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Scott Stapp remembers feeling young and determined — an unknown singer, certain he wouldn’t be for long — when Creed started in the mid-’90s, more than half a lifetime ago. “We wanted to write timeless songs,” Stapp asserts to Billboard.
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Practicing with his new band members in Florida’s panhandle roughly 30 years ago, Stapp would discuss his outsized dreams in drummer Scott Phillips’ living room. “That was an actual goal,” Stop continues, leaning forward in his chair, “that the band would write things that would stand the test of time. It was a lofty goal! And I don’t think we ever knew, during our run, if we really accomplished that.”
Indeed, the general longevity of Creed’s biggest hits was something of a question mark for a while. In their turn-of-the-century heyday, Creed’s burly post-grunge anthems were everywhere, as Stapp, guitarist Mark Tremonti, Phillips and bassist Brian Marshall scored multiple top 10 smashes on the Hot 100 and sold millions of albums behind them. Chest-thumping sing-alongs like “Higher,” “With Arms Wide Open” and “My Sacrifice” earned prime MTV plays and crossed over to pop radio; for years, the quartet was undoubtedly one of the most bankable rock bands in the world.
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Then: a breakup, personal problems, haphazard reunion and prolonged hiatus. By the dawn of the streaming era in the early 2010s, post-grunge had receded from popular rock and Creed’s mainstream footprint had evaporated. Their biggest songs could have been shrugged off as relics of a bygone moment in music history — maybe, in spite of the towering initial success, they wouldn’t endure after all.
Yet as the four members of Creed sit together in midtown Manhattan on a Tuesday afternoon in June 2024, the mood is light, and the guys — all of whom have entered their fifties over the past year-plus — are clearly enjoying a sea change in how their catalog is being treated. They’re at the SiriusXM offices, prepping for an in-studio performance of songs like “Higher” and “My Sacrifice”; the day before, they played both hits on Good Morning America.
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Earlier that month, a mariachi band made the Internet rounds for covering “Higher” at Globe Life Field, the same stadium that was blasting the song throughout the Texas Rangers’ run to a World Series victory last fall. And of course, the latest viral moments follow the Super Bowl commercial in February, the SZA shout-out last November, and plenty of TikTok remixes in between.
As they pal around ahead of a SiriusXM showcase and crack jokes about too-early call times (their GMA soundcheck was at 5:30 AM), Marshall slips in that his five-year-old daughter was singing their 2002 power ballad “One Last Breath” that morning, albeit with some misplaced lyrics. Stapp adds that he’s noticed a lot of the social media championing and TikTok trends engineered by younger listeners — proof positive that, even as the nostalgia cycle plays a major factor in the band’s reunion and resurgence, his decades-old goal for Creed’s music to persist was ultimately accomplished.
“To see that happening for Creed, with a whole new generation of fans and listeners? It’s just… very rewarding,” Stapp says, his voice catching. “I mean, we’ve been through a lot, man — individually, as a band. I mean, this,” he continues, gesturing toward his band mates, “it’s just so emotional. Your eyes water. You tear up. You’re just grateful, because it really could have gone in another direction.”
Creed’s catalog has not just endured — now, there’s real demand to experience its full power live. The band’s 2024 North American reunion trek, which kicked off last night (July 17) in Green Bay, has turned into one of the hottest rock tickets of the year. A pair of Creed cruises got the reunion started in April, and after announcing a summer 2024 amphitheater run last October, Creed added 20 fall arena shows to their itinerary in February, citing “overwhelming fan demand.”
During a topsy-turvy year in the touring industry, with other arena tours being downgraded or canceled as the market readjusts following a post-pandemic boom, Creed’s team expects most of the band’s upcoming dates — including the band’s first headlining show at New York’s Madison Square Garden since 2000, set for Nov. 29 — to sell out, and is already eyeing opportunities for 2025.
“It’s a pretty unbelievable comeback, as comebacks go,” says Ken Fermaglich, the band’s longtime agent at UTA. “The consumers are out there and want to connect with the music, whether it’s on the nostalgia side for the fan that was aware of it from years ago, or the newer fan that’s never gotten to see them.”
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Although it’s been over a decade since Creed last toured together in 2012, plenty of rock fans remember their commercial apex, which began with singles like “My Own Prison,” “One” and “What’s This Life For” garnering airplay in the band’s local Tallahassee scene before debut album My Own Prison was scooped up by Wind-up Records in 1997 and spread across the nation. Commanding the post-grunge strain of popular rock that sprouted up from the alternative explosion of the mid-‘90s, Creed turned My Own Prison into a smash debut, with 6.5 million copies sold to date, according to Luminate. Their 1999 follow-up Human Clay turned even bigger singles — “Higher” was an uptempo anthem ripe for stadium halftime shows, and “With Arms Wide Open” actually topped the Hot 100 for a week in November 2000 — into RIAA-certified diamond status: a whopping 11.7 million copies sold.
When Creed became a mega-selling act, “We were kids, really — 24 or 25, as things went through the roof,” Marshall recalls. “Having to navigate that at that time in your life is really tough. And I turned to substances.”
Marshall departed the group due to substance abuse issues in 2000, and Stapp also struggled with personal issues, including depression and problems with self-medicating, in the following years. Creed’s third album, 2001’s Weathered, sold another 6.5 million copies, but a rocky tour in support of the album led to prolonged inactivity, then a 2004 breakup.
Creed reunited for 2009’s Full Circle, but the industry had changed, the hits had dried up and the mainstream had moved on. The album sold less than one-tenth the copies (455,000) of their previous three. By Creed’s 2012 tour, the arena shows were a distant memory, and theaters were filled only with the most diehard supporters. That run grossed $2.3 million and sold 49,000 tickets over 20 reported shows, according to Billboard Boxscore — compared to a $39.5 million gross and 932,000 tickets sold over 86 shows for their 2002 tour.
All four members stayed busy after Creed went back on hiatus after the 2012 tour: Stapp has released three solo albums since 2013, including this year’s Higher Power, while the other three members performed with singer Myles Kennedy in Alter Bridge, in addition to Tremonti leading his own band, Tremonti. Meanwhile, Marshall got sober in 2012, and Stapp’s well-documented road to recovery commenced in the mid-2010s. And while their other musical projects earned live followings, none of them scored hits of the stature of “Higher” or “With Wide Arms Open.” Plus, as Stapp puts it, “There’s a chemistry and synergy that we have when we play together — that only we have when we play together.”
According to Fermaglich, discussions of a Creed reunion began in 2021, when the touring industry was still working through COVID-related uncertainty. “The time wasn’t quite right yet,” he says, “but it got everybody talking, to a point of, ‘Oh, maybe this is a good idea.’”
Conversations picked up last year, and all four members concluded that 2024 would be a strong window for a reunion tour, in between side projects and personal commitments. Meanwhile, the band members came back in touch last fall during the Rangers’ World Series run, after the eventual champs had adopted “Higher” as their unofficial anthem at home games. “The four of us were on a text thread together, watching the game and cheering on the team, celebrating a win or lamenting a loss,” Phillips recalls. “It was a nice bond to have again, where it was just the four of us communicating with each other, reconnecting as friends — not only as band mates, but as people.”
The band tested the waters for ticket demand with the July 2023 announcement of the Summer of ’99 Cruise — setting sail in April 2024, featuring post-grunge contemporaries like 3 Doors Down, Tonic, Buckcherry and Fuel, and boasting a reunited Creed as the main draw. Tremonti was responsible for the Summer of ’99’ idea, and the band partnered with immersive festival producers Sixthman on the cruise, which Fermaglich says “sold out very, very fast. We started to realize, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of demand here,’” so they added a second cruise for the following week.
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Phillips felt the nerves return during Creed’s first performance in over a decade on the inaugural cruise — but after the first few songs, he witnessed how locked-in the crowd was, exhaled, and could “sit back and enjoy the moment,” he says. Tremonti chimes in that the energy provided by Stapp, who has circled in and out of the lives of the other members over the years, gave him the boost he needed during the band’s first performance back.
“The most nerve-racking thing about it was that you knew every cell phone in the boat is going to be out, filming those first few songs,” Tremonti says. “Those first performances are gonna live forever on YouTube! But Scott stepped on stage like this was just another day, confident as can be, which makes us go, ‘All right, we’re good.’”
When the amphitheater tour dates that would follow the cruises went on sale last fall, Fermaglich says that Creed’s team was “blown away by the initial sales,” and that the feedback received about ticket buyer demographics encouraged them to consider adding arena dates to follow the summer run. “Some of the ticketing data made us understand that younger ticket buyers were out there,” Fermaglich explains, “and that got everyone pretty pumped, because it meant that we were turning it over to some extent. We would have the fans who remembered the band from the late 90s and early 2000s, but also a new fan who is learning the catalog, potentially via social media.”
The current numbers back up that theory: radio stations, primarily at rock and alternative formats, are still playing Creed’s hits, with 31,000 plays of their songs on U.S. terrestrial and satellite radio over the first six months of 2024, according to Luminate. But over that same time period (Dec. 29, 2023 – June 27, 2024), the band’s catalog earned a robust 263 million official on-demand song streams, with the Spotify generation either returning to or uncovering Creed’s discography.
“They had big songs, and those records crossed over to pop radio,” says Brad Hardin, COO of national programming at iHeartMedia. “And when you see the show, it’s hit after hit after hit.” (Indeed, at last night’s tour opener at Green Bay’s Resch Center, the band rolled out all of their biggest songs, and often accompanied them with flame-spitting pyrotechnics.)
Creed’s 2024 return is a perfect storm of a touring proposition: longtime fans haven’t seen them live in over a decade, and the hits hold up well enough to attract new listeners. Although the bands that made up the macho-leaning post-grunge movement of a quarter-century ago made for a critical punching bag at the time, Creed’s wide-reaching sing-alongs “have aged in a way that we hoped they would back in the day,” says Fermaglich. “The production really stands the test of time, and the songs, the melodies, still work well right now, and don’t sound out of place with contemporary rock.”
With that in mind, Creed and their team are already mapping out a future following this year’s big reunion: The Summer of ’99 Cruise will return and set sail on Apr. 9, 2025, and beyond that, Fermaglich says the plan is “take a look at different opportunities that are out there.” Although nothing is yet confirmed, those possibilities could include international dates following this year’s focus on North American markets, and that could also mean more North American gigs — including festivals and “bigger shows in bigger buildings with other bands,” he says. “We’ll see! I think the short answer is, we’re open for business.”
Will the Creed revival eventually extend to new music, and potentially the band’s first album together in over 15 years? “We haven’t written anything or thrown anything out there, but I think it’s definitely something that’s on our minds,” says Stapp. Phillips points out that a lot of Creed’s early music resulted from soundcheck sessions — kernels of ideas that were drawn out by the quartet’s natural chemistry, then fashioned into global hits. Maybe that same connection can spring back to life all these years later.
Stapp nods in agreement. “We’ve always been a band that functions better just being in the moment, instead of making a decision and then having to force it,” he says. “Let’s just let it happen. That’ll be where the best material comes from.”
For now, the response to the band’s live return — watching one cruise turn into two, then amphitheater shows beget arena gigs — has been humbling for the members. “We were hopeful — but, you never know,” Phillips says of fan interest ahead of the reunion launch. Creed is thankful to be in a position where more shows need to be added, and venue sizes need to increase. It’s a professional moment that was never promised, and the band is savoring it.
“We’re sort of listening to the universe,” Phillips continues. “If you tell us ‘Don’t do it,’ we won’t do it. But everybody’s saying, ‘Go for it.’”
Cash Cobain is up to his old antics again. The Bronx rapper and producer has been known to post snippets of songs he’s making on social media. Sometimes he releases the finished product, sometimes he doesn’t. So there’s no telling if he will ever officially drop his remix of Laila!’s viral “Not My Problem” song. […]
We detail the back-and-forth that exploded on social media last night and carried over to this morning.
We witnessed a coronation last night.
Kendrick Lamar is now unequivocally the King of Rap, and has officially entered god status on the West Coast.
He walked on stage dressed in a red hoodie with a white tee underneath and an iced-out crucifix draped over it, blue jeans, white, silver and red Nike Shox, and a red baseball hat. Why is this significant? The outfit was eerily similar to the one 2Pac wore during the 1994 Source Awards when he performed “Out on Bail” with his rap group Thug Life.
Pac, who at the time was dealing with a bunch of legal issues in his personal life, hijacked the Source stage while A Tribe Called Quest were accepting their award for Rap Group of the Year. As the story goes, this performance wasn’t planned: Members of Pac’s entourage pressed the person in charge of sound and made him play the track. The rapper and the rest of Thug Life then went on stage, snatched the microphone from Q-Tip and started performing the song, which caused a brief rift between 2Pac and Tribe. Whether the outfit was intentional or not, we quickly understood the message Kendrick was trying to send.
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The Compton emcee rose up from underneath the stage draped in red light and started his set with “Euphoria” — a song some said held little replay value. However, the lie detector determined that untrue, because the crowd at the Forum knew every single word and went bar-for-bar for the entire six-minute song. And, to circle back to the outfit he was wearing on stage, Kendrick added a new line to the song’s last verse: “Give me Tupac ring back and I might give you a little respect.” As if to say, “Hey, man, we can start to resolve this situation if you just return this West Coast artifact” — like a plot to an Indiana Jones movie. He also snuck in the first verse of “6:16 in LA”, and performed his “Like That” verse, adding insult to injury.
However, the highlight of the night wasn’t Black Hippy reuniting onstage or Dr. Dre whispering “I see dead people” after performing “California Love.” It was when Kendrick performed “Not Like Us” not once, not twice, but six times in a row. He held the crowd in the palm of his hand, like only a true MC could. They hung onto every word, even doing the rapping for him and finishing his verses at times.
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A crowd of people screaming “OV-Hoe” and calling you a “certified pedophile” already can’t be a good thing. But every time you thought things couldn’t get worse for Drake last night, they did.
When Dot and Mustard were in the middle of the third or fourth replay of the song, and NBA stars (and fellow L.A. legends) DeMar DeRozan and Russell Westbrook went onstage and started doing their dance, that’s when I realized just how bad things have gotten for Drake. Every artist, celebrity and friend of Kendrick’s in attendance danced on the Toronto rapper’s proverbial grave in the name of West Coast solidarity. It seemed as if a big chunk of the culture chose a side.
I think some are underestimating the impact this can have on Drake’s overall appeal within the hip-hop community. I’m not talking about some kid in some suburban cul-de-sac, I’m talking about the kids in the streets. They’re the real tastemakers, and a lot of them who hold influence in Los Angeles were on that stage last night.
After the back-and-forth ended and Kendrick was crowned the de facto winner of the battle, many wondered how this would affect both artists’ careers. Would Drake still have the golden touch that he’s enjoyed for the past decade or so? Would he shake off this loss, much like he did with the Pusha T beef, and drop an undeniable hit like “God’s Plan?” Would he still be the top guy in rap? Would Kendrick take the W, but refuse the crown, and retreat back into his fortress of solitude until it was time to drop his next album?
Well, now we seem to have some answers: It’s too early to tell if The Drake Effect is truly a thing of the past, but his collaboration with Sexyy Red debuting at No. 44 on the Hot 100 and sliding from there is not a great look. Neither was the parody redo of “Hey There Delilah” that he hopped on for some reason.
Meanwhile, Kendrick has continued to do the opposite of what everyone, including Drake, thought he would do: Instead of vanishing, he stayed put and threw one of L.A.’s biggest rap shows in recent memory. Dot’s appeal in the hip-hop community was always A1, but after last night, it’s safe to say he’s now occupying the top spot in rap. Kendrick is the king. And he’s not the king because some critics and talking heads or kids tweeting from a suburban cul-de-sac said he’s the king. He’s the king because last night everyone — the streets, the music industry, the fans, the athletes — showed us that he is. They all popped out for their friend, their peer, their idol, their king.
“F—k that, this s—t making me emotional, man. F—k that, we been f—d up since Nipsey died, hold up. We’ve been f—d up since Kobe died, hold up,” he told the crowd as he wrangled everybody for a family picture. “Let the world see this. You ain’t seen this many sections on one stage keeping it together and having peace, hold up.”
Drake will be fine mainstream-wise, but he’s always wanted to be accepted by hip-hop, and right now he’s on the outside looking in. Last night proved Kendrick has more respect and cultural cachet than Drake can ever imagine having, and the must sting to an artist as massive and influential as Drake is.
Meanwhile, there’s not another artist in his generation that would be able to pull off what Kendrick pulled off last night. He had rival gangs on stage for L.A., for California, for Hip-Hop. Kendrick was running around like he was Pac fresh out on bail last night, and showed the rest of the rap game that no region is quite like the West.
There’s a lot that goes on in a Big Body Bes video. He might be posted up in his favorite bodega drinking an ice cold Country Club, curling an EZ bar dipped in flames, or breaking bread at a cuchifrito. One thing is for certain, though, he’s going to be outside with the back block […]
We very well may be nearing the end of basketball’s most legendary studio show, Inside the NBA — and what a ride it’s been.
The 2024-2025 NBA season will likely be the last for hosts Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal together on TNT, with all signs pointing to NBC replacing Turner Sports as the league’s primary TV partner starting with the 2025-26 season. Barkley was on The Dan Patrick Show and revealed that “morale sucks, plain and simple,” when asked how the vibe was on the set.
Charles Barkley says morale sucks amid the uncertainty of “Inside the NBA” moving forward. And discusses the possibility of hiring the crew to his production company, continuing to do the show, and selling it. pic.twitter.com/gLoiKm7SM3— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) May 23, 2024
And after last night’s series-clinching win by the Dallas Mavericks, eliminating the Minnesota Timberwolves and punching Dallas’ ticket to the NBA Finals, Mavs guard Luka Dončić brought the drama up — telling the guys they have to figure something out, to which Ernie confirmed they don’t know their fate past the next season.
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“We’re gonna miss you. We’re done after tonight.” – Charles Barkley “You ain’t done yet. We gotta figure out something.” – Luka Dončić”We got all next year too. And then who knows after that.” – Ernie Johnson 🏀🎙️📺😂 pic.twitter.com/neHy0NpqI8— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 31, 2024
The winner of 19 Emmys, Inside the NBA is like family to most basketball-obsessed households; especially for those who came of age during the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. This was a time when rap, basketball and sneakers were exploding. We watched and played whenever we could. We read SLAM magazine, tried to buy the latest basketball sneakers, listened to rap music, and stayed up late on Thursday nights during the NBA season to watch Inside the NBA.
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To keep it a buck, to us basketball is just as much a part of hip-hop as rapping and graffiti. So, when we got a show starring an NYC basketball great like Smith and NBA and sneaker legend like Barkley, we had to tune in. And while shaky at first, Shaq’s addition at the start of the 2011-2012 season further ingratiated the crew to a generation that grew up buying his rap albums and signature Reeboks, watching his movies, and playing Shaq Fu on Sega Genesis. Inside the NBA is so hip-hop, its hosts were known to kick a few flows. Kenny Smith kicked a freestyle on BET’s Rap City back in 2001.
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And Shaq was recently featured on a Rick Ross and Meek Mill song with Damian Lillard, and had arguably the best verse in the whole song.
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I have to also acknowledge the show’s music selection. They’ve always seemed to be tapped into rap music, new and old. I remember hearing A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation” instrumental during breaks — and there’s this medley of rap songs Street Cred EJ knew off top.
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Shaq, Kenny and Chuck come from the hip-hop generation and helped take the culture mainstream. Even Kenny would sometimes find himself impressed and surprised with a producer’s music picks. When they first played Kendrick’s recent Drake diss tracks, he was saying they shouldn’t pick sides, that they should play Drake’s songs too. They may be older, but the three former players are tapped in. They took what the late, great Stuart Scott was doing at ESPN in the early ‘90s and perfected it, carrying on his legacy of bringing hip-hop culture into households across the country.
During these playoffs. The producers have been in their bag playing the hits. “Like That” and “Not Like Us” have been TNT favorites during the Kendrick and Drake beef. They also played the “No Vaseline” instrumental — an absolutely insane thing to hear during a national sports broadcast. And just last night they played Don Toliver’s “Attitude” featuring Cash Cobain and Uncle Charlie Wilson faintly in the background. It doesn’t get more tapped-in than that.
A friend and I had a routine back in the early 2000s. We were fresh out of high school, and worked the same part-time job while taking classes at local colleges in North Jersey. After we got off work, we would cop some trees on the way home and link up later that night to watch the NBA on TNT. We did this every Thursday night during the NBA season. Sometimes we would catch both the 8 p.m. game and the 10:30 p.m. game — but we always made sure to watch Inside the NBA afterwards, even if it meant staying up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
Now that I’m older, whenever I’m able to stay up to watch the best sports show on TV, I think about those days. Appointment television is a rarity in the age of streaming, and for 24 years, the guys over at Inside the NBA have made you regret falling asleep and missing not only their veteran basketball analysis and arguments with one another, but also all the jokes and shenanigans. “Elevator” Ernie Johnson deserves some love as well. He brings it all together by controlling the chaos while also letting Kenny, Chuck, and Shaq be themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=47jriBjlxT_WXAYc&v=G1ZMviEik3U&feature=youtu.be
If next season really is their last, they deserve to have a legit farewell tour. Bringing back John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock” isn’t worth losing these four family members. Prime Bob Costas isn’t walking through that door. The only way NBC can get back into our good graces after forcing Inside the NBA to hang it up early, is to bring back NBA Inside Stuff without making it corny.
BREAKING: NBC has contacted John Tesh about reviving the iconic NBA on NBC theme song ‘Roundball Rock’ amid NBA rights dealnegotiations. “At the end of June, we’re heading to Nashville, we’ve got a full orchestra on hold & we’re going to re-record it.”https://t.co/J2Tb1XxPY9 pic.twitter.com/F6YUXSRpk4— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) May 21, 2024
Inside the NBA had one of the greatest runs in sports TV history these past 24 years. I’m looking forward to having one last NBA season with my guys. Now that I think about it, ending things at 25 just sounds right.
Now I leave you with some Yo Momma jokes from the crew.
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How does a rock band that scored enormous hit singles in the pre-streaming era approach the process of selecting a single in 2024? For Kings of Leon, the answer is: they don’t.
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“We don’t know what we’re doing,” bassist Jared Followill declares, then lets out a laugh, when speaking to Billboard about the modern hit-making process. The Tennessee quartet has been steadily releasing albums every three to five years since bursting into the mainstream in the late 2000s with crossover smashes “Use Somebody” and “Sex on Fire,” both from 2008’s Only By the Night; the former song won the Grammy for record of the year in 2010, while the latter’s official U.S. streams top 650 million, according to Luminate.
Those hits helped balloon Kings of Leon’s listenership during a very different iteration of the music industry; 15 years later, Followill admits that he and his bandmates (brothers Caleb and Nathan Followill, plus cousin Matthew Followill) wouldn’t even know how to attempt to replicate that crossover success of those songs.
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For new album Can We Please Have Fun, out tomorrow (May 10), the band went with the shaggy rocker “Mustang” as the lead single due to their team’s recommendation, and the song has reached No. 3 on Adult Alternative Airplay and climbs to No. 5 on Alternative Airplay. But Followill says that they could have easily gone with the mid-tempo sway of “Actual Daydream,” or the spry sing-along “Nowhere to Run,” if that had been the feedback they received.
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“Our only rule is to not have any songs on the album that we would be embarrassed if they were a single — so we try to make the album great, because we don’t know anything about the business side of things or algorithms or which song will do well,” he explains. “Now, it seems like you just need a great 15-second piece of a song to make it big on TikTok — slow it down, reverb it, make it huge. But we don’t know what works anymore, and I don’t think anybody knows … You just have to play ball a little bit, and hope that you’re with the right people who know what they’re doing.”
Kings of Leon surrounded themselves with a new cast of characters for their ninth studio album: after working with Markus Dravs on their last two full-lengths, the quartet tapped Kid Harpoon last year to helm the follow-up to 2021’s When You See Yourself. Kid Harpoon was in the middle of a red-hot streak when Kings of Leon came calling, after co-producing smashes like Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” and Harry Styles’ “As It Was”; in fact, a recommendation from Styles helped steer the band toward the veteran pop-rock producer, after they had started the writing process for the album at the top of 2023.
“We’re buddies with Harry, and he had worked with [Kid Harpoon] a ton and had great success,” Followill says. “We met him and it was just the right vibe. He’s almost childlike in the studio — so happy, trying anything, no negativity. He’s not judgmental at all, so it was just like having a buddy in there.”
Meanwhile, Can We Please Have Fun is Kings of Leon’s first album with new label home Capitol Records, after spending nearly the first two decades of their career on RCA’s roster. The band played the new album for prospective labels at Kid Harpoon’s L.A. home last year, and it was the pitch by Tom March, recently named Capitol Music Group’s chairman and CEO, that they found most appealing. “He just seemed on board, and bought in really quickly,” Followill says. “We’re very hands-on, which can be weird for a new label who’s excited to bring their own stuff to the table. But it’s been perfect — they’ve been super supportive, and it’s been a great relationship so far.”
Kings of Leon will head out on the road in August for a 26-city North American tour, and will be releasing visual components for every song on Can We Please Have Fun along the way. More than anything, however, Followill hopes that listeners can identify the new album as a progression for the band — a looser, more playful entry in their catalog, at a moment when Kings of Leon could have stuck to a tried-and-true formula.
“We’re not completely reinventing ourselves, but this is definitely a refresh,” Followill says. “It was a gradual thing, but we’ve evolved and changed ourselves. We’ve put a lot of effort into letting people know that we’re still here, and we’re not phoning it in 20 years down the road, just trying to squeeze a few dollars out at the end. We’re still trying.”
The dog days are not that far away, and we already have some summer-song competitors. Here are the singles and artists we think you need to watch.
It may be Cowboy Carter week, but the silvery disco ball strobe lights of Renaissance — the first act of Beyoncé’s presently unfolding trilogy — continue to illuminate the world. On Monday (March 26), the Human Rights Campaign debuted Renaissance: A Queer Syllabus, a sprawling collection of academic articles, essays, films and other pieces of media rooted in Black queer and feminist studies and directly inspired by each track on Queen Bey’s Billboard 200-topping dance album.
Curated by Justin Calhoun, Leslie Hall and Chauna Lawson of the HRC’s HBCU program, the syllabus will serve as an educational resource designed to honor, analyze and celebrate the joy, resilience, innovation and legacy of the Black queer community. The syllabus will be shared with nearly 30 historically Black colleges and universities, including Howard University, North Carolina A&T University, Prairie View A&M University and Shaw University.
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Released in the summer of 2022, Renaissance was and continues to be a bonafide cultural phenomenon. A lovingly researched ode to the Black queer roots of dance music filtered through her intensely personal relationship with her late Uncle Johnny, the album captivated fans around the world and shined a much-needed light on the unsung movers and shakers of Black queer art and culture. The album won four Grammys — including a historic win for best dance/electronic album — housed a pair of Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits in “Break My Soul” (No. 1) and “Cuff It” (No. 6) and spawned a record-breaking stadium tour and accompanying box office-topping documentary concert film.
From the economic impact of Beyoncé’s silver fashion aesthetic to career boosts given to Black queer icons such as Kevin Aviance, Ts Madison and Honey Dijon, Renaissance proved itself to be much more than a standard LP. The HRC understood that there was a chance to make a real impact across education and activism through the lens of the record.
“There are ways that we can embed the impact of her lyrics into real life. It was serendipitous for this to happen,” said Hall, director of the HRC’s HBCU Program. “All the anti-DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] laws were being introduced in the same states that she was doing concerts in. So, what would it look like for us to put our best thinking together to put articles, books, and movies to all of the songs on her album?”
On May 15, 2023 — just three shows into the Renaissance World Tour — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning DEI initiatives in public colleges. A month later (June 14, 2023), the governor of Beyoncé’s home state of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed a bill prohibiting DEI offices and the hiring of DEI staff at public higher education institutions.
The juxtaposition of rising anti-queer sentiments and Beyoncé’s Renaissance era anchors the syllabus’ arrangement. The syllabus begins with a brief statement summarizing and reiterating the HRC’s June 2023 LGBTQ+ State of Emergency statement, which they declared “for the first time following an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses.” The final pages of the syllabus contain both a reprint of Beyoncé’s statement in memory of O’Shea Sibley — a young Black queer man who was murdered in Brooklyn back in July 2023 for simply voguing to Renaissance -—and an additional statement from the HRC denouncing hate crimes.
“I think when you preface something [with] a state of emergency, you get the lay of the land and how important [the] syllabus is,” said Calhoun, an HBCU program manager at HRC. “It brings a sense of urgency and realness to what’s actually happening to queer youth, especially black Queer Youth.”
Calhoun — alongside Hall and Lawson — began work on the syllabus in October 2023, dividing the album’s 16-song tracklist into different themes and building hubs of additional secondary resources that expound on said themes. Despite Calhoun’s initial concerns that breaking up the tracklist would “lose the flow” of the album — Renaissance is intentionally mixed and sequenced to emulate a seamless DJ set — he ultimately agreed that the approach helped the syllabus feel more like a lesson plan.
Six themes anchor the syllabus, ranging from “intersectionality and inclusivity” to “social justice and activism.” Fan favorite tracks like “Alien Superstar” and “Thique” rope in the origins of the body positivity moment and iconic speeches from Barbara Ann Teer (including the one sampled on “Superstar”) under the umbrella of “empowerment and self-acceptance.” “Energy,” the song behind the infamous “mute challenge,” gets new readings by interloping essays from bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins. Even less-famed tracks like “Move” (with Grace Jones & Tems) — which is paired with fascinating readings on the effects of colonialism on pre-colonial Africa and African perspectives on trans identity — get in on the scholarly fun.
Naturally, “Heated,” a song that had an intense, immediate impact on Renaissance listeners with deep ties to the ballroom scene, served as the crux of the syllabus, according to Calhoun. “It was the model child for how a section of the syllabus should look,” he explains. “There was so much to unpack in ‘Heated.’ You have Beyoncé’s Uncle Johnny, a Black gay man [living] during the AIDS epidemic — that lead to us [compiling different resources] about how we lost a generation of black gay men who were visionaries and people who paved the culture.”
The syllabus is a thorough resource, one that continues the HRC’s connection with Beyoncé’s Renaissance era. On Aug. 27, 2023, the HRC, with support from Beyoncé’s BeyGOOD Foundation, mounted the Equality Ball in Las Vegas, NV – an event that doubled as actual ball complete with a “Bring It Like Beyoncé” category and an educational resource pushing voter registration and sexual health awareness.
Although Parkwood Entertainment, Beyoncé’s production company, did not authorize or give “direct sign off” on the syllabus (Billboard reached out to representatives at Parkwood for comment), creating the resource was “a seamless process,” according to Calhoun. “We knew amongst the team which authors and which folks to go to for certain things, I don’t think any of us did many Google searches,” said Hall. “We knew where to go to connect the right [resources] to one of her songs [and] build a course out of it. It is really a testament to well-read, well-learned people. I feel obligated to say that because we don’t talk about ourselves like that. We’re smart. It would take folks with Howard degrees to put something like this together.”
From Pauli Murray and C. Riley Snorton to Audre Lorde and Sonya Renee Taylor, HRC’s new syllabus continues Renaissance’s mission of highlighting, amplifying and re-centering Black and queer voices. Of course, this syllabus is far from the first piece of Beyoncé-inspired coursework in higher education. Following the release of the Grammy winner’s culture-shifting album Lemonade in 2016, a slew of Beyoncé-themed classes debuted across higher education institutions — including the University of Copenhagen, Rutgers University, Arizona State University and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
For Hall, the rise of courses tackling social constructs through the lens of pop culture is only a good thing. “We’re in a powder keg right now, and it’s gonna pop around election time,” he says. “We have to get information to folks in younger generations. We need them to be connected to what’s really happening and a way to do that is through music and culture.”
Nonetheless, Hall and his colleagues aren’t oblivious to the fact that Renaissance exists in an intrinsically capitalistic context. “[It’s] something I grapple with so much,” notes Calhoun. “I had a teacher who once said that capitalism is the current structure and we have to live under it. This is how life operates. What is Beyoncé going to do to stop a capitalist structure? I just don’t feel like we’re at a point in the movement where we know what we want [people like her] to do.”
While there may be no current plans for a Cowboy Carter syllabus — “being from the Mississippi Delta, that would be dope, but it depends on Beyoncé,” quipped Calhoun — the HRC’s Renaissance syllabus is the ultimate proof that the Renaissance is, in fact, not over.
“We’ve made a course that adds to scholarship about Black queer futures and specifically ballroom and uplifting history that’s not as popular in academia,” says Calhoun. “It really adds to the academic cannon of Black queer scholarship in a way we haven’t seen before.”
“Man, it’s an incredible year,” Scott Stapp tells Billboard, despite not being even one-quarter of the way through 2024. His sentiment is understandable, though: after a decade of inactivity, Stapp’s mega-selling hard rock group Creed has roared back to life this year with a slate of reunion shows that keeps growing due to overwhelming ticket demand.
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One four-night reunion-show cruise in April — first announced last July as Stapp, guitarist Mark Tremonti, bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips’ first shows together since 2012 — led to a second cruise, and both quickly sold out. Then a months-long summer reunion trek, amphitheater shows that will kick off in July, wasn’t enough to meet consumer demand, so Creed plotted an arena run for the fall, too. And ahead of those reunion shows, Creed experienced an online revival, thanks to viral remixes, TikTok clips, World Series sing-alongs and an appearance in a Super Bowl commercial.
Over two decades after their commercial peak (1999’s Human Clay and 2001’s Weathered have sold a combined 19.9 million copies, according to Luminate) and 10 years since they disbanded amid waning sales and audiences, Creed has suddenly never been cooler. A band that was once a critical punching bag now has no less a barometer for contemporary cool than SZA declaring, “I will be a Creed fan forever.”
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“So many positive things have already happened that are just mind-blowing, in terms of the level of Creed’s resurgence,” Stapp says.
Meanwhile, the wins have extended to Stapp’s solo career: Higher Power, his fourth album on his own, will be released through Napalm Records this Friday (Mar. 15) and is being preceded by the highest-charting single of his non-Creed career, the hard-charging title track, which has climbed to No. 12 on Mainstream Rock Airplay and earned 1.4 million streams to date, according to Luminate. Higher Power is Stapp’s most complete solo offering to date — growling and energetic, but also admirably reflective, particularly on “If These Walls Could Talk,” a powerful meditation on his well-documented past substance abuse issues, created as a duet with Dorothy Martin of the hard rock band Dorothy.
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Stapp, who kicked off a solo tour last night (Mar. 10) ahead of the release of Higher Power, says that the support for the solo album and Creed reunion has “already exceeded all expectations.” He spoke to Billboard about what that encouragement means for him, personally and professionally. [Ed. note — this interview has been condensed for clarity.]
You’ve sold millions of albums and scored a ton of hits, and yet I have to imagine that the excitement around this comeback represents a special sort of achievement for you.
I’m still trying to process it, to be honest with you. It’s so profound of a resurgence that it’s an anomaly. But when I look back, I could see the build — you know, Creed was going viral online during COVID, and then it just intensified in 2021 and kept happening in 2022. And so you could see the swell of our music just connecting with an entire generation — some of whom weren’t even alive when we broke up — and then reconnecting with those that were a part of the ride back in the day.
And then to see it move from social media, to the World Series, to the Super Bowl — and then to see the overwhelming response in the ticket sales? It’s just a lot to take in. It’s all positive stuff, and so now, it’s just making sure that we’re all in a good place, we can ride on this positivity, and give the fans what they want.
You’re putting out your fourth solo album before any of the Creed reunion shows. When did Higher Power start coming together?
I went in the studio and first started writing for this record in January 2021. I had no timeline, and the whole Creed conversation wasn’t even happening — I was solely going in to write a record and then turn it in when I was done. So I began writing then and just went in when I felt inspired, when I felt like I needed to go get something off my chest, or I needed to escape and use the creative process as a form of therapy.
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The album came together as a direct reflection of my life — I was living it during the period of time that I was writing it. And I was capturing the vocal performance right when the song was born, in the heat of feeling that emotion that birthed the song. A lot of times, you’ll go back and you’ll re-track vocals, and do things over again. And it’s really hard, I’ve found, to recapture some of that spirit that comes out when you’re really living it. And so with this record, I didn’t attempt to do that: I captured it, kept it, and would continue to build the music around it. And I think it really had a dynamic impact on the vibe of the record, because we captured lightning in a bottle with each song.
That certainly extends to “If These Walls Could Talk,” your duet with Dorothy Martin and one of the rare duets in your catalog.
The duet itself came together after the song was written. I recorded the vocals initially thinking that it was just another song on my record, but after I listened back, I knew immediately this needed a female vocal, it needed to be a duet. So I went on my search, looking for the right female vocalist, [and being in Nashville now seven years, I thought that this song would possibly be my entry point into country music.
I did a weekend gig in Montana with Daughtry, and I was unfamiliar with Dorothy, who happened to be opening that show. We watched her perform, and I knew two or three songs in that that was the voice that needed to be on the song. She happened to be recording in Los Angeles with the same producer that I used on this record, Scott Stevens. I reached out to Scott for something about my record, and he said, “I’ll have to get back to you, I’m in the studio with Dorothy.” And I said, “Oh, dude, I just met her in Montana! Play her ‘If These Walls Could Talk’ and see if she’s interested!” He played her the song, and he wrote me back and said, “She’s in tears. She’s in.”
A couple of weeks later, I got the email with her performance on it, and when I listened to it, I knew instantly that my gut was right. Her performance just blew me away, and I think it really took the song next level. I think it’s really going to do what I had hoped for this song — help it reach more people, and connect with more people who can identify with that message, and let them know they’re not alone in the world.
You’re squeezing in a solo tour in March to support the album. Was that always the plan before the Creed shows?
There was no Creed reunion on the table when I was making this record — the only thing that I had on my radar was making a solo record and going on a solo tour. When the cruise conversations came up, I was still in the mindset of, “I’m doing a solo record.” But then the excitement kept building, and more conversations began to happen, and the next thing you know, we’ve announced two tours, an [amphitheater] tour and an arena tour.
I remember having conversations with my team about this, and they just kept communicating to me, “Hey, this is a good thing, man. The vibes are so positive with you and the guys in Creed, and a rising tide raises all ships.” Everyone in Creed is supportive of everyone’s projects outside of the band, so I just look at it as a win all the way around — a win for Creed, and a win for for my solo record.
It’s a nonstop year, between the solo tour, the Creed cruises, the amphitheater run and then the arena run. What are you doing to physically and mentally prepare?
Well physically, I exercise and train at least five days a week at minimum — I’m preparing my body and have been for years, but I’ve even stepped it up, because of everything that’s in front of me. And mentally, I’m just trying to stay centered, grounded and focused on my faith. I know that when I’m walking right, in my spiritual life, and in my faith, good things happen. When I get off track with that, bad things happen.
But it’s still going to be challenging, and I’m approaching this like it’s a marathon. You can’t walk into anything like this like it’s a sprint, or you burn out. So you’ve got to take those moments for yourself when you need them. It’s OK to rest. It’s OK, on certain days that you have nothing to do, you clean your plate and take a mental and physical timeout to regroup. I think at this point in my life, I know what to do. And I’m fortunate that I’m going to have people around me that support me and encourage me, and are there to help me navigate as well, because there’s no point in trying to do this alone.
What’s it been like messaging back and forth with the other Creed guys as more shows get announced and viral moments occur?
Overwhelming, in a positive way. All our correspondence and all our interactions have been nothing but good vibes. Everyone wants everybody else to win, and everyone’s excited about getting onstage again. We’re just gonna ride this wave and really appreciate it in a whole new way. Because you know, especially from my standpoint, I know what it’s like to have it — and I know what it’s like to lose it all. And so this go-around is just walking in complete appreciation, gratitude and respect, and just trying to cultivate and nurture relationships. Because you never know when it can be gone again.