Scoreboard: Halsey, Imagine Dragons

On this week’s Scoreboard Halsey has the new #1 album in America while Imagine Dragons surge into the Artist Top 10

Billboard Artist Top 10

For the magazine dated June 24, 2017

See the full chart at http://www.billboard.com/charts/artist-100

Summer ’17 release season has arrived and this week’s big winner on the charts is Ashley Frangipane a.k.a. Halsey, who takes #1 on the Artist 100 and #1 on the Billboard 200 with her second album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. On the Hot 100 the “Despacito (Remix)” reign at #1 continues for the fifth week for Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber. Las Vegas’s Imagine Dragons are also back, returning to the Artist Top 10 this week with no album out, but ready to be the year’s biggest rock band.

Country singer Luke Combs has the week’s second biggest new album, his debut This One’s For You

Halsey’s Hopeless Kingdom Takes #1

At age 22 Halsey has now earned #1s on all three major Billboard charts – the Artist 100 and Billboard 200 this week, and the Hot 100 last year with The Chainsmokers and “Closer.” Like many of today’s younger pop artists, @iamhalsey was first discovered on YouTube and has quickly ascended up the pop ladder helped by her South by Southwest appearance in 2015, the success of “Closer,” and an appearance on the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack earlier this year.

As a biracial and a bisexual artist, @iamhalsey has also had cultural influence beyond music. Releasing Hopeless Fountain Kingdom during Pride Month is not only a savvy marketing move. On the new album, Halsey backs it up with a same-sex love song “Strangers” with Lauren Jauregui of Fifth Harmony, who had gone public about her own bisexuality in November 2016. Hopeless Fountain Kingdom offers plenty of heterosexual electropop as well. Highlights include lead single “Now Or Never,” which has @iamhalsey dabbling in R&B, and “Alone,” an upbeat warning to a potential lover served over an arrangement recalling What’s Going On era Marvin Gaye. The new album provides Halsey an opportunity to go beyond the “girl on Closer” moniker and become a bona fide pop star; it will not be a surprise if sounds of Hopeless Fountain Kingdom make @iamhalsey a household name by year-end.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVNu_U7DgPa/

Halsey’s all smiles this week at the top of the charts

Imagine Dragons Come Back With More Dystopia

Night Visions, the 2012 debut album by Imagine Dragons, became one of the decade’s biggest rock album thanks to sleeper hit “Radioactive” that set a Billboard Hot 100 record with an incredible 87 weeks spent on the chart. The apocalyptic sound that made “Radioactive” so successful was toned down on the band’s second album, 2014’s Smoke + Mirrors, which had two hits chart on the Hot 100 but failed to live up to the achievements of Night Visions. Now the gang is back for album #3, Evolve, which is slated for global release on Friday, June 23rd. Lead single “Believer” brings back the end of days, recalling both “Radioactive” and last year’s Suicide Squad soundtrack cut “Sucker For Pain.” Check out the video for “Believer” below, it has already spent 18 weeks on the Hot 100, but has 69 to go to tie the band’s own record: