Bad Bunny conjured the KPop Demon Hunters trio HUNTR/X during the season 51 premiere of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 4.

In the six-minute sketch, fittingly titled “KPop Demon Hunters,” the Puerto Rican superstar — who hosted the episode alongside musical guest Doja Cat — plays Thomas, a brunch-goer passionately defending his love for the wildly popular animated Netflix movie.

“It’s actually not for kids. It’s for smart adults,” Bad Bunny’s Thomas says to skeptical friends. “In KPop Demon Hunters, songs are not just songs. They are weapons,” he continues. “What else is gonna save you from demons, you idiot.”

The sketch takes a chaotic turn when SNL cast member Bowen Yang appears as one of the film’s demons and possesses Sarah Sherman by belting out the hit song “Soda Pop.” Just in time, HUNTR/X — voiced in the movie by EJAE, Rei Ami, and Audrey Nuna — arrive to save the day, performing their smash single “Golden” and vanquishing the demon.

The sketch marked the first-ever live televised performance of “Golden,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks. HUNTR/X is slated to deliver their first full-length live performance of the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Oct. 7, where they’ll also sit down for an interview.

The news comes roughly three months after KPop Demon Hunters premiered on Netflix, rapidly becoming a pop culture phenomenon. In addition to “Golden,” three other tracks from the film’s soundtrack — “How It’s Done,” “What It Sounds Like,” and “Takedown” — have landed in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. The film’s soundtrack also made history as the first to top the U.S. albums chart since Encanto in 2022.

Watch HUNTR/X’s surprise SNL cameo below.

Any Taylor Swift fans chanting “more!” after the release of The Life of a Showgirl‘s 12 tracks on Friday were in for a little surprise Saturday night (Oct. 4). Swift dropped four new CD variants of her new album, each featuring two acoustic tracks not found on the standard version of Showgirl.

Now available in “limited quantities” on Swift’s official webstore, the CDs are described as having “brand new production by Max Martin, Shellback and Taylor Swift and newly recorded vocals by Taylor Swift.” Fans can order the the limited-release CDs over a 24-hour period, through 7 p.m. ET Sunday — “while supplies last.” Each CD is priced at $7.99, and features cover art that’s different from that on the standard release. (Those who made it to a screening of The Release Party of a Showgirl in movie theaters this weekend will recognize the imagery.)

“File this under ‘save your best for the finale’… I think my favorite moments from the tour were the acoustic surprises. So I went back into the studio with Max and Shellback to record acoustic/unplugged versions of a few of the Showgirl songs with brand new vocals and production! Cannot WAIT for you to hear,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post promoting the CDs.

For those who share Swift’s love of acoustic versions of songs, here’s the breakdown of the four new The Life of a Showgirl options and what’s available on them (beyond the set’s original tracklist):

• Life Is a Song Acoustic Version with “Opalite (Life Is a Song Acoustic Version)” and “Ruin the Friendship (My Advice Version)”

• Dressing Room Rehearsal Version with “Wi$h Li$t (Settled Down Acoustic Version)” and “The Life of a Showgirl (Dressing Room Rehearsal Acoustic Version)”

• Alone in My Tower Acoustic Version with “The Fate of Ophelia (Alone in My Tower Acoustic Version)” and “Eldest Daughter (Now You’re Home Acoustic Version)”

• So Glamorous Cabaret Version with “Elizabeth Taylor (So Glamorous Cabaret Version)” and Elizabeth Taylor (Original Songwriting Voice Memo)

As Billboard revealed earlier on Saturday, initial first-day sales reports from data tracking firm Luminate say Swift sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales (physical and digital purchases) across all versions of the The Life of a Showgirl album available on its first day of release, Oct. 3. This means that in its first day alone, Showgirl‘s already seen the second-largest sales week for an album in the modern era — since Luminate began electronically tracking data in 1991. Only Adele has tracked a larger sales week since then, with 3.378 million copies of 25 sold within the first week of its release in 2015.

Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl album is off to a sparkling start in the United States. On its first day of release, Oct. 3, the set sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales (physical and digital purchases) across all versions of the album, according to initial reports to data tracking firm Luminate. That marks Swift’s biggest week ever, and the second-largest sales week for any album in the modern era — since Luminate began electronically tracking data in 1991. The only larger sales week in that span of time was registered by the opening frame of Adele’s 25, which sold 3.378 million copies in its first week in 2015.

Showgirl also stuns with a new modern-era record (1991-present) for the most copies of a vinyl album sold in a single week, having already sold 1.2 million copies on wax. That breaks the single-week record, set by Swift in 2024, when her last album, The Tortured Poets Department, sold 859,000 copies on vinyl in its first week.

Luminate’s sales, streaming and airplay data powers Billboard’s charts. All numbers in this story are for the U.S. only.

Further news of first-week building sales and streaming activity for the album, as provided by Luminate, will be reported in the coming days.

The Life of a Showgirl was announced on Aug. 12, and Swift’s official webstore began taking preorders for the album soon after. The set was issued as a widely available streaming edition and in three widely available versions to purchase across all participating retailers (a standard CD, vinyl and digital download album). There is a plethora of further variants of the album to purchase, with more details on the assorted versions later in this story.

The sales of The Life of a Showgirl will increase in the coming days, with the current tracking week ending on Thursday, Oct. 9. The album’s final first-week sales number is expected to be announced on Sunday, Oct. 12, along with its assumed large debut on the multi-metric Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Oct. 18). If The Life of a Showgirl debuts atop the Billboard 200, it will mark Swift’s 15th No. 1 album, lifting her past Drake and JAY-Z for the most No. 1 albums among soloists, and becoming the sole act with the second-most No. 1s ever. She is currently tied with Drake and JAY-Z with 14 No. 1s each, and only The Beatles, with 19 No. 1s, have more, dating to when the chart began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in 1956.

All 14 of Swift’s full-length studio albums and re-recorded projects from 2008’s Fearless (her second album) through 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department have debuted at No. 1.

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. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. 

Sales Story: The 2.7 million-sales number registered for Showgirl is inclusive of both over-the-counter and download purchases of the album made on Oct. 3, in addition to what is assumed to be a large number of pre-orders of the physical album through Internet retailers (such as Swift’s webstore, Amazon, Target, etc.) shipped to customers for arrival on release day, as well as pre-orders of the digital download album that were redeemed on release day (via the iTunes Store and other similar sellers).

After one day on sale, The Life of a Showgirl is the top-selling album of 2025 in the U.S., surpassing the 520,000 sold of The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow, through the week ending Sept. 25.

The Life of a Showgirl’s sales are bolstered by its availability across 23 different physical configurations: 12 CDs, eight vinyl LPs, two deluxe CD boxed sets containing branded clothing and a CD, and a cassette. Four of the physical editions were exclusively sold by Target stores in the U.S. (three CDs and one vinyl), while two (a standard CD and vinyl) were available to purchase at all participating retailers.

Of the remaining 17 physical iterations, all were exclusively sold via Swift’s webstore, and most were sold for limited windows of time since the preorder launched in August. Her store carried the two deluxe CD boxed sets (one contains a branded cardigan sweater and a CD, the other contains a branded crewneck and a CD); four signed CDs; four deluxe CDs in premium packaging containing a collectible charm and photo cards; six vinyl LPs; and the cassette.

On the digital download side, there is a standard digital download available to purchase through all download sellers, as well as an iTunes Store-exclusive version that comes with a short bonus video. (Of note, none of the tracks from the album are available to purchase individually.)

To compare, Swift’s last studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, had 19 different physical iterations available in its first week (nine CDs, six vinyl LPs and four cassettes) and two digital download versions (the standard 16-song album, and the surprise deluxe 31-song Anthology edition).

Vinyl Victory: Collectively, the eight vinyl LPs for Showgirl combined to sell 1.2 million copies on the album’s first day of release — immediately breaking the modern-era record for the most vinyl copies of an album sold in a single week. Swift herself previously held the record with 859,000 copies of Poets sold in its first week.

Million-Sellers Club: Even though we’re only one day down into the tracking week, The Life of a Showgirl sashays into the single-week million-sellers club. With 2.7 million already sold, Showgirl has the second-largest sales week of the modern era (1991-present). It stands behind only the opening week of Adele’s 25, which bowed with 3.378 million sold in 2015.

Showgirl is the eighth Swift album to have sold at least 1 million copies in a single week, following the debuts of Poets, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Midnights, reputation, the original 1989, Red and Speak Now. She is the only act with eight different albums to each sell at least 1 million copies in a single week in the modern era. In total, there have been 27 instances — by 25 different albums — in which an album sold at least 1 million copies in a week in the modern era. One of those albums, Adele’s 25 sold more than 1 million in three separate weeks.

Though it wasn’t released until more than two months after his death, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford says his longtime friend Ozzy Osbourne was able to hear and was, in fact, pleased with Priest’s new version of Black Sabbath‘s “War Pigs” that features Osbourne’s vocals.

“The absolute thrill for us all is he, with Sharon, listened to the final, finished mixing and he was grinning – he was smiling and he was very happy,” Halford exclusively tells Billboard. “This all came back to us in a note from Sharon, saying he was absolutely thrilled and delighted that we go to do something together musically in this particular way. So for him to do that and then two weeks later to go where he went was just unbelievable.”

Osbourne passed away on July 22 at the age of 75, just 17 days after his final performance — with his own band and Black Sabbath — at Aston Villa Park in his hometown of Birmingham, England. Judas Priest was also formed there in 1969, a year after Sabbath.

“War Pigs (Charity Version)” was released online Sept. 26, with proceeds going to Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton’s Parkinson’s Foundation and the Cure Parkinson’s nonprofit that the Osbournes support. A CD version of the single is due out later this month.

“It was very beautiful but very poignant for us to unite for the first time ever in the history of both (acts) on a song that’s beloved by millions of metalheads around the world,” Halford says. “To put these two bands — Priest and Sabbath — together in this format is just sensational.”

The new “War Pigs,” with a pre-existing recording of Osbourne singing the track from Black Sabbath’s 1970 album, Paranoid, was an outgrowth of some challenging logistics that surrounded the Back to the Beginning show.

As longtime friends and an Ozzfest veteran, Priest was, of course, asked to be part of the bill. But the band had already committed to play as part of Scorpions’ 60th anniversary show in Hannover, Germany, on the same night. And while there was some consideration to flying Priest between the two events the logistics didn’t work out.

“We were absolutely gutted that we couldn’t take part” in Back to the Beginning, Halford says. “But then we immediately thought, ‘Is there anything we can offer? Is there anything we can put to Ozzy, to Sabbath, to the event just to show the love that we have for him and the band and everybody?”

Recording “War Pigs” was a “no-brainier,” according to Halford. Judas Priest has long used the song as pre-show music before the band hits stage. “It’s just a great, huge rallying cry to get all of the metalheads ready and focused that, ‘OK, Priest’s gonna hit the stage,’” Halford says.

The group hit the studio with Andy Sneap, who’s produced Priest’s last two studio albums and tours in Tipton’s stead.

“We gave it what we call the Judas Priest-style heavy metal treatment,” Halford says. “It’s such a brilliant, classic track that you can’t really mess with it. You’ve got to stay true to the core components of the song, and that’s what we did. We added a little bit of the Priest dimension because we wanted to put something of our signature flavor into the track,” which was achieved primarily via drummer Scott Travis’ distinctive fills with some guitar nuances by Tipton and Richie Faulkner.

“Everybody did a magnificent job,” Halford notes, and Sharon Osbourne came back with one suggestion. “She said, ‘Hey, is there a possibility we can get Ozzy singing with Rob on the track?’ I was doing the happy dance, ’cause here for the first time in my life I have the opportunity to sing with Ozzy, so that’s what we did.”

And Halford was pleased by how well his vocals meshed with Osbourne’s when they were added.

“The way I sing on this particular song is in the same kind of realm as Ozzy,” he explains. “I would never say I’m trying to copy Ozzy; it’s just the way… maybe something in the water in Birmingham — or in the beer in Birmingham, ’cause we were both drinkers. But we have voices that are very, very close to match up. It’s kind of spooky — when Ozzy sings, when I sing, the way the two voices are put together it’s absolutely magical. We’re all just so happy that we were able to do justice to such a great moment in metal.”

Nevertheless, Halford says it took some time for him to be able to listen to “War Pigs (Charity Version)” after Osbourne’s death.

“I would get through 30 seconds and I would just have to switch it off because I was just so overcome with emotion,” he says. “To be in the same experience of that moment with Ozzy was just too much for me, and it was too close. I’m still grieving. It’s still very tough for me because of my friendship and my love for the man. It took me awhile to listen to the whole song in one go without any breaks, and now I can.”

Priest still plays Sabbath’s “War Pigs” before the band hits stage, and since Osbourne’s death the group has paid tribute to him — and other deceased musicians — during the song “Giants in the Sky.”

The charity component, meanwhile, came from the Priest camp and was readily agreed to by Sharon Osbourne. “It’s a great back end, as far as the good it’s going to do and… be added to that great haul of cash that was drawn up on the (Back to the Beginning) show,” Halford says.

Judas Priest is currently on tour with Alice Cooper and Corrosion of Conformity, wrapping up Oct. 25 in Houston. The group’s lone announced date for 2026 so far is the Bloodstock Open Air festival in the U.K.

Halford says he’s also hoping Priest will make a 20th studio album in the near future to follow up last year’s Invincible Shield, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Hard Rock Albums chart and No. 4 on the Top Rock Albums survey.