YOUR WEEKLY CHEAT SHEET OF TRENDING INDUSTRY TOPICS: 1. Drake 2. VMA Ratings 3. Taylor Swift 4. Zach Friedman 5. Frank Briegmann 6. Bruno Mars 7. SIENNA SPIRO 8. Brandon Silverstein 9. Sonny Takhar 10. Voting

Taylor Swift is everywhere all at once again in the U.K., topping both the Official Singles and Albums Charts with "Patient Zero" (EMI) and The Life of a Showgirl: Encore. The expanded set lands on the parent album's first birthday, its fifth nonconsecutive week at the summit, making it her second LP to reclaim #1 on its anniversary after THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. The set is her 14th U.K. #1 album, the most by any female artist in Official Albums Chart history, and it opened last October with 423k units, the biggest first week for an international album there this century. Five album-and-single doubles, one every calendar year since 2022. Like shootin' fish in a barrel. "Patient Zero" is her eighth U.K. #1 single and third of 2026, following "Opalite" and the Toy Story 5 track "I Knew It, I Knew You," a first for Tay and a feat nobody else has managed this year. With "Cleveland" at #3 and "Babylon" at #4, Showgirl becomes her first album to yield three U.K. chart-toppers. Yes, there are other artists on the tally: London alt-rockers Keo bow at #2 with Put a Smile on for Me (Island) on 23.5k units, the first U.K. male band to clear 20k with a debut since Blossoms in 2016, while Nothing but Thieves' Stray Dogs (RCA) lands at #3. On Singles, Madonna's "Danceteria" hits a new #22 peak on the strength of her VMAs turn and a Charli xcx remix, her 75th U.K. Top 40.

Victoria Monét is back, and she didn't come alone. Frequency of Love (Lovett Music/RCA), a 22-track follow-up to JAGUAR II, the set that landed her Best New Artist and Best R&B Album Grammys, is out now, led by the single "See You in My Dreams" f/SZA. The guest list reads like a seating chart for the R&B elite: SZA, Bruno Mars, Leon Thomas, Bryson Tiller, Lucky Daye and Chlöe. The littlest superstar in the building is Hazel Monét, age five. Next stop is the road. The WME-booked, Full Stop-managed Monét kicks off the Frequency of Love tour Oct. 27 in Raleigh, with North American dates running through a Dec. 17 engagement in San Francisco. She's also launching the Frequency of Love Foundation, a youth-focused education and wellness initiative built around food, agriculture and culinary education. The ComplexCon crowd in L.A. gets her Oct. 4 for a Q&A and an "intimate silent listening session"—an oxymoron worth the price of admission.

Amazon Music Live is handing its fifth season a marquee slot: tonight it airs the final U.S. stop of Don Toliver's NITROUS-OCTANE tour, the Live Nation-produced trek that's been packing rooms all year. The footage comes from Brooklyn's Barclays Center on Sept. 6, and the guest list reads like a festival lineup—Cardi B, Busta Rhymes, Sexyy Red, Teezo Touchdown, Victony and Cash Cobain all dropped by. The timing is no accident. Grammy chatter around the Cactus Jack/Atlantic rapper keeps getting louder, and a Best New Artist nod wouldn't surprise us one bit—not after OCTANE opened at #1 with 157k earlier this year, his first chart-topper, and the tour largely sold out.

JAŸ-Z's MarcyPen Capital Partners is closing in on LVMH's 50% stake in Rihanna's Fenty Beauty, per @PuckNews. A source close to the deal says it could be inked within three to four weeks; terms remain under wraps, and MarcyPen isn't talking. MarcyPen was born in 2024 from the merger of Hova's Marcy Venture Partners and D'Rita and Robbie Robinson's Pendulum Opportunities. The family ties run deep: partner and Roc Nation exec Jay Brown co-founded both Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty. Fenty rewrote the celebrity-beauty playbook at its 2017 launch. Its inclusive foundation shades became the industry standard, and it rang up $100m at Sephora in its first 100 days. Tastes have since shifted and the competition has piled in, and the brand is now reportedly valued around $1b, down from estimates north of $2.8b. Somewhere, fans are hoping the shortfall gets made up with an album.

Metallica opens its long-awaited Life Burns Faster residency at Sphere on Thursday: 24 shows through March 13, 2027, on Thursday and Saturday nights. The production is billed as "wholly unique," with staples and surprises from a 44-year catalog. Sources say Sphere's Wizard of Oz screenings pushed rehearsals into the middle of the night, and the band spared no expense on visuals for that 160k-sq.-ft. wraparound screen. Live Nation produces the residency, which lands mid-stride in the three-year, IAG-booked M72 World Tour. Q Prime's Cliff Burnstein previously told HITS that tour would likely gross more than $600m. Next door at the Venetian's Summit showroom, fans get exclusive merch, memorabilia and, on select Fridays, expanded access to the Black Box museum. There's also a Red Cross blood drive at Fashion Show Las Vegas through March 19, because in Vegas even giving blood is an Experience. After Vegas comes another North American M72 run, with Live Nation's Bob Roux on point. It kicks off May 8 at Vancouver's BC Place and wraps June 19 at Salt Lake City's Rice-Eccles Stadium, hitting a dozen cities the tour has yet to assault.

Fans are saying "I do" to Ashe's "Stop the Wedding!" The singer's delightfully Abba-esque debut single for Atlantic hit new Spotify peaks Thursday, climbing to #35 U.S. and #36 global. The road here ran through Mom + Pop, Darkroom (as half of The Favors with FINNEAS) and a self-released 2024 album, Willson. Then Kelly Sayer signed her to Atlantic and promptly reunited her with "Moral of the Story" collaborator Noah Conrad, of Chappell Roan and Role Model fame. Conrad produced and co-wrote "Wedding!" with Ashe and Anikka Bennett, and he'll steer the ship on her Atlantic album, The Girl of Your Dreams, due Oct. 16. The runaway-bride tale is something of a leitmotif for Ashe (née Ashlyn Rae Willson)—her 2019 hit "Moral of the Story" mined similarly nightmarish terrain. Not to worry: She's happily remarried.

Four songs previewed featured during Drake's FOMO livestream will see an official release tonight, by way of a deluxe edition of the previously issued OVO/Republic album HABIBTI. On an impromptu Stake stream Monday, he addressed the clamor: "All the songs you guys have been asking for... Well, not all of them, but enough of them, are coming on Thursday." Context, for the scorekeepers: in May, Drake became the first artist to debut three releases in the top three chart spots at once—ICEMAN, HABIBTI and MAID OF HONOR. And this deluxe thing has legs; Republic labelmate Taylor Swift just souped up The Life of a Showgirl with four new tracks of her own.

Bruno Mars touches down at L.A.'s SoFi Stadium tonight for a five-night stand, the kind of residency-in-a-stadium only a handful of acts can pull off. The dates: Sept. 30, Oct. 2-3 and Oct. 6-7. The North American leg of the Atlantic star's Romantic tour launched Aug. 21 at MetLife and has blown the doors off the live world. Architected by WME's John Marx and Live Nation's Jared Braverman, the trek could eventually rack up $500m. Mars, managed by Aaron Elharar at Gorilla, heads north from SoFi for a pair at Levi's Stadium and a foursome in Vancouver, then closes out the year with five stadium shows in Mexico City.

Chart Preview Update: Kenny Chesney's Silver Sands Marina (Warner) moves into the Top 20 at #6 after a D2C dump. Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore (Republic) increases to 155k.

HYBE and Trafalgar Releasing are rolling out HYBE CINE FEST 2026 from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31: six cinematic K-pop experiences, now spread across more than 60 territories worldwide. BTS bookends the week with two live viewing broadcasts from the Latin American leg of its ARIRANG world tour. The group's first-ever Argentina show hits theaters in the Americas on Oct. 24, and the São Paulo grand finale follows on Oct. 30, with other markets getting each concert the day after. Filling out the slate are full-length concert films from the rest of the HYBE bench: SEVENTEEN's "NEW," TOMORROW X TOGETHER's "ACT: TOMORROW" and ENHYPEN's "BLOOD SAGA," screening throughout the week. Then there's HYBE CHEERING PARTY (IN 3D), an interactive sing-along set to 3D-enhanced videos from the company's top acts. Local showtimes are on the fest's website, and the costume can stay in the closet.

Drake may be turning his FOMO livestream into an honest-to-God release this week. The Sept. 15 event yielded a pile of new music, including a reworking of Ella Langley's record-setting "Choosin' Texas" with Don Toliver, the fan favorite "QUEBEC" and contributions from Sexyy Red, Winnie Harlow, Lena the Plug and Drake's mother, Sandi Graham. Several of those songs landed on Drake's YouTube channel afterward but have yet to reach the DSPs. During an impromptu Stake gambling stream earlier this week, Drake addressed the clamor: "all the songs you guys have been asking for ... well, not all of them, but enough of them, are coming on Thursday." What he didn't say is whether the music arrives as a FOMO album, an EP or a scattering of one-offs, and the "not all of them" caveat leaves the fate of the remaining tracks very much up in the air.

SIENNA SPIRO walked out of the VMAs the big winner, and not just because of the Best New Artist hardware that drew ecstatic screams from the room. The Capitol siren's real prize is a decided spike in streams, and that could pay off come Grammy BNA nomination time. Her performance of "Great Expectation" atop a giant turntable did the heavy lifting. The single jumped #38-24 on Spotify's global chart and #92-32 U.S., and it's reached #27 on Apple Music. The rest of the catalog rode the wave, too: "Die on This Hill," her initial breakthrough, climbed #85-64 worldwide and #182-75 U.S., while "Pure" rose #139-94 globally and is just getting underway stateside. "Great Expectation" was co-written with producer Omer Fedi and Michael Pollack, and Miriam Maslin manages the London thrush. The timing couldn't be better. The caps-locked Brit has been touted as a Best New Artist contender since "Die on This Hill" rolled out, and this latest burst may be what tips the balance. We shall see.