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Source: Anadolu / Getty / PlayStation Network
Gamers worldwide are screaming at their televisions because the PlayStation Network (PSN) is experiencing a major outage heading into the weekend when most people play video games.
PlayStation 5 and PS4 owners have taken to social media to voice their displeasure that they cannot connect to Sony’s online services, including multiplayer and the PlayStation Store.
While the US PlayStation account is still silent about the outage, the Ask PlayStation Japan account acknowledged the network’s current struggles in a post on X that Kotaku translated.
“At this time, the PlayStation Network (including PlayStation Store) may not be available,” the announcement reads that was posted at 7:12 p.m. ET on Friday, February 7. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to our customers. We are currently investigating the issue and working to restore service, so please be patient.”
PlayStation has yet to provide a reason for the massive outage affecting gamers across the globe. All services are still down if you check the PlayStation status page.
The timing of the outage couldn’t have come at a worse time, with Monster Hunter Wilds currently holding a beta test weekend and Call of Duty having a double XP weekend.
Gamers Are Not Taking This Well
The reactions to the outage are pouring in on X, formerly Twitter. “Xbox mfs taking the chance to say “should’ve gotten an Xbox” while PlayStation network down. B***h f**k you & your shit box,” one post hilariously said.
Comedian Roy Wood Jr. came up with a gem, reminding gamers that there are games with single-player campaigns that do not require an online connection.
Welp.
You can listen to Roy Wood Jr. or turn on one of your Xbox consoles, Nintendo Switch, PC, or Steam Deck. If you don’t have any of those other options, you’ll have to wait this out.
Hit the gallery below for more reactions to the PSN outage.
3. All of us right now
4. Felt this one
5. Uggghhhh
“El Mal” from Emilia Pérez won best original song at the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards, which were held at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif., on Friday (Feb. 7).
The song, co-written by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard, the film’s writer, director and co-producer, also won the Golden Globe Award in that category on Jan. 5.
With these two wins, “El Mal” appears to be the front-runner in the race for best original song at the Oscars. The other Oscar nominees in that category are “El Camino,” also from Emilia Pérez; “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late; “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight; and “Like a Bird” from Sing Song. The latter three songs were not nominated at the Critics Choice Awards.
Trending on Billboard
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ acclaimed score for Challengers won the Critics Choice Award for best original score, just as it won at the Golden Globes. But it cannot win the Oscar as it wasn’t even nominated. It’s just the third film score to win both the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award and not even be nominated at the Oscars. The first two were Howard Shore’s score for The Aviator at the 2005 ceremony and Justin Hurwitz’s score for First Man in 2019. (Shore, Hurwitz and Reznor & Ross had all won best original score at the Oscars with previous films, making these shut-outs hard to understand.)
The other best original score nominees at the Oscars are Volker Bertelmann for Conclave, Daniel Blumberg for The Brutalist, Kris Bowers for The Wild Robot and John Powell & Stephen Schwartz for Wicked.
Emilia Pérez also won best the Critics Choice Award for foreign language film. Zoe Saldaña, who sang “El Mal” in Emilia Pérez, (with an assist from Karla Sofia Gascón) won the award for best supporting actress.
Accepting the Critics Choice Award for best original song, Camille said “This gives us such a sense of belonging. It feels so grounding. You know this awards season sometimes is so hectic, so overwhelming. I feel like saying sometimes [sings] I’m just a bird.” Thank you so much to Jacques Audiard to allow the bird in me and us to write. Thanks to the Emilia Pérez team and to Zoe, of course, for being such a great artist.”
Ducol, Camille’s romantic partner and collaborator, spoke warmly about Los Angeles in accepting the award. “We’ve been making L.A. our home over the past few months with our family and fell in love with the city and its people. We were so warmly welcomed by the community here and made lasting friendships. Of course, we were heartbroken by the fires and destruction. Now I know why I dreamed of becoming a firefighter when I was young.”
Last year’s Critics Choice Award winners in the music categories were Ludwig Göransson’s Oppenheimer for best original score (which went on to win the Oscar) and “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie for best original song (which was Oscar-nominated, but lost to fellow Barbie song “What Was I Made For?”
Chelsea Handler hosted the Critics Choice Awards for the third year in a row. The show was originally set for Sunday, Jan. 12, but was postponed to Sunday, Jan. 26, and then postponed again, because of wind-whipped wildfires in Los Angeles that began on Jan. 7. The three-hour show, which included awards for both film and television, aired at 7 p.m. ET/PT on E!. The show will also be available to stream the next day on Peacock.
Final-round Oscar voting extends from Feb. 11-18. The 97th Oscars, hosted for the first time by Conan O’Brien, will be held on Sunday, March 2, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The show will air live coast-to-coast at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on ABC and streamed live on Hulu for the first time.
Here are the Critics Choice Award nominees in the two music categories, with winners marked:
Best Song
“Beautiful That Way” – The Last Showgirl – Music by: Andrew WyattLyrics by: Andrew Wyatt, Miley Cyrus, Lykke Li“Compress/Repress” – Challengers – Music by: Trent Reznor, Atticus RossLyrics by: Trent Reznor, Luca GuadagninoWINNER: “El Mal” – Emilia Pérez – Music by: Clément Ducol, CamilleLyrics by: Clément Ducol, Camille, Jacques Audiard“Harper and Will Go West” – Will & Harper – Sean Douglas, Kristen Wiig
“Kiss the Sky” – The Wild Robot – Music & Lyrics by: Delacey, Jordan K. Johnson, Stefan Johnson, Maren Morris, Michael Pollack, Ali Tamposi“Mi Camino” – Emilia Pérez – Music & Lyrics by: Clément Ducol, Camille
Best Score
Volker Bertelmann – Conclave
Daniel Blumberg – The Brutalist
Kris Bowers – The Wild Robot
Clément Ducol & Camille – Emilia Pérez
WINNER: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – Challengers
Hans Zimmer – Dune: Part Two
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday (Feb. 7) that he is firing members of the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center and naming himself chairman.
He also indicated that he would be dictating programming at one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions, specifically declaring that he’d put an end to events featuring performers in drag.
Trump’s announcement came as the new president has bulldozed his way across official Washington during the first weeks of his second term, trying to shutter federal agencies, freeze spending and ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the government.
“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” Trump wrote.
“We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”
Unlike former President Joe Biden and other commanders in chief through the decades, Trump did not attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies during his first term, held at the performing arts venue in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood that opened in 1971.
Shortly after Trump’s post, the Kennedy Center website began experiencing technical difficulties. Visitors got a message reading “We are experiencing high traffic” and were redirected to a “waiting room” that listed how many hundreds of people were trying to access the site ahead of them.
Trump suggested in his post that he would be implementing some changes to the center’s performance schedule, noting that last year “the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
According to its website, the center in July hosted a preshow titled “A Drag Salute to Divas” and a November “Drag Brunch.”
In his post, Trump did not clarify which board of trustee members he would be terminating besides the current chairman, philanthropist David Rubenstein. The board often features political powerbrokers and major donors, and is currently made up of members from both sides of the aisle.
Rubenstein was first elected to the post in 2010 and reelected each year since that time. Also, the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Rubenstein was originally appointed to the Kennedy Center board by President George W. Bush and subsequently reappointed by President Barack Obama and Biden.
The current board features Biden’s White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, as well as Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime ally, and Stephanie Cutter, a former Obama adviser. The treasurer of the center’s board of trustees is television producer Shonda Rhimes, who hosted fundraisers for Biden before he abandoned his reelection bid last summer.
But the current board also features Trump allies, including Pam Bondi, the new president’s recently confirmed attorney general, and Lee Greenwood, whose song “God Bless the USA,” was the unofficial anthem of Trump’s presidential campaign.
During his first term in 2019, Trump announced that he was tapping actor Jon Voight, a longtime supporter, to the board, along with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who he’s picked as U.S. ambassador to Israel this time.
2025 might not be so bad after all. Roc Marciano and DJ Premier surprised rap fans with a new single in “Armani Exchange” and have announced that they’ll be releasing a collaborative EP later this year. Ironically enough, this all came together by a chance meeting at Macy’s flagship Herald Square store in New York […]
Rick Ross and 50 Cent are at it again. This time the veteran rappers and businessmen have been going back and forth over a picture. Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, who was recently released to a halfway house and has been visited by various celebrities including 50 Cent, linked up with Rick Ross — which has […]
Spotify led all music stocks this week with a 13.6% gain after its fourth-quarter earnings results on Tuesday (Feb. 4) showed that the company posted its first-ever net profit. The streamer’s share price reached an all-time high of $632.41 on Friday (Feb. 7) before closing at $622.99, slightly lower than its closing prices on Wednesday ($626.00) and Thursday ($625.87). Fewer than six weeks into 2025, the Swedish streaming company’s stock has risen 39.3%.
With 203.8 million shares outstanding, according to its 2024 annual report released this week, Spotify’s market capitalization briefly reached $128.9 billion. A week ago, Spotify was worth nearly as much as the three major music groups. As of Friday, after gaining another 13.6%, Spotify is worth more than Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music and Warner Music Group (WMG) combined.
Trending on Billboard
Guggenheim was among a host of analysts to increase its Spotify price target, raising the streaming company’s shares to $675 from $520 and increasing its forecast for 2025 operating income to 2.61 billion euros ($2.7 billion) from 2.46 billion euros ($2.54 billion). Others that raised their price targets for Spotify were Evercore ISI (to $700 from $500), Morgan Stanley (to $670 from $550), DA Davidson (to $680 from $350) and Deutsche Bank (to $700 from $550).
Led by Spotify, the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) rose 7.7% to a record 2,635.41, bringing its year-to-date gain to 24.0%. The index’s most valuable companies were among the 13 gainers while the seven companies that lost ground have relatively small market capitalizations. In contrast to music stocks’ gains, major indexes were muted this week. In the U.S., the Nasdaq composite index and S&P 500 fell 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively. In the U.K., the FTSE 100 rose 0.3%. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index gained 3.0%. China’s SSE Composite Index was up 1.6%.
Chinese music streamer Cloud Music had the week’s second-best performance, rising 6.6% to 130.30 HKD ($16.73). SiriusXM was third-best after rising 6.0% to $25.44. Another Chinese music streaming company, Tencent Music Entertainment, improved 4.7% to $12.54. And K-pop companies all fared well: SM Entertainment was up 4.9%, HYBE improved 4.2% and JYP Entertainment rose 3.6%.
While record labels and publishers have benefitted from Spotify’s price increases, their stock prices haven’t followed the same trajectory. WMG gained 2.9% to $32.72 following its quarterly earnings report on Thursday (Feb. 6) and is up 5.5% year to date. Reservoir Media, which released earnings on Wednesday (Feb. 5) and raised its full-year guidance, closed the week down 4.2% to $7.96 and has lost 12.0% in 2025. UMG, which will announce its fourth-quarter earnings on March 6, rose 0.1% to $26.98 and is up 9.1% year-to-date.
MSG Entertainment gained 1.1% to $36.73. On Thursday (Feb. 6), the concert promoter reported that revenue increased 1% to $407.4 million and adjusted operating income improved 2% to $164 million in the fiscal second quarter ended December 31, 2024. Event-related revenue fell $22.5 million due to lower revenue from concerts and a drop in other live entertainment at the company’s venues.
LiveOne had the largest decline of the week, falling 19.3% to $1.17. The music streaming company will announce earnings on Feb. 14.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Cindy Ord / Getty
In the early and mid 90’s, Smif-N-Wessun and the Boot Camp Click had the Brooklyn streets on smash with some gritty cuts and head boppin’ beats and though they never went on to become multiplatinum rappers, real heads know and appreciate what they brought to the game and to their playlists.
Now in 2025 Smif-N-Wessun return with some new work and in their clip to “Elephant In The Room,” Tek and Steele take to the streets of Bucktown, USA and spit their bars into a hanging microphone on the street and show they can still go toe-to-toe with your favorite street rapper today. We need a BCC reunion (R.I.P Sean Price).
From beasts of the East to some of the best from the West, a few other triple OG’s from the game are still doing their thing and in the clip to “Had To,” P-Lo, E-40 and Too $hort enjoy a fancy meal at an exclusive restaurant as they spit that ish that while sippin’ on some wine and dining on some exquisite dishes. Boss style forreal.
Check out the rest of today’s drops including work from Killah Prist, Richie Rich, and more.
SMIF-N-WESSUN – “ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM”
P-LO, E-40 & TOO $HORT – “HAD TO”
KILLAH PRIEST – “NAG HAMMADI”
RICHIE RICH – “WIRES AND VOGUES”
PHILTHY RICH – “KNOW MY NAME”
BIG HOMIIE G – “WELCOME TO THE YAMI”
LUHH DYL – “BE FOREAL”
YBS SKOLA – “SLOW IT DOWN”
KENNY MUNEY – “MY $EASON”
Cardi B and Pardison Fontaine dropped “Toot It Up,” but are fans hitting her with backlash from this match-up? Cardi tells you why there isn’t any drama and when her new album is coming.
What do you think of the new track? Let us know in the comments!
Tetris Kelly:
New music from Cardi is here, but is there drama that it includes Megan Thee Stallion’s ex Pardison Fontaine?
Cardi B:
None of that is my ******* business. So stop ******* harassing me. Stop calling a *****.
Tetris Kelly:
And Cardi, when is the album coming?
Cardi B:
It’s coming. I’m just waiting on everything to be ready.
Tetris Kelly:
We have it all in this week’s Music You Should Know: “Toot It Up.” It’s Cardi and Pardi on an explosive new track “Toot It Up” and the music video has us doing just that. Now, Pardison Fontaine has worked with Cardi B on her ‘Invasion of Privacy’ album in the past, but he also dated Megan Thee Stallion. And some of her fans think Cardi is doing her friend and collaborator dirty, still working with her ex. She had this to say on X.
Cardi B:
I want to make this very clear, when I **** two people and I like two people, I stay away from **** because when it comes to relationship, some **** will always happen. And one thing about me, I’m gonna stay neutral, and I’m gonna stay the **** out of it.
Tetris Kelly:
Now will this track be a part of Cardi’s long-awaited sophomore album? And when is it coming out?
Cardi B:
It’s coming. I’m just waiting on everything to be ready. So when it’s time to order, everybody can have everything on deck for the pre-order.
Tetris Kelly:
Okay, okay, when it’s time to order, we gonna get it. We gonna get all the sides, the toppings?
Cardi B:
Everything, all the bells and whistles!
Tetris Kelly:
Oh, Cardi. Well, we will be ready when it comes.
Things are only looking up for Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, who are taking the former’s music career to new heights following the heartbreaking loss of their home in the Los Angeles wildfires — and one unexpected benefit of the situation, they tell Billboard in a new video special with the couple, has been finally breaking the “stigma” they felt followed them after The Hills.
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While spending the day with Billboard, Montag and Pratt touched on their reality show beginnings, from which the former says they’ve “been trying to move forward” for “a long time.” “We’re thankful for where we started,” she said, standing next to her husband by the beach. “It definitely has been a bittersweet experience for us. Obviously we had a different experience than a lot of the cast from it.”
Trending on Billboard
“For us to be able to feel people really come together and support us and our family, and to kind of burn off, literally, that shell and that stigma that we had for so many years, it’s nice that people can finally see through that and see that there was always a love story,” Montag continued of the support they’ve been seeing from fans online since announcing in January that their house had completely burned down in the Pacific Palisades blazes.
The couple’s Billboard special comes just a couple weeks after Montag dropped Superficial 2, a followup to her 2010 album Superficial that featured 12 new songs. The original album has been receiving a surge in streams as fans have rallied around the singer and her family after the fires, with Superficial debuting on the Billboard 200 in January thanks to the extra love.
“It’s been really refreshing to have this new generation listen to the music for the music, and not with the stigmas attached, and the hate and the negativity,” Montag, who shares two sons with Pratt, told Billboard later in the day while at a restaurant. “Just to have it be purely listened to has been a blessing.”
One particularly famous person who’s also come to their aid has been Pitbull, who jumped on a remix of Montag’s “I’ll Do It” that was released Thursday (Feb. 6). “We were in touch with Pitbull, and he got on the phone with me,” Montag gushed.
“That was one of the most heartfelt, sincere, kind moments of my life,” she added. “A superstar taking time out of his day to be like, ‘Mamacita, I got you.’”
The same week he made his Billboard Hot 100 debut as a recording artist, Grammy-winning producer, actor and R&B star Leon Thomas made his live television debut on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Thursday (Feb. 6). Surrounded by his band on a red-lit stage with a projection of his Mutt album cover behind […]
