5 Seconds of Summer ends Jay-Z, Beyonce No. 1 debut streak

NEW YORK -- Australian pop band 5 Seconds of Summer stunned Beyonce and Jay-Z by opening Sunday at the top of the US album chart, with the couple's surprise collaboration ending the superstars' streak of number one debuts.

5 Seconds of Summer had stepped up promotion of their album "Youngblood" after Jay-Z and Beyonce dropped "Everything Is Love," with the Australians telling fans they were in a close race for number one and encouraging listeners over social media to stream their songs continuously to drive up their totals.

"Youngblood" wound up selling 142,000 copies or the equivalent in downloads and streams in the week through Thursday, edging out "Everything Is Love" which clocked up 123,000 copies, tracking service Nielsen Music said.

5 Seconds of Summer, who emerged in 2011 as YouTube sensations when the then students in Sydney uploaded covers of popular songs, becomes the first Australian act to top the Billboard 200, the benchmark US chart, with three different albums.

Jay-Z and Beyonce, two of the biggest names in US pop culture, put out "Everything Is Love" with no warning on June 16 after a concert in London.

A musical celebration of their marriage, "Everything Is Love" initially came out only on Tidal, the fledgling streaming service led by Jay-Z, but went out widely including on rival Spotify on June 18 -- the fourth day of the counting period for the latest weekly chart.

"Everything Is Love" becomes the first solo studio album by Beyonce not to debut at number one. All of Jay-Z's studio albums have also opened at number one since 1998's "Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life" with the exception of a poorly reviewed 2002 collaborative album with R&B singer R. Kelly.

Beyonce and Jay-Z both opened at number one with their last solo albums, "Lemonade" and "4:44" respectively, despite refusing to stream them on Spotify.

Number three on the latest US album chart is "?" by the controversial rapper XXXTentacion, with interest spiking after he was shot dead on June 18 at age 20.

"?," which sold 94,000 copies in the week, had opened at number one in March. XXXTentacion's success took the music world by surprise with his songs full of references to suicide and the rapper awaiting trial on charges of beating his pregnant former girlfriend.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Taylor Swift's 'Reputation' sales soar, but Adele keeps her crown

LOS ANGELES - Taylor Swift’s new album “Reputation” has sold more than one million copies in its first four days, Nielsen Music said on Tuesday, but the U.S. pop star failed to beat the record set by Britain’s Adele two years ago.

Swift’s 1.05 million U.S. sales of “Reputation” came despite the singer keeping the album from streaming services and gave her the best-selling album of 2017.

But the figure was less than half the monster sales for the debut of Adele’s “25” album, which surpassed 2.43 million copies in the first four days of release in November 2015 and smashed a 15-year-old U.S. record set by boy band NSync in 2000. Adele also initially kept “25” from streaming services.

Swift, 27, recording on Nashville-based independent label Big Machine Records, now has four albums that have sold more than one million copies in their first week -- “1989,” “Red,” and “Speak Now.”

“Reputation,” her first studio album in three years, marked another transformation for Swift with songs marked by vengeance that take aim at the media and some of her haters.

Full first week sales will be available next week, when “Reputation” will top the Billboard 200 album chart.

Swift this week announced the first U.S. dates of what is expected to be a world tour to promote the album.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Adele announces 2016 live concert tour, first in 4 years

Adele, whose latest album "25" has smashed sales records in its first week of release, announced on Thursday she would begin a 15-week concert tour of Britain, Ireland and continental Europe in February.

Fans applauded the tour, Adele's first in four years, on Twitter while media sites noted that the 27-year-old singer appeared to have overcome her self-professed fear of performing before large crowds.

Adele, announcing the tour in a brief video on her website, said the reports of her fear of performing had been exaggerated.

Go to https://t.co/l21mEjQSCp for details pic.twitter.com/3RAuxqGpMg

— Adele (@Adele) November 26, 2015

"Hello it's me," she says in the clip, standing in front of a map of Europe and the British Isles.

"I have been bluffing this whole time and I'm so relieved to finally tell you I am of course coming on tour and I can't wait to see all of you there."

The tour will open on Feb. 29 at the SSE Arena in Belfast and will end at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp, Belgium, a notice sent to subscribers to her website said.

Other concerts will be elsewhere in Britain and in Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and France, the notice said.

Fans were jubilant, with one tweet saying: "Omg. Next year Adele is gonna sing in Verona on 28-29 May! Can you imagine all the Arena singing #HELLO?! Italia's waiting for the queen!"

Adele broke the single-week U.S. album sales record in just four days with "25", Nielsen Music said on Tuesday, with sales at 2,430,000 since its release on Friday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com