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    ‘It’s Time!’ Mariah Carey Reflects on 30 Years as Queen of Christmas

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    Getting her usual early start on the holiday, the powerhouse vocalist and songwriter looks back on the phenomenon she created.When the record company came knocking, Mariah Carey wasn’t sure about making a Christmas album.“I felt it was too early in my career,” she said in a recent interview, recalling the early ’90s. But she had always loved Christmas, and so she got to work on arrangements for some of her favorite seasonal classics, like “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night,” and filled her recording studio with vibrant decorations like trees and lights. All she and her writing partner Walter Afanasieff needed were some original songs.Then one late night, she recalled, the distinctive opening melody line of one song came to her as she tapped it out on a small Casio keyboard — “ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding,” she sang over Zoom. For the lyrics, she said, she racked her brain for something that felt meaningful. Then, “I started thinking about: ‘I don’t want a lot for Christmas.’”Carey performing Christmas songs at St. John the Divine in Manhattan in December 1994.Kevin.Mazur/Archive, via WireimageAnd at Madison Square Garden in December 2019.Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for McThirty years after its release in 1994, that song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” has become one of the longest-charting singles in any genre, spending 65 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100, and perhaps the best-known original holiday song of the last half-century. The album, “Merry Christmas,” has sold 18 million copies and would become synonymous with the season, blasting from cars, mall speakers and party playlists, and cementing Carey’s role as the Queen of Christmas. And the season? Well, that begins on Nov. 1 — when Carey has declared, “It’s time.”Carey spoke with The New York Times ahead of a 21-date holiday tour that starts this month. It comes as she is teasing new, non-Christmas music, in what would be her first studio album in six years.

    View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mariah Carey (@mariahcarey) We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Taylor Swift Bests K-Pop Band to Stay No. 1 for Seventh Week

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      Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ held off Ateez’s ‘Golden Hour: Part.1.’ The singer-songwriter Shaboozey opened at No. 5.Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is the No. 1 album once again, leading the Billboard 200 chart for a seventh straight time.Since it came out in April with historic numbers — breaking records for streaming and vinyl sales, and posting the biggest opening week of Swift’s career — “Tortured Poets” has been unstoppable, even as its performance has gradually cooled. In recent weeks it has held off challenges from Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, and this week it blocks the latest from the K-pop boy band Ateez.In its latest week out, “Tortured Poets” had the equivalent of 148,000 sales in the United States, including 157 million streams and 27,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since its release, the album has had the equivalent of about 4.3 million sales and just shy of 2.5 billion streams in the United States alone.Of the 14 albums that Swift has sent to No. 1 in her career — going back to “Fearless,” her second LP, back in 2008 — “Tortured Poets” has now had the longest consecutive stretch at the top, exceeding “Folklore,” which in 2020 spent its first six weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s flagship LP chart. (Several of Swift’s albums, including “Folklore,” have had more turns at No. 1 overall, but not in a row.)Also this week, Ateez’s “Golden Hour: Part.1,” a six-track “mini-album,” opens in second place with 131,000 equivalent sales, largely from its popularity on CD and vinyl. “Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going” by Shaboozey, a singer-songwriter who was featured on Beyoncé’s latest album, “Cowboy Carter,” opens at No. 5 with the equivalent of 50,000.Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” falls to No. 3 after spending its first two weeks in second place, and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 4 in its 67th week on the chart. More

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      How Did Melanie’s ’Brand New Key” Hit No. 1?

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      Melanie’s “Brand New Key” is just one of many weird songs that somehow topped the Billboard charts.When Melanie’s “Brand New Key” debuted in 1971, some people were confused. What did the singer, who died on Tuesday at 76, mean when she sang about having a brand-new pair of roller skates and someone else having a brand-new key?Melanie told interviewers that she wrote the song in 15 minutes, after ending a 27-day fast, and that it was intended to be cute. The folk singer said that it did not have a deeper meaning, though many thought its playful lyrics about biking and roller skating were really about sex (“Don’t go too fast but I go pretty far”). It sounded strange, like a song out of time — Melanie said she intended it to hearken to the 1930s — sung with what could now be called a warbling “indie girl voice.” And it somehow hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.The song has lingered in pop culture, from a lip sync battle between Jimmy Fallon and Melissa McCarthy to a post-apocalyptic DJ playing it endlessly on “Kids in the Hall.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Morgan Wallen Spends 14th Week at No. 1

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      The country singer’s latest album, “One Thing at a Time,” has now notched more weeks atop the Billboard chart than any album in more than a decade.The country star Morgan Wallen is back on the road after six weeks of rest, and back once again at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, notching his 14th nonconsecutive week on top since the release of his latest album, “One Thing at a Time,” in March.With 14 weeks at No. 1, “One Thing at a Time” separates itself from Drake’s “Views,” which totaled 13 chart-topping week in 2016, and gives Wallen the most weeks at No. 1 in more than a decade, since Adele’s “21” ended up with 24 nonconsecutive weeks in 2011 and 2012.This week, “One Thing at a Time” totaled 110,000 album equivalent units, including 139 million in streams and 4,500 in sales, dropping just 1 percent in listener activity since last week, when it returned to No. 1 after two weeks at No. 2. In the 16 weeks it has been out, Wallen’s album has not fallen under 100,000 in equivalent units, tying Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” for most weeks totaling six figures in the modern counting era, according to Billboard.Wallen’s world tour in support of “One Thing at a Time” resumed last week in Chicago, following six weeks of postponement that the singer said was recommended by doctors for vocal rest. In April, Wallen had abruptly canceled a concert in Mississippi just before he was set to take the stage, angering some fans. Wallen’s tour continues through most of the year, with some rescheduled dates stretching into 2024.In what has become a chart fixture this year, a K-pop group selling collectible CDs also found success this week: Ateez’s “The World EP.2: Outlaw” is No. 2 with 106,000 units, including 101,000 in album sales. Billboard reports that of the 10 albums this year to sell more than 100,000 copies as a complete album, seven have been by K-pop acts offering various CD versions.The rest of the Top 5 includes Gunna’s first album since being released from jail, “A Gift & a Curse,” which totaled 85,000 units at No. 3; Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” at No. 4 with 60,000 units; and SZA’s “SOS,” up to No. 5 from No. 8 with 48,000 units. Wallen’s previous album, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” which spent 10 weeks at No. 1 in 2021, is No. 6. More

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      Taylor Swift Halts Morgan Wallen’s Run at No. 1

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      After 12 straight weeks at the top, the country star’s “One Thing at a Time” yields to Swift’s “Midnights,” which was reissued in expanded editions.For 12 weeks, nothing could stop Morgan Wallen’s domination of the Billboard chart with his latest album, “One Thing at a Time.” Not Metallica. Not Ed Sheeran. Not the Jonas Brothers or solo projects from two members of BTS.Then came deluxe reissues of “Midnights,” Taylor Swift’s seven-month-old LP.With two expanded editions featuring bonus tracks, “Midnights” returns to No. 1, notching its sixth time at the top. One of the new versions, called “The Late Night Edition,” was primarily sold as a CD at Swift’s current stadium tour, though for 24 hours it was also available as a download from the singer’s website. Counting all variations, “Midnights” logged the equivalent of 282,000 sales in the United States last week, including 196,000 copies sold as complete packages and 108 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate.“Midnights” has been a steady hit since it came out last October. In its 32 weeks on the chart, it has never left the Top 10, and in all but three of those weeks it was in the Top 5. In the United States, “Midnights” has had the equivalent of nearly five million sales and been streamed 3.2 billion times.Lately, as Swift’s Eras Tour has become a cultural juggernaut, her wider catalog has also dotted the upper ranks of the album chart. Last week, Swift had nine titles in the Top 40. (“Lover,” from 2019, is No. 6 this week.) Swift also announced recently that a rerecorded version of her 2010 album “Speak Now” — featuring the hits “Mine,” “Back to December” and “Mean” — will come out in July.The return of “Midnights” bumps Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” to No. 2. Its 12-week consecutive run at the top was historic, falling just one week short of tying a record set by Stevie Wonder in 1977 among albums that open at No. 1 and hold there. Wallen’s last release, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” is No. 5 this week, its 122nd appearance in the Top 10.Also this week, “Almost Healed,” the new album by the Chicago rapper Lil Durk — featuring guest appearances by Alicia Keys, 21 Savage and Wallen — starts at No. 3 with the equivalent of 125,000 sales, including 168 million streams and 2,000 copies sold as a complete package. SZA’s “SOS” is No. 4. More

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      Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen Dominate Billboard’s Album Chart

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      Wallen spends an eighth week at No. 1 with “One Thing at a Time,” and Swift lands three albums in the Top 10, including the new vinyl set “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.”Half of the Billboard album chart’s Top 10 this week belongs to Morgan Wallen and Taylor Swift, with Wallen holding two slots, including No. 1, and Swift taking three.Wallen’s 36-track “One Thing at a Time” remains at the top for an eighth time, with the equivalent of 149,000 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. His previous release, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” is No. 7.Agust D — better known as Suga of the K-pop titans BTS — debuts at No. 2 with his first solo studio album, “D-Day.” It had the equivalent of 140,000 sales, including 18 million streams and 122,000 copies sold as a complete album.Swift opens at No. 3 with “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions,” a two-LP vinyl set released on April 22 as part of Record Store Day, an annual promotion in which artists and labels issue one-day special releases. It was limited to 75,000 copies in the United States, and every one of them was sold, according to Luminate. That is the biggest week for any album on vinyl so far this year, Billboard said.Swift, who is still playing stadiums on her Eras Tour, also occupies No. 4 this week, with her latest studio album, “Midnights,” and No. 10, with “Lover,” from 2019.Also this week, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, the prolific Louisiana rapper, arrives at No. 5 with his new “Don’t Try This at Home,” which features guest appearances by Nicki Minaj, Mariah the Scientist, Post Malone and others. The 33-track album, his 14th to reach the Top 10, had the equivalent of 60,000 sales, including 88 million streams. More

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      Morgan Wallen’s Billboard Chart Streak Enters Its Sixth Week

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      The country star’s latest album, “One Thing at a Time,” maintains its dominance over the Billboard chart. Can it match the 10-week run of Wallen’s “Dangerous”?Can Morgan Wallen do it again?Two years ago, he became the brightest star in country music, and one of most notable new hitmakers in the music industry overall, when his “Dangerous: The Double Album” became a streaming blockbuster and held the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s album chart for 10 weeks straight. That success came even as Wallen faced an industry rebuke — including his temporary removal from country radio playlists — after the singer was caught on tape using a racial slur.Now his latest release, the 36-track “One Thing at a Time,” has notched six weeks at the chart’s peak spot, and shows no sign of slowing down. In its most recent week, it had the equivalent of 167,000 sales in the United States, including 211 million streams and 6,000 copies of the album sold as a complete unit. For weeks, nothing has come close to challenging its position.And so far, “One Thing” is posting even better numbers than “Dangerous” did. Over its first six weeks, “Dangerous” has had just under 1 billion streams, or an average of about 33 million for each of the 30 tracks on its standard edition. “One Thing” is currently at 1.7 billion streams, or 48 million per track.How long can Wallen hold at the top? So far his biggest challenger on next week’s chart is Metallica, whose latest album, “72 Seasons,” was released on Friday.Also this week, the Michigan rapper NF opens at No. 2 with “Hope,” his fifth studio album, which had the equivalent of 123,000 sales, including 57 million streams and 80,500 copies sold as a complete package.Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” is No. 3, SZA’s “SOS” is No. 4 and Melanie Martinez’s “Portals” drops three spots to No. 5 in its second week out. More

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      Karol G’s ‘Mañana Será Bonito’ Is No. 1, Making Chart History

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      The latest release by the Colombian pop star is the first Spanish-language LP by a woman to open at the top of the Billboard 200.In December 2020, Bad Bunny made history on the Billboard charts with the first No. 1 album performed entirely in Spanish (“El Último Tour del Mundo”). Now the Colombian pop star Karol G has set another record with the first Spanish-language LP by a woman to take the top spot.“Mañana Será Bonito” (“Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful”), the fourth studio album by Karol G — the 32-year-old singer born Carolina Giraldo Navarro, instantly recognizable for her bold hair colorings — displaces SZA’s “SOS” on the Billboard 200 after a nearly consecutive 10-week run at the top. “Mañana Será Bonito” opens with the equivalent of 94,000 sales in the United States, including 119 million streams and 10,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to data from the tracking service Luminate.It is the latest sign of the growing commercial power of Latin music. Last year, Bad Bunny, from Puerto Rico, had the most popular album (“Un Verano Sin Ti”) and the biggest global tour. Karol G sold $70 million in tickets to her own tour, which Billboard said made it the highest-grossing tour of the United States by any Latin female artist in history.Karol G’s arrival pushes SZA to second place in her 12th week out, while Gorillaz — the “virtual band” created by the musician Damon Albarn and the visual artist Jamie Hewlett — opens at No. 3 with “Cracker Island,” the group’s eighth studio album. Yeat, a Portland, Ore., rapper at the top of the semi-underground “rage” heap, debuts at No. 4 with “AfterLyfe,” and Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” is in fifth place.Next week’s chart will undoubtedly be dominated by the country star Morgan Wallen, whose latest album, “One Thing at a Time,” came out on Friday. Like his last release, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” it is stuffed with catchy tunes about drinking, breakups and pickup trucks — “One Thing” has 36 tracks, “Dangerous” 30 — and it is already dominating streaming services.The only real questions facing “One Thing” are how big it will open and how long it will last on the chart. “Dangerous,” which came out at the very beginning of 2021, spent 10 consecutive weeks at No. 1 and is now in sixth place, its 109th time in the Top 10. More

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      SZA’s ‘SOS’ Is the No. 1 Album for an Eighth Time

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      The R&B singer-songwriter has matched Taylor Swift’s run with “Folklore,” the last time a female artist held the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s chart for eight weeks.SZA is not done with No. 1 yet.After a one-week dip to second place on the Billboard album chart, SZA — the genre-blurring R&B singer-songwriter born Solána Imani Rowe — returns to No. 1 this week for an eighth time with “SOS,” the hottest LP of the season.“SOS,” SZA’s long-awaited second studio album, had the equivalent of 100,000 sales in the United States in its most recent week out. Virtually all of that activity was attributed to the album’s popularity on streaming services, drawing 135 million clicks, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since “SOS” came out nine weeks ago, it has been streamed 1.7 billion times in the United States alone.With eight weeks at the top, “SOS” has tied the chart run of Taylor Swift’s “Folklore” in 2020, the last time a female artist racked up as many times at No. 1. (For both albums, the accomplishment came in nonconsecutive spans; it took Swift 13 weeks to notch an eighth No. 1 for “Folklore.”) In the last few years, the only albums that have had more are Disney’s “Encanto” soundtrack (nine weeks), Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” (10) and Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” (13).Also this week, Swift’s “Midnights” rises one spot to No. 2, while the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together, which opened at No. 1 last week with big CD sales of its new five-song EP, “The Name Chapter: Temptation,” fell to No. 3. Wallen’s “Dangerous” is in fourth place — its 106th time in the Top 10 — and Metro Boomin’s “Heroes & Villains” is No. 5.The country-pop star Shania Twain opened at No. 10 with her latest release, “Queen of Me.” More