Music
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As we approach the presidential election, Lil Pump will be voicing his support for Donald Trump in song. The “Gucci Gang” rapper took to X on Tuesday (Aug. 13) to reveal that he will no longer be performing a diss track aimed at both President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris during Trump’s next rally, […]
Talk about setting fire to the rain! Adele’s month-long series of concerts at Munich’s 80,000-capacity outdoor arena, Messe München, was affected by torrential downpour on Wednesday night (Aug. 14). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news However, the “Rolling in the Deep” superstar didn’t let the rain deter […]
Brat Summer is a state of mind, but in actuality, the season will come to an end in about a month. Before it does, though, Charli XCX is teasing that one more surprise is on its way — and it just might involve another guest artist putting a new spin on one of her critically acclaimed album’s tracks.
In a TikTok posted Wednesday (Aug. 14), the 32-year-old pop star walks outside while singing along to a fan-made mash-up of her single “360” and Fleetwood Mac’s iconic hit “Dreams.” “I’m in Poland.. there’s a whiff of autumn in the breeze..,” she wrote in white text over the video. “Something is shifting.”
“maybe one more remix and then ?” she added in the caption.
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If the video’s audio is any hint as to what song will be reimagined next, “360” could be getting a second remix following the previously released version featuring Robyn and Yung Lean. Or, Charli could be planning to expand upon any of her other Brat tracks, something fans took to the comments to speculate on.
One person, for instance, suggested that “Apple” — which has inspired one of the summer’s trendiest TikTok dances — should get a Midwest Princess twist. “apple featuring chappell roan i plead,” they wrote.
“sympathy is a knife ft taylor,” another person predicted, likely alluding to rumors that the English singer-songwriter penned the track about Taylor Swift.
The latter isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility, given the story behind the “Girl, So Confusing” remix featuring Lorde. After writing the song about her tense relationship with the “Supercut” musician, Charli recruited her to transform it into a duet, restoring their friendship to solidly good terms in the process.
Other previous Brat remixes include “Von Dutch” featuring Addison Rae and, most recently, “Guess” featuring Billie Eilish, which debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Watch Charli’s TikTok below.
More than 30 artists are set to play Day Zero 2025, once again happening in Tulum, Mexico, this Jan. 11. Leading the house and techno-focused lineup is Turkish-Italian phenom Carlita, South African twins Major League DJz, global club legend DJ Harvey, U.K. favorite Fatboy Slim and a crew of other acts including Lee Burridge, Francesca […]
It’s been a fruitful partnership between Valentino Merlo and The La Planta as “Hoy” adds a seventh consecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100 chart (dated Aug. 17). With a seventh week at the summit, becomes the song with the second-most week at the lead in 2024, trailing only “Una Foto […]
In 2003, Josh Turner made his first foray onto Billboard’s Country Airplay chart with “Long Black Train,” a musical allegory of thwarting spiritual temptation that Turner was inspired to write while a student at Nashville’s Belmont University, after spending a night among dusty library book stacks, imbibing a 10-disc box set of Hank Williams Sr. songs. Turner’s bourbon-smooth, commanding bass voice immediately demanded the country music industry’s attention.
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Roughly two decades later, the title track and cornerstone of his 10th studio album This Country Music Thing, out Friday (Aug. 16) on UMG Nashville, takes stock of the South Carolina native’s career since then: a quartet of No. 1 Country Airplay hits including “Your Man” and “Would You Go With Me,” membership into the Grand Ole Opry, and a string of nominations from the Grammys, CMA Awards, and ACM Awards.
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When Turner and producer Kenny Greenberg began working on the album, the title track was the first Greenberg wanted for the project.
“I was surprised that Kenny wanted to put it on the record,” Turner tells Billboard, seated in a conference room at UMG Nashville. “I was like, ‘It’s kind of braggadocious on my part,’ and he was like, ‘That’s what I love about it. It’s like a rap song, kind of like, “Look at what I’ve done.’”
“I’ve always wanted longevity in this business,” Turner adds. “I feel like I have a lot of gas left in the tank, but it’s cool where I’m at because I can not only look forward, but I can look and see what I’ve accomplished. It’s far beyond what I imagined growing up. Nashville’s been good to me. I always say the music’s been good to me and I try to be good back to it.”
Amidst the scope of burnished love songs that Turner has made his calling card, the title track and a few others from the new album delve deeper into his journey.
Though Turner lived in Nashville for 25 years, his new album’s opening track, “Down in Georgia,” nods to his family’s recent relocation to Georgia.
“It was hard to leave,” Turner says. “This is where I went to school. It’s where I got my record deal, where I met my wife [Jennifer] and we had our four boys. But on the other hand, I just felt like I needed a change of scenery and I’ve just watched the Lord clear a path for that. The bus can still pick me up at my house, and it’s not far from Nashville if I need to drive to the Atlanta airport to fly wherever I need to go. And I have my own space down there to write.”
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The album closes with one of the project’s strongest tracks, another Turner solo write and a tribute to his grandfather, called “Unsung Hero.”
In 2014, Turner drove to South Carolina for a family get-together at his uncle’s home. Turner says that at the time he was diving deeper into the life of his late grandfather—a World War II veteran who had joined the Army in 1942– and he knew his uncle had once had possession of Turner’s grandfather’s Purple Heart.
“I was digging into my granddaddy’s story, because when he was living, he never really talked about it. He got shipped off to Europe where his medical battalion followed a tank battalion around France and Germany. So I asked my uncle if I could see my grandfather’s Purple Heart and he showed me all the stuff he kept—and he couldn’t find the Purple Heart,” Turner says with a slight chuckle. “I just wanted to strangle him right then and there—how do you lose a Purple Heart?”
Of the items his uncle had, a form letter from President Truman thanking Turner’s grandfather for his service stood out.
“It just sat in a dresser drawer his whole life. He never got rid of it, but he lived for decades after the war and raised a family. I’d never heard him utter a word about any of it,” Turner says. “I started writing one day and it just started flowing out of me—it just meant a lot that I could do a tribute like that to him publicly.”
Throughout his career, Turner has also paid homage to his musical forebears, featuring John Anderson, Ralph Stanley, and Diamond Rio on his sophomore album, and artists including Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stuart on 2012’s Punching Bag. On his new project, the title track features Turner singing snippets of classic songs including Anderson’s “Seminole Wind,” Randy Travis’ “Diggin’ Up Bones,” Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” and the Conway Twitty/Loretta Lynn collaboration “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.”
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The upcoming Peter Zavadil-produced music video for another album cut, “Two Steppin’ on the Moon,” features artists who had their own “Moon” hits. Originally, the video treatment involved having Brooks & Dunn’s Ronnie Dunn sitting in a corner of a bar by himself in homage to B&D’s “Neon Moon” clip. When Brooks & Dunn couldn’t make the video shoot due to scheduling, he featured Travis (“Honky Tonk Moon”), The Gatlin Brothers (“Talkin’ to the Moon”), Anderson (“Mississippi Moon”), and Shenandoah’s Marty Raybon (“Moon Over Georgia”), all gathered around a table and discussing music and life.
“It was one of those moments where it’s like, ‘Okay, I’ve made it,’” Turner says. “I was literally just telling myself, ‘Just appreciate this moment, because I may never get this moment again.’ Just having all those guys together, sitting around a table and cutting up, knowing that it was in a music video is something that I’ll be able to cherish for years because you never know how much time these guys have left.”
Over the past 20 years, music fans’ avenues for consuming music have shifted dramatically with the rise of streaming and social media, which has impacted terrestrial radio. Turner hasn’t released a single to country radio since promoting his 2017 album Deep South; over the past few years, he’s released a gospel album, a holiday album, and a project of country music covers. He doesn’t have a song from his new album at country radio at present.
“My mindset [about radio] from early on in my career is that I don’t want the [label radio] promo department telling me how to make a record, and I don’t want to tell them how to promote a record at radio,” Turner says. “About 98% of the time, I’ve let them make the choice on what song needs to be the single.”
“The business has changed, and we’ve found ways to have success without having to bend over backward to country radio, which is a great thing,” Turner continues. “I feel like over the years, country radio had been given way too much control. I think they have a huge place in our business, but to have the control and say that they’ve had for so long — I think it wasn’t balanced. I’m glad there are ways artists can succeed without having to go through one gate, because that doesn’t work for everybody, and there are a lot of fans out there with different tastes and opinions.”
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At this junction in his career arc, the 46-year-old Turner has established himself as an artist whose commercial success has translated into an enduring impact on generations of artists who have followed in his footsteps—and with the spectrum of country music as open as ever, he’s bullish on several artists’ music.
“I just inducted Scotty McCreery into the Opry and I’m very proud of the way he’s carried himself. Lainey Wilson’s just knocking down doors and blazing a trail. Drake Milligan’s good, and Cody Johnson’s keeping it traditional and staying true to who he is as an artist. I respect that, and that’s what we need — instead of artists who do everything their label tells them to do. I feel like those artists end up having a lot of regrets, and I’ve heard them voice those regrets in the past, too. I don’t ever want to be in that position where I release so much control and so much of the decision-making to somebody else that I’m not happy with the result.”
Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Some have come out of nowhere, others have taken months to catch on, and all of them could become ubiquitous in the blink of a TikTok clip.
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This week: Billie Eilish sees big gains for two different songs thanks to two different live performances, Lewis Capaldi gets a big spot in the summer’s biggest romance, and Brat Summer makes room for one of the album’s big collaborators to have a hit of his own.
Au Revoir! Olympics Closing Ceremony Boosts Phoenix, “Nightcall” & More
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The closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics capped off a riveting two-week athletic showcase at the Stade de France on Sunday night (Aug. 11) by once again toasting this year’s host city of Paris, as well as looking ahead to the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles. As such, the ceremony combined a showcase for French indie-rock stalwarts Phoenix — who were joined onstage by Air, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and French producer Kavinsky, among others — with performances from L.A. natives like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
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Fifteen years after breaking through with hits like “1901” and “Lisztomania,” Phoenix reintroduced themselves to the American mainstream, and received a sizable streaming bump: the band’s catalog rose 86%, to 1.12 million U.S. on-demand audio streams from Aug. 11-12 from the same two-day period the previous week (603,000 streams from Aug. 4-5), according to Luminate. Meanwhile, Kavinsky’s 2010 synthwave single “Nightcall” became a Shazam sensation after being featured in the ceremony, as the track grew 74% to 208,000 streams from Aug. 11-12, compared to 119,000 streams during Aug. 4-5.
And while West Coast anthems like RHCP’s “By the Way” and Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode” made their Olympics bows, a current smash, Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,” was the greatest gainer on the sales side: the track sold 4,200 digital downloads from Aug. 11-12, after moving under 1,000 units over the same time frame the previous week (Aug. 4-5). There’s nothing quite like playing your song on the world stage to help your top 10 hit climb a few spots higher. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
Lewis Capaldi ‘Ends’ Up With His Most Viral Hit in Years, Thanks to Colleen Hoover Film Adaptation
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Back in 2019, the sound of Lewis Capaldi wailing about how he was getting kinda used to being someone you loved was absolutely omnipresent, as his breakout ballad “Someone You Loved” topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and spread to all corners of pop culture. After scoring another top 10 hit the next year with “Before You Go,” hits have been relatively sparse for Capaldi in the U.S. But now, he’s got the most streaming momentum he’s had in several years – thanks to a movie that’s now dominating the culture the way “Someone You Loved” did a half-decade ago.
It Ends With Us, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s wildly popular 2022 romance novel, has become an immediate box office smash, earning $50 million in its first weekend – and has also consumed discussion online, thanks to reports of drama between its star Blake Lively and director/co-star Justin Baldoni. But it’s also boosting the performance of songs across its soundtrack, by artists ranging from indie rock sensation Ethel Cain (“Strangers”) to alt-pop superstar Lana Del Rey (“Cherry”).
The biggest bump, however, has been for Capaldi’s big ballad “Love the Hell Out of You,” originally featured on his 2023 sophomore LP Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent. The song was never officially tabbed as a single, but it may be headed for belated focus-track status now that it’s been featured in Ends’ final scene and end credits. After “Love” earned under 40,000 U.S. on-demand audio streams combined from the period of Aug. 2-5, according to Luminate, that number exploded to over 675,000 for the same four-day period a week later, with the movie now in theaters – a gain of 1,620%, with the song still rising day-to-day. Seems like we might need to get kinda used to Capaldi being someone who’s unavoidable in our lives once again. – AU
Billie Eilish’s Next Big Hit? “Wildflower” Keeps Growing
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Billie Eilish is enjoying a flashy week in the upper reaches of the Hot 100 chart, where “Birds of a Feather” moves up three spots to a new peak of No. 7, while her appearance on the remix of Charli xcx’s “Guess” helps the song bow at No. 12. “Birds” has been the clear breakout hit from Eilish’s third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, thus far — but lower down on the Hot 100, “Wildflower,” the moody ballad that waxes poetic about crossing lines with a friend’s ex, is making noise, and being positioned as a potential fall-time follow-up hit for Eilish.
“Wildflower” has been boosted by a live acoustic performance for Amazon Music’s Songline series, which has earned 6.4 million YouTube views since posting on July 29, and inspired plenty of TikTok analyses of Eilish’s vocal showcase in the clip (“the pain in her voice it’s CRAAAZY,” declares one user). Two weeks ago, “Wildflower” earned 6.66 million U.S. on-demand streams during the chart week ending July 25, according to Luminate; that number grew to 9.08 million streams for the week ending Aug. 9, and as such, the song has leapt from No. 77 to No. 55 on the Hot 100 in two weeks’ time. That’s still a long way away from its No. 17 peak, back when Hit Me Hard and Soft was released in May — but don’t be surprised to watch it creep up closer to that ranking over the next month or two. – JASON LIPSHUTZ
The ‘Brat’ Summer Expanded Universe Is Now Boosting The Dare’s “Girls”
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Among the starrier artists involved in the recent pop culture sensation that was “Guess” remix – which of course included original performer Charli XCX and new featured guest Billie Eilish, as well as the latter’s star collaborator brother Finneas in the production credits – appeared another name that might not be as familiar to mainstream audiences. Harrison Patrick Smith, better known as electro-rocker The Dare – paragon of the modern-day New York “indie sleaze” revival – was the co-producer on the original track, and even gets a shoutout from Charli herself in the “Guess” refrain (“Wear ’em, post ’em, might remix it/ Send them to The Dare, yeah, I think he’s with it”).
Thanks to the bump in exposure from the “Guess” moment (and perhaps partly thanks to the increasing popularity of “indie sleaze”-related fan accounts on TikTok), The Dare is starting to see real movement on his underground breakout hit from 2022, “Girls.” The frisky and slightly dirtbaggy synth-rock anthem received 827,000 official on-demand U.S. streams for the tracking week ending August, according to Luminate – a 261% gain from the 229,000 it posted two weeks before, pre-”Guess.” Indie sleaze may or may not officially be back – some say it never totally existed in the first place – but Brat Summer definitely just keeps getting bigger. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER
Q&A: Erika Elliott, Executive Artistic Director of SummerStage and The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, on What’s Trending Up in Her World
How did the programming of this year’s Charlie Parker Jazz Festival come together?
The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, currently in its 32nd year and a part of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage festival, is committed to honoring uniquely New York music traditions and cultural communities. Every year, we aim to present the best jazz musicians that are masters of the genre, as well as championing the next generations of jazz artists who are creating a name for themselves in the jazz world, while keeping an eye on gender equity – all for FREE!
How does the Jazz Fest fit into the larger SummerStage planning?
Our mission at City Parks Foundation SummerStage is to celebrate the cultural communities of New York, and to connect New Yorkers to their public parks. These goals come together perfectly with The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival as the free program takes place in neighborhood parks located in Harlem and the Lower East Side. These communities fostered the growth of Jazz and were the actual communities of where Charlie Parker lived and worked. By celebrating and presenting jazz music in these neighborhoods, we are not only able to acknowledge the lasting legacy and impact of Parker, but honor the jazz roots in the NYC community.
Which trends within modern jazz are most exciting to highlight at this year’s festival?
Overall, across both SummerStage and The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, the thing I find most exciting is the interest in the genre by both young musicians and audiences. There is a global scene that is developing now within jazz, with performers such as Ezra Collective and Yussef Dayes, and in the U.S. with acts like Dana and Alden and Anessa Strings – all who were presented by us this year at SummerStage. There is so much great talent out there, but most importantly young people (folks under 30) are listening and interested in jazz!
Fill in the blank: the performers that casual jazz fans need to discover this year are:
Ekep Nkwelle, Isaiah Collier, Helen Sung Feat. Chris Potter. – J.L.
Rob Schneider has spoken out following daughter Elle King’s revealing interview on the Dumb Blonde podcast earlier this week, during which she accused him of sending her to “fat camp,” forgetting her birthdays and being generally absent from her life as a child.
In a new clip posted by Tucker Carlson on Wednesday (Aug. 14), the Saturday Night Live alum issued a direct public apology to the “Ex’s & Oh’s” singer, whom he shares with former model London King, his ex-wife.
“It’s fun being a parent, isn’t it?” he quipped when the conservative commentator first broached the subject of Elle’s comments, before getting serious. “I want to tell my daughter, Elle, I love you. I wish I was the father in my 20s that you needed, and clearly, I wasn’t.”
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“I hope you can forgive me for my shortcomings,” Schneider continued, staring directly into the camera. “I love you completely, I love you entirely. I just want you to be well and happy, you and your beautiful baby, Lucky. I wish you the best. I feel terrible, and I just want you to know that I don’t take anything you say personally.”
“All I want is for her to be happy and to heal from this,” the Hot Chick star added to Carlson.
The interview clip comes just two days after King told Bunnie XO on her Dumb Blonde podcast that she goes years at a time without speaking to her father, adding that she doesn’t like to be associated with him because “he’s just not nice.” “My dad called me and was like, ‘Don’t f—ing talk about me in the press,’” she added on the podcast. “I was like, ‘Get f—ed.’”
The singer-songwriter also emphasized that she doesn’t agree with Schneider’s controversial political views and recalled how she once “got in trouble” for not losing any weight while suffering from a sprained ankle. “I was a really, really heavy child, and my dad sent me to fat camp,” she continued. “My dad forgot every single birthday.”
See Schneider’s apology to Elle below.
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and Charli XCX’s Brat reach new highs on Billboard’s Top Streaming Albums chart (dated Aug. 17) as the sets climb 4-3 and 10-5, respectively. Both titles also post new one-week highs in streaming-equivalent album units earned, as well their biggest streaming weeks.
Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time logs an eighth non-consecutive week atop the tally, and Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2 flies in at No. 6 as the only debut in the top 10.
The 50-position Top Streaming Albums chart ranks the most-streamed albums of the week in the U.S., as compiled by Luminate. Titles are ranked by streaming equivalent album (SEA) units, where each SEA unit equals 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. If an artist has multiple albums containing the same song, SEA units for that song are generally assigned to whichever album sells the most by traditional album sales in a given week.
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One Thing at a Time holds at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums with 60,500 SEA units (down 3%; equaling 83.11 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs). Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department bumps 3-2 with 57,500 units (down 3%; 75.43 million on-demand official streams of its songs); it previously spent 11 total and consecutive weeks at No. 1 (May 4-July 13-dated charts).
Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess steps 4-3 with 55,000 SEA units (up 18%, equaling 72.66 million official on-demand streams of its songs), hitting a new peak. It’s the best week, by SEA units and on-demand streams, for the album. The set, which debuted on the tally dated April 27 at No. 34, has been bumping around the Nos. 4-6 positions on the chart in the last six weeks.
Roan has four songs – three from Midwest Princess – on the latest Streaming Songs chart (dated Aug. 17), and all four hit new peaks. The three Midwest tracks gaining new ground are “Hot To Go!” (22-14), “Pink Pony Club” (31-21) and “Red Wine Supernova” (43-32). Meanwhile, the non-album cut “Good Luck, Babe!” climbs 5-4.
Zach Bryan’s former Top Streaming Albums leader The Great American Bar Scene falls 2-4 with 50,000 SEA units (down 16%; equaling 65.53 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs).
Charli XCX’s Brat bounces 10-5 with 49,500 SEA units (up 49%; equaling 65.17 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs). It’s the best week, by SEA units and on-demand streams, for the album. The set surges following the Aug. 1 release of the “Guess” remix, featuring Billie Eilish. “Guess” was originally issued as a solo Charli XCX cut on the deluxe edition of the Brat album. Eilish was added to a new remix on Aug. 1. All versions of the song are combined for charting purposes, and contribute to the Brat album’s SEA total.
Three Brat tunes are on the Top Streaming Albums chart: “Guess,” which debuts at No. 6, “Apple,” new at No. 39 (continuing to bask in its gone-viral dance trend), and “360” (38-41).
The lone debut in the top 10 of the new Top Streaming Albums chart is Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2, at No. 6 with nearly 46,000 SEA units (59.44 million on-demand official streams of the 16 songs on the streaming edition of the album).
Back in 2017, Phillip Leeds dropped the critically acclaimed photography book BIG SHOTS! that captured the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Jay-Z, Pharrell, David Byrne, A$AP Rocky, Questlove, Andre Leon Talley, Justin Timberlake and more.
Now he’s back with BIG SHOTS!! Volume Two: More Shots From the Worlds of Music, Fashion and Beyond. This second volume features SZA on the cover and a foreword from Pharrell with more than 500 Polaroid portraits inside. Some of those portraits include KAWS, Dave Grohl, George Clinton, James Lipton, Ari Melber, Megan Thee Stallion, John David Washington and a slew of other heavyweights in music, fashion, film and media.
“I met Phillip way back, in ’95 or ’96, and he was always the guy who would say, ‘Let’s take a picture,’” Pharrell said of Phillip Leeds in BIG SHOTS! Volume 1.
Born and raised in New York City, Leeds is a well known vet within the music and fashion scene, but only began publishing his work in 2017 and used the Polaroid Big Shot camera exclusively for these photos. In association with Blurring Books, the photographer is hosting a launch party and exhibit on Friday, Aug. 23 in Los Angeles. BIG SHOTS!! Volume Two is set to drop Tuesday, Aug. 27.
We were given exclusive access to share 10 never-before-seen photos of some of your favorite rappers, singers and DJs like Tyler, the Creator, Snoop Dogg, Swizz Beatz & Alicia Keys, Sister Nancy, No Malice, D-Nice, BIA, RZA, Roxanne Shanté and Redman.
Check ’em out below and preorder the book here.