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    Post Malone Returns to No. 1 With His Country Debut, ‘F-1 Trillion’

    The shape-shifting pop songwriter’s new album debuts atop the Billboard 200, and Chappell Roan’s “Midwest Princess” holds at No. 2.Post Malone, the face-tattooed singer and songwriter who emerged a decade ago with a rock-meets-folk-meets-rap style that caught fire on streaming services, opens at No. 1 on the latest Billboard album chart with “F-1 Trillion,” which repositions the star in a country context.“F-1 Trillion,” featuring guest spots by a bevy of Nashville stars like Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw, Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson and Jelly Roll, was released on Aug. 16 — two days after Post Malone’s debut at the Grand Ole Opry — and garnered the equivalent of 250,000 sales in the United States. That total includes 213 million streams and 80,000 copies sold as a complete unit, according to the tracking service Luminate. The full “deluxe” version of the album has 27 tracks.The success of “F-1 Trillion” is the latest swerve in the story of Post Malone — real name Austin Post — who in the late 2010s became one of the flagship stars of the streaming era with emotive earworms like “Rockstar,” “Better Now” and “Sunflower.” His albums “Beerbongs & Bentleys” (2018) and “Hollywood’s Bleeding” (2019) were mainstays in the top ranks of the chart. But he stumbled with two follow-up LPs, “Twelve Carat Toothache” (2022) and “Austin” (2023), which leaned deeper into pop and rock but had considerably weaker sales.Recently, Post Malone returned as an unexpected guest star on two of this year’s biggest albums: Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” and Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” where he duetted with Swift on the album’s lead single, “Fortnight.” In May, he revealed his country direction with “I Had Some Help,” featuring Wallen, the first single from “F-1 Trillion”; it became his first solo No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart since “Circles” in 2019. (“Fortnight,” naturally, went straight to the top.)Also this week on the Billboard 200 album chart, Chappell Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” holds at No. 2, while Swift’s “Tortured Poets” falls to No. 3 after logging its 15th week at No 1. Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 4 and Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” is in fifth place. More

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    7 New Collaborations You Should Hear Now

    Hear music from pairings that include Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, and Post Malone and Chris Stapleton.Post MaloneThea Traff for The New York TimesDear listeners,It’s time once again for your monthly digest of recommended new music, culled from the Friday Playlists that Jon Pareles and I compile each week. This month’s collection has a twist: It’s composed entirely of collaborations.I try to keep these new music compilations relatively brief, so you can stay up-to-date on recent releases without investing too much time. Consider today’s playlist especially efficient. Over just 7 tracks, you’ll get to hear 14 different artists.Some pairings are like peanut butter and jelly, in that they make perfect sense: Of course Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars sound good together. Chloe and Anderson .Paak? I can absolutely hear that in my head before I even press play. But I’d categorize a few of these collaborations as peanut butter and bacon: Unexpected, a bit of a head-scratcher on paper, but surprisingly enjoyable in execution. I never thought I’d hear, say, the rapper ASAP Rocky and the folk singer Jessica Pratt on a song together, but now I have and you know what? That’s a tasty sandwich.You wanna guess if we’re serious about this song,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars: “Die With a Smile”Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars each have the sort of highly adaptable talent that transcends genre and trend; they also pride themselves on professionalism sprinkled with a healthy dose of pizazz. (For what it’s worth, they’re also the exact same age: 38.) Each brings the appropriate amount of firepower to “Die With a Smile,” a romantic torch song accentuated by dreamy guitars. It’s likely a one-off, but Gaga did reference a forthcoming seventh album when she announced this single. Little Monsters, you’ve been warned.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe 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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    How Post Malone Went Country (Carefully, With a Beer in His Hand)

    Post Malone emerged from a porta-potty on a recent Wednesday afternoon to meet his new Nashville public.The face-tattooed pop chameleon had been cruising slowly across downtown, hidden on the back of an 18-wheeler that carried just a couple of speakers, some beers, two to-go toilets and a pair of superstars. As usual, Post — born Austin Post and known as one or the other, or the cuter variation, Posty — had brought a friend along as a local emissary.So when the truck’s flatbed cover fell and the bathroom doors opened, revealing both him and the burly country hitmaker Luke Combs, everyone in sight — giddy children and grizzled grandfathers, wasted tourists and jaded locals — lost their minds as planned.“Posty, we love you!” fans shouted from cars and skateboards amid a sea of raised cellphones. Professional cameras rolled, too, the herds thickening down Broadway as the truck eased past Nudie’s Honky Tonk, Jason Aldean’s Kitchen and the Whiskey River Saloon.Like Nashville Pied Pipers, the once-unlikely duo were using the stunt to film a last-minute, lightly slapstick music video for Post’s new single featuring Combs, “Guy for That.”Post Malone theorized that the pace and over-digitalization of modern life made people crave “simpler lifestyles” and “more guitar.” “I think they miss, you know, some authenticity,” he said.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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    The 15 Songs That Hit No. 1 This Year (So Far)

    Hear tracks by Shaboozey, Sabrina Carpenter, Kendrick Lamar and more.Shaboozey reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 this week for the first time with “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”Daniel PrakopcykDear listeners,It’s Caryn the editor here again, seizing control of the playlist one more time (don’t worry, you’ll have Lindsay back next week).On Monday, Shaboozey reached the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 with “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” making him the second Black artist to hit No. 1 on both the all-genre singles chart and Hot Country Songs. Somehow both milestones came this year: Beyoncé did it first with “Texas Hold ’Em.”The news got me scrolling through what’s topped the Hot 100 so far in 2024 — over the last 27 weeks, 15 songs have done it. And we’re going to listen to all of them in The Amplifier today.It’s always interesting to see how the official chart stacks up against cultural vibes. It may feel like the summer of “Espresso,” but Sabrina Carpenter’s Certified Bop hasn’t hit No. 1 in the United States (yet). It doesn’t just seem like Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is dominating 2024: It is, with 11 straight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. But only one of its songs — its opener, “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone — has spent any time atop the Hot 100. Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” has had two songs summit the singles chart; Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” had the one. Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan haven’t hit No. 1 yet this year, but I wouldn’t count them out.The longest run belongs to “I Had Some Help,” by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen (six weeks, five of them consecutive). Two songs from the Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake beef hit No. 1; perhaps unsurprisingly considering the outcome, they were both Lamar’s.So let’s take a trip through the recent past together — and for fun (or counterprogramming), see how the biggest songs of the year (so far) compare to our critics’ best songs of the year (so far).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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    My Starting Five Songs From Boston and Dallas

    Catch the N.B.A. Finals spirit with Erykah Badu, Pixies, Kelly Clarkson and more.Erykah Badu, repping for DallasErik Carter for The New York TimesDear listeners,Last night marked the start of the 2023-2024 N.B.A. Finals, a best-of-seven matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks. As a long-suffering and perpetually annoying fan of the Philadelphia 76ers, I do not really have a horse in this race*, but I also have an excess of energy I would normally reserve for rooting for one of these two teams. I have decided to put that energy to productive use by making a playlist of music by artists from both Boston and Dallas.Consider these musicians my starting five from each city. Both Boston and Dallas have rich and varied musical histories, as you’ll hear in this playlist’s blend of rock, pop, country, R&B, blues and hip-hop. It features bona fide superstars (the Texan Kelly Clarkson; the Dorchesterite Donna Summer) and influential legends (Dallas’s own Stevie Ray Vaughan; the Beantown art-rockers the Pixies). Sure, there are some omissions, but these are just my personal starting fives — and given how many times the ABC broadcast played “Sweet Emotion” when throwing to commercial last night, you’ve probably already hit your Aerosmith quota for the week.Game 1 was quite anticlimactic, with Boston blowing out Dallas 107-89, so hopefully the human Golden Retriever that is Luka Dončić will be able to galvanize his Mavericks into giving us a more competitive series. And if not, well, there’s always this playlist.She knows the highest stakes,Lindsay*Beyond an inborn and semi-irrational distaste for all Boston sports teams, of course.Listen along while you read.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