Music

BTS Earns First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart With 'Love Yourself: Tear'. It's the first K-pop album to top the chart. Korean boy band BTS debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with its latest effort, Love Yourself: Tear. It's the first No. 1 for the seven-member group, and the first K-pop album to lead the tally. The set, which was released through BitHit Entertainment on May 18, launches with 135,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending May 24, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 100,000 were in traditional album sales. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new June 2-dated chart (where BTS bows at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard's websites on Wednesday, May 30 (one day later than normal, owed to the May 29 Memorial Day holiday in the U.S.). Love Yourself: Tear's first-week sum is a bit bigger than expected. On May 21, some industry forecasters predicted the album would bow with over 100,000 units. By May 24, that forecast grew to over 120,000. Of Love Yourself: Tear's starting sum of 135,000 units, 100,000 were in traditional album sales, 26,000 were in SEA units (equaling 39.1 million on-demand audio streams for songs on the albums) and 9,000 TEA units. As mentioned earlier, Love Yourself: Tear is the first K-pop album to lead the Billboard 200. It's also only the second top 10 for the K-pop genre, following BTS' own Love Yourself: Her, which debuted and peaked at No. 7 on the Oct. 7, 2017-dated list. Love Yourself: Tear also logs the biggest week yet for K-pop (both in overall units and traditional album sales). The previous high-water mark was earned by BTS' Love Yourself: Her (31,000 units in its opening frame, 18,000 in traditional album sales). Notably, as Love Yourself: Tear is performed mostly in the Korean language, it's the first primarily foreign-language No. 1 album in over 12 years. In 2006, classical crossover vocal quartet Il Divo topped the list with Ancora (on the chart dated Feb. 11, 2006), which blends songs performed in Spanish, Italian and French, along with a track sung partially in English. Back on the new Billboard 200 chart, Post Malone's former No. 1, beerbongs & bentleys, drops to No. 2 (123,000 units; down 17 percent) after three consecutive weeks atop the list. The album was the first by an artist to notch three weeks in a row at No. 1 since December, when Taylor Swift's reputation linked together three frames (of its total four at No. 1). Rapper Lil Baby bounces in at No. 3 with his debut studio album, and first top 10, Harder Than Ever. The set earned 71,000 units, powered largely by streams (65,000 SEA units), thanks in part to the popularity of the set's track "Yes Indeed," with Drake. The track debuted at No. 30 on the Streaming Songs chart dated May 26 and is expected to make a huge leap up the newest tally (dated June 2). Harder Than Ever also features guest turns from Young Thug, Moneybagg Yo, Lil Uzi Vert and Offset. Lil Baby previously hit the Billboard 200 with the mixtape Too Hard, which peaked at No. 80 on Dec. 23, 2017. Rock band Five Finger Death Punch notches its sixth top 10 album, as And Justice for None debuts at No. 4 with 71,000 units (60,000 in traditional album sales). The band previously hit the region with Got Your Six (No. 2, 2015), The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell: Volume 2 (No. 2, 2013), The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell: Volume 1 (No. 2, 2013), American Capitalist (No. 3, 2011) and War Is the Answer (No. 7, 2009). The group's only studio album to miss the top 10 was its debut effort, The Way of the Fist, which topped out at No. 107 in 2008. Cardi B's Invasion of Privacy climbs 7-5 on the new Billboard 200 with 48,000 units (down 9 percent), The Greatest Showman soundtrack moves 5-6 with 44,000 units (down 17 percent) and J. Cole's KOD dips 6-7 with 41,000 units (down 22 percent). Rapper NAV rounds out the debuts in the top 10, as his first studio album, Reckless, starts at No. 8 with 36,000 units (32,000 in SEA units). The set features his Hot 100 hit "Wanted You," featuring Lil Uzi Vert, as well as guest turns from Quavo, Travis Scott and Gunna. Closing out the new top 10: Black Panther: The Album is steady at No. 9 with 28,000 units (down 15 percent), while Playboi Carti's Die Lit falls 3-10 in its second week with 26,000 units (down 57 percent). (Billboard)

Willie Nelson bailed on his show Saturday night in Charlotte, North Carolina ... apparently due to illness. The 85-year-old country legend was set to perform at the Outlaw Music Festival and even readied his guitar with his red, white and blue strap ... but quickly unstrapped himself, hurled his hat into the crowd and walked off stage. He seemed pissed, but Live Nation Carolina said Willie was under the weather and just couldn't put on a performance. Live Nation asked fans to hold on to their tickets for a new concert date. It's unclear if they've offered refunds. Some of the concertgoers said he had walked off stage earlier in the evening but walked right back off. They say they waited an hour the second time around before someone said the concert was off. A rep for Willie tells TMZ Willie had a stomach bug but he's now well enough that he'll perform Sunday night in Washington D.C. He also promises to do a make good for his North Carolina fans. (TMZ)

Shawn Mendes Sets the Record Straight on His Relationship Status as New Album Drops. For the record: Shawn Mendes is a single man. As the "In My Blood" singer continues to celebrate the release of his new self-titled album, fans want to know any and all details about his relationship status. After walking the red carpet with Hailey Baldwin at the 2018 Met Gala, Shawn is setting the record straight once and for all. "I am single," he shared with E! News' Sibley Scoles. "The Met Ball was such an incredible experience for me. It was just overwhelming in the most incredible way. I was so lucky for my first time going there to be able to go with someone like Hailey because she's such a vet and I really admire people like her because of how outgoing she is in such an overwhelming experience." Shawn continued, "She was forcing me to get up and talk to people I would have been terrified to speak to or say high to, so I got to meet so many cool people because of her. She's super special, so sweet." Now that we got that out of the way, can we finally talk about his highly anticipated new album?! Fans have already been jamming out to songs including "In My Blood" and "Youth." In addition, some of the tracks are written about situations that Shawn has experienced in real life. "There's multiple tracks that are about situations that are going on in my life, which were terrifying because it's clear who I'm writing about within me and that person," he teased to E! News. "It sounds so cliche, but life is just really short and just to sit there and not say exactly how you feel is not helpful because you need to get past things. You need to either figure out if it's going to work or you need to figure out if it's not so you can move forward. Now is kind of it." Shawn continued, "I'm just going to stick with that forever now. When I'm creating music -- even when I'm talking to people -- I'm just going to be honest because there's no point in making things last longer than they need to." If you like what you hear, make sure to see Shawn perform live when he headlines his third global tour in 2019. Tickets are on sale now. (Eonline)

Adam Levine Takes On Carpool Karaoke and Causes a Traffic Hazard. She will be loved indeed. Adam Levine finally joined James Corden for The Late Late Show's Carpool Karaoke, and together they proved they're just a couple really cool dads. The Maroon 5 frontman broke out some of the band's biggest hits, like "Moves Like Jagger," "Sugar," "This Love," "She Will Be Loved," and the more recent "Wait." The duo even got pulled over by a cop, but only so the cop could ask for a song and pass on a warning about not causing traffic hazards. Levine and Corden then headed to a race track where Levine drove extremely fast while Corden quizzed him on general knowledge questions like "when is your wife's birthday?" and "What school does Harry Potter attend?" Turns out Levine is not quite a Harry Potter fan, but he does at least know that wife Behati Prinsloo's birthday is May 16, so that's good! The Late Late Show airs at 12:37 a.m. weeknights on CBS. (Eonline)

A$AP Rocky's New Album 'Testing' Is Here. A$AP Rocky's new album Testing is now available in full. Earlier this week at his Lab Rat performance art piece at Sotheby's in New York, the Harlem rapper announced the album's release date, which follows singles "Bad Company," "Herojuana Blunts" and "A$AP Forever," which contains a sample of Big Beat superstar Moby. The full album includes a dizzying list of guest features from artists like Skepta, Dev Hynes, FKA Twigs, Frank Ocean, and more, and looks to take the rapper into more experimental terrain. Earlier this year, he told GQ, "I prefer to experiment and have my crowd grow with me and to reach new crowds. I don't just rap -- I actually make music. That's why it takes time. These sonics represent me." (Billboard)

Spotify to Move Back on XXXTentacion Policy After Outcry. Spotify might be moving back on its decision to remove artists from its playlists. After instituting a new policy for handling "hate content" and "hateful conduct" earlier this month, the company removed artists like Kelly and XXXTentacion from its editorial and algorithmically-determined playlists, leading to public outcry from the music industry. Now, Spotify is telling industry executives that it will eventually restore songs by XXXTentacion to playlists, as Bloomberg reports. Spotify executives are currently speaking with both the music industry and civil-rights activists to determine the best course of action in the circumstances. According to Bloomberg, the policy changes are still being determined and final decisions have yet to be made. There are also no plans to further promote R. Kelly on the platform. The issue has also sparked an internal backlash at Spotify, with the company's head of artist relations Troy Carter announcing plans to potentially leave the company. "It is virtually impossible to police millions of songs, lyrics, contributors and artists," said Vickie Neumann, an industry consultant who has worked with Spotify in the past. "Where and how do you draw the line?," Neumann continued. "I support taking a stand and not willingly sponsoring a known violent artist, but it's quite unclear to me how you can consistently monitor and apply any sort of similar editorial/social/cultural standards across art on any scale." Read Bloomberg's full report here. (Billboard)

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