Dolly Parton died on Tuesday. Everything else that happened between August 24 and 30, 2026 happened underneath that, including a country record quietly tying a chart mark nobody has beaten in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.
Last week’s edition carried Phoebe Bridgers’ I Can’t Wait. Seven days later the album it came from entered the Billboard 200 at No.2, which is a satisfying piece of timing for a site that spends most of its life in 1972.
The charts
United States. Ella Langley’s Choosin’ Texas took a nineteenth week at No.1 on the chart dated August 29, in its forty-fourth week on the Hot 100. Nineteen weeks is not simply a long run — it is the longest anyone has ever managed, level with Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road and Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy). One more week puts her alone at the top of a list going back to 1958. Stella Lefty’s Boston climbed to a new peak of No.2, pushing Taylor Swift’s I Knew It, I Knew You to 3 and Morgan Wallen’s Been By Now to 4.
The album chart was busier. KATSEYE entered the Billboard 200 at No.1 with the Wild EP, their first chart-topper, and Phoebe Bridgers came in immediately behind at No.2 with Lost Weekend — two debuts taking the top two places and knocking Stray Kids’ This & That from No.1 after a fortnight. Olivia Rodrigo’s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love held at 4 in its tenth week.
Europe. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In held the British No.1 in its sixty-third week on the chart, a record already so far past anything in UK chart history that it has stopped being a story and become a fixture. The French producer HUGEL climbed to No.2 with Movin’ to the Sun alongside Imael Angel and Ultra Naté. The more interesting movement was at No.3.
Global. That No.3 was Ella Langley. Last week the American and British charts looked like two entirely separate industries — a British record with the longest No.1 run in UK history had peaked at No.64 in America, and the American No.1 barely registered in Europe. Seven days later, the American No.1 is Top 3 in Britain and climbing. Whatever wall has been sitting between country music and European pop radio for the last forty years appears to be coming down, and it is coming down around one song.
This week in music
Alabama Shakes returned after eleven years with I Must Be Dreaming, their first album since 2015. *** Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields, the first women-led benefit festival, drew around 45,000 people with Stevie Nicks, Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan and Chappell Roan, and raised roughly $20 million for charities supporting women and girls. *** Former AC/DC drummer Chris Slade, who also worked with David Gilmour, announced his retirement from performing. *** Bret Michaels canceled the remainder of his 2026 dates on doctors’ orders following recent medical procedures. *** Neil Young previewed Casting Me Away From You from his forthcoming album Second Song. *** U2 released Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah as a tribute to the Pogues. *** Foreigner announced an expanded Head Games reissue with a new stereo mix, alternate takes, a 1979 concert and a 2026 remix featuring Peter Frampton. *** Iron Maiden opened the North American leg of their 2026 tour. *** Dinosaur Jr. announced a 2027 North American run with Starcrawler supporting. *** Jessie Reyez announced a North American tour opening in Seattle in November. *** Fontaines D.C. and Charli xcx headlined Reading and Leeds as the British festival season closed. *** Billboard will begin identifying AI-generated songs in its charts and editorial, with Luminate developing detection technology.
The people
Dolly Parton
January 19, 1946 – August 25, 2026
She left Sevier County High School one afternoon in 1964 and drove to Nashville the next morning. Over the sixty-two years that followed she wrote more than three thousand songs and kept ownership of nearly all of them, which is the least romantic fact about her and probably the most consequential. She refused Colonel Tom Parker’s demand for half the publishing on I Will Always Love You and cried all night about it, and eighteen years later Whitney Houston’s version became the best-selling single ever released by a woman with every cent of the songwriting still hers. She built Dollywood in the county she grew up poor in and mailed books to millions of children who will never know she did. Her husband of fifty-nine years, Carl Dean, died in March 2025. She died at her home in Nashville at eighty.
New at Music Videos Club
Eleven songs went up this week, and four of them were hers or connected to her. Dolly Parton’s Jolene went up on Tuesday — the Porter Wagoner Show performance from October 1973, filmed four months after she had already recorded the song that would tell him she was leaving. Her 1985 duet with Kenny Rogers followed on Thursday, the favor she called in after singing on his record two years earlier.
The week opened with John Mellencamp’s Hurts So Good, which never reached No.1 and spent longer in the Top 10 than any other record of the 1980s. Then Carly Rae Jepsen’s Motivation and Anne Wilson’s Who I Am to You — both released within the last fortnight, and the second one put out because Wilson asked her audiences whether she should.
The rest went deep into the catalog. UB40’s Elvis cover, which the band tried to throw away. Eric Burdon and War’s Tobacco Road, filmed for Beat-Club in Bremen in September 1970. Kool & the Gang’s Steppin’ Out, from a band that went fifteen years without a lead singer. King Crimson’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, in footage that turns out to be the first time that lineup ever played together in front of anyone. Slade’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Preacher, a single released in Germany and nowhere else. And Scorpions’ Send Me an Angel, closing the week on Sunday.
Several artist hubs also went live, and a number of older pages were rebuilt — including two more of Dolly’s. That is the story behind the song, which is the only thing this site does.
