Tamela Mann Notches Record 10th Gospel Airplay No. 1: ‘With Your Love and Support, We Did It!

Tamela Mann scores her record-breaking 10th leader on Billboard’s Gospel Airplay chart, as “Finished” ascends to No. 1 on the ranking dated March 25.

In the tracking week ending March 16, the song gained by 7% in plays, according to Luminate.

Mann co-wrote the hit with Travis Greene, who, as a recording artist, has earned five Gospel Airplay chart-toppers of his own.

Now with 10 No. 1s, Mann solely claims the most on Gospel Airplay, which began in March 2005, as she breaks out of a tie with Kirk Franklin. James Fortune & FIYA follow with eight leaders, while Jekalyn Carr, Todd Dulaney, Charles Jenkins & Fellowship Chicago and Marvin Sapp are next with six each.

“Thank you to everybody who listened and made this possible,” Mann tells Billboard. “An extra-special thank you from the bottom of my heart to gospel radio for making me a part of your music family and always believing in me. With your love and support, we did it – 10 No. 1s! To God be the glory.”

“Finished” follows Mann’s “He Did It,” which dominated Gospel Airplay for two frames last May. She has now linked four straight No. 1s, after “Help Me” ruled for four weeks starting in September 2021 and “Touch Me” governed the tally for five frames beginning in December 2020.

Mann boasts two other runs of three Gospel Airplay leaders in a row. She earned her first three No. 1s – “Take Me to the King” (25 weeks on top), “I Can Only Imagine” (13) and “This Place” (six) – in 2012-15 and achieved her next three – “God Provides” (13), “My World Needs You,” by Franklin, featuring Sarah Reeves, Tasha Cobbs and Mann (two), and “Change Me” (14) – in 2016-17.

Mann also extends her record for the most weeks totaled atop Gospel Airplay, across all her No. 1s: 85. James Fortune & FIYA rank second with 81 weeks in charge, followed by Sapp (79), Franklin (72) and Hezekiah Walker (59).

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TWICE Claim Third No. 1 on Top Album Sales Chart With ‘Ready to Be’

TWICE claim their third No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated March 25) as Ready to Be: 12th Mini Album debuts atop the list with the act’s best sales week ever. The nine-member South Korean pop act previously led the list with Between 1&2: 11th Mini Album (2022) and Taste of Love: The 10th Mini Album (2021).

Ready to Be launches with 145,500 copies sold in the United States in the week ending March 16, according to Luminate. That sum also marks the second-largest sales week of 2023 for any act, following the debut week of TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation (153,000; chart dated Feb. 11).

Ready to Be also logs a big week in vinyl album sales (nearly 18,000) – the largest for any all-female group since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991.

Also in the top 10 on the new Top Album Sales chart, Miley Cyrus achieves her biggest sales week in nearly a decade – and 14th top 10 – as Endless Summer Vacation enters at No. 2 with 55,000 copies sold. Endless also collects Cyrus’ biggest ever sales week on vinyl. Plus, rock band Periphery nets its third top 10 – all consecutive – as Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre debuts at No. 10.

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 Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement 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.

Of Ready to Be’s 145,500 copies sold, physical sales comprise 143,000 (125,000 on CD and nearly 18,000 on vinyl) and digital downloads comprise 2,500.

Like many K-pop releases, Ready to Be was issued in collectible physical format packages (11 different CDs [including exclusives for Barnes & Noble, Target and the group’s official webstore] and two vinyl LPs [one exclusive to Target and one exclusive to the act’s webstore). CD variants of Ready contain a standard set of items and randomized elements (such as a postcards, photo cards, etc.).

Unusually, Ready to Be had a vinyl version of the album available on the same wide release date as the CD edition of the album, as most major K-pop titles in the past were initially available only as a physical album on CD and on no other physical formats (like vinyl or cassette). The vinyl editions of the album did not include randomized items, but were packaged with a lenticular postcard, poster and slipmat. Target’s exclusive LP is marbled orchid-colored, while the act’s webstore exclusive is an ultra-clear vinyl edition.

Ready to Be’s nearly 18,000 vinyl sales marks the largest week for a vinyl album by a female group since Luminate began electronically tracking sales in 1991. It’s also the second-largest sales week on vinyl for any K-pop album, following the debut week of BTS’ Love Yourself: Her earlier in 2023 (18,000; chart dated Jan. 21). Unlike Ready to Be, the Love Yourself: Her vinyl LP arrived to market more than five years after the album’s original release on CD and digital download in 2017.

Beyond the physical editions of the album, TWICE’s U.S. webstore also issued four alternative digital album downloads of Ready to Be – each with a different cover, digital replicas of individual group members’ signatures, and a bonus track (a voice memo from different group members).

Miley Cyrus’ Endless Summer Vacation debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with her biggest sales week in nearly a decade, as it bows with 55,000 copies sold. Cyrus last had a larger sales week when Bangerz sold a little more than 63,000 during Christmas week of 2013 (reflected on the Top Album Sales chart dated Jan. 11, 2014). Bangerz earlier debuted at No. 1 on Top Album Sales with 270,500 copies sold (Oct. 26, 2013 chart).

Of Endless Summer Vacation’s 55,000 copies sold, physical sales comprise 37,500 (12,500 on CD and 25,000 on vinyl) and digital downloads comprise 17,500. Endless logs Cyrus’ largest sales week for a vinyl album since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. On the Vinyl Albums chart, Endless debuts at No. 1 – her second leader on the list following Plastic Hearts in 2021.

Endless was released in four vinyl variants: standard black vinyl, a white-colored edition exclusive to Target and two color editions exclusive to Cyrus’ webstore (red and silver). All vinyl LPs came packaged with a poster.

CD sales were also aided by two deluxe boxed sets (one with a puzzle and a CD, the other with a beach towel and a CD) sold exclusively through her webstore.

Endless is Cyrus’ 14th top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales, including those albums credited to her Disney Channel character Hannah Montana.

A trio of former No. 1s is next on Top Album Sales: Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time (1-3 in its second week with 21,000; down 81%), TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation (6-4 with 11,000; up 5%) and Taylor Swift’s Midnights (7-5 with 10,000; up 3%).

NCT 127’s Ay-Yo: The 4th Album Repackage falls 2-6 on Top Album Sales (9,500; down 67%), P!nk’s former leader Trustfall rises 9-7 (8,500; down 5%), Gorillaz’s chart-topping Cracker Island is a non-mover at No. 8 (6,000; down 37%) and Stray Kids’ former No. 1 MAXIDENT climbs 13-9 (6,000; up 17%).

Closing out the top 10 is rock band Periphery, which scores its third top 10 – all consecutive – as Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre debuts at No. 10 with nearly 6,000 sold. 55% of the sales came from the vinyl edition of the set.

In the week ending March 16, there were 1.961 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 0.9% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.605 million (up 5.3%) and digital albums comprised 355,000 (down 21.9%).

There were 733,000 CD albums sold in the week ending March 16 (up 10% week-over-week) and 862,000 vinyl albums sold (up 1.8%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 6.925 million (up 2.5% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 9.678 million (up 25.4%).

Overall year-to-date album sales total 20.609 million (up 8.1% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 16.705 million (up 14.7%) and digital album sales total 3.904 million (down 13%).

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Eric Nam Reveals Plans to Release ‘Brand-New Album’ & Go on Tour This Summer

Eric Nam is gearing up for a busy 2023. The South Korean singer caught up with Billboard News and gave fans an idea of what to expect from him in the coming months, explaining the inspiration behind releasing his re-recorded version of his 2022 album There and Back Again.

There and Back Again was release in January 2022. The set peaked at No. 22 on Billboard‘s Top Album Sales chart, but Nam wanted to re-record it in order to keep up with people’s decreasing attention span with music.

“I felt like in today’s time and age, music…people get bored really easily. They get really sick of things really fast, but it doesn’t mean you wrote a bad song,” he said of the re-released album, which arrived earlier this month. “I feel like art has been so short, so I wanted to give people a reason to go back to some of the songs I think were great because they weren’t the single.”

As for what’s next for Nam, the singer tweeted on March 15 and teased that a “new Eric Nam era is loading,” which might be coming even sooner than fans think. “I have a brand-new album that I’ll be putting out in the summer, I think? And a tour soon after that!” he told Billboard News host Tetris Kelly.

Listen to Eric Nam talk about his new music and future album release plans in his Billboard News interview in the video above.

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Eric Nam On Being Inspired by Fashion, Meeting Ice Spice, Reimagining His Music & More | Billboard News

Eric Nam caught up with Billboard News’ Tetris backstage of Samsung NXT 2.0. He talked about all things fashion, new music, and touring!

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Nick Cannon Says He Wishes He Had Kids With This Ex-Girlfriend

Nick Cannon is Hollywood’s favorite procreator, and he revealed whom from his past he regrets not having children with.

The father of 12 recently joined The Shade Room for an interview, where he revealed that he would have been down to start a family with his Love Don’t Cost a Thing co-star and ex-girlfriend Christina Milian.

The couple dated for two years before splitting in 2005. Four years later, Milian announced her first pregnancy with her ex, The-Dream.

“When Christina Milian and I were doing Love Don’t Cost a Thing, I remember when I found out she was pregnant, I was like, ‘Dang, man,’ but I was so happy for her,” Cannon shared, adding that “everybody talks about having kids” when they’re together.

“I remember that we was kids in love early on, and so we talked about that, but to each his own,” he continued. “Life plans it out. The universe gives it how it’s supposed to be given.”

Even though the couple never welcomed a child together, Cannon’s daddy duties are already piling up. He shares twins Monroe and Moroccan with ex-wife Mariah Carey, and twins Zion and Zillion with Abby De La Rosa, who gave birth to her third baby with Cannon, Beautiful Zeppelin, less than two months prior to his youngest child, daughter Halo’s birth. He shares the 3-month-old with model Alyssa Scott.

He is also dad to Golden Sagon, Powerful Queen and Rise Messiah, whom he shares with Brittany Bell; Legendary Love, whose mom is Bre Tiesi; and Onyx Ice Cole with LaNisha Cole.

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NCT DREAM Talk U.S. Tour, New Music & Why ‘Everything Comes With Timing’ for ‘7DREAM’

When NCT DREAM made their live Stateside return last August as one of KCON’s most anticipated performers, a quiet moment when youngest member Jisung sang just two words from the boy band’s debut single “Chewing Gum” saw the Crypto.com Arena audience erupting into shrieks. It was a quick-but-telling indication of the local interest in the young boy band that made its Billboard 200 debut last year without a proper label deal.

While last summer’s festival appearance only included five of the seven NCT DREAM members, the entire DREAM crew is now gearing up for a proper visit to America.

On Tuesday (March 21), NCT DREAM dropped the English version of their nostalgic hip-hop single “Beatbox” before heading out on another string of dates in The Dream Show2: In a Dream world tour that includes seven arena shows in April. While many K-pop acts quickly make their way to the U.S. for concerts and opportunities — including NCT counterparts NCT 127, who began promoting in the States heavily after one year together — NCT DREAM is playing across the U.S. more than six and a half years after their debut. While it may have felt like a long wait, the band says the timing for the next step of their “journey” was important and they’re considering all aspects to make the next legs of the world tour special.

NCT DREAM’s Mark, Haechan, Renjun, Jeno, Chenle, Jaemin and Jisung tell Billboard that their newest English song not only was a present for the overseas fans they’re visiting, but also delivered a fresh musical experience for the band too. As the septet hint that more English tracks are on the way, and add they are “actively participating” in their forthcoming studio album due later this year, the focus right now is showcasing the onstage synergy of these seven — or “7DREAM,” as they call themselves.

Read more from the 7DREAM guys, including thoughts on their latest music, touring aspirations, messages for NCTzen fans, and what’s next for NCT DREAM.

Congratulations on the recent news of your growing world tour and English single “Beatbox.” You debuted in 2016; why is now the right time to focus some of your time on the west? 

MARK: Everything comes with timing. This year, we are touring on a scale like never before and felt it’d be good to release an English single since we’re meeting fans around the world. We can’t wait to further continue our journey with all of our fans. 

How was the experience of recording this new version of “Beatbox”? Is this indicating more English music from NCT DREAM? 

RENJUN: It felt like we were recording a new song when working on the English version of “Beatbox” so it was quite fun. I tried to record in a way that’d suit the vibe of the track, and I believe this version shows NCT DREAM’s own colors well so I hope everyone enjoys!  

HAECHAN: It’s been a year since we worked on this track again so I feel like we did better with recording this round. The demo track was actually in English; the vibe we first got when listening to it combined really well with NCT DREAM’s to give this version its own sense of uniqueness. And I hope people will look forward to hearing more of NCT DREAM’s English tracks!  

What should fans expect from the U.S. leg of the The Dream Show2? Will you prepare special stages, or do you want to keep the current show intact? 

JENO: This U.S. tour will be a chance for fans to learn more about NCT DREAM. We are also working hard to make sure that our shows are a place of interaction with our fans. We’ve only performed in the U.S. twice before, so it’ll be exciting to get to see different locations, stay longer and meet more of our international fans. 

JAEMIN: I hope fans are excited for not only the “Beatbox” English version but all the stages we’ve prepared! Lots of work went into preparing to finally meet our U.S. NCTzens—we hope they are equally as excited to see NCT DREAM. 

This is your first time performing your own concerts in America and you’re playing arenas. Is anyone surprised by the demand for NCT DREAM in the States?

CHENLE: It’s mind-blowing to see so many people show their love and support, and I cannot express enough how thankful we are.  

JISUNG: This is the first time after the pandemic that we’re going to the U.S. as “7DREAM,” so it hasn’t quite hit us yet but I’m sure the moment we see our fans up close, it’ll sink in. 

MARK and HAECHAN, you’ve had some experience with NCT 127 promoting across the U.S. Did you share any advice with the other members?

MARK: The only advice I told them was how hard we’re going to work. [Laughs] Despite my experience with NCT 127, promoting for NCT DREAM is a new beginning and experience for all the seven of us. The only thing I had to discuss with our members was to be ready to work extra hard, and to try our best to interact with our fans as much as we can. 

HAECHAN: I just hope everyone enjoys the moment. It’s our first time in the U.S. as 7DREAM and I’m sure people are excited as well, but it’s important that we enjoy it ourselves so that we can create those memories for our fans.  

Anything you’re particularly excited about seeing during the tour?

JENO: I’m most excited to hear the cheers of our NCTzens in all the countries and cities we’ll be going to.  

CHENLE: I am looking forward to showing the amazing stages we’ve prepared to all the NCTzens that’ll be coming to see us! I’m also excited to be going to California because I’m a big Stephen Curry fan! We haven’t had much time to explore the U.S. so even the thought of simply being in California is exciting.  

NCT DREAM has been so busy! You released Candy for the holidays, your first Japanese single “Best Friend Ever” at the top of 2023, there are Asia, Europe and now U.S. tour dates; when are you finding the time to relax and rest? 

RENJUN: Even when we’re busy with several activities, it’s always a good time because it’s spent with my members so even working feels like fun — that in itself sounds like healing to me!  

JISUNG: When we have a lot of schedules, there are times when we aren’t able to rest as much but I’m the kind of person who gains more energy from staying active. I do make sure to relax and take care of myself though on days that are less busy. 

What else can we look forward to in 2023? We’ve seen a studio album on the schedule for you. Are there any spoilers you can share? 

JAEMIN: We are actively participating in our upcoming full-length album and working very hard to bring out the best. I hope people will be able to see just how much we’ve put into it when the album comes out.

Anything else to add for Billboard readers or U.S. fans? 

MARK: NCT DREAM is here to see you guys!!! Thank you to all the fans that waited so patiently for us to come—can’t wait to show you NCT DREAM and how we really care about our time here in the west. See you, guys! 

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