Music News

26 Sep 2023

Hot 100 First-Timers: Paul Russell’s ‘Lil Boo Thang’ Gets Bigger With Debut

Four weeks ago, Paul Russell arrived on Billboard‘s charts for the first time, and now he achieves another distinction as he scores his first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 (dated Sept. 30).

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Russell’s breakthrough viral hit “Lil Boo Thang,” released Aug. 18 via Arista Records, debuts at No. 99 with 9.6 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 46%), 4 million U.S. streams (up 11%) and 4,000 downloads sold in the Sept. 15-21 tracking week, according to Luminate.

The feel-good song also rises 30-27 on Pop Airplay, 32-28 on Adult Pop Airplay and 33-28 on Rhythmic Airplay.

Likely sparking further gains, the track’s official music video premiered Friday (Sept. 22).

“Lil Boo Thang” interpolates the Emotions’ classic hit “Best of My Love,” which was written by Maurice White and Al McKay of Earth, Wind & Fire. The song spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 1977 and finished as Billboard’s No. 3 year-end Hot 100 song that year. White and McKay are both credited as writers on Russell’s song.

Russell, from Texas and now based in Los Angeles, first teased a snippet of “Lil Boo Thang” in a June 28 TikTok that has since garnered more than 10 million views and launched over 190,000 creations from fans who’ve paired it with other clips. He later repurposed the post on Instagram Reels, where it has generated another 10 million views and launched over a million creations. That virality helped Russell land a deal with Arista. (Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard‘s charts except for the newly launched TikTok & Billboard Top 50.)

“First and foremost, ‘Lil Boo Thang’ is meant to be a good time,” Russell told Billboard ahead of the full track’s release. “When I wrote it, I was stressed out on a Thursday afternoon, so I just turned on some of the music that makes me happy and imagined that I was celebrating something. I think what makes the song special is the fact that so many of us are ready to just forget about whatever is happening around us and enjoy the good things in life — not just thinking back to good times in the past but creating new ones in the present day.”

Outside of “Lil Boo Thang,” Russell has released two LPs: Via Text with Ruslan in 2018, and Once in a Dry Season in 2019.

26 Sep 2023

Hot 100 First-Timers: Kenya Grace Arrives With Viral Hit ‘Strangers’

Two weeks after making her first-ever Billboard chart appearance, Kenya Grace achieves another first, as she debuts on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (dated Sept. 30) for the first time.

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The singer-songwriter, born in South African and raised in the U.K., debuts with her breakthrough hit “Strangers,” released Sept. 1 via Major Recordings/Warner Records. The song enters at No. 88 with 6.4 million U.S. streams (up 42%), 41,000 in early airplay audience and 1,000 downloads sold (up 12%) in the Sept. 15-21 tracking week, according to Luminate. It also holds at its No. 2 high on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and vaults 21-4 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart and 35-12 on the Billboard Global 200.

TikTok has been a major factor in the song’s growing profile, as a portion of its audio has been used in more than 570,000 clips on the platform to date. One such video, on Grace’s profile, has logged more than 35 million views. (Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard‘s charts except for the newly launched TikTok Billboard Top 50.)

The song has also been boosted by a new remix with Sam Shredder, released Sept. 22. In a Sept. 15 TikTok, Grace teased a new “slower and sadder” version of the song.

Elsewhere, the track earns Grace her first No. 1 among surveys in Billboard‘s international charts menu, as it rises to the top of the latest Austria Songs chart. On the Official UK Singles Chart, it jumps 12-3, and is challenging for the top spot on next week’s list. “Strangers” became her first Billboard No. 1 overall a week earlier when it topped Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs, where it reigns for a second week.

Grace has released five other songs: “Oranges”; “Someone Else” with 3STRANGE; and “Venus” with Homebodi (all in 2022); and “Afterparty Lover” and “Meteor” (this February and May, respectively).

26 Sep 2023

Olivia Rodrigo Reveals Her 3 Favorite Songs on ‘Guts’

Olivia Rodrigo‘s second album Guts has officially been out in the world for about three weeks, meaning fans have had just enough time to decide which of the project’s 12 tracks are their favorites. But which ones are Rodrigo’s?

In a recent interview with Amazon Music, the 20-year-old pop star revealed her top three picks from her sophomore effort’s tracklist, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and saw all 12 of its songs ranked on the Hot 100. And even though lead single “Vampire” went to No. 1, it didn’t make Rodrigo’s cut — nor did “Bad Idea Right?” or “Get Him Back,” both of which have gotten the music video treatment.

“My three favorite songs off the album right now,” she began, emphasizing that the following are simply her favorites at the moment, “are ‘All-American Bitch,’ ‘Logical’ and ‘Love Is Embarrassing.’”

The singer-songwriter was also tasked with picking out three emojis to describe each of the tracks, which dropped alongside the rest of Guts on Sept. 8. For “All-American Bitch,” she chose a baseball emoji, a firework and a lipstick “because the song is kind of about being a girl and fitting into gender norms.”

For “Logical,” a vulnerable piano ballad about an unhealthy relationship, she selected three back-to-back crying face emojis. And for “Love Is Embarrassing,” a shocked face emoji, a sad face emoji and an engagement ring, the last symbolizing the song’s lyric “I’m planning out my wedding with some guy I’m never marrying.”

“All-American Bitch” also happens to feature Rodrigo’s favorite lyric on the album, which she revealed last week on the TODAY show. “I don’t know, the one that’s really jumping out me is — I love the line ‘I got class and integrity/ Just like a d–n Kennedy,” she said on NBC’s morning program.

Watch Olivia Rodrigo share her three favorite Guts songs below:

26 Sep 2023

Which Song Do You Want Usher to Perform Most During the 2024 Super Bowl Halftime Show? Vote!

Next year’s Super Bowl performer has found its star in Usher, who is slated to take stage during the game’s Apple Music Halftime Show at Allegiant Stadium on Feb. 11, 2024.

Following the news of the announcement, the “Yeah!” singer appeared on CBS Mornings to discuss how his career has prepared him for the big game set. “Thirty years ago I made a commitment to offer my best, and here 30 years later, now it’s being rewarded with one of the most prestigious performances and stages anybody could ever play on,” he said, adding that performing on the Super Bowl stage “is a moment that I’ve waited my entire life for and I’m not coming to disappoint.”

Fans are already counting down to game day, with some users on social media trying to guess what songs — be it hits, deep cuts, slow jams or wild cards — Usher will perform during the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Online discourse shows that Usher’s 2004 hit “Yeah!” is a popular choice for him to play during the halftime show. The track, Usher’s most successful song on the Billboard Hot 100 with 12 of its charting weeks at No. 1, provides the opportunity to bring out Lil Jon and Ludacris for a truly show-stopping finish.

In Billboard‘s dream setlist for Usher’s set, “OMG,” “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” (with Pitbull) and “Without You” (with David Guetta) get a medley treatment, while old favorites such as “U Remind Me” and “U Don’t Have to Call” have time to shine among slower jams including “Good Good” and “My Boo,” which could produce Summer Walker, 21 Savage and Alicia Keys cameos, respectively.

Which song do you want Usher to perform at the Super Bowl? Vote in our poll below!

26 Sep 2023

Burna Boy Announces I Told Them… Tour: Here Are the Dates

After releasing his latest album, I Told Them… last month, Burna Boy will embark on a 16-city trek this fall called the I Told Them… Tour. 

Produced by Live Nation, the multi-city jaunt will find Burna performing in not only arenas but, in some cases, stadiums. Beginning Nov. 3, the “City Boys” artist will perform his first-ever Los Angeles stadium show at BMO Stadium before touching down in various cities, including Houston, Chicago and Toronto for his arena stops. In July, Burna became the first Nigerian artist to headline a stadium, performing at Citi Field in New York City for a crowd of 40,000 people.  

I Told Them… spawned a bevy of singles, including his 21 Savage-assisted hit “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” and his Jeremih-sampled song “City Boys.” The album also clinched Burna’s first No. 1 on the U.K. Albums Chart earlier this month.

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Tickets for the I Told Them… Tour will be available starting with a Citi presale beginning Tuesday (Sept. 26). Additional presales will continue throughout the week, leading up to Friday’s general on-sale, which starts at 10 a.m. local time at Ticketmaster.com.

Check out the tour dates below: 

  • Nov. 3 – Los Angeles, CA – BMO Stadium
  • Nov. 5 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
  • Nov. 7 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena 
  • Nov. 9 – Edmonton, AB – Rogers Place
  • Nov. 12 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena
  • Nov. 17 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center
  • Nov. 18 – Austin, TX – Moody Center                  
  • Feb. 18 – Minneapolis, MN – Target Center
  • Feb. 21 – Chicago, IL – Wintrust Arena
  • Feb. 22 – Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena 
  • Feb. 24 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
  • Feb. 28 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
  • March 1 – Camden, NJ – Freedom Mortgage Pavilion
  • March 2 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
  • March 7 – Washington, DC – Capital One Arena
  • March 9 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena

26 Sep 2023

Olivia Rodrigo Holds at No. 1 on Artist 100 Thanks to ‘Guts’ Album

Olivia Rodrigo spends an eighth total week, and a second consecutively, at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Sept. 30) thanks to the continued success of her new album, Guts.

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The set drops to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 134,000 equivalent album units earned in its second week, according to Luminate. It debuted on top a week earlier with 302,000 units, becoming her second leader after her first album, Sour, in 2021.

All 12 songs from Guts concurrently chart on the Billboard Hot 100 for a second straight week, led by “Vampire” at No. 7, after two nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1. Here’s a recap.

Olivia Rodrigo on the Sept. 30-dated Hot 100:

  • No. 7, “Vampire”
  • No. 13, “Bad Idea Right?”
  • No. 21, “Get Him Back!”
  • No. 36, “All-American Bitch”
  • No. 52, “The Grudge”
  • No. 59, “Lacy”
  • No. 62, “Making the Bed”
  • No. 63, “Logical”
  • No. 65, “Love Is Embarrassing”
  • No. 66, “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl”
  • No. 83, “Pretty Isn’t Pretty”
  • No. 96, “Teenage Dream”

Among other Artist 100 chart moves, Rod Wave jumps 52-3 on the strength of his new album Nostalgia. The set launches at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (137,000 units), becoming his third leader, following SoulFly in 2021 and Beautiful Mind in 2022. The rapper-singer also places 18 songs on the Hot 100, a personal weekly-best, led by “Call Your Friends” and “Come See Me” at Nos. 18 and 19, respectively.

Plus, Mitski re-enters the Artist 100 at No. 9, nearly matching her No. 8 peak, thanks to her new album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We. The LP starts at No. 12 on the Billboard 200 (32,000 units).

The Artist 100 measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.

26 Sep 2023

Boygenius Announces Surprise EP ‘The Rest’: Here’s When It Arrives

Remember when you had to wait five years in between Boygenius drops? No more. Just six months after the release of the indie rock supergroup’s debut album The Record, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker have announced that their new EP titled The Rest is on its way this fall.

The trio surprised fans by unveiling the EP’s cover art — a beachside photo of the three members’ shadowy silhouettes, shot by Matt Grub — on social media Monday evening (Sept. 25), also revealing that the four-track project will arrive Oct. 13. And, as each of the musicians pointed out on their individual accounts, Oct. 13 just so happens to be Friday the 13th. (Spooky!)

Bridgers, Dacus and Baker also shared the name of the first of the project’s four songs, “Black Hole,” which they debuted live at their Boston concert the night of the EP announcement. In place of the other three tracks, the band left asterisks teasing each title.

Fans aren’t used to getting new music from Boygenius so soon after another project; it wasn’t until five years after the three soloists first united for 2018’s Boygenius EP that they finally released The Record as their followup. Accompanied by a still ongoing world tour, The Record reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 upon its release and has garnered Grammy buzz for possible album of the year at the 2024 awards.

“We were told, if we were lucky, maybe we were going to break top 10,” Dacus told Billboard of The Record‘s success in April. “And then it was, actually, maybe we could break top five. And the fact that it’s [No. 4] is cool.”

“I think people know this is a rarity and that there’s no guarantee that it’ll continue,” she added. “Like, we will continue to be Boygenius and be friends, but we also will get back to our own things. So I think people have this awareness that to be present with it now is really to be existing in a moment.”

See Boygenius’ EP announcement for The Rest below:

26 Sep 2023

Lady A’s Charles Kelley Opens Up About His Year of Sobriety: ‘I Never Thought I Would Actually Enjoy It’

It’s been more than a year since Charles Kelley, founding member of country trio Lady A, sought treatment for alcoholism. As he tells it, that decision has made all the difference in his personal and professional lives.

Speaking to Billboard on Monday (Sept. 25), Kelley says that nearly 15 months into his sobriety, he’s feeling better than ever. “I never thought I would actually enjoy it, you know?” he says. “I thought, ‘OK, I’m gonna do this for my family, I’m gonna do this for my band, I’m gonna do this for myself.’ But I think it’s the energy you get from not having crazy nights and all of those different things.”

The singer went on to say that sobriety also means living in the moment, which has proven to be a blessing in his day-to-day life. “It’s led me a lot closer to my spirituality. It’s led me to look at myself and what I want more,” he says. “Like, what am I doing? What am I standing for? What do I want for the next 20 years? I think sometimes you have to kind of hit that point of desperation in a way to find that. I’m glad I hit it in my 40s and didn’t wait until later on in life.”

Kelley’s year-plus journey in recovery has also been life-changing for his bandmates Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood. “You’ve always had a big heart and a passion for music and the people you love and loyalty,” Scott tells Kelley. “And now, I feel like there more communication of those feelings.”

Haywood agrees, adding that he’s learned from Kelley’s ability to stay present over the last year. “I feel like, [there’s] a lot of daily gratitude, saying, ‘Let’s celebrate and enjoy this moment,’” Haywood tells Billboard. “We don’t always have to look to the next thing we’re going to do. Let’s be grateful with this music, with this moment, with this show tonight. He’s been fantastic, and we’re so proud of him.”

Fans of Lady A first learned about Kelley’s decision to seek help in August 2022, when the trio postponed their Request Line Tour in order to support him in his recovery. “In order to be the healthiest, strongest and most creative band we can be, Lady A will take the time with the support of our families and team of professionals to walk through this together,” they wrote in a statement at the time.

If you or anyone you know is battling substance abuse, visit FindTreatment.gov for information on where to find confidential treatment referral, information and support.

26 Sep 2023

Mick Jagger Can Totally Relate to Taylor Swift Wanting to Her Music Rights: ‘She Obviously Wasn’t Happy’

On the surface, it would be hard to see any parallels between Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, 80, and Taylor Swift, 33, aside from the fact that both are mega stars who send people into a frenzy when they walk into a room. But in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal (pay-walled), the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer revealed that he feels a certain kinship with the “Anti-Hero” singer when it comes to the business of show.

London School of Economics dropout Jagger — who said he began looking after the Stones’ business affairs decades ago as an “act of self-preservation” because, as he said, “If you don’t do it, you get f–ked” — told the WSJ that he’s proud to have paved the way for artists such as Swift to pull off huge arena and stadium tours.

“One of the things I’m really proud of, with the Stones, is that we pioneered arena tours, with their own stage, with their own sound and everything, and we also did the same with stadiums,” Jagger said. “I mean, nobody did a tour of stadiums.” In addition, Jagger said that the Stones’ decision to form their own eponymous label in 1970 — with initial distribution though Atlantic Records — was an effort to take control of their rights that also has echoes in Swift’s career.

“The industry was so nascent, it didn’t have the support and the amount of people that are on tap to be able to advise you as they do now,” Jagger said of his band’s move toward more autonomy more than 50 years ago. “But you know, it still happens. I mean, look what happened to Taylor Swift! I don’t really know the ins and outs of it, but she obviously wasn’t happy.”

Jagger appeared to be referencing Swift’s plan to re-record her first six albums in (Taylor’s Version) formats following a dispute with her former label, Big Machine Records, after it sold the rights to those LPs to nemesis Scooter Braun; to date Swift has released re-recorded versions of Fearless, Red and Speak Now, with the 1989 Version slated to drop on Oct. 27.

The Stones are gearing up to release their first new studio album in 18 years, Hackney Diamonds (Oct. 20) and while the legendarily hard-touring band have yet to announce dates for an accompanying tour, Jagger said he’s not sure what it will look like when the octogenarian legends finally retire from the road.

“You can have a posthumous business now, can’t you? You can have a posthumous tour,” he said of the possibility of a virtual Stones tour in the future that will not require their physical bodies. “The technology has really moved on since the ABBA thing [the pop group’s recent “Voyage” virtual show], which I was supposed to go to, but I missed it.”

Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger

JUERGEN TELLER for WSJ. Magazine

26 Sep 2023

All 18 Songs From Rod Wave’s No. 1 Album ‘Nostalgia’ Chart on Hot 100

Rod Wave has a huge week on Billboard’s charts. On top of scoring his third career No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 (dated Sept. 30) with his new set Nostalgia, all 18 songs from the album land on the Billboard Hot 100, including eight in the top 40.

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Nostalgia, released Sept. 15 via Alamo Records, arrives atop the Billboard 200 with 137,000 equivalent album units earned in its opening week, according to Luminate. The rapper-singer previously led with SoulFly in 2021 and Beautiful Mind in 2022, and now joins only Taylor Swift in having earned new No. 1 albums in each of the last three years.

Here’s a recap of Rod Wave’s entries on the latest Hot 100 (all of which are debuts except where noted):

Rank, Title:

  • No. 18, “Call Your Friends” (up from No. 85; a new high)
  • No. 19, “Come See Me” (up from No. 88; a new high)
  • No. 24, “Turks & Caicos,” feat. 21 Savage
  • No. 25, “Boyz Don’t Cry”
  • No. 28, “Fight the Feeling” (up from No. 93; peaked at No. 16 in April)
  • No. 30, “Great Gatsby”
  • No. 39, “Long Journey”
  • No. 40, “Nostalgia,” with Wet
  • No. 48, “Crazy”
  • No. 51, “HG4”
  • No. 55, “Checkmate”
  • No. 56, “Love for a Thug”
  • No. 61, “2018,” with Sadie Jean
  • No. 71, “Keep It G”
  • No. 73, “Pass You By”
  • No. 79, “Love Story/Interlude”
  • No. 80, “Back Lit”
  • No. 93, “Rap Beef”

Thanks to their credited appearances on “Nostalgia” and “2018,” respectively, Wet and Sadie Jean each score their first Hot 100 appearances.