Music
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Bill Maher made the bold choice of dissing Taylor Swift on his Club Random podcast this week, picking on everything from the 34-year-old pop star’s Eras Tour to her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
While speaking to guest Haliey Welch — better known as the viral “Hawk Tuah” girl — on his Sunday (July 28) episode, the 68-year-old comedian was the first person to bring up Swift. “I liked her more when she was country,” he said. “I love ‘Sparks Fly.’ I love it.”
That was pretty much where the flattery stopped, though. “I’m sure she’s a lovely person, but the whole thing with the football player … it just felt like 35 is a little old to be like, ‘My boyfriend’s a football player, and I wear his jersey to the game with his number on it,’” Maher continued, referencing the 14-time Grammy winner’s high-profile visits to Arrowhead Stadium during the 2023-24 NFL season. “Right? I mean, come on.”
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The political commentator went on to say frankly that Kelce is “gonna dump her.” “With her, it’s like the Gatorade at the Super Bowl,” he added. “You know you’re gonna get dumped — you just don’t know when.”
Welch then remarked that Swift’s next album would be next-level if a Tayvis breakup did occur — “It won’t be f–k John Mayer no more, it’ll be f–k Travis” — to which Maher questioned, “Is she still singing about [Mayer]?”
“Her tour is the Eras Tour… it must’ve had the songs about all the people that she wrote songs about,” the Real Time host continued, agreeing with Welch that it’s “very tacky” for Swift to still be singing about her past exes. “You can’t control what the muse dictates to you — she’s a songwriter. I can’t fault her for that. But [her breakups] seem like such a recurrent theme.”
That’s when Maher ended the Swift discussion with a pretty outdated joke: “At some point, you just want to say, maybe you should write a song called, ‘Maybe It’s Me.’”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment.
Though Maher apparently dislikes that the musician performs her older music on the Eras Tour, millions of Swifties would probably beg to differ. In 2023, the Eras Tour generated approximately $900 million in ticket sales — a number that’s no doubt significantly higher when factoring in the four months she’s been touring in 2024 since it was calculated.
Swift has also been open about how quips about her dating life and songwriting topics affect her. When the Netflix series Ginny & Georgia included the line, “You go through men faster than Taylor Swift” in 2021, for instance, she was quick to put it on blast.
“Hey Ginny & Georgia, 2010 called and it wants its lazy, deeply sexist joke back,” she tweeted at the time. “How about we stop degrading hard working women by defining this horse s–t as FuNnY.”
As for the “Karma” singer’s relationship with Kelce, the couple appears to be doing just fine (although some of Maher’s comments do echo complaints from NFL fans who didn’t like seeing Swift on their TV screens during Chiefs games). Now going on a year of dating, they were most recently spotted at the star’s Eras show in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, July 18, cozying up next to each other as they exited the backstage area.
Watch Maher discuss Swift below.
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Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” has infiltrated election season. Kamala Harris hosted a rally as the likely Democratic party nominee in the upcoming presidential election on Tuesday night (July 30) in Atlanta, and K. Dot’s Drake diss was played at one point.
Footage from the vice president’s livestream of the rally quickly went viral on social media, with the crowd singing along to “Not Like Us” and especially joining together for the “wop, wop, wop” and “A-minor” punch lines. One male fan specifically went viral for his passion while rapping to the song.
“The way everything in this song can apply to Trump too,” a fan responded on X. “She is so smart.”
Another added a shot in at Drake: “Even in presidential rally drake getting cooked!”
Even nearly three months following the release of “Not Like Us,” the track hasn’t lost steam while sitting at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Aug. 3. Lamar’s Drake diss has been swallowed up by other avenues of pop culture, including the political realm and the sports world.
Hip-hop was definitely in the building on Tuesday night, with Quavo also endorsing the vice president and speaking about his commitment to gun safety following the loss of his nephew Takeoff, who was fatally shot in November 2022.
“One of these issues that I care about is resolving the gun violence issues,” Quavo said to the crowd. “You can’t understand the struggle of gun violence if you not in the field or in the heart of it. So, one thing I learned from working with Vice President Harris is she always stand on business. From inviting me to the White House last year to discuss these solutions, to passing the biggest gun safety laws today.”
Megan Thee Stallion also hit the Atlanta rally stage in a blue pantsuit with her dancers, where she performed hits such as “Body” and the Yuki Chiba-assisted “Mamushi.”
“Now I know my ladies in the crowd love their bodies. If you want to keep loving your bodies, you know who to vote for,” she said to kick off her performance.
It remains to be seen if “Not Like Us” will remain a part of Harris’ campaign when she heads to Philadelphia next week (Aug. 6) for a rally where she’ll unveil her VP pick, per Reuters.
President Joe Biden stepped down from the presidential race on July 21, and plenty of artists have backed Harris in her pursuit of the Oval Office, including Cardi B, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, Questlove and more.
If you don’t remember 50 Cent‘s name on the original lineup of artists for the iconic 2022 Super Bowl halftime show featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem that’s because, according to 50, “they” didn’t want him there.
In a new feature in The Hollywood Reporter, 50 goes into detail about the drama behind the scenes of the Super Bowl LVI performance that featured him as a surprise guest, but which he said almost didn’t happen. “They wanted to leave me out of it. They didn’t want me there,” 50 said, echoing a since-deleted Instagram post from Sept. 2022 in which he said, “[Eminem] is the man, he wouldn’t do the show without me,” after the performance won three Emmy awards; rapper N.O.R.E. also mentioned the initial snub on his podcast around the time.
Asked who “they” were, 50 said it was Jay-Z’s Roc Nation who didn’t want him on stage that night. “Eminem wouldn’t do it without me,” 50 (born Curtis Jackson) reiterated about Marshall Mathers, who first signed Jackson and helped him release his smash 2003 debut studio album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’. “That’s how I ended up on the show because he was not coming if I didn’t do it. When that happens, you go, ‘Damn, so you just lost Eminem because you didn’t bring 50? Damn. All right. Bring 50 then.’ But if it was up to them, they would not have me there. I’m the surprise. I’m not on the bill at all. But they couldn’t get Em to do it without me.”
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The long history of mutual admiration between the two MCs will extend into the future thanks to an upcoming project from 50’s G-Unit Film and Television company, which he said is developing a series based on Em’s 2002 8 Mile feature film. “50 is like a brother to me,” Eminem told THR. “50 has proven again and again that there’s really nothing he can’t do, and nobody gets in the way of him getting it done.”
The story also notes that 50 is expanding his already sprawling TV holdings with an animated series for Amazon Freevee called Lady Danger Agent of B.O.O.T.I. featuring Nicki Minaj. “He’s a blueprint to what resilience looks like,” Minaj said of 50, whose expansive TV portfolio includes the six-season Starz hit Power — and spin-offs Ghost, Raising Kanan and Force — as well as another Starz series, BMF and upcoming shows including the boxing drama Fightland and Queen Nzinga, about an African warrior queen.
“Whenever he’s been counted out in the real world or within the entertainment business, he’s risen to the occasion and come out triumphant. He’s smart. He’s a businessman,” Minaj added. “I can see past the ‘funny 50’ — I see a very deep thinker. He’s honest. He’s mastered the chess game of reinvention throughout many eras of music, entertainment and social media. Yet he still somehow always seems to remain authentic. That is a very difficult feat.”
50 also said he’s launching his own FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) channel, building his own film studio in Shreveport, LA and working on a novel about a Black female Texas Ranger.
Zach Bryan rules Billboard’s June Boxscore report with 10 shows from The Quittin’ Time Tour. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Bryan grossed $68.9 million and sold 340,000 tickets in June.
It’s the first monthly win for Bryan, after scaling as high as No. 2 in March, seated behind Bad Bunny. He clocked two more top 10 placements in April (No. 10) and May (No. 4) before hitting the summit. Following Morgan Wallen (April 2023), he is only the second country artist to top the list.
The Quittin’ Time Tour has earned $184 million and sold 929,000 tickets since launching on March 5, current through the end of June. Barely past its halfway point, the trek has already quadrupled the gross of Bryan’s Burn Burn Burn Tour from last year, which itself had quadrupled 2022’s The American Run Tour. In two years, he has multiplied his average per-show gross by more than 14, up from $292,000 in ’22, to $4.3 million.
Coldplay is June’s runner-up, logging its third month at No. 2, in addition to its three months at No. 1. During the month, the British rockers grossed $68 million and sold 576,000 tickets.
The band’s consistency – six months in the top two, plus eight more elsewhere in the top 10 – has paid off: the Music of the Spheres Tour has grossed $875.8 million and sold 8.2 million tickets since launching in March 2022.
Both the tour’s gross and attendance are the second biggest in Boxscore history. Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour (2018-23) grossed $939.1 million, and Ed Sheeran’s The Divide Tour (2017-19) sold 8.9 million tickets. With more dates scheduled, Coldplay is likely to overtake both by the end of the summer.
The major asterisk for these all-time highs is that Taylor Swift has not reported figures for The Eras Tour. Billboard estimated more than $900 million in the bank and over four million tickets sold by last November. Since then, she’s performed in Asia, Australia and Europe, with a return to North America scheduled for the fall, meaning that she is likely far beyond $1 billion and nearing Sheeran’s attendance total to boot.
While Bryan leads Coldplay on Top Tours, they reverse fortunes on Top Boxscores, with the latter’s three shows at Groupama Stadium in Lyon, France, ($22.6 million, 165,000 tickets) beating the former’s double-header at Mile High Stadium in Denver ($20.5 million, 110,000 tickets). The Lyon venue rules Top Stadiums.
Both acts litter the rest of Top Boxscores, with Coldplay appearing four times in the top half, and Bryan totaling six entries. That’s each artist’s entire slate of shows from June, dominating the chart in stadiums – Coldplay in Europe and Bryan in the U.S.
In a first, the entire top 10 artists – Bryan, Coldplay, P!nk, Dead & Company, Aventura, Justin Timberlake, Kenny Chesney, Chris Brown, Green Day and Luke Combs – boast grosses of $30 million or more. Nine tours had done it in August and September 2022, and again in June and July 2023.
Further, the entire Top Tours chart is stronger than ever. German singer Roland Kaiser rounds out the list at No. 30, via $11.5 million from nine shows. That’s higher than the bottom of the list has ever been, outpacing the $10.8 million from Marco Antonio Solis last September. June marks the second month since the charts launched in 2019 that all 30 ranked tours reported grosses of $10 million or more.
June’s top 30 artists mix veteran artists such as Dead & Company, Billy Joel and Luis Miguel with fresh faces including Bryan, Feid and Noah Kahan. Classic pop groups make their mark, as Girls Aloud’s 2024 reunion lands at No. 14 with $19.1 million and Take That’s U.K. tour continues at No. 26 with $13 million.
The top-grossing venue of June is Las Vegas’ Sphere. The room hosted 10 shows across four weekends with artist-in-residency Dead & Company. The supergroup brought in $50.2 million and sold 162,000 tickets, enough to land at No. 4 on Top Tours and sprinkle Top Boxscores at Nos. 4, 5 and 8.
Up 38% from May, it’s Sphere’s second consecutive month at No. 1, with its one-of-a-kind concert experience driving high ticket prices. Madison Square Garden out-sold Sphere by more than 80,000 tickets and grossed about $12 million less, with the latter nearly doubling MSG’s average ticket ($309 vs. $156).
The lower-capacity venue charts are dominated by Glasgow (OVO Hydro), Atlanta (Fox Theatre) and Las Vegas (Dolby Live and Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas). Historically blocked by larger venues on the 5,000-capacity-and-under ranking, Encore Theater scores its first month at No. 1 on the new chart that breaks out venues with a cap of 2,500 or less.
Eric Church, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Tyler Hubbard, Jamey Johnson, Ashley McBryde, Darius Rucker and Keith Urban are the first performers announced for the 2024 ACM Awards, which will be presented on Wednesday, Aug. 21 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
Carly Pearce and Jordan Davis are set to host the event, which will pay tribute to this year’s previously-announced honorees Walt Aldridge, Tony Brown, Luke Bryan, Alan Jackson, Shannon Sanders, Lainey Wilson and Trisha Yearwood.
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Pearce is hosting for the fourth straight year. Davis is the reigning ACM song of the year winner, having won at the May 16 show for co-writing “Next Thing You Know” with Josh Osborne, Chase McGill and Greylan James.
Brown has worked closely with both Harris, for whom he played piano, and Gill, for whom he produced many recordings, including one that won an ACM Award – “Building Bridges,” a 2006 collab with Sheryl Crow which was voted vocal event of the year.
In addition to performing on the show, Hubbard will present the ACM studio recording and industry awards portion of ACM Honors, which is in its 17th year.
Additionally, previously announced artist-songwriter of the year winner Chris Stapleton and songwriter of the year Jessie Jo Dillon will be feted at ACM Honors.
Limited tickets for ACM Honors are available through AXS, including VIP packages which include a ticket in the VIP artist section of the Ryman (first seven rows), a ticket to the VIP pre-party reception, a commemorative Hatch Show Print poster, parking, and drink tickets.
With a new version of their hit single, Sam Smith literally will not be the only one. In a post to their social media on Wednesday (July 31), Smith announced that they would be releasing a new version of their In the Lonely Hour single “I’m Not the Only One” featuring R&B icon Alicia Keys. […]
“For us, this is the launch of a signature artist,” then-RCA Records marketing vp Nick Cucci mused in the July 24, 1999, Billboard issue of Christina Aguilera, whose eponymous debut album arrived a month later. “She’s not a quick-burn teen artist. We’re planning on her being around for a long time. We’re pursuing performance opportunities to present her as an artist of extraordinary depth.”
The following week, Aguilera, then 18, was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the LP’s lead single, “Genie in a Bottle.” Beginning with the July 31-dated chart, it reigned for five weeks.
Aguilera’s debut album subsequently launched at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 253,000 copies sold in the United States in its first week, according to Luminate.
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Per Billboard’s story, written by Larry Flick, in the July 24, 1999, issue, RCA had showcased Aguilera that June in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Las Vegas and Minneapolis, as she performed the album with only piano backing. “It was a highly effective way of presenting her,” George Harrison, then-assistant music director at KSNE Las Vegas, shared. “She has the voice of a young Whitney Houston. Midway through the first song, it was clear that she’s going to be a big, big star.”
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With “Genie in a Bottle,” Aguilera unleashed her first of five Hot 100 No. 1s and 11 top 10s. Her introductory set also yielded the leaders “What a Girl Wants” and “Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You).”
On the Billboard 200, Aguilera boasts two No. 1s among seven top 10s, through the No. 6-peaking Liberation in 2018. Her chart history also includes her second LP, the Spanish-language Mi Reflejo, which ruled Top Latin Albums for 19 weeks in 2000-01.
Aguilera’s breakthrough sparked her best new artist Grammy Award win in 2000. Among others, she triumphed in the category over Britney Spears, with whom she starred in The All-New Mickey Mouse Club in the early ‘90s (and whose own debut album, …Baby One More Time, had soared in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in January 1999). Aguilera’s experience on the show also led to her recording “Reflections,” the theme to the 1998 hit Disney film Mulan.
“It was a great way to grow up,” Aguilera told Billboard in 1999 about being a Mouseketeer. “I got the most incredible education, both in terms of who I wanted to be as an artist and in terms of how the business works. It gave me the focus I needed to make this album.”
To date, Aguilera, who served as a coach on NBC’s The Voice in 2011-16, has sold 17.6 million albums in the U.S. Her songs have drawn 28.5 billion in radio audience and 3.1 billion official on-demand streams. Her upcoming tour dates include shows in Las Vegas and Japan, with her eight-month Christina Aguilera at Voltaire residency at The Venetian in Las Vegas running through Aug. 31.
Of “Genie in a Bottle” — which David Frank, Steve Kipner and Pamela Sheyne co-wrote — Aguilera told Billboard in 1999, “At first, I was a little afraid that some people might not completely get where I’m coming from,” referring to the song’s “occasionally seductive lyrical tone,” per Flick. (“Fueled by a chugging groove and richly layered vocals, the tune is punctuated by a breathy command to ‘rub me the right way’,” he wrote.)
“The song is not about sex,” Aguilera said. “It’s about self-respect. It’s about not giving in to temptation until you’re respected. It’s time for something different. It’s time that music make[s] kids feel confident and secure.”
Winning looked real good on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team when they took home the team gold in Paris on Tuesday (July 30). It sounded good too, as team members Simone Biles, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee and Hezly Rivera spent much of the day luxuriating in the golden glow of the champion’s circle […]
Brent Jones banks his second total and consecutive No. 1 on Billboard’s Gospel Airplay chart as “Live Your Best Life!” ascends to the top of the Aug. 3-dated list. During the July 19-25 tracking week, the song advanced by 3% in plays among format reporters, according to Luminate. The single is the title cut from […]
What’s the best way to relax after screaming your lungs out for nearly three hours to a sold-out baseball stadium full of fans? How about doing the viral dance to Charli XCX‘s Brat song “Apple?” Joining the likes of Joe Jonas, Late Show host Stephen Colbert and Glen Powell, Foo Fighters singer/guitarist Dave Grohl hopped […]