Music News
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Universal Music Group (UMG) announced a new project with Apple Music on Tuesday (May 13) “to help listeners attain clearer focus, deeper relaxation, and better sleep,” according to a press release. The initiative, called Sound Therapy, takes songs listeners are already familiar with — including tracks from Imagine Dragons, Katy Perry, Kacey Musgraves, Jhené Aiko, […]
Bad Bunny continues to build on the success of the chart-topping album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, as its single “DTMF” climbs 4-1 on the Latin Rhythm Airplay chart, marking his 28th ruler.
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“DTMF” hits No. 1 in its 15th week on the chart, despite a 2% dip in audience impressions, earning 6.2 million in the U.S. in the tracking week ending May 8, according to Luminate. Meanwhile, its parent album, his sixth studio set, returns to No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 for a fourth nonconsecutive week, thanks to its vinyl release, while it adds an 18th week at No. 1 on Top Latin Albums.
“DTMF” is the second song from Debí Tirar Más Fotos to reach the Latin Rhythm Airplay chart’s apex, after “El Clúb” crowned the chart for three weeks in February. Plus, it awards Benito his 28th No. 1, all within a period of seven years. Overall, he trails only J Balvin (37 champs), Daddy Yankee (35), and Ozuna (32), for the most No. 1s in the chart’s history.
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“DTMF” arrives at the summit on Latin Rhythm Airplay, as it adds a 17th week atop the Hot Latin Songs chart, of its 18 total weeks on the list (which blends streams, airplay and sales). It holds strong at No. 1 despite a 2% dip in streams, to 7.8 million, but enough to yield a concurrent 17th week atop Latin Streaming Songs.
The song remains the longest-leading track on the multi-metric tally since Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma’s “Ella Baila Sola” concluded its 19th week No. 1 run in August 2019. Hot Latin Songs combines streaming activity, radio airplay and digital sales into its formula.
“DTMF” also gains momentum on the overall Latin Airplay chart, rising 9-5 for its new peak.
Thanks to the double vinyl release of Debí Tirar Más Fotos, the album returns to No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart. It also extends its reign on the Top Latin Albums chart, reaching an 18th week at No. 1, encompassing its entire chart run.
Katy Perry is feeling the love from her fans, despite any hate she might get online.
At her Lifetimes Tour show in Chicago on Monday (May 12), the pop star joked about her public image with the crowd at the United Center. In a clip taken by one concertgoer, Perry reacts to the audience’s thunderous applause by quipping, “Well, I thought I was the most hated person on the internet.”
As the fans continue to clap and cheer, the “Firework” singer adds, “I think that’s false!”
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The show in Chicago comes a few weeks after Perry kicked off her Lifetimes trek supporting 2024 album 143 in Mexico City in late April. Earlier that month, she was part of Blue Origin’s first all-woman space flight — a highly criticized venture that has led to the musician experiencing an influx in negative comments on social media, as alluded to by Perry on stage.
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Before that, the former American Idol judge drew criticism for working with Dr. Luke on her single “Woman’s World,” despite allegations of sexual assault leveraged against him by Kesha. In 2014, the “Tik Tok” singer accused the producer of drugging and raping her in 2005, claims he called “false and shocking”; he then sued her for defamation, sparking a nine-year legal battle that finally resolved when the two parties reached a settlement in 2023.
In September, Perry addressed her decision to collaborate with Dr. Luke on Call Her Daddy, acknowledging that the move “started a lot of conversations.” “He was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with,” she added. “But the reality is, it comes from me. The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis, and he was one of the people to help facilitate all that.”
Between her work with Dr. Luke and the space expedition, Perry has certainly seen an uptick in online hate. But in addition to shrugging it off in Chicago, the star also recently got candid with fans about how she’s faring in the face of it all.
“Please know I am ok, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me,” she commented on Instagram in April. “My therapist said something years ago that has been a game changer: ‘No one can make you believe something about yourself that you don’t already believe about yourself.’ And if I ever do have any feelings about it, then it’s an opportunity to investigate the feeling underneath it.”
After working with more than a dozen collaborators on her acclaimed Brat remix album, Charli xcx may have just found her next duet partner: PinkPantheress.
On X Monday (May 12), the “Von Dutch” singer reacted to a post about the “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” musician recently saying that she’d definitely be down to work with Charli someday. In a Paper cover story published the day prior, PinkPantheress had gushed, “I mean, of course. If the opportunity ever comes up, I would love to.”
And in response, Charli returned the interest. “Well hello,” she wrote.
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The acknowledgement comes shortly after the Essex-born hitmaker praised PinkPantheress’s music video for new single “Tonight,” which arrived in April. “i love the new pinkpanthress video
BOYNEXTDOOR returned this week with their fourth EP, No Genre, and they’re back to “breaking out of the mold.”
The six-member K-pop boy band — SUNGHO, RIWOO, JAEHYUN, TAESAN, LEEHAN and WOONHAK — debuted in 2023 and has always prioritized being hands-on with their work. This time around, JAEHYUN, TAESAN and WOONHAK are all credited throughout the EP’s track list as songwriters. Following the release of “If I Say, I Love You” in January, the full seven-track No Genre project arrived on Tuesday (May 13) in South Korea along with lead single “I Feel Good” and its music video.
Billboard caught up with the group during release week to talk about the just-released project, working on their music, and what to expect from their debut performance at Lollapalooza, going down July 31-Aug. 3 at Chicago’s Grant Park. Check out our conversation below, and stick with @Billboard socials for more from the septet coming throughout this summer.
What does the title of your fourth EP, No Genre, mean to you?
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LEEHAN: To us, “No Genre” means breaking out of the mold. We’re a group that genuinely loves all kinds of music, and rather than confining ourselves to a single style, we wanted this album to reflect our openness and freedom. By being directly involved in the creative process, we were able to tell fresher and more exciting stories in our own way.
Why is it important to BOYNEXTDOOR to have the group members so involved in writing and producing your music?
TAESAN: It allows us to fully express what we want to say through our music. Writing and producing our own songs lets us tell our own stories in a way that feels real and personal.
WOONHAK: We believe our music is only complete when it reflects our own emotions and real-life experiences. By taking part in the songwriting process, we’re able to deliver honest and relatable stories in our own voice. I feel like that’s what makes our songs feel instinctive and unfiltered.
What are you planning for your first performance at Lollapalooza later this summer?
JAEHYUN: We’re working hard to make our stage feel more interactive and alive. We’ve been studying English to better communicate with the audience, and we’re also trying out new ideas to make our performance even more engaging.
RIWOO: Since Lollapalooza brings together a wide audience of people who love music and the festival experience, we’re preparing a performance that anyone can enjoy.
What did you learn from your KCON LA performances last year that you’ll bring to your Lollapalooza set?
SUNGHO: At KCON LA, we learned how important it is to create a stage where everyone feels like part of the moment. For Lollapalooza, we want to bring that same energy, where everyone can let loose and have fun with us. Since it’s our first time at Lollapalooza, we want to leave a strong impression and make sure people remember the name BOYNEXTDOOR.
Usher has been honored with Diamond plaques from the RIAA during his decorated career, and now, he’ll be celebrated on the baseball diamond. The Atlanta Braves announced on Tuesday (May 13) that the first 15,000 fans in attendance of June 18’s game against the New York Mets at Truist Park will receive a limited-edition collectible […]
That Mexican OT might be able to add bullfighter to his resumé. The Texas rapper served as a guest coach at the Ultimate Bullfighters Midnight Bullfight Saturday (May 10) at Cowtown Coliseum in the Fort Worth, Texas, and decided to step into the arena to try his hand at freestyle bullfighting. Armed with just a […]
Taylor Swift’s longtime lawyers are asking a court to throw out a subpoena they were served by Justin Baldoni in his feud with Blake Lively over the movie It Ends With Us, just a few days after Swift’s own reps slammed Baldoni for targeting the pop star with a similar subpoena.
The Washington, D.C.-based law firm Venable, which has represented Swift for more than a decade, revealed in a Monday (May 12) motion that Baldoni’s lawyers served it with a subpoena on April 29 seeking all communications between the firm on one side and Lively, the actress’ husband Ryan Reynolds and/or their attorney Michael Gottlieb on the other.
The subpoena specifically name-drops Douglas Baldridge, a Venable partner who’s worked with Swift since 2013 and recently returned to the firm after a stint as general counsel at her company, 13 Management.
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“Venable had nothing to do with the film at issue or any of the claims or defenses asserted in the underlying lawsuit,” wrote the firm in a so-called motion to quash, which, if granted, would throw out the document request. “There is no reason for this subpoena other than to distract from the facts of the case and impose undue burden and expense on a non-party.”
The law firm described Baldoni’s subpoena as a “fishing expedition,” noting that “even if Venable were somehow involved (again, it is not),” the documents that Baldoni seeks should be sourced from Lively and Reynolds themselves. The actor power couple is supporting Venable in its quest to throw out Baldoni’s subpoena, calling it an “abuse of the discovery process” in a court filing on Tuesday (May 13).
Revelations of the Venable subpoena come just a few days after Swift’s representatives confirmed that she, too, had been served with a document request in the Baldoni-Lively feud. Mirroring the language in Venable’s motion, a representative for Swift said she had no involvement in It Ends With Us and slammed the subpoena as “designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case.”Venable did not immediately return a request for comment, nor did reps for Swift, Lively, Reynolds or Baldoni.
The It Ends With Us legal battle began when Lively launched bombshell claims in December, alleging that Baldoni, her co-star and director on the movie released last summer, sexually harassed her on set and then orchestrated a public relations smear campaign to retaliate against her after she complained.
Baldoni vehemently denied the claims and countersued Lively for defamation and other wrongdoing in January. Baldoni’s suit said Lively leveraged her close relationship with a “megacelebrity friend,” presumed to be Swift, to take control of the movie.
The Baldoni filing includes text messages concerning an alleged meeting attended by “Ryan and Taylor,” seemingly referencing Reynolds and Swift. In one message sent by Lively, the actress called Swift and Reynolds her “most trusted partners” and compared them to the “dragons” in the show Game of Thrones.
“The message could not have been clearer,” Baldoni’s lawyers wrote in the countersuit. “Baldoni was not just dealing with Lively. He was also facing Lively’s ‘dragons,’ two of the most influential and wealthy celebrities in the world, who were not afraid to make things very difficult for him.”
Chinese streaming platform Tencent Music Entertainment grew its stake in the world’s largest music company, Universal Music Group (UMG), by picking up a direct 2% equity holding worth $327 million in March, the company said on Tuesday (May 13).
While it did not identify the seller — described in Tuesday’s filings only as “one of our associates” — Pershing Square sold 50 million shares of UMG on March 13, raising about $1.3 billion, according to filings and research reports. Tencent Music and Pershing Square did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The news means that Tencent Music and UMG each own notable stakes in each other’s companies, as UMG owns a 0.79% stake in TME as of Dec. 31 that’s currently worth $181.2 million.
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Tencent Music has been an investor in UMG since March 2020, when it joined a consortium of investors led by its parent company, Tencent Holdings. That consortium accumulated a 20% stake in UMG from UMG’s parent company, Vivendi S.A., between 2020 and 2021, of which Tencent Music owned a 10% share, according to filings.
This March, that consortium “completed a transfer of the UMG shares held by the consortium to its members,” which resulted in Tencent Music acquiring a direct 2% equity interest in UMG, according to its annual report.
Tencent Music, which reported first-quarter revenue of 7.36 billion Chinese yuan ($1.01 billion) on Tuesday, recognized “other gains” worth 2.44 billion Chinese yuan (US$336 million), of which the UMG stock comprised 2.37 billion Chinese yuan (US$327 million), according to filings.
Pershing Square has been an investor in UMG since 2021, and though the mid-March stock sale reduced its stake in UMG to 4.9% from 7.6%, the music company remains the hedge fund’s largest single holding, comprising 17% of its capital.
The sale came ahead of Pershing Square’s plan to register its UMG shares in the United States in September. Pershing Square head and UMG board member Bill Ackman has advocated for the company to move its primary listing from the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange to a U.S.-based exchange, saying it would add value for the company.
Over the past four years, when Morgan Wallen releases an album, it has camped out at the top of the Billboard 200 for quite some time. Starting with the 10-week No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album in 2021 and continuing with 19-week chart-topper One Thing at a Time in 2023, Wallen has a pretty unimpeachable […]