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Following a fierce battle against throat cancer in 2014 that required two tracheotomies that robbed him of his signature honeyed voice, actor Val Kilmer died on Tuesday (April 1) at age 65. The Julliard School-trained star who got his start on the big screen in the comedies Top Secret! and Real Genius in the mid-1980s and went on to stardom after his biting turn as Iceman in 1986’s Top Gun passed away in Los Angeles from pneumonia surrounded by his family and friends, according to the Associated Press.
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The intense actor who also played Batman in 1995’s loopy Batman Forever and faced off with Al Pacino’s cop in the heist flick Heat that same year also lit up the screen in his mesmerizing, wraith-like portrayal of a tuberculosis-stricken Doc Holliday in 1993’s Tombstone. In a nearly four-decade career that spanned comedy, drama and historical epics, it was Kilmer’s eerily method portrayal of Doors singer Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 The Doors biopic that became one of his signature roles.
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Actress Jennifer Tilly — who auditioned for the movie for the role that Meg Ryan landed as Morrison’s girlfriend, Pamela Courson — posted a loving tribute to Kilmer on X following the announcement of his death.
“A long time ago, I was auditioning for the movie The Doors. It was kind of a cattle call. They paired together potential Jims with potential Pamela‘s. And they were running behind so we were spilling out of the casting office, sitting on the porch, the lawn, and the driveway,” she wrote.
“All of a sudden, a sixties convertible came screeching up, blaring Doors Music at top volume. And a guy jumped out and strode inside: He had wild hair and he was barefoot, shirtless, and wearing nothing but a pair of tight leather pants,” she added. “We all looked at each other like… Who is this guy? We were more than a little shook by the sheer audacity of his entrance. Well of course it was Val Kilmer and from that minute on, nobody else stood a chance. Rip King.”
Kilmer’s final movie appearance was a sentimental return for the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick, in which he appeared after losing his voice to cancer, with his lines digitally enhanced due to the damage to his vocal cords following radiation treatment.
In a statement, Heat director Michael Mann paid tribute to the famously Method actor who threw himself full-bore into his roles, saying, “While working with Val on Heat I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.” On Instagram, friend and fellow actor Josh Brolin wrote, “See ya, pal. I’m going to miss you. You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There’s not a lot left of those. I hope to see you up there in the heavens when I eventually get there. Until then, amazing memories, lovely thoughts.”
Cher, who dated Kilmer in the early 1980s, also honored the actor in her signature pithy way, posting on X, “VALUS Will miss u,U Were Funny,crazy,pain in the ass,GREAT FRIEND,kids U, BRILLIANT as Mark Twain, BRAVE here during ur sickness.”
Josh Gad also honored the “icon” who had a huge impact on him, posting a pic of Kilmer in his Top Gun uniform, writing, “RIP Val Kilmer. Thank you for defining so many of the movies of my childhood. You truly were an icon.” Director Francis Ford Coppola, who worked with Kilmer on the little-seen 2001 horror movie Twixt, said on Instagram, “Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life. He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know — I will always remember him.”
In addition to the lightweight Batman Forever, Kilmer also appeared alongside Marlon Brando in the bizarre, famously troubled 1996 science fiction movie The Island of Dr. Moreau, played painter Willem de Kooning in the 2000 biopic Pollock, as well as 1970s porn star John Holmes in Wonderland and Phillip II of Macedon in Stone’s 2004 sword-and-sandals historical drama Alexander.
Kilmer continued to star in films throughout the early and mid-2000s, often in direct-to-video projects or in cameos in small films. His 2021 documentary, Val, featured footage Kilmer filmed from throughout his career, including during his throat cancer treatment, with his son, Jack Kilmer, narrating the project.
Julie Greenwald was in Los Angeles, on the set of the video shoot for Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga‘s “Die With a Smile,” when she found out her life was about to look very different. “All of a sudden, I get told, ‘Hey, we’re gonna change your role,’” she recalled. “It was wild. I’ve been on this run for 35 years. But listen: shit happens. And there’s a lot of stuff that’s not in your control, especially when you work for someone else.”
Greenwald was one of several high-ranking veterans who exited Atlantic Music Group last year during a broader restructuring at both Atlantic and its parent company, Warner Music Group. She spoke about the experience briefly Tuesday night (April 1) during a conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute, where she is serving as the program’s Executive In Residence this month.
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The post-Atlantic period has “been a huge pivot for me,” Greenwald said. “I went out on a high in terms of setting up my records. But there’s nothing more brutal than, all of a sudden, the consolidation.”
The talk at the Clive Davis Institute marked some of Greenwald’s first comments since splitting from her old gig, and a rare chance to see a music industry luminary speak off the cuff — about Atlantic’s decision to drop Chappell Roan in 2020, her frustration with data-driven A&R, and the challenge of working with young artist managers who rarely understand the music business.
Lowe steered the conversation to Roan almost by accident; he appeared not to know that Atlantic had initially signed the star back in 2015. The singer released her debut EP through the label in 2017, and followed it with “Pink Pony Club” in April 2020, just as COVID-19 was tearing through the U.S. “The pandemic was the craziest time to be running a record company,” Greenwald said.
Labels were forced to try to sign artists over Zoom, which she called “disgusting” — “I never signed an act [before] if we didn’t break bread.” And amid fears that Covid-19 would have a lasting negative impact on the labels’ bottom line, Greenwald was instructed to “trim down the record company.”
Although she needed to cut costs, she was reluctant to fire staff during the pandemic. Instead, she went to her A&R department with a question: “Are there [artists] that we no longer should be in business with?” “Let’s make some tough decisions,” she remembered saying. “Because I always believed that if we couldn’t stand and believe in and back you 1,000%, we shouldn’t hold people just to hold people.”
“Pink Pony Club” wasn’t taking off at the time, and Roan was among the acts that Atlantic dropped. She was subsequently picked up by Island Records and became one of the breakout stars of 2024, winning best new artist at the Grammy Awards in February. (This trajectory is more common than labels would like: Mars, for example, was dropped by Motown before he signed to Atlantic.)
What Greenwald called the “stand and believe” impulse has largely vanished from the major labels. “The last two years of my Atlantic run, I kept yelling at my A&R staff,” she said cheerfully. She described them as “under siege by data … Everybody wants to hedge,” Greenwald added. “Nobody wants to just find something with one stream that’s brand spanking new and say, ‘I believe this is going to be somebody amazing.’”
She contrasted this approach with the behavior of young managers. Even though — or perhaps because — most of them have next to no experience in the music industry, Greenwald said, they find artists they like, long before their listening data is showing signs of exponential growth. Then they do something daring: “Call them up and say, ‘I believe.’”
By the time those managers are across the table from Greenwald, their risky bet is about to pay off. “I’m sitting in a room talking to somebody who has no experience, and they’re going to decide whether or not this artist signs [to] Atlantic or RCA,” she continued. “I’m looking at my A&R people going, ‘How did this woman who was a telemarketer from Kentucky get to that act before you?’”
While Greenwald admired managers’ willingness to throw caution to the winds and commit fully to artists they love, she was less enamored with some of the management contracts she saw young acts signing. “I had to clean up a million contracts for some of my artists,” she said. “I was just paying advances to managers to get them out of these artists’ lives with the artists’ future money.”
“It’s easy to say the label is the big bad guy,” she added later. “I always used to say, when I write my book, it’s going to be [called] ‘Why managers messed up the industry.’”
Major labels currently face a tough climate. That’s not because of TikTok’s outsized role in music discovery, or the threat of artificial intelligence, according to Greenwald. “People are not growing up anymore going, ‘I want to sign to Atlantic or Def Jam or Columbia or Interscope,’” she explained, hitting her palm for emphasis. “People are saying, ‘I want to make this shit on my own and I want to be independent.’”
Now that Greenwald has some free time — a first after more than three decades in the music business — she has been asking herself, “What kind of company do I want to build now?”
“To cut through and have a career, I think it’s about collaboration and having the right team,” she added. “Do you need 500 million people to do it? Not anymore.”
Billboard Women in Music 2025
In 1986, Simone Bouyer worked a day job in Chicago at the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather while painting in her spare time. “I was having a problem getting my art shown,” she recalls. Bouyer was Black and queer, and “there was nowhere we could look in popular culture and see our experiences reflected,” she says. “So we thought, ‘Let’s do it ourselves,’” — and launched the Holsum Roc Gallery with Stephanie Coleman.
Perhaps unexpectedly, Bouyer was soon exploring a new medium: magazines. “A lot of creative people” visited Wholesome Roc, including Robert Ford, an assistant manager at Rose Records and amateur DJ, whom Coleman describes as “a big magnet for writers and fashionistas and musicians.” When Ford subsequently started an interconnected series of zines, Bouyer and Coleman worked on one of the publications, Thing, which ran for 10 issues from 1989 to 1993.
“It was campy, Black, and gay,” Coleman says, and it ranged across the arts, culture, fashion, and activism. Reissued in March by the Brooklyn-based non-profit Primary Information — which is selling copies online — the magazine also captured the early days of house music in Chicago.
The city was a hotbed for the fledgling genre at the time. “When we weren’t doing the zine or running the gallery, we were out dancing,” Bouyer notes. By osmosis, “house culture was a big part of Thing magazine,” according to Terry Martin, who contributed photos to the publication and worked on another short-lived, house-focused publication titled Cross Fade with Ford.
“We were in the middle of this history forming around house culture — it was blowing up in Chicago at the time,” Martin continues. Ford “knew music inside and out. It is really a thread that runs through the entire series.” (His co-editors were Trent Adkins and Lawrence D. Warren.)
Even as DJs and producers created house history in real time through riveting sets and thrilling new 12-inch singles, Thing shows that debates about the essence of the genre — and its direction — were already raging. In the second issue of the magazine, the producer Riley Evans dismisses “this ‘new house’ era.”
The sound he fell in love with was full of “fifteen minute songs with constantly changing themes and motifs.” But by April 1990 — long before the creation of many songs that are thought of as house classics today — he was put off by the repetition he was hearing in new records. “Music shouldn’t just be the same thing over and over,” Evans complained.
For Evans, the work of Larry Heard, another Chicago producer, was the exception that proved the rule. “It’s what I’ve always thought real new house music should be,” Evans says. “He took it to that next phase; he gave us what it used to be.” (Heard and other Chicago stalwarts, including Derrick Carter and Mark Farina, contributed top 10 lists to Thing.)
Thing, and later Cross Fade, fought to memorialize the origins of house and resist its commodification. Along with the Evans interview, the second issue of the magazine contained a House Top 100 ranking full of 1970s disco and early 1980s boogie, singles recorded in Philadelphia (Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “Bad Luck”) and New York (Unlimited Touch’s “In the Middle”). At No. 19 on Thing‘s list: Gwen McCrae’s 1981 single “Funky Sensation,” a scorching groove but one that’s far slower, around 100 beats per minute, than what’s typically thought of house music today — usually 120 b.p.m. and up.
Thing‘s top 100 emphasizes a dissonance at the core of house. Few genres have as wide a gulf between their origins — “house music culture came out of Black and gay underground clubs,” Martin says — and their mainstream conception: In the case of house, typically pounding, programmed music made largely by European dudes. (Thing was not interested in the latter.)
In a phone interview, Martin repeats a story that’s somehow both canonical yet still not as widely known as it should be: “The term ‘house music’ was coined to capture the stuff Frankie Knuckles was playing at [a Chicago club called] The Warehouse,” Martin says. “That was more eclectic than what most people would consider ‘house music’ [today].” (Coleman remembers Knuckles, a prodigious DJ as well as a gifted producer, stopping by the gallery on occasion.)
In Martin’s view, Knuckles and other DJs playing and producing around Chicago — along with like-minded contemporaries in cities like New York, Detroit, and Newark — “were changing the culture and being erased from the culture at the same time.” (When one of those New Yorkers, Louie Vega, came to DJ in Chicago in the summer of 1993, Thing reviewed his set, singling out his mix of MFSB’s “Love Is the Message,” a Philadelphia disco classic, for special praise: “Yes, we’ve heard it all before, but the way he dropped it did feel like the sky coming down.”)
Martin’s point was made explicitly in the November, 1992 issue of Cross Fade, which lamented that, “as Chicago-based labels like Trax and DJ International became relatively successful… Major-label record executives took notice and began to rampantly exploit and misuse the term in an attempt to cash in on this ‘new’ sound.”
Even as Thing grappled with weighty issues in dance music, it also cracked wise about the genre. One issue offered a multiple-choice quiz for prospective DJs: “You’re in the booth and you have to pee and get a drink. Which record is long enough?” It’s a trick question; all four of the choices are lengthy.
Funniest of all is a fake board game called “House Hayride” — sort of a club kids’ version of Monopoly. Players roll dice to move around the board while trying to avoid a series of dancefloor-clearing, night-ruining outcomes: “Whoops, you’re not on the guest list” (move back three), “Blown speaker!” (back one) and “Buy the Soul II Soul CD at $16.00, only to find that ‘Back to Life’ is not really on there!” (back three).
While the initial issues of Thing were chock full of “music and wild stories and all types of creativity,” as Bouyer puts it, Ford soon changed direction. “Once Robert discovered he had AIDS, he started to focus really on telling those stories in Thing,” she says. “It was quite brave, because nobody was doing that at the time again.”
Ford died in 1994, and his collaborators say it was impossible to imagine carrying on his zines without him. But more than two decades later, Thing started to percolate again in the art world — as the subject of an essay in Artforum, then in a 2021 exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, Subscribe: Artists and Alternative Magazines, 1970-1995, and at the Brooklyn Museum in Copy Machine Manifesto: Artists Who Make Zines two years later. “We thought Thing was just a one-off,” Bouyer says. “But then interest continued; people were still into the whole idea of zines.”
Thing also caught the attention of Primary Information. “As a publisher, we focus on amplifying histories that are under the surface and archival media that is vital to our contemporary lives, yet out of reach for the average person,” says James Hoff, the organization’s co-founder and executive editor. He calls publishing Thing “a no-brainer.”
Now, with the zine’s reissue, Bouyer hopes a new generation will be curious enough to dig into its history. “Other music comes and goes,” she says. “House music is still pretty exciting.”
Tim Pithouse has been named general manager at Def Jam Recordings. Most recently president of the international management and entertainment company Three Six Zero, Pithouse will oversee the venerable label and its diverse roster.
In announcing Pithouse’s appointment, Def Jam chairman/CEO Tunji Balogun stated in the news release, “I’ve known Tim Pithouse for almost a decade, going back to our days at Sony Music where we worked closely together to develop and break several new artists. Not only is Tim a world-class executive, he’s also the rare person in our business who understands how culture moves and always has his finger on the pulse of what’s next. His breadth of knowledge and instinctive ability to interact with artists and their teams will be integral in helping to carry out our overall vision for the label. I’m thrilled to welcome Tim to the family at Def Jam.”
Currently based at Def Jam’s New York headquarters, Pithouse said, “Def Jam has long stood at the creative intersection of artistry, success and culture. Having the opportunity to be part of this dynamic team and again work with Tunji Balogun and his unrivalled style and taste is a privilege. I’m thrilled to be here and honored to help write the next chapter of this iconic label.”
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During his two-year tenure as president at Three Six Zero, U.K.-born Pithouse supervised various departments including management and representation, recordings and publishing, film, television and recording studios. He also assisted in launching global campaigns for artists such as Calvin Harris, WILLOW, FKA Twigs, Skepta and Kid Cudi, among others.
Before joining Three Six Zero, Pithouse created The Orchard’s global artist & label services division. In addition to signing Baby Keem, Tems, Daniel Caesar and Jack White there, Pithouse established stragegic partnerships with Human Re Sources, Nvak and Terrible Records.
Prior to that, Pithouse spent 12 yeas at Sony Music Entertainment. Based in Sydney, Australia, he held several posts including account manager and general manager, marketing & artist development. Pithouse is also an active advisor for the Metallic Creative Agency and the Creative Futures Collective charity.
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Kanye West has once again found himself at the center of an X storm, this time directing his ire at rapper J. Cole.
The drama ignited when a fan posted a clip from Cole’s verse on Benny the Butcher’s “Johnny P’s Caddy,” claiming that Cole had spared Kendrick Lamar in the 2024 rap battle. The tweet suggested that Cole’s absence in the aftermath left Kendrick to dominate Drake, which rubbed Ye the wrong way. Kanye fired back with a rant that quickly spiraled out of control.
Kanye’s frustration boiled over as he expressed his distaste for J. Cole’s music, tweeting, “I hate J Cole music so much. It’s like between Kendrick and J Cole I bet you industry plants have been accosted with a J Cole Super Bowl commercial with no SZA song to save it.”
This bizarre statement set the tone for a series of increasingly absurd comments, including a strange jibe at J. Cole’s fanbase: “No one listens to J. Cole after losing their virginity.” The outburst seemed to hit a personal nerve, as Kanye continued to fuel the fire with more vitriol. The feud took an interesting turn when fans resurfaced J. Cole’s 2016 track “False Prophets,” a song many speculated was about Kanye himself.
The timing of Kanye’s rant seemed eerily similar to the themes in the track. With the sequence of events unfolding almost like the song’s lyrics, fans couldn’t help but draw comparisons, suggesting that the feud was a full-circle moment.
Indie Week has unveiled the keynotes, panels, speakers and topics for its 2025 conference, which is set to run June 9-12 in New York.
This year’s keynotes will come from Cherie Hu, founder of Water & Music, who will discuss the future of indie music tech; Shira Perlmutter, register of copyrights/director of the U.S. Copyright Office; and a yet-to-be-announced representative of Apple Music.
Topics will include the state of the independent music industry, advocacy, artificial intelligence, global opportunities, catalog, culture and wellness, data analytics, distribution, fan engagement, marketing, music journalism in 2025, publishing, sampling, streaming, synch, sustainability, touring/live and more. The conference will also feature workshops from Beatdapp, Spotify, BabyJam, ONErpm, Bandcamp, Chartmetric, Red Bull Records and Continued Legal Education curated by Perkins Coie, LLP.
New to the conference this year is IndieVest, described as “a curated track of programming directly connecting the financial investment sector with the independent music community.” Taking place on Wednesday, June 11, the gathering will offer a meet and greet mixer, a panel featuring thought leaders in music investment, and a pitch competition in partnership with Triple G Ventures through which innovators will present ideas to industry leaders, investors and creators. Confirmed IndieVest judges and panelists will be announced in the coming weeks.
You can find a select rundown below. To check out the full slate of programming and/or purchase a badge, go here.
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A2IM INDIE WEEK 2025 PRELIMINARY KEYNOTES, WORKSHOPS & PANELS
(more to be announced soon)
Keynotes:
Cherie Hu, Founder – Founder of Water & Music – The Future of Indie Music Tech
Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director, U.S. Copyright Office – Details to be announced.
Featured Keynote, Apple Music – Details to be announced.
Workshops:
IndieVest presents The Indie Hustle:Music Innovation Pitch CompetitionMusic Investments 101: Unlocking Capital in the Independent Sector
Continued Legal Education (CLE) curated by Perkins Coie presents:Ethical and Legal Issues in NegotiationEmerging Technology Law Issues Impacting the Music BusinessLabor & Employment in 2025 – Changes with the New AdministrationHot Legal Issues for the Music IndustryMusic Industry M&A: Trends and Key Legal ConsiderationsCybersecurity for Music Companies
Beatdapp presents:Fake Streams, Real Damage: Uncovering Fraudulent Networks and AI’s Role in Streaming FraudBeyond Fraud: How Data Transparency is Reshaping Streaming
Spotify presents:Level Up Your Release Strategy: Spotify’s Tools for Audience Development
BabyJam presents:NORDER : AI as your Manager/Assistant
ONErpm presents:Keeping Indies Independent: How Working with Independent Labels Fuels Innovation and Artist Development
Chartmetric:How Can Independent Artists Discover and Grow Their Audience with the Power of Data
Bandcamp – Details to be announced.Red Bull Records – Details to be announced.
Panel Topics:
What Does Indie Mean Today, and Why Does It Matter?
Dealmaking in the Age of AI: Ensuring Proper Value and Protections for Independent Music
Independent Music’s Top Women, Opening Doors for the Next Generation
Deal or No Deal: Live Contract Negotiation
Mastering Social Media: Sustainable Strategies & Microcontent Management
The State of Indie Music Journalism: Navigating a Shifting Landscape
Breaking Borders: Global Opportunities for Independent Music Publishing
Data Analytics All Stars: Turning Numbers into Music Industry Gold
How the Law Shapes the Future of Independent Music Distribution
A2IM, Celebrating 20 Years, and Looking Ahead to What’s Next
Annual General Meeting
Billboard Women in Music 2025
Submit questions about Billboard charts, as well as general music musings, to askbb@billboard.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as your city, state and country, if outside the United States.
Or, reach out on Bluesky.
Let’s open the latest mailbag.
Hi Gary,
Remember when you, myself and another Billboard reader went over music acts with the longest streaks of gaining a new Billboard Hot 100 top 10 year after year? We had come to the consensus that, with 12 years apiece, Mariah Carey (1990-2001) and Prince (1983-94) were the two front-runners in that club. Well, now we have a third.
Thanks to his “Rather Lie,” with Playboi Carti, which debuted on the March 29 chart, The Weeknd has now put a new song in the Hot 100’s top 10 for a 12th consecutive year.
Here’s a rundown of all of his top 10s, in chronological order of their peaks:
2014: “Love Me Harder,” with Ariana Grande (No. 7 peak)
2015: “Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)” (No. 3); “Can’t Feel My Face” (No. 1, three weeks); “The Hills” (No. 1, six weeks)
2016: “Starboy,” feat. Daft Punk (entered the tier that October at No. 3, on its way toward topping the first Hot 100 of 2017)
2017: “I Feel It Coming,” feat. Daft Punk (No. 4)
2018: “Pray for Me,” with Kendrick Lamar (No. 7); “Call Out My Name” (No. 4)
2019: “Heartless” (No. 1, one week)
2020: “Blinding Lights” (No. 1, four weeks, eventually earing the honor of the Hot 100’s all-time biggest hit); “Smile,” with Juice WRLD (No. 8)
2021: “Save Your Tears,” with Ariana Grande (No. 1, two weeks); “Take My Breath” (No. 6); “One Right Now,” with Post Malone (No. 6)
2022: “Creepin’,” with Metro Boomin & 21 Savage (debuted at No. 5 that December and then hit a No. 3 high in 2023)
2023: “Die for You,” with Ariana Grande (No. 1, one week); “K-POP,” with Travis Scott & Bad Bunny (No. 7)
2024: “Young Metro,” with Future & Metro Boomin (No. 9); “Timeless,” with Playboi Carti (No. 3)
2025: “Rather Lie,” with Playboi Carti (No. 4, as this email is being typed)
Who else to tie such a historic streak than The Weeknd, right? Someone who happens to be: A, one of my favorite popular music acts of all time, and B, known for citing Prince as an influence.
Regards,
Jake RiveraMashpee, Mass.
Hi Jake,
Thanks for pointing out the update, and congrats to The Weeknd on his record-tying streak of Hot 100 top 10s in 12 consecutive years (or more than 600 weekends).
Notably, another act has joined the mix for potentially matching the mark: Drake is now up to an active streak of 11 years in a row with new Hot 100 top 10s, from 2015 (“Hotline Bling”) through 2025 (“Gimme a Hug” and “Nokia”). He could, thus, tie the record next year — or The Weeknd could claim the honor all to himself with at least one new top 10 in 2026.
Meanwhile, what about the same feat on the Billboard 200 albums chart? On first thought, a lengthy streak of annual new top 10s might seem less likely there, as, compared to singles, acts for the most part don’t release as many as albums, and somewhat rarely every year historically.
Let’s count down the artists, from The Beatles to Taylor Swift, Drake and more, with the most consecutive years of sending at least one new album to the Billboard 200’s top 10 (dating to Aug. 17, 1963, when the chart began combining mono and stereo releases into one ranking). The act atop the list might seem surprising, although perhaps less so once looking into why.
Seven consecutive years with new Billboard 200 top 10s:
Taylor Swift: 2019-25
Future: 2014-20
Pentatonix: 2013-19
Luke Bryan: 2011-17
Kenny Chesney: 2004-10
Dave Matthews/Dave Matthews Band: 2001-07
Earth, Wind & Fire: 1975-81
The Beatles: 1964-70
Andy Williams: 1963-69
Eight consecutive years:
Blake Shelton: 2010-17
Chicago: 1970-77
Nine consecutive years:
Drake — the record-holder among soloists (or groups with largely fixed lineups): 2015-23
And, the act with the longest such streak overall …
12 consecutive years (the same as the Hot 100 record):
The leading group – of rotating members – tallied all 24 of its Billboard 200 top 10s from Kidz Bop 7 through Kidz Bop 32. (In that run, only Kidz Bop 17 and Kidz Bop 30 missed the tier, both reaching No. 12; meanwhile, the collective has hit a No. 2 best with five releases.)
The act scored its record run of consistency in the Billboard 200’s top 10 thanks to its steady stream of all-ages covers of big pop hits. Kidz Bop Kids additionally earned 101 entries, including 42 top 10s, on the Kid Digital Song Sales chart, both bests in the list’s history. Four reached No. 1, led by their family-friendlier take on Meghan Trainor’s former Hot 100 No. 1 “All About That Bass,” which led for six weeks in 2015.
In 2014, Victor Zaraya, then an executive for the ensemble, mused about its win-win nature. “It’s favorable to have your song being sung,” he said. “Maybe a kid heard the Kidz Bop cover of an artist’s song before they heard the actual version. Will they remember it as a Kidz Bop song? Maybe. Will they remember it with the original artist? Maybe. But it’s only furthering that artist’s song.”
Beyond remakes of familiar songs, Zaraya noted that the act’s singers contributed to the enduring appeal of Kidz Bop, which in 2025 celebrates its 25th year, including with tour dates. To date, the troupe has sold 18.7 million albums and drawn 8.1 billion official streams for its songs in the U.S., according to Luminate.
“We want to let kids know that [the Kidz Bop Kids] are real — they sing, dance and perform,” Zaraya said. “They can be brand ambassadors for us. They have personalities. They are stars.”
This is partner content. Muni Long sits down for a game of Switching Gears, revealing all of her songwriting secrets and studio preferences — including whether she’s a sweet or salty treat girl. Muni Long: Hey, y’all, it’s Muni Long here, and I’m gonna spill my songwriting secrets in 60 seconds of This or That. […]
Tucked away along California’s Central Coast is a small yet growing music festival that managed to survive one of the most tumultuous periods in the music business thanks to a little ingenuity and a heaping helping of support from its fans.
Launched in Monterey, Calif., in 2010, the California Roots Music and Arts festival celebrates its 15th anniversary this summer with a packed lineup that includes Jamaican artist Buju Banton’s first performance in the United States in more than a decade. The Memorial Day festival, set for May 23-25, also includes headliners Rebelution, Slightly Stoopid and Dirty Heads with sets from Collie Buddz, Iration, T-Pain, The Elovaters, Protoje, Atmosphere, J Boog, The Movement, SOJA, Common Kings, Steel Pulse and Matisyahu.
“It’s kind of cool when you see fans out there that have been coming to California Roots for 10 years, and they met their future wife or husband here, or they were pregnant at California Roots,” says Dan Sheehan, who created the festival with his wife Amy through their Central Coast production company Good Vibez.
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California Roots was once considered the largest reggae festival in the U.S., but competition from events like Cali Vibes in Long Beach, coupled with rising costs for festival talent and production, has made it much more difficult to do business since the end of the pandemic.
“We’re ahead of last year and right now we’re about even with 2022, which was a hard year to beat because we were on sale three years” due to the pandemic, Sheehan says. Unlike his competitors, California Roots has a limited marketing budget and focuses primarily on artists who don’t get much airplay or media support.
Billboard sat down with Sheehan to break down the long-term success of California Roots and zero in on the four reasons he believes the festival is on track to have one of its best years ever.
Cali Roots festival
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Remember That Your History is Your Brand
When it comes to California Roots’ longevity in the festival space, Sheehan says part of its success stems from its longtime home at the Monterey County fairgrounds.
“This was the site of the 1967 Monterey Pop festival,” explains Sheehan, referring to the three-day concert series featuring Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix and The Who that would inspire the creators of the Woodstock Festival to launch an East Coast counterpart to Monterey Pop in 1969.
“Knowing the history of this site and the energy here — it’s very special,” says Sheehan, adding, “I think there’s a lot of similarities between California Roots and Monterey Pops…each have their own approach to counterculture and going against the grain.”
Sheehan’s long history on the site has been critical for overcoming one of the festival’s biggest technical challenges: correctly mixing the audio for the site’s large metal seating bowl, where about half the headliner performances take place each year.
“There’s a science to mixing the bowl and angling the speakers” that dates back to Monterey Pop and has been refined over time by fairground staff, Sheehan says. “It’s technically pretty complicated because the shape of the bowl means if you don’t hit it right, the sound can bounce around.”
Invest Early and Invest Often in the Genre
Sheehan and his wife Amy have long been key supporters of the California Roots movement, celebrating the state’s contribution to the reggae genre while creating a music lane distinguished from the reggae’s foundational Jamaican roots.
Distinguishing a difference between traditional Jamaican reggae — which includes acts like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Barrington Levy and Toots and the Maytals — and stateside counterparts including Slightly Stoopid, the Dirty Heads, Iration and Sublime is largely about respect for reggae’s Caribbean origins and avoiding allegations of cultural appropriation. Creating a clear off-ramp for California-rooted reggae also means creating a unique identity for the genre that fans can actively support.
“There’s artists like Stick Figure who were playing on our small stage 10 years ago and are now headliners,” says Sheehan. “I think as festival producers, especially in a niche, it’s something that we have to do, continuing to develop these artists to sell tickets and stream their music. That message to support these acts really resonates with fans, who are looking to be part of a musical movement.
California Roots festival
@eyesofjem
Build the Community
One of the biggest challenges facing Sheehan and other festival organizers is the increasing costs of staging large events, as everything from staging to insurance and backline equipment has increased significantly since the end of the pandemic.
“My biggest concern is that the fan says, ‘I can’t afford this anymore,’” Sheehan says. “We can’t operate at a loss — we have to stay affordable while also making sure we make money each year. We have to make money. But if money is the byproduct of putting on a great event and it’s not the primary focus of it, then I think there’s a little bit more soul to it.”
Sheehan says his focus is to continue to “develop artists to keep selling tickets and selling streaming music and all the stuff that kind of goes with it. That’s a big part of the development of California Roots.” He adds, “A few years ago, we decided not to do streaming, and we ended up bringing it back after we got so much heat for canceling it. There’s a lot of people who have made it part of their Memorial Day tradition, and maybe one year they can’t afford it. So instead they can stream it. So we brought it back that year and people responded positively to the news.”
Find Ways To Keep It Affordable
Payment plans have become an important tool for keeping prices down, Sheehan says, noting that 65 to 70 percent of fans use payment plans to pay for their tickets each year. Fans can pay as little as $29 to reserve tickets and then make monthly payments for the festival, which costs $158 for one day and $358 for three days.
“If you buy them on the loyalty on-sale, you have almost a year to pay off your ticket,” Sheehan says. “You pay once a month on an auto withdraw. It’s easier for people to afford and a lot of people utilize it.”
Sheehan has contingency plans in place for fans who default on their payments to help them bring their accounts current, though he adds the default rate is quite small.
“It’s a free, no-interest loan and a lot of people are thankful we offer it,” he says.
Billboard Women in Music 2025
Time to spice up your life with a good book! Billboard announced Wednesday (April 2) that it’s partnering with livestream and social commerce platform TalkShopLive to launch the Billboard Book Club Powered by TalkShopLive.
The book club will feature some of music’s biggest stars discussing and promoting their latest books via the livestream ecommerce platform. Kicking things off is Geri Halliwell-Horner, a.k.a. Ginger Spice from the Spice Girls, who will stream April 8 via TalkShopLive from Billboard’s New York City studio. She’ll be celebrating her newest book, Rosie Frost: Ice on Fire, the sequel to her New York Times bestseller Rosie Frost & the Falcon Queen.
Per the book’s official description, the story follows protagonist Rosie Frost, who, “on the brink of discovering who — or what — lies behind her mother’s death, begins a new adventure with a murder to solve, revenge on her mind, and more questions than she has answers.”
She’ll also promote signed copies of the novel, which fans can purchase live on April 8 at 6 p.m. ET or watch replays anytime via the link here.
“At Billboard, we’re always excited to celebrate and support artists beyond their music,” Hannah Karp, editor-in-chief of Billboard, said in a press statement. “Our Billboard Book Club highlights artists as true storytellers while helping fans engage with their favorite acts in new ways.”
Bryan Moore, CEO and co-founder of TalkShopLive, added, “Over the past five years, TalkShopLive has welcomed hundreds of authors to our platform to discuss their books and the inspiration behind them. These livestreams have resulted in thousands of sales for these authors. From Oprah to Dolly Parton to Martha Stewart to Jenna Bush Hager and Kelsea Ballerini, TalkShopLive has become the go-to live commerce destination to showcase books during the preorder window. Now, in partnership with Billboard, we are poised to help countless musicians, journalists, historians and authors succeed in launching books that achieve ‘best sellers’ chart success.”
Billboard Book Club interviews will be featured on Billboard.com, on Billboard’s TalkShopLive channel and be simulcast to Billboard’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Viewers watching on Facebook and Instagram can comment the word “shop” to receive a link in their direct messages to purchase.
All sales from Billboard and TalkShopLive via TalkShopLive’s book distribution partner, ReaderLink, count toward The New York Times Best Sellers list.