Scoreboard: Chris Stapleton, Logic, Chris Cornell

This week Scoreboard spotlights new albums by Chris Stapleton and Logic and pays tribute to the late Chris Cornell.

Billboard Artist Top 10

For the magazine dated May 27, 2017

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

The winners of this week’s Billboard charts are all new to the charts’ summits. On the Billboard 200 rapper Logic ascends to the top with his third studio album Everybody. At #2 on that chart is country star Chris Stapleton with his second album From A Room: Volume 1. Although Stapleton is the runner up on the Billboard 200, he takes the #1 on the Artist 100, squeaking ahead of Logic. Over at the Hot 100, Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber take #1 with “Despacito (Remix),” which Scoreboard featured two weeks ago. For @justinbieber, the week marks him achieving two different #1s in two weeks as last week he was on top with “I’m The One,” a DJ Khaled superstar collaboration also featuring Quavo of Migos, Chance The Rapper, and Lil Wayne. In addition to all the turnover on the charts, this week brought the sad news of the death of Chris Cornell, a tribute to whom appears at the end of this week’s Scoreboard.

Justin Bieber is the first artist in the Billboard Hot 100 history to have two new #1s in two consecutive weeks

Logic and Chris Stapleton Have a Photo Finish

This week’s Billboard 200 result was close to a tie: Chris Stapleton’s latest sold six thousand physical albums more than Logic’s new release, but Logic had 34 thousand more equivalent streams and took #1. The artists’ origins cannot be more different, yet both are major influencers on their genres. Logic was born Sir Robert Bryson Hall II in Maryland, to a Caucasian mother and an African-American father. That fact will not be lost on you if you listen to Everybody, which is the latest entry in the Great Rap Album of 2017 sweepstakes (following Migos, Big Sean, Future, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar). The album runs over an hour in length and features multiple conversations between protagonist Atom (voiced by Big Von) and God (voiced by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson), inspired by short story “The Egg,” written by author of The Martian Andy Weir. Lead single “Everybody” serves as a thesis statement for the album, on which @logic301 matches Kendrick Lamar’s ruminations on identity. Current single “1-800-273-8255” features newcomers Alessia Cara and Khalid (who are at #18 and #36 on this week’s Artist 100, respectively) and refers to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number. @logic301’s anti-suicide message is at #47 on this week’s Hot 100 and if it gains spins on radio and streaming services this summer, it will be Logic’s biggest service for everybody in 2017.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUIWWzwl_NZ/?taken-by=logic301&hl=en

Logic enjoys his week at #1

Chris Stapleton went to #1 on the Billboard 200 in 2015 with Traveller and his anticipated follow-up From A Room: Volume 1 brings more of the signature Stapleton country-rock sound. The album starts with “Broken Halos,” a mid-tempo ode to lost friends, and moves through both roadhouse stompers and emotional ballads including a Willie Nelson cover on which @chrisstapleton’s wife provides backup vocals. Current single “Either Way” is a song Stapleton wrote a decade ago for Lee Ann Womack on which the breakup is final: “I won’t love you either way.” Perhaps Stapleton will be kinder on the next volume of country tunes from Nashville’s A Room recording studio.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT92E9fBDTF/?taken-by=chrisstapleton&hl=en

Chris Stapleton’s signature beard may have received extensions for late night

R.I.P. Chris Cornell (1964-2017)

The first half of the 1990’s was the peak of grunge, a punk and heavy-metal influenced type of alternative rock that originated in Seattle. Grunge pioneers included Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, and Soundgarden. This week, Soundgarden’s co-founder, lead singer, and rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell was found dead at a Detroit hotel following a Soundgarden concert. According to the county medical examiner the death was ruled a suicide, though his wife’s statement on Friday also identified an excess dose of anxiety medicine Ativan as a cause. Regardless the circumstances surrounding Cornell’s passing, American rock has lost one of the most distinctive voices of the last two decades.

Cornell was born in Seattle and dropped out of school as a teenager. He struggled with drug abuse and found a release in rock music, performing by age 16 and forming Soundgarden with Hiro Yamamoto and Kim Thayil at age 20. Soundgarden’s success was not immediate. Despite signing a major record deal with A&M Records in 1988, the band only broke through nationally in 1994 with Superunknown, which included “Black Hole Sun,” the band’s first of six #1s on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. Throughout the 1990’s the band delivered dark grunge hits such as “Fell On Black Days” and “Blow Up The Outside World.” Cornell stepped away from Soundgarden from 1997 to 2011, but continued recording, releasing three solo albums (he also released his fourth in 2015) and fronting the supergroup Audioslave with former members of Rage Against The Machine. While leading Audioslave, Cornell earned two #1s on the Billboard Alternative chart while delivering “haunting, existential poetry,” a more melodic sound that departed from the louder metal sound of both Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine. In addition to Soundgarden and Audioslave, Cornell founded Temple Of The Dog, a band that paid tribute to late Seattle rocker Andrew Wood, who died in 1990. Members of that band, though not Cornell, went on to establish Pearl Jam.

Chris Cornell is survived by his second wife Vicky Cornell and three children (one of whom is from his first marriage). His is a life lost too soon (Soundgarden had a show scheduled in Columbus, Ohio, two days after his death), and to pay tribute to him check out Audioslave’s “Like A Stone” below and all his hit songs that were ranked by Billboard: