Music News

06 Dec 2022

Backstreet Boys Get Animated for ‘Christmas in New York’ Video: Watch

Backstreet Boys are continuing to get in the Christmas spirit. On Tuesday (Dec. 6), the boy band released a new video for their holiday track “Christmas in New York.”

The sweet and sentimental visual sees the quintet — Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson — passionately singing the holiday track while their claymation counterparts explore a twinkling New York City during Christmas time.

The claymation dolls of the boy group witness and participate in classic scenes. One features a dressed up Santa with an elf at his side ringing a bells and asking for donations with a big red bucket. The dolls head down to the TV-decorated intersection of Times Square, take a horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park, view the holiday windows at Macy’s 34th street and go ice-skating in Rockefeller Center.

“All the elves are busy/ On Macy’s eighth floor/ It’s good to know there is still a miracle on 34th/ But what I love the most/ Is holding you this close/ This is what they made the Season for/ Oh, spending Christmas in/ Oh, another Christmas in/ Oh, yes, another Christmas in New York,” Littrell closes out the song with the rest of the members.

“Christmas in New York” hails from the boy band’s A Very Backstreet Christmas. The LP — which marked the group’s first collection of yuletide songs and its first studio effort in three years — was released on Oct. 14 via BMG. The set charted at No. 17 on the Billboard 200 following its release.

In addition to “Christmas in New York,” other holiday tracks such as “White Christmas,” “Silent Night,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” are included on the album. “Christmas in New York” is one of three original Christmas songs on the album; the others are titled “Together” and “Happy Days.”

Watch the sweet video for “Christmas in New York” above.

06 Dec 2022

Lea Michele Reveals She Got a ‘Beautiful Letter’ from Barbra Streisand About ‘Funny Girl’

Lea Michele swung by Late Night with Seth Meyers on Monday night (Dec. 5) to chat about her role as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl.

“It’s wild,” she told host Seth Meyers. “This show has been following me throughout the course of my life; I first watched the movie when I was in Spring Awakening on Broadway and then I did so much of it on Glee, and now I’m a mom and a wife and I’m doing it. And I really feel like this is the perfect time in my life to be doing this show.”

The Scream Queens alum also compared her experience on the Great White Way to her stint performing numbers from the show on Glee, calling it a “dream come true” to step into the role made famous by Barbra Streisand in front of a live audience for seven shows a week.

And speaking of Babs, Michele revealed she recently received the screen and stage legend’s belated blessing in typical grandiose fashion. “I got to work the other day and my dresser…had this, like, gold envelope,” she said. “It was, I don’t know, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, like getting invited.”

“And I just knew, and I was like, ‘Is it from Barbra?’” the actress continued. “And she said it was. And it was very sweet, she wrote me this beautiful letter. But one thing she said in it…She was like, ‘It’s really wonderful when your dreams come true, isn’t it?’ And I just, like, fell to my knees and I called Ryan Murphy, my mom, Jonathan Groff and Michael Mayer.”

Following her sit-down with the host, Michele made a costume change to perform “I’m the Greatest Star” backed by the Funny Girl orchestra.

Watch Michele’s interview and performance below.

06 Dec 2022

Lea Michele & Darren Criss Adorably Jam Out to ‘Glee’ Signature Song ‘Don’t Stop Believing’: Watch

It’s been several years since Lea Michele and Darren Criss were in the New Directions, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still sing classic Glee songs together. In an adorable TikTok posted to the Funny Girl star’s account Monday (Dec. 5), the former costars jammed out in the car to Journey‘s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

“Streetlights, people,” they sang from the back seat, big smiles on their faces as Criss nailed the high note.

“When you’re with your best friend and don’t stop believin’ randomly comes on the radio,” Michele captioned the nostalgic video.

Not so long ago, Michele and Criss starred together as New Directions teammates Rachel Berry and Blaine Anderson, respectively, on Ryan Murphy’s hit Fox show Glee. “Don’t Stop Believing” was a song performed often by the show choir after first being included in the series’ pilot.

In fact, Rachel Berry sang the song during one of her final auditions for Funny Girl, a fictional season four plot point on Glee that became reality earlier this year when Michele was cast as Fanny Brice in Broadway’s ongoing revival of the musical. She took over for Beanie Feldstein after a series of high profile casting changes, including fellow Glee alum Jane Lynch’s earlier-than-expected departure from the show.

Another fiction-turned-reality moment came when Criss came to see Michele perform in Funny Girl in October, paralleling the show moment when Blaine watches Rachel play Fanny from the audience. “The amount of times this guy has heard me sing Don’t Rain On My Parade,” the Scream Queens actress said at the time. “I love you.”

Watch Lea Michele and Darren Criss’ adorable TikTok below:

06 Dec 2022

‘George & Tammy’ Brings in 3.3 Million Live+Same Day Linear Viewers

The SHOWTIME mini-series George & Tammy, based on the lives of country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette, premiered on Sunday (Dec. 4) with 3.3 million Live+Same Day linear viewers across Showtime, Paramount Network and CMT, with SHOWTIME calling the series the most-watched premiere in its nearly 50-year history.

The series, starring Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon, chronicles the lives of one of country music’s most well-known couples. Though Jones and Wynette were wed for only six years (1969-1975), they are inextricably linked in the canon of country music, known for both their own solo hits, as well as a string of hit duets including “We’re Gonna Hold On,” “(We’re Not) The Jet Set,” “Golden Ring” and “Two Story House.” The series unfurls the both the tumultuous and romantic aspects of their relationship, with the first episode, “The Race Is On,” centering on Wynette’s whirlwind romance with Jones while still married to songwriter Don Chapel.

“George & Tammy made history as the most watched SHOWTIME premiere ever, thanks to the mesmerizing performances of Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon,” said Chris McCarthy, president/CEO of Showtime & Paramount Media Networks, via a statement.  “The riveting and complicated tale of the king and queen of county music is a testament to the creative firepower of Abe Sylvia and our incredible partners at Freckle Films and 101 Studios, led by David Glasser.”

The series is based on the book The Three of Us: Growing Up with Tammy and George, which was written by the couple’s daughter Georgette Jones, who is also a singer-songwriter (Wynette also had three children with former husband Euple Byrd). Future episodes will air exclusively on SHOWTIME on-air, on demand and streaming. 

06 Dec 2022

Billie Eilish Says Growing Up in the Public Eye Has Been a ‘Bruising Experience’

In five years Billie Eilish has exploded from a bedroom singer/songwriter into an Oscar-winning global pop superstar who can sell out arenas around the world. But in her telling to the BBC World Service for its “100 Women” year-end feature, the 20-year-old star laughed when read descriptions of her such as “icon” and “weird but important feminist.”

Asked how she would describe herself, Eilish said, “I have no idea. I don’t know. I feel like I might have known how to answer a couple of years ago. I don’t know anymore. Because I don’t look at myself in that way. I don’t look at myself like I’m something to explain. I just exist. I’m just a person. I’m just existing and doing my part in life.”

The rollercoaster of fame is weird. Like how a 14-year-old can go from uploading a song (“Ocean Eyes”) that she recorded with her brother Finneas in their childhood home that catapults her to global fame on a level with people who were formerly her pop icons. For instance, the piece notes that in the Apple TV+ documentary The World’s a Little Blurry there’s a moment when Katy Perry pulls Billie aside right before the singer is about to take the Coachella stage in 2019 and tells Billie she can call if she ever needs any help understanding the bizarre world of pop stardom.

Perry warned her then that things were only going to get more hectic. And while Eilish has not taken Perry up on her offer yet, it still lingers in her mind. “I should call her up. At the time I just didn’t believe her. I didn’t think it would keep going… it’s really hard to see your future like that… It was already so crazy. I couldn’t image it being crazier,” Eilish said. How crazy? Describing fame to someone who hasn’t experienced it is like “trying to explain a color that doesn’t exist” said the singer who has synethesia, which allows her to “see” her music.

And while the accolades, awards and attention have rained down like a glittering meteor shower, Eilish said that growing up in the public eye has been a “very bruising experience” that makes it very hard to develop and change in the way her age-appropriate peers might be. With no playbook, Eilish said she didn’t know what to do, which led to her just “grasping at straws,” even during a record-setting past few years where accolades piled up and she felt tinges of “severe imposter syndrome.”

During some times over the last year or two, Eilish said she was in a “downward spiral of imposter syndrome,” grasping at whatever she could to right herself as the self-proclaimed “internet kid” went from a commenter to the person people were commenting on. “When you see yourself and your name everywhere it’s really hard to know who the hell you are,” she said.

Eilish recalled crying in her bed while dreaming about the kind of show she wished she could present to her fans and then feeling “hopeless because I was like, ‘I’m a girl and so I’m never going to be able to have a show like that. I’m never going to be able to just be, you know, free up there and wild and … not have this and this going on and perform in this way and be more physical and be more about the performance and less about the little things.”

Now, though, Eilish said she’s inspired by all the women at the top of the charts and as headliners of festivals, a situation that wasn’t the case just a few years ago. “There was a specific period of time where I was just like in this pit of just like hopelessness about myself, because I didn’t have much to look up to in terms of girls like me being look at taken seriously in that regard,” she said, noting that the advances have left her feeling “hopeful” as she’s witnessed “a lot of progress” for women in the music industry. “Everything — completely male-dominated. I mean not even a question. Everything is still that way, but it’s better.”

And, rather than feel the pressure to be a role model for her many young female fans, Eilish said she feels none, and that’s a good thing. Rather, she’s “so stoked” about it and doesn’t get hung up about other people calling her a role model. “I just feel like I’m truly in love with them,” she said of her fans. “I feel like I’m in a relationship with them. So any friendship or relationship of whatever. They’re like, one of the first things I say I’m like, just so you know, you’re getting me, but you’re also getting them.”

And yes, she says that to any prospective boyfriends, letting them know that her fans come first.

Check out the interview below.

06 Dec 2022

BLACKPINK Insist They’re ‘Very Normal Girls’ After Being Named ‘TIME’ Entertainer of the Year

BLACKPINK was named TIME‘s Entertainer of the Year on Monday (Dec. 5), and sat down for an accompanying interview to reflect on their major year.

“We put in a lot of work so we could look like superwomen,” Jennie said of the K-pop girl group, who spent 2022 making their U.S. awards show debut by performing at the MTV Video Music Awards, releasing their sophomore album Born Pink, embarking on a world tour and reaching new heights on the Billboard charts. “We’re very normal girls, at the end of the day.”

When it comes to why the foursome particularly resonate with BLINKs all over the world, Rosé pointed to their natural multiculturalism hailing from Australia, Thailand, South Korea and New Zealand (by way of Seoul.) “We’re all from different cultures,” she said, adding that the group’s differences are “only a plus” when they’re creating music together.

Now that BLACKPINK has wrapped the U.S. leg of their ongoing Born Pink World Tour, they’ll spend the rest of the year making stops in Europe before heading to Asia, Australia and New Zealand in 2023. “Being able to come back with the team to tour and meet the fans worldwide has been a highlight,” Lisa told the magazine, while Jennie added that her primary focus was “not to look ahead, and enjoy every day, because it gets too overwhelming once we start planning a year ahead, two years ahead.”

Last week, Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo and Rosé dropped the first episode of their new online series “Born Pink Memories” by giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at the concept photoshoot for “Pink Venom” music as well as other fun facts from the set of the video.

Check out BLACKPINK’s TIME Entertainer of the Year photoshoot below.

06 Dec 2022

Kanye West Calls on Jewish People to ‘Forgive Hitler’ in Interview With Proud Boys Founder

Kanye West has fired off another round of antisemitic comments, this time saying in an interview with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes that Jewish people need to “forgive Hitler.”

In a 45-minute interview titled “Saving Ye” posted to the alt-right website Censored.TV, McInnes and the artist now known as Ye debated the latter’s recent bout of hate speech aimed at the Jewish community. But the Yeezy founder simply doubled down on his stance even harder.

“Jewish people can’t tell me who I can love and who I can’t love,” he said in the discussion, moderated by far-right personality and West’s recent companion Nick Fuentes, who is a Holocaust denier and has been labeled as a white supremacist by the Anti-Defamation League. “You can’t force your pain on everyone else,” he continued, according to Rolling Stone.

“Jewish people — forgive Hitler today,” he added. “Let it go. Let it go. Stop trying to force it on other people.”

McInnes, who in 2016 established the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys after leaving VICE Media Company, which he co-founded, says at the beginning of the video that he set up the interview to try to “prevent Ye West from becoming an antisemite or a Nazi.” The interview comes just days after the “Donda” musician praised Hitler and said he loves Nazis on Alex Jones’ far-right show InfoWars in a moment so disturbing, even President Joe Biden issued a statement condemning antisemitism and Holocaust denialism.

“I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides,” the president tweeted on Dec. 2. “Silence is complicity.’

06 Dec 2022

Taylor Swift Extends Record Atop Artist 100 Chart, Michael Buble & Fleetwood Mac Return to Top 10

Taylor Swift logs a record-extending 56th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Dec. 10), continuing her run as the top musical act in the United States.

Her reign can largely be attributed to the continued success of her album Midnights, which logs a fifth week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 151,000 equivalent album units earned in the Nov. 25-Dec. 1 tracking week, according to Luminate. The set debuted atop the Nov. 5 chart with 1.578 million units, the largest one-week total since the opening frame of Adele’s 25 in December 2015 (3.482 million).

Swift scores nine albums on the latest Billboard 200, the most among all acts. After Midnights, she appears with Folklore (No. 15), Red (Taylor’s Version) (No. 22), Lover (No. 29), Evermore (No. 36), 1989 (No. 51), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (No. 68), Reputation (No. 88), and Speak Now (No. 175).

Swift also lands nine songs from Midnights on the Billboard Hot 100, led by “Anti-Hero,” which tallies a sixth week at No. 1.

Here’s a recap of Swift’s songs on the latest, Dec. 10-dated Hot 100. After “Anti-Hero,” she charts with new radio single “Lavender Haze,” which pushes 36-26 on the Adult Pop Airplay chart and 31-28 on Pop Airplay. “Anti-Hero” leads the former tally for a second week and rises to No. 2 on the latter.

Rank, Title:

  • No. 1, “Anti-Hero”
  • No. 52, “Lavender Haze”
  • No. 70, “Bejeweled”
  • No. 71, “Midnight Rain”
  • No. 73, “Maroon”
  • No. 78, “Karma”
  • No. 80, “You’re On Your Own, Kid”
  • No. 83, “Snow on the Beach,” feat. Lana Del Rey
  • No. 97, “Vigilante Shit”

Swift has now spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Artist 100 in 2022, tying The Weeknd for the second-most after Bad Bunny (eight).

Elsewhere on the Artist 100, Michael Bublé bounds 14-7 largely powered by his 2011 album Christmas. The set jumps 10-4 on the Billboard 200 (47,000 units; up 55%), while its track “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” his version of Meredith Willson’s 1951 classic, re-enters the Hot 100 at No. 29.

Plus, Fleetwood Mac vaults 41-8 on the Artist 100, having made gains following the death of member Christine McVie on Nov. 30. The group’s seminal 1977 album Rumours climbs 32-20 on the Billboard 200 (23,000 units; up 25%), while the group’s Greatest Hits – with half its 16 songs written by McVie – re-enters at No. 98. The band’s classics “Everywhere” (from 1987’s Tango in the Night) and “Songbird” (from Rumours) — both written and sung by McVie — also rank on the Digital Song Sales chart at Nos. 14 (up from No. 38) and 26 (debut), respectively. The former had been surging thanks to its synch in a Chevrolet commercial.

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.

06 Dec 2022

Ed Sheeran Sold More Concert Tickets This Year Than Any Other Act

Back on the road after a three-year break following his record-breaking The Divide Tour, Ed Sheeran tops the year-end Top Ticket Sales chart after playing to more than 3 million fans in Europe in 2022.

This is not the first time that Ed Sheeran has won a year-end Boxscore trophy. The Divide Tour made him the first artist to repeat atop Billboard’s annual Top Tours ranking, winning the gold in 2018 and 2019. The first of those two victories was the biggest year-end total in Boxscore history, with $429.5 million. Further, that tour ended in 2019 with the highest gross and biggest attendance of any tour ever, at $776.4 million and 8.88 million tickets.

Now back with The Mathematics Tour, Sheeran winds up at No. 3 on the 2022 Top Tours chart with $246.3 million. But separated from gross revenue, his current tour is No. 1 on the Top Ticket Sales chart, ranking the top tours by total cumulative attendance. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Sheeran moved 3,047,696 tickets in the 2022 tracking period.

Sheeran played 63 shows between Dec. 13, 2021, and Sept. 25, 2022, averaging out to 48,376 tickets per night. But that is a misleading number, as the first 11 of those shows were “rehearsal” dates, setting the British singer-songwriter in small clubs and theaters in London and Dublin. Those shows ranged from 357 tickets at Dublin’s Whelans on April 19 to 5,230 tickets at London’s Royal Albert Hall on March 27. All 11 shows combined to 16,810; even at the top of that range, he was still selling less than 15% of the year’s average.

Removing those rehearsal shows from the equation, the picture of The Mathematics Tour comes into focus. Sheeran’s 52 “proper” tour dates in 2022 paced 58,287 tickets.

Almost every market – each one except for Helsinki, Finland – required multiple shows. Sheeran mostly played double-header weekends, moving from city to city and maximizing audiences with Friday and Saturday shows. He topped off with a five-show run at London’s Wembley Stadium, moving 420,269 tickets.

And while there is no attendance-based chart for Boxscores, the Wembley streak does have the highest attendance total of any engagement this year, beating Coldplay’s four shows at Paris’ Stade de France by more than 100,000 tickets.

Elsewhere, Sheeran broke the 200,000 threshold with four shows at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium and Munich’s Olympiastadion.

These numbers are huge, but even compared to his record-setting predecessor, The Mathematics Tour is ahead of schedule. The Divide Tour included three European legs in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Those runs averaged 14,321 tickets (the 2017 leg was in arenas), 54,485 and 51,898, respectively. Sheeran’s ’22 stadium pace is 7% in front of Divide’s strongest year, setting him up quite well as he prepares to leave his home base.

The Mathematics Tour is scheduled for 12 shows in Australia in February and March, followed by 24 shows in North America throughout the summer. Whether or not Sheeran can match (or even approach) The Divide Tour’s three-year total may be entirely up to him. Fans showed up in droves to his European shows, but the expanse of his pre-pandemic tour was so huge. And not only did the tour last, it went wide, including shows in Asia, South America and South Africa. If Mathematics routing remains modest, it will be difficult to triple the tour’s current totals.

Based on his scheduled 36 shows in 2023, The Mathematics Tour should pick up another 1.5 million to 1.75 million tickets as it approaches the 5 million mark. Should more dates be added, the sky’s the limit.

06 Dec 2022

Here’s the Date of the 2023 NAACP Image Awards

The 54th NAACP Image Awards will broadcast live on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, at 8 p.m. (live ET/PT on delay) on BET from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, Calif. Nominees will be announced on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. Online voting opens on that date and extends through Friday, Feb. 10, 2023.

This will mark the first in-person Image Awards since the show was hosted in February 2020, also at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

The host has not been announced. Black-ish star Anthony Anderson hosted the last nine NAACP Image Awards, but several previous hosts or co-hosts came from the world of music, including Whitney Houston, Patti LaBelle, Vanessa Williams, Mariah Carey, Diana Ross and LL Cool J.

Jennifer Hudson was named entertainer of the year at last year’s show. Jazmine Sullivan and Anthony Hamilton won outstanding female and male artist, respectively. Sullivan’s Heaux Tales took outstanding album. Saweetie took outstanding new artist.

The 54th NAACP Image Awards will include three new categories within the motion picture, television + streaming categories — outstanding hairstyling, outstanding make-up and outstanding costume design.

“Throughout the past year, we’ve witnessed Black artists showcasing our history and uplifting values of progressive change, while redefining genres and bringing our stories to the forefront of entertainment in so many innovative ways,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement. “Black voices are necessary to continually inspire audiences around the world. We’re proud to once again provide a platform that both elevates and celebrates these voices through the 54th NAACP Image Awards.”

“BET is extremely proud to continue our long-standing partnership with the NAACP and magnify their endeavors to honor the incredible contributions made by the Black community,” added BET president and CEO Scott Mills. “We’re looking forward to celebrating Black excellence at next year’s Image Awards on all of our platforms, honoring those who help tell our diverse stories in powerful ways.”