Lists
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In 1994, Mariah Carey‘s Merry Christmas, which contains her seasonal chart-topping carol “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” helped revitalize the contemporary pop holiday album. The singer’s effort was not the top selling yuletide-themed project of the year — that title went to Kenny G’s Miracles: The Holiday Album — but its enduring popularity helped set a new standard for the modern Christmas album.
By the turn of the century, recording a holiday album became a rite of passage for almost every burgeoning pop star, with some releasing more than one over the course of their careers. Mariah herself released Merry Christmas II You in 2010, while a cappella group Pentatonix dropped six holiday albums in a decade.
At the same time, seasonal music, secular or otherwise, continues to transcend genre and age. Both Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber were just 17 when they released their first holiday collections, The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection and Under the Mistletoe, respectively. And now that well over a decade has passed since both releases, only time will tell if the two have festive fa-la-la follow-ups up their sleeves.
To celebrate “the most wonderful time of the year,” Billboard decided to take a look back and tally up the 21 best Christmas albums of the 21st century so far. Whether you’re curled up by the fireplace with a warm cup of cocoa, taking a drive through winter wonderland or rocking around the Christmas tree with your friends and family, listen in below.
And check out our top 100 Best Christmas Songs of All Time list here.
It was a refrain heard throughout the Billboard offices in the first half of 2022: Where are the hits? The slow start for new entries really impacting the Billboard Hot 100 had us all looking left and looking right for the sort of songs we usually take for granted — the kind that slowly (or not-so-slowly) spread to all corners of the culture, connecting every kind of music fan and becoming unavoidable parts of a given year’s experience. With 2021’s biggest singles refusing to go away and this year’s listenership seemingly too spread out to elect new consensus hits to replace the incumbents, it was starting to look like we might go the whole calendar subsisting on nothing but reruns.
Luckily for us, the hits showed: first from some of pop’s biggest returning heroes, then from some artists taking the next step towards stardom, some longtime hitmakers we hadn’t heard from in a bit, and some new names we hope to be hearing a lot more from in the years to come. And of course, it wasn’t just the big songs that enraptured us in 2022; we found plenty of smaller favorites to save to our streaming playlists and inspire our vinyl orders in between those. But the year just wouldn’t have felt complete without those late-arriving, chart-crashing smashes, particularly since we ended up getting a handful who proved more than worthy of their position.
Here are our 100 favorite songs of 2022, a year that once again proved that no matter the time or context, pop music always finds a way. (Songs were considered eligible for the list if they either came out in 2022, were first released as an official single in 2022, or peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022 — though sorry, Stranger Things heads, we still couldn’t quite justify including “Running Up That Hill” or “Master of Puppets.”)
While every year of the streaming era — maybe every year of the post-Napster era — has brought with it concerns about the health of the full-album format, 2022 ended up making a pretty convincing argument that the LP could still be just as vital in the culture as it was during Tower Records’ heyday. Huge stars came through with enormous albums this past year, dominating discussion, drawing rave reviews, changing careers, and (in at least one or two cases) putting up numbers that previously seemed close to impossible at this point in pop history. (And thanks to a renewed interest in CD packaging and the continued growth of the vinyl market, fans were spending money on actual physical copies of many of these albums, a practice that seemed to be going nearly extinct not that long ago.)
But it wasn’t just the already-big going (and getting) bigger in 2022. Some new and still-rising artists found their voices in unexpected and thrilling ways, scoring breakout hits and connecting with new audiences. Some veteran artists continued to hone their trademark craft, making satisfying and well-received comebacks that made us wish they hadn’t left us for so long beforehand. And some of our preeminent hitmakers continued to evolve and challenge audiences with unexpected shifts in their sound and vision, resulting in returns that were less commercially explosive but even more artistically rewarding.
Here are our 50 favorite albums from this year — sets which both made us nostalgic for the format’s past, and excited about its future.
In October, it was revealed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk took control of Twitter after a lengthy legal battle and months of uncertainty.
Since beginning his reign on the popular social media platform, the multi-billionaire has made a number of controversial decisions, including reinstating former president Donald Trump to Twitter after the site’s previous owners had permanently suspended him for violating company rules in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The decision to reactivate Trump’s account comes after Musk posted a Twitter poll asking users if they would like to see the former president back on the platform — days after Trump announced his third White House bid. After that, Musk announced that he would return the suspended Trump account after around 15 million users allegedly voted 51.8% in favor of reinstating it.
Amid Musk’s Twitter takeover, a number of stars have removed themselves from the platform, citing hate speech and Musk’s decisions. We’ve compiled all the musicians who have decided that Twitter is no longer for them, including Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor, Sara Bareilles, Jack White and more. See below.
What is a jock jam?
Well, in the ’90s it was whatever ESPN defined it as for the purposes of their series of Jock Jams compilations: Most often, hip-hop-flavored dance-pop bangers which implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) promoted physical movement of any and all kinds. But defined more broadly for our purposes at Billboard, a Jock Jam is a song that has come to define the in-game experience at a pro sports arena: Any song that, after years of stadium (over-)usage, is as familiar to sports fans’ ears as sneaker squeaks, referee whistles and Zamboni organ groans. It’s a canon that spans rock, hip-hop, dance and country, and still includes pop songs old and new.
To celebrate this canon, Billboard presents our list of the 100 greatest jock jams of all time. We tried to stay away from jams that only really made sense for one sport (like John Fogerty’s “Centerfield”) or one city (like Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”), in favor of the classics that could work in the most games in the most places. These are the songs that helped define sports culture in this country for decades, which may have fallen in and out of favor with music supervisors as hip songs of the moment, but which will forever produce a Pavlovian response of sports-readiness. It’s a Hall of Fame in which AC/DC are The Beatles, 2 Unlimited are Michael Jackson, and The Baha Men… well, they’re still The Baha Men, but forever bronzed at their 2000 peak.
Now, a bunch of us here at Billboard are sports junkies, but we didn’t trust our own experiences and recollections in this matter to be anywhere near complete. So to help flesh out our Top 100 and determine the absolute cream of the bumper-music crop, we consulted the experts: Stadium entertainment officials, DJs, and general music men and women of the MLB, NHL, NFL and especially the NBA worlds. They were kind enough to give us their picks for the stadium-anthem GOATs, and explanations for their selections are interspersed throughout our list.
And now, let’s sound the horn and get our countdown underway. Y’all ready for this?
Every year at the end of November, Americans gather around tables short and long with family and friends to enjoy a meal with those for which they are most thankful. We take note of our blessings and privileges — and make more happy memories to be grateful for in the future.
Of course, that spirit of thankfulness shouldn’t come only once a year. We should always take stock of all we have to appreciate every morning and every night, and if you need some musical motivation to get you in the grateful mood, we have some suggestions.
There are so many people you can be thankful for. You can be grateful to a romantic partner who saw the best in you even when you didn’t believe in yourself; a long-time friend who’s always had your back; a family member who deserves a bit of praise and a reminder that they made you who you are; or even an ex-lover or enemy whose tough words helped you become all the stronger for having survived them.
Whoever you have in mind, there’s something on this list to dedicate to the people who shaped you that’s worth singing out loud in the shower, in the car and all over town.
From Ariana Grande to Alanis Morissette, Celine Dion to Ozuna, FKA Twigs, Backstreet Boys and DJ Khaled, these 20 songs will have you singing “thank you, thank you, thank you.” (And yes, that last bit is a hint about a certain song by Natalie Merchant.)
When the 2023 Grammy nominations were announced last week, the major categories included superstars racking up major (and in some cases, historic) nominations, as well as some notable snubs. Then there is the best new artist category, which is as wide-open as it’s ever been.
The nominees constitute a fresh new crop of rising stars who have been gaining traction in the ever-changing music industry through TikTok trends, viral moments and smash summer hits, among other avenues. In the past, superstars like Olivia Rodrigo, Megan Thee Stallion and Billie Eilish have snagged the highly coveted crown… but this year’s list of nominees is filled with artists trying to take their next big step. They include Latto, a new hit-maker who gave a dose of “Big Energy” to top 40 radio this year; Måneskin, who scored one of the most unlikely rock hits in recent memory with a raucous version of a half-century-old song; Molly Tuttle, a celebrated bluegrass performer who has the talent and songwriting panache to cross over; and Muni Long, who created several hits for other artists before finally scoring one of her own with the viral R&B smash “Hrs and Hrs.” But in this race, every nominee’s story is fascinating, and worthy of discovery.
The pressure is on to score a major moment during the Feb. 5, 2023 telecast. Until then, get to know the backstory, sound and personality of all 10 of the Grammy best new artist nominees. Here is a breakdown of who could rule the scene next.
A lot of times, artists like to leave the meaning of their creations up to interpretation, but on occasion, they opt to make it more obvious. And nothing says “This is who my song is about” like casting someone who looks just like that person to star alongside you in a music video.
That’s what pop stars such as The Weeknd, Halsey, Selena Gomez and many, many more have all attempted in past music videos. Whether it’s to seemingly shade an ex (see: Justin Timberlake‘s “Cry Me a River” Britney Spears stand-in) or send a message to the one who got away (looking at you, Joshua Bassett and your “Doppelgänger” Olivia Rodrigo carbon copy), artists have been quite creative when it comes to using lookalikes to spice up their visual projects.
Not all music video lookalikes, however, have anything to do with an artist’s past romances — and not all music video lookalikes go over well. Kanye West, for example, faced quite a bit of backlash after he featured nude artificial figures of several well-known celebrities in his “Famous” music video, while DaBaby took some heat for using a Megan Thee Stallion-esque actress in a video for his track “Boogeyman,” on which he brags about having allegedly slept with the “WAP” rapper.
But whether a video elicits a positive or negative reaction from viewers, those with celebrity lookalikes almost always have one thing in common: They get people talking. Keep reading to see which pop stars have included doppelgängers of famous friends or foes in their music videos below.
How is Taylor Swift going to pull this off?
Her new “Eras” tour, promising a journey “through all the musical eras of my career,” was announced Tuesday (Nov. 1) and will visit U.S. stadiums beginning in March 2023. But to consider what this tour’s setlist might resemble is like trying to understand the true size of our galaxy — there’s just so much … of everything.
There are synth-pop bangers, the acoustic slow burns, the twangy throwbacks, the fan-worshiped deep cuts — not to mention the fact that Swift has dropped six No. 1 albums totaling 86 new or previously unreleased songs since her last roadshow, the Reputation Tour, in 2018.
Where does one even begin to cobble together an ideal setlist that can represent her prolific catalog and celebrate her latest world-beater in Midnights? Right here, that’s where!
Below is our dream setlist, which visits all 10 of her studio albums, keeps past tour tendencies in mind, and still makes the spectacle somewhat manageable. By our count, she could blast through all these hits and medleys in about two-and-a-half hours — a reasonable show length, considering it’s her first trek in nearly five years.
This set would surely bring incredible highs and torrents of tears — what more could a Swiftie want? Until then, we’ll keep dreaming!
Halloweekend is in full swing and, as usual, celebrities are showing off their best costumes during the creepiest, crawliest time of the year.
From homages to classic movie characters and beloved musicians to going just plain spooky, celebrities really turned it up a notch this year when it came to their Halloween looks. From Ariana Grande’s Best in Show moment to MUNA reviving Pink Slip from Freaky Friday, Hollywood brought together the fun, the sexy, the cool and the creepy for the ultimate holiday weekend.
See below for a roundup of the best costumes that celebrities have donned so far this Halloween season. We’ll be updating the list all weekend, so be sure to check back to see more looks.