State Champ Radio Music
Page: 273
In today’s crop of new music, Megan Moroney and Kenny Chesney team up on a song celebrating their time spent on Chesney’s Sun Goes Down Tour last year. Meanwhile, Dierks Bentley previews his upcoming Broken Branches album with a new release. Julie Williams pays homage to those who have uplifted and inspired her, while roots music luminaries Leftover Salmon and I’m With Her also offer new music.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Kenny Chesney and Megan Moroney, “You Had to Be There”
Trending on Billboard
On this breezy, jaunty summer tune, Moroney reminisces on a summer filled with music and magic, first as a fan soaking in music from the nosebleed seats, then as an artist. She chronicles her journey from attending a Chesney concert in Atlanta seven years ago, to being an opener on his 2024 tour. Chesney joins on the second verse, his warm, conversational voice offering advice on lines including “Keep your heart on your sleeve and your chin held high.” The song has a classic Chesney feel and serves as an excellent vehicle for their intertwined voices.
Dierks Bentley, “Standing in the Sun”
Dierks Bentley offers another preview of his upcoming album Broken Branches (out June 13). His latest song, written by Kyle Sturrock, compares life’s hardships to hurricanes and freezing snows, but maintains that his lover’s affections are life-refreshing, noting that “noise dies down and life slows up” when he’s with the one he loves. Gently rippling guitars and a laid-back tone echo the song’s sentiments.
Julie Williams, “The Women Who Made Me”
Williams, known for her work on her 2024 EP Tennessee Moon and her 2023 self-titled project, offers up a new song dedicated to confident, resilient women. Jangly guitars and serene fiddlework lace with Williams’ honeyed vocal as she pays tribute not only her mother, but also the influence of many of country music’s female greats. She namechecks songs including The Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces,” Trisha Yearwood’s “XXXs and OOOs” and Sara Evans’s “Born to Fly,” and celebrates the strength and wisdom of her mother, who “carried a heavy load/ Never let on,” and taught her to lean into music as a solace.
Leftover Salmon feat. Sam Bush and Del McCoury, “Let’s Party About It”
Venerated jam band Leftover Salmon has been known for its latticework of country, bluegrass, jazz and rock for more than three decades, and on the new LP, Let’s Party About It (which released May 9 on Compass Records), it’s clear the group has no intention of pausing its eclectic, free-wheeling brand of music and dedication to top-shelf musicianship. The project’s title track further spotlights Leftover Salmon’s communal approach to music-making, and highlights Dave Matthews Band’s Jeff Coffin on soprano saxophone, as well as Sam Bush on fiddle. The rollicking tune pulls listeners in with its lively spirit and urges them that is better spent united in partying rather than in harmful division.
I’m With Her, “Wild and Clear and Blue”
This celebrated trio of Sarah Jarosz, Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan released their first collaborative album as I’m With Her in 2018, with See You Around. They return with a new release via Rounder Records. On the project’s title track, backed by a mesh of violin, guitar, piano and mandolin, they reminisce about childhood moments spent soaking in music that played in their mothers’ cars, finding a gem of an album in dusty record bins, and how those moments spurred their musical passions and have stayed with them as the years have passed. Their shimmering harmonies are tightly woven purity, giving the song’s nostalgic message ample space to take center stage. The project marks a glorious return for this talented trio.
The 2025 senior class of Northeastern University is moving up in the world, but not before getting a proper sendoff from Cardi B, ROSÉ and Ed Sheeran at their commencement ceremony on Sunday (May 11).
As captured in clips filmed by this year’s graduates of the private Boston institution, the three musical superstars all appeared in a pre-taped montage that played on the screens at Fenway Park to congratulate the students on their shared achievement. Waving at the camera as the crowd erupted with surprised cheers, the “Bodak Yellow” rapper said in the video, “I hope whatever you studied for and worked for, it pays off.”
“I hope you guys now enjoy the real world, because college and the real world is very different,” Cardi added, smiling.
Trending on Billboard
For her part, the BLACKPINK star told the graduates, “Wishing everyone the best as you guys start this next chapter,” while Sheeran said, “Congratulations, I hope everyone’s having a good time there.”
All three of the stars are signed to Atlantic Records, whose CEO, Elliot Grainge, delivered this year’s commencement address at the ceremony. A Northeastern alum, the label boss told the class of 2025 that they represent, “a future we haven’t seen, a future we can’t fully imagine, and won’t truly understand, until you build it,” according to Northeastern Global News.
“Each and every one of you were raised on speed, technology and constant evolution,” he added from the podium. “You’ll shape culture, technology, business and politics in ways we can’t yet fathom.”
Grainge is just one of many high-profile music industry figures speaking at graduation ceremonies this year. As previously announced, Usher will deliver the address at Emory University’s commencement on Monday (May 12), while Snoop Dogg is set to do the honors at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business celebration on May 17.
Maggie Rogers also recently shared that she’ll be speaking at the May 16 commencement ceremony for her alma mater, New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Their video appearance at Northeastern’s commencement comes as both ROSÉ and Sheeran are gearing up for the release of Atlantic’s F1 film soundtrack, on which they will appear alongside Tate McRae, RAYE, Burna Boy, Roddy Rich, Dom Dolla, Chris Stapleton, Tiësto, Sexyy Red and more. The K-pop performer’s single for the project, “Messy,” dropped Friday (May 8).
Cardi has long been working on her highly anticipated sophomore album, about which she recently gave fans an update. Revealing that the LP has been slowed by its featured artists delaying their contributions, the “WAP” musician said on X Spaces, “I need y’all to hurry up.”
T-Pain has unearthed some super-rare footage on par with digging up the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant. The Florida singer found video of the exact moment in 2008 when he decided to rhyme “mansion” with “Wisconsin” while he was in the booth recording his hit song “Can’t Believe It” featuring Lil Wayne, […]
Kid Cudi has a story to tell. While fans await the follow-up to 2024’s Insano (Nitro Mega) album, Cudder announced on Sunday (May 11) that he’s prepping his autobiography, Cudi the Memoir, which is due out on August 5.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“I cannot wait for u guys to read it. Its filled w so much about my journey from my first memory to turning 40. Life lessons, the rager period of my life, and fighting my demons,” he wrote on Instagram alongside the apparent cover of the volume, which features a painting of a cartoon face with a wide-open mouth.
Trending on Billboard
“All the way to the present, where happiness has found me. I hope this book does what my music does for u and gives u guidance and hope that u will make it through those difficult times. AND, this is my debut of my artwork!” he added. “I hope u guys like the vibes. There will be more pictures of my paintings in the book, as well as pictures from childhood all the way to my years in the business and all the things I’ve accomplished. Get ready, you’ll all understand me a lot more after this. LOVE YALL MAN!!”
Publisher Simon & Schuster calls the book “raw” and “fearless,” saying, “Cudi: The Memoir is Scott Mescudi’s most personal work yet. Across a trailblazing career, he’s turned pain into poetry with anthems like ‘Day ’N’ Nite,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ and ‘Mr. Rager,’” in a description. “His music gave voice to the unheard and hope to the unseen. But while he was ascending to cultural dominance, he was quietly unraveling. Written during a time of deep self-discovery, Cudi is a story of survival—through depression, addiction, isolation, and doubt. In his own words, Scott charts the journey back to himself, offering hard-earned lessons on vulnerability, reinvention, and the courage to keep going.”
Because he always has a ton of irons in the fire, Cudi shared a cryptic teaser last week for his upcoming “Neverland” single, which is out now. After earlier claiming that the original 2024 Insano album would be his last, he also noted over the weekend that the song will appear on his upcoming FREE album.
In addition to the single and memoir, Cudi wrote that he’s directing and starring in his first feature film in 2026 based on a story he came up with himself. He described When the Light Dies as a “horror/romance film. Ive been wanting to direct movies ever since I was a kid, and im finally stepping into this new chapter,” he wrote.
The post teased his directing Instagram page, where he promised to bring fans “on the journey. Ive been doing test shoots, trying diff lighting techniques and trying diff lenses, and I wanna give u guys access to my mind. Who’s joining the journey?” At press time the link to the directing Insta was not active, with Cudi noting in comments that he was working on getting it “restored” on Monday (May 12) after the service reportedly thought it was hosted by “someone tryna be me.”
Check out the memoir announcement below.
This summer, a number of DJs will be taking the phrase “raise the roof” literally. As announced Monday (May 12), Tao Group Hospitality is partnering with the Edge at Hudson Yards — aka the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere — to install a pop-up nightclub 1,100 feet in the air, setting up […]
Disturbed singer David Draiman is down with the nuptials. The 52-year-old hard rock singer popped the question to girlfriend model Sarah Uli during a surprise moment at his band’s Disturbed: The Sickness 25th anniversary concert in Sacramento, CA on Friday night (May 9). During the show at the Golden 1 Center honoring the band’s landmark […]
It was the quick exit heard ’round the world. Back on March 29 when he was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, Morgan Wallen famously beat what some saw as a hasty retreat from the stage during the traditional end-of-show credit segment where the week’s guest and the cast hang out trading hugs and goodbyes.
After performing two songs on the Mikey Madison-hosted episode, Wallen briefly joined the cast on stage at the end of the episode, then abruptly walked off, sharing a photo on his Instagram Stories a short time later from his private plane with the caption, “Get me to God’s country” over the image of a runway; he later capitalized on the controversy by selling “Get Me to God’s Country” merch.
A week later, the show had some fun with the incident in a cold-open bit in which James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump took a shot at Wallen while discussing the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. “I even put tariffs on an island uninhabited by humans. It’s called Heard and McDonald Island,” Johnson’s Trump said, holding a poster featuring a hula skirt-wearing hamburger. “I would love to visit there. Can you imagine that? Big Mac and a hula skirt. Get me to God’s country, right? Remember that?”
Trending on Billboard
On Sunday (May 11), Wallen appeared on comedian Caleb Pressley’s podcast and the host, in a bid to show how normal the country star is noted that Wallen still cuts his own grass and takes out his trash. “Not true,” Wallen smiled. Teasing out the joke, Pressley asked if former landscaper Wallen is good around the house fixing stuff.
“Could you fix a TV, if it was on SNL?,” Pressley asked. Wallen laughed and said, “I could change it for sure.”
“Seriously, SNL, did they make you mad?” Pressley pressed, as the camera zoomed in faux dramatically. “No, no, I was just ready to go home. I been there all week.”
While Wallen seems to have had his fill, SNL wasn’t done with the jokes. During that same April 5 episode, Weekend Update’s Colin Jost poked fun at the singer in a bit about the economy. “This was the worst week for the stock market since the summer of 2020. But you have to remember — back then, the president was also Trump,” Jost said. “Just in the past two days, investors have lost over $6 trillion. Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at goodnights.”
Long-time cast member Kenan Thompson also had thoughts about it, saying the Wallen quickstep was unusual at best. “We’re so used to everybody just turning around and high-fiving us, everybody’s saying, ‘Good job, good job, good job.’ So when there’s a departure from that, it’s like, hmm, I wonder what that’s about?” Thompson said, noting that Prince had pulled a similar move during his appearance on the show years ago.
“I’m not saying Morgan Wallen is Prince, but we weren’t surprised because Prince was notoriously kind of standoffish,” Thompson said. “It’s just how he was. So we just thought like, ‘Okay, now he’s gone back into fantasyland.”
Wallen’s upcoming 37-track album, I’m the Problem, is due out on Friday (May 16).
Watch Wallen on Sundae Conversation with Caleb Pressley below.
Pearl Jam have released a new four-track collection of songs connected to The Last of Us franchise, tying together their long-running relationship with the acclaimed video game series and its HBO adaptation.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The EP includes studio cuts, a live performance, and a reworked fan favorite, and arrives with an exclusive vinyl edition available only to Ten Club members.
The tracklist features the original studio version of “Future Days” from 2013’s Lightning Bolt, as well as “All or None” from Riot Act (2002). On the flip side of the vinyl pressing, fans will find a new live version of “Future Days,” recorded at the 2024 Ohana Festival, and a reimagined take on No Code’s “Present Tense,” titled “Present Tense (Redux).”
Trending on Billboard
“Future Days” has become deeply embedded in the lore of The Last of Us. In The Last of Us Part II, Joel plays the song for Ellie in one of the game’s most emotional scenes, and it reappears throughout the storyline as a symbol of connection and loss.
That moment was first brought to life outside the game in 2020, when Eddie Vedder performed “Future Days” live at The Game Awards as a tribute to the game’s impact.
In season two of HBO’s The Last of Us, the song makes a quiet return. In episode five, Ellie picks up a guitar inside a Seattle theater and softly sings the first line of “Future Days,” the moment mirroring a pivotal scene from the video game The Last of Us Part II, where Joel plays the full song for Ellie in a flashback.
The compilation is available now on all major streaming platforms. A limited edition 12-inch vinyl version has also been released through Pearl Jam’s official site, but is exclusive to registered members of The Ten Club.
This release lands in the middle of Pearl Jam’s 2025 global tour in support of their twelfth studio album Dark Matter, which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The band’s current run includes appearances across North America and Europe, and has already featured standout moments, including a performance of “Black” in Nashville with Peter Frampton.
When Metallica hit the stage at Lane Stadium on May 7, it wasn’t just another stadium show, it became a scientifically confirmed minor seismic event.
As the opening chords of “Enter Sandman” rang out at the show, more than 60,000 fans jumped together, creating enough force to register ground movement. The Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory, located a mile away, detected tremors during the set and later confirmed that the crowd had, quite literally, shaken the earth.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“Metallica saved ‘Enter Sandman’ for the final song of the night. It did not disappoint, shaking Lane Stadium so hard it registered on the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory’s helicorder. Nothing compares to experiencing it live, but this multi-camera video shared by the band comes pretty close,” Virginia Tech’s website reported.
Trending on Billboard
While the tremors posed no danger to the public, the moment quickly earned the nickname “Metallica Quake” across social media. According to the FOX Forecast Center, the seismic activity was too minor to be rated on the Richter scale.
“The magnitude would have been less than 1.0,” said Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory research associate Martin Chapman. “Too small to be felt even a mile away.”
For locals, the track holds deeper meaning. “Enter Sandman” has soundtracked Virginia Tech Hokies football team entrances for years, blasting through the stadium speakers to fire up the crowd.
Virginia Tech Athletics shared the moment online, saying, “Thanks for jumping with us, Metallica! Come back anytime.”
The concert was part of Metallica’s M72 World Tour, which supports their eleventh studio album 72 Seasons. The tour features two-night stops in each city, with no repeated songs across either set. Support acts on this leg include Pantera, Limp Bizkit, Suicidal Tendencies, and Ice Nine Kills.
72 Seasons debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 following its release in April 2023. The set debuted with 146,000 units earned, achieving the largest week by units for any rock or hard rock album in over three-and-a-half years. It also marked the band’s 12th top 10 charting album, of which nine have reached the top two. 72 Seasons also marked the band’s first original album in seven years.
Last month, Metallica also dropped the first trailer for their upcoming fan-focused documentary, Metallica Saved My Life, directed by the band’s longtime collaborator, Grammy-winner Jonas Åkerlund, which will be screened in select cities on the band’s ongoing M72 world tour.
In a statement on April 8, the group wrote, “As a few of you may know, we’ve been working behind the scenes the last couple of years on a new film that will be released later this year starring you guys! Metallica Saved My Life explores our world through the lives of fans who have supported each other through highs, lows, trials and triumphs for over four decades. And yeah, we’re in it a little bit too.”
As Northern Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap face controversy for their overt support of Palestine, so too has Irish post-punk group The Murder Capital, who have seen two German shows cancelled due to their display of the Palestinian flag onstage.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The group were scheduled to perform at Berlin venue Gretchen on Saturday (May 10), though the event was reportedly cancelled after discussions with the band about their habit of flying the Palestinian flag onstage during their live performances.
In response to the cancellation, The Murder Capital offered a spoken statement from outside the venue while holding the Palestinian flag. “We pulled into Berlin this morning. We had no idea that we weren’t allowed to fly this flag here today,” they explained.
Trending on Billboard
“We discussed it for an hour at length, what we should do. We came to the decision that we were not going to take the flag off the stage,” they continued. “That was a decision pretty easily made, but we discussed possible outcomes; ‘What if they decide to cancel the show?’”
According to the band, after deciding to go ahead with displaying the flag onstage, they were told they could not do so, nor could they replace the flag with a banner that read “Free Palestine.”
“It’s not just about national flags. It’s about political statements,” they continued. “And to us this isn’t just a political statement, it’s a humanitarian statement. We’ve been saying that in interviews for the whole time that we’ve been speaking about it as people. It’s not all about politics, it’s about people who are dying and being slaughtered every day, and that’s happening right now.
“So, for us as a band, Who’s had this flag on their stage for countless shows now. It would be the wrong thing for us to do to take it off the stage just so that the venue is kept happy. We don’t agree with that. We don’t agree. We spoke earlier today about this, about how we wish live music and art and theater could be free of political discussion and things like that, but as the world as it is, unfortunately it just cannot be.
“That’s the way it is, so we’ll be back to you as soon as we can,” they concluded. “We appreciate all your support deeply. But most importantly, free Palestine.”
Germany upholds strict laws in regard to antisemitism, with The Hollywood Reporter having noted that last year’s edition of the Berlin Film Festival urged attendees to wear clothes or symbols showing solidarity with Palestine, but urged caution in regard to the usage of certain language for fear that it may fall into the category of language considered prohibited hate speech.
In response to the cancellation of their show, The Murder Capital instead performed an acoustic set outside of Berlin venue Obentrautstraße 19.
The band had intended to again fly the Palestinian flag at their subsequent show in Cologne on Sunday (May 11), though they later confirmed the gig at Gebäude 9 was similarly cancelled, with an acoustic performance at Rheinpark taking place instead.
“We arrived into Cologne this morning hoping that what happened in Berlin yesterday would be an isolated incident, but tonight’s venue Gebäude 9 has also told us that we cannot have the Palestinian flag on our stage,” the band explained in a video shared to social media.
“The Palestinian flag itself needs to be on our stage and needs to be as visible everywhere in the world as possible,” they added. “These people are being eradicated, being starved, being bombed, and these war crimes and this genocide is being committed by the Israeli state and funded and supported by governments around the world.
“Us having a flag on our stage at a rock show is not a political statement. It is a human reaction to a horrific and unimaginable situation. But this is not history, it is happening right now today.”
The Murder Capital’s cancelled German performances aren’t an isolated incident. In April, fresh from the controversy surrounding the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel sentiments projected during their Coachella set, Kneecap were removed from the lineup of the Hurricane and Southside festivals in June, with their headline dates in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg for September soon being axed as well.
