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14 Nov 2024

How Toronto Turned Into Taylor Swift Town Ahead of 6 Nights of the Eras Tour Shows

When Toronto-based entertainment and hospitality magnate Charles Khabouth heard that Taylor Swift would be bringing her record-breaking Eras Tour to the city he’s called home for more than 50 years, he knew immediately what to do.

“I opened a bottle of Dom Perignon to celebrate,” Khabouth, the founder/CEO of INK Entertainment, which operates a series of hotels, bars and restaurants and produces live events in the city, says, laughing. “I’ve been around 43 years in this business; I’ve never seen this hype in my life around anything. We do, I don’t know, 200, 300 live shows ourselves every year. We’ve had everybody in the city from the Stones to Madonna to Prince. This got much bigger support from everybody than ever possible.”

The city of Toronto is about to play host to one of the most significant events — culturally and economically — of the past two years, as Swift and her legion of fans descend upon the city for six nights across two weekends (Nov. 14-16, 21-23), the penultimate stop on a tour that has spanned two years and five continents and changed the fortunes of several cities along the way. And Toronto — known as a savvy, cosmopolitan city in its own right, though one that has at times had to fight to be considered in the same category as cultural capitals such as New York, Los Angeles or Chicago — has risen to the occasion.

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On Nov. 4, the city of Toronto and Rogers Communications renamed Blue Jay Way — the street in front of the Rogers Centre that is usually home to its hometown Major League Baseball team and extends from Nathan Phillips Square to the venue — as Taylor Swift Way, complete with 22 ceremonial street signs that will be auctioned in support of the Daily Bread Food Bank after the run is over. (Rogers is also matching donations to the Daily Bread Food Bank up to $113,000 — a nod to Swift’s favorite number, 13.) 

And that’s just the opening enchantment that the city would eventually roll out. Since then, the city has announced a poetry-inspired pre-concert initiative overseen by Toronto Poet Laureate Lillian Allen, while other announcements have included the Toronto’s Version: Taylgate ’24 event, which is expected to draw some 60,000 people; an Eras! Eras! Eras! performance by the singing group Choir! Choir! Choir!; and a 13-site scavenger hunt tied to different songs from Swift’s catalog spread across the city, among many other things. There are Eras-themed city tours, dance parties, drag and trivia nights and pop-up shops around the city, plus giveaways from a slew of businesses. Destination Toronto — the tourism bureau for Canada’s biggest city — expects some $282 million in economic impact from Swift’s two-week mini-residency, including $152 million in direct spending, 93% of which is expected to come from tourists flocking to Toronto — an astronomical uplift for the city’s local businesses. 

“We’ve seen the entire city getting caught up in the action — from a Taylgate party at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to Taylor-themed hotel rooms and special menus at restaurants around the city,” says Kathy Motton, Destination Toronto’s senior manager of communications. “Major events like Taylor Swift bring visitor spending into Toronto, and that spending circulates long after visitors return home impacting a broad set of businesses. The obvious positive benefit is for hotels, restaurants and other tourism-related businesses, but that benefit also extends to businesses that are indirectly impacted by visitor spending.”

And many of those establishments have met the moment by overhauling their own properties to cater to the estimated 500,000 tourists flooding into the area.

“We’ve got so much happening on property,” says Liza McWilliams, director of marketing at the 1 Hotel Toronto, which transformed its Flora lobby lounge into the Folklore Lounge for the next two weeks, complete with a moss-covered piano, tapestries hanging on the wall with lyrics from Swift’s Folklore album and daily acoustic performances open to guests and the public. They also partnered with the Little Words Project, the original word-based friendship bracelet company, which is doing a pop-up shop in the 1 Hotel’s lobby for the first time in Canada. “I think it’s just really fun to be that much more creative and to dream up some really amazing things that kind of stay with the guests for a longer time,” McWilliams says. “Other than the [Toronto International] Film Festival, I would say we’ve never really been this specific when it comes to an actual city event.”

“This is like preparing for Toronto’s Super Bowl,” says Aaron Harrison, general manager of the Bisha Hotel, a short walk from the Rogers Centre. The Bisha also redesigned its entire lobby space (it went Reputation era), while the common spaces on each of its seven hotel floors are also getting era-themed makeovers, one suite has been entirely rebranded The Taylor (which had been running around $4,000 per night if you could snag it), and the hotel will be offering friendship bracelets, a glitter station and themed food and drinks for guests, among other things, in its Lover Lounge. “We wanted Bisha Hotel to feel like the ultimate fan headquarters,” Harrison adds.

In downtown Toronto, it’s almost more difficult to find a bar or restaurant that hasn’t leaned into Taylor-mania than one that has. (Talk about champagne problems.) The night before the shows kicked off, on Nov. 13, the iconic space needle was flashing rainbow colors in honor of Swift, and bartenders and restaurant staff were all talking about the influx of people in town for the shows. Streets are closed off, the city has dedicated websites aimed at helping both tourists and locals alike navigate the area, and Rogers spent $8 million to upgrade the 5G wireless service at the Rogers Centre ahead of the concerts.

Of the more than half-dozen people who spoke with Billboard for this story, almost all equated the preparations for the Eras Tour to those that go into the build up to TIFF — one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, held in the city each September — but all said the Eras Tour hype went beyond even that. Some hospitality officials and locals are looking at it as a test run for the FIFA World Cup, which will stage six matches in the city in the summer of 2026, and as helping to prove that Toronto can accommodate, and with aplomb, the types of huge events that are often staged in the great cities of the world, ones that invite people to fly in from all over the globe.

There is one thing, however, that nobody is particularly looking forward to: “It’s going to be hell on earth in a sense of the traffic and the amount of people,” Khabouth says, laughing again. (He’s planning to ride his scooter through downtown “with a smile on my face” on the days of each show to avoid driving.) “But it’s a happy moment for all of us in Toronto, to have that energy, that vibe. It’s a concert that’s very positive, you’re gonna see a lot of happy faces, people excited. It’s a very good opportunity for Toronto to stand out and say, ‘Hey, we can play with the big boys.’”

14 Nov 2024

U.K. Government Backs Plans for Arena Ticketing Fee to Support Smaller Music Venues

LONDON — The British government is calling on the live music industry to introduce a voluntary levy on stadium and arena tickets sold in the United Kingdom “as soon as possible” to “safeguard the future of the grassroots music sector.”

“We believe this would be the quickest and most effective mechanism for a small portion of revenues from the biggest shows to be invested in a sustainable grassroots sector,” said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in a report published Thursday (Nov. 14).

Earlier this year, a cross-party committee of MPs said a new levy on arena and stadium tickets was urgently needed to stem the tide of small grassroots music venue closures in the United Kingdom.

Trending on Billboard

According to the Music Venue Trust (MVT), the number of grassroots music venues (defined as limited capacity venues regularly staging live music) in the U.K. declined from 960 to 835 in 2023, a fall of 13%, representing a loss of as many as 30,000 shows and 4,000 jobs. 

Responding to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report on the grassroots live music sector, published in May, the government said Thursday that it was “deeply concerned” with the rate of venue closures and that “a small industry-led levy within the price of a ticket” would benefit the U.K.’s live music system “as a whole.”

The government said it wanted the voluntary levy to come into effect “as soon as possible” so that it could be applied to arena and stadium music shows taking place in 2025. How the funds raised will be used to support small and low-capacity music venues should be clearly explained to ticket buyers, said the government. 

“We urge the live music industry, and in particular the biggest commercial players who will have the biggest impact on the success of an industry-led levy, to act and to do so swiftly,” said DCMS.

Exactly what form such a levy on arena and stadium shows will take is still to be determined. While there is broad support throughout the U.K. live music industry for a voluntary levy, some promoters would prefer that it is applied on a case-by-case basis and stakeholders are divided on whether the levy should be included within the ticket’s price or as an additional fee on top of the face value of the ticket.

The size of venue the levy would be applied to and its cost/rate is also yet to be decided, although the Music Venue Trust has previously called for a £1 levy ($1.26) to be applied to arena and stadium shows above 5,500 capacity, excluding festivals. Discussions are currently taking place between live executives around what charitable body should collect, manage and distribute proceeds from the fund.

In a statement, Jon Collins, chief executive of live music industry umbrella organization LIVE, said driving forward “an industry-led solution to the challenges currently being experienced by venues, artists, festivals and promoters remains our number one priority.”

The idea of a voluntary arena tickets levy to support the grassroots music sector is one that has already received support from several high-profile U.K. artists and organizations.

In September, Coldplay announced that it would be donating 10% of the band’s proceeds from their 2025 dates at London’s Wembley Stadium and Hull’s Craven Park stadium to the Music Venue Trust.

Other acts backing the initiative include rock band Enter Shikari, who donated £1 from every ticket sold on its February U.K. arena tour to the trust, and Sam Fender, who has pledged to do the same on his forthcoming U.K. dates. This year, Halifax-based venue The Piece Hall became the first U.K. venue to give ticket-buyers the option to donate to the charity.

A similar scheme to support grass roots music creation exists in France, where a statutory 3.5% levy on the gross value of all concert tickets sales goes into a central fund administered by the Centre National de la Musique (CNM), France’s public agency for the music industry.

“This is the beginning of a way forward,” Kwame Kwaten, director of artist management company Ferocious Talent, whose roster includes Blue Lab Beats, Hak Baker and Caitlyn Scarlett, tells Billboard.

“If [the levy] happens, it will at least begin the process of addressing something that has been left out to dry with humongous consequences, especially at the kind of levels that we have to operate at before an artist gets to the arena, stadium level, which is where 80-90% of [touring] artists are,” says Kwaten, who gave evidence to the CMS committee during the inquiry.

“We are standing at a massive crossroads,” he says, “and we have now got a chance to do something about it.”

In a statement, CMS Committee chair, Dame Caroline Dinenage, said she welcomed the government’s recognition that “swift action on a levy is needed from the bigger players who pack out arenas and stadiums,” but warned that “the lack of a firm deadline for movement risks allowing matters to drift.”

“Without healthy roots, the entire live music ecosystem suffers,” said Dinenage, who is calling for government ministers to set a clear deadline for the industry to act. If no significant progress is made within six months, she said the CMS committee will hold another hearing with representatives of the U.K. live music industry.

“Every week I hear from music managers trying to do the impossible and bridge catastrophic shortfalls in their artists touring budgets,” said Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of U.K. trade body the Music Managers Forum (MMF), in a statement. Coldrick says it is “imperative” that the music industry comes together to establish a ticket levy on “all large-scale live music shows” to support smaller scale touring artists. “The current situation is untenable,” she says.

The U.K. government’s support for an arena ticket levy is the latest in a long line of Parliament-led interventions into the music industry that have taken place in recent years, including a nine-month probe into the music streaming business and a subsequent review of the sector by the U.K. competition watchdog.

More recently, authorities have turned their attentions to the live industry. In September, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into Ticketmaster over its much-criticized use of dynamic ticketing for Oasis‘ reunion tour, which prompted hundreds of complaints from fans and fierce condemnation from British politicians.

The British government has also said it would be looking into the practice of dynamic pricing for music concerts as part of its consultation into the secondary ticketing market, which is due to begin in the coming weeks.

14 Nov 2024

The Onion’s Parent Company Purchases Alex Jones’ InfoWars

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Alex Jones Speaks To The Media Outside The Sandy Hook Trial In Waterbury, Connecticut

The Onion, the long-running satirical news website that began as a print publication, has caught on in the digital media world and its parent company made a brazen move seemingly pulled from its headlines. The Onion‘s parent company purchased conspiracy theorist Alex Jones‘ InfoWars, and the “CEO” of the parent company has issued a statement.

The news was announced via The Onion and features words from Global Tetrahedron CEO Bryce P. Tetraeder, a fictitious CEO according to The Onion’s CEO, Ben Collins. That aside, Mr. Tetraeder’s statement to the world regarding the purchase of InfoWars is done in true Onion fashion.

From Bryce P. Tetraeder:

Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron.

No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of InfoWars (a forgettable man with an already-forgotten name) and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars.

Make no mistake: This is a coup for our company and a well-deserved victory for multinational elites the world over.

What’s next for InfoWars remains a live issue. The excess funds initially allocated for the purchase will be reinvested into our philanthropic efforts that include business school scholarships for promising cult leaders, a charity that donates elections to at-risk third world dictators, and a new pro bono program pairing orphans with stable factory jobs at no cost to the factories.

Global Tetrahedron, which is the real name of the parent company, purchased InfoWars through a bankruptcy auction to help offset Jones’ $1 billion in defamation judgments for spreading information that the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary shooting was a hoax. Parents and backers of the shooting victims were in support of the auction and the ending of InfoWars, according to replies made by Collins on X and Bluesky

The larger play for InfoWars appears to be a shift to turn all of its hateful and unfounded content into a hub for gun violence prevention. Alex Jones also  shared a video on Thursday (November 14) confirming the news.

On X, the reaction to the news is moving along and we’ve got reactions below.

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Photo: Getty

14 Nov 2024

Imogen Heap and Jen Launch AI Voice and Music Models to Capture Artist’s Style

Pioneering producer and singer Imogen Heap has partnered with Jen, an ethical AI music creation platform, to launch two new models inspired by her musical stylings. The partnership was announced Thursday (Nov. 14) at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

First, Heap is launching her own StyleFilter model, Jen’s patented tool that allows users to create original tracks that infuse the distinct musical styles of of an artist or producer into their new works. Specifically for Heap’s collaboration, the StyleFilter model was trained on her new singles “What Have You Done To Me” and “Last Night of an Empire.” Importantly, StyleFilter is said to do this while still “maintaining transparency, protection and compensation” for Heap. Secondly, Heap and Jen have also announced a new AI voice model trained on Heap’s distinct vocals.

Jen co-founder and CEO, Shara Senderoff, and Heap took the stage at Web Summit’s Centre Stage to demonstrate how StyleFilter works, transforming prompts into compositions that weave Heap’s style into a user’s original works. Watch their explanation below:

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Over her decades-long career, Heap has been viewed as an innovator, pushing the boundaries of art and technology. Since the early days of her career, she has popularized the use of vocoders. Later, she developed her own products, like the Mi.Mu gloves, a wearable tool that allows her to record loops and edit vocals with small hand movements, and The Creative Passport, a service that combines all of an artist’s information in one place from a bio, press photos, royalty accounting, set lists and more.

Last month, in an interview with The Guardian, Heap explained her new AI assistant, called Mogen, which is trained on Heap’s interviews, speeches and TK to act as essentially a living autobiography that can answer questions for fans in her persona. Later, she hopes to expand Mogen to be trained on her musical improvisation and to become a live collaborator at gigs.

Imogen heap and Shara Senderoff at WebSummit

Imogen Heap and Shara Senderoff at Web Summit

Jen is an AI music making platform that puts transparency at the forefront. Its Jen-1 model, launched in June, is a text-to-music model trained on 40 different licensed catalogs (and then verified against 150 million songs). It is also backed by APG founder/CEO Mike Caren, who came on as a founding partner in fall 2023. As Senderoff explained in a August 2023 interview with Billboard, “Jen is spelled J-E-N because she’s designed to be your friend who goes into the studio with you. She’s a tool.”

Jen uses blockchain technology to ensure transparency and the ability to track its works after they are generated and put out in the world. Each of the works created with Heap’s StyleFilter will be authorized for use through Auracles — an upcoming non-profit platform, designed by Jen, that uses data provenance to give artists have more access, control and permission for what is made using their StyleFilter model.

While other AI companies have worked on creating personalized AI music models, trained on a specific producer or artists catalog before, like Soundful Collabs, the team at Jen believes StyleFilter is different because “it can learn and apply the style of an artist by training on a single song, establishing a new level of creative precision and efficiency,” says a spokesperson for the company.

“Shara’s integrity shines an outstanding light at this pivotal moment in our human story,” says Heap. “The exponential curve of innovation in and with AI attracts opportunists primarily focused on filling their pockets in the gold rush or those racing at speed to stick their ‘technological flag’ in the sand to corner a marketplace. Alongside the clear innovation in products and new revenue streams for musicians at Jen, Shara’s inspiring strength and determination to get the ethical foundations right from the start are inspiring. An all-too-rare example of a service, contributing to a future where humans are empowered, valued and credited, within and for our collective global tools and knowledge.”

“At Jen, we are determined to create innovative products that invite artists to participate as AI reshapes the music industry, enabling their artistry to take new forms as technology evolves while ensuring they are respected and fairly compensated,” says Senderoff. “Our StyleFilter is a testament to this vision, introducing a groundbreaking way for users to collaborate with the musical essence of artists they might never have the chance to work with directly. Premiering this product with Imogen Heap, a pioneer at the intersection of music and technology, exemplifies our commitment to build with respect and reverence for those who paved the way. She’s also an incomparable human that I’m honored to call my friend.”

14 Nov 2024

Netta Hopes New Song ‘Big Love’ Can Bring ‘Comfort and Light’ Amid the Israel-Hamas War

Israel’s Netta Barzilai has not found it easy to create during the 13 months since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on her homeland and the ensuing war. But a brand new single, “Big Love,” brings the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest winner’s thoughts and emotions into focus.

“My job, my calling, is to bring people together over light and enhance the light in them,” Netta tells Billboard via Zoom from her apartment in Jaffa, an ancient port city near Tel Aviv. “I believe that music and art, especially in dark times, is important to any free world. It’s important for people to consume and create.”

Yet, she adds, “I felt this year I’m in no mood to create. The war isn’t something inspiring. It’s the darkest part of humanity. This year I’ve witnessed pain in amounts and in magnitude that I could not function. I tried, but I could not write. I’m a very happy person, and I tried all the mechanisms that I know that make me happy and they didn’t work. Usually when I walk in a studio and create it feels like the right thing, and every time I walked in the studio (after Oct. 7), it didn’t.”

With the uncharacteristically ethereal and moody “Big Love” – out now on S-Curve Records — Netta found a way to address her circumstances, acknowledging the situation and declaring in its chorus that, “This world may crumble but I’m by your side, with a big love.”

“This is a song that was written with friends out of desperation,” explains Netta, who composed the track with producer Theron “Neff-u” Feemster, Paul Duncan and Avshalom Ariel. “It’s for me to feel stronger and for me to just let myself know that this is my answer to the darkness growing inside — of all of us. War and conflict have always been part of human nature…and it’s soul-crushing. And in order for us to fight it we have to create light. (The song) is very personal, and it’s the little that I can do just to put it out there. But it is what it is.”

The sentiments of “Big Love,” Netta adds, aren’t limited to one side of the conflict or the other. “It’s to anyone who needs it. In my song I say if I had the moon and stars I would get them for you. If I could sing and stop the war, I would do it for you, if it could be that easy. It might sound cliché, but I really believe that making music is a calling, and I don’t think you have control over who finds power in it and who finds comfort in it. I hope whoever needs comfort anywhere finds comfort and light in this.”

On Oct. 7, Netta was slated to open for Bruno Mars in Tel Aviv and film a video during the show; those plans were scuttled, of course, and in the wake of the attack she found herself in the wrenching position of helping to take care of children whose families were tending to the dead and injured, as well as singing at funerals. Netta also scratched plans for a world tour and an English language album she had recorded and returned to Israel full-time — “I needed to be here,” she says — and released a Hebrew album, Hakol Alai (All On Me). She appeared as a contestant on the 10th season of Rokdim Im Kokhavim, Israel’s Dancing With the Stars, and also performed at a May rally in Tel Aviv calling for the release of hostages still held by Hamas.

Netta also watched this year’s Eurovision, which was marked by protests over Israel’s involvement, while contestant Eden Golan faced threats and harassment throughout the competition.

“I felt really bad for her,” Netta says. “I thought she was a champ dealing with so much hate. When a girl stands on stage and she sings and so many people are trying to bring her down…I think it ruined Eurovision. Eurovision is supposed to be about having a safe space for art and a safe space for people to unite and be brought together. Eurovision is supposed to be the answer to, yes, there are geographical debates and politicians have their wars, but this should be the place to show them that we can talk and we can understand. It was very, very sad.”

Netta says her own situation in Israel right now is safe, which she considers “a gift.” She’s not yet sure if “Big Love” will rekindle her muse, but she’s confident that whatever comes next will have a similar purpose.

“I find small hopes,” she says. “As goofy and as funny and as colorful as my music has always been, it’s always been about love, and it’s always been about light. I’m so sad the world isn’t a perfect place. It crushes me. I really wish it was different, but…it is so complex. But I believe in humans. I believe they can restore and rebuild. I have to.”

14 Nov 2024

All the CMA Awards Winners for Vocal Group of the Year Who Have Won Multiple Times

Hearing your name called even once is a thrill, but repeating is the ultimate goal.

The Chicks, Alabama and Lady A, CMA, Vocal Group

From left: The Chicks, Alabama and Lady A.

Illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare

Old Dominion has a chance to make history at the 58th annual CMA Awards on Nov. 20, becoming the first group to win vocal group of the year seven years in a row. Three other groups have won six years running – The Statler Brothers (1972-77), Rascal Flatts (2003-08) and Little Big Town (2012-17).

A couple of important notes: After their six-year winning streak, The Statlers came back to win three more times in the category, for a total of nine nonconsecutive wins – the most cumulative wins by any group. And The Judds won either vocal group of the year or vocal duo of the year seven years running (1985-91). But their wins were divided between those two categories.

This requires a bit of explanation. In the three years that The Judds won vocal group of the year (1985-87), the vocal duo of the year category was reserved for one-off collaborations, not ongoing duos. In 1988, collaborations were shifted to a new category, vocal event of the year; vocal duo of the year became reserved for ongoing established duos. (In 2004, vocal event of the year was renamed musical event of the year.)

Once CMA voters embrace a group in this category, there’s a very good chance that act is going to settle in for a long winning streak. There were five different winners in the first five years of the award (1967-71), but since 1972, all but two winners – The Oak Ridge Boys and Lonestar – have won multiple awards in the category.

Here’s a look back at all the groups who have won the CMA Award for vocal group of the year multiple times.

14 Nov 2024

‘A Lot More Free’ Hitmaker Max McNown Aims for Broader Acclaim on Upcoming 2025 Album ‘Night Diving’

It’s only been a handful of years since singer-songwriter and Oregon native Max McNown was inspired to pursue a music career in earnest thanks to a stranger he met while strumming his guitar on the San Clemente Pier in California. Since then, he’s topped Billboard’s emerging artists chart and seen his song “A Lot More Free” rise to No. 29 on the Hot Country Songs chart.

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The song, which highlighted his raspy, conversational vocal, was the centerpiece of his debut album, Wandering, which released in April. In the process, that song, along with followups such as “Love Me Back,” have placed McNown squarely in the ranks of acoustic-driven, folk-country artists such as Wyatt Flores and Sam Barber.

Named as Billboard’s Country Rookie of the Month for November, McNown will launch 2025 with a new full-fledged album, the nine-song set Night Diving, out Jan. 24, 2025, Billboard can reveal.

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As with songs his fans have come to know, such as “A Lot More Free,” the new music centers on his poetic, observational writing style, while adding polish to his personally-crafted songs. The upcoming album will include songs such as his new release “Better Me for You,” his recent outing “Hotel Bible,” and a collaboration with Hailey Whitters on “Roses and Wolves.”

Though McNown says he always harbored hopes of being a singer, he says, “It was kind of a pipe dream. I never thought I’d pursue it. Realistically, I wanted to do something in architecture or business management, but it wasn’t until I was 21 that I even took a step toward music.”

After graduating high school at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, McNown began working at a coffee company while taking university courses online. Within months, he found himself feeling burnt out and restless. “It was all kind of building up. One day, I decided I needed to change up the scene and try something new,” he says.

Armed with a guitar his father gave him, McNown set off for California. He again worked for a coffee shop, and a co-worker encouraged him to play guitar down by the San Clemente Pier. As he was singing through songs such as Tyler Childers’ “Lady May,” a stranger came up to him and introduced McNown to Zach Bryan’s music.

“She showed me three songs, and one of them was ‘Get Out Alive,’” he explains. “I loved it and loved his voice. He did sound very similar to my tone, and it gave me so much courage because my whole life I’d been trying to sing pop songs from Shawn Mendes or Justin Bieber and my voice sounded nothing like them. I was like, ‘Okay, if he can do this with guitar and poetry, maybe I can, too.’”

Now based in Nashville, McNown spoke with Billboard about the success of “A Lot More Free,” his upcoming album, collaborating with country artist Hailey Whitters and his musical ambitions.

How are you handling the success of “A Lot More Free” and adapting to a career in music?

It’s completely life changing. It’s like everything on the exterior feels like it’s just spinning everything. We’re hitting all the different points that we need to hit in our journey. I’m just so extremely grateful and I’m definitely prioritizing keeping my foundation strong and humility in that department.

“A Lot More Free” took off about a year after the song released. What spurred that?

When “A Lot More Free” first released, I remember the first video I made for it. I was with my sister at the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. She filmed scenes of me walking in front of the gorge and I said, ‘What if this became a travel song?’ That breakdown in the song of the harmonica and the instruments, just the feel it created started resonating with people, and they started creating their own videos of traveling to their favorite places. I saw the momentum, so I started to create compilation videos of their videos.

I would post those and say, ‘Oh, thirty-three videos have been made, thank you so much.’ Then the next day, maybe 400 videos have been made and I would make compilation videos of those and thank people for making them. It snowballed and that was the beginning of the first round of growth.

When views [eventually] started falling a bit, we put out a video of me singing the song — that second massive growth that happened was linking song to artist. I saw this massive influx of followers on TikTok and Instagram — we went from 90,000 Instagram followers to like 950,000 in a matter of under two months. We saw the difference in concert as well — at first, I would play an entire show and at the end I would play the song and you could hear the murmurs, like, ‘Oh, I love this song. Is he covering this song?,’ but after all the social media growth, on the [10-show fall] Canadian tour, people were singing the words and they knew it was me singing it.

On the new album, you team with Hailey Whitters on the song “Roses and Wolves.” How did she come to be part of the project?

I’ve been a fan on Hailey for forever. Evan Honer did a collaboration [“Fighting For”] with her and Hailey has a very distinct, pretty country voice, but she went into this register that I hadn’t really heard from her before on that collaboration, and I was like, ‘Man, I’m dying to know what she would sound like on Roses and Wolves, specifically that song. And she is just such a credible country singer.

I think part of my journey has been trying to shake the TikTok kid stigma that a lot of people will have, but I like to think that what’s coming is greater than a ‘flash-in-the-pan TikTok kid.’ To have Hailey come on to this song with her beautiful voice – I also heard from a lot of people in my camp who are connected to her, and everyone loves Hailey. So we reached out, and she said “yes” to the song. We actually just filmed some content for it and she’s the sweetest, sweetest human being.

You also circle back to another song that fans have related to, “Freezing in November,” which was inspired in part by your brother’s battle with cancer. How is it different revisiting this song on the new album?

When I wrote “Freezing in November” initially, I had no vocal training, no vocal experience, and the song was just a simple melody that stayed consistent. I been playing shows and over time I’ve started to alternate between different melodies at each show, to find a different way of driving home the emotion I want to get across. I started belting out the second verse, in the second chorus and I can just feel the different vocal capability. So to re-sing it, I feel like I did it justice the second time around.

What drives you, creatively?

I definitely prioritize writing. The lyrics are the most important thing in my music. I’m maybe not the best instrumentalist, and so I rely on lyrics anyway. The music that I’ve always loved has always been lyric centric. It’s always been about the story that you’re telling and the emotion that it’s invoking. And so yeah, lyrics and poetry are definitely where I start with all my music.

What is your favorite concert you have ever been to?

NF, which is maybe out of left field. On the topic of honest lyricism, there’s not many better than NF. I was a huge fan in high school, so to see him in person, it’s the only time in my life where I’ve seen somebody—and I had some nosebleed seats—but I watched him walk out on the stage and to see someone you adore and deeply respect, to see them there and think, ‘He’s in the same room. He’s a real human being.’ That’s crazy.

What is your go-to album that you can always listen to?

Forever by Noah Kahan. Just sonically, the instruments and the feeling…my songs are very heavily influenced by that album. Artists like Noah, Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers gave me that launchpad courage. These are basically guys with guitars, writing beautiful poetry over four chords.

When you are on the road, what is your favorite road snack?

You can never go wrong with a Snickers. If I’m a little hungry, but don’t need a full meal, that’s my go-to.

14 Nov 2024

KATSEYE’s New Single ‘Flame’ Soundtracks ‘Jentry Chau vs the Underworld’ Teaser

KATSEYE are turning up the girl power. The group’s single “Flame” is featured on the upcoming soundtrack for Netflix’s Jentry Chau vs the Underworld, and was officially released on Thursday (Nov. 14).

The song, which will also be the animated series’ theme song, is included in a new teaser for the show, starring and executive produced by comedian Ali Wong. The Echo Wu-created Jentry Chau vs the Underworld follows the titular character (voiced by Wong), who is a Chinese-American teenager living in a small Texas town with supernatural powers she’s been trying to repress. She soon finds out a demon king is hunting her for the aforementioned powers, and “with the help of her weapons expert great-aunt and a millennia-old jiangshi (Chinese hopping vampire), Jentry must now fight an entire underworld’s worth of monsters while balancing the horrors of high school,” per the series description.

The show, which hits Netflix on December 5, also stars Bowen Yang, Lori Tan Chinn, Lucy Liu, Jimmy O. Yang, Sheng Wang, Woosung Kim and A.J. Beckles.

Trending on Billboard

Watch the full Jentry Chau vs the Underworld teaser below, as well as the full soundtrack track list. The soundtrack, which also arrives on December 5, will be a double album featuring original songs and series score by Brian H. Kim.

1. Flame – KATSEYE
2. 3X (세 번) – Jessi
3. Do You See Me – Yaeji
4. Ghost – Sugs
5. Face to Face – Jonah Wolf 
6. Sen Qi Qi (森77) – Notiz Yong, Kenton Chen
7. See – eaJ
8. Nightmare – BAER
9. Sweetest Nothings – Thuy
10. Remember the Alamo – Rekstizzy
11. Maniacal – Alice Longyu Gao 
12. Silhouette – rei brown

14 Nov 2024

Zach Bryan Announces Summer 2025 MetLife Stadium Gig With Kings of Leon

Zach Bryan only has a handful of shows on his schedule for next year so far, and on Wednesday (Nov. 13) he announced a major new addition. “Always been a dream to play MetLife Stadium, so we’re doin it with Kings of Leon on July 20th, 2025,” the “I Remember Everything” singer revealed in an Instagram post about his stop at the 82,500-capacity venue in East Rutherford, N.J.

Tickets for the show go on sale on Friday (Nov. 15) at 1 p.m. ET. “One of the only shows we are slated to play next year. See yall there!,” Bryan added. “Underneath the stars, where we parked the cars. Ain’t showing signs of stopping. New York City we’re coming for ya.”

Bryan recently dropped two new songs, “High Road” and “This World’s a Giant,” which some fans have speculated are his reactions to the singer’s very highly publicized break-up with Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia. He has kept mum about the ensuring controversy about their split, but in an Instagram post announcing the latter song, he said that he’s coming off the road for a bit to pursue his masters in Paris next year.

Trending on Billboard

Bryan will be headlining gigs through December on his 2024 Quittin’ Time Tour, with the next show slated for Sunday (Nov. 17) in Edmonton before wrapping up with the second of two gigs at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Dec. 19. He’ll pick things up again on April 15 of next year with a slot at the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, CA, followed by two shows at BST Hyde Park in London on June 28-29 and the newly announced MetLife gig.

Check out the MetLife Stadium announcement below.

14 Nov 2024

Kelly Clarkson Puts a Country Spin on Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Please Please Please’ on Kellyoke

Kelly Clarkson has turned the Kellyoke segment of her syndicated daytime talk show into a signature moment. Sometimes it’s touching, sometimes it’s fun and occasionally the singer and her crack house band turn around a cover that is so unique and totally Kelly that it makes you wonder if she’s casually created the perfect version of someone else’s song.

That was definitely the case on Wednesday (Nov. 13), when Clarkson busted out a country-fied version of Sabrina Carpenter‘s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash “Please Please Please.” In Clarkson’s hands, she and her house crew My Band Ya’ll transformed the song’s dreamy pop vibes into a country ramble as Texas-bred Clarkson drawled, “I know I have good judgement/ I know I have good taste/ It’s funny and it’s ironic that only I feel that way,” turning the pop nugget into a Patsy Cline-like tear-in-your-espresso ballad.

After the ramble, Clarkson told her studio audience, “Ever since I heard this song, for some reason, I hear like Dolly Parton singing it as well. For some reason, it lends itself to country for me, so I asked my band if we could make more of a country version of it because we have the amazing pop version already. But I love that song, and I love when a song is so good that you can kind of go into different genres with it. But thank you, Sabrina, for that song. Thank you for letting me sing it.”

Trending on Billboard

“Please Please Please” logged one week at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in June of this year and has spent 22 total weeks on the chart to date; it sits at No. 16 this week, up two spots from No. 18.

Check out Clarkson’s country Kellyoke version of “Please Please Please” below.