Lists
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06/21/2023
Our staff picks the 50 best songs of 2023 so far — the breakthroughs, the comebacks and the total surprises.
By 
Rania Aniftos, Katie Atkinson, Eric Renner Brown, Leila Cobo, Stephen Daw, Kyle Denis, Ingrid Fajardo, Josh Glicksman, Paul Grein, Lyndsey Havens, Rylee Johnston, Tetris Kelly, Cydney Lee, Elias Leight, Jason Lipshutz, Heran Mamo, Rebecca Milzoff, Taylor Mims, Gail Mitchell, Melinda Newman, Jessica Roiz, Dan Rys, Andrew Unterberger
06/21/2023
06/20/2023
Our staff’s 50 favorite albums of 2023 so far, presented alphabetically, with our 50 favorite songs to follow tomorrow.
By 
Katie Bain, Dave Brooks, Eric Renner Brown, Stephen Daw, Kyle Denis, Thom Duffy, Griselda Flores, Josh Glicksman, Carl Lamarre, Cydney Lee, Elias Leight, Jason Lipshutz, Joe Lynch, Heran Mamo, Rebecca Milzoff, Taylor Mims, Melinda Newman, Jessica Nicholson, Isabela Raygoza, Kristin Robinson, Jessica Roiz, Dan Rys, Andrew Unterberger
06/20/2023
06/14/2023
Billboard counts down the best hip-hop groups ever in honor of the genre’s 50th anniversary.
06/14/2023
How does a song become a gay anthem? Like the LGBTQ+ community itself, our soundtrack is vast and diverse. We have recorded our history and contribution to the culture through music, and with this list we acknowledge and remember the forerunners that have made possible the positive changes we’ve seen over the decades. These songs […]
Taylor Swift is a queen of the modern pop world. But when she joins forces with other artists, especially ones at the top of their game, the songs are automatically a cultural event. Big or small, artists who work with Swift always seem to pair with her voice perfectly — which is probably why she’s […]
05/15/2023
Check out which Britney songs are ruling her streaming numbers, which album performed best over the past 12 months and more.
05/15/2023
05/14/2023
A ‘Fearless’ track becomes a special request from a famous friend, Taylor tears up a bit, and more memorable moments from May 13 in Philly.
05/14/2023
“Writing songs is my therapy,” Ed Sheeran told his fans upon announcing his new album, –. “It helps me make sense of my feelings.” In early 2022, Sheeran required that outlet: although his latest album, =, had produced a new batch of smashes in “Bad Habits” and “Shivers,” he had been taken to court due to a copyright lawsuit over “Shape of You,” his best friend Jamal Edwards had passed away suddenly at the age of 31, and his pregnant wife was diagnosed with a tumor that couldn’t be treated until after the birth.
That all occurred within the span of a month, and Sheeran’s world was upended — so he decided to examine his feelings through his craft. As suggested by muted lead single “Eyes Closed” and a rollout focused squarely on the acoustic nature of the project, – is not your typical Sheeran album, and doesn’t contain the no-brainer radio hits that have colored his full-lengths over the past five years.
Yet if – marks a searing left turn in Sheeran’s recording career, his songwriting has long been working up towards an unfiltered, emotionally intelligent statement like this. A superstar who grew from busking on the street to playing stadiums — with just himself onstage, no less — over the course of a decade, Sheeran has been gradually improving his song construction without relying too much on pop machinery, and sounds ready to meet this moment.
Bringing in Aaron Dessner, The National polymath who helped Taylor Swift explore the indie-folk woods on Folklore and Evermore, to help produce this vision was a wise decision. Dessner helps Sheeran understand when to assemble a city of instruments around his pain, and when to leave it unadorned.
Some moments are more affecting than others, but ultimately, – succeeds due to its unabashed honesty: from unyielding grief to thoughts of ending it all, Sheeran never shies away from the most curdled pieces of his soul here. The album may not become a blockbuster, but commendably, Sheeran’s intent is catharsis, not commercial returns. More A-listers should take risks like this.
So which tracks represent the early standouts? Although all of Sheeran’s new album is worth exploring, here is a preliminary ranking of every song on the standard edition of –.
“Spark”
On “Spark,” Sheeran and his romantic partner set fire to their troubled past, tossing petty arguments and unnecessary tears into a metaphorical flame, then concluding, “We hope the spark survives.” The song gets off the ground conceptually, its orchestral sweep is marked by an elliptical piano line — and while other songs on the album allow this particular sound to take flight more memorably, “Spark” serves as capable connective tissue in the album’s back half.
“Borderline”
There aren’t many popular artists who could handle an all-falsetto chorus like the one Sheeran deploys on “Borderline,” a piano-led rumination on lingering depression — but he powers through in his upper register, blurting out confessions and rhetorical questions with a naked fragility. And the way Sheeran comes down from that high — yearning through plain-spoken lines like “Guess I should take this on the chin / But I don’t even know how all of this began” — makes “Borderline” an even more compelling listen.
“Colourblind”
Sheeran has always been adept at engineering a waltzing love song, but “Colourblind” offers a twist on the formula of “Thinking Out Loud” and “Perfect” thanks to a newfound maturity — instead of focusing on exploding romance, Sheeran sings about being able to relax with a partner, and wash away all of the day’s brightest hues during a quiet night together. “Colourblind” captures the personal evolution of Sheeran, no longer pluckily searching for love and instead writing about his own grounded reality.
“Vega”
While all of us experience personal hardships, Sheeran has done so as one of the most famous musical artists on the planet — and on the hushed, confessional “Vega,” he admits to struggling as he’s dealt with difficult moments (here, his wife’s diagnosis), especially under the brightest spotlight. “Vega” shines thanks to its lyrical detail: when Sheeran sings, “Need rest, bite, bleed time dry / She’ll be fine, she’ll be fine” as the strings swell, the listener can picture him pacing in a room, alone with his desperation.
“Life Goes On”
Remember back in 2017, when Sheeran launched his ÷ album by releasing “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill” on the same day? Consider the back-to-back placement of “Eyes Closed” and “Life Goes On” early in the – track list as a one-two gut-punch that tackles a shared theme of grief through wholly different approaches: here, Sheeran does away with anything hummable, reflecting on his friend’s death with uncluttered folk and a cracked voice.
“Boat”
“Boat” was apparently stripped down from a heavily orchestrated track into a simple acoustic guitar song, although some of the strings and grand piano can still be heard in the mix. Sheeran was correct to pivot: “Boat” works better as both an album opener and an anthem of resilience due to its simplicity, his voice gathering strength as he repeats the line, “But the waves won’t break my boat.”
“Curtains”
Dessner packs “Curtains” with ornate production details — playing a whopping 11 instruments himself on the track, while recruiting his brother (and The National band mate) Bryce to play a few as well — but the drums, courtesy of James McAlister, hit the hardest, and offer some rare rock-band tumbles. “Curtains” ponders the moment when it feels okay to whisk away the shades and bask in the sun following personal devastation, and its combination of driving tempo and rousing messaging makes the song an easy choice for a future single.
“No Strings”
Immediately following “Sycamore,” a panicked song about preparing for the worst news imaginable, on the album’s track list, “No Strings” acts as both a sigh of relief and affirmation: the worst has passed, and now, Sheeran and his partner can overcome anything together. “We tore the walls down to build them up / Never was in doubt,” Sheeran sings with brimming confidence — and that’s before the drums kick in to add heft to the graceful piano and Sheeran’s soothing words.
“Dusty”
“There’s more than sadness we got within us / Let’s put some color into the grey,” Sheeran softly declares on “Dusty,” a restrained electro-pop track inspired by listening to Dusty Springfield with his young daughter. After a run of wrenching songs, “Dusty” offers a calm reprieve: the synths, programmed drums and guitar congeal into a midtempo sway-along, and Sheeran’s voice is often doubled, as if he’s finally arrived at a supported moment.
“Salt Water”
In between the two pre-release songs on the – track list, “Boat” and “Eyes Closed,” sits perhaps the darkest song of Sheeran’s career: “Salt Water” finds the singer-songwriter prodding his own suicidal thoughts, belting out, “I’m free in salt water / Embrace the deep and leave everything” over a tangle of guitars, cello and tambourine. With its backing vocals on the chorus, “Salt Water” soars as a folk-pop sing-along when divorced from its lyrical context — but as it stands, the longest song on the album is ambitiously unnerving.
“Eyes Closed”
Lead single “Eyes Closed” translates so many of Sheeran’s top 40 trademarks — the earworm intro, the emphasized first line of the chorus, the post-refrain vocal hook — into a quiet, mournful song about not knowing how to move forward after losing a loved one. On an album like –, “Eyes Closed” makes for the perfect radio offering, crystallizing the project’s sorrow and presenting the emotion as a catchy, universal product (Max Martin, Shellback and Fred Again.., who produced the track alongside Dessner, surely helped with that effect).
“The Hills of Aberfeldy”
Sheeran began dreaming up the idea of – years ago, and that idea kept getting pushed back and shape-shifted — but “The Hills of Aberfeldy,” written with Foy Vance when Sheeran was an aspiring singer-songwriter, was always intended as the closing track whenever that album came out. Today, “Aberfeldy” sparkles in its wide-eyed intimacy, a rustic love song with string interludes and a sense of patience — as if its message was always meant to endure, after the song was so long preserved.
“End of Youth”
Longtime Sheeran fans slightly thrown off by this album’s shift in tone, and looking for a song to unlock the heaviness, should consider starting with “End of Youth,” which distills all of Sheeran’s best qualities — his sense of melody, his impactful lyricism, his ability to let his voice roam into both huge falsettos and patient rapping without losing its center — into the full-length’s darker shades. The meditation on losing your innocence is purposely bleak, but over a steady beat, Sheeran is firing on all cylinders.
“Sycamore”
Sheeran wrote “Sycamore” in a state of dread, attempting to focus on a beautiful tree while his wife’s pregnancy complications were unraveling the fabric of his world. That fear resulted in one of the most gorgeously rendered songs of the singer-songwriter’s career: in the same way that “Sycamore” finds Sheeran’s life evolving while overcoming devastation, he uses the song to grow his craft, tossing out open-ended questions and ideas of love’s cyclical nature within straightforward melodies and full-hearted vocals. “Sycamore” will possibly make you cry; within Sheeran’s growing catalog, it will definitely stand out.
While the Super Bowl is one of the biggest television events in the United States every year, the star-studded halftime show is often what gets the most online attention.
In 2023, Rihanna returned to the stage for the first time in more than five years to perform at Super Bowl LVII at Glendale, Ariz.’s State Farm Stadium, and the hype surrounding the performance led to a history making accomplishment. With 121.017 million viewers, RiRi’s performance narrowly surpassed Katy Perry’s 2015 performance as the most-watched halftime show of all time.
Rihanna’s achievement comes after Nielsen revised this year’s original 118.7 million viewers “after a review that revealed encoding irregularities as well as issues with out-of-home measurement,” according to the Associated Press. (The revised report regarding the Super Bowl LVII game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles also made this year’s football match the most-watched Super Bowl in history with 115.1 million viewers.)
Over the years, a number of stars have passed the 100 million viewership mark, stretching all the way back to Black Eyed Peas’ 2011 performance. From Rihanna and Beyoncé to Bruno Mars and Justin Timberlake, see below for the Super Bowl halftime shows with the all-time most viewership.
Jennifer Lopez & Shakira
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Total viewers: 104 million
Two female Latin powerhouses took the Super Bowl LIV stage in 2020, as Jennifer Lopez and Shakira traded off performing their hits, like Lopez’s “Jenny From the Block” and “Waiting for Tonight” and Shakira’s “She Wolf” and “Hips Don’t Lie.” Bad Bunny, J Balvin, and Lopez’s daughter Emme Muñiz all joined them onstage as guests, and the performance had a total viewership of 104 million.
Justin Timberlake
Image Credit: Christopher Polk/GI
Total viewers: 106.6 million
Justin Timberlake 2018 Super Bowl LII performance garnered 106.6 million viewers with hits like “Sexy Back,” “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” and a Prince tribute with a rendition of “I Would Die 4 U.”
Black Eyed Peas
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Total viewers: 110.2 million
With 110.2 million viewers, Black Eyed Peas’ 2011 Super Bowl XLV halftime show performance makes the list. The group performed songs like “I Gotta Feeling,” “Boom Boom Pow” and “Where Is the Love?”
Beyoncé
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Total viewers: 110.8 million
Yes, Bey made the list twice. Her solo show included hits like “Halo” and “Run The World (Girls)” before an iconic Destiny’s Child reunion with Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams to perform “Bootylicious,” “Independent Women Part I” and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” The 2013 XLVII halftime show garnered 110.8 million viewers.
Madonna
Image Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Total viewers: 114 million
Madonna took the Super Bowl XLVI stage in 2012 with a viewership of 114 million, as she performed a slew of her hits and welcomed LMFAO onstage to deliver renditions of “Music,” “Party Rock Anthem” and “Sexy and I Know It.”
Bruno Mars
Image Credit: Getty Images
Total viewers: 115.3 million
Bruno Mars brought the heat to 2014’s Super Bowl XLVIII with slick performances of “Locked Out of Heaven,” “Treasure” and “Runaway Baby,” in addition to a guest appearance by Red Hot Chili Peppers. His show garnered 115.3 million views, just shy of Coldplay’s numbers.
Coldplay
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Total viewers: 115.5 million
Beyoncé and Bruno Mars joined Coldplay during the band’s 2016 halftime show, which got 115.5 million viewers with performances of “Yellow,” “Paradise,” “Viva la Vida” and “Fix You,” among other hits.
Lady Gaga
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Total viewers: 117.5 million
Gaga’s 2017 performance for Super Bowl LI at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, featured hits songs like “Poker Face,” “Born This Way,” “Paparazzi” and “Just Dance,” and ultimately brought in 117.5 million views.
Katy Perry
Image Credit: Rob Carr/GI
Total viewers: 121 million
With 121 million views, Katy Perry’s 2015 performance at at Super Bowl XLIX trails just behind RiRi as the second most-watched show. The meme-making performance (remember Left Shark?) featured Lenny Kravitz, Missy Elliot and the Arizona State University Sun Devil Marching Band as Perry performed hits like “Roar,” “California Gurls” and “Firework.”
Rihanna
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/GI for Roc Nation
Total viewers: 121.017 million
With 121.017 million viewers, Rihanna’s 2023 performance during Super Bowl LVII is the most-watched halftime show in history.
During her performance at Glendale, Ariz.’s State Farm Stadium, she revealed she was pregnant with her second child with partner A$AP Rocky, and performed Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits like “Only Girl (in the World),” “We Found Love,” “S&M,” “Rude Boy,” “Work” and many more.
Coachella 2023 was a rollercoaster ride — at least as far as the headliners were concerned. After Frank Ocean was announced for the 2023 edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival even before the 2022 fest took place, Bad Bunny and BLACKPINK rounded out the slate of headliners upon the lineup announcement earlier this year. Then, an abrupt change between the first and second weekend of the fest: Ocean pulled out of the latter due to an ankle injury, with Blink-182 and the trio of Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred Again.. instead closing out the main stage.
After months of anticipation, Coachella 2023 is in the rearview. Naturally, it’s time to start wondering who will top the 2024 lineup.
We’ve got a full year until Coachella 2024 and roughly nine months until its lineup is unveiled, but we can start daydreaming about which A-listers could possibly be en route to the desert in April 2024. These 10 artists could feasibly top next year’s lineup, thanks to a mix of star status, recent commercial wins and/or clues that new music is in the works. For the sake of simplicity, this list doesn’t include any past Coachella headliners who are currently active, like Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd or Drake — so while Beychella Part II would be welcomed by all far and wide, we’re only thinking of artists who would be making their debuts as Coachella headliners, which is often the case for these bookings anyway.
So who are some names to keep in mind for 2024? Here’s a preliminary list of A-listers who would headline next year’s Coachella:
Rihanna
After rocking the Super Bowl halftime show in 2023, could Rihanna finally be headed to the desert as a Coachella headliner in 2024? Rih was heavily rumored to top the 2023 festival lineup in the spot that ultimately went to BLACKPINK, and perhaps the baby bump that she revealed during her Super Bowl LVII extravaganza last February can help explain why.
Rihanna is about to become a mother of two, but not much is otherwise known about her next 12 months – including any timetable for the release of new music, after she issued a pair of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack cuts late last year, as well as any non-Super Bowl shows planned. Anytime she wants to headline the fest, Coachella will presumably be happy to have her; we’ll see whether or not the Navy can find love in a hopeless place in 2024.
Dua Lipa
“I gotta get out the studio more and see some sunlight,” Dua Lipa wrote on social media in February – a good indication that new music from the UK pop star, and perhaps the follow-up to her 2020 sophomore album Future Nostalgia, are very much in the works. Whenever Lipa does return, she’ll be able to add her new music to an arsenal of hits, spread out across her two studio albums (“Don’t Start Now,” “Levitating,” “New Rules”) and one-off collaborations (“Cold Heart” with Elton John, “One Kiss” with Calvin Harris).
If Lipa’s LP3 is ready to roll by this time next year, she would fit into the mold of recent headliners like Ariana Grande, Harry Styles and BLACKPINK – ultra-cool A-listers with new material to promote and/or premiere at Coachella. The shortlist of potential pop headliners at Coachella should undoubtedly include her name.
SZA
The artist behind the biggest song in the country — which hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 after eight weeks in the runner-up spot — is on a hot streak that extends far beyond “Kill Bill.” SZA’s long-awaited sophomore album SOS has been one of the biggest albums of the year thus far and has been showered with critical acclaim, setting up a potential awards-season run pushing into 2024.
The success of SOS has also pushed SZA into arena-headliner territory, as her tour in support of the album has added more dates due to high demand. Headlining Coachella would be the ultimate victory lap for a singular artist who has long been beloved by R&B fans, but has recently leveled up her commercial profile in every conceivable way.
Doja Cat
At the 2022 edition of Coachella, Ye backed out as the Sunday night headliner, and Swedish House Mafia with special guest The Weeknd shifted into the empty space at the top of the bill. Before the replacement became official, however, some fans pointed to another potential headliner already scheduled for the main stage on Sunday: Why not Doja Cat? After all, her 2021 album Planet Her spun off five top 20 Hot 100 hits, in addition to previous smashes like “Say So” and “Streets”; furthermore, Doja is a force of personality, and although she hasn’t been in the spotlight for too many years, she commands its presence.
Since Coachella 2022, Doja Cat has earned another top 10 entry with the Elvis soundtrack single “Vegas,” and hopped on hits with Post Malone and SZA. If she releases the follow-up to Planet Her before the end of the year, it will be one of the most highly anticipated albums of 2023. And a Coachella 2024 headlining booking would be a slam dunk, for both Doja Cat and the festival itself.
Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 debut album, Sour, became such a commercial triumph that her sophomore LP, whenever it arrives, will be greeted with feverish enthusiasm. That’s why the Grammy winner for best new artist could headline Coachella next year even with a limited catalog: Rodrigo has a finite number of released songs, but everyone in a headliner crowd would know them all by heart, from “Drivers License” to “good 4 u” to “Deja Vu” to whatever she deems to release next.
Consider a potential Rodrigo booking in 2024 similar to Billie Eilish’s headlining gig at Coachella in 2022: a young superstar with a sky-high approval rating, running through the ubiquitous hits and beloved album cuts that recently made her a household name. And as a nod to the festival’s rock roots, maybe Veruca Salt can join Rodrigo for her cover of “Seether,” too!
Cardi B
A few weeks ago, Cardi B celebrated the five-year anniversary of the release of her 2018 debut album, Invasion of Privacy… as well as the five-year anniversary of fans asking her when the follow-up will finally arrive. It’s hard to blame them: Invasion of Privacy remains one of the most cohesive, engrossing hip-hop debuts in recent memory, featuring No. 1 hits like “Bodak Yellow” and “I Like It.” While the wait continues for Album No. 2, the rap superstar has been able to tide fans over with chart-topping one-off singles like “WAP” with Megan Thee Stallion and “Up.”
If a sophomore LP materializes for Cardi B in the next 12 months, expect her name to show up in the Coachella Possibility conversation. Honestly, it could show up even if an album doesn’t arrive — such is her continued, all-encompassing appeal.
Shakira
This year, Coachella made history by booking Bad Bunny, its first headliner who records predominantly Spanish-language music. The festival should consider giving future opportunities to Latin music artists as well — and who better to lead the potential 2024 headliners than Shakira, an international superstar currently experiencing a renaissance near the top of the Hot 100?
Shakira could have headlined any recent iteration of Coachella, thanks to her decades-long track record of hits. But in 2023, the Colombian star has returned to mainstream pop prominence with a pair of top 10 singles, thanks to her fiery Bizarrap team-up “BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 53” and her Karol G collaboration “TQG,” which peaked at Nos. 9 and 7 on the Hot 100, respectively. Although Shakira’s relevance within the Latin pop community has never flagged, that one-two punch has returned her to the U.S. mainstream in exciting fashion — and a Coachella slot could punctuate that run.
Miley Cyrus
Speaking of a veteran star coming off a rejuvenating hit: Miley Cyrus scored the biggest smash of her career earlier this year when “Flowers,” the lead single to her Endless Summer Vacation album, logged eight nonconsecutive weeks at the top of the Hot 100. In the past, Cyrus has headlined festivals like Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits thanks to a slew of past hits and audacious stage persona — could she head to Indio next year armed with her longest-running chart-topper yet?
Cyrus has yet to announce a tour in support of Endless Summer Vacation, so we’ll see how exactly she plans to support her latest full-length on the road. If she ends up snagging a Coachella ’24 headlining slot, though, expect the set to become one of the more must-see (and potentially star-studded) performances of the festival.
BTS Members & Friends
A proper BTS headlining set at next year’s Coachella is going to hit an obvious roadblock: the mandatory military service required of their members, which has already halted larger group activities for the time being. While members have embarked on solo projects and performances over the past year, a full-on reunion isn’t likely until at the very least 2025, based on the members’ own comments on the matter.
Maybe that precludes BTS from having a presence at next year’s Coachella… or maybe the members who can perform at the 2024 festival get creative, with a one-of-a-kind set that functions as both a showcase to recent solo endeavors and a stopgap salute to ARMY before a globe-conquering group return. Imagine a headlining set featuring BTS members playing their solo material off of each other, special guests arriving to deliver features, and a few see-you-soon performances of the collective’s biggest hits to date. That type of show is unlikely at this moment, but it would also be the ultimate care package to fans if they can pull it off.
Taylor Swift
I mean… this works all too well, right? The superstar behind the most in-demand tour of 2023, capping things off with her Coachella debut in 2024? The festival constantly wants to one-up its collection of headliners, and after a blockbuster trio in 2023, no artist would raise the stakes quite like Taylor Swift would as a 2024 bill-topper.
Swift has long favored headlining tours over festival appearances, and this year is no exception with her Eras stadium run. So, no, Taylorchella isn’t likely for 2024. But we can dream.