Dance
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Charli XCX leads the nominations for the 2025 BRIT Awards, with nods in five categories – artist of the year, pop act, dance act, Mastercard album of the year for the zeitgeist-shifting Brat, and song of the year for “Guess,” her collaboration with Billie Eilish. The awards are scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 1, at The O2 Arena in London. The show will be broadcast live on ITV1 and streaming service ITVX, and hosted by comedian Jack Whitehall.
The Essex-born musician achieved global success with Brat, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 – her highest charting record to date. The album, released in May 2024, also scored major wins across the U.K. Singles Chart, with three of its tracks earning top 10 placements: “Sympathy Is a Knife” (No. 7), “Apple” (No. 8) and “Guess” (No. 3). This slew of new BRIT nominations takes Charli’s career total up to eight.
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Recent Billboard UK cover star Dua Lipa, The Last Dinner Party and jazz group Ezra Collective follow with four nominations each. Lipa has become something of a BRITs darling over the course of her career, having won seven from 16 prior nominations received since 2017.
Goth rock icons The Cure pick up three nods across Mastercard album of the year, group of the year and alternative/rock act. It’s the latter’s first nomination at The BRITs since 1993; the group bagged British group in 1991. Coldplay, meanwhile, add two nominations to its all-time tally of 30.
Superstars including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and more all feature in the international categories, though Ariana Grande is shut out at this year’s ceremony despite her past success at the awards.
The Beatles have secured the group’s first BRITs nomination since 1977 in the song of the year category for their final song “Now and Then.” The BRITs were first held in 1977 to celebrate British music over the past century, and became a yearly event in 1982.
In December, the BRITs announced Luton-born singer-songwriter Myles Smith as the recipient of the 2025 BRIT Rising Star award — a new music prize that is handed out to the British act that the voting academy believes will make the biggest impact on music in the coming year. Smith has also earned nominations for best new artist and song of the year for his global hit “Stargazing.”
Other first-time nominees include Leeds art-rock band English Teacher, who scooped last year’s Mercury Prize, alongside indie-pop artist Rachel Chinouriri. Appearing in the pop act lineup, Lola Young – who is currently enjoying U.K. chart success with breakthrough single “Messy” – earns her first BRIT nomination since 2022.
The winners of the honorary songwriter of the year and producer of the year awards will be revealed over the coming weeks, alongside the ceremony’s performers.
The nominees are compiled by the Brit Awards Voting Academy, its membership made up of musicians and industry figures, but the public will decide on the winners of the genre categories, with voting taking place via a WhatsApp campaign which will open in the coming weeks.
Here’s the complete list of 2025 BRIT Awards nominees.
Mastercard album of the year
Charli XCX – Brat, Atlantic/Warner Music Ezra Collective – Dance, No One’s Watching, Partisan RecordsDua Lipa – Radical Optimism, Warner/Warner MusicThe Cure – Songs of a Lost World, Polydor/Universal MusicThe Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy, Island/Universal Music
Artist of the year
Beabadoobee, Dirty Hit Central Cee, Columbia/Sony MusicCharli XCX, Atlantic/Warner MusicDua Lipa, Warner/Warner MusicFred Again.., Atlantic/Warner MusicJamie xx, Young/XL BeggarsMichael Kiwanuka, Polydor/Universal MusicNia Archives, Island/Universal MusicRachel Chinouriri, Parlophone/Universal MusicSam Fender, Polydor/Universal Music
Group of the year
Bring Me the Horizon, RCA/Sony MusicColdplay, Parlophone/Warner MusicEzra Collective, Partisan RecordsThe Cure, Polydor/Universal MusicThe Last Dinner Party, Island/Universal Music
Best new artist
English Teacher, Island/Universal MusicEzra Collective, Partisan RecordsMyles Smith, RCA/Sony MusicRachel Chinouriri, Parlophone/Universal MusicThe Last Dinner Party, Island/Universal Music
Song of the year
“I Like the Way You Kiss Me,” Artemas, Parlophone/Warner Music“Kisses,” BI3SS x CamrinWatsin (ft. Bbyclose), Atlantic/Warner Music “BAND4BAND,” Central Cee (ft. Lil Baby), Columbia/Capitol/Motown/Sony Music“Guess,” Charli XCX (ft. Billie Eilish), Atlantic/Interscope/Warner Music“Backbone,” Chase & Status (ft. Stormzy), 0207 Records/EMI/Merky/Universal Music“Feelslikeimfallinginlove,” Coldplay, Parlophone/Warner Music“Training Season,” Dua Lipa, Warner/Warner Music “Alibi,” Ella Henderson (ft. Rudimental), Atlantic/Warner Music“Angel of My Dreams,” Jade, RCA/Sony Music “Kehlani,” Jordan Adetunji, Warner/Warner Music“Thick of It,” KSI (ft. Trippie Redd), Atlantic/Warner Music“Stargazing,” Myles Smith, RCA/Sony Music“You’re Christmas to Me,” Sam Ryder, East West/Rhino/Warner Music “Somedays,” Sonny Fedora/Jazzy/D.O.D, Solotoko/Ada Warner Music “Now and Then,” The Beatles, Apple/UMR
BRITs Rising Star
Myles Smith [WINNER], RCA/Sony MusicElmiene, Polydor/Universal MusicGood Neighbours, Polydor/Universal Music
International artist of the year
Adrianne Lenker, 4AD/XL BeggarsAsake, YBNL NationBenson Boone, Warner/Warner MusicBeyoncé, Columbia/Parkwood Entertainment/SonyBillie Eilish, Interscope/Universal MusicChappell Roan, Island/Universal MusicKendrick Lamar, Interscope/Universal MusicSabrina Carpenter, Island/Universal MusicTaylor Swift, EMI/Universal MusicTyler, the Creator, Columbia/Sony Music
International group of the year
Amyl and The Sniffers, Rough Trade Records/XL BeggarsConfidence Man, Chaos/Universal MusicFontaines D.C., XL Recordings/XL BeggarsFuture & Metro Boomin, RCA/Sony MusicLinkin Park, Warner/Warner Music
International song of the year
“Beautiful Things,” Benson Boone, Warner/Warner Music “Texas Hold Em,” Beyoncé, Columbia/Parkwood Entertainment/Sony“Birds of a Feather,” Billie Eilish, Interscope/Universal Music“Good Luck, Babe!,” Chappell Roan, Island/Universal Music“End of Beginning,” Djo, AWAL/Djo/The Orchard “Houdini,” Eminem, Interscope/Universal Music “Too Sweet,” Hozier, Island/Universal Music“Lovin On Me,” Jack Harlow, Atlantic/Warner Music“Stick Season,” Noah Kahan, Republic Records/Universal Music“I Had Some Help,” Post Malone (ft. Morgan Wallen), Republic Records/Universal Music“Espresso,” Sabrina Carpenter, Island/Universal Music“A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Shaboozey, American Dogwood/Empire“Fortnight,” Taylor Swift (ft. Post Malone), EMI/Universal Music“Lose Control,” Teddy Swims, Atlantic/Warner Music“Million Dollar Baby,” Tommy Richman, ISO Supremacy/Pulse/Stem Disintermedia
Alternative/rock act
Beabadoobee, Dirty HitEzra Collective, Partisan RecordsSam Fender, Polydor/Universal MusicThe Cure, Polydor/Universal MusicThe Last Dinner Party, Island/Universal Music
Hip-hop/grime/rap act
Central Cee, Columbia/Sony MusicDave, Def Jam/Universal Music Ghetts, Warner/Warner Music Little Simz, AWAL/Sony MusicStormzy, 0207 Records/EMI/Merky/Universal Music
Dance act
Becky Hill, Polydor/Universal MusicCharli XCX, Atlantic/Warner MusicChase & Status, 0207 Records/Universal MusicFred Again.., Atlantic/Warner MusicNia Archives, Island/Universal Music
Pop act
Charli XCX, Atlantic/Warner MusicDua Lipa, Warner/Warner MusicJade, RCA/Sony MusicLola Young, Island/Universal MusicMyles Smith, RCA/Sony Music
R&B act
Cleo Sol, AWAL/Sony MusicFlo, Island/Universal MusicJorja Smith, FAMM/The Orchard/SonyMichael Kiwanuka, Polydor/Universal MusicRaye, Human Resources/The Orchard/Sony
Anyma is once again extending his residency at Sphere in Las Vegas. The Italian-American producer will now play the venue on Feb. 27 and 28 and March 1 and 2. These dates are being cited as his final shows at Sphere after a eight-date run that began on Dec. 27, wrapped on Jan. 11 and made […]
There’s a certain feeling Nimino has always been looking for in the music he listened to and then eventually made.
“You know when you listen to a song and there’s a moment that like, a chord strikes and you can’t explain why, but it just pulls a tear from your eye?” he asks rhetorically while speaking to Billboard over Zoom. “And no matter how many times you listen, you’ll get that moment in that song and be like, ‘Oh, f–k.’”
It’s a wave of emotion the London-based artist born Milo Evans loved experiencing, one he’s worked to create since he started producing music at age 13 and one he identified when he first heard “I Only Smoke When I Drink,” a brassy soul song by American outfit Rebecca Jade and the Cold Fact, from the group’s 2019 album Running Out of Time.
“I would listen to that song and as soon as it would get past [the title line] I’d lose interest,” Nimino says. “It’s a great tune, but I would just listen to that one bit over and over, because it’s such a crazy little line.”
Enjoying the feeling it gave him and sensing he could do something with it, he grabbed the acapella of the Rebecca Jade vocal “but couldn’t find anything it would fit with, so I had it sitting on my computer for ages.” He was later working on another that song “that was quite dark and felt quite melancholic and definitely had this clubby vibe to it, but I don’t know what needed to be put in it.”
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Eventually, in December of 2023, he thought to pair the pieces “so it was like a call and response between the synth playing and the vocals chatting. Once those were together, it was just like, ‘This is obviously a very exciting song.’”
The internet agreed. Before its August 22, 2024 release on Ninja Tune’s Counter Records imprint (where Nimino signed in the spring of 2024), clips featuring the single generated more than 15 million views, two million likes and 313,000 saves across TikTok and Instagram. He previewed the song online only after a lengthy sample clearing process, as he knew audiences would want to know the release date immediately upon hearing it.
“I was kind of careful with it,” he says, “then as soon as we had the thumbs up, I teased it. It went crazy literally the first night.” While the song went wild online, Nimino celebrated its release in very IRL fashion. The night before the song came out, “a guy hit me up online and was like, ‘Yo man, we’re throwing a house party in London. I’d love for you to come DJ and play that new song. I was like, ‘Yeah, f– it. Why not?’”
Celebrating was appropriate. Since August, “I Only Smoke When I Drink” has generated 17.9 million official on-demand U.S. streams and 87.2 million official on-demand global streams, according to Luminate. The song is in its 21st week on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and currently sits at No. 15, its highest position thus far.
But this success “hasn’t changed the strategy so much as it expedited things,” says Gon Carpel, the founder of Noted Management who co-manages Nimino alongside Eli Bieber. “The focus remains building a long-lasting artist career by focusing on the fundamentals and making strategic decisions for the long term.” (On the agent side, Nimino is represented by UTA’s Jamie Waldman.)
“But of course, Carpel adds, “the success of the song has allowed him to reach more people in more places much faster, and that discovery is expediting his growth across the board – opening up new opportunities in touring, publishing, sync, etc. The biggest strategy change has probably been in having to be even more considerate with where and when to spend his time and energy, as the whole globe has opened up to him.”
When we speak Nimino is in New Orleans for a show at Republic NOLA. While he’s been touring in the U.S. for the last few years (he says his shows do especially well in New York, Los Angeles and Denver), sets are now selling out much faster. “And I mean, even just selling out is a big jump from last year,” he says. He’s got shows in Nashville, Austin and Orlando this weekend (Jan. 24-26) and says while he can’t reveal much yet, there are big festival plays on the summer calendar.
Warm, funny and generally fairly calm seeming, Nimino doesn’t seem too preoccupied with his virality or with trying to top it. “I’ve had a few viral moments before,” he says. “Never to this level, but I’m relatively well versed in how it feels.” (How does it feel? “Very overwhelming. It’s hard to get off your phone.”)
With single and EP releases dating back to 2018, Nimino is more than a one-trick TikTok artist. His catalog has 56.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams and 179.5 million official on-demand global streams, according to Luminate. He calls 2023’s “No Sympathy” and 2022’s “Opening Credits” and “Save a Soul” pillars of his sets, which “for my listeners have always been very special moments.”
While “I Only Smoke When I Drink” is putting a lot more eyes and ears on him — earning him new followers, a turn making an Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1 and a remix package featuring edits of the song by Claptone, Felix Cartel and more — he’s in a position to demonstrate staying power. “Virality helps, but virality is not a strategy,” Carpel says. “It still comes down to really great music from an artist with a strong voice and brand who connects with an audience, coupled with the right team and strategy around them.”
Tomorrow (Jan. 24), Nimino will release “Shaking Things Up.” Made from a ’60s soul sample and bouncy piano, the song is bright, but also laced with Nimino’s signature emotiveness. “It was very much a case of having done a song in one style, then saying, ‘F–k it. Let’s shake things up.’ ‘I Only Smoke’ was quite dark, quite clubby. ‘Shaking Things Up’ is so bright, so fun and such an outdoor festival kind of vibe.”
But whether one is a longtime fan or just now hearing his name, Nimino assures he’s got something for you.
“My favorite song of mine is genuinely always the one that’s about to come out, or the one I made yesterday,” he says. “So even if you can’t be bothered to check out the songs I’ve released, just follow the ride.”
The lineup for Tomorrowland 2025 is here. The organizers of the Belgian mega-festival released a bill with more than 600 dance acts spanning the genre’s sound spectrum on Thursday (Jan. 23).
The bill includes a load of Tomorrowland regulars including Martin Garrix, Steve Aoki, Armin van Buuren, Charlotte de Witte, David Guetta, Hardwell, Nervo, Nicky Romero and many others. The bill also includes John Summit, Fisher, Amelie Lens, Alok, Agents of Time, Miss Monique, The Blessed Madonna and other artists making mainstage, house, techno, trance, bass and more.
The gentlemen of Swedish House Mafia will perform twice, once as Swedish House Mafia and once as a b2b2b featuring the trio’s members — Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso — doing a house set on one of the event’s more intimate stages. Solomun will perform not once but thrice with a weekend one set on the mainstage, a weekend two b2b with Anyma and a third set on the festival’s Freedom Stage.
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Tomorrowland will also offer a flurry of b2b sets from Dimitri Vegas b2b Fantasm, DJ Boring b2b Haai, Kevin de Vries b2b Cassian, Kölsch b2b Artbat and many more.
The festival’s 19th edition happens across two weekends — July 18-20 and July 25-27 in Boom, Belgium. The event typically draws more than 400,000 people over its back-to-back weekends. Tickets for Tomorrowland 2025 go on sale Feb. 1.
Before the festival’s flagship summer edition, Tomorrowland Winter happens March 15-22 at Alpe d’Huez, a ski resort in the French Alps roughly two and a half hours southeast of Lyon. 2025 marks the fifth edition of the event, which will host a crowd of roughly 22,000.
See the full lineup for Tomorrowland Belgium below:
Tomorrowland
Courtesy of Tomorrowland
01/23/2025
Of the 4,717 tracks identified at the 2024 season, 50 were played more than all the rest.
01/23/2025
The clubs are currently dark in Ibiza, but months before the 2025 season gets underway, we’ve got tabs on the 50 most played artists at island institution Ushuaïa in 2024. These 50 artists rank highest on a list of 3,001 unique acts whose music was identified at the club in 2024. The top five slots […]
Rüfüs Du Sol will play a show benefitting Los Angeles wildfire relief efforts on March 6 at the Hollywood Palladium. The one night only performance will feature a DJ set by the Australia-born, U.S.-based group.
100% of the ticket proceeds from the Live Nation produced event will be donated to California Community Foundation Wildfire Recovery Fund, which is focused on directing resources with people most in need. Tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster this Thursday (Jan. 23) at 10 a.m. PT.
The show will happen six days before the launch of the trio’s previously announced world tour in support of their fifth studio album. The trek kicks off starts in Guadalajara, Mexico on March 12, extends through November and includes a sold out show at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles. Los Angeles was home to Rüfüs Du Sol when they first moved to the U.S. from their native Australia, with the trio writing “Los Angeles we love you,” on their social media post announcing the show.
The show announcement comes on the heels of a new fire in the Los Angeles area, with the Hughes Fire forcing evacuations in Castaic, an area just north of Los Angeles, after starting on the morning of Jan. 22. Red flag warnings, which indicate an increased risk of fire danger, remain in effect for Los Angeles and Ventura counties until Thursday (Jan. 23.)
With the show announcement, Rüfüs Du Sol joins a long list of artists getting involved in wildfire relief efforts. The FireAid concert is set to take place on Jan. 30 at the Kia Forum and the Intuit Dome with a star-studded lineup including Billie Eilish, Dave Matthews & John Mayer, Earth, Wind & Fire, Green Day, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lil Baby, Peso Pluma, Stevie Nicks, Sting and more. The 2025 Grammys and its attendant MusiCare event has also announced a focus on wildfire relief efforts.
After starting on Jan. 7, the Eaton and Palisades fires have decimated entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles, killing at least 28 people, displacing thousands and damaging or destroying at least 15,000 structures.
In the earlier days of his career, touring wasn’t necessarily Kygo‘s favorite thing to do.
“It was like every show was life or death,” says the Norwegian producer. “I was always very nervous. It was like, ‘This is the most important [thing ever], and if I mess up tonight, my career is over.’”
With this extreme self-imposed pressure, the artist “wasn’t really able to enjoy the shows that much. At one point I was like, ‘I’m probably never going to tour again,’ because it was just so exhausting.”
Flash forward to the present moment and Kygo — whose real name is Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll — has a fresh approach and attendant attitude, calling his current world tour “definitely my favorite that I’ve done so far.”
Starting last September, the 35-date tour has hit arenas and amphitheaters in North America, Europe and Central America, averaging slightly over 10,000 tickets and $838,000 in revenue per show, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore. The run is continuing into 2025, with shows in Asia and Australia. Additionally, the producer plays this Thursday (Jan. 23) in Toronto and Saturday (Jan. 25) in Mexico City, where Kygo will play what he calls “the biggest show of the tour by far.” See exclusive behind the scenes footage of this tour below.
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Despite this success, Shear acknowledges that the run hasn’t made the same headlines as other recent marquee dance tours, such as Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s 2024 Sweat Tour. “We’ve quietly been doing this unbelievable tour that’s sold over a half a million tickets,” he says. “There are a lot of tours out there. There’s a lot of stuff going on, and there’s a lot of new artists. But we’re going out there and doing the business. Kygo is just quietly winning in the dance music world.”
This current run is behind Kygo’s 2024 eponymous album, the artist’s fifth studio project that hit No. 97 on the Billboard 200 after its release last June. The tour is also his first in six years, since the run behind 2017’s Kids in Love. (Golden Hour and Thrill of the Chase came out in 2020 and 2022, respectively, although Kygo wasn’t able to tour behind them because of the pandemic.)
While the Kids in Love tour required 12 trucks to move it from city to city, this current tour requires 17 trucks and a crew of 58. When brainstorming the production, Kygo and Shear decided the music and visuals would lean into the fact that Kygo has been making music for a decade, with this kind of looking back approach inspired, Shear says, by Dead & Co.’s nostalgia-laced run at Sphere in Las Vegas last summer. As such, set lists featured visuals that nod to entirety of Kygo’s career thus far, while the setlist spans albums and hits. Vocalists including Justin Jesso, Zak Abel and Parson James are on the tour to sing their parts on “Firestone,” “Freedom” and “Stole the Show,” respectively.
“Kyrre told me that doing a tour was extremely important to him,” says Shear. “It’s not like every dance artist goes out there like a rock band or a pop star and does hard tickets in arenas or stadiums. “He was like, ‘The fact that I’m able to do it, I want to do whatever it takes to make this tour happen.’”
Kygo himself credits his ability to tour such big rooms — an option available to only a handful of dance acts including Illenium and Odesza — is a function of he and his team “not skipping any steps” while he was building his career. (Kygo is represented by Rob Markus at WME.) His earliest U.S. tour had him playing 200-700 capacity rooms, with each run getting progressively larger.
“We were living with my parents at the time, and Kyrre was staying in my brother’s room,” Shear says of these early days. “I went in my brother’s room, and was like, ‘Hey man, we found this guy who used to work with Disclosure and other big artists. He knows how to build live shows, and I think we should build one. We emptied the bank account making that show.”
This groundwork and investment has paid off, with Shear citing “the most tickets we’ve ever sold” on this current run. “I know so many people focusing on streams or on this or that, but the fans follow you as long as you do them right, take care of them and keep bringing an elevated show.”
Sometimes, this elevation requires some extra effort. The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles doesn’t have the space to erect a B stage where Kygo typically performs his encore. As such, the team improvised for the Oct. 17 show, setting up a riser in the middle of the amphitheater amid the seats. Getting there from the stage just meant, Kygo says, “that we just had to run a little bit.”
Kygo
Johannes Lovund
Outside the tour, Kygo and Shear’s multi-faceted Palm Tree Crew brand continues expanding. Its first brick and mortar space, the 115-room hotel and restaurant Palm Tree Club Miami, opened last December. Meanwhile, Palm Tree Festival has happened in Aspen, The Hamptons, Southern California and beyond over the last several years. Some of these festivals feature Kygo on the lineup, and some don’t.
“I was with him in Paris a few weeks ago when he was playing Accor Arena, one of the biggest shows on tour,” says Shear. “At the same time, we opened a restaurant and club in Miami the night before and we were also throwing a music festival in Australia with 30,000 people and The Chainsmokers, and Kyrre isn’t even at either of them. I think that’s a true testament to a great brand we’ve brought to the world, and one that just sort of feeds off his demeanor.”
This demeanor is one that’s also changed as Kygo has become more experienced, and over time more relaxed, about touring.
“There’s definitely been some f–k-ups on the on the road and some songs where I’m like, ‘Oh, that did not sound good at all,’” he says with a laugh. “But I think that’s just part of it being live. Knowing that, I’m more confident and better able to enjoy myself on stage and not always just nervous about everything that could go wrong.”
01/21/2025
The list reflects data collected at the Ibiza club, where a total of 8,251 unique tracks were identified by KUVO Powered by DJ Monitor during the 2024 season.
01/21/2025
During the 2024 season, tracks by 4,680 unique artists were played at the Ibiza clubbing institution Hï. Of that dizzying number, 50 artists were played more than all the others, and now we know who. Leading the list of the top 50 artists whose music was played most during last year’s Hï season is David […]