Charli XCX shares three things you didn’t know about her backstage at Billboard Women In Music 2024.
Charli XCX:
Hey, I’m Charlie XCX, and three things that my fans don’t know about me are:
My favorite city to perform in is New York.
My new video for my son “Von Dutch” was shot at Charles de Gaulle Airport, and that’s the first music video that I’ve been shot there.
And third, my new album’s called Brat, but they already knew that.
Group of the Year NewJeans opens up about being new to the industry, the importance of friendship, trusting your gut and more backstage at Billboard Women In Music 2024.
NewJeans:
Some advice that I would give to women in the industry, well, actually, we’re, like, very new to the industry too, so we’re still learning. And I would just like to say that believe in yourself. Trust your gut feeling and don’t get hurt because that would be very sad. Yes.
And also, I think it’s a very, very important thing to have friends like my members around you. I think without them, it wouldn’t be this much fun and you know, exciting. So having good friends around you, I think would be a really important factor.
Watch the full video above!
Tems opens up about the importance of overcoming shyness, connecting with others and more backstage at Billboard Women In Music 2024.
Tems:
The advice I would give to my younger self or for any woman: Don’t be shy. Don’t be shy because most people aren’t thinking about anything you’re thinking they’re thinking about, you know. And honestly, there’s so much connection in the world you can’t lose. Everything is working out for you forever.
Watch the full video above!
Billboard, Raf Saperra, Dave East and Big Body Bes take you the behind the scenes of “Hood Harvest.”
Raf Saperra”
All right, this is Billboard. Snip it, take one. Hey, what’s going on, everyone? This is Raf Saperra. Welcome, Billboard, to the exclusive BTS on my track “Hood Harvest.”
So this is basically a passion project. OK, let’s go. With all my projects, I’ve directed, edited and performed in all of them, so I’m very hands on with the work that I do. It all tied in well with my love for cinema as well as music and hip-hop, and just to tie it all like that was just well fit.
Dave East:
You already know it’s your boy Dave East reporting live from the deli in Harlem, New York City. Shout-out to Billboard. For me, personally, it was proud to be a part of this with the whole British Punjabi scene. Big shout-out to the whole movement to meet Raf and making do with the homies, and we really caught a vibe catching that energy with Raf right there on the spot. I think that that definitely set that record off.
Raf Saperra:
The video concept for this, they’re like, “Yo, this is 4 a.m. music, 4 a.m. fashion, 4 a.m. revenge, but we come in peace. Look at me I’m out here looking gorgeous.” Shouts-out to Kid Super, blessed us with all wardrobe for the shoot.
Watch the full video above!
PinkPantheress says she wishes she would have gotten into music faster when giving advice to her younger self backstage at Billboard’s Women in Music 2024.
PinkPantheress
Some advice that I give to my younger self would be to just dive in head first into music sooner because there’s no need to be shy or to be concerned about what other people think about the craft that you make. Because if you believe it’s going to be successful then it doesn’t matter what people think. It’s just worth going for it, see where it goes. If it goes well, then great. If it doesn’t go well, then at least you tried.
Ariana Grande is the top musical act in the U.S., as she returns to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated March 23) for a 16th total week on top, thanks most prominently to her new album, Eternal Sunshine.
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The Artist 100 measures artists’ activity across key metrics of music consumption: streaming, radio airplay, album sales and track sales. Using a methodology comprising those metrics, the chart provides a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
Eternal Sunshine arrives at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as Grande’s sixth leader, with 227,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in its opening week (March 8-14), according to Luminate. The set scores the biggest weekly sum of 2024. Concurrently, the LP’s “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” launches as her ninth No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
With 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Artist 100, Grande passes Ed Sheeran for the sixth-most frames spent in charge since the chart began in 2014.
Artist 100, Most Weeks at No. 1:
102, Taylor Swift
38, Drake
28, The Weeknd
21, BTS
20, Adele
16, Ariana Grande
15, Ed Sheeran
Here’s a breakdown of the metrics contributing to Grande’s latest reign on the Artist 100.
In the March 8-14 tracking week, Grande’s catalog generated 219.3 million on-demand official U.S. streams (encompassing songs on which she has lead artist billing). She ranks as the third-most-streamed artist in that span, after only Taylor Swift (286.7 million) and Drake (224.7 million).
Grande’s songs that generated the most official streams (on-demand and programmed) during the week: “We Can’t Be Friends” (32.6 million, making it the most-streamed song overall), “The Boy Is Mine” (17.6 million), “Yes, And?” (17.3 million), “Supernatural” (16.4 million) and “Eternal Sunshine” (15.9 million).
Grande’s songs earned a combined 33.7 million in radio airplay audience March 8-14. Her songs that drew the most impressions in that span: “Die for You,” with The Weeknd (14.4 million), “Yes, And?” (13.7 million) and “We Can’t Be Friends” (4.6 million).
Grande is also charting on the following radio rankings:
Adult Pop Airplay: “Yes, And?” (No. 11) and “We Can’t Be Friends” (No. 29)
Dance/Mix Show Airplay: “Yes, And?” (No. 12)
Pop Airplay: “Yes, And?” (No. 20) and “We Can’t Be Friends” (No. 31)
Adult Contemporary: “Yes, And?” (No. 24)
Radio Songs: “Yes, And?” (No. 48)
As for Grande’s album sales March 8-14, here’s a breakdown, by configuration:
Overall album sales: 79,000, the most among all acts
Vinyl sales: 34,000, the most among all acts
CD sales: 32,000, the most among all acts
Digital sales: 13,000, the most among all acts
Eternal Sunshine sold 77,000 copies, almost the entirety of Grande’s album sales for the week. It’s the top-selling album overall, as well as the top-seller on both vinyl and CD.
Meanwhile, Grande’s collections earned a combined 241,000 equivalent album units in the tracking week, the second-most among all acts after Swift (261,000).
Grande’s songs sold a combined 14,000 downloads March 8-14, making her the third-best-selling artist of the week in terms of digital song sales, after Swift (26,000) and Teddy Swims (16,000).
Grande’s songs that sold the most in that period, all from Eternal Sunshine: “We Can’t Be Friends” (9,000), “The Boy Is Mine,” “Bye” and “Imperfect for You” (1,000 each).
Maren Morris shares five things you didn’t know about her music-making process backstage at Billboard’s Women In Music 2024.
Maren Morris
I’m Maren Morris. And these are five things you don’t know about my music. I cannot record vocals drunk, the second any alcohol touches my lips, it sounds awful. So I don’t know, I wish I could I feel like I could be a looser singer if I had a few glasses of wine. But yeah, I overthink it. I get a lot of questions from people about how songs get written how they start. There’s no rhyme or reason. Sometimes it’s I start with a title. Sometimes I start with a melody that I recorded in my voice app. And sometimes it’s just a lyric idea. But I feel like that’s kind of a fun thing is that I never know how the song will begin. I wrote my song “The Bones” in about an hour. And then I think we had it recorded an hour later. So sometimes not all the time, you get a really fast ditty. And you think the song gods when that happens. One of my favorite venues is Red Rocks, you’re outside, you’re under the stars, you’re in the elements. And it just is like a communal show. Get my musical inspiration. Honestly, from conversations with friends. I feel like they at this point, they know if I stop or space out after they’ve said something. It’s because I’m mining our conversation for lyric ideas. Not all the time, but they know when like Maren is not here anymore and it’s because I’m like thinking about, “how will I turn this into a song tomorrow?” And those are five things you did not know.
“Ever since Rent, I have made it a priority to originate roles and shine a light on new work,” Idina Menzel tells Billboard. “It takes lots of patience and fortitude, but there is truly nothing as rewarding as seeing your kernel of an idea fully realized with a group of people you love and admire so deeply.”
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The Broadway icon’s latest project in that vein is the new musical Redwood, currently playing at La Jolla Playhouse in California. For Menzel — who plays Jesse, a successful businesswoman, mother and wife who finds herself as a personal crossroads and finds unexpected answers in the forests of Northern California — the show is an especially personal creative endeavor. “The story of a woman at a turning point in her life paralleled with the resilience, wisdom and strength of the redwood tree was one that spoke to me deep in my soul,” Menzel says. “Nature’s power to heal and connect us as human beings is essential in this turbulent world we are living in.”
Idina Menzel backstage during REDWOOD at La Jolla Playhouse.
Courtesy of Idina Menzel
Menzel, who released her latest album Drama Queen in August of last year, isn’t just the star of the production. She co-conceived Redwood with director, writer and co-lyricist Tina Landau (recently of Broadway’s inventive SpongeBob SquarePants musical) over the course of many years, delving deeply into the development of Jesse as a character.
Menzel and Landau also “knew we wanted to find a new young composer who could bring a fresh take to musical theater” for the show, bringing in Kate Diaz for a score that Menzel describes as having “a beautiful, earthy and soulful quality as well as expansive and cinematic. When I perform Kate’s music, I am able to use all the different colors in my voice. I’m not just shooting for the rafters. I’m expressing myself similarly to how I express myself in my own songwriting.” (Diaz also co-wrote the lyrics with Landau).
While the La Jolla run of Redwood ends March 31, the show has its sights set on Broadway — which certainly seems more likely than not with Menzel and her creative collaborators on board. “We knew we wanted the production to be cutting edge and unconventional,” Menzel says. “We have encouraged one another to dream big, break rules, and not compromise our creative ideas. There’s a deep sense of creative freedom and trust in how we work.”
Here, Menzel exclusively shares with Billboard a live recording of her performing “Great Escape,” recorded during a performance of Redwood.
Bebe Rexha offers advice to her younger self, talks about learning from Kylie Minogue’s Grammy win & more backstage at Billboard’s Women In Music 2024.
Bebe Rexha:
Advice I would give my younger self is to, and I see it a lot of times because I’ve helped a lot of other artists, younger artists that are trying to make their way up. And I noticed that everybody’s always so antsy, you know, everybody feels that their time is running out. And I think that’s something, especially for women that’s something that’s been created in our heads to be like, “Oh, the clock is ticking.” But when it’s for other men and other artists, when they get older, it’s hotter, that they’re sexy and they have gray hair.
But you know I was nominated for Grammy this year and you know who won in that category? Kylie Minogue, who’s 50 and she’s still the queen of dance. So I feel like what I’m learning and what I would tell my younger self is to take a chill pill. It’s gonna all work out. Age has nothing to do with it. It’s all talent.
Ariana Grande is back with another big week on Billboard’s charts (dated March 23), thanks to her new album, Eternal Sunshine.
The set soars in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, marking her sixth career leader, with 227,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in its opening week (March 8-14), according to Luminate – the biggest one-week sum of 2024.
All 12 chart-eligible songs from the album also land on the Billboard Hot 100, led by “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love),” which launches at No. 1, marking her ninth career leader.
Here’s a recap of Grande’s Hot 100 entries on the latest chart (all songs are debuts except for lead single “Yes, And?,” released before Eternal Sunshine).
Rank, Title:
No. 1, “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)”
No. 10, “Yes, And?” (up from No. 31; debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated Jan. 27)
No. 16, “The Boy Is Mine”
No. 17, “Supernatural”
No. 23, “Eternal Sunshine”
No. 25, “Bye”
No. 28, “Don’t Wanna Break Up Again”
No. 30, “True Story”
No. 37, “Imperfect for You”
No. 38, “Intro (End of the World)”
No. 39, “I Wish I Hated You”
No. 55, “Ordinary Things,” feat. Nonna
“We Can’t Be Friends” earns Grande her ninth Hot 100 No. 1, and second from Eternal Sunshine, following “Yes, And?”
With 11 debuts, Grande ups her total to 85 career Hot 100 entries. She ties Beyoncé for the third-most among solo women in the chart’s history, after only Taylor Swift (232) and Nicki Minaj (148). Grande first hit the Hot 100 with her debut hit, and first of 22 top 10s, “The Way,” featuring Mac Miller, in April 2013.
Notably, Grande’s grandmother, Marjorie Grande, scores her first career Hot 100 entry thanks to her featured billing – as Nonna – on “Ordinary Things.” At 98 years old, she makes history as the oldest living person to have appeared on the chart.
One other member of the Grande family has also reached Billboard’s charts: Frankie Grande, Ariana’s brother (and, thus, Nonna’s grandson), spent a week at No. 35 on the since-shuttered Billboard Twitter Top Tracks survey in July 2017 with “Queen.”
