State Champ Radio Music News
Page: 9
Trending on Billboard It’s almost time to find out what artists, songs and albums dominated the 2025 Billboard year-end charts — and this year, we’re doing it live. Comedian and social superstar Druski will host the Billboard 2025 No. 1s Livestream on Tuesday, Dec. 9, starting at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, where he’ll welcome special […]
Trending on Billboard
The full list of Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts are almost here, and we’re counting down the days to their unveiling on Tuesday, Dec. 9, with a special look at select rankings in the lead-up to the big reveal — starting with two of the year-end rock charts.
On Dec. 9, hundreds of year-end charts will be posted on Billboard’s website, following the conclusion of the Billboard 2025 No. 1s Livestream, hosted by Druski, which will broadcast on the Billboard News YouTube channel and BillboardTV on Samsung TV Plus starting at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, as special surprise guests stop by to celebrate the year in chart-toppers.
To kick off our year-end charts countdown, we’re dropping the top 10 of the 2025 Top Rock & Alternative Albums and Top Rock & Alternative Songs charts below – and both are led by Billie Eilish.
She leads the former with her 2024 release Hit Me Hard and Soft, and the latter with the album’s hit single “Birds of a Feather.” Hit Me Hard and Soft debuted at No. 1 on the weekly Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart dated June 1, 2024, and hasn’t left the chart. Further, it never went lower than No. 6 during the 2025 year-end chart eligibility year (Oct. 26, 2024, through Oct. 18, 2025). “Birds of a Feather” was equally as dominant, flying in at No. 4 on the June 1, 2024 Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart and has perched on the list ever since. It hit No. 1 in August 2024, and it never ranked lower than No. 4 during the chart year.
For the top 10 of both lists, scroll below. The full depth of both rankings (beyond the top 10 of each) will be posted Dec. 9 alongside the complete menu of Billboard’s 2025 year-end charts.
Take a look at the top 10s below.
Billboard’s year-end music charts represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Oct. 26, 2024, through Oct. 18, 2025. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the entries appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the October-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.
2025 Year-End Top Rock & Alternative Albums: 10. Olivia Rodrigo, Guts
Trending on Billboard Radiohead has been forced to postpone a pair of shows on their comeback tour of Europe due to illness. In a statement posted to their social channels on Monday morning (Dec. 1), the band announced that frontman Thom Yorke was suffering from an “extreme throat infection” and two upcoming shows in Copenhagen, […]
Trending on Billboard While Americans were celebrating Thanksgiving by gobbling up turkey, stuffing and more football than is absolutely necessary, Rihanna spent the holiday weekend honoring her home country of Barbados while also sneaking in a few previously unseen pregnancy bikini pics. The singer paid tribute to the Caribbean island nation where she was born […]
Trending on Billboard You already knew Jon Stewart could skewer bloviating politicians with effortless, cutting wit. But did you know he can also rock the house? The 63-year-old Daily Show legend proved it’s never too late to learn a new trick on Friday (Nov. 28) when his indie rock band, Church and State™️ made their […]
Trending on Billboard Britney Spears is back on Instagram doing what she does: dancing and sharing small glimpses into her private life. The singer who deactivated her Insta account on Nov. 2 before quietly reactivating it less than a month later, took to her feed over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to offer up a bit […]
Trending on Billboard
Charli XCX, RAYE and Florence and the Machine are among the six headliners for Reading & Leeds Festival 2026.
The dual site English festival – held concurrently in Reading’s Richfield Avenue and Leeds’ Bramham Park – will also be headlined by Fontaines D.C., Dave and dance duo Chase & Status. The event will take place across the Bank Holiday weekend on Aug. 27-30.
SOMBR, Skepta and Geese are also among the names to join the lineup’s first announcement, with Kasabian set to be Leeds’ festival’s first ever Thursday headliner with a slot on the main stage. In recent years, two headline acts per day have taken to the stage across the Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Also appearing on the bill will be Role Model, JADE, Josh Baker, Kneecap, Kettama, Chris Stussy (Reading only), Geese, Skye Newman, Adéla and Keo. More names will be announced in due course.
A PayPal presale for the event is live now (Dec. 1) with a second presale taking place tomorrow (Dec. 2) before a general sale on Wednesday (Dec. 3).
Florence and The Machine and Dave have both headlined the festival previously, the former in 2012 and the latter in 2022. All other headliners have appeared a number of times throughout the festival in recent years.
Its the first show announced for Fontaines D.C. following the conclusion of their Romance tour in August 2025 and is billed as their only U.K. festival appearance in 2026. Charli XCX will also return to the stage for her sole U.K. festival performance and will follow the release of her upcoming Wuthering Heights soundtrack LP in February 2026.
Speaking to Billboard U.K. earlier this summer, festival boss Melvin Benn reflected on why he was keen to give upcoming stars the opportunity to headline over legacy acts. 2025’s event was headlined by Chappell Roan, Travis Scott, Bring Me The Horizon, and Hozier.
“I think it’s a pointer to all festivals to not be afraid and to be bold with their bookings,” Benn says of Roan’s headline slot in 2025. “To say that you were there when Chappell criticised Donald Trump from the Reading Festival stage, for example, or when Hozier stood up and said, ‘Free Palestine’… only a certain number of people can be there at that moment and actually experience it.”
Trending on Billboard
Kylie Minogue is finally sharing the Christmas song she has been holding onto for a decade. The pop icon has released her new single “XMAS,” a track she says dates back to the summer of 2015 and was originally inspired by the Village People’s “YMCA.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
The song arrives as part of the 10th anniversary edition of Minogue’s holiday album, Kylie Christmas, which returns on Dec. 5 as Kylie Christmas (Fully Wrapped) with four brand-new tracks.
Speaking to The Sun, Minogue explained that the idea first came to her while she was in Berlin shortly after releasing her first holiday album, Kylie Christmas, that same year.
“The song comes from 2015. I was at Soho House in Berlin, it was summer on the terrace and we’d just done the first Christmas album,” she said. “We’d had a couple of glasses of wine … and it came to us like ‘YMCA’ but ‘XMAS.’ I’ve been sitting on the chorus for 10 years.”
The single arrives with a video that sees Minogue recreating the iconic flying lift from Dirty Dancing. Despite decades of stage experience, she admitted the move was a leap of faith.
“I was a bit scared as I’ve never done it before. It was a fantasy moment. I was told not to overthink it,” she said. “We did a couple of practices before we did the main one. The thing is, you just need to trust the other person. The first one I got up, but I overshot it. The second was fine. The third one was good. The bruises were worth it the next day.”
Minogue also addressed the idea of “XMAS” becoming a holiday chart-topper — something she’s not expecting but would happily welcome. “I’m not counting on it,” she said. “It would be crazy but that’s definitely parked to one side for me. I am just happy that ten years have passed since my last Christmas album and we are all here still going.”
The release caps what has been one of the busiest stretches of Minogue’s career. Over the past two years, she has released two albums, including 2023’s Tension, and completed a 66-date world tour behind the record. After nonstop work, she says she’s ready for a pause — sort of.
“It feels like I haven’t stopped. It’s been a gigantic year but I imagine I will be making music just for the love of it and maybe banking some things,” she said. “I could happily be in the studio most of my time. I love it. I find it just gets richer and more satisfying.”
Still, Minogue admitted that trying to record a holiday album during breaks on her Tension tour “was maybe not so wise,” but the creative impulse keeps her going. “I don’t know about releasing. I think I should just do the background work… maybe.”
Minogue’s “XMAS” is out now.
Trending on Billboard
Olivia Dean has secured partial refunds for fans after publicly criticizing Ticketmaster and AXS over inflated resale prices for her upcoming North American tour.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
The rising British singer-songwriter called out the platforms last week after fans discovered third-party listings priced at more than 14 times the original cost — in some cases surpassing $1,000.
In an open letter, Dean described the unchecked resale market as “disgusting,” “vile” and fundamentally “exploitative,” urging companies to “do better” to protect fans.
On Wednesday, Ticketmaster responded with a rare concession: a commitment to cap future resale rates for Dean’s tour and to begin refunding fans who paid above face value on its platform.
“We support artists’ ability to set the terms of how their tickets are sold and resold. @OliviaDeano, we will cap resale prices on our site at face value and hope other resale sites will follow,” Ticketmaster initially replied.
Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, later addressed the singer’s concerns, saying: “We share Olivia’s desire to keep live music accessible and ensure fans have the best access to affordable tickets. While we can’t require other marketplaces to honour artists’ resale preferences, we echo Olivia’s call to ‘do better’ and have taken steps to lead by example.”
Dean welcomed the move but made clear that her concerns extend beyond her own tour. Calling the secondary ticketing ecosystem “an exploitative and unregulated space,” she urged the wider music industry to adopt mandatory face-value resale caps for artists who request it.
“Tours steal from artists and they steal from fans,” she said. “They create inequality and hysteria. I am lucky to have had an education about the complexities and corruption of ticketing from @dicefm and will always choose to partner with them where we can. But know that you have power with other partners.
“Capping resale at face value is your right and we have a duty to encourage a fair resale market. We are often made to feel we don’t have a choice but there is always space to ask why and it is always your right to say no!”
Dean, who performed on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage last year and has become one of 2025’s biggest breakout stars, emphasised that live shows remain a deeply personal space for her.
“We are very serious about everything we do but live is a sacred space we have crafted over 10 years,” she wrote. “We lose money on nearly every show but feel passionately it is a worthy investment to create a moment for people to connect and lose themselves for an hour. We always do our best to make those spaces safe and accessible to everybody.
“Touts steal from artists and they steal from fans. They create inequality and hysteria. Capping resale at face value is your right and we have a duty to encourage a fair resale market,” she continued. “We are often made to feel we don’t have a choice but there is always space to ask why and it is always your right to say no!
“It’s not every day that you feel heard and understood,” she concluded, “so today is good day.”
Her comments arrive amid growing international scrutiny over ticketing practices. In the U.K., legislators recently confirmed plans to make it illegal to resell tickets for more than their original price following advocacy from major artists including Coldplay and Dua Lipa, who argued the change would “help democratise public access to the arts.”
Trending on Billboard
JoJo Siwa says she was hospitalized with sudden “excruciating” stomach pain just hours before her scheduled performance at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., on Friday (Nov. 28), revealing in a TikTok video that she suffered a ruptured ovarian cyst that caused internal bleeding.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
In the post, Siwa explained that she had been dealing with persistent discomfort for several days, which intensified any time she danced, walked or moved. “Every time that I’ve been dancing for the last couple of days or even just walking, my stomach would just really, really hurt,” she said. At first, she assumed the pain was related to menstrual cramps, adding that she tried to ease it with a warm bath. “That set it off 100 times worse,” she said.
After calling her mother for advice, Siwa said she was urged to phone an ambulance. At the hospital, doctors told her the cause: “One of my ovaries had a cyst on it that burst and was bleeding into my stomach,” she explained. She added that the blood in her abdomen triggered the intense pain. “Anytime that the blood in your stomach moves, that’s the bleeding in the stomach. It’s like brutal pain.”
Despite the medical emergency, Siwa still performed her Mall of America set later that day. She told fans she will undergo follow-up checks next week. “We’re going to keep it pushing,” she said, noting she has been instructed to return to the hospital immediately if she experiences vomiting or a recurrence of the severe pain.
The Minnesota stop followed the conclusion of her Infinity Heart U.K. and European tour, which wrapped earlier this month. Earlier in 2025, Siwa appeared on the U.K. edition of Celebrity Big Brother, where she was the subject of inappropriate comments and behavior from fellow contestant Mickey Rourke.
More recently, she released a cover of Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes.” Carnes appeared to respond cryptically to the rendition in a TikTok, saying, “There is a difference between singing a song…and embodying it.”
Siwa has continued to tease new music and maintain a high profile across social media throughout the year. In her TikTok about the medical scare, she reassured fans that she expects to recover without further intervention, adding that doctors anticipate the situation will resolve on its own.
