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BTS‘ Jin announced the dates for his first-ever solo tour on Thursday (April 17), the #RUNSEOKJIN_EP.TOUR. The outing that incorporates the singer’s full given name (Kim Seok-jin) will hit nine cities around the globe for two nights each, kicking off with a double-down at the Goyang Auxiliary Stadium in Goyang, South Korea on June 28 […]
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The Grand Ole Opry is celebrating its centennial year, and fans can now celebrate with a new book that traces the history of the iconic country music institution.
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Released April 15, 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry quickly shot to the top of Amazon’s bestselling country music books chart. The site also has the book on sale for 46% off for a limited time.
NEW RELEASE
100 Years of Grand Ole Opry: A Celebration of the Artists, the Fans, and the Home of Country Music
$32.48
$60.00
46% off
Written by country music journalist Craig Shelburne, as well as some of the 75 currently active Opry members, 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of music’s most influential radio shows, with personal anecdotes, timelines, vintage concert bills and never-before-seen photos. Everyone from Johnny Cash to Dolly Parton credit their success to the Opry, and their stories are documented here, along with later acts like Carrie Underwood, Luke Combs and Keith Urban. Legendary artists like The Everly Brothers, Sam McGee and The Oak Ridges Boys are also profiled, with the book recalling how each of them got their call to join the Opry. As the author writes, “Receiving an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry is almost like a marriage proposal.”
Of course, the Opry also opened a live performance venue in 1974, and this new book features photos and stories from many of the artists that have performed there on stage. The Grand Ole Opry House continues to hosts performances weekly to this day.
Pick up 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry on hardcover today. It’s a great coffee table book for display and a great gift for country music fans too. Get the book here.
You can also watch the recent special, Opry 100: A Live Celebration, featuring performances from Amy Grant, Eric Church, Jelly Roll, The War and Treaty, Luke Combs, Kelsea Ballerini, Lainey Wilson, Brad Paisley and more. While it originally aired on NBC, you can now stream it on Peacock.
Life in the spotlight isn’t nearly as glamorous as it looks, particularly for new artists.
Between taking every road gig available, meeting programmers in multiple cities on radio promotion tours, creating new material and building a social media base, it’s not unusual for acts in their first year or two in the national spotlight to operate regularly on just four or five hours of sleep.
Artists don’t usually talk about it publicly — most folks with more typical jobs don’t want to hear anyone b–ch about playing music for a living. Sometimes even the family refuses to take pity, as new Nashville Harbor artist Greylan James discovered.
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“Talking to my parents every weekend when I got back from being on tour, [I’d be] complaining, ‘Y’all, I’m just exhausted. I’m stressed all the time. You guys have no idea how hard it is to be a country music songwriter and artist,’ ” James remembers. “Of course, my mom, being the Southern woman with the sass that she is, her favorite comeback was always, ‘Well, you think you’re tired and stressed now, Greylan, just wait ’til you have kids.’ ”
Thanks, Mom.
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“Wait Til You Have Kids” is now the title of James’ first radio single, released to country broadcasters via PlayMPE on March 3. It embraces the impact that raising children has on a parent’s view of life’s details while loosely tracing the kid’s journey from toddler to young adult. The stories are familiar, though neither James nor his co-writer, Matt Roy (“Done”), actually have children of their own.
“Sometimes we get a little caught up in that,” Roy says. “At the end of the day, a really good example is ‘There Goes My Life.’ I mean, as far as I know, [Kenny] Chesney doesn’t have any kids, and he’s not married. It just was a great song that he wanted to do.”
James had suggested writing “Wait Til You Have Kids” several times, but his co-writers invariably passed. He brought it up again in a May 2024 appointment with Roy on Music Row in Nashville, and they pinpointed Cody Johnson and Jordan Davis as artists who might be good targets, but then they moved on to other titles. Ultimately, Roy decided they should invest at least an hour into “Kids” and see if it worked.
James developed a flowy acoustic guitar part, and they kicked into a series of attitudes that would distinguish childless adults from parents: “Some people drive too slow,” “Tattoos are no big deal” or “If ‘There Goes My Life’ [is] just another song on the radio.”
“When I graduated high school, ‘There Goes My Life’ was the theme song,” James recalls. “That’s one of those songs that’s been a timeless classic, and so it was kind of a reference for us.”
When they reached the chorus, James was determined to make slight changes to a line or two in each iteration, the same way it had worked when he co-wrote Jordan Davis’ “Next Thing You Know,” another song with a significant parenting element.
“I’m sure Matt was dreading that,” he says. “When you’re trying to get out of the room by 3:00, like most writes work, changing the lyrics and the chorus gets a little complicated.”
But Roy saw the chorus modifications as a key development. Each time they changed the lyric, it advanced the kid’s age, making it a song with big-picture implications, rather than a gooey portrait of one particular age. It was trickier than it sounds.
“It grows the song up, but it doesn’t grow [the singer] up,” Roy says. “That was the hardest balance to maintain, just because every singer wants to be young and hip and cool — and particularly, for a young artist to act like a 60-year-old rocking around his porch telling advice wasn’t the direction we really wanted to go in.”
The second verse was surprisingly easy: They developed so many examples of the changes that kids bring to a life that they had plenty of options. “You just need to make it all rhyme,” Roy says.
They worked it so that the child’s aging process peaked in the bridge, with the kid “a thousand miles away” — presumably in college, but maybe married and living in another town — and the singer asking them to visit. James worked up a demo on his own at home. “I knew it was kind of a special song from the beginning,” he says. “Originally, I was like, ‘This doesn’t need to be something super-built up. It can just be a kick drum, guitar, vocal, maybe little cymbal swells here and there.”
James was very intentional about the vocal, recording 10-15 passes to make sure he showcased it in the best way possible. A few artists took a look at it, but when Nashville Harbor president Jimmy Harnen heard it, he called James and told him he should cut it himself. James protested — since he didn’t have kids, he didn’t think he was the right messenger — but Harnen assured him the song’s emotional value outweighed that issue.
Harnen convinced him they should release it early in 2025, and they assigned it to producers Jason Massey (Kelsea Ballerini, Kylie Morgan) and Brock Berryhill (Parmalee, Jelly Roll), with a tight one-week deadline. Booking a studio and a full cadre of musicians was an unlikely proposition, so they decided to build around the best parts of James’ demo. They kept his vocal and his acoustic guitar, and overdubbed the other instruments atop that core.
“It’s crazy because we’re writers, too,” Massey says, “so we were doing it around our writing schedule.”That meant it was mostly late-night work for the week. “I was just sending him all of my parts, and then he would send me a revised stereo file and I would just keep adding stuff,” Berryhill says. “We didn’t really have to do a whole lot on this one.”
Massey handled the bass guitar and drums while Berryhill supplied background vocals and other small touches, including a manditar, a smaller guitar with sonic similarities to mandolin. “For the most part, [the melodic instrumentation] is just two acoustics and doubling some of the parts with electric, kind of vibey tones,” Berryhill notes. “Then from there, it’s a lot of ambient layering, swelling guitars and some weird effect things.”
Despite the limited time frame, they did a little more than they needed. James asked them to pare it back. “There were some bigger drum moments,” Massey says. “It got a little bigger, and then Greylan was like, ‘I kind of miss the intimacy of the demo.’ I think he was right. That was a good call.”
Though James had reservations about releasing “Wait Til You Have Kids” as a childless man, he has grown more comfortable with the situation. He relates to the song as a son, and the possibility exists that he’ll become a father somewhere down the road. He expects the job will be at least as challenging as his current one in country music.
“I don’t hate where I’m at right now,” he says, “but if it ends up changing, that’s something I’d be blessed to be a part of.”
As it gears up to release its fifth studio album Bet The Farm on Friday (April 18), country duo LOCASH is celebrating a two-week No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart with “Hometown Home.”
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That milestone is significant, given that it marks LOCASH’s first No. 1 on its own label Galaxy Label Group, with “Hometown Home” also being its debut release for the label. The duo launched Galaxy in 2024, in partnership with Studio2Bee Entertainment, led by Skip Bishop and Butch Waugh, with BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville handling distribution for the label.
LOCASH’s Preston Brust and Chris Lucas co-wrote “Hometown Home” with Zach Abend and Andy Albert, with production by Jacob Rice. It has been nearly a decade since LOCASH previously summitted on the Country Airplay chart, in 2016 with “I Know Somebody.” While “Hometown Home” has spent two weeks atop the Country Airplay chart, the duo says it is still holding strong.
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“We were just talking about how well it’s still testing at radio, and we’re not in a hurry to take the foot off the gas on this one,” Brust tells Billboard via Zoom. “Sometimes you get a No. 1 and you just kind of let go quickly and go to the next single, but [their fellow label execs] were like, ‘If we could give you any advice, just let this one breathe a little bit, because we’re sitting in evergreen status.’ We definitely had Skip and Butch guiding us and [BMG president of Frontline Recordings for The Americas Jon] Loba is always one call away for us, so we did help guide it. We saw the research kept coming back positive, which — you can’t ask for better than that.”
Billboard spoke with Brust and Lucas about the success of “Hometown Home,” their new album and what is ahead for their Galaxy Label Group.
Some artists want to court radio, and some don’t. Did you initially plan to take “Hometown Home” to radio?
Brust: Definitely. We released it on DSPs and then went to radio very quickly. It’s kind of tongue-in-cheek when I say we were born at radio; that’s where Chris and I cut our teeth and began our journey and created all these real friendships and relationships. We’ve been on a few labels over the years, and I remember someone at a different label, a long time ago, said, ‘Those guys aren’t your friends — they’re not really your friends.’ And I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa. No, these folks really are our partners and our friends.’ Radio’s always been important to us, and so are the DSPs. It all works together. These relationships are real, and they reach beyond just the songs — we get to know each other’s families and about their lives.
You have an “Easter Egg Hunt” happening that involves fans finding clues in your album cover. What is the story behind that?
Brust: Chris and I both have 9-year-old daughters and other kids as well, but they’re really Taylor Swift fans. I mean, just love Taylor and when she comes out with an album, our kids love it. They’re digging in, they’re trying to find the Easter eggs and [figuring out] what does it all mean? They have fun with it, and so I was like, “Why not us?” So we hid 16 things that we love, and that ties in with a song on the album called “Things We Love.” Once the listener finds all 16, they register themselves into a drawing and the winner gets a free LOCASH concert at their house or backyard. They win that concert.
How did you decide on Bet The Farm as the title of the album?
Lucas: We were trying to find the name of the album, couldn’t find the name of the album, and it had to be turned in like yesterday. Preston gets a text message with a song start of “Bet the Farm,” and we ended up finishing it in like two days — and we told our team, “Hold off, I know we turned in the album, but let’s wait until this song is finished,” and we turned that in. It says everything about what we’ve done in our career: we celebrate the wins, but then put our chips back in and we bet the farm again.
You interpolate Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” on the song “Isn’t She Country.” How did that come about, and what was it like getting the approval of Stevie and his team?
Lucas: We were on the bus and had some writers [Rob Pennington and Forrest Finn] out with us, just trying to write songs for the album. It was like 11 at night and we had just come offstage. We started writing it, not thinking it was going to be on the album. We were just having a good time and Rob [Pennington] started strumming guitar and singing “Isn’t she country, isn’t she real small town?”
We were just changing the words as we went, and it wasn’t really writing a song — just rewriting some lyrics and giving it a country flavor. So we ended up recording it. We had to get Stevie and his team’s approval, and it took maybe two or three months. But it feels so cool to have Stevie and his team’s blessing on this — because music is a serious thing, and when a song has been written, you don’t want to mess it up.
Preston, you’re wearing a [Contemporary Christian artist] Forrest Frank hat on this Zoom call. Would you ever do a CCM collaboration?
Brust: I went to the Forrest Frank show [in Nashville, Tennessee] with Jordan Feliz. We went backstage, and I got to shake Frank’s hand and tell him he did a great job. He’s a really humble guy, and it was a good night. We want to do [a CCM collaboration] so bad, because a lot of our music is positive already, and it just puts people in a good place — so we’re looking or the right thing. I was talking to the Elevation [Rhythm] folks and talking to Jordan [Feliz], so you just never know when the time might be right. If the song is right and it feels like the right project, we’ll jump all over it.
In addition to your own hits, you’ve written hit songs such as Tim McGraw’s “Truck Yeah” and Keith Urban’s “You Gonna Fly.” Whether it’s an outside cut or one you had a hand in writing, how do the two of you decide what to record, if one of you likes a song more than the other?
Brust: It’s a little tricky, because there are certain songs that each of us gravitate towards — and for different reasons, because music is so subjective to mood and opinion, and that can change daily. So, you have a pile of songs that are important to Chris and important to me and we talk it out. And then sometimes you record them and see how they sound. And then there are times when, if one of us isn’t feeling a song, instead of putting it in a “no” pile, I’ll put it in a “Play this for him again in three months” pile. And that’s worked from time to time. There was a song called “Til The Wheels Fall Off” on an album a couple of years ago, and it became one of our favorite songs in the end. So you just never know.
What advice do you have for artists wanting to make it in the industry?
Brust: I think it’s important that artists understand that we need deal-makers, not deal-breakers at the table. And if we want to get down the road together, we have to find ways to make sure that everyone’s going to have a shot at winning together. Chris and I really learned that early on. We went into our first negotiation like, “Oh man, we’ve read all the books. We know what to do. We’ve watched all the scary stories on Behind the Music on VH1. We’re not going to get screwed.”
And sometimes you just have to take a step back and say, “How are we all going to do this together? How can we win?” With Galaxy, even though we are the CEOs and with Skip and Butch, we did have to sign ourselves to that label and we had to give up a few things to sign with our own label, because that’s what it’s all about.
Are you looking at signing more artists to Galaxy Label Group right now?
Lucas: We’ve got four or five artists we are really digging. One is an alternative rock band, one is a Christian artist, and then a few country artists and we’ve had initial talks with them. But they knew we wanted to get “Hometown Home” as high as we could first, so now it’s time to have those meetings. It’s exciting, because we just want to best serve the artists. We know where the pitfalls are, and we’ve stepped into all the quicksand over the 20 years we’ve been in town. We want to help them get the best possible project that means something to them out to the listeners.
This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2005 Week starts here with a discussion of 50 Cent’s game-running 2005 — possibly an even higher commercial and cultural peak than his hallowed 2003 run, but also the clear beginning of the end for his superstardom.
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With his inescapable Get Rich or Die Tryin’ album and its Billboard Hot 100-topping smash “In Da Club,” 50 Cent became the hottest rapper in the game in 2003, matching even his mentor Eminem for ubiquity and cultural dominance. After expanding his G-Unit empire in 2004, 50 returned in 2005 with his second album The Massacre, a couple smash collabs with his new West Coast lieutenant The Game, a huge tour with Eminem, new business ventures, new beefs, and even a film debut in his very own prestige quasi-biopic. He was arguably bigger than ever — but after two years where it felt like 50 couldn’t miss, his strike rate was finally starting to slip a little.
In this week’s Vintage Pop Stardom episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, host Andrew Unterberger is joined by a pair of Billboard Hip-Hop staffers and GPS regulars in Carl Lamarre and Michael Saponara to talk about the year that ended up being the top of the rollercoaster for the artist born Curtis Jackson. We start at with 50 playing kingmaker with his G-Unit crew in late 2004, including those couple classics alongside The Game, and then move into his ’05 — beginning with an album that sells over a million copies in its (abbreviated) first week, launches feuds with half of the hip-hop world and returns him to the top of the Hot 100 with his second straight lead single smash, and ending with a film debut that doesn’t totally do any of the things he hopes it will.
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And of course, along the way, we ask all the big questions about 50 Cent’s too-big-to-fail sophomore campaign: Could 50 and Game have been the Dre and Snoop for another generation? Is a “Candy Shop” even really a thing? Were the deep cuts on The Massacre better than the singles? Was 50 Cent: Bulletproof worth playing? Can you actually hoop in G-Unit sneakers? And if you catch the Get Rich or Die Tryin’ movie on cable, should you bother sticking around for the whole thing?
Check it out above — along with a YouTube playlist of some of the most important moments from 50 Cent’s 2005, all of which are discussed in the podcast — and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!
And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:
Transgender Law Center
Trans Lifeline
Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe
Also, please consider subscribing to the trans legislation journalism of Erin Reed, and giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on 5Calls.org.
Time to squeeze in another Publishing Briefs, our semimonthly bulletin of recent signings, deals and doings in the wide world of music publishing. Since the last time we rapped, EMPIRE Publishing hired !llmind as a senior vp of A&R and elevated Al “Butter” McLean to the role of executive vp of global creative, plus Billboard‘s Kristin Robinson made sense of the Copyright Office’s inquiry into the U.S. PRO system with this explainer.
Caught up? Here’s what else is going on:
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Reservoir Media launched PopIndia, a full-service music company in Mumbai, to sign and develop regional talent and acquire publishing and recorded music catalogs. Led by Reservoir evp of international and emerging markets Spek and PopIndia’s head of operations Ray Ahmed, the new company builds on Reservoir’s successful PopArabia model, and marks its seventh global office. PopIndia’s first major signing is Sri Lankan singer Yohani, known for her viral hit “Manike Mage Hithe.” The publishing deal includes rights to her existing catalog and future works. Yohani has become a notable voice in Bollywood soundtracks and recently released her debut album Kella. PopIndia will also manage Reservoir’s relationships with Indian rapper DIVINE and Gully Gang Entertainment, provide sub-publishing services, and offer rights management solutions in the Indian and South Asian markets. Reservoir CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi pinpointed the importance of PopIndia in the NYC-based company’s emerging markets strategy, given the market’s rapid growth. “Capitalizing on the experience and synergies across Reservoir and PopArabia, PopIndia is adapting the same model Spek has successfully implemented throughout emerging markets, with Ray building relationships on the ground in Mumbai and showcasing Reservoir’s ongoing commitment to supporting local talent worldwide,” she said.
Ultra Music Publishing is now Payday Music Publishing, following a legal dispute with Sony Music over the Ultra brand. Name change aside, Payday Publishing will continue to represent over 70,000 copyrights, including songs by major artists like Post Malone, Ed Sheeran and Drake. The company’s songwriters received multiple Grammy nominations earlier this year. The name Payday Publishing is inspired by founder Patrick Moxey’s hip-hop label, Payday Records, known for releasing music by Jay-Z and others. Moxey emphasized that only the name is changing, and the company will continue its growth and leadership in independent global music publishing. “We will continue to represent our amazing songwriters and producers and we will continue serving as the custodians and protectors of the more than 70,000 copyrights we are privileged to represent,” he said, touting “tremendous growth in recent years.” The company also announced new international writing camps for 2025, including its in-progress Coachella writing camp and an annual sync writing camp in Palm Springs.
Thrive Music, an independent dance and electronic label founded by Ricardo Vinas in 1998, partnered with Kobalt for a global publishing administration deal. Kobalt will manage Thrive’s catalog and future releases, enhancing opportunities for its artists and songwriters. Thrive has supported works from artists like Paul Oakenfold, Steve Aoki and Moby, with recent hits including ACRAZE’s “Do It To It” and Tiësto’s “Rule The World.” The label has also secured major syncs with companies like Riot Games and Hulu. “As we continue to build Thrive into a full service company, we need partners who will work alongside us to create opportunities for the artists and songwriters we work with,” said Vinas.
Sony Music Publishing Scandinavia signed acclaimed Norwegian songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matias Téllez to a global publishing deal. Based in Bergen, Téllez has collaborated with artists like Gracie Abrams and Maisie Peters, contributing to chart-topping releases including Peters’ The Good Witch. He recently earned Songwriter of the Year at the 2025 Norwegian Music Publisher Awards and received multiple Spellemannprisen nominations. “Over the last couple of years Matias has arguably been one of the most influential in shaping the sound of modern Scandinavian diy and alternative pop music and has found global audiences for the artists he’s stood behind and worked with,” said Lasse Ewald, vp of A&R. He is managed by Sam Cantlon, Tommas Arnby, and Mike Malak of Special Projects.
Round Hill Music inked a global administration deal with LA LOM, a genre-blending Los Angeles trio featuring Zac Sokolow, Jake Faulkner and Nicholas Baker. The agreement includes creative and sync support, as well as royalty collection and catalog administration. LA LOM’s debut album, The Los Angeles League of Musicians, debuted at No. 5 on Billboard’s Tropical Albums chart. The band is set to tour in 2025, supporting Leon Bridges and Thee Sacred Souls. Round Hill’s Amy Birnbaum praised the group’s vibrant, nostalgic sound and deep connection to Los Angeles’ musical diversity and Latin heritage. “Upon seeing their live shows, we were transported to what felt like 1950’s Cuba, and we connected so deeply with the audience who joyously shared in the vibrant musical journey of LA LOM,” she said.
Polyphia, the genre-blending band known for fusing hip-hop, trap and (checks notes) prog metal, has signed a global publishing deal with Position Music. Formed in 2010 in Plano, Texas, the group’s 2022 album Remember That You Will Die includes collaborations with $not, Chino Moreno, and Steve Vai, plus production from Rodney Jerkins and Y2K. This year, Polyphia will tour with System of a Down across the U.S. and Canada. Position Music VP of A&R Delmar Powell praised guitarist Tim Henson’s boundary-pushing style and the band’s cultural influence, calling them a “perfect fit for what we’re building” at Position Music, which has a roster that includes Tinashe, Cannons, Audien, Judah & the Lion, Erik Ron, and others.
Last Publishing Briefs: Indies Sound the Alarm on GenAI
Lil Wayne is officially no longer down with the Super Bowl after organizers chose Kendrick Lamar for the 2025 Halftime Show. (And no, he didn’t watch Dot’s performance.)
Following the controversy surrounding this year’s headliner selection, Weezy revealed in the Rolling Stone cover story published Thursday (April 17) that he’ll never again consider playing the Big Game after being passed up to perform in 2025. The piece comes about seven months after the NFL announced that Lamar would take the stage at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans — the “Lollipop” rapper’s home city — after which Wayne told Instagram followers that he was “hurt” by the decision.
“They stole that feeling,” he tells the publication now of the NFL. “I don’t want to do it. It was perfect.”
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On that note, Wayne adds that he didn’t even watch Lamar’s February performance. Instead, he played pool with Lil Twist and went outside to smoke during the set. And every time he did peek at his TV screen during the show, he says there “was nothing that made me want to go inside and see what was going on.”
And despite saying that he’s on good terms with the “Euphoria” hitmaker, Tunechi did throw a little shade Lamar’s way. While listening back to some of the music he’s working on for upcoming album Tha Carter VI, Wayne apparently said of Dot’s halftime show: “They coulda had some music. But instead they got rappin’.”
“They f–ked up,” he added of the NFL.
Though Wayne technically wasn’t one of them, Lamar’s Halftime Show performance brought in 133.5 million viewers on game day — more than any other Super Bowl set in history. In addition to performing his smash Drake diss track “Not Like Us,” the Compton rapper also cycled through a number of the songs on his November album GNX, which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
One song Lamar didn’t play from the LP, however, was opener “Wacced Out Murals” — the lyrics to which feature one of the only comments Lamar has made on the Wayne Super Bowl situation. “Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” he spits on the track. “Whatever though, call me crazy, everybody questionable.”
In the Rolling Stone piece, however, Wayne opened up more about why he took the snub so personally, revealing that he more so takes issue with the NFL for allegedly leading him to believe that he was a frontrunner for the gig.
“To perform, it’s a bunch of things they’re going to tell you to do and not do, a–es to kiss and not kiss,” he said. “If you notice, I was a part of things I’ve never been a part of. Like [Michael] Rubin’s all-white parties. I’m doing s–t with Tom Brady. That was all for that. You ain’t never seen me in them types of venues. I ain’t Drake. I ain’t out there smiling like that everywhere. I’m in the stu’, smokin’ and recording.”
Wayne claimed that his contacts at the NFL later apologized and told him that they weren’t “in charge” of the selection process after Lamar’s slot was announced. (Per producer Jesse Collins, Jay-Z — whose company Roc Nation oversees the alftime show — has selected every headliner since 2019. Even so, Wayne says he’s still cool with his “Mr. Carter” collaborator.)
“All of a sudden, according to them, they got curved,” Wayne added to the publication of the NFL. “So, I’m going to have to just settle with whatever they say.”
Billboard has reached out to the NFL for comment.
See Weezy on the cover of Rolling Stone below.
Bruce Springsteen dropped the second preview of his upcoming sprawling Tracks II: The Lost Albums collection on Thursday morning (April 17). The beat-heavy mid-tempo song “Blind Spot” will appear on the box set as part of the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, a 10-song LP that a release noted has long been referred to by fans as the Boss’ “loops record.”
Opening with a sampled voice grunting over a mechanical-sounding drum beat, it finds Springsteen singing, “We inhabited each other/ Like it was some kind of disease/ I thought that I was flyin’/ But I was crawlin’ on my knees,” in a haunted cadence. The chorus leans into the notion that it’s the things we miss in love that are our undoing: “Everybody’s got a blind spot that brings ’em down/ Everybody’s got a blind spot they can’t get around.”
“That was just the theme that I locked in on at that moment,” Springsteen said in a statement about the song exploring doubt and betrayal in relationships that became the thesis for the Philadelphia Sessions. “I don’t really know why. [Wife and bandmate] Patti [Scialfa] and I, we were having a great time in California. But sometimes if you lock into one song you like, then you follow that thread. I had ‘Blind Spot,’ and I followed that thread through the rest of the record.”
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The song was written following the rock icon’s 1994 Oscar- and Grammy-winning song “Streets of Philadelphia,” which accompanied the 1993 Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington movie Philadelphia, Jonathan Demme’s legal drama about an attorney suing his former employer for his firing after the firm discovers he’s gay and has AIDS.
The never-released companion album “found Springsteen exploring an interest in the rhythms of mid-1990s contemporary music, and particularly West Coast hip-hop,” according to the release. “Initially poring over CDs of drum samples at his home in Los Angeles, Springsteen began making his own loops with engineer Toby Scott — which formed a rhythmic base he’d build on with keyboards and synthesizers. Both a revelation and departure in his home recording, Springsteen is the primary instrumentalist throughout most of Streets of Philadelphia Sessions.” Among those lending an assist during the sessions were his 1992-1993 touring band, as well Scialfa, E Street band members Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell.
Though it never saw the light of day, the album was completed, mixed and slated for release in the spring of 1995, then shelved when Springsteen opted instead to reunite with the E Street Band after a seven-year hiatus. “I said, ‘Well, maybe it’s time to just do something with the band, or remind the fans of the band or that part of my work life,’” the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer said. “So that’s where we went. But I always really liked Streets of Philadelphia Sessions’… during the [2017-2018] Broadway show, I thought of putting it out [as a standalone release]. I always put them away, but I don’t throw them away.”
Earlier this month, Springsteen announced the June 27 release of Tracks II, which will contain seven previously unheard full-length records. The 83-track collection will “fill in rich chapters of Springsteen’s expansive career timeline — while offering invaluable insight into his life and work as an artist,” according to a release, which noted that some of the LPs got so far as the mixing stage before being put on hold.
Among the albums included are the lo-fi LA Garage Sessions ’83, described as a “crucial link” between the stripped-down Nebraska and the rocking Born in the U.S.A., the sonically experimental Faithless film soundtrack he wrote for a movie that was never made, the country-leaning Somewhere North of Nashville and the border tales LP Inyo, as well as the “orchestra-driven, mid-century noir” Twilight Hours.
The box set covering the years 1983-2018 was previewed by the first single, the turbulent “Rain in the River.” The Lost Albums will be issued in a limited-edition 9-LP set , as well as 7-CD and digital formats, with distinctive packaging for each, along with a 100-page cloth-bound hardcover book with rare archival photos. A 20-track compilation, Lost and Found: Selections From The Lost Albums, will be released on June 27 on two LPs and one CD.
Listen to “Blind Spot” below.
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Source: YouTube / Marvel Studios
Marvel is back, even though it never really left. The official trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps has arrived and it’s loaded with all the comic delights that makes the MCU great and leaves movie fans begging for more.
A proper rendition of The Fantastic Four—Mister Fantastic aka Reed Richards (portayed by Pedro Pascal), the Invisible Woman aka Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), the Human Torch aka Johnny Storm (Joseph Queen aka dude from that last season of Stranger Things) and The Thing aka Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach)—has had several attempts, and fails, but the 2025 version is a reset (well, a rero-futuristic take apparently) that’s shaping up like a proper represenation of the fan-favorite franchise.
We already saw the namesake heroes in the teaser but the trailer up the ante with our first looks at world-eater Galactus and his herald The Silver Surfer (portrayed by a woman, Julia Garner—that will surely get the panties of the toxic fanboys in a bunch). Later for those bozos, because these visual look stunning.
We also get to see Mr. Fantastic in action, and he manages to not look corny.
Watch the trailer for Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps below as well as giddy social media reactions in the gallery. It hits theaters Juky 25, but feel free to move that date up, Marvel.
1. Facts, they matter.
4. Is that a compliment?
5. Already mad.
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