Music News
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Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” tour will fire up again this weekend when he brings a roster of heavy hitters with him to Los Angeles’s Gloria Molina Grand Park. In addition to the firebrand Vermont independent, the event will also feature his tour mate, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Neil Young, Joan Baez and Maggie Rogers.
Others slated to perform at the rally include: Jeff Rosenstock, Dirty Projectors, Indigo De Souza, The Red Pears and the Raise Gospel Choir.
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Sanders has been very vocal in his disdain for the Trump administration’s ruinous tariff policies this week in the midst of a stock market meltdown that has spurred fears of a global recession, or possible depression, as a result of the President’s unpredictable threats and retreats on international trade policy. During a CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper on Wednesday, Sanders lambasted Trump’s pugilistic approach to foreign policy, saying, “We don’t have to hate China. We don’t have to hate other people. Let’s figure out a way to work together.”
With Trump threatening greatly increased tariffs on most countries in the world, then doing a sudden about-face just hours before they were slated to go into effect this week — while boosting tariffs on China to 125% — Sanders, 83, added, “The goal has got to be to break down these barriers that separate us as human beings — come together as Americans and come together globally as human beings.”
The whipsawing of the markets has touched nearly every aspect of the economy, including music stocks, which saw large declines last week after the President’s so-called “Liberation Day” imposition of tariffs on all U.S. trading partners. The ensuing Wall Street bloodbath kicked off a massive decline across a number of stock indices, with a wide range of music stocks suffering major declines ranging from 6.8% for MSG Entertainment to 13.9% for Sphere Entertainment Co. last Thursday.
Sanders and AOC have been barnstorming across the country on their tour, drawing thousands, and in some cases tens of thousands, at rallies in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Utah. At a March 7 event in Kenosha, WI, Sanders invited Laura Jane Grace on stage to perform a new song called “Your God (God’s D–k),” which caused some outrage online about its profane lyrics and religious themes.
in the song, Grace notes that some while religious conservatives are struggling to use the proper pronouns for trans people, they have no problem when it comes to gendering a deity. “Does your god have a big fat d–k?/ ‘Cause it feels like he’s f—ing me,” Grace sings on the track. “Are his b–ls filled with lightning?/ Do they dangle like heaven’s keys?”
Check out the poster for the event below.
Los Angeles: this Saturday join our rally with music from Neil Young, Maggie Rogers, Joan Baez, Dirty Projectors, Jeff Rosenstock, Indigo de Souza, The Red Pears, and Raise Gospel Choir.Doors at 9am. Together, we can defeat the oligarchy. RSVP here: https://t.co/GSszH3hIhG pic.twitter.com/A8svdPCLge— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) April 9, 2025
Paramore fans got a very rare treat this week when singer Hayley Williams performed “Teenagers,” her contribution to the super emo soundtrack to the 2009 Megan Fox horror comedy Jennifer’s Body live for the first time ever. Seated on the floor while strumming an acoustic guitar and rocking green shades, Williams, 36, sang, “I’m gonna go on like I never met you/ And it’ll feel wrong at first, but I think I can forget you/ Ignore the fact that we sleep no more than three feet apart/ I feel you now, you’re all around me, underneath me.”
Bobbing her head and clearly into it, she quick-strummed her way into the chorus: “Well, how was I to know that what we carved in stone/ Would be so temporary?/ Well, how was I to know that my first crack in love/ Would not be the last? It won’t be the last,” she sang.
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The caption to the performance read “#selfserenades wrote this for the jennifer’s body soundtrack when I was still a teenager,” adding to the tale in her Stories, writing, “lore behind this one is so ridiculous i cant tell if tellin it would make the song better or worse anyway, first self-serenade in years… hope its fine by you.”
In case you forgot, the soundtrack to the movie was a who’s who of emo at the time, including tracks from Panic! at the Disco, Dashboard Confessional, Cute Is What We Aim For, Cobra Starship, All Time Low and The Sword, as well as songs from Florence + the Machine, Little Boots, Screeching Weasel, Silversun Pickups and Lissy Trullie.
In addition to the performance, Williams also made an urgent call to action about the climate crisis, noting that the weather in Nashville when she recorded the performance was “glorious” after multiple tornado threats, flooding and “a sleepless night hiding in the basement. have come a little too close to multiple natural disasters this year. they continue to get worse and more frequent.”
Severe storms raked Nashville and Middle Tennessee last week, spawning multiple tornado warnings, one suspected tornado, as well as torrential rains and high winds that caused widespread flooding. Williams pulled no punches in describing the urgency she feels about climate change at a time when the Trump administration is touting efforts to revive the highly polluting coal industry and working to roll back many of the crucial green initiatives passed by the Biden administration to put the country on a path to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“Climate crisis is definitely here and the ppl in power dont give a rats ass,” she wrote. The singer encouraged her fans to follow Mister Rogers’ sage advice to “look for the helpers,” with a shout-out to @supportandfeed, the organization founded by Billie Eilish’s mom, Maggie Baird, that is working to mitigate climate change and increase food security by promoting plant-based food options.
She also gave some love to @reverb_org, which has been striving for more than 20 years to green the touring industry.
Check out Williams’ performance below.
After more than a decade of building one of Australia’s most beloved indie catalogues, Ball Park Music has officially reached the top.
The Brisbane five-piece scores its first-ever No. 1 album on the ARIA Albums Chart with Like Love, debuting at the summit on the chart dated April 11. It’s the band’s eighth studio album — and the first to reach the top spot after a long streak of near-misses. Until now, three of the band’s releases had stalled at No. 2: Puddinghead (2014), Ball Park Music (2020), and Weirder & Weirder (2022). Seven of their albums have landed in the top 10.
Like Love also claims a key milestone as the first Australian-made album to top the ARIA Albums Chart in 2025.
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The last local release to hit No. 1 was Kylie Minogue’s Tension II, which opened at the summit in late October 2024. That was one of six Australian albums to top the chart last year — an achievement that speaks to the rarity of homegrown titles hitting No. 1 in today’s global streaming-dominated landscape.
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The band will celebrate the release of Like Love with a massive 30-date tour across Australia and New Zealand, kicking off May 2 at the Forth Pub in Tasmania. The album was released independently via the band’s own label, and continues their streak of success as a self-managed, self-releasing act — a rarity in an industry dominated by major-label machinery.
In this week’s top three, Ball Park Music holds off strong international competition from Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet at No. 2 and Tate McRae’s So Close to What at No. 3.
Melbourne metalcore band Thornhill enters the ARIA Albums Chart at No. 4 with BODIES, continuing their upward trajectory. The band’s debut album The Dark Road peaked at No. 20 in 2019, followed by Heroine, which hit No. 3 in 2022.
Elton John also enters the chart this week at No. 26 with Who Believes in Angels?, a collaborative collection with Brandi Carlile. It marks his 42nd top 40 album in Australia. His first ARIA top 20 entry dates back to 1971’s Elton John (No. 2), and his last studio effort to crack the top 20 was The Lockdown Sessions, which peaked at No. 2 in 2021.
Folk legend and ARIA Hall of Fame inductee John Williamson also makes a new chart appearance at No. 51 with How Many Songs. The prolific songwriter has released over 20 studio albums and first hit No. 1 in 1989 with Warragul. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010 and remains one of Australia’s most enduring voices in country and folk music.
Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Alex Warren’s breakout hit “Ordinary” holds the No. 1 position for a third straight week, continuing its impressive reign. Rosé and Bruno Mars’ collaborative single “APT” holds steady at No. 2, while Chappell Roan’s viral anthem “Pink Pony Club” climbs to a new peak of No. 3, up one spot from last week.
The highest new entry belongs to Ed Sheeran, whose latest single “Azizam” lands at No. 30. The track — the lead single from his forthcoming album Play — becomes Sheeran’s 51st top 40 single in Australia. He’s already claimed six No. 1 hits on the ARIA Singles Chart across his career.
Despite a strong week for international artists, just one Australian song appears in the ARIA Singles Chart’s top 50: Vance Joy’s enduring 2013 hit “Riptide,” which slips from No. 36 to No. 42.
Maroon 5 vocalist Adam Levine has reflected on Paul McCartney’s reaction to his band covering The Beatles on television more than a decade ago.
Levine’s comments were made during his recent appearance on The Howard Stern Show, where he and guitarist James Valentine were discussing a special televised event from February 2014. Broadcast by CBS, The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles was a star-studded performance held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Fab Four’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Alongside performances from McCartney and Ringo Starr, the event featured the likes of Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, Stevie Wonder, and John Legend and Alicia Keys all covering original Beatles songs. The night opened with Maroon 5, who shared their own renditions of “All My Loving” and “Ticket to Ride.”
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“ I was scared s–tless,” Valentine told Stern of the performance, with Levine adding, “I told you I’ve been scared a handful of f–king times in my life, that was definitely one of them. “I was like, ‘Holy s–t.’ I’m sorry man, but it’s just like, you can be too cool, but not always. It’s Ringo Star and Paul McCartney. F–k off if you’re gonna try and be cool about that.
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“Afterwards, I see Paul and Paul kind of took me in close and he goes, ‘You know, we did it better,’” Levine remembered while laughing. “I thought it was so funny. And I cracked up and I’m like, ‘Yeah, no s–t, you’re Paul McCartney, you’re The Beatles.’”
Levine then added how the interaction took an even stranger turn when McCartney tried to get his attention at a party some months later, using the opportunity to apologize for any bad blood his initial comments may have caused.
“He’s like, ‘Hey man, I just wanted to let you know, if that bothered you, I’ve been thinking about this, I didn’t want to insult you or anything,’” Levine recalled. “It was something like that. Like, ‘If I insulted you, I apologize.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Like, you’re good. Dude, you’re Paul F–king McCartney.
“But it kind of shattered in a great way this whole thing about your heroes being who they are,” Levine concluded. “It’s like, he’s a human being with a beating heart and a really beautiful soul who actually was thoughtful enough to even take into account that maybe for some reason my feelings might have been hurt, but of course they were not.”
Levine’s appearance on The Howard Stern Show wasn’t his only big media appearance this week, with Monday night’s (April 7) episode of The Tonight Show seeing him confirm that Maroon 5 will be making a musical comeback in 2025
“The rumors are correct. There are details. I cannot divulge all the details,” Levine explained. “But the details are basically, roughly, there’s a single coming at the end of the month-ish. I’m really excited about it. An album is coming over the summer. Non-specifically around the summertime. And then, even more non-specifically, there is a tour coming in the fall-ish.”
NIKI has given Chappell Roan a musical makeover, covering “Casual” for her recent appearance on Like a Version, the long-running segment from Australian radio station triple j.
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Airing on Friday, April 10 (Australian time), the performance was recorded in mid-March during the Australian leg of the Indonesian-born singer’s Buzz World Tour. As is tradition, the two-song set launched with an original, which saw NIKI deliver a raucous rendition of her “ female rage” song “Colossal Loss,” which has become wildly popular with her fans despite not being released as a single.
For the cover portion of the set, NIKI turned her attention to Roan’s “Casual,” which had been initially released in late 2022 as a single, before appearing on her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess the following year. As a result of the Grammy-nominated album’s global success in 2024, “Casual” peaked at No. 59 on the Hot 100 in August.
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Stripping away the nostalgic synths in favor of a Gibson 12-string and slide guitar, NIKI’s reinvention of the track almost feels like something of a link between Roan’s original and the country-pop of her March single “The Giver.”
“It’s definitely a song that I wish I wrote,” NIKI explained in a post-performance interview. “I love the entire record, obviously, but ‘Casual’ was the one that really stayed with me on a personal level. It’s almost like I feel like I’ve known those melodies all my life, so it just felt very familiar and the production is just so moody.”
“For my version of casual, we decided to speed it up and make it more of like an early 2000s vibe, because we’ve been covering a lot of early 2000s bangers on tour,” she continued. “Just to kind of tie it into that universe of my Buzz tour, we sort of like Buzz-ified it, I guess.”
Having first launched in 2004, the Like a Version series has gone from being a near-impromptu acoustic affair to featuring larger studio productions. Numerous artists have taken part over the past two decades, with the likes of Billie Eilish, Childish Gambino, Arctic Monkeys, and more reinventing classic tracks in the process.
Just one week after bandmate Michael Clifford announced a solo career, 5 Seconds of Summer bassist Calum Hood has followed in kind, sharing his debut solo single ahead of a full-length record.
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Hood’s solo venture has officially launched with the release of “Don’t Forget You Love Me,” which is described as the emotional cornerstone of its accompanying album, ORDER chaos ORDER.
Written and produced alongside English production team TMS and Jack LaFrantz, “Don’t Forget You Love Me” is a darker pop cut, boasting a sense of vulnerability and heartbreak that appears to underline the more melancholic approach that Hood has taken on the forthcoming album. The single also comes accompanied by a Andy DeLuca-directed and Sarah Eiseman-produced visual which places a pensieve Hood in myriad locations as rain begins to pour down.
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ORDER chaos ORDER is scheduled to release via Capitol Records on June 13, with Hood explaining that the album sees him breaking new ground on his musical journey, yet maintaining a sense of sincerity as he approaches a far more raw and tender aesthetic.
“This album was made in a tumble dryer of knowing and not knowing,” Hood explains. “I started out with a vision—order—but quickly became overwhelmed by the process—chaos. Eventually, I learned to embrace both, and that balance became the heart of the record.”
“There are things I’ve never been able to sing about in the band—my upbringing, my family, the places life has taken me,” he adds. “This album is about laying those things to rest and allowing listeners to connect in their own way.”
5 Seconds of Summer first formed in Sydney, Australia in 2011 and released their self-titled debut album in 2014. All five of the band’s albums have peaked atop the Australia ARIA charts, while only 2020’s Calm and 2022’s 5SOS5 prevented the same feat on the Billboard 200, with the records reaching a very respectable peak of No. 2.
Members of the six-time ARIA Award-winning group began launching solo careers following the release of Calm, with drummer Ashton Irwin releasing his Superbloom album in 2020, with second album Blood on the Drums arriving in July 2024.
Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Luke Hemmings would follow suit in 2021 with his debut album When Facing the Things We Turn Away From, following it up with the Boy EP in April 2024. Just last week, guitarist Clifford shared his own solo debut, with “COOL” set to appear on his forthcoming album, SIDEQUEST.
HYBE is continuing to work to protect its artists. Korea’s Northern Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency (NGPPA) worked with the global entertainment company to arrest eight individuals who are suspected of creating and distributing deepfake videos of HYBE Music Group artists, Billboard can confirm. Deepfakes are false images, videos or audio that have been edited or generated using […]
In new promos for this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, Lizzo pays homage to another pop star with a rich history on the SNL stage: Britney Spears. Saturday’s musical guest Lizzo wears a Britney T-shirt in the promos, throwing back to the pop princess’ teen-idol days. This weekend will mark Lizzo’s fourth time performing on SNL […]
Five-time Billboard Country Airplay chart-topping artist Jon Pardi releases his new studio album, Honkytonk Hollywood, on Friday (April 11), as he gears up to launch his headlining Honkytonk Hollywood Tour in the United States later this month. But in March, the “Friday Night Heartbreaker” singer took his high-octane, neo-traditional country sound Down Under, giving Australian […]
Rema is ready to get Coachella weekend one started with his new Afro-R&B single “Bout U,” which he released on Thursday (April 10). Produced by Rema and London, the intoxicating track finds Rema infatuated by the one he dubs his favorite girl in the world, with a subtle nod to Megan Thee Stallion‘s 2020 hit […]