State Champ Radio Music
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John Legend is marking the 20th anniversary of his debut album Get Lifted and recently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to reflect on his journey.
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During the interview, Legend reminisced about one of his earliest experiences in the music industry—meeting Lauryn Hill and earning his first-ever recording credit on her groundbreaking album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
“So the first time I met Lauryn Hill, I was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, so I was going to school there, and I used to play at this church up in Scranton. So Scranton’s a couple hours north of Philly, and I would drive up there every weekend. And one of my choir members’ name was Tara Michel, and she went to high school with Lauryn Hill,” Legend recalled.
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“And The Score had already been a huge success for the Fugees and ‘Killing Me Softly.’ And everybody was wondering when Lauryn’s going to go solo. And she was working on her solo album, and Tara was like, ‘Johnny, come to Jersey with me, and we’re going to meet Lauryn Hill. She’s working on her solo album.’ And so they’re working on the album, and I get on the piano just to show her what I could do.”
“It was like a mini audition,” Legend continued. “I was nervous, but, you know, I did my thing. I sang a little Stevie Wonder, sang an original song, too, and then she was like, ‘Why don’t you play piano on this song I’m working on now?’ And it was ‘Everything Is Everything’ from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
Legend reflected on the significance of the moment, noting, “That was my first credit on any album. And it was, you know, one of the greatest albums of all time.”
At the time, Legend was still credited under his birth name, John R. Stephens. “I didn’t know if the song was going to make the album. I didn’t know if my parts were going to make the album. And so I was just waiting to find out, and I get a call from A&R at Columbia Records, which is where Lauryn signed, and they asked me how to spell my name for the album credits,” he said.
“I was like, ‘Oh, okay, you want to know how to spell my name?’ So I was like… John R. Stephens. John R. Stephens—S-T-E-P-H-E-N-S. And I was like, in retrospect, that was not a great stage name to, like, put on the album credits.”
Reflecting on his current stage name, he added, “John Legend’s a lot better. I didn’t become John Legend for a while. But I was John R. Stephens on Track 13 of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.”
Beyond reminiscing about his past, Legend looked ahead to the future, announcing his Get Lifted 20th Anniversary World Tour, which is set to kick off on May 27 in Glasgow, U.K.
The tour will cover more than 40 cities across the U.K., Europe, and North America, including stops at The O2 in London, Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam, Accor Arena in Paris, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and Barclays Center in New York, before wrapping up on December 9 in Oakland, California.
To commemorate the anniversary, Legend also revealed plans for a deluxe edition of Get Lifted, which will include remixes and unreleased tracks from the era. The album, originally released in 2004, featured hits like “Ordinary People,” “Used to Love U,” and “So High,” and helped establish Legend as a major force in R&B and soul music.
In 2024, Billie Eilish explained that her Hit Me Hard and Soft album was set to be her most eco-friendly release to date.
While a number of vinyl variants were still released out into the world, each were produced by using recycled materials, including a 100% recycled black vinyl edition, and seven colored vinyl versions being made from ECO-MIX or BioVinyl.
Though Eilish would also criticize the “wasteful” practice of “some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages” for fans to purchase, the other side of the vinyl equation comes about when the topic of disposing of music is raised.
Sales of physical media remain strong in the streaming age, and though consumption as a whole has largely shifted to the digital format, the question of how to ethically get rid of music is one that is as pertinent as ever.
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That’s why U.K. music manufacturer Key Production Group has now launched the full roll-out of its plans to ensure vinyl and CDs are disposed of in an environmentally-responsible way.
The U.K. company initially launched their Key Production Recycling efforts in early 2020, only for progress to be stunted by the then-burgeoning global pandemic. Fast forward to 2025, and it’s been kick-started once again, launched just in time for Global Recycling Day on March 18.
Partially inspired by the ongoing vinyl boom and the question of what to do with unplayable media once it goes beyond its usefulness, retail stores such as Rough Trade have also joined in with the scheme in an effort to find a sustainable option for disposing of unsold or unplayable stock.
According to Key Production, those with unwanted vinyl or CDs – regardless of size, packaging, or condition – are able to send their items directly to the organization who will then recycle them depending on the materials.
While vinyl records and CDs are made of different plastic compounds – polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for the former and optical grade polycarbonate for the latter – their materials are then reused as opposed to spending hundreds of years in landfills. For vinyl materials, this can see albums being repurposed once again as PVC, to be used in the composition of future vinyl records, or to be utilized in building and road construction. For CDs, polycarbonate can be reused for the likes of automotive parts or electronic devices.
“We believe vinyl and CDs should be cherished and if looked after well will last a lifetime,” Key Production notes on their website. “However, should you find that you have damaged items that you would like to recycle then that can be facilitated, distributors will usually have a responsible recycling scheme of their own so if you work with one do check with them. Alternatively we can take records and CDs for recycling where we can guarantee that every element of a product is being recycled responsibly.”
“Sustainability is a vital part of our identity here at Key Production Group and the idea to develop Key Production Recycling was born from our commitment to understanding and managing the lifecycle of physical music products, prompting us to ask: what happens when they can no longer be used,” explained Key Production’s Strategy and Sustainability Director, John Service.
“We are so excited to be working with labels and record stores across the country and allow the public to utilise something that is so beneficial in extending a product’s lifespan.”
“Being able to provide a solution that’s not only sustainable but that will also have a positive impact on the life cycle of a product is really important to us at Rough Trade,” added Rough Trade Managing Director, Lawrence Montgomery. “Key Production Recycling is and will continue to be beneficial for us at Rough Trade and our facilities and we’re lucky to be able to use this great system!”
Full details of Key Production Group’s Recycling scheme are available on their website.
Matty Matheson, the Canadian chef and actor known for his role on FX Series The Bear, has turned his attention to the world of music, announcing new hardcore band Pig Pen.
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The new outfit was detailed by Matheson via social media on Tuesday (March 18), explaining that the project’s origins can be traced back a few years. “A few old friends got together a couple years ago and wrote and recorded 10 songs over 2 days,” Matheson wrote. “We just wanted to hangout and see what’s up. This is our band. We are Pig Pen.”
Despite not having a particularly well-known musical history, Matheson is joined by Alexisonfire guitarist and backing vocalist Wade MacNeil, while Daniel Romano joins on guitar, Ian Ski Romano on drums, and Tommy Major on bass. “Just when you thought I couldn’t possibly join ANOTHER band,” wrote MacNeil on Instagram. “WE GO AND START PIG PEN.”
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Pig Pen have also announced their debut show, which is scheduled to take place at Sneaky Dee’s in Toronto on April 25. Joined by Best Wishes and Pluto’s Kiss, tickets to the event are already sold out, though a waitlist has been launched.
Currently, no details in regard to whether Pig Pen will be releasing music have been announced, though a teaser clip of the band’s sound indicates that they have spent time in the recording studio at some point.
Matheson rose to fame as a chef in Toronto in the early 2000s, going on to be named the executive chef of Parts & Labour until its closure in 2019. Alongside his culinary career, Matheson launched an entertainment career thanks to hosting roles on television series such as Dead Set on Life and It’s Suppertime!.
In 2022, he rose to wider fame when he joined the cast of The Bear, portraying the character of handyman Neil Fak. As part of his role on the show, he and the rest of the cast were nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series at the 2023 and 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning the latter.
JENNIE’s debut studio album, Ruby, debuts at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated March 22). The set sold 26,500 copies in the U.S. in the week ending March 13, according to Luminate.
JENNIE is the second member of the quartet BLACKPINK to capture a solo top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales, following LISA’s Alter Ego (No. 1, March 15 chart) and ROSÉ’s rosie (No. 2, Dec. 21, 2024). BLACKPINK itself has logged three top 10s, including two No. 1s: The Album (in 2020) and BORN PINK (2022).
Also in the top 10 of the latest Top Album Sales chart, Lady Gaga lands her eighth No. 1 with the chart-topping bow of MAYHEM, while the newest releases from Jason Isbell, Spiritbox, Noah Kahan and tobyMac debut in the region.
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Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album (TEA) units and streaming equivalent album (SEA) units.
Ruby was available in its first week as a nine-track widely available digital download album, and then an expanded 15-song physical set and a 15-track download edition. While the standard and physical albums have only one guest star (FKJ, on “JANE”), the 15-track download edition adds further special guests on a few tracks, including Doechii, Dua Lipa, Dominic Fike, Childish Gambino and Kali Uchis. Ruby’s first-week sales were aided by its availability across four CD variants (all containing collectible paper ephemera, some randomized), five deluxe CD boxed set editions (each containing a piece of branded clothing, a signed insert and a copy of the album) and two download editions (a widely available standard version with nine tracks and an expanded 15-song edition).
At No. 1 on Top Album Sales, Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM arrives, selling 136,000. The set’sfirst-week sales were bolstered by its availability across a gaggle of editions: 14 vinyl variants (some signed, and some include the bonus track “Can’t Stop the High,” while Target’s exclusive vinyl has the extra track “Kill for Love”), four CD editions (one signed, Target’s exclusive CD adds “Kill” while Gaga’s webstore carried a CD with the bonus track “Can’t Stop the High”), a cassette tape, a deluxe CD box set with a branded T-shirt and poster, and two widely available download albums (the standard 14-song album, and then a deluxe version exclusive to iTunes with the three music videos for “Disease,” “Die With a Smile” and “Abracadabra”).
Of MAYHEM’s opening-week sales, vinyl purchases comprise 74,000 – Gaga’s biggest week on vinyl ever.
Jason Isbell’s first entirely solo acoustic album, Foxes In the Snow, bows at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with nearly 18,000 copies sold. Vinyl sales comprise almost 9,500 copies of that sum – owed to its availability across five variants. It was also issued in a pair of CD editions.
Heavy metal band Spiritbox debuts at No. 4 with Tsunami Sea, selling 16,500 copies in its first week. The set was issued on CD, cassette and at least nine vinyl variants.
Noah Kahan’s Live From Fenway Park, which was previously only available to buy as a download album, made its debut on vinyl in the tracking week (across three variants), helping the set sell a total of 16,000 – and enabling its debut at No. 5 on Top Album Sales.
Kendrick Lamar’s chart-topping GNX falls 2-6 on Top Album Sales (15,000; down 7%), Sabrina Carpenter’s former leader Short n’ Sweet slips 5-7 (11,500; down 5%) and Chappell Roan’s No. 1 The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess descends 6-8 (nearly 9,000; up 6%). Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal vaults 24-9 on Top Album Sales after the release of a new vinyl variant, selling a total of about 8,500 across all formats (up 188%).
Closing out Top Album Sales’ top 10 is the latest release from tobyMac, whose Heaven On My Mind enters at No. 10 with 7,000 copies sold. It was issued on two CD variants (including a signed edition) and three vinyl variants.
The Backstreet Boys have millions of fans worldwide, but member AJ McLean sometimes faces a tough crowd when it comes to his kids. The superstar told People at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards on Monday night (March 17) that his 12-year-old daughter Elliott “hates” Backstreet Boys’ classic 1999 hit, “I Want It That Way.” “My […]
The newest addition to the Billboard Book Club comes from none other than Martha Stewart, who released her 101st book this week, Martha Stewart’s Gardening Handbook: The Essential Guide to Designing, Planting, and Growing. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news To celebrate, Stewart and her head gardener […]
Yungblud has officially made his grand return.
The 27-year-old British rocker introduced his fourth studio album era with an epic nine-minute long single, “Hello Heaven, Hello” as well as the accompanying cinematic music video on Tuesday (March 18).
In the Charlie Sarsfield-directed music video, Yungblud proclaims the lyrics from various scenic landscapes, from a snowy mountain field alongside a gorgeous black horse to the edge of a cliff. He then grows wings and ascends into the air, before the second half of the video takes place inside a black-and-white TV set, where the singer performs the rest of the track with his band. He concludes the visual while holding onto a cross, with mountains and lake behind him at sunset.
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“Hello Heaven, Hello is the opening statement to my new album. It’s a journey of self-reclamation, a goodbye to the past and how you may have known or perceived me before and a hello to the future and where I’m going,” Yungblud said of the track in a press statement. “It sets the precedent for what this album is. It’s an adventure that’s sonically more ambitious than ever before, a journey that is meant to be played in its entirety, that doesn’t for a moment hold back or let its imagination be filtered. I wanted its first moment to be a statement.”
He continued of the song’s length, “I’ve been discouraged from releasing a nine-minute-and-six-second song as my first move back in a year because in a modern world it’s seen to be a ‘risk’ — I don’t see it like that at all. I see it as an opportunity. In my opinion, risk is an artist’s greatest tool, putting everything on the line in pursuit of the best evolution and art you can make — without risk, there is no innovation. I feel like for the first time in a long time I’m exactly where I need to be and doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing — making exactly what I want — exploring the past, the present, the future and most importantly, myself. This album feels magical to me and this is where it starts. Where the f— are we gonna end up? Let’s see. Get on the horse. Let’s ride.”
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Yungblud’s last album was his self-titled 2022 project, though he’s released a string of singles since. His music festival, Bludfest, will also be returning to Milton Keynes’ National Bowl on June 21, 2025.
Watch the “Hello Heaven, Hello” music video below.
Benny Blanco thinks his fiancée Selena Gomez is so bad “she can’t even go outside,” and he’s using a page out of Playboi Carti‘s book to prove it. Blanco posted behind-the-scenes footage of Gomez from their Interview cover shoot on his Instagram Story Tuesday (March 18) and used Carti’s “Fine S—” from his new album […]
Billboard Korea has published the second issue of Billboard Artist, and this time, the spotlight is on the multi-talented artist and member of BLACKPINK, JISOO. JISOO continues to make a powerful impact both as a solo artist and as an actress. Her solo album AMORTAGE, released on Feb. 14, explores love with a cinematic touch. This special issue captures JISOO’s charm in a visual story, blending soft, delicate aesthetics with bold and independent imagery. Shot in unique settings like a terrarium and an aquarium, these visuals symbolize comfort and familiarity—contrasted by striking, avant-garde designs that push her artistry into new territory.
Unlike regular magazines, Billboard Artist is a large-format, unbound conceptual edition where each page feels like a collectible poster. This timeless collectible is an artistic deep dive into musicians’ creative worlds, featuring photography, essays, interviews and art for fans to enjoy. Available in English and Korean.
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Why did you choose JISOO for the second issue?
Billboard Korea: The Billboard Artist aims to showcase musicians from fresh, unexpected angles going beyond their usual image to create something truly special. This process naturally leads to a process in which the musicians themselves have a moment of wanting to communicate through a new appearance and have a clear synergy with us. JISOO’s AMORTAGE project was the perfect fit, offering a cinematic and emotional take on love, far from completeness and perfection. Her vision aligned perfectly with our goal of reinterpreting artists in new ways, making her an ideal choice for this issue.
What aspects of JISOO did you focus on?
Billboard Korea: While JISOO is known for being BLACKPINK’s steady presence and for the massive success of her solo hit “Flower,” we wanted to explore the many sides of her personality, not just her elegance and grace, but also her passionate, vulnerable and even provocative moments. Through this issue’s photography and visual storytelling, we highlight her evolution as an artist and actress. She herself is the source and inspiration for Billboard Artists.
Lucian Bor
Why were the terrarium and aquarium sets used?
Billboard Korea: These small, enclosed ecosystems represent comfort zones, safe, self-sustaining spaces where everything is perfectly balanced. But stepping outside of them means facing the unknown, new challenges, unfamiliar environments and personal growth. We felt this concept beautifully symbolized JISOO’s artistic journey, as she steps beyond her comfort zone into new creative territories.
What did JISOO express through Billboard Artist?
Billboard Korea: We’d like to share some of our conversation about love from Billboard Artist.
Lucian Bor
Billboard Korea: Flowers often symbolize love in Korean literature. Your first solo album was released on Valentine’s Day, which is all about love. How do you define love?
JISOO: Flowers don’t just bloom and end, but they change themselves as they bloom and fall according to the seasons. Isn’t love like that? The thrill and intense emotions when love begins, the happiness felt as it deepens, the pain of separation and even liberation. I think love is more of a ‘journey’ than a single emotion. Through that journey, we grow and become more ourselves. That’s why love to me is ‘learning.’ It’s an emotion that I learn from my relationships with people, through music and through my fans. That’s why I want to say that love to me is not a simple emotion, but a process of maturation that I continue to experience and fill.
Billboard Korea: There are many types of love. What is the most precious type of love to JISOO?
JISOO: I don’t think it has to be defined in a specific way, but to me, the most precious love is ‘respectful love.’ It’s the heart that accepts and respects the other person as they are. I learned a lot about that kind of love while doing music. The warm gaze of fans on stage, the trust of colleagues who make music together and the process of accepting myself as I am. I think love is ultimately the power that helps each other grow.
Billboard Korea: Are there any scenes from JISOO’s all-time favorite movies that you would like to put together as a montage?
JISOO: Like AMORTAGE, which tells the story of a journey of love, I want to connect scenes that contain changes in emotion. For excitement, I would like the scene in Before Sunrise where the two people who first met have a conversation on the train. The unfamiliar but strongly attracted feeling resembles the beginning of love. For the moment of deepening, I would express it with the scene in La La Land where the two people dance under the night sky. I think it captures the moment when love shines the most. For the pain of separation, I would choose the scene in Eternal Sunshine where they look at each other on the beach right before their memories disappear. I was impressed by the movie because it expressed the emotions of separation so delicately. Finally, I want to connect the liberation and growth scene in (500) Days of Summer where Tom finally welcomes a new season. Tom experiences a breakup, gets hurt and wanders, but eventually grows as time passes and meets a new relationship called Autumn, not Summer. I thought of this scene because it captures the process of overcoming a breakup, finding oneself and moving forward again.
What’s inside Billboard Artist, JISOO edition?
Billboard Korea: The magazine opens with an extensive 30-plus page visual story of JISOO, photographed by Lucian Bor. It also features stunning artworks by Fabian Oefner, who captures essence by trapped objects in resin, and the “Bubble Flower” series by Azuma Makoto, a pioneer in plant sculpture. Additionally, it includes AMORTAGE, an essay exploring the complex and elusive nature of love, along with an exclusive interview with JISOO. The issue is available with four unique covers, each showcasing a different side of her.
GELO looks to continue the momentum he kicked off this year with “Can You Please?” The hooper-turned-rapper returned with his “Memphis twin” GloRilla to release the raunchy visual on Tuesday (March 18). The Ball brother hops out of the butterfly doors of his exotic orange sports car with his “Tweaker” smash playing on the radio […]
