1. The Weeknd – ‘Hurry up Tomorrow‘

The artist’s sixth studio album, and his fourth record to achieve the number one position. This is the album’s first week on charts, as it was released on January 31. His previous Number 1 albums include second studio album ‘Beauty Behind The Madness‘ released in 2015, ‘After Hours‘ released in 2020 and ‘Dawn FM‘ released in 2022. According to the artist, this is the final album to be published under The Weeknd pseudonym.

2. Central Cee – ‘Can’t Rush Greatness‘

‘Can’t Rush Greatness‘ the London-born artist’s debut album and it was released on January 24. It peaked at number one last week, its opening week, making it the rapper’s second project to achieve the position. The record also features appearances from Young Miko, 21 Savage, Dave, Lil Durk, Skepta and Lil Baby. In April, the artist will be starting a tour with stops all over the UK and Europe.

3. Sabrina Carpenter – ‘Short n Sweet‘

This week marks the album’s 24th week charting in the UK, and ever since its release in mid-august, ‘Short n Sweet’ has not left the top five. It previously peaked at number one for two non-consecutive weeks, and it is Carpenter’s second album to chart and first to achieve the position. ‘Short n Sweet‘ recently won the ‘Best Pop Vocal Album’ category at Grammy awards; furthermore, the American artist will soon embark on the UK leg of her tour, currently completely sold out, playing two nights at London’s O2 Arena.

4. The Weeknd – ‘The Highlights‘

The artist’s second album on the top five this week, it previously peaked at number two and has spent 209 weeks on charts, being also named one of the most popular records of 2023 and 2024. The album is a collection of the singer’s greatest hits, who has collected 57 top 100 songs in his career.

5. Ed Sheeran – ‘Mathematics Tour Collection‘

The collection was released in late September and includes the songs played by Sheeran on his record breaking Mathematics Tour. It previously peaked at number one, making it the artist’s eight album to achieve the position, and has currently spent 19 weeks charting in the top 20, 17 of which in the top 10.

Taylor Swift‘s ‘The Tortured Poets Department‘ was first released in late April, with a surprise extended edition containing fifteen extra tracks dropping on the same day. The album peaked at number one in its debut week, maintaining the position for ten non-consecutive weeks throughout the year; since its release, ‘The Tortured Poets Department‘ has earned 783,800 chart units and has become the most streamed and best-selling album of the year. With her latest album, Swift made history as the fastest accumulation of number 1 albums ever; while this is Taylor’s biggest album of the year, it is not the only one that made Official Chart’s top 40 list: ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’, ‘reputation’, ‘folklore’, ‘midnights’ and ‘Lover‘ also made the list.

The second biggest album of 2024 was The Weekend‘s ‘The Highlights‘. Despite the record never reached the number one position, it charted almost every week of the past year in the UK’s top ten. Originally released in 2021, the album has spent 143 weeks in the UK top ten since its release. The collection of Greatest Hits by the Canadian artist was crowned the biggest album of 2023 by Official Charts, and its legacy this year is really a testament to The Weeknd’s talent.

At number three, Sabrina Carpenter is on the podium with ‘Short n Sweet‘, released in the summer. The album spent two non-consecutive weeks at the number one position, charting for a total of 18 weeks since its release in the UK’s top five. With three number one songs and a few broken records in 2024, Carpenter finally achieves well-deserved worldwide fame after her previous album ‘Emails I can’t Send‘ peaked at number 41 in 2022. ‘Short n Sweet‘ is now headed for a sold-out arena tour which will take Carpenter to London’s O2 Arena in March, as well as a sold-out headliner spot at Hyde Park’s BST.

Talking about BST Headliners, Noah Kahan will also be taking the London stage in the upcoming summer while his 2021 album ‘Stick Season‘ is the fourth biggest album of the year. The title track off the album was crowned the UK’s biggest song of the year, and this year ‘Stick Season‘ spent one week as number one and 53 charting in the top 100. Earlier this year, the Vermont-born singer sold out Wembley Arena and, over the summer, he played various sold-out shows across the UK and Europe. In February, the final edition of ‘Stick Season‘ titled ‘Forever‘ was released, and it included every special edition or duet off the album and all its versions, as well as a new exclusive song.

At Number five, Billie Eilish earns her third UK number one album with ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft‘, which marked the biggest debut of Eilish’s career back when first released. The album contains ten tracks, five of which have charted in the UK’s top 100, and debuted at number one, spending one week at the top spot of charts and another 24 in the top ten, charting for an overall of 32 weeks in the top 100.

Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” came back to the number one spot on charts last week, after the release of its extended version “The Anthology” on physical copies. It is the album’s tenth week at number one in the UK, and it marks Taylor Swift’s twelfth album at number one and thirtieth week at the top position. With “The Tortured Poets Departments: The Anthology” Swift made a career-marking album, which has broken records worldwide and quickly became a fan favourite.

Right after Swift, Sabrina Carpenter is still topping charts with her album “Short n Sweet”, currently on its sixteenth week in the top ten. The album previously peaked at number one on its debut week, and its singles made Carpenter this year’s charts queen. Ever since the album was released, it charted on the UK’s top three. “Short n Sweet” made Carpenter one of the biggest artists of the year, and perhaps of the decade. She will be headlining BST Hyde Park next summer, after her sold-out tour which will take her around the UK.

Michael Buble’s “Christmas” is currently at number three, but it’s likely that it will climb charts in the next couple weeks over Christmas. The album, originally released in 2011, is on its 117^th week on the UK’s top ten. It achieved the number one position various times in the past, spending six weeks at the top spot of charts in total. Buble’s climb is almost a yearly tradition, and the album has managed to make its way to the charts’ top ten every year since its release, achieving the number one in 2011, 2020, 2022 and 2023.

Rose’s album “Rosie”, released earlier this month, has climbed its way to number four on UK charts. One of the previously released singles, “APT”, in collaboration with Bruno Mars, has topped the songs charts for the past couple of weeks, becoming a worldwide hit. This is the album’s debut week on UK charts, but with the popularity of its singles it is likely that “Rosie” is here to stay.

At number five, Sabrina Carpenter debuts on charts with “Fruitcake”, a Christmas album originally released last year which is gaining popularity this year after Carpenter released her Christmas Special “A Nonsense Christmas” on Netflix, earlier this month. The album contains some new Christmas-themed songs, as well as some covers of all time Christmas classics.

Up next on the UK’s albums chart is Chappell Roan with “The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess”, on its 35^th week charting, followed by Charli xcx’s “Brat”, Kendrick Lamar’s “GNX”, Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” and at number ten, The Weeknd’s “The Highlights”.

More recently, UMG has set its sights on AI assistant Claude 2, developed by American tech startup Anthropic PBC. Instead of focusing on supposedly stolen voice talent, UMG has joined Concord Publishing and ABKCO Records to contest the AI assistant’s use of copyrighted lyrics. The complaint filed by the three music labels argues that “Anthropic unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works—including the lyrics to myriad musical compositions owned or controlled by Publishers.” When the AI assistant Claude 2 is asked to recite lyrics from copyrighted music, they are regurgitated by the program. While websites like Genius, a large music lyric database, serve a similar function, they seek licensing agreements from the owners of the copyrighted material used on their site.

Even outside of music, AI companies have been in hot water over copyright law, with The Times filing a lawsuit against OpenAI, the operator of Chat GPT. The Times cites a similar claim to UMG, stating that their copyrighted materials are displayed by the program without permission. However, there is a deeper issue at the heart of both of these lawsuits. Copyrighted material is used to train these AI models. Understandably, both UMG and The Times are not thrilled by their material being used to improve the product of another business without credit or license. This is an issue posed by AI assistants across all mediums, with artists, musicians, and writers essentially having their work scraped from the internet and fed into a program that presents stolen work as original. 

ghotstwriter977’s ‘Heart on My Sleeve’ was a novelty designed to outline how producers and writers are often treated as disposable when compared to big-name artists like Drake. Speaking to CNN, ghostwriter977 said: “I was a ghostwriter for years and got paid close to nothing just for major labels to profit”. ghostwriter977 flipped this narrative on its head, producing and writing a compelling Drake song without involving the artist himself. In the case of Claude 2 and Chat GPT, the use of copyrighted content serves a less noble cause as many see the rise of generative AI programs to be reliant on the mass theft of other people’s work. This is an attitude expressed by UMC and associated parties in their filing against Anthropic. 

INCREDIBLE TWO NIGHTS IN TORONTO, THANK YOU! pic.twitter.com/qBoUNPywx6

— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) July 10, 2022

“I have no idea what or who the Weekend is, because I don’t listen to much music,” he said. “People have told me he’s a big act. Well, good luck to him. I’ve got nothing against him. Would it not have been possible to review his show one night and my show another night?” He went on to say, “I’m not trying to make a personal attack. I’m just saying it seemed odd.” Not happy to leave it there, he turned his sights on the Weekend’s fellow countryman Drake, “By the way, with all due respect to the Weekend or Drake or any of them, I am far, far, far more important than any of them will ever be, however many billions of streams they’ve got,” Waters said. “There is stuff going on here that is fundamentally important to all of our lives.”

Waters initially announced the details for his This Is Not A Drill Tour in January 2020. due to COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns the tour was unfortunately postponed until this year. Waters said in a video announcement back in 2020, “As the clock ticks faster and faster and faster down to extinction, it seemed like a good thing to make a fuss about it, so that’s why I’m going on the road,” he said. “To be blunt, we need to change the way we organize ourselves as a human race or die. This tour will be part of a global movement by people who are concerned by others to affect the change that is necessary. That’s why we’re going on the road. That’s why this conversation should be on everybody’s lips, constantly, the whole time, because it’s super important. So I hope you’ll all come to the shows. This is not a drill.”

In a statement for the tour Waters elaborated more, “This Is Not A Drill is a ground-breaking new rock & roll/cinematic extravaganza, performed in the round. It is a stunning indictment of the corporate dystopia in which we all struggle to survive, and a call to action to love, protect, and share our precious and precarious planet home. The show includes a dozen great songs from Pink Floyd’s Golden Era alongside several new ones — words and music, same writer, same heart, same soul, same man. Could be his last hurrah. Wow! My first farewell tour! Don’t miss it. Love, R.”

Walters feels that His This is Not a Drill tour carries an urgent message but The Weeknd’s After Hours ‘Til Dawn tour is a career-spanning extravaganza that Rolling Stone says is worth the wait.

Twigs said at the time that “I feel proud. Burberry has such heritage – it’s a very stoic brand that’s extremely iconic. But to be honest, I guess being from Gloucester, I remember that the fittest boys would drive around town in flashy cars with Burberry caps on. All the boys I fancied growing up wore something Burberry, for sure.“

Caprisongs came out earlier this year on January 14^th, and you can read more about it here. This is the fifth music video released from it. Previous ones include “meta angel“, “Tears In The Club“, “jealousy“ and “darjeeling“.

She’s been doing quite well in terms of collaborations as well, with acclaimed singer-songwriter The Weeknd featuring in “Tears In The Club“, Nigerian rapper Rema appearing in the video for “jealousy“ and artists Jorja Smith and Unknown T making an appearance in “darjeeling“.

The tape itself didn’t do too bad either, reaching no.1 on the US Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and getting a good bit of positive feedback on the way. NME called it Twigs’ “brightest, poppiest music“ in a four-star review.

Twigs has also been getting into directing her own movies as of late. You can read here about her latest short film Playscape, which was made to celebrate the International Woolmark Prize for achievements in fashion. Made in collaboration with artist Juliano Nunes, it shows Twigs & co dancing to tracks by Duval Timothy/Rosie Lowe and X-Ray Spex. You can see the video down below.

And she’s also reportedly going to be doing some acting sometime soon, having been cast in the upcoming remake of The Crow, the infamous 1994 movie where an accident onset led to the death of Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee. The new version will star Bill Skarsgård in Brandon Lee’s role of Eric Draven, and will reportedly be directed by Rupert Sanders of Snow White and the Huntsman and Ghost in the Shell fame.

Otherwise, if you want to get any of Twigs’ new merchandise or purchase her latest mixtape, you can look at her website here.

The new song, was first teased during the house music supergroup’s landmark performance at the MTV VMAs pre-show. It will also mark the band’s first new music since announcing their reunion in July with a pair of new singles “It Gets Better” and “Lifetime (feat. Ty Dolla $ign & 070 Shake)” that arrived alongside a cover story for Billboard Magazine alongside a special performance of both songs on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.

You can view the music video for the track below.

“Moth To A Flame” was teased by The Weeknd back in September, when he posted two snippets of audio and tagged the recently reunited EDM supergroup. A teaser of the song was also shared earlier this week.

The track will appear on Swedish House Mafia’s upcoming third studio album, Paradise Forever, which is due for release in early 2022.

Alongside the new single, the trio announced their first world tour since 2019, with as many as 44 cities. The tour will begin with a North American leg next July, before rolling all throughout the UK and Europe between September and November.

Tickets for the Paradise Forever tour go on sale next Friday (October 29), and will be available to purchase from the band’s website. Fans will also be able to access an exclusive pre-sale by pre-ordering the Special Tour Edition CD of Paradise Forever.

Fans will also be able to catch The Weeknd on tour next year, with the singer’s ‘After Hours Til Dawn’ stadium tour slated to include legs in North America, Europe, South America, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East.

Swedish House Mafia 2022 Tour Dates:

07/29/22 FTX Arena – Miami, FL
07/31 Amway Center – Orlando, FL
08/03 MetLife Stadium – East Rutherford, NJ
08/05 Scotiabank Arena – Toronto, ON
08/07 îleSoniq Festival – Montreal, QC
08/09 TD Garden – Boston, MA
08/10 Wells Fargo Center – Philadelphia, PA
08/11 Capital One Arena – Washington, DC
08/13 United Center – Chicago, IL
08/17 Little Caesars Arena – Detroit, MI
08/19 Xcel Energy Center – Minneapolis, MN
08/21 Ball Arena – Denver, CO
08/25 Moody Center – Austin, TX
08/26 American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX
08/27 Toyota Center – Houston, TX
08/30 Footprint Center – Phoenix, AZ
09/02 T-Mobile Arena – Las Vegas, NV
09/04 Pechanga Arena – San Diego, CA
09/13 Rogers Arena – Vancouver, BC
09/14 Climate Pledge Arena – Seattle, WA
09/16 Chase Center – San Francisco, CA

09/29 AO Arena – Manchester, UK
09/30 OVO Hydro Arena – Glasgow, UK
10/02 The O2 – London, UK
10/06 m3Arena – Dublin, Ireland
10/08 Utilita Arena- Birmingham, UK
10/10 Accor Arena – Paris, FR
1014 IFEMA Madrid Live – Madrid, Spain
10/15 Altice Arena – Lisbon, Portugal
10/18 Mediolanum Forum – Milan, Italy
10/19 Hallenstadion – Zurich, Switzerland
10/21 Tauron Arena – Krakow, Poland
10/22 O2 Arena – Prague, Czech Republic
10/25 Lanxess Arena – Cologne, Germany
10/27 Olympiahalle – Munich, Germany
10/29 Sportpaleis – Antwerp, Belgium
10/31 Ziggo Dome – Amsterdam, Netherlands
11/03 Stadthalle – Vienna, Austria
11/05 Festhalle – Frankfurt, Germany
11/06 Mercedes-Benz Arena – Berlin, Germany
11/08 Barclaycard Arena – Hamburg, Germany
11/09 Royal Arena – Copenhagen, Denmark
11/11 Telenor Arena – Oslo, Norway
11/13 Uros Arena – Tampere, Finland

This year’s Global Citizen Live will take place in Rio de Janerio, London, Seoul, Los Angles, Sydney, Lagos, France’s capital city Paris and US city New York City and will include various artist’s live performances as well as pre-recorded sets. The worldwide concert aims to promote unity whilst rallying citizens of the world to urge major conglobates, governments and politicians as well as philanthropists to band together to help the world’s poverty-stricken communities and help rectify the recent global issues.

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A post shared by Global Citizen (@glblctzn)

The global event has been dated to take place this September to match with the UN General Assembly which is also taking place this September. Global Citizen Live will also coincide with other important meetings and summits including the G20 and COP26 set to take later on in 2021. Each act performing will be taking part in a 24-hour historic musical event, the concerts will be aired over many broadcasted mediums including ABC, ABC News Live, BBC, FX, IHeartRadio, Hulu, YouTube, TIME, Twitter as well as many more social media and televised channels.

Ed Sheeran will join the impressive list of artists billed to perform in Paris, joining the ‘Shape of You’ singer are hitmakers Black Eyed Peas, H.E.R., Dj Snake, Christine and the Queens and ‘Kiss Me More’ singer Doja Cat.  The line-up featured in Lagos include musician Femi Kuti, singer-songwriter Davido, Made Kuti and MTV Europe music award winner Tiwa Savage.

New York City’s event will take place at the famous landmark, Central Park, Global Citizen has been hosting events at the famed landmark since 2012. Performing at the city’s venue includes a vast array of artists such as ‘Bad Guy’ singer Billie Eilish and former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello. Also included to play the city that never sleeps are British hitmakers Coldplay, legendary artist Jennifer Lopez, ‘Good as Hell’ singer Lizzo, Shawn Mendes and rapper Meek Mill. New York City’s event will also see performances by special guests Burna Boy and Lang Lang, also set to take the stage at Central Park is 80’s pop icon Cyndi Lauper, known for her ‘Girl’s Just Want To Have Fun’ mega-hit.

Other artists donating themselves to the cause include Queen + Adam Lambert singer Adam Lambert, Alessia Cara, Opera tenor singer Andrea Bocelli, Angélique Kidjo, BTS, Demi Lovato, legendary 80’s band Duran Duran, iconic punk rockers Green Day, Hugh Jackman & Deborra-Lee Furness, Jon Batiste, Country music artist Keith Urban, ‘Royals’ singer-songwriter Lorde, The Lumineers, thrash metal pioneers Metallica, Rag ‘ n’ Bone Man, Ricky Martin, The Weeknd and Usher with even more acts to be announced.

Global Citizen’s Head of Music, Entertainment and Artist Relations, Katie Hill, has provided the following statement describing the organisation’s mission statement whilst expressing the organisation’s excitement to work with the host of artists. “Over the last year and a half, we’ve seen music bring communities together and inspire action during one of the most challenging times of our generation, We’re excited to join these incredible artists to unite people across the globe on September 25 as we hold world leaders and business leaders accountable to rectify the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we carefully resume Global Citizen’s live events, we couldn’t be more grateful to each of these artists for donating their time and performances to make an impact through this urgent campaign.”

Potential ticket-holders must earn their way into the amazing event by winning their tickets and each location has its own draw. You must begin by downloading the Global Citizen app and creating an account, within this app users can sign petitions, write letters to government officials and politicians, share news and messages via social media plus many more actions. These actions can earn users points, which they can then use to enter to win tickets to the event. The first collection of actions was released on 10th August 2021, fans have until 24th August 2021 to fulfil enough actions to place them in the competition to receive tickets. The lucky winners will be selected at random and will be notified via email, once the email has been received, ticket winners have 48 hours in which to claim their tickets.

Click here to learn more about the event.

Set in a big, artfully lit studio, London Grammar’s Live Lounge session has a specific ambience to it. Hannah Reid’s haunting voice carries the first verse and chorus, before Dan Rothman comes in with the guitar and triggers the recognisable riff from The Weeknd’s chart topping hit. The London Grammar cover actually bears more resemblance to some of The Weeknd’s earlier work.

Alongside their cover, London Grammar performed their own newest single, ‘Baby It’s You’. This was released in August as the lead single on their upcoming album – the details of which, the band are keeping a secret for now. ‘Baby It’s You’ was favourably received by critics, but it was exceptionally well received by fans, who have been waiting in anticipation of London Grammar’s next move since 2017’s Truth Is A Beautiful Thing.

Fan support extended to their Live Lounge session, as proved by the comments section of the two Youtube videos. One fan enthusiastically declared that “everything they touch turns to gold. Outrageously talented band.” In an Instagram post, Radio 1 called their cover “spine tingling.”

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Spine tingling performance from @londongrammar today in the #LiveLounge They performed ‘Baby It’s You’ and a beautiful cover of @theweeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ Listen again on @bbcsounds or watch it @bbciplayer

A post shared by BBC Radio 1 (@bbcradio1) on Sep 22, 2020 at 12:44pm PDT

Blinding Lights is the hit from The Weeknd’s latest album, After Hours. Just yesterday, it broke the record for the most weeks spent in the Top Five of the Billboard Hot 100. Spending 28 weeks there, it passes previous record holder, Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape Of You’. Elsewhere, The Weeknd has been busy in collaboration with Calvin Harris on their new single ‘Over Now’. The single is a unique combination of the two artists’ talents, but fans have noted influences ranging from Michael Jackson to Daft Punk.

London Grammar’s Live Lounge session is part of Radio 1’s Live Lounge Month throughout September. The return of Live Lounge Month was announced a few weeks ago. It takes place on Clara Amfo’s show, with new sets every Tuesday and Thursday, and classic favourite sessions on Monday and Wednesday – including Harry Styles, Demi Lovato and Usher. The lineup of new artists for Live Lounge Month is below.

At the time of announcement, Clara Amfo said, “I am absolutely delighted that Live Lounge Month is returning in September! Live music is an infinite source of joy and something that I know we have all missed terribly over the past few months. From rapidly emerging artists, to our established faves, I can’t wait to hear what all our Live Lounge artists have lined up for us!”

Live Lounge Month Line-up (in alphabetical order!)

Anne-Marie
Arlo Parks
Biffy Clyro
Declan McKenna
Jorja Smith
Little Mix
London Grammar
Miley Cyrus
YUNGLBUD

He was due to play in the UK across the month of October but he has taken the decision to push these back to next year in order to keep himself and his fans safe. Unsurprisingly this has been greeted with disappointment from his fans who were excited to see him play.

see you when it’s safe pic.twitter.com/a1wvglID5E

— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) May 20, 2020

Coming off the back of his new album ‘After Hours’, which was highly regarded by fans and critics alike, the global pandemic could not have come at a worse time. No doubt he would have wanted to get out and play the album to his fans soon after.

Those who did buy tickets for the original tour will still be able to get entry into the updated tour dates as the tickets will remain valid. The dates have been pushed back a year and they will now, hopefully, take place between October 22nd and November 3rd for the UK section of the new tour.

Watch the video for ‘Blinding Lights’ below:

‘After Hours’ is his fourth studio album and has been called his best. This is no consolation to his fans though as they wanted to see him play it live. The announcement comes after a string of other artists have also announced plans to delay their tours. 

Though it is very annoying to see all our favourite artists moving their tour dates, it does mean that when we are able to see them it will be that much better. Fingers crossed it is sooner rather than later.