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BigXThaPlug has teamed up with Amazon Music for an acoustic rendition of his song “Holy Ground” featuring Jessie Murph. On Friday (May 2), Amazon Music dropped off the acoustic version of the track, which was originally included on the deluxe edition of BigX’s sophomore effort, Take Care. The acoustic version was released as part of […]
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Ever since unapologetically stomping for Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential race and taking shots at Kamala Harris, Hulk Hogan’s popularity in the WWE universe plummeted with the wrestling legend constantly getting booed whenever making an appearance at WWE events.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Hulk Hogan has decided to launch his own pro wrestling league banking on MAGA country to support his new venture and is calling on none other than the orange overlord, Donald Trump, to help him jumpstart his new wrestling league. According to TMZ, Hulk Hogan has linked up with fellow wrestling legend Eric Bischoff and famous coach Israel Martinez to start Real American Freestyle with the inaugural show kicking off in Cleveland, Ohio, on Aug. 30.
Though Donald Trump hasn’t committed to appearing at the event to show support to the man whose career he ruined by having him publicly support him during the 2024 presidential race, the Hulkster is hoping that the most hated man in the world repays a little of that debt by popping up at his Real American Freestyle wrestling event later this summer.
Per TMZ:
In fact, Hulk — who was one of Trump’s biggest supporters during his run for president in 2024 — said he plans to make a phone call to the White House soon to personally extend the invite.
With or without Trump, though, Hogan made it clear he’s expecting big things from the league — which will have a bit of a different feel than most of the wrestling promotions he used to dominate.
The RAF will feature real, unscripted freestyle wrestling … with both men’s and women’s divisions. He said in a teaser for the league that athletes “are going to get paid to beat people up” — before telling us they could make dollar amounts in the seven-figure range.
Hulk promised it’ll have “The Voice”-like elements too … saying wrestlers’ backgrounds will be given to fans prior to their matches.
Sounds like fans will know which “woke” wrestlers to boo and which “MAGA” wrestlers to cheer for. Just sayin’.
That being said, we feel like a Cheeto Jesus appearance depends on just how good or bad Trump will be looking come Aug. 30. If we’re in a deep recession by then (which seems likely), Trump might show up just to get cheered on by his MAGA cult and make himself feel better.
What do y’all think about Hulk Hogan’s new wrestling league? Do you see DOA or potential in the project? Let us know in the comments section below.
Welsh rock group Stereophonics has earned its ninth U.K. No. 1 album with 13th studio LP, Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait, on May 2.
The band earned its first chart-topper in 1999 with Performance and Cocktails, and has appeared at the summit a further eight times with Just Enough Education to Perform (2001), You Gotta Go There to Come Back (2003), Language.Sex.Violence.Other? (2005), Pull the Pin (2007), Keep the Village Alive (2015), Kind (2019) and Oochya! (2022).
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The ninth No. 1 sees the four-piece leapfrog Oasis, Ed Sheeran and Led Zeppelin — all of whom have eight — and pulls them level with Bob Dylan and Take That on the all-time leaders list. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are the only British rock bands to have landed more No. 1s with 15 and 14, respectively.
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The group will headline a number of massive outdoor and stadium shows in the U.K. this summer, including at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and London’s Finsbury Park.
Swedish band Ghost has equaled its career high at No. 2 with its sixth album, Skeletá. The theatrical rockers, led by Tobias Forge under the Papa Emeritus persona, has hit the top 10 several times previously: 2018’s Prequelle (10), 2023’s Phantomime (8) and 2024’s Rite Here Rite Now (10).
Former X Factor winner James Arthur has netted a sixth top 10 with his new LP PISCES; he scored the top spot three times previously with 2016’s Back From the Edge, 2021’s It’ll All Make Sense In the End and 2024’s Bitter Sweet Love.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet nets another week in top five (No. 4) and Self Esteem hits a new peak with her third album, A Complicated Woman (No. 5). The new release saw the Rotherham-born artist sign to Polydor after years on indie labels with her previous band The Slow Club and earlier Self Esteem LPs. Speaking to Billboard U.K., she said, “This whole journey has taught me that what’s important is people and community. That’s what the music means to me.”
Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” continues to dominate the U.K. Singles Chart as it notches a seventh consecutive week at No. 1 on May 2. The hot streak makes “Ordinary” the longest running chart-topper in the U.K. since Sabrina Carpenter’s nine-week reign with “Taste” in 2024. The news also coincides with continued success on the Billboard Hot […]
The Black Keys top Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart for the eighth time as “The Night Before” lifts a place to No. 1 on the May 10-dated tally. The duo notches its first leader since “Beautiful People (Stay High)” led for two weeks in March 2024. In between its latest No. 1s, the act hit No. […]
Rebecca and Megan Lovell, otherwise known as the musical duo Larkin Poe, are the first to say they aren’t breaking new musical ground. “We’re all derivative,” Rebecca says to Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast from a tour stop in Boise, Idaho. “There are very few original ideas.”
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Take “Easy Love Pt. 1,” an upbeat, Bonnie Raitt-styled number from the group’s new album, Bloom. “That’s not reinventing the wheel. It’s a song that is built upon basically the changes [of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s] ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’” says Rebecca.
Then again, the Georgia-raised, Nashville-based sisters are taking the blues and Southern rock to unlikely places. In January, the sisters visited Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform “Easy Love Pt. 1.” Not many blues-based artists get a national television audience these days. And few women are winning a Grammy award for best contemporary blues album, which Larkin Poe did in 2024 for its 2022 set, Blood Harmony.
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Guitar-playing Rebecca and lap steel guitar-playing Megan deserve credit for crafting an accessible, modern spin on traditional music. The sisters have succeeded in honoring the histories of some great American musical genres without being afraid to finding their own approach to a familiar sound.
Over the years, the Lovell sisters, who began Larkin Poe in 2010, incorporated beats to their music and occasionally changed the lyric of a cover song. “I do think that there is this temptation at times for — and I hear it a lot in the blues, specifically on a lot of the festival touring circuit that we’ve done — you speak with the same metaphor. You are honoring the past, and you’re putting this whole genre of music kind of behind glass. And it’s a little museum. And we look at it, but we don’t engage, we don’t tweak it. And so I think, very respectfully, Megan and I, over the years, have done our best to get in there, and if we’re going to do a blues cover and there’s a lyric in there that we don’t agree with, we’ll change it. And and we do so with utmost respect, because we respect the songs, and we believe that art and genres of music, specifically traditional American music, needs to evolve.”
Bloom “is a little bit of a departure,” says Rebecca. “It embraces a lot of different types of Southern music that we previously were maybe limiting ourselves [to] a little bit in order to be a blues-fronted outfit. Because I do think [Bloom is] more driven by melody, whereas previous records were more driven by riffs.”
Following the release of Bloom, Larkin Poe reached No. 11 on the Top Album Sales chart, No. 16 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart, No. 20 on the Vinyl Albums chart and No. 66 on Billboard’s Artist 100 chart. Larkin Poe arguably has a stronger presence on the road, though, and has spent 2025 performing at mid-sized clubs and theaters across the U.S. In March, the band set sail on Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea cruise.
The sisters, who began their career in music as folk trio The Lovell Sisters with older sister Jessica, began their appreciation of blues music in their late teens. “We unbraided some of the hillbilly jazz influence of our bluegrass upbringing in order to allow more soul into the music,” says Rebecca. “And I do have to shout out Son House and Skip James, those two artists specifically as really capturing our imagination for turn of the century blues and showing us the possibility of a human voice and an acoustic or electric guitar.”
They were prompted to dig deeper into the blues when on tour with Elvis Costello, who Rebecca calls “a fount of knowledge.” Since Rebecca and Megan were listening to the Allman Brothers, Costello encouraged them to follow the group’s history and research its musical predecessors. “That definitely influenced us to go back and do our research about where these songs were coming from,” says Rebecca.
Listen to the entire interview with Rebecca and Megan Lovell using the embedded Spotify player below or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Podbean or Everand.
Neil Young is ready to roll again, but not if Elon Musk‘s company logo is on the hood. On his new song “Let’s Roll Again” released Friday (May 2), the rock star briefly takes aim at the billionaire’s electric car company amid lyrics imploring auto manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors and Chrysler to build […]
President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday aimed at ending federal funding for NPR and PBS, accusing the organizations in a social media post of spreading “radical, woke propaganda.” The official order, found on the White House website, directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and other agencies to halt both direct and indirect public financing to the public broadcasters.
“Today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” the order states. “Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
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This move follows a pattern of Trump leveraging executive powers to defund or dismantle institutions he deems oppositional, including cultural and educational organizations like the Kennedy Center and National Endowment for the Humanities.
The legality of Trump’s order is in question, however, as CPB is a private nonprofit entity and not a federal agency.
CPB CEO Patricia Harrison emphasized its independence from presidential authority, stating the executive order is not legally binding. “Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” she said.
PBS president Paula Kerger condemned the executive order as “blatantly unlawful,” adding that it jeopardizes the broadcaster’s long-standing public service mission. She highlighted PBS’s bipartisan congressional support and its role in delivering educational and cultural programming.
NPR also pushed back at the order, vowing to defend itself through all legal avenues. The organization asserted that Trump’s action is not about fiscal responsibility, as public broadcasting receives less than 0.0001% of the federal budget, but rather an attack on First Amendment rights and press freedom. “We will vigorously defend our right to provide essential news, information and life-saving services to the American public,” the organization said. “We will challenge this Executive Order using all means available.”
Each year, CPB allocates about $535 million in taxpayer funds to public broadcasters and content producers. Although NPR and PBS have anticipated funding threats since Trump’s 2016 election, the administration’s latest action escalates those concerns. The Trump administration has also proposed a $9.1 billion budget cut package that includes rescinding CPB funding, though the proposal has yet to reach Congress.
This action mirrors similar efforts by the administration to suppress institutions that provide independent or critical viewpoints. It also coincides with attempts to dismantle the agency in charge of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Federal courts have previously intervened in cases where the administration withheld congressionally approved funds from media outlets, raising doubts about the legal sustainability of Trump’s latest move targeting public broadcasters.
Critics argue that cutting funding to NPR and PBS could significantly hinder access to trusted educational and cultural programming, especially in underserved communities. Trump’s executive order may also face strong legal and political resistance, as both public broadcasters have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress.
“There’s nothing more American than PBS, and our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress,” Kerger said last month. “This public-private partnership allows us to help prepare millions of children for success in school and in life and also supports enriching and inspiring programs of the highest quality.”
The CPB has already sued Trump over his attempt to remove three board members, which would have left the board unable to function due to lack of quorum.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
At 62, Fito Páez maintains “the curiosity and desire” of the early years and an energy that doesn’t allow him to stop creating. Music above all, but also cinema and literature — passions he has been developing in parallel over the decades. And Novela, his latest album, might finally combine them all.
Created as a rock musical, the 25-song project — which Páez spent nearly 40 years writing and was finally released on March 28 under Sony Music Spain — tells the story of Villa Constitución, a town in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, where a strange circus arrives to revolutionize the lives of its inhabitants. Through songs such as “Universidad Prix,” “Cuando el Circo Llega al Pueblo,” “Superextraño” and “El Triunfo del Amor,” its unique characters are introduced: the school’s dean, Rectitud Martirius; the witches Maldivina and Turbialuz; the young lovers Loka (daughter of the circus owner) and Jimmy (singer of a rock band) and more.
“We’re already speaking with many producers to film the movie once the tour finishes next year,” Páez tells In Conversation with Billboard Español in New York. “And I’m also beginning an adaptation [to] perform Novela live in full, where the audience can go and see a show that isn’t a musical — it’s the band playing the album and everything happening at once.”
The release comes the same year as the 40th anniversary of Giros, the second studio album in his expansive discography and the one that truly launched his career, with classics such as “11 y 6,” “Cable a Tierra” and “Yo Vengo a Ofrecer Mi Corazón.”
“It’s similar to a beach, Giros. It’s like having arrived, after wandering so much in the river or the sea, and saying, ‘Ah, I’ve made it here,’” he reflects on what the 1985 set meant to him. “There are many elements there that define many things about the place where I was raised, where I learned music, where I was loved, and where I was shaped. It’s an album I care for deeply, and I think it was a strong first step in the direction of searching for a more personal voice.”
In this new installment of En Conversación, the singer of hits such as “El Amor Después del Amor,” “Tumbas de la Gloria” and “Mariposa Tecknicolor” also discusses current events such as the immigration policies that have led fans to avoid attending concerts in the U.S. out of fear of deportation (“It’s horrifying,” he says. “It reminds me of when, back in ’78, we were chased out of Serú Girán concerts during the military dictatorship, and they threw us in jail”); and the ban on narcocorridos in some states in Mexico (“It’s a cultural expression born from lived experiences … and now it’s the singers’ fault! No, guys, it doesn’t work that way”).
Watch the full interview in the video above.
Fito Páez has spent more than three decades crafting his new album, Novela. He opens up about why it took so long to create, the inspiration behind the album, his plans for an upcoming tour, how politics are impacting concert attendance, his views on narcocorridos and the secret to his longevity and success.
What are your thoughts on Fito Páez’s Novela? Let us know in the comments!
Sigal Ratner-Arias:Good morning and welcome! We’re here with the legendary Fito Paez to talk about his new album, Novela, and so many more things. What is your favorite Billboard moment? Past, present or future. This moment. It has to be this moment.
Fito Paez: Obviously it’s this one. Clearly, being here with you. You guys have always treated me well. You guys have always loved me, you’ve listened to me, you’ve given me your attention, so that alone is huge. I really appreciate that. I always feel very grateful when people follow you, they join you, they respect you.
You’re a classic, Fito.
We have a quality bond.
It’s your longest album. Why did it take you so long to finish?
I think there are some works, some pieces that are made over time and that are outside the system of anxiety, outside the system of immediate requirements, outside of the industry and outside of productivity. Because someone can make music, but to start out you need to go back to school first. Here, no. One makes music because you want to express yourself because he needs to share or have that want to get it out from inside, or give it life. Or, to start enjoying the language of music, the language of words. So, behind the scenes of that experience, in my case, my whole life, and that’s how it’s going to be until the day I die.
Keep watching for more!
