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Lana Dey Rey finally got to wear that white dress she sang about on Chemtrails Over the Country Club. This time it was of the wedding variety, though. People confirmed that the 39-year-old singer born Elizabeth Grant married Louisiana-born alligator tour guide Jeremy Dufrene on Thursday (Sept. 26) after a brief romance that began earlier […]
Luke Combs claims a second week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated Oct. 5) with “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma.” The song increased by 2% to 30.7 million audience impressions Sept. 20-26, according to Luminate.
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Co-authored by Combs, the hit from the soundtrack Twisters: The Album is the 13th of his 18 Country Airplay leaders to dominate for multiple weeks – and marks another notable career achievement: Combining all his No. 1s, he has now spent more than a year – 53 weeks – at the summit. Kenny Chesney has logged the most weeks at No. 1 (83), dating to the chart’s 1990 start, followed by Tim McGraw (80), George Strait (66), Alan Jackson (60), Blake Shelton (57), Toby Keith and Combs (53 each).
“I’m really blown away,” Combs tells Billboard. “The support from country radio for my music and fans has always been more than I ever could have imagined. I’ve always known they were huge supporters of my music but this proves it in more ways than one.
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“I never thought I would get one week at No. 1, but when I did, I felt like I had won the lottery,” Combs marvels. “So, for my songs to have spent a full year at No. 1 with guys I grew up listening to and admiring is more than I could have ever dreamed of. Thank you, country radio, for letting this young man from North Carolina, who most had never heard of when y’all started playing my music, live out his dreams and do what he loves.”
Combs’ longest-leading Country Airplay No. 1 is “Beautiful Crazy,” which posted a seven-week command beginning in March 2019, followed by “Forever After All” (six weeks, starting in June 2021) and “Fast Car” and “Even Though I’m Leaving” (five each, beginning in July 2023 and November 2019, respectively).
Says Tom Oakes, SummitMedia operations manager and program director of Country Airplay reporter KTTS in Springfield, Mo., Combs’ success “is a testament to his ability to relate to the audience. He comes across as an everyday guy working hard to make his mark, raise a family and overcome the challenges life serves up. It comes through his songs, which speak to listeners on a level which they experience and live every day, whether it’s a serious or more dramatic theme, or just flat-out fun.
“At the core of his staying power is his ability to consistently appeal to listeners, as seen through long-term positive research on his music and his success on the concert circuit,” Oakes adds. “‘Oklahoma’ is different production-wise, as it is a straight-out rocker. Whatever he comes with next will likely be different in style and fresh-sounding.”
This summer, singer-songwriter Yeison Jimenez achieved his lifelong dream of selling out the coveted Movistar Arena in Bogotá, Colombia — not once, but three times, with more than 40,000 collective fans attending the shows. The feat was not only historic for Jimenez, but for any música popular (regional Colombian) artist. “No one in the genre has been able to [sell out] a solo arena throughout Colombia,” he says.
Música popular — which fuses ranchera and the string music known as carrilera in Colombia — was born more than five decades ago in the country’s coffee region, which has four departments: Caldas (where Jimenez was born), Quindío, Risaralda and Tolima. Initially known as música de carrilera or música de cantina, its inspiration derived from regional Mexican music and first gained traction in small towns and local bars with the help of genre pioneers including Darío Gómez, Luis Alberto Posada and El Charrito Negro.
As Jimenez tells it, música popular traces back to Gómez in particular. The former notes that when the latter arrived at radio stations with the newborn fusion in the ’70s, they told him he was crazy.
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“This is not like vallenato, which is something authentically ours — we did not invent this,” música popular singer Pipe Bueno says. “We are a subgenre that comes from Mexico but with our essence and our flavor. The fact that we are Colombian gives it a different color.”
Lyrically, a regional Colombian song will often focus on despecho (heartbreak) or rejoicing in good times. Sonically, the arrangements can mirror the instrumentation of mariachi and ranchera music, such as trumpets, violins and the guitarrón (six-string acoustic bass), blended with the accordion, commonly used in vallenato.
As part of the new wave, Bueno and Jimenez — alongside artists including Paola Jara, Luis Alfonso, Jessi Uribe and Arelys Henao — have not only given the genre a modern twist but also propelled it to an international scale. Jimenez first reached Billboard’s Latin Airplay and Regional Mexican Airplay charts with “Tu Amante” in 2021, and he’s now touring nightclubs and theaters across the United States. Bueno, who entered the Latin Digital Song Sales and Latin Rhythm Airplay charts with his 2014 song “La Invitación” (featuring Maluma), has since collaborated with Grupo Firme and inked a deal with Warner Music Latina earlier this year.
“We are an aspirational genre,” Bueno says. “We have been at the top of the streaming charts alongside Peso Pluma. We are filling arenas. It wasn’t like this [when I started my career].”
“When we came into the game, we wanted to make music that would reach other countries and, above all, other generations,” Jimenez adds. “On one hand, there’s a lot of admiration. On the other hand, we are criticized a bit… I don’t pigeonhole myself because we are in another era.”
This story appears in the Sept. 28, 2024, issue of Billboard.
While accepting best crossover song at the 2024 People’s Choice Country Awards Thursday (Sept. 26), MGK (formerly Machine Gun Kelly) gave the biggest thank you to someone he used to have bad blood with: Jelly Roll.
Now, the two are both friends and collaborators, with their July duet “Lonely Road” taking home the crossover award at the ceremony, which the “Son of a Sinner” star didn’t attend. “Dude, Jelly Roll. Bubba!” MGK cheered on the stage on behalf of his song partner. “Jelly, I love you. We went from 10 years ago, hating each other, to elevating each other.”
“Comparison is the thief of joy,” the rapper-turned-rocker added, holding up his trophy. “There’s enough room on this couch for everybody. We found camaraderie in the chaos.”
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Jelly and the “My Ex’s Best Friend” singer previously addressed their decade-old feud in a Sept. 13 vodcast episode, helping Spotify launch its musician-focused Countdown To series. “It is so funny how much I love you now,” MGK said during their conversation, sitting face to face with the country star. “God, I hated you so much back then.”
“You gotta understand there was only like seven white rappers on Earth at this time, so it was so competitive when you was in that pool, that we were kind of automatically forced against each other anyways,” Jelly added with a laugh at the time. “You were just like, just skinny and handsome. So I was like, I was just a hater. I was just a hater, dude! It’s hard to grow up in front of the whole world.”
In addition to dropping “Lonely Road” in July, Jelly and MGK also shot a music video costarring their respective partners, Bunnie XO and Megan Fox. The visual finds the musicians struggling to provide for their families, so they organize a heist that ends with MGK behind bars, leaving the Jennifer’s Body actress to raise their fictional newborn baby without him.
Watch MGK thank Jelly Roll at the People’s Choice Country Awards below.
Austin City Limits (ACL) will celebrate its 50th season with an assist from Texas native and Grammy winner Kacey Musgraves. The season will launch Saturday, Sept. 28, with an hour’s worth of music from Musgraves. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In the previously taped appearance, she […]
With the mystery of “LG 6.5” officially solved, Lady Gaga is ready to let fans in on the making of her newest album, Harlequin.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Gaga explained that the idea for her new album of jazz and pop classics came to her after she finished filming Joker: Folie à Deux. After performing for so long as her character Harleen “Lee” Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn), Gaga felt that she still had more to say. “I had such a deep relationship with Lee,” she said. “And when I was done filming the movie, I wasn’t done with her.”
As for why she teased the album as “LG 6.5,” the singer explained that she didn’t want fans to see this only as her next album. “It is my record. It’s a Lady Gaga record, but it’s also inspired by my character and my vision of what a woman can be,” she said. “It’s why the album does not adhere to one genre … it’s not my next studio album that’s a pop record, but it is somewhere in between, and it’s blurring the lines of pop music.”
The new project sees Gaga taking on a series of jazz standards — such as “Get Happy,” “World on a String” and “That’s Life” — much like she did in her Tony Bennett duet albums Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale. While Gaga says she struggled with not having her friend and collaborator in the studio with her following his death in 2023, she thinks he would have appreciated Harlequin for its shapeshifting nature.
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“If I had put rock n’ roll chords over production in a record that I did with Tony years ago, I don’t know how he would’ve felt about that. Tony didn’t love rock n’ roll, but he would’ve said, ‘Wow, that’s amazing,’” she explained. “He was somebody who loved how risk-taking and different I am, and I always thought that was so cool. He was 60 years older than me, and he would flinch less than young people that I would meet … He was just a really compassionate, inclusive person. So he was definitely with us [in the studio], but he was mostly inside of me.”
As for fans still eager to hear what her long-awaited seventh studio album will sound like, Gaga remained tight-lipped, but offered a small hint. “The pop album is nothing like Chromatica. It’s a completely different record,” she said. “It’s meant to be ingested as a time in my life. And I’m also really excited about this idea that I don’t have to adhere to an era if I don’t want to. I can have a few going at once.”
The Del McCoury Band, Molly Tuttle and Authentic Unlimited were among the big winners during the 35th annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards held Thursday evening (Sept. 26).
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The Del McCoury Band was named entertainer of the year, while Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway’s City of Gold project was named album of the year. Authentic Unlimited picked up the lion’s share of the accolades, winning song of the year (for “Fall in Tennessee”), vocal group of the year and tying for music video of the year. The group’s Jesse Brock was also named mandolin player of the year.
The John Cowan and Missy Raines-hosted ceremony was held at the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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In addition to this year’s winners, previously announced inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame Katy Daley, Jerry Douglas and Alan Munde were celebrated.
See the full list of this year’s IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards winners below:
Entertainer of the year: The Del McCoury Band
Vocal group of the year: Authentic Unlimited
Instrumental group of the year: The Travelin’ McCourys
Song of the year: “Fall in Tennessee,” recorded by Authentic Unlimited; written by John Meador & Bob Minner; produced by Authentic Unlimited; Billy Blue Records
Album of the year: City of Gold, recorded by Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway; produced by Jerry Douglas & Molly Tuttle; Nonesuch Records
Gospel recording of the year: “God Already Has,” recorded by Dale Ann Bradley; written by Mark “Brink” Brinkman & David Stewart; produced by Dale Ann Bradley; Pinecastle Records
Instrumental recording of the year: “Knee Deep in Bluegrass,” recorded by Ashby Frank; written by Terry Baucom; produced by Ashby Frank; Mountain Home Music Company
New artist of the year: East Nash Grass
Collaborative recording of the year: “Brown’s Ferry Blues,” recorded by Tony Trischka with Billy Strings; written by Alton & Rabon Delmore; produced by Béla Fleck; Down the Road Records
Male vocalist of the year: Danny Paisley
Female vocalist of the year: Jaelee Roberts
Banjo player of the year: Rob McCoury
Bass player of the year: Vickie Vaughn
Fiddle player of the year: Deanie Richardson
Resophonic guitar player of the year: Gaven Largent
Guitar player of the year: Cody Kilby
Mandolin player of the year: Jesse Brock
Music video of the year (tie):
“Fall in Tennessee,” Authentic Unlimited
“Alberta Bound,” Special Consensus with Ray Legere, John Reischman, Patrick Sauber, Trisha Gagnon, Pharis & Jason Romero, and Claire Lynch
When Billie Eilish sings, “I’ll love you ’til the day that I die” on “Birds of a Feather,” that deadline also includes the afterlife. In the Hit Me Hard and Soft single’s new Aidan Zamiri-directed music video that arrived Friday (Sept. 27), the 22-year-old pop star sits alone in an abandoned office building, smiling to […]
What’s the most difficult way to follow-up a terminally bleak, billion-dollar, Oscar-winning blockbuster superhero (adjacent) movie with no super heroes? Add in some live song and dance numbers, naturally. That’s what Joaquin Phoenix said the team behind the anticipated Joker: Folie à Deux decided to do, a choice that terrified the notoriously fearless actor from day one.
“How could we possibly do the music in the most honest way possible?” he asked in a joint interview with co-star Lady Gaga and director Todd Phillips that aired on Good Morning America on Friday (Sept. 27) about the bold decision to have untrained singer Phoenix and Grammy-winner Gaga sing together live on stage during the film’s fantasy sequences. “When we first started, I did not want anything to be spontaneous and I wanted to sound as good as possible,” said Phoenix, who was previously described as being “sick” with nerves over singing alongside Gaga.
Phoenix noted that it was Gaga’s idea to do it live, which he thought sounded great for her, since that’s what she does for a living. “You were really cool and kind of made me feel comfortable about that,” he said, with Gaga adding, “I can assure you that Joaquin using his natural voice was just so much more compelling than any lip synching would ever be.”
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While Phoenix said that he just didn’t want his Joker ride to end after his Oscar-winning first spin as washed-up clown Arthur Fleck in 2019’s intense Joker, Gaga said that original film really interested her in joining Phoenix and director Phillips’ demented world. “I loved Arthur so much, like, who would be the love in his life?” the singer said she wondered.
Plus, she added, there was something “so completely freeing” about playing Quinn, including the ability to sneak some bits of herself into the character that she’s always been a bit embarrassed, or private, about. “When I first saw the film I was like, ‘Oh, that’s in there! That part of me that I want no one to know about,’” said Gaga of her third starring role in a major motion picture following her breakout in 2018’s A Star is Born and a strong showing in the all-star ensemble in 2021’s House of Gucci.
Though she seems to always be poised and powerful, Gaga said those moments she sees herself in Quinn are when her chracter seems “so uncomfortable… she’s like on the edge. There’s definitely been times in my life where I felt that way.”
Even more challenging, Gaga recorded an entire Joker-themed album, Harlequin, out today, in which she channels her character Harley Quinn on a series of classic covers and a few originals. “Lee’s not a performer and I am and in a scene as a different character it’s just completely different,” Gaga said of tapping into what makes the Joker’s equally off-kilter love stand out from Gaga’s stage persona.
“It’s Lee’s reality, it’s their shared reality, it’s coming from that character not from me as a performer,” she said. “I don’t just sing that way in this movie, I also sing with my full voice.”
The 13-track album features a number of Harley-fied covers of “Good Morning” (from Singing in the Rain), “If My Friends Could See Me Now” (Sweet Charity), as well as a soul-funk version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” (here titled “Oh, When the Saints”), “That’s Entertainment,” the Carpenters’ “Close to You” and “World on a String” as well as two originals, “Folie à Deux” and the rock-edged “The Joker.”
The surprise companion album to the film was recorded alongside the sessions for Gaga’s upcoming as-yet-untitled seventh studio album, which is due out in February, with a first single dropping next month. Joker: Folie à Deux opens in theaters on Oct. 4
While recording his latest album, Eden, Eden Muñoz landed himself in the emergency room a whopping four times, all to monitor his fast-beating heart. “I consider myself a relatively healthy person,” the Mexican singer-songwriter says today, still sounding a bit perplexed by the situation. “It wasn’t stress — I know stress.”
After consulting multiple cardiologists, Muñoz visited one more (who was also a good friend) and finally got his answer: He was told that the process of making Eden proved too energizing. “It was a type of excitement that didn’t let me sleep because it felt like I was wasting time,” he recalls. “I needed to be in the studio.”
And though the hospital trips were nerve-racking, Muñoz welcomed the excitement — it was a feeling he hadn’t experienced in relation to music in a long time. Since launching his solo career two years ago after more than a decade fronting Calibre 50, he has enjoyed a whole range of new emotions. Most importantly, Muñoz says, “I know what it feels like to be happy again.”
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The 34-year-old first entered the scene in the early 2010s as Calibre 50’s lead singer, accordionist and songwriter. The group — which became one of the most successful norteño bands of all time — placed seven No. 1s on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Albums chart and landed more than 20 No. 1s on Regional Mexican Airplay. Despite the success, Muñoz felt something was off — and was craving more.
He announced his departure from Calibre 50 in early 2022 and, soon after, launched his solo career. “I was very limited as part of a group,” he says. “I felt that I could give a lot more at the production level.” As it turns out, making music on his own terms proved fruitful. Over the past two years, Muñoz has scored four top 10s on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart, including the title track to 2023’s Como en los Viejos Tiempos, which topped the list. He has also placed five entries on Hot Latin Songs, including a top 10 hit with his debut solo single, “Chalé!”
Edén Muñoz photographed on Sep. 7, 2024 at Old National Centre in Indianapolis.
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Yet it’s Eden, released in August, that Muñoz feels most proud of. “I had been pleasing others for so many years that it was only fair that I do what makes me happy for a change,” he says. “This album reflects that transition.”
Eden arrived as Muñoz’s second album on Sony Music Mexico, which he signed with last year in a partnership with Sony Music Latin, and his third full-length since launching his solo career. The project spans 15 songs on which Muñoz fuses the traditional banda and norteño sound that have characterized his music with genres that have also shaped his musical palette: bachata, country and rock’n’roll.
While mashing up música mexicana with other styles would have been frowned upon by purists just a few years ago, when it mainly catered to an older audience, the decades-old genre is now reaching a new generation of listeners, thanks to a wave of young Mexican and Mexican American hit-makers who have embraced a more nuanced approach. By modernizing lyrics and borrowing from genres including trap, hip-hop and country, regional Mexican music has earned the approval of Gen Z — and Muñoz is leaning in.
“When I was creating this album, I broke out of my comfort zone to rebuild myself,” he says. “This album served as an exercise to see how far I can go and where I draw the line so it doesn’t go outside of Mexican music. It was like creating the perfect salad with a balance of protein and carbohydrates.”
Edén Muñoz photographed on Sep. 7, 2024 at Old National Centre in Indianapolis.
Anna Powell Denton
Now, with Eden behind him, Muñoz’s heart is at peace. “I have my studio, a little lake next to us where I go fishing, and I love to cook. I have everything here,” he says of his home in Mazatlán, a resort city in Sinaloa, Mexico, where he lives with his wife and children when he’s not on tour. (His Como en los Viejos Tiempos U.S. trek began in August.)
His newfound creative freedom hasn’t only benefited the music, but has altered his perspective, too. “I know I’m not at No. 1, and I probably never will be, and that’s cool,” he says. “I feel f–king great. I do what I want. I work with the people I want to work with. I’ve matured. That, to me, is being in my prime.”
This story appears in the Sept. 28, 2024, issue of Billboard.
