Photograph Credit score: Zac Schuss
The Contenders is a midweek column that appears at artists aiming for the highest of the Billboard charts, and the methods behind their efforts. This week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 albums chart dated Feb. 24), two of the 12 months’s most-anticipated new releases vie for No. 1, whereas a third-party candidate initially from 2022 additionally will get into the combination.
Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 1 (YZY): Kanye’s and Ty Dolla’s long-awaited and much-delayed – can simply assume each of these descriptors with any Ye-related launch at this level – collaborative new LP Vultures 1 is the previous’s first extensive launch on his new impartial label YZY. The 16-track effort options appearances from big-name collaborators like Travis Scott, Playboi Carti and Chris Brown – although none are literally credited on the feature-less tracklist – in addition to a visitor vocal from Ye’s 10-year-old daughter North on “Speaking.” (It additionally options an interpolation of Donna Summer season’s disco basic “I Really feel Love” on “Good (Don’t Die),” which the Summer season property has decried as unauthorized.)
The album was initially purported to debut on Friday, after a Chicago listening occasion, however in the end trickled out (with a false begin or two) on streaming providers over Saturday. The unfinished first monitoring week for the set – with solely 5 full days of consumption – will possible dampen its opening numbers a little bit, as will its lack of bodily availability, because the album will not be but accessible for buy on CD or vinyl. (The set additionally has acquired muted help on many prime Spotify playlists for an album of its buzz, possible as a consequence of previous and ongoing Ye-related controversies.)
Nevertheless, with excessive anticipation for the set (as Ye all the time appears to garner, no matter his real-life backlash), it ought to nonetheless do pretty sizeable streaming numbers. As of Wednesday, it nonetheless claimed 4 songs within the prime 10 on Spotify’s US Day by day Prime 200 and 5 in Apple Music’s real-time prime 10, with its “Carnival” main each listings. Given Kanye’s historical past on the Billboard 200 – which boasts 10 No. 1 albums, together with controversy-embroiled newer releases like 2019’s JESUS IS KING and 2021’s Donda – it could be silly to guess towards him discovering related success with Vultures.
Usher, Coming Dwelling (Mega/Gamma): Coming Dwelling represents quite a lot of firsts for Usher: His first album of the 2020s, his first by impartial report label Mega (in partnership with the Larry Jackson-founded different distributor Gamma) and his first since being minted as a Tremendous Bowl headliner. Technically, the set debuted two days earlier than the Huge Sport, however the album will undoubtedly be boosted by the added publicity of the most-watched halftime efficiency in SB historical past – regardless that the pop&B celebrity didn’t truly carry out any songs from the brand new album, opting to stay to a set of more-established classics.
Nonetheless, Coming Dwelling does arrive with some built-in success: “Good Good,” the album’s lead single alongside next-gen ATLiens Summer season Walker and 21 Savage, has beforehand reached No. 25 on the Billboard Scorching 100, already his largest hit on the chart in a decade. The set options further collabs with hitmakers Latto, Burna Boy, H.E.R. and Jung Kook (on a beforehand launched remix of the latter’s prime 5 Scorching 100 hit “Standing Subsequent to You”). All of those ought to assist streams of the set — and gross sales are additionally anticipated to be sturdy, with Coming Dwelling accessible on CD, in 5 completely different vinyl variants, and thru each CD and vinyl field units that embody branded merch. (Digital editions of the album have additionally been closely discounted.)
Whereas Usher’s new album will possible be his best-performing LP this week, he must also see some main motion together with his again catalog – most notably together with his Billboard 200-topping 2004 juggernaut Confessions. The basic album, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this 12 months, had a whopping seven tracks make its method to Usher’s halftime setlist, together with the set-capping Lil Jon and Ludacris collab “Yeah!” and the much-buzzed-about Alicia Keys duet efficiency “My Boo.” It re-enters the highest half of the 200 this week, leaping 140-92, and may make an excellent larger leap subsequent week.
Noah Kahan, Stick Season (Mercury/Republic): The climate could also be warming outdoors – slowly – however on the Billboard 200, Stick Season could merely by no means finish. Alt-folk singer-songwriter Noah Kahan’s breakout album, which has solely grown in reputation and affect within the 16 months since its October 2022 launch, has spent the whole lot of post-holidays 2024 within the Billboard 200’s prime 10, climbing again as excessive as No. 4, after having peaked at No. 3 final June following the set’s We’ll All Be Right here Endlessly deluxe re-release.
Stick Season slips to No. 7 this week, however it might very properly return to the highest three as soon as extra subsequent week, following one other, even deluxer reissue of the set. This one is titled Stick Season (Endlessly), and incorporates a whopping 30 tracks, together with beforehand launched Scorching 100-charting collaborative remixes of Stick originals with Put up Malone (“Dial Drunk”), Kacey Musgraves (“She Calls Me Again”) and Hozier (“Northern Angle”). Along with all of these, the set additionally boasts two (properly, one and a half) completely unreleased cuts: the solo ballad “Endlessly” and the Brandi Carlile-guesting redo of We’ll All Be Right here Endlessly fan favourite “You’re Gonna Go Far.” (All variations of the album, new and outdated, are mixed collectively for monitoring and charting functions, underneath its authentic title: Stick Season.)
The brand new version of the now-blockbuster set has no bodily launch accessible, however has already spurred loads of further streaming exercise for each the unique album and its beforehand launched “new” tracks – in addition to for the brand-new “Endlessly,” which remains to be within the prime 50 on each Spotify and Apple Music’s every day charts.
