Lists
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Songs have been written about every topic imaginable, but the best ones — from swooning ’50s ballads to contemporary club bangers — have been penned about the ups and downs of being in love. We are counting down the top 50 Hot 100 hits with a form of the word “love” in the title. The romantic tunes cover every era of the Hot 100’s history, ranging from 1958’s “To Know Him Is to Love Him” by the Teddy Bears to 2019’s “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi. Love is a many splendored and many faceted thing, and this list has all types of love songs: tunes about “The Power of Love” (Huey Lewis), “The Greatest Love of All” (Whitney Houston), eternal love (Donna Lewis’ “I Love You Always Forever”) and NSFW lovin’ (Madonna’s “Justify My Love”).
It’s sonic proof that while musical fads and fashions will change with every generation, love — and the songs inspired by it — will never go out of style. And we have the numbers to prove it: 9.6% of all Hot 100 No. 1s feature the word “love” in the song title.
The ranking is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 chart. Billboard’s Top 50 Love Songs of All Time ranking is based on weekly performance on the Hot 100 (from its inception on Aug. 4, 1958, through Feb. 4, 2023) and comprises songs that have the word “love” in its title (or a variation, like “lover,” “loving,” “lovely,” etc.). Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at lower spots earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for chart turnover rates during various periods. Songs are ranked based on a formula blending performance, as outlined above, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. To ensure equitable representation of the biggest hits from each era, certain time frames were weighted to account for the difference between turnover rates from those years.
Ever since Rihanna was announced as the headliner of the Super Bowl LVII halftime show over four months ago, part of the fun for longtime fans has been trying to guess which of her many, many hits her setlist will include. Typically, Super Bowl halftime performers are given between 12 and 15 minutes to play on the world’s biggest stage — so even if Rihanna opts to perform an ultra-efficient mega-mix at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. on Sunday night (Feb. 12), she probably won’t be able to squeeze in anywhere close to her 14 career Hot 100 chart-toppers, let alone all of her 31 career top 10 singles.
So which hits are making the Super Bowl, and which ones are being left outside the stadium? Although Rihanna’s setlist is being kept tightly under wraps, it’s safe to assume that some of her defining smashes (“Umbrella,” “We Found Love,” “Diamonds,” “Rude Boy,” “Work,” “SOS”) will be featured alongside a combination of notable hits that work in a Super Bowl context (“Only Girl (in the World),” “Where Have You Been,” “Pon de Replay,” “Disturbia,” “Don’t Stop the Music,” “This is What You Came For”).
Toss in a ballad or two, and save some time for recent single “Lift Me Up” (which is nominated for the best original song Oscar — Rihanna would be smart to appeal to Academy voters on the largest platform possible!), and you’re looking at a robust setlist, full of hits and stuffed to the brim. But the truth is, Rihanna could create a memorable Super Bowl show using none of those aforementioned songs — that’s how many career hits she’s accrued. And while there’s a good sense of which Rihanna hits won’t be performed at the Super Bowl, a fair amount of them deserve to be hoisted back up for the world to see.
Here are 10 Rihanna songs that, in all likelihood, won’t be played during the Super Bowl halftime show… but if we’re being honest, they really should be.
Linda Ronstadt’s illustrious voice is back in the spotlight, thanks to her 1970 song “Long, Long Time” being featured in the HBO series The Last of Us.
Ronstadt first rose to prominence during the folk-rock scene of the 1960s and later became a blazing country-folk musical force throughout the 1970s, putting her stamp on the musical landscape as a formidable vocal stylist and interpreter possessing a supple voice capable of enviable musical diversity. Over the course of more than two dozen albums, Ronstadt traversed genres including rock, folk, country, jazz, Mexican folk, the Great American Songbook and opera. Several of her songs reached the upper echelon of the Billboard’s Hot 100, and in 1975, she crowned the chart with her hit “You’re No Good.” In total, she placed 34 entries on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
She also notched hits on the Billboard Latin chart (“Frenesi,” “Perfidia”) and country charts (1975’s “When Will I Be Loved,” and the Dolly Parton/Emmylou Harris collaboration “To Know Him is to Love Him”).
Ronstadt has 11 Grammy wins to her credit, in a diverse spectrum of categories including best musical album for children, best country vocal performance, best Mexican-American album, best pop vocal performance, and the all-genre record of the year category. Further demonstrating her versatility, Ronstadt also earned a Primetime Emmy Award in 1989 for outstanding individual performance in a variety of music program, for Canciones de Mi Padre (Great Performances), and was nominated for a Tony Award for best performance by a leading actress in a musical, for her role as Mabel Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance.
Ronstadt earned a lifetime achievement award from the Latin Grammys in 2014, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 and was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 2019.
Here, we look at 15 songs that highlight Ronstadt’s stylistic range.
Nothing goes together better than summer heat, cold drinks, good friends and country music. Throughout much of the year, country music fans gather at events across the nation (and abroad) to see their favorite country music artists perform.
Below, Billboard looks at many of the top country music festivals slated for 2023, including some of each festival’s top performers, from established artists such as Tim McGraw and Miranda Lambert to hot-shot newcomers including Bailey Zimmerman, Megan Moroney and Zach Bryan. Names including Luke Bryan, Cody Johnson and Zac Brown Band proliferate several festival lineups this year, headlining festivals including Country Thunder festivals, C2C and Windy City Smokeout.
Taken altogether, these numerous country fests offer a glimpse into the breadth of the country music moment, from Texas natives like Lambert, Johnson and Parker McCollum, to pop-leaning vocalists Dan+Shay, to ’90s country stalwarts Brooks & Dunn and Dwight Yoakam.
In addition to stellar lineups, these festivals also offer a range of activities and food offerings, including camping, line-dancing, food trucks, and merch vendors selling an array of items. See below.
As the music industry evolves, so do expectations surrounding new music. With trends and listening patterns shifting at a break-neck pace, artists are expected to usher in each new project as a brand new “era,” creating a recursive loop of authenticity, followed by slight reinvention, followed by re-established authenticity.
But when Sam Smith reintroduces themselves on Gloria, the pop superstar’s long-awaited fourth studio album, it feels different. This is not a pop star merely trying to make headlines or fulfill a promise of something “new” — Gloria sounds like it’s coming from an artist who finally feels comfortable enough to take risks with their sound in the name of honesty.
For that reason, Gloria can sound a lot like whiplash. In one moment, you’re listening to a slowed-down, smooth R&B-tinged song about a selfish ex; in the next, the sonic landscape has shifted to reggae-pop, where Smith is singing frankly about sex and desire. Bouncing around from song to song with wildly different sounds, this LP refuses to be pinned down to any specific label of genre or lyrical atmosphere.
That spirit of eclecticism is not for its own sake; in creating a sound this varied, Smith is making a point. For the last decade of their career, Smith has often been perceived as the crooner-next-door: a soulful, comforting voice conveying their own heartbreak as a means of soothing their pain — and in the process, their fans’ as well.
But alongside that image has always been a sharper, more fun Smith, crafting dance-adjacent anthems of elation and anger and sex. Gloria is Smith’s proof of concept — they contain multitudes, not just the sad broken heart of the person from In the Lonely Hour.
To celebrate Gloria’s release, Billboard takes a closer look at each of the album’s 11 original tracks and ranks them (we’re not including the album’s “Hurting” or “Dorothy” interludes here — ranking two less-than-30 second tracks against the rest feels unfair). Check out our picks below:
As a soloist and part of the superstar boy band BIGBANG, Taeyang has been a pioneer in K-pop’s international expansion. His collection of collaborations has been a critical part of his barrier-breaking longevity, as well as his ongoing artistic development for around two decades in the industry.
Even before Taeyang made his official debut on the K-pop scene with his boy band in 2006, the young star sang and rapped on records with his labelmates under YG Entertainment, which helped him find his voice as an artist. Once BIGBANG secured their place as certified chart-toppers, all the members began experimenting with solo albums. Since his first EP in 2008, Taeyang honored his love of soulful music that spotlighted vocals and showmanship akin to his idol Michael Jackson, even leading to his 2014 album Rise becoming the highest-charting solo album by a K-pop artist at the time on the Billboard 200.
Fast-forward to 2023: Taeyang is unleashing a new collaboration to return to music and reintroduce himself to the world. Teaming up with Jimin of BTS, “Vibe” marks the superstar’s long-awaited return to the music industry after he took time off to marry longtime partner Min Hyorin in 2018, handle his mandatory military in 2019, and welcome his first child in 2021. Last year marked the return of BIGBANG with their poignant and moving comeback single “Still Life” (one of the best K-pop releases of 2022, according to Billboard), and set the groundwork for Taeyang to reach for new musical goals in his career this year.
From working with his bandmates on special songs to tracks that span genres with a range of guests, revisit the best of Taeyang’s collaborations to date.
When Miley Cyrus announced that she would be kicking off 2023 with the release of “Flowers,” a new single to precede her forthcoming album Endless Summer Vacation, the news was exciting on two levels: a new Cyrus single was coming, but perhaps more importantly, a new Cyrus lead single was coming.
After all, Cyrus has spent the majority of her recording career deploying lead singles as hints to upcoming shifts in her sound and style, with clear demarcations between album eras and the tweaks in public persona that the pop superstar adopts for each. From her Disney days — when songs like “See You Again” and “7 Things” pointed toward the commercial aspirations of the teen star — to the devil-may-care flare-ups of her Can’t Be Tamed and Bangerz periods, the first five years of Cyrus’ career featured sharp pivots in sound and attitude, often to denote how “adult” how projects at the time should be considered.
As Cyrus continued to evolve, full-length explorations of psychedelica, country-pop and retro-rock were given coming attractions befitting their sounds. Now, “Flowers” nods toward where Cyrus, currently one of popular music’s most fascinating shape-shifters, is headed next.
So which lead singles illustrate Cyrus’ pop power most effectively, especially now that there’s a new one to consider? All eight of Cyrus’ lead singles have their charms — truly, not a flat-out dud in the bunch — but some of her songs excel as both previews of their host albums and standalone gems in her catalog. And while it’s still early days for “Flowers,” we tried our best to consider its place among Cyrus’ lead singles to date, and humbly rank the new track among the seven that have stood tall for years. (One note before we begin: 2015’s Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz did not have an official radio single as an independent release, but it does have a song that’s considered its lead single, so that’s the one we ranked.)
Here are Miley Cyrus’ lead singles, ranked.
Miley Cyrus dropped her new single “Flowers” on Thursday night, and all signs seem to point to the anthem taking inspiration from her relationship with ex-husband Liam Hemsworth.
Of course, the A-listers’ 2019 divorce — which was finalized the following January — is emotional territory that the pop star has mined previously, from the heartache of 2019 one-off “Slide Away” to Plastic Hearts lead single “Midnight Sky.”
But with distance and hindsight, the lead single from Cyrus’ upcoming Endless Summer Vacation offers a new and poignant take on her nearly 10-year romance with the actor, whom she first met on the set of the 2010 big-screen adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ The Last Song.
Below, Billboard dives into all the clues and lyrical Easter eggs that tell Cyrus’ side of her breakup with Hemsworth.
Look for more clues about Cyrus’ relationship with Hemsworth in the “Flowers” music video below.
The last thing the world needs is a new artist.
An influential executive said that around eight years ago, and she had a point — there’s already so much music in circulation that most acts are swimming against the current in their attempts to achieve widespread recognition.
But the industry doesn’t always know what it needs until it shows up, either. And all of country’s star acts — people such as Luke Combs, Carrie Underwood or Chris Stapleton — were unknown new artists before the genre eventually discovered they were essential for its vitality.
Over a dozen newbies are hoping events in the next six months will help them become the exception, eventually emerging as household names after releasing their first country album or EP during the period. The contenders include two acts (Tyler Hubbard and Mike Gossin) issuing their first solo projects, after previously earning hits as members of Florida Georgia Line and Gloriana, respectively.
The list also features three duos: recent 8 Track Entertainment signees BoomTown Saints, longtime Warner Music Nashville project Walker County and Americana husband-and-wife team The War and Treaty, who are optimistic that their sound can translate to country.
Following is an overview of 14 acts whose first album or EP, either in the genre or at a label of consequence, are due during the first six months of 2023:
You’re likely to find Jeff Beck‘s face on any Mount Rushmore of guitarists — and maybe of musicians, period.
His musical praises are being sung worldwide since his shocking death Wednesday (Jan. 11) from bacterial meningitis at age 78. And rest assured that everything being said about the seven-time Grammy winner and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is true. And maybe even understated.
While his skills are unquestionably worth celebrating, those discussions sometimes obscure the fact that Beck’s greatest gift was in service to the songs he played. Whether with the Yardbirds or the various incarnations of his own band, or with a wide variety of collaborators, Beck elevated his songs with purposeful and deliberate choices — of notes, riffs, phrasings — that raised them to the proverbial next level. He demonstrated plenty of flash and drama during his 60 years of recording, but always in a manner that made the songs soar.
The best are, not surprisingly, hard to choose, and there’s plenty of genuine greatness to be found deep in all of Beck’s albums. But these 10 — in alphabetical order — are at the top of the heap, all performances that transcend the individual songs to establish some new standards for music itself.