AI-Generated Country Artists Climbing Charts

AI

Digital Music News:

This week, Breaking Rust landed the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart for the second week in a row with the song “Walk My Walk.” But Breaking Rust is not a real person or a real band. It’s an AI project credited to songwriter Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, but the mysterious “artist” has over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

Another AI-generated country singer, Cain Walker, also dominated the Country Digital Song Sales chart this week with tracks in the third, ninth, and eleventh spots. Billboard distinguishes both Walker and Breaking Rust’s music as “virtual acts,” which offers some degree of transparency that the artists and/or the art is AI generated.

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Taylor Swift Still Tops the Charts

Taylor Swift

Variety:

One month after its release, Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” logs a major milestone as it hits a fn uninterrupted four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

The set is just the second album of 2025 to spend its first four weeks at the summit, following Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem,” which led for its first eight weeks (and 12 weeks overall). Not surprisingly, Swift’s fourth week numbers are significant; she has earned a total of 146,000 album units in the United States in the week ending Oct. 30, according to Luminate.

Taylor Swift Still Tops Charts

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift still has the number one album:

Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” era continues as the record notches a third straight week at No. 1 with 194,000 equivalent album units earned, according to Luminate. The 12-song record shows no signs of slowing down — it’s only the second album of 2025 to spend its first three weeks atop the chart, following Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem,” which held the position for first eight weeks.

Taylor Swift Breaks More Records

Taylor Swift

Billboard:

According to initial reports to data tracking firm Luminate, the tracks on The Life of a Showgirl have generated more than 460 million on-demand official streams in the United States since the album’s release on Oct. 3. There are multiple versions of album on streaming services: a standard 12-song edition, a track-by-track commentary edition that includes the 12 songs plus commentary tracks from Swift, and a track-by-track commentary edition that has Swift’s commentary and lyric videos for each of the songs. […] The sales continue to come in to Luminate for The Life of a Showgirl and it may soon topple Adele’s longstanding record for the largest sales week for an album in the modern era. Adele’s 25 debuted with 3.378 million copies sold in its first week in 2015 — the biggest sales week for any album since Luminate began tracking data in 1991 (when the modern era of music sales tabulation began).

The Queen of Selling

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s new album brought in over $33 million at the box office and 2.7 million day-one album sales.

Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl launch has shown once again that it’s Taylor’s world and the rest of us are just living in it. The special album release event dwarfed the competition at the box office over the weekend, debuting to an impressive $33 million domestic and $13 million overseas. That’s a record-breaking number for what is neither a concert film nor a documentary, but a timed promotional event for the release of her new album.

The album dropped on Friday and is already setting records. After just one day, The Life of a Showgirl has secured the second-highest weekly sales for any album since tracking of such things began in the early 1990s. Billboard’s Luminate reported that the album sold 2.7 million copies on Friday alone.

Lorde Debuts at #2

Lorde

Lorde’s new album Virgin debuts at number two on the Billboard charts:

”Virgin” sold 31,000 copies on vinyl during its first week, her best weekly tally ever in the LP format. Eight different vinyl variants were available of Lorde’s album, including signed editions. Combining that LP total with additional sales in digital and CD formats, “Virgin” sold 41,000 copies altogether, accounting for more than half of her overall unit total.

Sabrina Carpenter Nabs Another Number One Single

Sabrina Carpenter

Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild” has gone to number one on the Hot 100.

“Manchild,” the lead single off Carpenter’s upcoming seventh album Man’s Best Friend, debuted with 27.1 million streams, per Billboard, while it sold 20,000 units. It dethroned rising Atlantic act Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” which had spent the past two weeks atop the Hot 100. The number one opening comes almost exactly a year after Carpenter landed her first number one last June with “Please Please Please.”

Turnstile & My Chemical Romance Billboard Charts

Turnstile debuted at #9 on the Billboard charts and My Chemical Romance returned to #6 with their Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge re-release.

My Chemical Romance’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, released in 2004, reaches the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for the first time, as the set reenters at No. 6 following a deluxe reissue. It previously peaked at No. 28 in 2005. In total, Three Cheers marks the fourth top 10-charting effort for the band, and its second-highest-charting set — second only to the No. 2-peaking The Black Parade in 2006. Three Cheers also marks the band’s first top 10 since April 2014, when the compilation May Death Never Stop You: The Greatest Hits 2001-2013 reached No. 9.

In the tracking week ending June 12, Three Cheers earned nearly 44,000 equivalent album units (up 809%), with album sales comprising 37,000 (up 2,987% — it reenters at a new peak of No. 2 on Top Album Sales; it’s the group’s best sales week since Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys debuted with 112,000 in 2010), SEA units comprise 7,000 (equaling 8.88 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. The album’s 44,000 units earned mark the band’s best week by that metric  since the Billboard 200 began ranking titles by units in December 2014.

Jack Black’s ‘Minecraft’ Song Shortest Hot 100 Hit Ever

Billboard

Billboard:

Hit songs are generally quick — Billboard Hot 100 top 10s ran an average of three minutes and 40 seconds in 2024, according to Hit Songs Deconstructed — but no Hot 100 hit has ever been as brief as Jack Black’s “Steve’s Lava Chicken.”

The track — at just 34 seconds in its original form (with a still-swift 1:15 extended mix also released) — breaks the record as the shortest Hot 100 hit ever by run time, dating to the chart’s Aug. 4, 1958, inception. The cut from the soundtrack of A Minecraft Movie debuts at No. 77 on the list dated May 3, 2025.

Blink-182 Top the Charts

Blink-182

Blink-182 have the number one album in the country.

Blink-182’s One More Time bows atop the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Nov. 4), securing the rock trio its third chart-topping set. The new full-length studio album begins with 125,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 26, according to Luminate, largely powered by traditional album sales. 

One More Time is Blink-182’s first album with the group’s longtime lineup of drummer Travis Barker, vocalist/bassist Mark Hoppus and guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge since DeLonge departed the group in 2015 for seven years, and the first studio effort from that trio since 2012’s Dogs Eating Dogs EP.

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