The soundtrack to the Netflix unique film KPop Demon Hunters, which surges into the highest 5.
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NETFLIX
With Morgan Wallen‘s I am the Downside topping the Billboard 200 albums chart but once more, and Alex Warren‘s “Bizarre” doing the identical on the Scorching 100 singles chart, there’s not a lot motion at No. 1 this week. However, amid a cluster of high 10 album debuts — by Lorde, KATSEYE and rapper Russ — there is a left-field hit with endurance: the soundtrack to the Netflix unique film KPop Demon Hunters, which surges into the highest 5.
TOP ALBUMS
For the previous few weeks, we have seen recent iterations of a well-known cycle: A number of new albums debut within the high 10, solely to drop out every week later, changed by a recent crop of debuts. In the meantime, Morgan Wallen’s I am the Downside — buoyed by large streaming numbers that hardly decline from week to week — sits, immovable, at No. 1.
Final week, three albums debuted within the high 10. However a twist emerges on this week’s Billboard 200: None of these information drop very far of their second week — and one truly rises from its debut spot, which nearly by no means occurs within the Billboard charts’ higher areas.
The titles in query: Benson Boone‘s American Coronary heart, buoyed by the hit singles “Sorry I am Right here for Somebody Else” and “Mystical Magical”; Karol G‘s Tropicoqueta, which gave the Colombian pop star a brand new all-time profession chart peak final week; and the soundtrack to the Netflix animated characteristic KPop Demon Hunters, which is the primary film soundtrack to hit the highest 10 since Depraved.
Surprisingly, the one a kind of three to depart the highest 10 in its second week is Boone, who falls this week from No. 2 to No. 14. Tropicoqueta slides simply two spots, from No. 3 to No. 5 — a formidable displaying on a chart that likes to serve up precipitous second-week drops. Then there’s KPop Demon Hunters, which climbs from No. 8 to No. 3 due to an explosion in streaming; in week two, its streaming numbers rose an astonishing 108% which portends an extended chart run than most observers would have anticipated, given how ephemeral most (although definitely not all) Okay-pop chart runs have been within the U.S.
Clearly, KPop Demon Hunters is discovering a large and devoted viewers: The movie, which made its Netflix debut on June 20, has additionally climbed from No. 6 to No. 2 on Netflix’s personal chart. That viewers has clearly completed greater than merely embrace the film; followers are additionally streaming its soundtrack like loopy. Seven of its songs cracked the Scorching 100 singles chart this week, with 5 of them making their debut.
The KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack is not this week’s solely auspicious riser, as three very completely different albums make high 10 debuts:
- Lorde’s Virgin enters the chart at No. 2, outperforming the No. 5 peak of its predecessor, 2021’s Photo voltaic Energy. The query for Lorde this time round will probably be longevity, as Virgin offered 31,000 copies on vinyl in week one and people numbers do not carry over from week to week. Successful single could be essential, and the one one she lands on this week’s Scorching 100 is “What Was That,” which reenters the chart at No. 85.
- The worldwide woman group KATSEYE debuts at No. 4 with its five-song EP Stunning Chaos. The group, whose members gained a 2023 actuality TV competitors present referred to as Dream Academy, is not technically Okay-pop, on condition that its members hail from the U.S., the Philippines, South Korea and Switzerland. However the vibe is Okay-pop — and the chart numbers are encouraging. KATSEYE’s different EP, final 12 months’s SIS (Gentle Is Robust), peaked at No. 119.
- The prolific rapper Russ returns to the chart with W!LD, his fourth album to crack the highest 10 since 2017. Russ acted in M. Night time Shyamalan’s 2024 film Lure, which is not related to Russ’ present chart efficiency however feels prefer it’s price noting as a result of Lure is among the most entertainingly horrible motion pictures to come back alongside in ages and everybody ought to watch it, with mates, to experience how ridiculous it’s.
Oh, and I am the Downside sits at No. 1 for a seventh consecutive week, and can seemingly stay No. 1 till someday after the warmth loss of life of the universe.
TOP SONGS
Need a information level as an instance the baffling doom loop by which the Billboard charts discover themselves? Certain you do!
Within the historical past of the Billboard Scorching 100 singles chart, which dates again to the summer time of 1958, simply 4 songs have sat within the high 10 for 45 or extra weeks. One is The Weeknd‘s “Blinding Lights,” which spent 57 weeks within the high 10 in 2020 and 2021. The opposite three? They’re all within the high 10 proper now.
It is definitely attainable that some sizable proportion of U.S. business radio programmers — lulled right into a stupor by streaming algorithms that preserve feeding listeners the songs they’ve already performed — died of boredom someday final fall and had been by no means changed. Regardless, the general public apparently nonetheless cannot get sufficient of Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Music (Tipsy),” with its 60 weeks within the high 10; Woman Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ “Die With a Smile,” which is a relative spring rooster at simply 45 weeks; and Teddy Swims, whose “Lose Management” simply retains extending its all-time information for weeks within the high 10 (68!) and the Scorching 100 (98!). In simply six weeks, “Lose Management” will hit the two-year mark. To organize for a becoming celebration when the time comes, let’s inflate some balloons proper now, then allow them to get all saggy and airless over the subsequent month and a half. Then, on the two-year mark, we’ll hold their limp carcasses in our properties, play “Lose Management” for the octillionth time and stare, unblinking, into the center distance.
God, what else? Alex Warren’s “Bizarre” is No. 1 for a fifth nonconsecutive week — one thing to file away for the summer time of 2027, when it is nonetheless someway lingering at No. 8 — whereas three Morgan Wallen songs fill out the highest 5 but once more. Not less than Chappell Roan‘s having a pleasant week: “Pink Pony Membership” re-enters the highest 10, whereas her nation one-off “The Giver” re-emerges within the Scorching 100 at No. 43 due to a flood of copies offered on vinyl.
WORTH NOTING
In relation to measuring the cultural and business influence of a bit of music, the Billboard charts have at all times been an inexact science — simply as box-office studies, Nielsen scores and bestseller lists do not at all times adequately measure the influence of films, TV reveals and books. The charts are only one metric amongst many, and are notably ill-suited to capturing the incremental drip-drip-drip of cult success.
Take into account the case of Jeff Buckley‘s landmark 1994 album Grace. Grace was enormously influential on music within the ’90s and past; echoes of its sound might be heard within the works of Radiohead, Coldplay and a thousand ethereal singer-songwriters. Grace isn’t any business slouch, both; over time, it has been licensed double-platinum. Buckley, who drowned in 1997, has develop into a legendary determine, as his recordings — most of them launched posthumously — have acquired deluxe reissues. A documentary about his life, It is By no means Over, Jeff Buckley, comes out subsequent month. Drip, drip, drip.
Buckley’s Billboard chart historical past displays nearly none of this influence. Varied posthumous works have charted right here and there, however none have a lot as cracked the highest 50 of the Billboard 200. Grace itself spent simply seven weeks on the chart — all of them in 1995 — and peaked at No. 149.
This week, curiously sufficient, Grace reenters the Billboard 200 for the primary time since July 1, 1995, when it sat at No. 200. In simply its eighth week on the chart, this influential, much-loved traditional sits at No. 198.
