EGN NEWS DESK
An old school rap conflict that unfolded on-line at lightning velocity has despatched Kendrick Lamar to No. 1 on Billboard’s newest singles chart, whereas Taylor Swift simply holds off a problem from Dua Lipa’s new album.
Relations between Lamar and Drake, two hip-hop giants and longtime rivals, exploded right into a public confrontation in current weeks, within the type of a rapid-fire sequence of diss tracks filled with insults and unsavory (and unproven) accusations. Lamar appeared to get the final phrase with “Not Like Us,” launched May 4, which turns into his fourth No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart. That complete counts collaborative releases — amongst them “Like That,” a monitor in March with the Atlanta rapper Future and the producer Metro Boomin, which kicked off the most recent volley.
Consumption of “Not Like Us” was pushed by streaming, with 71 million clicks within the United States final week. Another Lamar diss monitor, “Euphoria,” which got here out the week earlier than, is No. 3 on the most recent singles chart, whereas Drake’s “Family Matters” is No. 7.
For this week’s Billboard 200 album chart, Lipa appeared to enter the competition with some benefits for “Radical Optimism,” her third studio LP. To put it up for sale, she went on “Saturday Night Live” as each performer and host, and was on the duvet of Time and Elle. Earlier this 12 months, she had outstanding performances on the Grammy and Brit award exhibits, and appeared on the duvet of Rolling Stone.
But “Radical Optimism” was nonetheless trounced by the third week of Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” which holds at No. 1 with a large margin.
“Tortured Poets” had the equal of 282,000 album gross sales within the United States, together with 298 million streams and 51,000 conventional gross sales, in keeping with the monitoring service Luminate. In its first three weeks out, “Tortured Poets” — which smashed data in its debut two weeks in the past, regardless of combined critiques — has racked up the equal of three.3 million gross sales, together with 1.6 billion streams for its 31 complete tracks within the U.S. alone.
“Radical Optimism,” Lipa’s first LP since “Future Nostalgia” 4 years in the past, which had ubiquitous dance-pop hits like “Don’t Start Now” and “Levitating” — and since Lipa’s hit “Dance the Night” from the “Barbie” soundtrack — had the equal of 83,000 gross sales and opened at No. 2, Lipa’s highest-ever chart place.
But the general numbers for “Radical Optimism” have been surprisingly low for a closely promoted undertaking by a significant act. In its first week, the LP had 51,500 conventional gross sales — amongst them for 20 configurations on bodily media, together with 11 coloured vinyl variants — and a really modest streaming take of about 40 million clicks. The chart efficiency of the album’s first two singles have been indicators: “Houdini” went to No. 11, whereas “Training Season” stalled at No. 27.
Also this week, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 3 and Future and Metro Boomin’s “We Don’t Trust You” is No. 4. The Okay-pop ensemble Seventeen opens at No. 5 with a hits compilation, “17 Is Right Here.”
