NEW YORK – In December 2020, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny made history on the Billboard charts with the first No. 1 album performed entirely in Spanish (El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo).
Now, Colombian pop star Karol G has set another record, with the first Spanish-language LP by a woman to take the top spot.
Manana Sera Bonito (Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful), the fourth studio album by the 32-year-old singer – born Carolina Giraldo Navarro and instantly recognisable for her bold hair colours – displaces American singer SZA’s album SOS on the Billboard 200 after a nearly consecutive 10-week run at the top.
Manana Sera Bonito opened with the equivalent of 94,000 sales in the United States, including 119 million streams and 10,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to data from the tracking service Luminate.
It is the latest sign of the growing commercial power of Latin music.
In 2022, Bad Bunny had the most popular album (Un Verano Sin Ti) and the biggest global tour.
Karol G sold US$70 million (S$94 million) in tickets to her own tour, which Billboard said made it the highest-grossing tour of the US by any Latin female artiste in history.
Karol G’s arrival pushes SZA to second place in her 12th week out, while Gorillaz – the British “virtual band” created by musician Damon Albarn and visual artiste Jamie Hewlett – opens at No. 3 with Cracker Island, the group’s eighth studio album.
Yeat, an American rapper at the top of the semi-underground “rage” heap, debuts at No. 4 with AfterLyfe, and American singer Taylor Swift’s Midnights is in fifth place.
Next week’s chart will undoubtedly be dominated by American country star Morgan Wallen, whose latest album, One Thing At A Time, came out last Friday.
Like his last release, Dangerous: The Double Album, it is stuffed with catchy tunes about drinking, break-ups and pick-up trucks – One Thing has 36 tracks, Dangerous has 30 – and is already dominating streaming services.
The only real questions facing One Thing are how big it will open and how long it will last on the chart.
Dangerous, which came out at the very beginning of 2021, spent 10 consecutive weeks at No. 1 and is now in sixth place, its 109th time in the Top 10. NYTIMES
