Music News

01 Jun 2023

Watch BLACKPINK’s Jennie Show Off What’s Inside Her Many Chanel Bags

As a member of BLACKPINK — and a cast member on The Weeknd’s upcoming HBO show The Idol — Jennie has to keep a series of items with her at all times. So the K-pop star sat down with Vogue Japan in a Thursday (June 1) video to discuss what’s in her bag.

“I’m in the middle of our tour right now, so I require a lot of stuff in my bag because I’m always traveling,” she explained, pulling out her cell phone, a hair tie and Apple Airpods. “I listen to meditating music when I travel in cars or in airplanes — just plug it in and zone out.”

Jennie pulled out multiple Chanel pouches from her Chanel bags and realized that she often has a tendency to carry more items than necessary, just in case. “I’m like a mom when it comes to bags. I think moms always have everything ’emergency’ in their bags when they go out with their children, so I’m like a mom to myself,” she said, later pulling out a hair claw clip, a cat pouch, mirror and adhesive bandages for a cut she has on her face.

The 27-year-old has been traveling back and forth recently, performing concert dates on BLACKPINK’s Born Pink World tour and promoting The Idol in Cannes.

Speaking of her role on the television show, Jennie said, “It definitely was a challenge, because I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It was like, breaking a wall for me,” she told Women’s Wear Daily. “[Lily-Rose Depp] really helped me a lot. Telling me about scenes, and it was very comforting to have her there. She just taught me to express myself and be comfortable with myself, to not be scared.”

“The fact that it was about the music industry fascinated me, and I thought I could bring something to the role,” the K-pop star continued. “It was an opportunity to just be myself and be brave. I didn’t really train for it, or prep anything. Sam wanted me to just be myself.”

Watch Jennie show off what’s in her bag in the video above.

01 Jun 2023

Jared Leto Sings BTS, Lil Nas X & More in ‘Song Association’ Challenge

Thirty Seconds to Mars‘ Jared Leto is the latest celebrity to take part in Elle’s popular song association challenge and he showed off his eclectic music taste, which blended old classics and modern hits.

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With 10 seconds to think of and sing a lyric featuring a key word, Leto started off strong by associating the world “please” to the Beatles’ 1965 hit, “Help!” He then breezed through Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time” for “party,” Little Richard’s “Good Golly Miss Molly” for the word “good,” When In Rome’s “The Promise” for the world “promise,” Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” for “ride” and many more.

Leto even threw in a few Thirty Seconds to Mars songs, opting to sing “A Beautiful Life” for the word “beautiful,” “The Kill” for “free” and “Stuck” for the word “stuck.”

“My brother and I started working right when COVID began,” he recalled. “It was an album that was originally born into COVID and ‘Stuck’ started off as a song about being stuck in a certain part of your life […] then ultimately, that liberation that comes along with breaking out of that period.”

He also proved that he loves BTS, immediately diving into the group’s Hot 100 chart topper “Dynamite” for the word “dynamite.” “BTS, baby, come on!” the rocker exclaimed after singing the chorus. “Got to give it to my boys. We go back.”

He continued, “I think I introduced them at their first award show,” before jokingly adding, “I’m going to pretend even if it’s not true. Now, it’s on my gravestone. BTS, I was there for you.”

Leto’s final “Song Association” score was an impressive 13 out of 15. Watch the whole clip below.

01 Jun 2023

Kimberly Perry Reveals That She Had a Miscarriage Before Creating New Song

Kimberly Perry has launched her return to country music as a solo artist with her new song, “If I Die Young Pt. 2,” from her upcoming album, Bloom, out June 9 via RECORDS Nashville. The new song revisits one of the signature hits from her work as part of sibling trio The Band Perry, “If I Die Young,” which Perry wrote solo, and has been certified 7x multi-platinum by the RIAA.

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In a recently released mini-documentary, Perry revealed how having a miscarriage played a role in the creation of her new music. A few months prior to writing “If I Die Young Pt. 2,” Perry suffered a pregnancy loss.

“I had actually just gone through a miscarriage a few months before, which was a really sad time,” Perry shared. “So in writing the second verse, it was like, well, I would really love to set this intention that there is a baby coming, a healthy baby who’s going to be here at some point. It felt like it really held hands with the original version, because the entire original version was sort of this romantic plea for all the things that I was hoping for. A few months after we recorded the song, I found out I was pregnant.”

Perry and her husband Johnny Costello revealed in April they are expecting a baby boy due in late August.

“If I Die Young Pt. 2” finds Perry simultaneously honoring her mother while singing of passing her legacy on to the next generation.

“It, I believe, reflects all of the growth, life growth and creative growth that I’ve had, but it also feels like the core of that girl that I was love and know from 10 years ago,” Perry said in the mini-documentary. “And I’m just so grateful to have those pieces put together in part two.”

01 Jun 2023

No Doubt’s ‘Don’t Speak’ Video Hits One Billion YouTube Views

Nearly 30 years after its release, the music video for No Doubt‘s signature 1995 hit, “Don’t Speak,” has reached one billion views on YouTube.

The recent milestone marks the band’s first video — and one of less than 20 released in the 1990s — to enter the Billion Views Club, according to a press release from the video sharing platform.

“Don’t Speak” was the third single off No Doubt’s 1995 third studio album, Tragic Kingdom. The track gave the Gwen Stefani-led band its first No. 1 on Billboard‘s Pop Songs airplay chart, leading for an impressive total of 10 weeks. “Don’t Speak” was also nominated for song of the year and best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals at the 40th Grammy Awards.

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The power ballad lamented two break ups — Stefani from the band’s bassist Tony Kanal, and from her brother Eric Stefani, who left the band before the album’s release in October 1995. “When I was writing back then, I was so naive, I didn’t know anyone would hear it ever,” Stefani reflected on the track on its 25th anniversary in 2021. “We had been working on that record for so long before it came out. So I think when there’s something that honest and real and pure — and not done for any other reason than just to say it for your own heart — then people connect to that.  … It was so different from everything else on our record, so the fact that it was the defining world hit that it was — and continues to be — is insane.”

Watch No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak” music video below.

01 Jun 2023

Billboard’s Top 5 Songs of the Summer of 2009 | Billboard News

Billboard looks back and counts down the top five songs that ruled the summer of 2009.

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15 years later, our first artist is still on top of the world, but it was one of her early hits that made it into our top five. Taylor Swift comes in at No. 5 with “You Belong With Me.”

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We swing the pendulum the other way with the next song on the list, from pop country to rap. Coming in at No. 4 — Drake’s “Best I Ever Had.”

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Keri Hilson had a huge hit on her hands when she brought in some big names to join her on her debut album. Her song “Knock You Down” featuring Kanye West and Ne-Yo comes in at No. 3.

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2009 was the year of the Black Eyed Peas. Their huge hit “Boom Boom Pow” lands at No. 2 from their fifth studio album, The E.N.D.

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And the No. 1 song. The 2009 song of the summer also belongs to the Black Eyed Peas.

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You know it already from two little notes. “I Gotta a Feeling” had us fist pumping and jumping up and down to the electronic beats the second it came on.

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Do you remember these? Which one had you dancing away the hot summer days of 2009?

01 Jun 2023

Raven-Symoné Says She Had Dates Sign NDAs ‘Before Naughty Time Comes’

Raven-Symoné has grown up in the spotlight, which meant also navigating dating as a celebrity from a young age.

The longtime Disney Channel star joined Howie Mandel on his Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast recently, where she revealed that privacy was a concern while dating. “All of my relationships, especially – obviously – when I started dating, I had to get people to sign NDAs,” she explained. “It took me a while to wrap my head around it because it’s very impersonal, but someone in our position needs to do that.”

So when were the NDAs presented? “Before the naughty times come,” Raven-Symoné said with a laugh, before continuing, No, I’m serious — right before naughty time comes.”

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Raven-Symoné is now happily married to Miranda Pearman-Maday, whom she tied the knot with in 2020. She revealed, however, that even her now-wife signed an NDA at some point. “We were in New York. We were in this outdoor French type of restaurant, and my mom had been bugging me,” Raven-Symoné recalled “She was like, ‘You got to get it signed. I’m like, ‘She’s from the industry.’ And my mom was bugging me.”

The That’s So Raven actress continued, “I was really reluctant because I knew something was different about Miranda.”

While Pearman-Maday was hesitant at first, she signed it because she “understood” the situation. “We both were like, ‘This takes away the genuineness of it all, but we also understood that we live in Hollywood,’” Raven-Symoné said, before adding, “She knows who she is. So she did it.”

Listen to the full interview below.

01 Jun 2023

Britney Spears Will Let Her Sons Move to Hawaii With Kevin Federline

Britney Spears is letting her two sons — Jayden James, 16, and Sean Preston, 17 — move to Hawaii with their father, Kevin Federline.

Federline’s lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, told People on Wednesday (May 31) that the “…Baby One More Time” signer “consented” to letting her two sons move to Hawaii with ex-husband Federline. “It’s an opportunity for Kevin and his wife, and the boys are ready to get away from the L.A. microscope,” the attorney told the outlet.

In addition to Jayden and Sean, Federline will reportedly move with with wife Victoria Prince and their two children — Peyton, 8, and Jordan, 11. According to People, Prince has a new job opportunity from a Hawaiian university. Sean will graduate just before the move, while Jayden will finish out his final year of high school remotely, the magazine reports.

Entertainment Tonight reports that Matthew Rosengart — Spears’ lawyer — wrote in a May 31-dated letter to Kaplan that the star does not plan to stand in the way of her sons’ move.

Billboard has reached out to Spears for comment.

The news of the boys’ move to Hawaii comes months after Jayden spoke about his relationship with Spears in an ITV News documentary following her wedding to Sam Asghari. According to a Daily Mail piece featuring a preview of the documentary, Jayden said there is “no hate” in their family, but it will require “a lot of time and effort” to repair it.

“I 100% think this can be fixed. It’s just going to take a lot of time and effort. I just want her to get better mentally. When she gets better I really want to see her again,” Jayden said in the documentary, adding a personal message to his mom: “I love you a lot, I hope for the best for you. Maybe one day we can sit down like this and talk again.”

“I’ve tried my best at being the best person I can be,” Spears replied in a note from Sept. 1 last year. “To be basically held hostage in homes under nurses and bulls–t I hope my kids one day understand my reasoning of my play in water revealing myself as any woman would being held under blankets and supervision under the conservatorship!!!”

01 Jun 2023

AfroFuture, Rock the Bells & Sixthman Set Sail for First-Ever AfroCruise

LL Cool J‘s celebrated hip-hop platform Rock the Bells and AfroFuture, a global cultural entertainment platform committed to showcasing African culture through festivals and live performances, will set sail with Sixthman next spring for a celebration of African and diasporic culture for the first-ever AfroCruise, which was announced Wednesday (May 31).

Aboard the Norwegian Pearl cruise ship, AfroCruise will take to the high seas from March 29 to April 1, 2024, from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas.

The fully immersive event will feature fashion, food and a lineup of Afrobeats and amapiano artists that will be revealed soon. And in between performances, Afrobeats & Brunch, London’s Days Like This, Positive Vibes Only (PVO), RNB HouseParty and NYC’s No Wahala podcast will host once-in-a-lifetime parties. AfroCruise will also have a jollof competition over different styles of jollof rice from Ghana, Nigeria and other West African countries, as well as a suya pool deck BBQ, diaspora gala, DJ sets, basketball and FIFA video game tournaments and more.

The first round of pre-sale signups are available through Sunday, June 4, at 11:59 p.m. ET, and they conclude next Wednesday, June 7, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Public on-sale begins next Friday, June 9, at noon ET on theafrocruise.com.

Experiential partner AfroVerse, which is dedicated to amplifying African culture through art, food and music activations, is also on board for AfroCruise. And later this year, Sixthman, the industry leader in festivals and music cruises, is partnering with Rock the Bells on Rock the Bells Cruise: A Hip-Hop Experience to celebrate the genre’s 50th birthday. That cruise is set for Nov. 13-17, traveling from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas, to Grand Bahama Island.

01 Jun 2023

YOASOBI’s ‘Idol’ Stays at No. 1 for Seventh Straight Week on Japan Hot 100

YOASOBI’s “Idol” continues its domination over the Billboard Japan Hot 100, on the chart released May 31. The Oshi no Ko opener adds another week at No. 1 to bring the total to seven, becoming the duo’s longest stay atop the list so far.

On the chart tallying the week from May 22 to 28, “Idol” ruled four metrics of the chart’s methodology: streaming, downloads, video views, and karaoke. The “Into the Night” pair dropped the English-language version of its latest smash along with the accompanying video this week, and this led to figures for video jumping from 7,620,563 to 9,300,982 weekly views. The song also toppled Vaundy’s “Kaiju no Hanauta” from the top spot for karaoke, where it had led for 12 consecutive weeks.

Logging its seventh week atop the Japan Hot 100, “Idol” is now aligned with some of the biggest hits of J-pop in recent years: Official HIGE DANdism’s “I LOVE…,” “Pretender,” and Kenshi Yonezu’s “Lemon.” It also surpassed YOASOBI’s own “Yoru ni kakeru” (“Into the Night”), which scored 6 weeks in 2020 and went on to top the year-end list for that year.

Most weeks at No. 1 on Japan Hot 100:

Official HIGE DANdism “Subtitle” 13 weeks
Gen Hoshino “Koi” 11 weeks
Aimer “Zankyosanka” 9 weeks
LiSA “Homura” 8 weeks
Kenshi Yonezu “Lemon” 7 weeks
Official HIGE DANdism “I LOVE…” 7 weeks
Official HIGE DANdism “Pretender” 7 weeks
YOASOBI “Idol” 7 weeks
YOASOBI “Yoru ni kakeru” 6 weeks
Ado “New Genesis” 6 weeks

INI’s “Fanfare” jumps to No. 2 on the Japan Hot 100 after debuting at No. 10 last week. The CD single launched with 522,251 copies to hit No. 1 for sales, and the track also ruled radio this week. The track also hit No. 2 for downloads after increasing by 619 percent from the week before, while streaming fell 18 percent to come in at No. 22.

The new song “Hikari no naka e” (“Into the Light”) by Kessoku Band — the fictional band from the TV anime Bocchi the Rock! that aired last fall — is off to a good start, debuting at No. 10 on the Japan Hot 100 after hitting No. 4 for sales and No. 3 for downloads. The other new song by the band called “Aoi Haru to Nishi no Sora (“Blue Spring and Western Sky”) also bowed at No. 70 on the song chart after hitting No. 4 for downloads, indicating the lasting popularity of the beloved anime series.

The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data.

See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from May 22 to 28, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English Twitter account.

01 Jun 2023

Bad Bunny Splashes Into Summer in New Pepsi Commercial: Watch

Bad Bunny has switched gears from global superstar to pool lifeguard in his first-ever Pepsi commercial out today (June 1). 

Directed by Dave Meyers and co-directed by Mia Barnes, with choreography from Sherrie Silver, the 90-second spot shows the Puerto Rican rapper overlooking a community pool where everyone is tired and drained from the summer heat. In an effort to get the vibes going, he discovers that his latest single “Where She Goes” easily turns up the party once a bottle of Pepsi is opened. 

The summer-themed commercial is part of Pepsi’s latest “Press Play On Summer” campaign with Apple Music that offers new and qualified returning subscribers up to three months of free, unlimited listening on the music streaming platform. The campaign, available in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, also includes over 100,000 instant prizes and the opportunity to travel with the purchase of select limited-edition PepsiCo beverages.

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Bad Bunny

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“Pepsi has a rich heritage of creating iconic music video style commercials with some of the world’s biggest artists – from Britney Spears to Ray Charles, Madonna to Dr. Dre, Beyonce to Chloe Bailey and so many more,” said Todd Kaplan, CMO of Pepsi, in a statement. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Bad Bunny to the Pepsi family with his very own spot, bringing in all the summer vibes with his newest track ‘Where She Goes.’ This song is already the soundtrack of the summer, so it is a perfect way to kick off our Press Play on Summer program that gives fans up to three free months of Apple Music with every 20oz ice-cold Pepsi.”

Bad Bunny’s Jersey Club-inspired track debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200, becoming his third leader on the chart, after “Un x100to,” with Grupo Frontera, two weeks earlier in May, and “Dakiti,” with Jhay Cortez (now Jhayco), for three weeks in November-December 2020. He also becomes the first soloist with three Global 200 No. 1s; overall, he’s second only to BTS, with six. Justin Bieber, BLACKPINK, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo, and Taylor Swift each boast two.

Watch the new Pepsi commercial in the video above.