Jack Black’s ‘A Minecraft Film’ music breaks chart file : NPR

It is a gradual week on the Billboard charts, however it’s nonetheless a giant week for Kendrick Lamar and SZA. Their collaboration “Luther” holds at No. 1 for a tenth consecutive week — one in every of solely 46 songs to take action in chart historical past — whereas SZA’s SOS and Lamar’s GNX sit at Nos. 1 and a couple of on the albums chart, respectively. However this week’s charts do characteristic an all-time file price noting, as a 34-second music cracks the Sizzling 100.

TOP ALBUMS

Final week, the rapper Ken Carson debuted atop the Billboard 200 albums chart with Extra Chaos, his first-ever chart-topper. And, although it was a gradual week on the charts — Extra Chaos had the smallest accumulation of gross sales and streaming for any chart-topping album in three years — a No. 1 album is a No. 1 album.

Carson’s journey on the prime was short-lived, nevertheless. This week, Extra Chaos plunges from No. 1 to No. 38, and with no main debuts to crash the get together — the best debut of any album this week belongs to Wiz Khalifa, whose Kush + Orange Juice 2 bows at No. 62 — we’re left within the firm of the standard suspects.

Tourmates SZA and Kendrick Lamar have been sticking across the Billboard 200’s uppermost reaches all 12 months, and now SZA’s SOS and Kendrick Lamar’s GNX sit at Nos. 1 and a couple of, respectively — albeit with numbers even decrease than what Extra Chaos posted final week. Morgan Wallen is surging a bit (One Factor at a Time from No. 6 to No. 3 and Harmful: The Double Album from No. 14 to No. 9), which is no surprise given the pending arrival of his new album. However in any other case, there is not a lot motion to talk of, till you get to…

…No. 10, the place Grammy-winning rapper Doechii vaults into the High 10 for the primary time in her profession. Alligator Bites By no means Heal leaps from No. 24 to No. 10 because of a mixture of things: The viral “Anxiousness” remains to be booming on the Sizzling 100 — it rises from No. 14 to No. 12 this week — whereas “Denial Is a River” remains to be floating round within the prime 50 after peaking at No. 21 earlier this 12 months. The larger issue, although, is that the album obtained two new vinyl editions (obtainable solely at Goal and City Outfitters), in addition to its first-ever CD.

TOP SONGS

One byproduct of the streaming period is that blockbuster songs are posting ever-longer streaks at No. 1. Simply final 12 months, Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” tied an all-time file with 19 weeks atop the Sizzling 100 — and that music, many months later, nonetheless sits at No. 5. So it should not come as an enormous shock that Kendrick Lamar’s “Luther (feat. SZA)” is at No. 1 for a tenth consecutive week. However it faces looming competitors from two completely different instructions.

The best risk to the reign of “Luther” is more than likely Alex Warren‘s “Abnormal,” which appears arrange for long-term (maybe even Shaboozey-level long-term) chart success. The music rises from No. 5 to No. 3 this week, because of a surge in each airplay and streaming; it is now No. 1 on Billboard‘s streaming chart and nonetheless has tons of room to maneuver as extra radio stations’ program administrators — who usually comply with the lead of streaming nowadays — add it to their rotations.

At this level, it does not require an important reward of prognostication to counsel that you will hear this music in all places this summer season: at weddings, on the radio, on TikTok, through your streaming algorithms and so forth. You want heart-on-their-sleeve singer-songwriters like Lewis Capaldi? Choir-addicted uplift retailers like Coldplay? Rock-adjacent earworm farmers like Think about Dragons? You are gonna love this music. You in all probability already do. You could be listening to it this very prompt, as you learn this.

The opposite main looming risk to “Luther” comes from nation sensation Morgan Wallen, who’s no stranger to the “music of the summer season” dialog, given the dominance of “Final Evening” and “I Had Some Assist” lately. Wallen will launch I am the Drawback on Could 16, however this week he extends a exceptional file: With the discharge of his Publish Malone collaboration “I Ain’t Coming Again” — the 2 collaborated on “I Had Some Assist” simply final 12 months — he is now landed six pre-release singles from I am the Drawback within the prime 10 within the run-up to the discharge. The earlier file, held by Publish Malone and Taylor Swift, was 4.

At this level, there’s not a scintilla of doubt that the 37-song I am the Drawback shall be a blockbuster. However it stays unclear whether or not anybody new Wallen monitor will take off as dramatically as “Final Evening” or “I Had Some Assist” did, given how a lot his new songs are competing with each other.

Wallen at the moment has 5 songs within the Sizzling 100’s prime 20: “I am the Drawback,” which jumps from No. 10 to No. 7; “I Ain’t Coming Again,” which debuts at No. 8; “Simply in Case,” which slides from No. 11 to No. 14; “I Had Some Assist,” which climbs from No. 17 to No. 15 after almost a 12 months on the chart; and “Love Any person,” which ticks up from No. 20 to No. 17. That is a formidable pile-up of hits, however followers can solely stream one factor at a time.

WORTH NOTING

The rise of TikTok has sophisticated life for individuals who compile Billboard‘s chart rankings. In any case, TikTok recognition usually leads and contributes to success on the pop charts. However it’s tough to check streams of music fragments to streams of full songs.

In fact, TikTok has modified the music trade in different methods, to the purpose the place some analysts have gone as far as to (very prematurely) predict that the app’s rise would result in unusually quick songs — not mere excerpts, however songs themselves — changing the three- and four-minute bangers that routinely spherical out the Sizzling 100.

Setting apart the occasional blockbuster that clocks in at lower than two minutes — lookin’ at you, pre-Billy Ray Cyrus model of “Previous City Street” — that prediction hasn’t come to go. However there is a brand-new all-time file, set throughout this exceptionally gradual week on the Billboard charts, for the shortest-ever music to hit the Billboard Sizzling 100. (The Sizzling 100 dates again to August 1958.)

The music? “Steve’s Lava Hen” by Jack Black, from A Minecraft Film. (Black, who stars within the movie as Steve, co-wrote the music with director Jared Hess.) Its size? Extremely, solely 34 seconds, although there’s a remix that drags it out to 1:22, which is actually a rock opera by comparability. The music’s debut chart place this week? No. 78.

“Steve’s Lava Hen” is not Black’s first music to crack the Sizzling 100; that may be “The Decide of Future,” by his band Tenacious D, which additionally hit No. 78 again in 2006. And it isn’t the highest-charting hit of Black’s profession; in reality, “Steve’s Lava Hen” is not even the highest-charting music Black has sung in a kid-friendly film franchise. That will be “Peaches,” which hit No. 56 on the energy of Black’s flip as Bowser in 2023’s The Tremendous Mario Bros. Film. (That music’s runtime was a relatively exhausting 1:35.)

It seems that, whereas a 34-second runtime constitutes an all-time file — at the least till Taylor Swift begins dabbling in skits — it is really the third sub-1:00 music to crack the Sizzling 100. With a nod of appreciation to Gary Belief at Billboard and Paul Haney of Joel Whitburn’s Document Analysis, listed below are the 5 shortest songs ever to hit Billboard‘s major singles chart:

1. Jack Black, “Steve’s Lava Hen,” 0:34, No. 78 (2025)
2. Child Cudi, “Stunning Journey,” 0:37, No. 100 (2020)
3. Pikotaro, “PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen),” 0:45, No. 77 (2016)
4. The Womenfolk, “Little Bins,” 1:02, No. 83 (1964)
5. Nat King Cole, “Deck the Halls,” 1:06, No. 16 (launched in 1960, peaked in 2022)

For these seeking to sport out the chart way forward for “Steve’s Lava Hen,” “Peaches” spent a complete of 5 weeks on the Sizzling 100 and even accrued a little bit of Oscar buzz. And, although “Peaches” did not make the reduce for the Academy’s 15-track finest authentic music shortlist that 12 months, Black should not lose all hope for the awards way forward for “Steve’s Lava Hen.” In any case, there is no rule that claims a 34-second music cannot win an Oscar.