Japan boy band King & Prince have set the record for 2023’s fastest-selling album in Japan, with their compilation album, 'Mr.5', selling more than 1.2 million physical copies in its first week, MBW reports. The ‘best of’ album also became the first album of 2023 to sell more than one million copies during its first week in Japan. On April 26, King & Prince sold over 1 million CD copies of their single 'Life Goes On' in its first week, which was the first time in three years that sales threshold was crossed.

Cassette sales in the UK grew by 5.2% in 2022, reaching their highest level since 2003, following 10 consecutive years of growth, Forbes reports. All in all, 195,000 audio cassettes were sold last year in the UK, compared to 3,823 sold in 2012. All 20 of the U.K's biggest-selling cassettes in 2022 were released that year, with the most popular cassettes sold being The Arctic Monkeys' ‘The Car’ and ‘Harry’s House' by Harry Styles. Similarly, in the U.S. 2022 sales of albums on cassette tape jumped by 28% to 440,000 - up from 343,000 in 2021,

Recorded music revenues in the US - money spent on streaming subscriptions, as well as physical and digital music - grew 6.1% YoY in 2022 to $15.9 billion, the market’s seventh consecutive year of growth, MBW reports. Streaming grew 7.3% to a record high $13.3 billion in revenue and collectively accounts for 84% of revenues. Wholesale revenues – the money that makes its way back to record labels, distributors and artists – were $10.3 billion in 2022, the first time they exceeded $10 billion in the market. Also, retail revenues from paid subscription services (Spotify, Apple Music etc) grew 8% to $10.2 billion in 2022, exceeding the $10 billion mark annually for the first time. Revenues from vinyl records grew 17.2% to $1.2 billion – marking the format’s 16th consecutive year of growth - accounting for 71% of physical format revenues. For the first time since 1987, vinyl albums outsold CDs in units - 41 million vs 33 million.

Elton John's Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour is the highest-grossing concert tour of all time - it has grossed $817.9 million across 278 shows so far, more than any other tour in Billboard Boxscore history (Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour made $776.4 million). Billboard has another fascinating statistic - dating back to reports for Elton John’s Ice on Fire Tour (1986), and including his share of co-headline runs with Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Tina Turner, and Billy Joel, John has grossed $1.863 billion and sold 19.9 million tickets over 1,573 reported shows. That’s the highest career gross and attendance for a solo artist in Billboard Boxscore history, having passed Bruce Springsteen and Madonna while on this tour.

Taylor Swift sold 1.695 million vinyl albums in the U.S. in 2022 across her entire catalog of releases, more than any other act by far last year, Billboard reports. Nearly one of every 25 vinyl LPs sold last year in the U.S. was a Swift album - 43.46 million total vinyl albums were sold by all artists. Swift’s latest release, 'Midnights', was the top-selling vinyl album of 2022 in the U.S., with 945,000 copies sold across all of its vinyl variants and editions, benefiting from the availability of a range of alternative versions and color-vinyl variants. 'Midnights' was available in four standard vinyl LP editions, each with a different cover and colored vinyl, with back covers of the albums fitting together like a puzzle to display a clock face. A side fact - while vinyl album sales continue to gain each year in the U.S., only half of those fans buying records actually own a vinyl record player.

Record 2.232 million vinyl albums were sold in the US the week ending December 22, the highest figure it has ever been recorded since 1991, Billboard reports. The biggest-selling record was ‘Midnights’ by Taylor Swift, which moved 68,000 units. This is the second time since 1991 that vinyl sales have crossed the 2 million mark – the first time this happened was only last year, when 2.1 million records were sold in the week ending December 23, 2021.

Top 100 Tours of 2022 have set a new record with $6.28 billion grossed this year, based on Pollstar’s Year End Top 200 Worldwide Tours chart.  It represents a whopping 13.2% increase over 2019 — the pre-pandemic year saw a  record-setting gross of $5.5 billion. Overall ticket sales reported around the globe in 2022 also set an all-time gross record with an astounding grand total of $11.7  billion — just over a 5% increase compared to 2019’s $11.1 billion. This number is just a part of the entire global live industry, which easily surpasses an estimated $30 billion annually. Pollstar reports on the successful touring year.

Bad Bunny has grossed $435.38 million in 2022 alone from touring, setting an all-time record amount made from touring in a calendar year, Pollstar reports. Puerto Rican artist surpassed the previous record set by Ed Sheeran for his Divide tour, which amassed $432.3 million in 2018. Bad Bunny also became Spotify’s most-streamed artist globally for the third year in a row after amassing more than 18.5 billion streams on the platform.

This week, Ticketmaster’s site crashed during the presale for Taylor Swift’s Era’s Tour, causing the cancellation of the general sale scheduled for Friday (November 18), the MBW reports. Ticketmaster claims that demand was so high for the tickets that, based on the volume of traffic to their site, Swift “would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)”, or a stadium show “every single night for the next 2.5 years“. Over 2 million tickets were sold for Taylor Swift’s tour on November 15, “the most tickets ever sold for an artist in a single day”.

With her new album 'Midnights', Taylor Swift broke many records in sales, streams, plays - many formats and categories. So, 'Midnights' moved 1.578 million units, behind only Adele’s '25' for the biggest debut by a female artist in Billboard history. She also became the only artist to have five albums debut with over 1 million units sold in their first week in US Nielsen history. 'Midnights' sold 575,000 copies on vinyl — the largest week for an album on vinyl since tracking began in 1991. Taylor becomes the first artist to claim all top ten entries on the Hot 100 in a single week. 'Midnights' is Swift’s 11th No. 1 album overall, tying Barbra Streisand for most No. 1 albums made by women. Above the two ladies are The Beatles (19), and Jay-Z (14), with Drake and Bruce Springsteen also having 11 No. 1 albums. Insider lists all the records.

'Heat Waves' by Glass Animals was released as a single on June 29, 2020, and in March 2022, this week, 'Heat Waves' hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 after a 59-week climb, by far the longest climb to #1 in Billboard history, Billboard reports. The funny thing is, it's an old song now - SOUNDSCAN will register it as a "catalog" transaction since it's older than 18 months.

The Weeknd has now risen to have 85,667,564 monthly listeners on Spotify, becoming the artist with the most monthly listeners on the platform, Hip Hop DX reports. The title had previously been held by Justin Bieber for nearly a year. The feat comes after The Weeknd has released his new album ‘Dawn FM’ earlier this month. 'Dawn FM' has also set a new record for the Billboard Global 200 chart with 24 charting songs, making the most ever by a solo male artist.

Bad Bunny has been named the most-streamed artist in the world on Spotify in 2021, for the second year in a row, Music Business Worldwide reports. Bad Bunny has received over 9.1 billion streams in 2021 so far, achieving that tally without even having released an album this year. Last year, he had received over 8.3 billion streams on Spotify by December 1.

Adele’s new album ’30’ blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 839,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 25, debuting with the largest week of 2021 for any album. Album sales comprise 692,000, making it easily the largest sales week of the year for any album. Further, '30' is the biggest-selling album of the entire year with 692,000 in sales, surpassing the total sales of any album over the past 11 months combined, Billboard reports.

Adele's new album '30' has shot to number one at the UK Official Charts, overtaking Abba to become the fastest-selling album of the year so far. '30' has 261,000 sales, compared to the Swedish pop group's comeback album 'Voyage', which opened with 204,000 sales. However, Adele's previous album '25', released in 2015, opened with 800,000 first-week sales.

ABBA earn their highest charting album ever on the Billboard 200 with their first album in 39 years, as 'Voyage' debuts at No. 2 on the chart, Billboard reports. 'Voyage' starts with 82,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. Of that sum, album sales comprise 78,000, making it the top-selling album of the week and the largest sales week for an album by a group in 2021. Another big feat on Billboard 200 chart this week - Summer Walker earns her first No. 1 album as the singer’s second studio LP, 'Still Over It', arrives atop the list with 166,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. It marks both the first R&B album by a woman to top the Billboard 200 in more than five years and the largest streaming week ever for an R&B album by a woman, Billboard reports.

Venezuela's network of youth orchestras organized a world records attempt at Venezuela’s military academy Saturday where thousands of musicians, mostly children and adolescents, played with a single goal: setting the record as the world’s largest orchestra, Deutsche Welle reports. The musicians performed a roughly 10-minute Tchaikovsky piece 'Slavic March' outdoors under the watchful eyes of independent supervisors with the job of verifying that more than 8,097 instruments were playing simultaneously, which would break the current record. The Guinness World Records will determine within 10 days whether a record was set.

aylor Swift's re-recording 'Red (Taylor’s Version)' smashed the record for the most-streamed album in a day by a female artist on Spotify with more than 90.8 million streams around the globe, Billboard reports. That number only surpasses Swift’s own 'folklore', which previously held the record at 80.6 million streams upon its surprise July 2020 release. Taylor also earned the distinction as the most-streamed female artist in a single day in Spotify's history with more than 122.9 million streams.

Adele has gone back to number one in the UK with her new single 'Easy On Me', scoring the biggest chart figures for almost five years - she had a record 24 million streams in the UK in its first week as well as 23,500 downloads. That is equivalent to 217,300 sales - the highest since Ed Sheeran's 'Shape of You' in January 2017, UK Official Charts reports. In the album chart, Coldplay's 'Music of the Spheres' became the fastest-selling record of the year so far, with 101,000 chart sales, Charts reports.

Adele's comeback single, 'Easy On Me', broke the global record for day-one streams on Spotify after its release on Friday, Rolling Stone reports. UK superstar achieved the same feat on Amazon Music. 'Easy On Me' had 19.75 million chart-eligible day-one Spotify streams (10 plays per head per 24 hours are counted), nearly double of BTS' 'Butter', which had 11.04 million plays on its day one on Spotify in May.16

Kanye West’s 'Donda' has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the biggest week for any album released this year with 309,000 equivalent album units, Billboard reports. With 'Donda', Kanye West has once again tied Eminem for the record of most No. 1 debuts in a row on the albums chart, too. Eminem broke the tie in early 2020 with 'Music to Be Murdered By'. West has become one of only seven artists in chart history to release 10 chart-topping albums, alongside the Beatles, JAY-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Eminem, and Elvis Presley.

Input analyses Kanye West's career as it was mirrored in his fashion: "Kanye has curated his aesthetic universe to be one of the most recognizable in the music industry. His relationships with music and fashion have not only been symbiotic within his own life, but with the streetwear landscape around him. While the Yeezy label carves Kanye’s imprint within luxury fashion, he uses his merch as a creative playground, transforming each album into collectible garments. The lasting impact of Kanye’s merch has less to do with the artist himself, but more so with the creative ecosystem he creates around each project, and the aesthetic footprint it leaves behind". West's listening event for his still-unreleased album on August 5 proves the point - with 40,000 ticketed guests, it raked in $7 million from merch sales, breaking the record for highest-grossing U.S. tour.

The Weeknd's 'Blinding Lights' has spent a record-breaking 88th week on the Billboard Hot 100 (on the chart dated Aug. 21). It passes Imagine Dragons' 'Radioactive', which spent 87 weeks on the survey in 2012-14. Billboard talked to Imagine Dragons' Dan Reynolds about their song and passing the torch to The Weeknd.

The Kid LAROI has become the first Australian rapper to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with his 'F*ck Love' album, over a year after it was originally released, Billboard reports. 'F**k Love' surges from No. 26 to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for its first week atop the list, following multiple reissues that added additional tracks to the project. The set earned 85,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending July 29. At 17 years old, he’s also the youngest artist to top the chart this decade.

Olivia Rodrigo’s 'Sour' earned 83,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending July 16, notching the fourth total week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. 'Sour' is the first debut album by a woman to spend four weeks at No. 1 since Susan Boyle’s 'I Dreamed a Dream' spent six weeks in 2009/2010, Billboard reports. Speaking of records, Inhaler’s 'It Won’t Always Be Like This' opens at the top of the Official U.K. Albums Chart, with 18,000 chart sales, and the fastest-selling debut album on vinyl of any band this century.

ABBA's greatest hits album 'Gold' reached a landmark 1000 weeks on the Official Albums Chart Top 100, the first album to do so in UK chart history. ABBA's 'Gold' was released in September 1992, debuting at Number 1, and has gone on to be the UK's second best-selling album of all time -behind Queen's 'Greatest Hits' - with pure sales of 5.61 million, according to Official Charts Company data.

Taylor Swift’s 6-months old album 'Evermore' returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 202,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending June 3, Billboard reports. Album sales comprise 192,000, marking the biggest sales week of 2021. Also, 'Evermore' broke the record for the biggest sales week for a vinyl album in the U.S. since tracking sales began in 1991. The vinyl edition of the album sold 102,000 in a week, smashing Jack White’s record set with 40,000 copies of 'Lazaretto' sold in June 2014. 'Evermore' was initially released digitally and through streamers on Dec. 11, 2020, but its vinyl edition was not issued until May 28.

BTS' new single 'Butter' broke the record for the most viewed YouTube music video in its first 24 hours with 108,200,000 views on Friday, May 21. After the single dropped on Spotify it garnered 11,042,335 global streams in just one day, breaking the record for the most streamed track on Spotify in the first 24 hours, Guinness World Records reports. Also, as of 27 April 2021, the music of BTS had been streamed 16.3 billion times on Spotify, breaking the record for the most streamed act on Spotify.

Nine-year-old DJ Michelle from The United Arab Emirates has become the youngest ever entrant to the DMC World Portablist DJ Championships, the DJ Mag reports. The annual DJ competition began in 1985, and it showcases the world’s DJ Scratch skills on portable turntables and vinyl records. Competitions are taking place from April through December.

Sir Tom Jones' new album 'Surrounded By Time' has debuted at the top of the UK album chart, making him the oldest man at the chart's top ever. Previously, the title has been held by Bob Dylan, who topped the chart last June aged 79 with 'Rough and Rowdy Ways'. The late Dame Vera Lynn holds the overall record after her 2009 greatest hits collection went to number one when she was 92. 'Surrounded By Time' finds Jones re-interpreting some old favourites, including Terry Callier's 'Lazarus Man'.