Music News

22 Aug 2023

Drake Shouts Out LeBron James During L.A. Show: ‘It’s An Honor to be Inside His Building’

Normally, when Drake pulls up to a venue the room belongs solely to him for the night. But on Monday (Aug. 21) when the Six God’s It’s All a Blur tour touched down at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, he was more than happy to share the spotlight with the venue’s resident big dog: LeBron James.

According to ET, the Lakers superstar and his son, Bronny James, 18, walked into the venue behind Drake, who escorted them through the crowd to their VIP seats and hugged both men before starting the show. And then, during the concert, Drake paid homage to the NBA legend who has had his back from day one.

“In 2009, when nobody believed in anything I had going on, that same guy showed up to a release party for a mixtape that was called So Far Gone,” Drake said of the four-time NBA champ. “He came all the way to Toronto, Canada, to support me when I was trying to figure out how I could live my dreams. And so tonight, however many years later, it’s an honor to be inside his building while we’re both still on this earth. I gotta do this building justice tonight. So I came to L.A. and I’m about to give you everything I got, I promise you that.”

ET also reported that LeBron later shared some footage from the show’s after-party on his Instagram Story, which appeared to show that the celebration went late into the night, or morning, based on the 5:17 a.m. timestamp and the message, “No excuses. Just work. Say less.”

Drake even rocked the Lakers’ colors for the show in a nod to the home team, strolling out of the locker room in yellow sneakers and shirt and a purple jacket/pants combo. The show also marked Bronny James’ first major public appearance since the University of Southern California Trojans freshman guard suffered cardiac arrest during a practice last month.

Also on Monday night, Drake revealed the too-cute cover art for his upcoming For All the Dogs album, which he said was created by his five-year-old son, Adonis.

22 Aug 2023

Hot 100 First-Timers: Oliver Anthony Arrives With ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ & ‘Aint Gotta Dollar’

Oliver Anthony makes a historic first visit to the latest Billboard Hot 100 (dated Aug. 26).

The singer-songwriter, billed as Oliver Anthony Music (his real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford) scores his first two entries on the chart with “Rich Men North of Richmond,” which launches at No. 1, and “Aint Gotta Dollar” at No. 82.

“Richmond,” which Anthony self-released Aug. 11, soars in with 17.5 million U.S. streams and 147,000 downloads sold in the tracking week ending Aug. 17, according to Luminate. Not being promoted to radio, it also tallied 553,000 radio airplay audience impressions (with 516,000 on country stations). The song concurrently debuts at Nos. 1 and 4 on the all-genre Digital Song Sales and Streaming Songs charts, as well as No. 1 on the multimetric Hot Country Songs survey.

Anthony is just the sixth artist to debut a first solo Hot 100 entry at No. 1, after Zayn (“Pillowtalk” in 2016 – his first solo single after leaving One Direction); Baauer (the viral “Harlem Shake” in 2013), Carrie Underwood (“Inside Your Heaven” in 2005, after she won American Idol), Fantasia (“I Believe” in 2004, also after she won Idol) and Clay Aiken (“This Is the Night” in 2003, following his second-place finish on Idol).

“Dollar,” self-released in September 2022, debuts with 3.5 million U.S. streams (up 1,222%) and 17,000 sold (up 2,300%). It also starts at No. 2 on Digital Song Sales and No. 21 on Hot Country Songs.

Before this week, Oliver Anthony had never appeared on a Billboard chart, making him the first such act to open at No. 1 on the Hot 100. The radiowv YouTube account, which spotlights unsigned Americana and country acts in the Virginia/West Virginia region, posted “Richmond” Aug. 11. The song — with lyrics detailing inflation, taxes, child trafficking and welfare abuse — has drawn both praise from the right and opposition from the left.

The song’s virality has also increased interest in Anthony’s other releases. He debuts 13 tracks on Digital Song Sales chart, led by “Richmond” at No. 1. He’s the only living solo male artist to have charted at least 13 songs in the top 50 of the survey.

On the country-specific Country Digital Song Sales chart, Anthony also charts 13 songs, including six in the top 10. He’s just the fourth artist to log that many titles in the top 10 simultaneously, after Kenny Rogers (seven in April 2020, after his death); Taylor Swift (seven in November 2010 powered by the chart arrival of her LP Speak Now); and Luke Combs (six in November 2020, as his album What You See Is What You Get debuted).

22 Aug 2023

Taylor Swift Extends Artist 100 Longevity Record to 77 Weeks at No. 1

Taylor Swift spends a record-extending 77th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Aug. 26), thanks to the continued success of her latest album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), as well as 10 additional albums on the Billboard 200 and five songs on the Billboard Hot 100.

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The set ranks to No. 5 in its sixth week on the Billboard 200 with 61,000 equivalent album units earned Aug. 11-17, according to Luminate, after spending its first two weeks at No. 1. It became Swift’s first re-recorded album, of three that she’s released so far, to notch its first two weeks at the summit.

Also boosting Swift’s Artist 100 standing are 10 additional albums on the Billboard 200. This is the sixth week (all consecutive) that Swift has landed 11 titles on the survey. Five weeks ago, she became just the third act – and first woman – to chart at least 11 in a single week, following The Beatles and Prince.

Here’s a recap of Swift’s current Billboard 200-charting titles.

Rank, Title:

  • No. 5, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
  • No. 6, Midnights
  • No. 7, Lover
  • No. 9, 1989
  • No. 11, Folklore
  • No. 17, Reputation
  • No. 18, Red (Taylor’s Version)
  • No. 24, Evermore
  • No. 26, Fearless (Taylor’s Version)
  • No. 145, Taylor Swift
  • No. 191, Speak Now

Swift also boasts four albums in the Billboard 200’s top 10 for a fourth time, after becoming the first living artist to achieve the feat in nearly 60 years last month.

On the Hot 100, Swift charts five songs: “Cruel Summer” (down from its No. 3 high to No. 4), “Karma” featuring Ice Spice (13-14), “Anti-Hero” (18-20), “Blank Space” (49-46, after re-entering last week) and “I Can See You (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)” (63-71).

Elsewhere on the Artist 100, Oliver Anthony Music debuts at No. 3, thanks to his viral song “Rich Men North of Richmond.” The track launches at No. 1 on the Hot 100, driven by 17.5 million official streams and sold 147,000 downloads in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 17, according to Luminate, while another track of his, “Aint Got a Dollar,” debuts at No. 82. He’s the first act to debut at No. 1 on the Hot 100 after never previously appearing on any Billboard ranking in any form.

Rounding out the Artist 100’s top five, Travis Scott holds at No. 2, Morgan Wallen falls 3-4 and Luke Combs drops 4-5.

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.

22 Aug 2023

16 People Hospitalized for Heat-Related Illness at Snoop Dogg Show in Houston

The sweltering summer concert season sent more than two dozen people to the med tent on Saturday at Snoop Dogg‘s show at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion outside of Houston. According to USA Today, in addition to the 35 people who showed signs of “heat-related illness” who were examined at the venue, another dozen-plus were hospitalized at the show where temperatures reached 104 during the day.

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“Out of these, MCHD EMS transported 16 adults to nearby hospitals in stable condition,” said Montgomery County Hospital District public information officer Misti Willingham. In the midst of one of the hottest summers in the planet’s history due to the effect of global climate change, the local fire department was dispatched to the venue as a precaution during the show in case the patient number continued to rise.

“This is a common practice and very effective if done early on,” Atascocita Fire Department public information officer Jerry Dilliard told the paper. During the show, the Fire Dept. tweeted that they were “headed to the Woodlands Pavilion to assist with overheated concert attendees at the @SnoopDogg concert.”

Snoop is on the road with Too $hort and Wiz Khalifa on their High School Reunion tour, which is slated to hit the Isleta Amphitheater in Albuquerque, NM on Tuesday night (Aug. 22).

The incident was just the latest heat-related bump in the road this summer, following an Ed Sheeran show in Pittsburgh on July 8 during which 17 people were hospitalized due to “heat-related” illnesses and Jason Aldean’s scratched kick-off of his Highway Desperado Tour on July 15 in Hartford, CT, which he had to exit early due to dehydration and heat exhaustion.

22 Aug 2023

Drake’s Son Adonis Drew the Cover of His ‘For All the Dogs’ Album and It’s Exactly as Cute as You Think

Drake has long kept his inner circle pretty tight and when it came to the cover art for his upcoming For All the Dogs album he didn’t have to look very far at all. In a truly “awww” moment, the rapper revealed on Monday night (Aug. 21) that his five-year-old son, Adonis, drew the album’s cover image.

The result is a truly adorable, rough sketch of a red-eyed pooch with tall ears and a white body that had one commenter saying, “ADONIS COMING THRU WITH THE PICASSO.” The news about the cover art appeared to be confirmed in a post from OVO Sound, which featured the same image.

At press time there is no official release date for his follow-up to last year’s surprise-release Honestly, Nevermind, which featured the singles “Sticky” and Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single “Jimmy Cooks” with 21 Savage.

It’s been a busy few weeks for Drake on stage lately on his It’s All a Blur tour, with the rapper dodging things tossed at him on stage as part of the disturbing trend of fans hurling random objects — including bras and vapes to cell phones — at musicians. Over the weekend, Drizzy showed off his quick reflexes at a show in San Francisco when he avoided getting beaned by a copy of his new poetry book, Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness when he caught the paperback with one hand.

“You lucky I’m quick. Would’ve had to beat your a– if that hit me in the face,” Drake sternly warned the fan.

Last week, the rapper teased a new collaboration with Bad Bunny during a show in L.A. when he brought Bunny up to announce the pair’s first joint song since 2018’s “Mía”; at press time the title of the song had not yet been announced.

Check out the For All the Dogs cover art below.

22 Aug 2023

Justin Timberlake’s Shellshocked Boyfriend at Center of Benicio del Toro’s Murder Investigation in Tense ‘Reptile’ Trailer

Something doesn’t quite add up in the first trailer for the upcoming Netflix murder thriller Reptile, in which detective Tom Nichols (Benicio del Toro) tries to figure out who killed a young real estate agent. With a handful of equally shady suspects, the nearly three-minute preview opens with a weary looking Nichols saying the case he’s working on is “a real nightmare.”

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After a montage of pictures from the crime scene, we see Nichols entering a room to speak to one of the four main suspects, Will (Justin Timberlake), who was the agent’s boyfriend at the time of her death. Looking shell-shocked and haunted, Will just stares blankly when Nichols asks him what happened.

“I walked in the front door, I called out for her… no answer,” Will says flatly. “And then what?” Nichols asks.

Cut to the medical examiner asking Nichols if he can show him something strange, which appears to be a bite mark on the victim’s hand, a wound Nichols tries to recreate by biting his wife Judy (Alicia Silverstone) on the hand as she helps him try to solve the case. The movie’s tagline hints at the twisty plot, promising, “A mysterious murder. A hardened detective. A truth more dangerous than they could have ever imagined.”

Later in the trailer — set to a haunting version of Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” — when Nichols asks Will who else he thinks may have been involved, he remembers that a shadowy man showed up at his house a few nights earlier “acting strange,” which leads the other investigators (Eric Bogosian and Ato Essandoh) to narrow down the suspects to four potentials: the boyfriend (Timberlake), a friend, the “weirdo” (Michael Carmen Pitt) and the woman’s ex-husband (Karl Glusman); Sky Ferreira, Frances Fisher and Matilda Lutz also star in the film, the first directorial effort from music video director Grant Singer (The Weekend, Troye Sivan).

Reptile, which will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, will hit select theaters on Sept. 29 and Netflix on Oct. 6.

Check out the trailer for Reptile below.

21 Aug 2023

Tones And I Scores With Mini-Set Ahead of FIFA Women’s World Cup Final: Watch

Tones And I has traveled a long way from her days busking on the streets of Australia’s east coast.

Further proof was presented Sunday (Aug. 20) when the Australian singer and songwriter (real name: Toni Watson) performed a mini-set ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup final, a matchup between soccer powerhouses Spain and England.

Singing in front of a full house of more than 75,000 spectators at Sydney’s Stadium Australia, Tones powered through four songs, “I Am Free,” “I Made It,” “Fly Away,” and, of course, “Dance Monkey,” her global hit which led the charts in at least 30 countries.

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Released in 2019, “Dance Monkey” went all the way in Australia, where it set the all-time record with 24 weeks at No. 1, and the U.K., where it reigned for 11 weeks, a record for a solo female artist.

Her catalog recently swung past 10 billion streams combined, and now includes World Cup tie-in “The Greatest,” and “Bring It On,” a collaboration with American rapper BIA and French-Senegalese singer-songwriter Diarra Sylla, which featured as the official walkout track to all 64 tournament games.

Produced and co-written by multi-Grammy Award winning producer RedOne, “Bring It On” will be played at future FIFA tournaments.

Tones’ sophomore album, the followup to Welcome to the Madhouse, which led the ARIA Albums Chart following its release in 2021, is expected to arrive in 2024.

Watch Tones’ World Cup Final performance below. For the record, Spain prevailed over England, 1-0, for La Roja’s first title.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=-54_DMAtudU&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Tones didn’t have the only musical moment at the tourney’s close. As the Matildas campaign came to an end, former child star Nikki Webster was a surprise guest on stage when the home team was unveiled to fans in Brisbane.

Webster, who enjoyed a breakout moment when, aged 13, she performed at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics opening ceremony, interacted with the Aussie soccer stars as she sang her signature song “Strawberry Kisses” – a dressing room regular for the Matildas.

After finishing a best-ever fourth in the World Cup, and igniting a frenzy for the roundball game never seen before in these parts, the Matildas were presented with the keys to the city of Brisbane, the 2032 Olympic Games host city, with the promise of a statue to come.

Watch the performance at Brisbane’s Riverstage below.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=eKThKQCUhpw&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

21 Aug 2023

Taylor Swift, Channing Tatum, Gigi Hadid & More Stars Go Head-to-Head at Questlove’s UNO Game Night

It’s been a month since Questlove hosted his massive, star-studded game night, and the Grammy winning producer took to Instagram over the weekend to share his “final” photos from the event.

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“@UNO Wild Is Hard As HELL!!! Locks you in so long like jail!!” Questlove captioned a series of photos that included snaps of Taylor Swift, Channing Tatum, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Jason Sudeikis, Trevor Noah, Common and more celebrities facing off in a huge UNO tournament, while they also enjoyed champagne, desserts and lots of delicious food. “Nerves Are frail!!! Everybody in this mug except for Mel!!!! (Sing to ‘Rock The Bells’) Once again, it’s not game night….unless I say it’s game night.”

See Questlove’s posts here, here, here and here. Sadly, he did not reveal the winner of the celebrity UNO tournament.

In other Swiftie news, the “Anti-Hero” singer revealed that limited edition, aquamarine green vinyl of her upcoming 1989 (Taylor’s Version) album is available to pre-order on her website here for just 48 hours. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is out on Oct. 27, which Swift announced during her last show at Los Angeles SoFi Stadium on August 9.

1989 (Taylor’s Version) will be Swift’s fourth release since announcing her re-recording project in 2019. The previous three all skyrocketed to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) with two weeks in 2021, Red (Taylor’s Version) with one week in 2021, and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) with two weeks in 2023.

21 Aug 2023

Hoobastank Music Video Hits 1 Billion Views on YouTube & ‘The Reason’ Is You

Hoobastank is officially a member of the Billion Views Club, as the band’s music video for its 2004 track “The Reason” just reached the milestone Monday (Aug. 21) on YouTube.

The visual for the track, which features current members Doug Robb, Chris Hesse, Dan Estrin as well as original bassist Markku Lappalainen, centers on a woman who continually gets hit by a car. Each time the woman gets hit, the members of the group try various tactics to prevent the traumatic event from happening over and over again, until ultimately she’s able to get up and walk away unscathed by the incident.

“When we wrote this song, and later shot the video, never in our wildest dreams could we have predicted the reach, longevity and connection it would have with you, our fans and listeners around the world,” the group captioned a video of them pretending to be unimpressed by the milestone. “We hope it continues to reach people, old and new, for years to come. A billion views is incredible. On to the next billion. Thank you all. Every single one of you.”

“The Reason” was released in 2004 as the second single from Hoobastank’s sophomore album of the same name. The track became the group’s first and only top five hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It spent a total of 38 weeks on the chart peaked at No. 2 on the all-genre tally. The track additionally hit No. 1 on Alternative Airplay.

Revisit the video for “The Reason” above, and see Hoobastank’s celebratory post below.

21 Aug 2023

Jennifer Lopez Celebrates One Year Wedding Anniversary by Teasing Ben Affleck Inspired Lyrics

It’s been one year since Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck tied the knot, and the “Waiting for Tonight” singer took to Instagram on Sunday (Aug. 20) to celebrate the couple’s enduring love.

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“One year ago today,” she wrote alongside a series of snaps from the couple’s Georgia wedding, before teasing lyrics to her new song “Dear Ben Part II” off her upcoming album This Is Me…Now. “Sitting here alone / Looking at my ring ring / Feeling overwhelmed / It makes me wanna sing sing / How did we end up here / Without a rewind / Oh my / This is my life,” she wrote.

See her post here.

Mr. and Mrs. Affleck first began dating back in 2002 after meeting on the set of Gigli, the first of two movies they would star in together (the second being Jersey Girl in 2004), before getting engaged. The couple delayed their planned 2003 wedding before calling it quits in 2004. Just a month after the couple officially tied the knot in Las Vegas, Bennifer celebrated their marriage in August 2022 in front of family and friends at their home in Riceboro on the Hampton Island preserve outside of Savannah, Georgia.

Ralph Lauren custom designed Lopez’s three wedding looks — one of which is seen in the video above. Lopez shared photos of the dresses, which were also posted by Vogue, in a newsletter sent to fans, writing, “The dresses were dreamy… thank you Ralph Lauren.”

Now, the multihyphenate is gearing up to release her new album This Is Me… Now, which was inspired by her marriage and how much she has grown over the years. “I think what the message of the album is very much if you were wondering if you have, like me at times, lost hope, almost given up, don’t. Because true love does exist and some things do last forever and that’s real,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe back in November.