State Champ Radio Music
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23-year-old street performer Jourdan Blue has found himself an instant national fanbase with his emotional audition for the season 20 premiere of NBC’s America’s Got Talent on Tuesday (May 27).
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Blue’s performance of The Script‘s “Breakeven” was one filled with tears and triumph, with the young father’s story of overcoming adversity and terror adding to the euphoria that accompanied his Golden Buzzer-worthy performance.
Per Blue’s own account, he’s a street performer from New Orleans who spends most of his nights performing into the wee small hours in order to support his girlfriend and young son, Jax.
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“Growing up, my mom was a cop, my dad was a lawyer, so naturally I was a rebel,” he explained to the judges ahead of his performance. “I kind of got myself into some trouble and ended up living with my grandpa and he’s a big music listener and that inspired me to get into it.
“I started street performing in New Orleans because I really wanted to just fully dive into it. As you might remember, at the beginning of the year, there was an attack on New Orleans, right on the exact block where I perform.
“It made me realize that there’s so much more to live for,” he added. “That’s what made me choose AGT. I feel like this is the best way to level up.”
Immediately leveling up with the crowd as he dove into his performance of The Script’s 2008 hit, Blue’s unique voice instantly won over the crowd as it became clear that even the judges were immensely impressed by his rendition.
“I think you are somebody [who] maybe lost their way a little bit, but like you said, through music [you have] now found your way,” explained judge Simon Cowell. “You have such a distinctive voice, you are so cool, and you feed off the audience. They love you and how you made me feel just then was actually amazing.”
“This is season 20,” added fellow judge Howie Mandel. “I’ve seen dreams come true, and I’ve seen lives change right where you’re standing. And that stage and that moment can take you anywhere, and this is just the beginning of where you can go.
“I think you’re a star,” Mandel told Blue after hitting the Golden Buzzer. “I think your name is gonna be on the lips of everybody watching this across the globe.”
Blue was one of two acts to receive the Golden Buzzer on the May 27 episode, with Brazilian dance group Light Wire also receiving the same honor from Cowell.
Watch Blue’s full performance below:
“We’ve been in this room a lot,” says Brandi Cyrus to a packed and cozy room inside Los Angeles’ famed Chateau Marmont.
Tonight, she’s returned – alongside her mom Tish Cyrus and other family and friends, including actress Anya Taylor-Joy – to celebrate the release of her sister Miley’s forthcoming ninth album, Something Beautiful, out Friday (May 30).
Hosted by TikTok for Miley’s superfans, the superstar personally invited those in the room. And while they knew they would be among the first to hear her new album – the event was billed as a listening session – what they didn’t know was that Miley would be performing songs old and new.
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After singing along to already-released tracks including “Something Beautiful,” “End of the World,” “More to Lose” and the much-teased “Easy Lover,” Something Beautiful‘s remaining six songs (not including interludes) earned a variety of first takes. “This is a long one,” said one fan of “Golden Burning Sun.” And of “Pretend You’re God” another said it was reminiscent of “Midnight Sky,” while another questioned if they heard saxophone, though their friend was too busy dancing to answer. Second to last track “Reborn” sounds like it could have existed on Lady Gaga’s Mayhem in another form and closing track “Give Me Love” caused a hush to fall over the crowd. “No skips,” said one fan over applause.
As the room started to realize the album was over, heads slowly craned to the back entrance. “Is she coming?” whispered one fan, wondering if Miley would show. And at promptly 6:59 p.m., she did.
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Joined by dummer Maxx Morando, guitarist Jonathan Rado and pianist Michael Pollack – all of whom co-wrote and or co-produced on the album – Cyrus opened with the ballad “More to Lose.” She then addressed the intimate room: “Playing these nights at Chateau, they were invite-only, super exclusive, just my closest friends and my family and this was the way I discovered the album. Because if it can’t stand up with me [and my band], then what are we even doing?”
“Because for me, I love making music with everybody on this carpet – I don’t do stages now,” she continued with a laugh. “Watching [the album] become this butterfly and have this metamorphosis and evolution, it’s so reflective of my life and everything I’m experiencing.”
Cyrus and her band then delivered the sultry “Easy Lover” followed by her Hot 100 No. 1 smash “Flowers” (“this has been one of the most exciting songs I have gotten to put out into the universe,” she said). And while starting to speak of her journey over the past two decades with her fans, she cautioned, “I’m not singing ‘The Climb,’ but I could…’” – and thankfully, Pollack took that as a green light to begin playing the song on keys. More thankfully, Miley took the bait and soared through a portion of the beloved hit. She then closed her 45-minute set with “End of the World.”
“We really did grow up together,” Miley said. “As we grow, there’s things we gain and things we leave behind – and I’ve never wanted that to be you.”
She then teased that Something Beautiful is “just the appetizer,” revealing, “My next album is about to be extremely experimental, so have fun with that.”
As Brandi said earlier of her sister, “her evolution is always a surprise…I have personally seen the passion and precision she pours into every detail … it’s why everything she does is so sickening.”
“Thank you for being here with our family and close friends in this amazing, special place,” Brandi concluded.
And for longtime Miley fans, it’s not only a special place but a sacred one, too. As Miley mentioned, we’ve all seen the clips online of her performing at the Chateau for a chosen few as she pieced her album together. But tonight, it was her biggest fans who were the chosen ones — and it really was something beautiful.
More than six years on from their last studio record, pioneering Australian hip-hop outfit the Hilltop Hoods have announced their new album, Fall From the Light.
Set for release on Aug. 1 via Island Records/UMA, Fall From the Light is the Hilltop Hoods’ ninth album, and their first since the release of 2019’s The Great Expanse.
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They’ve not been resting on their laurels since the release of their last record, however. In 2020, they released one of the first pandemic-influenced songs by way of “I’m Good?” and would later drop singles such as “Show Business” and “A Whole Day’s Night” in 2022.
More recently, 2025 has brought with it the likes of “The Gift” and “Don’t Happy, Be Worry,” which will appear on Fall From the Light alongside 2023’s “Laced Up.”
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“This album has been an exercise in patience,” explained Suffa (aka Matt Lambert). “Six years is a long time between albums, but there’s a good reason for that. There was a lot happening, in the world and in our lives. But it turns out (from my perspective anyway), that time was the album’s strength, not its weakness.
“We’ve never been so thorough, so pedantic with an album before. The result is something that’s been carefully crafted with an extreme attention to detail. It’s an album that we’re really proud of, and a body of music that we can’t wait to share with everyone.”
“We really took our time with this one,” adds Pressure (aka Daniel Smith). “We put more years into it than any other of our albums because we wanted it to be our best work to date. Putting it out after so long feels more monumental and exciting than ever.”
Hilltop Hoods were formed in the South Australian capital of Adelaide in 1994 by Suffa, Pressure, and DJ Debris (aka Barry Francis), and became one of the first Australian hip-hop acts to receive mainstream success with the release of third album The Calling in 2003.
In 2006, they became the first hip-hop group to reach No. 1 on the ARIA charts thanks to The Hard Road – a feat they have achieved with every subsequent album. That year also saw them become the first Australian group in the genre to be nominated for an ARIA Award, with the trio having since won a total of ten awards from 36 nominations to date.
In 2019, the release of The Great Expanse saw the Hilltop Hoods break the record of most chart-topping albums for an Australian band or group, and would later reach one million record sales in their native country that same year.
The group will celebrate the release of their forthcoming album with their Never Coming Home Tour, which sees the band performing across Europe and the U.K. in the summer. They first toured the U.S. in 2014, later returning in 2019, but have not announced any further North American shows as yet.
Ten years on from the release of his acclaimed seventh album, Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens has offered a surprising re-evaluation of the record.
Originally released in March 2015, Carrie & Lowell was Stevens’ first studio album since 2010’s The Age of Adz, and would ultimately peak at No. 10 on the Billboard 200, while topping the Independent and Folk Albums charts, and hitting No. 2 on the Top Alternative and Rock Albums.
Despite the highs of its success, the record was steeped in sadness and misery, with much of its musical and lyrical content being inspired by the 2012 passing of his estranged mother Carrie, and the relationship with his stepfather, Lowell Brams.
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As part of the record’s anniversary reissue, Stevens has collected a batch of demos to accompany its release, pairing it all with an in-depth essay that sees him ruminating on the album’s recording process and his thoughts behind it all.
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Speaking to NPR ahead of the reissue’s arrival this week, Stevens used the opportunity to share a harsh reassessment of the original album, going so far as to label it “evidence of creative and artistic failure from my vantage point.”
“I was trying to make sense of something that is senseless,” he explained. “I felt that I was being manipulative and self-centered and solipsistic and self-loathing, and that the approach that I had taken to my work, which is to kind of create beauty from chaos, was failing me. It was very frustrating. And for the first time I realized that not everything can be sublimated into art, that some things just remain unsolvable, or insoluble. I think I was really just frustrated by even trying to make sense of the experience of grief through the songs.”
Describing the recording process as “painful, humiliating, and an utter miscarriage of bad intentions” in his essay, Stevens doubles down on his stance, focusing on his mother’s inability to add her own voice into the record’s somewhat voyeuristic narrative.
“I’m kind of embarrassed by this album, to be honest with you,” he explains. “Because I sort of feel like I don’t have any authority over my mother and her life or experience or her death. All I have is speculation and my imagination and my own misery, and in trying to make sense of it all, I kind of felt like it didn’t really resolve anything.”
Continuing his retrospective look back at the record, Stevens is also asked whether he regrets having made the record. “Yeah, I do. I feel bad,” he explains. “It’s just a bummer that my mother’s not alive and can’t speak for herself. What would she say about all this? Maybe she would be proud. I’ll never know.”
The forthcoming anniversary edition of Carrie & Lowell also includes a demo version of the track “Mystery of Love,” of which a studio version would later appear on the soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 film Call Me by Your Name, ultimately scoring a nomination for best original song at the 2018 Academy Awards, and best song written for visual media at the 2019 Grammys.
Legendary rockers Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, master jazz artist Herbie Hancock and conductor/soprano and contemporary classical musician Barbara Hannigan received their Polar Music Prize awards from the hands of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in the Vinterträdgården room of Stockholm’s elegant Grand Hôtel on Tuesday (May 27).
The 500-plus-person audience, made up of Swedish royalty, music industry players (artists, songwriters, publishers, execs and more) and friends and family of the laureates, rose to its feet many times during the six-hour event, as each of the laureates delivered heartfelt speeches. Hannigan thanked her mentors with a special mention for her (five minutes older) twin brother Brian; Hancock spoke of his father’s support for his musical career even though he wanted his son to be an engineer; and May also talked about his late father Harold, who helped him build his original Red Special electric guitar (also known as the “Old Lady”), which May owns to this day.
The event began with a royal ceremony, in the presence of not just the King but several members of Sweden’s Royal Family, followed by a multi-course banquet. The laureates were serenaded during both halves of the Polar Music Prive evening by a number of Swedish and international musicians playing music written by or performed by the three musical icons during their careers.
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Jazz vocalist/bassist Esperanza Spalding and pianist/producer Robert Glasper got an ovation for their rendition of the Hancock composition “Trust Me,” and returned to the stage to perform Hancock’s seminal “Watermelon Man.” Spalding then teamed with Argentinian pianist Leo Genovese for a stunning performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” in honor of Hancock’s 2007 album River: The Joni Letters. That tribute album to Mitchell won the Grammy for album of the year in 2008. The audience did not wait for that performance to end to give it a standing ovation.
Similar ovations showed the attendees’ love for Adam Lambert’s versions of Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever” at the ceremony and “Another One Bites the Dust” at the banquet, as May and Taylor looked on approvingly.
The biggest ovation of the night went to Sweden’s Ghost, who recently topped the Billboard 200 with their album Skeletá. Frontman Tobias Forge donned a golden mask and was accompanied by Swedish heavy metal guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, singing a cappella from a balcony high above the banquet tables, for a tour-de-force on “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
As the evening was coming to a close, Marie Ledin, managing director of the Polar Music Prize and daughter of the award’s founder, ABBA manager Stig “Stikkan” Anderson, received an overwhelming response from the banquet guests as she thanked her father as well as her mother Gudrun, the Royal Family, the laureates and the entire assembled audience.
Ledin spoke about each of the laureates in turn: “Let me begin with Queen – this much-loved band are truly rock royalty! As a big fan myself, I’ve been lucky enough to have seen them in concert several times here in Stockholm. They taught me that music can be bold, dramatic, fascinating and fun.
“Herbie Hancock is a true musical pioneer and one of the most influential musicians of our time. He has taught us that music can challenge us intellectually even as it enriches our soul. Herbie has deservedly earned the admiration of musicians across all genres.
“Barbara Hannigan is a visionary soprano and conductor, and a passionate advocate for contemporary music. With her avant-garde experimentation, she proves that classical music does not have to live in the past, but is a living, breathing art form in itself.”
The 2025 laureates were also honored by the presence of three previous laureates, Max Martin (2016), Anne-Sophie Mutter (2019) and Nile Rodgers (2024).
One more special guest was Anita Dobson, who was in attendance with her husband Brian May. Dobson is having an especially great week, as she has guest starred on every episode of the current season of the BBC’s Doctor Who and will play a large part in the season finale on Saturday (May 31), though she wouldn’t reveal any details about the conclusion of her story arc to Billboard (as she shouldn’t).
The Polar Music Prize was first awarded in 1992, to Paul McCartney and the Baltic States, newly independent from the former Soviet Union. Since then, the prestige of the prize has only grown, with awards going to artists from all over the world. A partial list includes Elton John, Ravi Shankar, Metallica, Ennio Morricone, Led Zeppelin, Renée Fleming, Grandmaster Flash, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Isaac Stern, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Sonny Rollins, Diane Warren, Gilberto Gil, B.B. King, Emmylou Harris, Yo-Yo Ma, Miriam Makeba, Björk, Wayne Shorter, Patti Smith, Dizzy Gillespie, Chris Blackwell, Iggy Pop, Angélique Kidjo, the Kronos Quartet, Youssou N’Dour and Chuck Berry.
Jessie Murph had the ultimate girls night and turned the party up even more inviting Sexyy Red into the fold for the “Blue Strips (Remix).” The hedonistic visual arrived on Tuesday (May 27) as Big Sexyy, Jessie and their girl gang hit the town to indulge on everything the nightlife has to offer. The emerging […]
After collecting multiple hits across Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart and Latin Airplay charts, Beéle makes his first appearance on the albums rankings as Borondo. The Colombian singer-songwriter’s debut set launches on the Top Latin Albums (at No. 10) and Top Latin Rhythm Albums (at No. 4) lists, dated May 31.
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Borondo, a 26-track album, was released May 15 on Hear This Music/5020 Records. The set starts at No. 10 on Top Latin Albums with 11,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the tracking week ending May 22, according to Luminate.
During the tracking week of May 16-22, Borondo‘s debut was driven primarily by streaming activity, with the album’s songs generating 17 million official on-demand streams. Meanwhile, the remainder of the total-week sum came from a minimal contribution of album sales and track-equivalent units. (Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.)
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Further, Borondo’s entrance marks a breakthrough for Puerto Rican indie label Hear This Music—founded by DJ Luian and Mambo Kingz— achieving its first performance and top 10 on any Billboard albums tally since its formation in 2015 (the imprint has earned 20 entries on the Hot Latin Songs chart, including three top 10s).
The set was previewed by one charting song: “Mi Refe,” with Ovy on The Drums, peaked at No. 8 on Latin Rhythm Airplay in April.
Prince Royce, Mora & Sebastian Yatra Achieve Top 10 Success: Elsewhere on the Latin albums charts, three other Latin artists leave a mark this week, starting with Prince Royce, whose album Eterno debuts at No. 3 on the Top Tropical Albums chart, his eighth straight top 10 since the 54-week ruler album Prince Royce in 2010.
Eterno, a collection of 20th century English hits turned-bilingual bachatas, becomes the Hot Shot debut of the week on Top Tropical Albums with 3,000 equivalent album units earned during the tracking week ending May 22. The album’s songs generated 1.9 million official on-demand streams in its first week.
“How Deep Is Your Love” is the only song that previewed the album; it hits new peaks on the overall Latin Airplay (No. 5) and Tropical Airplay (No. 4) charts after a 35% boost in audience impressions, to 7 million.
Puerto Rican Mora secures his fifth top 10 on the Top Latin Rhythm Albums chart with Lo Mismo De Siempre, as the album bows at No. 9 with 7,000 equivalent album units, also largely from streaming activity (9.8 million official on-demand streams in its opening week).
The Rimas-released set, dropped on an off-cycle Sunday, May 18, thus, debuts on the chart with only five days of activity (the chart’s tracking week runs Friday through Thursday).
Lastly, Sebastian Yatra’s Milagro starts at No. 9 on Top Latin Pop Albums with 2,000 equivalent album units. The 17-track album, released May 18 on Universal Music Latino/UMLE, generated 2.3 million official streams during the same period. It becomes Yatra’s fourth top 10 on the tally.
All charts (dated May 31, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow, May 28 (a day later than usual due to the Memorial Day holiday May 26). For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
50 Cent isn’t letting up on his self-appointed coverage of the Diddy trial, and he continues to have fun with AI to help with his trolling. This time around, the Queens rapper and filmmaker reacted on social media to his name being mentioned during Diddy’s ex-assistant Capricorn Clark’s testimony on Tuesday morning (May 27), during […]
SZA is giving props to Tate McRae after she covered “F2F” from SZA’s SOS album. On her Instagram Story Tuesday (May 27), the “Kill Bill” musician reposted a video of the Canadian pop star singing the track during a pre-show soundcheck in Paris. Though the original song finds SZA belting angsty lyrics over head-banging electric […]
Kendrick Lamar writes another winning chapter to his GNX era as the album becomes only the third project with four No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart. The set finds its fourth leader on the chart dated May 31, as “Peekaboo,” featuring AzChike, jumps from No. 4. With the quartet, GNX ties Doja Cat’s Planet Her and SZA’s SOS (inclusive of its standard and deluxe LANA editions) for the most champs in the chart’s 32-year history.
“Peekaboo,” released and promoted through pgLang/Interscope/ICLG, ascends as the most-played song on U.S. panel-contributing rhythmic radio stations in the tracking week of May 16-22, according to Luminate, improving 19% in plays at the format compared with the prior week. Thanks to the surge, “Peekaboo” wins the Greatest Gainer award, given each week to the song with the largest increase in play count.
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The new champ takes over from Drake’s “Nokia,” which ruled the ranking for the last two frames. The Lamar-Drake exchange wraps a photo finish between the two rivals, whose feud ignited into one of the defining pop-culture storylines of 2024. “Nokia” slides to No. 2 with an 8% decrease in plays during the tracking week.
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With “Peekaboo,” Lamar achieves his 11th No. 1 on Rhythmic Airplay, six of which have arrived in the last year. Here’s a review of his radio-ruling collection:
“Humble.,” three weeks at No. 1, beginning June 6, 2017“Loyalty.,” feat. Rihanna; one, Sept. 30, 2017“Love.,” feat. Zacari; one, Dec. 30, 2017“Pray for Me,” with The Weeknd; two, April 18, 2018“Like That,” with Future and Metro Boomin; four, May 18, 2024“Not Like Us,” 12, June 15, 2024“Squabble Up,” two, Jan. 18, 2025“TV Off,” feat. Lefty Gunplay; four, Feb. 8, 2025“Luther,” with SZA, one, March 1, 2025“30 for 30,” with SZA, two, March 8, 2025“Peekaboo,” feat. AzChike, one (to date), May 31, 2025
Featured artist AzChike, meanwhile, captures his first Rhythmic Airplay No. 1 with “Peekaboo,” likewise his first entry on the list.
As mentioned, “Peekaboo” joins “Squabble Up,” “TV Off” and “Luther” for a record-tying four Rhythmic Airplay No. 1s from Lamar’s GNX album. The set matches the counts of:
Doja Cat’s Planet Her – “Kiss Me More” (feat. SZA), “You Right” (with The Weeknd), “Need to Know” and “Woman” in 2021-22
SZA’s SOS – “Kill Bill,” “Snooze,” “Saturn” and “30 for 30” (with Lamar) in 2023-25. The former pair are from the standard SOS, with the latter added through its deluxe LANA edition.
