The Rolling Stones achieve their first No. 1 on Billboard’s 35-year-old Top Album Sales chart, as the band’s new studio album Foreign Tongues starts atop the list (dated July 25).

Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on pure album sales (physical and digital download purchases combined). The chart’s history dates to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album (TEA) units and streaming equivalent album (SEA) units.

On the Billboard 200, Foreign Tongues debuts at No. 7, extending the Stones’ own record for the most top 10s (with 39) since the chart began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March of 1956. After the Stones, Barbra Streisand ranks second with 34 Billboard 200 top 10s, followed by Frank Sinatra with 33.

Foreign Tongues takes a bow in the top 10 on six total U.S. Billboard album charts: Top Album Sales (No. 1), Billboard 200 (No. 7), Top Rock Albums (No. 2), Top Rock & Alternative Albums (No. 3), Vinyl Albums (No. 3) and Indie Store Album Sales (No. 3).

Foreign Tongues leads a busy top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart, where the Heated Rivalry soundtrack debuts at No. 3, while My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys reenters at No. 3 after its deluxe reissue (all versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes). YEONJUN’s NO LABELS: PART 02 starts at No. 4, while Madonna’s CONFESSIONS II falls to No. 5 in its second week after debuting atop the list.

Olivia Rodrigo’s chart-topping you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love dips 3-6, Jack White’s Frozen Charlotte starts at No. 7 and ATEEZ’s former No. 1 GOLDEN HOUR : PART.5 descends 2-8. Rounding out the top 10: Future’s The Real Me enters at No. 9 while Michael Jackson’s Thriller falls 5-10.

Pressure makes diamonds. Amy Shark’s soft pop (via Wonderlick/Sony Music) might just be one of those rare gems.

The Australian singer and songwriter’s fourth studio album, out today (July 24) and featuring the previously-released singles “The Biggest Dick,” “Our Last Fight,” “Child of Divorce” and “It’s Kinda Hot,” was shaped by isolation, with strict time constraints, in a foreign land.

Pressure, all of it.

Shark, a proud Queenslander, born and raised on the Gold Coast, decamped to the Welsh town of Barry, where she cut the LP in the studio of longtime producer Dann Hume (Matt Corby, Tash Sultana, Troye Sivan), in an old, converted church.

The project, a sink-or-swim adventure, was thrust upon Shark by her husband and manager Shane Billings.

“I hadn’t written a song in a hot minute and I wasn’t even interested,” she recounts in a chat over Zoom. “I was just super-exhausted. Everyone goes through those moments, but I really hit a bit of a low and I found it really hard to get back up. He knew I was in this weird cycle, where what makes me happy is writing the song, but I don’t want to write the song. He knew I really want my happy places in the studio and making music.”

So, gentle pressure was applied. The studio was booked, with a hard start date. “I’m like, ‘yeah, but I’ve got no songs. So whatever. Just cancel, like, that’s embarrassing.’ I was just getting so mad at him. He said, ‘you’ve got a month. You just write it yourself.’”

There was no ducking out. With time ticking away, Amy committed, focused, got to work. The cone of silence descended for one month of writing, followed by that stretch in Wales where a local café was the only getaway. The magic returned. “It was such a rollercoaster, but I’m just so proud of myself. I really went for it,” she continues. While in Hume’s sessions, Shark set her phone to “do not disturb” for the entire month.

“I needed that project. I needed something to sink my teeth into.” And bite down she did, building a collection of 11 intimate songs, with no co-writes, no guest features, no drums.

Shark is coming in hot off three consecutive No. 1 albums, most recently 2024’s Sunday Sadness. Across her career, Shark has collected eight ARIA Awards and four APRA APRAs, including the coveted song of the year, and landed multi-platinum singles including “I Said Hi,” “Everybody Rise” and “Adore,” which established her as one of Australia’s outstanding pop artists.

The physical challenge that was the creation of soft pop hasn’t been her only pressure test of late. Shark made her feature film debut this year in the fight flick Beast, cast in a central role alongside Russell Crowe, Dan Macpherson and Luke Hemsworth. “I’m stoked that I’m a part of this amazing movie,” she enthuses. “Not every actress gets to experience their first role with an a-lister,” she says of Crowe, “let alone an a-lister that gave me the time of day, and really helped me so much.”

Whether soft pop flies to the top of the chart leaderboard like its predecessors, isn’t the point. “It would be great, because it feels special to get the No. 1, but I don’t think I’m gonna be as devastated as I might have been in the past,” she explains. “Another thing I’ve kind of learned over the years is to just, like, really enjoy the process and not rely so much on outcomes.” Also, Charli xcx is “coming in hot on the same day,” Shark says with a laugh.

Stream soft pop below.

Charli xcx‘s next era is here. The British pop star released her Music, Fashion, Film album on Friday (July 24), which follows Charli helming the Wuthering Heights soundtrack in February.

Charli’s new LP boasts 11 songs in total, including her four previously released singles: “Camera,” “SS26,” “Rock Music” and “Wink Wink.”

The album’s closer, “No One Lasts Forever,” features the project’s lone guest, a conversation with director David Cronenberg. Charli told Triple J that she paid him a visit in Toronto.

“We spoke for an hour,” she explained. “We kind of chose the parts that felt most related to the song. The entire conversation is just so interesting. He’s such an interesting person, and smart and kind. I could listen to him talk forever… I think he has a really interesting perspective on legacy and art and artists.”

Charli gave fans an early taste of the album when performing select tracks from the LP during her underplay shows in NYC and London earlier in July.

Following the arrival of Music, Fashion, Film, Charli will hit the road for a North American arena tour. The trek is slated to kick off in Philadelphia on Sept. 11 and will make stops in Brooklyn, Toronto, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Charli xcx leveled up in the pop zeitgeist with her Brat album in June 2024, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and won three Grammys. The project marks her highest-charting LP to date.

Stream Music, Fashion, Film below.