Music News

19 May 2023

Miley Cyrus Raves About Her ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ Cover Outfit: ‘This Look Is Just a Little Bit Too Good’

Everybody say “archival museum-quality”! Miley Cyrus sat down with Vogue to reflect on her style evolution and some of her most famous looks in the fashion bible’s series “Life in Looks.”

In the video published May 18, the pop star gave insight on everything from her time as Hannah Montana and punk-inspired appearance at the 2013 Met Gala to the “extremely controversial” teddy-bear bodysuit she wore to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards that same year.

Later, even Miley herself was blown away when revisiting the stunning cover of her latest album, Endless Summer Vacation. B—h. It’s f–king archival museum-quality Alaia, b—h, it’s better than I ever remembered,” she raved before getting the entire room to applaud. “This look is just a little bit too good. This is one of those looks where, you know, I didn’t have to go this hard. But I did.”

She then revealed that she shot the cover art on the grounds of the Frank Sinatra estate in Palm Springs, Calif., though she was quick to deadpan, “We’re not gonna talk about the shoe” before turning the page.

Cyrus also broke down the vintage gold lamé Yves Saint Laurent dress that took the world by storm when she released the music video for “Flowers” (again, “1991 museum-quality archival — hoo!”).

“Listen, b—h, we shot the video before the runway with all the hoods,” she dished, “and currently they are in Paris at the Yves Saint Laurent museum; it is the ‘Gold Exhibition,’ which we had no idea that was gonna happen. I did it first. I mean, Yves Saint Laurent did it first and then I did it second and then they copied us. It wasn’t saying too much. It spoke for itself, but it also allowed me to speak. It completely captured what the song is about.”

Watch Miley run through her “Life in Looks” for Vogue above.

19 May 2023

BTS’ Jimin Duets With Muni Long in Kodak Black & NLE Choppa’s ‘Angel Pt. 1’ Video: Watch

Fast X — the 10th installment of the of the Fast & Furious movie franchise — arrived in theaters on Friday (May 19) alongside its soundtrack and the music video for “Angel Pt. 1” by Kodak Black and NLE Choppa, which features Jimin of BTS, Muni Long and JVKE.

JVKE, who plays piano in the visual, opens the song. Jimin follows shortly after, singing the resounding chorus from a rooftop in New York City during sunset. “Angel, don’t fly so close to me/ I’m what you want, not what you need/ You don’t want to lose those wings/ People like me break beautiful things,” the BTS vocalist passionately sings before Kodak swoops in for a verse about the importance of family ties.

Following a verse from NLE Choppa, which details how a pair of friends escape adversity, the “Like Crazy” singer then teams up with Muni Long for the second chorus. She takes over for the first half, while Jimin and her duet in the latter half of the chorus, as scenes from Fast X are spliced in between.

Choppa spoke with PopSugar about working with Jimin on the song, and revealed that it was a major goal of his. “I’ve actually been for a while manifesting wanting to work with BTS and to be able to work with just one of the guys from BTS I feel like it’s a beautiful thing, and it’s one of those things I prayed for,” he told the outlet. “So, every time you hear BTS in my mouth or Jimin in my mouth, there’s gonna be a thank you behind it, because I’m just grateful knowing how big that scene is and grateful to know how big the impact they have on K-pop is in general.”

Check out “Angel Pt. 1” by Kodak Black and NLE Choppa featuring Jimin, Muni Long and JVKE above.

19 May 2023

Chart Rewind: In 1990, Madonna Was in ‘Vogue’ Atop the Hot 100

One of Madonna’s biggest hits, her 1990 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 dance anthem “Vogue,” had surprisingly humble beginnings.

“The whole thing was done on a shoestring budget,” Shep Pettibone, the track’s co-writer and producer, told Billboard in 2015. Allotted just $5,000 by Warner Bros. (now Warner) Records to create what was initially slated as a B-side, he finished the song in three weeks, recording the then-31-year-old pop star’s vocals in a “basement on West 56th Street” in New York, where, he said, a closet had been converted into a vocal booth.



The song starts with suspense-building synths before kicking into “Philly Salsoul”-style house music, and its lyrics and sumptuous black-and-white video — directed by future Academy Award nominee David Fincher (Gone Girl, The Social Network) — celebrate voguing, a style of dance popularized in New York’s mostly gay ballroom club scene in the 1980s that mimics fashion-shoot poses.

Released as an A-side, “Vogue” topped the Hot 100 dated May 19, 1990. Madonna and Pettibone also collaborated on the singer’s 1992 No. 1 ballad, “This Used to Be My Playground,” but Pettibone left the music business in the late ’90s.

In June 2019, Madonna released her latest album, Madame X, which arrived as her ninth No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “Vogue,” meanwhile, continues to be a staple of her live shows.

A version of this article first appeared in the May 23, 2015, issue of Billboard magazine.

19 May 2023

Lizzo Asks Fans to Bring Posters of Her Boyfriend Instead of Chris Evans to Her Shows & They Oblige

Lizzo may have once fantasized about having Chris Evans’ baby, but those days are behind her. And now that she’s happily in love with boyfriend Myke Wright, she thinks it’s about d–n time her fans start bringing posters of him — and not cutouts of Captain America — to her shows.

In a hilarious video posted to the superstar’s Instagram Friday (May 19), Lizzo pauses her concert to specifically thank fans in the crowd for bringing blown-up photos of Wright. She then explains that at a previous show, she’d given a “public service announcement” about her relationship status because one fan in the audience had brought “a big a– cutout of Chris Evans’ face.”

“Chris Evans is not my man,” she’d told the crowd at the earlier show. “My man is [Myke Wright]. He fine as hell. I wanna see his fine a– face when I’m onstage.”

Clearly, her fans heeded her words — and Lizzo is overjoyed. “Can I have one? For scientific purposes,” the Grammy winner told two people in the audience who brought giant photos of Wright, before taking a picture with the fans from stage.

But while Wright, who is a comedian and TV personality, is Lizzo’s muse now, there was definitely a time not so long ago when Evans was the apple of her eye. In 2021, she confessed to drunk-messaging Evans over Instagram DMs, after which the Knives Out star followed her back and responded, “No shame in a drunk DM. God knows I’ve done worse on this app.”

From there, the two had many more moments of cute banter via social media and interviews. At one point, the “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)” singer posted a TikTok joking that she was pregnant with Evans’ child, prompting him to send her a hilarious response over DMs that she shared with followers. “Hi! Just heard about our little bundle of joy,” he joked at the time. “My mother will be so happy.”

See Lizzo’s PSA about those Chris Evans posters below:

19 May 2023

Miguel’s ‘Sure Thing’ Tops Pop Airplay Chart More Than a Decade After Its Original Release

More than 12 years after its release and its original chart run, Miguel’s “Sure Thing” hits No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart (dated May 27).

The song, on ByStorm/Black Ice/Jive/Legacy/RCA Records, completes the longest ascent to the Pop Airplay summit from a title’s release, having first hit Billboard’s charts in February 2011, following its November 2010 release on Miguel’s debut LP, All I Want Is You. An R&B/hip-hop radio hit in its original run, “Sure Thing” crowned the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, as well as R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, for a week in May 2011.

On the all-genre, multimetric Billboard Hot 100, “Sure Thing” reached No. 36 over a 23-week stay in March-August 2011.

In 2022, the song resurged thanks to newfound attention on TikTok, where a sped-up version has soundtracked more than 4 million clips. It debuted on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart this January and ranked at No. 30 on the most recently published, May 20-dated chart with 10.6 million official streams in the United States May 5-11, according to Luminate.

On the May 20-dated all-format Radio Songs survey, “Sure Thing” rose 7-6, up 6% to 51.6 million in audience. On the Hot 100, it pushed 15-14, reaching a new best – as well as a new career high for Miguel, surpassing the No. 15 peak of Mariah Carey’s “#Beautiful,” on which he’s featured, in 2013.

(Helping maintain familiarity with top 40 radio listeners, Miguel tallied six Pop Airplay hits in 2012-22, rising as high as No. 12 as featured on Kygo’s “Remind Me to Forget” in 2018, his best career rank prior to the revival of “Sure Thing.”)

Meanwhile, the comeback to new heights for “Sure Thing” has been historic, as the single broke the record for the most weeks ever spent on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs: 78 (through the latest, May 20-dated survey, where it placed at No. 5, marking its first appearance in the chart’s top five since September 2011).

“We were keeping a close eye on the metrics,” says RCA head of promotion Keith Rothschild about the decision to promote the song to pop radio after TikTok sparked new interest in it. It debuted on the Pop Airplay chart dated Feb. 25, at No. 40, and hits No. 1 in its 14th week on the chart, up 7% in plays May 12-18.

While “Sure Thing” is far removed from its original release, “programmers were not hesitant at all,” Rothschild says, especially with other catalog songs recently finding new life on radio, whether from TikTok or synchs, including Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” and The Weeknd’s “Die for You.”

Until “Sure Thing,” “Die for You” — originally from 2016 and remixed this year with Ariana Grande, as it, too, received new radio promotion by Republic — briefly held the record for the longest wait to hit No. 1 on Pop Airplay from a track’s release, as it topped the tally for two weeks this February.

“We knew the song was a hit, as it was a No. 1 R&B/hip-hop record when it was originally out,” says Rothschild of “Sure Thing.” “It was never worked at pop, so we asked programmers to put it into callout. The numbers came back massive, and we knew it was game on.”

19 May 2023

Morrissey Pens Warm Tribute to Smiths Bassist Andy Rourke: ‘He Didn’t Ever Know His Own Power’

Despite tensions caused by a royalties battle that for a period split the former members of The Smiths into two warring camps, the band’s singer, Morrissey, penned a predictably lyrical, poetic tribute to the band’s late bassist, Andy Rourke. In a message posted on his official site on Friday (May 19) entitled “Beam of Light,” the legendarily misanthropic singer praised Rourke while pointedly bypassing what he called the “usual blandishments.”

In the wake of Royce’s death at 59 following a battle with pancreatic cancer, Morrissey said, “Sometimes one of the most radical things you can do is to speak clearly. When someone dies, out come the usual blandishments… as if their death is there to be used. I’m not prepared to do this with Andy.”

Morrissey, never one to dwell on sappy sentiment or empty words, said he hoped that “wherever Andy has gone… that he’s OK. He will never die as long as his music is heard. He didn’t ever know his own power, and nothing that he played had been played by someone else. His distinction was so terrific and unconventional and he proved it could be done. He was also very, very funny and very happy, and post-Smiths, he kept a steady identity — never any manufactured moves.”

The note ended with a final olive branch couched in loving words. “I suppose, at the end of it all, we hope to feel that we were valued. Andy need not worry about that.”

The latter was especially poignant given the nasty 1989 royalties dispute that pitted Morrissey and Marr against Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce, during which Morrissey said of the latter two that they were “lucky… if they’d had another singer they’d never have got further than Salford shopping centre.”

Despite the acrimony — Rourke confirmed in an 2017 interview that Morrissey fired him from the Smiths by leaving a postcard on his car — Rourke toured with Morrissey on the singer’s solo outing following the band’s 1987 split and played bass on a number of Moz’s songs, including “Interesting Drug,” “The Last of the Famous International Playboys,” “November Spawned a Monster” and “Picadilly Palare,” as well as composing the music for a handful of others.

19 May 2023

Coi Leray Announces Sophomore Album ‘Coi’ & Teases New Song ‘Make My Day’

After the scorching success of her Billboard Hot 100 hit “Players,” Coi Leray is poised to make more noise with her upcoming sophomore album. Slated to drop June 23, Coi will serve as the follow-up to her 2022 effort Trendsetter, which included “No More Parties,” “BIG PURR” and her Nicki Minaj-assisted “Blick Blick.”

According to a press release, Coi will include 15 tracks across different genres, and will have features from David Guetta, Saucy Santana, Giggs, Lola Brooke and Skillibeng.

The success of “Players” increased the star power of Leray after garnering several big-name remixes with the likes of Busta Rhymes and Tokischa. Because of the song’s popularity on TikTok, “Players” reached the top 10 on the Hot 100, peaking at No. 9 on the April 1-dated chart. 

“The best thing about this industry is there’s room for everybody. That’s why it’s no competition,” she told Billboard at the top of the year. “B—h, I could be here, and you could be here right with me. At the end of the day, even if we at the top of the mountain, I’m a be Coi and you gonna be you, and we could trade places or I could become someone else. I’m gonna determine my greatness, my destiny and my future. What’s for you is for you, while we’re at the top together. Steel sharpens steel.”

Since the release of “Players,” Leray has dropped a slew of follow-up singles, including “My Body” and “Bops.” She also previously worked with David Guetta on his “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” single with Anne-Marie, while recently teasing her forthcoming Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse collaboration with Metro Boomin’ titled “Self Love.” 

Along with announcing the album, Leray also teased “one of her favorite songs” — “Make My Day,” which samples the 1989 classic “Pump up the Jam” by Technotronic.

Coi drops June 23. Check out the cover art and “Make My Day” teaser below.

19 May 2023

Dr. Luke Named Songwriter of the Year at 2023 ASCAP Pop Music Awards

Dr. Luke was named pop music songwriter of the year at the 2023 ASCAP Pop Music Awards, which were held at Yamashiro Hollywood in Los Angeles on May 18. This is the third win in that category for Dr. Luke (Lukasz Gottwald). He won in 2010, and shared the award with Max Martin in 2011.

In the 40-year history of the ASCAP Pop Music Awards, only three other songwriters have won pop music songwriter of the year three or more times. Martin leads with 11 wins, followed by Diane Warren with five. Lionel Richie is tied with Dr. Luke with three wins.

Dr. Luke won this year based on the radio airplay and number of streams for such hits as Latto’s “Big Energy,” Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” and a string of hits for Doja Cat, including “Need to Know,” “Woman” and “You Right.”

The pop music songwriter of the year is determined by the total number of a writer’s shares in ASCAP Pop Music Award-winning songs multiplied by the winning songs’ impressions, which are calculated based on Luminate data for terrestrial and satellite radio and streaming services.

“Stay,” performed by The Kid LAROI and ASCAP member Justin Bieber, who co-wrote the song, won ASCAP pop music song of the year. The synth-pop smash notched seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remained on the chart for 63 weeks, which set a new record for a Bieber single.

“Stay,” which is published by Universal Music Publishing Group and Bieber Time Publishing, took the No. 1 slot on Billboard’s year-end Radio Songs chart for 2022. On Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 Songs chart for 2022, it finished No. 3 – even though its points were split between two years. The song had finished No. 12 on the year-end Hot 100 Songs chart for 2021.

Sony Music Publishing took ASCAP pop music publisher of the year for the second year in a row and the eighth time overall. Sony/ATV tied with EMI in 2009. Sony/ATV won outright or tied as publisher of the year in 2009, 2013-15, 2017 and 2019.

Sony Music Publishing won this year based on the strength of such hits as “Break My Soul” (Beyoncé), “Hrs and Hrs” (Muni Long), “One Right Now” (Post Malone and The Weeknd), “Numb Little Bug” (Em Beihold) and “23” (Sam Hunt).

Other songwriters honored for their ASCAP Pop Music Award-winning songs included Billy Walsh (“Die for You,” “I Like You,” “One Right Now”), Cardi B (“Wild Side”), Dua Lipa (“Sweetest Pie”), Fousheé (“Bad Habit”), Greg Kurstin (“Easy on Me”), Henry “Cirkut” Walter (“Die for You,” “Unholy”), Kim Petras (“Unholy”), Louis Bell (“I Like You,” “One Right Now”), Phil Plested (“I’m Good (Blue)”), Sarah Hudson (“Sweetest Pie”), Sia (“Unstoppable”), Starrah (“Wild Side”), Theron Thomas (“About Damn Time,” “Big Energy”) and Vaughn Oliver (“Big Energy,” “Super Freaky Girl”).

A complete list of 2023 ASCAP Pop Music Awards honorees can be found on the ASCAP website.

19 May 2023

Jimmy Buffett Cancels Show Due to Undisclosed Medical ‘Issues That Needed Immediate Attention’

Jimmy Buffett canceled his planned concert in Charleston, S.C., on Saturday (May 20) with his Coral Reefer Band after telling fans on Thursday (May 18) that he is dealing with some undisclosed health issues.

In a Facebook message to his Parrothead nation, Buffett, 76, said the show at Credit One Stadium would be rescheduled with all tickets honored for the new date, writing, “These few words from Mark Twain about life changes, seemed perfect to pass on at this time. ‘Challenges,’ he said, ‘make life interesting, however overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.’ I had a sudden change of plans this week that affected us all.”

Specifically, Buffett said that earlier this week, he returned from a trip to the Bahamas and was “thawing out” from his California winter tour, “chomping at the bit to get to Charleston.” During a stop in Boston for a check-up, Buffett said he wound up “back in the hospital to address some issues that needed immediate attention.”

Buffett did not disclose the ailment, the treatment he received or his prognosis, but continued with some well-worn advice for seafarers and land-lubbers alike. “Growing old is not for sissies, I promise you,” he wrote. “I also will promise you that when I am well enough to perform, that is what I’ll be doing in the land of She-Crab soup.”

The billionaire musician/entrepreneur postponed or canceled his five remaining 2022 tour dates in Sept. of last year due to an unspecified medical issues that required a brief hospitalization.

See Buffett’s post below.

19 May 2023

Travis Scott’s Bodyguard Seen With ‘Utopia’ Briefcase Handcuffed to His Wrist

Travis Scott’s Utopia album may be inching closer to a release date. On Thursday (May 18), photos surfaced of Scott walking alongside his bodyguard, who was spotted holding a briefcase with Utopia written on it. To increase security measures, the guard had the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. 

Billboard has reached out to the rapper’s rep for comment.

Rumors have been swirling regarding the release date for the hotly anticipated album. Epic Records CEO Sylvia Rhone told Billboard earlier this year that Utopia is “expected to come in June.” Scott’s last album arrived in 2018 when he released his astronomic effort Astroworld. The collection bowed at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in its debut week, reeling in 537,000 album equivalent units. It included features from Drake, Frank Ocean, The Weeknd and more. It also received a Grammy nomination for best rap album the following year, but lost to Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy. 

Earlier this week, Scott was at a Houston Astros game when he previewed Utopia ahead of the team’s showdown against the Chicago Cubs. Speaking to Fox 26’s sports director Mark Berman, Scott said he was “fresh from Utopia … it’s on the way now.” He added, “I had to come here to play Utopia for the boys down in the locker room. Had to get them right for the game.”

In 2021, Travis released one-off singles in “Mafia” and “Escape Plan” ahead of his Astroworld Festival, which turned tragic when 10 people died and nearly 5,000 were injured in a crowd surge. It has since led to a $750 million class-action lawsuit.

Scott looks to make another return to Rolling Loud Miami this year, where he’ll serve as a headliner and perform alongside A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, 21 Savage and more.