Stacey Abrams held up a “my body, my choice” sign on stage as Latto performed “Pussy” in Atlanta Saturday night (Oct. 22).

The Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia took the stage at the State Farm Arena, where Latto was opening for Lizzo on The Special Tour. The message on the sign Abrams held high was echoed with a speech given to the crowd.

“I’m not gonna interrupt your fun. I just want to remind you that if you believe in my body, my choice, I need your vote,” Abrams said.

“I need your big energy,” she added. “Let’s get it!”

On Instagram, Abrams posted: “Thank you for sharing your stage with me, @latto777. Time to vote and protect a woman’s right to choose. StaceyAbrams.con/voting.”

Abrams debated with current Republican Governor Brian Kemp earlier this week, as early voting commenced.

“This is a governor who for the last four years has beat his chest but delivered very little for most Georgians,” she said, according to reporting by The Associated Press. “He’s weakened gun laws and flooded our streets. He’s weakened … women’s rights. He’s denied women the access to reproductive care. The most dangerous thing facing Georgia is four more years of Brian Kemp.”

Below, see a clip from Latto’s show shared by Abrams herself, as well as her speech which was captured by a fan at the show.

Madonna‘s 1992 album Erotica, released 30 years ago alongside her then-scandalous Sex coffee table book, paved the way for other female artists expressing their sexuality. Reflecting on that 30-year anniversary, Madonna shared her thoughts about the criticism she faced at the time of their release on Instagram Stories on Saturday (Oct. 22).

“30 years ago I published a book called S.E.X. In addition to photos of me naked there were photos of Men kissing Men, Woman kissing Woman and Me kissing everyone. I also wrote about my sexual fantasies and shared my point of view about sexuality in an ironic way,” she wrote.

“I spent the next few years being interviewed by narrow minded people who tried to shame me for empowering myself as a Woman,” Madonna continued in her note on Instagram. “I was called a whore, a witch, a heretic and the devil.”

Related

“Now Cardi B can sing about her WAP. Kim Kardashian can grace the cover of any magazine with her naked ass and Miley Cyrus can come in like a wrecking ball,” Madonna said. “You’re welcome b—-es.”

She then shared an interview clip circa 1992 in which she was paired up with an interviewer incredibly uncomfortable with Sex.

“What did you get out of it?” Madonna countered when asked if there was a message in the book.

“I got afraid,” he admitted.

“Why?” she asked, to which he replied, “I’d never seen the likes of it.”

“You have so,” she teased. “You’ve never read Playboy magazine, or Penthouse, or anything like that?”

“Yes,” he said, “But it was different with you. The picture of you astride the mirror, masturbating — I thought that was horrible. It just strikes me as horrible.”

“I think people’s reaction to specific situations in the book was much more a reflection of that person than me,” she pointed out. (The full video, which aired on 60 Minutes Australia in 1992, is up on YouTube.)

“Erotica,” the album’s first single, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s Dance Club Songs chart. A remix of the song was included on Madonna’s recent collection Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones.

Rhino Records is releasing a limited-edition Erotica 12″ vinyl picture disc, featuring a toe-sucking photo from her Sex book, for the project’s 30th anniversary.

Taylor Swift’s Midnights is off to a record-breaking start in the U.S. after its first day in release.

According to initial reports to Luminate, the album, which was released on Oct. 21, has sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S. through its first day across all available formats (multiple digital album download, CD, vinyl and cassette variants). It has already logged the largest sales week for any album since 2017, is the top-selling album of 2022 year-to-date, and has set a modern-era record for single-week vinyl album sales.

Luminate’s data powers Billboard’s weekly charts.

Related

2022’s Top-Selling Album After One Day: Midnights’ initial sales sum already makes it the biggest-selling album of 2022 year-to-date. Previously, 2022’s top-selling album, year-to-date, was Harry StylesHarry’s House, with 620,000 copies sold through the week ending Oct. 13.

It’s assumed that Midnights’ sales figure will increase in the coming days, as the tracking week ends on Thursday, Oct. 27. The set’s final sales number is expected to be announced on Sunday, Oct. 30, along with its expected large debut on the multi-metric Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Nov. 4). If Midnights debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, it will mark Swift’s 11th chart-topping effort.

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 units 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. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

News of initial streaming-and-track-equivalent activity for the album, as provided by Luminate, will reported in the coming days.

Biggest Sales Week for Any Album Since Swift’s reputation in 2017: With just one day of sales, Midnights logs the largest sales week for any album in the U.S. since Swift’s own reputation debuted with 1.216 million copies sold in its first week (ending Nov. 16, 2017).

Reputation was also the last album to sell more than 1 million copies in a single week in the U.S., a feat that has become difficult to achieve in recent years as consumers transition to consuming music through streaming services. (Yearly U.S. album sales decreased in every year from 2012-2020.)

Since Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991, there have only been 23 instances – by 21 different albums – where an album sold at least 1 million copies in a single week. One of those albums, Adele’s 25, sold over 1 million in three separate weeks.

Modern-Era Vinyl Sales Record: Further, Midnights handily breaks the modern-era record for single-week vinyl album sales in the U.S., with over 400,000 copies sold so far. That’s the largest week for an album on vinyl since Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991. It surpasses the previous high, set earlier this year, when Harry’s House debuted with 182,000 vinyl copies (week ending May 26, 2021).

Midnights’ overall initial sales figures include any pre-orders of the album that were fulfilled to the customer through Oct. 21, as well as traditional in-store sales that were generated on the day of release.

Midnights arrived after months of pre-release promotion and pre-orders – and its initial sales figure is bolstered by an array of available versions and variants of the album.

Midnights is available to purchase in a standard digital album (both clean and explicit), an iTunes-exclusive version with a bonus track (clean and explicit), four standard CD editions (each with a different cover, both clean and explicit), four vinyl LP editions (each with a different cover and colored vinyl) and a cassette tape.

Target is also selling an exclusive “Lavender” edition of the album on CD and colored-vinyl LP, with the CD boasting three bonus tracks.

In addition, in the weeks leading up to release, Swift’s webstore sold pre-orders of signed copies of the four standard CD albums and the four standard vinyl LPs. Midnights is also available in a deluxe boxed set with a CD edition of the album and a Swift-branded T-shirt, exclusively for Capital One cardholders.

Three hours after Midnights arrived, Swift issued a deluxe edition of the album with seven bonus songs (20 tracks total) to streaming services and digital retailers (with the later including a digital liner notes booklet).

Drake and 21 Savage are releasing an album together this week.

The pair announced that Her Loss will be here on Friday (Oct. 28) in the middle of their new “Jimmy Cooks” music video, which arrived late Saturday afternoon, 21 Savage’s birthday.

At the 1:25 mark in the Mahfuz Sultan-directed clip, the pair snuck in the title and release date for the new album.

OVO Sound and Republic Records both shared screenshots of the Her Loss album news on Twitter.

The Honestly, Nevermind track “Jimmy Cooks” (seemingly an ode to the character of Jimmy Brooks that Drake portrayed on Degrassi: The Next Generation) is the pair’s latest collab, and it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 over the summer, making it Drake’s 11th Hot 100 No. 1 and 21 Savage’s second.

Watch Drake and 21 Savage’s “Jimmy Cooks” video and check out the album announcement below.

Joanna Simon, an acclaimed mezzo-soprano, Emmy-winning TV correspondent and one of the three singing Simon sisters who include pop star Carly Simon, has died at age 85.

Simon, the eldest of four, died Wednesday (Oct. 19), just a day before her sister Lucy died, according to Lucy’s daughter, Julie Simon. Their brother Peter, a photographer, died in 2018 at 71. All three had cancer.

“In the last 2 days, I’ve been by the side of both my mother and my aunt, Joanna, and watched them pass into the next world. I can’t truly comprehend this,” Julie wrote on Facebook.

Related

Joanna Simon, who died of thyroid cancer, rose to fame in the opera world and as a concert performer in the 1960s. She was a frequent guest on TV talk shows. After her retirement from singing, she became an arts correspondent for PBS’s MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, where she won an Emmy in 1991 for a report on mental illness and creativity.

“I am filled with sorrow to speak about the passing of Joanna and Lucy Simon. Their loss will be long and haunting. As sad as this day is, it’s impossible to mourn them without celebrating their incredible lives that they lived,” Carly Simon said in a statement Saturday.

She added: “We were three sisters who not only took turns blazing trails and marking courses for one another. We were each other’s secret shares. The co-keepers of each other’s memories.”

Joanna Simon was married to novelist and journalist Gerald Walker from 1976 until his death in 2004. She was the companion of Walter Cronkite from 2005 until his death in 2009.

On stage, she made her professional debut in 1962 as Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at New York City Opera. That year, she won the Marian Anderson Award for promising young singers. Simon took on a range of material. As a concert performer, she leaned into classic and contemporary songs of her time.

The siblings were born to publishing giant Richard Simon and his wife, Andrea. Carly and Lucy once performed as the Simon Sisters, opening for other acts in Greenwich Village folk clubs.

“I have no words to explain the feeling of suddenly being the only remaining direct offspring of Richard and Andrea Simon,” Carly Simon said. “They touched everyone they knew and those of us they’ve left behind will be lucky and honored to carry their memories forward.”

The manager for Charlie Crist’s gubernatorial campaign was arrested shortly before he resigned from the campaign this week, according to court records, in a domestic violence case. Austin Durrer was … Click to Continue »
Nine dolphins at Miami Seaquarium were underfed as a form of punishment, causing unhealthy weight loss and dangerous aggressive behavior, according to a critical inspection by the federal agency that … Click to Continue »
Florida’s already-low unemployment rate dipped to 2.5% in September, though the numbers don’t take into account economic effects from Hurricane Ian. A state economist said Friday that October numbers likely … Click to Continue »
A federal court largely upheld a nearly $2.5 million jury verdict Friday against a group of anti-abortion activists who secretly recorded Planned Parenthood employees and later edited the videos to … Click to Continue »

With nearly 2 dozen entries on World Digital Song Sales, ATEEZ are no strangers to the Billboard chart, but their latest feat shows how fans are taking their support to the charts.

On the World Digital Song Sales chart dated Oct. 22, 2022, ATEEZ’s “Say My Name” re-enters the ranking at No. 11 for its fifth week on the chart overall. The track sold an additional 500 downloads in the week ending Oct. 13 in the U.S., up from a negligible amount in the previous week, making a total of 1,000 downloads in the U.S. this year alone.

Initially released in January 2019 as a single from the boy band’s Treasure EP.2: Zero to One album, “Say My Name” originally peaked at No. 8 on the chart and has sold 8,500 downloads in the U.S., making it ATEEZ’s second-biggest selling digital song in the States. Only “Wonderland,” the single off their first full-length Treasure EP.Fin: All to Action, released in October 2019, has sold slightly more than 8,500.

The surge in support comes after a growing controversy where ATEZ fans—and, possibly, ATEEZ themselves—claim that a famous choreographer swiped a signature move from the “Say My Name” dance on television.

The debate started when South Korean–based dance crew We Dem Boyz (who have helped helm choreography with K-pop acts like CL, SEVENTEEN and SuperM) performed the song “New Thing” on Korea’s popular dance-battle show Street Man Fighter. Sung by chart-topping solo star Zico and hip-hop trio Homies, “New Thing” has been rising up Korea’s local charts mainly due to the viral #NewThingChallenge dance. Soon, fans noticed one part felt similar to a key move from “Say My Name.”

As part of a Street Man Fighter episode, the “New Thing” choreography was created and sequenced by We Dem Boyz leader Vata. He taught his crew moves that imitate mounting and starting a motorcycle before stylishly walking and bobbing their head to the beat with one hand held outward and another on the hip. Vata shared a clip of the “New Thing” choreography on his Instagram.

The moves were claimed to be allegedly similar to a signature part of ATEEZ’s choreography to 2019’s “Say My Name” where the guys perform a walk and bob over the track’s hook—the part earned a nickname as the “driving dance.”

Since the episode airing, Vata began facing online plagiarism accusations over the sequence for “New Thing” that made its way to the original “Say My Name” choreographer, Anze Skrube.

Slovenia-born Skrube, credited in ATEEZ’s Treasure EP.2: Zero to One album as the “Say My Name” choreographer, spoke up about the claims on his Instagram.

“I want to be very quick regarding the allegations of somebody copying our moves,” he said in a video posted on Oct. 11. “Please stop harassing each other and fighting about it. To clarify, from my experience, there is a difference between ‘biting’ a move or being inspired by a move, or biting a whole sequence of moves—this is what happened here in this case. This particular sequence was choreographed by Josh Smith at the end of 2018 and it came out at the beginning of 2019. I’m only saying this because stuff like this happens a lot in the dance industry and that’s not OK. Let’s not do that, people. If you get inspired by something, the least you could do is credit the creators. I’m just going to leave it at that.”

ATEEZ fans also wondered if the group members themselves noticed the similarities.

Fans noted the eight-member boy band incorporating the driving dance into some of their latest performances and using what looks like the “biting” dance sign (mentioned by Skrube) where a dancer smacks one’s forearms together horizontally to physically indicate someone has stolen or copied a move.

On Oct. 14, Vata responded to the claims on his Instagram “in order to prevent further misunderstandings” (according to translations via Soompi).

“When I first heard the music, I was reminded of a plain in the wilderness, and I created the intro choreography to depict arriving on a motorcycle or horseback,” Vata wrote. “That’s why I used the motion of starting an engine at the beginning, followed by a big kick and a dismount after driving, and there is a story with a beginning, middle, and end. I think that it is completely different from the intent and connection between the movements of the choreography to which it is currently being compared.”

Vata added, “As a person who loves the culture of dance, I think it’s admirable when artists and choreographers respect one another. However, it seems like that isn’t the case [right now], which I find very unfortunate. Regardless of the reason, I feel apologetic to the viewers of Street Man Fighter and everyone who has been cheering for We Dem Boyz about the fact that I caused a controversy.”

So far, ATEEZ has not formally responded to the debate but see additional chart activity beyond their 2019 single. The boy band’s latest EP, The World EP.1 : Movement, re-entered World Albums (at No. 8 this week), Top Current Album Sales (at No. 19), and Top Album Sales (No. 22)