Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers.Credit Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Four years ago, the Lumineers, an earnest indie-folk band from Denver, scored a left-field pop hit with the song “Ho Hey,” which went to No. 3 with help from its placement on TV shows and commercials.
But the arrival of the band’s new album, “Cleopatra” (Dualtone), shows that the song’s success
was not a fluke. “Cleopatra” opened at No. 1 on the Billboard chart with 108,000 sales and 17.4 million streams, according to Nielsen, making it the band’s first time at the top of the
chart; the band’s self-titled first album rose to No. 2 and eventually sold 1.7 million copies. (“Cleopatra” is also No. 1 in Canada and Britain.)
Also this week, the metal band Deftones opens at No. 2 with “Gore” (Warner Bros.), which had 69,000 sales and 2.9 million streams. Chris Stapleton’s “Traveller” (Mercury Nashville)
fell one spot to No. 3, while Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” (Def Jam) — last week’s No. 1, which reached the top primarily on the strength of streaming — dropped to fourth place. Rihanna’s “Anti” (Roc Nation) is No. 5.
The cover of the Allen Toussaint album that is to be released in June.Credit Nonesuch
Records
The final recordings of Allen Toussaint, the sage New Orleans songwriter, singer and pianist who died in November at age
77, will be released on June 10, in the album “American Tunes” (Nonesuch).
The album features Mr. Toussaint’s interpretations of a range of American music, including songs by Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Professor Longhair and Paul Simon (whose “American Tune,”
from 1973, gives the album its title). It also features two of Mr. Toussaint’s own songs, his hit “Southern Nights” and “Delores’ Boyfriend,” as well as Danza, Op.
33, a piece by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the 19th-century composer who was born in New Orleans. The singer Rhiannon Giddens and the arranger and pianist Van Dyke Parks make guest appearances.
The album, produced by Joe Henry, a frequent collaborator of Mr. Toussaint over the last decade, was recorded in two sets of sessions, the first in New Orleans in 2013 and the second in Los Angeles in October
2015, just a month before Mr. Toussaint died while on tour in Madrid. In an interview this week Mr. Henry said that the album had grown out of longstanding conversations about Mr. Toussaint’s interests
as an interpreter, particularly of the music of the New Orleans piano master Professor Longhair.
The sessions, Mr. Henry added, proceeded with no indication of any health problems.
“He seemed as energetic and buoyant and focused as he ever seemed to me,” Mr. Henry said. “Nothing gave away a notion that he might not be well, or that we might be writing his last statement,
as it were.”
Kanye WestCredit Matt Sayles/Invision, via Associated Press
The release of Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” has been the messiest and most fascinating album rollout in recent memory. And now, with a historic arrival on the Billboard chart, it has only gotten more interesting.
It started in February, when Mr. West unveiled the album at Madison Square Garden in an event that also introduced his latest sportswear collection for Adidas. He put the album on the streaming service Tidal
but kept toying with it, adding and changing songs, remaking the artifact in public. At the same time Mr. West promised that the
album would “never be for sale” and “never never never be on Apple.”
The music industry was skeptical, but in the successive weeks “Pablo” became a hit, at least on Tidal. According to the service, songs from the album were streamed 400 million times,
including 250 million in the first 10 days. But because the numbers were not certified by Nielsen, it did not qualify for Billboard’s chart.
But on April 1 the album was finally released widely, including on Apple Music, Spotify and other streaming services, as well as for sale on Tidal and Mr. West’s website. It has now opened at No. 1 on
Billboard’s chart, with the distinction of being the first release to reach the top primarily on the strength of streaming.
In its first seven days of wide availability “The Life of Pablo” (Def Jam) had 99.5 million streams in the United States, as well as 28,000 sales, according to Nielsen and Billboard, making the
album Mr. West’s seventh consecutive No. 1. Using its formula of equating 1,500 song streams with one album sale, the magazine credits “Pablo” with the equivalent of 94,000 sales for
the week, which means that 70 percent of its activity came from streaming. That is by far a record, beating Rihanna’s “Anti,” which three weeks ago scored nearly 45 percent of its total
from streaming.
On Twitter, Mr. West celebrated the victory…
I’m so happy that you guys like the music… I’m working on the tour designs now…
Also this week, the country singer Chris Stapleton jumped six spots to No. 2 with “Traveller,” after he performed and won six awards at the Academy of Country Music Awards. And three new albums
— all self-titled — opened high on the chart: Lukas Graham (“7 Years”) starts at No. 3; Weezer is No. 4 with its latest, nicknamed the White Album;
and Twenty88 — the duo of the rapper Big Sean and the singer Jhené Aiko — is No. 5. Rihanna’s “Anti” is in sixth place, and Zayn’s “Mind of Mine,”
last week’s chart-topper, falls to No. 7 in its second week out.
Zayn, a former member of One Direction, performing at the iHeartRadio Theater in New York.Credit Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Zayn, the first member of the superstar boy band One Direction to release a solo album, has reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart.
Zayn’s “Mind of Mine” sold 112,000 albums and had
40.8 million streams in the United States, according to Nielsen, giving the album an easy ride to No. 1. According to Billboard, it is the first time that a British male solo artist has opened at the top
of the chart with his solo album, and Zayn — you parents knew him as Zayn Malik before he left One Direction a year ago — also opened at No. 1 in Britain and six other countries around the
world, according to his label, RCA.
Rihanna’s song “Work” is the No. 1 single for the seventh week in a row, with
96,000 downloads and more than 28 million streams. Rihanna’s album, “Anti” (Roc Nation),
holds at No. 3 on the album chart in its 10th week out.
Also on the album chart this week, the R&B singer K. Michelle opened at No. 2 with her third solo album, “More Issues Than Vogue” (Atlantic), while Justin Bieber’s “Purpose”
(RBMG/Def Jam) is No. 4 and Adele’s “25” (XL/Columbia) is in fifth place. Among the other high-charting new releases, the rapper Young Thug opened at No. 7 with “Slime Season
3” (300 Entertainment) and the British metal band Asking Alexandria is No. 9 with “The Black” (Sumerian).
Bob Dylan, performing at “Les Vieilles Charrues,” a festival in France, in 2012.Credit David Vincent/Associated Press
Bob Dylan is on the move yet again, with a new album and tour.
After returning from a series of concerts in Japan in April, Mr. Dylan, 74, will embark on a 27-date American tour in June and July, in support of a coming album, “Fallen Angels,” according to
a brief announcement on Mr. Dylan’s website on Monday.
The tour, featuring Mavis Staples as the opening act, will start with two shows at the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery in Woodinville, Wash., on June 4 and 5, and continue through July 17, with a performance at
the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford, N.H. The tour will include a stop on July 8 at the Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, where Mr. Dylan last played on Aug. 28, 1965. Tickets for the shows will
go on sale at various times, with the first of them selling on Friday.
Mr. Dylan’s website gives little information about “Fallen Angels,” even a release date. The album is his first since “Shadows in the Night,”
a year ago, with covers of traditional pop standards associated with Frank Sinatra, including “I’m a Fool to Want You” — one of the very few songs in which Sinatra has a writing
credit. One perk: for most shows, customers buying a pair of tickets will get a “redemption code” for the CD, the announcement said.
Some sleuthing fans, looking at recent statements from Dylan collaborators like the producer Daniel Lanois, have surmised that “Fallen Angels” will be another standards record.
The title, for one thing, may be a reference to the 1945 film noir “Fallen Angel” by Otto Preminger, who also directed Sinatra in “The Man With the Golden Arm.” (What’s
a new Dylan announcement without some mystery?)
Last week, it was revealed that Mr. Dylan’s vast personal archives of lyrics, correspondence, audio tapes
and films were being acquired by a group of institutions in Tulsa, Okla., and would become available for scholarly study after about two years of cataloging and digitization.
Kendrick Lamar is one of the headliners of the first-ever Panorama music festival in New YorkCredit Jacob Blickenstaff for The New York Times
Arcade Fire, Kendrick Lamar and LCD Soundsystem will be the headliners for the first Panorama music festival at Randalls Island, from July 22 through July 24, an event from the promoter behind Coachella that
has been the subject of months of behind-the-scenes intrigue in the music business.
The fest, which will also feature Alabama Shakes, Major Lazer, the National, Sufjan Stevens, Sia, ASAP Rocky and Mike D of the Beastie Boys, among others, is taking place just seven weeks after Governors Ball,
a six-year-old event from a small New York promoter that is also being held at Randalls Island, with a lineup that this year will include Kanye West, the Strokes and Beck.
Can New York, a city where music festivals have historically had a hard time establishing themselves, and where the summer is filled
with free concerts, support two large-scale, multiday music events? It will soon become clear as tickets go on sale and consumers make their choices.
To distinguish itself from its local competitor, Panorama is looking to the influence of high technology as a theme, with what organizers described in an announcement on Tuesday morning as tech-inspired art
and an interactive installation called the Future Lab, presented in partnership with The Verge, a technology news website. The festival will also collaborate with The Verge and the fashion and media brand
Milk Studios on a private party the night before the first show.
The festival had been planned for Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, and was named after the Panorama of the City of New York, a large-scale model of the city housed at the Queens Museum. But those plans
were abandoned after months of activity in public and private. A.E.G. hired a well-connected lobbyist,
Harold M. Ickes, to represent it among city officials, while Founders Entertainment, the promoters of Governors Ball, publicly called for the city to block what it called the “aggressive, greedy” move to the market by a much bigger competitor.
Meanwhile, Founders and the Madison Square Garden Company also made applications to the city for festivals at Corona Park, but in January the Parks Department decided to reject all applications for multiday
festivals there, sending Panorama to its Plan B location, Randalls Island. The competition between the promoters comes as festivals have grown to be the fastest-growing and most influential part of the concert
business. Last year, Coachella sold $84 million in tickets to its two weekends of shows in Indio, Calif., by far the biggest festival take in the country, according to data from Pollstar, a trade publication.
Tickets for Panorama, beginning at $369 for the weekend, go on sale Friday at the festival’s website, panorama.nyc, and include admission to the Queens Museum
to view the festival’s namesake exhibit.
Adele won four BRIT Awards in London last week for her album “25.”Credit Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
Another week, another No. 1 for Adele.
Adele’s blockbuster album “25” (XL/Columbia) is No. 1 on Billboard’s chart this week for a 10th time, with 81,000 copies sold and 8.1 million streams, according to Nielsen. Since
it came out in November, the album has sold more than 8.3 million copies in the United States alone.
Since 2000, only five albums have notched 10 weeks at the top, and four of them are by either Adele or Taylor Swift. Adele’s “21,” from 2011, had a total of 24 weeks, Ms. Swift’s
“1989” (2014) and “Fearless” (2008) both had 11, and Disney’s “Frozen” soundtrack (2013) had 13 weeks, according to Billboard.
Also this week, Rihanna’s “Anti” and Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” switch places, with “Anti” (Roc Nation) rising one spot to No. 2, and “Purpose”
(RBMG/Def Jam) falling to No. 3 in its 15th week on the chart. The Memphis rapper Yo Gotti opens at No. 4 this week with “The Art of the Hustle” (CMG/Epic), and the country singer-songwriter
Chris Stapleton holds at No. 5 with “Traveller” (Mercury Nashville).
Adele, whose “25” is back at the top of the chart for a ninth time.Credit Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Adele’s performance at the Grammy Awards may have been plagued by audio problems, but her
fans apparently did not mind much, sending Adele’s album “25” back to the top of the chart for a ninth time. (The fact that Valentine’s Day fell during the sales week also helped.)
“25” (XL/Columbia) is credited with the equivalent of 151,000 sales last week, representing 125,000 copies sold of the full album as well as downloads of individual tracks and streams of her singles,
according to Nielsen. Since “25” came out in November it has sold more than 8.2 million copies in the United States alone.
One notable absence from the chart is Kanye West’s latest album, “The Life of Pablo,” which
was released a week ago through an exclusive deal with the streaming service Tidal. Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard’s vice president of charts and data development, said in a statement: “Billboard
has been informed that Tidal is not currently reporting streams for tracks on Kanye’s album to Nielsen Music. Therefore streams from Tidal for this title will not contribute to Billboard’s
chart rankings at this time.”
The absence of Mr. West’s album from the charts comes a few weeks after Rihanna’s “Anti,” which also initially came out through a Tidal exclusive, but — after just a sliver of time on sale during its first week — opened at a humbling No. 27 with under 1,000 copies sold, before going to No. 1 in its second week. Rihanna and Mr. West are partners in Tidal, along with Jay Z, Madonna, Daft Punk, Jack White and other music stars.
Also this week, Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” (RBMG/Def Jam) is No. 2, and Rihanna’s “Anti” (Roc Nation) holds at No. 3. Rihanna’s single “Work,” featuring
Drake, also rises to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
Joey + Rory, a country duo who are a married couple, opened at No. 4 with “Hymns That Are Important to Us” (Gaither); it has been announced as the group’s final recording, after a terminal cancer diagnosis for Joey Feek, one of its members.
David GuettaCredit Michael Nagle for The New York Times
David Guetta, Afrojack, Zedd, Kaskade, DJ Snake, Dillon Francis and Eric Prydz will be among the more than 60 performers at Electric Daisy Carnival, the electronic music festival that will be held at Citi Field in Queens on May 14 and 15, the event’s organizers announced on Thursday.
For its fifth edition in the New York area, the festival — which last year was at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. — will have an expanded layout with four stages with names like neonGARDEN
and cosmicMEADOW, in Electric Daisy’s standard techno-futuristic fashion. Tickets are available at $229 for the weekend or $459 for V.I.P. passes, at electricdaisycarnival.com.
Among the other performers this year are Paul van Dyk, Madeon, Bro Safari, Alison Wonderland, Jauz, Caspa B2B Rusko, Gouryella, the Martinez Brothers and Marshmello.
Electric Daisy, which began in the 1990s, has grown into one of the dance world’s biggest and most widely known brand names. Its signature Las Vegas festival, held over three days, drew about 135,000
people a day last year, and also resulted in more than 1,400 people needing medical treatment, 75 arrests and one death, according to news reports.
Other Electric Daisy events this year are scheduled for Britain, Mexico and Japan.
Electric Daisy also comes as the New York festival market, which has lagged behind the rest of the country’s, is undergoing significant changes. This year the six-year-old Governors Ball festival, held
on Randalls Island in June, will be facing its first local competition from Panorama,
another event to be held at the same location just seven weeks later, from the producers of the Coachella festival.
And this week the producers behind Governors Ball made the announcement that they were canceling FarmBorough, a country festival that had been scheduled
for June 17 through June 19, featuring Toby Keith, Tim McGraw and Jason Aldean, with no explanation other than that “conditions dictate that we redirect our energy at this time.”
Rihanna, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles last year.Credit Rich Fury/Invision,
via Associated Press
Last week, Rihanna’s starting position on the Billboard chart took a painful hit, with
her long-anticipated new album, “Anti” (Roc Nation), reaching just No.
27. But on the latest chart, after accounting for the album’s first full week of sales, “Anti” sailed straight to No. 1, with 124,000 copies sold and 14.2 million streams in the United
States, according to Nielsen.
“Anti” was the talk of the music industry when it finally came out late last month, after a drawn-out publicity campaign and a last-minute leak through the streaming service Tidal (in which Rihanna
is a partner). A promotional deal with Samsung gave fans one million free downloads of the album, but those did not count toward its chart total: Billboard’s rules disqualify such giveaways, as the
magazine did in 2013 for Jay Z’s “Magna Carta … Holy Grail,” which
had a similar arrangement with Samsung.
In another complication for “Anti,” when the album was released to the general public, just hours remained in Nielsen’s accounting week. As a result, only 460 sales in the United States
counted toward the album’s first chart appearance, giving Rihanna — who for the last decade has been a Top 5 regular — the lowest start of her career.
A poor opening like that can damage the release campaign for any major star, Rihanna included. (A public business spat usually doesn’t help, either: In the days after the album leaked, both Tidal and
Universal Music, which is distributing “Anti” through its Def Jam subsidiary, broke decorum by blaming each other for the mistake.) But as of Week 2, Rihanna’s majesty has been restored as she rules the chart once again.
Also this week, the Louisiana rapper Kevin Gates opened at No. 2 with “Islah” (Bread Winners’ Association), his first studio album after years of mixtapes, and Adele is No. 3 with “25”
(XL/Columbia), which this week passes eight million sales. Sia, the Australian singer and songwriter, opened at No. 4 with her new solo album, “This Is Acting” (Monkey Puzzle/RCA), while Charlie Puth, who sang the hook on last year’s Wiz Khalifa hit “See You Again,” opened at No. 6 with his debut, “Nine Track Mind” (Atlantic).
Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” (RMBG/Def Jam) fell three spots this week to No. 5.
