The soundtrack to the Netflix unique film KPop Demon Hunters surges into the highest 5.
NETFLIX
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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 “Odd” doing the identical on the Sizzling 100 singles chart, there’s not a lot motion at No. 1 this week. However, amid a cluster of prime 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-recognized cycle: A couple of new albums debut within the prime 10, solely to drop out per week later, changed by a recent crop of debuts. In the meantime, Morgan Wallen’s I am the Downside — buoyed by big streaming numbers that hardly decline from week to week — sits, immovable, at No. 1.
Final week, three albums debuted within the prime 10. However a twist emerges on this week’s Billboard 200: None of these data 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 function KPop Demon Hunters, which is the primary film soundtrack to hit the highest 10 since Depraved.
Surprisingly, the one a type 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 powerful 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 actually not all) Ok-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 finished greater than merely embrace the film; followers are additionally streaming its soundtrack like loopy. Seven of its songs cracked the Sizzling 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 prime 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 can be longevity, as Virgin offered 31,000 copies on vinyl in week one and people numbers do not carry over from week to week. A success single can be essential, and the one one she lands on this week’s Sizzling 100 is “What Was That,” which reenters the chart at No. 85.
The worldwide lady group KATSEYE debuts at No. 4 with its five-song EP Lovely Chaos. The group, whose members received a 2023 actuality TV competitors present referred to as Dream Academy, is not technically Ok-pop, on condition that its members hail from the U.S., the Philippines, South Korea and Switzerland. However the vibe is Ok-pop — and the chart numbers are encouraging. KATSEYE’s different EP, final 12 months’s SIS (Gentle Is Sturdy), 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. Evening Shyamalan’s 2024 film Entice, which is not related to Russ’ present chart efficiency however feels prefer it’s price noting as a result of Entice is without doubt one of the most entertainingly horrible motion pictures to come back alongside in ages and everybody ought to watch it, with pals, to experience how ridiculous it’s.
Oh, and I am the Downside sits at No. 1 for a seventh consecutive week, and can doubtless stay No. 1 till someday after the warmth dying of the universe.
TOP SONGS
Desire a information level for example the baffling doom loop during which the Billboard charts discover themselves? Positive you do!
Within the historical past of the Billboard Sizzling 100 singles chart, which dates again to the summer time of 1958, simply 4 songs have sat within the prime 10 for 45 or extra weeks. One is The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” which spent 57 weeks within the prime 10 in 2020 and 2021. The opposite three? They’re all within the prime 10 proper now.
It is actually doable that some sizable share of U.S. industrial radio programmers — lulled right into a stupor by streaming algorithms that hold feeding listeners the songs they’ve already performed — died of boredom someday final fall and have been by no means changed. Regardless, the general public apparently nonetheless cannot get sufficient of Shaboozey’s “A Bar Track (Tipsy),” with its 60 weeks within the prime 10; Girl Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile,” which is a relative spring hen at simply 45 weeks; and Teddy Swims, whose “Lose Management” simply retains extending its all-time data for weeks within the prime 10 (68!) and the Sizzling 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 grasp 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 “Odd” is No. 1 for a fifth nonconsecutive week — one thing to file away for the summer time of 2027, when it is nonetheless in some way lingering at No. 8 — whereas three Morgan Wallen songs fill out the highest 5 but once more. At the very least 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 Sizzling 100 at No. 43 due to a flood of copies offered on vinyl.
WORTH NOTING
With regards to measuring the cultural and industrial affect of a chunk of music, the Billboard charts have at all times been an inexact science — simply as box-office experiences, Nielsen scores and bestseller lists do not at all times adequately measure the affect 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.
Contemplate 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 will be heard within the works of Radiohead, Coldplay and a thousand ethereal singer-songwriters. Grace isn’t any industrial slouch, both; over time, it has been licensed double-platinum. Buckley, who drowned in 1997, has turn out to be a legendary determine, as his recordings — most of them launched posthumously — have obtained 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 affect. Numerous 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 basic sits at No. 198.
