USA
Billboard Report (excerpt)
Drake dominates with record 9 of Top 10
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
by Keith Caulfield & Gary Trust, Los Angeles

Drake boasts one of the most dominant weeks in the 63-year history of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as he becomes the first artist ever to claim as many as nine of the top 10 positions in a

single frame. Among his Hot 100 haul, the superstar infuses the entire top five, a feat previously achieved only by The Beatles for a week in 1964. Here's a look at Drake's nine songs in the Hot 100's top 10, and the U.S. streams, radio airplay and sales in the Sept. 3-9 tracking week that drove their debuts: No. 1, "Way 2 Sexy," feat. Future & Young Thug (67.3 million streams, 7.7 million in airplay audience, 7,000 sold). The song's streaming sum marks the second-best in a single week in 2021, trailing only the opening frame of Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" (76.1 million, Jan. 23); "Sexy" is also being promoted as a radio single to pop, rhythmic and R&B/hip-hop formats. No. 2, "Girls Want Girls," feat. Lil Baby (57.4 million streams, 1.5 million in airplay audience, 3,000 sold)
No. 3, "Fair Trade," feat. Travis Scott (53.8 million streams, 2.4 million in airplay audience, 5,800 sold), No. 4, "Champagne Poetry" (48.3 million streams, 297,000 in airplay audience, 1,900 sold),

No. 5, "Knife Talk," feat. 21 Savage & Project Pat (45.9 million streams, 141,000 in airplay audience, 3,300 sold), No. 7, "In the Bible," feat. Lil Durk & Giveon (41.4 million streams, 489,000 in airplay audience, 800 sold), No. 8, "Papi's Home" (39.9 million streams, 663,000 in airplay audience, 1,800 sold), No. 9, "TSU" (39.8 million streams, 1.2 million in airplay audience, 1,500 sold), and No. 10, "Love All," feat. JAY-Z (39.1 million streams, 2.5 million in airplay audience, 3,200 sold). Drake becomes the second act ever to monopolize the Hot 100's top five in a single week. The Beatles first achieved the feat on the chart dated April 4, 1964, at the heights of early U.S. Beatlemania, with these five classics: No. 1, "Can't Buy Me Love", No. 2, "Twist and Shout", No. 3, "She Loves You", No. 4, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and No. 5, "Please Please Me". At No. 6 on the April 4, 1964-dated Hot 100 was Terry Stafford's "Suspicion," below the all-Beatles top five that week. Similarly beneath Drake's top five domination this week, The Kid LAROI and Bieber's "Stay" ranks at No. 6, down from No. 2 after four weeks at No. 1 (Aug. 14-Sept. 4). The song (on Columbia Records / Def Jam) drew 76.3 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 7%) and 27.7 million streams (down 8%) and sold 12,100 downloads (down 9%) in the tracking week. Drake’s Certified Lover Boy album makes a spectacular debut atop the Billboard 200 chart with the biggest week for any album in over a year. The long-awaited set, which was released on Sept. 3, is Drake’s 10th No. 1 and starts with 613,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 9, according to MRC Data. That’s the biggest week for an album since the Aug. 8, 2020-dated chart, when Taylor Swift’s Folklore launched at No. 1 with 846,000 units. Of Certified Lover Boy’s 613,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 9, SEA units comprise 562,000 units (equaling 743.67 million on-demand streams of the album’s 21 tracks), album sales comprise 46,000 (all from digital album sales; a CD release is due on Oct. 1) and TEA units comprise 5,000 units. Drake is now one of only eight artists with at least 10 No. 1 albums in the 65-year history of the Billboard 200 chart. The Beatles have the most No. 1s, with 19. They are followed by Jay-Z (14), Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand (11 each), Drake, Eminem, Elvis Presley and Kanye West (10 each). Drake first topped the Billboard 200 dated July 3, 2010, with Thank Me Later. Iron Maiden earns its highest charting album ever on the Billboard 200, as its latest studio effort, Senjutsu, debuts at No. 3. The veteran hard rock band previously peaked at No. 4 with its last two studio releases: The Book of Souls (in 2015) and The Final Frontier (2010). In total, Senjutsu is Iron Maiden’s 15th top 40-charting album (dating to its first, The Number of the Beast, in 1982), of which four have hit the top 10. Of Senjutsu’s 64,000 equivalent album units earned, album sales comprise 61,000 (making it the top-selling album of the week), SEA units comprise 3,000 (equaling 3.57 million on-demand streams of the set’s 10 tracks) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. Senjutsu logs the second-largest week of 2021 for a hard rock album in both equivalent album units earned and in traditional album sales. It trails only Foo Fighters’ Medicine at Midnight, which debuted on the Feb. 20 chart with 70,000 units (of which 64,000 were in album sales). (Hard rock albums are defined as those that have charted on Billboard’s Hard Rock Albums chart.) At No. 4 on the Billboard 200, Olivia Rodrigo’s former chart-topper Sour falls one spot with 61,000 equivalent album units earned (down 18%). Doja Cat’s Planet Her dips 4-5 (49,000 units; down 7%), Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album is a non-mover at No. 6 (40,000; down less than 1%), Billie Eilish’s former leader Happier Than Ever is also steady at No. 7 (just over 39,000; down 1%) and The Kid LAROI’s chart-topping F*ck Love falls 5-8 (39,000; down 10%). Imagine Dragons claim their fifth top 10 album on the Billboard 200 as the rock band’s latest studio set, Mercury – Act 1, debuts at No. 9. The effort launches with 31,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 17,000; SEA units comprise 13,000 (equaling 17.04 million on-demand streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise 1,000. Rod Wave’s former No. 1 SoulFly closes out the new top 10, dipping 8-10 with 30,000 equivalent album units earned (down 21%).

Record Of The Month
A hot Latin / EDM tune from Puerto Rican singer / songwriter Farruko and his biggest
smash so far. 'Pepas' ranks currently at no.7 globally with 189,000 points.

United Kingdom
Music Week Report (excerpt)
Ed Sheeran makes it to 11 weeks at number one
Monday, September 13, 2021
by Alan Jones, London
 
Fighting its way from behind for the first time since release, Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran is No.1 once again. The single's 11th (and almost inevitably final) week at the summit means it is now one of the 10 longest-running No.1 hits of all time and only the seventh in chart history to amass so many weeks

consecutively, even if we do have to once more note that the majority (four) of these have all come in the last five years. Dance Monkey by Tones & I was the last to reach 11 weeks in December 2019. Bad Habits notches up a further 69,446 sales, including 64,147 from 8.4m streams to take its total to just under 952,985. Small sympathies are due to Drake, who in early flashes seemed set for an unprecedented clean sweep of Top 3 new entries but who still ends up as a runner-up. But this is still the Canadian superstar's week as he lands the "superstar slam" of three new entries in the Top 5. Girls Want Girls (featuring Lil Baby) is No.2 with 65,141 sales, Fair Trade (featuring Travis Scott) is No.3 with 56,470 sales and Champagne Poetry is No.5 with 47,728 sales. They take his tally of Top 10 hits to 30, the same number as Rihanna and - at least for the moment - Ed Sheeran. All three are cuts lifted from his sixth studio album proper, Certified Lover Boy,

and although excluded by OCC rules from the official singles chart, the remaining 18 tracks from the collection all commanded enough clicks and ears to ensure that all but two would have been Top 40 entries under any other circumstances. The singles listings in many other major territories allow album cuts to roam freely, meaning charts in places such as America and Australia are set to be clogged up by Drake hits just a week after Kanye West did some chart swamping of his own. Controversial though it may be, I can't help but think the British approach is better. But the most celebrated new pop records of the week are two performed by a quartet of 70-somethings making their first music together in four decades. The official return of ABBA, nearly five years on from when the concept was first mooted, more than lives up to the hype. Their two comeback singles inevitably chart in tandem with Don't Shut Me Down entering at No.9 (26,111 sales) and I Still Have Faith In You charting at No.14 (23,325 sales). That's an order which will raise eyebrows given the latter was pushed as the lead single and is the only one of the pair to have a formal video, but the market has decided otherwise. They are ABBA's first Top 20 hits since a 30th anniversary reissue of Waterloo peaked at No.20 in 2004, their first previously uncharted material since Thank You For The Music was issued as a swansong and crept to No.33 in 1983, and their first brand new music to chart since Under Attack made No.26 in 1982. They now have 20 Top 10 hits to their name and return to the upper reaches for the first time since One Of Us peaked at No.3 in December 1981. It almost goes without saying that no act has ever gone almost 40 years between brand new Top 10 singles, never mind that they do so with material that sounds every bit as fresh and emotionally profound as anything they made in their heyday. It is a standard of comeback against which all others from this moment are set to be judged. I was in error last week in suggesting that the chart position of Heat Waves by Glass Animals was subject to ACR restrictions, when in fact the track had been granted a discretionary reset and its streams were full strength. That does mean that its continued rise this week to another sensational new peak of No.10 (25,206 sales) is entirely on its own merits. This is briefly to the detriment of the Elton John/Dua Lipa track Cold Heart which accelerates rapidly but is locked out at No.11, just 111 sales behind. Drake and ABBA cause the singles market to leap 3.86% to 22,588,582 at its highest level for seven weeks. Paid-for sales rise 1.91% to 393,973 but are below 400,000 for the ninth week in a row. This week’s No.1 album is the one you probably could have predicted even if it did have to come from behind at the death. Drake's sixth studio album proper Certified Lover Boy becomes his fourth No.1 record, his second in a row following the chart-topping success of Dark Lane Demo Tapes in 2020. A digital-only release streamed in his usual colossal numbers, the album landed 45,651 chart sales of which a mere 2,028 were paid downloads. Commiserations, then, for Iron Maiden, who right to the last moment seemed set for a sixth No.1 with their 17th studio album Senjutsu. Their first brand new release in six years, its sales were inevitably heavily front-loaded, the album clocking up 25,000 sales from pre-orders on its first day on release alone. Walk-up sales helped it advance to a final total of 44,473, a drop from the opening week sale of 60,249 of its predecessor The Book Of Souls, but this is the biggest sale for a No.2 album since Little Mix's Confetti opened with 49,887 sales in November last year. The heavy metal act now have 26 Top 10 albums to their name, more than any other group save for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Queen. Last week's No.1 record, Donda by Kanye West, doesn't suffer quite the second week drop-off some had expected and holds on at No.3, adding a further 11,084 sales. It is a huge week for Little Simz, whose fourth album finally gives her a long overdue commercial breakthrough. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert becomes the British rapper's first chart record of any kind as it smashes its way to No.4 with 10,151 sales. Her previous album Grey Area missed the published charts when it came out in March 2019 but is her biggest seller to date, having accumulated 28,871 sales since release. Their new album is a few weeks away but the big ABBA comeback has already given their back catalogue a boost. Gold – Greatest Hit is No.5 (8,623 sales), this its first Top 5 appearance since August 2008. The album actually appears twice on the chart, the separately listed Gold - Anniversary Edition sneaking in at No.72 with 1,444 sales. Meanwhile many of their studio albums are also boosted, most notably 1979's Voulez-Vous which charts at No.58 (1,653 sales) for its first appearance since March 1980. Mercury - Act 1 is the fifth album from Imagine Dragons and duly follows the previous four into the Top 10 as it debuts strongly at No.7 with 6,925 sales. With its production a deliberate throwback to their 1990s commercial peak of PHUQ., The Wildhearts' new album 21st Century Love Songs duly becomes their highest charting record since. Their 10th studio release in all, it is brand new at No.9 (5,842 sales), only their second ever Top 10 record. Albums sales are up 3.36% to 1,787,875. The physical sector leaps 1.3% to 310,454 for a 17.36% market share.