Music News

02 Feb 2024

Calvin Harris & Kid Cudi to Headline FanDuel x Spotify Super Bowl Party

FanDuel is teaming up with Spotify this year for its annual Super Bowl party, with Calvin Harris and Kid Cudi announced as the headliners, Billboard can exclusively announce.

The 2024 FanDuel Super Bowl Party Powered by Spotify — which will be held at LIV inside the Strip’s newest resort, Fontainebleau Las Vegas, on Friday night, Feb. 9 — is the company’s third annual Super Bowl event and will feature a live recording of The Ringer Gambling Show podcast with hosts John “JJ” Jastremski, Raheem Palmer and “Cousin Sal” Iacono.

Last month, Calvin Harris broke the record for the most No. 1s in the 20-year history of Billboard’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, as his Eliza Rose collaboration “Body Moving” rose to the top of the ranking dated Jan. 13. He earned his 14th Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart-topper, breaking out of a tie with David Guetta. On Jan. 12, Kid Cudi released his ninth studio album, Insano, which features collabs with Travis Scott, ASAP Rocky, Lil Yachty, Pharrell Williams, the late XXXTentacion, Lil Wayne and Young Thug. The project debuted at No. 4 on the Top Rap Albums chart dated Jan. 27.

Since 2021, FanDuel has been the exclusive sports betting partner of Spotify sports and pop culture podcast network The Ringer. This Super Bowl party further cements the two companies’ partnership, which expanded in 2023 to encompass content produced for FanDuel TV, including the shows Beyond the Arc with Kevin O’Connor and Through The Ringer with Tate Frazier.

The event comes just two days before Super Bowl LVIII at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium on Sunday (Feb. 11), where the Kansas City Chiefs will take on the San Francisco 49ers for the championship. It was announced in September that Usher would headline the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show. Usher also announced that his ninth album, Coming Home, will arrive on Super Bowl Sunday. This set marks his first new album since 2016’s Hard II Love, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.

If you’re in Sin City for the week, check out our full guide to this year’s Super Bowl parties ahead of the Big Game here.

02 Feb 2024

Nikki Haley Is Confused By the Right-Wing Freak-Out Over Taylor Swift: ‘I Don’t Know What the Obsession Is’

As MAGA Nation continues to have a four-alarm meltdown about a conspiracy theory claiming the upcoming Super Bowl is rigged in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs as part of an elaborate psyop involving Taylor Swift, Nikki Haley says everyone needs to calm down.

The former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. is the only candidate still challenging one-term former president Donald Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination and during a chat with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday (Feb. 1) Haley said she was confounded by the right wing’s latest phantom menace.

“I’m not going to lie. I don’t know what the obsession is,” Haley said of the barrage of outlandish stories on conservative media outlets such as Fox News, OAN and Newsmax wildly speculating that Swift is somehow colluding with the NFL and the White House to turn the Feb. 11 Super Bowl into a glorified Pres. Biden endorsement-fest.

“Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend. Taylor Swift is a good artist. I have taken my daughter to Taylor Swift concerts before,” Haley said. “To have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre. Nobody knows who she’s going to endorse, but I can’t believe that that’s overtaken our national politics.”

Swift, for the record, has not endorsed anyone in the upcoming election, though she did throw her support behind Biden in the 2020 election in which he beat Trump. To boot, the singer may or may not even make it to Super Bowl LVIII to see boyfriend KC tight end Travis Kelce take on the San Francisco 49ers because she has an Eras Tour gig in Japan the night before.

That has not stopped wildly unfounded speculation from at least one former GOP presidential candidate and avid Trump supporter Vivek Ramaswamy. The Ohio businessman recently tweeted out a suggestion that “there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall,” in seeming reference to the elaborate QAnon-like theory that Swift will steal the spotlight at the most-watched TV event of the year by announcing her support for Biden during the big game.

As is her wont, Haley tried to pivot from MAGA madness to the issues she’s trying to promote in what most political pundits believe is a lost cause effort to wrest the nomination from twice-impeached Trump. “I mean, right now, you have got 60 percent of American families living paycheck to paycheck. We’ve got a border that’s out of control. We have got wars happening around the world,” Haley said. “The last thing I really think we need to be worried about is who Taylor Swift is dating and what conspiracy theory is going to have her endorsing a person for president.”

Haley isn’t the only one throwing cold water on the right’s bizarre obsession. NBA great Charles Barkley slammed those complaining that Swift has “ruined” football. “You’re just a loser,” Sir Charles told CNN this week, while The View host Whoopi Goldberg asked “why is she triggering everybody? They are freaking out.”

Watch video of Haley talking Swift (at the 5:00 minute mark) here.

02 Feb 2024

Sara Bareilles Returns to Broadway With ‘The Interestings’

As more and more artists from the pop world add writing a Broadway musical to their career-goal lists, Sara Bareilles stands out as one of the brightest success stories from that group.

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Waitress — the musical adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s beloved independent film, featuring music and lyrics by Bareilles — was an unequivocal Broadway hit, running for nearly four years after an opening in April 2016.

That year, Bareilles’ score earned her two Tony nominations (out of a total four for the show), and she went on to perform the lead role of Jenna for three different stints. The production played London’s West End as well as internationally, garnered a Grammy nomination for its original Broadway cast recording, and yielded both a standalone Bareilles album (What’s Inside: Songs From Waitress, released on Epic Records between the show’s off-Broadway and Broadway runs) and a film of the stage show (which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023).

Sara Bareilles performs during the curtain call for Broadway's

Sara Bareilles performs during the curtain call for Broadway’s “Waitress” at The Brooks Atkinson Theatre on March 31, 2017 in New York City. 

Noam Galai/Getty Images

Now, Bareilles — who’s been warmly embraced by the wider theater community, and racked up another Tony nomination last year for her portrayal of The Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods — is making her return to Broadway.

She’s writing the music and lyrics for The Interestings, an adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel by Meg Wolitzer with a book by Pulitzer- and Tony-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl.

The plot of Wolitzer’s novel revolves around character Jules Jacobson and her friends from an exclusive childhood arts camp (the titular Interestings, as they call themselves) who grow up to find varying degrees of success and satisfaction or disillusionment with where a creative life has led them.

When it came out in 2013, the Times called it “warm, all-American, and acutely perceptive about the motivations of its characters,” likening it to modern Great American Novels and praising Wolitzer’s “inclusive vision and generous sweep.” With its complex, layered female protagonist and diverse cast of characters, as well as the knotty themes it explores — ranging from what qualifies as success to whether being extraordinary is the only path to it — the book seems rich material for musical adaptation, and it’s easy to see why it appealed to Bareilles, whose Waitress balanced the buoyant with the bittersweet.

The Interestings is being produced by Matt Ross, and is currently in development; additional creative team and production details will be announced in the coming months.

02 Feb 2024

Louis Tomlinson Superfan Jokes They’re (Technically) Man and Wife Now After She Snagged a Very Special Autograph

Let this be a lesson to Louis Tomlinson: be careful what you sign. During the former One Direction singer’s show last month on his Faith in the Future world tour date in Jakarta, Tomlinson was signing some items for fans and apparently one of the slips of paper he was handed was an official document.

In a TikTok video, the fan said she went to the show as a single woman, “but I got back there as a married woman because,” she said as she showed off a document featuring her picture next to Tomlinson’s on what appeared to be an official document. “He signed a marriage certificate… of me and him,” she said in disbelief.

“I’m a married woman. I’m married to Louis Tomlinson,” she said with a smile. “I’m his lawfully wedded wife.” The fan said she did not go to the post-concert meet-and-greet, but a friend did and asked Tomlinson is he plans to return to Jakarta. “And he answered, ‘If my wife wants to!’ After he signed this! ‘IF MY WIFE WANTS TO!’ I’M HIS WIFE! Are you kidding me?”

The whole thing was just for fun, of course, but woman shared another video in which Tomlinson (who is heard, but not seen in full) asks, “what’s this some kind of declaration of marriage, is it?” as he’s handed a document that looked like a version of the Republic of Indonesia marriage certificate. “It’s official, is that right?” he adds laughing. As she assures him it is, Tomlinson says, “yeah, right right” and asks where he needs to sign. When she implores him to come visit more often, dutiful fake husband Tomlinson responds, “well I have to, yeah, if my wife wants me to, I have to.”

It was all fun and games, of course — according to the U.S. Embassy & Consulate in Indonesia, a marriage in the country requires a religious ceremony by two parties of the same religion — so, alas, Tomlinson will continue on his world tour without his phony bride, touching down at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney tonight (Feb. 2).

Watch the TikTok below.

02 Feb 2024

Jack Whitehall Wished Harry Styles a Happy 30th Birthday With a Hilariously NSFW Poem

British comedian Jack Whitehall was, ostensibly, on The Tonight Show on Thursday night (Feb. 1) to plug his new Netflix special, Settle Down. And while that made it a special occasion, Whitehall said his appearance also marked an even more very significant milestone.

“Some of you will know, today is a very, very important day for another reason,” Whitehall told host Jimmy Fallon after chiding him for not mentioning the important date in the monologue earlier. “The first of February, Jimmy, today, is the 30th birthday of Mr. Harry Styles!” Whitehall, who has had some legendary run-ins with the “Watermelon Sugar” singer on U.K. TV over the years encouraged the audience to wish Harry a happy day, confident that Styles would see his kind gesture, because, as he noted, “he watches all of my late-night appearances.”

Saying he had planned to leave Styles a personal voice note later that night, Fallon twisted the comedian’s arm to read the very special tribute he penned for the singer. By chance, Whitehall had his little pink journal in his breast pocket, which he pulled out to workshop his Harry homage for the studio audience. “Just tell me if you think this is too much,” Whitehall said of the poem titled: “Turning 30 in Styles.”

“Harry, oh sweet Harry, you are a man of utter class

My north, my south, my if, my when

My elbow and my ass

I first saw you on X-Factor

The silly reality show way back in 2010

Nearly three Simon Cowell faces ago

A twinkle in your eyes, your hair looked like a mop

A high-pitched little voice, your testicles yet to drop

You dazzled the world with your boy band One Direction

An unstoppable rise, like an unwanted morning … [asking if he can say that word on late night TV]

The day the band broke up, I screamed, I cursed, I cried

I hadn’t been that sad since the day Mufasa died…”

Watch Whitehall read his poetic tribute to Styles on The Tonight Show below.

02 Feb 2024

Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler Sells Guitar Collection at Auction

An impressive collection of Mark Knopfler’s guitars and amps went under the hammer this week, raking in more than £8.8 million ($11 million) – a chunk of which goes to charity.

The Dire Straits frontman offloaded 120 instruments, auctioned Wednesday (Jan. 31) at Christie’s in London.

That gear was accumulated across a 50-year career, and was led by the sale of the northern Englishman’s 1959 Vintage Gibson Les Paul Standard, which changed hands for £693,000 ($884,000), a new world auction record for the model, the BBC reports.

Some of the bids blew estimates out of the water. Knopfler’s 1988 Pensa-Suhr MK-1, which he played at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute concert at Wembley Stadium, in June 1988, went for £504,000 ($643,000), well up on its £8,000 ($10,000) estimate.

And his Red Schecter Telecaster, one of his “longest serving and most heavily toured instruments,” which Knopfler used on the Dire Straits hit from 1985 “Walk Of Life,” collected £415,800 ($530,000); the six-string had an estimate of just £6,000 ($7,600).

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Registered bidders and buyers for the auction chimed in from 61 countries. The total (including buyer’s premium) came in at £8,840,160, with a least a quarter of proceeds flowing equally to charities the British Red Cross, Tusk, and Brave Hearts of the North East.

Also, the Teenage Cancer Trust collects the total £403,200 raised from Knopfler’s 2021 Gibson Les Paul “gold top” guitar – signed by a slew of rock stars, including the late Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and Slash.

“I hope they all get played,” he told BBC News of his guitar collection back in November, “I don’t think they do too well living in a case all their lives.”

Knopfler is widely recognized by his peers as one of the finest to ever play the electric guitar, his solo on “Sultans of Swing” essential listening for any guitarist keen to take the next step. Indeed, Knopfler slides in at No. 27 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

With Dire Straits’ fifth studio album, 1985’s Brothers In Arms, the English band landed one of the biggest hits of the decade — or any decade. The LP, which featured the Billboard Hot 100 leader “Money For Nothing,” reigned over the Official U.K. Albums Chart for 14 weeks, and led the Billboard 200 for nine weeks.

The LP shifted an estimated 30 million copies worldwide, and won two Grammys (best music video, short form for the title track, and best rock performance by a duo or group with vocal for “Money For Nothing”).

Dire Straits’ fanbase spread the globe. Their 1986 tour of Australia in support of Brothers In Arms sold 950,000 tickets, a record that stood for decades, until Ed Sheeran’s 2018 Divide tour pushed past the 1 million ticket milestone.

Though dormant since 1992, the group was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. Knopfler didn’t attend the ceremony in Cleveland.

Though Knopfler is now separated from many of his prized instruments, he’s not done with making music. His forthcoming 10th solo studio album, One Deep River, is slated for released on April 12.

01 Feb 2024

Green Day’s ‘Saviors’ Starts at No. 1 on Multiple Billboard Album Charts

Green Day’s latest studio album, Saviors, makes an eye-catching debut across Billboard’s charts, as it debuts atop seven different U.S. album charts (all dated Feb. 3). Plus, the set scores the band its best sales week ever on vinyl in the U.S.

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All told, Saviors starts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales, Top Current Album Sales, Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums, Top Alternative Albums, Vinyl Albums and Tastemaker Albums.

In the tracking week ending Jan. 25, Saviors sold 39,000 copies in the U.S., according to Luminate. Of that sum, physical sales comprise 30,000 (18,000 on vinyl – the band’s best week ever on vinyl; 11,000 on CD and 1,000 on cassette) and digital album download sales comprise 9,000.

Saviors is Green Day’s fifth No. 1 on Top Album Sales and Top Current Album Sales; fourth No. 1 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums, third No. 1 on Vinyl Albums and fifth leader on Tastemaker Albums.

Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums rank, respectively, the week’s most popular rock and alternative, rock, and alternative albums by equivalent album units. Vinyl Album tallies the week’s top-selling vinyl releases. Tastemaker Albums measures the top-selling titles at independent and small chain record stores. Top Current Album Sales ranks the week’s top-selling new/current albums (non-catalog/older titles).

The first-week sales of Saviors were bolstered by its availability across more than 15 vinyl variants (all with the same tracklist, just different colored vinyl), an autographed CD sold through the band’s webstore and two deluxe boxed sets containing a CD and an artist branded t-shirt (both exclusive to Green Day’s Webstore).

A quartet of former No. 1s follows Saviors on the new Top Album Sales chart, as Taylor Swift’s Folklore is a non-mover at No. 2 (11,000; down 42%), as is Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) at No. 3 (nearly 11,000; down 18%). Kali Uchis’ Orquideas falls 1-4 in its second week with 7,000 (down 78%), while Swift’s Midnights rises 6-5 (nearly 7,000; down 15%).

NMIXX notches its first top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales as Fe3O4: Break debuts at No. 6 with a little over 6,000 sold. Its sales were encouraged by its availability in five collectible CD packages, all containing branded paper merchandise (including some randomized), including two signed editions sold through the act’s official webstore.

Stray Kids’ former No. 1 ROCK-STAR is steady at No. 7 (6,000; down 19%) and Swift’s chart-topping Lover is stationary at No. 8 (nearly 6,000; down 9%). The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds returns to the top 10, re-entering the chart at No. 9 with just over 5,000 sold, following the release of a new deluxe edition containing seven live bonus tracks recorded in October 2023. Swift’s former leader Evermore rounds out the top 10, dipping 9-10 with 5,000 sold (down 12%).

In the week ending Jan. 25, there were 1.103 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 1.8% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 823,000 (up 0.1%) and digital albums comprised 280,000 (up 7.4%).

There were 388,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Jan. 25 (up 5.1 week-over-week) and 429,000 vinyl albums sold (down 4.6%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 1.704 million (down 26.9% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 1.995 million (down 45.8%).

Overall year-to-date album sales total 4.797 million (down 35% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 3.718 million (down 38.5%) and digital album sales total 1.079 million (down 19%).

01 Feb 2024

Justin Tranter on Grammy Nod, Writing Something ‘Filthy & Sexy’ With Miley Cyrus & How Songwriters Could ‘Run the Industry’

Justin Tranter is in the midst of a massive week. The renowned hitmaker is up for the songwriter of the year award at this Sunday’s Grammy Awards and will also host the Premiere Ceremony prior to the 2024 Grammys, live from Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

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Ahead of Grammys week, Billboard‘s senior music correspondent Katie Bain sat down with Tranter to talk about why the Grammys’ addition of the songwriter award is so important. 2024 marks the second year the songwriter of the year Grammy is being awarded and marks Tranter’s first nomination in the category. (They were previously nominated for song of the year in 2018 for Julia Michaels’ “Issues.”)

Tranter says they found out they were nominated when when they were out walking the dog and suddenly, 300 congratulatory texts came through.

“I think it’s important because we almost always get the short end of the stick in this business,” Tranter says of the Grammys acknowledging songwriters with the new-as-of-last-year songwriters category. “We’re always kind of thought of last; we’re always treated the worst, and I do think it is intentional because we are so powerful, that if we are allowed to recognize our power and flex our power, we would run the industry, and people don’t want that.

“So I think that this award is very important,” they continue, “because it lends visibility to songwriters, and without visibility we have no power, because we live in a world where if you can’t see something, you can’t hear something, it doesn’t exist.”

Tranter also shares stories of working on each of the songs they were nominated for in 2024, including Reneé Rapp‘s “Gemini Moon” (“She was mentioning her moon is in Gemini, and I’m a Gemini…and we Googled and that day the moon was also in gemini…”), Maneskin (“I DM’d them on Instagram when they won Eurovision and said ‘you are the coolest band I’ve seen since my band, we should work together’”), and Miley Cyrus (“we had one day together, and she was in the beginning of a new relationship and was feeling really sexy and fabulous and wanted to write something, in her words, pretty f—ing filthy and sexy”).

Tranter has worked with some the biggest superstars in modern pop music, and says building rapport with artists like Justin Bieber and Cardi B during the writing process is about sharing part of themselves.

“I can’t be afraid to ask slightly more personal questions than you’d usually ask someone you met an hour ago,” Tranter says. “But I think if you ask them with respect and also share at least a little bit about my life, then it feels like we are in this together. And I am very lucky too that I was just born pretty confident, and so I think me being a very femme queer person who is also very confident creates a space that’s [like] ‘if I can be confident in this, then you can be confident in what you’re in, what you’re living through.’”

01 Feb 2024

Charles Barkley Slams Taylor Swift Haters: ‘You’re Just a Loser’

Charles Barkley has a simple message for NFL fans hating on Taylor Swift.

“If you’re screaming at T-Swift saying she ruined [football], you’re just a loser,” the TV presenter and former basketball player said on CNN this week. “You’re just a loser or a jacka–. You can be A or B. One of the two.”

While Swift has been a mainstay at Kansas City Chiefs games throughout the season supporting her boyfriend Travis Kelce, it’s unclear if she’ll be able to make it out to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl on Sunday (Feb. 11), in which the Chiefs will face off against the Baltimore Ravens. She’ll be kicking off the Asian and Australian legs of her Eras tour on February 7 to 10, with four shows at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. She then has a few days off before heading to Melbourne, Australia, for her show on Feb. 16.

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Swift discussed the backlash to her presence at the games in her TIME Person of the Year interview last year. “I’m just there to support Travis,” she said in the cover story. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”

Unfortunately, due to the Super Bowl, Kelce will not be able to fly out to Los Angeles on Feb. 4 to join Swift on the red carpet at the Grammys, where she’s nominated for six awards.

01 Feb 2024

Bruce Springsteen’s Mom Adele Dies at 98: See His Emotional Tribute

Bruce Springsteen has announced that his mother, Adele, died on Wednesday. She was 98 years old.

The 74-year-old rock star shared the news with his followers via Instagram on Thursday (Feb. 1), posting a sweet throwback video of him dancing with his mother to a recording of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.” “Adele Springsteen – May 4, 1925-January 31, 2024,” he captioned the clip.

The Boss also fittingly paired the video with lyrics from his 1998 song “The Wish.” “I remember in the morning mom hearing your alarm clock ring,” he wrote in his post. “I’d lie in bed and listen to you getting ready for work, the sound of your makeup case on the sink. And the ladies at the office all lipstick, perfume and rustling skirts, how proud and happy you always looked walking home from work.

“It ain’t no phone call on Sunday, flowers or a Mother’s Day card,” he continued. “It ain’t no house on the hill with a garden and a nice little yard. I’ve got my hot rod down on Bond Street I’m older but you’ll know me in a glance. We’ll find us a little rock ‘n’ roll bar and we’ll go out and dance.”

In addition to Bruce, Adele leaves behind two daughters, Pamela and Virginia. Their father Douglas Springsteen, whom Adele married in 1948, died in 1998.

A Brooklyn, New York, native, Adele was a proud champion of her son’s music and sometimes joined him onstage at his concerts to dance. “My mother loves to dance,” Bruce once said in a July 2021 Broadway performance. “She grew up in the ’40s … [with] the big bands and the swing bands, and that was a time when dancing was an existential act.

“She’s 95 and she’s 10 years into Alzheimer’s and that’s taken a lot away from us,” he continued at the time. “But the need to dance hasn’t left her.”

See Bruce’s tribute to his mom below.