genre pop
Page: 29
After publicly hard-launching her romantic relationship, Lucy Dacus is taking a moment to acknowledge her recent friendship with pop star Chappell Roan.
In a new interview with People, Dacus revealed that she and the “Pink Pony Club” singer have become friends over the course of the last year, saying that she is “really cherishing” her “new friendship” with the pop phenom.
Pointing to a recent example of that new rapport, Dacus said that Roan was there to support her when she was having a rough time recently. “I had kind of a bad week a couple of weeks back, where putting out music just feels worse, and it made me wonder if I should just skip to the part of my life where I live off the land and have a job that isn’t my name,” she said. “And [Chappell] was just like, ‘No, what you make is important and makes a lot of people feel less lonely.’”
Trending on Billboard
That relationship has proven to be a two-way street. When Roan was feeling overwhelmed with her sudden, meteoric rise to international recognition last year, the singer told Rolling Stone that Dacus and her Boygenius bandmates Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker were there to talk her through the experience of sudden fame, and how bad fan interactions can often feel “abusive and violent.”
Dacus recalled that same instance in her new interview, explaining that all three members of her rock supergroup know what it’s like to go from cult following to sudden, headline-making success. “When she was feeling spread really thin, all of us in Boygenius were encouraging her and telling her that it’ll die down,” she said. “It is just a really spinny trip when everybody has something to say about you.”
The news comes during a big week for Dacus. Along with continuing to promote her fourth studio album, Forever Is a Feeling (out March 28), the “Talk” singer also confirmed that she is in a relationship with Boygenius bandmate Baker in an interview with The New Yorker. “I want to protect what is precious in my life, but also to be honest, and make art that’s true,” Dacus said of her decision to open up about her relationship. “I think maybe a part of it is just trusting that [my relationship]’s not at risk.”
Roan, meanwhile, is fresh off the release of her country anthem “The Giver.” In a conversation on Amazon Music’s Country Heat Weekly, Roan said that her jump to the country genre was simply born out of a funny idea rather than a new direction for her music as a whole. “I’m not trying to convince a country crowd that they should listen to my music by baiting them with a country song,” she said. “I just think a lesbian country song is really funny, so I wrote that.”
It would have been a trio for the ages. According to a new interview with Barbra Streisand‘s A&R rep Jay Landers, when the singer was working on her 1993 Back to Broadway album, in the midst of recording some of the Great White Way’s most beloved tunes by Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein and Frank Loesser, someone came up with the brilliant idea to cover the Annie Get Your Gun classic “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” as a duet with Madonna and another very special guest.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“David Foster created a demo and we said, ‘well, who could we do this with?’” Landers said. “And we chose Madonna and… Bette [Midler]. So it was going to be the three of them.” As envisioned at the time, the triple-headed vocal extravaganza would then end with all three women in the lady’s room, with Madonna and Bette kvetching, “‘God, she’s such a b–ch! She’s so controlling’ and this and that and the other thing and blah, blah, blah. And then we hear another stall open and, ‘Ladies! I’m in here!’ And that’s how the song was going to end,” he said.
Trending on Billboard
Landers noted that Foster had cooked up a “brilliant” arrangement for the trio that started off in a manner similar to the Irving Berlin-penned version we all know and love, in which Annie Oakley and Frank Butler engage in a playful musical game of one-upmanship; the original version appeared in the Ethel Merman/Ray Middleton 1946 cast recording for the show. But when it came to the Madonna section where she sings, “Anything you can sing, I can sing sweeter,” Landers said Foster dropped in a “Madonna disco beat.”
Similarly, when it came to Midler’s section, Foster slid in a “Wind Beneath My Wings”-style motif. “So it touched upon their sounds,” Landers explained. “Really clever.” Landers’ job was to wrangle all three women, who, amazingly, all agreed to do the session. That is, he lamented, until Madonna was unable to participate at the last minute for an undisclosed reason.
Watch Landers tell his musical fish-that-got-away story below.
Miley Cyrus has lost her initial bid to dismiss a copyright case claiming her chart-topping “Flowers” ripped off the Bruno Mars song “When I Was Your Man,” allowing the high-profile lawsuit to proceed toward a trial.
Seeking to end the case at the outset, attorneys for Cyrus had argued that the plaintiff who filed the lawsuit lacked the legal “standing” to pursue it. The case was filed not by Mars himself, but a financial entity called Tempo Music Investments that bought the rights of his co-writer Philip Lawrence.
But in a ruling issued Tuesday, a Los Angeles federal judge rejected that argument, calling it “incorrect” and a “misunderstanding” of existing legal precedents.
Trending on Billboard
“Tempo now steps into Lawrence’s shoes and is a co‐owner of the exclusive rights of the copyright,” Judge Dean D. Pregerson wrote. “Because Lawrence as a co‐owner could sue for infringement, Tempo as co‐owner, in lieu of Lawrence, can sue for infringement without joining the other co‐owners of the copyright.”
Attorneys for Cyrus called Tempo’s partial ownership a “fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim,” but Judge Pregerson ruled that endorsing the star’s argument would be a radical shift in the legal landscape and have a profound economic and creative impact.
“Such a limitation would diminish the value of jointly owned copyrights, because buyers would be less interested in purchasing a copyright that they cannot enforce, thereby disincentivizing co‐authorship and collaboration in works,” the judge wrote. “This would undermine Congress’s intent.”
In rejecting it, the judge took Miley’s argument to its rational endpoint: “If, as songwriter defendants’ arguments seem to suggest, a co‐owner’s right to sue for infringement is lost upon transfer, then if all original co‐authors transferred their interest, the copyright could never be enforced.”
Tuesday’s ruling is only an initial decision, and does not mean that Tempo will win its case against Cyrus. As it moves ahead, her attorneys will pivot to more substantive arguments – that her song simply did not infringe the Mars hit because they share only “unprotected ideas and musical building blocks.”
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday.
“Flowers,” which spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100, has been linked to “Your Man” since it was released in January 2023. Many fans immediately saw it as an “answer song,” with lyrics that clearly referenced Mars’ song. The reason, according to internet sleuths, was that “Your Man” was a favorite of Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth — and her allusions were a nod to their divorce.
When “Flowers” was first released, legal experts told Billboard that Cyrus was likely not violating copyrights simply by using similar lyrics to fire back at the earlier song — a time-honored music industry tradition utilized by songs ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” to countless rap diss records.
But Tempo sued in September, claiming “Flowers” had lifted numerous elements beyond the clap-back lyrics, including “melodic and harmonic material,” “pitch ending pattern,” and “bass-line structure.” Tempo, which had purchased a fractional share in the song from co-writer Lawrence, argued it was “undeniable” that Cyrus’ hit “would not exist” if not for “Your Man.”
In her motion to dismiss the case, attorneys for Miley said that the total lack of involvement from Mars and the song’s two other co-writers was not some procedural quirk in the case, but rather a fatal flaw: “Without the consent of the other owners, a grant of rights from just one co-owner does not confer standing.”
Of course Joe and Kevin Jonas were in the house on Tuesday night (March 18) to support their brother Nick Jonas in his return to Broadway in The Last Five Years. The siblings were reunited on the stage with Nick’s co-star, Adrienne Warren in a family snap at the kick-off of preview performances at the […]
Sir Rod Stewart is not done with Las Vegas. The ageless pop wonder announced another six-pack of residency shows at the Colosseum for this fall, extending his Sin City run yet again. “Las Vegas! You wanted more, so here we go—I’ve added more shows! I’ll be back at @colosseumatcp this September and October, Can’t wait to see […]
Just as Chappell Roan has cemented herself as one of pop’s most promising new stars, winning best new artist at last month’s 2025 Grammys amid a crowded field, she’s taken a left turn toward Nashville for her new country single “The Giver.” On the new Pop Shop Podcast (listen below), Katie & Keith are chatting […]
JENNIE’s debut studio album, Ruby, debuts at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated March 22). The set sold 26,500 copies in the U.S. in the week ending March 13, according to Luminate.
JENNIE is the second member of the quartet BLACKPINK to capture a solo top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales, following LISA’s Alter Ego (No. 1, March 15 chart) and ROSÉ’s rosie (No. 2, Dec. 21, 2024). BLACKPINK itself has logged three top 10s, including two No. 1s: The Album (in 2020) and BORN PINK (2022).
Also in the top 10 of the latest Top Album Sales chart, Lady Gaga lands her eighth No. 1 with the chart-topping bow of MAYHEM, while the newest releases from Jason Isbell, Spiritbox, Noah Kahan and tobyMac debut in the region.
Trending on Billboard
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album (TEA) units and streaming equivalent album (SEA) units.
Ruby was available in its first week as a nine-track widely available digital download album, and then an expanded 15-song physical set and a 15-track download edition. While the standard and physical albums have only one guest star (FKJ, on “JANE”), the 15-track download edition adds further special guests on a few tracks, including Doechii, Dua Lipa, Dominic Fike, Childish Gambino and Kali Uchis. Ruby’s first-week sales were aided by its availability across four CD variants (all containing collectible paper ephemera, some randomized), five deluxe CD boxed set editions (each containing a piece of branded clothing, a signed insert and a copy of the album) and two download editions (a widely available standard version with nine tracks and an expanded 15-song edition).
At No. 1 on Top Album Sales, Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM arrives, selling 136,000. The set’sfirst-week sales were bolstered by its availability across a gaggle of editions: 14 vinyl variants (some signed, and some include the bonus track “Can’t Stop the High,” while Target’s exclusive vinyl has the extra track “Kill for Love”), four CD editions (one signed, Target’s exclusive CD adds “Kill” while Gaga’s webstore carried a CD with the bonus track “Can’t Stop the High”), a cassette tape, a deluxe CD box set with a branded T-shirt and poster, and two widely available download albums (the standard 14-song album, and then a deluxe version exclusive to iTunes with the three music videos for “Disease,” “Die With a Smile” and “Abracadabra”).
Of MAYHEM’s opening-week sales, vinyl purchases comprise 74,000 – Gaga’s biggest week on vinyl ever.
Jason Isbell’s first entirely solo acoustic album, Foxes In the Snow, bows at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with nearly 18,000 copies sold. Vinyl sales comprise almost 9,500 copies of that sum – owed to its availability across five variants. It was also issued in a pair of CD editions.
Heavy metal band Spiritbox debuts at No. 4 with Tsunami Sea, selling 16,500 copies in its first week. The set was issued on CD, cassette and at least nine vinyl variants.
Noah Kahan’s Live From Fenway Park, which was previously only available to buy as a download album, made its debut on vinyl in the tracking week (across three variants), helping the set sell a total of 16,000 – and enabling its debut at No. 5 on Top Album Sales.
Kendrick Lamar’s chart-topping GNX falls 2-6 on Top Album Sales (15,000; down 7%), Sabrina Carpenter’s former leader Short n’ Sweet slips 5-7 (11,500; down 5%) and Chappell Roan’s No. 1 The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess descends 6-8 (nearly 9,000; up 6%). Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal vaults 24-9 on Top Album Sales after the release of a new vinyl variant, selling a total of about 8,500 across all formats (up 188%).
Closing out Top Album Sales’ top 10 is the latest release from tobyMac, whose Heaven On My Mind enters at No. 10 with 7,000 copies sold. It was issued on two CD variants (including a signed edition) and three vinyl variants.
The Backstreet Boys have millions of fans worldwide, but member AJ McLean sometimes faces a tough crowd when it comes to his kids. The superstar told People at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards on Monday night (March 17) that his 12-year-old daughter Elliott “hates” Backstreet Boys’ classic 1999 hit, “I Want It That Way.” “My […]
Benny Blanco thinks his fiancée Selena Gomez is so bad “she can’t even go outside,” and he’s using a page out of Playboi Carti‘s book to prove it. Blanco posted behind-the-scenes footage of Gomez from their Interview cover shoot on his Instagram Story Tuesday (March 18) and used Carti’s “Fine S—” from his new album […]
Lady Gaga is joining her Little Monsters on a new dance trend inspired by her recently released album, MAYHEM. The superstar took to TikTok this week to share a 12-second video featuring the chorus from a track off the project, “Zombieboy.” In the clip, she convulses her body to the beat, before stretching her arms […]