USA
Billboard Report (excerpt)
'Butter' tops Billboard Hot 100 for 9th week
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
by Keith Caulfield & Gary Trust, Los Angeles

"Butter" is the longest-leading hit of 2021, besting the rule of Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License." BTS' "Butter" spends a ninth week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart. It now

boast the longest command of 2021 outright, passing the eight-week reign of Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" in January-March. "Butter," released on BigHit Music / Columbia Records, drew 30.5 million radio airplay audience impressions (down 1%) and 8.1 million U.S. streams (down 8%) in the week ending July 29, according to MRC Data. The single holds at No. 21 on the Radio Songs chart and drops 40-44 on Streaming Songs. "Butter" also sold 112,900 in the tracking week (down 2%), and tallies a ninth week atop Digital Song Sales. Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow bound onto the Hot 100 at No. 2 with "Industry Baby," which, following its July 23 release, opens with 40.6 million streams, 2.9 million in radio audience and 10,900 sold. The celebratory anthem starts at No. 1 on Streaming Songs and No. 6 on Digital Song Sales. Lil Nas X lands his fourth Hot 100 top 10. His debut smash "Old Town Road," featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, spent a record 19 weeks at No.1

in April-August 2019 and "Montero (Call Me by Your Name)" led for a week upon its entrance this April. In between, he sandwiched the No. 5-peaking "Panini" in September 2019. Harlow adds his second Hot 100 top 10, and ties his best career rank, after his breakthrough hit "Whats Poppin," featuring DaBaby, Tory Lanez and Lil Wayne, reached No. 2 in July 2020. Olivia Rodrigo's "Good 4 U," which topped the Hot 100 in its debut week debut week in May, retreats 2-3 and The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber's "Stay" holds at No. 4, two weeks after it bowed at No. 3. "Stay" claims dual top Airplay and Sales Gainer honors, up 25% to 27.6 million in radio reach and 11% to 8,500 sold. Dua Lipa's "Levitating," featuring DaBaby, slips 3-5 on the Hot 100, after reaching No. 2, as it logs a sixth week at No. 1 on Radio Songs (80.4 million audience impressions, down 1%). Rounding out the Hot 100's top 10, Doja Cat's "Kiss Me More," featuring SZA, descends 5-6, after hitting No. 3; Ed Sheeran's "Bad Habits" backtracks 6-7, after it debuted at its No. 5 high; Lil Nas X's "Montero" holds at No. 8; BTS' "Permission to Dance" dips 7-9, two weeks after it blasted in at No. 1; and Olivia Rodrigo's "Deja Vu" drops 9-10, after reaching No. 3. A little over a year after The Kid LAROI’s F**k Love album was released, it surges from No. 26 to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for its first week atop the list, following multiple reissues that added additional tracks to the project. The set, now in its 53rd week on the chart, earned 85,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending July 29 (up 409%), according to MRC Data. Streaming activity powers the bulk of that figure. F**k Love was originally released on July 24, 2020, as a 15-track album and debuted at No. 8 on the Aug. 8, 2020-dated chart. It was reissued on Nov. 6, 2020, with seven additional tracks and bounded 81-3 on the Nov. 21, 2020, chart - its peak until this week. It was then reissued a third and fourth time this July 23 and July 27, adding seven and six tracks, respectively, including his current Billboard Hot 100 top five hit “Stay,” with Justin Bieber. The album’s total tracklist now stands at 35. Of F**k Love’s 85,000 equivalent album units earned in the tracking week ending July 29, SEA units comprise nearly 82,000 (up 403%, equaling 113.97 million on-demand streams of the album’s tracks), album sales comprise 2,000 (up 978%) and TEA units comprise just under 2,000 (up 458%). F**k Love is the first album to be No. 1 without also debuting on top since the Nov. 30, 2019-dated chart, when the soundtrack to Frozen II rose 3-1 in its third week on the list. F**k Love is also the first album to reach No. 1 more than a year after its release since Prince’s The Very Best of Prince re-entered at No. 1 on the May 7, 2016, chart, following his death, more than 15 years after its release in 2001. (The last album to take 53 or more chart weeks to No. 1 was the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which hit No. 1 in its 63rd week, rising 2-1 on the Feb. 23, 2002-dated chart following its Grammy Award win for album of the year. It debuted on the Jan. 13, 2001 chart.) Olivia Rodrigo’s former No. 1 Sour steps 3-2 on the latest Billboard 200 with 69,000 equivalent album units earned (down 11%), Doja Cat’s Planet Her rises 4-3 with 57,000 units (down 4%), Morgan Wallen’s former leader Dangerous: The Double Album climbs 5-4 with 44,000 units (up 1%) and Pop Smoke’s Faith falls 1-5 in its second week with 38,000 units (down 56%). Lil Baby and Lil Durk’s former chart-topper The Voice of the Heroes is steady at No. 6 with 32,000 units (down 11%). Rapper EST Gee lands his first top 10 album on the Billboard 200 as Bigger Than Life or Death vaults 65-7 in its second chart week, earning 30,000 equivalent album units (up 141%). The album was released on an off-cycle Wednesday, July 21 (instead of on the usual Friday for new releases), so it debuted on the July 31-dated Billboard 200 at No. 65 with 12,000 units from just two days of activity in the week ending July 22. In the tracking week ending July 29, the album earned 30,000 units, and, of that sum, SEA units comprise 27,000 (up 137%, equaling 38.03 million on-demand streams of the album’s tracks), album sales comprise 2,000 (up 219%) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. Polo G’s former No. 1 Hall of Fame dips 7-8 with just over 29,000 equivalent album units (down 11%). Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Folklore flies back into the top 10, climbing 56-9 with 29,000 units (123%), after the album’s wide release on vinyl LP on July 22. The album sold 15,000 copies in the week ending July 29, with vinyl LP sales comprising the majority of that number. Previously, the vinyl LP edition of the album was available only via Swift’s official webstore and Target stores. Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia rounds out the top 10, falling 8-10 with 28,000 equivalent album units earned (down 4%).

Record Of The Month
'Motley Crew' is the lead single from Post Malone's upcoming fourth studio album. The song marks his first solo release off an album in over two years.

United Kingdom
Music Week Report (excerpt)
The fastest selling album in  almost two years
Monday, August 2, 2021
by Alan Jones, London
 
The man from Streatham who needs no alias other than his real-life first name, Dave this week celebrates the release of the fastest selling album in almost two years. His second full-length release, We're All Alone In This Together, debuts spectacularly at No.1 with a colossal sale of 74,191, the

highest single week total for any album since Coldplay moved 80,974 copies of Everyday Life in November 2019. It is the fastest-selling hip-hop album since Tinie Tempah’s Disc-overy sold 84,993 in its first week in October 2010. Confounding wisdom that rap artists only ever pull in large numbers at streaming, Dave enjoyed even consumption across all market sectors, selling an impressive 40,354 physical copies (along with 1,285 downloads) while the album's tracks were streamed 38.5m times in all for a further 35,552 calculated sales. By way of comparison Dave's full-length debut Psychodrama enjoyed an opening week of 26,390 when it debuted at No.1 in March 2019, its lifetime sales now totalling 306,081. This all means that unusually the latest numbered volume in the Now That's What I Call Music series of hits compilations isn't the de-facto biggest album of the week. Volume 109 debuts atop the Various Artists chart with 20,886 sales -

down on the 25,876 with which its predecessor opened back in April. Back to the artists chart and some sympathies are due for Anne-Marie, who picked an awkward week for the release of her second album Therapy. Putting in what is by any standards an impressive showing, it can still only be a distant No.2. Still, easily the best of the rest, the album manages a chart sale of 18,260 to take second place for the week, slightly down on the 20,342 with which her debut Speak Your Mind opened in 2018. Olivia Rodrigo's Sour drops out of the Top 2 for the first time in the 10 weeks since its release, 12,880 sales only enough for No.3. KSI's All Over The Place only spent a week at the top but still holds its own at No.4 (8,764 sales). It means the curious sight of two different Top 5 albums both with a track in common, Don't Play, appearing on both this and Anne-Marie’s record. Chart rules do allow for this occurrence, so streams of the song are counting towards the chart-eligible totals of both records. The Top 5 is once more rounded off by Doja Cat's Planet Her, static again at No.5 with 5,876 sales. Kid Laroi added a new "chapter" and a handful of new tracks to his F**k Love mixtape, the collection rebounding back to No.6 (5,787 sales). The 10th anniversary of the death of Amy Winehouse prompts her masterpiece Back To Black to make yet another chart comeback. The 2006 album soars to No.7 (4,223 sales) in its highest chart placing since September 2011. Albums sales overall are all but unchanged at 1,825,077 (down 0.6% on last week) but physical sales are up a massive 23.23% to stand at 380,496, their market share of 20.85% the highest it has been since Christmas week last year. Only one man could stand in the way of this being a week of Dave domination and that man is, naturally, Ed Sheeran. Immune from events elsewhere, Bad Habits notches up a fifth consecutive week at No.1 although the single's chart sales head downwards at some rate of knots, shedding over 15% week-on-week to stand at 85,433 (77,557 of these from a still impressive 9.96m streams). Ed's single is the longest-running chart-topper by a British artist since Joel Corry and MNEK spent six weeks at the top with Head & Heart exactly one year ago. In every other respect however the week belongs to Dave. The release of his second album We're All Alone In This Together means most of its tracks occupy places as the most-streamed songs of the week. Earlier this year, Olivia Rodrigo landed three of the Top 7 and Dave this week betters this with three of the Top 6 singles of the week. His three permitted singles chart entries are the already-charting Stormzy collaboration Clash which rockets to a new peak of No.2 (53,056 sales) with Verdansk (No.4, 44,523 sales) and In The Fire (No.6 40,801 sales) following hard on its heels. Between them they take Dave's career total of Top 10 hits to a nice even 10. Almost needless to say there are many other Dave tracks scattered around the streaming tables with System in particular popular enough to also theoretically qualify for the No.10 position. Three more cuts from the album (We’re All Alone, Lazarus and Twenty To One) also post numbers that would register Top 20 places at any other time. The two remaining Top 10 hits not already mentioned are Stay by Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber (No.3, 47,358 sales) and Black Magic by Jonasu (No.5, 41,128 sales) both of which should rebound next week when things calm down a little. The singles market dips 7.15% to stand at 22,109,866. Paid sales are up 2.8% to 397,994 but remain below the 400,000 mark for the third week in a row.