out new music from Lil Uzi Vert, Shakira & Manuel Turizo, Charli XCX and more.
Piano ballad “Vampire” is off of Rodrigo’s forthcoming sophomore album, GUTS, due out Sept. 8 on Geffen Records. The singer-songwriter, who penned the song in December, told Billboard, “I remember writing it and feeling like something special was there.”
“We always said that it was kind of our version of a rock opera,” she added.
“It’s kind of an angry song,” Rodrigo said, “and I think I have a lot of trouble expressing feelings like anger and regret, those are particularly tough ones for me to express. I go to songwriting to get those feelings out that aren’t super comfortable to express in everyday life.”
Trailing behind “Vampire” on the poll is Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape, with 31% of the vote, and Shakira and Manuel Turizo’s ” “Copa Vacía,” with 4% of the vote.
See the final results of this week’s poll below.
