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By the time Temple University director of athletic bands Dr. Matt Brunner finally listened to Chappell Roan’s music, many of the young adults in his life — students, band alums, even his son’s girlfriend — had already implored him to check her out.
When he did play the singer’s debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, he quickly realized why they’d been so adamant. “I started listening and I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is awesome. I absolutely have to do this,’ ” he recalls excitedly months later. “Everything about it just worked.”
By that, Brunner means Roan’s glitzy dance-pop tracks seemed tailor-made for a marching band — full of the catchiness and energy the format demands, plus the kind of melodies that begged to be amplified by high brass and drum line-ready percussion. Still struck by how fast the arrangement came to him, Brunner orchestrated a 10-minute halftime medley of the pop star’s music that his marchers eagerly learned in just three rehearsals ahead of the Owls’ September football game against Utah State at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field.
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Their work paid off before they even stepped onto the field. “Some people said, ‘I’m coming to the football game just to see the show,’ ” Brunner says with a laugh, recalling how the student section later came to life doing Roan’s viral “Hot To Go!” choreography along with the band. With that energy behind it, Temple bested Utah State, 45-29.
Temple University Diamond Marching Band performs at the Temple Owls game against Utah State on Sept. 21, 2024 in Philadelphia, PA.
Ricky Swalm
That kind of stadium-rocking enthusiasm is exactly what motivates collegiate band directors all over the country — whether at major state schools like Temple; smaller, private institutions; or historically Black colleges and universities — to adapt current chart-toppers for halftime shows, stand tunes (keeping the bleachers hyped during timeouts and between plays) and pep rallies every year. Having evolved far beyond their 19th-century military band origins, marching ensembles are now key fixtures in the spectacle of college game days, tasked with engaging fans and generating the kind of hype that will inspire the team, reflect well on the school and, ultimately, manifest in more ticket sales. One of the best ways to serve that mission, the directors of seven different ensembles tell Billboard at the end of their 2024-25 football season, is to incorporate fresh pop music into their repertoires — a goal that’s easier said than done.
For starters, not all pop songs are created equal in the world of marching bands. Directors have numerous considerations to make when vetting potential selections, from crowd appeal — which many of them measure by surveying students, patrolling the Billboard Hot 100 and tracking Spotify streams as early as spring to determine what will be trendy in the fall — to whether they can secure the necessary licensing, budgeting anywhere from a few thousand dollars to five-digit sums for rights-buying each year.
They also must weigh if a hit has enough longevity to justify the time spent getting permissions and then arranging and teaching it to 300-plus marchers. Notre Dame director of bands Dr. Ken Dye still ruefully remembers a “Macarena” draft his ensemble never got to play before the dance craze fell out of favor in the ’90s. He also notes with a laugh that he tries to steer clear of tracks with inappropriate lyrics, to avoid repeating the time he received a stern email “from the boss” over a performance of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.” Turning 180 this year, The Fighting Irish’s college marching band is the oldest in the United States and also represents a Catholic university. (So far, nothing has hit Dye’s inbox over the “motherf–ker” bomb in Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please,” which he paired with Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” for a 2024 halftime.)
But checking those boxes isn’t enough if a song doesn’t first have the musical foundation of a good marching band tune. University of Southern California (USC) band director Dr. Jacob Vogel says that compelling, stackable melodies; harmonies; basslines; and background elements are crucial ingredients, emphasizing how important variation is for filling stadiums with sound. “I refer to it as the enveloping nature of music,” he explains. “Why do people turn music on so loud in their car? So they feel like they’re inside of it. When I put our arrangements together, I want to make sure the band also has that enveloping nature.”
Fortunately, pop’s current crop of upbeat, melodically driven hits led by the likes of Roan and Carpenter offers those elements in abundance. But Vogel remembers two eras that definitely did not: the Adele-style power ballads of the mid-2010s, which were simply too slow for marching, and the EDM crossover phase before that, which was laden with dubstep dance breaks that band instruments couldn’t replicate.
Hip-hop, band directors say, has always been case by case. Horns can’t mimic the spoken quality of rap, but they can do a track justice if it has a prominent instrumental — like Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” which Southern University’s Human Jukebox covered this season. “ ‘They not like us, they not like us’; we wouldn’t be able to musically execute that,” director Dr. Kedric Taylor explains. “But we are able to musically execute ‘bum bum ba bum,’ ” he continues, singing the chromatic four-note string theme that anchors Lamar’s hit and got new heft courtesy of Southern’s screaming horn line.
Once songs are selected and parts assigned, directors and their staff can design field routines — an art form that, at times, is as straightforward as mining a song’s lyrics for ideas. Vogel’s students at USC formed a deck of cards while playing Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em” at halftime, while Brunner, fully aware of a particular lyric’s cheeky double meaning, had his Temple marchers take the shape of a rabbit during Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova” after spelling out her first name. “I can play dumb,” he says with a laugh. “I figured that the people that knew about it would love it and the people that didn’t would be like, ‘Oh, that’s cute.’ ”
Temple University Diamond Marching Band performs at the Temple Owls game against Utah State on Sept. 21, 2024 in Philadelphia, PA.
Ricky Swalm
Other parts of the field plan are far less intuitive. Directors must always think mechanically about the relationship between drill and music to ensure that their bands’ sound isn’t compromised by the spacing, timing or direction of any on-field configurations. The list of errors to avoid is endless, as University of Michigan assistant director of bands Dr. Richard Frey illustrates: “Where you place the tubas relative to the melody ends up being critical. If the drums are on the 10-yard line, we’re in big trouble. If you’re backward marching at 172 bpm, the sound’s not going to be great.”
But that painstaking attention to detail pays off on game day, when the marchers finally get to show off their hard work and see how it fires up fans in real time. Their pop arrangements are usually mixed in with classic hits and school songs, but Auburn University director Dr. Corey Spurlin — recalling how the student section sang and danced to Carpenter’s “Espresso” throughout the 2024 season — can attest that the more recent tracks are particularly useful for engaging the crowd. And as long as collegiate marching bands can do that, he says, the ensembles, and not recorded music, will remain “the soundtrack of college football.”
“When people come to the stadium, you want that experience to be worth the investment,” Spurlin says. “Bands are the key cog in being the sight — and sound especially — of college football and making people feel like they’re part of the pageantry. The percussion, the brass, the woodwinds — that’s what we associate with the sport. You can’t get that in your living room.”
Incorporating popular music also helps bands promote themselves and their schools far beyond campus. Many of the directors interviewed here scored viral moments for their shows this year, and one group, Jackson State University’s Sonic Boom of the South, even caught the attention of an artist it covered: Tyler, The Creator, who retweeted a video of the band’s speaker-busting rendition of “Sticky” in November and wrote, “THIS IS WHY I ARRANGED IT THAT WAY … MY HEART IS FILLED.”
“That’s what arranging is all about,” director Dr. Roderick Little says proudly of the rapper’s reaction. “Music is such an important vehicle because it can be interpreted by different musicians a thousand different ways.
“I’m just happy that our program was the one to bring his vision to life,” he adds. “I hope that it brings about new opportunities for marching bands so we can continue to create this art form and ultimately provide opportunities for our students — because we have a lot to offer.”
This story appears in the Feb. 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.
The 2025 Love Rocks NYC benefit concert will feature sets from Alicia Keys, Beck, Cher, Kate Hudson, Mavis Staples, Michael McDonald, Peter Frampton, Phish’s Trey Anastasio and many more. The ninth annual benefit for God’s Love We Deliver — an organization that cooks and delivers medically tailored meals for people too sick to shop or cook for themselves — will take place at New York’s Beacon Theatre on March 6.
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The show, executive produced by fashion designer John Varvatos, along with New York real estate broker Douglas Elliman and concert producers Greg Williamson and Nicole Rechter, will also include performances from Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart featuring Vanessa Amorosi, the Black Pumas’ Eric Burton, Grace Bowers, Jesse Malin, Struts singer Luke Spiller, The War and Treaty and more acts to be announced.
It will also have appearances by comedians Alex Edelman, Amy Schumer, Susie Essman and Tracy Morgan.
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God’s Love We Deliver was founded in 1985 as a response to the AIDS pandemic and now serves people living with more than 200 different diagnoses. The organization has served more than 40 million meals to date, with this year marking the group’s 40th anniversary.
“As we prepare for the 9th Annual LOVE ROCKS NYC concert, we’re reminded of the power of music and community to create change,” said God’s Love We Deliver CEO Terrence Meck in a statement. “This year is especially meaningful as God’s Love We Deliver celebrates having delivered more than 40 million meals since our founding in 1985. We are so proud of our work nourishing our neighbors affected by severe and chronic illness, and we are grateful to Love Rocks NYC for the visibility and funds it raises for God’s Love We Deliver.”
Since the annual show launched in 2017, it has raised $50 million and helped fund more than five million meals. This year’s show will support God’s Love as well as their Food Is Medicine Coalition peer organization Project Angel Food in Los Angeles as part of a response to January’s devastating wildfires.
Past performers at God’s Love shows have included: Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos, Jon Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews, Robert Plant, Norah Jones, The Black Crowes, Dave Grohl, Ziggy Marley, Cyndi Lauper, Hozier, St. Vincent, Marcus King, Nathaniel Rateliff and many more.
Pre-sale tickets for this year’s show will go on sale on Thursday (Feb. 13) at 10 a.m. ET, with a public onsale going live on Friday (Feb. 14) at 10 a.m. ET here and here.
The Backstreet Boys will be the first pop group to take the stage at Las Vegas’ Sphere. The man band announced the dates for their summer 2025 “Into the Millennium” residency at the futuristic venue, which will find them performing nine shows in July.
“Fans can expect an unforgettable experience as the Backstreet Boys bring their legendary Millennium album to life, alongside a selection of their greatest hits,” read a statement announcing the run of shows, which will find the group performing such hits as “I Want It That Way” and “Larger Than Life” in the venue that has wowed attendees with its immersive sound and wrap-around, high-tech visuals.
The group — Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean, Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough — will perform at the Sphere on July 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27. Fans can sign up for an artist presale now (through Feb. 17 at 10 p.m. PT) here for the first six dates. The Backstreet Boys Fan Club presale will kick off on Feb. 18 at 9 a.m. PT, with the artist presale launching on Feb. 19 at 9 a.m. PT. Additional presales will run throughout next week ahead of the general onsale that begins on Feb. 21 at 9 a.m. PT here.
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Tickets for the final three announced shows are available now via an artist presale through Feb. 17 at 10 p.m. PT here. The Fan Club presale for those shows will begin on Feb. 18 at 11 a.m. PT, with an artist presale beginning Feb. 19 at 11 a.m. PT, followed by additional presales throughout the week until the general onsale begins on Feb. 21 at 11 a.m. PT here.
“We’re heading ‘Into The Millennium’ once again! 🌐🩵 Relive your Backstreet Boys Y2K memories, but this time… LARGER THAN LIFE at @SphereVegas starting this July!,” the band said in an Instagram announcement that included images of the quintet projected on the outside of the venue.
U2 helped launch the venue in Sept. 2023 with their U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere residency, which had them stay put through March of 2024, making way for a four-show run by Phish and a 30-show stint by Dead & Company. The Eagles will play 32 shows in a run that kicked off in Sept. 2024 and is currently slated to run through an April 12 gig. EDM artist Anyma’s 12-show run kicked off on Dec. 27 and is slated to wrap on March 2, with Dead & Co. slipping back in for 18 more shows from March-May of this year, after which Kenny Chesney will touch down for 15 shows in May and June.
Check out the Sphere announcement below.
Taylor Swift has earned a good reputation for her cooking skills, just don’t ask Kylie Kelce what those meals taste like. Kelce, who is married to former NFL star Jason Kelce, said when the couple had a stay-at-home double date with her brother-in-law, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and Swift, the singer whipped up a dinner for them that went untouched for a very good reason.
Appearing on Wednesday’s (Feb. 12) episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, Kylie said that during the couple’s night, “I don’t know that I really ate the meal,” explaining to host Alex Cooper that the night out was actually a night in at her and Jason’s house. “This is going to sound terrible. I didn’t really eat the meal because I was eight weeks pregnant and it was one of those where nothing sounded [good to me].” Kylie is pregnant now with her and Jason’s fourth child, a girl, who will join their daughters Wyatt, 5 and Elliote, 3 and Bennett, 23 months.
Kylie told Cooper that she first met Swift at a Chiefs game against the Buffalo Bills in January 2024, and dispelled rumors that she appeared to be avoiding the singer, who began dating Travis the previous summer. “People are deeply disturbed by this. There was, like, all this stuff leading up to it [the meeting] about, ‘Well, why haven’t they met, they’re avoiding each other.’ I’m not avoiding anyone. I’m more than happy to meet someone, especially someone that Travis is dating,” she said.
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To be fair, Kylie said she didn’t even meet Travis for “close to a year” when she began dating Jason. “And she’s busy,” Kylie said of the pop supernova who wrapped up her historic Eras Tour on Dec. 8 of last year. “It’s just so silly to me that that’s the storyline that’s written,” Kylie said.
Cooper also asked how the rest of the family found out that Travis — who Kylie said feels like a sibling to her at this point — was dating the most famous singer in the world, assuming that there was a group text or some other kind of secret signal.
“We were not [told]. I will say, we knew before everyone else knew, but it was not like… it did not hit the group chat,” Kylie said. “Jase and I found out together, but we knew before they hard launched with her going to a game,” she said in reference to Swift appearing at a Sept. 24, 2023 game between the Chiefs and Chicago Bears.
As for what she and Swift had bonded over in the year since, Kylie said she and Taylor grew up going to the same New Jersey Shore points in Sea Isle/Stone Harbor, where she and Jason now own a home.
Watch Kylie talk Taylor and Travis double date below.
Milwaukee’s Summerfest announced its jam-packed 2025 lineup on Wednesday (Feb. 12), which includes headliners Megan Thee Stallion (with Flo Milli), The Killers, Benson Boone, The Lumineers (with Hippo Campus), Def Leppard (with Tesla), Hozier (with Gigi Perez) and James Taylor (with Jason Mraz and Tiny Habits).
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The three-weekend throwdown on the banks of Lake Michigan will take place on June 19-21, June 26-28 and July 3-5 across 12 stages in its 75-acre festival park. Among the other acts slated to perform are: BossMan DLow, The Avett Brothers, Japanese Breakfast, CAKE, The Head And The Heart, Riley Green, Gary Clark Jr., Young the Giant, Babymetal, Loud Luxury, OFFSET, Jack’s Mannequin, Lindsey Stirling, Whiskey Myers, Billy Corgan and the Machines of God, Ayra Starr, Richard Marx, Porter Robinson, Dirty Heads, The Fray, Natasha Bedingfield, DEVO, Motion City Soundtrack, Betty Who, Snow Tha Product and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, among others.
“As an independent music festival, Summerfest delivers a one-of-a-kind experience, bringing fans together from all backgrounds to enjoy incredible performances and Milwaukee’s vibrant energy,” said Sarah Pancheri, President and CEO, Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. in a statement. “Today is an exciting day as we unveil this year’s lineup with over 160 artists spanning all genres of music.”
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Tickets are on sale now, with details available here. For a limited time, fans can also purchase a UScellular Power Pass for only $57, which includes admission for all nine days of the fest; the Power Pass is only available now through Feb. 18 at 11:59 p.m.
See the full 2025 Summerfest lineup poster below.
Sabrina Carpenter just earned the ultimate pop royalty seal of approval.
After being unveiled as the cover star for the March 2025 issue of Vogue on Tuesday (Feb. 11), the “Espresso” singer received high praise from none other than Madonna, who took to Instagram to express her admiration for the striking photoshoot—one that many fans noted bore a strong resemblance to Madonna’s own Vanity Fair spread from 1991.
“Is this a Valentine’s present to me?” the Queen of Pop commented under Vogue’s Instagram post, seemingly acknowledging the visual nod to her iconic era.
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Carpenter’s high-fashion moment, shot by longtime Madonna collaborator Steven Meisel, sees the singer posing in an ice-blue satin cone bra corset mini dress by Dolce & Gabbana—a silhouette that immediately drew comparisons to Madonna’s signature Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra from her Blond Ambition Tour in 1990.
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Beyond Madonna, other celebrities also took notice of the glamorous spread. Actress Lily Collins excitedly wrote, “Omg this is amazing,” while supermodel Heidi Klum added, “Wow.”
Carpenter, who has long embraced elements of pop history in her aesthetic, has paid homage to Madonna before. At the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, she turned heads in a white sequin Bob Mackie gown—famously worn by Madonna at the 1991 Academy Awards. The choice was seen as a bold tribute to one of her biggest inspirations.
In her accompanying Vogue interview, Carpenter opened up about drawing inspiration from powerful, hyper-feminine women while recording her highly anticipated sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet.
“(I was) feeling inspired by images of women that felt very strong and hyperfeminine,” she explained. “And then being like: ‘If only she said what she was actually thinking.’”
With Short n’ Sweet expected to further establish her as a dominant force in pop, Carpenter’s Vogue cover—and Madonna’s co-sign—marks yet another defining moment in her fast-rising career.
In Travis Scott’s cover with Billboard, he confesses who is dream collaborations would be with. Keep watching to see what he said about them! Do you think a song with these artists would be good? Let us know in the comments! Tetris Kelly: From partying with us at the Super Bowl to the cover of […]
Even though Kendrick Lamar has five No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 among 88 hits on the chart, there were still viewers who tuned in to the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show seemingly unaware of the depth of the rapper’s decade-plus catalog. So Lamar was smart to lean into his releases of 2024 — […]
If Hurry Up Tomorrow is indeed his final album — as the artist born Abel Tesfaye has hinted at it being, at least under his current artist name — then The Weeknd is certainly going out with a bang.
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Tomorrow bows atop the Billboard 200 albums chart this week (dated Feb. 16) with 490,500 first-week units (with 359,000 in sales), according to Luminate. The debut is the strongest of The Weeknd’s career, beating his previous high of 444,000 (posted by his After Hours blockbuster in 2020) and nearly tripling the 148,000 number that Dawn FM, his prior LP, entered with in 2021. Meanwhile, the set lands 14 tracks on the Billboard Hot 100, led by the Playboi Carti teamup “Timeless” at No. 7.
What does the big debut mean for The Weeknd? And if this is the end of The Weeknd, what could Tesfaye possibly do next? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.
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1. The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow debuts with 490,500 first-week units, the best first-week numbers of his career and nearly three times more than the number moved by predecessor Dawn FM in its first week in 2021. On a scale from 1-10, how big a deal is this for The Weeknd?
Rania Aniftos: 9 — it would be a 10, but he’s no stranger to successful albums and likely isn’t too surprised at how well this one performed. However, since he teased this album as the end of The Weeknd (more on that later), it must be validating to have such an impressive end to an even more impressive career.
Kyle Denis: It’s gotta be a 9. The road to Hurry Up Tomorrow was notably rocky, slightly stained by The Idol and bereft of pre-release hits the size of “Heartless” or “Starboy,” so to pull off the best first-week numbers of your career with so many odds stacked against you is nothing less than impressive. With a figure like this, The Weeknd is also bidding farewell to this character while he’s still on top. Narratively, this is a big win for him; imagine if the album touted as the grand finale of his decade-plus career opened with numbers closer to that of Dawn FM’s opening week?
Jason Lipshutz: A 9. This debut demonstrates that interest in The Weeknd remains sky-high, at a moment when he hasn’t had a huge hit in a few years and is about to play stadium shows in a few months. The Weeknd would be an A-lister regardless of what this first-week total had been, but with Hurry Up Tomorrow’s gargantuan debut, he proves that he is still a commercial blockbuster, capable of turning out fans in droves for more than just the old hits.
Heran Mamo: I’d say 9. For a superstar of The Weeknd’s caliber, you’d expect him to go out with a bang if this is really his last album under his current stage name.The only reason I’m not saying 10 is because while Dawn FM might not have been The Weeknd’s best-performing album at the time of its release, its well-conceived concept and ultra-polished production have allowed it to age incredibly.
Andrew Unterberger: Let’s say 8. It’s a big deal, but Tesfaye’s got a lot of big-deal stuff going on right now — from a surprise Grammys comeback to a still-expanding big stadium tour — and I’m not sure it totally stands out from the pack there.
2. What do you see as being the biggest factor in Hurry Up Tomorrow’s stellar early performance?
Rania Aniftos: He really leaned into the idea of “rebirth” and coming back to himself throughout the promo process, which makes me think that fans were more curious than ever about what Hurry Up Tomorrow might sound like. Would it continue be like After Hours and Starboy, or would he return to his House of Balloons or Trilogy roots? To me, it was a seamless mix of both musical eras, appealing to OG fans and ones he made along the way.
Kyle Denis: In his Billboard 200 roundup, our very own Keith Caulfield noted that Hurry Up Tomorrow was available across eight vinyl variants, eight CD variants, a cassette tape, and nine deluxe boxed sets in addition to its standard configurations and access on DSPs. Of course, someone still needs to buy these versions, so the real credit for Hurry Up Tomorrow’s early performance is due to The Weeknd’s deep relationship with his XO fan community. Over the course of his career and the unfurling of the character of The Weeknd, the four-time Grammy winner has garnered an incredibly dedicated fanbase who want to feel as immersed in the story as possible – whether that means collecting album variants, selling out stadiums, or buying tickets for the forthcoming Hurry Up Tomorrow film.
Jason Lipshutz: Unlike the star-heavy start of 2024, the beginning of 2025 has not been jammed with big new album releases — just Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos, really — and Hurry Up Tomorrow took advantage of that relative silence. Plus, The Weeknd made fans wait three years for a new project after being omnipresent at the start of the decade, resulting in a thirst for new music that was slaked by a 22-song opus ripe for racking up major streaming totals.
Heran Mamo: Literally, I would say album sales since they accounted for 359,000 of the LP’s 490,500 first-week equivalent album units. But considering this has been touted as The Weeknd’s final album as “The Weeknd,” there’s a lot more riding on this than if it was just another album in his discography, and that’s bound to bring more attention to Hurry Up Tomorrow.
Andrew Unterberger: Good planning with the available variants, combined with strong messaging about the album’s place in his catalog — both as the end of this current 2020s album trilogy, and possibly the end of his entire career arc as The Weeknd.
3. “Timeless” is the highest-charting song from the new set in its first week, returning to the Hot 100’s top 10 at No. 7 after having previously peaked at No. 3. Do you think it will stand as the biggest hit from the set, or do you think another song on the album might pass it?
Rania Aniftos: I do think “Timeless” will continue to be the standout hit from the album, especially since he’s going on tour with his collaborator Playboi Carti, which will likely give the song another boost. I would, selfishly, love to see “The Abyss” with Lana Del Rey have a moment, because I’m a huge Lana fan and I think she and The Weeknd have some serious musical chemistry.
Kyle Denis: In terms of chart peaks, I think “Timeless” will probably remain the biggest hit from the set. In a just world “Cry for Me” is a massive spring hit, but we’ll see how that shakes out. “Wake Me Up” deserves some love too, but people seem to be a bit tired of disco/synthpop Weeknd (R.I.P. “Dancing in the Flames”). If he can convince frequent duet partner Ariana Grande to escape Oz for a moment to record a remix, perhaps she can turn “Open Hearts” into a “Save Your Tears”-esque hit.
Jason Lipshutz: “Timeless” will keep performing well — Playboi Carti’s red-hot streak is still intact, after all — but the focus track “Cry For Me,” which debuted on this week’s Hot 100 at No. 12, sounds like a durable hit, and the type of darkly lit, emotionally heightened synth-pop track that The Weeknd has turned into months-long smashes time and again. It’s unlikely to ever reach “Blinding Lights” heights, but “Cry For Me” should stick around through the spring, at least.
Heran Mamo: It’s hard to say considering “Timeless” had a four-month lead start as a single compared to most of the album’s songs. That 00XO connection between The Weeknd and Playboi Carti has grown stronger and stronger since their “Popular” collaboration with Madonna, and their unreleased “Lose You” joint has been getting a lot of hype since Carti’s Rolling Loud Miami performance last December. And considering “Timeless” is the latest new music release from Carti, fans will be clinging onto that single until I AM MUSIC finally drops (hopefully this year).
I don’t know if “Cry For Me” will surpass “Timeless,” but it’s solidifying itself as one of the most standout tracks from the album. The Weeknd performed both songs during his surprise set at the 2025 Grammys, and “Cry For Me” was No. 1 on the Global Apple Music chart, debuted at No. 5 on the Global Spotify chart and debuted at No. 12 on the Hot 100 this week, making it the second highest-charting track from the LP after “Timeless.”
Andrew Unterberger: Given that The Weeknd seems to be struggling to connect commercially with his more traditional pop songs since “Save Your Tears,” and that his more dramatic left turns like “Sao Paulo” haven’t fared much better, I imagine the halfway-point territory of “Timeless” (with a red-hot collaborator in Playboi Carti) will probably end up faring best from this one. Rooting for “I Can’t Wait to Get There” though.
4. Hurry Up Tomorrow has been teased to be The Weeknd’s final album, at least as The Weeknd. If so, how do you feel it rates as a grand finale for his superstar artistic persona?
Rania Aniftos: I’m very much satisfied. It feels like the end of a decade-plus character arc, a tribute to the mixtapes that put him on the map and a display of his captivating artistic growth ever since.
Kyle Denis: The more I sit with the album, the happier I am with it as a finale for The Weeknd. You get notes of all his past eras and some of his most bone-chilling songwriting (shoutout to “Baptized in Fear”), and he sounds great. His voice is notably more robust which makes for ballads that pack a much heavier punch than some of his earlier efforts in that space. My only hope is that this movie doesn’t ruin the album for me.
Jason Lipshutz: If The Weeknd does stick to this statement, this persona will have gone out on its own terms — the shadowy figure from the PBR&B days of the early 2010s lasting through the mid-2020s, a mystery morphed into a Super Bowl headliner. Hurry Up Tomorrow closes out a trilogy of albums, but it also puts a bow on the maximalist, bleary-eyed, synth-heavy sound that The Weeknd has been tinkering with for over a decade in the spotlight; it’s not his complete project, but it might be the one that’s most representative of who he is, and what he set out to do. And if that’s the case, Tomorrow is a hell of a parting shot.
Heran Mamo: 10/10. His consistent, intentional execution of callbacks to earlier moments from his career have made Hurry Up Tomorrow a compelling closing chapter for The Weeknd. As an artist who’s always idolized and been inspired by Michael Jackson, interpolating “Thriller” on the opening track “Wake Me Up” was an incredible homage. Flipping the song titles and motifs from his previous albums, like “Save Your Tears” to “Cry for Me” and “Escape From LA” to “Take Me Back to LA,” nicely brought things back around. And having the end of “Hurry Up Tomorrow” seamlessly transition into the beginning of “High For This,” the opening song from his debut mixtape House of Balloons 14 years ago, the first chapter of his primary Trilogy, was the LP’s quintessential full-circle moment.
Andrew Unterberger: Yeah, it’s a strong finale — better on each listen and rich enough that I’m still uncovering new details and personal favorites. I do still wish it had one absolute can’t-miss standout smash on it that could sorta live outside the album a bit, but maybe that song just hasn’t quite revealed itself yet. Wouldn’t be the first time one of his deep cuts took a minute to reveal its charms and find its audience.
5. If this is indeed the end for The Weeknd as The Weeknd, what’s your bold prediction for what Abel Tesfaye might do next?
Rania Aniftos: It’s no bold prediction that he’ll make a home in the horror movie world — he’s already working on a psychological thriller. So, I’ll take it a few steps further. I loved his haunted house at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, so why couldn’t he have a whole haunted theme park of his own where fans can experience the dark, twisted aspects of his music in real life?
Kyle Denis: Hopefully, more acting projects that aren’t connected to pop stardom/music… I feel like some space from that world might do him so good.
Jason Lipshutz: The Idol 2: Tedros’ Revenge. I’m half-kidding! I do think he might take a break to explore Hollywood before eventually dipping back into music and reclaiming what is his.
Heran Mamo: He’s going to dive deeper into the TV and film world. His HBO TV series The Idol seemed to be a bit of a false start, but by co-writing, co-producing and starring in his first feature film Hurry Up Tomorrow and launching his own Manic Phase production company, it seems like Tesfaye is creatively rerouting to something he’s always dreamed of doing.
Andrew Unterberger: I’ve said it before, but I think Tesfaye starts anew as a recording artist under a totally different name — and doesn’t let us know for sure that it’s him until well into the project.
Destiny’s Child may have disbanded in 2006, but the members are always just one text away. On the latest episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show airing Tuesday (Feb. 11), Michelle Williams spilled details about her group chat with honorary sisters Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland. After welcoming the singer/actress to her program, host Jennifer Hudson had […]