Music
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Kendrick Lamar’s first GNX visual arrived on Monday (Nov. 25), and the Compton rhymer is repping for his city in the “Squabble Up” video. Interpolating Debbie Deb’s 1984 “When I Hear Music” dance bop, “Squabble Up” has been crowned an early standout from Lamar’s GNX album, and he didn’t waste much time delivering the Calmatic-directed […]
Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” claims a record-equaling 19th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Over the chart’s 66-year history, the song is now tied for the longest reign with Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” (featuring Billy Ray Cyrus), which dominated for 19 weeks in 2019. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” became […]
Gojira may have wowed viewers around the world as red streamers mimicking a torrential downpour of blood rained from the windows of Paris’ Conciergerie palace — where beheaded Marie Antoinettes stood — into the Seine during the band’s performance at the Summer Olympics’ Opening Ceremony, but frontman Joe Duplantier wants fans to take a less sanguineous route for the holidays. And so, the French rocker has partnered with PETA to urge fans to forgo meat and animal products not just when gathering with friends and family, but every day.
“The holidays are the perfect time for people to try out new traditions with their friends and family that leave cruelty behind. It makes sense to celebrate kindness and peace on Earth with a delicious vegan feast that didn’t cost anyone their life,” Duplantier tells Billboard. “When I chose to go plant-based, I thought I would miss all the foods I grew up on, but surprisingly, the transition was painless. A vegan diet brings joy, energy and an unexplainable sense of relief knowing nobody’s getting slaughtered for my food.”
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“Nowadays it’s so easy to switch to a vegan diet with all the meat replacements and different plant-based milks and cheeses,” he notes. “Join the revolution! End the torture!”
Gojira’s Joe Duplantier for PETA
Courtesy of PETA
In an accompanying video for the PETA campaign, the rocker — who has been vegan for 10 years — shares that he chose a cruelty-free diet because of his love for animals. “It’s about the life of the animals and what they go through. But another benefit of being vegan is for your own health,” he explains while discussing the topic in a studio, as the metal band’s “The Trails” plays. “There’s no way eating animals or animal products that are a product of violence can be good for you. I have more energy now when I perform since I became vegan.”
Duplantier also highlights the horrors of the meat industry. “The way we treat animals — animal farms, the factories, the slaughterhouses — is unacceptable,” he declares as clips of the abuse pigs, cows and chickens endure appear. “Even non-vegans, I think, if they would spend a day in a slaughterhouse, they would come out of that vegan.”
“It’s not just an ethical question anymore, but it’s also a question of survival for our species,” he concludes, alluding to the massive amount of resources that goes into factory farming and the damage it does to the planet. “You have to go vegan.”
Watch Duplantier urge fans to try a vegan diet in the video below:
Rosé is less than two weeks from dropping her debut solo album, and the BLACKPINK superstar is adding to the hype by dropping the track list on Monday (Nov. 25). Rosie is set to arrive on December 6 via Atlantic Records/THEBLACKLABEL and features 12 tracks. Among the song titles are “3am,” “Two Years,” “Toxic Till […]
Travis Scott closed out the Circus Maximus Tour on Halloween after more than a year of cross-continental shows. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, the trek grossed $209.3 million and sold 1.7 million tickets over 76 dates.
Those numbers are massive without qualification, but they are monumental in hip-hop. No solo rapper has ever sold that many tickets on one tour. Previously, Jay-Z cracked two million while co-headlining the On the Run II Tour with Beyoncé in 2018. The only other unaccompanied rapper to report more than a million tickets on a single tour is 50 Cent on last year’s The Final Lap Tour (1.1 million), celebrating the 20-year anniversary of Get Rich or Die Tryin.’
Though the Circus Maximus Tour began in arenas, Scott interspersed stadium dates as 2023 rolled into 2024. First, amid 43 arena shows in the U.S. and Canada, he sold out SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. (12 miles from downtown Los Angeles). And while his European leg began indoors, he broke stadiums in London, Koln, and Milan, selling more than 71,000 tickets in the lattermost city.
Stadiums followed in Sao Paulo, Mexico City, New York and across Oceania. The last nine shows of the tour in September and October moved 415,000 tickets, or 24% of the tour’s total attendance, despite accounting for just 12% of the trek’s shows.
Melbourne, Australia, was the biggest stop of Scott’s tour. Two shows on Oct. 22-23 grossed $12.6 million and sold 115,000 tickets.
The scale of the Circus Maximus Tour – stadiums on four continents – is unprecedented in hip-hop. 50 Cent and Nicki Minaj, each of whom cracked $100 million on tours of their own over the last two years, played in North America and Europe. Drake, who has crossed the nine-figure mark multiple times, only played in the U.S. and Canada on It’s All a Blur. The language barrier for a particularly wordy genre could mean that extensive touring in Europe and Latin America is difficult, but Scott’s global hits and onstage spectacle helped translate his show to international audiences.
Even stateside, Scott’s 2023-24 stadium shows are groundbreaking for rappers. Eminem and Jay-Z have played similar venues, but the former toured alongside Rihanna and the latter has done it next to Beyonce and Justin Timberlake. Eminem and Jay-Z did play stadiums together in 2010 during a commercial boom for both, but just two in Detroit and two in New York on The Home & Home Tour.
As a soloist, Eminem played two shows at Detroit’s Ford Field in 2003, plus a show in Hawaii in 2019. He’s also a proven stadium sellout in Australia and New Zealand. 50 Cent has one reported solo stadium show in Sao Paulo.
Scott’s world tour improved upon his previous outing in every conceivable way. Scott sold 53% more tickets per show on The Circus Maximus Tour than on Astroworld: Wish You Were Here in 2018-19 (22,494 vs. 14,692), he played more than 20 more shows (76 vs. 55) and commanded 65% more per ticket ($122.46 vs. $74.43).
In total, the Circus Maximus Tour sold more than twice the tickets of its predecessor (1.7 million vs. 808,000) and grossed more than three times as much ($209.3 million vs. $60.1 million).
The Circus Maximus Tour was in support of Utopia, Scott’s fourth studio album. The set debuted atop the Billboard 200 and stayed there for four weeks, and sent three songs – “Meltdown,” featuring Drake; “FEIN!,” featuring Playboi Carti; and “K-Pop” featuring Bad Bunny and The Weeknd – to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Dating back to a sold-out show at Los Angeles’ The Fonda Theatre ($42,000; 1,200 tickets), Scott has grossed $275.3 million and sold 2.6 million tickets.
Drake made an appearance on Canadian streamer xQc’s livestream on Sunday night (Nov. 24), and the 6 God didn’t hold back on a multitude of topics. At one point in the stream, Steve Lacy’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Bad Habit” was playing, and Drake seemingly shaded the artist. “This guy’s like a fragile […]
Lizzo is the latest star to weigh in on the always heated debate over the top MCs of all-time. In a post on Bluesky on Friday (Nov. 22) the “About Damn Time” singer offered up her top three rappers, in no particular order she said, and the first two on the list happen to be freshly at odds.
Lizzo’s trifecta includes Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar and Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott, a fine roster of world-class mic technicians by any account. The post came just hours after K-Dot shocked the world with the surprise release on Friday of his sixth studio album, GNX. The 12-song R&B-inflected lyrical barrage includes an opening track, “wacced out murals,” which takes on Wayne’s publicly aired frustration over being passed over to perform during the halftime show at next year’s 2025 Super Bowl in his home town of New Orleans.
“Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud/ Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down,” Kendrick raps on the song in reference to Weezy posting a video about how hurt he was about not being tapped to pay the plumb gig at the Caesars Superdome in February.
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“Won the Super Bowl and Nas the only one congratulate me/ All these n—-s agitated, I’m just glad they showin’ they faces,” Lamar continued. Wayne did appear to take kindly to the shout-out, responding on Saturday morning, “Man wtf I do?! I just be chillin & dey still kome 4 my head,” he wrote. “Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep. I beg u all. No one really wants destruction,not even me but I shall destroy if disturbed. On me. Love.”
Lizzo’s list is also interesting because it appears to continue the storyline of the explosive Drake/Kendrick feud, which was kicked off in 2023 with the Drizzy/J. Cole song “First Person Shooter,” on which Cole claimed the “big three” of modern hip-hop are himself, Drake and Lamar. That song set off a flurry of back-and-forth diss tracks between Drake and Lamar earlier this year that culminated with what most consider the final nail: K-Dot’s lacerating “Not Like Us.”
Comments on Lizzo’s Bluesky top three list included many fans rubber stamping the inclusion of Elliott, with one person writing, “Missy is Goated. Like golden statue goated. Like rename her childhood street goated” while another said, “I almost got into a fist fight with someone at a New Year’s Eve party when they said Missy Elliott wasn’t impactful to music.”
Two out of three of Lizzo’s picks made it into the mix for Billboard’s Best Pop Stars of the 21st Century, with Elliott gaining an honorable mention and Lil Wayne grabbing the 21st slot. For the record, Drake took the No. 4 spot while the top two pop icons have not yet been revealed.
Queen Latifah, who was a 2023 Kennedy Center Honors recipient, is set to host the 2024 ceremony, which will be taped on Sunday, Dec. 8, and will air on CBS two weeks later on Dec. 22. It is Latifah’s first time as host. She joins a short list of previous or future Kennedy Center Honorees […]
On Nov. 20, P!nk played the last of 128 shows over the last year and a half. The run was sprawling, from the Summer Carnival Tour, which took place in stadiums, to the Trustfall Tour and P!nk Live, both of which brought her to arenas. Altogether, she earned $693.8 million and sold more than 4.8 million tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. One of her many box office achievements is recent: The nine shows she played in October make her the biggest touring act of the month.
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Across nine shows between Oct. 1-18, P!nk grossed $44.2 million and sold 254,000 tickets, putting her at No. 1 on Billboard’s monthly Top Tours chart. That haul includes four stadium dates, including an Oct. 3 show at MetLife Stadium ($9.1 million; 60,400 tickets), and three arena stops, including double-headers at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena and St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.
Another nine shows in November make P!nk eligible for one last monthly chart in 2024, when the November report is published next month.
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When separated by tour, P!nk’s 2023-24 run breaks down to $584.7 million for the Summer Carnival Tour, $60.8 million for last year’s Trustfall Tour and $48.3 million for this fall’s Live 2024 run. Since launching last June, Luis Miguel is the only musician who has played more shows.
The Summer Carnival is the second-highest grossing tour in history among women, accounting for Billboard’s billion-dollar-plus estimate for Taylor Swift’s as-yet-unreported The Eras Tour. P!nk narrowly passes Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour, which grossed $579.8 million last year during a comparatively brief 56-show sweep. Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008-09) and P!nk’s own Beautiful Trauma World Tour (2018-19) follow next, hovering on opposite sides of the $400 million threshold.
Among all artists, and including estimates for Swift, The Summer Carnival Tour ranks eighth in revenue, and just outside the top 10 based on attendance.
The Summer Carnival Tour spanned five legs – each of which grossed at least $100 million – across three continents. The biggest was a 22-show run in North America, bringing in $150.7 million from July to October of 2023. Ultimately, the U.S. and Canada delivered $266 million, Europe accounted for about $214 million and 20 shows in Oceania added $104.3 million.
Travis Scott follows on October’s Top Tours chart, scoring the highest monthly rank for a rap artist since returning from the pandemic shutdown. He grossed $41.2 million and sold 352,000 tickets on the final dates of the Circus Maximus Tour.
Scott kicked off the month with an Oct. 9 show at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (13 miles from New York City), bringing in $8.7 million from 61,700 tickets sold. That’s $400,000 less, but 1,300 more tickets than stats for P!nk’s October show at the same venue.
He then brought his world tour to three cities in Australia, plus a closing-night performance in Auckland, New Zealand. The Oceania leg grossed $32.5 million and sold 291,000 tickets, which is slightly more than half of the European leg (June-August), but more than double the Latin American run from September.
Usher is next at No. 3, with $36.6 million for Usher: Past Present Future. Since kicking off on Aug. 20, the tour has earned $90.6 million. With North American shows scheduled through mid-December and a European leg in the spring, it’s likely to close in on $150 million.
Future tourmates Post Malone and Jelly Roll round out the top 5 at Nos. 4 and 5, respectively. Last week, Post announced The Big Ass Stadium Tour with Jelly Roll as direct support, which will bring both acts to – you guessed it, stadiums – for the first time in their careers. Combined, they’ve brought in over $130 million this year, but they’ll head closer to $200 million in 2025.
And just outside the top five, Sabrina Carpenter makes her Top Tours debut at No. 6. The first handful of dates from the Short n’ Sweet Tour left her just outside the top 30 in September, but a full slate of shows lifts her into the top 10 for October, with a full gross of $27.8 million from 221,000 tickets sold. The first leg wrapped up on Nov. 18 at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., and 14 shows are set for March throughout Europe.
Melbourne, Australia’s Marvel Stadium the month’s top-grossing concert venue, thanks to a trio of double-headers. On Oct. 5-6, The Weeknd sold 92,100 tickets and earned $12.5 million. A couple weeks later, Travis Scott played on Oct. 21-22, upping the ante to 115,000 tickets and $12.6 million. And on Oct. 30-31, Coldplay played the first two shows of a four-night run, bringing in $14.4 million from 115,000 tickets. All three are among the top five on Top Boxscores.
Madison Square Garden returns to the summit among indoor venues, grossing $23.4 million from 13 shows in October. That includes a Halloween show by Duran Duran, a farewell performance from Cyndi Lauper (Oct. 30), and a get-out-the-vote concert from Stevie Wonder (Sept. 10).
MSG’s banner month pushes its Las Vegas sister-venue Sphere back to No. 2, supported by just four shows of Eagles’ residency. Those dates grossed $18.9 million, adding to the $23.2 million in September.
A quartet of American venues top the smaller-capacity rankings. Austin’s Moody Center is tops among rooms with a cap of 10,001-15k, Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colo., Is No. 1 on the 5,001-10k chart, Atlanta’s Fox Theatre rules the 2,501-5k tally, and Grand Rapids, Mich., wins gold on the 2,500-or-less survey via DeVos Performance Hall.
In this week’s crop of new music, Randy Houser and Miranda Lambert team for a solidly country tune about time and desire, while Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown reunite for a steamy pop-country track. Elsewhere, LANCO teams with Cory Asbury on a tender song about parenthood, Hudson Westbrook issues his self-titled EP, Kashus Culpepper dips his commanding voice into ultra-soulful territory, and Kameron Marlowe offers his own spin on a previous hit for singer-songwriter Cam.
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of the best country releases of the week below.
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Randy Houser feat. Miranda Lambert, “Still That Cowboy”
Randy Houser welcomes Miranda Lambert for this duet, featuring on Houser’s upcoming Note to Self Deluxe album, out in January. Mississippi-born Houser’s rugged voice crackles with power, enough to make most male country vocalists envious, and he smartly teams with Lambert, possessor of one of the genre’s most distinctively country voices. Written by Houser with Josh Hoge and Matt Rogers, this sultry slow-jam finds Houser singing about the hope that time, age, and new life phases haven’t dampened his lover’s desire. Lambert’s smooth twang adds a reassuring harmony that further elevates this top-shelf track.
Kashus Culpepper, “Pour Me Out”
This Navy veteran and Big Loud Records artist decamped to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record this righteously bluesy outing, where the angst in his gravelly voice is heightened by the song’s poetic simplicity in relating bitter romantic realization on lyrics such as “If you don’t wanna drink me baby, Don’t sip me baby/ Just pour me out.” As with his previous releases including “After Me?,” Culpepper’s masterful vocal is undeniable. He wrote “Pour Me Out” with Ben Burgess and Diego Urias.
Hudson Westbrook, Hudson Westbrook
Texan singer-songwriter Westbrook has surged into country music’s modern-day mainstream thanks to songs including “5 to 9.” His seven-song, self-titled EP is a succinct but solid collection, featuring the smoldering heartbreaker “House Again,” and the fiddle-laden, romantic throwback “5 to 9,” while he willingly trades the mellowing effects of alcohol for the thrilling feel of being with his new love in “Dopamine.” Westbrook’s voice is a blend of grit, twang and Lone Star State confidence, and he’s a co-writer on many of his songs. This is a very promising start for Westbrook.
Kane Brown & Katelyn Brown, “Body Talk”
This married couple previously earned a No. 1 Billboard Country Airplay hit in 2023 with the swirling, pop-inflected and gratitude-filled “Thank God.” They return with another pop-heavy groove on this sensuous, dance-worthy track that further evinces that Katelyn’s airy, velvety vocal is a standout, and when paired with Kane’s vocal, brings out the grittier, sultrier notes in his voice. This song leans decidedly more pop than country, but brings out the best in both vocalists. “Body Talk” will be featured on Kane Brown’s upcoming album The High Road.
LANCO and Cory Asbury, “We Grew Up Together”
Country group LANCO teams with Contemporary Christian artist Cory Asbury for this tender, self-reflective pondering on how both parents and children undergo seasons of growth over the years. “You ain’t the only one who’s gonna make mistakes,” LANCO’s Brandon Lancaster sings, offering the perspective of a father singing to a child. The song was written by Asbury along with LANCO’s Brandon Lancaster, Chandler Baldwin, Tripp Howell, and Jared Hampton. “We Grew Up Together” is from LANCO’s upcoming album We’re Gonna Make It, set for January.
Kameron Marlowe, “Burning House”
Kameron Marlowe puts his own sultry spin here on Cam’s near-decade old hit “Burning House.” The pared-back production and understated, polished instrumentation provide a lush vessel for Marlowe’s pain-filled, octave-leaping voice. Marlowe’s earned a smattering of chart placements with songs such “Burn ‘Em All” and the Ella Langley duet “Strangers,” but this dynamic ballad places his captivating voice front and center.