Bad Bunny Album Tops Chart for a Fifth Week, as Brent Faiyaz Makes a Strong No. 2 Bow

Squid Game may be the most watched Netflix original series ever, but for the Emmy-nominated stars of the Korean horror thriller, it’s all very personal.

Girls’ Generation is back!

EXCLUSIVE: Chase Stokes (Outer Banks) is set to star in the Steve Barnett-directed thriller Valiant One from Monarch Media, which heads into production in Vancouver in September.

Alex Gonzalez On his second album, “Wasteland” — which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, on the strength of 107 million on-demand streams, or 81,000 units in stream equivalent albums —  Brent Faiyaz leans into his own dichotomy. He plays the charming romantic, as well as the toxic villain, embracing two of the labels that have been attributed to him over the years.

A paddle boarder and their dog were rescued from a Scots bay yesterday after getting into trouble in the water.

Lollapalooza 2022 last week (July 28), a group of activists protested about the city’s 10pm weekend curfew for young people.The ongoing youth curfew in Chicago means all young people under 18 have to be indoors by 10pm.

Bae Suzy and Yang Se-jong will be co-starring in Netflix’s upcoming original K-drama The Girl Downstairs.On July 19, South Korean news outlet JoyNews24 reported that the two actors have been confirmed to lead the upcoming series. Based on the Naver webtoon of the same name by Min Song-ah, The Girl Downstairs revolves around college students Lee Doo-na (Bae) and Lee Won-joon (Yang) who end living together.In the original webtoon, Lee Doo-na is a former member of the fictional girl group Dream Sweet, who abruptly decides to retire to resume her studies at Minsong University as a theatre and film student.  It is currently unknown if the Netflix adaptation will retain the same plot.As of writing, Netflix has yet to announce a projected premiere date for The Girl Downstairs.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefA powerful debut for “Hansan: Rising Dragon,” a locally-made historical action film, lifted the South Korean box office to its second highest weekend of the year and helped July to be the best month of 2022.The film is a prequel to “Roaring Currents” a tale of an heroic 14th century naval admiral that amassed some 17 million admissions in 2014 and is currently the most-watched Korean film of all time.Data from KOBIS, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic), showed that “Hansan” earned $13.4 million from 1.63 million ticket sales between Friday and Sunday, for a market share of 60%. Over its first five days in theaters, the film amassed $17.9 million from 2.27 million spectators.

Social media blasted TBS host Samantha Bee in honor of her show’s cancellation on Monday. In a statement obtained by Fox News Digital, TBS announced that the show would not return for the fall season.  "’Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,’ will not return to TBS.  We are proud to have been the home to ‘Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’ and thank Sam, and the rest of the Emmy-nominated team for their groundbreaking work," TBS explained.

BIBI has apologised to fans for a “concerning” Instagram live session where she spoke about being “so exhausted”.On July 21, the 23-year-old musician held an impromptu livestream on her Instagram account where she broke down in tears while talking about being unable to sleep or eat due to her hectic schedule. BIBI recently gave a string of festival performances in South Korea and is currently preparing to release her first studio album.“I’m just so exhausted, I can’t. I want to eat, I wanna – I wanna take a nap.

IVE have unveiled details for their upcoming single album ‘After Like’.On July 24, the six-member act shared the first teaser and details for their forthcoming third single album ‘After Like’. Styled after a retro television error screen, the new graphic reveals that IVE’s new project will arrive on August 22 at 6pm KST.IVE3rd SINGLE ALBUM<After Like>2022.08.22 MON 6PM (KST)COMING SOON#IVE #아이브#AfterLike #애프터라이크 pic.twitter.com/yezfVqWDFu— IVE OFFICIAL (@IVEstarship) July 24, 2022‘After Like’ will mark the girl group’s second release of 2022, arriving just four months after their second single album ‘Love Dive’.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefSong Kang-ho, the Korean actor who starred in Oscar-winning black comedy “Parasite” has grabbed headlines again with news of his philanthropic activities.Song, who recently won the best actor award at Cannes for his turn in “Broker,” was reported to have given KRW100 million ($75,000) this month to Hope Bridge Association of Korea’s National Disaster Relief aimed at helping the victims of recent wildfires in South Korea’s eastern coastal region.The news was reported Friday by the Korea Times newspaper. It quoted Song’s agency Sublime, as saying: “Song has been thinking about how to return some of the love he has received from fans.

THE BOYZ are gearing up to return with new music in August, as confirmed by IST Entertainment.Earlier today (July 22), the South Korean music label published a statement via local news outlet Herald Pop to announce the forthcoming release of the K-pop boyband’s next mini-album next month, with a release date also unveiled. More specifics regarding the EP’s title, tracklist and more are to be released at a later stage.“On August 16, THE BOYZ will release their seventh mini-album and begin [their comeback] promotions,” the brief statement read, as translated by Soompi. “Starting with a trailer film on July 25 at midnight [KST], we will be gradually releasing a variety of teaser content bit by bit,” wrote IST Entertainment.

the “Butter” boy band. And just to prove that he’s gone from bubblegum to badass, he even drops the F-bomb on on the album-closing “Arson,” of which the fiery video also arrived Friday.“I burned it all/And I wanted it all,” J-Hope raps over an eerie, almost sinister undercurrent.Clearly, with the harder hitting hip-hop of “Jack in the Box” — which finds J-Hope switching between English and Korean — he wants to torch his old BTS image.But the track that perhaps has the biggest hit potential, “= (Equal Sign),” returns J-Hope to poppier territory, delivering a “come together” message with echoes of the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake hit “Where Is the Love?” Although J-Hope will be making history as the first South Korean artist to headline a major US festival when he rocks Lollapalooza on July 31, the jury is still out on whether he will be able to pull a Timberlake and become a solo superstar.Here, we look back on the hits (Harry Styles) and misses (Nick Carter) when boy-banders have gone solo.MJ set the template for going from a boy band to a solo idol when he left behind his brothers in the Jackson 5 and ascended to the King of Pop throne with the back-to-back blockbusters of 1979’s “Off the Wall,” 1982’s “Thriller” and 1987’s “Bad.” And even though child-molestation allegations before and after his 2009 death have tarnished his legacy, nobody has ever ruled the music world like he once did.The former One Direction heartthrob still sings the group’s biggest hit, “What Makes You Beautiful,” in his concerts.

Harry Styles’ Harry’s House returns to the top of the Official Albums Chart this week, celebrating its fifth non-consecutive week at Number 1. 

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticIf we were going to borrow the terminology of one pop-culture juggernaut, “Star Wars,” for another, BTS, we might call this phase of the career of one of the group’s members “BTS, Episode II: A New J-Hope.” At least, J-Hope himself considers this the beginning of a second chapter in the ensemble’s career as well as a fresh start for his own, as today he releases “Jack in the Box,” the first of in a series of solo albums that each member of BTS is expected to be putting out in the months to come.It makes sense that the artist known offstage as Jung Ho-seok would be the first band member to release a full solo project during what is being characterized as a refueling between group endeavors. Since he’s known primarily as a rapper, there will necessarily be fewer comparisons drawn between his solo material and pop earworms of BTS’ past like “Dynamite” and “Butter.” But in another sense, there’s risk involved in coming right out with something that bears quite so little similarity to anything that would be described as a BTS signature sound.