In our new regular feature “The Weekly,” music critic Seo Seongdeok takes stock of the major currents shaping the music industry each week. Catch up on all the news driving the industry right now, from the biggest moves artists are making to notable new releases, “Billboard” chart highlights, and more.

JENNIE previews the next phase of her solo work on the 2026 festival circuit
JENNIE released her new solo single “Less than a Lover” on July 24. Coming about a year after “Ruby” and her 2025 set at Coachella, the new single feels like a signal that the BLACKPINK member’s solo career has entered its second chapter. Looking back at JENNIE’s promotional activities since this spring, though, it’s clear that new era has already been underway for some time. Things didn’t start with a teaser or countdown—it was an unreleased song, first heard live on festival stages. Starting with ComplexCon Hong Kong in March, the idol went on to appear at the Governors Ball in the US in June, then traveled Europe in July for the Roskilde Festival, the Open’er Festival, and Mad Cool. Add her upcoming appearances at Lollapalooza in Chicago and Summer Sonic in Japan in August, and that’s a total of seven different fests.

Let’s use her Coachella set as a reference point. At the time, all 13 songs on the setlist were off “Ruby.” At ComplexCon, JENNIE trimmed that down to 10 songs but also sang “Dracula” live for the first time. By June and July, she was performing a 17-song setlist that included “Dracula,” “One Of The Girls,” and three unreleased tracks. At the time, “Less than a Lover” was known under the working title “Little Less,” and we already know of at least two more new songs of hers: “Lock It Down” and “Heaven.”

When K-pop artists play an international festival, it’s typically a one-off, and it’s almost always Coachella or Lollapalooza. Both festivals are big names in Korea and have consistently included K-pop artists in their lineups. That’s what makes it so notable that JENNIE has instead chosen a string of festivals in Denmark, Poland, and Spain that still aren’t household names for Korean audiences. To highly engaged listeners who nonetheless aren’t necessarily familiar with K-pop, JENNIE can present herself as a pop star who performed a wildly popular Coachella set last year and has a “Billboard” Top 10 hit like “Dracula” to her name. Expanding into new markets by playing festivals instead of mounting a full tour is a standard pop music move. JENNIE is following the Western headliner playbook rather than K-pop conventions. That’s the real story behind the unusual and unprecedented moves we’ve been witnessing. Her second act might be even bigger than we can imagine.

“Billboard” charts: Future’s new album and K-pop highlights
Future’s latest album, “The Real Me,” debuted at the very top of the “Billboard” 200. It’s the rapper’s 12th No. 1 album. That puts him fifth overall behind the Beatles (19 albums), Drake and Taylor Swift (15 each), and Jay-Z (14). “The Real Me” moved 131,000 units over the week. It topped the Top Streaming Albums chart with 120.3 million streams and landed at No. 9 on Top Album Sales with 13,000 copies sold.

Seventeen of the 22 songs off “The Real Me” charted on the Hot 100. The songs charted everywhere from as high as No. 23 (“California Girls”) down to No. 98 (“Eye To Eye”). With a lifetime 245 Hot 100 entries, Future’s behind only Drake (402) and Swift (277). Of those 245 songs, three reached No. 1 and 83 made it into the Top 40. Looking at Top 40 entries alone, he ranks fourth behind Drake (241), Swift (178), and Lil Wayne (91). Lastly, Future has charted at least one song on the Hot 100 every year for 16 consecutive years since his 2011 debut.

• YEONJUN’s mini album “NO LABELS: PART 02” debuted at No. 16 on the “Billboard” 200, his second time on the chart following “PART 01,” which debuted at No. 10 last year. The new album also debuted at No. 4 on Top Album Sales. The TOMORROW X TOGETHER member returned to the Artist 100 chart at No. 17, his third time under his own name. The single “Ice Cream” debuted at No. 89 on the Global Excl. US chart.
  
  
• i-dle’s mini album “We made” debuted at No. 46 on Top Album Sales.
  
  
• RESCENE’s single “LOVE ATTACK” debuted at No. 167 on the Global Excl. US chart.

Bad Bunny surpasses $1 billion in concert revenue
Bad Bunny wrapped up his “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” world tour, which began in the Dominican Republic last November and wrapped up in Belgium on July 22, setting multiple records over its eight-month run. According to “Billboard” Boxscore, it grossed $467.5 million across 55 shows and sold just over three million tickets. The album of the same name was released in January 2025 and spent five weeks at No. 1 on the “Billboard” 200. All 17 songs off “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” charted on the Hot 100, including the title track, which hit No. 1. Bad Bunny was also nominated in six different categories at this year’s Grammys, where he took home Album of the Year. The rapper then capped it all off by headlining the Super Bowl halftime show.

The nearly half billion dollars the tour pulled in is the most for a male Latin artist of all time. Among Latin artists overall, Shakira’s ongoing “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” tour is expected to surpass the $500 million mark. The nearly 3.1 million tickets sold for “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” is another first for a male Latin artist.

The “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” tour took Bad Bunny all around the world, with stops in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, but not a single show in the US. Skipping the world’s largest market for concerts can’t have been a coincidence or an accident but a deliberate choice. Either way, the tour became the highest-grossing in history among those that didn’t include a single US date.

Over the course of his career, Bad Bunny has grossed $1.2 billion in concert revenue from 7.1 million tickets across 274 shows, making him the first non-English-language artist to cross the billion-dollar mark.