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Billboard Japan’s Women in Music initiative launched in 2022 to celebrate artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to music and inspired other women through their work, in the same spirit as Billboard’s annual Women in Music honors since 2007. This interview series featuring female players in the Japanese entertainment industry is one of the highlights of Japan’s WIM project.
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The latest installment of the series features Aimi Kobayashi. The 29-year-old classical pianist first performed with an orchestra when she was seven and made her international debut when she was nine. In 2021, she came in fourth place in the International Chopin Piano Competition, attracting attention from around the world. In November 2024, she released her first new album in three years after taking maternity and childcare leave. On behalf of Billboard Japan, the writer Rio Hirai spoke with Kobayashi, who shared her current mindset as she continues to advance her career while enjoying the major changes in her life.
You’ve built a career as a pianist, garnering international attention from a young age. Has your approach to music changed since you got married and became a mother in 2023?
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Aimi Kobayashi: My approach to music hasn’t really changed. Of course, the way I use my time has changed dramatically since becoming a mom. I have an adorable little monster at home, so it’s tough to find time to practice for concerts. But when I see how cute my child is, that alone makes me feel like working hard again.
So even after the stage in your life has changed, you continue to be committed to music. Still, there must be difficulties in continuing your career while parenting.
There are many other difficult things in life besides childbirth. So you just have to adapt to the situation you find yourself in and get on with it. You get used to the situation and it becomes the norm, so you don’t have to think too much about it and just do what’s in front of you, thinking “I have to get it done somehow!” I do my best with housework and parenting, but I don’t expect to be perfect at everything. I’m pretty casual about everything except my job. I think the secret to continuing your career is to get help from the people around you like your parents and set up a support system.
Were you good at relying on other people before you became a mom?
No, I was the type who couldn’t rely on others. But after having a baby, I found myself thinking more often that you can’t live on your own, so I started relying on people around me without hesitation. I’m a mom, but don’t think I have to raise my child on my own. Of course I feel that I have to protect my child, but both the mother and father should equally fulfill their parental roles. You share the housework and childcare with your partner, and if that’s still too much, you can ask for help from other people and raise your child together.
That’s true. When you were in your teens or early twenties, did you ever feel anxious about balancing work with marriage and parenting?
No! I didn’t intend to give up either. I think it’s possible to balance both depending on who you marry. I wanted to be a pianist even after I got married and became a mom. That’s why I wanted to marry someone who would understand and support my career.
When you were 17, you took a break from playing in concerts and went to study at The Curtis Institute of Music in the U.S. Did you feel differently then, compared to during your recent maternity and parental leave?
During my time abroad, I only took a break from doing concerts and continued to practice improving my skill, so it felt completely different. As for maternity and parental leave, it was the first time in my musical career that I took a real break. It’s not often that you get a break that everyone around you congratulates you on. I really enjoyed raising our child and doing the housework while waiting for my partner to come home. But as it continued, I really started to feel the desire to go back to work. My partner continued to perform at concerts, so there were times when I felt anxious and wondered, “When will I be able to get back to work?”
I see. How did you overcome that anxiety?
I decided to push my comeback back two months, and that was a big relief. I had concert plans and other things lined up, and had initially decided to return to work as soon as possible because I didn’t want to cancel or postpone. I’d never experienced any major illnesses and was in good health, so I thought I’d be able to manage it if I just worked hard, but giving birth was harder than I’d expected. Even so, I still thought I had to return as soon as possible and ended up getting sick and feeling mentally overwhelmed. Then, the people at my agency and my manager told me, “Your mind and body will be back to normal with time, so take it easy and rest.” Their kind words lifted the weight off my shoulders and eased my postpartum anxiety, and I was able to return to work.
I’m really glad there are people around you who understand. What do you think is necessary for women to continue making music in this industry for a long time after marrying or becoming a mom?
It’s good to have a place to return to after taking maternity leave. Children are a gift, and there will be times you have to cancel shows. I was grateful there were so many people who understood this and waited for me to come back. This isn’t just limited to the music industry, but if there’s an environment that supports women taking maternity leave, then it will make it more enjoyable for them to look after their kids. And although it may be slow, I think that society is changing. Rather than focusing on the things that mothers and women can’t do, I want to believe that the world is becoming a better place and live my life as I wish.
Many women have careers in classical music, but for example, more men have been awarded at the International Chopin Piano Competition, and the ratio of male and female musicians also differs depending on the instrument. What are your thoughts on the gender imbalance in this industry?
I do sense some remnants of history, like the fact that Western orchestras used to be comprised of only male musicians in the past. A friend of mine, a female musician in an orchestra once told me that it’s hard for women to actively participate in orchestras. I do think that it takes intense conviction. The same is true for office workers. Some might imagine that a woman has to work as hard as a man to advance her career in an administrative position. I think I can make the most of my strength as a woman without compromising my identity.
Have you personally been affected by gender inequality?
I do feel it since I became a mother. Being pregnant was a wonderful experience. Only women can experience nurturing a life inside themselves and giving birth. But I also envy men who can pursue their careers without taking time off when they become fathers.
In addition to motherhood, changes in the stages in women’s lives can sometimes be an obstacle to career advancement.
Women do go through various changes in their lives, like having to raise kids or care for their parents someday. When changes like these happen in the home, more women tend to sacrifice their careers, and it feels like this is linked to gender imbalance in society. Also, women often suffer from physical problems due to hormonal imbalance caused by age. Women have to overcome many obstacles to advance their careers.
Do you have any role models, someone who makes you think, “I want to live my life like this person”?
There aren’t too many (female) classical musicians who continue to be active after having children. So I admire women in any field who flourish in the work they want to do after having kids. But this is my opinion as a married woman who has a child. Whether or not you get married is up to you, and being a mom isn’t everything. I think it’s fine as long as you’re happy.
I think you’re a role model for many people. Do you have any messages for women who might be worried about being able to advance their careers even as changes happen in their lives?
When you can’t find the answer to something even after thinking hard about it, it’s important to summon up your courage and take a step forward. You might gain new perspective, and even if you don’t find it right away, you might be able to arrive at your own answer by taking one step at a time. When I was a teenager, I used to think I had an infinite amount of time, but after becoming a mom, time passes like the wind. So I think it’s better to try the things you want to do now without holding back, and to live your life without regrets.
—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan
Travis Japan’s “Say I do” debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, dated March 12.
This song is being featured as the theme song for Honnou Switch, the drama series starring member Kaito Miyachika and actress Wakana Aoi, and is the first CD single by the seven-member boy band. The track launched with 147,896 copies to rule sales, top downloads, and came in at No. 53 for streaming to give the group its first-ever No. 1 on the Japan Hot 100.
Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Lilac” continues to hold at No. 2, extending its stay in the top 10 to 47 weeks. The Oblivion Battery opener rules streaming for the 27th week with 10,034,805 weekly streams, tops karaoke, and comes in at No. 7 for downloads and No. 2 for video views.
Sakanaction’s “Kaiju” also holds at No. 3. Streaming for the Orb: On the Movements of the Earth opener stays at No. 2 (83% week-over-week), and comes in at No. 4 for downloads (54%), No. 4 for radio, and No. 16 for video.
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Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Darling” rises two notches to No. 4. The track is currently at No. 3 for streaming and has stayed in the top 3 for the metric since its debut on the list. The former No. 1 hit is at No. 19 for downloads, No. 6 for video, No. 16 for karaoke, and moves 74-36 for radio (160%).
SEVENTEEN’s “Shohikigen” returns to the Japan Hot 100 for the fifth time after the CD sold 94,151 copies this week. Kenshi Yonezu’s “BOW AND ARROW” rises 19-6 after the accompanying music video featuring superstar figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu powered the track to No. 1 for video. Aimyon’s “Sketch,” the theme song for the latest Doraemon feature film, Doraemon the Movie: Nobita’s Art World Tales, soars 69-7. The single rules radio, comes in at No. 5 for sales with 9,217 copies sold, No. 13 for video, and No. 90 for streaming.
The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.
See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from March 3 to 9, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English X account.
A$AP Rocky has once again addressed his long-awaited project Don’t Be Dumb. This time, he was stopped by Instagram fashion account The People Gallery and asked directly when he was planning to finally drop the album. “Don’t do me like that,” he replied with a smirk on his face. “A$AP. Listen, don’t make me do […]
Lizzo has new music on the way, with the hitmaker announcing Wednesday (March 12) that her next single, “Still Bad,” is arriving in less than a day. Sharing a red-tinted close-up photo of her face with rosy flecks of light surrounding her eyes, Lizzo wrote on Instagram, “STILL BAD THURSDAY 12PM EST,” with two blood […]
Warner Music Group (WMG) and Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital are in advanced talks to form a joint venture worth around $1 billion to acquire music catalogs, according to three sources with knowledge of the talks.
Led by an equity investment from Bain, the joint venture will enable WMG to write bigger checks while spending less of its own money to acquire the catalogs it wants most.
A representative for WMG declined to comment, and a representative for Bain did not respond to a request for comment.
High interest rates and intense competition to own the rights to music from bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers is leading major music companies to partner with outside investors to bolster their bids and assuage shareholders who may be put off by the price of a prized catalog.
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Some of the biggest catalog sales of all time occurred last year, with Sony Music acquiring Queen’s catalog and other rights for $1.27 billion. Earlier in 2024, Sony also acquired a stake in Michael Jackson‘s catalog for $600 million.
In many cases, music companies are looking to buy out an artist with whom they’ve worked for years and whose catalog they already partially own — like Sony Music did in 2022 when it bought Bob Dylan‘s master recordings. Owning more of the music’s intellectual property not only allows for more control over how the songs are used and licensed in the future, it prevents potentially embarrassing break-ups between record labels and their superstars.
The bidding wars have grown particularly pitched for master recording rights, which are more valuable today because streaming has extended the period that a song remains popular by several years, according to entertainment banking sources. Before streaming provided listeners with easy access to the entire universe of popular music and kept songs in regular rotation through playlisting, the revenue generated by a hit song’s master recording would fall off precipitously after its hype period waned.
A growing number of successful artists are also leaving major music companies to release music independently, have grown entire careers independently or have negotiated more favorable contracts with their major label partners, giving them more ownership of their master royalties. It all has some investors worried that the total addressable market of master royalties will grow more slowly in the future than in prior decades.
In early 2024, Universal Music Group (UMG) invested roughly $240 million to partner with Chord Music, a catalog investment company majority-owned by Dundee Partners, to give it similar flexibility to acquire catalogs off of its balance sheet and with financial help. The agreement gave UMG the administration and distribution business for the 60,000 music copyrights owned in Chord, and, in exchange for throwing its power as the world’s largest music company behind those assets to make them make more money, Dundee Partners became UMG’s long-term co-investment partner.
Sony Music has also partnered with institutional investors to help finance acquisitions, including Apollo, and WMG has explored investing in catalogs through outside vehicles as an early investor in both Tempo Music Group and Influence Media.
One of the financial engineers involved in structuring UMG’s deal with Chord was Michael Ryan-Southern. At the time, Ryan-Southern led Goldman Sachs’ investment banking team focused on the music industry. WMG hired Ryan-Southern last summer to serve as its head of corporate and business development, overseeing mergers and acquisitions.
Ryan-Southern’s team was key toWMG’s acquisition of Tempo Music, a $450 million deal announced on Feb. 6 that gives Warner the rights to songs by Wiz Khalifa, Florida Georgia Line and Brett James.
WMG’s ties to Bain Capital date back to 2004 when Bain was part of the investor group — also including Thomas H. Lee Partners, Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and Providence Equity Partners — to buy WMG for what was then $2.6 billion cash.
Time to turn it up to 11. The highly anticipated sequel of the 1984 comedy, This Is Spinal Tap, officially has a release date. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues will hit theaters on September 12 with Bleeker Street gaining the U.S. distribution rights, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Rob Reiner is returning as director, […]
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The road to March Madness is on with the conference championships taking place this week ahead of the Big Dance. The 2025 SEC Basketball Tournament takes place March 12-16 in Nashville, TN.
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Last-minute tickets to watch the SEC basketball games at Bridgestone Arena are still available on sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats. Bonus: use our exclusive promo code BB30 to save $30 off your purchase at VividSeats.com.
Want to watch the SEC Basketball Tournament on TV? Early round games air this year on SEC Network, with the quarterfinals, semifinals and championship game airing live on ESPN. You’ll need a cable package with those two channels in order to watch the SEC tournament on TV.
How to Watch 2025 SEC Basketball Tournament Online
Don’t have cable? There’s a way to watch the 2025 SEC Basketball Tournament online. Sling TV is a streaming service that lets you watch live television from home without needing a cable subscription. The Sling Orange package includes access to ESPN (and 30+ other channels) for $45/month, while SEC Network is available through the Sports Extra add-on, which costs an additional $11/month.
What we like: Sling is currently running a limited-time promo that saves you up to 50% off your first month of service. Regularly $45+, you Sling Orange subscription is now discounted to just $23 and up.
Use Sling to livestream the SEC basketball games online from your phone, computer, tablet or smart TV (via the Sling app). In addition to ESPN, other channels on the Sling Orange plan include TBS, TNT, CNN, AMC and more. While Sling doesn’t currently offer a free trial, the site offers free DVR and thousands of hours of on-demand TV shows and movies as part of its subscription plans.
Auburn is the number one seed in the SEC tournament this year, with Florida, Alabama and Tennessee rounding out the top four. All four teams earned double byes and will kickoff their tournament play during the quarterfinals on Friday.
This is one of most competitive conferences for D1 basketball this year. Auburn, Florida and Alabama could all make it deep into the NCAA March Madness tournament, but first they’ll have to make it through this field.
Auburn defeated Florida in last year’s SEC Tournament Championship by a score of 86-67 to earn the automatic bid to the 2024 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.
Watch this year’s SEC Basketball Tournament live online through Sling TV here.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
The start of the new Formula 1 season begins with a trip to Australia for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Albert Park. The racing event will kick off Thursday (March 13) with practice sessions starting at 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT until race day on Sunday (March 16), airing in the U.S. on Saturday (March 15) at midnight ET/9 p.m. PT. There are some streaming options that’ll let you livestream the races online.
ESPN and its networks will livestream the race and practices for you to watch at home. The easiest way to tune in is through a the network’s cable channels. Cord cutters don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a cable package in order to livestream the 2025 F1 Australian Grand Prix at home, there are additional ways to watch ESPN without cable.
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Keep reading to learn more.
How to Watch F1 Australian Grand Prix Online
ESPN+ is the official streaming platform for ESPN and it’s networks, which will let you watch the F1 Australian Grand Prix 2025 and more live sports coverage. The streamer comes with a variety of affordable plans starting at $11.99 per month or you can save 17% off with an annual plan for $119.99 per year.
In addition to live sports, ESPN+ has exclusive on-demand videos and access to content from what was formerly known as ESPN Insider. You’ll also be able to stream original shows to stream on-demand, game recaps and analysis hosted by Peyton Manning, a shorter version of NFL Primetime and full replays of historic NFL matchups.
To expand your savings and content offerings, you can also bundle ESPN+ with Hulu and Disney+ for a single monthly price of just $16.99 per month for all three services.
How to Watch F1 Australian Grand Prix Online for Free
ESPN is also available through live TV streamers and with current free trials and promos going on, you can watch the 2025 F1 Australian Grand Prix for free. Below, ShopBillboard put together a list of the best offers to take advantage of now.
Sling TV
Sling TV is offering new users half off their first month when they sign up for one of the three packages available. ESPN is only included in the Sling Orange and Sling Orange + Blue packages, which are discounted for as $23 for the first month (reg. $45.99 per month). After your first month you’ll be charged the full package price.
The Sling Orange package comes with 32 channels that can be streamed on one device at once. For additional channel options including FS1 and the NFL Network, you can combine both plans for $33 for the first month (reg. $65.99 per month) and get access to all 48 channels. Please note that Sling TV pricing and channel availability varies from market-to-market. Learn more at Sling TV here.
Fubo
You can watch ESPN on Fubo and livestream the 2025 F1 Australian Grand Prix and more for no added cost. New users can take advantage of a seven-day free trial in addition to a promo that’s taking $25 off the first month, giving you access to more than 200 live channels for as low as $59.99 (reg. $84.99).
Fubo’s Essential plan also comes with unlimited DVR storage, while you have the ability to simultaneously watch content on up to 10 screens.
Hulu + Live TV
Hulu + Live TV offers the most streaming options with access to more than 95 live channels including ESPN and the entire Hulu library. It starts at $82.99 per month, but unlike the rest of the options on this list, Hulu + Live TV comes bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+ for no added cost. You’ll have all of the Hulu library to watch and exclusive and original programming available only on ESPN+.
Who Is Performing During F1 Australian Grand Prix?
During the five-day motorsport event, rock bands The Living End and Spiderbait are set to perform, while rapper Baker Boy and singer Tones and I are scheduled to perform too. The musical headliner of F1 Australian Grand Prix is English DJ Fatboy Slim with Australian singer Anna Lunoe.
Stream F1 Australian Grand Prix on ESPN starting on Thursday (March 13) at 9:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. PT. Race day lands on Sunday, airing in the U.S. on Saturday (March 15) at midnight ET/9 p.m. PT. The best way to watch is on ESPN+, or ESPN via Sling TV.
Want more? For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best Xbox deals, studio headphones and Nintendo Switch accessories.
Thomas Rhett’s new single makes only a passing reference to a truck, but it’s loaded with pickups.
The foundational electric guitar played by songwriter John Byron (“Last Night,” “Pour Me a Drink”) required a pickup to produce a sound. The protagonist in the plot, singing to a woman around closing time at a club, is trying to make a pickup. And the phrases in the singalong chorus generally start on the second beat of a measure, leading to the downbeat of the next bar; thus, they’re built from musical pickups.
As a result, “After All the Bars Are Closed” uses pickups in hopes of yielding a pickup.
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“I would have never thought about that in my whole existence,” Thomas Rhett says.
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To be fair, the singer-songwriter doesn’t actually think of it as a song about a barroom pickup. Instead, he relates it to the early days of his relationship with now-wife Lauren, when he was playing music and attending David Lipscomb University in Nashville while she studied nursing at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. There were so many other obligations in their lives that they often had only a two-hour window after midnight for themselves.
“Anytime I write a song, whether it’s [about] heartbreak, love — whatever — I’m either looking at my present day with my wife, or I’m kind of looking back into when we first started dating,” he says.
Lauren wasn’t the original muse, though, for “After All the Bars Are Closed.” Byron was working with pop songwriters Jacob “JKash” Kasher (“Love Somebody,” “Sugar”) and Jaxson Free on March 10, 2023, in Miami, and he landed on a finger-picking guitar pattern that ends with a twisty riff. They began sifting through potential titles, and when they came upon “After All the Bars Are Closed,” it had a classic ring to it.
“It’s like [Semisonic’s] ‘Closing Time,’ but kind of a country way to say that,” Byron notes.
Instead of the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus format, they used the title as the opening line, getting to the hook immediately. That tactic was used frequently in some previous eras — Willie Nelson started with the hook on two of his most valuable copyrights, “Crazy” and “On the Road Again.” Larry Gatlin employed that approach in most of The Gatlin Brothers’ hits in the ’70s and ’80s.
“What’s funny about Larry is, his wife was one of my second-grade teachers,” Byron recalls. “I definitely listened to a lot of Gatlin Brothers.”
Opening with the title has an obvious advantage in an era marked by short attention spans.
“If you can get to the hookiest part of the song first, it can really draw people in,” Byron says. “If you think of ‘Cruise’ by Florida Georgia Line, if that song had started with the verse, I don’t think it would have been nearly as big. [They sang] the most iconic part of the song right off the top.”
While the melody of the “Bars” chorus started on the second beat of a measure and ended on the downbeat of the next bar, the verses had their own unique structure. The bulk of the phrases in those stanzas start after the second beat and end before the next measure — they’re compact and tucked completely between the song’s defining beats.
As Byron, JKash and Free developed those musical parts, they saw the characters as romantically unconnected.
“Whenever me and Kash are together, we always want to make sure it’s as swaggy as possible, so most of the time, in our heads, it’s two people who aren’t together,” Byron says. “I actually think it’s cool that TR did it, because him and Lauren are together. And so I think it’s a cool, fresh way for TR to pick up his wife.”
Thomas Rhett and songwriter-producer Julian Bunetta (Kelsea Ballerini, Sabrina Carpenter) had meanwhile been listening to some ’50s and ’60s recordings, many of which started with the hook and got to the chorus three times in just two minutes. The hook-first nature of “After All the Bars Are Closed” intrigued them during a writing retreat at Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tenn., when Byron introduced a rough version of the song.
“It’s like a ballad dressed up as a midtempo bop,” Bunetta says. “But actually, when you break it down and just sing it on guitar, it’s a really tender, sweet love song. I love when things aren’t always what they seem on the surface.”
Thomas Rhett and Bunetta tweaked a few melodic passages and changed some lyrics, in particular adding new words on the final chorus, where the post-midnight theme inspired a “dark side of the moon” line. It may lead listeners with a classic-rock background to think of Pink Floyd. “When I heard that line, my brain went to Pink Floyd,” the singer-songwriter agrees.
Bunetta and Dann Huff (Kane Brown, Keith Urban) co-produced a tracking session for “Bars” at Backstage in Nashville, testing its flexibility by trying a range of styles. Bunetta rejiggered the chord progression for one take, they tried playing it without the original guitar riff on another, and they even did a version with a Hall & Oates vibe.
In the production’s early going, they settled on a rendition that was “extremely Western, like if me and Midland sort of had a baby,” Thomas Rhett says. “Me and Julian both lived with it for a couple of weeks, but it just didn’t give us the same emotion that the original did.”
They mixed and matched parts from those various takes for the album, though Bunetta eventually adopted a less-is-more attitude about the arrangement, built primarily around Byron’s guitar work on the demo.
“The more I tried to add, the less I liked the song, the more the emotion got buried, and the more his voice got buried,” Bunetta says. “It just wasn’t as effective, so I tried to keep it sparse and keep it all about his voice, [with] a couple of those little colorful, electric bits on the left and the right side.”
The album version had a pop edge to it, with Byron’s harmony parts from the demo providing loose background vocals. Bunetta “could turn a fart into a BGV,” Byron says with admiration.
As the track began to emerge as one of the most popular in streaming from the About a Woman album, Rhett’s team determined a different mix — “The Last Call Version” — was in order for a radio release. Drummer Jerry Roe was brought in to give the percussion a stronger human presence, and some of steel guitarist Paul Franklin’s part from the original session — including a waterfall intro — were unmuted.Valory released “Bars” to country radio via PlayMPE on Feb. 6. It’s at No. 39 on the Country Airplay chart dated March 15 in its third week on the list as programmers pick up on it.
“It’s sneaky because the music is very ‘now’-sounding, but there’s something about the way that that song sort of teleports you, and it makes you feel nostalgic,” Thomas Rhett says. “It makes you feel kind of like you want to dance, but also just kind of like you want to be with the person that you love. It doesn’t happen very often where a song checks all those boxes.”
The Driver Era is just a month away from dropping their newest album, Obsession, on April 11. To celebrate, Billboard caught up with brothers Rocky and Ross Lynch amid their global tour to get a preview of one of the project’s unreleased tracks, “The Weekend.” “You know I can’t help it/ But if I’m being […]