genre pop
Page: 28
For any number of fans who got upset last year at Bowen Yang‘s Saturday Night Live segment parodying both Moo Deng and pop star Chappell Roan, the “Pink Pony Club” artist would ask you to please calm down.
On the Wednesday (April 16) episode of Las Culturistas, Yang and co-host Matt Rogers chatted with Roan about her fans’ reaction to Yang’s appearance on Weekend Update, during which he dressed as the viral baby pygmy hippopotamus and echoed the singer’s sentiments about inappropriate fan behavior. “Do not yell my name or expect a photo just because I’m your parasocial bestie or you appreciate my talent,” his Moo Deng proclaimed before clarifying that the hippo’s talent was “having a slippery body that bounces.”
While some fans felt that Yang was mocking Roan’s boundary-setting statement, the pop singer says she never felt that way. “I wasn’t even mad,” she declared as soon as Rogers brought up the topic. “I did [think it was funny], I didn’t feel anything!”
Trending on Billboard
As Yang explained that he chatted with Drag Race winner and Roan’s friend Sasha Colby about the public outcry, the singer explained that she wished some of her fans would pump the breaks before jumping to her defense. “People do not have to get mad on my behalf — we are fine. What is there to be mad about?” she said. “It’s comedy! It was so lighthearted. It was, to me, harmless. Even if you were to push it further — harmless! It’s comedy, I just don’t understand … I just don’t know ‘the line’ anymore.”
Rogers explained some fans’ “parasocial” need to “protect this person,” even when the person in question has not asked for protection. Chappell agreed, adding that “even if you didn’t think the Moo Deng sketch was funny, you don’t have to say anything! Like, you can always not say something.”
Elsewhere on the podcast, Roan also chatted with the pair about some disappointed fan reactions to “The Giver” after her viral debut of the track on SNL, referring to their preference as “demo-itis.” “You have attached memories, all of these things to this one version of the song, but it’s actually not as good as the recorded version,” she explains. “But you fall in love with what you hear first, because when you hear a different version, you’re just going to hate it because it’s different.”
Check out Chappell’s full conversation with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers on Las Culturistas below:
The Elton John AIDS Foundation and Brandi Carlile‘s Looking Out Foundation announced a new initiative on Wednesday (April 16) to address what they call an urgent global humanitarian crisis caused by recent drastic cuts to HIV/AIDS funding in the U.S. The emergency initiative “Who Believes in Angels?” campaign — named in honor of the duo’s recent joint album of the same name — will bring communities together to raise funds for John’s long-running AIDS Foundation and its Rocket Response Fund to continue their lifesaving work around the globe.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“Without prompt action, decades of progress in the global fight against HIV could be reversed, creating a global health crisis that we have both the power and the tools to prevent,” John said in a statement about the urgent need to raise funds in the wake of the Trump administration’s termination of USAID support for such efforts. “Our mission is more important than ever – we refuse to leave anyone behind – and I’m so fortunate that Brandi is not only a wonderful collaborator and artist, but a dear friend who shares my vision of a world where HIV care is prioritized and protected.”
Trending on Billboard
According to the statement, the Rocket Response Fund will direct resources to open shuttered clinics, restore access to essential medications and maintain prevention services to ensure that people around the world can get the HIV care they need.
The Hill reported this week that the deep cuts enacted by Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Robert F. Kennedy to the nation’s public health workforce as part of Trump’s drastic cuts to the government workforce threaten to undo decades of working combating HIV, as well as potentially delaying upcoming scientific advances. Kennedy’s plans to reduce HHS staffing by 20% will effectively zero-out a number of divisions within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hit especially hard are offices focused on HIV/AIDS, including the firing of the entire staff of the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy, as well as the lay-off of one-quarter of the Global Health Center Division of Global HIV and TB, as well as the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and Tuberculosis Prevention. In addition, five branches of the CDC’s HIV prevention division were entirely eliminated, including the research, surveillance and prevention communication branches.
Hit particularly hard were grants for HIV research focused on transgender, Black and Latino individuals — who’ve been disproportionately impacted by the epidemic — in what the Hill said was likely tied to the Trump team’s efforts to eliminate what they deem diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in federal agencies. The Hill noted that before being named as HHS secretary, Kennedy publicly questioned whether the HIV virus causes AIDS and promoted the unsubstantiated belief that AIDS could be cause by the recreational drug known as “poppers,” which is popular in the gay community; the CDC and World Health Organization have long acknowledged that if left untreated HIV can lead to AIDS.
“It was a lifelong dream come true for me to come together with my hero and friend Elton John to make our album Who Believes In Angels? and now, we’re excited to announce that our foundations are also partnering to make our music mean even more,” said Carlile in a statement. “Elton’s activism and work with the Elton John AIDS Foundation was what led me to Elton before I even heard a note of his music. It’s an incredible honor to launch this partnership and raise funds for the life-saving work of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the Rocket Response Fund at a time when support is needed the most.”
The announcement noted that international funding has been crucial to reducing new HIV transmission and deaths worldwide. But with a number of countries joining the U.S. in considering aid cuts the Lancet HIV projected that — based on data from 26 countries — up to 10.8 million additional HIV cases and 2.9 million HIV-related deaths could occur by 2030 if international support dries up.
Donations to the campaign — which the Looking Out Foundation will match dollar-for-dollar through Friday morning (April 18) — can be made here.
It may only be April, but a handful of music’s biggest stars — Ed Sheeran, ROSÉ of BLACKPINK and Snoop Dogg, to name a few — have already dominated the year so much that TIME100 has named them on its list of Most Influential People of 2025.
As announced Wednesday (April 16), the “Shape of You” singer, K-pop superstar and hip-hop legend are just a few of the many celebrities honored on this year’s list, which each year celebrates individual artists, icons, world leaders, industry titans, pioneers and innovators who are “transforming the world.” Hozier and Nicole Scherzinger also earned spots on the ranking, as did actors such as Adam Scott, Rashida Jones, Kristen Bell, Demi Moore, Adrien Brody and Blake Lively.
Trending on Billboard
The 2025 list also features Serena Williams, Simone Biles, Jalen Hurts and other athletes, as well as political figures such as President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk. Each honoree received a personal tribute written by a colleague, with Shaboozey, Alicia Keys and Becky G respectively penning words for singer-songwriter Myles Smith, artist Mickalene Thomas and designer Willy Chavarria.
Chris Hemsworth wrote Sheeran’s blurb, gushing that the four-time Grammy winner “has an almost supernatural ability to connect” with his audience through music while also being “one of the most kindhearted, down-to-earth people.” Lily Collins recalled befriending ROSÉ at a fashion show in Paris last year, praising the “APT.” singer for being a a “total bada–” and “such a dynamic performer and songwriter,” while Noah Kahan wrote of the “Take Me to Church” musician, “I’m not sure where my life would’ve gone if I hadn’t been exposed to his music … Thank you, Hozier, for sharing your gift with us mere mortals.”
“Snoop Dogg once told me he’s a ‘moment’ type of guy, and if the moment’s right, he’ll grab it,” wrote Hoda Kotb of the “Drop It Like It’s Hot” rapper. “I’ll say. The world’s warmest cool kid has been carpe diem-ing for more than three decades … There’s just something about this guy that makes me — and millions of his fans — feel so happy and loved.”
True to its title, the TIME100 list honors a total of 100 people. Last year, Dua Lipa, 21 Savage, Burna Boy, Kylie Minogue and Jack Antonoff were among the 2024 Most Influential honorees.
See Sheeran and Snoop on the cover of TIME100 below.
Justin Vernon has a new Bon Iver album to hawk, Sable, Fable. But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to take the odd Taylor Swift question here and there. Which is why during a chat with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe this week, the singer-songwriter waxed rhapsodic about accidentally being pulled into Swift’s pandemic orbit in the best way possible.
When Lowe asked Vernon what it was like to work with Swift, he praised the singer for the “courage” to reach out to The National’s Aaron Dessner to collaborate on her COVID-era Folklore album. On the cusp of quarantine, Vernon said he was about to go on an European tour with Bon Iver a month before lockdown when he tapped Desssner to fill in on guitar.
Trending on Billboard
The plan was for Dessner to play DJ and cue up demos of songs from his Big Red Machine side project — a long-running collaboration with Vernon — before the Bon Iver arena sets. The tour was quickly cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so like a lot of musicians at the time Dessner went on Instagram Live to play some unreleased music for fans and who happened to hear what he was laying down but Taylor Swift?
“All the glory goes to Taylor for hearing, as a songwriter, what music she wants to make,” Vernon said. “But those songs are Big Red Machine demos at their core and her genius was working with the genius of Aaron Dessner on making the strongest set of lyrics and songwriting that she’s ever had, really.”
As he sat back and watched the process unfold, Vernon said he was mesmerized seeing the global pop icon “enter our whole universe… of course there’s no one bigger and we all bowed down to her.” Vernon described a feeling of not being able to stop blinking as he realized the collaboration between the chart and stadium queen and their low-key indie side project made perfect sense.
“The love and community that Aaron had shown me over these years… Taylor was just stepping into it and flawlessly taking it,” Vernon said, adding that Dessner rang him up during the process and said that there was a track Swift wanted him to sing on. “I was like, ‘Taylor?’” Vernon said he asked as Dessner explained that Swift was writing to some of the Big Red Machine songs she’d heard.
“I was like, ‘Awesome! I’m not doing anything today!’ They sent it and I ended up adding a couple little bits,” Vernon said of the origin story of how he ended up with a co-writing credit — along with Swift, Dessner and the singer’s ex, actor Joe Alwyn (under the pseudonym William Bowery) — on the track. “I just sang it on an SM7 in my little makeshift studio… and it felt level to everything else. It’s an exceptional song and an exceptionally popular song for a good reason,” he said. “But it felt just so natural and I’m so thankful for that opportunity just to have worked with such an amazing artist.”
In addition to “Exile” on the Folklore album, Vernon also pitched in on the title track to the companion Evermore pandemic album, while Swift lent a hand on the Big Red Machine single “Renegade” in 2021.
Watch Vernon talk about working with Swift below.
This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2005 Week continues here with a look back at the Billboard Hot 100 chart’s top songs from that year, to go with the list of staff favorites our editorial team published earlier this week.
————————————————
Fifteen years into her Billboard chart career, Mariah Carey was still achieving firsts.
In 2005, the superstar’s smash “We Belong Together” spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, between that June and September, and went on to top the year-end survey – Carey’s first title to rule the annual recap.
Carey had dominated the 1990s like no act in any previous decade, becoming the first artist to lead the Hot 100 in every year of a decade (1990-99; she expanded her record chart-topping streak to 11 years, through 2000). By 2005, she was back in familiar triumphant territory thanks to the sultry second single from her album The Emancipation of Mimi. The set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in April 2005 and logged 74 weeks on the chart, the most for an album of hers since Daydream a decade earlier.
“My real fans have always been with me through great times and not-so-great times,” Carey shared in the 2005 year-end Billboard print issue. “That’s why I think we have a really close, special connection.”
Carey’s command was just one of the highlights on the 2005 year-end Hot 100. Elsewhere, 50 Cent boasts four entries in the top 20; Carrie Underwood places with her American Idol coronation ballad, “Inside Your Heaven”; and hits dot the ranking from the debut solo albums from No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani and Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas.
As Billboard celebrates 2005 Week, revisit the 2005 year-end Hot 100 chart, as originally revealed in the Dec. 24, 2005, publication. The recap is based on performance on the weekly Hot 100 charts dated Dec. 4, 2004, through Nov. 26, 2005. (You can also check out every year-end Hot 100 Songs chart since 2006 here.)
“Give Me That,” Webbie feat. Bun B
Bobby Vinton turns 90 today, having made his mark on the Billboard charts over the years. The singer, who gained the nickname “The Polish Prince,” had four No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and three top 10 albums on the Billboard 200. Vinton holds a special footnote in pop culture history: He had […]
Big things are coming from Lorde. The singer who disappears into the hedges like Homer Simpson when she is off-cycle peeked her head back out again on Tuesday (April 15) when she sent a three-minute audio message to fans via WhatsApp in which she teased that news is coming.
Describing the feeling of returning to the stage over the weekend at Coachella — where she hopped up for a surprise appearance on the “Girl So Confusing” remix during Charli XCX’s set — Lorde said she reveled in the golden hour glow. “I can feel all that I have shed to be able to be in this the way I am right now… I had this little taste. Fifteen seconds. I could feel it behind me,” she said of the feeling of walking to the main stage at dusk in Indio and thinking about all the Coachellas she’s been to over the past 12 years.
During her appearance at Coachella, Charli helped amp up the hype, shouting “Lorde summer 2025!”
Trending on Billboard
“I felt so real and so solid. I can just feel all that I have shed to be able to be in this the way I am right now. I was like, ‘It’s dusk, in the desert, enjoy it b–ch.’ I just wanted to say hi because everything is about to change,” Lorde said in the voice note. “These are the last moments where it’s just us. Which is crazy. But so right. I’m so ready.”
The singer signed off by thanking her fans for their patience and assuring them that she could feel their presence when she was on stage.
Lorde has been slowly teasing her next era over the past year, most recently with a snippet of an unreleased song on TikTok on April 9 in the first taste of her upcoming as-yet-untitled fourth album. In the brief clip, Lorde filmed herself walking through Washington Square Park in New York City as she listened to the track. “Since I was 17, I gave you everything/ Now we wake from a dream, well baby, what was that?/ What was that?” she sang over a mid-tempo dance beat and ethereal synths.
Last July, she shared a micro snippet of an unreleased song with the message “Will be back in touch,” followed the next month by confirmation from producer Jim-E Stack that they were working together via a photo of the singer staring intently at her laptop. That same month, she wiped all of her social accounts, amping up fan speculation that LP4 was on the way.
Her most recent album was 2021’s Solar Power, which reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Listen to Lorde’s message below.
Luke Bryan says he didn’t plan to spend his morning watching Katy Perry’s space flight — but like many, he got caught up in the moment.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week, the American Idol judge recounted how he found himself unexpectedly tuning into Blue Origin’s historic NS-31 launch, which saw Perry take flight alongside an all-female crew that included Lauren Sánchez, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, Gayle King and Kerianne Flynn.
“I was doing my morning walk around the farm, which turns into checking Instagram and stuff,” Bryan explained. “I saw where she was posting on her Instagram that it was happening at 8:30 Central and totally got roped into the moment.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The country star said he ended up watching the full livestream. “They’re in the Rivian, they’re heading to the capsule, and I’m sitting there walking and it roped me in,” he said. “Because when you have a friend — I mean, let’s face it — it could blow up. So I wanted it to not do that.”
Trending on Billboard
Bryan previously sent Perry a supportive text when she announced her participation, writing, “Good luck, wow, that’s crazy you’re getting to do that.”
While Perry has now officially been declared an astronaut after the successful launch, Bryan isn’t sure he’d follow in her footsteps just yet. When Kimmel asked if he’d want to go to space, Bryan laughed, “I probably would do it just because — I mean, you gotta take that chance.”
Kimmel pushed back: “No, you don’t. You don’t have to take that chance.”
Bryan agreed the decision would take “a delicate negotiation” with his family, adding, “I think I would get a resounding no.”
The two joked about potential country-themed space tracks, including “Chicken Jockey” and “Bass Fisherman in Space.”
Later in the interview, Bryan also discussed season 23 of American Idol, praising Jelly Roll’s role as artist-in-residence. “When you hear Jelly Roll’s story — the fact that he was 35 before he ever really started singing — what he’s been able to do since then is amazing,” he said. “He really develops a great connection [with contestants].”
Carrie Underwood has also joined the panel this season. “What she’s added to the show has been really, really special,” Bryan added.
Meanwhile, Bryan is preparing for two tours this year: his annual Farm Tour, which will head to California for the first time, and the Country Song Came On Tour. “When you pull out there and see 15,000 to 20,000 people come to a real working farm, it’s pretty magical,” he said. “It’s become something really important to me and my family.”
And yes — he confirmed he does own a helicopter, on Blake Shelton’s advice.
When Post Malone released F-1 Trillion last year, he conquered yet another genre with the country collab album. And it looks like he’s going back to that well on his next project. On the new Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are joined by Billboard deputy editor Lyndsey Havens to discuss Post’s Sunday headlining set […]
04/15/2025
Our staff’s favorite songs from a year that confirmed that hip-hop and R&B were now at top 40’s center, but also had plenty of great rock, country and dance-pop to go around.
By 
Rania Aniftos, Katie Atkinson, Katie Bain, Eric Renner Brown, Anna Chan, Hannah Dailey, Stephen Daw, Kyle Denis, Griselda Flores, Paul Grein, Jason Lipshutz, Joe Lynch, Heran Mamo, Rebecca Milzoff, Taylor Mims, Gail Mitchell, Melinda Newman, Isabela Raygoza, Kristin Robinson, Jessica Roiz, Dan Rys, Michael Saponara, Andrew Unterberger, Christine Werthman, Kristen Wisneski
04/15/2025