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Seth MacFarlane’s ninth studio album, Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements, will feature 12 never-before-heard arrangements created for Frank Sinatra by his legendary collaborators Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Don Costa. The album is set for release June 6 via Verve Records / Republic Records.
MacFarlane has long been a Sinatra fan. Two of the Family Guy creator’s earlier albums, Holiday for Swing and No One Ever Tells You, featured Sinatra’s bassist Chuck Berghofer as well as a 65-piece orchestra. In 2015, MacFarlane performed on the primetime tribute Sinatra 100 — An All-Star GRAMMY Concert.
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MacFarlane, 51, was born in October 1973, the very month Sinatra released Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, his “comeback album” following a brief retirement (which he wisely reconsidered). Sinatra continued recording through 1994. He died in 1998 at age 82.
These arrangements remained in the private collection of the Sinatra family for many years. In collaboration with the Sinatra family and estate, MacFarlane acquired the entire Sinatra music archive in 2018, and has brought these 12 arrangements to life with a 70-piece orchestra, conducted by British conductor John Wilson, and produced by MacFarlane’s longtime musical collaborator Joel McNeely. Every song on the album was recorded live with this ensemble at George Lucas’ famed Skywalker Sound Studios in Marin County, Calif.
The album’s first single, Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life,” features Riddle’s original conceptual arrangement from 1958.
MacFarlane received Grammy nominations for best traditional pop vocal album for his first three non-holiday studio albums — Music Is Better Than Words (2012), No One Ever Tells You (2016) and In Full Swing (2018).
If this new album is also nominated when the nominations for the 68th Grammy Awards are announced later this year, it will become the ninth tribute album to Sinatra to be cited in that category, following Tony Bennett’s Perfectly Frank (1993), Barry Manilow’s Manilow Sings Sinatra (1999), Keely Smith’s Keely Sings Sinatra (2002), Michael Feinstein’s The Sinatra Project (2009) – and two albums each by Bob Dylan (Shadows in the Night, 2016, and Fallen Angels, 2017) and Willie Nelson (My Way, 2019 and That’s Life, 2022).
Bennett’s Perfectly Frank and Nelson’s My Way both won in that category. Sinatra himself won in the category in 1995 for Duets II, which was his final new studio album.
MacFarlane is set to bring Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements to the stage with a live performance at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall on Feb. 17, 2026.
MacFarlane has received five Grammy nominations in all – the other two are for best comedy album and best song written for visual media – and an Oscar nomination for best original song for “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” from Ted. Other career highlights include hosting the Oscars in 2013, performing with legendary composer John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl, and recording a duet with Barbra Streisand for her Billboard 200-topping album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway.
Here’s the complete track list to Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements:
“Give Me the Simple Life”
“I Never Felt This Way Before”
“Lush Life”
“Flying Down to Rio”
“How Did She Look?”
“Who’s In Your Arms Tonight?”
“A Wonderful Day Like Today”
“When Joanna Loved Me”
“Arrivederci, Roma”
“Hurry Home”
“Ain’tcha Ever Comin’ Back”
“Shadows”
Come June, Addison Rae fans will have one big reason to put their headphones on: Addison, the TikToker-turned-singer’s debut studio album, is officially on its way. As announced Wednesday (April 23), Rae will release her first LP on June 6, following a run of singles in 2024 and the first few months of 2025 that […]
Madonna‘s steamy video for her 1987 True Blue single “La Isla Bonita” has joined the YouTube billion-views club. The visual for the song featuring flamenco guitar, maracas and Latin percussion was helmed by prolific film (Pet Sematary Two, Best. Christmas. Ever!) and TV director Mary Lambert, known for her work on music videos for Janet […]
The Weeknd grabs sole possession of the third most No. 1s on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart as his current single, “Cry for Me,” reigns on the list dated April 26. As the new champ climbs from No. 3, The Weeknd claims his 15th Rhythmic Airplay leader, breaking from his tie with Chris Brown. He now […]
Noah Kahan has long joked that he’s the “Jewish Ed Sheeran.” And this week, the two singer-songwriters finally got together, playing a set of acoustic songs — including one of the British pop star’s unreleased tracks titled “Old Phone” — in a Nashville pub.
In one video posted to Instagram by the “Shape of You” singer Tuesday (April 22), he and the Vermont native sit across from each other on the intimate barroom floor of Santa’s Pub in Tennessee’s capital, both of them wielding acoustic guitars. Smiling, Sheeran and Kahan belt out the chorus to the latter’s breakthrough 2022 smash “Stick Season.”
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“I love Vermont, but it’s the season of the sticks/ And I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed,” they belt, joined by dozens of fans seated around them. “And it’s half my fault, but I just like to play the victim/ I’ll drink alcohol ’til my friends come home for Christmas.”
“Shut down @santaspub in Nashville to do dueling songs with @noahkahanmusic,” Sheeran captioned the performance. “What a night.”
According to other clips posted by guests in attendance, the pair also sang “All My Love” and “Dial Drunk” from Kahan’s Billboard 200 No. 2 album Stick Season. Sheeran also enlisted the folk singer to perform the unreleased “Old Phone,” remarking, “I recorded this song, I was like, ‘I think it kind of sounds like a Noah Kahan song … this is a like a full-circle moment for me.”
“That’s f–king mind-blowing,” Kahan quipped.
“Conversations with my dead friends/ Messages from all my exes,” Sheeran then sang on the track, which he previously performed on The Tonight Show ahead of its May 2 release, as Kahan joined him on guitar. “I kinda think that this was best left/ There, in the past, where it belongs.”
The performance marks just the latest pub pop-up the “Perfect” musician has hosted ahead of his upcoming album, Play, with Sheeran also making headlines for his surprise mini concerts at other bars in Boston and Nashville this year. On that note, Sheeran also built a fully functional bar called the Old Phone Pub in Ipswich, Mass., to promote his new song “Azizam,” which debuted at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April. Shortly afterward, he reconstructed the pop-up at Coachella, where he sang duets with Shaboozey and Alex Warren in addition to performing on the Mojave stage at the festival.
Watch Sheeran and Kahan perform “Old Phone” and “Stick Season” below.
Lorde has given fans in New York City a preview of her new single after plans for an in-person event fell by the wayside thanks to local law enforcement.
The New Zealand singer is currently preparing to launch new single “What Was That” on Friday (April 25), with the track serving as her first piece of solo music since 2021. The first taste of her upcoming fourth album, Lorde initially teased the single with her first-ever post on TikTok, sharing a video of herself walking through Washington Square Park in New York City while listening to the dreamy synth-pop track.
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In lieu of traditional social media updates, Lorde has since taken to connecting with fans by way of text messages and voice notes, with her legions of supporters receiving a message on Tuesday (April 22) which told fans to “meet me in the park” at 7pm.
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As a result, fans flooded to Washington Square Park to hopefully catch a glimpse of the musician, though the gathered masses were soon urged to leave by local law enforcement.
Lorde took to her Instagram Stories soon after to address those who had turned out for the last-minute affair. “Omg @thepark the cops are shutting us down I am truly Amazed by how many of you showed up !!!” she wrote. “But they’re telling me you gotta disperse … I’m so sorry.”
According to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for New York City’s DCPI stated that officers had been alerted to an “unscheduled event” within the park, adding that a “sound and parks permit” is required to hold a concert event in a NYC park. “This individual did not possess either,” the statement added. “Organizers of the event were informed they could not perform and they left the location.”
Fans who remained within Washington Square Park were rewarded for their patience, however, with the singer later showing up to play her new single. Though Lorde didn’t perform the track live, she danced along to “What Was That” while it was being played by producer Dev Hynes of Blood Orange fame.
Lorde’s appearance in New York City comes just over a week after she made a surprise appearance during Charli XCX’s Coachella set to guest on a performance of “Girl, So Confusing.”
With her new single set to arrive in a matter of days, Lorde’s new era is fast-approaching, telling fans in her recent voice note that “everything is about to change.” She added, “These are the last moments where it’s just us, which is crazy. But so right. I’m so ready.”
Taylor Swift claimed the title for youngest self-made woman billionaire in the world in 2023 when Forbes first reported the pop superstar’s billionaire status. Two years later, she’s been dethroned by Lucy Guo, the 30-year-old co-founder of Scale AI, Forbes recently reported. Guo co-founded the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company Scale AI in 2016 when she […]
ROSÉ is meeting Coldplay at the “APT.” At the rock band’s concert in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday night (April 22), the BLACKPINK star made a surprise guest appearance to perform her smash hit single for thousands of fans at Goyang Stadium. In a clip posted by both ROSÉ and the “Fix You” band, the […]
The minute news broke about an upcoming remake of 1992’s The Bodyguard, the first question became: Who could possibly replace late pop superstar Whitney Houston and leading man Kevin Costner as the duo at the center of the romantic thriller? On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are discussing some of the […]
Benson Boone knows that not everyone is going to have beautiful things to say about him, but he’d at least like his haters to have constructive criticism to offer.
In a recent TikTok, the singer-songwriter vented about people who leave hate comments without backing them up. “If you hate me or my music at least have a good reason for it,” he wrote in text layered over a video of him sitting in a dark room, looking down at the camera.
“I just read a comment that said ‘idek why I hate Benson Boone but it feels right,’” he continued. “Like WHAT!!? how am I supposed to improve after reading that? At least say something valid like ‘he low key just flips everywhere can he [do] anything else?’ or even ‘I just don’t like his songs even though I’m basing my opinion off the only one that I’ve heard over and over’ (super valid)”
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To Boone’s point, he’s objectively best known — if not for his tendency to perform backflips on stage, like at the 2025 Grammys — for his Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 hit “Beautiful Things.” At the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards in March, the Washington-born star won song of the year for the smash.
One fan in the comments posited that the song’s popularity might have given Boone a case of overexposure. “i feel like sometimes when a radio overplays a song a LOT like beautiful things for example it can ruin the song and therefore the artist by proxy, without it having to do anything w you directly,” they wrote, to which the musician replied, “Honestly this is so true!!”
The post comes as the young star is preparing to release his next studio album, American Heart, in June. In a March cover story interview with Rolling Stone, Boone opened up about starting this next chapter following the success of “Beautiful Things,” sharing, “I think this year has taught me a lot of things, especially that it is incredibly easy to get carried away with my ego.”
“After ‘Beautiful Things,’ I was like, ‘Dude, I can do anything.’ And I can’t,’” he continued. “It’s good to talk about, ‘Hey, you know, I’m not the king of the world. I’m not somebody that everybody in the world knows. I’m still an up-and-coming artist.’ ”
See Boone’s TikTok below.
