Music

06 Oct 2023

Bruce Springsteen Reschedules Postponed Tour Dates For 2024

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band will reboot their postponed 2023 tour in early 2024. After pulling the plug on all their 2023 dates last month to give the 74-year-old rock icon time to recover from peptic ulcer disease, Springsteen announced the rescheduled shows on Friday morning (Oct. 6).

The tour will now recommence on March 19 at the Footprint Center in Phoenix (a make-up for a show originally scheduled for Nov. 30), followed by a March 25 show in San Diego at Pechanga Arena through a Sept. 13 show at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. All tickets for postponed shows will be valid for the newly announced dates, with fans encouraged to reach out to the ticketing company for each date about refunds.

The new dates for the group’s Canadian shows will be announced next week, all at the original venues. Ticketholders unable to make the new dates have 30 days to request a refund.

Peptic ulcer disease is fairly common, though painful, gastrointestinal condition that can cause severe abdominal pain as a result of an imbalance in the protective lining of the stomach.

“Bruce Springsteen has continued to recover steadily from peptic ulcer disease over the past few weeks and will continue treatment through the rest of the year on doctor’s advice,” read a statement released last week announcing the push of all 2023 dates to 2024.

Check out the rescheduled 2024 dates below.

March 19 — Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center (originally Nov. 30, 2023)

March 25 — San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena (originally Dec. 2, 2023)

March 28 — San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center (originally Dec. 10, 2023)

March 31 — San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center (originally Dec. 12, 2023)

April 4 — Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum (originally Dec. 4, 2023)

April 7 — Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum (originally Dec. 6, 2023)

April 12 — Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun Arena (originally Sept. 16, 2023)

April 15 — Albany, NY @ MVP Arena (originally Sept. 19, 2023)

April 18 — Syracuse, NY @ JMA Wireless Dome (originally Sept. 7, 2023)

April 21 — Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena (originally Sept. 21, 2023)

August 15 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena (originally Sept. 12, 2023)

August 18 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena (originally Sept. 14, 2023)

August 21 — Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank Park (originally August 16, 2023)

August 23 — Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank Park (originally August 18, 2023)

Sept. 7 — Washington, DC @ Nationals Park (originally Sept. 29, 2023)

Sept. 13 — Baltimore, MD @ Oriole Park at Camden Yards (originally Sept. 9. 2023)

06 Oct 2023

Megan Thee Stallion Freaks Out Over Beyoncé Calling Her ‘Sister’

Megan Thee Stallion couldn’t be happier about being welcomed into the Knowles family. After Beyoncé referred to the 28-year-old rapper as her “sister,” Meg freaked out on Instagram with the rest of the BeyHive.

“Yall… nobody can tell me nothing else EVERRRRRRRR ????” the “Plan B” musician captioned a carousel of photos from Bey’s Renaissance Tour on Instagram. “BEY SAID HTOWN SISSTERRR !!! Like hello ??? I LOVE YOU QUEEN @beyonce.”

Meg’s post came a couple hours after Bey shared photos of the two ladies performing their “Savage” remix at Renaissance’s September stop in Houston, writing, “My H-Town sister, thank you for gracing the RENAISSANCE TOUR. Until next time.”

Both artists were born in Texas and raised in Houston, and Meg has long looked up to the “Break My Soul” singer. “Y’all don’t know how many times I cried this weekend,” Meg said in a TikTok in September, shortly after taking the stage with her hero. “Y’all don’t understand — Beyoncé is my idol, like I genuinely love Beyoncé with my whole f—ing heart.”

“Me and my momma are such huge fans of Beyoncé,” she added at the time. “My whole life, I was like, ‘I wanna be the rap Beyoncé,’ and to get the opportunity to go onstage with the woman that I love, the woman that it is the woman of all womens…I was up with Beyoncé, y’all got me f—ed up!”

Beyoncé wrapped her record-breaking global trek with a finale show in Kansas City on Oct. 1, marking the end of one of the highest grossing tours of all time by an R&B artist. To celebrate the run, the superstar recently announced that the Renaissance concert film is coming to theaters Dec. 1, featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Bey putting the show together and spending time with Jay-Z and their three children, Blue Ivy, Rumi and Sir.

Reminisce on clips of Megan Thee Stallion performing “Savage” with Beyoncé in Houston below:

06 Oct 2023

P!nk Wishes She’d Never Released This Song: ‘That Was a Real Mistake’

P!nk is beloved for her no-holds-barred honesty, even when it comes to her own music. In a new Los Angeles Times interview, the singer was asked to rate her best and worst singles and, without hesitation, she picked her 2001 Missundaztood song, “Get the Party Started,” which hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

She also tagged 2008’s No. 1 hit “So What” from Funhouse, which she said was “fun from start to finish — writing it, singing it, performing it, the video,” also crediting the high-energy track with reuniting her with husband Carey Hart after their earlier separation.

She also got really real about the songs she wished she’d never recorded, which include her 2013 love hurts anthem “True Love,” which features the lyrics, “Sometimes I hate every single stupid word you say/ Sometimes I wanna slap you in your whole face/ There’s no one quite like you, you push all my buttons down/ I know life would suck without you/ At the same time, I wanna hug you/ I wanna wrap my hands around your neck.”

Why that one? “Because it’s mean. Carey’s got thick skin, but I owe him a love song,” she said of the song whose chorus has her singing, “True love, true love/ It must be true love/ Nothin’ else can break my heart like/ True love, true love/ It must be true love/ No one else can break my heart like you.”

Worse yet, though, she said, was the minute-long “We’ve Got Scurvy” from the 2009 SpongeBob’s Greatest Hits album, in which she yarrrs, “Our gums are black, our teeth are falling out/ We’ve got spots on our backs, so give it up and shout/ We’ve got scurvy, we need some vitamin C/ We’ve got scurvy, we need a lemon tree.”

“I wish I never did that,” she said. “That was a real mistake.”

Asked if she’d ever make a full-on country record, P!nk noted that she has made country songs, pointing to tracks she’s recorded with Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney, with the latter team-up on “Setting the World on Fire,” hitting No. 1 at country radio that year. But a whole country album? “Nah,” laughed the singer who has dabbled in pop, R&B, dance and rock over the years. “I don’t do whole albums of anything.”

With just three dates left on the U.S. swing of her high-flying Summer Carnival tour, P!nk told the Times that she “100%” thinks she’s a better live performer than recording artist, despite her 36 Billboard Hot 100 charting hit singles over the past 28 years.

“Because live is messy. It’s life, it’s gritty, it’s authentic — it’s unrehearsed,” said the singer whose meticulously plotted acrobatic moves and high-wire work are a staple of her shows. “I mean, we rehearse to a certain extent for safety. But you never know what’s gonna happen. And I’m never in my head. The second I step onstage, I’m in my heart, I’m in my body. There’s no other place that I operate — as a Virgo, as a mother, as the most responsible person I know — like the stage. It’s where I live.”

And though the former gymnast seems to effortlessly soar above the crowd, she said she is “absolutely” scared every time, which is why she started doing it. “I’m afraid of heights, and I don’t want to be afraid,” she explained. “I’ve been in some situations that don’t feel good. I wonder every night if my bungees are gonna work. But it’s a cool way to go if they don’t.”

With so many stars putting down roots for residencies in Las Vegas, P!nk said she would consider her own stay-put (“when I do Vegas, it’ll be the best show Vegas ever saw”), but she hasn’t agreed yet because her children are still young enough to join her on the road. “Vegas is something I can do when they don’t want to be with me anymore. Willow’s getting close,” she said of her 12-year-old daughter; she and Hart also have a six-year-old son, Jameson.

As for whether she was surprised by the recent dust-up around Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner’s sexist, racist comments suggesting that women and Black artists weren’t as “articulate” or interesting the white men he interviewed for his recent book, she was not.

“Misogyny and racism are so prevalent today. But they’re the dinosaurs, and they’re on their way out,” she said of men like the 77-year-old Wenner, whose comments got him booted from the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. “I don’t know how successfully they passed down their poison.”

06 Oct 2023

Get to Know Ovy on the Drums, Karol G’s Go-To Producer

As he watched from a suite while Karol G performed at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Sept. 8, Ovy on the Drums was nostalgic and teary-eyed. Over 70,000 fans were chanting the Colombian reggaetón star’s biggest hits at the top of their lungs — the majority produced by him.

“I cried that day because there were no words,” he recalls, slouched on a couch in his Miami-area home a few days later. “One day, we are working with the hopes of making it big, that our music will go around the world, and life itself makes sure things happen. God himself has given us these blessings, and it’s because we have worked with love, with dedication, without stopping. We are dreamers and unstoppable.”

After accompanying Karol G on most of her shows during her Mañana Será Bonito summer stadium tour, Ovy (real name: Daniel Echavarría Oviedo) is finally back at his three-story corner house in Doral, Fla., where he resides with his personal manager, Alejandro Muñoz, and his aunt Gloria. He’s relaxed, wearing a neon-green Nigeria soccer jersey and black Nike shorts, and his signature spiky, blond dreadlocks are tamed. It’s a typically hot summer Florida day, but inside, the 32-year-old’s aunt is cooking lunch while he catches up on laundry and sips homemade hibiscus tea. “This is amazing for your health. I drink it every day to stay hydrated,” he says, offering a glass.

As Karol’s longtime producer, Ovy is behind her biggest hits, including “Tusa,” with Nicki Minaj; “Provenza”; “TQG,” with Shakira; “Mi Ex Tenía Razón”; and the Peso Pluma-assisted “QLONA” — which all hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart. But his road to success has not been, as he puts it, “llegué y pegué” (“I came, and I conquered”). In fact, Ovy says he never knew music would be his calling.

Fifteen years ago, Ovy, then 17, was working at a plaza in Medellín carrying bags of chicken and selling disposable party supplies when he realized he had to find a passion if he wanted to succeed in life. His first taste of music production came a few years later, in 2012, when a cousin’s friend offered to install the digital audio workstation FL Studio on his laptop and give Ovy a beat-making crash course.

“From that moment, my life changed. Look, I even have the [company’s] fruity logo tattooed,” he says, flaunting the mango-strawberry ink on his right forearm. “I didn’t know what a melody was, I didn’t know anything [about making music], but when he showed me that program, that was where I, Daniel Echavarría Oviedo, discovered a new planet.”

Ovy on the Drums

Devin Christopher

As he practiced each day and sold his first beats for only $5 each, Ovy made headway in the Colombian music scene, working with artists such as Landa Freak, Lorduy and DVX. He also connected with producers Ronald El Killa and La Compañía (the production group of Mr. Pomps, DJ Maff, Migueman and Gotex), whom he credits as the first people to give him an opportunity in the music industry. The latter, which produced Karol G’s 2013 Nicky Jam collaboration, “Amor de Dos,” ultimately connected Ovy with Karol.

“The first day we met, I overheard her talking to her father about needing a DJ for a presentation, and I respectfully offered myself,” he remembers. “At first, she didn’t take me seriously. But about a month later, my friends at La Compañía called me to share the news that Karol wanted me as her DJ.”

After a successful debut performance together at a local university, the duo embarked on a “school tour” across the country while also promoting themselves on local TV and radio. Along the way, Ovy decided to play Karol some of his beats, and they immediately began creating music. The first song they worked on together was “Ricos Besos,” a flirtatious reggaetón track released in summer 2014.

“She was happy because I was the only person who understood what she wanted to express with her sound,” he says. “I remember that we were on a balcony one day when I proposed that we become a team — just like The Rudeboyz with Maluma, Sky Rompiendo with J Balvin — and she told me, ‘Let’s do it!’ ”

Since then, Ovy — whose style is characterized by minimalist urban-fusion beats backed by edgy keyboards, dramatic violins and hard-hitting drums — has produced a handful of Karol’s bangers, such as “Tusa,” which earned him his first No. 1 as a producer on the Hot Latin Songs chart, and the EDM-fueled “Cairo,” which marked his first Billboard Hot 100 entry.

His work on Karol’s studio albums Unstoppable (2017), Ocean (2019), KG0516 (2021) and the historic Mañana Será Bonito (2023) — the first all-Spanish-language album by a female artist to top the Billboard 200 — ultimately has kept him at No. 1 on the Latin Producers chart for 25 nonconsecutive weeks since February 2020, the third-longest reign atop that chart, following Tainy and MAG. He was less involved on Karol’s latest, Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season), released in August, but still produced three of its 10 songs: “S91,” “QLONA” and “Dispo.”

“I’m taking time for myself,” he says as Gloria serves warm picadillo (ground beef), rice, salad and noodle soup. “It hurts me because I want to be making new music with Karol like the old days. But it’s not a bad thing — it’s just that now I want to focus on my project.”

Inspired by the multihyphenate Dr. Dre, Ovy wears many hats: he produces; he composes; he develops artists under his record label, Big Ligas; and at one point, he even had a singing career — though after releasing music with Mike Bahía, TINI and Danny Ocean, he decided to quit because “Ovy on the Drums has respect as a producer, not as a singer.”

At the dining table, where Muñoz and Gloria join him, Ovy says that moving to Miami in 2020 was the best decision of his life, mainly because it allowed him to grow as a producer. “I got to a point where I asked myself, ‘What am I doing in Medellín?’ I felt like there was nothing more to do. Other than enjoying my country, my family and relaxing, I wasn’t being productive,” he explains. “Once I moved to Miami, I started creating and creating more, and establishing more relationships.”

Ovy on the Drums

Ovy on the Drums photographed on September 12, 2023 in Miami.

Devin Christopher

And while he’s best known for his work with Karol G, he has now worked with numerous other artists, including Enrique Iglesias, Zion y Lennox, Camilo, Ozuna, Prince Royce and Peso Pluma. When he hits the studio with those other acts, he prepares thoroughly, studying them, observing their musical styles and making sure to arrive with the best energy.

“He is a master of his craft,” says Leslie Ahrens, senior vp of creative, Latin America at Kobalt Music, where Ovy signed in December 2018. “He can create an entire song by himself — production, lyrics and melody — and 99% of the time, they are hits! Beyond that, when you meet him, you want to be his best friend and confidant. He also has a great sense of humor, and all that is a part of his magic.”

Now, as he shifts his focus to his personal musical projects, Ovy is also planning his next move: expanding to work with mainstream artists.

“I’ve had opportunities. Producers like London on Da Track who has worked with Drake have written to me, but nothing has happened yet because I feel that I need to learn to speak English first,” he says. “If I speak the language very well, I will get along with the mainstream producers and artists and even create a solid friendship like the one I have with artists in the Latin music world. I’m on it right now.”

In the meantime, he’s preparing his debut album as artist-producer, titled Dr. Drums, which will include features from Karol G, Quevedo, Sech, Ryan Castro and Blessd.

As we finish lunch, he reminds me that his trajectory hasn’t been “llegué y pegué” but rather working hard for his dreams with the hope of one day inspiring others.

“Tomorrow, when I’m not in this industry or in this world anymore, people will simply remember me because I created different music from everything that has ever existed, and hopefully, they will be inspired by the music I made. That’s my goal,” he says with a smile. “Every day I wake up with that hope — with the purpose of leaving a legacy.”

This story will appear in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.

06 Oct 2023

The Core Entertainment Launches Producer Management Division

The Core Entertainment, known for its work with artists including Billboard’s 2023 country rookie of the year winner Bailey Zimmerman, as well as Nickelback and Nate Smith, has launched a new producers management division, with a focus on guiding the careers of emerging writer/producers. 

Founded by The Core Entertainment’s Kevin “Chief” Zaruk and Simon Tikhman, the new producer management division will be led by Tim Crane.

The new venture launches with Zimmerman’s producer Austin Shawn, as well as writer-producer Marty James and Josh Ross’s producer Matt Geroux.

Shawn, a writer/producer/mixer/engineer who worked on Zimmerman’s Religiously: The Album, has spent 11 weeks atop Billboard’s Hot Country Producers chart, for his work on Zimmerman’s three No. 1 Country Airplay singles “Fall in Love,” “Rock and a Hard Place” and “Religiously.” His credits also include Chase Matthew’s breakthrough song “County Line.”

Geroux produced Ross’s single “Trouble,” which topped the Canadian Country Radio Chart, and debuted at No. 43 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart earlier this year. Another Geroux-produced song from Ross, “On a Different Night,” was nominated for single of the year at the 2023 Canadian Country Music Awards.

Meanwhile, James is credited as a co-writer on the Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee (feat. Justin Bieber) song “Despacito,” which spent 16 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017. James also co-wrote Zimmerman’s “Religiously,” with other credits including songs from Enrique Iglesias, Wiz Khalifa and Christina Aguilera.

“The idea behind creating this division is to work with the most talented writers and producers that are not afraid to push the boundaries of music,” the company’s co-founders/CEOs Tikhman and Zaruk said in a joint statement. “With Austin, Marty and Matt, they have all shown exactly that. They challenge artists to be the best they can be, while maintaining their visions and the integrity of the songs. The goal here is to work with producers around the globe that touch every genre of music and continue to disrupt the industry with their unique artistry.”  
 
The Core Entertainment launched in 2019 as an artist management company in partnership with Live Nation, with a roster including Zimmerman, Nickelback, Smith, Ross, Dillon James and Valley. In July, Zaruk and Tikhman launched The Core Records, via a separate partnership with Universal Music Group; The Core’s producer management division operates as a third standalone team.

06 Oct 2023

In the Studio With ‘Synth God’ Mike Dean

“I just need to make one edit. Could we start talking while I do it?” Mike Dean asks, lowering himself into a leather office chair in his Los Angeles home studio.

He swivels his seat to face a widescreen monitor and scrolls through scores of waveforms in his Pro Tools session, searching for the right spot to doctor. It’s a song from Diddy’s just-released The Love Album: Off the Grid called “Another One of Me” (featuring The Weeknd, French Montana and 21 Savage), and mere days before its Sept. 15 release, Dean has been tasked with crafting a slightly cleaner version of 21’s verse.

Despite the clear urgency of the work, Dean appears unfazed, steady. “It’s OK. I like to do eight things at a time,” he explains while he rotates among vocal editing, answering questions, FaceTiming a manager and ripping from his bong. This is not the first time the writer, producer and engineer has performed last-minute miracles for an A-lister’s song — and it certainly won’t be the last.

Dean’s stoicism and keen editing ear are among the many reasons he has been hip-hop’s most in-demand collaborator for decades, often skillfully guiding the genre’s most temperamental and perfectionistic talents — from Kanye West to Travis Scott to Jay-Z — to complete their best work.

He recalls the February 2016 evening when West played his seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo, for fans at Madison Square Garden in New York. With a packed house of nearly 20,000 at the arena and 20 million tuned in at home through a livestream, West shared a sampling of its tracks, including now essential hits like “Famous” and “Ultralight Beam.” As on the six West albums that had preceded it, Dean was a trusted collaborator in creating Pablo. Fans waited well past the event’s scheduled start time, but few could have guessed the reason for the delay: Almost none of the songs were done.

“It was crazy,” recalls Dean as he clicks over to his camera roll on the monitor, searching back to the photos he took that night. “We had 16 songs unfinished. I think we finished something like four songs, gave them to Kanye, and he went down there and played that shit in front of 20,000 people.

“Then I finished some more and rushed from the studio. We had to jump out of the cab about 10 blocks before the arena because the traffic was so bad,” he continues, still searching for that specific night on his camera roll, casually whisking his cursor past other culture-defining moments in the process: The Weeknd’s headlining Coachella set, West’s Yeezus-era Saturday Night Live performance and many raucous Scott shows. “I ran to MSG, fought to get to the basement and then to the floor and gave him the memory stick.”

Mike Dean

Michael Tyrone Delaney

Finally, Dean locates one of the pictures of that night. In it, West stands in the center of the frame in a red long-sleeve shirt and black baseball cap, arms lifted above his head. Under the halo of a white spotlight, he appears to be leading a religious rite rather than a listening party. Dean stands to West’s right sporting a flat bill hat from MWA, his label, and a slick black windbreaker. Despite the preceding chaos, Dean’s countenance betrays no signs of alarm. “I’m calm, really,” he says with a shrug, zooming in on himself in the background. “I’ll put a memory stick in a computer in front of thousands of people.”

His most prolific relationship of all is with West, whom the Texas born-and-bred producer-engineer met when he was still living in Houston circa 2002. In the preceding years, Dean had become a local legend, defining the sound of the Dirty South by producing, writing and mixing records for Geto Boys and Scarface and touring with acts like Selena.

“Kanye first came to my house when he was working on his mixtape, songs like ‘Through the Wire.’ I remember he had on a backpack and tight pants,” he says with a laugh. “You know, people in Texas don’t wear tight pants.”

Though West has now cycled through dozens — if not hundreds — of other creative collaborators throughout his career, Dean has been his singular through line. He has been with the artist from mixing parts of The College Dropout (2004) to producing much of Donda 2 (2022). He says the key to fostering such long-term relationships with artists, including West, is to not “try to follow them too much” and “stand up for what [I think] is right” for a song. “You let them do their thing but steer them in the right direction,” he says, though he admits “that gets harder, though, as they get bigger and bigger.” (Dean declined to comment about the current status of his creative relationship with West.)

Mike Dean

Michael Tyrone Delaney

Don Toliver, who worked on his 2020 hit “After Party” with Dean, says he loves collaborating with the producer because he is “the ultimate badass at mixing and mastering. If Tony Montana from Scarface worked in the music industry, he would be Mike Dean, deep into his craft and bringing that essence and vibe to the music as well.”

But Dean’s best-known strength is his penchant for synthesizers. From where he sits in his studio, these analog instruments cocoon him, stacked in columns up and down all four walls of the room. He points out a few of his favorites: a Memory Moog from 1978, the latest Prophet from Dave Smith Instruments. Then Dean gestures across the room to a clunky keyboard with colorful knobs and buttons and wood grain siding. “That’s the one Michael [Jackson] played ‘Billie Jean’ on. That’s the most important synth in the room,” he says, beaming. Of course, he has other favorites in storage — in his two garages, his other studio or his Texas house.

In recent years, some Dean acolytes have dubbed him “The Synth God.” “Every year, I turn the synths up a couple dBs [decibels],” he jokes. “On [West’s 2005] Late Registration, the synths were really tucked in, but since then it has just gotten louder and louder.”

While many of his contemporaries add so-called “producer tags” — audio identifiers on tracks where they stake their claim — Dean mostly shies away from that. “My sound is usually my tag,” he says matter-of-factly. It’s a claim that’s evident on records that feature what has become known as a Mike Dean Outro — a 30-second- to minute-long ending devoted to Dean’s transcendent synth work; one of the best-known examples is on Scott’s 2019 single “Highest in the Room.” Of the 59 total producer credits and 106 songwriter credits Dean has amassed on the Billboard Hot 100, “Highest in the Room” is one of his few No. 1s (along with Scott’s Drake-featuring “Sicko Mode” and Kid Cudi collaboration “The Scotts”). “That’s when the outro really went viral,” he says, though that was far from its first iteration. He has been doing these characteristic endings since West’s “Stronger” in 2007. “I just always jam on songs as much as possible… But [the outros are] becoming almost cliché to me now,” he says.

Savvy rap fans have known about Dean since the 2000s — or earlier, if they followed Houston hip-hop — but the producer, 58, has intentionally increased his visibility in recent years. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Dean started to see himself as more of an artist in his own right. He began a series of solo albums, released annually every April since 2020, each titled 4:20, 4:21, 4:22 and, most recently, 4:23.

He also started livestreaming as he played around on his synths, building avant garde instrumentals from scratch as teenagers frantically sent goat and fire emojis in the chat. The videos let Dean be more transparent with his process, and they amassed a following quickly, even among his famous friends like The Weeknd — who texted Dean, “You should open for me on tour.” Soon he was performing with the singer in stadiums around the world. To keep up with his other musical commitments, Dean worked out of a 10-foot-by-10-foot makeshift studio, designed for the back of his tour bus.

“It wasn’t too hard to work out of there, really,” he explains. “I did Travis’ second album in the back of a bus once. Plenty of my songs have been made like that.” It was during that time on the road, he says, that he created much of the songs and score for The Idol, the dark HBO drama co-created by The Weeknd and Euphoria producer Sam Levinson. The show was widely panned and ultimately canceled; one of its highlights, however, was Dean’s scoring work and soundtrack. Apart from co-writing the score for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, The Idol was Dean’s first major gig as composer, and his synth mastery laid the perfect morose undertone for the action onscreen.

Dean himself was also written into the show, playing “Mike Dean,” and furthering his mystique. In his first scene, he arrived in a matte black Tesla, emerging from the car’s butterfly doors in a fog of smoke, bong in tow — a meme-worthy entrance caricaturing his real-life demeanor and pot habit. It was Levinson’s idea: “I was first approached about Euphoria season two,” Dean says, which ultimately did not happen. “Then they asked me if I wanted to do music for The Idol, and when I met Sam, he asked me, ‘Well, do you want to be in the show, too?’ I guess he thought I was funny.”

Mike Dean

Michael Tyrone Delaney

But moving forward, Dean says TV and film work isn’t a priority: “I’d work on some select projects but not too much. I’m looking more at being an artist and putting out my own music and touring than anything else right now.” And as usual, he’s dutifully at work behind the scenes on the year’s biggest records. In 2023, he has already lent his expertise to Scott’s Utopia, the Idol soundtrack and Metro Boomin’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse soundtrack. And because Dean is never entirely predictable, he also worked on Paranoia, Angels, True Love by Christine and the Queens.

“I don’t work much,” he insists. “I just smoke weed and f–king hang out and make music — it’s not work.” He swiftly turns his head to look back at the monitor, refocusing. “Sorry,” he says. “I actually need to get to editing this.”

This story will appear in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.

06 Oct 2023

Mike Shinoda Unveils High-Powered New Single ‘Already Over,’ Talks Returning to ‘Making Stuff for Myself’

“Let’s just call this a chapter,” Mike Shinoda tells Billboard, “instead of a single or an album.”

His tenacious new track, “Already Over,” marks the next phase of a solo career that Shinoda says is rumbling back to life, while refusing to abide by traditional release formats. “The first question everybody asks is, ‘Is there an album?’” Shinoda continues. “And the answer is no, but also, [‘Already Over’] is not a standalone single. It’s something in between.”

Shinoda fans and longtime Linkin Park listeners will likely wrap their arms around the first part of this new chapter: released on Friday (Oct. 6), “Already Over” gallops with renewed purpose from the veteran artist, who deploys its power riffs and lashing hooks with speed and gravity. Along with providing the hot-blooded vocals, Shinoda wrote, produced and played every instrument on “Already Over,” after inspiration struck while he was noodling around on his favorite Fender Stratocaster one day in his home studio.

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“This very alternative-rock thing came out of me,” Shinoda says, “and I think if that had happened 10 years ago, I would have run away from it. But this felt right.”

Following his 2018 album Post Traumatic and its subsequent world tour, Shinoda poured himself into studio experimentation: he began hosting interactive livestreams on Twitch during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 — concocting instrumental tracks, often alongside fans and viewers — as well as writing and producing for other recording artists, and revisiting classic Linkin Park albums for anniversary reissues. Earlier this year, as Linkin Park’s unearthed single “Lost” scored a top 40 debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart prior to the release of the Meteora 20th Anniversary Edition, Shinoda produced and co-wrote tracks for Demi Lovato and PVRIS, among others.

For a while, Shinoda made a point of not featuring his voice on any new material, content to stay in the background as a studio player. “I really enjoyed the mentorship part of it, and the learning part of it,” he says. “And at a certain point, that ran its course — I felt like I tried so many things, and I had been away from making stuff for myself. I started making things that were intended for my voice, and to be honest, working on my voice a little bit. I was trying to get better at the different things that I do.”

That process began earlier this year with “In My Head,” Shinoda’s darkly catchy collaboration with Kailee Morgue that was featured in Scream VI, and continues with “Already Over,” which sounds ripe for rock-radio power rotation. Both songs are featured in a new eight-song music pack for the VR rhythm game Beat Saber that was announced on Thursday (Oct. 5), along with Linkin Park classics like “Crawling” and “Numb/Encore” and Shinoda’s hit as Fort Minor, “Remember the Name”; the release makes Linkin Park the first band to receive a second music pack on the platform.

Meanwhile, Shinoda’s official site now features a sci-fi web game that he was involved in creating — “I think it’s gonna be really, really hard!” he says with a laugh — and which may evolve in the coming weeks. “Things like that are what I mean when I’m talking about how this is not just a single release,” he explains. “I’m trying to build out a few other things that are really fun for me to do, that I can do from home.”

That’s part of the calculus as to why “Already Over” is not preceding a proper album release from Shinoda: He’s feeling his creativity sparked in his Los Angeles home studio, and doesn’t feel the urge to stray too far from it. “One of the biggest pros of an album is that it’s a really intense artistic statement, and the con is that it comes and goes really fast — people just move on so fast, so the thing that everybody pairs it with is a tour,” he says. “Well, I don’t know if I want to do an album that comes and goes really fast like that, and I want to stay in the studio and make more stuff. I don’t want to go on tour and leave the studio, and so I had to think of this in a different way, where I can achieve those things.”

More music — and projects that complement that music — is coming, the result of Shinoda’s reinvigorated creative process as a solo artist. Yet he hopes that fans can stay in the moment, and appreciate dynamic songs like “Already Over” as he rolls them out, regardless of how they’re classified in his greater discography.

“I’ve got a few things that I’ll be rolling out over the next few months that I think the fans are going to have a lot of fun with,” he says. “If you can separate yourself from what I or what [other] artists normally do, and just go, ‘Is this fun to listen to?, Is this fun to experience?,’ I think that’s the best headspace to be in to engage with it.”

06 Oct 2023

P!nk’s Surprise Duet With Alanis Morissette, Plus More Rock & Roll Moments at LA’s Summer Carnival Tour Stop

With four No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and 15 top 10s over her 23-year career, P!nk is undeniably a pop superstar. But at Thursday night’s (Oct. 5) Summer Carnival tour stop at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., she made a pretty strong case that she’s a rock star too.

P!nk has been playing stadiums across Europe and North America all summer, bringing along her deep catalog of hits (a 23-song setlist), her bottomless bag of cheeky neon props (lit-up grocery carts, floating bunches of bananas, dancing pairs of lips), and her inimitable stage presence (from her casual between-song banter to casually taking flight above the 70,000-person crowd).

For Thursday night’s show, she put a special emphasis on rock & roll, revealing to the crowd that she would be showcasing “the women of rock” throughout the night, as she announced her first special guest, Alanis Morissette. She would also welcome one of her opening acts, Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, to rejoin her onstage for a duet. And perhaps the third woman of rock was P!nk herself, who effortlessly tucked in covers of Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan among her pop-radio-dominating setlist.

P!nk has three more dates remaining on the Summer Carnival trek: Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium on Saturday, Phoenix’s Chase Field on Monday, and Arlington, Texas’ Globe Life Field on Nov. 26. Warm-up acts Grouplove and DJ KidCutUp will continue for those three dates, with Brandi Carlile returning to the tour in place of Benatar & Giraldo.

Below, find Billboard‘s most rock & roll moments from P!nk’s Summer Carnival tour stop at SoFi Stadium:

06 Oct 2023

Donna Kelce Said She Feels Like She’s in an ‘Alternate Universe’ Hanging With Taylor Swift at Son Travis’ Games

Even though her son, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, recently said that he thinks the NFL is “overdoing it” with their relentless coverage of his alleged romance with Taylor Swift, Trav’s mom is here for it.

In a chat with the Got It From My Momma podcast this week, Donna said the past year has been a wild experience, including Travis winning a second Super Bowl while beating his older brother Jason’s Philadelphia Eagles as well as the past two weeks of hugging and mugging with Swift. “It’s just very surreal. In fact I was just thinking on Sunday, going to both games and everything that has happened within the past 12 months… I feel like I’m in an alternate universe. It’s not the one I grew up in, for sure. So it’s very, very fun, it’s exciting, but also taxing,” she told pod host Jennifer Vickery Smith, noting that there’s nothing a mom likes to do more than brag about her kids.

Donna said she didn’t think anyone knew who she was before the splash of press she got in February when the Kelce boys squared off in the Super Bowl. But the past couple of weeks blew up her profile by an unimaginable magnitude. “It’s something that I’ve never been involved with before,” Donna Kelce said of the red-hot spotlight that has fallen on her again thanks to Swift’s sudden NFL interest, adding that she was given a heads-up that the pop star would be hanging in the suite with her during the past two KC games.

“I think about right now they’re probably saying it’s getting out of control,” she laughed about the screen time she’s garnered over the past two weeks as the cameras have repeatedly swung to the sky box where she was shows laughing with and hugging Swift. Asked about the breathless coverage of the alleged romance, which has reportedly boosted sales of her son’s jerseys by 400% and pushed the Kelce brothers’ New Heights podcast to, well, new ratings heights while driving up tune-in to KC’s games by young female fans, Donna said it’s hilarious.

“All I can tell you is that the NFL is laughing all the way to the bank,” she said about the league’s tripling-down on coverage of the romance that neither Kelce nor Swift have officially confirmed. “You know what I’m saying? Good for them. They’re getting the ramifications of everything. I can tell you this, that they’ve told me personally that the Kelce family has done more good PR for football than they could have paid a $1 million to a PR firm.”

Donna Kelce also shared that she recently got a DM from a dad who told her that he was excited because, he said, “finally my daughter is watching football with me.” And, because even she can’t help herself, when asked how she’s feeling about an upcoming Monday Night Football showdown between the Kelce boys on Nov. 20, Donna cheekily said it will be a “tough game… they’ve obviously met in the Super Bowl and there’s a lot of bad blood.”

See what you made Donna do there?

For the record, Donna’s favorite Taylor song is “Shake It Off,” because “we’re getting a lot of that lately about haters.”

Watch Donna Kelce on Got It From My Momma below.

06 Oct 2023

Cher on Making Her First Holiday Record: ‘I Had No intention of Doing a Christmas Album’: Exclusive

In her six-decade-long career, Cher has done many things, including sell more than 100 million records worldwide, star in a multitude of hit movies, land a No. 1 single on one of Billboard’s charts in each decade from the 1960s through the 2010s and win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and three Golden Globe Awards.

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But on Oct. 20, she’ll accomplish a new first: she’ll release Christmas, her first holiday album. 

“I had no intention of doing a Christmas album,” Cher admits to Billboard with her typical candor. “But [Warner Records] said, ‘Why don’t you do a Christmas album, Cher?’ and I said if I can do my version I’ll do it, and they were very pleasant.”

Doing her version meant staying away from some of the more overdone holiday standards. “Everybody’s gotten ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ and all that,” she says. “I just said to them, ‘There will be Christmas songs and they’ll be appropriate, but I want to do what I feel.’”

“She’s made not just a Christmas album, but an incredible Christmas album that will rival and sit alongside the great Christmas albums of all time,” says Tom Corson, Warner Records co-chairman and COO. As Cher began playing him tracks over the summer, Corson says he felt “excitement and joy and the feeling of Christmas coming six months early. It’s quality from top to bottom.”

Christmas, Cher’s first new studio album in 10 years, features 13 songs, including four originals. Produced by her longtime producer Mark Taylor, the set includes the legend’s interpretations of “Santa Baby,” “Run Rudolph Run” and “Please Come Home For Christmas.”

Additionally, Stevie Wonder joins her for a remake of “What Christmas Means to Me,” which he originally released in 1967; she and Michael Buble´ recreate his 2005 hit, “Home”; Cher and Cyndi Lauper collaborate on “Put a Little Holiday in Your Heart,” Tyga raps (Cher does not) on original “Drop Top Sleigh Ride” and, sentimentally, Cher and Darlene Love reunite for “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” 60 years after a 17-year old Cher made her debut singing backing vocals on the Phil Spector-produced classic. 

Cher christmas

Courtesy Photo

The other originals are upbeat dance twirlers “DJ Play A Christmas Song,” which dropped as the first single at midnight (Oct. 6) and reunites Cher with the famous autotune sound she deployed on “Believe,” and “Angels in the Snow, as well as the bluesy “I Like Christmas.”

“They’re not ‘Christmas Christmas’ songs, OK, they’re just great songs,” Cher says. “And I never say that because I almost never like what I do. But I mean people love it and I’m happy. I’m so particular, but I love the songs and everyone who hears them loves them.”

Her excitement is so great that she volunteers to play “DJ Play a Christmas Song” over the phone during the interview and raves about the song’s co-writer, Sarah Hudson, who also co-wrote “Angels in the Snow” and “Drop Top Sleigh Ride.” 

“I’ve known her father, [songwriter] Mark Hudson, for a million years,” she says. “I didn’t even know she’s a writer. I’ve known her since she was three of four years old, so that was great for me. I’m really thrilled about that.”

She was also thrilled to reunite with Love, with whom she’s stayed in touch all these decades. Love even toured with Cher as a background vocalist on the 1989-1990 Heart of Stone tour. 

In the liner notes, she thanks Love, writing: “Singing with you – ‘one of the greatest singers ever’ – is a special kind of miracle. Just think, I was l7 when I sang background on this song… I’m still so in awe of you!  Now we’ve come full circle.”

Cher called Love out of the blue to suggest the remake. “Very rarely do I get a chance to talk to her on the phone, I usually talk to her in person somewhere when we run into each other,” Love tells Billboard. “And she said, ‘Hey, doll!’ I hadn’t talked to her in so long I said, ‘This is who?’ and she said ‘Cher, b–ch!’” Love says, bursting into laughter. “I was so humbled that she wanted to sing, ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ with me. Between the two of us, I don’t know who was more excited.”

Love recorded her part in New York, singing the song all the way through as lead vocalist and also tracking a version with her singing with backing vocals, and sent it to Taylor. The result is a high-octane duet with both Love and Cher belting out the yearning lyrics. “There are parts in the song when sing together and I’m hitting high notes and she goes right there with me. Cher’s voice has not changed in the smallest bit, it is still so powerful,” Love says. “I think everybody is going to be shocked and surprised because it really came out fantastic. Not that I didn’t think it would, but the song is 60 years old. I’m 82. Cher is [77].”

Warner Bros. is already working on licensing songs from the album for film and TV. “Synch opportunities are at the top of our list. We’re already getting great feedback from places like Hallmark and other networks and other people that really want to include it,” Corson says. “We expect it to be not just for this year, but an annual synch opportunity.”

Christmas won’t be the only release fans get from Cher this year. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Believe, her 1998 album that spawned the huge electro-pop hit of the same name, Warner Records will release a deluxe edition that encompasses three LPs or two CDs on Nov. 3. 

The deluxe edition includes the original album plus 13 remastered remixes including Tee’s Radio One and Ray Roc’s Latin Soul instrumentals of “Dov’e l’Amore” together in one package for the first time. The original album, produced by Taylor, sold more than 11 million copies worldwide, according to the label. The title track, which was Billboard’s No. 1 song of 1999, went to No. 1 in 23 countries. 

Cher concluded her last major tour in 2005 and a Las Vegas residency in 2011, but she has been contemplating playing live again. She says she recently said to Taylor that she’d like to do a concert of her favorite songs. In turn, he suggested a concert for the Christmas album, which she nixed. But when asked if there’s a possibility of another tour, she says, “Well, I don’t know. Look, if I do a concert, there’s gonna be a tour behind it. I’m working really hard right now. I’m training, like, unbelievably. So I’m training and singing at the same time, which is always fun,” she says sarcastically. “So I’m working on it.”

There will be no concert to celebrate the Believe reissue because she says she wouldn’t be ready, but also because her immediate calendar is filled with a project that is sure to delight fans:  “I have another album to do right after this,” she says.

Christmas track listing:

1 DJ Play A Christmas Song
2 What Christmas Means To Me (with Stevie Wonder)
3 Run Rudolph Run   
4 Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) (with Darlene Love)
5 Angels In The Snow
6 Home (with Michael Bublé)
7 Drop Top Sleigh Ride (with Tyga)
8 Please Come Home For Christmas  
9 I Like Christmas 
10 Christmas Ain’t Christmas Without You 
11 Santa Baby   
12 Put A Little Holiday In Your Heart (with Cyndi Lauper)
13 This Will Be Our Year