Bad Bunny "Yonaguni"
Courtesy PhotoBad Bunny adds another stripe to his belt with the debut of "Yonaguni." The Spanish-Japanese track arrives at Nos. 3 and 4 on the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated June 19), respectively.
"Yonaguni" bows a week after "100 Millones," Bad Bunny's collaboration with fellow Puerto Rican rapper Luar La L, opened at No. 143 on the Global 200.
(With its Japanese-language outro, "Yonaguni" follows the likes of NCT Dream's recent top-100 global chart hit "Hot Sauce" in mixing Spanish with elements of Asian culture, although unlike the South Korean boy band's fusion, Bad Bunny hits the top five of both global charts without including any passages in English.)
These two consecutive debuts highlight Bad Bunny not only as one of the leading Latin artists in the world but as something of an anomaly in the genre. Both songs have so far performed better on the Global 200 than the Global Excl. U.S. chart, a rarity among Spanish-language music.
Latin music hubs such as Puerto Rico, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina have uniformly been over-represented on the Global Excl. U.S. chart compared to the Global 200. Acts from those four territories combined have occupied 24% of the Global Excl. U.S. chart since its launch last September, compared to 16% of the Global 200, per acts' total chart weeks.
A similar pattern emerges among individual artists. Also based on total chart weeks, Myke Towers is the only Latin act among the Global 200's top 10 artists so far. In the Global Excl. U.S. chart's top 10, however, Towers is joined by Rauw Alejandro, Bad Bunny, J Balvin and Camilo. Spanish-language songs have spent a combined 75 weeks in the Global Excl. U.S. chart's top 10, versus 38, or nearly half that total, on the Global 200.
By song, by artist and as an entire genre, Latin music has, without qualification, performed better internationally than in the U.S. since the global charts began (even when Puerto Rican data is removed from the Global Excl. U.S. chart).
Bad Bunny, Billboard's reigning year-end Top Latin Artist for 2019 and 2020, transcends the genre's typical geographical borders. Going back further, when he released El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo in November, he landed all 15 tracks from the set on both global charts. While lead single "Dákiti" topped both rankings, 12 of the other 14 songs charted higher on the Global 200, by an average of 15 spots.
Aside from one-off collaborations with Drake (2018's "MIA") and Dua Lipa (2020's "Un Dia [One Day]," also with J Balvin and Tainy), his albums have eschewed big-name American duet partners or bilingual lyrics. Instead, he has stuck exclusively to Spanish and focused on showcasing urbano legends like Daddy Yankee and Jowell & Randy and up-and-coming alternative acts such as Rosalía and Abra.
Wrote Eduardo Cepeda about Bad Bunny in a 2019 Billboard cover story, "(He's) unapologetically, even joyfully, genuine and honest, at a time in this country when voters and music fans alike seem to be craving authenticity." In the same feature, Bad Bunny mused, "When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself. I just always thought, 'What's the worst that could happen?' "
NEWS
Supergrass are teasing an upcoming announcement with fans, according to a new post.
The British band, fronted by Gaz Coombes, shared a cryptic new post across their social media channels this morning (September 13), suggesting to fans that a new announcement is on the way.
Posted at 9am BST, the post simply shared artwork of the band’s logo in red, alongside next Monday’s date, September 16. In the caption, the band simply wrote: “Sign up now”, alongside a link to their website’s homepage.
Upon clicking the link, the page prompts fans to sign up for future updates, and asks them to input both their email address and the country they live in. Check out the post below.
While details on the announcement remain sparse, the post has already caught fans’ attention, with some speculating that the news could be around the upcoming 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘I Should Coco’.
Released in May 1995, the release marked the record that first put the band on the map, and contained singles ‘Mansize Rooster’, ‘Caught By The Fuzz, ‘Lose It’ and ‘Lenny’. It also saw Coombes and Co. nominated at the 1995 Mercury Prize, and contained what would soon become their biggest track to date, the Ivor-Novello winning ‘Alright’.
At time of writing, the band haven’t shared any further indication as to whether the announcement is related to the huge upcoming milestone – whether it be an anniversary tour or reissue – nor whether it has anything to do with new music that could be on the way.
The band’s last studio album was ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, which arrived in 2008. Since then, they have shared remastered versions of both their 1999 self-titled album and their 2003 record ‘Life On Other Planets’.
In other news around the band, last year it was reported that the band’s frontman joined Johnny Marr onstage last month to perform The Smiths‘ classic ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ at Lakefest 2023.
Before then, Coombes opened up about how “nervous” he was about reuniting Supergrass following the success of his solo albums.
Supergrass split up in 2010 but reunited for a series of live shows in 2019. They released a live album in 2020, Live On Other Planets, to celebrate their 25th anniversary and raise money for grassroots venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having got into a flow and the last two albums having done so well, it seemed a bit odd, like a backward step,” he said. “But then I was confident that I could operate both things together and it seems that I did, because I was obviously writing this record mainly during the reunion so I feel like I made best use of both things.”
Coombes’ fourth solo album, ‘Turn The Car Around’, came out in January of last year.
