genre pop
Page: 7
Chris Hemsworth is a music fan, just like the rest of us. So much so, that he once asked for a selfie with a major pop star. The Avengers actor joined The Late Show With Stephen Colbert this week, where he answered a series of deep-dive questions to get to know him better. One of […]
When Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department dropped in April last year, fans were all but certain that a person mentioned in the album’s title track was supposed to be Lucy Dacus. And nearly one year later, the Boygenius star has finally officially confirmed that she was, in fact, the “Lucy” in question, revealing that the pop superstar actually reached out to her before its release to make sure the name drop was all right.
In an interview with People published Thursday (March 27), Dacus responded candidly when asked point-blank whether she was the “Lucy” referenced in the bridge of “The Tortured Poets Department.” “I think it’s fair game to say yes,” the “Night Shift” singer said. “She actually texted me and asked for my approval.”
Trending on Billboard
Widely believed to be about Swift’s short-lived romance with The 1975’s Matty Healy in 2023, “The Tortured Poets Department” finds the 14-time Grammy winner singing, “Sometimes I wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me/ But you told Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave/ And I had said that to Jack about you, so I felt seen/ Everyone we know understands why it’s meant to be.”
Fans determined at the time of the album’s release that the “Jack” referenced in the same stanza was likely Swift’s longtime producer, Jack Antonoff. Dacus and the Bleachers frontman aren’t the only stars who got shoutouts, though; a certain “See You Again” singer was also featured in the song’s lyrics, with the Eras Tour headliner proclaiming, “You smoked and ate seven bars of chocolate/ We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.”
According to Dacus, the ordeal of listening to The Tortured Poets Department — which spent a collective 17 weeks atop the Billboard 200 — and hearing herself referenced in the lyrics was “so crazy.” “This [was] the first Taylor record to come out since meeting her, and listening to a friend’s record feels so much different than a stranger’s record,” the Virginia native told People. “So I was like, ‘This is really weird. This voice that I’ve heard basically what feels like my whole waking life saying my name.’”
“It was definitely an experience,” she added. “I sat down and I was like, ‘Huh. Wow.’ But I think that that record of hers is super open-hearted, and I don’t know how many people at her level, if anyone is at her level, are writing from the heart that openly.”
The interview comes one day ahead of Dacus’ fourth studio album, Forever Is a Feeling. Earlier this month, the “Ankles” songwriter — who recently confirmed her long-rumored romance with Boygenius bandmate Julien Baker — spoke to Billboard about her most romantic LP yet.
“Once you focus on one thing and one person, it actually recontextualizes everything else,” she said. “You realize that every detail is its own universe.”
Billboard Women in Music is this Saturday, March 29, and with our celebration of Doechii as Woman of the Year, we’re taking you to Brazil and Canada where we celebrated Ana Castela and Charlotte Cardin. Are you excited for Billboard Women in Music 2025? Let us know in the comments! Tetris Kelly: As we get […]
The youngest members of ARMY will soon have the perfect album of lullabies to fall asleep to. As shared exclusively with Billboard Thursday (March 27), Rockabye Baby is taking on BTS for its next album, featuring calming covers of “Butter,” “Dynamite” and more of the K-pop boy band’s biggest hits.
Dropping April 4, Lullaby Renditions of BTS will feature a total of 13 songs. The tracklist includes Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Permission to Dance” and “Life Goes On” as well as “Boy With Luv,” “IDOL,” “Blood, Sweat & Tears,” “ON,” “DOPE,” “DNA,” “Fake Love,” “Save Me” and “Spring Day.”
The project marks Rockabye Baby’s first K-pop tribute album. The children’s music brand has previously released lullaby collections for artists such as Bad Bunny, Dolly Parton, Shakira, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé and more.
Trending on Billboard
Rockabye Baby also shared a video of its soothing take on “Dynamite” with Billboard. In the minute-long clip, BTS’ famous melody plays in the form of gentle, cascading xylophone hits as the brand’s teddy bear mascot sets up a stage in his bedroom, recruits his stuffed animals to be his bandmates and tests out his K-pop dance moves.
The sweet project comes amid the septet’s ongoing break as several of the band’s members complete their required service periods in the South Korean military. Jin was the first to be discharged in June, followed by J-Hope in October.
BTS hasn’t released a proper studio in four years, dropping BE in 2020. The project debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, one of seven total LPs from the group to top the chart.
Here’s the tracklist for Lullaby Renditions of BTS:
“Dynamite”
“Butter”
“Boy With Luv”
“IDOL”
“Permission to Dance”
“Blood, Sweat & Tears”
“ON”
“Dope”
“DNA”
“Fake Love”
“Save Me”
“Spring Day”
“Life Goes On”
Back in 2017, Selena Gomez was coming off her greatest commercial hot streak, having just released 2015’s Billboard 200-topping Revival — which scored a trio of smash pop singles — and keeping her momentum going with a run of successful collabs. Then, she released “Bad Liar,” the most sophisticated, ambitious and generally surprising single of her career to that point, co-written alongside a pair of hitmakers with whom she had an obvious connection. The song was rapturously received by pop fans and critics alike, but the commercial response to it was distinctly muted — seemingly leaving Gomez unsure of what to do next.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
On this week’s Great Moments in Pop Star History episode of the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, host Andrew Unterberger is joined by Billboard‘s executive director of music, Jason Lipshutz, to talk about one of the most fascinating pop songs of the last decade. We look at why the song worked in so many unlikely ways, why it won over so many listeners who’d previously disregarded Gomez but still couldn’t find its footing at radio or streaming — and whether or not the song, which felt like a major turning point in Selena Gomez’s career upon its release, actually ended up being such a pivotal release for her.
Trending on Billboard
Along the way, of course, we ask all the important questions about Selena Gomez and “Bad Liar”: Why was lifting the bassline from a 1977 Talking Heads song the key to this 2017 pop single? What made Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter such perfect collaborators for Gomez at this point in her career? Why does she love playing multiple characters in the same project so much? Was there really nothing subtle about the Battle of Troy? Can we hear any of “Bad Liar” in Gomez’s new I Said I Love You First album, recorded with longtime producer (and now-fiancé) Benny Blanco? And perhaps most importantly: Would we still name “Bad Liar” the best song of 2017?
Check out our discussion above, and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!
And if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights. (Selena would want you to!)
Transgender Law Center
Trans Lifeline
Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe
Also, please consider subscribing to the trans legislation journalism of Erin Reed, and giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on 5Calls.org.
Kesha finally revealed the title of her upcoming sixth album on Thursday (March 27). It’s ., as in the punctuation mark period. The 11-song collection due out on July 4 that will feature previously released singles “Joyride” and “Delusional” is described in a press release as an “unapologetic, unfiltered declaration of artistic freedom and fearless authenticity.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The latest taste of the album dropped on today, with two versions of the whip-cracking country pop hoedown “Yippee-Ki-Yay,” produced by Pink Slip (Ava Max) and Nova Wav (Beyoncé). “B–ch I just got a brand new car/ Hose me down at the trailer park/ We lit up like a bonfire/ Singing ‘Yippee-ki-yay, yippee-ki-ya-ya,” Kesha sings over the loping plucked guitar and hand-clap beat on a solo version of the track.
Trending on Billboard
The more fleshed-out lead version of the single features T-Pain, who takes the reins on the second verse where he sings, “I just pulled up in a brand new one/ Bartender, pour me up some damn fluid/ I just wanna see a pretty girl dancing to it/ Drinks on me just ’cause I can do it.”
The singer has been teasing the new song for a week, posting cryptic videos in which the upcoming LP’s signature oversized pink period icon is splashed over her face and body. The album was conceived, co-produced and co-written by Kesha and, according to the release, it, “transcends pop norms to create a raw, daring, and intensely personal sonic journey, a defiant act of self-expression that refuses to adhere to expectations or play it safe.”
Period — the follow-up to 2023’s Gag Order — represents a new chapter in Kesha’s career that kicked off last July when she dropped the first two singles under her own label, Kesha Records. The independent label that has global distribution through ADA gives the singer full creative control and ownership of her work after she settled a long-running defamation suit filed by her former label boss, producer Dr. Luke, in 2023; Kesha filed suit against Luke (born Lukasz Gottwald) over allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse in 2014, claims he repeatedly denied.
The full track list for . (Period) is: “Freedom,” “Joyride,” “Yippee-Ki-Yay,” “Delusional,” “Red Flag,” “Love Forever,” “The One,” “Boy Crazy,” “Glow,” “Too Hard” and “Cathedral.”
Listen to both versions of “Yippee-Ki-Yay” below.
Before she travels the world for her Lifetimes Tour, Katy Perry will check out the planet from above. On Thursday (March 27), Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin announced the date of the singer’s ascent into the stars as part of the space exploration company’s first all-women flight crew, with Perry set to embark on the trip just before her upcoming global trek.
According to Blue Origin’s Instagram post, the spacecraft’s launch window begins at 8:30 a.m. CT on April 14 in the West Texas high desert. The company also unveiled the flight’s official patch, which features the last names of each member of the crew emblazoned on the border as well as symbols that are meaningful to the women.
Perry, for instance, is represented on the artwork with fireworks, a nod to her 2010 Billboard Hot 100 hit “Firework,” as well as her “global influence across music, pop culture, and philanthropy,” according to Blue Origin’s website.
Trending on Billboard
The news comes one month after it was first announced that the “Woman’s World” artist would be joining CBS Mornings‘ Gayle King, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Amanda Nguyen and entrepreneur/film producer Kerianne Flynn on the NS-31 expedition. The trip will be led by Lauren Sánchez — who is engaged to Bezos and is vice chair of the billionaire’s Earth Fund — and marks Blue Origin’s 11th human space flight.
At the time of the announcement, Perry wrote on Instagram, “If you had told me that I would be part of the first ever all-female crew in space, I would have believed you … Nothing was beyond my imagination as a child.”
“Although we didn’t grow up with much, I never stopped looking at the world with hopeful WONDER!” continued the former American Idol judge, who shares daughter Daisy with Orlando Bloom. “I work hard to live my life that way still, and I am motivated more than ever to be an example for my daughter that women should take up space (pun intended). That’s why this opportunity is so incredible — so that I can show all of the youngest & most vulnerable among us to reach for the stars, literally and figuratively.”
The expedition will take place in between Perry’s rehearsals for the Lifetimes Tour and the trek’s kickoff in Mexico City April 23. Supporting new album 143 — which debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 — the run will also see the musician lapping the United States, Canada, Australia, South America and Europe with shows scheduled through mid-November.
See Blue Origin’s flight date announcement below.
Over the Billboard Hot 100’s 66-year history, hits have spent between one and 57 weeks in the top 10. Of the more than 5,200 top 10s to date, nearly 600 have logged a single frame in the tier. Conversely, The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” boasts the most top 10 weeks (57), followed by two other ubiquitous songs that hit first the top 10 in 2024: Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” (54) and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (45).
(The average for a title over the Hot 100’s archives is 6.5 weeks in the top 10. Since 2000, it’s 5.6 weeks; among songs that peaked in 2024, it was 7.2%.)
What are key differences between songs that have short and long stays in the Hot 100’s top 10? Hit Songs Deconstructed, which provides compositional analytics for top 10 Hot 100 hits, has released its 2024 Staying Power report.
Here are three takeaways from Hit Songs Deconstructed’s in-depth research about Hot 100 top 10s during 2024.
Everlasting Love
A hefty 82% of songs that spent 10 or more weeks in the Hot 100’s top in 2024 featured a love/relationship lyrical theme. Encompassing all top 10s, the share was 52%. Among No. 1s, it was 44%.
As noted above, “Lose Control” fits that theme, as do songs with lengthy top 10 runs in 2024 including Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” and Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,” each of which spent more than 20 weeks in the top 10.
Pop Harder to Stop
“Pop songs had the greatest staying power in 2024, with 36% remaining in the Hot 100’s top 10 for 10 weeks or more,” Hit Songs Deconstructed notes. “Country songs followed at 23% and R&B/soul rounded out the top three at 18%. Hip-hop/rap — while it was the most popular primary genre in the overall top 10 — came in fourth in terms of staying power, accounting for 14% of songs.”
Courtesy Photo
Along those lines, “pop was the most common influence across-the-board, being featured in 95% of songs” with 10 or more weeks in the top 10 in 2024, according to the report. Plus, pop was an influence in two-thirds of songs that charted for nine weeks or fewer.
Leaving? Not So Fast
Simply put (hopefully), faster songs were slower to leave the Hot 100’s top 10 in 2024 and slower songs were faster to leave the top 10.
A 65% majority of songs that charted in the 10 for at least 10 weeks last year had tempos of over 100 BPM, with the most common range being 100-119 BPM. Of songs that spent between one and nine weeks in the top 10, however, 62% had tempos under 100 BPM, with most in the 80-99 BPM range.
In between a recent run of pics from the studio, Justin Bieber took some time out on Thursday morning (March 27) to post a few adorable snaps with his and wife Hailey Bieber’s seven-month-old son, Jack Blues. In the first image in the carousel, the back of Bieber’s head obscures the toddler’s face, though Jack’s pudgy hand can be seen grabbing a hold of his dad’s ear.
The subsequent slides include a stack of brightly colored fabric swatches, Hailey rocking a red sweatshirt and matching leggings combo and chatting with two women and another, zoomed-out picture of Jack laying on a towel on the floor — again grabbing the 31-year-old singer’s face — seemingly after bath time.
Trending on Billboard
Bieber captioned the post “ITS CUZ I AM A MANIAC [freezing face, shrug emoji]… that we dedicated Jack Blues Bieber to Jesus.” To date the couple have not posted any images in which Jack’s face is visible.
It wasn’t all daddy duty, though. A subsequent slide captures a shirtless Bieber working a drum pad in the studio, followed by a grainy close-up of his face, a clearer one in which he is smiling while wearing a fuzzy blue hat and pink sweatshirt and a final, blurry picture of an obscured woman walking in front of a fireplace.
After a period off the radar in 2022 and 2023 while he was dealing with the effects of the Ramsay Hunt syndrome, Bieber has been more visible lately, posting a series of images from the recording studio. U.K. artist Sekou got in the action as well last week when he posted an Instagram Story from a recording session that featured Fred Again.., who co-produced and co-wrote Bieber’s 2019 hit “I Don’t Care” with Ed Sheeran.
Then, on Saturday, Bieber shared an Insta video of a jam session from the studio, captioning the nearly three-minute clip with a reflective comment. “I think I hate myself sometimes when I feel myself start to become inauthentic,” he wrote. “Then I remember we’re all being made to think we’re not enough but I still hate when I change myself to please people.” Among the friends and musicians tagged in the clip were singer-songwriter Jensen McRae, pastor Judah Smith, Josh Mehl, DJ Taylor James, producer Camper, and others.
The recent activity has once again gotten Beliebers excited about the prospect that the singer is getting closer to following up his last full-length project, 2021’s Billboard 200 No. 1 Justice album. At press time Bieber has not confirmed a title or release date for his next LP.
Ed Sheeran had a lot to talk about when he visited The Tonight Show on Wednesday night (March 26). In addition to finally revealing the title of his upcoming album, the singer also described the globe-trotting trip he took to record his new single, “Azizam,” gave host Jimmy Fallon a live demo of his famous loop pedal set-up, talked about his eternal quest to land a song on a Rihanna album and joked about topping his Tartantino-inspired 10-album career arc with a final life-spanning LP called Eject.
Whew.
Trending on Billboard
Sheeran explained that the title of his new song translates into “my dear” in Farsi, inspired by the song’s Persian producer, Illya Salmanzadeh. “We were creating a lot of music and he suggested we create something within the Persian culture,” said Sheeran, who noted that they’ve done a full version in Farsi as well. The song recently got its live debut at a pop-up show in New Orleans, where Sheeran was joined by the second-line Soul Rebels brass band.
Though the song was originally created within a Persian frame of reference, Sheeran said that growing up hearing a lot of traditional Irish music made him realize the rhythms of the two cultures are very similar, but performed on different instruments. So, when he was in China working with classical musicians there he recorded a version with traditional Chinese musicians, and then did the same with Indian musicians, Irish musicians and bluegrass players in Nashville.
“Music is a universal language, even if it is all in a different language,” Sheeran said.
Sheeran finally confirmed that his upcoming album is called Play and that after his Mathematics album series, which included five studio records — + (2011), x (2014), ÷ (2017), = (2021) and – (2023) — his next run is based on an idea he had when he was 18. Back then, the now-34-year-old singer cooked up a 10-album plan, starting with maths, and followed by Play, Pause, Rewind, Fast-Forward and Stop.
“I’m kind of obsessed with [Quentin] Tartantino and I heard he was doing 10 films and he’s go his side projects… and so I want to do my 10 and do a side project here and there.” When Fallon asked if Sheeran would hang it up after Stop, the singer said he’s also toying with the idea of an album comprised of unreleased songs written throughout his life and then released on the day he dies as Eject.
Sheeran also described how he was inspired by Irish singer/songwriter Gary Dunne as a young teenager and messaged his hero on MySpace to find out how to use a loop pedal. He then took to the Tonight Show stage to demonstrate how he built “Shape of You” piece-by-piece, with Jimmy supplying the high “Oh I, oh I, oh I” backing vocals. He also shared a video from India in which he plays the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song on sitar.
And not for nothing, Sheeran said “Shape of You” was originally written for Rihanna and that every time he cooks up new songs for an album he always works on one on the side that he hopes she will pick. “Rihanna has the best taste out of anyone,” he said, possibly shooting his shot again for the singer’s mythical ninth album, while noting that his Justin Bieber hit “Love Yourself” was originally written for RihRih. “She always picks just really, really great songs.”
Always busy, Sheeran described a pop-up, two-day pub he’s hosting in Ipswich, Massachusetts beginning on Friday (March 28), where fans can gain entry by going on an old cell phone and sending in a video or message that is meaningful. Those messages will then be projected onto the walls of the bar for the filming of a music video. Sheeran, of course, also played the song that inspired the pub, “Old Phone,” for just the second time live to Fallon’s delight.
Fallon and Sheeran also teased the recent taping of one of the host’s signature disguised subway busking bits, noting that Ed did a killer cover of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” for surprised New York commuters.
Watch Sheeran on the Tonight Show below.